Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume IX/The Epistles of Clement/The Second Epistle of Clement/Chapter 7

Chapter VII.&#8212;We Must Strive in Order to Be Crowned.

Wherefore, then, my brethren, let us struggle with all earnestness, knowing that the contest is [in our case] close at hand, and that many undertake long voyages to strive for a corruptible reward; yet all are not crowned, but those only that have laboured hard and striven gloriously.&#160; Let us therefore so strive, that we may all be crowned.&#160; Let us run the straight course, even the race that is incorruptible; and let us in great numbers set out for it, and strive that we may be crowned.&#160; And should we not all be able to obtain the crown, let us at least come near to it.&#160; We must remember that he who strives in the corruptible contest, if he be found acting unfairly, is taken away and scourged, and cast forth from the lists.&#160; What then think ye?&#160; If one does anything unseemly in the incorruptible contest, what shall he have to bear?&#160; For of those who do not preserve the seal [unbroken], [the Scripture] saith, &#8220;Their worm shall not die, and their fire shall not be quenched, and they shall be a spectacle to all flesh.&#8221;