Ante-Nicene Fathers/Volume VIII/Pseudo-Clementine Literature/The Clementine Homilies/Homily I/Chapter 4

Chapter IV.&#8212;More Perplexity.

And again, living in doubt, I said to myself, Why do I labour in vain, when the matter is clear, that if I lose existence when I die, it is not fitting that I should distress myself now while I do exist?&#160; Wherefore I shall reserve my grief till that day, when, ceasing to exist, I shall not be affected with grief.&#160; But if I am to exist, what does it profit me now to distress myself gratuitously?&#160; And immediately after this another reasoning assailed me; for I said, Shall I not have something worse to suffer then than that which distresses me now, if I have not lived piously; and shall I not be delivered over, according to the doctrines of some philosophers, to Pyriphlegethon and Tartarus, like Sisyphus, or Tityus, or Ixion, or Tantalus, and be punished for ever in Hades?&#160; But again I replied, saying:&#160; But there are no such things as these.&#160; Yet again I said:&#160; But if there be?&#160; Therefore, said I, since the matter is uncertain, the safer plan is for me rather to live piously.&#160; But how shall I be able, for the sake of righteousness, to subdue bodily pleasures, looking, as I do, to an uncertain hope?&#160; But I am neither fully persuaded what is that righteous thing that is pleasing to God, nor do I know whether the soul is immortal or mortal.&#160; Neither can I find any well-established doctrine, nor can I abstain from such debatings.