Clement's warning without automatic condemnation
They have said simply that to be rich is to be in peculiar danger of moral wreck.
An early Christian treatment of this very Gospel episode both supports and qualifies the claim. Clement of Alexandria's Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? (composed before his death around 215; precise date uncertain) begins by condemning flattery that increases the rich person's pride (§1). Yet he also rejects despair about their salvation (§§2–3). In §§11–16 he interprets the required renunciation principally as liberation from possessiveness and passion: property can serve other people's needs. Section 18 expressly allows a materially wealthy person to be trustworthy.
This comparison supports Chesterton's narrower proposition that wealth cannot guarantee virtue, but qualifies any reading that makes actual wealth itself a conclusive verdict on character. His strongest formulation concerns dependence on luxuries; that is closer to Clement's target of inner enslavement than a simple division between rich sinners and virtuous paupers. The inspected translation is William Wilson's in Ante-Nicene Fathers, volume 2 (1885), reproduced by New Advent. This is a comparison, not evidence that Clement directly influenced Chesterton.
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