Sophia Scriptura

2 Clement 12.2

Anonymous · 2 Clement · ca. 100–150 · place unknown · Read in context

Traditional ascription rejected: An anonymous sermon, transmitted in the manuscripts after 1 Clement as Clement's “second letter to the Corinthians.” The text itself names no author and is not a letter; the ascription to Clement of Rome is traditional and not accepted by modern scholars.

Summary: A saying of the Lord: the kingdom comes when the two are one.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:146

ἐπερωτηθεὶς γὰρ αὐτὸς ὁ κύριος ὑπό τινος, πότε ἥξει αὐτοῦ ἡ βασιλεία, εἶπεν· Ὅταν ἔσται τὰ δύο ἕν, καὶ τὸ ἔξω ὡς τὸ ἔσω, καὶ τὸ ἄρσεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας οὔτε ἅρσεν οὔτε θῆλυ.

English · Claude translation

For when the Lord himself was asked by someone when his kingdom would come, he said, “When the two are one, and the outside as the inside, and the male with the female neither male nor female.”

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:146 · Kirsopp Lake, ed. and trans., The Apostolic Fathers, vol. 1, LCL 24 (London: Heinemann; New York: Macmillan, 1912), 128–161 · Greek text: K. Lake, The Apostolic Fathers (LCL, 1912-1913), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Lake, LCL 24. Manuscript variants and the editor's apparatus are not reproduced; no textual problem is noted in this passage.
Translation
Claude translation (claude-opus-5-5), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Lake (LCL 24, 1912); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 9 (1896) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)
Scripture
Topics
Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • This saying is not in the canonical Gospels. Similar sayings appear in the Gospel of Thomas (22) and, according to Clement of Alexandria, in the Gospel of the Egyptians. The preacher gives it a moral sense (12.3–5).

Cite this passage

2 Clem. 12.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/12/2/).

Plain text
2 Clem. 12.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/12/2/).

Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)

Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text

Report an error in this passage