Sophia Scriptura

2 Clement 12.5

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: “Neither male nor female”: brothers and sisters without lustful thoughts.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:146–148

καὶ τὸ ἄρσεν μετὰ τῆς θηλείας, οὔτε ἄρσεν οὔτε θῆλυ, τοῦτο λέγει· ἵνα ἀδελφὸς ἰδὼν ἀδελφὴν οὐδὲν φρονῇ περὶ αὐτῆς θηλυκόν, μηδὲ φρονῇ τι περὶ αὐτοῦ ἀρσενικόν.

English · Claude translation

And “the male with the female neither male nor female” means this: that a brother seeing a sister should have no thought of her as a woman, and she should have no thought of him as a man.

About this passage

Source
Lake, LCL 24:146–148 · 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)
Topics
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • That is, without sexual desire; the preacher applies the saying to purity in the church.

Cite this passage

2 Clem. 12.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/12/5/).

Plain text
2 Clem. 12.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/12/5/).

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