2 Clement 14.3

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.

Greek text · Lake, LCL 24:150–152

ἡ ἐκκλησία δὲ πνευματικὴ οὖσα ἐφανερώθη ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ Χριστοῦ, δηλοῦσα ἡμῖν, ὅτι ἐάν τις ἡμῶν τηρήσῃ αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ σαρκὶ καὶ μὴ φθείρῃ, ἀπολήψεται αὐτὴν ἐν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἁγίῳ· ἡ γὰρ σὰρξ αὕτη ἀντίτυπός ἐστιν τοῦ πνεύματος· οὐδεὶς οὖν τὸ ἀντίτυπον φθείρας τὸ αὐθεντικὸν μεταλήψεται. ἄρα οὖν τοῦτο λέγει, ἀδελφοί· τηρήσατε τὴν σάρκα, ἵνα τοῦ πνεύματος μεταλάβητε.

English · Claude translation

Now the church, being spiritual, was made manifest in the flesh of Christ, showing us that if any of us keeps it in the flesh and does not corrupt it, he will receive it in the Holy Spirit. For this flesh is the copy of the spirit; no one, then, who corrupts the copy will share in the original. So he means this, brothers: keep the flesh, so that you may share in the Spirit.

About this passage

Source

Lake, LCL 24:150–152 · 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

“Copy… original” (ἀντίτυπος… αὐθεντικόν): the flesh is the image of the spirit, as a copy is of an original.

Cite this passage

2 Clem. 14.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/14/3/).

Plain text

2 Clem. 14.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/2-clement/14/3/).