Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 11.1

Clement of Alexandria · Prophetic Extracts · ca. 200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The elders were distressed when they did not suffer bodily, fearing that unpunished sins would be punished all at once hereafter.

Greek text · Stählin 3:139

Οἱ πρεσβύτεροι σφόδρα ἤχθοντο, εἰ μή τι πάσχοιεν κατὰ τὸ σῶμα ἑκάστοτε· ἐφοβοῦντο γὰρ μή πως ἐνταῦθα οὐ κομιζόμενοι τὰ ἐπίχειρα τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, ἃ πολλὰ τοῖς ἐν σαρκὶ κατʼ ἄγνοιαν παρακολουθεῖ, ἀθρόαν ἐκεῖ κομίσωνται τὴν δίκην, ὥστε ἐνθάδε θεραπεύεσθαι ἠξίουν.

English · Claude translation

The elders were very distressed if they did not suffer something in the body from time to time; for they feared that, if they did not receive here the wages of their sins, which follow those in the flesh in great number through ignorance, they would receive their punishment all at once there; so they thought fit to be treated here.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:139 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (GCS 17, 1909), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 17. 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), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1909); made independently of existing English translations.
Compare
Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 8 (1886) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Printed there under the wrong title “Excerpts of Theodotus”, and incomplete (it breaks off in ch. 63).
Topics
Ethics, Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • “The elders” (οἱ πρεσβύτεροι) are Clement's revered teachers of earlier generations.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/11/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 11.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/11/1/).

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