Prophetic Extracts 14.1 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Food does not make us righteous; fasting symbolizes dying to the world so as to live to God on divine food.

Greek text · Stählin 3:140

Ἡ νηστεία ἀποχὴ τροφῆς ἐστι κατὰ τὸ σημαινόμενον, τροφὴ δὲ οὐδὲν δικαιοτέρους ἡμᾶς ἢ ἀδικωτέρους ἀπεργάζεται, κατὰ δὲ τὸ μυστικὸν δηλοῖ ὅτι ὥσπερ τοῖς καθʼ ἕνα ἐκ τροφῆς ἡ ζωή, ἡ δʼ ἀτροφία θανάτου σύμβολον, οὕτως καὶ ἡμᾶς τῶν κοσμικῶν νηστεύειν χρή. ἵνα τῷ κόσμῳ ἀποθάνωμεν καὶ μετὰ τοῦτο τροφῆς θείας μεταλαβόντες θεῷ ζήσωμεν.

English · Claude translation

Fasting is abstinence from food according to its literal meaning, and food makes us neither more righteous nor less righteous; but according to its mystical meaning it shows that, just as for each person life comes from food and lack of food is a symbol of death, so we too must fast from worldly things, so that we may die to the world and after that, partaking of divine food, live to God.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:140 · 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).

Scripture

1 Cor 8:8 · echo, high confidence
Gal 2:19 · echo, medium confidence

Topics

Fasting

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/14/1/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 14.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/14/1/).