Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 26.5

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

Summary: Christ's fire cleanses the holy; the heretics say it destroys the material, but Clement says it disciplines.

Greek text · Stählin 3:144

περὶ τοιαύτης δυνάμεως καὶ ὁ σωτὴρ λέγει· »πῦρ ἦλθον βαλεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν γῆν«, δηλονότι δύναμιν τῶν μὲν ἁγίων καθαρτικήν. τῶν δὲ ὑλικῶν, ὡς μὲν ἐκεῖνοί φασιν, ἀφανιστικήν, ὡς δὲ ἡμεῖς ἂν φαίημεν, παιδευτικήν. ἔχει δὲ καὶ φόβον τὸ πῦρ καὶ διάχυσιν τὸ φῶς.

English · Claude translation

About such a power the Savior too says, “I came to cast fire on the earth,” meaning a power that cleanses the holy, but that, as they say, destroys the material, while, as we would say, it disciplines. And fire carries fear, and light gladness.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:144 · 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
Topics
Eschatology, Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • “They” are the Valentinians; “we” is Clement.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 26.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/26/5/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 26.5 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/26/5/).

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