Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 28.3

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

Summary: Knowledge is needed for the soul's training and character; as there is no faith without instruction, there is no understanding without knowledge.

Greek text · Stählin 3:145–146

ἀναγκαία γὰρ ἡ γνῶσις καὶ πρὸς ψυχῆς γυμνασίαν καὶ πρὸς σεμνότητα ἤθους, ἀξιεντρεπτοτέρους ποιοῦσα τοὺς πιστοὺς καὶ τῶν πραγμάτων ἀκριβεῖς θεατάς. ὡς γὰρ οὐκ ἔστι πιστεῦσαι ἄνευ κατηχήσεως, οὕτως οὐδὲ καταλαβέσθαι ἄνευ γνώσεως.

English · Claude translation

For knowledge is necessary both for exercising the soul and for dignity of character, making the faithful more worthy of respect and exact observers of reality. For as it is not possible to believe without catechesis, so neither to comprehend without knowledge.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:145–146 · 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

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/28/3/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 28.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/28/3/).

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