Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 50.1

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

Summary: An elder taught that the unborn is a living being: an angel of birth brings the soul into the womb at conception.

Greek text · Stählin 3:150–151

Ἔλεγεν πρεσβύτης ζῷον εἶναι τὸ κατὰ γαστρός. εἰσιοῦσαν γὰρ τὴν ψυχὴν εἰς τὴν μήτραν ἀπὸ τῆς καθάρσεως ηὐτρεπισμένην εἰς σύλληψιν καὶ εἰσκριθεῖσαν ὑπό τινος τῶν τῇ γενέσει ἐφεστώτων ἀγγέλων προγινώσκοντος τὸν καιρὸν τῆς συλλήψεως κινεῖν πρὸς συνουσίαν τὴν γυναῖκα, καταβληθέντος δὲ τοῦ σπέρματος ὡς εἰπεῖν ἐξοικειοῦσθαι τὸ ἐν τῷ σπέρματι πνεῦμα καὶ οὕτως συλλαμβάνεσθαι τῇ

English · Claude translation

An elder used to say that what is in the womb is a living being. For the soul enters the womb when it has been prepared for conception by the purification, and, introduced by one of the angels who preside over birth, who knows beforehand the time of conception, it moves the woman to intercourse; and when the seed has been sown, the spirit in the seed is, so to speak, made its own, and so is conceived together with the

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:150–151 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • This is an early Christian statement that the embryo is a living being (ζῷον). “The purification” is the woman's monthly period.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 50.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/50/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 50.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/50/1/).

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