Excerpts from Theodotus 59.4

Summary: So a body was woven for him from psychic substance, made perceptible by divine power.

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Greek text · Stählin 3:126–127

σῶμα τοίνυν αὐτῷ ὑφαίνεται ἐκ τῆς ἀφανοῦς ψυχικῆς οὐσίας, δυνάμει δὲ θείας ἐκγατασκευῆς εἰς αἰσθητὸν κόσμον ἀφιγμένον.

So a body is woven for him from the invisible psychic substance, and by the power of divine construction it has come into the sensible world.

Source: Stählin 3:126–127 · 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.
Topics: Heresy, Christology

This is the Valentinian view that Christ's body was not made of ordinary matter. The Greek word for “construction” is garbled in the digital text.

Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 59.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-excerpta/59/4/).

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

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 59.4 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-excerpta/59/4/).