The Instructor 2.12.128

Summary: Natural beauty needs no ornament and ugliness is only exposed by it; Christian women should embrace simplicity, which is sufficiency, born of justice.

Greek text · Stählin 1:233

καὶ γὰρ εἰκότως ἀπεῖναι αὐτῶν τὸν καλλωπισμὸν κελεύει· εἰ μὲν γὰρ καλαὶ εἶεν, ἀπόχρη ἡ φύσις· μὴ φιλονεικείτω ἡ τέχνη πρὸς τὴν φύσιν, τουτέστιν ἀπάτη ἀληθείᾳ μὴ ἐριζέτω· εἰ δὲ αἰσχραὶ φύσει, ἐλέγχουσιν ἐξ ὧν προσάπτουσιν ὃ μὴ ἔχουσιν. προσήκει τοίνυν λιτότητα ἀσπάζεσθαι τὰς Χριστῷ λατρευούσας. τῷ ὄντι γὰρ ἡ λιτότης ἁγιωσύνης προμηθεῖται ἐξισοῦσα τὰς πλεονεξίας καὶ διὰ τῶν τυχόντων τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν περιττῶν κομιζομένη χρείαν. τὸ γὰρ λιτόν, ᾗ καὶ τοὔνομα ἐμφαίνει, οὐκ ἐξέχει οὐδὲ κατά τι ὀγκοῦται ἢ τυφοῦται, ὁμαλὸν δὲ ὅλον καὶ λεῖον καὶ ἴσον καὶ ἀπέριττον καὶ ταύτῃ ἱκανόν ἐστιν. ἱκανότης δὲ ἕξις ἐστὶν ἐξικνουμένη πρὸς τὸ οἰκεῖον πέρας ἀνελλιπῶς καὶ ἀπερίττως· μήτηρ δὲ αὐτῶν ἡ δικαιοσύνη, τιθηνὴ δὲ ἡ αὐτάρκεια.

English · Claude translation

Rightly he commands that adornment be absent from them. For if they are beautiful, nature is enough; let not art contend with nature, that is, let not deceit strive with truth. If they are ugly by nature, they prove it by what they add, since they do not have it. It is fitting, then, for women who serve Christ to embrace simplicity. For simplicity truly provides for holiness, leveling excesses and obtaining from ordinary things the use sought from superfluities. For what is simple (liton), as the name shows, does not stand out, nor swell or puff up in any respect, but is entirely level, smooth, equal, and without excess, and in this way sufficient. Sufficiency is a disposition that reaches its proper end without deficiency and without excess; its mother is justice, its nurse self-sufficiency.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 1:233 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 1, Protrepticus und Paedagogus, GCS 12 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1905) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 1: Protrepticus und Paedagogus (GCS 12, 1905), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Stählin, GCS 12. 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), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1905); made independently of existing English translations.

Compare

Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.12.128 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/2/12/128/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.12.128 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/2/12/128/).

Greek text · Stählin 1:233

English · Claude translation

About this passage

Notes

Notes on the original text

Cite this passage