Sophia Scriptura

The Instructor 2.6.49

Clement of Alexandria · The Instructor · ca. 190–200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: Christians must avoid and discourage foul speech, which defiles; the Instructor guards the ears with chaste words like wrestlers' ear-guards and turns the eyes to good things.

Greek text · Stählin 1:187

Αἰσχρολογίας δὲ παντελῶς αὐτοῖς τε ἡμῖν ἀφεκτέον καὶ τοὺς χρωμένους αὐτῇ ἐπιστομιστέον καὶ ὄψει δριμυτέρᾳ καὶ προσώπου ἀποστροφῇ καὶ τῷ ἀπομυκτηρισμῷ καλουμένῳ, πολλάκις δὲ καὶ λόγῳ τραχυτέρῳ. »τὰ γὰρ ἐξιόντα«, φησίν, »ἐκ τοῦ στόματος κοινοῖ τὸν ἄνθρωπον«, κοινὸν καὶ ἐθνικὸν καὶ ἀπαίδευτον καὶ ἀσελγῆ δείκνυσιν αὐτόν, οὐχὶ δὲ ἴδιον καὶ κόσμιον καὶ σώφρονα. πρὸς δὲ τὴν ἀκοὴν τῶν αἰσχρῶν καὶ τὴν θέαν τῶν ὁμοίως ἐχόντων ὁ θεῖος παιδαγωγὸς κατὰ τὰ αὐτὰ τοῖς παλαίουσι τῶν παιδίων, ὡς μὴ τὰ ὦτα θραύοιτο αὐτῶν, τοὺς σώφρονας περιτίθησι λόγους καθάπερ ἀντωτίδας, ὡς μὴ δύνασθαι ἐξικνεῖσθαι εἰς θραῦσιν τῆς ψυχῆς τὸ κροῦμα τῆς πορνείας· τοὺς δὲ ὀφθαλμοὺς κατευθύνει ἐπὶ τὴν θέαν τῶν καλῶν,

English · Claude translation

We must abstain entirely from foul speech ourselves, and silence those who use it, with a sharper look, turning away the face, and what is called turning up the nose, and often with harsher words too. “For what comes out of the mouth,” he says, “defiles a man,” showing him to be common, pagan, uneducated, and licentious, not distinguished, decorous, and self-controlled. Against hearing shameful things and seeing things of the same kind, the divine Instructor, just as with boys who wrestle, lest their ears be broken, puts self-controlled words around them like ear-guards, so that the blow of sexual immorality cannot reach through to the breaking of the soul; and he directs the eyes to the sight of good things,

About this passage

Source
Stählin 1:187 · 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)
Scripture
Topics
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotation is Matt 15:11, 18. The sentence continues in the next section.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.6.49 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/2/6/49/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 2.6.49 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/2/6/49/).

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