The Instructor 3.11.65 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Exercise produces genuine beauty by using up the surplus of food through heat; in an idle body food is not properly absorbed.

Greek text · Stählin 1:272

αἱ γοῦν κάλλισται καὶ ὑγιεινόταται ἀγωγαὶ διαπονοῦσαι τὰ σώματα τὸ κάλλος τὸ γνήσιον καὶ παράμονον ἐργάζονται, ἕλκοντος ἐφʼ ἑαυτὸ τοῦ θερμοῦ τήν τε ἰκμάδα πᾶσαν καὶ τὸ πνεῦμα τὸ ψυχρόν· ὁλκὸν δὲ εἰς ἑαυτὴν ἡ θερμότης ἐκριπιζομένη κινήσεσιν. ἐπειδὰν δὲ ἑλκύσῃ, ἀλεαινομένην ἠρέμα διʼ αὐτῶν ἀτμίζει τῶν σαρκῶν τὴν ἐκ τῆς τροφῆς περιουσίαν, ποσῇ μὲν τῇ ὑγρότητι, ὑπερβολῇ δὲ θερμότητος. διὸ καὶ ἡ προτέρα κενοῦται τροφή· ἀκινήτῳ δὲ τῷ σώματι τὸ βρωθὲν σιτίον οὐ προσφύεται, ἀλλὰ ἐκπίπτει, ὥσπερ ἀπὸ ψυχροῦ κλιβάνου ὁ ἄρτος ἢ ὅλος ἢ μόνον ὑπολειπόμενος τὸν πυθμένα.

English · Claude translation

The finest and healthiest ways of life, exercising the body, produce genuine and lasting beauty, the heat drawing to itself all the moisture and cold breath; for heat, fanned by movement, draws things to itself. When it has drawn them, it gently evaporates through the flesh the surplus from food, warmed, with some moisture but an excess of heat. So the earlier food is used up; but in a motionless body the food eaten does not attach itself, but falls away, like bread from a cold oven, either whole or leaving only the bottom.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 1:272 · 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. 3.11.65 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/3/11/65/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.11.65 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/3/11/65/).