The Instructor 3.2.14 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Stählin 1:244

* * * μὴ θίγῃς ἡνιῶν, παιδίον, ἄπειρος ὤν, μηδὲ ἀναβῇς τὸν δίφρον ἐλαύνειν μὴ μαθών· δυσὶν ἡνιόχοις οὐρανὸς ἥδεται, οἷς μόνοις ἐλαυνόμενον ἄγεται τὸ πῦρ. μετάγεται γὰρ ἡ διάνοια ὑπὸ ἡδονῆς, καὶ τὸ ἀκήρατον τοῦ λογισμοῦ μὴ παιδαγωγούμενον τῷ λόγῳ εἰς ἀσέλγειαν κατολισθαίνει καὶ μισθὸν τοῦ παραπτώματος τὸ ἀπόπτωμα λαμβάνει. δεῖγμά σοι τούτων οἱ ἄγγελοι τοῦ θεοῦ τὸ κάλλος καταλελοιπότες διὰ κάλλος μαραινόμενον καὶ τοσοῦτον ἐξ οὐρανῶν ἀποπεσόντες χαμαί. ἀλλὰ καὶ Σικιμῖται κολάζονται καταπεπτωκότες τὴν ἁγίαν ὑβρίζοντες παρθένον· τάφος ἡ κόλασις αὐτοῖς καὶ τὸ μνημόσυνον τῆς ἐπιτιμίας εἰς σωτηρίαν παιδαγωγεῖ.

English · Claude translation

… Do not touch the reins, child, being inexperienced, nor mount the chariot to drive without having learned. Heaven rejoices in two charioteers, by whom alone the fire is driven and led. For the mind is carried away by pleasure, and the purity of reasoning, not instructed by the Word, slides into licentiousness and receives the fall as the wage of its transgression. An example of this for you is the angels of God, who abandoned the beauty of God for a fading beauty and fell so far from heaven to the ground. The Shechemites too were punished, falling because they outraged the holy virgin; their tomb is their punishment, and the memory of the penalty instructs us toward salvation.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 1:244 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.

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

Gen 6:2 · allusion, high confidence
Gen 34:2 · allusion, high confidence
Gen 34:25 · allusion, high confidence
Jude 1:6 · echo, medium confidence

Extrabiblical texts

1 En. 6–7 (1 Enoch) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

The asterisks mark a gap in the manuscript. The charioteer image recalls the myth of Phaethon and Plato's Phaedrus (246a–b). The allusions are Gen 6:1–4 (the angels and the daughters of men, read as fallen angels, as in 1 Enoch 6–7) and Gen 34.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.2.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/3/2/14/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Paed. 3.2.14 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-paedagogus/3/2/14/).