Sophia Scriptura

Exhortation to the Greeks 10.90

Clement of Alexandria · Exhortation to the Greeks · ca. 190–200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: Rejecting the Word brings its own reward: the good will be rewarded, the wicked and the devil punished; God gives life, while custom leads to useless regret.

Greek text · Stählin 1:66–67

τὸν ἅγιον ὑπελαμβάνετε τοῦ θεοῦ λόγον. ἕπεται τοιγαροῦν ὑμῖν κατὰ τὸν Σοφοκλέα τὰ ἐπίχειρα τῆς ἐκλογῆς, νοῦς φροῦδος, ὦτα ἀχρεῖα, φροντίδες κεναί, καὶ οὐκ ἴστε ὡς παντὸς μᾶλλον τοῦτο ἀληθές, ὅτι ἄρα οἱ μὲν ἀγαθοὶ καὶ θεοσεβεῖς ἀγαθῆς τῆς ἀμοιβῆς τεύξονται τἀγαθὸν τετιμηκότες, οἱ δὲ ἐκ τῶν ἐναντίων πονηροὶ τῆς καταλλήλου τιμωρίας, καὶ τῷ γε ἄρχοντι τῆς κακίας ἐπήρτηται κόλασις. ἀπειλεῖ γοῦν αὐτῷ ὁ προφήτης Ζαχαρίας »ἐπιτιμήσαι ἐν σοὶ ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος τὴν Ἱερουσαλήμ· οὐκ ἰδοὺ τοῦτο δαλὸς ἐξεσπασμένος ἐκ πυρός;« τίς οὖν ἔτι τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ὄρεξις ἔγκειται θανάτου ἑκουσίου; τί δὲ τῷ δαλῷ τῷ θανατηφόρῳ τούτῳ προσπεφεύγασιν, μεθʼ οὗ καταφλεχθήσονται, ἐξὸν βιῶναι καλῶς κατὰ τὸν θεόν, οὐ κατὰ τὸ ἔθος; θεὸς μὲν γὰρ ζωὴν χαρίζεται, ἔθος δὲ πονηρὸν μετὰ τὴν ἐνθένδε ἀπαλλαγὴν μετάνοιαν κενὴν ἅμα τιμωρίᾳ προστρίβεται, »παθὼν δέ τε νήπιος ἔγνω«, ὡς ἀπολλύει δεισιδαιμονία καὶ σῴζει θεοσέβεια.

English · Claude translation

(The holy Word of God, which you supposed accursed.) So there follow for you, as Sophocles says, the rewards of your choice: “mind departed, ears useless, thoughts empty”; and you do not know that this, more than anything, is true: that the good and godly, who have honored the good, will obtain a good reward, while the wicked, on the contrary, will receive fitting punishment, and punishment hangs over the ruler of wickedness. The prophet Zechariah threatens him: “May he who chose Jerusalem rebuke you! Is not this a brand plucked out of the fire?” What desire for voluntary death, then, still lies in human beings? Why have they fled to this deadly brand, with which they will be burned up, when they could live well according to God, not according to custom? For God grants life, but wicked custom, after our departure from here, inflicts an empty repentance along with punishment; “and the fool learns by suffering” how superstition destroys and godliness saves.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 1:66–67 · 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
Extrabiblical texts
  • Sophocles (Sophocles (plays and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
  • Hesiod, Op. 218 (Hesiod, Works and Days) · quotation, high confidence
Topics
Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotations are from an unknown play of Sophocles (fragment 863), Zech 3:2 (addressed to the devil), and Hesiod, Works and Days 218 (a proverb also in Homer, Iliad 17.32).
  • The Greek of this section begins with the last words of the sentence begun in 10.89; the translation gives them there and repeats them here in parentheses.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 10.90 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/10/90/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 10.90 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/10/90/).

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