Sophia Scriptura

Exhortation to the Greeks 10.93

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

Summary: Let us repent and desert to God; the inheritance of those who serve the Lord is a treasure no moth or thief can touch.

Greek text · Stählin 1:68

μετανοήσωμεν οὖν καὶ μεταστῶμεν ἐξ ἀμαθίας εἰς ἐπιστήμην, ἐξ ἀφροσύνης εἰς φρόνησιν, ἐξ ἀκρασίας εἰς ἐγκράτειαν, ἐξ ἀδικίας εἰς δικαιοσύνην, ἐξ ἀθεότητος εἰς θεόν. καλὸς ὁ κίνδυνος αὐτομολεῖν πρὸς θεόν. πολλῶν δὲ καὶ ἄλλων ἔστιν ἀπολαῦσαι ἀγαθῶν τοὺς δικαιοσύνης ἐραστάς, οἳ τὴν ἀίδιον διώκομεν σωτηρίαν, ἀτὰρ δὴ καὶ ὧν αὐτὸς αἰνίττεται ὁ θεὸς διὰ Ἡσαΐου λαλῶν »ἔστι κληρονομία τοῖς θεραπεύουσι κύριον«· καλή γε καὶ ἐράσμιος ἡ κληρονομία, οὐ χρυσίον, οὐκ ἄργυρος, οὐκ ἐσθής, ἔνθα που σὴς καὶ [τὰ τῆς γῆς] λῃστής που καταδύεται περὶ τὸν χαμαίζηλον πλοῦτον ὀφθαλμιῶν, ἀλλʼ ἐκεῖνος ὁ θησαυρὸς τῆς σωτηρίας, πρὸς ὅν γε ἐπείγεσθαι χρὴ φιλολόγους γενομένους, συναπαίρει δὲ ἡμῖν ἐνθένδε τὰ ἔργα τὰ

English · Claude translation

Let us repent, then, and pass over from ignorance to knowledge, from folly to wisdom, from incontinence to self-control, from injustice to righteousness, from godlessness to God. It is a noble risk to desert to God. Those who love righteousness, who pursue eternal salvation, can enjoy many other good things too, and especially those that God himself hints at when he speaks through Isaiah: “There is an inheritance for those who serve the Lord.” Beautiful and lovely indeed is this inheritance: not gold, not silver, not clothing, where the moth and the thief somewhere creep in, eyeing the earthbound wealth; but that treasure of salvation, toward which we must hasten, becoming lovers of the Word; and our good deeds go away with us from here …

About this passage

Source
Stählin 1:68 · 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 quotations are Isa 54:17 and Matt 6:19–20. The bracketed words are marked by the editor as a gloss. The sentence continues in the next section.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 10.93 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/10/93/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 10.93 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/10/93/).

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