Sophia Scriptura

Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 29.2

Clement of Alexandria · Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? · ca. 190–210 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The true Good Samaritan and neighbor is Christ himself, who had mercy on us when we were nearly killed by the powers of darkness and our passions.

Greek text · Stählin 3:179

τίς δʼ ἂν ἄλλος οὗτος εἴη πλὴν αὐτὸς ὁ σωτήρ; ἢ τίς μᾶλλον ἡμᾶς ἐλεήσας ἐκείνου, τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν κοσμοκρατόρων τοῦ σκότους ὀλίγου τεθανατωμένους τοῖς πολλοῖς τραύμασι. φόβοις, ἐπιθυμίαις. ὀργαῖς, λύπαις, ἀπάταις, ἡδοναῖς;

English · Claude translation

And who else could this neighbor be but the Savior himself? Or who has had more mercy on us than he, when we had almost been put to death by the world rulers of darkness with many wounds: fears, desires, angers, griefs, deceits, pleasures?

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:179 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, Excerpta ex Theodoto, Eclogae propheticae, Quis dives salvetur, Fragmente, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 3 (GCS 17, 1909), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 17. 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), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1909); 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
Christology

Notes

Translation notes

  • “The world rulers of darkness” is Eph 6:12. The reading of the Good Samaritan as Christ is traditional from Origen onward; this is one of its earliest witnesses.

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (wrong accent on τοὺς): ἐκείνου, τοῦς ὑπὸ τῶν → ἐκείνου, τοὺς ὑπὸ τῶν.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 29.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/29/2/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 29.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/29/2/).

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