Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 2.20.123

Clement of Alexandria · Miscellanies · ca. 198–203 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The law and caution are precious to the discerning; the Lord seems too demanding only to those who refuse his yoke; those friendly to sin call truth harsh and the one who will not sin with them merciless.

Greek text · Stählin 2:180

τοῖς δὲ τὸ σωτήριον διορᾶν ὀρθῶς δυναμένοις οὐκ οἶδα εἴ τι φίλτερον φανήσεται τῆς τε σεμνότητος τοῦ νόμου καὶ τῆς θυγατρὸς αὐτοῦ εὐλαβείας. ἀλλὰ γὰρ ὅταν ὑπέρτονον ᾄδειν λέγηται, ὥσπερ καὶ ὁ κύριος ἐπί τινας, ἵνα μή τινες τῶν ζηλούντων αὐτὸν ἔκτονον καὶ ἀπόχορδον ᾄσωσιν, οὕτως ἀκούω, οὐχ ὡς ὑπέρτονον, ἀλλὰ τοῖς μὴ βουλομένοις ἀναλαβεῖν τὸν θεῖον ζυγόν, τούτοις ὑπέρτονον· τοῖς γὰρ ἀτόνοις καὶ ἀσθενικοῖς τὸ μέτριον ὑπέρτονον δοκεῖ, καὶ τοῖς ἀδίκοις ἀκροδίκαιον τὸ ἐπιβάλλον. ὅσους γὰρ διὰ τὸ φιλικῶς πρὸς ἁμαρτίας ἔχειν ἡ συγγνώμη παρεισέρχεται, οὗτοι τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἀπήνειαν ὑπολαμβάνουσιν καὶ τὴν αὐστηρίαν ἀποτομίαν, καὶ ἀνηλεῆ τὸν μὴ συναμαρτάνοντα μηδὲ συγκατασπώμενον.

English · Claude translation

But to those who can rightly discern what is saving, I do not know whether anything will appear dearer than the dignity of the law and its daughter, caution. But when someone is said to sing too high, as the Lord does toward some, so that some who emulate him may not sing out of tune and off the string, I understand it so: not that he is too high, but that to those unwilling to take up the divine yoke, to these he is too high. For to the slack and weak the moderate seems too high, and to the unjust what is due seems excessively just. For those whom pardon enters because they are friendly toward sins suppose the truth to be harshness, and strictness to be severity, and the one who does not sin with them and is not dragged down with them to be merciless.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:180 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 2, Stromata Buch I–VI, GCS 15 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906); vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 2–3 (GCS 15, 17, 1906–1909), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 15, 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 (1906–1909); 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) · Book 3 is left partly untranslated (in Latin) there.
Scripture
Topics
Ethics

Notes

Translation notes

  • The musical image is of a singer pitched too high. The allusion is Matt 11:29–30.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.20.123 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/2/20/123/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.20.123 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/2/20/123/).

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