Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 2.8.40

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

Summary: Not all fear is a passion: superstition fears passionate demons, but fear of the passionless God is itself free from passion, since what one fears is falling away from God.

Greek text · Stählin 2:134

δέος δέ ἐστι φόβος θείου. ἀλλʼ εἰ καὶ πάθος ὁ φόβος, ὡς βούλονταί τινες, ὅτι φόβος ἐστὶ πάθος, οὐχ ὁ πᾶς φόβος πάθος. ἡ γοῦν δεισιδαιμονία πάθος, φόβος δαιμόνων οὖσα ἐκπαθῶν τε καὶ ἐμπαθῶν· ἔμπαλιν οὖν ὁ τοῦ ἀπαθοῦς θεοῦ φόβος ἀπαθής· φοβεῖται γάρ τις οὐ τὸν θεόν, ἀλλὰ τὸ ἀποπεσεῖν τοῦ θεοῦ· ὁ δὲ τοῦτο δεδιὼς τὸ τοῖς κακοῖς περιπεσεῖν φοβεῖται καὶ δέδιεν τὰ κακά· ὁ δεδιὼς δὲ τὸ πτῶμα ἄφθαρτον ἑαυτὸν καὶ ἀπαθῆ εἶναι βούλεται. σοφὸς φοβηθεὶς ἐξέκλινεν ἀπὸ κακοῦ, ὁ δὲ ἄφρων μίγνυται πεποιθώς, ἡ γραφὴ λέγει· αὖθίς τε ἐν φόβῳ κυρίου ἐλπὶς ἰσχύος φησίν.

English · Claude translation

Awe is fear of the divine. But even if fear is a passion, as some would have it, because fear is a passion, not every fear is a passion. Superstition, at any rate, is a passion, being fear of demons who are frenzied and subject to passion; conversely, then, fear of the God who is free from passion is free from passion. For one fears not God, but falling away from God; and the one who dreads this fears falling into evils, and dreads evils; and the one who dreads falling wishes himself to be incorruptible and free from passion. “The wise man, fearing, turned aside from evil, but the fool mingles with it, confident,” says Scripture; and again it says, “In the fear of the Lord is the hope of strength.”

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:134 · 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 quotations are Prov 14:16 and Prov 14:26 (LXX).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.8.40 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/2/8/40/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 2.8.40 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/2/8/40/).

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