Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 4.18.116

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

Summary: Looking with desire is sin even without imagined intercourse, if one admires flesh lustfully; but one who looks with pure love sees the soul's beauty and rises through it to the Creator, bearing the Spirit's anointing to the angels at the ascent.

Greek text · Stählin 2:299

Ὀνειρώττει μὲν οὖν τις συγκαταθεμένης τῇ φαντασίᾳ τῆς ψυχῆς, ὕπαρ δὲ ὀνειρώττει ὁ πρὸς ἐπιθυμίαν βλέπων, οὐ μόνον ὡς ἐκεῖνος ἔλεγεν ὁ δῆθεν γνωστικός, ἐὰν ἅμα τῇ ὄψει τῆς γυναικὸς συλλάβῃ κατʼ ἔννοιαν τὴν ὁμιλίαν (τοῦτο γὰρ ἤδη ἔργον ἐστὶν ἐπιθυμίας ὡς ἐπιθυμίας), ἀλλʼ ἐὰν εἰς κάλλος σώματος βλέψῃ τις, ὁ λόγος φησί, καὶ αὐτῷ ἡ σὰρξ εἶναι κατʼ ἐπιθυμίαν δόξῃ καλή, σαρκικῶς ἰδὼν καὶ ἁμαρτητικῶς διʼ οὗ τεθαύμακεν κρίνεται· ἔμπαλιν γὰρ ὁ διʼ ἀγάπην τὴν ἁγνὴν προσβλέπων τὸ κάλλος οὐ τὴν σάρκα ἡγεῖται, ἀλλὰ τὴν ψυχὴν καλήν, τὸ σῶμα, οἶμαι, ὡς ἀνδριάντα θαυμάσας, διʼ οὗ κάλλους ἐπὶ τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ τὸ ὄντως καλὸν αὐτὸς αὑτὸν παραπέμπει, σύμβολον ἅγιον τὸν χαρακτῆρα τῆς δικαιοσύνης τὸν φωτεινὸν ἐπιδεικνύμενος τοῖς ἐφεστῶσι τῇ ἀνόδῳ ἀγγέλοις, τὸ χρῖσμα τῆς εὐαρεστήσεως λέγω, τὴν ποιότητα τῆς διαθέσεως τὴν ἐπικειμένην τῇ ψυχῇ κατʼ ἐπιχώρησιν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος γεγανωμένῃ.

English · Claude translation

One dreams, then, when the soul assents to the imagination; and the one who looks with desire dreams while awake, not only, as that so-called knower said, if at the sight of the woman he conceives the intercourse in thought (for this is already the work of desire as desire), but, as the Word says, if one looks at bodily beauty and the flesh seems to him beautiful according to desire, having looked fleshly and sinfully, he is judged by what he has admired. Conversely, the one who looks at beauty through pure love considers not the flesh but the soul beautiful, admiring the body, I think, like a statue, through whose beauty he sends himself on to the Craftsman and to what is truly beautiful, showing the enlightening mark of righteousness as a holy token to the angels who watch over the ascent: I mean the anointing of good pleasure, the quality of disposition lying on the soul made glad by the coming of the Holy Spirit.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:299 · 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, Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The allusion is Matt 5:28. The image of angels guarding the soul's ascent recurs in Clement.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.18.116 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/18/116/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.18.116 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/18/116/).

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