Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 5.14.139

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

Summary: The Pythagorean “counter-earth” is the promised land of the heavenly inheritance; Clement now stops citing examples so as not to turn a side-issue into his main work.

Greek text · Stählin 2:420

Οἱ δὲ Πυθαγόρειοι τὸν οὐρανὸν τὸν ἀντίχθονα καλοῦσιν, ἐφʼ ἧς γῆς διʼ Ἱερεμίου· τάξω σε εἰς τέκνα, καὶ δώσω σοι γῆν ἐκλεκτὴν κληρονομίαν θεοῦ παντοκράτορος, ἣν οἱ κληρονομήσαντες βασιλεύσουσι γῆς. Καὶ μυρία ἐπὶ μυρία ἐπὶ μυρίοις ἐπιρρεῖ μοι παρατίθεσθαι, συμμετρίας δʼ οὖν ἕνεκα καταπαυστέον ἤδη τὸν λόγον, ὅπως μὴ τὸ τοῦ τραγῳδοποιοῦ Ἀγάθωνος πάθωμεν καὶ αὐτοί· τὸ μὲν πάρεργον ἔργον ὣς ἡγούμενοι, τὸ δʼ ἔργον ὡς πάρεργον ἐκπονούμενοι.

English · Claude translation

The Pythagoreans call heaven the “counter-earth,” the earth of which it is said through Jeremiah: “I will place you among the children, and I will give you a chosen land, an inheritance of God Almighty,” which those who inherit it will reign over the earth. And thousands upon thousands upon thousands of things flow in for me to cite; but for the sake of due proportion the discussion must now be brought to a stop, so that we too may not suffer what the tragic poet Agathon describes, “treating the side-work as though it were the work, and laboring at the work as though it were a side-work.”

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:420 · 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
Eschatology

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotations are Jer 3:19 (LXX) and Agathon, fragment 12 (Nauck). Reigning over the earth echoes Matt 5:5.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.139 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/139/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.139 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/139/).

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