Prophetic Extracts 19.2 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Freed from the spirit of slavery and adopted through love, he keeps the commandments out of love and cries “Abba, Father.”

Greek text · Stählin 3:142

»τὸ πνεῦμα τῆς δουλείας τὸ εἰς φόβον« ἐλευθερώσας καὶ διʼ ἀγάπης προκόψας εἰς »υἱοθεσίαν«, αἰδούμενος ἤδη διʼ ἀγάπην ὃν ἐφοβεῖτο πρότερον· οὐ γὰρ ἔτι διὰ φόβον ἀπέχεται τῶν ἀφεκτέων, ἀλλὰ διʼ ἀγάπην ἔχεται τῶν ἐντολῶν. »αὐτό«, φησί, »τὸ πνεῦμα μαρτυρεῖ«, ὅταν λέγωμεν· »ἀββᾶ ὁ πατήρ.«

English · Claude translation

Having freed himself from “the spirit of slavery leading to fear,” and advanced through love to “adoption,” he now reveres through love the one he feared before; for he no longer abstains from what should be avoided through fear, but holds to the commandments through love. “The Spirit himself,” he says, “bears witness,” when we say, “Abba, Father.”

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:142 · 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. 8 (1886) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made) · Printed there under the wrong title “Excerpts of Theodotus”, and incomplete (it breaks off in ch. 63).

Scripture

Rom 8:15 · quotation, high confidence
Rom 8:16 · quotation, high confidence
Gal 4:6 · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Prayer, Ethics

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 19.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/19/2/).

The SBL abbreviation for this work has not been checked yet.

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 19.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/19/2/).