Prophetic Extracts 22.3

Summary: God gave the soul free choice: he shows the good, and the soul chooses and keeps it.

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Greek text · Stählin 3:143

διὰ τοῦτο [ἐπὶ] τῇ ψυχῇ ὁ θεὸς τὴν αἵρεσιν δέδωκεν, ἵνα αὐτὸς μὲν μηνύσῃ τὸ δέον, ἡ δὲ ἑλομένη δέξηται καὶ κατάσχῃ.

That is why God has given the choice to the soul, so that he may point out what is needed, and it, having chosen, may receive and hold it fast.

Source: Stählin 3:143 · 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).
Topics: Ethics

Digital text corrected (wrong accent on the article ἡ): ἥ δὲ ἑλομένη → ἡ δὲ ἑλομένη.

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 22.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/22/3/).

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

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 22.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/22/3/).