Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 25.2

Clement of Alexandria · Prophetic Extracts · ca. 200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: As wind separates wheat from chaff, the Spirit separates the soul from what is material.

Greek text · Stählin 3:143

πρόσκειται οὖν τῷ »διὰ πυρὸς« τὸ »διὰ πνεύματος«, ἐπειδὴ ὡς ὁ σῖτος ἀπὸ τοῦ ἀχύρου διακρίνεται (τουτέστιν ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑλικοῦ ἐνδύματος) διὰ πνεύματος καὶ τὸ ἄχυρον χωρίζεται διὰ τοῦ πνεύματος λικμώμενον, οὕτως τὸ πνεῦμα διαχωριστικὴν ἔχει δύναμιν ἐνεργειῶν ὑλικῶν.

English · Claude translation

“Through the Spirit” is added to “through fire,” since, as the wheat is separated from the chaff (that is, from the material garment) through the wind, and the chaff is separated by being winnowed by the wind, so the Spirit has a power to separate material activities.

About this passage

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
Baptism

Notes

Translation notes

  • πνεῦμα means both “wind” and “Spirit.”

Notes on the original text

  • Digital text corrected (stray raised point in the digital text): ἀπὸ τοῦ· ὑλικοῦ → ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑλικοῦ.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 25.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/25/2/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 25.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/25/2/).

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