Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 35.3

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

Summary: The most ignorant think they know most, as the soundest sleepers think they are awake.

Greek text · Stählin 3:147–148

ὡς γὰρ οἱ μάλιστα καθεύδοντες οἴονται μάλιστα ἐγρηγορέναι, ἐναργεστέραις ὑποπίπτοντες καὶ ἀπερισπάστοις ταῖς ὄναρ φαντασίαις, οὕτως οἱ μάλιστα ἀγνοοῦντες μάλιστα εἰδέναι νομίζουσι.

English · Claude translation

For as those who are most deeply asleep think they are most awake, falling into more vivid and uninterrupted dream fantasies, so those who are most ignorant think they know most.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:147–148 · 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

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 35.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/35/3/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 35.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/35/3/).

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