Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 37.1

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

Summary: The virtue of the mature Christian is gentle, blessed, contemplative and practical, making him a divine image through love.

Greek text · Stählin 3:148

Ἡ γὰρ ἀρετὴ ἡ γνωστικὴ πανταχοῦ καλὸν καὶ πρᾶον καὶ ἀβλαβὲς καὶ ἄλυπον καὶ μακάριον καὶ παρεσκευασμένον ἄριστα μὲν ὁμιλεῖν παντὶ τῷ θείῳ, ἄριστα δʼ ἀνθρώποις, θεωρητικὸν ὁμοῦ καὶ πρακτικόν, ἄγαλμα θεῖον τὸν ἄνθρωπον κατασκευάζουσα καὶ φιλόκαλον ἀπεργαζομένη διʼ ἀγάπης·

English · Claude translation

For the virtue of the one who knows is everywhere noble, gentle, harmless, painless, and blessed, and prepared to converse best with all that is divine and best with human beings, at once contemplative and practical, making the human being a divine image and a lover of the beautiful through love.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:148 · 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. 37.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/37/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 37.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/37/1/).

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