Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 38.1

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

Summary: Against Tatian, who read “Let there be light” as the Creator praying to a higher God: the Creator says there is no other God.

Greek text · Stählin 3:148

Πρὸς δὲ Τατιανὸν λέγοντα εὐκτικὸν εἶναι τὸ »γενηθήτω φῶς« λεκτέον· εἰ τοίνυν εὐχόμενος ᾔδει τὸν ὑπερκείμενον θεόν, πῶς λέγει »ἐγὼ θεὸς καὶ πλὴν ἐμοῦ ἄλλος οὐδείς«;

English · Claude translation

To Tatian, who says that “Let there be light” is a prayer, we must reply: if, then, praying, he knew of a God above him, how does he say, “I am God, and besides me there is no other”?

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).
Scripture
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • Tatian, Justin's pupil, later taught that the Creator was a lower God. The quotations are Gen 1:3 and Isa 45:5 (Deut 32:39).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 38.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/38/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 38.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/38/1/).

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