Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 45.1

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

Summary: Patience is sweet for its fruit; the self-controlled struggle with passion, but when virtue becomes settled one is united with the Holy Spirit beyond mere self-control.

Greek text · Stählin 3:149

»Ἡ μακροθυμία γλυκύτης ἐστὶν ὑπὲρ τὸ μέλι«, οὐχ ὅτι ἐστὶ μακροθυμία, ἀλλὰ κατὰ τὸν καρπὸν τῆς μακροθυμίας. ἐπεὶ οὐδὲ ὁ ἐγκρατής ἐστιν ἀπαθής, κρατῶν οὐκ ἀπόνως τῶν παθῶν· ὅταν δὲ ἕξις γένηται, οὐκέτι ἐγκρατής, ἐν μιᾷ ἕξει τῷ ἁγίῳ πνεύματι γενομένου τοῦ ἀνθρώπου.

English · Claude translation

“Patience is sweeter than honey,” not because it is patience, but on account of the fruit of patience. For neither is the self-controlled person free of passion, since he masters the passions not without toil; but when it becomes a settled state, he is no longer self-controlled, the man having become one in a single state with the Holy Spirit.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:149 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • The source of the saying about patience is uncertain (compare Prov 16:24; Ps 19:10).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 45.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/45/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 45.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/45/1/).

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