Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 50.3

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

Summary: Barrenness occurs when no soul is introduced to make the seed conceive.

Textual problem in this passage: the printed text is uncertain or disputed here. See the notes.

Greek text · Stählin 3:151

* * καὶ αἱ στεῖραι διὰ τοῦτό εἰσι στεῖραι, ὡς ἂν μὴ εἰσκρινομένης τῆς ψυχῆς τὴν τοῦ σπέρματος καταβολὴν συναγούσης εἰς κατοχὴν συλλήψεως καὶ γεννήσεως.

English · Claude translation

… and barren women are barren for this reason, that the soul is not introduced to bind the sown seed into the holding of conception and birth.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:151 · 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; the problem in this passage is discussed in the notes.
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 asterisks in the Greek mark a gap.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 50.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/50/3/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 50.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/50/3/).

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