Sophia Scriptura

Prophetic Extracts 8.1

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

Summary: Since baptism by water and Spirit protects against a twofold fire, there must be both intelligible and sensible water.

Greek text · Stählin 3:138–139

»Ὕδωρ ἐπάνω τοῦ οὐρανοῦ«· ἐπεὶ τὸ βάπτισμα γίνεται διʼ »ὕδατος καὶ πνεύματος«, ἀλεξητήριον ὂν πυρὸς τοῦ δισσοῦ, τοῦ τε τῶν ἀοράτων ἁπτομένου καὶ τοῦ τῶν ὁρατῶν, ἀνάγκη καὶ τοῦ ὕδατος τὸ μέν τι νοητόν, τὸ δὲ αἰσθητὸν ὑπάρχειν, ἀλεξητήριον τῆς διπλόης τοῦ πυρός·

English · Claude translation

“Water above the heaven”: since baptism is through “water and spirit,” being a defense against the twofold fire, that which touches invisible things and that which touches visible ones, water too must be partly intelligible and partly sensible, a defense against the doubleness of the fire.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:138–139 · 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
Extrabiblical texts
  • Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 81.2 (Excerpts from Theodotus) · echo, high confidence
Topics
Baptism

Notes

Translation notes

  • Compare Exc. 81.2, which argues the same.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/8/1/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 8.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/8/1/).

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