Prophetic Extracts 9.3

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

Summary: A believer's illness may be God's correction for past sin, protection from future sin, or a permitted attack for his good or as an example to others.

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

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Greek text · Stählin 3:139

ὅταν οὖν πιστοῦ σῶμα νοσῇ, ἢ διʼ ἁμάρτημά τι προημαρτημένον ἐπιτιμῶντος τοῦ κυρίου, ἢ διὰ μέλλοντα προφυλαξαμένου, ἢ καὶ κατʼ ἐνέργειαν * *προσβολὴν ἔξωθεν γινομένην οὐ κωλύσαντος διά τι χρήσιμον [καὶ] αὐτῷ ἢ τοῖς πέλας παραδείγματος χάριν.

English · Claude translation

When, then, a believer's body is sick, it is either because the Lord is rebuking some previous sin, or guarding against future ones, or even not preventing an attack from outside, through the activity of …, for some benefit to him or to his neighbors as an example.

About this passage

Source: Stählin 3:139 · 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; 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; the bracketed word is the editor's deletion.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 9.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/9/3/).

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Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Ecl. 9.3 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-eclogae/9/3/).

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