Who Is the Rich Man That Is Saved? 40.1

Summary: God forgives past sins; future ones each person must avoid; repentance is condemning past deeds and asking the Father, who alone can undo them, for forgiveness.

Greek text · Stählin 3:186

Τῶν μὲν οὖν προγεγενημένων θεὸς δίδωσιν ἄφεσιν. τῶν δὲ ἐπιόντων αὐτὸς ἕκαστος ἑαυτῷ. καὶ τοῦτʼ ἔστι μεταγνῶναι τὸ καταγνῶναι τῶν παρῳχημένων καὶ αἰτήσασθαι τούτων ἀμνηστίαν παρὰ πατρός, ὃς μόνος τῶν ἁπάντων οἷός τέ ἐστιν ἄπρακτα ποιῆσαι τὰ πεπραγμένα ἐλέῳ τῷ παρʼ αὑτοῦ καὶ δρόσῳ πνεύματος ἀπαλείψας τὰ προημαρτημένα.

English · Claude translation

For past sins, then, God gives forgiveness; for those to come, each person to himself. And this is repentance: to condemn one's past deeds and to ask the Father to forget them, who alone of all is able to undo what has been done, by the mercy that comes from him, and to wipe out former sins by the dew of the Spirit.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 3:186 · 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. 2 (1885) (an older public-domain English translation, whole volume at CCEL; checked against ours only after ours was made)

Topics

Ethics

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 40.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/40/1/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Quis div. 40.1 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-quis-dives/40/1/).