Miscellanies 5.11.75 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Stählin 2:376–377

παγκάλως τοίνυν καὶ ὁ Εὐριπίδης συνᾴδει τούτοις γράφων· ποῖος δʼ ἂν οἶκος τεκτόνων πλασθεὶς ὕπο δέμας τὸ θεῖον περιβάλοι τοίχων πτυχαῖς; καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν θυσιῶν ὡσαύτως λέγει· δεῖται γὰρ ὁ θεός, εἴπερ ἔστʼ ὀρθῶς θεός, οὐδενός· ἀοιδῶν οἵδε δύστηνοι λόγοι. οὐ γὰρ χρείας ἕνεκεν ὁ θεὸς πεποίηκεν τὸν κόσμον, ἵνα τιμὰς πρός τε ἀνθρώπων καὶ πρὸς θεῶν τῶν ἄλλων καὶ δαιμόνων, φησὶν ὁ Πλάτων, καρποῖτο, οἷον πρόσοδόν τινα ἀπὸ τῆς γενέσεως ἀρνύμενος, παρὰ μὲν ἡμῶν καπνούς, παρὰ δὲ θεῶν καὶ δαιμόνων τὰς οἰκείας λειτουργίας. διδασκαλικώτατα ἄρα ὁ Παῦλος ἐν ταῖς Πράξεσι τῶν ἀποστόλων ὁ θεὸς ὁ ποιήσας τὸν κόσμον φησὶ καὶ πάντα τὰ ἐν αὐτῷ, οὗτος οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς κύριος ὑπάρχων οὐκ ἐν χειροποιήτοις ναοῖς κατοικεῖ, οὐδὲ ὑπὸ χειρῶν ἀνθρωπίνων θεραπεύεται προσδεόμενός τινος, αὐτὸς διδοὺς πᾶσι πνοὴν καὶ ζωὴν καὶ τὰ πάντα.

English · Claude translation

Most beautifully, then, Euripides too agrees with these things, writing: “What house fashioned by builders could enclose the divine form within the folds of its walls?” And about sacrifices he says likewise: “For God, if he is truly God, needs nothing; these are the wretched tales of singers.” For God did not make the world out of need, so that he might reap honors from human beings and from the other gods and daemons, as Plato says, exacting, as it were, a kind of revenue from creation: from us smoke, from gods and daemons their proper services. Most instructively, then, Paul says in the Acts of the Apostles: “The God who made the world and all things in it, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not dwell in temples made with hands, nor is he served by human hands as if he needed anything, since he himself gives to all breath and life and all things.”

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:376–377 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 2, Stromata Buch I–VI, GCS 15 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906); vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 2–3 (GCS 15, 17, 1906–1909), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Stählin, GCS 15, 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 (1906–1909); 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) · Book 3 is left partly untranslated (in Latin) there.

Scripture

Acts 17:24 · quotation, high confidence
Acts 17:25 · quotation, high confidence

Extrabiblical texts

Euripides, fragment 968 (Euripides (plays and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
Euripides, Herc. fur. 1345–1346 (Euripides (plays and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

The quotations are Euripides, fragment 968 (Nauck), and Heracles 1345–1346 (freely), and Acts 17:24–25. The Platonic passage on God needing no honors is uncertain; it may be a paraphrase rather than a quotation.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.11.75 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/11/75/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.11.75 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/11/75/).