Excerpts from Theodotus 41.2

Summary: The seeds are akin to the light, Jesus; so the church is said to be chosen before the foundation of the world.

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Greek text · Stählin 3:119

ἀπαρτιζομένης γὰρ τῆς κτίσεως συναπηρτίσθη ἂν καὶ τὰ σπέρματα· διὸ καὶ τὴν οἰκειότητα ἔχει πρὸς τὸ φῶς, ὃ πρῶτον προήγαγεν, τουτέστι τὸν Ἰησοῦν, ὁ αἰτησάμενος τοὺς αἰῶνας Χριστός, ἐν ᾧ συνδιυλίσθη κατὰ δύναμιν καὶ τὰ σπέρματα τὰ συνελθόντα αὐτῷ εἰς τὸ πλήρωμα· διὸ[τι] πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου εἰκότως λέγεται ἡ ἐκκλησία ἐκλελέχθαι. ἐν ἀρχῇ τοίνυν συνελογίσθημεν, φασί, καὶ ἐφανερώθημεν.

English · Claude translation

For when creation was completed, the seeds too would have been completed with it. That is why they also have kinship with the light that Christ, who made request of the Aeons, first brought forth, that is, Jesus, in whom the seeds too that entered with him into the Pleroma were strained through in power. Therefore the church is fittingly said to have been chosen before the foundation of the world. In the beginning, then, we were reckoned together, they say, and made manifest.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 3:119 · 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
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.
Scripture
  • Eph 1:4 · allusion, high confidence
Topics
Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

  • The allusion is Eph 1:4. The bracketed letters in the Greek are the editor's deletion.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 41.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-excerpta/41/2/).

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Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Exc. 41.2 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-excerpta/41/2/).

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