Sophia Scriptura

Exhortation to the Greeks 2.18

Clement of Alexandria · Exhortation to the Greeks · ca. 190–200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The tokens of the Dionysian rite recall how the Titans boiled and roasted the infant god, and how Zeus had Apollo bury his remains.

Greek text · Stählin 1:14–15

καὶ τῆσδε ὑμῖν τῆς τελετῆς τὰ ἀχρεῖα σύμβολα οὐκ ἀχρεῖον εἰς κατάγνωσιν παραθέσθαι· ἀστράγαλος, σφαῖρα, στρόβιλος, μῆλα, ῥόμβος, ἔσοπτρον, πόκος. Ἀθηνᾶ μὲν οὖν τὴν καρδίαν τοῦ Διονύσου ὑφελομένη Παλλὰς ἐκ τοῦ πάλλειν τὴν καρδίαν προσηγορεύθη· οἱ δὲ Τιτᾶνες, οἱ καὶ διασπάσαντες αὐτόν, λέβητά τινα τρίποδι ἐπιθέντες καὶ τοῦ Διονύσου ἐμβαλόντες τὰ μέλη, καθήψουν πρότερον· ἔπειτα ὀβελίσκοις περιπείραντες »ὑπείρεχον Ἡφαίστοιο.« Ζεὺς δὲ ὕστερον ἐπιφανείς (εἰ θεὸς ἦν, τάχα που τῆς κνίσης τῶν ὀπτωμένων κρεῶν μεταλαβών, ἧς δὴ τὸ »γέρας λαχεῖν« ὁμολογοῦσιν ὑμῶν οἱ θεοί) κεραυνῷ τοὺς Τιτᾶνας αἰκίζεται καὶ τὰ μέλη τοῦ Διονύσου Ἀπόλλωνι τῷ παιδὶ παρακατατίθεται καταθάψαι. ὃ δέ, οὐ γὰρ ἠπείθησε Διί, εἰς τὸν Παρνασσὸν φέρων κατατίθεται διεσπασμένον τὸν νεκρόν.

English · Claude translation

And it is not useless to set before you, for your condemnation, the useless tokens of this rite: a knucklebone, a ball, a spinning top, apples, a bull-roarer, a mirror, a fleece. Athena stole away the heart of Dionysus and was called Pallas from the throbbing (πάλλειν) of the heart. The Titans, who had torn him apart, set a cauldron on a tripod, threw in the limbs of Dionysus, and first boiled them; then they pierced them with spits and “held them over Hephaestus.” Later Zeus appeared (if he was a god, no doubt he had his share of the smell of the roasting flesh, which your gods admit is “the privilege allotted” to them), struck the Titans with the thunderbolt, and entrusted the limbs of Dionysus to his son Apollo to bury. Apollo, not disobeying Zeus, carried the dismembered corpse to Parnassus and laid it there.

About this passage

Source
Stählin 1:14–15 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 1, Protrepticus und Paedagogus, GCS 12 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1905) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 1: Protrepticus und Paedagogus (GCS 12, 1905), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 12. 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), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1905); 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)
Extrabiblical texts
  • Homer, Il. 2.426 (Homer, Iliad) · quotation, high confidence
  • Homer, Il. 4.49 (Homer, Iliad) · allusion, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Held them over Hephaestus” (the fire) is a Homeric phrase (Iliad 2.426); “the privilege allotted” echoes Iliad 4.49.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/2/18/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/2/18/).

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