Miscellanies 1.21.129 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: Even the latest prophets, Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, were older than Pythagoras and Thales, the oldest of the Greek sages.

Greek text · Stählin 2:80

ἐπὶ πᾶσιν ἡ Κλεοπάτρα ἐβασίλευσεν ἔτη δύο καὶ εἴκοσι, μεθʼ ἣν ἡ τῶν Κλεοπάτρας παίδων βασιλεία ἡμερῶν ὀκτωκαίδεκα. γίνονται τοίνυν ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ καὶ οἱ τῶν Μακεδόνων βασιλέων χρόνοι ἔτη τριακόσια δώδεκα ἡμέραι ὀκτωκαίδεκα. ἀποδείκνυνται τοίνυν οἱ ἐπὶ Δαρείου τοῦ Ὑστάσπου προφητεύσαντες κατὰ τὸ δεύτερον ἔτος τῆς βασιλείας αὐτοῦ Ἀγγαῖος καὶ Ζαχαρίας καὶ ὁ ἐκ τῶν δώδεκα Ἄγγελος κατὰ τὸ πρῶτον ἔτος τῆς ὀγδόης καὶ τεσσαρακοστῆς ὀλυμπιάδος προφητεύσαντες πρεσβύτεροι εἶναι Πυθαγόρου τοῦ κατὰ τὴν δευτέραν καὶ ἑξηκοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα φερομένου καὶ τοῦ πρεσβυτάτου τῶν παρʼ Ἕλλησι σοφῶν Θαλοῦ περὶ τὴν πεντηκοστὴν ὀλυμπιάδα γενομένου. συνεχρόνισαν δὲ οἱ συγκαταλεγέντες σοφοὶ τῷ Θαλεῖ, ὥς φησιν Ἄνδρων ἐν τῷ Τρίποδι. Ἡράκλειτος γὰρ μεταγενέστερος ὢν Πυθαγόρου μέμνηται αὐτοῦ ἐν τῷ συγγράμματι.

English · Claude translation

Last of all Cleopatra reigned twenty-two years, after whom the reign of Cleopatra's children lasted eighteen days. The dates of the Macedonian kings together come to three hundred and twelve years and eighteen days. So those who prophesied under Darius son of Hystaspes in the second year of his reign, Haggai, Zechariah, and the Angel of the Twelve, prophesying in the first year of the forty-eighth Olympiad, are shown to be older than Pythagoras, who is placed in the sixty-second Olympiad, and than Thales, the oldest of the wise men among the Greeks, who lived about the fiftieth Olympiad. And the wise men listed with Thales were contemporary with him, as Andron says in his Tripod. Heraclitus, being later than Pythagoras, mentions him in his writing.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:80 · 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.

Topics

Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.21.129 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/1/21/129/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.21.129 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/1/21/129/).