Miscellanies 5.14.127
Summary: Archilochus and Orpheus speak of God who sees all deeds and holds the world in his hand, as Isaiah and Jeremiah do, and Phocylides knows of good and bad spirits, as Scripture knows of fallen angels.
Greek text · Stählin 2:412
Τοιαῦτα καὶ ὁ Πάριος Ἀρχίλοχος λέγει· ὦ Ζεῦ, πάτερ Ζεῦ, σὸν μὲν οὐρανοῦ κράτος, σὺ δʼ ἔργα ἐπʼ ἀνθρώπων ὁρᾷς λεωργὰ κἀθέμιστα. πάλιν ἡμῖν ᾀσάτω ὁ Θρᾴκιος Ὀρφεύς· χεῖρα δὲ δεξιτερὴν ἐπὶ τέρματος ὠκεανοῖο πάντοθεν ἐκτέτακεν, γαίη δʼ ὑπὸ ποσσὶ βέβηκεν. ταῦτα ἐμφανῶς ἐκεῖθεν εἴληπται· ὁ κύριος σώσει πόλεις κατοικουμένας, καὶ τὴν οἰκουμένην ὅλην καταλήψεται τῇ χειρὶ ὡς νεοσσιάν· κύριος ὁ ποιήσας τὴν γῆν ἐν ἰσχύι τῇ αὑτοῦ, ὥς φησιν Ἱερεμίας, καὶ ἀνορθώσας τὴν οἰκουμένην ἐν τῇ σοφίᾳ αὐτοῦ. ἔτι πρὸς τοῖσδε Φωκυλίδης τοὺς ἀγγέλους δαίμονας καλῶν, τοὺς μὲν εἶναι ἀγαθοὺς αὐτῶν, τοὺς δὲ φαύλους διὰ τούτων παρίστησιν, ἐπεὶ καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀποστάτας τινὰς παρειλήφαμεν· ἀλλʼ ἄρα δαίμονές εἰσιν ἐπʼ ἀνδράσιν ἄλλοτε ἄλλοι· οἳ μὲν ἐπερχομένου κακοῦ ἀνέρας ἐκλύσασθαι.
English · Claude translation
Archilochus of Paros too says such things: “O Zeus, father Zeus, yours is the power of heaven, and you see the deeds of men, wicked and lawless.” Again let the Thracian Orpheus sing to us: “His right hand he has stretched out on every side over the end of the ocean, and the earth stands beneath his feet.” These things have plainly been taken from there: “The Lord will save inhabited cities, and will take hold of the whole inhabited world in his hand like a nest”; “the Lord who made the earth by his strength,” as Jeremiah says, “and set up the inhabited world by his wisdom.” Besides these, Phocylides, calling the angels daemons, shows that some of them are good and others bad, in these words (for we too have received that some are apostates): “But there are daemons over men, at one time some, at another others; some to set men free from coming evil.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Archilochus, fragment 177 (West), the Orphic “Testament,” Isa 10:14 (LXX; the first clause is not found in this form and is unidentified), Jer 10:12, and Phocylides (fragment; the attribution and number are uncertain). The apostate angels recall Jude 6.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.127 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/127/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.127 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/127/).
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