Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 5.14.129

Clement of Alexandria · Miscellanies · ca. 198–203 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: Orpheus, Pindar, Hesiod, and Solon speak of one God who makes all things and whose counsels no mortal can search out, as Isaiah and Paul say.

Greek text · Stählin 2:413–414

ὅ τε Ὀρφεύς· ἓν κράτος, εἷς δαίμων γένετο, μέγας οὐρανὸν αἴθων, ἓν δὲ τὰ πάντα τέτυκται, ἐν ᾧ τάδε πάντα κυκλεῖται, πῦρ καὶ ὕδωρ καὶ γαῖα, καὶ τὰ ἐπὶ τούτοις. Πίνδαρός τε ὁ μελοποιὸς οἷον ἐκβακχεύεται, ἄντικρυς εἰπών· τί θεός; ὅ τι τὸ πᾶν. καὶ πάλιν· θεὸς ὁ πάντα τεύχων βροτοῖς. ἐπὰν δὲ εἴπῃ· τί ἔλπεαι σοφίαν; ὀλίγον τοι ἀνὴρ ὑπὲρ ἀνδρὸς ἔχει. τὰ θεῶν βουλεύματα ἐρευνᾶσαι βροτέᾳ φρενὶ δύσκολον· θνατᾶς δʼ ἀπὸ ματρὸς ἔφυ, ἐκεῖθεν ἔσπακε τὴν διάνοιαν· τίς ἔγνω νοῦν κυρίου; ἢ τίς σύμβουλος αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο; ἀλλὰ καὶ Ἡσίοδος διʼ ὧν γράφει συνᾴδει τοῖς προειρημένοις· μάντις δʼ οὐδείς ἐστιν ἐπιχθονίων ἀνθρώπων, ὅστις ἂν εἰδείη Ζηνὸς νόον αἰγιόχοιο. εἰκότως ἄρα Σόλων ὁ Ἀθηναῖος ἐν ταῖς ἐλεγείαις, καὶ αὐτὸς κατακολουθήσας Ἡσιόδῳ, πάντῃ δʼ ἀθανάτων ἀφανὴς νόος ἀνθρώποισι γράφει.

English · Claude translation

And Orpheus: “One might, one god arose, the great heaven blazing; and one thing all things have become, in which all these things revolve, fire and water and earth,” and what follows. And Pindar the lyric poet, as though in Bacchic frenzy, says plainly: “What is God? What the All is.” And again: “God, who makes all things for mortals.” And when he says, “Why do you expect wisdom? Little does one man have beyond another. It is hard to search out the counsels of the gods with a mortal mind; one is born of a mortal mother,” he has drawn his thought from there: “Who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” And Hesiod too, in what he writes, agrees with what has been said: “There is no seer among men on earth who could know the mind of aegis-bearing Zeus.” Fittingly, then, Solon the Athenian in his elegies, himself following Hesiod, writes: “Everywhere the mind of the immortals is hidden from men.”

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:413–414 · 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
Extrabiblical texts
  • Orpheus (attributed), Orph. frag. (Orpheus (attributed), Orphic poems (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence
  • Pindar (Pindar (odes and fragments)) · quotation, medium confidence
  • Solon (Solon (elegies and fragments)) · quotation, medium confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • The quotations are an Orphic fragment, Pindar, fragments 140d, 141, and 61 (Snell–Maehler), Isa 40:13 (quoted in Rom 11:34), Hesiod, fragment 303 (Merkelbach–West), and Solon, fragment 17 (West).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.129 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/129/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.14.129 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/14/129/).

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