Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 5.4.21

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

Summary: The Egyptians used enigmatic hieroglyphs, like the scarab for the sun; all theologians, barbarian and Greek, have veiled first principles in riddles, symbols, and allegories, as the Greek oracles did.

Greek text · Stählin 2:339–340

τοὺς γοῦν τῶν βασιλέων ἐπαίνους, θεολογουμένοις μύθοις παραδιδόντες, ἀναγράφουσι διὰ τῶν ἀναγλύφων. Τοῦ δὲ κατὰ τοὺς αἰνιγμοὺς τρίτου εἴδους δεῖγμα ἔστω τόδε· τὰ μὲν γὰρ τῶν ἄλλων ἄστρων διὰ τὴν πορείαν τὴν λοξὴν ὄφεων σώμασιν ἀπείκαζον, τὸν δὲ ἥλιον τῷ τοῦ κανθάρου, ἐπειδὴ κυκλοτερὲς ἐκ τῆς βοείας ὄνθου σχῆμα πλασάμενος ἀντιπρόσωπος κυλίνδει. φασὶ δὲ καὶ ἑξάμηνον μὲν ὑπὸ γῆς, θάτερον δὲ τοῦ ἔτους τμῆμα τὸ ζῷον τοῦτο ὑπὲρ γῆς διαιτᾶσθαι σπερμαίνειν τε εἰς τὴν σφαῖραν καὶ γεννᾶν καὶ θῆλυν κάνθαρον μὴ γίνεσθαι. Πάντες οὖν, ὡς ἔπος εἰπεῖν, οἱ θεολογήσαντες βάρβαροί τε καὶ Ἕλληνες τὰς μὲν ἀρχὰς τῶν πραγμάτων ἀπεκρύψαντο, τὴν δὲ ἀλήθειαν αἰνίγμασι καὶ συμβόλοις ἀλληγορίαις τε αὖ καὶ μεταφοραῖς καὶ τοιούτοις τισὶ τρόποις παραδεδώκασιν, ὁποῖα καὶ παρʼ Ἕλλησι τὰ μαντεῖα, καὶ ὅ γε Ἀπόλλων ὁ Πύθιος Λοξίας λέγεται.

English · Claude translation

At any rate they record the praises of kings, handing them down in theological myths, through reliefs. Let this be an example of the third kind, by riddles: they likened the other stars to the bodies of snakes because of their oblique course, and the sun to that of the beetle, since it forms a round shape from ox dung and rolls it, facing backward. They say too that this creature lives six months under the earth and the other part of the year above the earth, and sows its seed into the ball and begets, and that there is no female beetle. All, then, so to speak, both barbarians and Greeks, who have treated of divine things have hidden the first principles of things, and handed down the truth in riddles and symbols, allegories and metaphors, and such figures; such too are the oracles among the Greeks, and Pythian Apollo is called Loxias (“the oblique”).

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:339–340 · 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

Notes

Translation notes

  • The description of the scarab (Egyptian sun beetle) follows ancient natural history (compare Plutarch, Isis and Osiris 74).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.4.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/4/21/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.4.21 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/4/21/).

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