Sophia Scriptura

Miscellanies 5.8.49

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

Summary: A third primer line hints that salvation is won by toil through understanding the world; Epigenes explains Orpheus's symbolic words for plows, seed, rain, the moon, and the seasons.

Greek text · Stählin 2:360

Ἀλλὰ καὶ τρίτος ὑπογραμμὸς φέρεται παιδικός· μάρπτε, σφίγξ, κλώψ, ζβυχθηδόν· σημαίνει δʼ, οἶμαι, διὰ τῆς τῶν στοιχείων καὶ τοῦ κόσμου διοικήσεως τὴν ὁδὸν ἡμῖν δεῖν ἐπὶ τὴν τῶν τελειοτέρων γίνεσθαι γνῶσιν, βίᾳ καὶ πόνῳ περιγινομένης τῆς αἰωνίου σωτηρίας· μάρψαι μὲν γὰρ τὸ καταλαβεῖν, τὴν δὲ τοῦ κόσμου ἁρμονίαν ἡ σφίγξ, ζβυχθηδὸν δὲ τὴν χαλεπότητα μηνύει, καὶ κλὼψ τὴν λανθάνουσαν κυρίου γνῶσιν ἅμα καὶ ἡμέραν δηλοῖ. Τί δʼ; οὐχὶ καὶ Ἐπιγένης ἐν τῷ περὶ τῆς Ὀρφέως ποιήσεως τὰ ἰδιάζοντα παρʼ Ὀρφεῖ ἐκτιθέμενός φησι κερκίσι καμπυλόχρωσι τοῖς ἀρότροις μηνύεσθαι, στήμοσι δὲ τοῖς αὔλαξι· μίτον δὲ τὸ σπέρμα ἀλληγορεῖσθαι, καὶ δάκρυα Διὸς τὸν ὄμβρον δηλοῦν, Μοίρας τε αὖ τὰ μέρη τῆς σελήνης, τριακάδα καὶ πεντεκαιδεκάτην καὶ νουμηνίαν· διὸ καὶ λευκοστόλους αὐτὰς καλεῖν τὸν Ὀρφέα φωτὸς οὔσας μέρη. πάλιν ἄνθιον μὲν τὸ ἔαρ διὰ τὴν φύσιν, ἀργίδα δὲ τὴν νύκτα διὰ τὴν ἀνάπαυσιν, καὶ Γοργόνιον τὴν σελήνην διὰ τὸ ἐν αὐτῇ πρόσωπον, Ἀφροδίτην τε τὸν καιρὸν καθʼ ὃν δεῖ σπείρειν, λέγεσθαι παρὰ τῷ θεολόγῳ.

English · Claude translation

A third children's copy line is handed down too: “Marpte, sphinx, klōps, zbychthēdon.” It signifies, I think, that through the ordering of the elements and the world our way must go to the knowledge of more perfect things, eternal salvation being won by force and toil; for marpsai is to grasp, sphinx the harmony of the world, zbychthēdon indicates difficulty, and klōps the hidden knowledge of the Lord and the day. What then? Does not Epigenes too, in his work On the Poetry of Orpheus, setting out Orpheus's peculiar expressions, say that by “curved shuttles” plows are meant, by “warp threads” furrows; that “thread” allegorizes seed, and “tears of Zeus” means rain; that the “Fates” are the parts of the moon, the thirtieth day, the fifteenth, and the new moon, which is why Orpheus calls them “white-robed,” being parts of light; again, that “flowery” is spring, from its nature, “white” is night, from its rest, “Gorgonian” is the moon, from the face in it, and Aphrodite is the time when one must sow, in the theologian's language?

About this passage

Source
Stählin 2:360 · 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)) · allusion, medium confidence
Topics
Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

  • “Klōps” (thief) hinting at the Lord's day alludes to 1 Thess 5:2. Epigenes, On the Poetry of Orpheus (fragment).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.8.49 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/8/49/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.8.49 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/8/49/).

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