Miscellanies 5.8.53
Summary: Plato's fallen charioteer and Phaethon signify the soul overcome by passion; Joseph stripped of his coat and cast into the waterless pit signifies knowledge rejected by those with bare faith; the uncovered pit in the law introduces a lesson about teaching.
Greek text · Stählin 2:362
οὕτως καὶ Πλάτων ἐν τῷ Περὶ ψυχῆς τόν τε ἡνίοχον καὶ τὸν ἀποστατήσαντα ἵππον (τὸ ἄλογον μέρος, ὃ δὴ δίχα τέμνεται, εἰς θυμὸν καὶ ἐπιθυμίαν) καταπίπτειν φησίν. ᾗ καὶ τὸν Φαέθοντα διʼ ἀκρασίαν τῶν πώλων ἐκπεσεῖν ὁ μῦθος αἰνίττεται. Ναὶ μὴν καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ Ἰωσήφ· νέον τοῦτον ζηλώσαντες οἱ ἀδελφοὶ πλεῖόν τι προορώμενον κατὰ τὴν γνῶσιν ἐξέδυσαν τὸν χιτῶνα τὸν ποικίλον καὶ λαβόντες ἔρριψαν εἰς λάκκον, ὁ δὲ λάκκος κενὸς ὕδωρ οὐκ εἶχε· τὴν ἐκ φιλομαθίας τοῦ σπουδαίου ποικίλην γνῶσιν ἀποσκορακίσαντες ἢ ψιλῇ τῇ κατὰ νόμον πίστει κεχρημένοι ἔρριψαν εἰς λάκκον τὸν ὕδατος κενόν, εἰς Αἴγυπτον ἀπεμπολήσοντες τὴν τοῦ θείου λόγου ἔρημον. κενὸς δὲ ἐπιστήμης ὁ λάκκος, ἐν ᾧ ῥιφεὶς καὶ τὴν γνῶσιν ἀποδυσάμενος ὅμοιος τοῖς ἀδελφοῖς ἐδόκει γυμνὸς γνώσεως ὁ διαλεληθὼς σοφός. κατʼ ἄλλο σημαινόμενον εἴη δʼ ἂν ἐπιθυμία τὸ ποικίλον ἔνδυμα, εἰς ἀχανὲς ἀπάγουσα βάραθρον. ἐὰν δέ τις ἀνοίξῃ λάκκον ἢ λατομήσῃ, φησί, καὶ μὴ καλύψῃ αὐτόν, ἐμπέσῃ δʼ ἐκεῖ μόσχος ἢ ὄνος, ὁ κύριος τοῦ λάκκου ἀποτίσει ἀργύριον καὶ δώσει τῷ πλησίον, τὸ δὲ τεθνηκὸς αὐτῷ ἔσται.
English · Claude translation
So Plato too, in his work On the Soul, says that the charioteer and the horse that rebelled (the irrational part, which is divided in two, into anger and desire) fall down. For this reason the myth too hints that Phaethon fell through the unruliness of his horses. Indeed, in the case of Joseph too: his brothers, jealous of him as young and foreseeing more in knowledge, stripped him of his many-colored tunic, took him, and threw him into a pit; “and the pit was empty; it had no water”: casting away the good man's varied knowledge from love of learning, or, using bare faith according to the law, they threw him into the pit empty of water, to sell him into Egypt, empty of the divine word. And the pit was empty of knowledge, into which the wise man, thrown and stripped of his knowledge, seemed like his brothers, bare of knowledge, escaping notice. In another sense the many-colored garment would be desire, leading into a yawning chasm. “And if anyone opens a pit or digs one,” it says, “and does not cover it, and a calf or a donkey falls in there, the owner of the pit shall pay silver and give it to his neighbor, and the dead animal shall be his.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The allusions and quotations are Plato, Phaedrus 246a–248b (Clement calls it On the Soul), Gen 37:3, 23–24, 28, and Exod 21:33–34.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.8.53 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/8/53/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.8.53 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/8/53/).
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