Miscellanies 7.16.103
Summary: Some reject the truth unheard; others twist Scripture from laziness or love of glory, setting human teachings against the apostolic tradition; Marcion and Prodicus added nothing to what the apostles and teachers had handed down.
Greek text · Stählin 2
εἰσὶ γὰρ οἳ οὐδὲ ἀνέχονται τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐπακοῦσαι τῶν πρὸς τὴν ἀλήθειαν προτρεπόντων· καὶ δὴ φλυαρεῖν ἐπιχειροῦσι, βλασφήμους τῆς ἀληθείας καταχέοντες λόγους, σφίσιν αὐτοῖς τὰ μέγιστα τῶν ὄντων ἐγνωκέναι συγχωροῦντες, οὐ μαθόντες, οὐ ζητήσαντες, οὐ πονέσαντες, οὐχ εὑρόντες τὴν ἀκολουθίαν· οὓς ἐλεήσειεν ἄν τις ἢ μισήσειεν τῆς τοιαύτης διαστροφῆς. εἰ δέ τις ἰάσιμος τυγχάνει, φέρειν δυνάμενος, ὡς πῦρ ἢ σίδηρον, τῆς ἀληθείας τὴν παρρησίαν ἀποτέμνουσαν καὶ καίουσαν τὰς ψευδεῖς δόξας αὐτῶν, ὑπεχέτω τὰ ὦτα τῆς ψυχῆς. ἔσται δὲ τοῦτο, ἐὰν μὴ ῥᾳθυμεῖν ἐπειγόμενοι ἀποδιωθῶνται τὴν ἀλήθειαν ἢ δόξης ὀριγνώμενοι καινοτομεῖν βιάζωνται. ῥᾳθυμοῦσι μὲν γὰρ οἱ παρὸν τὰς οἰκείας ταῖς θείαις γραφαῖς ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν γραφῶν πορίζεσθαι ἀποδείξεις τὸ παραστὰν καὶ ταῖς ἡδοναῖς αὐτῶν συναιρόμενον ἐκλεγόμενοι· δόξης δὲ ἐπιθυμοῦσιν ὅσοι τὰ προσφυῆ τοῖς θεοπνεύστοις λόγοις ὑπὸ τῶν μακαρίων ἀποστόλων τε καὶ διδασκάλων παραδιδόμενα ἑκόντες εἶναι σοφίζονται διʼ ἑτέρων παρεγχειρήσεων, ἀνθρωπείαις διδασκαλίαις ἐνιστάμενοι θείᾳ παραδόσει ὑπὲρ τοῦ τὴν αἵρεσιν συστήσασθαι. τίς γὰρ ὡς ἀληθῶς ἐν τηλικούτοις ἀνδράσιν, κατὰ τὴν ἐκκλησιαστικὴν λέγω γνῶσιν, ὑπελείπετο λόγος Μαρκίωνος, φέρε εἰπεῖν, ἢ Προδίκου καὶ τῶν ὁμοίων τὴν ὀρθὴν οὐ βαδισάντων ὁδόν; οὐ γὰρ [ἂν] ὑπερέβαλον σοφίᾳ τοὺς ἔμπροσθεν ἄνδρας, ὡς προσεξευρεῖν τι τοῖς ὑπʼ ἐκείνων ἀληθῶς ῥηθεῖσιν, ἀλλʼ ἀγαπητὸν ἦν αὐτοῖς, εἰ τὰ προπαραδεδομένα μαθεῖν ἠδυνήθησαν.
English · Claude translation
For there are some who will not even bear to listen at all to those who urge them toward the truth; indeed, they set about talking nonsense, pouring out blasphemous words against the truth, and granting themselves knowledge of the greatest of realities without having learned, sought, toiled, or found the consistent sequence of the truth. One might pity them, or hate them, for such perversity. But if anyone happens to be curable, able to bear the frankness of the truth, which like fire or iron cuts and burns away their false opinions, let him lend the ears of his soul. And this will happen if they do not, in their haste to be idle, push the truth away, or, grasping at glory, force themselves to innovate. For those are idle who, when they could supply from the Scriptures themselves the demonstrations proper to the divine Scriptures, choose what is at hand and what helps their pleasures; and those desire glory who deliberately twist, by other arguments, what the blessed apostles and teachers have handed down as belonging naturally to the God-breathed words, opposing human teachings to the divine tradition in order to set up their sect. For truly, among men so great, in the church's knowledge I mean, what argument was left over for Marcion, say, or Prodicus, and those like them who did not walk the straight road? For they would not have surpassed in wisdom the men before them so as to discover something to add to what those men truly said; they should have been content if they had been able to learn what had been handed down before.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- Marcion (mid-second century) rejected the Old Testament; Prodicus was a gnostic teacher (see 7.7.41). The bracketed ἂν is marked by Stählin for deletion.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (stray period in the digital text): ὡς πῦρ ἢ σίδηρον. τῆς → ὡς πῦρ ἢ σίδηρον, τῆς; τὰς ψευδεῖς δόξας αὐτῶν. ὑπεχέτω → τὰς ψευδεῖς δόξας αὐτῶν, ὑπεχέτω; φέρε εἰπεῖν. ἢ Προδίκου → φέρε εἰπεῖν, ἢ Προδίκου.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.16.103 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/7/16/103/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.16.103 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/7/16/103/).
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