Miscellanies 7.4.22
Summary: The Greeks imagine gods with human forms and passions, each people in its own likeness; the one who knows believes in the one God, who is good and never the cause of evil.
Greek text · Stählin 2
Ἕλληνες δὲ ὥσπερ ἀνθρωπομόρφους οὕτως καὶ ἀνθρωποπαθεῖς τοὺς θεοὺς ὑποτίθενται. καὶ καθάπερ τὰς μορφὰς αὐτῶν ὁμοίας ἑαυτοῖς ἕκαστοι διαζωγραφοῦσιν. ὥς φησιν ὁ Ξενοφάνης, »Αἰθίοπές τε μέλανας σιμούς τε Θρᾷκές τε πυρροὺς καὶ γλαυκούς«. οὕτως καὶ τὰς ψυχὰς ὁμοίους ἑαυτοῖς αὐτοὺς ἀναπλάττουσιν, αὐτίκα βάρβαροι [οἱ] μὲν θηριώδεις καὶ ἀγρίους τὰ ἤθη, ἡμερωτέρους δὲ Ἕλληνες, πλὴν ἐμπαθεῖς. διὸ εὐλόγως τοῖς μὲν μοχθηροῖς φαύλας ἔχειν τὰς περὶ θεοῦ διανοήσεις ἀνάγκη, τοῖς δὲ σπουδαίοις ἀρίστας. καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ὁ τῷ ὄντι »βασιλικὸς τὴν ψυχὴν« καὶ γνωστικὸς οὗτος καὶ θεοσεβὴς καὶ ἀδεισιδαίμων [ὤν]. τίμιον, σεμνόν, μεγαλοπρεπῆ, εὐποιητικόν, εὐεργετικόν, ἁπάντων ἀρχηγὸν ἀγαθῶν, κακῶν δὲ ἀναίτιον μόνον εἶναι τὸν μόνον θεὸν πεπεισμένος. καὶ περὶ μὲν τῆς Ἑλληνικῆς δεισιδαιμονίας ἱκανῶς, οἶμαι, ἐν τῷ Προτρεπτικῷ ἐπιγραφομένῳ ἡμῖν λόγῳ παρεστήσαμεν κατακόρως τῇ κατεπειγούσῃ συγκαταχρώμενοι ἱστορίᾳ. οὔκουν χρὴ »αὖθις τὰ ἀριδήλως εἰρημένα μυθολογεῖν«.
English · Claude translation
The Greeks suppose the gods to have human passions, just as they suppose them to have human forms. And as each people paints their forms like themselves, as Xenophanes says, “the Ethiopians black and snub-nosed, the Thracians red-haired and grey-eyed,” so they also mold their souls like their own: the barbarians, for example, make them savage and wild in character, the Greeks gentler, yet subject to passion. It is reasonable, then, that the wicked should have poor notions of God and the good the best. And for this reason the one who is truly “royal in soul” and knowing is also pious and free from superstition, persuaded that the only God is alone honorable, venerable, magnificent, beneficent, the doer of good, the author of all good things, and not the cause of evil. About Greek superstition, I think, we have shown enough in the work we entitled the Exhortation, where we made full use of the history that pressed upon us. So there is no need “to tell again a tale already clearly told.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Xenophanes (fragment 16 Diels–Kranz) and Homer, Odyssey 12.452–453. “Royal in soul” may echo Plato, Philebus 30d (uncertain). The Exhortation is Clement's Protrepticus. The bracketed words οἱ and ὤν are marked by Stählin for deletion. Proposed new extrabiblical entry: Xenophanes.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (garbled mark in the digital text; stray period in the digital text): διὸ (??)εὐλόγως → διὸ εὐλόγως; ἱκανῶς, οἶμαι. ἐν → ἱκανῶς, οἶμαι, ἐν.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.4.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/7/4/22/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 7.4.22 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/7/4/22/).
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