Sophia Scriptura

Exhortation to the Greeks 2.17

Clement of Alexandria · Exhortation to the Greeks · ca. 190–200 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The Eleusinian festivals re-enact the abduction of Persephone; the Dionysian mysteries recall the infant Dionysus torn apart by the Titans.

Greek text · Stählin 1:14

οἱ βάκχοι. βούλει καὶ τὰ Φερεφάττης ἀνθολόγια διηγήσωμαί σοι καὶ τὸν κάλαθον καὶ τὴν ἁρπαγὴν τὴν ὑπὸ Ἀιδωνέως καὶ τὸ χάσμα τῆς γῆς καὶ τὰς ὗς τὰς Εὐβουλέως τὰς συγκαταποθείσας ταῖν θεαῖν, διʼ ἣν αἰτίαν ἐν τοῖς Θεσμοφορίοις μεγαρίζοντες χοίρους ἐμβάλλουσιν; ταύτην τὴν μυθολογίαν αἱ γυναῖκες ποικίλως κατὰ πόλιν ἑορτάζουσι, Θεσμοφόρια, Σκιροφόρια, Ἀρρητοφόρια, πολυτρόπως τὴν Φερεφάττης ἐκτραγῳδοῦσαι ἁρπαγήν. τὰ γὰρ Διονύσου μυστήρια τέλεον ἀπάνθρωπα· ὃν εἰσέτι παῖδα ὄντα ἐνόπλῳ κινήσει περιχορευόντων Κουρήτων, δόλῳ δὲ ὑποδύντων Τιτάνων, ἀπατήσαντες παιδαριώδεσιν ἀθύρμασιν, οὗτοι δὴ οἱ Τιτᾶνες διέσπασαν, ἔτι νηπίαχον ὄντα, ὡς ὁ τῆς Τελετῆς ποιητὴς Ὀρφεύς φησιν ὁ Θρᾴκιος· κῶνος καὶ ῥόμβος καὶ παίγνια καμπεσίγυια, μῆλά τε χρύσεα καλὰ παρʼ Ἑσπερίδων λιγυφώνων.

English · Claude translation

Shall I tell you of Persephone's flower-gathering, and the basket, and the abduction by Aidoneus, and the chasm in the earth, and the swine of Eubuleus that were swallowed up with the two goddesses, the reason why at the Thesmophoria the women throw pigs into the sacred pits? The women celebrate this myth in various ways in the different cities, in the Thesmophoria, the Scirophoria, and the Arrhetophoria, turning the abduction of Persephone into tragedy in many forms. And the mysteries of Dionysus are utterly inhuman. When he was still a child, the Curetes were dancing around him in armed motion, but the Titans crept in by guile, deceived him with childish toys, and tore him apart while he was still an infant, as the poet of the Initiation, Orpheus the Thracian, says: “Top, and bull-roarer, and dolls with jointed limbs, and fair golden apples from the clear-voiced Hesperides.”

About this passage

Source
Stählin 1:14 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 1, Protrepticus und Paedagogus, GCS 12 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1905) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 1: Protrepticus und Paedagogus (GCS 12, 1905), digitized by the First Thousand Years of Greek project (Open Greek and Latin), CC BY-SA 4.0
Text
As printed in Stählin, GCS 12. 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), 2026-09-26 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1905); 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)
Extrabiblical texts
  • Orpheus (attributed), Orph. frag. (Orpheus (attributed), Orphic poems (fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Notes

Translation notes

  • The lines are from the Orphic poems (fragment 34 Kern).

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/2/17/).

Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 2.17 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/2/17/).

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