Exhortation to the Greeks 3.42
Summary: The gods are man-hating daemons who delight in bloodshed; Clement lists the human sacrifices offered to them across the Greek and Roman world.
Greek text · Stählin 1:31–32
Φέρε δὴ οὖν καὶ τοῦτο προσθῶμεν, ὡς ἀπάνθρωποι καὶ μισάνθρωποι δαίμονες εἶεν ὑμῶν οἱ θεοὶ καὶ οὐχὶ μόνον ἐπιχαίροντες τῇ φρενοβλαβείᾳ τῶν ἀνθρώπων, πρὸς δὲ καὶ ἀνθρωποκτονίας ἀπολαύοντες· νυνὶ μὲν τὰς ἐν σταδίοις ἐνόπλους φιλονεικίας, νυνὶ δὲ τὰς ἐν πολέμοις ἀναρίθμους φιλοτιμίας ἀφορμὰς σφίσιν ἡδονῆς ποριζόμενοι, ὅπως ὅτι μάλιστα ἔχοιεν ἀνθρωπείων ἀνέδην ἐμφορεῖσθαι φόνων· ἤδη δὲ κατὰ πόλεις καὶ ἔθνη, οἱονεὶ λοιμοὶ ἐπισκήψαντες, σπονδὰς ἀπῄτησαν ἀνημέρους. Ἀριστομένης γοῦν ὁ Μεσσήνιος τῷ Ἰθωμήτῃ Διὶ τριακοσίους ἀπέσφαξεν, τοσαύτας ὁμοῦ καὶ τοιαύτας καλλιερεῖν οἰόμενος ἑκατόμβας· ἐν οἷς καὶ Θεόπομπος ἦν ὁ Λακεδαιμονίων βασιλεύς, ἱερεῖον εὐγενές. Ταῦροι δὲ τὸ ἔθνος, οἱ περὶ τὴν Ταυρικὴν Χερρόνησον κατοικοῦντες, οὓς ἂν τῶν ξένων παρʼ αὐτοῖς ἕλωσι, τούτων δὴ τῶν κατὰ θάλατταν ἐπταικότων, αὐτίκα μάλα τῇ Ταυρικῇ καταθύουσιν Ἀρτέμιδι· ταύτας σου τὰς θυσίας Εὐριπίδης ἐπὶ σκηνῆς τραγῳδεῖ. Μόνιμος δʼ ἱστορεῖ ἐν τῇ τῶν θαυμασίων συναγωγῇ ἐν Πέλλῃ τῆς Θετταλίας Ἀχαιὸν ἄνθρωπον Πηλεῖ καὶ Χείρωνι καταθύεσθαι· Λυκτίους γὰρ (Κρητῶν δὲ ἔθνος εἰσὶν οὗτοι) Ἀντικλείδης ἐν Νόστοις ἀποφαίνεται ἀνθρώπους ἀποσφάττειν τῷ Διί, καὶ Λεσβίους Διονύσῳ τὴν ὁμοίαν προσάγειν θυσίαν Δωσίδας λέγει· Φωκαεῖς δέ (οὐδὲ γὰρ αὐτοὺς παραπέμψομαι) — τούτους Πυθοκλῆς ἐν τρίτῳ Περὶ ὁμονοίας τῇ Ταυροπόλῳ Ἀρτέμιδι ἄνθρωπον ὁλοκαυτεῖν ἱστορεῖ. Ἐρεχθεὺς δὲ ὁ Ἀττικὸς καὶ Μάριος ὁ Ῥωμαῖος τὰς αὑτῶν ἐθυσάτην θυγατέρας· ὧν ὃ μὲν τῇ Φερεφάττῃ, ὡς Δημάρατος ἐν πρώτῃ Τραγῳδουμένων, ὃ δὲ τοῖς Ἀποτροπαίοις, ὁ Μάριος, ὡς Δωρόθεος ἐν τῇ τετάρτῃ Ἰταλικῶν ἱστορεῖ. φιλάνθρωποί γε ἐκ τούτων καταφαίνονται οἱ δαίμονες· πῶς δὲ οὐχ ὅσιοι ἀναλόγως οἱ δεισιδαίμονες; οἳ μὲν σωτῆρες εὐφημούμενοι, οἳ δὲ σωτηρίαν αἰτούμενοι παρὰ τῶν ἐπιβούλων σωτηρίας. καλλιερεῖν γοῦν τοπάζοντες αὐτοῖς σφᾶς αὐτοὺς λελήθασιν ἀποσφάττοντες ἀνθρώπους. οὐ γὰρ οὖν παρὰ τὸν τόπον ἱερεῖον γίνεται ὁ φόνος, οὐδʼ εἰ Ἀρτέμιδί τις καὶ Διὶ ἐν
English · Claude translation
Come, then, let us add this too: that your gods are inhuman daemons who hate humankind, not only rejoicing in human madness but also enjoying human slaughter. Now in the armed contests in the stadiums, now in the countless ambitions of war, they procure occasions of pleasure for themselves, so that they may have the fullest opportunity to glut themselves unrestrained on human bloodshed. And by now, falling on cities and nations like plagues, they have demanded savage offerings. Aristomenes the Messenian, for example, slaughtered three hundred men to Zeus of Ithome, thinking to offer so many hecatombs of such a kind with good omens; among them was Theopompus, the king of the Spartans, a noble victim. The Taurians, the nation living around the Tauric Chersonese, at once sacrifice to the Tauric Artemis any strangers they catch among them, that is, those shipwrecked at sea; these are your sacrifices that Euripides puts on the tragic stage. Monimus records, in his Collection of Marvels, that at Pella in Thessaly an Achaean man is sacrificed to Peleus and Chiron. Anticlides, in his Returns, declares that the Lyctians (these are a Cretan people) slaughter human beings to Zeus; and Dosiadas says that the Lesbians offer a similar sacrifice to Dionysus. As for the Phocaeans (for I will not pass them over either), Pythocles, in the third book of On Concord, records that they burn a human being as a whole burnt offering to Artemis Tauropolus. Erechtheus of Attica and Marius the Roman sacrificed their own daughters: the one to Persephone, as Demaratus says in the first book of his Tragic Subjects; the other, Marius, to the Averting Deities, as Dorotheus records in the fourth book of his Italian History. From these examples the daemons plainly appear to be lovers of humankind! And how could the superstitious not be correspondingly holy? The one are praised as saviors, the others ask salvation from those who plot against salvation. Supposing that they offer auspicious sacrifices to them, they have failed to notice that they are slaughtering human beings. For murder does not become a sacrifice because of the place, not even if someone slaughters a human being to Artemis or Zeus in a …
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The sentence continues in the next section.
- Euripides's play is Iphigenia among the Taurians.
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (stray period at a section boundary in the digital text; the sentence continues in 3.43): Διὶ ἐν. → Διὶ ἐν.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 3.42 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/3/42/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Protr. 3.42 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-protrepticus/3/42/).
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