Miscellanies 1.26.170

Clement of Alexandria · Miscellanies · ca. 198–203 · Alexandria · Read in context

Summary: The Greeks disbelieve that God gave the law through Moses, yet claim their own lawgivers received laws from gods, imitating Moses without acknowledging him.

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Greek text · Stählin 2:105–106

ἔπειτα οἱ μὲν πειθόμενοι τῷ νόμῳ τῷ τε γνῶσιν ἔχειν τινὰ αὐτοῦ οὔτʼ ἀπιστεῖν οὔτʼ ἀγνοεῖν δύνανται τὴν ἀλήθειαν, οἱ δὲ ἀπιστοῦντες ἥκιστά τε ἐν τοῖς ἔργοις εἶναι βεβουλημένοι, εἴπερ τινὲς ἄλλοι καὶ οὗτοι ἀγνοεῖν ὁμολογοῦνται τὴν ἀλήθειαν. τίς τοίνυν ἡ ἀπιστία τῶν Ἑλλήνων; μή πῃ βούλεσθαι πείθεσθαι τῇ ἀληθείᾳ φασκούσῃ θεόθεν διὰ Μωυσέως δεδόσθαι τὸν νόμον, ὁπότε γε καὶ αὐτοὶ ἐκ τῶν παρὰ σφίσι τιμῶσι Μωυσῆ. τόν τε Μίνω παρὰ Διὸς διʼ ἐνάτου ἔτους λαμβάνειν τοὺς νόμους ἱστοροῦσι φοιτῶντα εἰς τὸ τοῦ Διὸς ἄντρον, τόν τε αὖ Λυκοῦργον τὰ νομοθετικὰ εἰς Δελφοὺς πρὸς τὸν Ἀπόλλωνα συνεχὲς ἀπιόντα παιδεύεσθαι γράφουσι Πλάτων τε καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης καὶ Ἔφορος, Χαμαιλέων τε ὁ Ἡρακλεώτης ἐν τῷ Περὶ μέθης καὶ Ἀριστοτέλης ἐν τῇ Λοκρῶν πολιτείᾳ Ζάλευκον τὸν Λοκρὸν παρὰ τῆς Ἀθηνᾶς τοὺς νόμους λαμβάνειν ἀπομνημονεύουσιν. οἳ δὲ τὸ ἀξιόπιστον τῆς παρʼ Ἕλλησι νομοθεσίας, ὡς οἷόν τε αὐτοῖς, ἐπαίροντες εἰς τὸ θεῖον κατʼ εἰκόνα τῆς κατὰ τὸν Μωυσέα προφητείας ἀγνώμονες, οὐκ αὐτόθεν ὁμολογοῦντες τήν τε ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὸ ἀρχέτυπον τῶν παρὰ σφίσιν ἱστορουμένων.

English · Claude translation

Then those who obey the law, through having some knowledge of it, can neither disbelieve nor be ignorant of the truth; but those who disbelieve and do not wish to be engaged in its works, these, if any, admittedly do not know the truth. What, then, is the unbelief of the Greeks? Not wishing to trust the truth that says the law was given by God through Moses, when they themselves, from their own accounts, honor Moses. They relate that Minos received the laws from Zeus every ninth year, going to the cave of Zeus; and Plato, Aristotle, and Ephorus write that Lycurgus was taught his legislation by continually going to Apollo at Delphi; and Chamaeleon of Heraclea in his work On Drunkenness, and Aristotle in his Constitution of the Locrians, record that Zaleucus the Locrian received his laws from Athena. Those who, as far as they can, raise the authority of Greek legislation to the divine, in imitation of the prophecy of Moses, are ungrateful, not admitting outright the truth and the archetype of what is related among them.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:105–106 · Otto Stählin, ed., Clemens Alexandrinus, vol. 2, Stromata Buch I–VI, GCS 15 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1906); vol. 3, Stromata Buch VII und VIII, GCS 17 (Leipzig: Hinrichs, 1909) · Greek text: Otto Stählin, Clemens Alexandrinus 2–3 (GCS 15, 17, 1906–1909), digitized by the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA 4.0

Text

As printed in Stählin, GCS 15, 17. 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), 2026-09-27 · Translated by Claude from the Greek text of Stählin (1906–1909); 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) · Book 3 is left partly untranslated (in Latin) there.

Extrabiblical texts

Plato, Laws 1.624a–b (Plato (works)) · allusion, high confidence

Topics

Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

Plato, Laws 1.624a–b; Minos 319b–e.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.26.170 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/1/26/170/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1.26.170 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/1/26/170/).

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