Miscellanies 3.3.16 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Stählin 2:202–203

ταὐτὸν δὴ τούτοις φαίνεται καὶ Ἡρόδοτος ποιῶν λέγοντα τὸν Σόλωνα· ὦ Κροῖσε, πᾶς ἄνθρωπός ἐστι συμφορή. καὶ ὁ μῦθος δὲ αὐτῷ σαφῶς ὁ περὶ τοῦ Κλεόβιδος καὶ Βίτωνος οὐκ ἄλλο τι βούλεται ἀλλʼ ἢ ψέγειν μὲν τὴν γένεσιν, τὸν θάνατον δὲ ἐπαινεῖν. οἵη περ φύλλων γενεή, τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν Ὅμηρος λέγει. Πλάτων δὲ ἐν Κρατύλῳ Ὀρφεῖ τὸν λόγον ἀνατίθησι τὸν περὶ τοῦ κολάζεσθαι τὴν ψυχὴν ἐν τῷ σώματι, λέγει δὲ ὧδε· καὶ γὰρ σῆμά τινές φασιν αὐτὸ εἶναι τῆς ψυχῆς, ὡς τεθαμμένης ἐν τῷ νῦν παρόντι· καὶ διότι τούτῳ σημαίνει ἃ ἂν σημαίνῃ ἡ ψυχή, καὶ ταύτῃ σῆμα ὀρθῶς καλεῖσθαι. δοκοῦσι μέντοι μάλιστα θέσθαι οἱ ἀμφὶ Ὀρφέα τοῦτο τὸ ὄνομα, ὡς δίκην διδούσης ὧν δὴ ἕνεκα δίδωσιν.

English · Claude translation

Herodotus seems to do the same, making Solon say: “O Croesus, every man is a misfortune.” And his story about Cleobis and Biton clearly means nothing else than to censure birth and praise death. “As is the generation of leaves, so is that of men,” says Homer. And Plato in the Cratylus attributes to Orpheus the account of the soul being punished in the body, and says this: “For some say that the body is the tomb (sēma) of the soul, as though it were buried in the present life; and because by it the soul signifies whatever it signifies, it is also rightly called a sign (sēma) for this reason. But the followers of Orpheus seem most of all to have given this name, as though the soul were paying the penalty for whatever it pays it.”

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:202–203 · 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

Herodotus, Hist. 1.31–32 (Herodotus, Histories) · quotation, high confidence
Homer, Il. 6.146 (Homer, Iliad) · quotation, high confidence
Plato, Cratylus 400c (Plato (works)) · quotation, high confidence
Orpheus (attributed), Orph. frag. (Orpheus (attributed), Orphic poems (fragments)) · allusion, medium confidence

Topics

Heresy

Notes

Translation notes

The quotations are Herodotus 1.32 (and 1.31, Cleobis and Biton), Homer, Iliad 6.146, and Plato, Cratylus 400c.

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (breathing and accent missing on Ὅμηρος): τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν Ομηρος → τοίη δὲ καὶ ἀνδρῶν Ὅμηρος.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.3.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/3/3/16/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 3.3.16 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/3/3/16/).