Miscellanies 5.4.24 · Sophia Scriptura

Greek text · Stählin 2:340–341

Ἀλλὰ καὶ οἱ παρὰ τούτων τῶν προφητῶν τὴν θεολογίαν δεδιδαγμένοι ποιηταὶ διʼ ὑπονοίας πολλὰ φιλοσοφοῦσι, τὸν Ὀρφέα λέγω, τὸν Λίνον, τὸν Μουσαῖον, τὸν Ὅμηρον καὶ Ἡσίοδον καὶ τοὺς ταύτῃ σοφούς. παραπέτασμα δὲ αὐτοῖς πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς ἡ ποιητικὴ ψυχαγωγία· ὄνειροί τε καὶ σύμβολα ἀφανέστερα πάντα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις οὐ φθόνῳ (οὐ γὰρ θέμις ἐμπαθῆ νοεῖν τὸν θεόν), ἀλλʼ ὅπως εἰς τὴν τῶν αἰνιγμάτων ἔννοιαν ἡ ζήτησις παρεισδύουσα ἐπὶ τὴν εὕρεσιν τῆς ἀληθείας ἀναδράμῃ. ταύτῃ τοι Σοφοκλῆς, ὁ τῆς τραγῳδίας ποιητής, φησί που· καὶ τὸν θεὸν τοιοῦτον ἐξεπίσταμαι· σοφοῖς μὲν αἰνικτῆρα θεσφάτων ἀεί, σκαιοῖς δὲ φαῦλον κἀν βραχεῖ διδάσκαλον, τὸ φαῦλον ἐπὶ τοῦ ἁπλοῦ τάσσων.

English · Claude translation

And the poets too, who learned theology from these prophets, philosophize much by hidden meaning: I mean Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Homer, Hesiod, and those wise in this way. The charm of poetry is a veil for them against the many; and dreams and symbols are all more obscure to men, not from envy (for it is not lawful to think of God as subject to passion), but so that inquiry, slipping into the meaning of the riddles, may run up to the discovery of the truth. So Sophocles, the tragic poet, says somewhere: “And I know the god to be such: to the wise always a riddler of oracles, but to the foolish a poor teacher, and in brief,” using “poor” for “simple.”

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:340–341 · 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

Sophocles, fragment 704 (Sophocles (plays and fragments)) · quotation, high confidence

Topics

Scripture and canon

Notes

Translation notes

The quotation is Sophocles (fragment 704 Nauck).

Notes on the original text

Digital text corrected (misspelling in the digital text): ἀφανέστερα πάντα ταῖς ἀνθρώποις → ἀφανέστερα πάντα τοῖς ἀνθρώποις.

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.4.24 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/4/24/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.4.24 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/4/24/).