Miscellanies 5.7.43 · Sophia Scriptura

Summary: In Egyptian processions two dogs, a hawk, and an ibis, called “four letters,” symbolize the hemispheres or tropics, the sun or equator, and the moon or ecliptic.

Greek text · Stählin 2:354–355

ἤδη δὲ κἀν ταῖς καλουμέναις παρʼ αὐτοῖς κωμασίαις τῶν θεῶν χρυσᾶ ἀγάλματα, δύο μὲν κύνας, ἕνα δὲ ἱέρακα καὶ ἶβιν μίαν περιφέρουσι καὶ καλοῦσι τὰ τέσσαρα τῶν ἀγαλμάτων εἴδωλα τέσσαρα γράμματα. εἰσὶ γοῦν οἱ μὲν κύνες σύμβολα τῶν δυεῖν ἡμισφαιρίων, οἷον περιπολούντων καὶ φυλασσόντων· ὁ δὲ ἱέραξ ἡλίου· πυρώδης γὰρ καὶ ἀναιρετικός· αὐτίκα τὰς λοιμικὰς νόσους ἡλίῳ ἀνατιθέασιν· ἡ δὲ ἶβις σελήνης, τὰ μὲν σκιερὰ τῷ μέλανι, τὰ δὲ φωτεινὰ τῷ λευκῷ τῶν πτίλων εἰκαζόντων. εἰσὶν δʼ οἳ τοὺς μὲν τροπικοὺς πρὸς τῶν κυνῶν μηνύεσθαι βούλονται, οἳ δὴ διαφυλάσσουσι καὶ πυλωροῦσι τὴν ἐπὶ νότον καὶ ἄρκτον πάροδον τοῦ ἡλίου· τὸν δʼ ἰσημερινόν, ὑψηλὸν ὄντα καὶ διακεκαυμένον, ὁ ἱέραξ δηλοῖ, καθάπερ ἡ ἶβις τὸν λοξόν· ἀριθμοῦ γὰρ ἐπινοίας καὶ μέτρου μάλιστα τῶν ζῴων ἡ ἶβις ἀρχὴν παρεσχῆσθαι τοῖς Αἰγυπτίοις δοκεῖ, ὡς τῶν κύκλων ὁ λοξός.

English · Claude translation

Indeed, in what they call the processions of the gods, they carry about golden images, two dogs, one hawk, and one ibis, and call the four images four letters. The dogs are symbols of the two hemispheres, as though going around and guarding; the hawk of the sun, for it is fiery and destructive (indeed they attribute pestilential diseases to the sun); and the ibis of the moon, likening its shadowy parts to the black and its bright parts to the white of its feathers. Some would have the tropics indicated by the dogs, which guard and keep the gates of the sun's passage south and north; the hawk shows the equator, being high and burning, as the ibis shows the ecliptic; for the ibis, of all animals, seems to have given the Egyptians the beginning of the conception of number and measure, as the oblique circle among the circles.

About this passage

Source

Stählin 2:354–355 · 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.

Topics

Scripture and canon

Cite this passage

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.7.43 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/7/43/).

Plain text

Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.7.43 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/7/43/).