Miscellanies 5.9.59
Summary: Greek philosophers too had a twofold teaching, one open and one hidden: Pythagoras had outer and inner disciples, the Peripatetics distinguished opinion from knowledge, and Empedocles, Heraclitus, and Parmenides contrasted the few with the many.
Greek text · Stählin 2:365–366
Ναὶ μὴν καὶ ἡ Πυθαγόρου συνουσία καὶ ἡ πρὸς τοὺς ὁμιλητὰς διττὴ κοινωνία, ἀκουσματικοὺς τοὺς πολλοὺς καί τινας μαθηματικοὺς ἑτέρους καλοῦσα, τοὺς γνησίως ἀνθαπτομένους τῆς φιλοσοφίας, ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν φάσθαι, τὸ δὲ καὶ κεκρυμμένον εἶναι πρὸς τοὺς πολλοὺς ᾐνίσσετο. ἴσως δὲ καὶ τὸ διττὸν ἐκεῖνο εἶδος τῶν ἐκ τοῦ Περιπάτου, τὸ ἐν τοῖς λόγοις ἔνδοξόν τε καὶ ἐπιστημονικὸν καλούμενον, οὐκ ἀπήλλακται τοῦ διαιρεῖν δόξαν ἀπό τε εὐκλείας καὶ ἀληθείας. μηδέ σέ γʼ εὐδόξοιο βιήσεται ἄνθεα τιμῆς πρὸς θνητῶν ἀνελέσθαι, ἐφʼ ᾧ θʼ ὁσίης πλέον εἰπεῖν. αἱ γοῦν Ἰάδες μοῦσαι διαρρήδην λέγουσι τοὺς μὲν πολλοὺς καὶ δοκησισόφους δήμων ἀοιδοῖσιν ἕπεσθαι καὶ νόμοισι χρέεσθαι, εἰδότας ὅτι πολλοὶ κακοί, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἀγαθοί· τοὺς ἀρίστους δὲ τὸ κλέος μεταδιώκειν. αἱρεῦνται γάρ, φησίν, ἓν ἀντὶ πάντων οἱ ἄριστοι κλέος ἀέναον θνητῶν, οἱ δὲ πολλοὶ κεκόρηνται ὅπως κτήνεα, γαστρὶ καὶ αἰδοίοις καὶ τοῖς αἰσχίστοις τῶν ἐν ἡμῖν μετρήσαντες τὴν εὐδαιμονίαν· ὅ τʼ Ἐλεάτης Παρμενίδης ὁ μέγας διττῶν εἰσηγεῖται διδασκαλίαν ὁδῶν ὧδέ πως γράφων· ἠμὲν Ἀληθείης εὐπειθέος ἀτρεμὲς ἦτορ, ἠδὲ βροτῶν δόξας, ταῖς οὐκ ἔνι πίστις ἀληθής.
English · Claude translation
Yes, and the school of Pythagoras too, with its twofold fellowship with its disciples, calling the many “hearers” and certain others “mathematicians,” those who genuinely laid hold of philosophy, hinted that one part was spoken openly and the other was hidden from the many. And perhaps that twofold kind of teaching of the Peripatetics as well, the one called in their discourses “probable” and the other “scientific,” is not far from distinguishing opinion, which rests on reputation, from truth. “Nor shall the flowers of glorious honor force you to take them up from mortals, on condition that you say more than is holy.” The Ionian Muses, at any rate, say expressly that the many, who think themselves wise, follow the singers of the peoples and use their customs, knowing that “many are bad, and few good,” while the best pursue glory. “For the best,” it says, “choose one thing in place of all, ever-flowing glory among mortals; but the many are glutted like cattle,” measuring happiness by the belly and the genitals and the most shameful things in us. And the great Parmenides of Elea introduces the teaching of two ways, writing something like this: “both the unshaken heart of persuasive Truth, and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true trust.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are Empedocles, fragment 3.6–8 (Diels–Kranz); Heraclitus, fragments 104 and 29 (Diels–Kranz; “the Ionian Muses” is Clement's name for Heraclitus, and “many are bad, few good” is the saying of Bias that Heraclitus quotes); and Parmenides, fragment 1.29–30. The clause on the Peripatetics (“distinguishing opinion … from truth”) is compressed in the Greek and its exact sense is uncertain.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.9.59 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/9/59/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 5.9.59 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/5/9/59/).
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