Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
For young men a gymnasium suffices, even if a bath is also available; for indeed to prefer such things to the baths, before all else, is perhaps not a bad choice for men either, since they have something useful for the health of the young, instilling in them zeal and ambition to care not only for bodily fitness but also for stoutness of soul; and this, when it takes place without dragging them away from better pursuits, is graceful and not unprofitable. Nor here either should women be exempted from bodily exercise; but they should not be urged on to wrestling and races — rather let them be exercised in wool-working and weaving, and in standing by the woman who is baking bread, if need be. Further, women ought themselves to bring out from the storeroom, with their own hands, whatever we need, and it is no shame to them to go to the mill; nor indeed is it shameful for them to busy themselves about the preparation of food, that it may be pleasing to the husband — this is the proper task and honor of a wife who keeps the house and helps her husband, not a reproach to her. And if with her own hands she should also shake out the bedding, and offer a drink to her husband when he is thirsty, and set food before him, she would thereby be exercised most becomingly, and toward sound and temperate health as well. Such a woman the Instructor approves — she who "stretches out her arms to useful work, and her hands take hold of the spindle; she opens her hands to the poor and stretches out her palm to the needy" — not ashamed to emulate Sarah in this most excellent service, ministering to travelers. For Abraham said to her: "Hurry and knead three measures of fine flour and make cakes baked in the ashes." And scripture says that "Rachel, Laban's own daughter, arrived with her father's flock." And this was not enough, but teaching freedom from vanity, scripture adds: "for she herself used to pasture her father's sheep." And countless are the examples the scriptures offer of frugality together with self-service, and moreover of exercises too. Of men, some go naked and take part in wrestling, others play with the small ball, the game called phaininda, especially in the sun; for others walking is sufficient exercise, whether going out to the country or coming down into the city. And if they should also take up the spade, this is no ignoble additional occupation, one that manages the exercise proper to farming. But indeed I nearly forgot to mention that famous Pittacus, that the king of the Mytilenaeans used to grind grain, making use of vigorous exercise. It is also a fine thing to draw up water for oneself and to chop the wood one will use oneself. "And Jacob shepherded the sheep of Laban that were left," bearing as a royal token "a rod of storax wood," practicing through the use of wood how to turn nature toward the better. For many people, too, reading aloud is sometimes exercise enough. And indeed as for wrestling, which we have approved, let it not be taken up for the sake of useless love of contention, but for the discharge of a manly sweat; and one need not labor at the artful, showy part of it, but at what belongs to upright wrestling — the freeing of oneself from holds on the neck, hands, and sides; for such exertion, pursued with graceful strength, is more orderly and more manly, undertaken for the sake of useful and beneficial health, whereas the other labors of the gymnastic art proclaim the practice of postures unfit for free men. But everywhere due measure must be aimed at. For just as we should regard exertions as the seasoning of food, so exerting oneself beyond measure is both very bad, and wearisome, and productive of disease. One ought therefore neither to be utterly idle nor yet altogether given over to toil. For just as we have gone through the matter concerning food, so likewise in all things and everywhere one must turn neither toward self-indulgence and an unrestrained way of life, nor again toward the opposite extreme of harshness, but toward the mean between these, the well-ordered and temperate way, pure of either vice, of luxury and of stinginess. Now as we have said before, self-service is exercise free of vanity — for one to put on his own sandals, and to wash his own two feet, and moreover to rub himself down when anointed with oil; and to render the same service in return, in turn, to the one who has rubbed him — this too is the exercise of a communal justice, as is lying down beside a sick friend, and helping one who is unable to help himself, and setting food before one in need. "And Abraham set food before the three of them," it says, "a meal beneath the tree, and stood by them as they ate." And so too fishing, as with Peter, if we should have leisure from the necessary studies concerned with reason. But better than this is that catch which the Lord granted to his disciple, teaching him to fish for men through water, just as fish are caught.
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