Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
To begin with, the Pythagorean symbols are derived, in very heavily veiled fashion, from the philosophy of the barbarians.
The Samian, for instance, counsels not to keep a swallow in one's house — that is, not to receive a talkative, whispering, glib-tongued person who cannot keep quiet the things he shares in. "For the swallow and the turtledove, birds of the field, knew the seasons of their comings," the text states — teaching that idle chatter is never something with which one ought to keep company. Indeed the turtledove, murmuring, aptly gives voice to the graceless slander of complaint and is rightly banished from the house — "lest you sit muttering at me, one from one side, another from another." The swallow, by which he hints at the myth of Pandion, deserves to be shunned on account of the notorious sufferings connected with her, from which we have received that Tereus both suffered certain things and did others. And the swallow, moreover, pursues the musical cicadas, wherefore the pursuer of reasoned speech deserves to be driven off. "Yea, by Hera who wields the sceptre and looks down from Olympus, I have a trusty storehouse set upon my tongue," says the poetic art; and Aeschylus too: "But I too have a key set as guardian upon my tongue."
Again, Pythagoras used to command that when the pot is lifted from the fire, the impression left in the ashes should not be left behind but should be stirred up and confused, and that on rising from bed one should disturb the bedclothes; for he was hinting not only that vanity must be made to vanish, but that not even a trace of anger should be left behind, and that when it has boiled up and then subsides, it should be settled down and every grudge wiped away entirely. "Do not let the sun set while your anger still burns," the writing instructs; and he who said "you shall not covet" thereby removed every form of grudge-bearing; for wrath is found to be, in the last analysis, an impulse of desire in a gentle soul, an irrational craving after vengeance.
In the same manner it is also counseled that the bed be disturbed, so that one should no longer call to mind any wet dream, nor indeed sleep in the daytime, nor even the pleasure of the night. And perhaps he was also hinting that the dark phantasm must be dispelled through truth's illumination; "be angry, yet do not sin," David declares, teaching that one must not give assent to the phantasm nor bring the deed to pass so as to ratify the anger.
Again, "do not sail upon the land" is a Pythagorean symbol, and it signifies that one must decline tax-farming and similar forms of hire, since they are turbulent and unstable. For this reason, indeed, the Word says that tax collectors are saved only with difficulty.
Again, Pythagoras enjoins that one wear no ring nor engrave upon it images of the gods, just as Moses long ago expressly legislated that one must make no carved, molten, molded, or painted image or likeness whatsoever, so that we should not cling to the things perceived by the senses but should pass on to the things perceived by the mind; for familiarity, always ready at hand for the eye, cheapens the dignity of the divine, and to venerate the intelligible substance by means of matter is to dishonor it by means of sense-perception. For this reason too the wisest of the Egyptian priests set apart the seat of Athena in the open air, as the Hebrews established their temple without any image. And there are some who, worshiping God, make a representation of heaven encompassing the stars and bow down before it.
Indeed, since the scripture says, "let us make man according to our image and likeness," I think it worthwhile also to cite the words of Eurysus the Pythagorean, which run thus — he, in his treatise On Fortune, having said that the Craftsman made man using himself as a model, went on to add: "but the bodily frame is like the rest, since it has come to be out of the same matter, though wrought by the finest of craftsmen, who fashioned it using himself as archetype." And in general Pythagoras and his followers, together with Plato above all the other philosophers, held very close intercourse with the Lawgiver, as one may gather from their very doctrines. And by a certain well-aimed report of divination, running together not without divine agency with certain prophetic utterances, having apprehended the truth in parts and in kinds, they honored it with names that are not without their own light nor go outside the disclosure of the realities, having received an impression of their kinship with the truth. Whence Greek philosophy resembles the gleam from a lamp-wick, which men kindle, craftily stealing the light from the sun; but when the Word was proclaimed, all that holy light shone forth. Then, within houses at night the stolen fire is of use, but by day the fire is outshone, and the whole night is illumined by so great a sun of the intelligible light.
To begin with, Pythagoras has made an epitome of what was said by Moses concerning justice, saying, "do not overstep the balance," that is, do not transgress what is equal in distributions, honoring justice, which ever binds friends to friends, cities to cities, and allies to allies; for equality is by nature lawful among men, while the lesser is ever set at war with the greater and "begins a day of hatred," by poetic favor. For this reason the Lord says, "take up my yoke," because it is kind and not burdensome. And to his disciples who were contending over first place he enjoins equality along with simplicity, saying that they must become as little children. Likewise the apostle too writes that in Christ there is neither slave nor free, neither Greek nor Jew; for the new creation that is in Christ is free of contention, free of covetousness, and a just equality; for envy stands outside the divine chorus, and so do jealousy and grief, which the initiates too forbid, in the phrase "to eat one's own heart," teaching that one ought never, through heavy-heartedness and pain over things that happen against one's will, to gnaw and devour one's own soul. Wretched, at any rate, is that man of whom Homer says that, wandering alone, he devoured his own heart.
Again, since the gospel, and likewise the apostles, following all the prophets, lay down two ways, calling the one narrow and constricted, hemmed in by the commandments and prohibitions, and the other, its opposite, the one leading to destruction, broad and spacious, unhindered by pleasures and by passion, and saying, "blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly nor stood in the way of sinners" — and the myth of Prodicus of Ceos concerning Virtue and Vice proceeds along the same lines — Pythagoras too does not shrink from forbidding the walking of the highways, commanding that one must not follow the opinions of the many, which are uncritical and mutually inconsistent.
Aristocritus, in the first book of his Refutations addressed to Heracleodorus, records a certain letter running thus: "Atoias, ruler over the Scythian nation, addresses the citizens of Byzantium: bring no injury to my income, or else my horses will drink from your springs." For the barbarian symbolically signified the war he was about to bring upon them. Likewise the poet Euphorion brings in Nestor saying: "but not yet have we driven our Achaean horses to the Simois."
For this reason, too, the Egyptians set up sphinxes before their temples, since the account concerning God is riddling and obscure, and perhaps also because one must both love and fear the divine — love it as gracious and kindly toward the holy, but fear it as inexorably just toward the unholy. For the sphinx hints at the image of both beast and man together.
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies