Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But it was not only the most rational of the Egyptians, but also all the other barbarians who reached for philosophy, who cultivated the symbolic form.
They say, for instance, that Idanthyrsus the king of the Scythians, as Pherecydes of Syria records, when Darius crossed the Ister threatening war, sent as a symbol in place of a letter a mouse, a frog, a bird, an arrow, and a plow. And since, as was natural, there was perplexity over these things, Orontopatas the commander-of-a-thousand said they would hand over their rule, reckoning from the mouse their dwellings, from the frog their waters, the air from the bird, from the arrow their weapons, and from the plow their land. But Xiphodres interpreted it the opposite way; for he said, "unless we fly up like birds, or go under the earth like mice, or dive under the water like the frogs, their arrows are certain to find us, since we hold no command over the land."
They say also that Anacharsis the Scythian, when sleeping, would keep his left hand upon his private parts, pressing his right over his mouth, hinting that though one must master both, it is greater to master the tongue than pleasure.
But why should I linger over the barbarians, when it is possible to bring forward the Greeks themselves, who made very great use of concealment?
Andocides the Pythagorean, then, says that the so-called Ephesian letters, much talked-of among many, hold the rank of symbols, and that Askion signifies darkness, since darkness has no shadow; while Kataskion signifies light, since it casts light upon the shadow. Lix is the earth by an ancient designation, and Tetrax is the year, on account of the seasons, and Damnameneus is the sun that subdues, and the Aisia are the true voice. The symbol thus signifies how the things divine are ordered — as darkness in relation to light, and the sun in relation to the year, and the earth in relation to every kind of coming-to-be of nature.
But Dionysius the Thracian, the grammarian, in his work On Emphasis, speaking of the symbol of the wheels, says in these words: "They used to signify their actions, then, not only by speech but also, some of them, by symbols — by speech, as with the so-called Delphic precepts, 'nothing in excess' and 'know yourself,' along with other such maxims; and through symbols, as with the wheel that is turned in the precincts of the gods, a practice drawn from the Egyptians, and the giving of branches to those who do reverence. For Orpheus the Thracian says: 'of the branches, whatever works are of concern to mortals upon the earth, none has one single fixed lot in their minds, but all things are wheeled round about, and it is not lawful to stand fast in any one part, but each has, as they began, an equal share of the course.'" The branches are either a symbol of the first nourishment, or else so that the many might understand that while the fruits flourish and grow throughout, remaining so for the longest time, they themselves have been allotted but a short span of life; for this reason, they wish the branches to be given, and perhaps also so that they might understand that, just as these branches in turn are burned up, so too must they themselves quickly depart this life and become fuel for fire.
Most useful, then, is the form of symbolic interpretation, contributing to many things — to correct theology, to piety, to a display of understanding, to the practice of concision, and to a demonstration of wisdom; for it belongs to the wise man, says Didymus the grammarian, to use symbolic expression skillfully, and to recognize what is signified through it.
Indeed, the elementary instruction given to children encompasses the interpretation of the four elements. For it says the Phrygians call water "bedu," as Orpheus too says: "and bedu, the bright water of the nymphs, streams down." And Dion the sacrificer likewise appears to write: "and taking bedu, pour it down over your hands and turn to the reading of the sacred signs." But conversely the comic poet Philyllius knows bedu as the air, which gives life, through these words: "I pray to draw in bedu unharmed, which is the greatest part of health — to draw in the air pure, not fouled."
In agreement with this opinion is also Neanthes of Cyzicus, who writes that the priests of the Macedonians, in their prayers, call upon bedu to be gracious to them and to their children, which they interpret as air. As for "zaps" meaning fire, some have taken it ignorantly from "zesis" (boiling); but the sea is called this, as Euphorion says in his replies to Theodoridas: "and the zaps, destroyer of ships, works evil against the rocks." And Dionysius the Iambist likewise: "the salty zaps hems in the raging sea round about." Likewise Cratinus the younger, the comic poet: "the zaps brings forth shrimp and little fish." And Simmias of Rhodes: "the salty zaps was the mother of the Ignetes and the Telchines." And "chthon" is the earth, poured out to its vastness. As for "plektron," some take it as the pole of the heavens, others as the air that strikes all things and sets them in motion toward nature and growth, or as that which fills all things.
Yet those who say this have never opened Cleanthes the philosopher, who openly names the sun "plektron" (the striker); for as it rises, training its beams upon the world as though striking it, the sun sets light moving along its ordered path, and starting from itself it signifies the remaining stars as well. As for "sphinx," this is, according to the poet Aratus, not the binding force that holds the cosmos together and drives the wheeling of the heavens, but rather it would perhaps be the pervading spiritual tension that holds the world together; but it is better to understand it as the aether that holds and binds all things together, as also Empedocles says: "Come then, I shall tell you first of the sun as origin, from which became manifest all things now seen — earth, and the many-waved sea, and moist air the Titan, and aether binding all things round in its circle." Apollodorus of Corcyra says that these verses were uttered by Branchus the seer when he was purifying the Milesians from a plague. For sprinkling the crowd with branches of laurel, he began the hymn somewhat as follows: "Sing, children, of the Far-worker and the Far-working goddess"; and the people, as it were, chanted back in response: "bedu, zaps, chthom, plektron, sphinx; knaxzbich, thyptes, phlegmo, drops." Callimachus too mentions the story in his Iambics. "Knaxzbich," by derivation, means the disease, from "knaiein" (to gnaw) and "diaphtheirein" (to destroy); and "thypsai" means to burn with a thunderbolt. Thespis, however, the tragic poet, says that something else is signified through these words, writing somewhat as follows: "See, I pour out to you knaxzbich, the white, pressed from the udders of the tawny goats; see, I offer you thypten, cheese mixed with red honey; upon your holy altars, two-horned Pan, I set this down; see, I pour out to you the flashing phlegmon of Bromius." He hints, I think, at the first, milk-like nourishment of the soul that comes from the twenty-four elements, after which comes the food that is already curdled milk, and last, the vine's blood belonging to the Word — the flashing wine — teaching the joy that completes the course of instruction. And "drops" is the active word, the word that from the first catechesis leads a man on to growth, to the measure of full stature, kindling and illuminating the man.
But a third children's primer is also current: "marpte, sphinx, klops, zbychthedon"; it signifies, I think, through the ordering of the elements and of the world, that our path must lead toward the knowledge of more perfect things, eternal salvation being won through force and toil. For "marpsai" means to seize, and "sphinx" points to the harmony of the world, "zbychthedon" signifies its harshness, and "klops" (thief) points to the hidden knowledge of the Lord and, at the same time, to the day.
What then? Does not Epigenes too, in his work On the Poetry of Orpheus, setting forth the peculiar terms found in Orpheus, say that by "curved-colored shuttles" plows are signified, and by "warp-threads" the furrows; that the "weft-thread" stands allegorically for seed, and that what Zeus weeps are said to mean the rain; and that the Fates, in turn, are the phases of the moon — the thirtieth, the fifteenth, and the new moon — for which reason Orpheus calls them "white-robed," being parts of light. Again, the word for spring is called "anthion" on account of its nature, night is called "argis" on account of rest, the moon is called "Gorgonion" because of the face that appears in it, and the season in which one must sow is called "Aphrodite" — so this is said, by the theologian.
Such things too the Pythagoreans hinted at in riddles, allegorizing the planets as the "hounds of Persephone," and the sea as "the tear of Cronos." And countless upon countless other things we might find said in riddling fashion by both philosophers and poets, since even whole books display the author's meaning under concealment, as does Heraclitus's work On Nature, who for this very reason was surnamed "the Obscure." Similar to this book is also the theology of Pherecydes of Syria. For the poet Euphorion, Callimachus's Aitia, Lycophron's Alexandra, and compositions of like character, are set forth as an exercise for grammarians' pupils in interpretation.
It is not unreasonable, then, that the barbarian philosophy too, of which we have set out to speak, should prophesy in a hidden manner and through symbols in certain places, as has been shown. Such, at any rate, are the things Moses too enjoins — these familiar precepts: "You shall not eat swine, nor eagle, nor sharp-taloned bird, nor raven." For the swine signifies a pleasure-loving and unclean appetite for food, gluttonous for sexual indulgence, and a defiled licentiousness, ever itching, material, lying in filth, fattened for slaughter and destruction. On the other hand, he permits the eating of what divides the hoof and chews the cud, signifying, says Barnabas, that one ought to cling to those who fear the Lord and to those who ponder in their heart the distinction of the word they have received, with those who speak the ordinances of the Lord and keep them, with those who know that meditation is a work of gladness, and who chew over again the word of the Lord. And what does "dividing the hoof" mean? That the righteous man walks both in this world and awaits the holy age to come. Then he continues: "Notice how excellently Moses framed the law. Yet how could those others perceive or understand these things? We, having rightly understood the commandments, speak as the Lord willed. For this reason he circumcised our ears and our hearts, so that we might understand these things."
Indeed, when he says, "you shall not eat the eagle, nor the sharp-taloned bird, nor the kite, nor the raven," he means, "you shall not cling to," he says, "nor be made like these men, who have no skill in earning their own food by labor and the sweat of effort, but survive instead through pillage and disregard for law"; for the eagle signifies plunder, the sharp-taloned bird signifies injustice, and the raven signifies greed. And it is written: "With an innocent man you shall be innocent, and with the chosen you shall be chosen, and with the crooked you shall show yourself perverse." It is fitting, then, to cling to the holy, because those who cling to them shall be made holy. Hence Theognis writes: "From the noble you shall learn noble things; but if you mix with the base, you will destroy even the mind you have." And again, when in the Song it says, "for he has been gloriously glorified, horse and rider he has thrown into the sea," it means that the many-legged, beast-like, impulsive passion — desire — together with the charioteer mounted upon it, who has given the reins over to pleasures, he has thrown into the sea, casting it away into the disorders of the world.
So too Plato, in his treatise concerning the soul, states that the driver together with the unruly horse — the irrational part, which is in turn divided into two, into spiritedness and desire — fall down together. It is by this too that the myth hints that Phaethon fell from his colts through lack of self-mastery.
Indeed, in the case of Joseph too: his brothers, envying this young man who saw somewhat further ahead by his knowledge, stripped off his coat of many colors and, taking him, threw him into a pit; and the pit was empty and had no water. They, having spurned the manifold knowledge that comes to the diligent through love of learning, or making use of a bare faith according to the law only, threw into the empty, waterless pit and sold off into Egypt the man bereft of the divine word. The pit is empty of knowledge, into which, being thrown and stripped of knowledge, the sage who had gone unrecognized seemed, like his brothers, to be naked of knowledge. According to another sense, the coat of many colors might be desire, which leads down into a yawning abyss. And it is said: "if anyone opens a pit or digs one and does not cover it, and a calf or a donkey falls into it, whoever owns that pit must pay silver and give it to his neighbor, but the dead animal shall be his."
Here bring to bear on my behalf that prophecy: "the ox knew its owner, and the donkey its master's manger, but Israel did not understand me." So then, lest anyone of these, falling into the knowledge taught by you, having become a hearer of the truth, should mishear and stumble, "be secure," it says, "in your use of the word," and toward those who approach it without reason, close off the living spring that lies deep, but offer drink to those who thirst for the truth. Concealing it, then, from those who are not able to receive the depth of knowledge, cover over the pit. It is the one who owns the pit, then — the gnostic himself — who shall be fined, it says, bearing the blame for the one who was scandalized, or rather swallowed up by the greatness of the word while still small in understanding, or for having moved the laborer to contemplation and drawn him away, under pretense, from an unreflective faith. And he shall give silver, rendering account and reckoning to the all-governing will.
This, then, is the pattern of the law and the prophets that reaches as far as John; but he, though he spoke more openly, as one no longer merely prophesying but already showing present the one who from the beginning had been proclaimed symbolically, nevertheless says, "I am not worthy to loose the strap of the Lord's sandal"; for he confesses himself unfit to administer baptism to a power of such greatness, since it is fitting that those who bring about purification should free the soul from the body together with its transgressions, just as one frees the foot from its binding. Perhaps, too, he means the Savior's final working upon us, the immediate one, that which comes through his presence, concealed under the riddle of prophecy; for he who, through eyewitness sight, pointed out the one foretold, having announced the coming that had long been journeying toward manifestation and had now arrived, truly loosed the end of the oracles of the divine economy, unveiling the meaning of the symbols.
Even the practices among the Romans concerning wills have taken on a fixed order — those scales and small coins, for the sake of justice, and the plucking of fruits, and the touching of the ears; the one, so that things might be done justly, the other, for the apportioning of the valuation, and the touching of the ears so that whoever happens to be present, as though some weight were being placed upon him, might stand and listen and take the role of a mediator.
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