Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Before undertaking the subject set before us, I must first, in the manner of a preface, supply what is still owed at the close of the fifth Stromateus.
For since we have shown that the symbolic form of expression is ancient, and that it was not only used among our own prophets but employed by the great majority of Greeks in antiquity, as well as quite a number of other non-Greek nations besides, it was also necessary to go through the mysteries of those who are initiated. These matters I set aside for now, to make clear whenever, taking up what the Greeks have said about first principles, we come to refute them; for I shall show that the mysteries too hold to this same doctrine. But having shown that the character of Greek thought is illumined by the truth given to us through the scriptures — in which sense we understand that the theft of the truth extends to them, and have demonstrated this, if it is not too harsh a thing to say — come, let us bring forward the Greeks themselves as witnesses against themselves of this theft. For those who so openly steal from one another what belongs to each confirm thereby that they are thieves, yet even against their will they show that they are secretly passing on our truth to their own countrymen. For men who will not even spare their own kin will hardly hold back from ours.
And I shall pass over in silence the doctrines of philosophy, since those very men who divide up the schools among themselves confess in writing — lest they be convicted of ingratitude — that they received the most authoritative of their doctrines from Socrates. Making use of the testimony of a few men well known and esteemed among the Greeks, and having exposed their thievish character without regard to strict chronology, I shall turn to what follows.
Orpheus, then, having composed: "nothing else was more shameless and more chilling than a woman," Homer says outright: "nothing else was more dreadful and more shameless than a woman."
And Musaeus having written: "as skill is ever far better than strength," Homer says: "by cunning does the woodcutter prevail rather than by force."
Again, Musaeus having composed: "just as the grain-giving earth likewise puts forth leaves — some wither away upon the ash trees, others grow; so too does it turn about the generation and tribe of men," Homer transcribes it: "leaves — some the wind scatters upon the ground, but others the thriving wood puts forth, and the season of spring comes on; so is it with the generation of men: one grows, another comes to an end."
Again, Homer having said: "it is not righteous to boast over men who have been slain," Archilochus and Cratinus write likewise — the one: "it is no noble thing to mock the dead, over men who have been slain," and Cratinus in the Laconians: "this too is fearful for men, to boast greatly over slain warriors."
Again Archilochus, carrying over that Homeric line: "I was blinded with folly, nor do I myself deny it; instead of many," writes something like this: "I erred, and doubtless this same ruin has overtaken some other man too" — just as, to be sure, that other verse: "common to all is Enyalios, and he who slays is in turn slain," he reworks and puts forth something like this: "†I shall act; for truly Ares is common to men." Further, paraphrasing that saying: "the issue of victory for men lies in the †trial of the gods," he makes it plain through this iambic line: "and he encouraged the young men, saying that the issues of victory lie with the gods."
Again, Homer having said: "unwashed of feet, sleepers on the ground," Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: "they sleep upon an unstrewn floor, and wet not their feet at any spring."
And Archilochus having likewise said: "but one man's heart is warmed by one thing, another's by another," drawing on the Homeric: "for one man delights in one work, another in another," Euripides in the Oeneus says: "but different men take more pleasure in different ways."
I have also heard Aeschylus saying: "the man who fares well ought to stay at home — and the man who fares ill ought to stay there too," and Euripides crying out similar things on the stage: "blessed is he who, faring well, stays at home," and moreover Menander putting it comically something like this: "one ought to stay at home and remain a free man, or else no longer count as one who fares well."
Again, Theognis having said: "there is no friend and faithful companion for a man in exile," Euripides has made: "every friend nearby flees the poor man who is in flight."
And Epicharmus having said: "O daughter, alas for your fortune — you live with a young man though you yourself are older," and adding: "for he takes another, a young girl, while she in turn seeks out some other man elsewhere," Euripides writes: "it is a bad thing to yoke a young woman to a young man; for he longs to take another's bed, while she, being deprived of this, plots evil."
Further, Euripides having said in the Medea: "the gifts of a bad man bring no benefit," Sophocles in the Ajax the Whip-bearer speaks that iambic line: "the gifts of enemies are no gifts, and bring no benefit."
And Solon having composed: "for surfeit begets insolence, whenever great prosperity follows," Theognis writes outright: "surfeit indeed begets insolence, whenever prosperity follows a base man." Whence also Thucydides in his Histories says that most men, when good fortune arrives all at once and unforeseen, tend before long to slide into arrogance. Philistus copies this very idea, putting it something like this: on the whole, prosperity gained gradually and proportionately holds firmer than that which arrives past all expectation... and the same holds for misfortune; those who succeed beyond their hopes, out of nowhere, are the very ones most liable to be carried into arrogance.
Again, Euripides having composed: "children of a father and mother who labor at a hard way of life turn out better," Critias writes: "I begin, then, from the very begetting of a man: how might he become best and strongest in body? If the one who begets him exercises and eats vigorously and toils in body, and the mother of the child that is to be also keeps her body strong and exercises."
Again, Homer having said of the shield forged by Hephaestus: "on it he wrought the earth, and the sky, and the sea; and he set upon it the great might of the river Ocean," Pherecydes of Syros says: "Zas makes a robe great and beautiful, and on it he embroiders the earth and Ogenos and the halls of Ogenos."
And Homer having said: "reverence, which greatly harms men and also benefits them," Euripides writes in the Erechtheus: "as for reverence, I myself am hard put to judge; for it is needed, and yet it is also a great evil."
You might also take, set side by side, passages on this same theft from those who flourished together and contended against one another: from Euripides' Orestes — "O sweet charm of sleep, helper against sickness," and from Sophocles' Eriphyle — "go away, you disturb sleep, the healer of sickness"; and from Euripides' Antigone — "bastardy is blameworthy only in name, its nature is equal," and from Sophocles' Aleadae — "all that is good has an equal nature"; again from Euripides' Temenus — "for even a god joins in helping the man who toils," and from Sophocles' Minos — "fortune is no ally to those who do not act"; and further from Euripides' Alexander — "time will show you; by this token, learning it, I shall know whether you are good or bad," and from Sophocles' Hipponous — "therefore hide nothing, since time, which sees all and hears all, unfolds all things."
But let us likewise run over these as well. For Eumelus having composed: "nine daughters of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus," Solon begins his elegy thus: "the splendid children of Mnemosyne and Olympian Zeus."
Again, Euripides paraphrasing that Homeric line: "who are you, and whence, among men? where is your city, and your parents?" employs these iambic lines in the Aegeus: "what land shall we say you have left, to be a guest in this city? what is the boundary of your fatherland? who is he who begot you? whose son are you proclaimed to be?"
What then? Did not Theognis say: "wine, drunk in quantity, is bad; but if a man uses it with understanding, it is not bad but good," while Panyassis writes: "as wine is the best gift of the gods to mortals, when drunk in due measure, but worse when taken beyond measure."
But also Hesiod having said: "instead of fire I shall give you an evil in which all may take delight," Euripides makes: "instead of fire, women have sprung up, another fire, greater and harder to fight."
Besides these, Homer having said: "the belly can in no way be sated, the accursed thing, which gives men many evils," Euripides makes: "necessity, the wretched, ruinous belly, overpowers me, from which all evils come."
Further, Callias the comic writer having written: "they say that one must go mad together with the mad, all alike," Menander in the Men Sold matches this, saying: "prudence does not fit everywhere it is present; in some things one must join in the madness too."
And Antimachus of Teos, once he had said: "gifts bring men many troubles," Agias made: "gifts deceive the mind of men, and their deeds too."
And Hesiod having said: "a man carries off nothing better than a good wife; but again nothing more chilling than a bad one," Simonides said: "a man carries off no possession better than a good wife, nor anything more chilling than a bad one."
Again, Epicharmus having said: "think as one who will live a long time, and also as one who will live but a little," Euripides writes: "why then, standing upon wealth that is not secure, do we not live as pleasantly as possible, free from grief?"
Likewise the comic poet Diphilus, having said: "mortal existence shifts about with ease," Poseidippus: "no man has passed through life without grief, being human, nor has anyone remained to the end without meeting misfortune." And Plato speaks to the same effect, writing of man as "a creature easily changed."
Again, Euripides having said: "O life, full of toil for mortals, how precariously you rest upon everything — some things you increase, others you bring to ruin, and no limit is set for mortals as to when they must be brought to their end, except when the chill end of death sent from Zeus arrives," Diphilus writes: "there is no life that has not acquired its evils — griefs, cares, robberies, torments, diseases. Of these, death, appearing like a physician, gives rest to those who bear them, laying them to rest in sleep."
Further, Euripides having said: "many are the forms of the divine powers, and the gods bring many things to pass beyond hope," the tragedian Theodectes likewise writes: "that the fortunes of mortals are not secure."
And Bacchylides having said: "to few mortals has a divine power granted, faring well the whole time, to reach hoary-templed old age before meeting misfortune," Moschion the comic writer writes: "that man is of all the most blessed who throughout his life has kept to an even course."
You would also find that where Theognis said: "a young wife is of no use to an old husband; for she does not obey the rudder as a boat does," Aristophanes the comic writer writes: "an old husband is a shameful thing for a young wife."
For Anacreon having composed: "I sing of tender Eros, teeming with many-flowered garlands; he is master even of the gods, he tames mortals too," Euripides writes: "for Eros assails not men alone, nor women only, but stirs the souls of the gods above, and goes even over the sea."
But so that my argument may not go on further, as we make it our aim to display how prone the Greeks are to theft both in their words and in their doctrines, come, let us set forth Hippias the sophist of Elis testifying directly on our behalf, since he arrives at this very conclusion on the question before me, speaking something like this: "Of these things, part were perhaps uttered by Orpheus, part by Musaeus, in brief here and there separately; part belong to Hesiod, part to Homer, part to the rest of the poets; and part turn up in prose works, whether among Greek authors or among non-Greek ones. But I, having put together from all these the things that are most important and akin to one another, shall compose this new and manifold discourse."
And so that we may not overlook philosophy and history, but also rhetoric, as liable to this same charge, it is reasonable to set out a few instances of these too.
For Alcmaeon of Croton having said that it is easier to guard against an enemy than a friend, Sophocles made in the Antigone: "for what wound could be greater than a false friend?" and Xenophon has said: "one could not harm one's enemies in any way so much as one who is thought to be a friend."
And indeed, Euripides having said in the Telephus: "shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to barbarians?" Thrasymachus in his speech on behalf of the Larissaeans says: "shall we, being Greeks, be slaves to Archelaus, a barbarian?"
And Orpheus having composed: "there is water for the soul, and death is an exchange for the waters; and from water comes earth, and from earth again comes water; from which the soul, exchanging the whole of aether...," Heraclitus, building his sayings out of these, writes something like this: "for souls it is death to become water, and for water it is death to become earth; but from earth water comes to be, and from water, soul."
And indeed, Athamas the Pythagorean having said thus: "the beginning of all things is unbegotten, and four roots exist: fire, water, air, and earth; for out of these arise the sources of everything that comes into being," Empedocles of Acragas, from Acragas, made: "first hear the four roots of all things: fire and water and earth and the boundless height of aether; for from these come all things that were, and that will be, and that now are."
And Plato having said that for this reason the gods too, being knowledgeable about human affairs, remove more quickly from life those whom they hold in greatest regard, Menander made: "whom the gods love dies young."
And Euripides having written in the Oenomaus: "we judge things unseen by things present," and in the Phoenix: "things unseen are reasonably grasped by tokens," Hyperides says: "as for things that are unseen, those who would teach must of necessity seek them out by tokens and likelihoods." And Isocrates in turn having said that one must judge things to come by things that have already happened, Andocides does not hesitate to say: "one must use as tokens for what is going to be, the things that happened before."
Further, Theognis having composed: "the deceit of counterfeit gold and silver is bearable, Cyrnus, and easy for a wise man to discover; but if the mind of a friend lying hidden in his breast is false, and he holds a deceitful heart in his mind, this god has made the most counterfeit thing for mortals, and the most grievous of all things to recognize," Euripides writes: "O Zeus, why did you give to men clear tokens of counterfeit gold, yet no mark is set into the body by which one may discern which of men is base?" Hyperides too himself says: "no mark of a man's thought is set upon his face for men to see."
Again, Stasinus having composed: "foolish is he who, killing the father, spares the children," Xenophon says: "I now seem to myself to have done just as if a man, having killed the father, should spare his children."
And Sophocles having composed in the Antigone: "when mother and father have gone to Hades, there is no brother who could ever be born again," Herodotus says: "with mother and father no longer living, I shall not have another brother."
Besides these, Theopompus having composed: "old men are, by right reckoning, twice children," and before him Sophocles in the Peleus: "I, Peleus son of Aeacus, keeping house alone, lead the old man about and re-educate him again like a child; for the aging man becomes a child once more," Antiphon the orator says: "the nurture of old age resembles the nurture of children," and so too the philosopher Plato: "so it seems, then, that the old man would become twice a child."
Indeed, when Thucydides says that they alone bore the brunt of danger at Marathon, Demosthenes says: "By those who bore the brunt of danger at Marathon."
Nor will I pass over this: when Cratinus in the Wine-Flask says, "The preparation, perhaps you know," the orator Andocides says: "This preparation, men who sit in judgment, together with the keenness of my foes, nearly every one of you will have learned." Likewise Nicias too, in his speech against Lysias concerning a deposit: "You behold the preparation, judges of this court," he says, "together with the keenness of those opposing me." And after him Aeschines says: "You behold the preparation, citizens of Athens, together with the drawn-up ranks."
Again, when Demosthenes says, "How great, men of Athens, has been the zeal and the summoning of support concerning this trial, I think almost all of you have perceived," Philinus likewise says: "How great, judges of this court, the eagerness and the mustering of forces has been in this cause, I suppose there is no one among you who has failed to notice."
Again, when Isocrates has said "as of money" — though not being his kinsman by blood — Lysias in the speech On Behalf of the Orphans says: "and he was shown to be a kinsman not of the persons, but of the money."
Since also, when Homer composed: "My friend, if indeed, by escaping this war, we were destined ever to be ageless and immortal, neither would I myself fight among the foremost, nor would I send you into the battle that brings men glory; but now — since in any case ten thousand fates of death stand over us, which no mortal can escape or avoid — let us go, whether we shall give glory to another, or another to us," Theopompus writes: "For if it were possible, by escaping the present danger, to pass the remaining time without fear, it would be no wonder to love one's life; but as it is, so many fates of death cling to our life from birth that death in battle seems the more preferable choice."
What then? Did not Chilon the sage utter the saying, "Give a pledge, and ruin is at hand," and Epicharmus bring forward the same thought under a different phrasing, saying: "Pledging is the daughter of ruin, and to pledge is to invite penalty"?
But also, when the physician Hippocrates writes that one must have regard to season and region and age and diseases, Euripides, in a certain speech in hexameter, says: "He who knows how to heal well must, with regard to the manner of life of the inhabitants of a city, look also to the land, and consider the diseases accordingly."
Again, when Homer composed, "I say that no man among men has escaped his fate," Archinus says the same: "To all men it is owed that they die, whether sooner or later," and Demosthenes too: "For to all men the end of life is death, even if one shuts himself up under guard in a little chamber."
And again, when Herodotus, in his account concerning Glaucus the Spartan, says that the Pythia declared that to make trial of the god and to do the deed are one and the same, Aristophanes said: "For to think is equal to doing," and before him, Parmenides of Elea: "For to think and to be are the same."
Or again, when Plato has said — and we too might perhaps say this, not inappropriately, that sight begins love, expectation lessens the ardor, remembrance feeds it, and constant company keeps it alive — Philemon the comic poet writes: "All first see, then they marvel, then they gaze upon closely, then they fall into hope; thus out of these things love comes to be."
But also, when Demosthenes has said, "For death is owed by all of us," and what follows, Phanocles in Loves, or the Beautiful, writes: "But the thread of the Fates is unbreakable, nor is it ever possible to escape it, for as many of us as feed upon the earth."
You would also find that, when Plato has said that the first shoot of every plant, if well set in motion toward excellence, is most capable, by its own nature, of bringing itself to a fitting end, Ephorus the historian writes: "But of wild plants too, none is naturally capable of being tamed once it has passed beyond its younger age."
And that saying of Empedocles: "For I myself was once already a boy and a girl, and a bush and a bird, and a mute fish in the sea," Euripides in the Chrysippus recasts: "Nothing of what comes into being dies, but being separated one part from another it displays a different form."
And when Plato in the Republic has said that women should be held in common, Euripides in the Protesilaus writes: "For the marriage-bed of women ought to be held in common."
But when Euripides writes, "Since what suffices is enough for those who are prudent," Epicurus says outright: "Self-sufficiency is the richest of all things."
Again, when Aristophanes writes, "You will have a secure life if you are just, and you will live well, free of tumult and fear," Epicurus says: "The greatest fruit of righteousness is freedom from disturbance."
Let these examples of the forms of Greek theft in matters of thought, then, suffice as a clear demonstration for one able to discern them. But by now it is not only in thoughts and expressions, stolen and paraphrased, that they have been caught out, as has been shown; rather, they will also be convicted of having whole stolen pieces outright entire. For, taking the works of others complete in themselves, they have put them forward as their own — just as Eugammon of Cyrene took from Musaeus the whole book concerning the Thesprotians; and Peisander of Camirus took the Heracleia from Peisinus of Lindus; and Panyassis of Halicarnassus took the Capture of Oechalia from Creophylus of Samos.
You would also find that Homer, the great poet, transferred word for word from Orpheus, out of the account of the Vanishing of Dionysus, those very lines: "As a man tends a flourishing shoot of an olive tree," and what follows.
And in the Theogony, Orpheus has composed of Cronus: "There he lay, his massive neck tilted sideways, and sleep, subduer of all, took hold of him" — and this Homer transferred to the Cyclops.
Hesiod too, concerning Melampus, composes: "Sweet it is also to learn how many things the immortals have ordained for mortals, a clear sign of the base and of the noble" — and what follows he has taken word for word from Musaeus the poet.
Aristophanes the comic poet, in the first Thesmophoriazusae, transferred lines from the Cratinus's Men Set on Fire. Plato the comic poet and Aristophanes, in the Daedalus, steal from one another. As for the Cocalus composed by Araros, the son of Aristophanes, Philemon the comic poet altered it and made comedy of it under the title The Supposititious Child. Hesiod's works Eumelus and Acusilaus, the historians, transposed into prose and put forward as their own. For Gorgias of Leontini and Eudemus of Naxos, the historians, stole from Melesagoras; and after them Bion of Proconnesus, who also rewrote in summary the works of the ancient Cadmus; likewise Amphilochus, Aristocles, Leandrius, Anaximenes, Hellanicus, Hecataeus, along with Androtion and Philochorus too; and Dieuchidas of Megara transposed the beginning of his account from the Deucalionia of Hellanicus.
I say nothing further of Heraclitus of Ephesus, who drew most of his teaching from Orpheus. And Plato took from Pythagoras the doctrine that the soul is immortal, and Pythagoras took it in turn from the Egyptians. Many of the followers of Plato have composed treatises in which they demonstrate that the Stoics — as we said at the beginning — and Aristotle too, took most and the most authoritative of their doctrines from Plato. But Epicurus also filched his principal doctrines from Democritus.
So much, then, for this matter; for my life would fail me were I to choose to go through each instance in turn, exposing the self-loving theft of the Greeks, and how they appropriate to themselves the discovery of the finest doctrines among them, which they have received from us.
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