Miscellanies 4.7.48
Summary: A tragic heroine defies torture, Antigone defies Creon; Christians obey God's proclamation, believing in the heart and confessing with the mouth; virtue, as Simonides says, is reached only by strenuous climbing.
Greek text · Stählin 2:270
ἃ δʼ ἐκπυθέσθαι τῆς ἐμῆς χρῄζεις φρενός, οὔτʼ ἂν καταίθων οὔτε κρατὸς ἐξ ἄκρου δεινοὺς καθιεὶς πρίονας εἰς ἄκρους πόδας πύθοιʼ ἂν, οὐδʼ εἰ δεσμὰ πάντα προσβάλοις, ἀφόβως ἀνδρεϊζομένη παρὰ τῇ τραγῳδίᾳ λέγει γυνή. ἥ τε Ἀντιγόνη τοῦ Κρεοντείου καταφρονοῦσα κηρύγματος θαρσοῦσά φησιν· οὐ γάρ τί μοι Ζεὺς ἦν ὁ κηρύσσων τάδε· θεὸς δὲ ἡμῖν κηρύσσει καὶ πειστέον αὐτῷ· καρδίᾳ γὰρ πιστεύεται εἰς δικαιοσύνην, στόματι δὲ ὁμολογεῖται εἰς σωτηρίαν. λέγει γοῦν ἡ γραφή· ›πᾶς ὁ πιστεύων ἐπʼ αὐτῷ οὐ καταισχυνθήσεται.‹ εἰκότως οὖν Σιμωνίδης γράφει· ἔστι τις λόγος τὰν Ἀρετὰν ναίειν δυσαμβάτοις ἐπὶ πέτραις, νυμφᾶν δέ μιν θοᾶν χορὸν ἁγνὸν ἀμφέπειν· οὐδὲ πάντων βλεφάροις θνατῶν ἔσοπτος, ᾧ μὴ δακέθυμος ἱδρὼς ἔνδοθεν μόλῃ ἵκῃ τʼ ἐς ἄκρον ἀνδρείᾳ.
English · Claude translation
“What you need to learn from my mind, you would not learn, neither by burning me nor by driving terrible saws from the top of my head to the ends of my feet, not even if you put all bonds on me,” says a woman in the tragedy, being fearlessly manly. And Antigone, despising Creon's proclamation, says boldly: “For it was not Zeus who proclaimed these things to me.” But God proclaims to us, and we must obey him. “For with the heart one believes for righteousness, and with the mouth one confesses for salvation. For the Scripture says, ‘Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.’” Fittingly, then, Simonides writes: “There is a saying that Virtue dwells on rocks hard to climb, and a holy chorus of swift nymphs attends her; she is not visible to the eyes of all mortals, but only to him in whom heart-biting sweat comes from within, and who reaches the summit by manliness.”
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are an unknown tragedy (fragment), Sophocles, Antigone 450, Rom 10:10–11, and Simonides (fragment 37 Bergk).
Notes on the original text
- Digital text corrected (misencoded elision in the digital text): εἰς ἄκρους πόδας πύθοἰ ἂν → εἰς ἄκρους πόδας πύθοιʼ ἂν.
Cite this passage
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.7.48 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/7/48/).
Plain text
Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 4.7.48 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/clement-stromata/4/7/48/).
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