Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
But, it seems, I have unwittingly, out of a zeal for demonstration, digressed further than was needful. For my life will run out before the multitude of those who philosophize symbolically can be set forth in full. For the sake of memory, then, and of brevity, and of being stretched toward the truth, such are certain of the writings of the barbarian philosophy. For of those who have often drawn near to them and given proof both in faith and in life, all wish that the philosophy which really is, and the true theology, should belong to these alone. Yes, and they hold that we need some expounder and guide; for so, they judged, those worthy of these things would be the more zealously devoted and would be benefited, and would remain undeceived, receiving instruction from those who know well. Besides, all things that are shown forth through some covering display the truth as greater and more august. Just as fruits appearing through water, or forms through veils, lend to them certain added charms of their own. For the direct glare is open to refutation, besides the fact that things plain are understood only in a single way.
There is room, then, to take a good many implied meanings, as indeed we do take them, from things spoken with a covering of concealment. This being so, the inexperienced and unlearned man stumbles, but the Gnostic apprehends. Even in ancient times men were unwilling that all things should lie open recklessly to whoever chanced along, nor that the good things of wisdom should be made common to souls not purified even in a dream; for it is not right to hold out to all comers what has been procured through so many struggles, nor indeed to recount the mysteries of the Word to the profane. They say, at any rate, that Hipparchus the Pythagorean, being charged with having written the doctrines of Pythagoras in plain terms, was expelled from the school, and that a pillar was set up for him as for a dead man. Hence also in the barbarian philosophy they call "dead" those who have fallen away from the doctrines and have subjected the mind to the passions of the soul. For what partnership has righteousness with lawlessness, as the divine apostle says, or what fellowship has light with darkness? What agreement has Christ with Belial? Or what portion has a believer with an unbeliever? For separate are the honors of the Olympians and of the dead. Wherefore also, "go forth out from among them and set yourselves apart," says the Lord, "and lay hold of nothing impure; and I on my part will welcome you in, and I will stand as a father toward you, and you will be sons and daughters to me."
Not the Pythagoreans and Plato alone, then, concealed many things, but the Epicureans too say that certain things even of Epicurus himself are unspeakable, and that they do not permit all to have access to those writings. The Stoics likewise say that some things were written by Zeno, the first of them, which they do not readily permit their pupils to read unless these have first given proof whether they philosophize genuinely. And the followers of Aristotle say that some of his writings are esoteric, and others common and exoteric. Moreover, those who established the mysteries, being philosophers, buried their own doctrines in myths, so that they should not be plain to all; then, while some, having hidden merely human opinions, kept the unlearned from meeting with them, was it not far more fitting that the truly holy and blessed contemplation of the things that really are should be hidden more than anything else? Yet neither the writings of the barbarian philosophy, nor the Pythagorean myths, nor even those in Plato — the myth of Er the Armenian in the Republic, and that of Aeacus and Rhadamanthus in the Gorgias, and that of Tartarus in the Phaedo, and that of Prometheus and Epimetheus in the Protagoras, and besides these that of the war of the Atlantics and the Athenians in the Atlanticus — are to be allegorized simply in every one of their names, but only so much as signifies the general sense; and this we might discover, indicated through symbols under the covering of allegory.
Yes, and the fellowship of Pythagoras, and his twofold communion with his associates, calling the many "hearers" and certain others "learners" — those who genuinely laid hold of philosophy — while the one teaching was spoken openly and the other kept hidden from the many, hinted at the same thing. Perhaps too that twofold form found among the Peripatetics, called in their discourses the "reputable" and the "scientific," is not free from this same distinguishing of opinion both from good repute and from truth. "Let not the flowers of honor and repute among mortals force you to seize more than is holy to speak." The Ionian Muses, at any rate, say expressly that the many, who only seem wise, follow the songs of the people and observe their customs, knowing that the many are bad and the good are few; yet it is the noblest who chase after fame. "The noblest," it says, "take one thing in place of everything — glory that lasts forever among mortals — while the crowd stuffs itself full like cattle," measuring their happiness by the belly and the private parts and the most shameful things within us. And Parmenides of Elea, the great one, introduces a teaching of two ways, writing something like this: "both the unshaken heart of well-persuasive Truth, and the opinions of mortals, in which there is no true belief."
← All of Clement of Alexandria: Exhortation, Instructor & Miscellanies