Clement of Alexandria · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Now they are convicted not only of stealing their doctrines from the barbarians, but also of going further still and imitating, by way of Greek mythologizing marvels, the things wrought marvelously among us from of old by divine power, through those who have lived in holiness, for our conversion. And indeed we shall ask them whether the things they narrate are true or false. False they would not say (for they would not, of their own accord, condemn themselves to the greatest folly, that of composing falsehoods); true, then, of necessity they would confess them to be. How then do the things marvelously displayed through Moses and the other prophets still appear incredible to them? For God, the almighty, caring as he does for every man, brings some round to salvation through commandments, others through threats, some through portentous signs, and some through gentle promises. Yet, for all that, consider the Greeks. Once when a drought was for a long time wasting Greece and a failure of the fruits prevailed, the survivors, they say, came as suppliants to Delphi on account of the famine and asked the Pythia how they might be delivered from the calamity. She gave them one remedy for the disaster: that they should make use of the prayer of Aeacus. Persuaded by them, Aeacus went up onto the Hellenic mountain, stretched out his pure hands to heaven, called God the common father, and prayed him to have pity on Greece, worn out as she was. And as he prayed, an extraordinary thunder crashed out and the whole surrounding air grew clouded, and violent, unceasing rains, breaking loose, filled the whole land; from this an abundant and rich fruitfulness was brought to completion, cultivated by the prayers of Aeacus.
"And Samuel called upon the Lord," it says, "and the Lord sent thunderclaps and a downpour at harvesttime." Do you not see that it is one God who sends rain on the just and the unjust alike through his subordinate powers? Our whole Scripture, indeed, teems with instances of God listening to and granting, in answer to the petitions of the just, each thing they ask.
Again, the Greeks narrate that once when the Etesian winds failed, Aristaeus sacrificed on Ceos to Zeus Icmaeus; for there was great destruction, everything being burned up by the heat, and in particular the winds that usually refreshed the crops had ceased to stir; and without difficulty he summoned them back again.
The Delphians, when Xerxes was marching against Greece, on the Pythia's pronouncement, "O Delphians, entreat the winds, and it will be better," made an altar and sacrifice to the winds and had them as helpers; for the winds blew mightily about the headland of Sepias and shattered the whole equipment of the Persian fleet.
Empedocles of Acragas was surnamed Wind-Stayer. It is said that once, when a wind blew from the mountain of Acragas that was heavy and pestilential to the inhabitants, and was also the cause of barrenness to their women, he stopped the wind; wherefore he himself writes in his verses: "You shall stay the force of the unwearied winds, which rushing over the earth waste the fields for mortals"; and again, "and when you wish, you will bring back winds in requital." He said that those who attended upon him were, some, men who needed prophecies, others men long transfixed by grievous diseases. Indeed, our own Scriptures have led men to believe that the righteous outright perform healings and signs and wonders; for if there truly are powers that set the winds in motion and apportion the rains, let such people listen to the psalmist: "How beloved are your tabernacles, O Lord of powers." This is the Lord of the powers and of the principalities and of the authorities, of whom Moses speaks, that we may be united with him: "And you shall circumcise the hardness of your heart, and you shall no longer harden your neck; for the Lord your God is himself the ruler over every lord and the deity above every god, that great and powerful God," and the words that come after this. And Isaiah says, "Lift up your eyes on high and see: who has revealed all these things?"
Some, then, say that plagues and hailstorms and hurricanes and the like happen to occur not from material disorder alone, but also according to a certain wrath of demons or even of angels who are not good. At once they say that the magi at Cleonae, who watch the clouds aloft that are about to hurl hail, avert by songs and sacrifices the threat of their wrath. And indeed, if ever a lack of a living creature should overtake them, drawing blood from their own finger they are content with that as the offering. And Diotima of Mantinea, by having the Athenians sacrifice before the plague, procured a ten-year postponement of the disease, just as also the sacrifices of Epimenides the Cretan deferred the Persian war for the Athenians themselves for an equal span of time. And they consider it makes no difference whether we call these souls gods or angels. Accordingly those experienced in such matters, in their foundations in many of the temples and in almost all of them, established the tombs of the departed within, calling the souls of these demons, and teaching that they should be worshipped by men, on the ground that, having received authority through the purity of their life, they range about by divine providence over the earthly region for the service of men; for they understood that certain souls are held fast by nature to the body.
But concerning these matters we shall discourse in due course, as the treatise proceeds, in the discussion about angels.
Democritus, from his observation of the things aloft, foretold many things and was named Wisdom. When Damasus his brother had received him kindly, inferring from certain stars, he foretold that there would be much rain. Those, then, who believed him gathered in their crops (for it was summer, and they were still on the threshing floors), while the others lost everything when an unexpected and heavy downpour of rain broke loose.
How then shall the Greeks still disbelieve the divine manifestation about Mount Sinai, when fire was blazing, consuming none of the things growing on the mountain, and a sound of trumpets was borne along, breathed forth without instruments? For that so-called descent onto the mountain of God is a manifestation of the divine power extending through the whole cosmos and proclaiming the light that is unapproachable. For such is the allegory according to Scripture. Yet the fire was seen, as Aristobulus says, by the whole multitude, no fewer than a hundred myriads, apart from the children, assembled in a circle around the mountain, the circuit around the mountain being no less than five days' journey.
In every place of viewing, then, to all of them, standing round about as if drawn up in array, the fire was seen blazing on every side, so that the descent did not take place locally; for God is everywhere.
Those who have compiled histories say also that around the island of Britain there is a certain cave lying beneath a mountain, and at its summit a chasm; when the wind, then, falls into the cave and breaks against the recesses of the excavation, a sound is heard as of cymbals struck in rhythm. And often too, when the leaves are stirred throughout the woods by a sudden onset of wind, a sound falls upon the ear resembling the song of birds. But those who have compiled Persian history relate that in the upland districts within the territory of the Magi, three mountains stand together in a single line across a long plain; and that travelers passing through, upon reaching the first mountain, catch a jumbled noise of voices, as though countless throngs were crying out in the manner of an army arrayed for battle; then, drawing near the middle mountain, they now make out an even louder and clearer clamor; and finally, at the last, they hear men singing songs of triumph as if victorious. The cause, I suppose, of every such echo is the smoothness of the places and their cavernous nature; for the breath that has entered, being cast back and returning into the same place, resounds more violently.
And so much for this matter. But for God the almighty, even when nothing underlies it, it is possible to generate a voice and an impression upon hearing, displaying his own majesty beyond the customary natural sequence, for the conversion of the soul that does not yet believe and its acceptance of the commandment given. And given that a cloud was present together with a towering mountain, why should it be impossible for a distinctive sound to be produced, once the air is set in motion by the operative cause? Wherefore the prophet also says: "You heard a voice of words, and you saw no likeness." You see how the voice of the Lord is a word without shape; for the power of the Word, the shining utterance of the Lord, the truth that has come down from heaven above to the assembly of the church, was working through a shining and immediate ministration.
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