Clement of Alexandria: EXHORTATION TO THE HEATHEN Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Chapter II.--The Absurdity and Impiety of the Heathen Mysteries and Fables About the Birth and Death of Their Gods.

Explore not then too curiously the shrines of impiety, or the mouths of caverns full of monstrosity, or the Thesprotian caldron, or the Cirrhaean tripod, or the Dodonian copper. The Gerandryon, [877] once regarded sacred in the midst of desert sands, and the oracle there gone to decay with the oak itself, consigned to the region of antiquated fables. The fountain of Castalia is silent, and the other fountain of Colophon; and, in like manner, all the rest of the springs of divination are dead, and stripped of their vainglory, although at a late date, are shown with their fabulous legends to have run dry. Recount to us also the useless [878] oracles of that other kind of divination, or rather madness, the Clarian, the Pythian, the Didymaean, that of Amphiaraus, of Apollo, of Amphilochus; and if you will, couple [879] with them the expounders of prodigies, the augurs, and the interpreters of dreams. And bring and place beside the Pythian those that divine by flour, and those that divine by barley, and the ventriloquists still held in honour by many. Let the secret shrines of the Egyptians and the necromancies of the Etruscans be consigned to darkness. Insane devices truly are they all of unbelieving men. Goats, too, have been confederates in this art of soothsaying, trained to divination; and crows taught by men to give oracular responses to men.

[877] What this is, is not known; but it is likely that the word is a corruption of ieran drun, the sacred oak.

[878] achresta chresteia.

[879] The text has anierou, the imperative of anieroo, which in classical Greek means "to hallow;" but the verb here must be derived from the adjective anieros, and be taken in the sense "deprive of their holiness," "no longer count holy." Eusebius reads anierous: "unholy interpreters."

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