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Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.
Clement of Alexandria in Print
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This Part: 134 Pages
Page 104
"Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, and concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry: for which things' sake cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience," [1703] cries the apostle.
But we enkindle the passions, and are not ashamed.
Some of these women eating mastich, [1704] going about, show their teeth to those that come near. And others, as if they had not fingers, give themselves airs, scratching their heads with pins; and these made either of tortoise or ivory, or some other dead creature they procure at much pains. And others, as if they had certain efflorescences, in order to appear comely in the eyes of spectators, stain their faces by adorning them with gay-coloured unguents. Such a one is called by Solomon "a foolish and bold woman," who "knows not shame. She sits at the door of her house, conspicuously in a seat, calling to all that pass by the way, who go right on their ways;" by her style and whole life manifestly saying, "Who among you is very silly? let him turn to me." And those devoid of wisdom she exhorts, saying, "Touch sweetly secret bread, and sweet stolen water;" meaning by this, clandestine love (from this point the Boeotian Pindar, coming to our help, says, "The clandestine pursuit of love is something sweet"). But the miserable man "knoweth not that the sons of earth perish beside her, and that she tends to the level of hell." But says the Instructor: "Hie away, and tarry not in the place; nor fix thine eye on her: for thus shalt thou pass over a strange water, and cross to Acheron." [1705] Wherefore thus saith the Lord by Isaiah, "Because the daughters of Sion walk with lofty neck, and with winkings of the eyes, and sweeping their garments as they walk, and playing with their feet; the Lord shall humble the daughters of Sion, and will uncover their form" [1706] --their deformed form. I, deem it wrong that servant girls, who follow women of high rank, should either speak or act unbecomingly to them. But I think it right that they should be corrected by their mistresses. With very sharp censure, accordingly, the comic poet Philemon says: "You may follow at the back of a pretty servant girl, seen behind a gentlewoman; and any one from the Plataeicum may follow close, and ogle her." For the wantonness of the servant recoils on the mistress; allowing those who attempt to take lesser liberties not to be afraid to advance to greater; since the mistress, by allowing improprieties, shows that she does not disapprove of them. And not to be angry at those who act wantonly, is a clear proof of a disposition inclining to the like. "For like mistress like wench," [1707] as they say in the proverb.
[1703] Col. iii. 5, 6.
[1704] [A similar practice, very gross and unbecoming, prevails among the lower class of girls brought together in our common schools.]
[1705] Prov. ix. 13-18.
[1706] to aschemon schema (Isa. iii. 16, 17), Sept.
[1707] a kuon, catella. The literal English rendering is coarser and more opprobrious than the original, which Helen applies to herself (Iliad, vi. 344, 356).
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