Clement of Alexandria: STROMATA (MISCELLANIES), Part III, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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And the people accompanied him, saying, "Bedu, [3039] Zaps, Chthon, Plectron, Sphinx, Cnaxzbi, Chthyptes, Phlegmos, Drops." Callimachus relates the story in iambics. Cnaxzbi is, by derivation, the plague, from its gnawing (knaiein) and destroying (diaphtheirein), and thupsai is to consume with a thunderbolt. Thespis the tragic poet says that something else was signified by these, writing thus: "Lo, I offer to thee a libation of white Cnaxzbi, having pressed it from the yellow nurses. Lo, to thee, O two-horned Pan, mixing Chthyptes cheese with red honey, I place it on thy sacred altars. Lo, to thee I pour as a libation the sparkling gleam of Bromius." He signifies, as I think, the soul's first milk-like nutriment of the four-and-twenty elements, after which solidified milk comes as food. And last, he teaches of the blood of the vine of the Word, the sparkling wine, the perfecting gladness of instruction. And Drops is the operating Word, which, beginning with elementary training, and advancing to the growth of the man, inflames and illumines man up to the measure of maturity.

The third is said to be a writing copy for children--marptes, sphinx, klops, zunchthedon. And it signifies, in my opinion, that by the arrangement of the elements and of the world, we must advance to the knowledge of what is more perfect, since eternal salvation is attained by force and toil; for marpsai is to grasp. And the harmony of the world is meant by the Sphinx; and zunchthedon means difficulty; and klopss means at once the secret knowledge of the Lord and day. Well! does not Epigenes, in his book on the Poetry of Orpheus, in exhibiting the peculiarities found in Orpheus, [3040] say that by "the curved rods" (keraisi) is meant "ploughs;" and by the warp (stemosi), the furrows; and the woof (mitos) is a figurative expression for the seed; and that the tears of Zeus signify a shower; and that the "parts" (moirai) are, again, the phases of the moon, the thirtieth day, and the fifteenth, and the new moon, and that Orpheus accordingly calls them "white-robed," as being parts of the light? Again, that the Spring is called "flowery," from its nature; and Night "still," on account of rest; and the Moon "Gorgonian," on account of the face in it; and that the time in which it is necessary to sow is called Aphrodite by the "Theologian." [3041]

[3039] Bedu, Zaps, Chthon, Plektron, Sphinx, Knaxzbi, Chthuptes, Phlegmos, Drops. On the interpretation of which, much learning and ingenuity have been expended.

[3040] [See valuable references and note on the Sibylline and Orphic sayings. Leighton, Works, vol. vi. pp. 131, 178.]

[3041] Orpheus.

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