Clement of Alexandria, The Stromata, or Miscellanies

There is a great crowd of this description: some of them, enslaved to pleasures and willing to disbelieve, laugh at the truth which is worthy of all reverence, making sport of its barbarousness. Some others, exalting themselves, endeavour to discover calumnious objections to our words, furnishing captious questions, hunters out of paltry sayings, practicers of miserable artifices, wranglers, dealers in knotty points, as that Abderite says:—

“For mortals’ tongues are glib, and on them are many speeches;

And a wide range for words of all sorts in this place and that.”

And—

“Of whatever sort the word you have spoken, of the same sort you must hear.”

Inflated with this art of theirs, the wretched Sophists, babbling away in their own jargon; toiling their whole life about the division of names and the nature of the composition and conjunction of sentences, show themselves greater chatterers than turtle-doves; scratching and tickling, not in a manly way, in my opinion, the ears of those who wish to be tickled.

“A river of silly words—not a dropping;”

just as in old shoes, when all the rest is worn and is falling to pieces, and the tongue alone remains. The Athenian Solon most excellently enlarges, and writes:—

“Look to the tongue, and to the words of the glozing man,

But you look on no work that has been done;

But each one of you walks in the steps of a fox,

And in all of you is an empty mind.”

This, I think, is signified by the utterance of the Saviour, “The foxes have holes, but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.”44 Matt. viii. 20; Luke ix. 58. Prov. iii. 5, 6, 7, 12, 23. For on the believer alone, who is separated entirely from the rest, who by the Scripture are called wild beasts, rests the head of the universe, the kind and gentle Word, “who taketh the wise in their own craftiness. For the Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain;”45 Job v. 13; 1 Cor. iii. 19, 20; Ps. xciv. 11. Wisd. vii. 17, 20, 21, 22. the Scripture calling those the wise (σοφούς) who are skilled in words and arts, sophists (σοφιστάς). Whence the Greeks also applied the denominative appellation of wise and sophists (σοφοί, σοφισταί) to those who were versed in anything Cratinus accordingly, having in the Archilochii enumerated the poets, said:—

“Such a hive of sophists have ye examined.”

And similarly Iophon, the comic poet, in Flute-playing Satyrs, says:—

“For there entered

A band of sophists, all equipped.”

Of these and the like, who devote their attention to empty words, the divine Scripture most excellently says, “I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent.”46 Isa. xxix. 14; 1 Cor. i. 19. Jer. xxiii. 23, 24.

Πολὺς δὲ ὁ τοιόσδε ὄχλος· οἳ μὲν αὐτῶν, ἡδοναῖς δεδουλωμένοι, ἀπιστεῖν ἐθέλοντες, γελῶσι τὴν ἁπάσης σεμνότητος ἀξίαν ἀλήθειαν, τὸ βάρβαρον ἐν παιδιᾷ τιθέμενοι, οἳ δέ τινες σφᾶς αὐτοὺς ἐπαίροντες διαβολὰς τοῖς λόγοις ἐξευρίσκειν βιάζονται, ζητήσεις ἐριστικὰς ἐκπορίζοντες, λεξειδίων θηράτορες, ζηλωταὶ τεχνυδρίων, ἐριδαντέες καὶ ἱμαντελικτέες, ὡς ὁ Ἀβδηρίτης ἐκεῖνός φησιν· στρεπτὴ γὰρ γλῶσσα, φησί, βροτῶν· πολέες δ' ἔνι μῦθοι· παντοίων ἐπέων δὲ πολὺς νομὸς ἔνθα καὶ ἔνθα. καί· ὁπποῖόν κ' εἴπῃσθα ἔπος, τοῖόν κ' ἐπακούσαις. ταύτῃ γοῦν ἐπαιρόμενοι τῇ τέχνῃ οἱ κακοδαίμονες σοφισταὶ τῇ σφῶν αὐτῶν στωμυλλόμενοι τερθρείᾳ, ἀμφὶ τὴν διάκρισιν τῶν ὀνομάτων καὶ τὴν ποιὰν τῶν λέξεων σύνθεσίν τε καὶ περιπλοκὴν τὸν πάντα πονούμενοι βίον τρυγόνων ἀναφαίνον[ται] λαλίστεροι· κνήθοντες καὶ γαργαλίζοντες οὐκ ἀνδρικῶς, ἐμοὶ δοκεῖν, τὰς ἀκοὰς τῶν κνήσασθαι γλιχομένων, ποταμὸς ἀτεχνῶς ῥημάτων, νοῦ δὲ σταλαγμός. ἀμέλει καὶ καθάπερ τῶν παλαιῶν ὑποδημάτων τὰ μὲν ἄλλα αὐτοῖς ἀσθενεῖ καὶ διαρρεῖ, μόνη δὲ ἡ γλῶσσα ὑπολείπεται. παγκάλως ὁ Ἀθηναῖος ἀποτείνεται καὶ γράφει Σόλων· εἰς γὰρ γλῶσσαν ὁρᾶτε καὶ εἰς ἔπη αἱμύλου ἀνδρός· ὑμῶν δὲ εἷς [μὲν] ἕκαστος ἀλώπεκος ἴχνεσι βαίνει, σύμπασι[ν] δὲ ὑμῖν χαῦνος ἔνεστι νόος. τοῦτό που αἰνίσσεται ἡ σωτήριος ἐκείνη φωνή· αἱ ἀλώπεκες φωλεοὺς ἔχουσιν, ὁ δὲ υἱὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου οὐκ ἔχει ποῦ τὴν κεφαλὴν κλίνῃ· μόνῳ γάρ, οἶμαι, τῷ πιστεύοντι, διακεκριμένῳ τέλεον τῶν ἄλλων τῶν πρὸς τῆς γραφῆς θηρίων εἰρημένων, ἐπαναπαύεται τὸ κεφάλαιον τῶν ὄντων, ὁ χρηστὸς καὶ ἥμερος λόγος, ὁ δρασσόμενος τοὺς σοφοὺς ἐν τῇ πανουργίᾳ αὐτῶν· κύριος γὰρ μόνος γινώσκει τοὺς διαλογισμοὺς τῶν σοφῶν, ὅτι εἰσὶ μάταιοι, σοφοὺς δή που τοὺς σοφιστὰς τοὺς περὶ τὰς λέξεις καὶ τὰς τέχνας περιττοὺς καλούσης τῆς γραφῆς. ὅθεν οἱ Ἕλληνες καὶ αὐτοὶ τοὺς περὶ ὁτιοῦν πολυπράγμονας σοφοὺς ἅμα καὶ σοφιστὰς παρωνύμως κεκλήκασι. Κρατῖνος γοῦν ἐν τοῖς Ἀρχιλόχοις ποιητὰς καταλέξας ἔφη· οἷον σοφιστῶν σμῆνος ἀνεδιφήσατε. Ἰοφῶν τε ὁμοίως [ὡς] ὁ κωμικὸς ἐν Αὐλῳδοῖς σατύροις ἐπὶ ῥαψῳδῶν καὶ ἄλλων τινῶν λέγει· καὶ γὰρ εἰσελήλυθεν πολλῶν σοφιστῶν ὄχλος ἐξηρτυμένος. ἐπὶ τούτων καὶ τῶν παραπλησίων ὅσοι τοὺς κενοὺς μεμελετήκασι λόγους ἡ θεία γραφὴ παγκάλως λέγει· ἀπολῶ τὴν σοφίαν τῶν σοφῶν, καὶ τὴν σύνεσιν τῶν συνετῶν ἀθετήσω.