{"collection":"chr","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/browse/chr/ecf/002/0020243.htm","path":"chr/ecf/002/0020243.htm","source_url":"https://sacred-texts.com/chr/ecf/002/0020243.htm","text":"Let poetry also approach to us (for philosophy alone will not suffice): poetry which is wholly occupied with falsehood\u2014which scarcely will make confession of the truth, but will rather own to God its deviations into fable. Let whoever of those poets chooses advance first. Aratus considers that the power of God pervades all things:\u2014\n \u201cThat all may be secure,\nHim ever they propitiate first and last,\nHail, Father I great marvel, great gain to man.\u201d\nThus also the Ascr\u00e6an Hesiod dimly speaks of God:\u2014\n \u201cFor He is the King of all, and monarch\nOf the immortals; and there is none that may vie\nwith Him in power.\u201d\nAlso on the stage they reveal the truth:\u2014\n \u201cLook on the ether and heaven, and regard that as God,\u201d\nsays Euripides. And Sophocles, the son of Sophilus, says:\u2014\n \u201cOne, in truth, one is God,\nWho made both heaven and the far-stretching earth,\nAnd ocean\u2019s blue wave, and the mighty winds;\nBut many of us mortals, deceived in heart,\nHave set up for ourselves, as a consolation in our afflictions,\nImages of the gods of stone, or wood, or brass,\nOr gold, or ivory;\nAnd, appointing to those sacrifices and vain festal assemblages,\nAre accustomed thus to practice religion.\u201d\nIn this venturous manner has he on the stage brought truth before the spectators. But the Thracian Orpheus, the son of \u0152agrus, hierophant and poet at once, after his exposition of the orgies, and his theology of idols, introduces a palinode of truth with true solemnity, though tardily singing the strain:\u2014\n \u201cI shall utter to whom it is lawful; but let the doors be closed,\nNevertheless, against all the profane. But do thou hear,\nO Mus\u00e6us, offspring of the light-bringing moon,\nFor I will declare what is true. And let not these things\nWhich once appeared in your breast rob you of dear life;\nBut looking to the divine word, apply yourself to it,\nKeeping right the seat of intellect and feeling; and walk well\nIn the straight path, and to the immortal King of the universe alone\nDirect your gaze.\u201d\nThen proceeding, he clearly adds:\u2014\n \u201cHe is one, self-proceeding; and from Him alone all things proceed,\nAnd in them He Himself exerts his activity: no mortal\nBeholds Him, but He beholds all.\u201d\nThus far Orpheus at last understood that he had been in error:\u2014\n \u201cBut linger no longer, O man, endued with varied wisdom;\nBut turn and retrace your steps, and propitiate God.\u201d\nFor if, at the most, the Greeks, having received certain scintillations of the divine word, have given forth some utterances of truth, they bear indeed witness that the force of truth is not hidden, and at the same time expose their own weakness in not having arrived at the end. For I think it has now become evident to all, that those who do or speak aught without the word of truth are like people compelled to walk without feet. Let the strictures on your gods, which the poets, impelled by the force of truth, introduce in their comedies, shame you into salvation. Menander, for instance, the comic poet, in his drama of the Charioteer, says:\u2014\n \u201cNo God pleases me that goes about\nWith an old woman, and enters houses\nCarrying a trencher.\u201d\nFor such are the begging priests of Cybele. Hence Antisthenes replies appropriately to their request for alms:\u2014\n \u201cI do not maintain the mother of the gods,\nFor the gods maintain her.\u201d\nAgain, the same writer of comedy, expressing his dissatisfaction with the common usages, tries to expose the impious arrogance of the prevailing error in the drama of the Priestess, sagely declaring:\u2014\n \u201cIf a man drags the Deity\nWhither he will by the sound of cymbals,\nHe that does this is greater than the Deity;\nBut these are the instruments of audacity and means of living\nInvented by men.\u201d\nAnd not only Menander, but Homer also, and Euripides, and other poets in great numbers, expose your gods, and are wont to rate them, and that soundly too. For instance, they call Aphrodite dog-fly, and Heph\u00e6stus a cripple. Helen says to Aphrodite:\u2014\n \u201cThy godship abdicate!\nRenounce Olympus!\u201d 926\nAnd of Dionysus, Homer writes without reserve:\u2014\n \u201cHe, mid their frantic orgies, in the groves\nOf lovely Nyssa, put to shameful rout\nThe youthful Bacchus\u2019 nurses; they in fear,\nDropped each her thyrsus, scattered by the hand\nOf fierce Lycurgus, with an ox-goad armed.\u201d 927\nWorthy truly of the Socratic school is Euripides, who fixes his eye on truth, and despises the spectators of his plays. On one occasion, Apollo,\n \u201cWho inhabits the sanctuary that is in the middle of the earth,\nDispensing most certain oracles to mortals,\u201d\n \u201cIt was in obedience to him that I killed her who brought me forth;\nHim do you regard as stained with guilt\u2014put him to death;\nIt was he that sinned, not I, uninstructed as I was\nIn right and justice.\u201d 928\nHe introduces Heracles, at one time mad, at another drunk and gluttonous. How should he not so represent the god who, when entertained as a guest, ate green figs to flesh, uttering discordant howls, that even his barbarian host remarked it? In his drama of Ion, too, he barefacedly brings the gods on the stage:\u2014\n \u201cHow, then, is it right for you, who have given laws to mortals,\nTo be yourselves guilty of wrong?\nAnd if\u2014what will never take place, yet I will state the supposition\u2014\nYou will give satisfaction to men for your adulteries,\nYou, Poseidon, and you, Zeus, the ruler of heaven,\u2014\nYou will, in order to make recompense for your misdeeds,\nHave to empty your temples.\u201d 929","title":"Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol II: CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: Chapter VII.\u2014The Poets Also Bear Testimony to the Truth.","type":"page"}