The writings of Clement of Alexandria, Vol. 1 (of 2)Clement, of Alexandria, Saint
Religion
The writings of Clement of Alexandria, Vol. 1 (of 2)
Clement, of Alexandria, Saint
Theology -- Early works to 1800; Theology -- History -- Early Church, ca. 30-600
The ideas, then, which they have stolen, and which are partially
true, they know by conjecture and necessary logical deduction: on
becoming disciples, therefore, they will know them with intelligent
apprehension.
CHAPTER XXI.
THE JEWISH INSTITUTIONS AND LAWS OF FAR HIGHER
ANTIQUITY THAN THE PHILOSOPHY OF THE GREEKS.
On the plagiarizing of the dogmas of the philosophers from the Hebrews,
we shall treat a little afterwards. But first, as due order demands,
we must now speak of the epoch of Moses, by which the philosophy of
the Hebrews will be demonstrated beyond all contradiction to be the
most ancient of all wisdom. This has been discussed with accuracy by
Tatian in his book _To the Greeks_, and by Casian in the first book
of his _Exegetics_. Nevertheless our commentary demands that we too
should run over what has been said on the point. Apion, then, the
grammarian, surnamed Pleistonices, in the fourth book of _The Egyptian
Histories_, although of so hostile a disposition towards the Hebrews,
being by race an Egyptian, as to compose a work against the Jews, when
referring to Amosis king of the Egyptians, and his exploits, adduces,
as a witness, Ptolemy of Mendes. And his remarks are to the following
effect: Amosis, who lived in the time of the Argive Inachus, overthrew
Athyria, as Ptolemy of Mendes relates in his _Chronology_. Now this
Ptolemy was a priest; and setting forth the deeds of the Egyptian kings
in three entire books, he says, that the exodus of the Jews from Egypt,
under the conduct of Moses, took place while Amosis was king of Egypt.
Whence it is seen that Moses flourished in the time of Inachus. And
of the Hellenic states, the most ancient is the Argolic, I mean that
which took its rise from Inachus, as Dionysius of Halicarnassus teaches
in his _Times_. And younger by forty generations than it was Attica,
founded by Cecrops, who was an aboriginal of double race, as Tatian
expressly says; and Arcadia, founded by Pelasgus, younger too by nine
generations; and he, too, is said to have been an aboriginal. And more
recent than this last by fifty-two generations, was Pthiotis, founded
by Deucalion. And from the time of Inachus to the Trojan war twenty
generations or more are reckoned; let us say, four hundred years and
more. And if Ctesias says that the Assyrian power is many years older
than the Greek, the exodus of Moses from Egypt will appear to have
taken place in the forty-second year of the Assyrian empire,[991] in
the thirty-second year of the reign of Belochus, in the time of Amosis
the Egyptian, and of Inachus the Argive. And in Greece, in the time of
Phoroneus, who succeeded Inachus, the flood of Ogyges occurred; and
monarchy subsisted in Sicyon first in the person of Ægialeus, then of
Europs, then of Telches; in Crete, in the person of Cres. For Acusilaus
says that Phoroneus was the first man. Whence, too, the author of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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