Clement of Alexandria: INSTRUCTOR (PAEDAGOGUS) - Part II, Complete

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 44

For is not the golden necklace a collar, and do not the necklets which they call catheters [1559] occupy the place of chains? and indeed among the Attics they are called by this very name. The ungraceful things round the feet of women, Philemon in the Synephebus called ankle-fetters:--

"Conspicuous garments, and a kind of a golden fetter."

What else, then, is this coveted adorning of yourselves, O ladies, but the exhibiting of yourselves fettered? For if the material does away with the reproach, the endurance [of your fetters] is a thing indifferent. To me, then, those who voluntarily put themselves into bonds seem to glory in rich calamities.

Perchance also it is such chains that the poetic fable says were thrown around Aphrodite when committing adultery, referring to ornaments as nothing but the badge of adultery. For Homer called those, too, golden chains. But new women are not ashamed to wear the most manifest badges of the evil one. For as the serpent deceived Eve, so also has ornament of gold maddened other women to vicious practices, using as a bait the form of the serpent, and by fashioning lampreys and serpents for decoration. Accordingly the comic poet Nicostratus says, "Chains, collars, rings, bracelets, serpents, anklets, earrings." [1560]

[1559] [The necklace called kathema or kathema seems to be referred to. Ezek. xvi. 11, and Isa. iii. 19, Sept.]

[1560] Ellobion by conjecture, as more suitable to the connection than Elleboron or Eleboron. Hellebore of the ms., though Hellebore may be intended as a comic ending.

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