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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 73

It is natural, then, that having a superstitious dread of those irascible [gods], they imagine that all events are signs and causes of evils. If a mouse bore through an altar built of clay, and for want of something else gnaw through an oil flask; if a cock that is being fattened crow in the evening, they determine this to be a sign of something.

Of such a one Menander gives a comic description in The Superstitious Man:--

"A. Good luck be mine, ye honoured gods!

Tying my, right shoe's string,

I broke it."

"B. Most likely, silly fool,

For it was rotten, and you, niggard, you

Would not buy new ones." [3541]

[3541] These lines are quoted by Theodoret, and have been amended and arranged by Sylburgius and Grotius. The text has Agathon ti; Theodoret and Grotius omit ti as above.

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