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

Translated by Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson.

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Page 79

Chapter VI.--Prayers and Praise from a Pure Mind, Ceaselessly Offered, Far Better Than Sacrifices.

As, then, God is not circumscribed by place, neither is ever represented by the form of a living creature; so neither has He similar passions, nor has He wants like the creatures, so as to desire sacrifice, from hunger, by way of food. Those creatures which are affected by passion are all mortal. And it is useless to bring food to one who is not nourished.

And that comic poet Pherecrates, in The Fugitives, facetiously represents the gods themselves as finding fault with men on the score of their sacred rites:--

"When to the gods you sacrifice,

Selecting what our portion is,

'Tis shame to tell, do ye not take,

And both the thighs, clean to the groins,

The loins quite bare, the backbone, too,

Clean scrape as with a file,

Them swallow, and the remnant give

To us as if to dogs? And then,

As if of one another 'shamed,

With heaps of salted barley hide." [3549]

[3549] Translated as arranged by Grotius.

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