R. Klotz, Praefatio tomi I

At Leipzig in 1831–34 there appeared, but in Greek only, a new edition of the Works of Clement, edited by Reinhold Klotz, doctor of philosophy. What the editor achieved in this recension he himself explains in his prefaces as follows:

PREFACE TO VOLUME I.

When Karl Ernst Richter, a most distinguished man, who began to publish this Sacred Library a few years ago, and who has embraced me in friendship, had asked me that, just as he himself had edited the works of the Jews Josephus and Philo, so I should see to the editing of the writings of Clement of Alexandria; although it did not escape me how laborious and how difficult a business this would be, I nevertheless did not think that I ought to refuse and decline my work, however slight, to a friend who asked and almost demanded it: for which reason, if I have undertaken something to which my powers may seem by no means equal, that has come about more from my compliance, by which I have always thought one should serve the wishes of friends, than from any other fault of mine.

Now the terms laid down for me were not that I should institute a new recension of these writings, either by searching out new manuscripts or by gathering other critical aids from every side, but that I should commit to print the edition that was held to be the best, and, if I detected anything plainly faulty, correct and emend it: and if in this matter I have at times tried to achieve more than I had undertaken, and on almost every page have thought it necessary to depart from those who had established Clement's text before me, both the matter itself demanded that this be done, and I hope that on this account, because I have paid it of my own accord, I have won good favour with many: for such has been the lot that has befallen this writer, that after Friedrich Sylburg left him he has found no editor who either could or would bestow greater and more useful labour on him. For John Potter, who edited the writings of Clement at the beginning of the last century, although he deserved very well of them in this, that he collated the manuscripts diligently and accurately, nevertheless did not dare to emend and set right the corrupt passages in the measure that the best manuscripts required. And so it often happened that a reading which both the manuscripts supported and he himself thought deserving of approval held its place only in the annotation: the plain errors of the copyists were not removed. Sylburg, on the other hand, although besides the edition of P. Victorius he used a single manuscript, the Palatine, nevertheless emended many faults, and all his care and labour was spent on polishing each and every detail.

Since this is so, I do not expect that anyone will disagree with me on this matter, that I preferred to follow Sylburg's edition rather than Potter's, in such a way that I diligently collated the latter with the former and, if anything by more recent

critics, whether from manuscripts or by conjecture, I saw to have been more correctly established, I adopted it; in which matter what and how much is owed to each will be stated in the volume that will contain the critical annotation.

Next, in emending these books of Clement I used the Paris scholia, not yet published, which will be added to our edition.

Then, besides diligently collecting what learned men had noted here and there on passages of Clement, and turning it to my purpose wherever there was use for it, I also examined what Villoison, in his Epistolae Vinarienses, from p. 92 to 97, published from the Weimar library on certain passages of Clement. In these annotations of learned men, although some things were so set out that they won my assent and I did not hesitate to adopt the reading they proposed, yet I found many to be of such a kind that one who plays the critic with caution must either call them into doubt or reject them outright. And so the many passages which learned men have held to be most corrupt I think I have thoroughly healed, either by a change of punctuation or by some easier remedy than theirs. Although I could give very many examples of this, it will be shown at the time when we take the matter in hand.

As regards the manuscripts, the one that seems to surpass the rest is the manuscript kept in the library of New College at Oxford, which, however, besides the Exhortation to the Greeks contains only the two later books of the Paedagogus. This one above all I judged must be followed in these books. For besides generally offering the better readings and spurning the worse, it sometimes also supplies single words or several which we see omitted in the other manuscripts through the negligence of the copyists, as at Protrept., § 2, p. 3, Potter's ed., these words: "And the spectacles of delight of the actors of the dramas," which there can be no doubt came from Clement himself. Ibid., § 11, p. 11, Potter's ed., I thought these words had to be added from it: "And the gaming-houses of unmixed error." For it is the part of a good critic not only to reject what is deservedly suspect, but also, if anything has been lost through the carelessness of the copyists, to recover it as far as lies in him.

The many verses that Clement quotes I have taken pains to establish in such a way that, except for a few which I saw to be plainly corrupted, I satisfied both the metre and the poet's sense, especially as I was going to indicate in the critical annotation what the reading in the manuscripts was. Others were so joined with Clement's own discourse that they

and arranged. Thus in Paedagogus, book 2, § 109, p. 235, Potter's edition, for what prudent thing could women do I left untouched, since Clement used these words as his own, although a little later in Paedagogus, book 3, § 7, p. 254, Potter's edition, he rightly has that verse which Aristophanes made written thus:

For what prudent thing could we women do....

and likewise in Paedagogus, book 2, § 25, p. 181 ff., Potter's edition, I published these words just as they were commonly read: Whose life is nothing else than revelry, drunken headache, baths, unmixed wine, chamber-pots, idleness, drinking, wherein though I should grant that Clement had before his eyes the verse of a comic poet, yet I can neither approve the method of Markland, who in Explicat. vet. auct., p. 247, wished these words to be written thus:

Whose life is nothing else than drunken headache, Revelry, baths, unmixed wine, chamber-pots, idleness, Drinking,

nor side with Porson, who in Adversaria, p. 300 ff., wished the verses to be these:

Whose life is nothing else than drunken headache, Baths, unmixed wine, chamber-pots, idleness, drinking.

And first indeed those words whose life is nothing else than — clearly seem to be Clement's, as in Paedagogus, book 2, § 1, p. 163, Potter's edition, where these words are read: For whom life is nothing else than the belly, which have nothing in common with a verse: next, on Porson's theory, how the word κῶμος was brought in by copyists cannot be understood, unless perhaps you say that it arose from the fact that there had been written beside it the comic poet says.

Just as in these passages, therefore, I preferred to comply with the authority of the manuscripts rather than, in pursuing things uncertain and plausible, to swerve from the rule of strict criticism, so elsewhere I did not hesitate to grant so much to conjectures as to venture to receive them, setting the manuscripts aside. Which although it has been done in several places, yet I count it enough to adduce one, where I judged a certain assured conjecture of my own should be preferred to the uncertain and I know not whether absurd reading of all the manuscripts. In Paedagogus, book 3, § 49, p. 283, Potter's edition, where these words are in the manuscripts: And further, wives ought with their own hands to bring forth from the storeroom the things which we need, and it is not disgraceful for them to go to the mill; nor indeed to busy themselves about the height, that it may be pleasing to the husband, is it a reproach to a housekeeping wife and helpmeet, where when one had conjectured that it should be written about the relish, another about the web, Sylburg rightly rejected both, because he said the former was mentioned above, and the latter was spoken of afterwards, yet mistaken in this, as my opinion holds, that he thought the reading of the manuscripts could in some way be explained: with how little success to him I think it best to pass over in silence. This I say, that whoever has diligently read Homer and knows Clement's zeal for transferring these noble poems to his own use whenever occasion is given, will not doubt that these words have been rightly written by me thus: Nor indeed to busy themselves about the water, that it may be pleasing to the husband, is it a reproach to a housekeeping wife and helpmeet; for the poet finely described this office of a woman in Odyssey 10, v. 358 ff., in these words:

And the fourth bore water, and kindled a great fire beneath a great tripod; and the water grew warm. But when the water boiled in the gleaming bronze, having seated me in the bath, she washed me from the great tripod, having mixed it pleasingly to the mind, down over my head and shoulders, until she took away the soul-destroying weariness from my limbs,

where just as this verse:

Having mixed it pleasingly to the mind down over my head and shoulders,

I have punctuated more rightly than Fr. A. Wolf did, so in Iliad 15, v. 176 ff. it seems that it should be written:

He bade you cease from battle and war and go among the tribes of the gods, or into the bright sea,

instead of what the same Wolf published, παυσάμενόν σ' ἐκέλευσε. Cf. Iliad 2, v. 28 and 65.

He bade you arm the long-haired Achaeans, with all speed.

and 24, 175.

The Olympian bade you ransom noble Hector.

Now in that passage of Clement the very word θυμῆρες sufficiently proves that the verse of Homer was before the eyes of the writer. Wherefore among skilled judges there ought to be no doubt concerning my conjecture.