Protrepticus 4 on Sword Worship

This Good Works Translation gathers Clement of Alexandria's compact notice that the Scythians worshipped the akinakes, the short sword or sabre associated with Iranian and Scythian war culture.

The passage belongs to Clement's larger Christian argument against the worship of material images. Its Scythian value is narrow but important: Clement names the Scythian sword directly, without needing the Herodotean interpretive frame of Ares.

The English below is a Good Works Translation from the Greek text in Perseus.

Translation

And if, beyond these things, I were to bring the images themselves and set them before you for inspection, you would find, as you went through them, how truly foolish the custom is in which you have been raised: turning yourselves toward the lifeless works of human hands.

In ancient times, then, the Scythians worshipped the akinakes; the Arabs, the stone; the Persians, the river. And those among the other peoples who were still older set up conspicuous pieces of wood and raised pillars from stones. These were called xoana because the material had been carved away.

Translation Notes

Akinakes is retained rather than flattened into sabre or short sword, because Clement's word is the technical Greek term used for the Iranian and Scythian weapon.

The sentence is polemical Christian ethnography, not a neutral antiquarian report. It is still useful for the Scythian shelf because it preserves an independent late antique witness to the sword as a cult object.

Colophon

This Good Works Translation was made from the Greek text of Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 4, as presented by Perseus from G. W. Butterworth's 1919 edition.

The English translation is independently derived from the Greek. No modern English translation was used as the base text.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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Source Text: πάλαι μὲν οὖν οἱ Σκύθαι τὸν ἀκινάκην

Greek source text from Clement of Alexandria, Protrepticus 4, Perseus Greek text after G. W. Butterworth's 1919 edition. Presented here for reference, study, and verification alongside the English translation above.

Εἰ δ̓ ἔτι πρὸς τούτοις φέρων ὑμῖν τὰ ἀγάλματα αὐτὰ ἐπισκοπεῖν παραθείην, ἐπιόντες ὡς ἀληθῶς λῆρον εὑρήσετε τὴν συνήθειαν, “ἔργα χειρῶν ἀνθρώπων” ἀναίσθητα προστρεπόμενοι.

πάλαι μὲν οὖν οἱ Σκύθαι τὸν ἀκινάκην, οἱ Ἄραβες τὸν λίθον, οἱ Πέρσαι τὸν ποταμὸν προσεκύνουν, καὶ τῶν ἄλλων ἀνθρώπων οἱ ἔτι παλαιότεροι ξύλα ἱδρύοντο περιφανῆ καὶ κίονας ἵστων ἐκ λίθων: ἃ δὴ καὶ ξόανα προσηγορεύετο διὰ τὸ ἀπεξέσθαι τῆς ὕλης.

Source Colophon

The Greek source was checked in Perseus: https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:2008.01.0633:chapter=4. The page claims only an independent source-language rendering from the named witness.

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