The Sphinx: Sculpture As a Theological Symbol in Plutarch and Clement of Alexandria

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the sphinx as a theological symbol 285 THE SPHINX: SCULPTURE AS A THEOLOGICAL SYMBOL IN PLUTARCH AND CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA John Herrmann and Annewies van den Hoek Introduction One of the peculiarities of human nature is our identification with and even affection for savage beasts—when kept at a certain physical and/or imaginative distance. In the dangerous world of antiquity, it must have been the desire to stay at the top of the food chain that led to the frequent use of pitiless predators such as the lion or the eagle as personal and civic emblems. In real life, humans have always had a strong instinct to exterminate such nuisance creatures. In modern times a more sentimental spirit has led to a fondness for dangerous animals inadvertently blessed with plump, rotund proportions, such as the bear and the hippopotamus. Perhaps because of the shared Nilotic habitat of the hippo and the Nag Hammadi manuscripts, this creature has notoriously been a favorite of our honorand. We would like to explore another ferocious monster connected both with ancient Egypt and with Greco-Roman culture: the sphinx. This creature has the disadvantage of being imaginary as well as reputedly lethal, yet she too has had a durable popularity. While not rotund and cuddly, she is often soft and feminine. When you add to that her special mysterious charm, it is small wonder that she was a great favorite in times of classicism (fig. 1).1 There is a further, more contemporary reason to propose the sphinx as a subject of meditation for our honorand; in spite of a number of recent admirable studies on the sphinx in ancient art and literature, this mysterious creature remains somewhat misun- derstood. Moreover, a theologian from Egypt, Clement of Alexandria, unexpectedly provides considerable insight into her nature. Two recent publications have brought together research on both texts 1 On the sphinxes of Wertheim Park in Amsterdam, see the website of Amsterdam’s Bureau of Monumenten en Archeologie, http://www.bmz.amsterdam.nl/adam/nl/ meubilair/wertheim.html. 286 john herrmann and annewies van den hoek Fig. 1. Sphinxes on gateway to the Wertheim Park in Amsterdam. Carrara marble replacements by Hans ’t Mannetje in 1982 for the zinc originals of 1898. Photo: authors. and artistic monuments dealing with the sphinx. The eighth volume of the Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae has an impressive entry on the sphinx in Greek, Etruscan and Roman art.2 For our purposes, the most relevant of the group of authors responsible for this entry are Nota Kourou, the leader of the team on Greek art, and Stylianos Katakis, who reports on the Roman sphinx. In the catalogue of the recent exhibition on early Greek monsters organized at Princeton University, Despoina Tsiafakis has written another comprehensive study of the sphinx.3 Drawing on a long tradition of interest in this monster, these studies reach a considerable degree of unanimity on 2 N. Kourou, M. Komvou, S. Raftopoulou, I. Krauskopf, and S. Katakis, ‘Sphinx,’ in: Lexicon iconographicum mythologiae classicae 7 (1994) 1149-74. 3 D. Tsiafakis, ‘“PELWRA”: Fabulous Creatures and/or Demons of Death?,’ in: M. Padgett (ed.), The Centaur’s Smile: The Human Animal in Early Greek Art, Princeton/ New Haven 2003, 78-83..

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