Clement of Alexandria

Theologian for the intelligentsia

"Let us remove the ignorance and darkness that spreads like a mist over our sight, and
let us get a vision of the true God."

New Age thought is really not all that new, nor is the twentieth century the first time
Christians have been forced to respond to this strain of religious teaching. One early form
of New Age type thinking was Gnosticism, which flourished in the second and third
centuries, and one of the most effective Christian responders was Clement of Alexandria.

The "new philosophy"

He was born Titus Flavius Clemens, most likely to pagan parents in Athens. As an adult,
he sought out truth from a number of teachers in Greece, lower Italy, Syria, Palestine,
and finally Alexandria, a city of perhaps one million inhabitants. There he sat under
Pantaenus, who taught Christianity in light of the scientific teachings of the day.
 Timeline

Fire of Rome; Nero launches persecutions

64

Ignatius of Antioch martyred

110

Justin Martyr dedicates his First Apology

150

Clement of Alexandria born

150

Clement of Alexandria dies

215

Origen begins writing

215

In about 190, Clement opened his own "school," which was more like a cycle of
conferences drawn out over years. He taught a "new philosophy" that addressed the
cultural and philosophical concerns of the day. The "philosophy" was not all that new—
Christianity—but Clement's teaching of it was. He wrote three books to expound his
views.

His Exhortation to the Greeks was an introductory philosophical work for the unbaptized,
in which he attempted to show the reasonableness of the Christian faith. "Away then,
away with our forgetfulness of the truth!" he exhorted. "Let us remove the ignorance and
darkness that spreads like a mist over our sight, and let us get a vision of the true God."

In Instructor, he outlined the specific duties and ethics taught by the "Instructor" (i.e., the
Logos, or Christ): "Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the
Word [Logos, in Greek], from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains
to love of freedom, love of man, and love of excellence."

His Miscellanies is a multicolored patchwork of teachings in advanced philosophy, ethics,

and disciplined instruction for "Christian Gnostics" to lead them into esoteric knowledge
(gnosis): "The man of understanding and discernment is, then, a Gnostic. And his
business is not abstinence from what is evil ... or the doing of good out of fear ... nor any
more is he to do so from hope of promised recompense ... but only the doing of good out
of love, and for the sake of its own excellence is the Gnostic's choice."
If this sounds mystical, it is. Clement sought to reach the literati of his day, and Gnosticism was
the rage. He sought to present the Christian faith in terms these people could recognize.

The problem of wealth

Clement didn't spend all his time on pagans but also sought to help the church. One of history's
most famous sermons is Clement's. In it he tried to address a recurring problem in church history,
but one which Christians were facing for the first time in his day: in light of Jesus' parable of the
rich young ruler, what should rich Christians do with their wealth? Clement took an approach that
has been debated but usually followed ever since.

Clement puts the issue this way: "Since possessions of one kind are within the soul, and those of
another kind outside it, and these latter appear to be good if the soul uses them well, but if they are
badly used—which of the two is it that he [Jesus] asks us to renounce?"

He answers, "The Lord admits the use of outward things, bidding us put away, not the means of
living, but the things that use these badly. And these are ... the infirmities and passions of the soul."

In other words, it's our attitude toward possessions (i.e., greed), not the possessions themselves,
that are the problem.

Clement also advocated using the visual arts in worship at a time when some early Christians were
reluctant to employ painting or drawing, fearing attention to their work might constitute idolatry.
Clement concluded that Christians are not to depict pagan gods, nor sword or bow, nor wine cups,
nor reminders of sexual immorality.

Instead, "Let our emblem be a dove, or a fish, or a ship running before the wind, or a musician's
lyre, or a ship's anchor. And if there be a fisherman, he will remind us of an apostle, and little
children being drawn up out of the water."

In addition, one of the earliest Christian hymns is that appended to Clement's Instructor, "Hymn
of the Savior Christ." Its earliest rendering in English verse (in 1846) appears in many hymnals
today as "Shepherd of Tender Youth." Three stanzas translated from the original Greek bring a
vivid picture of the praise-life of the Alexandrian church:

Bridle-bit of untamed colts,

Wing of birds that do not go astray,
Sure Tiller of ships,
Shepherd of the King's lambs!
Gather your children
Who live in simplicity.
Let them sing in holiness.
Let them celebrate with sincerity,
With a mouth that knows no evil,
The Christ who guides his children!

His ministry, both in and outside the Alexandrian church, was cut abruptly short in 202, when
persecution broke out during the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus. Clement was compelled to
flee the city. He settled in Cappadocia, and by 215 had died.

But his influence did not end when his life did. He was, according to tradition, the teacher of
Origen, a theologian of immense influence in the next generation. His mystical theology may have
also influenced Psuedo-Dionysius, who was the theologian who shaped medieval mysticism. And
in the 1700s, John Wesley drew on Clement's depiction of the true Gnostic for help in describing
Christian perfection.

Date of birth unknown; died about the year 215. St. Clement was an early Greek
theologian and head of the catechetical school of Alexandria. Athens is given as the
starting-point of his journeyings, and was probably his birthplace. He became a convert
to the Faith and travelled from place to place in search of higher instruction, attaching
himself successively to different masters: to a Greek of Ionia, to another of Magna
Graecia, to a third of Coele-Syria, after all of whom he addressed himself in turn to an
Egyptian, an Assyrian, and a converted Palestinian Jew. At last he met Pantænus in
Alexandria, and in his teaching "found rest".
Clement of Alexandria

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 – 215) (Titus Flavius Clemens) was an early
Christian philosopher and one of the most distinguished teachers of the Church of Alexandria. He
is known for his attempt to unite Greek philosophy with Christian teachings and drew a large
number of educated pagans to the Church. His passion for philosophy, especially for the teachings
of Plato, contributed to the "hellenization" of Christianity.
Clement of Alexandria was, and still is, a highly unorthodox and controversial figure in Church
history.

Biography
Titus Flavius Clemens was born sometime during the middle of the second century C.E. Many
scholars have named Athens as his birthplace, and this is supported by the classical quality of his
Greek. His parents seem to have been wealthy pagans of some social standing. Clement traveled
in Greece, Italy, and Palestine before settling in Egypt. While searching for a spiritual teacher, he
came under the tutelage of Pantaenus, the head of the catechetical school at Alexandria and
eventually succeeded him as the director of the school. Clement lectured candidates for baptism in
the Gospels and Christian doctrine, inviting pagans and new converts to come listen. One of his
most well-known pupils was Origen. In 202, the Roman Emperor Septimius Severus began
persecuting Christians more severely and closed the catechetical school at Alexandria, forcing
Clement to leave for Asia Minor. He is believed to have died sometime before 215.
Contribution to Christian theology

Clement's main contribution to the development of Church doctrine was his

attempt to reconcile Christian teachings with the ancient Greek philosophers. He was a
self-proclaimed eclectic as can be seen in his tolerating and even embracing non-
Christian philosophy. It was a marked characteristic of his that he saw only superficial
and transient disagreement where others found a fundamental opposition. Clement was
able to reconcile, and even fuse, differing views to an extent which made it impossible to
attribute to him a definite individual system. He replaced the apologetic method with the
constructive or systematic method, turning the simple Church tradition into a scientific
dogmatic theology.

It was a commonly held view among Clement's contemporaries

that philosophy was the creation of the Devil. Others saw the philosophers as simply
unoriginal, and Clement himself stated that the philosophers owed a large part of their
knowledge to the writings of the Old Testament. However, he still argued, "that philosophy
in a sense is the work of Divine Providence" (Stromateis i, I). Clement saw Greek
philosophy not as something irrelevant or opposed to Christianity but as an early stage of
the progressive revelation of God's truth to human beings through the Logos. Just as the
law of Moses was a "paidagogos" to the Jewish people preparing them to receive the
Messiah, Clement believed that God also used philosophy to inform the Greeks and to
eventually guide them to the fullness of truth in Christ. The knowledge of the ancient
Greeks was far surpassed by the revelation given through the law and prophets of the
Old Testament, and that was further surpassed by the direct revelation of the incarnate
Logos in Jesus Christ.

Clement did not, however, embrace all schools of Greek philosophy; he

denounced the Sophists as well as the Hedonists of the school of Epicurus. Although he
generally expressed himself unfavorably in regard to Stoicism, he clearly paid deference
to the mixture of Stoicism and Platonism which characterized the religious and ethical
thought of the educated classes in his day. In his ethical expressions, he was influenced
strongly by Plato and the Stoics and borrowed much of their terminology. Clement praised
Plato for defining man's ultimate aim in life as likeness to God and saw Plato's description
of a transcendental and incorporeal God as accurate and aligned with Scripture. His
teachings also included the Stoicist ethics of moderation, suppression of the passions,
and the fulfillment of moral obligations, and his description of the perfect Gnostic closely
resembles the Stoicist definition of the wise man. Clement counseled his students to
shake off the chains of the flesh as far as possible, to live as if already out of the body,
and thus, to rise above earthly things. He was a true Greek in the value which he placed
on moderation, but his highest ideal of conduct was the mortification of all affections which
may in any way disturb the soul in its career. Clement embraced this lofty ethical-religious
ideal of the attainment of man's perfection in union with God, which Greek philosophy
from Plato down had worked out, and connected it to Christianity and the ecclesiastical
tradition. To him, it seemed only logical that the philosophical conclusions of the Greeks
were so similar to their Hebraic counterparts. All men, he believed, were endowed by God
with a "shared mind"—a natural intuition which seeks truth and righteousness. God also
reveals His truth to people of all ages through divine revelation.

Clement also emphasized the permanent importance of philosophy for the fullness
of Christian knowledge. He explained with special predilection the relation between
knowledge and faith, and he sharply criticized those who were unwilling to make any use
of philosophy. He spoke of the importance of higher spiritual understanding, or "gnosis,"
which he clearly distinguished from "gnosis" as defined by the Gnostics. He taught that
faith was the foundation of all knowledge and that both were given to people by Christ.
Like Plato, Clement saw the world as an organic whole that was ultimately knowable to
humans. Greater knowledge of God and the universe allows the believer to penetrate
deeply into the understanding of what he believes, and this is the perfection of faith. In
order to attain this "faith of knowledge," which is much higher than "faith of conjecture,"
philosophy is permanently necessary. In fact, Clement considered Christianity the true
philosophy and the perfect Christian the true "Gnostic." This true philosophy includes
within itself the freedom from sin and the attainment of virtue. As all sin has its root in
ignorance, so the knowledge of God and of goodness is followed by good actions. He
rejected the Gnostic concept of absolute predestination and the distinction between
"psychic" and "pneumatic" men. He believed in the freedom to do good—that all people
are destined to perfection if they will embrace it.

Clement understood this Christian gnosis as the work of the Logos, through which
God's relation to the world and his revelation is maintained. He considered God
transcendentally as an unqualified Being. Though His goodness operated in the creation
of the world, His divine essence is immutable, self-sufficient, and incapable of suffering.
The Logos is most closely one with the Father, whose powers He resumes in Himself, but
both the Son and the Spirit are "first-born powers and first created." They form the highest
stages in the scale of intelligent being, and Clement distinguishes the Son-Logos from
the Logos who is immutably immanent in God, and thus gives a foundation to the charge
of Photius that he "degraded the Son to the rank of a creature." The Logos is separate
from the world as the principle of creation, yet also in it as its guiding principle. Thus, a
natural life is a life according to the will of the Logos. Clement's description of the
Incarnation, in spite of Clement's rejection of the Gnostic Docetism, was somewhat
Docetic in nature. He said that the body of Christ was not subject to human needs. Christ
was the good Physician, and the medicine which he offered was the communication of
saving gnosis, leading men from paganism to faith and from faith to the higher state of
knowledge.

For Clement, the way to this union with God was only the Church's way. The
communication of the gnosis was bound up with holy orders, which gave the divine light
and life, and the simple faith of the baptized Christian contained all the essentials of the
highest knowledge. By the Eucharist, the believer was united with the Logos and the Spirit
and made partaker of incorruptibility. Though Clement initially presented a purely spiritual
conception of the Church, the exigencies of his controversy with the Gnostics forced him
to put more stress on the Church as an official institution.

An excerpt from the "Mar Saba letter," attributed to Clement of Alexandria, is the
only evidence for the existence of a possible "Secret Gospel of Mark."

Many later theologians and Church officials have opposed Clement's views. While
his feast day is traditionally celebrated on December 4, Pope Clement VIII had Clement
removed from the Roman martyrology due his unorthodox writings