RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Clement
Clement of Alexandria
opinions and practises of his fatherland. His ultimate fate is not known. A. Werner.
Bibliography: Rettberg, KD, i. 324-325; H. Hahn, Jahrbiicher des frtinkischen Reichs, pp. 67-82, Berlin, 1863; P Ja£f^, Biiliotheca rerum Germanicarum, iii. 133, 136- 149 Berlin, 1866; J. H. A. Ebrard, Die iroschottische Misaionskirche, Giiteraloh, 1874; A. Werner, Bonifatius, pp. 113, 273, Leipsic, 1875; Hauck, KD, i. 511.
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.
His Life (§ 1).
His Literary Work (§ 2).
His Significance for the Church (§ 3).
His Eclecticism (§ 4).
His Dependence upon Philosophy (§ 5).
His Relation to Ethics (§ 6).
And to Scripture and the Church (§ 7).
Clement of Alexandria (Titus Flavius Clemens), one of the most distinguished teachers of the Church of Alexandria, was born about the middle of the second century, and died between 211 and 216. He was certainly not born in Egypt {Strom., i. 1). The indication of Athens as his birthplace by Epiphanius is supported by the classical quality of his Greek. His parents seem to have been pagans, of the well-to-do class. The thorough- I. His Life, ness of his education is attested by his constant quotation of the Greek poets and philosophers. In quest of the best instruction, be traveled in Greece, Italy, Palestine, and finally Egypt. He became the colleague of Pantsenus, the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, and finally succeeded him in the direction of the school. During the persecution of Septimius Severus (202 or 203) he sought refuge with Alexander, then bishop [possibly of Flaviada] in Cappadocia, afterward of Jerusalem, from whom he brought a letter to Antioch in 211.
The trilogy into which Clement's principal remains are connected by their purpose and mode of treatment is composed of the Protrepticus (" Exhortation"), the Padagogus ("Instructor"), and the Stromata {" Miscellanies "). Overbeck calls it the boldest literary undertaking in the history of the Church, since in it Clement for the first time attempted to set forth Christianity for the faithful in the traditional forms of profane literature. The Protrepticus forms an introduction inviting the reader to listen, not to the mythical legends of the heathen gods, but to the " new song " of the Logos, the beginning of all things and creator of the world. He demonstrates the folly of idolatry and the pagan mysteries, the horrors of pagan sacrifice, and shows that the Greek philosophers and poets only guessed at the truth, while the prophets set forth a direct way to salvation; and now the divine Logos speaks in his own person, to awaken all that is good in the soul of man and to lead it to immortality. Having thus laid a foundation in the knowledge of divine truth, he goes on in the Pwdagogus to develop a Christian ethic. His design does not prevent him from taking a large part of his material from the Stoic Musonius, the master of Epictetus; but for Clement the real instructor is the incarnate Logos. The first book deals with the religious basis of Christian morality, the second and third with the individual cases of conduct. As with Epictetus, true virtue shows itself with him in its external ev-
idences by a natural, simple, and moderate way of living. The Stromata goes further and aims at the perfection of the Christian life by
2. His initiation into complete knowledge. Literary The first of these works is addressed
Work. to the unconverted, the second to the new Christian, and the third appeals to the mature believer. It attempts, on the basis of Scripture and tradition, to give such an account of the Christian faith as shall answer all the demands of learned men, and conduct the student into the innermost realities of his belief. Clement entitled this work Stromateis, "patchwork," because it dealt with such a variety of matters. He intended to make but one book of this; at least seven grew out of it, without his having treated all the subjects proposed. The absence of certain things definitely promised has led scholars to ask whether he wrote an eighth book, as would appear from Eusebius (VI. xiii. 1) and the Florilegia, and various attempts have been made to identify with it short or fragmentary treatises appearing among his remains. In any case the " excerpts " and " selections " which, with part of a treatise on logical method, are designated as the eighth book in the single (11th century) manuscript of the Stromata, are not parts of the Hypotyposes which Clement is known to have written. This work was a brief commentary on selected passages covering the whole Bible, as is shown in the fragments preserved by CEcumenius and in the Latin version of the commentary on the Catholic Epistles made at the instance of Cassiodorus. Besides the great trilogy, the only complete work preserved is the treatise " Who is the Rich Man that Shall Be Saved? " based on Mark x. 17-31, and laying down the principle that not the possession of riches but their misuse is to be condemned. There are extant a few fragments of the treatise on the Passover, against the Quartodeciman position of Melito, and only a single passage from the " Ecclesiastical Canon " against the Judaizers. Several other works are only known by their titles.
The significance of Clement in the history of the development of doctrine is, according to Harnack, that he knew how to replace the apologetic method by the constructive or systematic, toturn the simple church tradition into a scientific dogmatic ttleology. ItTs^a marked characteristic of his that he sees only superficial and transient disagreement where others find a fundamental opposition. He is able to reconcile, or even to fuse, differing views to an extent which makes it almost impossible to attribute to him a definite individual system. He is admittedly an eclectic {Strom., i. 37). This attitude determines especially his treatment of 3. His Sig- non-Christian philosophy. Although nificance the theory of a diabolical origin for it for the is not unknown to him, and although Church. he shows exhaustively that the philosophers owe a large part of their knowledge to the writings of the Old Testament, yet he seems to express his own personal conviction when he describes philosophy as a direct operation of the divine Logos, working through it as well as through the law and his direct revelation in the Gospel to communicate the truth to men. It is
Clement of Alexandria Clement of Rome