THE NEW SCHAFF-HERZOG
x38
true that the knowledge of the philosophers was elementaiy, fragmentary, and incapable of imparting true righteousness; and it was far surpassed iDy the re\'elation given through the law and the prophets, as that again was still further surpassed by the direct revelation of the incarnate Logos; but this idea of relative inferiority does not prevent him from showing that his whole mental attitude is determined and dominated by the philosophical tradition. Thus he emphasizes the permanent importance of philosophy for the fulness of Christian knowledge, explains with special predilection the relation between knowledge and faith, and sharply criticizes those who are unwilling to make any use of philosophy. He pronounces definitely against the sophists and against the 4. His hedonism of the school of Epicurus. Eclecticism. Although he generally expresses himself unfavorably in regard to the Stoic philosophy, he really pays marked deference to that mixture of Stoicism and Platonism which characterized the religious and ethical thought of the educated classes in his day. This explains the value set by Clement on gnosis. To be sure, he constantly opposes the heretical gnosis. Faith is the foundation of all gnosis, and both are given by Christ. As faith involves a comprehensive knowledge of the essentials, knowledge allows the believer to penetrate deeply into the understanding of what he believes; and this is the making perfect, the completion, of faith. In order to attain this kind of faith, the " faith of knowledge," which is so much higher than the mere " faith of conjecture," or simple reception of a truth on authority, philosophy is permanently necessary. In fact, Christianity is the true philosophy, and the perfect Christian the true Gnostic — but again only the " Gnostic according to the canon of the Church " has this distinction. Also, he rejects the Gnostic distinction of "psychic "and "pneumatic" men; all are alike destined to perfection if they will embrace it.
From philosophy he takes his conception of the Logos, the principle of Christian gnosis, through whom alone God's relation to the world and his revelation is maintained. God he considers transcendentaUy as unqualified Being, who can not be defined in too abstract a way. Though 5. His De- his goodness operated in the creation pendence of the world, yet immutability, self- TJpon Phi- sufficiency, incapability of suffering losophy. are the characteristic notes of the divine essence. Though the Logos is most closely one with the Father, whose powers he resumes in himself, yet to Clement both the Son and the Spirit are " first-born powers and first created "; they form the highest stages in the scale of intelligent beings, 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." Separate from the world as the principle of creation, he is yet in it as its guiding principle. Thus a natural life is a life according to the will of the Logos. The Incarnation, in spite of Clement's rejection of the Gnostic Docetism, has with him a decidedly Docetic char-
acter. The body of Christ was not subject to human needs. He is the good Physician; the medicine which he offers is the communication of sa\1ng gnosis, leading men from heathenism to faith and from faith to the higher state of knowledge. 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 Cod and of goodness is followed by well-doing. Against the Gnostics Clement emphasizes the freedom of all to do good.
Clement lays great stress on the fulfilment of moral obligations. In his ethical expressions he is influenced strongly by Plato and the Stoics, from whom he borrows much of his terminology. He praises Plato for setting forth the 6. His greatest possible likeness to God as Relation the aim of life; and his portrait of the to Ethics, perfect Gnostic closely resembles that of the wise man as drawn by the Stoics. Hence he counsels his readers to shake off the chains of th* flesh as far as possible, to live already as if out of the body, and thus to rise above earthly things. He is a true Greek in the value which he sets on moderation; but his highest ideal of conduct remains the mortification of all affections which may in any way disturb the soul in its career. As Harnack says, the 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 to which it had subordinated all scientific worldly knowledge, is taken over by Clement, deepened in meaning, and connected not only with Christ, but with ecclesiastical tradition.
The way, however, to this union with God is for Clement only the Church's way. The communication of the gnosis is bound up with holy orders, which give the divine light and life. The simple faith of the baptized Christian contains all the essentials of the highest knowledge; by the Eucharist the believer is united with the Logos and the Spirit, and made partaker of incorruptibility. Though he lays down at starting a purely spiritual conception of the Church, later the exigencies of his controversy with the Gnostics make him lay more stress on the visible church. 7. And to As to his use of Scripture, the extra- Scripture ordinary breadth of his reading and and the manifold variety of his quotations Church, from the most diverse authors make it very difficult to determine exactly what was received as canonical by the Alexandrian Church of that period. Though he uses the Apocryphal Gospels, our four alone have supreme authority for him. For the other New Testament writings he seems not to have had as definite a line of demarcation; but whatever he recognized as of apostolic origin had for him an authority distinct from, and higher than, that of all other ecclesiastical tradition. (N. Bonwetsch.)
Bibliography: The beat text of Clement is in course of publication by O. Stahlin, to be in 3 vols., vols, i.-ii-, LeipKic. 1905-06; that by J. Potter, 2 vols., Oxford, 1715, is reproduced in MPG, viii.-ix. T. Zahn has given a Supplementum Clementinum in his Forschungen, iii. 1-176, 319- 321, Erlangen, 1884. The best Eng. transl. is in ANF,