Profile: Clement of Alexandria

LIFE

Clement lived c. 150-c.215 AD

Probably educated at Athens

Became head of catechetical school in Alexandria around 190

Tradition holds he probably suffered martyrdom (left Alexandria under outbreak of persecution by Severus)

He was a layman. There is some speculation that he may have been ordained not long before he died, in an effort by the bishop to bring lay teachers under closer scrutiny.

WRITINGS, TEACHINGS, BELIEFS

His aim was to "rescue learning" and to set up the ideal of a "true Gnosis" (knowledge) as opposed to a false one (Bettenson p. 16)

He believed that Greek philosophy was a preparation for Christ (like law prepared the Jews) (did he view philosophy as on a par with Scriptural revelation? I would think not...but how did he nuance this discussion? -- EMP)

Wrote a trilogy of works: "The Exhortation to Conversion" (called Protrepticus); "The Tutor" (called Paedagogus); and "the Miscellanies" (called Stromateis) which was left unfinished.

The last was not just a group of loose sayings/proverbs, but a collection that mimicked the style of some pagan writers whose collections were "deliberately unsystematic" (Chadwick 95). I find it interesting that Chadwick speculates this wasn't just a strategic or popular writing style choice, but related in some way to Clement's understanding of theology "that he should seek to express it in terms which suggested a reality transcending the verbal symbol. Religious language, he felt, is akin to poetry..." (Chadwick 95)

P.H. provides a helpful summary of the framework behind Clement's trilogy. The mission of the catechetical school, as he points out, was "moral and spiritual formation" and Clement wrote his books to that end. The first work appealed to readers, trying to interest them in Christianity as "a way of life" (PH lesson 1 notes, 18); the second work was "devoted to the day-to-day conduct of their new way of life" (for those who "signed on" for the Christian journey); the third work was for advanced students. It's in this book that he tries to justify the study of philosophy for Christians.

Bettenson's phrase that Clement was trying to "rescue learning" is best understood in context of Chadwick's comment that "At Alexandria Clement found a church afraid and on the defensive against Greek philosophy and pagan literature. Gnosticism had made philosophy suspect, and pagan religion so permeated classical literature that it was not easy to disentangle a literary education from an acceptance of pagan values and polytheistic myth" (Chadwick 95-96) Thus Clement's positive approach to Greek philosophy and classical poetry helped to soothe Christian anxieties about those subjects (and this is still a tightrope many Xn educators walk today, isn't it, as the classical educational model is revived... -EMP)

It's fascinating to note how much Clement tried to bridge the divide between Christian and pagan worlds -- and he seemed able (if I'm reading Chadwick rightly) to speak the language of both worlds, making him an able apologist. He presented the content of the Sermon of the Mount (as one example) in language that Neopythagoreans could understand. He tried to assure his Christian readers that, though the language he used was unfamiliar (and not invoking the Biblical text) he was still getting at the "content" -- and that's a highly interesting conversation one could have with him right there (and one that still raises issues of contextualization for us today)

Bettenson seems to play on that theme when he mentions that Westcott sees the most interesting thing about Clement being that he was "a figure in an age of transition." (Bettenson 17) At a time when doctrine was moving from oral tradition to written definition and thought was moving from immediate circle of Xn revelation to "the whole domain of human experience" (17)

Chadwick (who I found more helpful than Bettenson in introducing Clement, though those pages weren't assigned for this lesson) talks about the influence of Valentinian Gnosticism in Alexandria, and how heresy often seemed "clever and eloquently well-defended" while orthodoxy seemed "dim and obscurantist" (p 95)
This is apparently why Clement sometimes had a hard time using the word "orthodox" without having to apologize for it, although he "knew himself to be a committed defender of the apostolic tradition" (p 97) a tradition he believed included a "true knowledge" (gnosis) not a false one. If you were a "true gnostic" (a good thing to be in his estimation/use of the term!) you weren't afraid of philosophy and would use it when it suited your purposes.

See margin asterisks on Chadwick p 97 for other important observations.

"Truth" seems to be a very big deal for Clement. In addition to using it in the description "true gnostic" as above, he seemed concerned also with "the true Christian mysteries" (most notably the sacrament of baptism...see PH's lesson 1 notes, pg. 18) over again the pagan mysteries of the mystery religions/cults. PH writes "Clement adheres to a syallbus of instruction in which...the final element is that true doctrine is found in the prophets: They alone disclose that Christ is the true and great mystery of God and that he is to be found in the church, the new chosen people, with a new commandment and a new priesthood and temple" (PH lesson 1 notes, p. 18). Christ himself then is the "true mystery."

Theologically, Clement focused on the centrality of the doctrine of Creation, seeing it as the grounds for Redemption. He believed God had planted good seeds of truth "in all his rational creatures" which is why we don't have to fear philosophy and can learn from it. "All truth and goodnes, wherever found, come from the Creator." (Chadwick 97) Or as Bettenson emphasizes, Clement believed all truth "is the gift of the one divine Logos" and the aim of the "true gnostic" was to unite all truth

His emphasis on the doctrine of creation enabled him to oppose the Gnostic disparagement of created matter. He believed Christians should delight in the goodness of the created world, using such things with gratitude (but also detachment, when necessary)

He saw the Christian life as a progression toward the likeness of God in Christ.
He called the church a "school." His belief that our progress toward Christ-likeness is never-ending, he did not believe that the process ended at death.

Bettenson's final lines in his introduction to Clement affirm again that sense that Clement was a transitional figure, or a man living and working at a time of deep transition in the church: "He affirmed, once for all, upon the threshold of a new age, that Christianity is the heir of all past time, and the interpreter of the future" (Bettenson 18)

I also find it helpful to note that Clement "served an educated elite that was increasingly interested in the distinctive Christian approach to truth, goodnes, and perfection/maturity" (PH, lesson 1, 19) (issues that philosophers addressed). Wilken's quote in PH's notes in lesson 1 (pp 19-20) is especially enlightening. This cultured elite had studied deeply from classical wells... "Before reading Genesis they had read Plato, before reading the prophets they had read Euripides, before reading the books of Samuel and Kings they had read Herodotus and Thucydides, and before reading the gospels they had read Plutarch's Lives. Intensely proud of their ancient culture, they took pleasure in the beauty of its language, the refinement of its literature, and the subtlety of its sages...Yet when they took the Bible in hand they were overwhelmed. It came upon them like a torrent leaping down the side of a mountain. Once they got beyond its plain style they sensed they had entered a new and mysterious world more alluring than anything they had known before" (Wilken, The Spirit of Early Christian Thought, pp. 51-52).

I loved that quote...it strikes me as very important, both to understand Clement and his world, and to understand the power and efficacy of the Scriptures. It's interesting how we see this repeated in other contexts (Augustine also had trouble with the "plainness" of the Scriptures, didn't he?) and yet one senses that it's not so much that these cultured learners finally managed to 'get past' the plainness as that the directness/freedom/power of the Gospel finally 'got past' them and their defenses.

I'll post a handful of quotes from Clement tomorrow, ones that jumped out at me as I read the Lesson 1 selections in Bettenson