Clement of Alexandria lived and taught in the most lively intellectual centre of his day. This book offers a comprehensive account of how he joined the ideas of the New Testament to those of Plato and other classical thinkers. Clement taught that God was active from the beginning to the end of human history and that a Christian life should move on from simple faith to knowledge and love. He argued that a sequence of three elliptical relations (...) governed the universe: Father and Son, God and humanity, humans and their neighbours. Faith as a fixed conviction which is also a growing mustard seed was joined to Plato's unwavering search for the best reason. The open heaven of prophecy became intelligible through Plato's ascending dialectic. This book will be invaluable in making this outstanding thinker of the early Church accessible to the students of today. (shrink)

A very slight reading of Clement of Alexandria is enough to prove how deeply he is indebted to Plato both in respect of language and of thought. Quotations from Plato are to be found throughout Clement's works, and in many cases acknowledgment is made of their origin. In addition there are frequent allusions, which for the most part the student of Plato can easily recognize. Clement invariably shows a profound respect for the Greek philosopher, whom he (...) looks upon as a seeker after truth and as an authority, we may almost say, second only to the Scriptures. A careful comparison of the Protrepticus with the Phaedrus, results of which are given below, will furnish a striking illustration of the close dependence of Clement upon Plato. The Protrepticus is a short work, occupying in space not more than one–twelfth of Clement's extant writings, while the Phaedrus is even smaller in proportion to the whole of Plato. It is remarkable that so much inter-connexion should be found in so small a field, especially when we remember that the references to the Phaedrus represent by no means the whole of Clement's drawing upon Plato in the Protrepticus. There are allusions also to the Theaetetus, Republic, Charmides, Laws and Epistles, and possibly to the Politicus, Cratylus, Philebus, Symposium and Apology. (shrink)

In this paper I will reconsider the doxographical text about Aristotle in Clement of Alexandria's Protrepticus 5.66.4: οδν δ ομαι χαλεπν νταθα γενμενος κα τν κ το Περιπτου μνησθναι· κα γε τς αρσεως πατρ, τν λων ο νοσας τν πατρα, τν καλομενον ‘πατον’ ψυχν εναι το πντος οεται· τουτστι το κσμου τν ψυχν θεν πολαμβνων ατς ατ περιπερεται. γρ τοι μχρι τς σελνης ατς διορζων τν πρνοιαν, πειτα τν κσμον θεν γομενος περιτρπεται, τν μοιρον θεο θεν δογματζων.

In this paper I will reconsider the doxographical text about Aristotle in Clement of Alexandria'sProtrepticus5.66.4:οὐδ⋯ν δ⋯ οἶμαι χαλεπ⋯ν ⋯ντα⋯θα γεν⋯μενος κα⋯ τ⋯ν ⋯κ το⋯ Περιπ⋯του μνησθ⋯ναι· κα⋯ ⋯ γε τ⋯ς αἱρ⋯σεως πατ⋯ρ, τ⋯ν ὅλων οὐ νο⋯σας τ⋯ν πατ⋯ρα, τ⋯ν καλο⋯μενον ‘ὕπατον’ ψυχ⋯ν εἶναι το⋯ π⋯ντος οἴεται· τουτ⋯στι το⋯ κ⋯σμου τ⋯ν ψυχ⋯ν θε⋯ν ὑπολαμβ⋯νων αὐτ⋯ς αὑτῷ περιπε⋯ρεται. ⋯ γ⋯ρ τοι μ⋯χρι τ⋯ς σελ⋯νης αὐτ⋯ς διορ⋯ζων τ⋯ν πρ⋯νοιαν, ἔπειτα τ⋯ν κ⋯σμον θε⋯ν ⋯γο⋯μενος περιτρ⋯πεται, τ⋯ν ἄμοιρον θεο⋯ θε⋯ν δογματ⋯ζων.

The aim of this article is to revisit Clement of Alexandria’s Paedagogus 2.5.45-8 discussing whether Clement holds a moderate position οf laughter or, like most early Christians, tends to an “antigelastic” position. Some scholars, such as Stephen Halliwell and Laura Rizzerio, have concluded that Clement holds an intermediate position between an optimistic approach to laughter and its condemnation. However, in this essay we argue that while Clement’s position is not a straightforward antigelastic one, his apparent (...) acceptance of laughter is so narrow that his moderate view ends up being compromised. Ultimately, he is strongly inclined to condemn laughter and to prescribe an ascetic life devoid of laughter. (shrink)

The so-called eighth _Stromateus_ is a series of excerpts on inquiry, demonstration, scepticism, and causal theory, made or adopted by Clement of Alexandria. This book provides a translation and commentary of the text and a study of its origin and purpose.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Clement of AlexandriaL. Michael HarringtonEric Osborn. Clement of Alexandria. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005. Pp. xviii + 324. Cloth, $85.00.With Clement of Alexandria, Eric Osborn returns to the subject of his 1957 book, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria, but its style and themes more closely resemble his more recent studies of second-century Christian thinkers: Tertullian, First Theologian of the (...) West (Cambridge, 1997) and Irenaeus of Lyons (Cambridge, 2001). Osborn's Clement, Tertullian, and Irenaeus are bound together by more than the century in which they happened to live. They share an optimism—a confidence that the world is finally comprehensible—and an argumentative theology, developed in response to the Gnostics, who, Osborn says in his book on Irenaeus, "were strong on picture and myth but weak on argument" (xiii).Osborn's approach to Clement is, as he describes it, analytic or problematic, meaning that "we simply ask what problems forced Clement to write and where he found Christian teaching in need of elucidation" (xii-xiii). Three problems concern Clement: (1) "how can the narrative of the kerygma (what God does) be translated into a metaphysic (who God is)?"; (2) "how two distinct beings, father and son, constitute one God"; and (3) "an answer had to be found for those who divided faith and knowledge." Each problem is addressed by means of a theme—divine economy for the first, reciprocity for the second, and salvation by faith for the third—and each of the book's three major parts devotes itself to one of these themes.Having laid out this systematic division, Osborn generally follows the logic of Clement's own thought rather than an imposed structure, developing his argument by careful collation and paraphrase. As a result, by the end of the book, the reader will feel thoroughly and effortlessly initiated in Clement's major works: the Protrepticus, the Paedagogus, and the Stromateis. The book thus serves as a thorough introduction to Clement, without aiming so low that it is of no interest to the scholar.Osborn's central argument unfolds from his observation that "Clement, more than any other early Christian writer, knew and enjoyed Greek philosophy and literature" (2). Clement defends the rationality shared between Christians and Greeks against the irrationalists of his time: the theosophers, or Gnostics (215). Osborn, in turn, defends Clement against the irrationalists of our own time, represented in his book by Wolfhart Pannenberg. The "divine irrational freedom" praised by Pannenberg is replaced in Osborn's Irenaeus and Clement by "universal wisdom" (47). The universality of wisdom allows great and dispassionate natures to reach the truth—whether they are Christians or Greeks—though each is like one limb of the truth, severed from the rest. Convinced that Christ will reunite these disiecta membra, "Clement converses with them and joins their broken lights" (104).In footnotes and parenthetical references throughout the book, Osborn argues against the approaches to Clement in doxography and Discourse Power theory, precisely because they are unable to treat him as a philosopher (79). The doxographer can show Clement's dependence on earlier philosophers, but is unable to see how he differs from them (xii). The Discourse Power theorist can see that Clement's system differs from the Gnostic system, but is able to explain the difference only as a competition between two social structures, without seeing that only one of them aspires to logical coherence (215).This dismissal of doxography and Discourse Power theory may strike the reader as too thoroughgoing, especially if we distinguish, as Osborn himself does in his book on Tertullian, philosophy as "a matter of system and speculation" from philosophy as "a matter of argument" (198). Clement's optimism depends on his confidence in system and speculation, in so far as they can be defended by argument. But if argument can defend two different systems equally well, then we may wonder why Clement chooses the system he does. Here the doxographer, who can show the provenance of his thought, becomes essential, as does the Discourse Power theorist, who can set Clement's choice of system in the context of the contemporary social fabric that inevitably affects even the... (shrink)

Resumen El presente estudio investiga la opción cristiana por la virginidad en el pensamiento de Clemente de Alejandría. En nuestro autor no se encuentra una doctrina organizada sobre la virginidad cristiana, sin embargo, resulta sorprendente que si se estudian estos comentarios aislados de forma conjunta, se puede descubrir de forma clara y certera el pensamiento del maestro de Alejandría sobre la virginidad dentro del cristianismo. En este estudio, las citas textuales de las obras de Clemente de Alejandría servirán de referencia (...) y nos guiarán en el desarrollo de su visión sobre la virginidad cristiana.The present study investigates the Christian option for virginity in the thought of Clement of Alexandria. In our author there is no organized doctrine about Christian virginity, however, it is surprising that if these isolated comments are studied together, we can discover clearly and accurately the thought of the master of Alexandria about virginity within Christianity. In this study, the textual citations of the works of Clement of Alexandria will serve as reference and will guide us in the development of his vision of Christian virginity. (shrink)

In seeking to understand the development of philosophy in later antiquity it is important to take account of Clement of Alexandria, perhaps the first Christian writer to be greatly influenced by the systems of Greece. Accordingly in this article certain aspects of Clement's doctrine will be selected for examination where his obligations to the philosophers have apparently hitherto received insufficient attention. In a valuable paper Mr. R. P. Casey has dealt with many important points, but there is (...) room for further exploration, both by the philological method and by a careful comparison of corresponding ideas in Clement and Plotinus. I am here concerned to stress resemblances rather than to prove, for instance, that any direct connection exists between Neoplatonism and Alexandrian theology. It is nevertheless not irrevelant to mention that Ammonius Saccas, the professor whose lectures both Origen the Christian and Plotinus were to attend, and who, besides being a Platonist, if not the founder of Neoplatonism, was also an apostate Christian, had probably begun to attract attention in Alexandria at the time when Clement was head of the Christian School there, in which perhaps Ammonius himself had been originally educated. There seems nothing to prevent the assumption that Ammonius and Clement were known at least by name to each other, and perhaps the philosopher under whom Plotinus was to study for eleven years had even sat by the side of Clement at the feet of Pantaenus, the erstwhile Stoic and founder of the Catechetical School. However that may be, both Neoplatonism and Alexandrian theology show a markedly similar tendency, and in the Enneads and the Stromateis there are many equivalent features. (shrink)

In his masterly book Christ and Culture H. Richard Niebuhr identified five main attitudes which Christians have taken towards secular culture. The first emphasizes the opposition between Christ and culture. In the New Testament it is best seen in Revelation and in the First Epistle of John. But it appears in its most radical form in Tertullian, though even he is not wholly consistent. Men are under illusions from their very culture . Graeco-Roman society was shot through and through with (...) what Tertullian regarded as superstition and idolatry, as well as immorality. So Tertullian repudiated political life, military service, many aspects of commerce, philosophy and the arts. (shrink)

This article reviews the book The So-Called Eighth Stromateus by Clement of Alexandria: Early Christian Reception of Greek Scientific Methodology, by Matyáš Havrda.

This article reviews the book The So-Called Eighth Stromateus by Clement of Alexandria: Early Christian Reception of Greek Scientific Methodology, by Matyáš Havrda.

The germ of the following paper is as old as the previous century, when in the year 1898 my attention was accidentally drawn to one of the passages discussed below. But progress was impossible until the facts of the MS.tradition of the Stromateis were properly presented–a service for which we are indebted to the excellent edition of Clement by Dr. O. Stählin.

The concept of enhypostaton was introduced into theological discourse during the sixth-century Christological debates, and aimed to elucidate the orthodox doctrine of the unity of two natures in the singular hypostasis of Christ. In spite of the fact that the conceptual content of the term is recognized by contemporary scholarship as pertaining to the core of Christology, the notion of enhypostaton is often described as obscure and not clearly defined. The coining of the term is often ascribed to Leontius of (...) Byzantium, whereas in fact he only followed and developed solutions already introduced into Christological discourse by John the Grammarian. The article aims to clarify the notion by offering a philosophical account of the meaning and theoretical origins of “enhypostaton,” as introduced by John the Grammarian in the context of his discussion of substance as en-hypostatical being. Enhypostaton emerges as the proper way of describing the ontological complements of a particular entity. This seems to be a significant development in the philosophical explanation of substance. (shrink)

The germ of the following paper is as old as the previous century, when in the year 1898 my attention was accidentally drawn to one of the passages discussed below. But progress was impossible until the facts of the MS.tradition of the Stromateis were properly presented–a service for which we are indebted to the excellent edition of Clement by Dr. O. Stählin.

This volume, a translation of book 1 of Philo of Alexandria's De vita Mosis, with introduction and commentary, aims to introduce new readers, both students and scholars, to Philo of Alexandria through what is widely considered to be one of his most accessible works and one that Philo himself may have intended for readers unfamiliar with Judaism. The introduction provides historical, intellectual, and religious context for Philo, discusses major issues of scholarly interest, considers the relation of De vita (...) Mosis to the Septuagint, and explores the immediate Nachleben of Philo's works. The author's translation is paired with Cohn's edition of the Greek text, thereby providing not only a rendering of the Greek but also the Greek itself for those who wish to read Philo's own words. The English rendering of the Greek aims at clarity and accuracy while retaining as many of Philo's unique stylistic features as possible. Finally, the notes are designed to elucidate the text, especially for new readers, on a variety of levels: extrapolating on points more fully discussed elsewhere in the Philonic corpus, observing specific divergences from the Septuagint, and suggesting aspects of contemporary historical influence on Philo's retelling of the biblical narrative. The volume serves as a succinct entry into the basics of Philo while also preparing the reader for some of Philo's more challenging works. (shrink)