CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA (Clemens Alexandrinus) was probably born about A.D. of heathen parents in Athens. The earliest writer after himself who gives us any information with regard to him is Eusebius (d. 37o). The only points on which his works now extant inform us are his date and his instructors. In the Stromateis ("Miscellanies"), while attempting to show that the Jewish scriptures were older than any writings of the Greeks, he invariably brings down his dates to the death of Commodus (192), a circumstance which at once suggests that he wrote in the reign of the emperor Severus, from 193 to 211 (see Strom. lib. i. cap. xxi. 14o). We know nothing of his conversion except that it occurred, for his writings show a singularly minute acquaintance with the ceremonies of pagan religion, and there are indications that he himself had been initiated into some of the mysteries (Protrept. cap. ii. sec. 14). He attained the position of pres byter in the church of Alexandria (Eus. H.E. vi. I1, and Jerome, De Vir. Ill. 38), and became perhaps the assistant, and certainly the successor of Pantaenus in the catechetical school of that place. Among his pupils were Origen (Eus. H.E. vi. 7) and Alex ander, bishop of Jerusalem (Eus. H.E. vi. 14). How long he con tinued in Alexandria, and when and where he died, are all matters of pure conjecture.
Clement occupies a profoundly interesting position in the his tory of Christianity. He is the first to bring all the culture of the Greeks and all the speculations of the Christian heretics to bear on the exposition of Christian truth. The list of Greek authors from whom he quoted occupies upwards of 14 of the 4to. pages in Fabricius's Bibliotheca Graeca. He is at home alike in the epic and the lyric, the tragic and the comic poets, his knowledge of the prose writers is very extensive, and he made a special study of the philosophers. Equally minute is his knowledge of the sys tems of the Christian heretics; and it is plain that he not merely read but thought deeply on the questions which the civilization of the Greeks and the various writings of poets, philosophers and heretics raised. It was, however, in the Scriptures, which he held contained the revelation of God's wisdom to men, that he was most deeply read, yet, notwithstanding the great biblical knowl edge evidenced by his works, the modern theologian is disap pointed to find in them very little of what he deems distinctively Christian. In fact Clement regarded Christianity as a philosophy. The ancient philosophers sought through their philosophy to attain to a nobler and holier life, and this also was the aim of Christi anity. The difference between the two, in Clement's judgment, was that the Greek philosophers had only glimpses of the truth, that they attained only to fragments of the truth; while Christi anity revealed in Christ the absolute and perfect truth. All the stages of the world's history were therefore preparations leading up to this full revelation, and God's care was not confined to the Hebrews alone. The worship of the heavenly bodies, for instance, was given to man at an early stage that he might rise from a contemplation of these sublime objects to the worship of the Creator. Greek philosophy in particular was the preparation of the Greeks for Christ. It was the schoolmaster or pedagogue to lead them to Christ. Clement varies in his statement how Plato got his wisdom or his fragments of the Reason ; sometimes he thinks that they came direct from God, like all good things, but he is also fond of maintaining that many of Plato's best thoughts were borrowed from the Hebrew prophets ; and he makes the same statement in regard to the wisdom of the other philo sophers. But however this may be, Christ was the end to which all that was true in philosophies pointed. Christ himself was the Logos, the Reason. God the Father was ineffable. The Son alone can manifest Him fully. He is the Reason that pervades the universe, that brings out all goodness, that guides all good men. It was through possessing somewhat of this Reason that the philosophers attained to any truth and goodness; but in Chris tians he dwells more fully and guides them through all the per plexities of life. Photius, probably on a careless reading of Clem ent, argued that he could not have believed in a real incarnation. But the words of Clement are quite precise and their meaning indisputable. The real difficulty attaches not to the Second Per son, but to the First. The Father in Clement's mind becomes the Absolute of the philosophers, not the Father of the Gospel at all. He believed in a personal Son of God who was the Reason and Wisdom of God; and he believed that this Son of God really became incarnate though he speaks of him almost invariably as the Word, and attaches little value to his human nature. The object of his incarnation and death was to free man from sin, to lead him into the path of wisdom, and thus in the end elevate him to the position of a god. But man's salvation was to be gradual. It began with faith, passed from that to love, and ended in full and complete knowledge. There could be no faith without knowledge ; but the knowledge is imperfect, and the Chris tian has to do many things in simple obedience without knowing the reason. He has to move upwards continually until he at length does nothing that is evil and knows fully the reason and object of what he does. He thus becomes the true Gnostic, but he can become the true Gnostic only by contemplation and by the prac tice of what is right. He has to free himself from the power of passion; he has to give up all thoughts of pleasure; he must prefer goodness in the midst of torture to evil with unlimited pleasure; he must resist the temptations of the body, keeping it under strict control, and with the eye of the soul undimmed by corporeal wants and impulses, contemplate God the supreme good, and live a life according to reason. In other words, he must strive after likeness to God as he reveals himself in his Reason or in Christ. Clement thus looks entirely at the enlightened moral elevation to which Christianity raises man. He believed that Christ instructed men before he came into the world, and he therefore viewed heathenism with kindly eye. He was also favourable to the pur suit of all kinds of knowledge. All enlightenment tended to lead up to the truths of Christianity, and hence knowledge of every kind not evil was its handmaid. Clement had at the same time a strong belief in evolution or development. The world went through various stages in preparation for Christianity. The man goes through various stages before he can reach Christian per fection. And Clement conceived that this development took place not merely in this life, but in the future through successive grades. The Jew and the heathen had the gospel preached to them in the world below by Christ and His apostles, and Christians will have to pass through processes of purification and trial after death before they reach knowledge and perfect bliss.
Eusebius and Jerome give lists of the works which Clement left behind him. (I) Hpos "EXXrlvas Xbyos 6 7rporpEirTLKhc, A Hortatory Address to the Greeks; (2) '0 Ilatoc ycoy6c; The Tutor in three books; (3) ("patchwork"), or Mis cellanies, in 8 books; (4) Vs 6 aroVi./Evos irXovoeos, Who is the rich man that is saved? (5) `TIroTV?reocas, Adumbrations or Outlines in 8 books; treatises on (6) The Passover, (7) Fasting, (8) Slander, (9) Patience, "for the newly baptised"; and (so) On the Rule of the Church, "for those who Judaise." Of these the first four have come down to us complete or nearly so. The Address to the Greeks contains an attack on the crudities and immoralities in the stories told of heathen deities, with an argument that the great thinkers and poets of Greece had recog nized the unit and spirituality of the divine Being, and that fuller light had been revealed through the Hebrew prophets. In the Paedogogus, he explains how before the incarnation Christ was gradually leading mankind to the Truth, and then explains how the Christian following the Logic or Reason ought to be have in the various circumstances of life. The contents of the Miscellanies, as the title indicates are very varied. Sometimes they discuss chronology, sometimes philosophy, sometimes poetry ; but one object runs through all, to show what the true Christian Gnostic is, and what is his relation to philosophy. The tract Who is the rich man that is saved? is an admirable exposition of Mark x. 17-31. Clement argues that wealth, if rightly used, is not unchristian. Of the remaining books mentioned by Eusebius, we know that the Adumbrations was a short commentary on all the books of Scripture, including some apocryphal books ; and we have two fragments of the book on the Passover. Of the others nothing is known. We have also fragments of two treatises, on Providence and on the Soul, not named by Eusebius.