Clement of Alexandria was a well-educated Christian scholar who lived in the second half of the second century. He not only knew the Holy Scriptures and almost all existing Christian literature, but he also had detailed knowledge of Greek philosophical and classical literature. He taught that revelation should be presented in the context of all true knowledge, and therefore in light of pre-Christian philosophy also. He gathered the elements of truth present in philosophy and showed that it had reached its fullness in Christianity, which was its new form. Only three writings from Clement of Alexandria's rich output have survived in their entirety, and these are mutually related and illustrate the stages of Christian maturity. They are, in chronological order: Protrepticus (Exhortation to the Heathen), Paedagogus (The Instructor) and Stromata (Miscellanies). The author, who was a moralist rather than a systematic theologian, remained under the influence of Middle Platonism. He also drew on the works of distinguished predecessors, such as Justin the Philosopher and Tatian. Clement of Alexandria understood theology as Christian gnosis. In his writings, which constitute a philosophical-theological trilogy, he presented the Logos as operating in three ways. In contrast to the Gnostics, Clement argued that there can be a proper and harmonious relationship between faith and knowledge. Faith is always the basis and starting point for his considerations, but philosophy can help us reach Christian truth. He thus established a dialogue between Christianity and philosophy and in so doing went beyond other Christian apologists. In his writings, Clement was not able to precisely define the relationship between God, the Logos-Son, and the Holy Spirit. For this reason, he described the Logos mainly in relation to God and people, and also in terms of the economy of salvation. In his view, Jesus Christ was the special activation of God the Father in action-the divine Logos who became Man in order to lead people to union with the Creator. The Logos was the Servant of God in relation to the world and this role allowed Clement to justify monotheism. Clement of Alexandria was a Hellenistic writer, but he emphasized his strong attachment to the Church. He strongly opposed Gnosticism and submitted to the authority of Scripture as inspired by Revelation. In his teaching, true knowledge was the process of spiritual growth through knowledge of God. The ultimate goal of such knowledge was to achieve full internal harmony with, and participation in the divine Logos.

In The Moral Psychology of Clement of Alexandria, Kathleen Gibbons proposes a new approach to Clement’s moral philosophy and explores how his construction of Christianity’s relationship with Jewishness informed, and was informed by, his philosophical project. As one of the earliest Christian philosophers, Clement’s work has alternatively been treated as important for understanding the history of relations between Christianity and Judaism and between Christianity and pagan philosophy. This study argues that an adequate examination of his significance for the one requires an adequate examination of his significance for the other. While the ancient claim that the writings of Moses were read by the philosophical schools was found in Jewish, Christian, and pagan authors, Gibbons demonstrates that Clement’s use of this claim shapes not only his justification of his authorial project, but also his philosophical argumentation. In explaining what he took to be the cosmological, metaphysical, and ethical implications of the doctrine that the supreme God is a lawgiver, Clement provided the theoretical justifications for his views on a range of issues that included martyrdom, sexual asceticism, the status of the law of Moses, and the relationship between divine providence and human autonomy. By contextualizing Clement’s discussions of volition against wider Greco-Roman debates about self-determination, it becomes possible to reinterpret the invocation of “free will” in early Christian heresiological discourse as part of a larger dispute about what human autonomy requires.

An interdisciplinary study of Clement of Alexandria's Christian reception of the Classical miscellany genre, in comparison with Roman authors.

Deification in the Greek patristic tradition was the fulfilment of the destiny for which humanity was created - not merely salvation from sin but entry into the fullness of the divine life of the Trinity. This book, the first on the subject for over sixty years, traces the history of deification from its birth as a second-century metaphor with biblical roots to its maturity as a doctrine central to the spiritual life of the Byzantine Church. Drawing attention to the richness and diversity of the patristic approaches from Irenaeus to Maximus the Confessor, Norman Russell offers a full discussion of the background and context of the doctrine, at the same time highlighting its distinctively Christian character.

Drawing on Photios' synopsis of the eight errors contained in Clement of Alexandria's lost work 'Hypotyposeis', this book offers a re-examination of second-century theology . The book stresses the importance understanding Clement's work in its original Alexandrian context.

Amphion of Thebes and Arion of Methymna were both minstrels, and both were renowned in story. They are celebrated in song to this day in the chorus of the Greeks; the one for having allured the fishes, and the other for having surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music. Another, a Thracian, a cunning master of his art (he also is the subject of a Hellenic legend), tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song; and transplanted trees—oaks—by music. I might tell you also the story of another, a brother to these—the subject of a myth, and a minstrel—Eunomos the Locrian and the Pythic grasshopper. A solemn Hellenic assembly had met at Pytho, to celebrate the death of the Pythic serpent, when Eunomos sang the reptile’s epitaph.

This book examines Clement's project which brings together ethical, intellectual and spiritual development of a Christian while highlighting the need of search for integrity in the life of faith and reason. Approaches to Clement have traditionally either assessed the philosophical context of his thought or studied the adaptation of Greek legacy into a new Christian context as underpinning Clement's work. In this new study Piotr Ashwin-Siejkowski challenges and develops these approaches providing new and refreshing insights into Clement's understanding of Christian perfection.

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In the second and third centuries A.D. Alexandria was the meeting-point of three distinct cultural streams, namely the Jewish-Alexandrine philosophy, Platonism, and Gnosticism, all of which had an influence on Alexandrine orthodox Christianity. Starting from the assumption that the thought of a Christian Father like Clement of Alexandria cannot be fully understood without taking this influence into account, the author examines in detail Clement's close dependence on the Jewish-Alexandrine philosophy, Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism in such matters as his attitude towards Greek philosophy, ethics, his views on 'pistis' and 'gnosis', cosmology and theology. Particular attention has been paid to the Gnostic texts from Nag-Hammadi so far published.