Clement of Alexandria was an early Christian theologian and philosopher who lived from around 150-215 AD. He was likely born in Athens, Greece and had extensive education in Greek philosophy and literature before converting to Christianity as an adult. Clement headed the famous Catechetical School of Alexandria, Egypt which was a major center of Christian scholarship and teaching in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries.
Clement viewed Greek philosophy and literature favorably, seeing much truth and wisdom in it that could be harmonized with Christian teaching. He aimed to provide educated pagans a way to Christianity through philosophy. Clement saw Christianity as the culmination of Greek philosophy’s search for truth. He emphasized the use of reason and the allegorical interpretation of Scripture to explain Christian doctrines. Clement was influential in merging Christian and Platonic thought.
Some key facts about Clement of Alexandria:
- Lived approximately 150-215 AD
- Birthplace was likely Athens, Greece
- Convert to Christianity as an adult
- Extensive education in Greek philosophy, literature, and mythology
- Head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria around 190-202 AD
- First major Christian intellectual to make extensive use of Greek philosophy
- Attempted to provide educated Greeks/Romans a way to Christianity through philosophy
- Emphasized use of reason and allegorical interpretation of Scripture
- Influential in merging Christian and Platonic thought
- Major works include Exhortation to the Greeks, Instructor, Miscellanies, and Who is the Rich Man That Is Being Saved?
Clement played an important role as a transitional figure between Greek philosophy and Christian theology. He aimed to demonstrate Christianity’s superiority to pagan religions and saw Greek philosophy as preparation for the Gospel. While not properly a theologian, Clement was influential in developing Christian thought and engagement with pagan intellectual culture in the late 2nd and early 3rd centuries.
Life and Background
Little is known definitively about Clement’s early life before coming to Alexandria, Egypt. Based on a few passing comments in his writings, he was likely born in Athens, Greece sometime around 150 AD. His parents were probably pagan Greeks and Clement pursued an extensive education in Greek literature and philosophy, demonstrating exceptional familiarity with key figures like Homer, Plato, Aristotle and the Stoic philosophers. He quotes from Greek poets, playwrights, and religious texts demonstrating his broad learning.
As an adult, Clement undertook extensive travels to Italy, Greece, Palestine, and finally settling in Alexandria, Egypt. Alexandria was a major center of cultural blending between Egyptian, Greek, Jewish and early Christian thought. The city was home to the Catechetical School which offered advanced instruction in Christian theology and practice. While the exact reasons are unclear, Clement converted to Christianity after his travels and settled in Alexandria. By 180 AD he was a presbyter in the church and around 190 AD he succeeded Pantaenus as head of the Catechetical School.
Alexandria provided the perfect intellectual climate for Clement to harmonize his Greek education with Christian doctrine. Clement likely saw Christianity as the culmination of Greek philosophy’s search for truth. He aimed to demonstrate the superiority of Christianity to pagan thought and provide a way for educated Greeks and Romans to understand Christianity through philosophy. As head of the Catechetical School, Clement had great influence teaching wealthy and educated converts including pagan philosophers.
Clement continued leading the school until 202 AD when persecution forced him to flee Alexandria. He continued writing during his travels. The last confirmed mention of Clement comes around 211-215 AD in a letter from Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem. The date and location of his death are unknown. As an influential, albeit controversial, early Christian intellectual, Clement profoundly shaped the engagement between Christian and Greek thought in late antiquity.
Thought and Writings
Clement viewed Greek philosophy and literature favorably, seeing much wisdom and truth in them. But he firmly believed Christianity was the pinnacle of truth. Clement did not reject Greek philosophy outright. Rather, he aimed to show how Christianity fulfilled and perfected the insights of Plato, Aristotle, and others. Philosophy was valuable preparation for the Gospel. Faith completes what reason discovers on its own.
Some key aspects of Clement’s thought:
- Use of philosophy – Saw philosophy as giving glimpses of truth that are fulfilled in Christ. Attempted to provide a philosophical pathway to Christianity.
- Allegorical interpretation – Used allegorical readings of Greek myths and texts to find hidden truths. Also interpreted Scripture allegorically.
- Emphasis on reason – Knowledge comes through reason and demonstration, not just faith. The perfect Christian has both reason/philosophy and faith.
- Two-fold path to perfection – Philosophy and ethical living prepare the educated pagan for faith in Christ.
- Opposed heretical Gnostic views – Affirmed goodness of physical creation against the Gnostics.
- Mystical theology – Speculated about deity in Neoplatonic fashion, seeing God as ineffable and unknowable at the core.
Clement was not a systematic theologian, and his writing style can appear unorganized. He jumps between topics rapidly and his Greek prose is very ornate. His major writings include:
- Exhortation to the Greeks – Argues for Christianity’s superiority over pagan religion
- Instructor – Treatise on Christian morals and practice
- Miscellanies – His most famous work, addressing various theological issues
- Who is the Rich Man That Is Being Saved? – Treatise on wealth and luxury
- Other works on asceticism, prophecy, and the soul
While not always systematic, Clement wove together his broad learning into a tapestry that aimed to demonstrate Christianity’s unique truth. He was foundational in merging the Christian and Platonic intellectual traditions. Clement tried to make Christian faith intelligible and compelling to the educated pagan mind.
Clement’s Use of Philosophy
Clement did not reject Greek philosophy wholesale. Rather, he believed God had providentially arranged Greek philosophy to prepare pagans for the higher truth of Christianity. Philosophy provides glimpses of truth and wisdom that find ultimate fulfillment in Christ. Clement states:
Philosophy, proving by what it offers, prepares the way for him who is to follow, if justice is the forerunner of the Lord. Therefore we must consider that the Barbarian philosophy has acted as a hospitable escort for the Word of God (Exhortation to the Greeks, VI)
And again:
For philosophy was to the Greeks what the Law was to the Jews – a tutor escorting them to Christ. Philosophy prepared and equipped the Greek for Christ, as the Law did the Jew…So philosophy was a preliminary training for the Christian religion (Miscellanies 1.5)
Philosophy brings pagans partway to truth, enabling them to desire and receive Christ when he arrives. Greek philosophy is not opposed to Christianity, but an important precursor. Philosophy’s purpose finds fulfillment in leading people to Christian faith.
For Clement, philosophy and reason discover part of the truth, while faith completes what reason alone cannot grasp. Clement states:
I call faith that makes us gentle the perfect gnosis. Knowledge does not make people arrogant but makes them humble…For by it, because they understand the Lord completely, they see themselves as very inferior and as liable to no praise for what they have. Faith persuades them to accept this and not strive arrogantly to grasp more than what has been shown them (Stromata VI.7)
True knowledge unites reason and faith, philosophical demonstration and spiritual apprehension. Clement aims to show Christianity as the pinnacle of human intellectual questing. Philosophy alone cannot save, but for Clement, neither can a faith devoid of understanding. Reason and revelation unite in Christ.
Allegorical Interpretation
Clement embraced allegorical interpretation of both Greek myth/philosophy and Scripture. For Clement, the ancient myths contain glimpses of philosophical and ethical truth conveyed symbolically. As for Scripture, allegorical interpretation lets Clement move beyond the plain sense to the deeper spiritual meanings.
Concerning Greek myth and texts, Clement states:
Are not those sayings which the Greeks consider good exceedingly solemn, cleverly devised, and worthy of abundant praise? We must judge allegorically the good thoughts that are mixed with myth (Exhortation to the Greeks, VIII)
In the myths, Clement aimed to recover the core of truth while rejecting the cruder, literal details. He would interpret myths based on Platonic philosophy, finding glimpses of ethical and metaphysical realities expressed allegorically.
Clement took a similar approach to Scripture. The historical narratives contain symbolic spiritual truths requiring allegorical exegesis. In one of his more elaborate interpretations, the furniture of the Jewish tabernacle comes to represent higher philosophical concepts about the soul’s progress. Through creative allegorical interpretation, Clement merged Greek philosophy and Scripture.
This allegorical method concerned later church leaders who emphasized interpreting Scripture more plainly according to its original context. But Clement’s approach flowed from his aim of demonstrating Christianity’s harmony with Greek philosophy. By reading Scripture allegorically, Clement could find intersections with Platonic concepts.
Emphasis on Reason and Knowledge
Clement differed from many early Christian writings in his positive view of reason and knowledge. Most apologists focused on doctrine and faith, rather than philosophical demonstration. But for Clement, Christianity does not simply demand blind faith. Instead, true knowledge requires both reason and faith. Clement states:
For God is the source of both faith and knowledge of truth (Miscellanies V.3)
And again:
The greatest of all lessons necessary for the attainment of piety is knowledge of God. This is the only branch of knowledge fulfilling our present needs. And so as I said before, the greatest power is demonstrated by those who have attained knowledge and the superior moral nobility of soul (Miscellanies VI.7)
Clement firmly opposes those who reject reason and advocate a fideistic faith. Mere faith without understanding is incomplete. The perfect Christian possesses both reason and faith. Clement aims to demonstrate the rational coherence of Christian doctrine to the Greek mind. Christianity fulfills philosophy’s prior discoveries.
This view brought accusations that Clement over-elevated pagan learning. Clement responds:
Some suppose that we attribute to secular philosophy more authority than we ought, not knowing that we speak of it with precision, not to meet their unwise criticism, but as showing the way which leads to the Word they have yet to learn (Miscellanies VI.7)
Clement values philosophy and reason, but solely for their capacity to prepare people for faith in Christ. Philosophy remains subordinate, but Clement grants it a pedagogical role for pagans that contrasts with other patristic authors. Clement’s intellectualism distanced him from later theological trends.
Twofold Path to Perfection
Given his favorable view of philosophy, Clement proposes a twofold path by which pagans can discover Christianity. First, Greek philosophy provides ethical training and limited metaphysical truths that begin preparing the soul:
So we too…occupy ourselves with philosophy with a view to the final knowledge. For this laboratories is contrived for us as a preliminary training place, where we may learn how we must live hereafter (Miscellanies V.26)
Philosophy starts pagans down the path, enabling them to live moral lives and glimpse metaphysical realities. But philosophy alone cannot save. Clement states:
But that believing through demonstration is nothing more than preparatory and auxiliary – an accessory and handmaid, as it were, to knowledge – we know full well…But to those who have believed it is knowledge surpassing all demonstration, and all knowledge, by which they know God, and God’s Word, who was made flesh to be known (Miscellanies V.2,4)
So philosophy brings pagans to the threshold, preparing them to accept the higher knowledge of faith in Christ. By presenting Christianity as the fulfillment of philosophy, Clement provided educated Greeks and Romans a pathway to faith appropriate for their cultural background.
Opposition to Gnosticism
In his opposition to Gnostic views, Clement affirmed the goodness of creation and the human body against tendencies in Hellenistic philosophy to denigrate the material realm. The Gnostics denied Christ’s full humanity, claimed salvation comes through esoteric knowledge, and condemned the material world.
In contrast, Clement stresses human nature as fundamentally good yet fallen. Sin, not nature, must be blamed. The physical body has goodness in itself and humans must care for it appropriately as they pursue virtue and pneumatic perfection. Through right ordering of bodily passions, humans can again reflect the Image of God.
Clement states his view plainly:
But we, who know the human body to be good and designed by God for good, know that food is received…for sustenance, moistening, health, strength, and refreshment…Our Creator knows perfectly well what is needful for each one’s constitution (Instructor, II.1)
And again:
The body is not evil, since it can collaborate with a virtuous power in virtue’s workings. Our Lord clearly teaches this in the Gospel…by showing that the body is capable of serving God along with the mind (Instructor, III.1)
While influenced by Platonism, Clement rejects the denigration of physicality and affirms the original goodness of human nature against dualistic conceptions. Humans are a mind-body unity intended for moral and spiritual perfection.
Mystical Theology
Drawing on Middle Platonism and Neoplatonism, Clement engages in speculative theology about the nature of God. He conceives of God in a mystical, negative sense as ultimately unknowable and ineffable at God’s core. No positive attributes adequately describe the divine essence. God transcends all language and concepts. Clement states:
His power is indicated by His works, His distinctive character by His names; but His substance, too exalted, remains beyond all thought and speculation…His very invisibility might perhaps be taken to indicate this transcendence (Miscellanies V.12)
This unknowable ground at God’s essence stands above all opposites. Even terms like “One” or “Good” do not properly name God who exceeds all distinctions and determinations. Clement continues:
This is the summit of our knowledge of God: to know we cannot know because he is exalted beyond all we can conceive. In conceiving of God, we should posit ineffability; in speaking of him, we should posit inconceivability (Miscellanies V.12)
While some accuse him of importing Greek philosophy improperly, Clement is working from Scriptural revelation, particularly apophatic passages like Exodus 3. He aims for reverence before divine mystery, not merely conceptual comprehension. Clement articulates a profoundly mystical theology.
Conclusion
As a transitional figure between Greek philosophy and Christian theology, Clement of Alexandria aimed to provide educated pagan converts an intelligible pathway to faith in Christ. He built bridges between the intellectual traditions, seeing Greek philosophy as preparation for the Gospel. Christianity fulfilled rational seeking with revealed truth.
Clement demonstrated an exceptional breadth of learning and aimed for positive engagement with pagan thought, not mere opposition. He developed creative allegorical and mystical theology demonstrating Greek philosophy’s influence on his thinking. While questionable at points, Clement’s intellectual courage built conceptual links that gave Christianity wider philosophical appeal.
Later Christian thinkers were not always comfortable with Clement’s thought, but he played a foundational role in merging the biblical and Hellenistic worlds. His use of philosophy, allegorical interpretation, and speculative theology profoundly shaped subsequent Christian intellectuals in the Patristic age and beyond.