Clement of Alexandria, a neglected Christian thinker

As with many people from ancient times there is unclarity in detail. Clement was born around one hundred and fifty AD to pagan parents either in Athens or Alexandria and he died sometime shortly after two hundred and fifteen. In early youth he rejected his parents' paganism and was baptized a Christian. Sometime in his younger years he set out on an educational journey to broaden his mind. and toured the region around the Eastern Mediterranean, which comprised Greece, Anatolia and Egypt. The tour ended in Alexandria, which suggests that this city was his native land. 

During the journey he encountered educated men of various cultures. Already, Clement was  well versed in the philosophy of Plato, who believed  believed that the path to perfection would require more than one lifetime. and this might have had an impact on his thinking, for he believed in reincarnation, which was a belief common in Platonic circles.He also had the opportunity to meet pagan thinkers, who may have been other Platonists and/or Stoic and Epicurean philosophers and develop his thought. Moreover, he encountered Jewish scholars and discuss religious and philosophical matters with them. One such thinker from among the Christian thinkers that he met was  possibly Tatian, author of an attempt to synthesize the four canonical gospels into one account called the Diatessaron. This was not accepted by the church as it was not a work with apostolic authority backing it up. Completing his intellectual journey he would have studied Gnostic thinkers. Gnosticism was a belief that salvation comes from metaphysical knowledge. It had some Christian like forms, but was ultimately rejected by the church.

Being rather well-schooled in Philosophy, a subject which played a significant role in his life, he took up a job tutoring this subject, and he believed that philosophy would play an important role in Christian thinking.

His first philosophical work, the Protrepticus, which means Exhortation, took a tilt at paganism, of whose tenets he had a deep knowledge from his pagan upbringing. He had a deep grasp of Greek and Egyptian mythology, and had a grasp of the teaching of what were known as the mystery religions, such as the cult of Mother Isis, which suggests that his pagan parents were adherents of these alternatives to the official religions practiced in Graeco-Roman culture. But he also had a powerful grasp of Christian Scripture, which he loved greatly. Aspects of his Egyptian background here filter into his thinking. For example, he accepted that Eve was made from Adam's body, but he suggested that Eve was formed when Adam ejaculated sperm in the night and it was blended into a water source, from which Eve grew. This has similarities to the Egyptian myth of creation by the God Ra. He addressed pagan beliefs by promoting a theory of  the origins of religions, which he believed grew from the deification of forces of nature and great persons. 

It is also believed that he was married, which distinguishes him from many other church fathers, who were celibate ascetics. Clement took a relatively relaxed view of the earthly joys that are available to us, believing that we can honour God by enjoying his creation. In this he is compatible with Scripture, which in one case, Jeremiah 31, says, "The young girl will rejoice and will dance." We do not know if he had any children.

Clement was ordained priest in 189 and took to considering issues of daily Christian living. It was these issues which got him some opponents, though there do not seem to have been many. It was in later times when doctrines had been established that the animosity came. At the end of the first millennium the Orthodox Church erased his name from the martyrology, followed in 1586 by the Catholic Church. Not all Christians honour him as a saint, but some do. I am among them. What had he done to merit such exclusion?

Some of Clement's writings touch on the feminine attributes of God. Jesus, he argues, is neither male nor female. This does not apply to the historical Jesus, who was biologically male, but it applies to the risen Christ, who is neither male nor female. Furthermore, Clement, though he addressed God as Father, thought that God had a feminine side. This is implied by Clement's statement that the Eucharist is milk from the breasts of the Father.

He thought that men and women were equal in all respects. While the Church has always accepted a basic equality in respect of the life of grace, it also accepted the traditional view that women are subject to their menfolk. Put simply, the men take up all the leadership roles in the church, so women cannot be ordained priest. There is even opposition to the revival of the female diaconate. Clement was having none of this unjustifiable inequality. For Clement, Christ had died and risen for all humans equally, so There was no impediment to the church having women priests or even women bishops.

There was also the issue of reincarnation, which  was to come to the fore about three hundred years later, when the council of Constantinople 2  was discussing the pre-existence of the soul an extra-conciliar session condemned the views of Origen, Clement's pupil, who had considered reincarnation. And so subsequent clerics went against it, even though it is the best evidenced element of the afterlife.

A third element that did nothing for Clement's popularity with church officialdom was his universalism. This is the belief that all humans will ultimately be saved through Christ. This belief does not eradicate Hell, but instead reckons that Hell is not forever. For preachers who have been scaring congregations with fear of an eternity in Hell this doctrine is hardly welcome. 

But it was not these doctrines that temporily drove Clement from Alexandria for a year or so, but the short persecution during the reign of the emperor Severus in 202 to 203. He and presumably his wife went to Capoodacia in modern Turkey, where there was a well established Christian community. He stayed there for some time, how long we know not.

Clement was an exponent of moderation. He did not engage in the fierce ascetism of the Desert Fathers, Christian ascetics renowned for the fierceness of their lives. But he opposed excess. So he was in favour of drinking wine, but  not in favour of drunkenness. Similarly he advocated moderation in food consumption. He did not think much of cosmetics, as he argued that they distracted from the cultivation of true beauty, which is internal and derives from the soul.  Similarly he did not oppose peoples dressing well, but rejected excessive attention to clothing.

On the matter of sex he valued continence. He took a strict view as he considered that intercourse was ultimately for the procreation of children. Thus all relationships that were not conducive to the creation of a family were in his eyes wrong. He was advocating the traditional Christian view of sex.k But we do not find him advocating strict punishments. Instead,he had views, promoted them and that was that. No witch hunts for  Clement.

 Clement's life was that of a scholarly man who used his scholarship in support of his Faith. He was an exponent of the Logos doctrine, initially promoted in the Prologue of John's Gospel, which asserted that God created through his Eternal Word, the Logos, which was the divine rationality operating in creation. It was this divine reason that had become incarnate in Jesus Christ, he and others thought. Here was where Philosophy enters the scene, for Clement believed that a knowledge of the Logos was a good preparation for studying Scripture. Thus Philosophy lays the foundation's of Christian thinking.

Having seen his view of the importance of reason in the intellectual life it is easy to see that he saw religion as a learned activity  and Christians as students. Hence he named his second book, which covered Christian living, Paedagogus, a Greek name for a teacher of children. He regarded Christians as learners and  Christ as the great teacher.  For Clement all Christians are in the infancy of their Faith, hence they need Christ as their pedagogue.

Not much is known about Clement's life in the years between 203, when the Severan persecution ended. But we do known that his death occurred at Jerusalem. Was he there on pilgrimage? We do not know. But as we leave him we become aware that serious thinkers who speak their minds make enemies. Clement was such a person, a serious thinker now long dead, but still sparking significant critical discussion and objections.