Theopedia

Clement of Alexandria

Overview

Clement of Alexandria (c. 150 - c. 215) was a Greek Christian teacher who headed the catechetical school at Alexandria, Egypt, and is called “the pioneer of Christian scholarship” for his attempt to state the faith in terms his philosophically trained contemporaries could engage.1 He is distinguished from Clement of Rome, an earlier bishop of that name.2

Life and Ministry

Clement was of pagan birth, born probably in the middle of the second century.3 Converted to Christianity as an adult, he had, in his own words, “a philosophical turn of mind,” and afterward traveled to study under teachers in Greece, Italy, Palestine, and other parts of the East before settling in Egypt.3 There he met Pantaenus, whom he preferred “to all his other guides,” and under whose instruction he remained.3 Clement succeeded Pantaenus as head of the catechetical school at Alexandria,4 where his own pupil, Origen, later succeeded him.5 Clement died about AD 220.3

Jerome described Clement as a man “full of eloquence and learning, both in sacred Scripture and in secular literature.”6 His three principal extant works form a loose trilogy: the Exhortation to the Greeks (Protrepticus), the Paedagogus (the Tutor), and The Stromata (Miscellanies).7 The eighteenth-century Particular Baptist theologian John Gill cited Clement’s writing in at least fifteen of his own works, drawing on nearly every book of the Stromata and several chapters of the Paedagogus, evidence that Gill had read widely and directly in Clement’s corpus.8

Theological Contribution

Clement, together with Origen after him, undertook to state Christian truth in a way that would satisfy the philosophically educated, raising pistis (faith) toward gnosis (knowledge) without abandoning the church’s own positive doctrine or Scripture as the sole source of revealed truth, the same project Philo had earlier attempted for Judaism.9 Clement called faith itself a “concise science” and valued it above pagan wisdom.9

That project did not mean an uncritical embrace of Greek philosophy. Clement’s own definition of philosophy, later quoted approvingly by Francis Turretin in his own prolegomena on theological method, was eclectic rather than partisan:

Philosophy is not to be called Stoic, nor Platonic, nor Epicurean, nor Aristotelian, but whatever has been properly spoken by these sects — this gathered into one whole, is to be called philosophy.10

Clement likewise distinguished Scripture from every other kind of writing, including the church’s own teachers, on the ground that “no one will be so impressed by the exhortations of any of the saints, as he is by the words of the Lord Himself.”11

Historical Significance

Clement’s wide study under multiple teachers gave weight to his own testimony to the universal and undisputed reception, among the churches, of the four canonical Gospels as apostolic writing. That testimony carried forward the testimony of his own teachers, some of whom had known, if not the apostles themselves, those who had listened to them, and it agreed independently with Tertullian’s testimony to the same fourfold Gospel reception.3 Michael Kruger names Clement, alongside Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Origen, among the patristic writers who appealed to the church’s “rule of faith” (a summary of apostolic tradition) against heresy.12

Herman Bavinck situates Clement and Origen as founders of a distinct Alexandrian dogmatic trend, alongside the philosophy-suspicious trend represented by Irenaeus and Tertullian, both of which shaped the church’s later formulation of Trinitarian and Christological dogma at the Councils of Nicaea and Constantinople.9

Related Doctrines

Clement’s Alexandrian project shaped the theological method later carried forward by his pupil Origen. His opposition to Gnosticism and his testimony to the fourfold Gospel canon bear on the inspiration of the Bible.

References

  1. Steven Tshombe Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” in “The Trinitarian Theology of John Gill (1697-1771): Context, Sources, and Controversy” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2015), 140, quoting Johannes Quasten, Patrology, 2:6. ↩

  2. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 140. ↩

  3. Elijah Porter Barrows, Companion to the Bible (New York: American Tract Society, 1867), chap. 2. ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  4. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 140, citing Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History 6.6. ↩

  5. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 141-42. ↩

  6. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 140-41, quoting Jerome, Lives of Illustrious Men 38. ↩

  7. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 140. ↩

  8. Godet, “John Gill: Patristic Scholar,” 140-41. ↩

  9. Herman Bavinck, Reformed Dogmatics: Abridged in One Volume, ed. John Bolt (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2011), chap. 2, “The History and Literature of Dogmatic Theology.” ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  10. Francis Turretin, Institutes of Elenctic Theology 1.13.6 (Dennison, 1:45-46), quoting Clement of Alexandria, Stromata 1.7, quoted in Alex Charles Tibbott, “Turretin and Theological Method,” in “De Impassibilitate Et Satisfactione: An Examination of the Methodological Implications of Trinitarian Classical Theism for the Doctrine of the Atonement” (PhD diss., The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2024), 82. ↩

  11. Michael J. Kruger, Canon Revisited: Establishing the Origins and Authority of the New Testament Books (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2012), chap. 4, “The Divine Qualities of the Canon.” ↩

  12. Kruger, Canon Revisited, chap. 4. ↩