SOURCE: “Teaching and Writing in the First Chapter of the Stromateis of Clement of Alexandria,” in The Journal of Theological Studies, Vol. XVII, No. 66, January, 1916, pp. 335-43.

[In the following excerpt, Osborn explains Clement's justifications for writing: to spread the word of God, to carry on tradition, and to battle heresy. Additionally, Osborn advances arguments that the Stromateis is actually the Didaskalos.]

I. THE ARGUMENT

The prejudice against writing was strong in the Church of the second century. The living voice was the best medium for the communication of Christian truth.¹ Writings were public and it was wrong to cast pearls before swine. To write implied that one was inspired by the Holy Spirit and this was a presumptuous claim.² If one must write, it were better that one should write badly. The heretics had shown that a clever style could mislead and corrupt. The first chapter of the Stromateis presents the most extensive treatment of this question. Here Clement argues that it is right to teach through written notes. Writing, says Clement, shares wisdom which must be shared, proclaims the word which must be proclaimed, hands on tradition which must be handed on, and fights heresy which must be fought. It does all these things not haphazardly, but under definite conditions and restrictions.

(i) Wisdom must be shared

The second page of the Stromateis (the first page is missing from the manuscript) begins with a quotation from the Visions of Hermas. The Shepherd, the angel of repentance, commands Hermas to write. The full sentence reads: ‘“For this reason,” he says, “I command you first to write down the commandments and parables, that you may read them again and again and be able to keep them.”’³ The latter half of the sentence begins the second page of the manuscript. We may assume that the first half was on the first page.

This quotation is followed by an argument concerning the use of writing itself. Is it a good thing to write? If it is not, then why do we have letters and an alphabet? No one would want writing to be abolished. Who then should write? It would be ridiculous to allow the atheists and immoral people to write while the Christians cannot do so. It is a good thing to leave good children behind us and our words are the children of our souls. [Wisdom]…must be shared and is inspired by a love for man and a desire to benefit man. The teacher who is the father, the sower, the steward of God's riches,⁴ can beget the gift of knowledge and sow the seed and lend out truth effectively through written works. Writings will be as useful to the ignorant as a lyre to an ass. The Lord taught in parables by which he revealed but did not cause the ignorance of his hearers.⁵ He will judge the unprofitable servant who keeps the truth to himself and does not hand it on.⁶

Elsewhere Clement says that his true gnostic is never jealous of others. He does not begrudge them what he has. He would rather give tradition to the unworthy than not give it to the worthy. Through his great love he takes the risk. ‘There are those who call themselves gnostics who are more jealous of their own people than of those outside.’⁷

(ii) Writing proclaims the word

Both writer and speaker are heralds of God,… as with pen and voice they make faith active through love.⁸ The hearer or reader chooses for or against the truth. God is not to blame.⁹ He sends the proclamation, whether written or spoken, which gives the basis of faith, the zeal for disciplined living, the urge for truth, the impulse to inquiry, and the trace of knowledge. So the writer is the benefactor of those to whom he brings the saving truth.¹⁰ He has the solemn responsibility of the distribution of the word which requires a clean hand and a clean heart as does the distribution of the bread of the Eucharist.¹¹ Presumption or jealousy must not be his motive. He must seek only the salvation of his hearers. Here the teacher who writes is safer from blame than the teacher who speaks. He is less liable to flattery and corruption because his audience is not present to him. The writer has here a clear advantage over the speaker.¹² Because labourers are few and the harvest is plentiful we should pray for more writers and speakers.¹³ Such work is all under God. For those who receive the word are God's cultivation and God's building.¹⁴

It had been objected that the writing of the truths of the Gospel in their simple form would mean that the Sophists could ridicule them.¹⁵ But the teacher who writes has no intention of giving his writing to those who do not believe. Only the believer can choose rightly and can learn. We must have a new heart and new spirit before we hear the words of God.¹⁶ While the writer cannot test his pupils directly as can the speaker, yet he can better test himself. He can make sure that he has no desire for gain or glory and that he always does the will of the Father, receiving freely and giving freely.¹⁷ The pupil's co-operation is more essential for the writer. The eye of the reader's soul must be free from obstructions and his mind must be emptied of all preconceptions. What is written will kindle the spark of his soul and turn the eye of his soul to vision. As soon as something is placed within this soul, like the graft in a fruit tree, it springs into life through being joined to what is already there. Christians must examine themselves lest they fall under judgement.¹⁸

(iii) Writing hands on tradition

Clement records in writing the clear and living words which he had been privileged to hear. He writes not with skill, but seeks with simplicity to set out what had been said to him by his teachers. There was an Ionian in Greece and two others in Magna Graecia—one from Syria and the other from Egypt. There were two more in the east—an Assyrian and a Hebrew in Palestine. His last and greatest teacher was in Egypt. He remained with this man who, like a bee,¹⁹ gathered from the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow and begot pure knowledge in the souls of his hearers. The Ionian teacher may have been Melito of Sardis. The Syrian may have been Bardesan or Tatian. The Jew could have been Theophilus of Caesarea or Theodotus the Gnostic. The last was Pantaenus.²⁰

The greatness of these men lay in their ability to hand on ‘the true tradition of the blessed teaching’ straight from Peter, James, John, and Paul, the holy apostles. This tradition they received as a child from a father, and it was their privilege to deposit in the souls of their hearers the seed of their spiritual fore-fathers.²¹ They will be glad that what they said is being recorded. The fact, not the form, of the expression will please them. For wisdom must be passed on. Tradition must be handed down. A father rejoices when his son shows love for wisdom. A cannot be kept clear except by constant emptying. Iron cannot be kept bright except by use. A light is not to be put under a bushel. What is the use of wisdom if it does not make people wise? The Saviour always saving and working as he looks to the Father. When on earth a man teaches and another learns they both learn, because there is one Master. There is one Teacher of the speaker and of the hearer and he is the cause of understanding and of speech.²² The Lord encouraged the doing of good on the Sabbath day. (This offended some, just as writing does.) The divine mysteries are to be shared by those who can receive them. Some things are entrusted to speech rather than to writing. Within the Church the divine mysteries²³ are handed down.²⁴

Written notes will be feeble compared to the original discourses; but they will revive the memory of what they record. ‘To him who has it shall be added.’²⁵ They will prevent further loss through forgetfulness. Some things have already been lost before this record has been made. Some things are omitted on purpose because it would be wrong and dangerous to put them on paper. Clement does not begrudge these things; but they could be misunderstood and he would be ‘giving a sword to a child’.²⁶

(iv) Writing combats heresy

Clement will set out the opinions of the great heresies and will place beside them the highest gnosis which is ‘according to the glorious and holy rule of tradition’.²⁷ He will be a Hebrew to the Hebrews and a Greek to the Greeks. He will teach every man in all wisdom so that he may present him perfect in Christ.²⁸ Classical texts will add spice to the writing and will relax the tension of thought. They will bridge the gap between the tradition and those who must be reached. Just as people use a herald as a mediator, so Clement uses many ideas and words which are familiar and attractive to his readers. There is no danger in this for the one truth will stand out from the many opinions.²⁹ The bare seeds of truth are guarded by the farmers of faith. Timorous souls will complain that one should not waste time on things which do not bring one nearer one's goal. They think that philosophy is an evil thing; but it will be shown that philosophy is the work of God's providence. All things, including pagan culture, are a preparation for the truth.³⁰

The Stromateis expose the heresies in written form and so fortify the pupil against their seductive influence. Irenaeus wrote to give similar evidence because the heretics by their clever writing confuse and mislead their readers. ‘They talk like we do, but think quite differently.’³¹ The Stromateis combat heresy in a positive way by building up the Christian culturally and spiritually. He who has the true gnosis will not want a false one. He needs the gnostic word about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and about his soul.³² He should not be ignorant of what beretics and pagans regard as articles of faith.³³

II. TEACHING AND TRADITION

The unity of the tradition derives from its origin as a gift of God to the Church. The aim of the writer is to preserve not his own ideas but the blessed tradition which is handed down from spiritual father to son. Tradition is the source of truth because it comes from God and God alone can teach truth. At the end of Book VI of the Stromateis Clement speaks of the inability of men to teach about God and of the ephemeral quality of their teaching. The teaching which is from God is alone trustworthy and is strong in the face of opposition. ‘For no gift of God is weak.’³⁴

The unity of the tradition is spread over a wide geographical extent. Clement had not always lived in Alexandria. His teachers were scattered in different parts of the Mediterranean world. Yet he gained from them a knowledge which was a unity, for the tradition was one tradition. ‘But the word of our Teacher did not stay in Judaea alone, as philosophy stayed in Greece, but was poured out over all the world.’³⁵ Irenaeus had written of the diffusion and unity of the Christian tradition³⁶ and this unity is borne out in the writings of Clement and Irenaeus. Clement has been regarded as the Hellenistic philosopher and Irenaeus as the biblical theologian. Yet Clement is for ever drawing his material from the Bible and Irenaeus uses lengthy philosophical argument against the heretics.

The unity of holy scripture and tradition is shown in this chapter. Pantaenus is the preserver of the apostolic tradition. He is the Sicilian bee who gathers from the prophetic and apostolic meadow to beget pure knowledge in the souls of his hearers. This means that his teaching is drawn from scripture and at the same time is the true tradition of the blessed teaching. Scripture and tradition are not set against one another. Each is expressed in the other.³⁷

The tradition has been unwritten. The elders did not write because they were occupied in teaching. They could not afford the distraction nor the time which writing must entail. They saw that writing and teaching were of a different nature. The words of the teacher flow rapidly; but the words of the writer are subject to careful examination and must be carefully chosen.³⁸ Papias preferred the ‘voice which lives and abides’ to the reading of books.³⁹ Irenaeus spoke of the unwritten tradition given by the apostles to their successors and of those who cannot read but who have salvation written by the Spirit on their hearts.⁴⁰

Yet, says Clement, the time has come when tradition should be written down. Much has been forgotten and unless what he now remembers is written down all may be lost. Elsewhere he says: ‘For the sacred trust of the elders speaks through writing and uses the help of the writer for the handing down of tradition for the salvation of those who will read it.’⁴¹ At this crucial stage Clement feels himself to be the link between the apostolic past and the Church of the future. The urgency of the crisis makes him write.⁴²

There is another reason why tradition should now be written. The heretics have claimed that they have the true tradition.⁴³ So long as apostolic tradition is unwritten, they cannot be openly disproved. Their claim for an oral tradition which is superior to Scripture is based on St. Paul's words: ‘We speak wisdom among the perfect, but not the wisdom of this world.’ Clement and Papias claim the one virtue of accuracy for their account of tradition.⁴⁴

The concept of tradition in Clement has been disquieting to some because of the esoteric flavour of much of his language. Nevertheless, it is clear from the argument of the first chapter that Clement does not regard tradition as a secret which cannot be divulged. Some things cannot in fact be written and it would be misleading and dangerous to try to write them. But they are not withheld. It is wrong to begrudge such things to others through envy or jealousy. The whole tenor of Clement's argument and the direction of his thought is to the spreading of the gospel tradition to all who are able to receive it. There is an esoteric attitude in much that he says and this attitude has its roots in the New Testament; but there is no esoteric doctrine.⁴⁵

The description of the Christian teacher is of intrinsic value. The teacher is a father to the pupil, a sower of seed, a messenger of God, a nourisher of souls, and a link in a living tradition. He requires faith and holiness from his pupils. As he teaches, he himself is taught, for there is one Teacher who gives speech to the speaker and understanding to the hearer. There are some echoes of Clement in the Panegyric of Gregory Thaumaturgus to Origen.⁴⁶ There were teachers throughout the Christian world who attracted learners from other countries. The teachers to whom Clement refers were all Christians, who handed on the true tradition of the blessed teaching. Each, however, had something special and one could move with profit from one to the other.⁴⁷

III. THE DIDASKALOS

At the beginning of the Paidagogos Clement makes it clear that the Logos performs a threefold function: as protreptikos he exhorts pagans to come to salvation, as paidagogos he trains the believer and cures his passions, and as didaskalos he leads the believer on to knowledge. The same Logos exhorts, trains, and finally teaches.⁴⁸

Again at the end of the Paidagogos, Clement writes: ‘“But it is not my place”, says the Paidagogos, “to go on to teach these things; but we need a ‘didaskalos’ to expound those holy words, and to him we must now move on. Indeed it is now time that I had stopped my ‘paidagogia’, and time for you to be listening to the Didaskalos.”’⁴⁹

For a long time it appears to have been generally accepted that the three activities of the Logos were mirrored in the three great works of Clement—Protreptikos, Paidagogos, and Stromateis. The Stromateis were the third great work which gave to the Christian the knowledge of God. In 1898 de Faye⁵⁰ challenged the traditional view, insisting that the Stromateis could not be the Didaskalos because they had the wrong title and contents. They were too incoherent and unsystematic. The Didaskalos was to be an exposition of Christian doctrine based on scripture and developed along the lines of Greek thought. Before Clement went on to this work, he realized that he must in some way soften the opposition of the Church to the use of Greek culture. So he wrote the Stromateis which profess in the first book to set out the grounds for using pagan culture in the expression of Christian truth.

Since de Faye wrote, many others have contributed to the controversy. These include Wendland, Heussi, Collomp, Bousset, Prat, Munck, Lazzati, Pohlenz, and Quatember. More than one set of three works has been postulated and a variety of explanation has been offered. There is no agreement on the issue.⁵¹

From the analysis of the first chapter certain points arise which would strengthen the claim of the Stromateis to be reconsidered as the work of the Logos who is Didaskalos.

1. The argument of the first chapter is designed to show that written notes are a suitable method for the communication of Christian truth. This communication is called teaching, instructing, and proclaiming. The relationship at the basis of the argument is always that of a teacher to a pupil rather than that of a preacher to a congregation.… There is no point whatever in filling the first chapter of the Stromateis with intricate argument in favour of written teaching if the Stromateis are not going to teach.⁵²

2. The Stromateis are not merely notes which teach. They are also notes which have taught. They are the record of what Clement heard from his teachers. Shaped and expressed by Clement, they owe their substance, he claims, not to his ingenuity and skill but to his memory of powerful teaching. The Stromateis are a record of teaching.

3. The teaching which the notes record and preserve is not simply what certain illustrious people have said. It is the teaching which comes from God through scripture and tradition. It is ‘the true tradition of the blessed teaching’. The Stromateis are to preserve this tradition of divine teaching, to revive the recollection of it and to prevent it from being lost.

4. The first chapter of the Stromateis is concerned with the justification of the remainder of the work. ‘Should this work be written? Should one write at all?’ Clement, after having written the Protreptikos, … feels argument to be necessary before he can write the Stromateis. No argument was needed to justify the writing of the Protreptikos and the Paidagogos. Clearly the Stromateis must be a different kind of discourse. The only other kind of discourse which Clement has envisaged is that of the Logos who is Didaskalos.

5. What Clement has predicted of the Didaskalos is fulfilled by the Stromateis. The first chapter indicates that the work will show and reveal the opinions of the philosophers, the heretics, and of the true philosophy and gnosis.⁵³ It also makes clear that its supreme concern is with the true gnosis. This concern is also indicated by the title of the work and by the contents of the work as a whole.⁵⁴ The Didaskalos was to show and reveal opinions and to lead the believer to knowledge.

6. There is nothing contrary to the plan and method of Christian teaching in the studied disorder of the Stromateis. In fact it is for Clement the appropriate manner.⁵⁵ The writing seeks to kindle a spark, to sow a seed, or to be the bait to catch a fish. It does not aim to prove things in the manner of a geometrical problem. Clement's view of teaching has something of the impressionist about it. The Stromateis are written in a literary form appropriate to Clement's understanding of teaching.

7. There is also a negative reason for the disorder of the Stromateis. They are, as Clement indicates in this first chapter and elsewhere, designed for concealment. Why does Clement go to such trouble to mystify and mislead the enemy? If the Stromateis are not the Didaskalos, they have nothing to hide.

Notes

1. Papias in Eusebius, H.E. iii. 39. 3, 4.…

2. 2 Tim. iii. 16. The gospels were limited to four: Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii. 11.

3. Hermas, Vis. v. 5.

4. Strom. i. 1. 3.

5. Strom. i. 1. 2.

6. Strom. i. 1. 3.

7. Ecl. Proph. 28. 1.

8. Strom. i. 1. 4; Gal. v. 6.

9. cp. Plato, Rep. 617E.

10. Strom. i. 1. 4.

11. Strom. i. 1. 5.

12. Strom. i. 1. 6; 1 Thess. ii. 5-7.

13. Strom. i. 1. 7; Matt. ix. 37; Luke x. 2.

14. Strom. i. 1. 7; 1 Cor. iii. 8, 9.

15. Philosophers would speak to their own initiates but would not write: cp. Strom. i. 1. 14 and v. 10. 65; Origen, Contra Celsum, i. 7; Cadiou, La jeunesse d'Origène, p. 185.

16. Strom. i. 1. 8.

17. Strom. i. 1. 9; Matt. x. 8. Cp. Harnack, The Origin of the New Testament, p. 138.

18. Strom. i. 1. 10; 1 Cor. xi. 30, 31. For the main point of section (ii) cp. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. iii. 1, where the origin of the written gospels in the preached word is described. The four gospels record the preaching of Matthew, Peter, Paul, and John respectively.

19. See ‘Bees in Clement of Alexandria’ by W. Telfer, F.T.S. xxviii (1927), p. 167.

20. See Stromate I, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris, 1951), p. 51; G. Bardy, Recherches de science religieuse, xxvii (1937), pp. 71 ff.

21. Strom. i. 1. 11.

22. Strom. i. 1. 12. The whole argument springs from the vitality of Clement's Logos doctrine.

23. See H. G. Marsh in J.T.S. xxxvii (1936), pp. 64 ff. See also Mondésert, Clément d' Alexandrie (1944), chap. 2.

24. Strom. i. 1. 13.

25. Strom. i. 1. 14; Matt. xiii. 12.

26. Strom. i. 1. 14.

27. Strom. i. 1. 15; Clement of Rome, Ep. Ad. Cor. vii. 2.

28. Strom. i. 1. 15; Coloss. 1. 28.

29. Strom. i. 1. 16.

30. Cp. Strom. vi. 11. 91. Other education is useful. The Scriptures of the Lord are essential.

31. Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. Praef.

32. Ecl. Proph. 29. 1. Cp. Augustine, Solil. 1. 2, 7.

33. Ecl. Proph. 29. 3.

34. Strom. vi. 18. 165-7.

35. Strom. vi. 18. 167.

36. Adv. Haer. i. 10; iii. 1-2.

37. Cp. Harnack, The Origin of the New Testament, p. 43: ‘When we speak today of the antagonism and conflict between Scripture and Tradition, the tradition in question is a second tradition.’ Cp. G. W. H. Lampe in Scripture and Tradition, ed. Dillistone (1955), pp. 41, 50-51. The unity of scripture and tradition was maintained against the gnostics.

38. Ecl. Proph. 27. 4.

39. Eusebius, H.E. iii. 39. 3, 4.

40. Adv. Haer. iii. 4.

41. Ecl. Proph. 27. 4.

42. Bousset sees in Clement the beginning of a proper Christian literature: Jüdisch-christlicher Schulbetrieb in Alexandrien und Rom (1915), p. 155.

43. Cp. Lampe, op. cit., p. 41.

44. Papias: ‘I learnt well and remembered well’ (Eus. H.E. iii. 39. 3).

45. Cp. Mondésert, op. cit., p. 61: ‘Chez Clément point d'autre secret que la sublimité de la connaissance des mystéres divins, qu'il s'efforce lui-même d'atteindre, dans la méditation et la prière et qu'il tâche, au contraire, de faire entrevoir à ses lecteurs, s'ils en sont dignes, en les exprimant du mieux qu'il peut, à l'aide de la dialectique platonicienne et des plus hautes expressions de l'Ecriture.’

46. Note especially vi, ix, xv, and xvii. The style of the work is a contrast to Clement's compact style.

47. Clement's account of teaching and teachers is biblical in substance. Rengstorf, in Kittel, T.W.N.T., bd. ii, pp. 150-65, shows that a teacher is one who from the Torah points the way of God, that the teaching is biblical revelation and is classed with reading and exhortation (1 Tim. iv. 13) and that all scripture is divinely inspired and profitable for teaching (2 Tim. iii. 16).

48. Paid. i. 1. 1-3.

49. Paid. iii. 12. 97.

50. Clément d'Alexandrie (Paris, 1898), pp. 45 ff., 78-111, 126-48.

51. The controversy is outlined in the introduction to Stromate I, Sources Chrétiennes (Paris, 1951), and also in my book, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 5-7.

52. It is possible that the lost first page had explicit references to the Logos who teaches. The references in the Paidagogos occur at the beginning and end of the work.

53. Cp. Paid. i. 1, 2.

54. Cp. Paid. i. 1. 3 and Paid. iii. 12. 98.

55. See The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandria (Cambridge, 1957), pp. 7-12, for a fuller discussion of this point.