SOURCE: “Clement's Gnostic,” in Evil, Freedom, and the Road to Perfection in Clement of Alexandria, Brill, 1999, pp. 139-74.

[In the following excerpt, Karavites describes Clement's ideas concerning the perfect Christian and contrasts them with the views of the Gnostics.]

It is certain that Clement's basic purpose in writing his various treatises was to sketch the picture of the perfect Christian, the gnostic, as he visualized him. Clement's picture differs fundamentally from that offered by the Gnostics who, in his view, diverted from the true apostolic tradition, ending up with a caricature of the perfect Christian. Had they grasped the true spirit of the Law and adhered to the teachings of Christ, of his apostles, and of the actual Christian tradition, they might not have strayed so far from the truth. References to the perfect Christian are scattered throughout Clement's writings, but makes an effort to develop the topic more systematically in Book Seven. It has been left to modern scholars to cull the scattered evidence and present a picture of the truly Christian man as sketched by him. This chapter has not been written with the aim of duplicating or improving upon what other scholars have said, nor is it an attempt to give a systematic view of Clement's theory of the gnostic. It has only been added here because I did not think that an essay on Clement's conception of evil could be complete without mention, no matter how brief, of his notion of the perfect Christian, his gnostic.

It should be made clear that adhesion to the Mosaic Law, though commendable, was not sufficient for the achievement of that spiritual state Clement identified with the gnostic. Conformance to the ordinances of the law, any law, is useful socially and not infrequently a personal source of satisfaction and contentment. But as it has already been pointed out the truth of the Law denotes something much more than a legal instruction. It expresses a reality which is richer and deeper.¹ An analogy closer to the truth would be a comparison of the Torah with the artist's conception of the laws of artistic creation, or of musical composition. The artist who wants to express beauty through colors must go beyond the rules of color and harmony in order to discover and to express the relations that constitute the beauty of the subjects he is treating. The Biblical Law is closer to this conception. This is how Christ viewed the Law and why He intermittently leveled His vehement criticism against the Scribes and the Pharisees. Not that they did not fulfill the regulations of the Law or that that such a fulfillment was not a major accomplishment. The Pharisee in the parable of the Publican and the Pharisee fasted twice a week and tithed his revenue. This tithing was in itself a major feat. How many of us, how many Christians can today boast as he did that they tithe their revenues. Yet that was not what the spirit of the Law required. Fasting and tithing, important regulations of the Law though they might have been were not enough. The person who remained limited to these parameters of the Law had failed to penetrate its true meaning, since the Law consisted of more that rigid regulations.

The Mosaic Law is a revelation of God Himself, a gift of His grace, not a legalistic statute. It is an invitation to the people of Israel to become the receiver and carrier of the name of God, to become the reflection of that truth which is God Himself. The revelation of God's name denotes His communion and relationship with the person to whom He is revealing His name, and a possibility of that person's substantive acquaintance with the revealer. For this reason Moses, when he assumed the mission God gave him, asked that God reveal His name to him (Ex. 3.13). It was in this sense that the Israelites perceived the Law as having established a special relationship with them, a compact, a covenant, revealed by the commandment in Leviticus: “you shall be holy; as I, the Lord your God, am Holy” (19.2).

Thus, even in the Old Testament adherence to the Law did not simply mean compliance with some objective legislation designed to secure the social order or individual virtue. Maintenance of the Law instead elevated each Israelite to membership in the people of God. The Israelite ought to adhere to the Law not to secure for himself some special reward, but to secure his belonging to the people of God on whom God's promise had been bestowed. Adherence to the Law did not aim at private justification but at the revelation of the truth of the living God through the covenant of God with His people. It is through such an understanding of the Law, through such a dynamic revelation and unfolding of God to man that one can also understand the saying of Christ that He came not to abolish but to fulfill the Law (Matt. 5.17).

From this standpoint Christ's admonition to the rich young man to sell his possessions and to distribute them to the poor shows the extent of the young man's misunderstanding of the Law he claimed to have so faithfully respected. Respect for the Law as a sort of training for the real thing was good, and Christ was the first to admit it. But respect of the Law had not made yet the young man perfect in terms of eternal life. He, like the priest and the Levite in the parable (Luk. 10.31-32) was in reality a “doer” of the Law but idle… in regard to the true life.² If the young man wished to be perfect he should have freed himself from the passions that bound him to the weakness of this life. Consequently, the “if you wish” denotes the freedom the individual has and the choice he has to make as a free agent. But even that choice is not sufficient because the achievement of perfection depends on God, Who gives it to those who are willing and are exceeding earnest… as the young man was obviously not. Man's willingness and God's grace were necessary for the accomplishment of man's perfection. In this sense God does not compel; compulsion is repulsive to God. On the other hand, God supplies grace to those who seek it and bestows it on those who ask for it (QDS 10.1). Those who earnestly seek it and acquire it achieve what is above the Law and its gifts.³

The way for men to acquire God's grace is to follow Christ's example. Christ became perfect and sanctified in His humanity through His baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit.⁴ The same takes place in our case, according to Clement.⁵ So, when we are baptized we are illuminated and acquire the potential to become sons of God. We are made perfect, and being made perfect we become immortal.⁶ The acquisition of perfection is thus partly but significantly the result of the grace of God.⁷ Washing and illumination are the means by which the Christians cleanse their sins and by which the penalties accruing for transgression are remitted.⁸ It is called illumination because by it that holy light of salvation is beheld; that is, we clearly see God. Through baptism man dies with Christ and is resurrected with Him in the life of the new time. Man at first dead in sin enters into the life of grace, which is offered to him through the seal of the gift of the Holy Spirit. By this granting of the seal of the gift of God the baptized obtains the ability to achieve deification, something that had become impossible after his fall. The baptism as a new birth of man bestowed by the Holy Spirit supersedes his natural birth. The baptized becomes a spiritual being since he was baptized in the Spirit. The father of the baptized is Christ Himself. Thus all those baptized in Christ, while physically children of various fathers, become supernaturally children of Christ, in supersession of all physical relations. It is for this reason that Christ calls His disciples not only “friends” but also “little children” (John, 13, 33). The rehabilitation of the soul has its beginning in baptism and its completion through the vision of God in the future time.… The period of man's life after his baptism affords him the possibility of maturation in the life according to Christ and the development of communion with God through the cooperation of God's gift. This life in Christ must be witnessed in the daily conduct of the baptized.

FAITH AS A PREREQUISITE OF PERFECTION

Though baptism is so essential for man's advancement to the state of perfection, baptism itself does not automatically guarantee its attainment without certain indispensable spiritual requisites and the constant effort to maintain this state of grace and perfection. One basic prerequisite for baptism, also necessary in the struggle for deification, is faith. Faith is that internal good… that inward power that leads man to confess and glorify God's existence. Man has to start with faith and develop it with the help of the grace of God (Str. 7.55.2-3). Faith is the property of the wise man who is not wise according to the world but according to God, and who is taught without training in the usual texts which represent the wisdom of men but rather through the spiritual texts (Paed. 3.78.2). The truth of this process is demonstrated by the fact that though many faithful are ill-disposed to any formal form of training they nonetheless attain spiritual excellence, while others whose natural disposition toward education is good do not attain the excellence adverted to by Clement, because through neglect or indifference they do not free themselves from evil.⁹ A man of faith is perfect, according to Clement, because nothing is wanting to faith since it is perfect and complete in itself. If ought is wanting to it, then it is not wholly perfect.¹⁰ Faith then is that experience of the presence of God which brings man into personal communion with God and makes him a communicant of His goodness (Str. 4.143.3). When this personal element is absent faith becomes empty, a formal convention, which objectifies God and makes Him into an indifferent object of worship. This object becomes eventually surrounded by other objectified values which in the end are not related to God and make communion with God a matter of indifference. Piety, prayer, fasting, alms-giving, sacrificing easily become independent values not simply means of communion with God. Something like it had happened to the Pharisee of the parable who boasted about his compliance with the Law. Those accomplishments of his had not succeeded in bringing him into communication with God, because they were perceived by him as self-values. Something similar had happened to Euthyphro in the corresponding Platonic dialogue when he confused external formalities with piety. It took a Socrates to disabuse him of his error.

The external world constitutes a reference to God, and the observation of our surrounding world leads us to the search of God. Yet faith in God should not be viewed as an imposition by external necessity but should remain an expression of freedom. Without faith in God man becomes alienated from this world; on the other hand, the simple recognition of God as creator does not save man either. Man's salvation requires his personal encounter and communion with God. Though faith as a personal relation and communion with God is not identified with the social conventions, it nevertheless possesses a social dimension since man's faith in God is connected directly with man's relation to his fellow-man.

Man by himself has no power to acquire faith unless God bestows it on him (Str. 1.38.5). The believer therefore depends largely on God. If God withdrew His grace even for a minute, man's faith would cease. The question that naturally arises is why God does not bestow faith on everybody, not just on the few. This question is difficult to answer and Clement comes up with various responses. First, that if some believe and others do not this is not due to God but to those who do not believe. The second answer relates to the first, that not everybody seeks out God and that only those who seek receive faith (Str. 5.12.1-2). Thirdly, even among those who seek out God not all will find him, but only those who go about it rightly.

Clement does not seem to confront the question of how man is moved to seek out God, especially seek him out rightly, since by himself man does not have this ability. If there are certain presuppositions and qualifications for seeking out God is the grace of God fundamental or simply ancillary? Clement does not answer this question satisfactorily. He simply states that faith is a divine gift and a human propensity or ability but which he does not say how it originates. He simply states that faith is a divine gift that thus becomes a human propensity or ability but does not say how it originates in man except by the power of God. Thus the question becomes circuitous (Str. 5.9.2). He adds only that when the urge for the development of faith appears, it has to be cultivated by listening to the catechism or that it can, on occasion, be grasped without knowledge (Ecl. Proph. 28.3). By introducing the element of knowledge Clement reverts to Greek philosophy wherein character improvement depends on intellectual discipline and training. However, realizing the insufficiency of his answers to the question of faith, he tries to escape from the difficulties by adding that faith is a gift of God and hence different from knowledge (Str. 7.55.1-3)

Clement persists that the essential characteristic of Christian faith is that it permeates man's whole being and becomes a way of life. It is not a simple learning… of some teaching which requires only the approval of reason but a way of life. And although it is not an inherent virtue, it nevertheless saturates the whole being of the believer, thereby becoming an “internal good” which admits God's existence and glorifies Him. Whereas elsewhere he makes faith the product of a divine gift which is the sine qua non for the origin of faith, he at the same time describes it as if this gift were something secondary (Str. 7.55. 2-3). It becomes easier for him when he explains that the object of faith is God, though again he gets into trouble when he maintains that the believer does not arrive at faith by a deductive process but accepts it as something given. His assertion that faith is a relationship or way to approach God does not shed much more light on the question. What, apparently, Clement has in mind is the Judeo-Christian God as He has been revealed through the prophets and Christ, not just a form of deism.¹¹

Faith is essentially acquired by the knowledge of Christ's teachings (Str. 4.159.1) which connect the believer with God and with himself. This relationship established by faith is unique to the Christian man and Clement implicitly denies that faith in other Gods connects the believer to the believed. For Clement to have made such a statement would have been absurd since the believed was viewed by him as the one perfect reality. What Clement refuses to admit here is that the faith of the pagan believer engendered a relation analogous to the Christian faith, and that the pagan believer accepted the believed as much of a reality as the Christian accepted his God.

Furthermore, Clement views the Christian faith as “born in time,” perhaps for two reasons: first, because the incarnation of Christ and His teachings took place in time, and, secondly, because the of faith of most Christians at his time was born at a certain time, this being the time of their conversion (most of the Christians in Clement's time were converts) which can be seen as new birth and new life. This new life is not easy; on the contrary, like the life of Christ it is full of suffering and sacrifice because belief is not simply faith in some abstract philosophical theory but a living and active faith (Theod. Extr. 86.2). Clement seems to think that faith in some abstract philosophical theory is easy compared to the Christian faith, something that might have been preponderantly but not absolutely true if we look at the life of Socrates and others who chose to live consistently with their philosophical beliefs.

FAITH AND JUSTICE

Though many may disagree with his assessment of the difficulties stemming from living a life consistent with the ideals of Christian faith most would agree with him that the end of such a life is perfection… to be accomplished by the Christian's strict compliance with the will of God (Paed. 3.101.1-2). Clement adds that faith and justice are often identical because the non-believer cannot really be just, a view that again may not be true (Protr. 104.2). He qualifies his statement by saying that justice is not the “common” faith but the special all-inclusive faith which is knowledge of God (Paed. 1.103.1-5). Justice and faith are similar because faith, like justice, expresses a relationship to God (Str. 7.78.7). In a sense, faith can be seen as the foundation of justice (Ecl. Proph. 37.2) while justice is the end of faith (Paed. 2.103.2-3). Faith ends with life's existence whereas justice partakes of the divine presence with its knowledge of God (Str. 6.78.1 and unknown fr. 48). Those who died in Christ are not called believers any longer but righteous. Faith is thus temporal leading to justice and eternal life, while justice is participation in the divine life, that is, the constant vision of God. At the end, despite the distinction between the two concepts Clement concludes that neither faith can exist without justice nor justice without faith (Protr. 116.3) The just is just when he has faith in God and His will (Ecl. Proph. 60.1).

KNOWLEDGE

While Clement thus seems to place faith above knowledge, he did not mean to downgrade the importance of knowledge as an element conducive to the perfection of the Christian man. As in the case of the Law, so knowledge for Clement is something much more than what we consider formal education. It is the understanding of things present, future, and past, things which are certain and reliable because imparted and revealed by the Son of God. But Clement warns that those whose purpose in life is contemplation toward perfection can reach it only by learning the prophetic utterances by which they will grasp the present, the future, and the past.¹² Thus true knowledge… deals with intellectual objects which are beyond the sphere of the world, and with objects more spiritual than those which the eye can see, and the ear can hear. The gnostic learns of these things from the teacher who unveils the holy of holies in an ascending order to those who are truly recipient of the Lord's adoption.¹³ The things the gnostics learn are contained in the prophecies which are full of knowledge as it has been given by the Lord. This knowledge is an attribute of the rational soul which trains itself so that by knowledge it may become entitled to immortality. For Clement learning is the beginning of all rational action since learning is older than the action that follows it.¹⁴

In his discussion of knowledge Clement tries to differentiate between what men regard as knowledge and what he considers knowledge from the Christian standpoint. In this sense knowledge is not simply a field of education in which someone has specialized. It is not even just the knowledge of good and evil, the ethical intellectualism suggested by Socrates. It is that but also more than that. It is that knowledge which provides an irrefragable comprehension of things divine and human, of those that Christ has taught men through the prophets and through His advent. It is irrefragable because it has been revealed to us by him. This knowledge is not acquired through reason… trained by that education through which the latent powers of man are developed and self-perfection is accomplished.¹⁵ True, Clement admits that the realization of God in man begins through the function of the mind (Str. 5.73.2; 7.5). The next step is meeting God and remaining obedient to His will (QDS 18.7). Part of this obedience is expressed not as compliance with humanistic action but as a conviction of anthropognosy and autognosy, that is, the “know thyself.” Through this self-knowledge we acquire the right relationship to God. Thus the knowledge that springs from logical inquiry is related to the knowledge that comes through faith and illumination. Both are interdependent things conducive to the accomplishment of the same goal. But the first is not sufficient. Man needs also God's gift, His light. Without this light we cannot know God as perfectly as possible. In that state of imperfection we may know God as others did, which implies that Clement is aware that pagans also knew of the direct relation of light to the knowledge of God. True philosophy, according to the Sibyl, is that which is deposited in the heart of people and which is the knowledge of God Who is likened to the light and the sun, an agent opposed to the darkness and ignorance (Protr. 77.2-3). This knowledge the believer receives through revelation by the Holy Spirit (Protr. 78.1). The light, which Clement identifies with God, Who is the creator of light, can help man disperse the darkness and ignorance of his life.¹⁶ Whereas the Greeks had knowledge of the God, their knowledge was imperfect. Even such a great genius as Plato merely touched the truth about God without really grasping it perfectly.¹⁷ Only God's grace is a sure means to know the truth about God and the salvation that comes from Him.¹⁸ The knowledge of God Clement refers to is knowledge as through a mirror… that is, this knowledge is not of His substance but of His activity through revelation.¹⁹ That is why the knowledge of God and His truth differs in the Bible from that of the Greek philosophy as much as a dream from reality (Protr. 64.1).

The human body is also instrumental in the knowledge of God because by virtue of our being alive we posses knowledge and through living we learn and achieve the good (Str. 4.18. 1-2). Here Clement seems to follow again in the footsteps of Plato who speaks of the harmony between body and soul, an idea Clement adapts to the Christian message.²⁰ He reasons that the loving God appears in the Church as activity… which has manifested itself in human form thought live agents, such as the apostles, who continued His teaching after His coming, as He had also manifested Himself through the prophets and through His own incarnation. The physical element is useful because God in human form was most suitable to serve the humanity of man (Ecl. Proph. 23.1-2). Owing to His saving activity our spiritual way of life and our body have been sanctified and Christ is glorified through our body.²¹

Clement consequently rejects the ancient notion that the body was evil and that it served as the tomb of the soul, an idea quite different from his concept of harmony.²² In rejecting this ancient theory he combats the similar Gnostic ideas about the body, claiming that in essence the body is a thing indifferent…, a theory propounded earlier by the Stoics.²³ But whereas the Stoics spoke of the body as an indifferent thing, Clement went a step further by asserting that the body can be sanctified and that the importance of the body should be seen in Christ's incarnation by which He saved humanity. He also stresses that God is glorified through our physical nature and that man can attain moral progress through his physical being.²⁴

Clement equally reminded us that the knowledge of God begins with the aid of our senses and our reason, provided that sensory preception is combined with prudence. In this way the individual is led gradually to sound…knowledge, though he agrees with Philo that the process is difficult, making the object difficult to attain,…²⁵ Clement draws from Aristoboulos, who seemed to have had similar ideas about the knowledge of God, which he had purportedly borrowed from Plato.²⁶ He mentions with approbation Plato's and Aristoboulos' theory that wonder is the first step of philosophical inquiry and that man should start with the intelligible things if he were to understand the causes of the visible order (Str. 5.8.6).²⁷

The knowledge of God has its beginnings in the knowledge of ourselves. By this statement Clement gives to the Socratic apophthegm a Christian twist. When one knows himself he learns that he is a child of God and is thereby led to the attainment of the knowledge of the Father by seeking to liken himself to God.²⁸ He learns that Christ's church is a school, and that Christ is the only true teacher who bestows the sacred and saving knowledge.²⁹ Through self-knowledge he comes to know his purpose in life which is none other than the fulfilment of the commandments, which obtain his adoption as child of God and his salvation.³⁰ For Clement the purpose of the creation of man's soul is knowledge which in the end is the knowledge of our sinful nature that leads us to repentance, from which springs the finding of our soul and our salvation.³¹ Clement's idea of the importance of self-knowledge as a means of finding ourselves is substantially different from Philo's theory where self-knowledge is the awareness of our smallness, the knowledge of the nothingness of our mortal nature.³² Such an awareness of our nothingness is primarily a help in the attainment of the knowledge of God since only when the creature recognizes its own nothingness is it ready to encounter the creator.

Self-knowledge is a topic to which Clement frequently returns. The study of ourselves begins with the knowledge of our body and what happens to our nature. From there it proceeds to more intellectual things whose guide is reason. When the individual cleanses his flesh and his spirit, he is freed from those influences that keep him earth-bound and nothing else is left but for him to get on the road that leads to the understanding of God.³³ Though Clement here never loses sight of the role of revelation in knowledge, he nonetheless seems to adhere closely to philosophy as the road that brings to God. True, knowledge of God through philosophic inquiry alone is impossible, but Clement inclines to believe that the best road to knowledge includes philosophy, provided one does not mistake this road as the desired terminal.³⁴ The guide in the discovery of knowledge should be Christ, the Logos of God.³⁵ After he has said that, Clement does not hesitate to voice his difference to philosophy. The knowledge of God through self-knowledge is not a theoretical knowledge of the road to God nor is it the simple knowledge of either the simple or difficult concepts of revelation. Nor is it the knowledge of the works of God. It is knowledge and participation in the divine will and activity, especially that activity which was unknown to philosophy but which relates to the salvation of man. Self-knowledge is also found in the Gnostic texts except that there it concerns the knowledge of the former state of the soul and not participation in the will of God or man's salvation.³⁶ True knowledge provides an irrefragable comprehension of things divine and human, and of everything that Christ has taught men through the prophets and through His advent. It is irrefragable because it has been revealed to us by Him. This knowledge is what produces true wisdom.³⁷ Only by the acquisition of this knowledge which does not puff up and does not work conceit can man acquire trust in the truth and so live in accordance with the gospel and discover the proofs for which he has searched in the Law.³⁸

Clement's emphasis on knowledge carries the mystical implication that God is not only inaccessible and invisible but also accessible and visible. The possibility of communion with God and the seeing of His glory depends on the accessibility and understanding of His divinity. Invisible and inaccessible in His substance God becomes visible and accessible in His activity. This distinction between the substance and activity of God is already known to Clement from Athenagoras.³⁹

The vision of God is of course granted as a divine gift but also as a recompense for human effort towards spiritual advancement and perfection. One must labor constantly, however, to be granted this vision. This effort is seen as a constant human exercise of cleansing and return to himself and God. Attachment to the carnal desires and the deceitful pleasures removes man from God. Sinlessness is not understood here as a negative situation limited to the abstinence from sin but is something active, directly connected with the exercise of virtue and especially love.⁴⁰ Love exemplifies the superseding character of virtue over sin. Sin is a later product of man's disobedience while virtue is without beginning since it stems eternally from God and is granted by him to the spirit of man. This does not reduce man's responsibility nor the importance of his cooperation with God. But before man can “see” God, he has to find the truth and orient his existence toward God while at the same time converting his passionate tendency for himself and the world into a selfless and “divine” love.⁴¹

KNOWLEDGE AND TRUTH

Closely associated with knowledge is the issue of truth and how to find it. Clement here tackles the problem arising from the attempt to interpret the true tradition as handed down by the apostles and by the teachings of Christ. His solution is an awkwardly axiomatic but reasonable statement that what is subject to interpretation and criticism cannot be a first principle (Str. 7.95.5-6). This is an irreducible and self-evident fact to him. He then advances to the inevitable conclusion that we can grasp by faith the indemonstrable first principle which he equates with truth and God.

Truth for Clement is a reality that resides outside of the world. The present world is subject to change and corruption (Str. 7.30.2). Truth is eternal and changeless, identified with God. Truth is the real being; it is God. All truth has as its criterion and measure God (Protr. 1.69.1). Truth being God does not stay in itself but comes into the world. Truth is “eternal food” (Str. 5.70.1) and he who attains to it and distinguishes himself in good works shall gain the prize of everlasting life (QDS. 1.4). Doubting truth ends up in the opposite, that is, death and destruction (Str. 4.8.3-4). Because God did not wish to abandon man after his fall, He allowed him to have some truth. This kindness on the part of God explains the traces of truth to be found in Greek philosophy. Since philosophy is a search for the truth and the nature of things, it is not totally ignorant of truth (Str. 1.32.4). In philosophy itself there is truth, and true beauty (Str. 6.150.6). The truth of philosophy is not only the product of investigation “from below” by man; it is also divine grace given to the Greeks from above.⁴² But this truth in philosophy is mixed with many lies and much error. Philosophy contains a part of truth; it is not itself the truth (Str. 1.87.1). How can we distinguish the truth from the lies in philosophy? Clement's answer needs no great elaboration: through the revealed truth by Christ Who is the only true philosophy (Str. 6.58.2). When one realizes that Christ as the Son of God is our true teacher, he is convinced that Christ's teaching is truth (Str. 5.85.2). Thus Clement answers a difficult problem without the need to analyze it thoroughly. Without Christ's revelation there cannot be full knowledge of truth, and without the full knowledge of truth there can be no knowledge. The Greek philosophers themselves are intellectually infants if they have not been made men by Christ (Str. 1.53.1-2).

On the other hand, those who are afraid of philosophy and avoid it resemble children who are afraid that phantoms may abduct them (Str. 6.80.5). Here Clement attempts to combine his admiration for Greek education with the newly revealed truth. Philosophy, according to him, is not only the method for the development and understanding of the Christian truth but it also contains truth. Philosophy thus becomes necessary for the better understanding of truth because it serves as the underpinning of Christian theory (Str. 6. 62.1). Clement's view constitutes a scathing criticism of the opponents of Greek education. If one can know the truth about Christ, he feels, he can more readily grasp it with the knowledge of Greek philosophy (Str. 1.178.1). The dialectician proceeds with his ascent to the hierarchy of essences, forms, or powers until he climbs, as Plato did, to the highest essence of all, the ultimate reality which is the Good or God. To this Platonic dialectic process Clement added the element of faith. Faith and dialectic joined together and led to knowledge of reality and to the real God, although not the God of Platonic intellectualism. Thus Clement does not stray too far from Greek philosophy which seeks to know God through human effort, relying on an innate original communion between man and heaven (Protr. 25.3). We can say that as Christ came to fulfill the Law so Clement sought to fulfill Greek philosophy with revelation. In this respect he saw no antithesis between the two, despite his occasional protests about philosophy, and contrary to the many reservations and fears expressed by many of his contemporaries.⁴³ In essence, Clement reemphasized the “likeness” between God and the world and the continuity between creation and redemption. Greek philosophy therefore accomplished two most important tasks: first it prepared its students for the reception of the Christian message, the true philosophy, Truth itself. In a typical Heracleitean fashion Clement again reminds us that this truth can be known only by a select few and is the object of esoteric knowledge. The teacher of this knowledge is the historical Christ, the incarnation of the Divine Logos. Those who want to become gnostics must study and take into account philosophy (Str. 2.45.6). Granted that even without philosophy a person can become a gnostic, but philosophy makes it easier to achieve this goal since it provides the background for the right interpretation of the Scriptures. This leads to the second task philosophy performs: it becomes the key to the disclosure of the inner meaning of the Scriptures.⁴⁴

Those who accept the bond between philosophy and revelation become trained to the knowledge of truth (Str. 7.95.6). Truth which is accepted as knowledge is not a simple statement which may also recognize ignorance; that type of truth is simply an opinion. What is stated by men must be proved by the voice of God, the only demonstration Clement accepts as valid. The voice of God is in the Bible and in the tradition passed onto us by the apostles and their disciples. This tradition was a body of sayings and doings ascribed to the apostles which was universally accepted by the Christians of Clement's time. Living in the sub-apostolic era, so close to the founders of the new religion, Clement realized that Bible and tradition were the only interpretations of truth he held as authentic (Str. 7.95.3). Those who had merely tasted… the Scriptures he classified as believers, whereas those who had advanced further and had become correct expounders of the truth were the gnostics. As in life craftsmen are superior to ordinary people and can model beyond the common man's ability, so those who give a complete proof of the Scriptures based on their faith in the Scriptural writings themselves can best persuade with their demonstrations the common man (Str. 7.96.1).

Beyond the definition of truth and knowledge as the scientific possession of what is good and unchangeable, things divine and human (Paed. 2.25.3; Str. 7.70), truth and knowledge are also described as the rational guide that leads the spirit away from the passions and death and into the path of good-doing.⁴⁵ This type of knowledge pilots to the infinite and perfect end, showing men the future life they will lead according to God “among other Gods,” by which he means among other gnostics (Str. 7.56.4). Knowledge is quick in purifying and transforming a person. With ease it removes the soul to what is akin to the soul and by its own light conveys man through mystic stages until he can gaze on God face to face… with understanding and comprehension (Str. 7.57.1). In this understanding consists the perfection of the gnostic soul, because this understanding means that the soul is with the Lord, and so the soul is also in immediate subjection to him (Str. 7.57.1-2). While faith is a comprehensive knowledge of the essentials, knowledge itself is the strong and sure demonstration of what is received by faith from God's teaching, conveying the soul on to infallibility, science, and comprehension (Str. 7.56.2-3). This knowledge terminates in love-giving and in turning the loved from that which is unknown to that which is known, making the knowing one a creature equal to angels…⁴⁶

It is therefore impossible for those who are still under the direction of passions to receive true knowledge of God, and if they have no true knowledge of God they do not have any final hope. The person who fails to attain this end is liable to the charge of ignorance of God, an ignorance which is displayed by one's way of living (Str. 3.43.1). The conduct of one's life reveals him who knows and follows the commandments, the very light that is in us.⁴⁷ Knowledge is a form of divine understanding and light, engendered in the soul from obedience to the commandments, which makes everything clear and enables man to know himself and God. For knowledge stands to the mind as the eye to the body.⁴⁸ That is the reason Clement considered faith “cultivated” by knowledge as worth more than “simple” faith (Str. 1.43.1-3). His distinction between cultivated and simple faith seems to concern those Christians who in reacting against the rationalism of heterodoxists went to the extreme in underlining only simple faith as the basic ingredient of salvation and perfection. They rejected the learning of philosophy and natural science… to the chagrin of Clement who, though himself critical of the pagan beliefs of the Greeks, found their education nonetheless conducive to the better understanding of the Christian truths. Hence his intriguing comment that to demand faith alone without knowledge is as if one wished to gather grapes immediately, without bestowing care on the vine (Str. 1.43.1) But he who directs everything towards an upright life, procuring examples from the Greeks and barbarians, is an experienced searcher after the truth and a man of wisdom possessing the qualities of the Lydian stone which was believed to have the power of distinguishing the spurious from the genuine gold. The true and knowledgeable gnostic can distinguish sophistry from philosophy, rhetoric from dialectic, truth from a lie.⁴⁹

Clement considers the ability to distinguish among these intellectual differences as well as between expressions of double meaning whether in philosophy or in the Bible as very important. Even Christ, when questioned, sought to answer occasionally by expressions of double meanings. Consequently, knowledge of philosophy is important because it enables a person to avoid deception by ambiguity and helps him attain to the supreme knowledge that frees him from restrictions; it metamorphoses him into a perfect moral entity.⁵⁰ What Clement wishes for the Christian here is the achievement of the Christian ethos and of personal distinctiveness and freedom. This can be realized if only man can effect a change in his mode of existence, the end-result of the realization of the Christian message. Clement's gnostic must free himself from the oppressive claims of his individual nature which binds him to the weaknesses and the impersonal survival of the species. Only through this liberation from natural necessity can the Christian man exist as a distinctive personality in a life with Christ, a life of love. Only by this road of freedom can man achieve his likeness to God and become a gnostic. And only by becoming a gnostic will man achieve the reality of unity with the good that will free him from corruption and death. Essential to the achievement of this goal is that the Christian understand fully the prophets and apostles, especially since some of their sayings have a hidden meaning which demands skill in understanding (Str. 1.45.1).

Clement realizes at this point that he may be falling into the trap of contradiction because the apostles and prophets were demonstrably lacking in formal education. He seeks to escape from this predicament by pointing out that the prophets and the apostles knew infallibly the meaning of what the spirit had said in a way that others cannot easily know it. Hence, he concludes that it is not for those without knowledge to explain casually the prophets and the apostles (Str. 1.45.2). Knowledge will also help the gnostic to identify what is safe and good with what seems dreadful in appearance, though not necessarily in reality. This identification enables him to know what is truly to be dreaded and that which is dreaded because of a false opinion rather than its truth. So he discriminates intelligently what the Word intimates to him as requisite and necessary, and really safe for him: that is, what is good from what appears to be so.⁵¹ Pursuing Plato's thought, Clement avers that it is from ignorance of what is and what is not to be dreaded that man acts. Therefore, the only man of courage is the gnostic who knows present and future good things and the things to be dreaded. Since the gnostic knows that vice… is alone hateful and destructive, he makes war against it.⁵² Clement's distinction between of dreaded and non-dreaded things provides him with the opportunity to express his reservation about those “martyrs” who precipitously exposed themselves to danger and to praise those, who when called by God, surrendered themselves promptly to martyrdom in the exercise of rational fortitude, simply obeying the call from a love of God.⁵³

VIRTUE, KNOWLEDGE AND THEOSIS

In a way Clement seems to believe that virtue is the inclination to hunt for the best and the disposition of the soul to regard everything in life in the light of reason.⁵⁴ To a limited degree virtue is inherent because every man by nature possesses the ability to perfectibility. Even though we do not originally possess virtue we have the propensity for it (Str. 6.95.5). This natural propensity man must develop through training and learning, turning it into an activity that dominates the passions (Paed. 1.16.1-3). When man becomes the master of his passions he becomes virtuous. Clement inclines to believe that once an individual has achieved virtue he is not very likely to lose it, though he recognizes that the maintenance of virtue requires constant vigilance. The theory that a person can become perfect in virtue is wrong since virtue is the voluntary and conscious effort toward the perfect (Paed. 1.34. 1-2). If nature affords us the possibility of near perfection in virtue, it is only as an act of will developed through learning and training, which is achieved in a different degree by different persons.⁵⁵ Clement does not forget to add, however, that the most essential part in the achievement of virtue is God's grace and help. The propensity to virtue is the objective factor while the perfection through training is the subjective element. Without these two factors there is no attainment of virtue. Yet the two factors are not enough for the development of virtue because both factors are of this world. If they were sufficient man would not need God's help. He could achieve virtue by himself. Thus virtue is not only moral perfection, it is also to a great extent a divine contribution. Here again Clement's thinking remains consistent with the Christian theory as he distances himself from the Greek ideal of virtue which emphasized primarily the human element. Clement does not deny man's freedom of the will in the accomplishment of virtue, but points out that this accomplishment is not possible without God.⁵⁶

In a similar vein, Clement stresses that growth in virtue is not something done because of the perfectible hopes to acquire something in this world, though there might be beneficial offshoots from this attainment. Neither happiness nor worldly goods are the object of the virtuous person, as they are in Greek philosophy. The ultimate aim of this perfection is being with God which produces the real happiness.⁵⁷ This happiness of the gnostic obtains even when external conditions for him are not so fortunate. The virtuous is internally calm and lives at peace with God; consequently, he is in peace with the world and himself. Virtue thus leads to likeness with God (Str. 6.114.6). The gnostic becomes similar to God, to paraphrase Heracleitus, because he wills what God wills.⁵⁸

That it is Greek philosophical thought that Clement paraphrases in Christian terms becomes obvious from a quick survey of Plato's treatment of the subject and from the very fact that Clement himself does not hesitate to refer occasionally to Plato's theory of man's perfection. A brief discussion of Plato's religious ideas will sufficiently demonstrate the dependence of Clement gnostic model on Plato's theory of the “ideal” person. The teachings of Plato (no distinction between Socratic and Platonic ideas is made here; this is not a study on Plato) can be summarized in three quick propositions: his description of the perfection; man's moral autonomy and self-sufficiency; and man's self-knowledge which unmistakably leads to the inner understanding of the basic principles of the good. Plato believed that virtue was knowledge (Lach. 194 D) and that when one possesses the knowledge of good, he will try to follow it in his life.⁵⁹ Evil for Plato is not part of human nature (he will modify this view in some of his later works) but of human ignorance. In opposition, human nature is not voluntarily evil.⁶⁰ His conviction was that reason is capable of perfecting humanity. He thus presents Socrates as adhering to this proposition and as dedicating his life to it.

Plato's conviction has a rationalist basis, though the mystic, the religous, element is not absent from it. Yet Plato's rationalism should not be confused with the ideal of the Enlightenment. His idea was not the possession of knowledge as the proponents of the Enlightenment presented rational knowledge but a total development of one's personality under the guidance of reason, by which he means the spirit as a superior, guiding principle. This coinherence of reason and spirit is what Plato calls the “true harmony” (Lach. 188 D), the pairing of words and deeds, which Plato so admired in the character of Socrates (Apol. 33 A).

The program in the life of Socrates, Socrates' own perfection, the perfection of his fellow citizens he so ardently pursued, his zeal in the accomplishment of this ideal have a missionary, religious tinge about them. His steady faith in the idea that a divine reason governs the world and puts order and shape to all points to the fact that Socrates was a person of a deeply religious nature who believed that only when man surrenders voluntarily his own self to reason and its dictates he allows the divine proclivities in him to reveal themselves.⁶¹ How is this religiosity reconciled with Socrates' rationalism? Socrates lived the “feeling of mystery.” He realized that the human ability for knowledge was not unlimited.⁶² This side of his character is evinced by his faith in… that strange inner voice which turned him away from doing something at crucial moments of his life.⁶³ He believed that this voice was the command of the divine. He could not rationally explain it and concluded that it must have been of divine origin. The assumption led him also to the belief in the prophetic meaning of dreams.⁶⁴ His belief in the prophetic character of dreams is the “revenge of mysticism against rationalism.”⁶⁵

The philosopher pays no attention to beauty, riches, bodily rigor, political power, and glory, things that the common people admire. He disdains such possessions because they are not conducive to the improvement of his soul.⁶⁶ He preoccupies himself only with spiritual things that motivate the soul to look upwards and preaches the gospel of “refuge” from the world which he understands as “likeness to God.” (Plat. Theaet. 176 A-B). He is possessed by a burning desire for the paternal home, that is the divine kingdom. He feels as stranger in the visible world of evil and desires to elevate himself to the divine eternal kingdom. The fundamental presupposition for the accomplishment of this task is for him to deny decisively the body with its senses and to fly with the wings of spirit to our heavenly country. When man accomplishes this goal, he will come close to God.

This incessant struggle that Plato felt was also felt later by another religious personality (Rom. 7.22-25). The Pauline struggle between the law of his body and mind Plato ascribes to two different worlds. On the one hand is the kingdom of God and eternal being; on the other, the world of nature and sinfulness. The soul belongs to the first, the body to the second. The soul strives to elevate itself to heavens; the body ties it to the earth. The difference between the Platonic and Pauline view lies in the fact that Paul expected redemption from the grace of God, while Plato expected man to fight for his own salvation. Both, however, agree that man should try his best not to allow the enslavement of the soul by the body. Both concur that the destiny of our life is to leave this life.

Only through death of the body the soul manages to live its own life. Conversely, the soul dies when human corporeality grows. For man to partake of the eternal life, which only befits the soul, man must die as to the body; he must free himself of his earthly life. Death is the freeing of the soul from the body and its physical demands (Phaed. 64 C; 67 D). This happens only when the body's physical demise is achieved, and the soul is freed from the body. This is indeed the liberation from the body that the philosopher anticipates since it frees him from sensual pleasures and deadens his desires (Phaed. 64 D; 65 B). In the former case, death is not an evil, as people commonly believe but the desired goal (Phaed. 68 D; 65 B; 83 A). Philosophy then can be defined as the study and the exercise of death.⁶⁷

Plato therefore stresses the nostalgic expectations of death that characterizes people of strong religious propensities. It is a feature of the deeply religious natures of all times and in all sorts of civilizations that they are not terrified by death. On the contrary, they make it the center of their life's theory. Death not only as physical dissipation of the body, but also death in life, that is the moral mortality of the sinful body, opens up the road to another life where the troubles of earthly life are not counted, and where eternal happïness always shines. An understanding God, full of love and kindness has destined and invited man to this happiness. Man will reach this destiny if he makes it the main objective of his life by acting in accordance of the philosophical ideals.⁶⁸ This ideal has no relation to earthly happiness; it supervenes it. It is man's perfection, his likeness to God.⁶⁹ Man's guide towards this goal is not only the measure set by himself, but the measure also set by God for man's thought and action (Plat. Laws 4. 716 C), a position contrary to that of Protagoras. The true philosopher who stands closer to God lives as if in a cloud that passes over the earth, Plato says quoting Pindar.⁷⁰ Pluto, Plato continues, must be honored of all gods because it bestows upon man the most wishful thing: death (Rep. 8.828 D). Coward and slave is he who is afraid of death. The accomplished philosopher does not consider death fearful.…On the contrary, it is life that is fearful (Gorg. 492 E).

It was mentioned above that Plato intimates that man cannot understand the divine solely with the aid of reason, a position with which Clement wholeheartedly would later concur. Reason cannot go that far. This leap can be made only by him who has been given divine inspiration… and grace. Only he can experience such a contemplatio sui generis. One could call this leap upwards “divine logos” or theory,…⁷¹ What one feels inside him is impossible to explain in human terms (Rep. 6. 509 A). This feeling which amounts to the possession of the soul by the divine, creates in the possessed an ineffable state that Plato understood when he called it “divine madness,” created by the gods.⁷² Only few are given this privilege to divine madness (Phaedr. 69 C-D). For this reason the many consider the philosopher who is possessed by this ecstatic mania a fool. (Phaedr. 249 D). But this “fool” experiences directly the miracle of the power that possessed him and lifts him from earth to heaven. In this heaven he lives the indescribable sensation of internal transformation. He feels that wings grow in his soul. His soul finds itself in a flood of passion and is filled with joy, throbbing like a fevered pulse (Phaedr. 252 D). She tastes a pleasure which is sweet beyond compare (Phaedr. 252 D).

By the use of this simile Plato endeavors to describe the erotic suffering of the philosopher's soul for the divine and to define what he means by divine madness, which he identifies with the religious experience. This experience produces pain and happiness. Pain is caused by the realization of one's imperfections, while happiness is caused when he finally attains that which he dreams of, the saturation of his soul by the holy and its emotional wrenching by a superhuman force that makes man similar to God. All these characteristics of the mystical religious experience Plato portrays symbolically with the madness, the divine eros.

The soul is redeemed through eros, because through it it tastes happiness; through it it plunges in the “ocean of the good” (Symp. 210 D). Through eros it attains the direct view of the eternal, pure, and beautiful (Symp. 211 A) which is also the Supreme Good, the Pure Truth, God Himself (Phaedr. 249 D). Thus it is freed from its pain; enjoys the decorous pleasure; and finds at last life worth living.⁷³

Clement, like Plato above, affirms that the few are the chosen, the bacchoi, who are initiated in the divine mystery of virtue and knowledge; they are those inspired by God, the true philosophers. In contrast, most of the people do not enter into the sacred mysteries of philosophy. They are those who stay at the entrance… and, like the plain worshippers of Dionysus, carry only the external symbols of worship, like the rod from the plant narthex.⁷⁴ This difference between the many and the few in regard to philosophy Clement relates to the saying of the gospel that those invited are many but the chosen are few.

The same selectivity pertains to faith which is also the privilege of the few. This is logical since faith is the base on which knowledge is built.⁷⁵ It is not far fetched to conclude from Clement's observations that he is here also critical of the Gnostics, or some of them at least. His description of the elect as those who abandoned evil habits may be an indirect criticism of those sects of Gnostics who resorted to all sorts of immoral activities on the premise that being elect they could not be touched by evil. Clement clearly implies that the adherents of immorality, Gnostics or not, are neither elect nor gnostics in his sense of the word.⁷⁶ He rejects unreservedly the Gnostic theory that man is saved by nature. He considers this theory false from the Christian standpoint and contradictory to the Gnostics' own theories.⁷⁷ Because the true Christian gnostic believes that the world is the creation of the good God, he uses the world's goods as a means of his moral improvement. In contrast, many of the “elect” of Gnosticism believed that the world is the creation of a lower divinity, hostile to their nature. This misconception led them to two extremes. Some of these Gnostics avoided the goods of the world owing to their extreme continence, whereas others over utilized the material goods in complete disregard of morality.⁷⁸ By taking this position they felt they showed contempt for the creator god, his creatures and his laws (Str. 3.34.1-4). Clement's gnostic shows disregard for the material goods only when they become an impediment to his salvation. His attitude to material goods springs from his knowledge of God's commands recognizing that through this knowledge he partakes of the divine will and becomes a child of God, οι κειοs, (Str. 7.78.4-5). The Gnostic elect stands apart of the world not through the knowledge of the commands of God and his respect for them but through his natural choice for salvation.

In a somewhat over optimistic fashion Clement believes that all the Christian wise men know that there exist many unintelligible things in the world but that the gnostic understands them whereas the non-gnostic does not. The difference is owing to God's assistance. It would have been incongruous for him who suffered for man out of love to hide anything which is conducive to man's knowledge, a statement contradictory to his criticism of the Gnostic sects (Str. 7.68.1). Such a statement can be justified only on the premise that Clement relied more on faith for the acquisition of that knowledge than the Gnostics who spoke of illumination (Str. 6.68.2; 8.5.4). He relies on his conviction that knowledge stems from the belief that Christ's revelation given to the apostles is complete, and that the apostles, versed as they were in this complete knowledge, are the first gnostics. The same is true of those who followed them and who interpret the Scriptures as authentically as the apostles.⁷⁹ The inference is again that Christ could not have concealed anything from his disciples, or they from theirs. The practical outcome of this knowledge is good works, a conclusion with which neither Plato, nor Aristotle, or other Greek philosophers would have disagreed, their emphasis on knowledge notwithstanding.⁸⁰ The accent on knowledge by Clement may be due to his effort to balance his former emphasis on faith in opposition to the Gnostic who underrated faith in comparison to knowledge. What Clement may be trying to show here is that the true Christians accepted faith as the cornerstone of their belief, without ignoring the importance of knowledge. No doubt Clement is also influenced by or reacting to Plato and Philo here. The first viewed knowledge of God as the aim and end of life without any reference to faith; the second underrated faith in relation to knowledge.⁸¹ Philosophy in general emphasized the importance of knowledge and its beneficial effects.⁸² Clement himself recognized the significance of Greek education, and would not have wished to leave the impression that he was casting aspersion on its value, because of his concern for faith. After all, the purpose for which we were created, says Clement, is to reach the knowledge of God (Paed. 2.14.6). The knowledge of God is in accord with the divine will and becomes “communion with immortality”.⁸³

KNOWLEDGE, THE FEW, AND THE MANY

The Greeks believed that knowledge and truth were the privilege of the few.⁸⁴ Clement, as we have already seen, agrees with this notion, but he proceeds to say that the knowledge of God is impossible in this life and that only the pure in heart will see God when they reach perfection. He who lives in ignorance is sinning, but he who lives in knowledge of the truth is equal to God because he is spiritualized, therefore elect (Str. 4.168.2). Knowledge becomes a light which when used properly by man disperses the darkness of lies and ignorance (Protr. 77.3). With the weapons of true knowledge the gnostic fights off the force of evil (Str. 2.111. 2-3). By this knowledge the gnostic begets strength which enables him to work his own salvation and that of others.⁸⁵ The knowledge of Christ, renders the gnostic close to God and makes him a partner of the divine power and nature.⁸⁶

Once again Clement does not reject the pagan knowledge, but taking his cue from Heracleitus who said that the philosophers must be knowledgeable of many things and mindful of Protagoras for whom a logical argument should always be opposed by another logical argument, he concludes that the gnostic Christian should be well grounded in everything to answer properly and at all times.⁸⁷ Christian knowledge is thus a mixture of the Scriptures and pagan philosophy, a mixture whose aim is the realization of the will of God and one's salvation thereby. Thus, knowledge has also a practical end.⁸⁸ Knowledge and experience are associated with virtuous life since they help us distinguish between correct and false life and know the past and foresee the future as it relates to our salvation. A man's virtue demonstrates his relation to goodness and since goodness is God virtue denotes a relationship of man to God. Virtue then is the participation of man in the goodness of God. Beyond this type of virtue there is not true virtue. The autonomous virtue is false because it is alienated from its source, which is God. The pursuit of virtue has as its result the transfiguration of life, not merely a change in external behavior, “except a man be born again, he cannot see the Kingdom of God” (John 3.3). The rebirth of man requires a mode of existence wherein life is realized as communion in love and relationship. Christianity then as well as pagan education became for Clement the sources from which he drew for the formulation of his own ideas about the wise man whom he contrasted to the wise man of the philosophers (Str. 1.37.6). Understandably, Clement's gnostic is the perfect type of man since this gnostic conducts himself according to human reason and more particularly according to the Logos revealed to us by God. Clement also contrasts his gnostic to the ideal man of the Gnostic system. His gnostic is the knower and participant of the divine activities and qualities whose aim is the perfection and salvation of man (Paed. 3.101.1-2). Such perfection is accomplished by the study of the divine way of life and conduct, that is, by doing what is pleasant to God. This divine activity is the outgrowth of the knowledge of God, which is likened to the sun and light in contrast to the darkness of ignorance (Protr. 77. 2-3). This knowledge of God the Christian receives through the revelation of the Holy Spirit, the agent that spoke to the prophets (Protr. 78.1).

There is another way in which knowledge of philosophy is useful. That is because by it one can comprehend natural science which treats all phenomena in the world of sense. This knowledge constitutes the first step by which the spirit elevates itself to the knowledge of God.⁸⁹ For those who are really interested in the truth, knowledge is the purification of the soul (Str. 4.39.1).

He who trained himself to the summit of knowledge and the elevated height of the perfect man obviously made it his choice to live infallibly and to subject himself to constant training for the attainment of the steadfastness of knowledge (Str. 7.46.7). By this attainment his habit of doing good has become nature (virtue) and through the exercise of the will by the force of reason and care, virtue is incapable of being lost (Str. 7.47.3) Knowledge also teaches us to perceive all things that are capable of contributing to the permanence of virtue. The highest contributor is the knowledge of God. And he who knows God is holy and pious ( … Str. 7.47. 2-3) and is in command of himself and what belongs to him. Since he has a firm grasp of divine science… he makes a genuine approach to the truth (Str. 7.17.1). The knowledge and apprehension of intellectual objects must be called firm scientific knowledge whose divine function is to consider the First Cause, namely God, by “Whom all things were made, and without Whom nothing was made” and to further consider what is joined and what is disjoined, and the position each object holds and what power and service each contributes.⁹⁰ He who has no knowledge of good is wicked.… There is only one good, the Father, and to be ignorant of the Father is death, whereas to know Him is eternal life.⁹¹ Paraphrasing Plato, Clement points out that knowledge is the “eating” and “drinking” of the divine Word.⁹²

For Clement there is a distinction between wisdom acquired through learning and the wisdom which comes from some kind of natural disposition.…He does not belabor the degree to which the natural disposition benefits from the learning experiences in life outside of formal education. He does not evaluate the extent of natural wisdom as against the acquired.… He seems to incline toward the view that the acquisition of virtues is a combination of knowledge and training which ends up in a kind of habit-forming disposition toward the good. Knowledge is not innate in men but it is acquired, that is, attained by a process which requires long training, application, and progress (Str. 6.78. 3). Then through incessant practice it passes into the habit of virtue. When perfected, virtue becomes infallible inasmuch as its possessor has apprehended the First Cause and what is produced by it, and is sure about them. He also knows what is good and evil and has learned from his apprehension of the truth, which is God, the most exact truth from the beginning of the world to the end (Str. 6.78. 4).

While Clement says that faith is indispensable and nothing is above it, elsewhere he intimates that knowledge is the highest good (Str. 6.109.2). Not simply the believer but the gnostic believer is the righteous man. After a circuitous argument Clement ends up admitting the interdependence of knowledge and faith. Real faith cannot exist without knowledge and knowledge without faith. On this premise, Clement concludes that the nature of the beneficent is to do good and a good person will not do evil as evil cannot result in aught virtuous. Philosophy is not the product of vice since it makes men virtuous (Str. 6.159.6; 1.80.5). It follows then that philosophy is the work of God, whose work is solely to do good by making men virtuous. Further proof of the beneficent character of philosophy is that its practice does not belong to the wicked but was accorded to the best of the Greeks and that it was bestowed upon them manifestly from Providence which assigns to each what is befitting in accordance with his deserts (Str. 6.159.8).

By a similar, somewhat circuitous argument, Clement intends to answer the question posed to the Christians by the Gnostics as to whether Adam was created perfect or imperfect. The question really shows how overriding to the Gnostics was the issue of the real creator of this universe. For if Adam was created imperfect how can he be the work of a perfect God? If perfect, how then did this perfect being transgress God's commandments? (Str. 6.96.1).

Clement tries to escape the dilemma by counter-proposing that Adam was not perfect in his creation, but adapted to the reception of virtue. He considers it of great importance in regard to virtue for men to be made fit for its attainment (Str. 6.92.2-3). Here knowledge helps since we are rational beings and philosophy is a rational study. Therefore we have some strong affinity to education by which we improve ourselves to the point of attaining the perfection Clement visualized for the gnostic person. It is true that some men are more apt to attain perfect virtue and others some kind of it, particularly since some of them apply themselves more and others less to training in virtue.⁹³

Exercise in virtue leads to perfection, but this perfection, which is assumed to be the most desirable and highest thing, is not identical with God. Clement rejects the theory of the Stoics that virtue in God and man is the same.⁹⁴ Such a theory is impious because it presents man as God, thereby reducing the uniqueness of the unattainability of God's perfection. Though the gnostic may be perfect, his perfection should not be equated with the perfection of God as it is impossible for any one to become as perfect as God.⁹⁵ Human perfection is relative and is understood as a blameless living in full compliance with the gospel. Certainly one could argue that there might be a logical error on the part of Clement here since perfection is an absolute, but Clement tried his best to express in human terms the perfection of the Christian man vis-à-vis the perfection of God. The relativity of human perfection leads Clement to the discussion of still another facet of the gnostic concept of human affections.

AFFECTIONS OR PASSIONS

Clement considers the gnostic qua human as subject to human affections such as hunger and thirst, which are necessary for the maintenance of the body. Somehow Clement is trying to draw a distinction between human needs and the spiritual status of the gnostic on earth, but his views at this point get him in muddled waters and even the Church later refused to entertain the implications of his argument. Clement rejects as ludicrous the supposition that Christ's body qua flesh required the necessary aids for its maintenance. He thus concludes that Christ did not in reality need to eat, being a God, but that he ate not for the sake of the body, which was kept together by a holy energy, but in order to avoid creating the impression on those who were with Him that He was not also human. According to Clement Christ on the earth was entirely impassible… and impervious to feelings of pleasure and pain (Str. 6.71.2). In contrast, the apostles originally were subject to such human feelings, but through the Lord's teachings, a steady conditioning of their minds and unvarying exercise, they achieved that gnostic state, after Christ's resurrection, that rendered them impervious to human passion and affections (Str. 6.71.1-3).

Even if it should be granted that human affections such as courage, joy, desire, zeal and so on when ruled by reason are good, they are irrelevant in the case of the gnostic. For instance, the gnostic does not do what inspires fear, since he regards none of the things that occur in life as things to be dreaded. The only affection that possesses him is the love towards God, and nothing can dislodge him from that love. He does not need cheerfulness because he does not fall into pain; not that he does not feel pain, but that he knows that even pain happens for the good. Consequently, he does not allow pain to trouble him. Nor does he get angry since there is nothing to move him to anger, inasmuch as his love of God makes him feel no anger toward any of God's creatures. Nor does he envy, for nothing is wanting to him, once he has reached the gnostic stage (Str. 6.71.4-5). The good man then is Godlike in form and semblance as these concern his soul (Str. 6.72.2)

Someone may argue that the gnostic may still be subject to desires and passions by pointing out that love is a desire. Clement does not accept this type of love as desire on the part of him who loves but calls it affection. He who by virtue of love is already in the midst of that which he is destined to be, does not desire anything, inasmuch as he has, as far as possible, the very thing that is desired, love. And he who has reached the state of perfection has gained the exceptional light and has no need to revert to the “delights” of the world. Anything beyond the necessary is viewed as luxury and luxury is an excess that leads man away from the truth.⁹⁶ The gnostic has freed his soul from passions no longer making use of the body, but allowing the body only the use of necessities so that he may not give it cause for dissolution.⁹⁷ It was this love of unnecessary luxury that prevented the rich young man of the parable from winning the everlasting life, in spite of his attention to the commandments of the Law (Luk. 16. 19-23).

In essence Clement does not seem to mind the possession of luxuries he condemns, provided men did not make them the aim of their lives and ipso facto a hindrance to their perfection. For a person who has achieved excellence and is good luxury becomes incidental and valueless, or valuable only as a means to the exercise of the good. Here Clement seems to agree with the Gnostics who had argued in a similar manner on other occasions, and with Plato.⁹⁸ Clement once again here advises use not abuse of what God has bestowed on mankind, since he who has learned to rein in his passions, to train himself to impassibility, to develop the beneficence of gnostic perfection has become like God and equal to the angels.⁹⁹ The attainment of excellence is for Clement reflected in the Platonic and Stoic tetradic virtues of righteousness, temperance, manliness, Godliness. Of these virtues righteousness is square, equal on all sides and alike in word, in deed, in abstinence from evil, and in beneficence, forming gnostic perfection, nowhere and in no respect halting, so that the righteous never appear unjust and unequal.¹⁰⁰ The righteous are believers but not every believer is necessarily righteous. Clement visualizes a progression to perfection according to which only he who attains perfection is righteous (Str. 6.102.5). The believer who merely abstains from evil conduct is not righteous unless he also attained beneficence and knowledge, and the work of righteousness, i.e. the activity of doing good in every circumstance (Str. 6.103.1-2). This righteousness of the gnostic does not rest on civil contracts or on the prohibitions and commandments of the Law but flows from the gnostic's spontaneous action and his love for God.¹⁰¹ The ethics of the gnostic has nothing to do with good and evil whose conclusions and developments cannot be other than conventional. It precludes relativity in values which would permit objective valuations and judicial calculations. The good man's ethics measure man by revealing the image of God in the person. The good man's ethics aim at that morality that restores him to the fullness of life, transcending the limitations created by his nature. This is accomplished only if he undergoes a change in his mode of existence. To do so he must free himself from the claims of his individual nature which binds him to the impersonal survival of the species.¹⁰² No doubt the change which is the goal of the Christian can sometimes be measured by social criteria and objective ethics, with the evaluation categories of good and virtue. But it is not identified with them. Clement does not reject these evaluative criteria but in no way does he confine them within the limits of social behavior and the conventional obligations that govern such behavior. The rightous will maintain prudence and exercise moderation in the calmness of his soul, and he will also be receptive to what is commanded, with aversion to what is base as alien to him.¹⁰³ He is decorous and supramundane and he will do everything in an orderly fashion, while he will never do what he is not allowed to do.¹⁰⁴ He is rich in the highest degree in desiring nothing. He has a few elementary wants, and yet he is in the midst of an abudance of all good through the knowledge of the good. The first consequence of his righteousness is to love and to associate with those of his own kind both on this earth and in heaven.¹⁰⁵ He is liberal of what he possesses, a philanthropist, and a hater of the wicked, entertaining a perfect aversion to all villainy. He is the true servant of God and spontaneously subjects himself to His command, pure in heart not through the commandments but through the knowledge of God. As such he is the friend of God.¹⁰⁶ Things which are really to be dreaded are foreign to him and what is contrary to good cannot be sheltered by him because it is impossible for contraries to meet in the same person at the same time. The gnostic acts well the drama of life which God has given him to play and knows both what is to be done and what is to be endured.¹⁰⁷ Day and night, doing and reciting the Lord's commands, the gnostic rejoices exceedingly not only in resisting villainy, in the morning and at noon, but also when walking about, when asleep, when dressing and undressing. He is even giving thanks to God like Job who resigned himself to God's love throughout his suffering.¹⁰⁸

Like Paul, Clement makes love… a concept superior to righteousness.…Love is the most sacred and sovereign of all concepts and makes the gnostic the perfect individual that he is. Because the gnostic, by virtue of being a lover… of the one true God, he is the really perfect man and friend of God placed in the rank of a son. He is crowned as one judged worthy to behold the everlasting God Almighty face to face.¹⁰⁹ His whole life is a holy festival.¹¹⁰ His soul is a holy statue similar to God. He is the truly begotten of God, the express image of the universal king and almighty Father, Who impresses on him as a gnostic the seal of perfect contemplation.¹¹¹ His function is to have converse with God through the Great and High Priest (Hebr. 4.14), up to the measure of his capacity.¹¹² Each person who is admitted to this state of holiness is illuminated… and in an indissoluble union with God.¹¹³ He who contemplates the unseen God lives as a God among men. The soul of the gnostic, rising above the sphere of generation, is by itself apart and dwells among ideas, and like the Coryphaeus in Plato's Theaetetus becomes an angel rapt in contemplation, forever keeping in view the will of God, “Alone wise, while these flit like shadows”.¹¹⁴

The attainment of perfection is possible equally for men and women, but for both Clement underscores the importance of education, application, and training, thereby clarifying that perfection is not an objective matter but a subjective one, depending on the individual's effort (Str. 4.118. 1; 124.1). Equally, the way to the attainment of that perfection may not be one-sided but many-sided. One thing is, however, certain: the gnostic, though stretched on the rack, his eyes gouged and brutally tormented, or submitted to what is most terrible of all, death, will remain happy. The gnostic will never have the ultimate end placed in this world and he will never be wrenched from his freedom and his signal love of God.¹¹⁵

From this very brief exposition of Clement's idea of Christian perfection some important generalizations can be gathered. To begin with, the common and unquenched thirst of the Christian man is for his salvation, not for conventional improvements of one's character and conduct. For this reason, the basic moral problem for man is the realization of the freedom of ethos far from any conventional evaluation or utilitarian prearrangements.¹¹⁶ In Clement's works ethos is associated with the description of the essence of truth about man. We start that is, with the ontological question, What is Being? What does it mean to be a man and what is the relationship of the biological being to itself? The creation of man as an image of God is to be located in this unity of ethos and being.

Man is created afterm then image of God and this image is identical in nature to God's, though many-sided in the particular persons (Protr. 120.3-5). Man's being symbolizes God's presence which makes man participant in true being. Man is the image of God not because he has common physical characteristics with him, but because he has the capacity to be free from space and physical necessities since, though a human being subjec to limitations, as a personal being he is capable of superseding his physical limitations. In other words, man is created to become a communicant of the qualities of God, especially God's love which is the real life.

Though fallen once from God's grace man does not cease to be a creature of God. His nature is created with a natural individuality that is mortal and perishable. But on this created and mortal nature God impressed His image and His likeness (Gen. 2.7), opening the possibility of real life. The “image and “likeness” of man are directly connected to the knowledge of God by the constant effort of man to convert the assertion “in the image of God” to the “likeness of God”.¹¹⁷ Clement's idea about the “image” and “likeness” may be following the biblical model but is also affected by Clement's other favorite source, Greek philosophy. He uses the statement of the Pythagorean Eurysus contained in his treatise About Fate where God used Himself as model for the creation of man.¹¹⁸ In other places he borrows several expressions by the Greeks which to him allude to the idea of “in the image and likeness” of God (Str. 4.171.3-4). He sees no contradiction in so doing since the Greeks “copied” these ideas from the Bible, according to a misconception popular at his time among Christian writers.¹¹⁹ Elsewhere he identifies “in the image and likeness” with mind… as Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle did when they considered nous as coming from God.¹²⁰ Clement adds to the philosophical interpretations the notion that the Holy Spirit acts on the nous by bestowing its gift… to guide man's spiritual qualities toward his perfection, since the perfection of man consists in the activation of the potential powers in man through self-knowledge, a process by which God also becomes known. The gnostic arrives by the unalterable custom of good-doing to the “likeness” of God inasmuch as good-doing is a facet of man's likeness to God.¹²¹ The good cannot be looked on as an idea because it must be a reality, since only as a reality can it be connected with human life. If it were only an idea it could not have been associated with the reality of life. If it is a reality, then it can be connected with man's life and be defined accordingly. Good must be sought both within the world and within man, for if it existed only in the world and was not attainable by man, it would not have been a true and real good. According to Clement's teaching then the good is not an idea but a personal present; it is God himself. Clement, who used the Old Testament text of the Septuagint, explain that the “in the image” description denotes the spirit in which God created man while “in the likeness” denotes man's dynamic potential. When man who was created “in the image” of God becomes a consummate human being he approaches the likeness of God. Behind both these pictures, the “image” and “likeness,” are for Clement a mystery, similar to the incarnation of God.¹²² Consequently, the biological individuality of every person does not exhaust his being. What makes a person a true being is man's privilege in the freedom of choice and in his personal distinctiveness which is realized and revealed in the act of his communion and relationship with God and his fellowmen. Unlike the animals that are subject to the activity of nature, man is the dynamic revelation of the image of God, and a being of personal uniqueness with the potential of being free from all prearranged limitations on his spiritual side. Through his free will man can accept or reject the purpose of his being; he can refuse the freedom of love and personal communion and reject God's invitation and by so doing, he can exclude himself from real life, that is, his union with God. By saying yes to God he can exercise that privilege to become almost equal to God. But by saying no to God he can lose his privileged status as distinctive person, by which is meant something that has its face (sight) turned towards something other than itself, namely God.¹²³

Person… represents a way of life which presupposes natural existence but is also distinct from the way of other persons, though not in its basic spiritual potential. The elements of the image of God are the spiritual elements of man: his reason and his freedom. His reason and freedom provide man with the possibility of superseding his nature and becoming equal to God (Gen. 3.5). Man partakes of true being to the extent that he controls the autonomy of his nature. He partakes in the true life to the degree that he supersedes his natural limitations and his mortality. From the moment he rejects God's invitation and seeks to assert his independence by separating himself from God, he jeopardizes his true being and alienates himself from his destiny in life. The physical necessities of his individual nature become his real purpose in life; they master him and end up as “passions” and causes of pain and ultimate death instead of useful tools towards his final end of theosis. It is unfortunate that we, after the fashion of the prodigal son in the gospel, abuse God's gifts.¹²⁴ We should use them as their masters without undue attachment. We are enjoined to rule over them and not to be slaves to them. We should raise our eyes aloft to what is true and fill ourselves with the divine food, thereby enjoying that certain and lasting and pure pleasure. This way of partaking of food manifests the love for Christ. Conversely, those who live fattening themselves like beasts feed themselves irrationally to spiritual death, looking downwards towards the earth and bending continuously over tables, in pursuit of a life of gluttony. They bury in the earth what is good in order to pursue a life without future, courting voracity alone.¹²⁵

Clement's concern should not be taken to mean that he ever wanted to remove man's social intercourse; only that he simply regarded with suspicion the slippery customs of man which he considered a potential for spiritual calamity. Man should partake of the necessities and avoid daintiness.¹²⁶ The natural needs for survival should not compete with that personal freedom and distinctiveness of man which can only be realized as love beyond any natural necessity. Freedom of the individual is never lifted; it only changes to antithetical rivalry with nature. It becomes a tragic division of the human being (Rom. 7.23). That is the reason Clement insists on the interpretation of sin as failure, the missing of the real target of life which is for human beings the supersession of their nature and the attainment of personal freedom and individual uniqueness. Failure of the individual to realize his essential aim is tantamount to failing to maintain the uniqueness of his existence through love. Thus the moral dilemma which stems from Clement's interpretation of sin as failure or missing the mark is not the conventional idea of good and evil, of merit or social conventions. It is that and more; it is the dilemma between life and death, between purity or existential indigence and corruption.¹²⁷ Thus Clement's morality goes beyond good and evil; it refers to ontological realities not to meritorious conventions.

After the fall of man his personal uniqueness and his freedom could not have superseded the physical necessity of his biological autonomy. But with the incarnation of God, the natural distance between man and God, created after man's fall, was removed. The union of the human with the divine nature in the person of the Second Adam freed human nature from its imprisonment within the limits of its individuality.¹²⁸ What this Second Adam made now possible was the possibility for man to participate in the “new” way of life, in the new ethos, enabling man to resist his instincts and impulses and to live loving and being loved.

In the first Adam the natural desire for subsistence became the driving force which condemned his race to alienation and concern with the survival of mortal individuality. With the coming of Christ this process is reversed: the divine and human natures are brought together in Christ, the second Adam. This bringing together of the two natures frees humanity from its self-imposed bondage within the limits of mortal individuality. Now human nature subsists as a personal hypostasis of communion with the divine. The second Adam became responsible for a new creation and a new humanity which exists in communion with God. He became the visible archetype of the Christian gnostic to whom he now gave a concrete example for his eyes to follow.

What this regeneration of man through the Second Adam requires is the cooperation of man's freedom, the supersession of his natural limitations, his ascent to God's love, his becoming a person. What God asks of man is an effort, however small, to reject his individual weaknesses, to resist his deleterious impulses and to will to live as a loving being and a loved one. He asks him to empty himself… of every element of individual autonomy for the sake of a life of love and communion with his fellow man and God. Man's compliance with this ethos defines his practical piety. This practical piety is the effort that assures the freedom and the volition of man to deny the rebellion of the individual will, and to imitate the obedience of the Second Adam. This obedience consists not in subjection to any conventions of a legal order but in faithfulness to the image and likeness of God.

Compliance with this ethos aims at the regeneration of one's whole life, not simply at the change of one's external conduct (Str. 1.26.1-4). The external forms, the objectified criteria of individual virtue, are not identified with the truth of salvation. On the contrary, it is possible that they mislead man inasmuch as they distance him from salvation because they tend to bewitch him to the glory and praise of men. The change of the Christian may sometimes be measured by the criteria of the objectified social morality, with the evaluative categories of good and evil. But they are not identical with them and are essentially different. The individual virtue does not always imply a true change that can lead to salvation. If man is to imitate God's picture he cannot remain within the bounds of the socially good conduct and conventional obligations. He must supersede them. It is to such a superssion that Clement points the way in his scattered exhortations throughout his work. All the evangelical admonitions have as their goal love, that potent element that overcomes human egocentrism and individuality for the sake of the realization of the image of God. The attainment of this love is the true fulfillment of the Law, making the aims of the Law become reality provided that this reality is not to be interpreted as an altruistic end. It does not aim simply at the improvement of social conduct but at that union whose end is God (Str. 4.52.1-2). In this sense, love is not an easy beginning, but the uninterruptedly searched for end, the “never fulfilled perfection” or satisfaction of the moral journey of man. The beginning is the realization of man's inadequacy and hence his search for the grace of God, which will convert man's isolated life to one of communion and relationship.

This type of relationship and union was expressed by those Christians whose biological relations were often superseded by devotion to Christ in the transfer to the Church of the terms that belonged to the family relationship. For the new ecclesiastical order “father” was not necessarily the natural person but the Father in heaven, while brothers were the members of the Church. Equally, a Christian's mother was not only the person that gave him natural birth but the spiritual institution that gave him a new birth and made him member of a new complex of relations that superseded all exclusivity.¹²⁹ He wanted to be a friend and son of Christ and aspired to become worthy and be called brother of the Lord. The early Christians' removal of the distinction between male and female is a fact that refers to the eschatological fullness of existence. This eschatological fullness abolishes the separation between men and women because this differentiation is a natural not a spiritual one. It is a necessity of nature that secures its survival. It has no place in the kingdom of God. The distinction into sexes does not reflect an ontological distinction, nor does it refer to the manner of existence or to the image God impressed upon man. For this reason it is removed at the end of life.¹³⁰ No wonder Clement, like Paul, exhorted the man to treat his wife as a sister and not as sexual object.

Notes

1. Walter Gutbrod, Das Gesetz im Alten Testament in the Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament, G. Kittel, ed., vol. 4, p. 1029 ff.; also Walter Eichrodt, Theologie des Alten Testaments, part I (Berlin, 1948) 31 ff.; Str. 7, 14.3; Chr. Giannaras, The Freedom of Morality (Athens, 1982) 72. This is the new title of the translation of this book which came to my attention belatedly. Hereafter I will refer to it with this title.

2. QDS 9. 1-2; Str. 4.29.3; Rom. 7.12; 10.4; 8.14-17; Gal.3.24.

3. QDS 10.3; 12.1; Mark, 19.21; Mark, 10.21; Stählin points to the similarity between Str. 7. 6.3 and Hebr. 6.18. See also Str.3.83. 1-5; Völker, Der Wahre Gnostiker, 254-56. Plato seems to think that nomos is not the source from which one should expect salvation. He may well conceive of a political order in which positive laws are of but small importance. In fact they may even be outright detrimental. In the Republic the value of laws as stabilizing element in the proposed state is decidedly inferior to that of education, 4.425.A-C. Even in the Laws itself there are passages, as in book nine where it is said that if true knowledge and reason are present laws may be dispensed with, since written laws with their rigid and dogmatic regulations have inevitable shortcomings. In the Statesman the same view is developed at greater length. Polit. 293 E ff.; and Laws 9.875 C-D; 6.769 D with Shorey's note, Paul Shorey, What Plato Said (University. of Chicago, 1933) 635. For Plato laws are but poor imitation of the right type of law and the origin or status of the right law must never be confused with that of imitations. True law is the manifestation of the perfected individual who has achieved the Platonic justice, Friedrich Solmsen, Plato's Theology (Cornell University Press, 1942) 163-64.

4. Paed. 1.25. 3 and SC ad loc. n. 2.

5. Paed. 1.26.1.… see also Introduction to Paedagogos, in SC, p. 81…

6. Ps. 82.6; Paed. 1.26.1; SC Introduction to Paed. pp. 39-41 and ad loc. p. 158, n. 4; Ps 72.6.

7. Paed. 1.26.2; SC ad loc. n.5; Rom. 6.23.

8. Paed. 1.26. 2; SC ad loc. n. 7 ff.; Rom. 6.23; I Cor. 4.4; Tit. 3.5; James. 1.17.

9. Str. 1.34.4; Str. 4.8.5; SC ad loc., n. 1; Paed. 1.26. 3-27. 1; Plat. Gorg. 478 C-D.

10. Paed. 1.26.2; 29.2

11. M. Farantos, Peri Dikaiosynês, Systematic Ereuna eis to Ergon Klementos Alexandreôs (Athens, 1971) 163-64.

12. Str. 6. 61.1-2; Gal. 5.19.23.

13. Str. 6.68.1; I. Cor. 2.6

14. Str. 6.68.2-3; 69.2; SVF 3. 462.

15. Str. 6.137.1; 2.50.1-2; Philo, De Mutat. Nom. 111; W. Jaeger, Paideia (Oxford, Univ. Press, 1965) 286-331.

16. Protr. 67.2; 7; 84.2; Str. 6.148. 1-2; 5.100. 4; SVF 2.1134.

17. To support his view he refers to Greek philosophy in several places, Str. 1.98.4; Plat. Phaedr. 246 C-D.

18. Protr. 79.1-2; Str. 2.6.1.

19. Protr. 79.3; Str. 2.6.1; I Cor. 13.2.…

20. Plat. Rep. 410 C; 591 D.

21. Str. 3.59.4; 62.1; 65.2.

22. Str. 3.17.1-18.5; Plat. Phaedr. 64 A; 69.C;.

23. Str. 4. 164.2-4; SVF 3. 122; Diog. Laert. 7. 104-5.

24. Ecl. Proph. 23.2-3; Str. 7.61.1-2; SC ad loc. ns. 1 and 2; Str. 8.23.2; 7.53.3; SC ad loc. n.3; Ps. 93.11.

25. Philo De Som. 1.62-65; Str. 2.5.3; 5.73.3; Comm ad loc.; Plat. Phaedr. 509 D; 517 B.

26. Str. 6.137. 5-138.4; Eus. PE 13.12-13; Paed. 2.25.3; Plat. Theaet. 155 D;

27. Aristl. Met. I 2 (892b); Plat. Rep. 511 C-E.

28. Paed. 3.1.1; 2.1.2; I John 3.2;

29. Paed. 3.98.1; I John 2.2; Str. 6.2.4.

30. Str. 7. 20.7-8; SC ad loc. ns 2-4; Plat. Rep. 10.617 E; 620 E-621 A; 2.75.2.

31. Str. 4.27.3; 7.79.7.

32. Hans Jonas, The Gnostic Religion (Boston, 1963) 280; Philo, Mut. Non.54; Matt. 10.39.

33. Paed. 2.1.2-3; Str. 4.18.1-2; 32.1-2.

34. Str. 5.49.1; Protr. 80.1; Str.1.93.3-4; SC ad loc.; Plat. Rep. 7. 534 B-C.

35. Str. 2.18.1; SC ad loc. ns.2-4; Str. 2.9.4; 6.61.1; Plat. Euthyd. 291 D; Polit. 259 A-B.

36. J. M. Robinson, The Nag Hammadi Library, 3rd ed., (San Francisco, 1990) 126-34.

37. Str. 6.54. 1; Str. 1.24. ff.; 177. 1; Str. 2.9.4; 6.61.1; Paed. 2.25.3.

38. Str. 7. 104.1-2; SC ad loc. ns.1-2; II Tim. 2.15; I. Cor. 4.19

39. Athenagoras, On the Resurrection of the Dead, 1. Irenaeus fr. 5, PG 7, 1232B. This distinction between substance and activity is thereafter well made among the Fathers of the Eastern Church, most probably because of the Christological controversies that followed the second century a.d.

40. QDS 28-29.6.

41. Str. 4.113.4; 5.13.2; Völker, Der Wahre Gnostiker, 489, n. 1.

42. Str. 1.20.1; 6.67.1; 7.12.4-5. That philosophy is a gift of God to the Greeks as preparation to higher knowledge is a new idea in Christian theology, Stählin, Einleitung 558-59.

43. Str. 6.80.5; Farantos, Peri Dykaiosynés, 30.

44. Lilla Salvatore, Clement of Alexandreia, A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism (Oxford Univ. Press) 57

45. Str. 7.71.3; SC ad loc. n.2; Plat. Phaed. 67 D. Clement uses here Plato's reference and gives it a Christian twist.

46. Str. 7.78.6; SC ad loc. n. 1;I Thess. 4.17.

47. Str. 3.44.2; Ferguson Stromateis ad. loc.

48. Str. 3.44. 3; Aristl. Nic. Eth. 1.4. 1096 b.

49. Str. 1.44.2. Clement here clearly alludes to the celebrated passage of Plat. Gorg. 465 C.…

50. Str. 1.44.4; Matt. 4.4.

51. Str. 7.65.1-3. SC ad loc. ns 5-6; SVF 3.117; Plat. Lach. 198 B-199 D; Prot. 359 D - 360 E; Clement follows here Plat. Menex. 247 E; Rep. 436 B.

52. Str. 7.65.6; SC ad loc n. 5; CAF Adesp. 245; Plat. Prot. 360 C;…Plat. Lach. 197 A-B.

53. Str. 7.66.4; SC ad loc. n.5; Plat. 68 D. Since even those who endure punishment for the sake of delight and reward may be blessed after death, a concession on the part of Clement to the idea that Christians should not do things for the sake of reward. Gnostics live for the love of God, not for the expectation of rewards. Love is to be chosen for itself not for anything else, Str. 7.67.1; SC ad loc. ns 4-7; Plat. Phaed. 68 D.

54. Protr. 61.4; Paed. 1.101.2; SVF 3.293 which relates to 262; SVF 2.36 and note; Plat. Rep. 4.444 D-E; Phaed. 279 B-C; Phil. 52. B. Virtue for Plato is not the impeccable conduct of citizen in his private or public life nor the avoidance of extremes in the Aristotelian meaning. The essence of virtue goes deeper. In Plato's view important is man's beauty and power of soul (Rep. 4.444 D-E) and likeness to God. These must be the primary targets of the good man's efforts and of the responsible political leader. All other values are judged from their contribution to the moral betterment of man (Phaedr. 279 B-C). Only the salvation of the soul, the providential preservation of that treasure which lies hidden inside man, must be the aim of life. In this resides the true happiness and pleasure which only the few, the eclectic are in a position to taste (Phil. 52.B).

55. Str. 6.96.3; Plat. Phaed. 69 C; F. J. Winter, Die Ethic des Clements von Alexandrien (Leipzig, 1882) 127.

56. Str. 4.124. 2-3; 6.157.4.

57. Paed. 2. 121. 2-3; Str. 5.95.4. Clement seems to respond here to the Hellenic idea that the good person should also be looking good in his outside from, i. e. fortunate in life.

58. E. F. Osborn, The Philosophy of Clement of Alexandreia (Cambridge, 1957) 93-94.

59. Plat. Meno 77 B; Prot. 352 C; Gorg. 440 B.

60. Plat. Prot. 345 E; Laws 5.731 C; 9.860 D.

61. Plat. Apol. 41 C-D; Phaed. 62 D.

62. Eduard Meyer, Geschichte des Altertums, vol. 4 (Berlin, 1901) 453.

63. Apol. 40 B; Phaedr. 242 B-C; Theaet. 151 A.

64. Crito 44 A-C; Phaed. 60 C.

65. K. Joel, Geschichte der antiquen Philosophy (Tübingen, 1921) 817.

66. Plat. Rep. 6. 491 C; 7. 519 B; 9.591 D.

67. Phaed. 80 C - 81 A; 67 E; Rep. 6. 488 B; 492 E.

68. Tim. 90 A; Rep. 6.490 B; 10.611 E; Laws 10.899 D.

69. Phaed. 82. B-C; Rep. 2.383 C; 6. 498 E; 10.613 B; Theaet. 176 B; Tim. 41 C; 69 A-C; 71 D-E; 90 C.

70. Theaet. 173 E… Pindari Carmina, OCT, fr. 302a; Rep. 1.500. B-C; Soph. 216 C.

71. Phaed. 85 D; Rep. 7. 517 D; Tim. 28 C.

72. Phaedr. 244 A-D; 245 B; 256 B.

73. Symp. 211 D; Phaedr. 249 C; 245 B-C; R. Lagersborg, Die Platonische Liebe (Leipzig, 1926) 115 for the mystical, religious significance in Plato.

74. Str. 1.92.3-4; Plat. Phaed. 69.C-D; Str.5.17.4-5.

75. Str. 6.126.2; 7.57.2-4; SC ad loc ns. 8 and 1-7; Matt. 5.8; I Cor. 13.12; I Thess. 4.17.

76. Jonas, Gnostic Religion, 270; K. Rudolf, Gnosis, The Nature and History of Gnosticism (New York, 1987) 249-50.

77. Str. 2.113. 1-114.6;2.115.1-2; Str. 7.40.1; SC ad loc. ns. 5-6 and 1-2.

78. Str. 3.8.1-2; 9.2-3; 12.1-3; 54.1; 45.1-2; 7.78.1-3; SC ad loc. ns. 1-3.

79. Str. 4.75.1-4; Str. 7.52.1-2; SC ad loc. ns. 3-6.

80. Str. 6.99.5; QDS 19.3-5; Plat. Rep. 2. 362 E; Gorg. 500 D; 501 A; Aristl. Met. 983b 12-28.

81. Str. 1.100.3-4; Plat. Phaedr. 266 B; Theaet. 176 B; Philo De Vit. Mos. 7.22.

82. Str. 6.99.1-3; Paed. 2.15.4; Plat. Soph.230 E.

83. Str. 4.27.3; John 17.3.

84. Str. 5.7.6; 5.17.4-6; Plat. Rep. 6. 494 D; Epim. 973C; Phaed. 69 C.

85. Str. 2.122.1; 3.42.6-43.1.

86. Str. 7.44.5; SC ad loc. ns 5 and 1; Str. 2.96.4-97.2; R. Casey, The Excerpta ex Theodoto of Clement of Alexandria (Clement, 1934) 10 on exc. 17.3-4.

87. Str. 7.46.9 - 47.1; SC ad loc. ns. 4-5; Plat. Rep. 2, 361 C-D; Phil. 64.C; Apol. 30 C-D; Epict. Enchir. 53; Disc. 2.23. 42.

88. Str. 2.97; 4.147.1; 7.86.1-6; SC ad loc. ns.2-8; I Cor. 6.9; Gal. 3.24; I Cor. 6. 11; Matt. 5.45.

89. Str. 7.17.1-3; SC ad loc. ns 6-8 and 1-3; John 1.3; Origen, Contr. Celsus 6.71; Prot. 66.3 with note in SC; Str. 1.51.1-52.3; 5.14.1-8; SVF 2.1039.

90. Str. 7. 17.2; SC ad loc. ns. 7-8.

91. Str. 5. 63.8; Rom. 1.11. Perhaps there is an anti-Gnostic thrust in this passage, see Comm. to Clement's reference above.

92. Str. 1.43.1-4; 5.66.2-4 (βρωμα δεη εποπτικη Φεωρια); Plat. Letter 7. 341 C 6-D 2; Rep.II, 378 A 5-6. Plato speaks of the searcher for God as the great and invaluable victim. Similarly Paul says that in our Pascha Christ sacrificed Himself for us, thus becoming the invaluable victim, I Cor. 5-6; John 17.19. See also SC comm. ad 5.66.2 ff.

93. Str. 6.96.3; 2.5.1-4; Plut. Mor. 2; Aristl. De part. anim. 1.1. 13, 642 a 27; Met. 5.1.8 (1025b 17).

94. Str. 7.88.5; SC ad loc. n.3; SVF 3. 250; 2.135.3; 6.114.4-5.

95. Elsewhere Paed. 3.1.5 Clement comes closer to stating that man becomes God, but again he qualifies it by adding only because God so wills it, Diognetus, 10.4; SC ad Paed. 3.1.5.…

96. Str. 6.75.1-2; I Tim. 6.16; Paed. 2.102.2.

97. Str. 6.75.3; 7.17.4; SC ad loc. n. 4; Plat. Rep. 3. 413 B.

98. Paed. 2.120.4; SC ad loc; reminds us of Plat. Phaedr. 279 C; Laws 5. 739 C cited in Protr. 122. 2; CAF 3. p. 486 no. 412; Epict. 3. 1.6. The community of goods is a Stoic idea.

99. Str. 6.105.1; I. Bywater, The Journal of Philology 4 (1872) 210.…

100. Str. 6.102. 4; SC ad loc.; Plat. Prot. 339 B; 344 A; Aristl. Nic. Eth. 1.10 (1100b 21);

101. Str. 6.125.5-6.…

102. Giannaras, The Freedom, 37.

103. Str. 7.18.2; Plat. Crat. 411 E; Aristl. Nic. Eth. 6.5 (1140b 11 ff.).

104. Str. 7.18.2; SC ad loc. ns. 2-5; Paed. 2.39.4 with SC note.…

105. Str. 7.18.3; SC ad loc. n.6; Andronicus, Peri Pathon, Part II, Karl Schuchhardt (ed.), (Heidelberg, 1883) 25 ff.

106. Str. 4.39.5; Matt. 5.8; James 2. 23

107. Str. 7.16.5; SC ad loc. ns.5-6; Plat. Rep. 4. 436 B; TGF Adesp. 117; Epict. Enchir. 17; Diog. Laert. 7.160; Suet. Octav. 99; Seneca, Epistl. 77.20; Plat. Phil. 50 B; Marc. Aur. 12.36; p. 167. 6.

108. Str. 7.80.3-4; SC ad loc. ns 2-4; 7.36.2-37; SC ad loc.ns. 2-7 and 1-5; 1-4; Plat. Theaet. 173 D; Plat. Phaed. 84 B; The passage is reminiscent of Epict. 8.12 by whom no doubt, Clement is here strongly influenced, Str. 7.78.5-6. SC ad loc. ns. 5 and 1.

109. Str. 1.94.6; 6.102.2; 7.57.1; SC ad loc. n.8; Plat. Phaed. 84 B; Paed. 1.58.1; Str. 7.68.4; SC ad loc. ns. 5-6; 6.108.1; Str. 2.88.2; 7.57.1; SC ad loc. ns. 8 and 1-3; Plat. Phaed. 84 B; Matt. 5.8; I. Cor. 13.12 He does everything by means of which he shall be able to acquire the knowledge of what he desires, Str. 7.60. 2-61.1-6; SC ad loc. 3-6; 1-8; 1-2; 1.65.5.

110. Str. 7.35.6; SC ad loc. ns. 7 and 1; 7. 48.3; SC ad loc. n.2; Plat. Phaedr. 247 A; Matt. 6.7; 9-13

111. Str. 7.16.6; SC ad loc. ns. 1-5; Kannicht, Bruno, Snell (eds.), TGF, vol. 2 (Göttingen, 1981) fr 117.

112. Str. 7.13.2; SC ad loc. ns. 7 and 1; Plat. Rep. 10. 613 B.

113. Str. 7.14.1; SC ad loc. n.6; 7.103.1; SC ad loc. n.6; II Cor. 10.5; Matt. 16.25; Eph. 4. 22-24. Clement recognizes that the Greek intellectuals preceded the Christians in deifying the “gnostic” life, without the knowledge Christ Whom they could not have known, Str. 5.68.4 and Comm in SC; 5.69.6; Isocr. Paneg. 30-32; CAF 3. p.490; D. L. Page, Hellenistic Epigrams, vol. 2 (Cambr. Univ. Press, 1968) 157. Plato rightly comments (Str. 4.155. 3) that he who devotes himself to the contemplation of ideas will live as a God among men. He further says that he who contemplates the unseen God lives as a God among men. Stählin believes that there are at least three such references to Plato in the Sophist, but fails to give the exact references. One certainly is in the beginning, 216 A-C. See also Phaedr. 247 C; Rep. 6. 509 D; 7.517 B; Str. 5.73.3 and Comm. in SC.

114. Str. 4.155.4; Plat. Theaet. 173 C; Aristl. De Anim. 429a 27; Od. 10. 495

115. Str. 7.61.5; SC ad loc. ns 6-8; 4.32.1-2; Str. 5.108.2-4; SC ad loc. in comm.; Plat. Rep. 2. 361 E;

116. Str. 4.35.1-2; Plat. Phaed. 114 B-C; P. Chantraine, Dictionnaire Etymologique de la lange Grecque, vol. 3 (Paris, 1974) 942; H. Frisk, Griechisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (Heidelberg, 1960) 602.

117. Gen. 1.26; Protr. 120.3-5; Str. 2.131.2-6-132.2; 7.86.5; SC ad loc. n.4; I Cor. 6.11; Matt. 5.45; 7.101.4-5; SC ad loc. ns. 2-5; Str. 2.134.2; 2.97.1-98.3; 7.13.3; SC ad loc. ns. 2-4.

118. Mullach, FPG 2, P.112; Str. 5.29.1; SC ad loc. comm.

119. Str. 5.29.3 SC ad loc. comm.; H. Chadwick, Early Christian Thought (New York, 1962) 44 something that Celsus reverses, see Lilla, Clement of Alex. 30-40.

120. Str. 4.139.4; Plat. Theaet. 176 B; Str. 2. 136.6; Protr. 98.4; Str.6.72.2.

121. Str. 6.166.1-4; I Cor. 2.10-14; Paed. 98.2; Plat. Laws 777 B.

122. Str. 6.65.6; 7.13.3; SC ad loc. ns. 1-2; Paed. 3.1.1; Str. 6.60.3; Plat. Meno 97 ff.; Phaedr. 266 B; Od. 5.193; SVF 3. 264; Paed. 2.83.2-3; Str. 7.52.3; Str. 6. 72.1-2; Aristl. Met. 1072b 24-30; Politics 1325b 1721 where theory is more praxis than any other activity. Protr. 120.3-4; Paed. 1.4.2; Col. 1.15; II Cor. 4.4.

123. Protr. 3.1-4; Str. 6.48.3; Deut. 30.15-19; Str. 7.56.2; SC ad loc. n.2; 57.1; SC ns. 8 and 1-3; I. Thess. 4.17; Protr. 120.1.

124. Paed. 2.9.2-4; SC ad loc. n.4; Luk. 15.11; Ps. Justin, Léttre, 12; Plat. Rep. 9.586 A.

125. Paed. 2.9.4. Some expressions are probably borrowed from Musonius 18 A, p. p.97. 5 H; 18 B, p. 104.1-2.

126. Paed. 2.9.3; SC ad loc.; Ps. Justin, Léttre 13; Aesch. Eum. 285.

127. Str. 4.27. 3; SVF 3.221; Plat. Rep. 8.521 C.

128. Str. 2.98.2-3 and SC ad loc. n.1, an extremely important note explaining the unique significance of the idea of freedom among the Greek Fathers of the Early Church; Irenaeus, Ad Haer. 4.27.1.4. Also Paed. 1.31.1-2; P. Th. Camelot, Foi et Gnose (Paris, 1945) 30; Theod. Extr. 45, 1-3.

129. Str. 2.100.1-3. This idea comes from Philo, De Nobil. 3-4

130. John Zezioulas, Apo to Prosôpeion eis to Prosôpon (Thessalonike, 1977) 315-16; Giannaras, The Freedom, 62, n.7.

ABBREVIATIONS

BEP: Bibliothêkê Hellênôn Paterôn, Constantine Bonis (ed.) (Athens, no date).

BKV: Bibliothek der Kirchenväter, O. Bardenhwer, T. Schermann, C. Weyman, Kempten, (eds.) (München 1911—)

CSEL: Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna, 1866-)

CAF: Comicorum Atticorum Fragmenta, Theodore Koch, 3 vols. (Leipzing, 1883).

Diels: Die Fragmente der vorsokratiker, Diels H. and Kranz (Weidmann, 1974).

FHG: Fragmenta Historicorum Graecorum, Müller, Karl (ed.) 4 vols. (Paris, 1851).

FPhGr: Fragmenta Philosophorum Graecorum, Mullach, F.G.A. (ed.), (Paris, 1881).

GCS: Die greichischen Christlichen Schrifsteller der estern Jahrhunderte (Berlin, 1897—).

Die Fragmente zur Dialektik der Stoiker, Husler, Karlheinz, 4 vols. (Stuttgart, 1987).

HSCP: Harvard Studies in Classical Philology

JHS: Journal of Hellenic Studies.

Long and Sedley: A.A. Long and D.N. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers (Cambridge Univ. Press, 1987) 2 vols.

SC: Sources Chrétiennes (Paris, 1942 —).

Stählin, O., Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller der esten drei Jahrhunderte, vols, 12, 52 (15), 17, 39 (Leipzig, 1905-60), referred to also in abbreviated form as GCS.

Stählin, O., Des Clements von Alexandreia ausgewehlte Schriften aus den griechischen übersetzt (Münich, 1934).

SVF: Stoicorum Veterum Fragmenta, repr. of the Teubner ed. In Dubuque, lowa, no year.

TGF: Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Nauck, Augustus (ed.) (Hildesheim, 1964).

TGF: Tragicorum Graecorum Fragmenta, Richard Kannich, Stefan Radt, Bruno, Snell (eds.) (Göttingen, 1981).…

TWNT: Theologisches Wörterbuch zum Neuen Testament

ZNTW: Zeitschrift für die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft und die Kunde der älteren Kirche.