SOURCE: “Literary Work, ” in Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Liberalism, Vol. I, Williams and Norgate, 1914, pp. 178-209.

[In the following excerpt, Tollinton examines difficulties Clement faced in his writing and how he dealt with them—by acting positively instead of defensively, by tailoring his writing to the intelligent reader, and by deliberately disregarding style.]

During the later years of his residence in Alexandria Clement determined to give his teaching a permanent and written form. It was a natural decision on several grounds. He had lived the life of a student since his early school-days. He had gathered abundant materials. Even within the Church he had the example of many contemporaries who were authors. He had made his home in a city of books and libraries. It is thus no matter for surprise that literary work should have formed a considerable element in the latter half of his career. It is as a writer, not less than as head of the Alexandrian School, that he was afterwards remembered. He was the “Stromatist,” the “author,” …and the like.¹

Nevertheless, so natural a decision was not reached without a good deal of hesitation. There were considerations against, as well as for, the publication of his teaching in the form of books, and his caution and deliberate care in taking up the pen contrast sharply enough with his freedom and his readiness to follow any train of thought, when once he has started upon the writer's enterprise. It is still possible to see the various lines of argument which occurred to him, as the gains and risks of authorship passed alternately through his mind. It is wholly to Clement's credit that in an age of facile and abundant literary production he treated the question so seriously.

As against writing there was the fact that it would be for him a new departure. Oral instruction was one thing, the written book another.² To lecture or preach well was no guarantee of success in writing: indeed, the different qualities demanded by the two modes of expression do not, he suspects, belong to the same nature. There is a certain unrestrained freedom which is the mark of the ready speaker. There is a certain precision and exactitude demanded in the writer, whose words will remain to be questioned and criticised. Even if style does not matter and literary merit forms, as he tells us, no part of his aim, still there is a fundamental difference between the lecture and the treatise. They are distinct modes of spiritual husbandry, not the least among their many diversities being the fact that the lecturer knows his pupils, whereas the author has no knowledge of those who will read his books. So he had to face the question of his personal fitness for a new department of Christian service. His decision was justified by the event.

But there was yet a further difficulty to be faced. To write books was not only to depart from the previous manner of his vocation in the Catechetical School, it was also an innovation on the practice of the teachers he most revered. Those “Elders,”³ to whom Clement feels himself so greatly indebted, were the recipients and the transmitters of an oral tradition, but they did not write books. He expressly states that this was so,⁴ and discusses the reason of their rigid adherence to the oral method. Partly, he thinks, it was because they had not time; partly, because they had not the aptitude. His account of their reasons is obviously inadequate, and even the actual statement that they did not write is open to grave question in the case of his nearest and most influential master, Pantænus.⁵ There is no doubt, however, that he regarded oral tradition as the chosen and established method of these earliest teachers whom he does not name. It was a serious matter for him, their pupil, the lesser man of a later day—“few are the equals of our fathers”—to venture on fresh methods, and to impart by writing the truths which wiser and older men had held should only come to fit recipients by the living voice. Clement'sregard for the Elders was quite genuine and serious, however difficult it may be to harmonise with his very considerable independence as a teacher. Their example could only be set aside for good and sufficient reasons.

But there were more positive and concrete difficulties yet for him to face, if Clement was to put his teaching into books. So far as the mere question of method, oral or literary, was involved, if he elected to depart from the practice of the Elders, the concern and responsibility were all his own. But wider interests came into account when he considered the possible consequences to his readers. Had it been a question of presenting to the pagan world a simple statement of the Gospel, or of reasserting, from the Christian standpoint, the accepted canons of moral conduct, this further point would hardly have arisen. But Clement had no intention of limiting his published works to these important but preliminary issues. Christianity, as he knew it, had deeper truths and more advanced instruction. There were mysteries and esoteric doctrines and wider views of God's great purpose, which all men were not ready to receive. Among his own pupils he had clearly made distinctions, and some had been led further than others along the road towards perfect vision. A teacher using oral methods could deal in this way with his hearers. He could make selection. A book, on the other hand, must take its chance. The wrong readers might take it up. It would be misunderstood, and criticised by the ignorant; its higher meaning would be subject for ridicule from the uneducated brother, who had established himself on the lower planes of truth. So a dangerous sword would be put into a child's hand or, in another figure, the pearls of truth cast before the unclean swine.

This was likely enough to happen in Alexandria. In Clement's day the Church and the School were not in any close relationship. The School was intellectual, independent, aristocratic, winning its converts successfully from the educated heathen and showing an attitude not wholly unsympathetic to philosophy and even to the better side of Gnosticism. The rank and file of the Church were men and women of a different order. They were not people of much education. Demetrius, the Bishop, had himself little learning. Even as late as the episcopate of Dionysius a.d. 248-265) there were Elders in Alexandria who thought it wrong to read books which were not orthodox.⁶ So culture, philosophy, libraries, and speculation, had slight place in their religion, and for churchmen of this type Gnosticism proved only too clearly the evils of advanced knowledge and the awful conclusions to which inquiry was almost sure to lead.

These sincere and narrow souls appear in Clement's pages as the “Orthodoxasts”; they are the literal, simple believers with whom Origen also was to be acquainted. Their motto was “faith only,” and Clement, tender as he was towards these simple brethren as a rule, cannot forbid himself the sarcasm that they “expected to eat the fruit of the vine without taking any pains about its culture.”⁷ They have their exact counterpart in modern times, and their suspicion of the intellectual attitude towards religion is usually aggressive and irremediable. It was certainly so in Alexandria, and what were such persons likely to say of a book on advanced doctrine with the philosophic and learned Clement as its author? Before he wrote the Stromateis, not, it would seem, through earlier publications, but more probably by rumour and gossip which gathered round his lecture-room, he had clearly drawn upon himself a certain amount of ignorant criticism from these unphilosophic brethren. Even if name and reputation were matters of slight account, there was still the possible loss of influence to be considered. Besides, the interests of the Church, and even the spiritual welfare of these simple and nervous brethren, alike demanded that such a project as Clement had in mind should not be rashly undertaken. It was a matter for conscience and right judgment, and Clement faced all the risks before he decided to issue in the form of a book such teaching as, hitherto, had been imparted only to an inner circle of qualified and understanding pupils.

These considerations, more especially the last described, might have led Clement to decline all literary ventures, and our knowledge of him might then have been no more extensive than the scanty information which has survived about Pantænus. Happily the question had two sides, and Clement had owed so much himself to books that he could hardly fail to appreciate the possibilities of literary work in the Church's service. This, indeed, within certain limits, had been already realised. A Christian literature was already in existence, and though the Apostolic and subapostolic fathers were hardly likely to win many converts from Hellenism, more was to be said for the Apologists; and more still for the numerous writers whose works were occasioned by the recent rise of heresies, particularly of Gnosticism. Clement made reference to the Shepherd of Hermas to justify his own undertaking, for the mutilated quotation with which the Stromateis open is clearly an appeal to precedent and authority. He was also acquainted with the important works of Tatian, Melito, and Irenæus. Eusebius knew of many other authors who had written books before the Stromateis were published.

Thus, if Clement deserted the practice of the Elders, he was at least in harmony with the current habit of the times. The new departure lay not in the actual writing of a book, but in the scale and character of his purpose. Hitherto the Church's literary enterprise had been mainly of a defensive nature. The action of the State or the fanaticism of the crowd called forth the Apologies. The heresies gave rise to many a defence of catholic tradition, so far as this was fixed. Another literature was already forming itself around the Quartodeciman controversy. But for a positive exposition of Christian truth, challenging attention by its use of a secular method and meeting educated readers on ground that was their own, the time had not till now been ripe. Clement realised that the hour for this had come. In Alexandria, at any rate, believers were no longer occupied with the Millennium. Gnostic literature was serious, plentiful, and dangerous, and educated persons were at last beginning to come over in appreciable numbers to Christianity. As against the suspicious multitude of the “simpliciores” were the interests of the thinking minority. The Church—it is possibly to her credit—has always been more tender in her care of the orthodox than in her solicitude for the anxious and unsettled. Clement elected to venture on the less usual course and to write, at the risk of being misinterpreted and criticised, a book which should meet the needs of intelligent and inquiring minds. He hopes to lead his readers into the higher domains of doctrine. He believes he will save some keen spirits from falling into the ways of heresy. He even contemplates the possible recovery for the Church of some who have wandered from the central paths of truth. His books may fall into wrong hands. If so, readers as well as writers have their responsibilities. He can only hope that, as a magnet draws only iron to itself,⁸ so his written teaching may attract only those who can claim affinity with its character. It must depend on the reader's conscience; just as even the Eucharist was often so administered that the laity could partake or not, as each should best determine for himself.⁹

On the preparation necessary for the study of higher doctrine he dwells with insistent reiteration. And for himself in his enterprise his standard is not less high. The poorer motives of the author, the desire of profit, the quest of reputation, the temper of the partisan, are all ruled out with a rigour and sincerity that are rare in the world of letters. His one aim is the gain and enlightenment of his readers. He is “foncièrement pédagogue,” even in his books, as De Faye remarks with complete justification.¹⁰ So there is an unselfishness in his purpose which does Clement credit: when he wrote, as truly as when he lectured, his main purpose was to hand on to others, who were able to receive them, the truths which he himself had been privileged to see and learn. The aim of religious literature has rarely been discussed from a higher standpoint than in the opening pages of the Stromateis. Clement's decision to write books and his whole conception of the responsibilities of the author, are a fine example of the Church's vocation to minister to intelligence, and a reminder, surely needed in our own time, that unsettled minds, who only hover on the fringe of her membership, are sometimes abundantly deserving of her thought and care.¹¹

Such is the central motive of Clement's literary enterprise. There were also subsidiary considerations leading in the same direction. He was getting on in years, and writing would be an aid to memory. The tradition he had received would be more securely conserved in documents than by the living voice alone. If the atheism of Epicurus and the lampoons of Archilochus survived as literature, surely the same methods would not be denied to the herald of the truth. Moreover, books were the offspring of the mind, and to leave behind good offspring was admittedly a noble service to the future. He is keenly concerned to justify on every possible ground the rightful character of his task. And throughout, his appeal is always to good sense and solid reason. Apparently he has no fear of any official censure. There is no hint that he ever thought it possible that Bishop Demetrius would interfere. The Church controlled the School after the appointment of Origen, but not before.

The main interest of Clement's writings lies in the broad lines of their interpretation of Christianity, in the light they throw upon its contact with other tendencies and forces, and in their revelation of his attractive and unusual personality. But their form, not only their content, deserves some consideration, and many questions of a purely literary order arise for all who attempt to acquaint themselves closely with his pages. In the last five and twenty years many competent writers have published books or treatises on Clement and his works. It is worthy of note that a large proportion of this recent literature of the subject is devoted to the discussion of the literary problems that are involved. Reference has already been made to the difficult question of Clement's indebtedness to sources and compilations previously existing. So far as his own writings are concerned, the most important points for consideration are the place of the Stromateis in his great tripartite scheme, the order in which his books were written, the aim and nature of some of the incompleted works that are assigned to him. These questions of literary form can to some extent be distinguished from those which concern the substance and content of his writings; yet the distinction is by no means absolute. What he intends to write largely determines the manner of his writing; personal characteristics colour and qualify his style; and his doctrine of reserve has extensive consequences of a literary nature. For convenience the line may be drawn, but it implies no real separation.

The word Stromateis has been happily rendered “carpet-bags.”¹² Properly, they were the parti-coloured sacks in which blankets and bedding were stowed away. From their variegated appearance they gave the name to a particular class of literature, much in vogue during the second century. A locus classicus on the subject is found in the preface to the Noctes Atticæ of Aulus Gellius, where the term stands in a list of titles together with Amalthea's Horn, Honeycombs, Flower-beds, and similar appellations, all used to denote works in which miscellaneous fragments from different sources and of various character were strung together in unrestricted diversity.¹³ Plutarch wrote Stromateis of this order. So did Origen. Clement's most important surviving work was so entitled, and amply justified its name. It is not a form of literature which would obviously and naturally suggest itself to a writer who wished to set forth advanced Christian doctrine. The reasons which led Clement to select it so deliberately are curious and interesting.

No doubt he was conscious in using it that he had many various subjects to discuss. A “carpet-bag” is a convenient receptacle for a medley of unclassified articles, and Clement required a form of literature in which he could portray the ideal Gnostic, demonstrate the antiquity of Moses, introduce bons mots and occasional good stories, and give wise counsel on the subject of martyrdom. Tedious and irrelevant as his pages often are to the modern reader, they never betray any failure of interest on the part of the writer in his themes. His diversified learning, and his extraordinary delight in the most varied schemes of writing, found their wholly appropriate medium in this avowedly miscellaneous type of literature. He had many seeds to sow, not all of them of Apostolic origin. The result of his husbandry is a “Meadow,” a “Paradise,” or even more truly a literary “thicket,”¹⁴ where abstract ideas, timely quotations, apt and often amusing incidents, are found growing in profusion side by side.

To some extent Clement must have been conscious of the opportunity such a form of composition would give to his discursive genius. This, however, is not his main reason for selecting it. His choice is not so much determined by his personal bent as by the conditions of the public for whom he writes. In determining to risk the publication of his teaching in the form of a book, we have already seen that he gave precedence to the interests of an intelligent minority over the prejudices and dislike of the suspicious multitude of the believers. But, when the decision had been made, considerations of caution seem again to have possessed him, and partly in regard for simple brethren within the Church, partly, too, with the object of defending the faith from profanation by those who were without, he decides to publish his higher teaching only in a work of cryptic character. There is a long discussion, occupying a third of the Fifth Book of the Stromateis,¹⁵ in which he cites instance after instance of such reserve in imparting doctrine. It was not only that the Lord Himself had chosen to teach in Parables. The veil of the Temple, the oracles of the Greeks, the hieroglyphics of Egypt, the symbolism of the Old Testament, the Mysteries of Eleusis, the dark sayings of the Wise, all implied a protection from the common multitude of the secrets revealed and intelligible to the few. Such signs and tokens had their full meaning only for those who could apprehend it. So he thinks it may be possible to scatter seeds of doctrine here and there throughout his pages, in such a fashion that only the wise reader shall discern their true significance. The genuine and patient seeker shall find truth: the quest is to be intentionally difficult, so that the merely inquisitive and the uninstructed may be repelled and kept away. It was a curious and unusual project. We may doubt the entire success of his method for its purpose. No Christian who could read, and either possessed or borrowed a copy of the Stromateis, would remain ignorant of Clement's views on Philosophy, Gnosticism, and allegorical exegesis. Still, he was not, so far as we know, actually accused of heresy until a later date, and there is certainly no lack of passages in his writings in which his meaning and the connection of thought are extremely difficult to discover.… The modern reader has frequent reason to allow that this intention was fulfilled.

Later writers on the Stromateis have not rested content with this account of their character and purpose, as the author gave it. In particular, De Faye believes that they evidence a more serious change in Clement's scheme than the mere employment of the cryptic method would involve. He points out that in the Pædagogus Clement speaks in several places of “the Master,”… as though this was to be the title of the third portion of his work. After conversion, which is the office of the “protreptic” Word, after moral training, which is in the charge of the Pædagogue, comes higher teaching, knowledge, initiation into Christian truth, and this the “Master” must impart. “And now,” he writes, in the closing chapter of the Pædagogus, “it is time for me to bring this earlier instruction… to an end and for you to listen to the Master.”¹⁶ But what follows is, as we know, not a doctrinal work so entitled, but the long drawn miscellany of the Stromateis. Even in the Seventh Book the consideration of doctrine is still postponed to “the appropriate season”; in its concluding chapter his project is still regarded as ahead and unattained, and the reader is surprised by the promise of a new start in the very closing sentence of the book.¹⁷

On this and similar evidence it is argued that the Stromateis cannot be the promised [Didaskalos]. They are rather a work preliminary to the discussion of doctrine, which Clement found necessary, mainly on the grounds of his readers susceptibilities, to insert between the Pædagogus and the crowning section of his scheme. When the Stromateis, as we possess them, come to an end, they have removed many difficulties and cleared the way, but their purpose has only been preparatory, and the long-expected “Master” was destined to remain an unaccomplished project. Such, in outline, is De Faye's interesting solution of this difficult literary question. His interpretation is maintained with great command of the evidence, and with all the clearness of statement for which the best French theological writing is ever remarkable.

But it has not passed unchallenged. The most serious criticism is that of C. Heussi,¹⁸ who argues that the Stromateis are the “Master,” and contends that no direct statements of Clement prove them to be merely preliminary; that they do not prepare for the “Gnosis,” but rather impart it; and that many expressions of the writer prove them to be the crowning work, to which the opening chapter of the Pædagogus looks forward. To these considerations is added the assertion that the first four books of the Stromateis must have been written before the Pædagogus, since the latter work refers to an already published discussion on marriage, which can be none other than that contained in Stromateis II. and III. This last contention, if it could be supported by conclusive evidence, would indeed render De Faye's interpretation untenable, though it would also raise fresh difficulties, if indeed it did not throw the whole problem of Clement's writings into an inextricable confusion. The arguments in favour of this hypothesis are, however, scarcely sufficient to render it a substantial conclusion. The discussion on marriage may have been a lost work of which the fragment quoted in Stählin's edition is all that now survives.¹⁹ Or Clement may have incorporated a previously written monograph in his later work; or possibly the Pædagogus may have been revised after the Stromateis were written, and the references to the discussion on marriage introduced. On the whole it may be said that there is no sufficient reason to suppose that Clement's great Trilogy was composed in any other order than that in which we possess it.

De Faye seems, then, to have proved that Clement intended to call the third portion of his work The Master, and to have also made clear the fact that at the end of the Stromateis his main purpose still remains unaccomplished. What is really open to question is the supposition that Clement himself regarded the Stromateis, from the first, as a preparatory undertaking and no more. It is difficult to see why he should have introduced a work, merely preliminary, with so serious a preface as stands at the opening of the Stromateis. Its whole tone implies that he is on the threshold of his most important task. Moreover, his method of concealing truth, which is sufficiently appropriate on the supposition that he wishes his meaning to be intelligible only to those who have the key of knowledge, would be wholly out of place in a work whose purpose was to remove popular objections. If Clement had intended the Stromateis to remove the suspicions of the uneducated, he would naturally have written as plainly as he did in the Protrepticus, and invited the attention of every Christian who could read.

A more serious and conclusive consideration is that Clement's language frequently implies that the Stromateis do contain, in scattered and fragmentary form, the higher teaching to which the earlier work looks forward. Heussi's quotations seem to show beyond question that the central purpose of the Stromateis was doctrinal, however imperfectly this may have been realised. The reader is reminded, in the words of Heraclitus, that we must dig through much earth in order to find a little gold, and that a medley of many seeds must be well shaken in the sieve if we wish to select the wheat.²⁰ This “gold” and “wheat” can only be identified with those pearls of truth which must not be cast before swine. The author's language here and in many other passages is only intelligible if we suppose that he regarded himself as imparting, in the cryptic method he had selected, that very teaching which was to be the perfect Christian's treasured prize. That this is done secretly, partially, imperfectly; that after the lesser Mysteries initiation into the greater still awaits the reader; that the writer never comes within even tolerable distance of his eventual goal, must be certainly allowed. The Stromateis do not accomplish the task of the promised “Master.” But neither, on the other hand, is their character purely preliminary. They undertake and commence what it proved beyond the time or power of the writer to accomplish.

In short, Clement started on his enterprise without realising its magnitude and difficulty. It is impossible here to describe in any detail the character of the esoteric teaching²¹ he proposed to embody in his completed work, not only because he did not live to accomplish the embodiment, but also because he had never clearly grasped in all its implications the character of his own great purpose. He hopes to advance from a consideration of the genesis of the Cosmos to the contemplation of a reality more ultimate and less material; his purpose is to rise from Cosmogony to Theology.²² Thus his philosophy of religion is to lead at last to the Ruler of the Universe, “an object difficult to apprehend and capture, ever receding and withdrawing into the distance from him who follows in pursuit.”²³ In the important opening chapter of the Fourth Book, where he has set forth his ultimate purpose as clearly as anywhere, he expresses himself with grave hesitation as to its fulfilment. The work will be written, “if God will, and as He may inspire me.” Again and again, as he has occasion to refer to this crowning and unachieved portion of his task, his language grows vague, and the implications of his terminology are less assured, and we have hints of a mighty purpose, for which the range of his faculties is hardly adequate. What Clement intended to portray in language can hardly have been anything different from the final vision of the Gnostic soul. For one who has reached this stage, perfect understanding contemplates objects superior to the Cosmos and purely intellectual in their nature, and even moves on to other realms more spiritual still than these. The goal is the conclusive grasp of all reality; the uninterrupted vision of pure Being by the purified intelligence. Now Clement is a true Hellene. He never passes from the intellectual standpoint to mystic rapture. He has his face set towards this transcendent consummation, but he never draws the veil to admit his reader within the shrine. Much as he says about contemplation, the features of the object contemplated are never made manifest in his pages. The truth is, as the mystics knew, that the Beatific Vision lies beyond language; the Prophet's ecstasy, or the symbolism of Art, are less inadequate methods for apprehending the ultimate realities of the Spirit than the cold, clear light of the intelligence.

Thus the fact that Clement chose to write a series of Stromateis in the place of the projected “Master” must in the main be set down to the character of his public. But that having chosen this type of literature for his medium, he remains, after seven considerable volumes have been written, still so remote from the final achievement of his task, is due to the range and magnitude, and still more to the transcendental character, of his undertaking. The repeated and varied plans for future writing; the constant falling back for further discussion upon already considered themes; the apologetic references to the number of preliminary subjects with which he finds it necessary to deal, all evidence a hesitation on the writer's part in approaching the more advanced portions of his subject which is entirely natural when we realise how wide the range of truth, how elevated the point of vision, to which he had originally hoped to show the way. In a word, the Stromateis are and yet are not the projected “Master.” In writing them Clement realised, in part, his purpose of higher teaching. In writing them he also came to recognise that his purpose could never be fully realised at all. J. von Arnim²⁴ has suggested that Clement was prevented by death from bringing his undertaking to fulfilment. There are difficulties in this suggestion. Is it not at least possible that the Stromateis are left unfinished, because Clement became increasingly conscious that the portrayal of complete and final truth lies beyond the achievement of any single human mind?

Clement's activity as a writer was in any case not limited to the great tripartite work, of which the Stromateis are the most important section. In all we hear of some twenty treatises which may claim his authorship, though with different degrees of evidence. Beyond the trilogy, only one, the Quis Dives Salvetur, has survived intact. Others are known to have existed from mention made of them in ancient authors and from fragments which have been preserved. The earliest evidence for others is as late as the seventh century. With regard to some four or five, while Clement's intention to write on these subjects is clear, we are wholly ignorant as to whether his plans were ever carried into effect. To these considerable uncertainties must be added the further doubt as to the independent character of some of these undertakings. The mention, for example, of a “Discussion on Marriage” may, as we have remarked, equally well refer to the Third Book of the Stromateis or to a distinct and separate treatise. The whole subject of these fragmentary remains has been very fully dealt with by Zahn in his Supplementum Clementinum. For our present purpose it will only be necessary to consider briefly the character and contents of these other writings of our author. Something may also be said on the difficult question of the order of their composition.

Clement's written works appear to have fallen into four classes, when distributed according to the nature of their subject-matter. (1) Some dealt with the Scriptures. (2) Some were controversial. (3) Some again were concerned with the philosophy of doctrine. (4) The fourth class was pastoral in character. Such a division is naturally only tentative. The evidence is in many cases too scanty for certainty, while a book on the Scriptures must clearly to some extent involve doctrine also. But a consideration of his literary work on the lines of this division will at least give some idea of its varied character, and help to dissipate the common misconception of Clement as merely an academic Christian, a second-century professor with few interests outside his library.

(1) The most extensive work on the Scriptures for which Clement was responsible was the Hypotyposeis or Outlines. There were eight books of this commentary, so that it was as long as the Stromateis. Eusebius²⁵ was familiar with it and quoted it, and so was Photius,²⁶ who lived in the ninth century and thought the work heretical. The editions²⁷ give between twenty and thirty fragments of this work in Greek, and there are some longer extracts, from the portion which dealt with the Catholic Epistles, still extant in a Latin translation. The commentary was not a complete one: it only dealt with “certain passages,” but apparently no book in either the Old or New Testament was entirely omitted. In many cases the notes are little more than “Scholia”; sometimes also they are of considerable interest, as in their reference to the authorship of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which Saint Luke is said to have translated from a Hebrew original written by Saint Paul; or in their mention of the origin of the fourth or “spiritual” Gospel; or in their statement that Saint John's second Epistle was addressed to a “Babylonian” lady, by name Eclecta. Zahn has reconstructed²⁸ the table of their probable contents. The surviving fragments are sufficient to afford us many hints on Clement's views of Holy Scripture. They are in this respect a valuable supplement to his more completely extant works. Evidently the work covered too much ground, but it is interesting to know that the master of Origen undertook such a task. Next to the Stromateis it was probably Clement's most extensive and important book.

It is possible, too, that Clement treated certain parts of Scripture more fully in separate writings. Mention, at any rate, is made of a Commentary on the Prophet Amos,²⁹ which was apparently distinct from the Hypotyposeis. Eusebius also states that Clement promised in the Stromateis to compose a separate work on the Book of Genesis. It is not known whether this was ever accomplished, and even the intention of Clement is doubtful, for Eusebius may have misinterpreted his meaning.³⁰ Besides these, we have several mentions in the Stromateis of a projected discussion on “Prophecy.”³¹ This may refer to an intended work on the prophetical books of the Old Testament, or to a treatise on the nature of inspiration, or to some more controversial purpose of dealing with Montanism. There is no reason to suppose that any separate work under this name was ever published by Clement. It is well known that he did not carry out all his plans. It is, however, sufficiently clear that a considerable portion of his literary work, whether accomplished or only projected, had the interpretation of the Holy Scriptures definitely in view. That so much of this has perished is, in the main, due to the fact that greater commentators came after him. In this, as in so many other respects, he was a pioneer, memorable not so much by what he actually achieved as by his recognition of the importance, for the Church's highest interests, of the domain of commentary and exegesis.³²

(2) A second class of Clement's writings had a controversial purpose. These do not appear to have been numerous, and Clement, though he often opposes Gnostic teaching in the Stromateis, cared little for controversy on its own account. Towards the end of his stay in Alexandria the Paschal question again came into prominence, and Alexandria sided with Pope Victor against Polycrates and the Quartodecimans of Asia Minor.³³ It seems that Clements was urged by his friends to deal with this debated issue, and his treatise On the Passover was mainly directed against an earlier book written by the saintly Quartodeciman, Melito of Sardis.³⁴ It is clear from a surviving fragment that he adhered to the dates of the Fourth Gospel, as against the Synoptists, and held the Crucifixion, not the Last Supper, to have taken place on the 14th Nisan.³⁵ The few other quotations we still possess seem to show that, as might be expected, Clement did not confine his argument to historical evidence. More abstract lines of reasoning were evidently employed as well. Possibly they did not greatly contribute to the settlement of a question which was determined in the long run by authority and the growth of uniformity, rather than by a priori considerations. But it is significant that even the philosophic Clement was drawn into a discussion of this character. “Ye observe days,” wrote Saint Paul reprovingly; yet in such minor issues, when they arise, even the leaders must take their part, and masters of doctrine may not altogether stand aside. Besides, Alexandria had a special interest in points of chronology and the calendar.

A second work of this class was known as the Canon Ecclesiasticus,³⁶ the alternative title showing that it was written to oppose the “Judaisers,” though with what particular portion of their tenets it was concerned the evidence does not enable us to say. Possibly this also was a criticism of the Quartodeciman position. Or, possibly, as the one extant fragment might suggest, the “Judaisers” desired to enforce the literal interpretation of Scripture, and, if that were so, it is quite probable that for once Clement found the task of controversial authorship congenial. An interesting point in connection with this work is that it was dedicated to Alexander, Bishop of Jerusalem, an old pupil and friend of Clement's. No other works of Clement are known to us of a clearly controversial character.

(3) From his interest in the philosophy of Christian doctrine Clement might have been expected to devote much of his literary activity to its consideration. Yet there is no class of his writings in which the evidence is more uncertain, when once we pass beyond the range of his actually existing works. The Stromateis we possess. And it would be natural to class with them the works On the Soul, On the Resurrection, On the Angels, On Principles, On Providence,³⁷ supposing these, or any of them, ever to have been written. He intended to write on the Soul and to deal with the Pythagoreans and the doctrine of Transmigration. He intended also to discuss the Lord's Resurrection, and to deal with passages of Scripture in which the general doctrine of the subject is allegorically taught. So, too, he proposed to write about the Angles. Their importance in Gnostic systems would alone have made this a natural plan. But whether any one of these intentions was ever carried out, we cannot determine. No fragments survive which can with any strong probability be assigned to these proposed discussions on the Soul and on the Angels. Of the treatise On Providence several fragments have been preserved, but none of the references or quotations are anterior to the seventh century. If the fragments are genuine, this work seems to have been mainly concerned with the definition of theological terms: it consisted of at least two books, and must have been useful to students of theology. Clement's authorship of it is questionable. Zahn is on the whole disposed to accept it. Stählin is more doubtful.

Finally, there is the work On Principles. He proposed a treatise of this kind in the Stromateis. And there is some reason to suppose that this was actually written, from the apparent reference to it as already existing, which he makes in the Quis Dives Salvetur. Von Arnim³⁸ has questioned this interpretation of the passage in the last-named work, and it must in any case seem doubtful whether Clement would have gone on to deal with “Principles,” if the Stromateis were still incomplete. Here, again, nothing can be definitely proved. Thus in the domain of doctrinal philosophy, where Clement might have been expected to write most readily when he had once determined on writing books at all, we are left with nothing beyond the Stromateis. The other works mentioned may possibly have existed, but in no case is the evidence more than doubtful. On the whole it is probable that, when Clement found the completion of his great undertaking was beyond his powers, he did not again deal with subjects of this order.

(4) When we come to writings of a pastoral character our information is fuller and more substantial. The office of a teacher may be said to lie midway between the domain of pure theology and that of pastoral care. Clement at any rate managed to combine his special interest in doctrine with no inconsiderable activity in the care of souls. The Pædagogus, of course, is concerned with the education of the Christian character; and we breathe as it were the atmosphere of the parish rather than of the lecture-room in his one extant sermon, the Quis Dives Salvetur. Eusebius³⁹ knew of two homilies, one On Slander, the other On Fasting. An Address to the Newly Baptised, exhorting to patience, is mentioned by the same writer; and Clement himself speaks of a treatise On Continency, no doubt identical with the Discussion on Marriage, to which he refers in the Pædagogus.⁴⁰ This, as we have seen, is regarded by many authorities as no independent work, but rather that portion of the Stromateis⁴¹ in which he deals with the relation of the sexes, and which may have been separately written before the Stromateis were commenced. The only evidence, beyond Clement's own statement, is a fragment quoted in the Sacra Parallela,⁴² which has been wrongly assigned to the Seventh Book of the Stromateis, and does not occur in the earlier portions which deal with marriage. This would be naturally assigned to the independent book On Continency, if that existed. Zahn⁴³ inclines to believe that such a book was written by Clement. Stählin⁴⁴ follows Wendland and Heussi in regarding the discussion in the Stromateis as being the author's only treatment of this subject. If that is so, this portion of his work hardly falls under the head of “Pastoralia,” but we are still left with the four sermons.

A fragment recently discovered by the Rev. P. M. Barnard⁴⁵ has been assigned to the Address to the Newly Baptised. This fragment may well be an extremely interesting summary of Clement's teaching, but it is difficult, on grounds of style, to regard it as actually coming from his pen. Of the homilies on Slander and Fasting there are no remains. The interest of this portion of Clement's work is the hint it gives us of a period in his career when he was actively engaged in the building up of Christian character. It seems to imply that the teacher of Gnosis and mystery could also deal sympathetically with the minor difficulties of a recent convert. Our slight but suggestive knowledge of this part of Clement's activity may well be connected with the mention of him, already noticed, in Alexander's letter to the Church of Antioch.⁴⁶ It accords well with the statement that he had established and increased the flock that was under Alexander's care.

This survey of Clement's literary work would not be complete without some mention of three longer fragments, which are usually attributed to him on the evidence of the manuscripts, but which are extremely puzzling to the critics because of the character of their contents. Of these the first is the so-called Eighth Book of the Stromateis. It differs widely from the earlier books, consisting of discussions on logic, such subjects as definition, causality, suspense of judgment being treated, evidently in an incomplete fashion. This is followed by the Excerpta ex Theodoto, which the title helps us further to define as a sort of summary or epitome of a phase of teaching recognised as Eastern, and claiming the authority of Valentinus. The extracts are Gnostic in character, with comments added, though the line of separation between the Gnostic teaching and the remarks of the commentator is difficult indeed to draw. Several passages of Scripture are explained, and the heretical terminology is much employed. Finally, these Excerpta are followed by the Eclogæ Propheticæ, which contain fragments of exegesis, one or two interesting mentions of the Elders, and a continuous exposition of the Nineteenth Psalm, which might well have come from the Hypotyposeis.

Of these strange and fragmentary relics what can be made? It is Zahn's⁴⁷ theory that they are extracts, made by some person other than Clement, from the previously completed Eighth Book of the Stromateis. This suggestion has not been generally accepted. It is difficult to believe that even Clement would have united material so heterogeneous as the so-called Strom. VIII. and the Excerpta in one division of his work. Moreover, the whole series of the extracts would have amounted to at least half the book, and there is no apparent reason in the subject matter for the selection having been made at all. And the title of the second portion, Excerpta ex Theodoto, does not harmonise with Zahn's interpretation.

A later theory, suggested in its original form by P. Ruben,⁴⁸ adopted and enlarged by von Arnim, and accepted by De Faye, sees in these three different fragments the preparatory notes of Clement for other books which we do not possess.⁴⁹ For the full discussion of the whole question the reader must refer to the authorities named above. The balance of probability lies strongly with the more recent suggestion. Clement may well have made notes and extracts from writings with which he did not himself agree. Perhaps there is here an effective answer to those critics of his literary work, who see in him little more than a clever thief of other men's labours. Not as a rule of special interest in themselves, these extracts are still eloquent in their evidence of Clement's laborious thoroughness and of his resolve to understand what others had written, even when it was impossible that he himself should adopt their point of view. Such was the extent and character of Clement's literary work, so far as this may be gathered from the books we possess, and from the scattered fragments and references, which point to others that have not survived. Both in the amount of the work accomplished and in the variety of the subjects on which he wrote, his range of authorship was clearly considerable. It remains to make some reference to the interesting and difficult question of the date and order of his different works.

The evidence on this point is neither abundant nor decisive. Eusebius⁵⁰ reckons him among the ecclesiastical writers whose works taught the divinity of Christ before Victor became Bishop of Rome in a.d. 189. If this statement be accepted, Clement was engaged in writing more than twelve years before he left Alexandria. He probably never wholly abandoned work of this character; and this latter supposition, sufficiently probable in itself, is borne out by the dedication of his Canon Ecclesiasticus to Bishop Alexander. The Bishop, as we have seen, was Clement's pupil, born, Zahn thinks, about a.d. 170.⁵¹ He became Bishop of Jerusalem after a.d. 211, and appears already to have held this position when the above-named work of Clement was written. Thus there is roughly a period of five and twenty years during which Clement was at least partially occupied in literary work, and it may be inferred from the statement of Eusebius’ Chronicle,⁵² a.d. 204, “Clemens multa et varia conscribit,” that his years of greatest activity as a writer were immediately after his departure from Alexandria.

Is it possible, within these limits, to assign more precise dates for the writing of his various books?⁵³ The most interesting item in such an inquiry arises in connection with the Stromateis. Were they written in Alexandria? or were they his latest undertaking, cut short, while still unrevised, by the rude hand of death? Von Arnim⁵⁴ and De Faye⁵⁵ hold the latter theory. Zahn⁵⁶ and Mayor⁵⁷ believe other writings followed them. Harnack⁵⁸ regards the Stromateis as commenced in Alexandria, then interrupted by the writing of the Pædagogus, and continued after Clement had fled before the persecution of Severus. Thus there is a choice of views, and the evidence is very inconclusive. The opening chapter of the Stromateis would tend to show that this was Clement's earliest published work. Yet the mention of the death of Commodus⁵⁹ clearly places Book I. later than a.d. 192. The references to persecution and martyrdom⁶⁰ have been held to suggest the years a.d. 202-3. But the character of the writing, and the entire lack of direct evidence, make the interruption of their composition, either by the writing of the Pædagogus, or by Clement's flight from Alexandria, at least improbable. Even with a writer as little interested in concrete facts as Clement, so violent a break in his career, the sudden exile from libraries, and the enforced change from an environment made familiar by twenty years' residence, could hardly fail to have left some trace, had they occurred while the writing of the Stromateis was still in process. Moreover, the same suspicious readers whom he had so much in mind when he began writing, are still considered in the Seventh Book,⁶¹ and the quotations and references in the later portions of the work seem to imply that Clement was still within reach of libraries when he wrote them.

It may be frankly admitted that no theory fits all the facts. Somewhere or other each possibility does violence to the evidence. It is not possible to prove, but it is legitimate to suppose, that Clement wrote the Stromateis in Alexandria and was cut short by the persecution under Severus in his task. Mainly through recognising the difficulty or impossibility of completing his ambitious scheme, yet partly also because his lot was now cast among a less intellectual public, and partly, it may be, in the hope that he would one day return to his old literary surroundings, he was led first to postpone, and then ultimately to abandon, the great project to which he had set his hand. He turned his attention instead to the exposition of Scripture, to controversy, above all to Pastoralia. So we have, subsequent to the Stromateis, the Outlines, the tract Against Judaisers, the Address to the Newly Baptised and that On Slander. The “multa et varia” of the Eusebian Chronicle gives some support to such a dating of his books. And the difficulties involved are perhaps not greater than those which arise on the theories of von Arnim or of Harnack. If there is a certain element of pathos in the abandonment by Clement in his later years of his great projected scheme, there is also a noble and heroic self-adaptation in his undertaking of lesser tasks, which served their purpose, even though the Christian world has not thought it worth while to preserve more than scanty fragments of their total length. Many men, since the days of good King David, have done useful service, even after they have come to realise that they will never erect the perfect temple of their dreams.

It is difficult to say much in praise of Clement's style from the purely literary point of view. His aims, his ideas, his range of knowledge, deserved indeed a more artistic and graceful medium of expression than the long and involved sentences, the unbalanced diffuseness, the defective taste, which characterise much that he has written. Several causes, no doubt, contributed to this result. The habit of oral instruction, in which he had been occupied for several years before he began to write, would militate against terseness and lucid accuracy of writing. We have already seen how conscious Clement was that the two methods demanded different gifts. His convictions are usually definite, when we reach them, but while his mind moves on the surface of a subject, there is often some lack of clear conception, and this at times is discernible in his style.

But, in addition to this, he disregards style from deliberate intention. It is for him the antithesis of facts and truth. It may please, but it does not profit or instruct. He shares and expresses here the common prejudice of the earlier Christians against Literature and Art as such. That he wrote at all needed some apology: he regards it as almost a virtue to write, if he must write, in any indifferent terminology that occurs and will serve his purpose. If Pantænus were indeed the author of the beautiful Epistle to Diognetus,⁶² we could wish he had imparted his own power of graceful writing to his pupil, for Clement's disregard of style, however justifiable, has had troublesome consequences for his readers, and has doubtless diminished the influence and popularity of his books.

There is, besides, the further consideration that his purpose to hide the truths he taught from the uninitiated has naturally rendered him obscure, and made doubly doubtful the intention of much that he has written. These causes have contributed to rob his great undertaking of literary attractiveness. It can only be regretted that Clement, who saw so clearly in many other respects how the secular world could minister to faith, did not go on to claim something of Plato's style, as well as of Plato's thought, for the enrichment of his comprehensive task. At times, indeed, he rises above his own principles and his normal level. He is “warmed by the Word,”⁶³ and when he speaks of the appeal of the Saviour to humanity, or of the wide and disastrous consequences of fair Helen's beauty,⁶⁴ or of the higher communion of the Gnostic life, his very subjects give him inspiration and his words have a new life and a closer precision, and we feel that there are other qualities in his nature, which happier literary conditions and ideals might have developed into a greater lucidity and a more perfect grace of words. As it was, he regarded with suspicion some of the best arts of the writer and never sought to acquire their mastery. It should be added that the Stromateis were in all probability never revised.

Our principal authority for the text of the Protrepticus and of the Pædagogus is a manuscript⁶⁵ of the tenth century, now in the National Library in Paris (Paris, Græc., 451, usually referred to as “P”). There are some sixteen other MSS. of these books, but none of them is regarded as independent of P. For the Stromateis the authority is a manuscript of the eleventh century, now in the Laurentian library in Florence (Laur., V. 3, usually referred to as “L”), of which a sixteenth-century copy exists in Paris. The quotations in Eusebius and other writers are of some service for textual purposes, but it cannot be said, in regard at any rate to the Stromateis, that the text of Clement has come down to us in a satisfactory condition. In 1715, John Potter, Regius Professor of Divinity at Oxford and afterwards Bishop of Oxford and Archbishop of Canterbury, published an important edition of Clement. It was a work of very real learning, and many of Potter's notes are still valuable. Dindorf's edition of 1869 was disappointing, but Dr Stählin, in the edition issued under the auspices of the Prussian Academy of Science, has at length given Clement's works to the world in as completely satisfactory a form as the conditions allow. All who feel any serious interest in the old Alexandrine master must welcome with real and merited gratitude the outcome of Dr Stählin's labours. Could Clement but have foreseen that his [notebooks] would one day be thus worthily presented to the Christian students of an age not wholly dissimilar from his own!

Notes

1. See the references in Stählin, I., ix. sqq.; III., 224 sqq.

2. 320, 996. Both passages are important.…

3. Cp. De Faye, Clément d'Alexandrie, 16 and 28 sqq.: Harnack, Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur, 1. (i.), 291 sqq.

4. 996.

5. Vide supra, p. 14.…

6. H.E., vii. 7.…

7. 341.

8. 996.

9. 318.…

10. Op. cit., p. 104.

11. On the position and importance of Clement in the literary history of Christianity, see F. Overbeck's article, Ueber die Anfänge der patristischen Literatur, in the Historische Zeitschrift, 1882, No. 48 (= N.F. 12), especially pp. 444 sqq.

12. See Hort and Mayor, The Seventh Book of the Stromateis, Introd., chap. i. “On the title Stromateis.” “Carpet-bags” is from Bigg.

13. Such works are said to contain “variam et miscellam et quasi confusaneam doctrinam,” a description singularly true in the case of Clement's work. Noct. Att., Præfatio, 5 sqq.…

14. 736, cp. 901-2.

15. 656-86.…

16. 309.

17. 867, 901-2.

18. See the important article of this writer, Die Stromateis des Clemens Alexandrinus und ihr Verhältnis zum Protrepticos und Pædagogos, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, Bd. xlv. 1902, pp. 465 sqq.…

19. iii. 228.

20. 565-6.

21. Chapters xiv. and xix. give some little further information on this point.

22. 325, cp. 564.

23. 431. For the thought see Plato, Timæus, 51; Philo, De Somniis, i. 11.

24. De octavo Clementis Stromateorum libro, pp. 7, 13.

25. H.E., ii. 9; vi. 14.

26. Bibl. Cod., 109 sqq.

27. Stählin, iii. 195 sqq.; Zahn, Supplementum Clementinum, 64 sqq.…

28. Op. cit., 156.

29. Zahn, op. cit., 45. The authority is the Lausiac History of Palladius (c. a.d. 420).

30. Zahn, loc. cit.

31. 416, 605, 699.

32. On Clement's relation to Scripture see infra, chap. xvii., xviii.

33. Supra, p. 110 Sqq.

34. H.E., iv. 26; vi. 13; cp. v. 24.…

35. … Stählin, iii. 217. Zahn, op. cit., 33.

36. H.E., vi. 13.…

37. The first four of these are mentioned by Clement himself: 125, 232, 564, 699, 755, 950.…

38. Op. cit., 13. See, however, Appendix II. of the present work.

39. H.E., vi. 13.

40. 278, cp. 199, 226.

41. 502-62.

42. Stählin, iii. 228.

43. Op. cit., 37 sqq.

44. III., lxiii., lxx. 228.

45. lb., p. 221.

46. Supra, p. 24.

47. Op. cit., 104 sqq.

48. Clem. Al. Exc. ex Theod. Dissertatio philologica, Leipzig, 1892.

49. Op. cit. Von Arnim rightly points out that on this hypothesis Strom. VIII., the Excerpta, and the Eclogæ would all possess a similar character, being extracts from other writings made by Clement in preparation for another work: “una eademque simplici ratione explicatam habebitis trium illorum quæ Stromateum VII. secuntur corporum conformationem,” p. 9. See De Faye, pp. 332-3; also C. Barth, Die Interpretation des neuen Testaments in der Valentinianischen Gnosis (Texte und Untersuchungen, R. III., Bd. vii.), p. I: where the Excerpta are said to have been put together, “wohlzu künftiger Verarbeitung für eine Streitschrift.”

50. H.E., v. 28.

51. Op. cit., p. 171, “spätestens um 170.”

52. Migne, Pat. Gr., xix. 568.

53. On this subject see also Appendix II.

54. Op. cit., 7, 13.

55. P. 120.

56. Pp. 173 sqq.

57. xviii.-xix.

58. Geschichte der altchr. Lit., II. (ii), 9 sqq.

59. 402-3.

60. 494, etc. See also Appendix I.

61. 829, 894.…

62. Lightfoot, Apostolic Fathers, Ed. Harmer, suggests this, p. 488.

63. 263.

64. 259-60.

65. Facsimiles are given in Stählin's edition, vol. iii., ad fin., and also at the commencement of this chapter.