Clement of Alexandria

Titus Flavius Clemens, better known as Clement of Alexandria, was a Christian theologian and philosopher who taught at the Catechetical School of Alexandria. His students included Origen and Alexander of Jerusalem. A convert to Christianity, Clement was well-read in classical Greek philosophy and literature, and his three major surviving works show that he was more deeply shaped by Hellenistic thought—especially Plato and the Stoics—than any other Christian thinker of his era. Fragments of his lost writings suggest he also knew something of pre-Christian Jewish esotericism and Gnosticism. In one work, he argued that Greek philosophy came from non-Greeks, asserting that both Plato and Pythagoras learned from Egyptian scholars.

Clement is commonly counted among the Church Fathers. He is honored as a saint in Coptic Christianity, Eastern Catholicism, Ethiopian Christianity, and Anglicanism. In Western Catholicism, he was venerated until 1586, when Pope Sixtus V removed his name from the Roman Martyrology on the advice of Baronius. The Eastern Orthodox Church ceased all veneration of him in the 10th century. Even so, both Eastern Orthodox and Catholic writers sometimes still refer to him as “Saint Clement of Alexandria.”

Neither Clement’s birth date nor birthplace is known for sure. He is thought to have been born around 147 AD. Epiphanius of Salamis claimed he was born in Athens, but another tradition places his birth in Alexandria. His parents were pagans, and Clement himself converted to Christianity. In his *Protrepticus*, he shows deep knowledge of Greek religion and mystery cults, which likely came from his family’s practices. As a young man, he rejected paganism because of what he saw as its moral corruption. He then traveled through Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine, and Egypt, mostly for religious reasons. In Greece, he met an Ionian theologian (often identified as Athenagoras of Athens); in the east, he learned from an Assyrian (sometimes thought to be Tatian) and a Jew (possibly Theophilus of Caesarea).

Around 180 AD, Clement arrived in Alexandria and met Pantaenus, a teacher at the Catechetical School. Eusebius says Pantaenus was the school’s head, though it is debated whether the school was formally organized that way before Origen’s time. Clement studied under Pantaenus and was ordained a priest by Pope Julian before 189. Beyond that, almost nothing is known of his personal life in Alexandria. He may have been married, which his writings hint at. During the Severian persecution of 202–203, Clement left Alexandria. In 211, Alexander of Jerusalem wrote a letter recommending him to the Church of Antioch, suggesting Clement may have been living in Cappadocia or Jerusalem then. He died at an unknown location.

Three of Clement’s major works survive in full and are known as a trilogy: the *Protrepticus* (Exhortation), the *Paedagogus* (Tutor), and the *Stromata* (Miscellanies). The *Protrepticus* urges Greek pagans to adopt Christianity. It shows Clement’s wide knowledge of pagan mythology and theology, and is especially notable for treating religion as an anthropological phenomenon. After a short philosophical discussion, it traces Greek religion through seven stages: first, people mistook the sun, moon, and stars for gods; next, they worshiped agricultural products, leading to the cults of Demeter and Dionysus; then they deified revenge, love, and fear; later, poets like Hesiod and Homer listed the gods; finally, humans declared figures like Asclepius and Heracles divine. Clement argues that early religion used unshaped wood and stone, and that idols came from carving such natural objects. Following Plato, he criticizes visual art as mere illusion and “deadly toys.” He attacks Greek paganism because its gods are false and morally bad examples. He mocks the mystery religions for their ritualism and mysticism, especially the worshippers of Dionysus for using children’s toys in ceremonies. At times he says pagan gods are based on humans; at other times he calls them misanthropic demons, citing classical sources. Like many pre-Nicene church fathers, he praises Euhemerus and other rationalists for seeing paganism’s flaws, but his highest praise goes to Plato, whose apophatic view of God foreshadows Christianity. The figure of Orpheus runs through the *Protrepticus*; Clement contrasts Orpheus’s song (pagan superstition) with the divine Logos of Christ, arguing that only through conversion can one fully share in the Logos, which is universal truth.