Dcn Tom Lindell
My Brothers and Sisters,
Today we commemorate Clement of Alexandria, early Christian teacher and apologist, who died on this date in 215 CE.
He was born Titus Flavius Clemens, most likely to pagan parents in Athens. As an adult, he sought out truth from several teachers in Greece, lower Italy, Syria, Palestine, and finally Alexandria, a city of perhaps one million inhabitants, the cultural center of the Middle East, with a university, an astronomical observatory, a zoo, botanical garden and above all a magnificent library of more than 400,000 volumes and texts. There he sat under Pantaenus, who taught Christianity considering the scientific teachings of the day. In about 190, Clement opened his own "school," that taught a "new philosophy" that addressed the cultural and philosophical concerns of the day. The "philosophy" was not all that new—Christianity—but Clement's teaching of it was. He wrote three books to expound his views.
His Exhortation to the Greeks was an introductory philosophical work for the unbaptized, in which he attempted to show the reasonableness of the Christian faith, he exhorted. "Let us remove the ignorance and darkness that spreads like a mist over our sight and let us get a vision of the true God."
In Instructor, he outlined the specific duties and ethics taught by the "Instructor" (i.e., the Logos, or Christ): "Our superintendence in instruction and discipline is the office of the Word [Logos, in Greek], from whom we learn frugality and humility, and all that pertains to love of freedom, love of man, and love of excellence."
His Miscellanies is a multicolored patchwork of teachings in advanced philosophy, ethics, and disciplined instruction for "Christian Gnostics" to lead them into esoteric knowledge (gnosis): "The man of understanding and discernment is, then, a Gnostic. And his business is not abstinence from what is evil ... or the doing of good out of fear ... nor any more is he to do so from hope of promised recompense ... but only the doing of good out of love, and for the sake of its own excellence is the Gnostic's choice." If this sounds mystical, it is. Clement sought to reach the literati of his day, and Gnosticism was the rage. He sought to present the Christian faith in terms these people could recognize.
Clement also sought to help the church. One of his most famous sermons he tried to address a recurring problem, one which Christians were facing for the first time in his day: considering Jesus' parable of the rich young ruler, what should rich Christians do with their wealth? Clement puts the issue this way: "Since possessions of one kind are within the soul, and those of another kind outside it, and these latter appear to be good if the soul uses them well, but if they are badly used—which of the two is it that he [Jesus] asks us to renounce?" He answers, "The Lord admits the use of outward things, bidding us put away, not the means of living, but the things that use these badly. And these are ... the infirmities and passions of the soul. “In other words, it's our attitude toward possessions (i.e., greed), not the possessions themselves, that are the problem.
Clement also advocated using the visual arts in worship at a time when some early Christians were reluctant to employ painting or drawing, fearing attention to their work might constitute idolatry. Clement concluded, "Let our emblem be a dove, or a fish, or a ship running before the wind, or a musician's lyre, or a ship's anchor."
His ministry, both in and outside the Alexandrian church, was cut abruptly short in 202, when persecution broke out during the reign of Emperor Septimius Severus, Clement was compelled to flee the city. He settled in Cappadocia, where he died in 215.
But his influence did not end when his life did. He was, according to tradition, the teacher of Origen, a theologian of immense influence in the next generation. His mystical theology may have also influenced Psuedo-Dionysius, who was the theologian who shaped medieval mysticism.
—Dcn Tom