the meaning. To find the truth we must consider what is perfectly fitting and becoming to the Lord and the Almighty God, and must confirm each point that is demonstrated by the analogy of Scripture. When the heretics are proved to be in antagonism to the Scriptures, they either make light of the logical consistency of their own dogmas or of prophecy itself. They disclaim the authority of Scripture, and prefer their own conceptions to that which was spoken by the Lord through the prophets, and attested and confirmed by the Gospels and also by the Apostles. They lack understanding for the majesty of the truth.1 As mischievous boys bar out their tutor, they shut out the prophecies from their own church. They quibble at the things handed down by the blessed apostles and teachers which are naturally attached to the inspired words, and oppose human teaching to divine tradition. Marcion and Prodicus were not wiser than the men before them, and might well have been contented with learning the previous traditions.3 The heretics have only a false key. We open the main door and enter in through the tradition of the Lord; they cut down a side-door and secretly dig through the wall of the Church. Outstepping the truth, they initiate into the mysteries the souls of the impious. The Catholic Church existed prior to the gatherings of the heretics; all heresy is innovation. The heretics try to break up the unity of the Church; the true, the ancient Church is one. This oneness it shares with God. The preeminence of the Catholic Church, like the First Principle of its constitution, is in accordance with the Monad, surpassing all other things, and having nothing or like equal to itself. Even when all allowance has been made for 1 Str., vii. 16 93.97. 3 Ib., vii. 16 103 105. 2 Ib., vii. 16 99. 4 Ib., vii. 17 the polemical note in his criticism, there remains enough to show that while Clement claimed for himself an independent position on some matters held by some of his contemporaries to be vital, and may be considered as a representative of a liberal attitude in respect of doctrine, he regarded himself as loyal to the tradition of the Church. A traditionalist of the type of Irenæus, Clement was not; questions of ecclesiastical organisation or ritual had little interest for him; no emphasis is put on the office of the bishop in relation to the Church or to the truth; but in his conflict with heresy, the main weapon in his armoury with which he confronts his opponents is the authoritative standard, the ecclesiastical rule, which he regards as of apostolic origin. At the same time, it is none the less significant that in the Protrepticus the word Church is not mentioned save in an allusion to a passage in the Epistle to the Hebrews,1 that he invites the Greeks to enter not into the fold of the Church but into the domain of truth, that his appeal is to the Scriptures, that often as the word "salvation" occurs, it is nowhere associated with the Church or its ordinances. No doubt, it may be urged that such an appeal would not have been relevant to his immediate aim, that he sought to bring them to the threshold of the truth, in the assurance that they would thereafter enter within the sanctuary; and that in emphasising the unity and catholicity of the Church in conflict with heresy, he emphasises it precisely at the point where it was most natural to do so.2 From this survey it is plain that Clement held with great firmness that Christianity, though divine in a unique sense, 1 Prot., ix. 82; Heb. xii. 23. 2 For a temperate statement of the position of the Roman Catholic Church, as against Harnack and Bigg, see Batiffol, 'L'Eglise Naissante et le Catholicisme,' PP. 295-315. was not to be regarded as an isolated fact in the history of the world, and that with regard to other forms of truth, it stood not in the relation of antagonism or complete independence, but rather as the absolute stands to that which is incomplete and undeveloped. Starting from the principle that the Providence of God had been at work in universal history, and that all truth was from Him, he did not regard any aspect of it with jealousy, but welcomed it so far as it was true. To Clement a religion that appealed to the general heart of humanity and claimed for itself universal homage, and at the same time was unrelated to other manifestations of the spirit of man, was an absurdity; for it would find nothing in man to appeal to, nothing to receive the seed. The possession of partial truth was the best preparation for the attainment of fuller truth. Clement transferred to the world of intellect what St Paul had affirmed of the world of nature, that God never left Himself without witness.1 He represents Christianity as the true mystery of which the Greek mysteries were only a shadow, and calls on the Greeks to embrace Christianity in the very language of the mysteries which he urged them to abandon; 2 but there is no evidence that he wished to modify Christian institutions in harmony with heathen forms of worship.3 The ascription to theft of what was cognate to Christianity in the great thinkers of Greece was a grotesque recognition of the unity of truth; but it was surely wiser and more reverent than to deny any relationship whatsoever. It has, indeed, been averred that in seeking to bring Hellenic thought and culture into fellowship with the Christian faith, Clement was endeavouring to carry out an impossible, if not a treasonable task, and that he only seemed to succeed because he abandoned that which was most distinctive of 2 Prot., xii. 118, 119. 1 Acts xiv. 17. 3 Cf. Kattenbusch, 'Das apostolische Symbol,' vol. ii. p. 109. 2 primitive Christianity. It is said that in his conception of Christianity as having for its aim the individual perfection of man, in his presentation of the facts of salvation, in his view of Christian life as an ascent to God, in his exaggeration of the human factors of salvation in relation to the divine, Clement is more in harmony with the current of thought in our time than in accord with the early teaching of the Church.1 That such a charge should have been made, now on the conservative, now on the liberal side, in the eighteenth century, is intelligible, but it is somewhat of an anachronism to-day. It is plain that our view of such objections to the aim as well as to the results of his method will depend very largely on what our view of primitive Christianity is. Unless it be illegitimate or treasonable to put things in a different perspective, unless it be held that to emphasise certain truths involves disloyalty to others, Clement is not to be blamed for bringing Christianity into the moulds of his early life and training. What teacher, in his discrimination of what is relatively important or unimportant, is not influenced by his own intellectual or spiritual history? To have created a new terminology would have divorced Christianity from all relation to the past the very thing which Clement was determined to avoid. Platonic, Stoic, Aristotelian terms, definitions, and phrases repeatedly occur. But this power to assimilate is surely a symptom of life, the characteristic of every healthy organism. It is only when it is a question of the introduction of a foreign body, of something actually hostile to that which has assimilated it, of something in the present case that is inconsistent alike with the primitive form of the Gospel or 1 Kutter, 'Schweizer Theolog. Zeit.' 1899. 2 Cf. Walch, 'Miscell. Sacr.,' vol. ii. p. 516. 'De Erroribus C. A. eorumque causis.' Semler, 'Gesch. d. christ. Glaubens,' vol. ii. p. 133. its natural inner development, that foreign influence can be established. The elements in the theology and ethics of Clement that may be assigned to the undue influence of Hellenic bias or culture will be noted in the course of the exposition. This at least is certain, that Clement was himself unconscious of any disloyalty to the teaching of the Church; and while he faced the situation of the time with intellectual courage, he did not dream of making any concession to the Hellenic culture around him that either transformed or deformed the Christian faith. On the contrary, he maintained that his teaching derived breath and life from the Scriptures of the Lord;1 and he believed that he was loyal to the Church when he sought to bring all truth under its shadow. If all truth were from God, a conflict in truth was impossible. The problem of the Church in Alexandria was to adjust itself to the intellectual impulse from which philosophy in all its schools derived its being; and Clement held that to make the Church and its doctrine a non-intellectual preserve was fatal to its usefulness, as well as to its claims to master and permeate the world. It has often been observed that he lived in an age of transition. It was so in regard to doctrine, the authority of the Church, and the Canon of the New Testament. In Alexandria, in particular, it was so in regard to the relation of the Church to intellectual culture. In such an age the attitude of a thinker is sometimes of more importance than the results which he achieves. And the attitude of Clement was that of one who believed that a Christianity which could claim for itself all that was highest in the thought of the past could alone face the future with confidence. The problem of the Church to-day is, in loyalty to the past, to adjust itself to the new forces in the thought of our time. And, 1 Str., vii. 11. |