288 



CLEMENT 



is November 23. Origen (185-254) was the first 

 to distinctly identify Clement with St Paul's 

 'fellow-labourer' (Phil. iv. 3) ; but this assumption 

 has nothing to support it, while the ancient 

 tradition makes Clement the disciple of St Peter. 

 Moreover, on a name so common endless theories 

 may be built. Distinguished German scholars, 

 such as Hilgenfeld, and Harnack (doubtfully), have 

 identified the bishop with Flavius Clemens, cousin 

 of the Emperor Domitian, whose sons had been 

 named successors to the empire, and who was 

 consul in 95 A.D., and in the same year put to 

 death on a charge of ' atheism ' and ' Jewish 

 7iianners.' The most probable view is that ad- 

 vanced by Lightfoot that Clement was a freed- 

 man of Jewish parentage belonging to ' Caesar's 

 household ' strong arguments in support of which 

 are set forth in his edition of the two Epistles. 

 Of these, the so-called second epistle is really a 

 homily, and is certainly not Clement's ; but the 

 first, although its genuineness has been earnestly 

 disputed by the author of Peregrinus Proteus 

 ( Lond. 1879), is generally accepted. Chiefly horta- 

 tory and didactic, it is addressed to the Corinthian 

 Church, in which serious feuds had arisen, and 

 treats of social dissensions and of the resurrection, 

 which is illustrated by a curiously circumstantial 

 account of the phoenix. It was probably written 

 about 95 A.D., and it was widely known and 

 highly esteemed at an early date. Clement would 

 appear to have had some reputation among his 

 contemporaries as a let ter- writer ; Hennas (q.v. ) 

 represents himself as directed by the angel to 

 deliver a copy of his Shepherd to him, that he may 

 transmit it to the cities abroad, ' for this function 

 belongs to him.' To-day the epistle is chiefly of 

 interest as the first though innocent step towards 

 papal aggression, and for what Lightfoot calls 

 its liturgical position. There is no respectable 

 evidence that it was ever placed in the same 

 catalogue with the canonical books, but in the 

 church at Corinth it was publicly read from time 

 to time, and by the 4th century this use had ex- 

 tended to other churches. For convenience of 

 reading it would be attached to MSS. of the New 

 Testament, as is the case in the famous Alexandrian 

 MS. of the 5th century ; but neither on this fact 

 nor on its insertion in the forged Apostolic Canons 

 can any argument be based ; and it is only in the 

 late Syriac MS. that it actually appears with the 

 catholic epistles. The first edition was edited by 

 Patrick Young in 1633, from the mutilated and 

 incomplete Alexandrian MS., then in the king's 

 library. This was the only copy known to the 

 world until in 1875 Bryennios (q.v.) published a 

 complete MS. (dated 1056) found at Constantin- 

 ople, and in 1876 a complete Syriac MS. (1170) 

 came into the possession of Cambridge University. 

 See Lightfoot's scholarly and exhaustive edition 

 (1869; appendix, 1877), where the second epistle 

 will also oe found. Quite a mass of literature has 

 sprung up round the name of Clement, but the 

 other works attributed to him the Apostolic Con- 

 stitutions and Canons (q.v.), two Svriac epistles 

 on Virginity (MS. dated 1470; published 1752), 

 the Clementines (the Recognitions and Homilies), 

 and two epistles to James, which, with three 

 forged Clementine letters, were in the 9th century 

 incorporated in the notorious Isidorian Decretals 

 are all undoubtedly spurious. The Clementince is 

 a fiction of which St Peter is the hero ; it was 

 regarded by Baur and the Tubingen school as 

 the most notable outcome of the Ebionite party in 

 the ' early Christian church, and on it much of their 

 theory is based ; the Recognitions ( the Latin form, 

 preserved by Rufinus ) have been edited by Gersdorf 

 ( 1838 ), the Homilies ( the Greek form ) by Schwegler 

 (1847), Dressel (1853), and De Lagarde (1865). 



For the Epistles to Virgins, see Beelen's edition 

 (Louvain, 1856), and Funk (Tub. 1881.) ; for their 

 source, see Cotterill's elaborate and convincing 

 Modern Criticism (Edin. 1884). 



CLEMENS, TITUS FLAVIUS, a celebrated father 

 of the Christian church, was born probably at 

 Athens, of heathen parents, about the middle 

 of the 2d century, ana resided during great part 

 of his life in Alexandria, whence the epithet Alex- 

 andrinus. In his earlier years he devoted himself 

 with great zeal to the study of philosophy, and 

 wandered far and wide in quest of truth. The date 

 of his conversion is unknown, but it is certain that 

 after coming to Egypt, and listening to the pre- 

 lections of Pantsenus, he joined the Alexandrine 

 Church, and was made a presbyter. Afterwards 

 he became assistant to his master, whom he suc- 

 ceeded, about 190 A.D., as head of the celebrated 

 Catechetical school. In 203 the persecution of 

 the Christians under Severus compelled him to flee 

 to Palestine. The only later notice we have of him 

 is as the bearer of a letter from his pupil Alexander, 

 afterwards Bishop of Jerusalem, to Antioch ; and 

 the date and place of his death are matters of pure 

 conjecture, some writers putting it in 213, others as 

 late as 220. His most distinguished pupil was 

 Origen. Clement held a place in the Western 

 martyrologies until the 17th century, when his 

 name was omitted by Clement VIII. from the 

 revised Roman martyrology ; but in France, at 

 least, he has never lost his title, his festival is still 

 celebrated on the 4th December, and his name 

 appears in the popular list of saints whose names 

 may be given to children at baptism. 



The chief writings of Clement that have survived, 

 besides a practical treatise, Who is the Rich Man 

 that is Saved, are the Missionary, the Tutor, and the 

 Miscellanies, which form a connected series, prob- 

 ably continued in his lost Outlines, which was an 

 investigation of the canonical writings. The first 

 is an exhortation to the Greeks to abandon idolatry ; 

 the second, an exposition of Christian ethics ; and 

 the third, a collection of treatises and brief observa- 

 tions on Greek and Christian literature, designed 

 as an introduction to Christian philosophy. They 

 show that Clement, when he became a Christian, 

 did not cease to be a philosopher. His liberal mind 

 saw in science not a gift of devils, but of God through 

 the Logos ; Greek philosophy was part of the divine 

 education of man, and his teaching is the result of 

 the lofty purity of character that led him to seek 

 the truth alike from heathen writers and from 

 Christian heretics, believing that all that comes 

 from God is good. The period in which he lived 

 must also be taken into account : in his day all 

 believers were regarded as in process of salvation ; 

 the distinction between the visible and invisible 

 church had not yet been suggested, while Gnosti- 

 cism offered to many minds an attractive solution of 

 some obvious difficulties. Clement therefore dis- 

 tinguished between the ordinary believer and the 

 Christian gnostic ; above faith he placed know- 

 ledge, above salvation the more august glory and 

 full spiritual life of the ' perfect man. ' Faith im- 

 plies Knowledge, but imperfect knowledge ; many 

 things must be accepted in simple trust, until by 

 contemplation and the practice of what is right the 

 believer shakes himself free from the power of 

 evil, and rises to intelligent sympathy with the 

 divine will. And this system of spiritual evolu- 

 tion Clement extends to the future life, where the 

 process of development is continued before the 

 gnostic becomes as far as possible like God. Here 

 are easily visible the germs of the later mysticism, 

 just as his view of the Father as a pure Monad, 

 undemonstrable, who can only be manifested 

 through the Son, marks an important step in the 

 progress of Neoplatonism. God and the cause of 



