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CHAP. XXII.

ST. CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.

1. His history, time, works, and character. II. Three passages of Clement from Eusebius's Ecclesiastical History, concerning the four Gospels, particularly St. Mark's Gospel. III. Difficulties in these passages considered. IV. Remarks upon the same passages. V. More passages concerning the four Gospels, from the remaining works of Clement. VI. Of the Acts of the Apostles. VII. St. Paul's Epistles. VIII. The Catholic Epistles. IX. The Revelation. X. A summary account of the books of the N. T. received by him. XI. General titles and divisions of the Scriptures, and respect for them. XII. Whether he quotes other writings, as of authority. And first of ecclesiastical writings. 1. St. Barnabas. 2. Člement of Rome. 3. Hermas. 4. A general remark. XIII. Apocryphal writings quoted by him. 1. The Gospels according to the Hebrews, and the Egyptians. 2. The preaching of Peter. 3. The Revelation of Peter. 4. Acts of Peter. 5. Traditions of Matthias. 6. Sayings of Christ. XIV. Of the Sibylline poems.

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I. TITUS FLAVIUS CLEMENS, usually called St. Clement of Alexandria, flourished, according to Cave, from the year 192 and onwards. He is said by some to be a native of Athens: by others, of Alexandria, where he certainly resided a good while. Eusebius intimates, that he was originally a heathen. We do not certainly know the time of his birth, or death. He flourished plainly in the latter part of the second, and beginning of the third century, in the reigns of Severus, and his son Antoninus Caracalla; that is, between 192 and 217. Du Pine supposes he lived to the time of Heliogabalus, and that he did not die before the year 220; but most are of opinion his death happened sooner.

For a more particular account of this author than I have room to give, may be seen Fabric. Bib. Gr. Tom. v. p. 102, &c. Du Pin, Bibl. des Aut. Ecc. et Tillemont, Memoires Eccl. Tom. iii. Le Clerc, Bibl. Univ. Tom. x. p. 175. b Hist. Lit. Epiphan. Hær. 32. c. 6. p. 213. B. e Biblioth. in Clement d'

d Præp. Ev. 1. ii. c. 2. p. 61. Alex. at the beginning.

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He has the title of presbyter given him by several of the ancients: he was likewise president of the catechetical school of Alexandria. He seems to have succeeded Pantænus, in that office, upon his going into Ethiopia, about the year 190 and it is very f probable that, upon the publication of the edicts of Severus against the christians, in the tenth year of his reign, A. D. 202, Clement was obliged to lay down that office, and likewise to retire from Alexandria. We do not certainly know what eminent men proceeded from Clement's school: but Eusebius has expressly assured us, that Origen, when young, was his hearer; and it is probable that Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, had been taught by him.

Clement wrote a great number of books: there are catalogues of his works in Eusebius and Jerom, which yet seem not to contain a complete enumeration of them.

The works of Clement now remaining are, an Exhortation to the Gentiles; The Pædagogue, or Instructor, in three books; and the Stromata, or Various Discourses, in eight books and a small treatise entitled, Who is the Rich Man that may be saved. The Stromata were written after the death of Commodus, in the reign of Severus, as Eusebius* has observed from a passage of the work itself. Dodwell' was of opinion, that all the works of Clement which are remaining, were written between the beginning of the year 193 and the end of the year 195.

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Beside these there is frequent mention in Eusebius of another book of Clement, called Hypotuposes, or Institutions, which is lost. But we have in Greek two small pieces, one called an Epitome of the Writings of Theodotus, and the Oriental doctrine; the other, Extracts from the Prophets; both which are generally supposed to be collected out of the lost book of Institutions, or to be fragments of it. There is likewise in Latin a small treatise or fragment, called Adumbrations on some of the Catholic Epistles which also, if it be Clement's, was probably translated from the same work called Institutions; which, as we know from" Eusebius and others, contained short explications of many books both of the Old and New Tes

tament.

:

f See Tillemont, Mem. E. St. Clement d' A. Art. ii. and Euseb. H. E.

1. vi. p. 201, 208.

h H. E. 1. vi. cap. 13.

H. E. 1. vi. cap. 6.

8 H. E. 1. vi. cap. 6.

iDe Vir. Ill. cap. 38.

1 Dissert. Iren. iii. sect. 27.

m H. E. 1. i. cap. 12. 1. ii. cap. 1. p. 38. c. 9, et c. 15. 1. vi. cap. 13, 14.

" H. E. 1. vi. cap. 14.

There are great commendations of Clement in many of the ancients. I shall put down some of them. But first of all I would take a passage from himself, in part also cited by Eusebius: because it will be of use to inform us of his character, and his authority in the things we shall allege from him.

He P says, in the first book of his Stromata: 'This work I have composed not for ostentation, but as an artless image and picture of the powerful and lively discourses of those blessed and truly worthy men, which I have had the happiness to hear.' The following part of the passage is somewhat obscure. But he speaks of one, by whom he had been taught in Greece: another in Italy: and two more, as it seems, in the East: and another in Egypt, supposed by Eusebius to be Pantænus, of whom he speaks in this manner: 'But the last whom I met with was the first in merit. After a long search I found him lying hid in Egypt, and in him I acquiesced. He was indeed a Sicilian bee, who gathered the flowers of the prophetic and apostolic meadow, and filled the minds of his hearers with sincere knowledge. These men [he intends his masters, of whom he had before spoken] having preserved the true tradition of the blessed doctrine in a direct succession from the holy apostles, Peter, James, John, and Paul, as from father to son, (though few are like their fathers,) have lived by the blessing of God to our time, to lodge in our minds the seeds of the ancient and apostolical doctrine.'

It appears from this passage, that our Clement had travelled, and was inquisitive; and that what he valued above all things was the pure, ancient, and apostolical doctrine.

I shall next put down some testimonies of the ancient writers concerning this father; and the first must be that of Alexander, bishop of Jerusalem, contemporary with Clement, and perhaps one of his scholars. Alexander, in a letter to the Antiochians, written before he was bishop of Jerusalem, in the heat of the persecution under Severus, speaks to them of Clement in this manner: This letter I "have sent you by Clement, a blessed presbyter, a virtu'ous and approved man, whom also ye know, and will

• H. E. 1. v. cap. 11.

PP. 274. B. C.

4 Οἱ μεν την αληθη της μακαριας σωζοντες διδασκαλιας παραδοσιν, ευθύς απο Πετρώ τε και Ιακωβς, Ιωαννω τε και Παύλε, των άγιων αποςόλων, παις παρα πατρος εκδεχομενος• ολιγοι δε οἱ πατρασιν ὁμοιοι· ἡκον δη συν Θεῳ και εις ἡμας τα προγονικά εκείνα και αποςολικά καταθησόμενοι σπέρματα. Ibid. p. 274. D. 275. A. * H. E. 1. vi. cap. xi.

'know better: who having been brought hither by the 'divine disposal and providence, established and increased the church of the Lord.'

The same Alexander, in a letter to Origen, written after the death of Clement, speaks thus: For we know those 'blessed fathers, who have gone before us, and with whom 'we shall shortly be; I mean Pantanus, truly blessed, and my master; and the sacred Clement, who was my master, ' and profitable to me.' These two fragments are preserved in Eusebius.

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Eusebius in his Chronicle, at the year 194, says: Cle'ment, the author of the Stromata, presbyter of Alexandria, an excellent master of the christian philosophy, was emi'nent" for his writings.' At this year therefore I place him.

In another work Eusebius calls him more than once the admirable Clement.

V

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St. Jerom in his book of Illustrious Men, assures us, he was presbyter of the church of Alexandria, a hearer of Pantanus, and his successor in the school of Alexandria; and says of his works, of which he there gives a catalogue, that they are full of erudition and eloquence, borrowed 'from the treasures of the divine scripture and secular 'literature.' He concludes his account of him, that he 'flourished in the times of Severus, and his son An'toninus.'

X

And in another place: Clement, presbyter of the 'church of Alexandria, in my opinion the most learned of • all men, [or perhaps, of all the christian writers whom he 'there names,] wrote eight books of Stromata, as many of 'Institutions, and another against the Gentiles: the Pædagogue also in three books. What is there in them unlearned? what not taken out of the very depths of philosophy? This short passage shows what were Clement's chief works.

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I omit many other testimonies, that may be seen prefixed to the Oxford edition of St. Clement's work's: and shall content myself with adding, that there are divers passages

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- Συνταττων διελαμπεν.

Kλnuns & Gavμarios. Præp. Ev. 1. ii. p. 61. B. & 1. iv. cap. 16. p. 157. A. Cap. 38.

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* Feruntur ejus insignia volumina, plenaque eruditionis & eloquentiæ, tam de scripturis divinis quam de sæcularis literaturæ instrumento.

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Ibid.

Clemens, Alexandrinæ ecclesiæ presbyter, meo judicio omnium eruditissimus.Quid in illis indoctum, imo quid non de mediâ philosophiâ est ? Ad Magnum Orat. Ep. 83. al. 84.

a

of St. Cyril of Alexandria, and another of Socrates in his Ecclesiastical History, very much to his advantage.

b

Photius indeed has severely censured Clement's Hypotuposes, or Institutions. We have not that work, to enable us to judge of the justness of his censure: but it seems, that in that work Clement collected and delivered a variety of opinions of the ancients before him, of heretics as well as the catholics. This is probably the reason of the blasphemies and fables, which Photius says there were in that book. This is an observation of R. Simon. The more ancient writers, however, seem not to have taken any offence at it, who knew this work very well, and yet have bestowed their praises on the author without hesitation.

There are some moderns likewise, who have thought St. Clement's judgment not equal to his reading, which was certainly prodigious. I shall not make a particular apology for him; nor do I assert the infallibility of the fathers. I have said enough to show the age, and authority of St. Clement in those things we shall allege from him.

II. I now proceed to observe what there is to our present purpose in his remaining works, or in the quotations made out of them, or others, by ancient writers.

Eusebius has several passages of St. Clement relating to his quotations of the books of scripture, or his history of them.

1. The first passage of Eusebius is in the fourteenth chapter of the second book of his Ecclesiastical History; where, having in the foregoing chapters given the history of the success of St. Peter's preaching the gospel at Rome, and his defeat of Simon Magus in that city, he proceeds: • But the lustre of religion had so enlightened the minds ' of Peter's hearers, [at Rome,] that, not content with a single hearing, nor with an unwritten instruction in the 'divine doctrine, they with many prayers entreated Mark, the follower of Peter, whose gospel we have, that he 'would leave them in writing a memorial of the doctrine ' which had been delivered to them by word of mouth; nor did they desist, till they had prevailed with him. And thus they were the means of writing the gospel,

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* Contra Jul. 1. 3. p. 87. E. 1. 6. p. 205. B. l. 7. p. 231. E. I. 10. p. 342. D. ed. Lips. 1696. a L. 2. cap. 35. p. 130. b Cod. cix. En effet, il y a de l'apparance que cet ouvrage n'étoit autre chose, qu'un recueil des auteurs ecclésiastiques qui l'avoient précédé, & dont une partie étoient hérétiques. Hist. Crit. des Commentat. du N. T. ch. 2. p. 18. d Le Clerc, Bibl. Univ. T. x. p. 231. e Euseb. H. E. 1. ii. cap. 14.