Episode 6: “Clement of Alexandria”, Part 1, in "Mystical Theology", with Dr. Christopher Veniamin

Series: Mystical Theology
Episode 6: Clement of Alexandria, Part 1

Introducing the theology and spiritual life of the Orthodox Church, with particular reference to the Holy Bible and the witness of the Church Fathers, past and present.

This Episode, "Clement of Alexandria, Part 1”, is a presentation of Clement’s apophatic theology (influenced by his Greek cultural heritage), set side-by-side with his deep devotion to Jesus Christ and love of Holy Scripture.

In this episode, Dr. Christopher Veniamin analyzes the unique combination of Greek philosophy and Christianity found in this great early Alexandrian.

It is hoped that these presentations will help the enquirer discern the interwoven character of theology and Christian living, and to identify the ascetic and pastoral significance of the Orthodox ethos. 

Q&As related to Episode 6 available in The Professor’s Blog.

Recommended background reading: Christopher Veniamin, ed., Saint Gregory Palamas: The Homilies (Dalton PA: 2022).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I wish to express my indebtedness to the spoken and written traditions of Sts Silouan and Sophrony the Athonites, Fr. Zacharias Zacharou, Fr. Kyrill Akon, Fr. Raphael Noica, Fr. Symeon Brüschweiler; Fr. John Romanides, Fr. Pavlos Englezakis, Fr. Georges Florovsky, Prof. Constantine Scouteris, Prof. George Mantzarides, Prof. John Fountoulis, Fr. Andrew Louth, and particularly to Mtp Kallistos Ware and Prof. Panayiotes Chrestou: certain sentences and phrases utilized in these presentations are taken directly from my notes of some of their lectures. My presentations have been enriched by all of the above sources, owing to the adoption of certain structures, lists, schemata, and the paraphrasing of themes taken from them. Responsibility for the content of my presentations is of course mine alone. ©Christopher Veniamin 2023

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Okay, last time we began our overview of the patristic teachings on the mystical theology by looking at Saint Irenaeus of Leon, spiritual grandchild to the apostles. This time I want to turn to the early Alexandrians, and in particular to Clements of Alexandria, whose years are from around 150 to 215, and begin another difficult chapter in the history of early Christian doctrine. The first three centuries of the Christian era are particularly challenging because of the heresies, because of the imprecision of language, as fathers and ecclesiastical writers were striving to formulate the Christian keregvah in a way that was safe, in a way that was orthodox. And so it's not until we reach Nicia 325 that we arrive at a certain clarity clarity of expression, not a clarity in terms of what the church believed. The church always believed and taught the same thing, but nevertheless, I think you're going to see how challenging this early period is when we turn to Clement of Alexandria and origin. And of course the latter is particularly controversial and equally important in the history of early Christian doctrine, because he's one of those figures that you really must understand if you're going to have a proper grasp of Christian theology. So more about origin later, but for now I want to turn to his predecessor, clement the Alexandrian in a way that's reminiscent of St Justin the philosopher and martyr. For Clement, christianity is the true philosophy. Clement, unlike Aaronis of Leon, draws on both the Bible and on Platonism. In what way he draws on Platonism we shall see presently. We have seen already in Philo, another Alexandrian, a Jew who lived at Alexandria in Egypt, who sought to reconcile Hellenistic philosophy with the Jewish scriptural tradition, which at that time of course meant the tradition of the Old Testament.

Speaker 1: 3:06

It's interesting that in the 16th century, pope Clement the 8th, at the advice of Cardinal Baronius, removed Clement from the list of saints and, by contrast, in the East, clement, at the very beginning, was mentioned with great reverence, but then the question of his sanctity falls away very early. So he's not numbered among the saints in the Orthodox calendar, but we're going to take a look at the question of his orthodoxy. First, though, I want to say a word or two about his historical setting, his life that he was born in Athens of non-Christian parents. That, like Justin, he is a converted philosopher. Thirdly, that he taught at Alexandria and it is said that he succeeded Pantanus. There's not that much we know about Pantanus, but he's referred to with great reverence, great respect. Said that he visited India, pantanus, so Clement is a successor of Pantanus. In 190, he was ordained priest and that later he retired to Cappadocia. It's possible that he was married. He writes on marriage in Book 3 of his Strumatis.

Speaker 1: 5:04

Peter Brown, in his the Body in Society, says that Clement had an ambivalent attitude towards marriage. Henry Chadwick disagrees with Peter Brown and says that while affirming all respect for individual vocations to celibacy, clement dismisses any suggestion that marriage is an inherently inferior spiritual status. Henry Chadwick says this in his little book the Early Church, page 97, and I tend to agree with Chadwick. Clement is anti-gnostic and so he's keen to affirm the natural things. He therefore upholds the sanctification of the body. Indeed, as we read in his work Pedagogus the Tutor, the aim of Christian love is to cleanse the eye of the soul, to purify the mind of the soul, the flesh Agnizin, the ketinsarka, so the flesh is also to be purified. And there is another passage as an example, again from the Pada Gogus. The first is from the Pada Gogus, the Chewter, book 2, section 1, paragraph 2. And in book 3, section 12, paragraphs 2 to 3, clement refers to Samuel's choosing David as the anointed one, and he says that Samuel did not anoint him who was beautiful in body, but him who was beautiful in his soul. And now it's true that he says that the natural beauty of the body is inferior to that of the soul. Nevertheless, he speaks of the natural beauty of the body, something, of course, that a dualist agnostic would never say. So he does uphold the sanctification of the body, and the aim of Christian love is to purify the body as well as the soul.

Speaker 1: 8:05

Another general characteristic about Clement is that he did not write systematically, meaning his writings are a kind of well. Later on we have with St Maximus a collection of difficulties, say that he wrote on this or that subject. Clement did something similar. He wrote his Strumatis Metropolitan Callistos calls it kind of scrapbook in an unsystematic way, and this was deliberate.

Speaker 1: 8:40

There are two basic aspects to his theology. The first is that he displays a warm affection towards Jesus Christ, and the second is that he also displays a deep attachment to Greek Bethia. He's profoundly influenced by Platonism and, as for Justin, christianity is the fulfillment of Hellenic philosophy. So when we read Clement, the basic question is is he too generous in his openness towards pagan philosophy? Does Clement believe in a Deus Philosophorum, the God of the Philosophers. And so, in trying to discern an answer to this question, let's look firstly at his apophatic theology and then, secondly, we'll take some key points in Clement which counterbalance his apophatic theology. So firstly, his apophatic theology, and the key text here is his Strumatis book five, paragraphs 10 to 12.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Clement teaches the radical unknowability of God. He's very apophatic, he's more apophatic, for example, than his pagan, contemporary albinus. And as an example of this, let's turn to Strumatis five, 10, where Clement describes God as beyond thought, beyond thought, in fact, he says for the God of all homes, sending Kennedy to them, who is above all name and every thought, or all thought, ban noyma, ke basan, ennian and every concept. And he says that Plato actually teaches the same about God in his epistles, and he quotes from epistle number two of Plato's writings.

Speaker 1: 11:25

In the next paragraph, paragraph 11, clement says of God we speak about that which he is not, not of that which he is, but of that which he is not. And this is reminiscent of Plotinus, who's a little later actually than Clement. In his Enniads. Plotinus says legemen o miestin, o theestin, o legemen. We say what he is not, but what he is. We do not say that's from the Enniads, 5.3. Who influenced who? But anyway, in the same paragraph, clement says the father of all is not at all conceivable being beyond shape or form or movement or stasis or throne or space or right or left, even though such things or such names have been ascribed to him. He is above both space and time and name and interlection noesis.

Speaker 1: 12:52

In the next paragraph, continuing the apophatic approach, clement refers to Moses, isilthen. Moses is ton gnofon ween o theos. Moses entered the thick dark cloud where God was To do the li, he says. This signifies to those who are able to understand that the thick dark cloud represents the unbelief and ignorance of the many. It on Poland, a bestia key Agnia, ignorance which is dispelled, he says, by the dawning of the truth. That's in paragraph 12. There's an interesting antithesis here being made between those who are able to understand this, sineane dina menis, and the many, the hoi poloi.

Speaker 1: 14:06

Now, in response to the Gnostics, clement would speak about the true Gnostic man. For him, the Christian is the true Gnostic man. And Henry Chadwick, again in his book the Early Church, page 99, says he once declared that if the true Gnostic were required to choose between eternal salvation and the knowledge of God, he would unhesitatingly choose the latter, knowledge of God. And this is a point that's repeated in the Vision of God by Vladimir Lorsky. Clement actually goes on to say that really there's no distinction between being saved and the knowledge of God. So it's a question that really shouldn't ask, but he did ask it and Vladimir Lorsky presses that point.

Speaker 1: 15:13

Be that as it may, in the same paragraph God is described as being the one who is without form, the one who is indivisible. Using platonic language for the supra-personal absolute, he says the one is the other, endivided, the other end of the get up your own. And for this reason he says it is also infinite, indivisible and so infinite. It's interesting that origin, on this particular point, has the opposite view, that because God is good and beautiful, he is also limited. His finite is not infinite. We'll say something more about that, which sounds a little bit strange at first, but that's what origin says, in contrast to Clement. So God is without form and so infinite, whereas for origin God is good and rational and so he's completely knowable. Or if the divine power says origin were infinite, it would follow that it would be incomprehensible to itself, for the infinite is by nature incomprehensible. That's from his day, prenkippes on First Principles, Book two, section nine, paragraph one, but we'll come back to that. For now we must note that that Clement emphasizes that God is infinite because he is indivisible.

Speaker 1: 17:23

Again, in paragraph 12, god the one, the n, is aschematist and anonymous, shapeless and anonymous. And he says that Even though we ascribe various names to God, none of these names tells us by itself what God is. But they must all be taken together, he says, so that we might have some perception of God. These are things which are said of God, but none should be taken as describing God. Nothing precedes the uncreated, he says. Nothing pre-exists the unbegotten.

Speaker 1: 18:20

And then Clement goes on to cite the example of St Paul at Arios Pagos in Athens, acts 17, verses 22, follow. So again, he's trying to like Philo before him, he's trying to build bridges, to describe God, christ, in a way that is approachable for his pagan intellectual contemporaries. In order to transcend the realm of the senses, says Clement, it is necessary to apply the mathematical system of abstraction. The Greek word for the mathematical system of abstraction is analysis. When you analyze, you break things down, and so we remove all those things which are perceptible to us through the senses, says Clement, in order to arrive at pure being. And he says that thereby we plunge ourselves into the vastness of Christ, the yawning gulf.

Speaker 1: 19:49

And if we look for a moment away from the Strumatis to his pedagogus, book 1, section 8, we notice that Clement says take away even the notion of the one. God is one, and beyond the one, and beyond even the monad referring to or on he who is. So we know not what God is, but what he is not. Moses shows that God will never be known by human wisdom. In the Stramatis 2, book 2, section 2, yes, moses shows us, says Clement, that God will never be known by human wisdom.

Speaker 1: 20:48

And coming back to the Stramatis, book 5, paragraph 11, in a way that harks back to what we saw in Philo, really, clement quotes Proverbs 3, 7 and 3, 12, theos en guison egor, I am a God who is near. And then Clement proceeds to interpret that Borom en gatusian. He says, far away in his essence, borosgar an sin en guise. Pute to geniton a genito. For how is it possible for the created to be related to the uncreated? En gitato de dinami. But very near in his power. I am a God who is far away in his essence because of the created, uncreated distinction, but very near in his power, says Clement. And Clement adds another important qualification to this I d'abanda en ge golpis de, referring to his power, very near in his power, by which all things are embraced. So the power of God embraces all things. Very interesting, very important. We'll come back to that point soon.

Speaker 1: 22:40

Three basic features, then, about Clement's apophaticism. The first, I think, is that, as in Plato, god is not said to be darkness himself. In the philosophers you don't find the symbol of darkness as you do in the Scriptures. God is not said to be darkness himself, but the darkness symbolizes rather the limitations of the human mind. In other words, the darkness is in us, not in God. That's the first point that we notice in Clement. Secondly, there's a recognition in Clement of the utter inadequacy of human speech. God has many names, none of which is capable of describing him, and so he's really anonymous. He's polyonymous, but at the same time anonymous. So we wonder at God in silence. The third point is really the question that we asked at the beginning about how generous Clement is to Hellenistic philosophy, hellenistic culture.

Speaker 1: 24:08

Charles Big, in his book on the early Alexandrians, offers a severe critique. He says that Clement makes God out to be not the everlasting yes but the everlasting no. Metropolitan Callistos, in response to Big's critique, asks the following question Is the apophatic approach merely a philosophical technique or is it a way of describing God's unknowability? Is it speculative or is it really part of a mystical ascent? I think that we could say that there are really two kinds of apophatic theology. The one is basically philosophical and the second is mystical, by which we mean it's based on experience. The first is speculative, based on reason, the second is empirical, based on experience.

Speaker 1: 25:19

So, when we look at Clemence's apophatic approach, do we have a black hole or a dazzling darkness? Do we have pure negation or affirmative negation? Does Clemence end up with a Christian agnosticism or a plenitude of light so dazzling that it blinds our intellectual eyes? That's a quotation from Metropolitan Callistos again. So do we have the analogy of the skins of an onion, where you peel each layer away and eventually left with nothing, or do we have that analogy of the sculptor chipping away on a block of marble, which leaves you with a marble figure? When we come back, we'll take a look at the five points to counterbalance Clemence's apophatic approach.