Voices and influences
Clement of Alexandria
The Alexandrian teacher who called Greek philosophy a tutor leading the world toward Christ.
Summary
This site quotes Clement of Alexandria 128 times across 32 books, and lists 0 works.
- Lived died 215.
- Quoted here most in Proverbs: 15 of 128.
Clement of Alexandria
- Lived
- died 215
- Tradition
- Early Church
5 of 128 quotations
Own words
Quoted in full, because Clement of Alexandria died in 215 and these works are out of copyright. Each citation below names its edition and its year. A citation naming a modernised text means that edition makes its own editorial changes, and that edition's terms are not in this site's record.
The Divinity is not angry, as some suppose, but when he makes so many threats he is only making an appeal and showing humankind the things that are to be accomplished.
The rest of the quotation
Such a procedure is surely good, for it instills fear to keep us away from sin.
Deuteronomy 32:23 I will heap disasters upon them; I will spend My arrows against them. BSB
By perverse, he means he will chastise sinners. For his natural uprightness … and his goodness toward those who believe obediently are immovable and unshakable.… Therefore, he treats them severely in the hope that perhaps he might curb their impulse toward death.
Psalms 18:26 to the pure You show Yourself pure, but to the crooked You show Yourself shrewd. BSB
Therefore, the Word is our educator who heals the unnatural passions of our soul with his counsel. The art of healing, strictly speaking, is the relief of the ills of the body, an art learned through human wisdom.
The rest of the quotation
Yet, the only true divine healer of human sickness, the holy comforter of the soul when it is ill, is the Word of the Father. Scripture says, "Save your servant, O my God, who puts his trust in you. Have mercy on me, O Lord, because I have cried to you the whole day through."
Psalms 86:2–3 Preserve my soul, for I am godly. You are my God; save Your servant who trusts in You. Be merciful to me, O Lord, for I call to You all day long. BSB
Wherefore by Solomon He commands the children to beware: "My son, let not sinners deceive thee, and go not after their ways; and go not, if they entice thee, saying, Come with us, share with us in innocent blood, and let us hide unjustly the…
The rest of the quotation
righteous man in the earth; let us put him out of sight, all alive as he is into Hades." This is accordingly likewise a prediction concerning the Lord's passion.
Proverbs 1:10–12 My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them. If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause, let us swallow them alive like Sheol, and whole like those descending into the Pit. BSB
Ignorance involves a lack of education and learning. It is teaching which implants in us the scientific knowledge of things divine and human. It is possible to live uprightly in poverty. It is also possible in wealth.
The rest of the quotation
We admit that it is easier and quicker to track down virtue if we have a preliminary education. It can be hunted down without these aids, although even then those with learning, "with their faculties trained by practice," have an advantage. "Hatred," says Solomon, "stirs up strife, but education guards the paths of life."
Proverbs 10:12 Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all transgressions. BSB
Influence, on the record
This site quotes Clement of Alexandria 128 times across 32 books.
This site’s own count of what it does with the voice
The life, in order
The life told as one accountfrom this site's record
Titus Flavius Clemens was born around 150, probably at Athens, to pagan parents, and raised in the full Greek education — Homer, the tragedians, Plato, the mystery religions. He knew that world from inside, and he never pretended otherwise. After his conversion he traveled looking for teachers. He describes the search himself: one in Greece, one in southern Italy, one in Syria, one from Palestine. The last he found in Egypt, and he stopped. This was Pantaenus, head of the Christian school at Alexandria, and Clement said he was the best of them, the Sicilian bee. He stayed and eventually succeeded him. Alexandria was the intellectual capital of the empire, with the greatest library in the world and a Jewish and Greek scholarly tradition centuries deep. Clement's school was a catechetical school — where converts were taught before baptism — but under him it became something more: a place where a Christian could be an educated person without apology. His argument, made across three linked books, was that all truth is God's truth. The Law was the schoolmaster that brought the Jews to Christ, Paul says in Galatians. Clement said philosophy did the same office for the Greeks — a tutor, given by God, holding the Hellenic mind until Christ came. Whatever was true in Plato was on loan from the same source. The three books move a reader forward in stages. The Exhortation to the Greeks argues a pagan out of the temples. The Instructor takes the new convert and teaches him how to live — what to eat, how to dress, how to speak, how to laugh, how to handle money — with Christ himself as the tutor. The Miscellanies, a sprawling, deliberately unsystematic work, is for the mature: the true gnostic, Clement's phrase for the Christian who knows God, as against the heretical gnostics who claimed secret knowledge and denied the goodness of the created world. He also wrote a short piece asking Who Is the Rich Man That Shall Be Saved? — the earliest Christian treatment of wealth, arguing that the sin is not owning but being owned. When the persecution under Septimius Severus struck Alexandria in 202, Clement left for Cappadocia. He did not return. Alexander of Jerusalem, writing around 215, refers to the blessed presbyter Clement in the past tense; that letter is how we know he was dead. His pupil Origen took the school and carried the work further than anyone. Sources: Eusebius, Church History V.11, VI.6, VI.11, VI.13–14; Clement, Exhortation to the Greeks, The Instructor, Miscellanies (Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2); Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church, vol. 2.
128 quotations across 32 books
Where this voice is quoted
My son, if sinners entice you, do not yield to them. If they say, “Come along, let us lie in wait for blood, let us ambush the innocent without cause…
“Wherefore by Solomon He commands the children to beware: "My son, let not sinners deceive thee, and go not after their ways; and go not, if they entice thee, saying, Come with us, share with us in innocent blood, and let us hide unjustly the…”
My son, if you accept my words and hide my commandments within you,
“Wisdom is open to all and loves humankind. Anyway, Solomon says, "My son, if you accept my words of instruction and keep them deep within you, your ear will listen to wisdom."”
if you truly call out to insight and lift your voice to understanding,
“God's wisdom … [works] "in many forms and many ways" through technical skill, scientific knowledge, faith, prophecy; it shows us its power to our benefit, because "all wisdom comes from the Lord and is with him to all eternity," as the wisdom of Jesus puts…”
My son, do not reject the discipline of the LORD, and do not loathe His rebuke; for the LORD disciplines the one He loves, as does a father the son…
“And He uses the bitter and biting language of reproof in His consolations by Solomon, tacitly alluding to the love for children that characterizes His instruction: "My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord; nor faint when thou art rebuked of Him: for…”
Then you will go on your way in safety, and your foot will not stumble.
“Before the Lord's coming, philosophy was an essential guide to righteousness for the Greeks. At the present time, it is a useful guide toward reverence for God. It is a kind of preliminary education for those who are trying to gather faith through demonstration.”
Listen, my son, and receive my words, and the years of your life will be many.
“There is only one way of truth, but different paths from different places join it, just like tributaries flowing into a perennial river. So these are really inspired words: "Hear, my son, and accept my words, to have many paths of life.”
Why be captivated, my son, by an adulteress, or embrace the bosom of a stranger?
“When Scripture says, "Do not keep going steady with a foreign woman," it is advising us to make use of secular education but not to settle there permanently.”
Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers all transgressions.
“Ignorance involves a lack of education and learning. It is teaching which implants in us the scientific knowledge of things divine and human. It is possible to live uprightly in poverty. It is also possible in wealth.”
The righteousness of the blameless directs their path, but the wicked fall by their own wickedness.
“To be repeatedly requesting forgiveness for offenses repeatedly committed is not repentance, only its appearance. "The righteousness of the blameless keeps their way straight," proclaims Scripture, and again, "The righteousness of the innocent will set straight their way."”
Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout is a beautiful woman who lacks discretion.
“Reason also forbids us to do violence to nature by piercing the lobes of the ear. Why not pierce the nostrils also? The Scriptures would then be accomplished indeed: "As a ring in the nose of the swine, so is beauty in a foolish woman."”
A wise man fears and turns from evil, but a fool is careless and reckless.
“The fear of God is Deoj [in Greek]. But if fear is perturbation of mind, as some will have it that fear is perturbation of mind, yet all fear is not perturbation.”
Grandchildren are the crown of the aged, and the glory of a son is his father.
“We must regard the woman's crown to be her husband, and the husband's crown to be marriage; and the flowers of marriage the children of both, which the divine husbandman plucks from meadows of flesh. "Children's children are the crown of old men."”
Do not crave his delicacies, for that food is deceptive.
“There is no limit to epicurism among men. For it has driven them to sweetmeats, and honey-cakes, and sugar-plums; inventing a multitude of desserts, hunting after all manner of dishes. A man like this seems to me to be all jaw, and nothing else.”
Those who forsake the law praise the wicked, but those who keep the law resist them.
“The Stoics laid down their doctrine on the basis that the goal is to live according to nature, using the word nature improperly rather than "God," since nature applies to plants, crops, trees and stones.”
A man who loves wisdom brings joy to his father, but a companion of prostitutes squanders his wealth.
“In my view, the sketch of a soul which yearns to preserve the blessed tradition without losing a single drop runs something like this: "When a man loves wisdom, his father's heart will be warmed."”