Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Platonism and Gnosticism

by Salvatore R.C. Lilla

In the second and third centuries A.D. Alexandria was the meeting-point of three distinct cultural streams, namely the Jewish-Alexandrine philosophy, Platonism, and Gnosticism, all of which had an influence on Alexandrine orthodox Christianity. Starting from the assumption that the thought of a Christian Father like Clement of Alexandria cannot be fully understood without taking this influence into account, the author examines in detail Clement's close dependence on the Jewish-Alexandrine philosophy, Middle Platonism, Neoplatonism, and Gnosticism in such matters as his attitude towards Greek philosophy, ethics, his views on 'pistis' and 'gnosis' cosmology and theology. Particular attention has been paid to the Gnostic texts from Nag-Hammadi so far published.

Genres: Religion

278 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2005

Reviews

[Robert Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is extremely helpful for understanding Clement and his 'eclecticism.' Lilla claims that it was characteristic of his cultural milieu (Jewish-Alexandrian; Platonic; Gnostic) to draw from various traditions and synthesize them. This is certainly true. This helps get past Völker's thesis that Clement just uses philosophy as a dress for his Christianity as an apologetic strategy.

The most annoying part of this book is the massive amounts of untranslated Greek (and some untranslated Latin and German). While I could piece together most of it, it would have been way easier on the reader for Lilla to give translations and offer the Greek in footnotes in places where it would have helped make lexical connections for his argument. Lilla inconsistently translated some of his primary sources and there seemed to be no reason for why he did it on some occasions and not in others.