1. The Philosophical Background of Clement's Thought
clement of alexandria on trial
theological context of that mistake. Still, it points first and foremost to an exegetical misunderstanding of Scripture. In order to analyse
Clement's possible views on the origin of the matter and Ideas, it is necessary to direct our research into the following four stages. First, I must examine the relevant elements of Clement's philosophical background. Secondly, I will explore Philo of Alexandria's effort to combine Scriptural evidence with Platonic doctrine. Thirdly, I will elaborate Clement's opinion on the eternity of Ideas in the light of the existing oeuvre. Next, I will examine Clement's understanding of the eternity of matter.
1. The Philosophical Background of Clement's Thought Clement's ideas can be seen as part of his ongoing reflection on the origin of the world, as he tried to harmonise the Scriptural evidence from the book of Genesis with Greek philosophical notions, particularly those of the Platonic tradition. Many contemporary Middle
Platonists of his time,2 including Philo of Alexandria,3 believed in the 2 By this generic term I understand a number of philosophers in the first and second centuries ce who saw themselves as faithful heirs of Plato's philosophy and shared specific interest in philosophy (metaphysics, ethics, logic) as well as methodology while commenting Plato's treatises (hermeneutics). Although the lists of those philosophers vary, the main representatives of Middle Platonism were Antiochus of Ascalon (130–68 bce), Eudorus of Alexandria (first century bce), Plutarch of Chaeroneia (45–125 ce), Calvenus Taurus (fl. 145 ce), Atticus (fl. 175 ce), Albinus (fl. 150 ce), Alcinous (second century ce), Apuleius of Madaura (123–180 ce) and Philo of Alexandria (c.20 bce–c.50 ce). Some Neopythagoreans are also linked with this list as they shared some philosophical interests: Moderatus of Gades (fl. 60 ce), Nicomachus of Gerasa (fl. 120 ce) and Numenius of Apamea (fl. 176 ce). Numenius illustrates well how problematic it is to place philosophers of this period in a specific school. For more details, see J. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 80 B.C. to A.D. 220 (London: Duckworth, 2nd edn, 1996); and, more recently, H.F. Hägg, Clement of Alexandria and the Beginning of Christian Apophaticism, Oxford Early Christian Studies (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2006), 75–8.
3 Philo's view will be discussed in section 2 below. At this point I would like to note the following observation made by Philo and very useful for understanding Clement's opinion. As noted by D.T. Runia, Philo provides us with the four views on the origin and destiny of the universe in Aet. 7–9:
1 Many kosmoi generated and destructible (Democritus and Epicurus).
2 One kosmos generated and destructible (the Stoics).
3 One kosmos ungenerated and indestructible (a Pythagorean philosopher, Ocellus, and later Aristotle).
4 One kosmos generated and not to be destroyed (Plato, Hesiod and Moses).
the existence of eternal matter and ideas
eternity of matter and Ideas. As Clement's philosophy shows a dependency on Middle Platonism in many of its aspects, we need to turn to some of its doctrines to assess the accuracy of Photios' claim. This requires a careful examination of the terminology used, especially the crucial notion γένεσις, and its context in various philosophical treatises of the Middle Platonists.
For the Middle Platonists, Plato's dialogues, such as the Phaedrus, the Phaedo, the Symposium, the Republic, the Timaeus, the Theaetetus, the Parmenides and some of his Letters, represented the core and ultimate authority of their philosophy. Among those treatises, as Runia noted, the Timaeus was seen as 'the Platonists' Bible'.4 The influence of the Timaeus' theory, vocabulary and imagery reached out beyond the milieu of later Hellenistic philosophers and inspired the imagination of many more people from various religious traditions who expressed interest in investigation into the origin, nature and destiny of the visible world.5 In Clement's oeuvre direct and indirect allusions to the Timaeus appear forty-one times and the crucial passage relating
According to Runia, Philo focused on the third opinion, that is the view of Aristotle and some Platonists who assimilated Aristotle's thought. However, it is also possible to recognise in the characteristics of Philo's opponents the cosmology of the Chaldeans. As Runia observes Philo's own view is close to Plato's, which the Jewish scholar harmonised with Moses' teaching. This harmony of Plato and Moses, in Philo's hermeneutics, was an important model for Clement of Alexandria (see D.T. Runia,
Philo of Alexandria: On the Creation of the Cosmos according to Moses: Introduction,
Translation and Commentary, Philo of Alexandria Commentary Series 1 [Leiden:
E.J. Brill, 2001], 113, 121–3).
4 Runia, Philo of Alexandria and the Timaeus of Plato (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1986), 57.
5 References to the Timaeus and its vocabulary as well as its ideology can be found among documents representing the whole spectrum of late Hellenistic literature and theology: among the Nag Hammadi Library (e.g., Tri. Trac. 103.31, with the term
'generation' [mise] in relation to Tim. 29c); in the Hermetica (e.g., CH. 9.4, as polemic against a dualistic, negative assessment of the visible world in relation to Tim., 48a,
68e); and even in Samaritan theology (e.g., Memar Marqah, 1.97–8, 2.161, as a rejection of the Timaeus' notion of γένεσις: "He formed without using any model [ ;"]דמו
"He formed without using any model [ ]דמוin anything he made"; see also A. Broadie,
A Samaritan Philosophy: A Study of the Hellenistic Cultural Ethos of the Memar Marqah, Studia Post-Biblica 31 [Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1981], 145–55). I wish to point to an observation made by Whittaker: "for throughout the entire period of late antiquity the Timaeus was without a doubt not only the most frequently read dialogue of Plato, but in general the most influential work of a philosophical nature" (J. Whittaker, "Plutarch, Platonism and Christianity", in Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought:
Essays in Honor of A.H. Armstrong, (ed. H.J. Blumenthal and R.A. Markus; Studies in Platonism and Patristic Thought 27 (London: Variorum Reprints, 1984), 57.
clement of alexandria on trial
to cosmology (28b–c) seven times.6 Clement expressed a similar interest in Plato's dialogue to that of his philosophical predecessors and contemporaries.
One important problem that must be mentioned, as it directly influenced Clement's position, was that Plato himself left unclear the essential issue of the γένεσις of the cosmos in relation to its eternity, that is, whether creation took place in time or before time, and thus two main lines of interpretations emerged. One was based on a metaphorical interpretation of the text, while the other involved a literary approach. The former line began with Speusippus and Xenocrates and found its support closer chronologically and geographically to Clement's period in, for instance, Eudorus of Alexandria; while the latter opinion was held by Atticus and Plutarch. While the first view highlighted that the world is not created at a particular time and Plato only used 'time' as a metaphor, the second outlook preferred to understand γένεσις as occurring at a specific moment of time. Following a helpful observation of J. Dillon's, another part of Clement's background should be mentioned, Calvenus Taurus, who was one of the most outstanding Platonists in Athens in the second half of the second century ce.7 In his Commentary on the Timaeus, Taurus, in truly scholastic fashion, differentiated four meanings, or definitions, of the possible Platonic use of γενητός:
1 That is said to be 'created', which is not in fact created, but is of the same genus as the things that are created.
2 That is also called 'created', which is in theory composite, even if it has not in fact been combined.
3 The cosmos is said to be 'created', as being always in process of generation.
4 One might also call it 'created' by virtue of the fact that it is dependent for its existence on an outside source.8
6 See O. Stählin (ed.), Clement Alexandrinus, vol. 4, Register, ed. U. Treu, Die griechischen christlichen Schriftsteller 39 (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1980), 52.
7 See Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 238. I believe Clement of Alexandria was born in Athens and received his basic philosophical education there.
8 Summarised in Philoponus, De aeternitate mundi, 6.8:
4 γενητὸς, ὅτι καὶ τὸ εἶναι αὐτῷ ἀλλαχόθεν ἐστίν καὶ παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ, πρὸς ὃν κεκόσμηται.
(trans. Dillon, The Middle Platonists, 243).