| Clement of
Alexandria |
ca 150-213
CE |
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Titus Flavius
Clemens was the
intellectual leader of the Christian community in Alexandria
(Egypt) for
the last two decades of the 2nd c. CE. The son of pagan
parents
from Athens, Clement became a Christian sometime before 180 CE,
when he
succeeded his mentor, Pantaenus, as head of the catechetical
school at
Alexandria. Against sectarians who professed esoteric knowledge
(gnosis),
Clement
argued that a moral life was the test of real wisdom. Against
anti-intellectual pietists, he championed the ideal of spiritual
enlightenment. His characterization of the real Christian as an
intellectual whose life is a moral example for others influenced
the
development of the monastic ideal. During the persecution of
Alexandrian
Christians (201 CE), Clement found refuge in Jerusalem. He was
succeeded
at Alexandria by his brilliant prot g , Origen.
While several works
of Clement
have survived, many others, including his biblical
Outlines
(Hypotyposes) were lost, except for passages quoted by
3rd &
4th c. writers. Eusebius of
Caesarea
(Eccles. Hist. 6.14.5-7) ascribed this information about
the
origin of the gospels to him:
And again Clement
has inserted
in the same books a tradition of the primitive elders
concerning the
order of the gospels as follows. He said that the gospels that
include
genealogies [Matthew & Luke] were written first; but that
the
gospel according to Mark came about in this way: When Peter
had
publicly proclaimed the word & by the Spirit preached the
gospel
at Rome, those who were present, being many, urged Mark---as
one of
his [Peter's] long-time followers who remembered what was
said---to
make a record of what had been spoken. And he did this and
distributed
the gospel among those who had asked him. And when this matter
came to
Peter's attention, he neither strongly forbid it, nor urged it
on.
But, last of all, John---aware that the outward facts had been
set out
in the [synoptic] gospels, --- was encouraged by his disciples
&
divinely motivated by the Spirit, composed a spiritual gospel.
This is
Clement's account.
It is hard to know
how much of
Eusebius' comments are to be credited directly to Clement, since
he only
describes Clement's position indirectly. If this passage
represents the actual content of Clement's text, his views on
the origin
of the gospels were distinct from other early Christian writers
in two
respects:
- the claim that not only
Matthew but
Luke was written before Mark and
- the claim that Mark was
written
during Peter's lifetime.
Recently another
work credited to
Clement has added fuel to the fires of scholarly controversy
over gospel
origins. In 1958 a letter in which Clement quotes previously
unknown
passages from a secret edition of the gospel of Mark was
discovered by
Morton Smith in Jerusalem.
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