The Instructor (Clement of Alexandria)

Clement of Alexandria.  The Instructor.  Ante Nicene Fathers.

Clement, head of the catechetical school of Alexandria, combined philosophical sophistication with warm, if at times excessive, piety. Although it is not made clear by the editor, Clement must be understood as representative of what a philosophical school looked like in the ancient world.  Philosophy then does not mean what it means now (or even worse, what we think it means now).  Someone who was part of a philosophical school was part of a very particular community.  This community might set forth certain rules for eating, drinking, and even walking.  This should not be understood as “adding to the bible.”  It simply went with the territory. Regardless, many of Clement’s rules, although not followed today, illustrate what life would have looked like in the 3rd century.

Scope

Clement’s argument is simple: because Christ is our Teacher, we can teach. Because Christ is our  teacher, we have a message to teach. “The whole of piety is hortatory,” aiming “to improve the soul” (I.1). Clement’s rules, while at times appearing odd or legalistic, seek only “the attainment of right dispositions.” Throughout the treatise, the instructor is primarily Jesus, although at times the particular human instructor is in view.

Virtue

Not surprisingly, given the provenance of Alexandria, there is a strong Platonic thrust to Clement’s message. “Nothing exists, the cause of whose existence is not supplied by God.” A few lines later, Clement identifies God and the Word (I.8).

“Everything that is contrary to right reason is sin” (I.13).  Virtue, accordingly, “is a state of the soul rendered harmonious by reason in respect to the whole life.” Clement expands his earlier definition of virtue as “which is the Word given by the Instructor to be put into practice” (III.6).

Speaking thus of the soul: “The soul consists of three divisions: the intellect, which is called the reasoning faculty, is the inner man,” the irascible, and appetite (III.1).

Somewhat to the chagrin of the editor, Clement believes the narrative in Genesis 6 refers to angels: “An example of this are the angels, who renounced the beauty of God for a beauty which fades, and so fell from heaven to earth” (III.2).  In a footnote the editor grudgingly admits this was the common view in the early church.

In conclusion, he sets forth the goal of Torah for the life of the student: “For the intention of his law is to dissipate fear, emancipating freewill in order to faith” (III.12).

Practice

On eating: We should eat that we may live (II.1). “Our diet should be light and digestible and suitable for keeping awake.” Clement is not trying to make a list of what is and is not acceptable for the Christian.  Rather, in our lifestyles “daintiness is to be shunned.”  He defines gluttony as “the excess in the use of relishes.”  Such people, he says, “are ruled by a most lickerish demon, whom I shall not blush to call the Belly-demon.”

On drinking: the natural drink is water, but Clement makes an interesting comment that “wine” was associated with the prophetic cluster (II.2). He says it is associated with the Word, but I think it is more accurately associated with “Kingship.” He should have pursued this line of thought, for it dovetails nicely with his comments on kingship in the Stromata.

Some of his comments, while silly, are always amusing: “The breasts and organs of generation, inflamed by wine, expand and swell in a shameful way.” 

Evidently coed public bathing was common: “The baths are opened promiscuously to men and women, and there they strip for licentious indulgence (from for from looking, men get to loving” (III.5).

Clement notes a connection between luxury and sodomy: “The Sodomites having, through much luxury, fallen into uncleanness, practicing adultery shamelessly, and burning with insane love for boys” (III.8).

Conclusion

It would not be easy to apply all of Clement’s insights today, but there are some that are worth noting.  The good teacher will seek to encourage right dispositions according to right reason.  Clement knew, perhaps breaking with Plato, that knowledge by itself is not enough. Rather, the true Instructor will form the whole man.