- Clement and Origen led the School of Alexandria in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD during a time of persecution and heresy. - Both emphasized allegorical interpretation of Scripture and believed it contained literal, moral, and spiritual meanings. - They viewed God as a triune being of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and believed in reconciling Greek philosophy with Christian theology through concepts like the Logos and divine reason.

1. CHAPTER VIII
Justo L. Gonzalez
A History of Christian Thought, Vol. 1

2. CLEMENT
• Clement and Origen were still living in the period of
persecutions and Gnosticism.
• Both Clement and Origen would lead schools of
higher studies, the philosophical roots of which
were found in Alexandria and known as the School
of Alexandria.
• Clement studied and then worked with Pantaenus,
whom he succeeded, probably in the year a.d. 200 .

3. CLEMENT
 Apart from some fragments quoted by later writers,
the works of Clement that have been saved for
posterity are five:
1. Exhortation to the Heathen
2. The Instructor
3. The Stromata
4. Who is the Rich Man that Shall be Saved?
5. Excerpts from Theodotus

4. CLEMENT
• Clement asserts that the philosophers knew truth
by a direct action of God, in a fashion similar to that
by which the Jews received the Law.
• He tried to show that the higher doctrines of the
philosophers agreed with the Scriptures; and he
even affirmed the divine claims that philosophy was
given to the Greeks with the same purpose with
which the Law was given to the Jews: to serve as a
handmaiden to lead them to Christ.

5. CLEMENT
 The fact that “knowledge is to be believed” is the
core of Clement’s answer to those who try to
develop an autonomous philosophy.
 Clement never doubts that the Scriptures are
inspired by God.
 Clement believes the allegorical interpretation of
Scripture is one of the main instruments of
hermeneutics.

6. CLEMENT
 Clement affirms that the Scriptures do have a literal
historical sense.
 He proposes the doctrine of the various senses of
Scriptures.
 Every text has at least two meanings: a literal and a
spiritual one. This is the basic rule of Clement’s
exegesis, although he sometimes finds several
levels within the spiritual sense.

7. CLEMENT
 The literal sense is that which is found directly in the text
itself, without attempting to discover any hidden meaning.
 The primary meaning of a biblical text is not the highest.
This does not imply that the first meaning is unimportant,
because the first meaning is the point of departure for
every other meaning of the text.

8. CLEMENT
 Every text always has one or more “further
meanings,” beyond and above its primary or
immediate sense.
 The first exegetical principle is the allegorical
interpretation, which does not discard the primary
meaning, except where this meaning is such that it
contradicts what is already known of God’s
character and dignity.

9. CLEMENT
• Clement’s second exegetical principle is that each
text must be interpreted in the light of the rest of
Scripture. This means that the every text must be
understood within its proper and immediate context.
• One of the main characteristics of Clement’s
theology springs from the distinction between
several levels of meaning in the Scriptures, and
from his own inclination toward philosophical
research.

10. CLEMENT
• Clement viewed God as triune
• The Word of God is the source of all knowledge
and of every creature, and has become incarnate in
Jesus Christ.
• According to Clement Christ was human in his body
as well as in his soul. But this union of the divine
and the human is such that some of the
fundamental characteristics of humanity are lost.

11. CLEMENT
 Clement does not develop a clear doctrine of the
Holy Spirit.
 For him the Spirit is above all the principle of
cohesion which attracts us toward God.
 There is no doubt that Clement clearly affirms the
triune nature of God, for one can frequently find
trinitarian formulas in his works. This triune God is
the Creator.

12. CLEMENT
• For Clement humanity was created with childish
innocence, and was to achieve the purpose of
creation through further growth unto perfection.
• With the fall, which took place because humans
made use of their sexual capabilities before God
intended, we became subject to sin and death.
• When a child is born it is not under the curse of
Adam, but in the long run we all sin and become
like Adam.

13. CLEMENT
• The importance of Clement’s theology is to be
found mainly in the way in which it is guided by his
doctrine of the Word. This doctrine is the bridge by
which he relates to the pagan philosophy.
• Clement is important because he was able to
communicate some of his fundamental ideas,
especially the basic spirit of this theology to Origen
who later systematized them and turned them into
an imposing theological edifice.

14. ORIGEN
 Origen was born to Christian parents.
 His father was martyred in the year 202.
 His mother had to hide his clothing so that he
wouldn’t go out and get himself arrested.
 Shortly after the death of his father, Origen, who
was still in his early youth, began to teach literature
and philosophy as a mean to earn his living.

15. ORIGEN
• Origen devoted himself to intensive studies and
also the practice of an austere life, which he always
took to be an important aspect of the life of the
philosopher.
• This ascetic tendency was brutally shown when he
emasculated himself in an attempt to become a
eunuch.
• Origen founded a new school of higher studies
similar to that of the ancient philosophers.

16. ORIGEN
• Eventually the persecution of Christians became
more widespread and Origen suffered several days
of torture.
• After being freed from prison Origen died in the city
of Tyre, possible as a result of his tortures, when he
was almost seventy years old.
• Origen always thought of himself as an interpreter
of the sacred text.

17. ORIGEN
• He was a prolific writer but only a few of the Greek texts
survive.
• Origen produced the Hexapla which is the first attempt in
the history of Christianity to provide the student with the
necessary instruments to establish the original text of
Scripture.
• The Hexapla was a parallel presentation in six columns,
of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament, a transliteration
of the text in Greek characters, and four Greek versions
that circulated at that time: the version of Aquila,
Symmachus, the Septuagint, and the translation of
Theodotus.

18. ORIGEN
• The best starting point for an exposition on Origen’s
theology is the way in which he interprets Scripture.
• He is very far from being literalistic in his
interpretation of the sacred texts, though he does
believe in the literal interpretation of every word in
Scripture.
• The biblical text has—or may have—three different
but complementary meanings: a literal or physical
sense, a moral or psychical sense, and an
intellectual or spiritual sense.

19. ORIGEN
 Origen seemed to understand that the rule of faith
included the doctrine of the several meanings of
Scripture.
 The rule of faith, therefore, served to keep his
theology—at least in part—within the sphere of
traditional doctrine of the church.
 The first article of that rule refers to God. No mind
is capable of comprehending God.

20. ORIGEN
• God is to be understood allegorically.
• This ineffable One God is the triune God of the rule
of faith and the church.
• Origen knew and frequently used the term “trinity.”
• Following the rule of faith, Origen affirms that God
is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
• The Son is coeternal with the Father and is divine
according to the essence.

21. ORIGEN
• The Son is the image of God; God’s name; God’s
face.
• The Father is absolute Unity; in the Son there is
multiplicity and he can therefore relate with the
world and with humans.
• Origen affirms that the Holy Spirit proceeds from
the Father, and is not a creature with a temporal
being, but is rather coeternal with the Father and
the Son.

22. ORIGEN
• Origen believes that the three persons of the Trinity
have different functions and fields of action in their
relationship with creatures.
• Just as Origen argues that the Son is eternal
because there can be no eternal Father without
eternal Son, so too Origen argues that creation is
eternal because God cannot be eternal creator if
there was a time when there was no creation.

23. ORIGEN
• Origen argues that in this world we are going
through a period of trial so that, making use of our
freedom, we may return to the unity and harmony of
all intellectual beings, which is the purpose of God.
• Origen interprets hell as a place of purification
where the illness will be destroyed.
• He argues that we will all be saved in the end, even
the Devil and his demons.

24. ORIGEN
 In Christ divinity and humanity are united in such a
way that one can attribute to the first, actions and
conditions that properly correspond to the latter,
and vice versa.
 The purpose of the incarnation is to free us from the
power of the Devil and to show us the way of
salvation.

25. ORIGEN
• He acknowledges the role of the church and
sacraments in the plan of salvation
• Apart from the church no one can be saved.
• In the eucharist Christ is really and physically
present, but the believer must see the symbolic
meaning of the sacrament.
• Origen’s theology is theocentric, and Clement’s
doctrine of the Word is the center of his theology.