...Titus Flavius Clemens (c.150 - c. 215), known as Clement of Alexandria (to distinguish him from Clement of Rome), was a Christian theologian and the head of the noted Catechetical School of Alexandria. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen. He united Greek philosophical traditions with Christian doctrine and valued gnosis that with communion for all people could be held by common Christians specially chosen by God. He used the term "gnostic" for Christians who had attained the deeper teaching of the Logos."Clement of Alexandria." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005 He developed a Christian Platonism.Durant, Will. Caesar and Christ. New York: Simon and Schuster. 1972 He presented the goal of Christian life as deification, identified both as Platonism's assimilation into God and the biblical imitation of God."Clement of Alexandria." Cross, F. L., ed. The Oxford dictionary of the Christian church. New York: Oxford University Press. 2005 Read full entry
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- 1.Clement of Alexandria - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Clement of Alexandria's great trilogy. Protrepticus - Paedagogus - Stromata ... Wikisource has original works written by or about: Clement of Alexandria " ...
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C
lement_of_Alexandria
- 2.CATHOLIC ENCYCLOPEDIA: Clement of Alexandria
- Fairly lengthy article on his life and writings ... The works of Clement of Alexandria were first edited by P. Victorius (Florence, 1550) ...
- http://www.newadvent.org/cathe
n/04045a.htm
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ST Matthias and Barnabas are i am bit confused plzz help me
in this regard .
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St. Matthias and Barnabas were not the same person. St. Matthias was chosen to be the replacement of Judas Iscariot, the one who had betrayed Christ and later killed himself. St. Barnabas was a companion and helper of St. Paul. I'm not sure about what Clement of Alexandria wrote, so I will have to look that up and try to find what you are talking about. |
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anyone here read Clement of Both were early theologians
from the School of Alexandria.
It appears to me that they
assimilated some Gnostic
teaching but feared anathema,
so tempered it with
proto-orthodox. Is this
possible? Apparently they even
believed in reincarnation. I
was reading Clement recently
and he used the word Gnostic
quite frequently.
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Yes, I have read them both. Alexandria was a fertile spot for thought at one point. Look up Hypatia of Alexandria just for fun. |
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Since Clement of Alexandria The letter includes two
excerpts from the Secret
Gospel. The first is to be
inserted, Clement states,
between what are verses 34 and
35 of Mark 10:
And they come into Bethany.
And a certain woman whose
brother had died was there.
And, coming, she prostrated
herself before Jesus and says
to him, 'Son of David, have
mercy on me.' But the
disciples rebuked her. And
Jesus, being angered, went off
with her into the garden where
the tomb was, and straightway
a great cry was heard from the
tomb. And going near Jesus
rolled away the stone from the
door of the tomb. And
straightway, going in where
the youth was, he stretched
forth his hand and raised him,
seizing his hand. But the
youth, looking upon him, loved
him and began to beseech him
that he might be with him. And
going out of the tomb they
came into the house of the
youth, for he was rich. And
after six days Jesus told him
what to do and in the evening
the youth comes to him,
wearing a linen cloth over his
naked body. And he remained
with him that night, for Jesus
taught him the mystery of the
kingdom of God. And thence,
arising, he returned to the
other side of the Jordan.
source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S
ecret_Gospel_of_Mark
So, why wasn't it added if
Clement said that these verses
from the Secret Gospel were
authentic?
Clement said to add it, and
it's not hotly disputed, both
Atheists and Christians agree
it's authentic that Clement
said this.
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Why wasn't Secret Mark included in the canon if Clement said that these verses were genuine? Short answer: It didn't even exist when the Bible was being compiled. The last time I addressed a question similar to this I got reported. Why? Because it conflicted with someone's insincere views. Please read my answer without a prejudice outlook. The story goes like this. Morton Smith was a professor of Judeo-Christian origins at Columbia University for years. At a meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in 1960, he announced that twos earlier he had made a historic discovery at the Mar Saba Monastery in the Judean wilderness. In the back of the 1646 book was two and a half pages of letter ostensibly from Clement of Alexandria, who lived in the second century, to someone named Theodore. Smith speculated that a monk copied the latter onto the blank pages at the back of the book to preserve it, maybe because the original papyrus had been crumbling. The letter was in Greek, and Smith said it was written with an eighteenth-century hand. Here's what was so interesting: The letter contained two quotes from a previously unknown mystical or secret version of the Gospel of Mark. It described Jesus raising a young man from the dead, and then later the youth comes to him 'wearing a linen cloth over his naked body' and 'remained with him that night' so that he could be taught 'the mystery of the Kingdom of God.' Frankly, the homoerotic suggestion was hard to miss. The letter then ends very abruptly, just after it indicates that something really important was going to be revealed. Well, if it was written by the author of the Gospel of Mark, then it would certainly be significant. Smith later wrote two books analyzing it, one 450-page scholarly treatment published by Harvard University Press, and a more popular edition for a general audience. A few prominent scholars from the Jesus Seminar said Clement's letter could contain an earlier version of Mark than what we have in the New Testament. The made some pretty bold claims about it. But from the beginning there were rumblings that this might be forgery. Indeed, the headlines in the New York Times at the time of Smith's announcement reflected the brewing controversy "A New Gospel Ascribed to Mark," said the newspaper in December 30, 1960. The next day came this headline: "Expert Disputes 'Secret Gospel.'" Why wasn't the document simply examined by experts? Because it's gone. Vanished. Smith said he left it at the monastery, but today nobody can find it, so it can't be subjected to ink tests and other analysis. But he did photograph it, and after he died in 1991, large color photographs of the text were studied by Stephen Carlson. Carlson, a well-regarded patent attorney and amateur biblical scholar, thoroughly investigated the case, bringing in handwriting experts and writing "The Gospel Hoax: Morton Smith's Invention of Secret Mark" in 2005. I think the clues clearly lead to the conclusion that the letter is a hoax and that Smith is almost certainly the hoaxer. Yes, it's bizarre. Actually, if you read his book, you'll find much of it was filler. But I've met people who say, "I knew Morton Smith, and he was fully capable of doing such a thing." I do think, though, that the question of his motive is the weakest part of the case. He himself was gay, which was a closely guarded secret in the 1950s. He had been denied tenure at Brown University and may have wanted to demonstrate his intellectual superiority by pulling off something like this. Carlson put it this way: "[Smith] was denied tenure in 1955 at the university where he started his career. Smith was forty years old and might have been perceived as over-the-hill. A successful hoax could be exactly what Smith needed to prove to himself that he was smarter than his peers and might even jump start his career in the process." Who knows? I certainly can't divine someone's intentions. But why he did it is a rather secondary question. The big issue is whether he did, indeed, write the text, and I believe the evidence is compelling that he did. When experts examined the magnified photos of the text, they could see what they call "forger's tremor," where the text isn't really written, but instead it's been drawn by a forger in an attempt to deceive. There are shaky lines, pen lifts in the middle of strokes, all kinds of indications that it was forged. On top of that, when the Greek letters were compared to a sample of Smith's own writing, they found the Clement text had the same usual way of making the Greek letters 'theta' and 'lambda' as he did. That's a powerful link. Plus, the photos indicated the presence of mildew on the book, something that wouldn't occur in a book from the dry climate where the monastery was located. More likely, the book was from somewhere else, Europe or North America. Also, there was no evidence of this book being in the Mar Saba library prior to Smith's "discovering" it. And here's something strange: The book had "Smith 65" written on it. would you, if you were a guest in somebody's library, looking at his rare books, write "Your Name" on the title page? I find that very strange. If it's your book, however, you might not hesitate. By the way, a copy of that book back in the 1950s would have cost only a couple hundred dollars and easily could have been smuggled into the monastery library. But one of the most intriguing clues involves another Mar Sara document that had been cataloged by Smith. It's written in the same hand as the Clement letter. But there are two unusual things about it. First, Smith himself dated this sample to the twentieth century, rather than the eighteenth century when the Clement letter supposedly written. And second, it's signed "M. Madiotes." Who's that? It sounds like a Greek name, but it turns out it's pseudo-Greek, coming from a root that means 'sphere,' 'cueball,' or 'bald.' Interestingly, Smith was prominently bald for his entire adulthood. So could the name mean 'Morton the Baldy'? Certainly seems possible. In his book, Carlson said, "Its not uncommon for the hoaxer to plant deliberate mistakes or jokes as clues to the fake's true nature." Secret Mark, he said, "abounds in jokes" that point toward Smith as the hoaxer. Also intriguing, wrote Carlson, is that Smith's next major work, 'Jesus the Magician,' "was careful not to rely on Secret Mark itself," even though it would have seemed appropriate to do so. In fact, he said, "Secret Mark did not become a major factor in his scholarship apart from the books disclosing it to the world." This makes sense to me. After all, Smith considered his other books to be real scholarship. He was enough of a scholar that he wasn't going to damage his own work that he knows is phony. There are a lot of other clues, but that's particularly damaging is the fact that before he announced the existence of Secret Mark, Smith had earlier written about Mark's mystery of kingdom of God and forbidden sexual practices, themes that he also finds in Secret Mark, which he just coincidentally happened to have "discovered." That's extremely suspicious. An Episcopalian priest-turned-atheist, Smith has been described as someone who reveled in enraging the establishment, "provoking the conventionally faithful," and painting a portait of Jesus that was "far from the respectable, rational, middle-class Christianity of most of his readers. His writings claimed Jesus was a magician who used hallucinatory techniques to initiate his closest confidants "into ecstatic visions of heaven... to share with them his experience of liberation from Jewish law." Wrote Carlson: "Secret Mark supports not only Smith's love of controversy but also his favorite target. It was written during the 1950s, during an especially oppressive moment in America history when mainline minsters were urging the police to crack down on gay men gathered in public parks. What could be more upsetting to the Establishment in this historical moment than the intimation, revealed in an ancient text by the author of the oldest gospel, that they are crucifying Jesus Christ all over again?" What does it say about biblical scholarship that many scholars accepted Secret Mark apparently without asking enough critical questions? I think it's an embarrassment. Too many well-publicized scholars are so fond of oddball documents and theories that they were too ready to accept Secret Mark as genuine. In fact, some in the Jesus Seminar were too quick to say, well , yes, there probably was a Secret Mark floating around and, well, yes, it probably is earlier than the canonical Mark. And Smith, had to be laughing. |
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