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Rh the centre of the literary and spiritual life of Greece. We may then with reasonable probability conclude that Clement was an Athenian by training if not by origin, and the fact that he was at the head of the catechetical school of Alexandria towards the close of the century fixes the date of his birth c. A.D. 150‒160. Nothing is recorded of his parentage; but his own language seems to imply that he embraced Christianity by a personal act, as in some sense a convert (Paed. i. § 1, p. 97, τὰς παλαιὰς ἀπομνύμενοι δόξας; cf. Paed. ii. § 62, p. 206, δάκρυά ἐσμεν . . . οἱ εἰς αὐτὸν πεπιστευκότες), and this is directly affirmed by Eusebius (Praep. Ev. ii. 2 f.), though perhaps simply by inference from Clement's words. Such a conversion would not be irreconcilable with the belief that Clement, like Augustine, was of Christian parentage at least on one side; but whether Clement's parents were Christians or heathens it is evident that heathenism attracted him for a time; and though he soon overcame its attractions, his inquisitive spirit did not at once find rest in Christianity. He enumerates six illustrious teachers under whom he studied the "true tradition of the blessed doctrine of the holy apostles." His first teacher in Greece was an Ionian (Athenagoras?); others he heard in Magna Graecia; others in the East; and at last he found in Egypt the true master for whom he had sought (Strom. i, § 11, p. 322). There can be no doubt that this master was Pantaenus, to whom he is said to have expressed his obligations in his Hypotyposes (Eus. H. E. vi. 13, v. 11). Pantaenus was then chief of the catechetical school, and though the accounts of Eusebius and Jerome (Eus. H. E. v. 10; Hieron. de Vir. Ill. 36, 38) are irreconcilable in their details and chronology, it is certain that on the death or retirement of Pantaenus, Clement succeeded to his office, and it is not unlikely that he had acted as his colleague before. The period during which Clement presided over the catechetical school (c. A.D. 190‒203) seems to have been the season of his greatest literary activity. He was now a presbyter of the church (Paed. i. § 37, p. 120) and had the glory of reckoning Origen among his scholars. On the outbreak of the persecution under Severus (A.D. 202, 203) in which Leonidas, the father of Origen, perished, Clement retired from Alexandria (Eus. H. E. vi. 3), never, as it seems, to return. Nothing is directly stated as to the place of his withdrawal. There are some indications of a visit to Syria (Eus. H. E. vi. 11, ὃν ἴστε); and, later, we find him in the company of an old pupil, Alexander, afterwards bp. of Jerusalem, and at that time a bp. of Cappadocia, who was in prison for the faith. If therefore Clement had before withdrawn from danger, it was through wisdom and not through fear. Alexander regarded his presence as due to "a special providence" (cf. Eus. H. E. vi. 14), and charged him, in most honourable terms, with a letter of congratulation to the church of Antioch on the appointment of Asclepiades to the bishopric of that city, A.D. 311 (Eus. H. E. vi. 11). This is the last mention of Clement which has been preserved. The time and the place of his death are alike unknown. Popular opinion reckoned him among the saints of the church; and he was commemorated in the early Western martyrologies on Dec. 4. His name, however, was omitted in the martyrology issued by Clement VIII. after the corrections of Baronius; and Benedict XIV. elaborately defended the omission in a letter to John V. of Portugal, dated 1748. Benedict argued that the teaching of Clement was at least open to suspicion, and that private usage would not entitle him to a place in the calendar (Benedicti XIV. Opera, vi. pp. 119 ff. ed. 1842, where the evidence is given in detail; cf. Cognat, Clément d’Alexandrie, pp. 451 ff.).

ii. Works.—Eusebius, whom Jerome follows closely with some mistakes (de Vir. Ill. 38) has given a list of the works of Clement (H. E. vi. 13): (1) Στρωματεῖς, libb. viii.; (2) Ὑποτυπώσεις, libb. viii.; (3) Πρὸς Ἕλληνας λόγος προτρεπτικός (adversus Gentes, Jerome); (4) Παιδαγωγός, libb. iii.; (5) Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος; (6) Περὶ τοῦ πάσχα; (7) Διαλέξεις περὶ νηστείας; (8) Περὶ καταλαλίας; (9) Προτρεπτικὸς εἰς ὑπομονήν ἢ πρὸς τοὺς νεωστὶ βεβαπτισμένους (omitted by Jerome); (10) Κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἢ πρὸς τοὺς Ἰουδαΐ ζοντας (de Canonibus Ecclesiasticis et adversum eos qui Judaeorum sequuntur errorem, Jerome). Photius (Bibl. Codd. 109‒111) mentions that he read the first five works on the list, and knew by report 6, 7, 8 (περὶ κακολογίας); 10 (περὶ κανόνων ἐκκλησιαστικῶν); from the variations in the titles and the omission of 9, it is evident that he derived his knowledge of these simply from the secondary Greek version of Jerome's list. Nos. 1, 3, 4, 5 are still preserved almost entire. Of 2 considerable fragments remain; and of 6, 8, 10 a few fragments are preserved in express quotations.

Quotations are also found from a treatise περὶ προνοίας, and from another περὶ ψυχῆς, to which Clement himself refers (Strom. iii. 13, p. 516; v. 88, p. 699). Elsewhere Clement speaks of his intention to write On First Principles (περὶ ἀρχῶν, Strom. iii. 13, p. 516 ; id. 21, p. 520; cf. iv. 2, p. 564); On Prophecy (Strom. v. 88, p. 699; id. iv. 93, p. 605); Against Heresies (Strom. iv. 92, p. 604); On the Resurrection (Paed. i. 6, p. 125); On Marriage (Paed. iii. 8, p. 278). But the references may be partly to sections of his greater works, and partly to designs never carried out (cf. Strom. iv. 1‒3, pp. 563 f.). No doubt has been raised as to the genuineness of the Address, the Tutor, and the Miscellanies. Internal evidence shews them all the work of one writer (cf. Reinkens, de Clemente, cap. ii. § 4), and they have been quoted as Clement's by a continuous succession of Fathers even from the time of Origen (Comm. in Joh. ii. 3, p. 52 ; Strom.; anonymous). These three principal extant works form a connected series. The first is an exhortation to the heathen to embrace Christianity, based on an exposition of the comparative character of heathenism and Christianity; the second offers a system of training for the new convert, with a view to the regulation of his conduct as a Christian; the third is an introduction to Christian philosophy. The series was further continued in the lost Outlines (ὑποτυπώσεις), in which Clement laid the foundation of his philosophic structure in an investigation of the canonical 