Exhortation to the Heathen (Clement)

Authorship, Date, and Context

The apologetic treatise Exhortation to the Greeks (Protreptikos pros Hellenas) was composed in Greek by Titus Flavius Clemens, known in Church history as Clement of Alexandria. As documented by patristic scholar Francis Havey in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Clement flourished in the late second century, assuming the leadership of the Catechetical School of Alexandria around 190 CE as successor to Pantaenus. Historians generally date the composition between 190 and 200 CE, prior to Clement's flight from Alexandria in 202 CE during the persecution under Septimius Severus.

Alexandria was then the intellectual hub of the eastern Mediterranean, distinguished by its famed royal library and museum, active schools of eclectic philosophy, vibrant Jewish community, and early Gnostic sects. Clement shaped this persuasive appeal to address educated Greeks, demonstrating that the Christian faith fulfills and surpasses the highest longings of classical philosophy and culture.

Structure

Standard critical editions, beginning with John Potter and established in modern scholarship by Otto Stählin and William Wilson, divide the treatise into twelve sequential chapters. While certain topical classifications mention eight general thematic divisions, the manuscript and printed traditions maintain the twelve-chapter arrangement.

Chapter 1 introduces the divine Logos as the New Song transcending Greek musical mythologies; chapters 2 through 4 expose the degradations of pagan mystery cults, cruel blood sacrifices, and inanimate statues; chapters 5 through 8 examine the testimonies of classical philosophers and poets concerning the supreme God, showing how their insights are perfected in the Old Testament prophets; chapters 9 through 12 address pagan attachment to ancestral customs, celebrate the spiritual gifts of the incarnation, and urge listeners to embrace the heavenly call.

Themes and Key Passages

The primary theological motif is the Logos as the celestial 'New Song' that surpasses legendary minstrels like Orpheus and Amphion by calming animalistic human impulses, attuning the elements, and reconciling estranged creation to the Father. Clement exposes pagan mystery cults like Eleusis and the rites of Bacchus as demonic counterfeits of divine truth, proposing the gospel as the only authentic illumination.

Praising the spiritual dignity of human nature as fashioned and tuned by the Creator in chapter one, the author declares: "A beautiful breathing instrument of music the Lord made man, after His own image."

Summary by Parts

The New Song and Critique of Idolatry (chapters 1-4): The pre-existent divine Word has entered history as teacher and savior to loose humanity from spiritual servitude, contrasting the living melody of grace with shameful pagan mythologies, animal sacrifices, and lifeless idols made of stone and wood.

Witness of Philosophers and Prophetic Revelation (chapters 5-8): Greek thinkers like Plato glimpsed fragments of the truth through natural reason and scattered inspiration, but only the prophetic scriptures deliver complete, authoritative knowledge of the one true God.

The Appeal of Mercy and Conversion (chapters 9-12): The author refutes the excuse of following ancestral religious customs regardless of truth, beseeching his readers to abandon dark superstition, enter the open gate of faith, and put on the garment of righteousness through Christ.

Reception

The Exhortation constitutes the foundational entry point of Clement's celebrated educational trilogy, followed by the Paedagogus for moral formation and the Stromata for higher knowledge. The work influenced subsequent apologists and was commended for its erudition by Eusebius of Caesarea and Saint Jerome.

The surviving Greek text relies predominantly on the tenth-century Codex Parisinus graecus 451, copied in 914 CE for Arethas of Caesarea. The editio princeps was published by Pietro Vettori in Florence in 1550, followed by the major scholarly editions of John Potter in Oxford (1715) and Otto Stählin in Leipzig (1905).

Sources

• Francis Havey, Clement of Alexandria (The Catholic Encyclopedia) (1908).
• William Wilson; Alexander Roberts; James Donaldson, Exhortation to the Heathen (Ante-Nicene Fathers, Vol. 2) (1885).