stephan huller

I think Clement was a crypto-Marcionite. That means he really didn't think Jesus was a man. Here's an example of that theology:

A little earlier he emphasizes that the 'Virgin' isn't a person but a spiritual hypostasis. I think this is important for all those who think that Nicene Christianity went back to the earliest Christian writings. Not true. The Marcionite paradigm was present but intentionally buried under the burnt ashes of a dead doctrine like one of those 'angel cakes' that Sarah served to the her heavenly visitors. But that's another story.

andrewcriddle

Hi Stephan

I think Clement is saying that under the Old Covenant the Word was present to the Jewish people as an angel, but under the New Covenant the Word has become present to Christian believers as the human Jesus.

From a later standpoint this may be doubtfully orthodox but it does not seem to be Marcionite in any real sense.

(If you just mean that some of Clement's ideas about Jesus verged on docetism, you might be right, but that doesn't make them Marcionite as the term is usually understood.)


Andrew Criddle

stephan huller

Andrew

I just think (perhaps owing to my own background) that people underestimate the presence of crypto-traditions. As radical a scholar as Schaff identifies Clement as employing Marcosian texts. The complete lack of Alexandrian writers self-referencing their own tradition (the way Irenaeus does) is highly suspicious

But it extends beyond Christianity. Look at Meir and his influence over the formation of the Mishnah but the questions with respect to the sincerity of his orthodoxy are always there. We likely don't even know his real name

Did the Roman government have a hand in reshaping Judaism in the period? One hundred percent certainty. So too Samaritanism. The sources themselves tell us this (and it makes complete sense that this happened)

Is there a sense that Clement and Origen are only superficially in communion with Rome? Again it is certainly there lurking in the margins.

Irenaeus wrote to alert presbyters as to brothers with insincere orthodoxy. Clement and Origen seem to fit the bill.

aa5874

There was NO Church writer who claimed Jesus was ONLY human. According to Clement of Alexandria, Jesus was GOD INCARNATE, the WORD who generated himself and then became flesh.

This is "Clement" in the "Stromata" 5

stephan huller

But this "and fear is turned to love" within the context of a 'mystic angel' being born from an 'virgin' angelic hypostasis is specifically Marcion. 'Fear' is the Law; 'love' the gospel. It's not supposed to be formulated like that. Read Irenaeus and Tertullian better.

OAO

I would need to see the passage about the Virgin not being a person to form an opinion. The Greek word for "angel", ἄγγελος, is literally "messenger", so I suspect there might be a mistranslation here.

Having read the bulk of Contra Celsus, there were certainly questionable portions of Origen's thought but nothing heretical.

stephan huller

Which explains why Origen was ultimately condemned as a heretic and why Arians were condemned as Origenists.

There was apparently nothing explicitly heretical about Meir's halakhah either but that didn't mean that he wasn't suspected of heresy. Origen's tutor was connected with Marcionitism and Origenists like Jerome were ultimately forced to deny that they were connected with Marcionitism. Tertullian implies that a Catholic could walk into a Marcionite synagogue and not realize that he was in contact with 'heresy.'

Until Scholem European scholars thought that kabbalah was limited to the fringes of Judaism. When you look deeply into the subject even those Jewish writers who condemned kabbalah turn out to be kabbalists.

When Turkish authorities recently decided to tear down Shabbatai Tzevi's home all of sudden it became obvious how many of the highest ranking members of this supposedly Islamic country's government were sectarians.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6nmeh

That Clement or Origen aren't in the Catholic canon of saints speaks volumes.