Intimacy with God by Clement of Alexandria. First off, who was Clement of Alexandria? In every age of man, there have been seekers of truth. In the second century, one such man was Titus Flavius Clement, known better today as Clement of Alexandria. Although born to pagan parents, Clement realized that there must be a deeper meaning to life than the mundane pursuit of material riches and sensual pleasures. He heard about men who renounced the ordinary pursuits of life in order to seek after truth.
These men were called philosophers, which means lovers of wisdom. So Clement studied the works of all the great philosophers who had lived before him, including the writings of thinkers from faraway lands such as Persia. From studying the works of these men, Clement learned that there was one true God who was above all the gods and goddesses worshiped by people of his day. He also realized that there was a more satisfying way of life than that sought after by most people.
From his years of study, Clement came to be one of the most learned men of his day. Yet he sensed that the philosophers had only knocked on the door of truth, that there was still greater truth that had never been discovered. When he finally heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ, he knew this was the great truth he had been seeking after all his life.
After his conversion, Clement traveled through the ancient world to learn Christianity firsthand from the most respected teachers of his age, men who taught by deeds, not just words. Clement actually settled in Alexandria, Egypt, where he served as a teacher. In recognition of Clement's gift of teaching, the Church of Alexandria appointed him as an instructor of new Christians. The works of Clement. If you could have sat at the feet of Clement as a new Christian, what would you have learned?
The chapters that follow are a collection of Clement's godly insights on the Christian life. In these chapters, he discusses prayer, the proper use of wealth, the life of holiness, separation from the world, marriage, love, women of wisdom, and the secret of tapping into God's power. Part one contains selected chapters from Clement's longest work, known as the Miscellaneous or Patchwork.
The title could not be more appropriate, as this work is a loose amalgamation of Clement's thoughts on a variety of subjects, both spiritual and scientific. As one scholar put it, Clement has the happy faculty of rarely sticking to the point. At the sight of the smallest hare running around the landscape, Clement is immediately after it. Rather than following Clement as he chases those hares, we have selected for this rendition only those chapters following the theme of what it really means to be intimate with God.
Part two is a translation of what was apparently a sermon or a short tract of Clement, entitled Who is the Rich Man Who Shall Be Saved? This short work is the most eloquent and readable of all of Clement's writings. In it, Clement discusses Jesus' words to the rich young man, as recorded in Mark 10:17-31, sentence by sentence. His refreshing insights show that Jesus' words are addressed to each one of us, regardless of how much wealth we have. Clement firmly believed that the author of all truth is God.
He also believed that God had planted seeds of truth in every nation of men. So, unlike most Christians of his time, Clement had no qualms about quoting bits of poetry and passages of wisdom from the secular poets, writers, and philosophers. However, it is a mistake to think that Clement formulated his Christian beliefs from those sources. He himself described Greek philosophy as having only a slender spark capable of being fanned into flame, a trace of wisdom.
He also noted that it was destitute of strength to perform the commandments of the Lord. As the chapters that follow will show, Clement was a man of the Bible. His beliefs came from Scripture and from the oral understandings handed down by the apostles, not from philosophy. Clement wrote the Miscellaneous around 190 AD. At that time, the major heresy confronting the Church was Gnosticism.
The Gnostics claimed to have special knowledge about God, either through special revelation or through secret knowledge handed down by the apostles. Among other things, they taught that the God of the Old Testament was a different person than the God of the New Testament. They also taught that the Son of God had never really become human. Second John 7 through 11. In the Miscellaneous, Clement attacked their claims by describing the lifestyle and prayer life of one who truly knows God intimately.
He argued that those who deny or twist the Scriptures are not really Gnostics, for they have not come to know God in truth. Through his spoken and written words and by his godly lifestyle, Clement discipled hundreds of Christians. He led them into a life of undying love for God and fellow man, following in the footprints of Jesus. Among his noted students was Origen, the foremost Christian teacher in the third century, and Alexander, who became the bishop or overseer of the Church of Jerusalem.
After Clement's death, his writings continued to instruct and inspire men and women of God through the centuries. The fifth century church historian Theodoret wrote about Clement. He surpassed all others and was a holy man. Jerome said that he was the most learned of all the ancients. Even John Wesley was influenced by Clement's works. A more recent scholar wrote about him. He read voluminously. There are more than 700 quotations from more than 300 authors in his works.
He was gentle and considerate to all people and was particularly understanding of women and children, neither Catholic nor Protestant. In most areas, Clement's works are very typical of early Christian thought. As you read his words, you will probably feel reassured that the early Christians believed many of the same things you do. At the same time, you will undoubtedly notice some views and practices that are different from your own.
This is virtually everyone's experience upon reading the writings of the early Christians for the first time. Actually, the early Christians do not fit any of the denominational boxes of today. As is obvious from reading Clement, the early Christians knew nothing of Luther's Reformation theology. At the same time, they knew little of the Roman Catholic theology taught in Luther's day. They were neither Catholic nor Protestant, liberal nor evangelical, charismatic nor fundamentalist.
Yet they had things in common with all of these groups. They bear witness to what Christianity was before it was stained by centuries of doctrinal disputes, complex theology, and denominational divisions. They reflect a Christianity that was known by its genuine love, simple holiness, and willingness to carry the cross.