Saint? Clement of Alexandria

MariaRegina said:

There was St. Clement of Rome, who was a Pope, wasn't he?

Could you be confusing the two?

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ortho_cat said:

I don't even think St. Augustine is universally accepted as a saint in Orthodoxy, correct me if I'm wrong.

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ikonographics said:

Origen too is considered a great theologian...but he's not a saint. One can be a "holy man" but still hold heretical views, which is why the Church doesn't recognise all holy men as Holy men.

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ikonographics said:

Origen too is considered a great theologian...but he's not a saint. One can be a "holy man" but still hold heretical views, which is why the Church doesn't recognise all holy men as Holy men.

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Michael the Iconographer said:

No, Clement of Rome and Clement of Alexandria are two totally different men.

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He was not born in Egypt (Stromata, i. 1) as his name suggests; rather, Alexandria was his bishopric. Athens is named as his birthplace by the sixth-century Epiphanius Scholasticus, and this is supported by the classical quality of his Greek. His parents seem to have been wealthy pagans of some social standing. The thoroughness of his education is shown by his constant quotation of the Greek poets and philosophers. He traveled in Greece, Italy, Palestine, and finally Egypt. He became the colleague of Pantaenus, the head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria and the man who likely converted him to Christianity, and finally succeeded him in the direction of the school. His best known pupil was Origen (who was condemned by the Fifth Ecumenical Council. During the persecution of Septimius Severus (202 or 203) he sought refuge with Alexander, then bishop of Flaviada in Cappadocia, afterward of Jerusalem, from whom he brought a letter to Antioch in 211. After this, he died sometime in the next five years without returning to Egypt.

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Charges of heresy

According to Clement, though Christ's goodness operated in the creation of the world, the Son himself was immutable, self-sufficient, and incapable of suffering. According to his interpretation, such are the characteristic qualities of the divine essence. Though the Logos is most closely one with the Father, whose powers he resumes in himself, to Clement both the Son and the Spirit are "first-born powers and first created"; they form the highest stages in the scale of intelligent being, and Clement distinguishes the Son-Logos from the Logos who is immutably immanent in God. Because of this Photius would later charge that he "degraded the Son to the rank of a creature." Separate from the world as the principle of creation, the Logos is yet in it as its guiding principle. Thus a natural life is a life according to the will of the Logos. Clement has also been accused of Docetism in his teachings on the Incarnation. According to him, the body of Christ was not subject to human needs. See the following passage from Stromateis which clearly denies Christ's full humanity:
In regard to the Savior, however, it were ridiculous to suppose that the body demanded, as a body, the necessary aids for its maintenance. For He ate, note for the sake of the body, which had its continuance from a holy power, but lest those in His company might happen to think otherwise of Him, just as aftewards some did certainily supposed that He had appeared as a mere phantasm. He was in general dispassionate; and no movement of feeling penetrated Him, whether pleasure or pain.2 Instead, Clement's Christ is a supernatural physician; He is not subject to humanity's bodily pain. The medicine which he offers is the communication of saving gnosis, leading men from paganism to faith and from faith to the higher state of knowledge. This true philosophy includes within itself the freedom from sin and the attainment of virtue. As all sin has its root in ignorance, so the knowledge of God and of goodness is followed by well-doing. Against the Gnostics Clement emphasizes the freedom of all to do good (for which he has also been called Semi-Pelagian).

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Our father among the saints Clement of Rome (also called Clemens Romanus to distinguish him from Clement of Alexandria) was the third in succession after the Apostle Peter as bishop of Rome. Clement is known mainly for the letter he wrote to the Corinthians in about AD 96. He is counted among the apostolic fathers. His feast day is November 23 in the west, but in the east he is remembered on November 25).

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Christos Anesti said:

Wait a minute! This Catholic web page states that he does still have a feast day in the Catholic Church. Why so much contradictory information on this subject? Maybe I will ask in the Catholic forum.

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Christos Anesti said:

Wait a minute! This Catholic web page states that he does still have a feast day in the Catholic Church. Why so much contradictory information on this subject? Maybe I will ask in the Catholic forum.

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Christos Anesti said:

True. If the Western Christians (who were Orthodox at the time) venerated him before the schism it would show that he was held by Orthodox to be a saint though wouldn't it ? I'm not sure we can pass over what the Orthodox in the West did simply because that area would later fall into schism. I believe he was also venerated by Orthodox in Alexandria as a Saint too? The OO veneration of him as a Saint has roots in the practice of pre-schism Alexandrians. At least that is what I have read.

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Ortho_Cat said:

I don't even think St. Augustine is universally accepted as a saint in Orthodoxy, correct me if I'm wrong.

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ArmyMatt said:

this thread is over a decade old...

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Cole C. said:

Just realizing that now, lol. I'm new here.

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ArmyMatt said:

haha, sorry, just saw that. and from time to time we have folks who have been here a while resurrect old threads.

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Cole C. said:

Ok, thank you. I got to figure this site out and find recent threads.

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