An alternative theory of | Clement of Alexandria and the Eusebian fiction postulate
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Clement of Alexandria |
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CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA: (c. 153-c. 215). Ex-Pagan; head of the catechetical school of Alexandria; tutor of Origen. He wrote an Exhortation to the Heathen, the Poedagogus, or Instructor, and eight books called Stromata, or Miscellanies. From the latter a few random assays are taken which fully accredit him among the simple- minded and credulous Fathers of Christianity. Clement devotes ample chapters to showing the 'Plagiarism by the Greeks of the Miracles related in the Sacred Books of the Hebrews"; he quotes as inspired the forged book "Peter's Preaching," and the heathen Sibyls and Hystaspes; he assures us, with his reason therefor, that "The Apostles, following the Lord, preached the Gospel to those in Hades. For it was requisite, in my opinion, that as here, so also there, the rest of the disciples should be imitators of the Master." Abraham was a great scientist: "As thin in astronomy we have Abraham as an instance, so also in arithmetic we have the same Abraham," the latter diploma being founded on the feat that Abraham, "hearing that Lot had been taken captive, numbered his own. servants, 318"; this mystic number, expressed in Greek letters T I E, used as numerals: "the character representing 300 (T) is the Lord's sign (Cross), and I and E indicate the Savior's name," et cetera, of cabalistic twaddle. (Strom. VI, xi; ANF. ii, 499.) Clement believes the heathen gods and the Sibyls, and all the demigods and myths of Greece: "We have also demonstrated Moses to be more ancient, not only than those called, poets and wise men, but than most of their deities. Not alone he, but the Sibyl, is more ancient than Orpheus. ... On her arrival at Delphi she sang: 'O Delphians, ministers of far-darting Apollo, I come to declare the mind of AEgis-bearing Zeus, Enraged as I am at my own brother Apollo.'" (Strom. ii, 325.)-- extracted from Joseph Wheless,