addresses itself to the cultured by satisfying the scientific demand for
a philosophical ethic and theory of the world, and at the same time
reveals to the believer the rich content of his faith. Here then is
found, in form and content, the scientific Christian doctrine of
religion which, while not contradicting the faith, does not merely
support or explain it in a few places, but raises it to another and
higher intellectual sphere, namely, out of the province of authority and
obedience into that of clear knowledge and inward, intellectual assent
emanating from love to God.[667] Clement cannot imagine that the
Christian faith, as found in tradition, can of itself produce the union
of intellectual independence and devotion to God which he regards as
moral perfection. He is too much of a Greek philosopher for that, and
believes that this aim is only reached through knowledge. But in so far
as this is only the deciphering of the secrets revealed in the Holy
Scriptures through the Logos, secrets which the believer also gains
possession of by subjecting himself to them, all knowledge is a
reflection of the divine revelation. The lofty ethical and religious
ideal of the man made perfect in fellowship with God, which Greek
philosophy had developed since the time of Plato and to which it had
subordinated the whole scientific knowledge of the world, was adopted
and heightened by Clement, and associated not only with Jesus Christ but
also with ecclesiastical Christianity. But, whilst connecting it with
the Church tradition, he did not shrink from the boldest remodelling of
the latter, because the preservation of its wording was to him a
sufficient guarantee of the Christian character of the speculation.[668]
In Clement, then, ecclesiastical Christianity reached the stage that
Judaism had attained in Philo, and no doubt the latter exercised great
influence over him.[669] Moreover, Clement stands on the ground that
Justin had already trodden, but he has advanced far beyond this
Apologist. His superiority to Justin not only consists in the fact that
he changed the apologetic task that the latter had in his mind into a
systematic and positive one; but above all in the circumstance that he
transformed the tradition of the Christian Church, which in his days was
far more extensive and more firmly established than in Justin's time,
into a real scientific dogmatic; whereas Justin neutralised the greater
part of this tradition by includin