SOURCE: “Lecture III” in The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Clarendon Press, 1886, pp. 76-114.

In the following excerpt, Bigg provides an overview of many of Clement's beliefs, including those concerning evil, fear, knowledge, and faith.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three: but the greatest of these is charity.—I Cor. xiii. 13.

Clement did not admit the pre-existence of the soul or the eternity of Matter,¹ but in other respects followed closely the Philonic view of Creation. God of His goodness and love created the world of Ideas, the invisible heaven and earth, and in accordance with this divine model the Word gave shape and substance to the material universe.² The six days are not to be understood literally. They express in an allegory the differing dignity of the things recorded to have been created on each in succession.³ The pre-eminence of Man is further shown by...