SOURCE: “Structural Similarities and Dissimilarities in the Thought of Clement of Alexandria and the Valentinians,” in The Second Century: A Journal of Early Christian Studies, Vol. 3, No. 4, Winter, 1983, pp. 201-17.

In the following essay, Davison compares and contrasts the stances of the Valentinians and of Clement in four areas: the doctrine of God; creation and humanity; salvation; and eschatology.

Even a cursory reading of selections from the work of Clement of Alexandria suggests that there are characteristic motifs at work that set him somewhat apart from the general trend of developing orthodoxy in the late second and early third centuries.¹ These motifs bear resemblances to features that are well known from Gnosticism. When we bear in mind that Clement sometimes quotes Valentinus and the Valentinians approvingly,² we are led to wonder how close Clement's thought in fact is to that of Gnosticism and, more particularly, to that of...