Exhortation to the Gentiles

The treatise “Admonition to the Pagans” (12 chapters) is the first part of the “Great Trilogy” of Clement of Alexandria, in which the pagans are called to the true faith and the reason for the superiority of Christianity over paganism is explained. The work was written around 195 and its task is to reveal to the pagans all the inconsistency of their religious beliefs and to convince them to accept the Christian faith. The main idea of ​​the work is that the divine word is superior to Hellenic philosophy, poetry and music and produced true culture, while the pagan religion is unreasonable and immoral. Chapters 1-7 are devoted to criticism of paganism. Clement criticizes oracles, mysteries, mythology, sacrifices, and the religious doctrines of philosophers and poets. In philosophy, according to his teaching, there is only part of the truth, but the complete truth was revealed by the prophets through whom the Holy Spirit spoke. Chapters 8-12 are devoted to the call to Christ. After the appearance on earth of the Logos Himself, there is no need to seek truth anywhere, only from Him, since He is the Word of Truth. Clement, on the basis of Holy Scripture, depicts the goodness and mercy of God as a motive for conversion, cites evidence from pagan writers in favor of monotheism, exhorts to listen to Christ, flee from pagan life and live in honor of God and communion with Him. In his work, Clement of Alexandria briefly touches on many important issues of Christian theology: it develops the doctrine of God as the Creator of everything and Provider; issues of triadology and Christology are addressed, including the doctrine of the Logos, the Son and the Word of God, emphasizing His connection with the Father and affirming His deity; elements of the doctrine of creation, anthropology and soteriology are proposed. *The title of the work in Greek is Προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς ῞Ελληνας (title according to the RKP. Paris. gr. 451, in publications Λόγος is often added at the beginning). *The title of the work in Latin is Protrepticus (according to CPG, in Blessed Jerome - Adversus gentes or Contra gentes; in PG - Cohortatio ad gentes). Contents Titus Flavius Clement – reconciler of opposites Titus Flavius Clement - reconciler of opposites Introductory article to the "Admonition to the Gentiles" and "Which of the Rich Will Be Saved" In loving memory of my teacher, Professor Alexander Iosifovich Zaitsev Biographical information about Clement of Alexandria, which we find in Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius, Cyril of Alexandria and Photius, is very scarce and in most cases unreliable. Therefore, it will be useful to “ask about Clement only from his own books,” as Rudyard Kipling would say. It is known that Titus Flavius ​​Clement 1, like Justin and Tatian, before converting to Christianity, long sought the truth in Greek philosophy, which he thoroughly studied. You can be convinced of this by reading his works, where he not only introduces readers to the basic postulates of various philosophical schools, but also borrows certain provisions from pagan sages when creating his teaching, like a true son of his age - the age of eclecticism. Being naturally inquisitive, he travels a lot and takes initiation into the pagan mysteries, the knowledge of which will be useful to him later, when, turning away idolaters from error, he will expose the Hellenic mysteries, speaking of their immorality and cruelty, citing the absurd formulas that the initiates pronounce, and listing the secret symbols used in the rites. Along with other cults that came to the Roman Empire from the East, Clement becomes acquainted with Christianity and finds himself completely conquered by the truth revealed to him. However, even after his conversion, he does not cease to lead the life of a wanderer, possessed by one passion - to learn more deeply about a new teaching. He will later state that if a wise man had to choose between the knowledge of God and eternal salvation (if they were different), then the wise man would prefer the first (Clem. Strom., IV (22) 136, 5). In this matter, Clement differs strikingly from Tertullian, who believed that there is nothing in common between Athens (i.e., philosophical knowledge) and Jerusalem (i.e., faith) 2 . Burning with a desire to hear the best Christian preachers, Titus Flavius ​​moved from city to city until he met in Alexandria with the former Stoic Panten, who had headed the catechetical (catechetical) school since 179. The scholarship of this man made an indelible impression on Clement, who became his assistant. I recall his following words from the “Admonition to the Pagans” (Clem. Protr., 112, 1): “It seems to me that […] we should no longer go to study with people, striving for Athens and the rest of Hellas, as well as Ionia,” because there is Alexandria! In 190 Panten, who, according to legend, went to preach the teachings of Christ in India, left as his successor Clement, who by this time had received the rank of presbyter. During the persecution of Septimius Severus in 202–203. Titus Flavius ​​had to leave Alexandria and go to his former student Alexander, who became the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Clement, unlike Tertullian, who even wrote a treatise “On Flight during Persecution,” did not believe that flight is unworthy of a Christian (cf. Matt. 10:23). The leadership of the catechetical school was taken over by Origen 3, who was then eighteen years old (Eus. H. E., VI 3, 3) 4. In the early 210s. Clement is in Jerusalem, as evidenced by the letter of the Bishop of Jerusalem Alexander (Eus. H. E., VI 11, 6). Whether he had a chance to return to Alexandria is unknown. He died around 215. Clement was a brilliant polemicist and apologist. A. Amman characterizes him with the following words: “By nature an enthusiast, poet and mystic, persuasive, eloquent, showing in some cases remarkable intuition, Clement captivates with his freshness, spontaneity and sensitivity, his invariably vivid imagination” 5 . His style is leisurely and calm. Having come to the knowledge of the truth of Christian teaching after a long search, he treats the pagans with paternal sympathy, to whom he wants to give the happiness of true knowledge of God. In the works that form a kind of trilogy - "Admonition to the Pagans", "Pedagogy" and "Stromata" - Clement examines paganism ("Admonition"), Christianity ("Pedagogue") and Christianity in its relation to paganism ("Stromata"). The basis for these works was probably the lectures he gave at his school. Clement's "Admonition to the Hellenes" (i.e. to the pagans) appeared around 192: in the Stromata, which was probably written later than the Protrepticus, Clement speaks of the death of the emperor Komoda (192) as a recent event (Clem. Strom., I (21) 144, 1–145, 5). In the “Exhortation,” Clement reveals to his readers the essence of the pagan mysteries, proves the vanity of idolatry, calling pagan philosophers and poets as witnesses, and invites readers to become participants in the true sacraments - to accept Christ. In form and content, the “Exhortation” differs significantly from early Christian apologies 6. It does not name the recipients, and says almost nothing about the persecution of Christians. The only indication of such persecution are the words: “unfortunate, pitiful people believe that God speaks through the raven and the jackdaw, and not through a man, and they honor the raven as the messenger of God, but they persecute the man of God, who does not croak, does not cackle, but speaks articulately. Woe to those who do not expect mercy from heaven and do not evade punishment, who try to inhumanly kill those who teach them wisely and philanthropically and call for justice” (Clem. Protr., 104, 2). Hints of a threat to truth and its defenders are contained in Protr. 71, 3 and 74, 2. Hatred of good and its prohibition are spoken of in Protr. 89, 3. Titus Flavius ​​does not mention the accusations brought against Christians. He doesn't defend himself or blame. He prefers the role of a teacher. In the era of the emergence of Christianity, it was necessary not only to defeat the pagans in philosophical disputes and prove the truth of church teaching, but, no less important, to convince Christians to abandon pagan customs. This is precisely what the three books of “The Teacher,” which represents the first Christian “Domostroy,” are dedicated to. In it, Clement describes in great detail furniture, food, clothing, utensils, decorations, approving some things and condemning others, teaches how to behave at the table, in the bathhouse, how to have fun, what kind of hairstyle a woman should have, what kind of beard a man should have, and much more. In literary terms, The Teacher is weaker than the Exhortations. However, what now seems to us a boring listing of rules of behavior was very popular in antiquity. Otherwise, Cicero would not have written his treatise “On Duties.” “Stromata” (“Carpets”, “Patterned Fabrics”) consists of eight books. Clement compares this work of his to a garden where different flowers and trees grow in disorder (Clem. Strom., VI (1) 2, 1). “Stromata” is designed for the perfect Christian; in them, knowledge about the Divine hidden from the crowd is revealed to readers. In the essay “What Rich Man Will Be Saved,” Clement, true to his principle of avoiding extremes, tries to develop the social teaching of the Church, saying that it is not wealth that prevents a person from entering the Kingdom of Heaven, but an addiction to wealth. Excerpts from the Hypotyposes have reached us, which, according to Photius, who found many “blasphemous and fabulous” opinions in them, were brief explanations of certain sayings. Apparently, this work fell into the hands of the patriarch in a version revised by extreme Origenists, who preached the eternity of matter and the transmigration of souls. These works are by no means all that Clement wrote; Many of his works, unfortunately, have not survived. Allegorical method and the Old Testament A feature of all Clement’s works is the allegorism characteristic of the Alexandrian school in interpreting the Bible 7 . Christians, according to the theory of Titus Flavius, are divided into simple and perfect. The literal meaning of Scripture satisfies only the former. Perfect Christians, thanks to the allegorical interpretation of biblical texts, receive knowledge hidden from others. The allegorical method, popular at that time both among pagan philosophers, who looked to Homer for confirmation of their opinions, and among Jewish ones (just remember Philo of Alexandria), was easily borrowed by early Christian authors. Even Tertullian, an early Latin Christian writer who “was not too keen on the allegorical interpretation of biblical texts” 8, sometimes used this method 9. Among the many reasons for such a willingness of Christians to follow in the footsteps of representatives of alien religions, one should mention the opportunity for them to prove the antiquity of Christian truth with reference to the Old Testament. The fact is that everything new in antiquity was very often viewed as bad. Everything ancient, on the contrary, evoked respect. The Latin phrase res novae (lit. “new things”) meant “coup d'état” (Sall. Cat., 39, 6). Having come to power, Caesar, according to Suetonius (Suet. Iul., 42, 3), dissolved all colleges, except those established in ancient times. Thucydides, speaking about contemporary war, notes that people are more inclined to be surprised by the wars of the past (Thuc. I, 21, 2). A particular people was considered worthy of attention if it could prove its antiquity. Therefore, Josephus writes “Antiquities of the Jews” and “On the Antiquity of the Jewish People.” This was the mentality of the ancients: “In archaic and medieval society, the greatest satisfaction, apparently, was not the receipt of original information, or not only it, but also the recognition of what was previously known, a new confirmation of old and therefore especially valued truths” 10. Even in the Greek literary language of the Hellenistic era, there was an archaizing tendency that prompted writers to focus on the examples of the classical Attic norm of the V-IV centuries. BC We find the same attitude towards antiquity in art. Plato in the Republic (Plat. Resp., IV, 424 bc) advised the guards most of all to beware of introducing a new style of performing musical works, because changes in music are followed by changes in the most important state institutions. Horace complained in his letter (Hor. Epist., II, 1, 21-78) that ancient poets were valued more than modern ones (cf. Mart. Epigr., VIII, 69, 1-2). Clement of Alexandria admits that “for some reason there is a habit of treating the present with disdain, while the past, separated from momentary reproaches by the veil of time, is honored through fiction; they don’t believe in the present, they marvel at the past” (Clem. Protr., 55, 2) 11. That is why he warns the reader: “Do not consider the saving song (i.e. Christ) of which I speak to be new in the same sense as a utensil or a dwelling: for it was before the morning star” (Clem. Protr., 6, 3). Clement’s contemporary, the early Latin Christian writer, the Carthaginian Tertullian, states in his Apologetics: “The greatest antiquity gives the highest authority to these documents (i.e. the Bible); also for you (i.e. pagans) claims to truth are sacred if they are supported by reference to antiquity” (Tert. Apol. 19, 1). Tertullian considers it possible to use the criterion of antiquity in his other works. Thus, in “Prescription against Heretics” he states: “The consistency itself proves that only that […] is true that was transmitted initially; and what was introduced later is alien and false” 12 (Tert. De praescr., 31). Therefore, the best way for Christian apologists to prove the truth of the new religion was to demonstrate its antiquity by citing an ancient source. As the latter, Christianity acquired a “necessary past” 13 – the Old Testament tradition. After all, “the only mitigating circumstance for their (i.e., the Jews) religion was its antiquity. Christians did not have this either” 14. “Like the Jews, they seemed to be “godless” people who did not pay due respect to the images of the gods and churches. But while the Jews were an ancient people, and this gave them the legal right to follow in religious matters the customs of their ancestors, the Christians, as a newly emerging sect with a mixed national composition, could not claim a similar privilege." 15 Christianity, which arose in Palestine among the Galileans, was essentially Hellenistic, not Old Testament. V.V. Bychkov calls it “a natural product of Hellenistic culture.” According to the scientist, “this is a new phenomenon in the Greco-Roman world that arose on the basis of the main tendencies of Hellenism towards cosmopolitanism, monotheism, new morality, and finally, towards a new irrationalism” 16. Biblical quotations scattered throughout the text of the New Testament only prove that the apostles already felt the importance of referring to authoritative antiquity. From this fact it does not at all follow that New Testament Christianity “is completely imbued with the influence of the Old Testament, which was of decisive importance in the development of New Testament categories and concepts” 17. Note that Plato also repeatedly quoted Homer, although he proposed expelling him from the State as a dishonor of the gods. By the way, almost all biblical quotations in the New Testament corpus have been changed to one degree or another, for “in the eyes of Christians, the Old Testament had authority not in itself, but by virtue of interpretation” 18. The Palestinian flavor, which gives a unique originality to the Gospels, should not blind us to the fact that the ideas contained in them and flowing from them have no more relation to the religion of Moses than to the philosophical (Stoic, Platonic, etc.) schools and religious-mystical cults of the Mediterranean of the first century after Christ. The “single information space” created by Alexander the Great from Egypt to India, which has survived after the collapse of his Empire, it allowed people of different cultures to join each other’s spiritual and material values. An interesting confirmation of the penetration of Greek images and ideas into the non-Greek environment is, for example, the fact that the translators of the Bible, the famous “70 interpreters,” translated the name of Job’s third daughter Karengappuh (lit. “horn of antimony”) (Job.42:14) as “Amalthea’s horn”: Amalthea is the goat who suckled Zeus, whose horn became a cornucopia, and the aegis (lit. “goatskin”) went to Zeus’s shield. However, the Old Testament itself, which was created over many centuries, absorbed the myths and beliefs of neighboring tribes. According to R. Graves and R. Patai, “the book of Genesis is much more closely connected with Greek, Phoenician, Hittite, Ugaritic, Sumerian and other mythologies than most devout Jews and Christians are willing to admit...” 19. Some examples of such a connection and such influence can be found in D. D. Fraser 20. Sometimes they speak of a “synthesis of Hellenistic and Jewish literary forms and Christian content” in the New Testament Gospels and Epistles 21 . It should be noted, however, that it is difficult to postulate the existence of strictly “Jewish literary forms” in the first century after Christ, since already “the Second Book of Maccabees (2nd or 1st century BC) is an example of a Jewish historical work, Hellenistic in form, but Jewish in content” 22 . Indeed, “after more than three hundred years of Greek influence, Palestinian Judaism can also be characterized as “Hellenistic Judaism”” 23 . “With all the hostility towards the surrounding paganism, with all the exclusivity of monotheism, which did not allow any other gods next to Yahweh, Jewish religious thought was strongly influenced, firstly, by Hellenism and, secondly, by Iranian-Indian culture. The influence of Hellenism is reflected in the spread of Stoicism and Platonism. Even in Jerusalem itself there were Greek schools at that time, a mention of which was preserved in the Talmud, but Hellenism spread especially significantly among the Jews of the Diaspora” 24. According to M.I. Rizhsky, “two fundamental ideas were inherited by Christianity from Judaism in its Pharisaic interpretation – the idea of ​​predestination and the related idea of ​​chosenness” 25 . To prove this opinion, the scientist refers to the words of the Apostle Paul (Rom. 9:10–18, 30–33). It should be noted, however, that along with similar thoughts that the apostle, the disciple of Gamaliel (Acts 22:3) 26, was obliged to the Jewish tradition, others can be found in the New Testament. In particular, before the Ascension, the Lord says to his disciples: “Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved; and whoever does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16). There is no talk of any predestination here, just as there is no talk of it in the words spoken to Peter: “And I will give you the keys of the Kingdom of Heaven; and whatever you bind on earth... will also be loosed in heaven” (Matthew 16:19). On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that the idea of ​​predestination is not characteristic only of Judaism: here one can recall the Moirai, and Ananka, and the Stoic amor fati. As for the idea of ​​chosenness, here again we need to refer to the words of R. Graves and R. Pataya: “Only the hero or his descendants could count on a pleasant pastime after death on the Happy Islands or the Champs-Elysees. The souls of slaves and strangers, no matter how righteous they were, were condemned to stay in Tartarus, where they flew like blind bats. The Jews, on the contrary, believed that all who followed the Mosaic Law, regardless of origin and position, would enter the Kingdom of Heaven, which would rise from the ashes of the modern world." 27 It follows that a kind of “chosenness” - descent from one or another god, giving hope for afterlife bliss - was characteristic of Greece to a much greater extent than of Israel. The openness of Christianity to the world and the absence of ethnic and religious prejudices in it is evidenced by Christ’s attitude towards the Hellenes (“pagans”) (Mark 7:24–30; John 12:20–24) and the Samaritans (Luke 10:30–37, 17:11–19; John 4:4–40). The influence of Hellenistic philosophical thought on the compiler of the Gospel of John is confirmed, for example, by their use of the term λὁγος (John 1:1) 28. The idea of ​​the trinity of the Godhead (Matthew 28:19), blasphemous for Judaism, was quite acceptable for people brought up on Greek philosophy. Drinking blood (or wine, “the fruit of the vine,” symbolizing blood, cf. Mark 14:23–24), unacceptable for an adherent of the law of Moses, could not confuse the pagans: according to Tertullian, in his time “the blood dedicated to Bellona, ​​collected on the palm of the cut thigh and intended for consumption, is a sign of dedication” (Tert. Apol. 9, 10). Famous classical philologist F.F. Zelinsky, without intending to “belittle the creative initiative” of Christ, names the following among several “embryos of Christianity in the Hellenistic religion”: 1) in the religion of the sacraments the question of the salvation of the human soul is raised; the condition for salvation becomes a certain sacramental act, which can be a sacred meal; 2) the object of worship of the initiates becomes the image of the mother goddess; 3) the first place comes to the image of the god-son (Apollo), understood as an intermediary between the god-father (Zeus) and people; 4) the idea appears that “a deity can, without losing the fullness of its otherworldly nature, be embodied in a human form and live an earthly life together with other people, so that only after death it can be reunited with its otherworldly nature: thus Zeus the Victorious was on earth Seleucus, the king of Syria” 29. According to R.Yu. Vipper, “the idea of ​​a divine savior was inherent not only to the Jews of the Diaspora, but also to representatives of the Greco-Roman culture of the 1st century […] The idea of ​​a savior was an idea that was generated by the religious quest of the era of the Empire” 30. So, Christianity at the time of its emergence was greatly influenced by Hellenistic culture. If the Palestinian realities were the background against which the actions described in the Gospels unfolded, then it turned out to be the substrate of Christianity 31 . Its impact could be direct and indirect. An example of the latter is the influence of the Essenes on Christianity, who in turn learned a lot from the Greeks: on the one hand, “Essene teaching, as reflected in the manuscripts discovered in the Dead Sea region, had a great influence on the formation of early Christianity” 32. On the other hand, “the influence of Greek thought on the Essenes is significant. One of the Essene psalms identifies David and Orpheus, not without a clear hint of Pythagoreanism. In this way, the likening of Christ to Orpheus is anticipated, as we see in the painting of the Roman catacombs” 33. Tertullian tried to prove that it is the Old Testament that gives antiquity to the new religion (which he calls a “sect”): “But since we have declared that this sect, which the majority considers to be quite young, since its origin dates back to the time of Tiberius, is based on the most ancient Jewish documents, then because of this doubt may arise as to its actual position, as if it were hiding under the shadow of a most remarkable religion, of course, permitted by law. some personal superstitions. Doubt may also arise due to the fact that, apart from age, we have nothing in common with the Jews, neither in food restrictions, nor in holidays, nor in the physical sign of circumcision itself, nor in the name” (Tert. Apol. 21, 1-2). Despite his rather free handling of biblical texts, Tertullian rushed to their defense when the Gnostic Marcion, who saw what seemed to him a fundamental difference between the contents of the Old and New Testaments, developed the doctrine of the harsh God of the first and the good God of the second. Consisting of five books, Tertullian’s treatise “Against Marcion” is the largest in volume of his 31st works that have come down to us. Obviously, the Carthaginian author considered the threat posed by this heretic to be the most dangerous: it deprived Christianity of its “roots.” Marcion's Christ, according to Tertullian, has no right to judge people, because His coming was not predicted, no one was waiting for Him (Tert. Adv. Marc., IV, 23, 2). Tertullian (like most of his contemporaries) could not admit the existence of a “new” truth; truth, according to him, is the most ancient of all (Tert. Apol. 47, 1). Among the Christian communities in the first centuries of Christianity, the so-called Gnostics stood out, many of whom were quite critical of the Old Testament. In search of another authoritative source, they turned to Homer. The Christian author Hippolytus (170–236) talks about what the Gnostic Naassenes saw in the words of the Odyssey: “Meanwhile, Ermias, the god of Killenia, summoned the men of the slain Souls from the insensible corpses; having in his hand his golden Rod (at his request, inducing Sleep on the alert, opening the sleepy eyes of the sleepy ones), he waved it, and, in a crowd, the shadows flew behind Ermiy” (Od. XXIV, 1–5, trans. V.A. Zhukovsky) an allusion to the Christian word, the golden rod of which is the iron rod from the psalm (Ps. 2:9). According to the Naassenes, it, awakening sleeping souls, acts in accordance with the role belonging to Christ (Eph. 5:14) (Hipp. Ref., V. 7, 29-33) 34. Let us note that Clement repeatedly tries to allegorically interpret Homeric images. In the "Exhortation", for example, he compares the mast to which Odysseus was tied so as not to die at the sound of the sirens' song (Od. XII, 178–179), with the tree of the Cross of the Lord (Clem. Protr., 118, 4). However, even Clement did not dare to widely use the pagan epic as an “ancient source” confirming the truth of the new faith. There are many reasons for this. As mentioned above, Plato was already critical of Homer. G. K. Chesterton writes that classical antiquity in later times was compromised by many obscene myths. In addition, as we know, “no prophet is accepted in his own country” (Luke 4:24): the inhabitants of the Roman Empire, seeking God, needed mystery, obscurity and enigma. The experienced preacher Clement felt this: “Are you not becoming insensitive, like Niobe, or rather, I will tell you something more mysterious, like the Jewish woman (the ancients called her Lot’s wife)? This woman was petrified because of her attachment to the inhabitants of Sodom, who were atheists, fallen into wickedness, hard-hearted and stupid” (Clem. Protr., 103, 4). Habitual comparisons did not make the hearts of Titus Flavius’s contemporaries, who were carried away by the cults of Cybele, Isis and Osiris, beat faster. Using ancient biblical images, Clement ensured that intellectuals who had lost faith in their native gods paid attention to the new religion. So, only a reference to an ancient source could in that era give authority to a new teaching, which, due to human inertia, would not otherwise have been accepted. In that case, however, if the ideas of the new divinely inspired religion differed quite strongly from the ideas of the “primary source,” the adherents of this religion had, “for the sake of housebuilding,” to turn to the allegorical method, which made it possible to find in any ancient text a fulfilled prediction or elements of the “secret teaching.” How convenient an allegory was in interpreting an image in the right direction can be judged from the following example. Clement of Alexandria writes: “Punishment awaits the prince of evil himself. The prophet Zechariah threatens him: “May He who delivered Jerusalem condemn you. Isn’t this a brand pulled from the fire?” Is it possible that people have an inherent desire for voluntary death? Why did they resort to this deadly brand, with which they will burn, when they can live well in accordance not with custom, but with the will of God? (Clem. Protr., 90, 1–2). By “brand” the prophet means Jerusalem; Clement believes that Zechariah called Satan that. Ambrose of Milan (c. 340–397) interprets the same place in a completely different way: “[...] through the mouth of Isaiah it was revealed that all people are subject to purification by Christ’s suffering. He burned away our sins like coal burning away our flesh, as Zechariah says: “Is He not a brand plucked out of the fire? Jesus was dressed in filthy garments” (Zechariah 3:2–3) (Ambr. De Spiritu Sancto, I, 10, 113). Pagan mysteries in the interpretation of Clement. “Admonition to the Gentiles” is a small work compared to the immense “Stromata,” but nevertheless gives us a very complete idea of ​​Clement’s work. Here you can find allegorical interpretations, everyday sketches, etymological research, and quotes from comedians, tragedians, mythologists, historians, logographers, from the oracles of the Sibyl and Orphic hymns, their Bible and Homer; here you can find many myths, learn about certain local cults, about sculptors and their creations, about churches and oracles. Clement is not afraid to talk about the darkest, obscene things that exist in paganism - about some rituals and the myths that underlie them, and about the brightest - the insights of pagan sages, in particular Plato, whom Clement takes as his assistant in the search for God (Clem. Protr., 68, 1). The author of the "Exhortation" constantly remembers that he is writing for educated pagans 36. He begins his book by comparing the legendary Greek singers, such as Amphion, Arion, Eunom, Orpheus with another Singer, with the Logos who came into the world, singing the New Song, and ends with a comparison of the Christian sacraments with Bacchic orgies. In general, Clement does not deny himself the pleasure of introducing us to various mysteries. If Justin, Theophilus of Antioch and Tatian attacked Greek mythology as the weakest point of their opponents, the pagans, in order to expose their entire culture, then Clement of Alexandria, not limiting himself to a brief retelling of myths demonstrating the vanity and depravity of the pagan world as a whole, sought first of all to expose the mysteries popular in his time. Of the apologists who preceded him, perhaps none wrote about this in such detail. Tatian, for example, only reports about the Eleusinian Mysteries that they testify to the copulation of Zeus with his daughter and her birth, that the abduction of Persephone by Pluto becomes the mysteries in which Demeter mourns her daughter (Tat. Orat., 8). Clement, so that no one would think that he missed something out of ignorance (Clem. Protr., 47, 7), sometimes talks about things that do not serve his immediate purpose. He loves to demonstrate his knowledge of everything related to paganism. Talking about the wandering of Demeter and her grief, he replaces Yamba, who made the goddess laugh with obscene jokes, with Baubo, who, when the sad Demeter refused to drink kykeon, lifted her hem and showed the goddess her shame. “Demeter rejoices at the spectacle and takes a sip of the drink, enjoying what she sees. This is the mystery of the Athenians" (Ibid., 20, 3). Thus, Clement, in order to compromise the famous Eleusinian mysteries, introduces into them 37 Baubo, which belongs to the Orphic mysteries. By attributing to some sacraments the characteristics of others, the author concentrates the obscene in them. According to M. P. Nilsson, who questioned the fact that Clement was among the initiates, church authors did not strive for accuracy in the descriptions of rituals and did not check which particular mysteries these rituals belonged to. The goal of Christian writers was to show the reprehensibility of the mysteries. Readers knew virtually nothing about this subject and could not verify the information reported 38 . It is difficult, however, to attribute what was said to Clement, who was distinguished by his meticulousness, who could hardly afford to ignore the opinions of people who could expose him. This would mean that there were very few initiates into the Eleusinian Mysteries (which is not true) and that the apologist deliberately refused the opportunity to convert them: who would attract people to himself with an obvious lie? It is unlikely that his words “if you are dedicated, you will laugh more than others at these myths that you honor” (Clem. Protr., 14, 1) are a deliberate bluff. If Clement was not afraid of being caught in a lie, then this could mean that he is talking about little-known varieties of mysteries or, finding base aspects in known ones, trying to compromise the higher, developed form by turning to the lower, interprets them in such a way that they all appear before us in a completely obscene form. Militant atheists of later times acted in a similar way, ridiculing the Bible. Finally, he could, by declaring the similarity of the mysteries among themselves 39, allow himself to artificially create “on paper” some eclectic sacraments in which knowledgeable people could find familiar features of the rituals known to them. In this case, we should not talk about malice and distortion of facts, but about the literary device of the author. This eclecticism should not have deterred connoisseurs: E. Hatch mentions “paintings in non-Christian catacombs in Rome that contain elements of the Greek mysteries of Sabazius and Mithras in a way that suggests that their cults were also mixed” 40 . At the beginning of his “Exhortation” (13, 1–2), Clement derives the word “mysteries” both from the word μúσος (“shame”), and from the name of Miunts from Attica, who died hunting, and from the words “hunting fables (i.e. myths).” At the same time, he seems to forget that the word “mysteries” is already used in the New Testament 41. However, at the end of the Exhortation, speaking of the Christian sacraments, he exclaims: “O truly holy mysteries!” (Clem. Protr., 120, 1) 42. In the Stromata, Clement refers to the mysteries, which were often celebrated at night, to prove the thesis about the usefulness of night time for meditation (Clem. Strom., IV (22) 140, 2), and writes that the Savior initiates Christians into the sacraments in accordance with the words of Euripides, 43 about the inadmissibility of the uninitiated to know them (Ibid., IV (25) 162, 3–4). Different perceptions of the sacraments are characteristic not only of Clement of Alexandria and, for example, the Carthaginian Tertullian, but also of the East and West in general. According to E. Hatch, “the Christian communities that were closest in form and spirit to Greek culture” (we are talking about the Gnostics) were the first to introduce elements identical to those that existed in the pagan sacraments 44. The initial simplicity and openness of the cult were gradually replaced by the pomp and mystery characteristic of pagan rituals. So, for example, thanks to the Gnostics, according to E. Hatch, the period of preparation for baptism was lengthened 45. It is no coincidence that the services of the Eastern (Orthodox) Church are characterized by greater splendor, inherited from the ancient mysteries, than those of the Western Church. It was in the West that Protestants, who sought to return to the simplicity of the Judeo-Christian cult, took a decisive step towards simplifying rituals. So, Clement’s “Eleusinian Mysteries,” endowed with Orphic and, possibly, Alexandrian 46 features, are the fruits of his creativity. Pagan myths became priceless material for him, a treasury from which he brought out “new and old” (cf. Matt. 13:52). If Justin saw in them only plagiarism of demons, then they helped Clement speak in a language understandable to his readers. Having shown at the beginning of the Exhortation the baseness of the pagan mysteries, he at the end led the reader to the idea that the Christian sacraments, being immeasurably higher than the pagan ones, should replace them in people's lives. Unlike Tatian and some other Christian apologists, who considered everything connected with paganism to be the work of the devil, Clement had great respect for Hellenic wisdom, believing that philosophers among the Greeks played the role of Jewish prophets 47 . In his opinion, they borrowed a lot from the Holy Scriptures, but some of them received revelation directly from the Divine Word: Clement found Justin’s idea about the pre-Christian action of the Logos close. Thus, having praised Plato (“Wonderful, O Plato, you touch the truth!”), the author of the “Exhortation” turns to him: “Let us begin the search for the good together, for in all people in general, especially in those who spend a lot of time in the pursuit of science, a certain divine stream flows drop by drop (τìς ἀπόῤῤοια θεϊκή)" (Clem. Protr., 68, 2). Below he says that not only Plato, but also many others proclaimed as God only one single God according to His inspiration (κατ? ὲπίπνοιαν αὐτοῦ) when they happened to grasp the truth (Ibid., 71, 1). Clement admits that philosophers sometimes wrote “by the inspiration of God” (Ibid., 72, 5), and about the Hellenes he claims that if they, “having accepted into themselves certain truths of the divine Word, said little about the truth, then they testify by this that its power is not hidden” (Ibid., 74, 7). Speaking of innate faith (ἔμφυτος πίστις) as a reliable witness (Ibid., 95, 3) 48, he does not deny to the pagans some knowledge of God outside the Bible (cf. Rom. 1:19-21). Early Christian authors had two points of view on demons. According to one of them, the least popular, there is no fundamental difference between the human soul and a demon (or angel), souls and demons are different modes of the same substance. This point of view was held by Clement's younger contemporary Origen. In his treatise “On Principles,” he wrote about spiritual beings who initially had equal dignity - about angels who receive this “position according to merit,” about the creations subordinate to them, in the form of people who atone for their fall, about demons who can, over the course of centuries, after severe trials, ascend to heaven (Orig. De princ., I, 6, 2-3 and 8, 4). Such statements, unacceptable to most Christian authors, 49 were by no means new. This is what Philo of Alexandria taught, who argued that souls, demons and angels are different names, but they have the same basis, ὑποκείμενον (Phil. De gig., 16). Some souls descended to the bodies, while others did not want to cleave to the earthly, just as the demiurge uses servants to monitor mortals (Ibid., 12). The vicious angels (or souls), who did not know virtue, coveted human daughters, i.e. pleasures (Ibid., 17). Philo's demonology in this work ultimately boils down to the doctrine of human souls. Empedocles spoke about the punishment of demons who incarnate in various images of mortal creatures before ascending to divine honors in the Purifications (Fr. 115, 146), and Socrates (Plat. Crat., 397d-398c et Plat. Resp., V, 468e-469b), referring to Hesiod, teaches that worthy people become demons 50. According to Diogenes Laertius (Diog. Vitae philos., VIII), Pythagoras taught that the air is full of souls, called demons and heroes. In the Pythagorean “Golden Verses” (70 et seq.) it is said: “If, having left the body, you come into the free ether, you will be an immortal god, eternal, no longer mortal.” In the scholia to 1140 art. “Alcestis” by Euripides we read: “They say that the dead are demons.” Chalcidius criticizes in his commentary on the Timaeus those who believe that demons are souls without the burden of bodies 51 . According to another point of view, demons are the souls of giants, i.e. children of fallen angels from mortal women (Ath. Leg., 24, 3; 25, 1) 52, or the giants themselves (Iust. Apol., II, 5, 3). Here we meet with a literal understanding of the 2nd verse from the 6th chapter of the book of Genesis: “Then the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took them as wives as anyone chose” 53 . According to Justin (Iust. Apol., I, 5, 2; II, 5, 5–6), the angels themselves take names for themselves and their children, demons, and the crimes of the gods described by the poets are the deeds of these unclean spirits 54 . He writes: “Even in ancient times, evil demons, appearing openly, showed people amazing horrors” (Iust. Apol., I, 5, 2). “Eugemerist” Athenagoras believed that demons only usurp the names of dead people who did what is said in myths (Ath. Leg., 26, 1), and use the deceptive movements of the human soul (Ibid., 27). He was accused of creating images borrowed from matter, not of the demons themselves, but of these unreasonable mental movements 55. People themselves are responsible for their inventions: Athenagoras, mentioning the peacemakers Orpheus, Homer and Hesiod, does not give them demons as inspirations (Ibid., 18, 26). Thus, in addition to the devil, who neglected his duties (Ibid., 18, 26), “who fell into a great fall because he deceived Eve” (Iust. Dial., 214, 3), there are also demons and fallen angels. Tertullian, who mastered the division of the forces of evil into the devil, angels and demons, taught that “the angels fell from God and heaven because of their lust for women (ob concupiscentiam feminarum)” (Tert. De virg., 7, 2). He calls demons “the offspring of bad angels (malorum angelorum proles)” (Tert. Ad. nat., II, 13, 19). In another place he writes: “how from certain angels, who at their own will became vicious, came an even more vicious tribe of demons, condemned by God together with the ancestors of the tribe and with the prince about whom we spoke, can be learned from the Holy Scriptures” (Tert. Ad. nat., II, 13, 19). We see that regarding the origin of demons, Tertullian stands in the position of those who understand (Gen. 6:2) in the light of the words about angels from the book of Enoch 56. In the West, this apocrypha loses its authority only towards the end of the 3rd century. If Cyprian († 258) also spoke of apostate angels as having fallen into communication with earthly things (ad terrene contagia devoluti) (Cypr. De habit., 14), and Lactantius († after 317) argued that by communicating with women the devil had defiled (mulierum congressibus inquinavit) (Lact. Div. inst., 2, 15) 57, then Augustine († 430), following Ambrose († 397) (Ambr. De Noe, 4, 8–9), began to strongly oppose the assumption of the possibility of the fall of angels because of women. Scripture itself, according to him, testifies that in Genesis 6 we are not talking about real angels, but about people who, by grace, were angels and sons of God, but who deviated to something lower. Augustine eliminates the fantastic element in the biblical verse about the sin of the “sons of God” with the daughters of men, not by turning this Bible verse into an allegory and attributing the fall to higher spheres, but by a rationalistic interpretation of the sons of God as sons of Seth according to the flesh (Aug. De civ. Dei, 15, 23, 3-4; cf.: Suidas. s. v. Μιαιγαμίαι), i.e. depriving this place of any mystery. In the East, Origen, as one can easily guess, did not agree with the literal understanding (Gen. 6:2), who speaks as follows about the appearance of evil demons: “We believe that certain demons, bad and, so to speak, like giants or titans (τιτανικοί ἢ γγιάντιοι), have become wicked in relation to the true Deity and the angels of heaven and fallen from heaven and are in denser bodies and impurities on earth” 58 (Orig. Contra Cels., IV, 92, 1). Clement of Alexandria speaks about the reasons for the fall of the angels with his characteristic caution, calling them “those who left God’s beauty because of corruptible beauty (διὰ κάλλος μαραινόμενον) and fell from heaven to earth” (Clem. Paed., III, 2, 14, 2). In the Stromata, he also writes about the fall of the angels because of lust (Clem. Strom., III (7), 59, 2) and because of negligence (Ibid., VII (7), 46, 6), and also that the angels who received a high destiny bowed to pleasures (εἰς ἡδονάς) and revealed secrets to women, while other angels hid, or rather, protected until the coming of the Lord (Ibid., V (1), 10, 2). Like Athenagoras, Clement accuses not demons of myth-making and the invention of mysteries, but people like Orpheus, Amphion and Arion (Clem. Protr., 3, 1). He is indignant at “the fathers of wicked myths and disastrous superstition - the instigators of evil, who sowed mysteries in our lives - the seeds of vices and death” (Ibid., 13, 3-5). Enumerating the reasons for the spread of delusions, he does not name demonic suggestion: “After all, some people, those who fall into error from the mere sight of the sky and look at the movements of the luminaries, trusting only their eyesight, admired and deified them, calling the luminaries gods from the verb “to run,” and began to worship the sun, like the Hindus, the moon, like the Phrygians. Others, those who collect the fruits of cultivated plants, called bread Demeter, like the Athenians, and grapes Dionysus, like the Thebans. Others, knowing about the inevitability of retribution for evil, deify retribution and misfortune, showing them honors. Therefore, the poets of the theatrical stage invented Erinyes and Eumenides, Punishers, Avengers and Alastors. Some of the philosophers do not lag behind the poets, idolizing the types of your passions - Fear, Love, Joy, Hope, such as the ancient Epimenides, who erected altars of Insolence and Shamelessness in Athens. What is also deified is that before, until it was overgrown with fictitious flesh, there were only abstract concepts: a certain justice - Dika, Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, Fate, the Athenians Multiplication and Flowering. There is a sixth way by which delusion spreads and the number of gods increases; according to him, there are twelve gods. This includes the theogony that Hesiod composes and everything that Homer theologizes about. The last one remains (there are seven of these paths), which begins with divine blessings falling on people. Having no idea about the God who sent them down, they invented some kind of saviors - the Dioscuri, Hercules, who averts troubles, and the physician Asclepius" (Ibid.,). “... I can only be surprised,” writes Clement, “carried away by some fantasies 59 of the first lost ones, be it Phoroneus, Meropes or someone else, who erected churches and altars, and, as they say, were the first to make sacrifices, began to preach superstition to people, ordering them to honor wicked demons. After all, only after some time did people begin to invent gods and worship them. Of course, no one honored that Eros, who is called one of the most ancient gods, before Harm took possession of a certain youth and, having satisfied his passion, erected a thanksgiving altar in the academy. And they began to call the disease of debauchery Eros, deifying unbridled lust. The Athenians did not know who Pan was until Phillipid told them about it. It is not surprising that superstition, having originated from somewhere, turned out to be a source of unheard-of evil; then, not being stopped, but having succeeded and spread greatly, it became the creator of many demons, performing hecatombs, organizing festivals, erecting statues and building churches” (Ibid., 44, 1-3). However, the pagan gods in the “Exhortation” are by no means Epicurean celestial beings who do not interfere in people’s lives. Clement calls them “gluttonous and vicious demons” (Clem. Protr., 40, 1), “guardians who have in mind the destruction of people, invading human life like flatterers, and seducing with ethereal ghosts” (Ibid., 41, 3), “creepy and inhuman demons, not only rejoicing in human madness, but also enjoying murder" (Ibid., 42, 1). The devil himself does not sleep: “Even now, the evil reptile beast, seducing, enslaves and oppresses people, punishing them, as it seems to me, in a barbaric way: the barbarians, they say, tie captives to dead bodies until they rot with them. So, this evil tyrant and serpent tied those whom he was able to master from birth to stones and logs - to statues and idols - with the unfortunate bonds of superstition and, so to speak, carrying them out alive, buried them together with idols until both of them decayed" (Ibid., 7, 4-5). However, Clement does not abandon Euhemer’s view of the demon gods: “Most of what is told about your gods is myth and fiction. And what is considered to have happened in reality is written about nasty people who lived shamelessly” (Clem. Protr., 27, 4); “those whom you worship were once human and then died. Myth and time gained them fame and honor” (Ibid., 55, 2). Demons in his description resemble the wandering souls of the dead: “how can ghosts and demons be gods, being truly vile and unholy spirits, recognized by all as base and unclean, gravitating to the earth, “wandering near graves and tombstones,” around which they appear vaguely and unclearly as “shadow-like ghosts”?” (Ibid., 55, 5). Like the souls of the departed, demons are used by magicians 60 . Clement says: “The magicians boast that demons are the assistants of their wickedness; they enroll them as their servants, making them forced slaves with the help of spells” (Ibid., 58, 3) 61. The synthesis of demonology and euhemerism makes the Exhortation an interesting testimony to how the early Church Fathers used pagan heritage to expose pagan myths, rites and customs. In conclusion, we note that Clement is quite correct when exposing the gods: he does not want to be like Alcibiades, who profanes the mysteries (Clem. Protr., 12, 1) and is indignant at the king who committed blasphemy for the sake of self-interest (Ibid., 52, 6). Such statements were obviously intended to gain reader confidence. Clement on Wealth and Salvation According to I.S. Svenitskaya: “Attacks against wealth permeate the earliest works of Christians” 62. The social program of “The Teachings of the Twelve Apostles” (Didache) and “The Shepherd” of Hermas “has a pronounced democratic character, especially if we compare them with the monuments of Christian literature of the 2nd century. n. e., included in the canon of the New Testament. The Didache condemns the rich, judges who are unfair to the poor, those who do not work for the benefit of those “burdened with labor.” This idea is expressed even more clearly in Herma’s “The Shepherd.” The author of this work was originally an Egyptian slave, later a freedman. The commandments of the “Shepherd” clearly express condemnation of the rich and wealth” 63. However, Clement of Alexandria, in his short (42 chapters) essay “Which of the Rich Will Be Saved,” makes a peculiar attempt to “revise” Christ’s teaching on wealth and poverty. The reason for writing this work was obviously Clement’s desire to keep rich converts in the Church. It must be said that the desire to somehow “correct” the New Testament texts was also characteristic of other early Christian authors. Thus, Tertullian in his treatise “On Baptism” writes that, although everyone can baptize, the laity should be modest and not assume the duties of a bishop, for “the desire for bishopric is the mother of schisms (episcopatus aemulatio scismatum mater est)” (Tert. De bapt., 17, 2). These words do not agree with the statement from 1 Timothy 3:1: “This is a true saying: If anyone desires the bishopric, he desires a good work.” In the treatise “On the Encouragement of Chastity,” Tertullian comments on the statements of the Apostle Paul from 1 Cor. 7:9: “if they cannot abstain, let them marry; for it is better to marry than to be inflamed,” saying that the apostle’s condescension does not come from the Holy Spirit, but from human reason; in addition, a thing that is recognized as good only in comparison with evil is not good: after all, it is impossible to say “it’s good to be crooked,” but only “it’s better to be crooked than blind” (Tert. De ex., 3). Below, Tertullian, condemning Christians who reject abstinence, writes: “Some pagan women who gained fame through their steadfastness in monogamy will be an example for us: a certain Dido, who, being an exile in a foreign land, where she should have even desired marriage with the king, preferred, on the contrary, to burn herself than to get married (maluit e contrario uri quam nubere).” (Tert. De ex., 13). Here he again returns to Paul's words from 1 Cor. 7:9, which he reinterprets: e contrario (“on the contrary”) can refer not only to the previous words from the 13th chapter, but also to the words of the apostle. Clement, unlike the rigorist Tertullian, tries not to aggravate, but to soften the New Testament instructions. In fact, in the Gospel wealth and the rich are condemned much more often than adulterers and other sinners. Probably only hypocrites and Pharisees irritated the Lord more. His parable about the rich man and Lazarus is interesting (Luke 16:19–31). The first one went to hell only because he was rich; The Gospel does not report his other sins. The poor man came to Abraham's bosom only because of his poverty. According to the words of Christ, “it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God” (Matthew 19:24). We are talking here, most likely, not about a very low gate in Jerusalem (they are not mentioned in any modern commentary on this place), but about things very small (what is smaller than the eye of a needle?) and very large (in Palestine the camel was the largest animal). Thus, this parable generally closes the entrance to the Kingdom of Heaven for the rich. Cm. also: “do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth”; “you cannot serve God and mammon”; “Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will wear”; “Do not worry about tomorrow” (Matthew 6:19, 24–25, 34). Let us note that Plato, so revered by Clement, was quite critical of wealth. In particular, his Socrates, in contrast to his ideal state, gives a description of the negative types of states: timocracy, oligarchy, democracy and tyranny (Plat. Resp., VIII, 545c-569c). Their common feature and the main incentive for citizens is material concerns. With all the above-mentioned devices, there is a conflict between the rich and the poor, greed, the pursuit of money, and acquisitiveness prevail. According to Socrates, what the guards should in no way allow into the state is wealth and poverty (Ibid., IV, 422a); he claims that the best political system is when the majority says the same thing: “This is mine!” or “This is not mine!” (Ibid., V, 462c) Nevertheless, Titus Flavius, who did not like a literal understanding of the sacred texts, as usual, decided to interpret them in the direction he needed. And we must pay tribute to his wit in those cases when he emerges with dignity from the difficult situations in which the Gospel places him. For example, in chapter 11, he argues that Christ’s words “sell what you have” only meant that the young man who asked Him about achieving eternal life (Matthew 19:16–30; Mark 10:17–31; Luke 18:18–30) should have rejected not wealth itself, but false ideas about wealth. Further, Clement points out that if Christ’s answer were taken literally, all the poor would have to be considered heirs of eternal life. At the same time, the writer seems to forget for a while about the further words of the Savior: “Come and follow Me.” It is precisely by fulfilling this second part of Christ’s advice to the rich young man that the apostles differ from the “poor” pagans Anaxagoras, Democritus and Crates called by Clement. The question that remains after reading Clement’s treatise is: “Can a person indifferent to wealth, if not increase it, then at least preserve it?” The beautiful and the ugly through the eyes of Clement Music is of great importance in Clement's aesthetics. The Exhortation begins with the story of the singer Eunomus, who replaced a broken string with the song of a cicada. Below Clement lists the modes: Terpandrov, Capion, Phrygian, Lydian, Dorian (Clem. Protr., 2, 4), and calls Christ the Singer (Ibid., 3, 2), a musical instrument, panharmonium (Ibid., 5, 4 and 6, 1-2), New Song (Ibid., 6, 5). Addressing the pagans, whom he compares to snakes, Titus Flavius ​​says: “Let your wildness be enchanted by heavenly singing” (Ibid., 106, 1). Sin also has its own song: “The pretty whore, pleasure, sings […], seduces with vulgar music,” “float past the singing - it causes death” (Ibid., 118, 2 and 4). Musical harmony is Clement’s favorite image: the New Song - “she arranged everything else harmoniously and the discord of elements led to harmony, so that the whole universe became consonance with her. She gave freedom to the sea, but prevented it from covering the earth; but she made the earth, which was previously mobile, solid and set it as a boundary for the sea; she weakened the onslaught of fire with air, as if mixing the Dorian mode with the Lydian, and tamed the harsh cold of the air with an admixture of fire, harmoniously combining such different voices. Indeed, pure song, the support of everything and the harmony of everything, spreading from the center to the edges and from the edges to the center, tuned all this not according to the Thracian mode, like Jubal, but according to the paternal will of God, for which David was jealous” (Clem. Protr., 5, 1-2). “Unity, consisting of many component parts, taking divine harmony from polyphony and dissonance, becomes a harmonious sound, following one choreut and teacher - the Word” (Ibid., 88, 3). Musical images 64 accompany the reader throughout the entire text of the “Exhortation”: “The Word of God, which came from David, but was before David, despising soulless instruments, the lyre and the lyre, and tuning this universe and the small universe - man, his soul and body, in accordance with the Holy Spirit, plays God on a polyphonic instrument and addresses this instrument, man, saying: “You are the cithara, the pipe and my church.” A person is called a kithara because of the harmony, a flute because of the breath, a church because of the word, so that one plays, the other sounds, and the church contains the Lord. Indeed, David, the king and harpist, whom we mentioned a little higher, encouraged the truth and turned away from idols, completely unwilling to sing of the demons whom he persecuted with true music. Playing and singing, David healed Saul, who was tormented by them. The Lord made a beautiful living musical instrument, a man, in His image” (Clem. Protr., 5, 3–4). “The song is a hymn to the King of the universe. Girls pluck strings, angels sing praises, prophets speak; a musical echo resounds” (Ibid., 119, 2). Clement sees in music, generally speaking in beauty, a reflection of God in the world; the ugly for him is an attribute of evil. He writes: “Here are your gods: ghosts, shadows, and also these lame and wrinkled, squinting-eyed Prayers, daughters of Thersites rather than Zeus” (Clem. Protr., 56, 1). Titus Flavius, ridiculing the deification of Philip, the son of Amyntas, whose collarbone was broken, his hip was mutilated and his eye was knocked out (Ibid., 54, 5), is disgusted by any ugliness, mutilation 65, any unnaturalness. In art, he does not understand symbolism and allegorism: he condemns Alexander the Great, who, wanting to seem like the son of Ammon, ordered the sculptors to fashion himself as a cuckold, “busy about disfiguring the beautiful face of a man with a horn” (Ibid., 54, 2). In this regard, his following remark is interesting: “If someone, walking around, looks at paintings and statues, he will immediately recognize your gods by their shameful, unbecoming appearance for gods: Dionysus by his attire, Hephaestus by the signs of his craft, Demeter by his suffering appearance, Ino by his headband, Poseidon by his trident, Zeus by his swan. The fire points to Hercules. And if anyone sees a woman depicted naked, he will recognize her as the golden Aphrodite” (Ibid., 57, 2). Just as music for Clement can be vulgar, dangerous, sinful, so can sculpture: “In Rome in ancient times, the xoan of Ares was a spear […], since artisans had not yet practiced the art of making beautiful-looking evil” (Clem. Protr., 46, 4). It is art that Clement blames for the deification of images of gods: “Art has deceived you, […] inclining you, if not to passion, then to the veneration of statues and paintings” (Ibid., 57, 5); “sculptors dishonor the dumb earth, changing its true nature, encouraging others to worship it with the help of their art” (Ibid., 51, 6); “art is applied, matter is clothed in form, and […] matter […] becomes, through form alone, revered” (Ibid., 56, 5). For the singer of harmony Clement, it is not καλός (“beautiful”) that appears to be ἀγαθός (“kind”), but ἀγαθός – καλός. For him, it is important to match external beauty with internal purity. About Emperor Hadrian’s favorite, the handsome Antinous, he writes: “Why do you classify among the gods someone who has received honors for fornication? Why did you order him to be mourned as a son? Why are you talking about his beauty? Beauty ruined by outrage is shameful. Do not tyrannize, O man, over beauty, do not mock the blooming youth; keep the purity pure so that it is genuine; be a king over her, not a tyrant! Let her be free! Then I recognize your beauty, for you have kept your image pure; then I will worship beauty when it is the true prototype of the beautiful” (Clem. Protr., 49, 2). A person instructed in justice, in whose heart the sayings of truth are inscribed, Clement calls “a beautiful hymn to God” (Ibid., 107, 1) 66. The Exhortation makes virtually no mention of Christ's suffering. The exception is phrases like the following: “The Lord wished to free him again from his shackles and, clothed in flesh […], defeated the serpent and enslaved the tyrant - death and, what is most amazing, that man, seduced by pleasure, bound by corruption, with His outstretched hands on the cross showed the world freed. O mysterious miracle! The Lord fell, and man rose” (Clem. Protr., 111, 2–3). “He recruited an army not stained with blood with the help of his own blood and words and handed the Kingdom of Heaven to the soldiers” (Ibid., 116, 2). In this, Clement strongly disagrees with his contemporary Tertullian, who emphasized precisely the passions of the Lord 67. These two trends in depicting Christ will be further developed in Eastern and Western iconography. The aesthetics of passion was completely alien to the calm spirit of Titus Flavius. The most indicative in this regard are his words: “Look at the idolaters with dirty hair, in offensively soiled and torn clothes, not knowing what it means to wash, with the length of their nails like beasts, many without genitals and showing in practice that the churches of idols are some kind of graves or dungeons. It seems to me that these people mourn the gods, and do not worship them, feeling towards them something more like pity than reverence” (Ibid., 91, 1). Elsewhere he speaks with praise of a Greek sage who convinced the Egyptians: “If you consider anyone to be gods, do not mourn them and do not beat your chest. If you mourn, then do not consider them gods” (Ibid., 24, 3). As mentioned above, physical deformity, mutilation as such was disgusting to Clement 68. It is not Christ who is crucified, but death: “He made sunrise out of sunset and crucified death into life” (Ibid., 114, 4). Passion and suffering are not harmonious and could not be glorified by Titus Flavius. He condemns the pagans’ deification of sorrow (Ibid., 3, 1) and passions (Ibid., 26, 4). The main charm of the Greek religion, according to F.F. Zelinsky, there was a cult of visible beauty 69. That is why Clement devotes a lot of space in his work to sculptors and their creations. Probably, he more often than all other early Christian authors addresses the theme of the incarnation of gods in statues. He names thirteen sculptors (Args, Briaxides, Dipenes, Kalos, Lysippos, Polykleitos, Praxiteles, Sikon, Skyllidas, Scopas, Smilidas, Telesius, Phidias) 70. He calls God himself the Creator of the animate statue - man (Clem. Protr., 98, 3), and his readers - god-like statues of the Word (Clem. Protr., 121, 1). Since Clement lived and wrote in Egypt 71, a large place in his writings is devoted to Egyptian mythology, history and culture. He notes: “the Egyptians that I mentioned were divided according to their cults: the inhabitants of Siina worship bream, those inhabiting Elephantine - Maeota (this is another fish), Oxyrhynchites - the fish that gave the name to their region - sturgeon; in addition, the Heracleopolitans - to the ichneumon, the inhabitants of Sais and Thebes - to the ram, the Lycopolitans - to the wolf, the Cynopolitans - to the dog, Apis - the inhabitants of Memphis, the Mendesians - to the goat” (Clem. Protr., ). Below we read: “The demons themselves admit their gluttony, saying: “Sacrificial children, libations - we have received this gift for our share.” What else would the Egyptian gods, such as cats or weasels, have uttered, had they had the ability to speak, than this Homeric verse, which contains a declaration of love for the smoke from burning offerings and the art of cooking?! (Ibid., 41, 3–4). Clement uses the proverb about the Tmuite goat, which is apparently popular in Egypt (Ibid., 32, 4), sets out several versions of the appearance of the statue of the god Sarapis in Egypt (Ibid., 48, 1–6), talks about the introduction of the cult of Antinous in Egypt by Emperor Hadrian (Ibid., 49, 1–3), cites the prophecies of the Sibyl about the church of Isis and Sarapisa (Ibid., 50, 3), mentions the killing of the sacred bull Apis by Cambyses (Ibid., 52, 6). It is noteworthy that, dividing the pagans into Hellenes, Egyptians and philosophers (the first deified wood and stones, the second - ibises and ichneumons, the third - fire and water (Clem. Protr., 65, 2)), he writes with condescension specifically about the beliefs of his fellow countrymen: “And how much better are the Egyptians, who in villages and cities gave divine honors to the dumb animals than the Hellenes who worship such gods?! The gods of the Egyptians may be beasts, but they are not depraved or lustful. Not one of them strives for pleasures that are contrary to nature. Why talk more about what the gods of the Hellenes are like when enough has already been said? You, who are better in all respects (I’m afraid to say worse) than the Egyptians, 72 you, who never cease to ridicule the Egyptians day after day, what are your views on the deification of dumb creatures?” (Ibid., 39, 4 and 6). Obviously, Clement here follows the Apostle Paul, who was like a Jew to the Jews, in order to win the Jews, to those strangers to the law, as a stranger to the law, in order to win those strangers to the law, and to the weak, as a weak person, in order to win the weak (1 Cor. 9:20-22). Let us remember the words of the apostle, speaking approvingly of the altar to the “unknown god” 73: “Athenians! From everything I see that you seem to be especially devout; for, passing and examining your shrines, I also found an altar on which is written “to an unknown god.” This, whom you ignorantly revere, I preach to you” (Acts 17:22–23). The position of Tertullian is curious, who, having said that Varro divided the Roman gods into known, unknown and chosen ones, wonders why they needed unknown ones if there were known ones. “Perhaps,” the apologist suggests sarcastically, “they wanted to take advantage of Attic stupidity, because the Athenians have an altar to the “unknown gods”” (Tert. Ad. nat., II, 9, 3-4). We see that on this issue too, Clement fundamentally disagrees with his Carthaginian contemporary. In the Stromata, Clement speaks in some detail about the three types of Egyptian signs, which suggests that he had a fairly complete understanding of Egyptian writing (Clem. Strom., V (4), 20–21) 74 . In another book, he expertly describes the Egyptian ritual procession (Clem. Strom., VI (4), 35–37). Having settled in Alexandria already in adulthood, Clement became fused with the Egyptian soil, found a second homeland here, addressing his writings primarily to the Egyptian audience. His attitude towards beliefs that he considered erroneous bears the imprint of the relative tolerance towards the “erroneous” characteristic of the Eastern Church: in the East there was no Inquisition, the Night of St. Bartholomew, the extermination of the Indians and the Index of Forbidden Books. Perhaps the reason for this was the “freedom-loving spirit of Hellenism,” 75 partially inherited by the Eastern Church. In his work, Clement sought to unite the Bible and philosophy, to encourage those initiated into the pagan mysteries to accept the sacraments of Christ, to reconcile the rich and the poor, the ancient and Christian ideas of beauty. Sometimes he succeeded, sometimes he didn’t. But as a result of his work, the foundations of that Christianity were laid, which is now known as Orthodoxy, which added to the truths discovered by Christ all the achievements of ancient thought, absorbing all the best that was created by the creative genius of the Hellenes. According to A. Amman, Clement received his Latin name from his master, who set him free. See Amman A. The Path of the Fathers. Brief introduction to patristics Trans. With. fr. M., 1994. p. 69. According to V.V. Bychkov, Clement was born into an aristocratic family in Athens (Bychkov V.V. Aesthetica partum. Aesthetics of the Church Fathers. I. Apologists. Blessed Augustine. M., 1995. p. 56) The philosopher Lev Shestov, building a series of thinkers who bowed to inevitability (ὰνάγκη), and a series of thinkers who challenged it, in the first places among others Clement of Alexandria, referring to his statements from book IV “Stromat” (Clem. Strom., IV (22) 136, 5), while the second is headed by Tertullian. Thus, the teaching of Clement, according to Shestov, fits into the mainstream of European rationalistic philosophy, while Tertullian, who preferred Jerusalem to Athens, acts as the heir of the Abrahamic faith. See Shestov L.I. Athens and Jerusalem. St. Petersburg, 2001. p. 257. 274. It was Clement of Alexandria and Origen, according to V.V. Bychkov, gave Christianity a rationalistic orientation. See Bychkov V.V. Decree. op. With. 56. According to E.V. Afonasin, “the message of Eusebius (H. E., VI, 3, 3) that Origen headed the school in 202 […] is a mistake” (Afonasin E.V. Ancient Gnosticism. Fragments and Evidence. St. Petersburg, 2002. p. 140, note 2) The author does not substantiate his opinion. Amman A. Decree. op. With. 70. However, the goals of Clement and the goals of the apologists were similar: “the goals of writing “apologies” […] boiled down to denouncing polytheism and preaching the one Lord, but not in any way reconciling pagans with the existence of Christianity” (Bolshakov A.P. Early Christian apologies: origin and content / The Ancient East and the Ancient World. Proceedings of the Department of History of the Ancient World of the Faculty of History of Moscow State University. Issue 5. M., 2002. p. 164). If so, then the Exhortation can be seen as an apology. See Bychkov V.V. Decree. op. With. 241–243. Stolyarov A.A. Tertullian. Epoch. Life. Teaching / Tertullian. Selected works Translated from Lat. General ed. and comp. A.A. Stolyarov. M., 1994 p. 24. On Tertullian’s use of the allegorical method in interpreting biblical texts, see: Morgan J. The importance of Tertullian in the development of Christian dogma. London, 1928. p. 117–118. About verse Is. 1, Tertullian writes: “The crimson [lit.: pink] color [Isaiah] denotes the blood of the prophets, the red (as more glorious) the blood of the Lord” (Tert. Adv. Marc., IV, 10, 2). Here is another interesting example of Tertullian’s interpretation of the Old Testament: “See if what follows has not been fulfilled: For the Lord of hosts will take away from Judah and from Jerusalem, among other things, both the prophet and the wise architect (cf. Is. 3:1-3), i.e. The Holy Spirit, Who raises up the Church, i.e. church, house and city of God: for subsequently God's grace dried up from them. And the clouds were commanded not to rain on the vineyard of Soreh (cf. Is. 5:6), i.e. heavenly gifts were forbidden to descend on the house of Israel. For he made a crown of thorns with which he crowned the Lord: and he did not do justice, but a cry (cf. Matt. 27:23), with which he achieved His crucifixion. And since the dew of divine grace was thus taken away, the law and the prophets acted only until John” (Tert. Adv. Marc., III., 23, 1-3). Gurevich A.Ya. Medieval heroic epic of the Germanic peoples / Library of World Literature. Series 1. T. 9. Beowulf. Elder Edda. Song of the Nibelungs. M., 1975. p. 7. All this irritates Clement and prompts him again and again to criticize the absurd customs ingrained among the people, which have gained fame for their antiquity: Clem. Protr., 46, 1; 62, 4; 72, 3; 75, 4; 89, 1–3; 90, 2–3; 96, 2; 99, 1 and 3; 101, 1 and 3; 103, 2; 109, 3; 118, 1. Wed. Svetlov R.V. Ancient Neoplatonism and Alexandrian exegesis. St. Petersburg, 1996. p. 198. Vdovichenko A.V. Discourse – text – word. Articles on history, biblical studies, linguistics, philosophy of language. M., 2002. p. 59. Dodds E. R. Pagan and Christian in Troubled Times: Some Aspects of Religious Practice in the Period from Marcus Aurelius to Constantine Trans. from English St. Petersburg, 2003. p. 180. Bychkov V.V. Decree. op. With. 21. Dunn J.D. Unity and diversity in the New Testament. A Study of the Nature of Primitive Christianity Trans. from English M., 1997. p. 120. Graves R., Patai R. Jewish myths. Book of Genesis Trans. from English M., 2002. p. 14. Frazer D. D. Folklore in the Old Testament Trans. from English M., 1989. Auni D. New Testament and its literary environment Trans. from English St. Petersburg, 2000. p. 19. Vdovichenko A.V. Decree. op. With. 10. Whipper R.Yu. Essays on the history of the Roman Empire (end). Rome and early Christianity. Favorite op. in 2 vols. T II. Rostov-on-Don, 1995. p. 314. Rizhsky M.I. Book of Job: From the history of the biblical text. Novosibirsk, 1991. p. 231. See about this: Glubokovsky N.N. Annunciation of St. Apostle Paul and Jewish-rabbinic theology. St. Petersburg, 1998. Graves R., Patai R. Decree. op. With. 18. The doctrine of Logos was developed by Philo of Alexandria, that “most striking exponent of Jewish Hellenism.” “Philo, a representative of Jewish gnosis, an idealistic religious and philosophical school that developed the ideas of Plato, found successors first in the Christian Gnostics of the first half of the 2nd century, and then in the person of the evangelist accepted into the canon of the New Testament, who wrote under the name of the Apostle John. The concept of the Logos, the World Mind, the mediator between God and people, the bearer of the creative principle in the world, is undoubtedly a deviation from the old Israeli harsh monotheism, from the veneration of the one and only Yahweh, this is a reformist idea, innovation” (Vipper R.Yu. Op. cit. pp. 314–315). Zelinsky F.F. Hellenistic religion. Tomsk, 1996. p. 149–151. Wed. Whipper R.Yu. Decree. op. With. 319–321. Whipper R.Yu. Decree. op. With. 315. “If Christianity as an organized sect developed in the Jewish world, in Palestine or in the diaspora […], then in essence it was a product of the socio-economic and cultural development of the Roman Empire” (Vipper R.Yu. Op. cit. p. 316). Svenitskaya I.S. Early Christianity: pages of history. M., 1987. p. 54. Levesque P. Hellenistic world Trans. from French M., 1989. p. 43. Pépin J. Christianisme et mythologie. Jugements chrétiens sur les analogies du paganisme et du Christianisme / Pépin J. De la philosophie ancienne à la théologie patristique. Variorum reprints. London, 1986. VIII. p. 40. “Thousands of ancients were wise, and virtuous, and valiant, but the burden of folk tales, which bore the name of religion, nailed them to the ground. […] they really needed a new heaven and a new earth, because they had defiled their heaven and their earth. How could they raise their eyes to the sky when obscene legends looked down on them from the stars? What could the love of flowers and birds give them after the stories that were told about them? See Chesterton G.K. Eternal Man Trans. from English M., 1991. p. 24. The fact that Clement wrote for educated pagans is evidenced by abundant quotations from ancient philosophers and poets, including little-known ones. Thanks to his writings, numerous fragments from the works of pagan authors have come down to us. According to V. Krause, Clement’s writings contain 966 quotations from Greek literature (the next largest number of such quotations, Lactantius, has only 134). Among the Greek Christian authors, he is the only one who has a quotation from Roman literature. From the Old Testament, the New Testament and from the works of Christian writers, he has 1002, 1608 and 152 quotations, respectively (Bychkov V.V. Op. cit. p. 65). In their abundance he also surpasses all early church authors. Nilsson M. P. Geschichte der griechischen Religion. 2. Aufl. Munich, 1967 Bd. 1 S. 657–658. Anm. 2. Nilsson M.P. Greek folk religion Trans. from English St. Petersburg, 1998. p. 60. In the Exhortation, Clement compares different mysteries that seem to him to have the same content, likening the sacraments dedicated to Zeus and Demeter to the sacraments in honor of Attis, Cybele and the Corybantes (15: 1). Below (17, 1) he, like the Lucian scholiast, compares Themosphoria, Scirophoria and Arretophoria (cf.: Deubner L. Attische Feste. 2 Aufl. Berlin. 1956. S. 40 ff., cf. Robert C. Athena Sciras und die Scirophorien Hermes. 1885. No. 20. S. 367 ff.) Hatch E. The influence of Greek Ideas on Christianity. New York, 1957. p. 290. Matthew 13:11; Mark 4:11; OK. 8:10 ; Rom.11:25, 16:25; 1 Cor.2:7, 4:1, 13:2, 14:2, 15:51; Eph.1:9, 3:3–4, 9, 5:32, 6:19; Col. 1:26–27, 2:2, 4:3, 1 Tim. 3:9, 16; Rev. 1:20, 10 Jean Pépin, speaking about the rhetorical use of the language of the mysteries by Christian authors, refers primarily to the “Exhortation” of Clement of Alexandria (120, 1–2) (Pépin J. Christianisme et mythologie. Jugements chrétiens sur les analogies du paganisme et du Christianisme / Pépin J. De la philosophie ancienne à la théologie patristique. Variorum reprints. London, 1986. p. 20). Hatch E Op. cit. p. 305–306. However, already Justin Martyr uses the term “enlightenment” for baptism (1 Apology, 61), cf.: Hatch E Op. cit. p. 295. The mystical cult of Demeter and Kore also existed in Alexandria, where there was even a suburb called “Eleusis”. The ancient interpreter of the Callimachus hymn in honor of Demeter attributes to Ptolemy Philadelphus the introduction of the ritual of procession with a koshnitsa “in imitation of Athens.” F.F. Zelinsky believes that the transfer of the entire Eleusinian cult to Alexandria could have taken place under Ptolemy I Soter (Zelinsky F.F. Religion of Hellenism. pp. 27–28). In the Stromata, Clement even writes that God gave philosophy to the Hellenes through the lower angels (Clem. Strom., VII (2) 6, 4). Tatian, for example, in his “Speech against the Hellenes” (16, 1) declares that the demons who command people are not the souls of people. Plato's doctrine of demons is, of course, more complex than can be inferred from these two passages; see, for example, Plat. Resp., X, 617e, 620 de; Phaed., 107d; Symp., 202e; Tim., 89e-90a; Leg., 717a-b. See also iOS. Bell. Jud., 7. 6, 3; Iust. Apol., 1, 17 – about the souls of the dead moving into the living. “They abused both their nature and the power given to them. Such are the prince of substance and its types and others of those who were around him, as the main one, assistants - the latter had a lust for virgins and were conquered by the flesh; and he became careless and crafty in the management entrusted to him. From copulation with virgins the so-called giants were born. These are the angels who fell from heaven and dwell in the air and on the earth and can no longer ascend to heaven, as well as the souls of the giants, who are actually demons wandering around the world, perform actions, some, namely demons, according to the nature that they received, and others, namely angels, according to the lusts that they had" (Trans. P. Preobrazhensky). Josephus Josephus literally understood the words of Genesis 6 (Ios. Antiquit., 1, 3, 1); he, however, like the “Pseudo-Clementines” (Homil., 8, 13. 15), speaks of the birth from angels not of demons, but of people distinguished by arrogance. "Pseudoclementines" note their wild habits and height, exceeding the growth of other people. This interpretation of this biblical passage owes much to the book of Enoch (6–7). Elsewhere he says that some myths are created by demons through the mediation of poets to discredit Christianity (Iust. Apol., 123), as well as to deceive and corrupt people (Ibid., 54). Athenagoras is not entirely consistent on this issue; so, in the 25th chapter. “Petitions” (2) he writes about movements occurring from an opposing spirit that outrage people. An interesting testimony about Tertullian is from St. Augustine (Aug. De haer., 86), according to which Tertullian taught about the transformation of the worst human souls into demons after death (dicit sane etiam animas hominum pessimas post mortem in daemones verti). “Angelological erotica” of the 7th chapter of the essay “On Maiden Veils” prompted P.F. Preobrazhensky talk about Tertullian’s premonition of the “second fall of the angels,” the possibility of which Tertullian “seems to be afraid of” (Preobrazhensky P.F. In the world of ancient ideas and images. M., 1965. p. 329). Sulpicius Severus (c. 400 AD) in his Chronicle (1, 2, 7–8) speaks of angels captivated by female beauty, who married mortals and gave birth to giants. Wed: Orig. Comm. in Ioan., VI, 42, 217. Compare: “The erroneous ideas of people that have deviated from the right path, being truly destructive, turned the heavenly branch, man, away from the heavenly home and threw him to the ground, convincing him to stick to earthly creatures” (Clem. Protr., 25, 4) A.D. Nock writes that when syncretic magic began to develop, sorcerers began to consider the souls of infants, young unmarried adults, gladiators, executed criminals and other victims of violent death as their forced assistants. See: Nock A. D. Essays on Religion the Ancient World. Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1972. Vol. 2. p. 714. Wed: Clem. Strom., VI (3), 31, 5 Svenitskaya I.S. Decree. op. With. 68. Whipper R.Yu. Decree. op. With. 307. On the music of Clement of Alexandria, see V.V. Bychkov. Decree. op. With. 181–183. Compare: “Don’t you remember what the high priest of truth Moses had in mind when he commanded the one whose yatras were crushed or whose genital organ was cut off, or who was born of a harlot, not to enter the congregation of the Lord?” (Clem. Protr., 25, 1). About the “beautiful” in Clement, see: Bychkov V.V. Decree. op. With. 207–210. Note that it was Tertullian, proving the falsity of the pagan gods, who emphasized first of all not the fact of their death, but their original human state; he, unlike the Greek defenders of Christianity, saw a danger for the Christian preaching of the crucified Christ in focusing on the fact that the gods died. In this regard, the observations of V.V. are interesting. Bychkova: “The idea of ​​the simple, even “nondescript” (εὐτελής) appearance of Christ will subsequently form the basis of the ascetic practice of monks and will be reflected in the systems of artistic images of medieval art […]. With an inexorable consistency, sometimes reaching the point of naturalistic ugliness, it will be realized in Western medieval art and will become there the main criterion for the depiction of the human body in general. A different picture is observed in Byzantine and Old Russian painting. Here they never forgot another thought of Clement - that the inner nobility and spiritual beauty of a person […] are reflected in his appearance, especially in his face” (Bychkov V.V. Op. cit. p. 212). Zelinsky F.F. Ancient Greek religion. Kyiv, 1993. p. 117 By comparison, only thirty-one philosophers are mentioned in the Exhortation. The very title πρεσβὐτης, which Bishop Alexander of Jerusalem awarded him, “reflects a typically Egyptian tradition, according to which “old man” does not necessarily reflect old age, but serves as an indication of special respect, the glory of “first among equals,” earned by knowledge and righteous life.” (Afonasin E.V. “Stromata” by Clement of Alexandria / Clement of Alexandria. Stromata Translated from ancient Greek by E.V. Afonasin. St. Petersburg, 2003. T. 1. p. 10). Praise for Egyptian wisdom can be found, for example, in a comparison of the wisest of the Egyptian priests and Jews (Clem. Strom., V (5), 28, 6) and in the indication that the latter took Pythagoras’s doctrine of the immortality of the soul, borrowed by Plato, from the Egyptians (Ibid., VI (2), 27, 2). Pausanias (Paus. 1, 4) writes that the Athenians have a harbor in Phalere, at which, in addition to the sanctuary of Demeter, the churches of Athena and Zeus, there are altars to gods and heroes called “unknowns.” E. A. W. Budge, one of the classics of Egyptology, notes that Clement of Alexandria correctly defines three types of Egyptian writing (Budge E. A. W. Mummy. Materials of archaeological studies of Egyptian tombs Translated from English. M., 2001. p. 106). Zelinsky F.F. Ancient Greek religion. With. 8.