The Protrepticus of Clement of Alexandria: Innovation and Dramatisation. The voice of the 'pagan' and the development of the Christian protreptic.
Lead Research Organisation:
King's College London
Department Name: Classics
Abstract
The second century saw the protreptic genre, one perfected by the likes of Plato some seven hundred years earlier, Christianised as writers such as Tatian and Justin Martyr exhorted their pagan readers to accept Christ. Clement of Alexandria's own exhortatory text, his Protrepticus, developed this genre still further. Clement began his work with famous pagan minstrels proudly displayed. He next ushered on a 'Chorus of the Greeks', voices such as Plato, Euripides and Herodotus, who testified about their gods. This dramatic opening revealed the gods to be falsehoods. Hollow, deceptive and daemonic.
Turning to Christ in the second half of his work, Clement cries out: "far different is my minstrel!" Clement brings onstage a Chorus of Hebrew and Christian Scripture, who declare the glory and truth of Christ, before the very Divine Logos appears, to "perform the drama of salvation."
Tatian and Justin Christianised the protreptic, but Clement dramatised the genre to tell a narrative of divine proportions.
My project considers this Protrepticus of Clement, and examines its contribution to the early pagan-Christian conversation. I will examine Clement's relationship with pagan literature, particularly Greek drama, in this work. Whilst Karanasiou (2016) considered the use of Euripides in Clement's Stromateis, and recent studies have examined the Protrepticus in the wider context of Dionysus or the Bacchae in Christian thought (Friesen 2014 and 2015), little has been devoted to the Protrepticus alone. The dearth of new scholarship is such that works such as Jaeger on Christianity and Paideia (1985) still offer some of the most recent considerations on the subject. Cochrane and Pelikan's respective works Christianity and Classical Culture (1957 and 1993) are likewise still dominant in the Classical conversation surrounding Christian engagement with the ancient world. My study will address this gap in the scholarly conversation, considering head on the role that pagan literature and culture plays in Clement's Protrepticus.
My study approaches the Protrepticus not simply as a document of Christian doctrine, but rather as an innovative text in the early pagan-Christian conversation. Clement relies heavily upon three great corpora of ancient literature throughout: pagan, Hebrew and Christian. Voices from Isaiah to Aristophanes are employed to unmask the pagan gods as immoral daemons.Through a somewhat cavalier selection and revision of these pagan texts, Clement shows them to point to a truth more fully seen in Scripture, namely that the pagans worship falsehoods and the One God is supreme.
I intend to explore Clement's structural engagement with pagan narrative genres, and how this leads to his appeal for his pagan reader to abandon their errant faith and submit to Christ alone. This will also allow me to consider the impact of this work on the wider pagan-Christian conversation. Clement's Protrepticus redefines this genre of the Christian protreptic, by developing the idea of the protreptic narrative. But more than this, Clement develops the notion of evangelism in the ancient world, speaking into ideas and techniques still in use by religious groups today. Clement dramatises the evangelistic conversation. The idea of narrative, of storytelling, is embedded into the heart of his argument. I will explore the questions that arise from a close reading of the Protrepticus, and consider this wider impact on ancient evangelism.
Turning to Christ in the second half of his work, Clement cries out: "far different is my minstrel!" Clement brings onstage a Chorus of Hebrew and Christian Scripture, who declare the glory and truth of Christ, before the very Divine Logos appears, to "perform the drama of salvation."
Tatian and Justin Christianised the protreptic, but Clement dramatised the genre to tell a narrative of divine proportions.
My project considers this Protrepticus of Clement, and examines its contribution to the early pagan-Christian conversation. I will examine Clement's relationship with pagan literature, particularly Greek drama, in this work. Whilst Karanasiou (2016) considered the use of Euripides in Clement's Stromateis, and recent studies have examined the Protrepticus in the wider context of Dionysus or the Bacchae in Christian thought (Friesen 2014 and 2015), little has been devoted to the Protrepticus alone. The dearth of new scholarship is such that works such as Jaeger on Christianity and Paideia (1985) still offer some of the most recent considerations on the subject. Cochrane and Pelikan's respective works Christianity and Classical Culture (1957 and 1993) are likewise still dominant in the Classical conversation surrounding Christian engagement with the ancient world. My study will address this gap in the scholarly conversation, considering head on the role that pagan literature and culture plays in Clement's Protrepticus.
My study approaches the Protrepticus not simply as a document of Christian doctrine, but rather as an innovative text in the early pagan-Christian conversation. Clement relies heavily upon three great corpora of ancient literature throughout: pagan, Hebrew and Christian. Voices from Isaiah to Aristophanes are employed to unmask the pagan gods as immoral daemons.Through a somewhat cavalier selection and revision of these pagan texts, Clement shows them to point to a truth more fully seen in Scripture, namely that the pagans worship falsehoods and the One God is supreme.
I intend to explore Clement's structural engagement with pagan narrative genres, and how this leads to his appeal for his pagan reader to abandon their errant faith and submit to Christ alone. This will also allow me to consider the impact of this work on the wider pagan-Christian conversation. Clement's Protrepticus redefines this genre of the Christian protreptic, by developing the idea of the protreptic narrative. But more than this, Clement develops the notion of evangelism in the ancient world, speaking into ideas and techniques still in use by religious groups today. Clement dramatises the evangelistic conversation. The idea of narrative, of storytelling, is embedded into the heart of his argument. I will explore the questions that arise from a close reading of the Protrepticus, and consider this wider impact on ancient evangelism.
