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Clement of Alexandria

3rd century · AD 215 · Early Fathers (before Nicaea) · 978 passages

A teacher who read Scripture with an eye for its deeper moral and spiritual meaning, guiding new believers toward maturity in Christ.

Background on Clement of Alexandria

In his own words on Joel

  • Joel 2:10

    What, then, is the vanity, and what the lie? The holy apostle of the Lord, reprehending the Greeks, will show thee: "Because that, when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and changed the glory of God into the likeness of corruptible man, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator." And verily this is the God who "in the beginning made the heaven and the earth." But you do not know God, and worship the heaven, and how shall you escape the guilt of impiety? Hear again the prophet speaking: "The sun, shall suffer eclipse, and the heaven be darkened; but the Almighty shall shine for ever: while the powers of the heavens shall be shaken, and the heavens stretched out and drawn together shall be rolled as a parchment-skin (for these are the prophetic expressions), and the earth shall flee away from before the face of the Lord."

    Exhortation to the Heathen

Quoted verbatim from public-domain English translations of the fathers — Aquinas's Catena Aurea, the Ante-Nicene and Nicene & Post-Nicene Fathers, and related editions. Each quotation links to its source.