Oleg Nogovitsin. The concept of God as the first principle in the theology of Clement of Alexandria and the first dialectical hypothesis in Plato’s “Parmenides”. Vol. 2. No. 1/2. 2017

Publication Details

Abstract

The article is dedicated to the reception of the dialectical hypotheses of Plato’s “Parmenides” in Clement of Alexandria’s doctrine of God as the first principle. The author focuses on the analysis of the Str. 5.81.3–5.82.1. From the historical and philological point of view the contextual connection with the first hypothesis in Plato’s “Parmenides” seems incontestable. However, Clement transforms Plato’s argument, using it in order to interpret the doctrine on the principles in the context of the Christian preaching of the Good News. The character of such an interpretation as well as the issue of the sources used by Clement evoked a number of questions and research hypotheses and reinforced recurrent polemics on whether the first hypothesis in Plato’s “Parmenides” had a direct influence on Clement’s theology or the Middle Platonists mediated it. Therefore, the author presents a critical analysis of the interpretation of Str. 5.81.3–5.82.1 by E. Osborn, J. Whittaker, E. Mühlenberg, and A. Choufrine. The article demonstrates that a critical historical and philological analysis of Clement’s statements and wording in this fragment allows a transition from hypotheses on the particular sources of Clement’s texts to the substantive aspects of his understanding of the problems of knowledge of God, the world and the meaning of life in Christ. Moreover, the article describes a set of excerpts from Clement’s works that can be considered in the context of other hypotheses of Plato’s “Parmenides” and are used in R. Mortley and A. Choufrine’s interpretations. The author assesses the possibility of rapprochement between the dialectics of “Parmenides” and Clement’s theology. This necessitates an analysis of the specifics of transformation of the forms of platonic dialectics in the Christian context of dialectical and theological essays contained in Clement of Alexandria’s works.

Keywords

Clement of Alexandria, Plato, knowledge, infinite, the One, the Logos, the Monad, oneness, multiplicity.

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© Oleg Nogovitsin, 2017