An overview of Clement of Alexandria, among the most learned, and most completely preserved, of the early Christian Fathers. He began as an Athenian intellectual, an initiate of the Eleusinian Mysteries; he converted to Christianity, moved to Alexandria, and wrote and taught copiously, including denunciations of Greek philosophy and an exposure of the Mysteries; he escaped the Severan Persecution of 202, and died in Syria. Tollinton covers Clement's life, his work, and his century; then turning to his ethics, especially on wealth, his theology, his relationship with Gnosticism, his position on the orders of the church (he confirms that the presbyters of Alexandria elected their bishop), the sacraments and the Scriptures. Two concluding chapters present Clement as an eclectic Broad Churchman; his actual appalled expressions on the Mysteries and Greek philosophy are found to be natural but not to be taken too literally.
