C ontinence and M arriage : the C oncept of E nkrateia in C lement of A lexandria 1
2006; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 81; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/00397670701495112
ISSN1502-7805
Autores Tópico(s)Classical Studies and Legal History
ResumoAbstract In this article, I attempt to define the role that the concept of enkrateia – continence, self-control – plays in the thinking of Clement of Alexandria, particularly with regard to marriage and sexuality. Did Clement in fact reject human sexuality and prefer celibacy to marriage, as is sometimes maintained? What were his visions for an ideal marriage? Through analysis of his various pronouncements on these issues, a more nuanced picture emerges of his continuing engagement with a problematic area of Early Christian doctrine and life. Notes 1. My research on the present topic started with generous support from the research project “Construction of Christian Identity in Antiquity” sponsored by the Programme for Classical Studies under the Research Council of Norway. I thank my colleagues Gunhild Vidén and Hélène Whittaker for inspiring discussions in that context. 2. Stromateis books 1–3 are translated by John Ferguson in Clement of Alexandria. Stromateis, books 1–3 (The Fathers of the Church, vol. 85) (Washington, 1991), Stromateis, books 4–7 in The Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 2; Paidagogos is translated by Simon P. Wood in Clement of Alexandria, Christ the Educator (The Fathers of the Church, vol. 23), (Washington, 1954). I quote from these translations, sometimes in a modified form. 3. Osborn (2005 Osborn , Eric ( 2005 ) Clement of Alexandria . Cambridge .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 4. Gaca (2003 Gaca , Kathy L . ( 2003 ) The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity . Berkeley, Los Angeles and London . [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 5. Gaca (2003 Gaca , Kathy L . ( 2003 ) The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity . Berkeley, Los Angeles and London . [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 271). Part 3 (of three) takes up Tatian, Clement and Epiphanes in three successive chapters; chapter 9 (247–272) is devoted to Clement. 6. See Hägg (2006 Hägg , Henny Fiskå ( 2006 ) Clement of Alexandria and the Beginnings of Christian Apophaticism . Oxford .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), 10 f. 7. Among those I have consulted are Kinder (1989–90 Kinder, Donald. 1989. “Clement of Alexandria: Conflicting Views on Women”. The Second Century, 7:1: 213–20. [Google Scholar]); Pagels (1983 Pagels , Elaine ( 1983 ) “Adam and Eve, Christ and the Church: A Survey of Second Century Controversies Concerning Marriage” , in A. H. B. Logan and A. J. M. Wedderburn The New Testament and Gnosis: Essays in Honour of Robert McL. Wilson. Edinburgh . [Google Scholar]); Clark (1983 Clark , Elisabeth A. ( 1983 ) Women in the Early Church. Collegeville, MN . [Google Scholar]). Buell (1999 Buell , Denise Kimber ( 1999 ) Making Christians: Clement of Alexandria and the Rhetoric of Legitimacy . Princeton, NJ [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]) is interested in the way Clement uses language of procreation and kinship as metaphors to legitimize his own position in the theological landscape. She finds that in marriage and sexual practices “Clement portrays himself as a moderate” (81). The standard work on the topic is still Broudehoux (1970 Broudehoux , J.-P. ( 1970 ) Mariage et famille chez Cle′ment d'Alexandrie . Paris . [Google Scholar]). 8. See, e.g., Hunter (ed.) (1992 Hunter , David G. ( 1992 ) Marriage in the Early Church . Minneapolis, MN . [Google Scholar]: 14) and Osborn (1976 Osborn , Eric ( 1976 ) Ethical Patterns in Early Christian Thought. Cambridge .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 57). 9. This is the opinion of Clark (1983 Clark , Elisabeth A. ( 1983 ) Women in the Early Church. Collegeville, MN . [Google Scholar]): “Over against such Gnostic tenets [Encratites and the like], Clement of Alexandria felt compelled to stress the relative goodness of marriage, despite his preference for celibacy”, 47. Cf. also Clark & Richardson (eds) (1996 Clark , Elizabeth A. and & Richardson , Herbert ( 1996 ) Women and Religion: The Original Sourcebook of Women in Christian Thought . San Francisco, CA . [Google Scholar]: 19). In a more recent book, Clark has a less negative opinion of Clement's view of marriage (1999 Clark , Elisabeth A. ( 1999 ) Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity . Princeton, NJ .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 316). 10. For the concept of enkrateia, see Chadwick (1960 Chadwick , Henry ( 1960 ) “Enkrateia” In : Reallexikon für Antike und Christentum , pp. 343 – 365 . [Google Scholar]). 11. On the basis of Plato, there was singled out in Greek thought a canon of four virtues that were later called “cardinal”: wisdom, courage, self-control (sophrosune), justice. Rep. 429e; cf. also Meno 72–74 and Rep. 427–442. For the concept of sophrosune, see North (1966 North , Helen ( 1966 ) “Sophrosyne in Patristic Literature” . In : Sophrosyne. Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature , pp. 312 – 386 . New York . [Google Scholar]). 12. Paed. 2.94.1 and 2.5.2. 13. For Alexandria in early Christian times, see Bagnall (1993 Bagnall , Roger S. ( 1993 ) Egypt in Late Antiquity . Princeton, NJ .[Crossref] , [Google Scholar]), Bagnall and Rathbone (eds) (2004 Bagnall , Roger S. and Rathbone , Dominic W. ( 2004 ) Egypt: From Alexander to the Early Christians . Los Angeles . [Google Scholar]), Bowman (1986 Bowman , Alan K. ( 1986 ) Egypt after the Pharaohs 332BC_AD642: From Alexander to the Arab Conquest . London . [Google Scholar]) and Haas (1997 Haas , Christopher ( 1997 ) Alexandria in Late Antiquity: Topography and Social Conflict. Baltimore and London . [Google Scholar]). 14. Dio Chrysostom (late 1st century AD) observed “not only Greeks and Italians and people from neighbouring Syria, Libya, Cilicia, nor yet Ethiopians and Arabs from more distant regions, but even Bactrians and Scythians and Persians and a few Indians … (Or. 32.40). Cf. Fowden (1986 Fowden , Garth ( 1986 ) The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind . Princeton, NJ . [Google Scholar]: 14–22). 15. For a description of their political and religious arrangements, see e.g. Starobinski-Safran (1987 Starobinski-Safran , Esther ( 1987 ) “La communauté juive d'Alexandrie à l’époque de Philon” In : ALEXANDRINA: Hellénisme, judaïsme et christianisme à Alexandrie; mélanges offerts au P. Claude Mondésert , pp. 45 – 75 . Paris . [Google Scholar]). See also the recent monograph on Alexandria by Haas (1997), focusing on the three main ethno-religious communities, the pagans, the Jews, and the Christians and their contest for cultural hegemony. 16. van den Hoek (1997 Hoek, Annewies van den. 1997. “The ‘Catechetical’ School of Early Christian Alexandria and its Philonic Heritage”. Harvard Theological Review, 90: 59–87. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 84). 17. Cf. Fox (1986 Fox , Robin Lane ( 1986 ) Pagans and Christians in the Mediterranean World: From the Second Century AD to the Conversion of Constantine . London . [Google Scholar]: 302). 18. For the intended audience of Clement's works, especially the Stromateis, cf. Ridings (1995 Ridings , Daniel ( 1995 ) The Attic Moses: The Dependency Theme in some Early Christian Writers. Gothenburg . [Google Scholar]: 132–9). 19. Iren. Adv. Haer. 1.28.1; Clem. Strom. 7.108.1–2 and passim; Hipp. Ref. 8.20.1–4. 20. Chadwick (1954 Chadwick , Henry ( 1954 ) Alexandrian Christianity . The Library of Christian Classics . Philadelphia, PA . [Google Scholar]: 25). One may wonder why Clement takes him as seriously as he does; it is even more disconcerting that Gaca (2003 Gaca , Kathy L . ( 2003 ) The Making of Fornication: Eros, Ethics, and Political Reform in Greek Philosophy and Early Christianity . Berkeley, Los Angeles and London . [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]: 273–4) does so, too, and calls him a “Gnostic Christian Platonist” who followed a sexual pattern of communism instead of Clement's procreationist monogamy. 21. For the Valentinian view of marriage, see DeConick (2003 DeConick, April D. 2003. “The Great Mystery of Marriage, Sex and Conception in Ancient Valentinian Traditions”. Vigiliae Christianae, 57.3: 307–342. [Crossref] , [Google Scholar]). 22. For the distinction between different words for “desire” that Clement uses, see Hunter (1992 Hunter, David G. 1992. “The Language of Desire: Clement of Alexandria's Transformation of Ascetic Discourse”. Semeia, 57: 95–111. [Google Scholar]). 23. See Hunter (1992 Hunter, David G. 1992. “The Language of Desire: Clement of Alexandria's Transformation of Ascetic Discourse”. Semeia, 57: 95–111. [Google Scholar]: 103). 24. Probably referring to the Stoics, who defined orexis as acceptable to reason, epithumia as contrary to reason. 25. For Clement, however, it was not sexuality, but death that was the cause of human misery; see, e.g., Strom. 3.59.2. He cites Rom. 5.12–14 that death entered the world through the sin of one human being, and since then death has dominated human life (Strom. 3.64.2). 26. Cf. B⊘rresen (1995 B⊘rresen , Kari Elisabeth ( 1995 ) ‘‘God's Image, Man's Image? Patristic Interpretation of Gen 1.27 and 1 Cor 11.7’’ , in K. E. B⊘rresen The Image of God: Gender Models in Judaeo-Christian Tradition , pp. 187 – 209 . Minneapolis, MN . [Google Scholar]: 187–209). 27. Cf. Eijk (1972 Eijk , T. H. C. V . ( 1972 ) “Marriage and Virginity, Death and Immortality” , in J. Fontaine and C . Kannengiesser Epektasis. Me′langes patristiques offerts au cardinal Jean anie′lou , pp. 209 – 235 . Paris . [Google Scholar]: 220). 28. Brown (1988 Brown , Peter ( 1988 ) The Body and Society: Men, Women, and Sexual Renunciation in Early Christianity New York and Oxford [Google Scholar]: 7) writes: “If their little world was not to come to an end for lack of citizens, they must reproduce it, every generation, by marriage, intercourse and the begetting and rearing of children”. 29. I have replaced Ferguson's “give pleasure to” with “please” so as not to impute any sexual meaning to the Greek verb αρεσκω in this context (as is evident from the context in Paul from which it is borrowed). 30. It has been speculated whether Clement himself was married; Tollinton (1914 Tollinton , R. B. ( 1914 ) Clement of Alexandria: A Study in Christian Liberalism. London . [Google Scholar]: 270–2) is convinced that he was. 31. Clark (1983 Clark , Elisabeth A. ( 1983 ) Women in the Early Church. Collegeville, MN . [Google Scholar]), above n. 9. Augustine clearly favoured celibacy: De bono coniugali 9.9. On Augustine's view on celibacy, see, e.g., Brooten (2002 Brooten , Bernadette ( 2002 ) ‘‘Naturen, loven og det alminnelige. En systematisk analyse av tidlige kristne forestillinger om seksualitet’’ , in Jostein B⊘rtnes , Dag Øistein Endsj⊘ and Halvor Moxnes Naturlig sex? Seksualitet og kj⊘nn i den kristne antikken , pp. 79 – 89 . Oslo . [Google Scholar]: 79–89). 32. This is also the opinion of North (1966 North , Helen ( 1966 ) “Sophrosyne in Patristic Literature” . In : Sophrosyne. Self-Knowledge and Self-Restraint in Greek Literature , pp. 312 – 386 . New York . [Google Scholar]: 334): “unlike most of the Fathers, Clement regards the married state as superior to virginity”. 33. On the Apparel of Women, 1.1 34. The “Gnostic” is to be understood here, in accordance with Clement's use of the term, as the spiritually mature Christian man or woman.
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