Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
  1. Home
  2. Search

Refine search

Refine search

Access:
Content type:
Publication date:
Apply   From and To filters
Subject: Show more
Journals Show more
Publishers: Show more
Societies Show more
Series: Show more
Collections: Show more

Actions for selected content:

Select all | Deselect all
  • View selected items
  • Export citations
  • Download PDF (zip)
  • Save to Kindle
  • Save to Dropbox
  • Save to Google Drive

Save Search

You can save your searches here and later view and run them again in "My saved searches".

Please provide a title, maximum of 40 characters.
Cancel
×

1 results

  • 9 - Clement’s Theology of Hiddenness and the Logic of Christian Miscellanism

  • J. M. F. Heath, University of Durham
  • Book:
    Clement of Alexandria and the Shaping of Christian Literary Practice
    Published online:
    16 December 2020
    Print publication:
    17 December 2020, pp 239-270

  • Summary

    Clement’s motif of concealment has often led scholars to describe him as an ‘esoteric author,’ who chose the miscellany genre in order to hide some things from some people, in imitation of scriptural concealment by aenigma. This chapter begins to respond by arguing that Clement’s esoteric tropes draw attention to the theme of hiddenness, which is a widespread imagistic discourse in his work. Five major modes of hiddenness are discerned in Clement’s theology: theological, anthropological, exegetical, social and cosmic; in practice, all of these are grounded in the hiddenness of God. God is transcendent, but is revealed in hidden ways in persons, texts, and in the world, for those who seclude themselves from the social gaze and direct their contemplation to God through Christ. Clement invites all people to participate in the divine economy of revelation with the selective discernment that is made possible by a gnostic relationship to the hidden God. Miscellanism emerges as the necessary and normative mode of gnostic life.