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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
Nature Contemplation in Clement of Alexandria: Elements of the Method

Nature Contemplation in Clement of Alexandria: Elements of the Method

Costache, Doru

Hardcover

PhilosophyGeneral Christianity

ISBN10: 1032785543
ISBN13: 9781032785547
Publisher: Routledge
Published: Jun 13 2025
Pages: 190
Weight: 1.02
Height: 0.50 Width: 6.14 Depth: 9.21
Language: English

This book examines Clement of Alexandria's interdisciplinary approach to nature contemplation--which he terms physiology and physics--showing its internal consistency even in the absence of a clear methodological outline.

It reconstructs Clement's method of nature contemplation, which, while discernible throughout his writings, does not feature as such in one place. Yet it exists within the second stage of the broader threefold roadmap of spiritual advancement, which progresses from ethics to physics to divine vision (epoptics). Specifically, Clement's physics itself has three steps: analysis, interpretation, and the spiritual vision of the world. To advance through the three stages of physics, one must acquire virtue, contemplative skills, and sound information regarding the nature of things. But only transformed people, whom Clement calls holy gnostics, saintly sages, have access to the final stage, gnostic physiology. This third step amounts to an insightful--noetic--perception of nature irreducible to either keen observation or the information gathered and processed by way of analysis and interpretation. This book presents Clement's method against the backdrop of ancient disciplines of nature contemplation--and as paving the way for contemporary science-engaged theology.

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