Clement of Alexandria - Founder of the Christian Pedagogy
Clement of Alexandria - Founder of the Christian Pedagogy

Summary/Abstract: he Greek theologian Clement of Alexandria (150-215/216) is known to be the first thinker to emphasise writing grounds to establish a specific formative approach and as a matter of fact to clear up numerous ides within spreading area of the Christian pedagogy. As a subtle connoisseur of the heathen philosophy, an admirer of Plato, Clement distinguishes himself through introduction of the philosophical dialectics to demonstrate Christian faith, as well as through emphasising characteristics of the Christian mode to form human personality. In religious education, the philosophical dialects itself may and should be accepted as a modality to form if it clears up and strengthens the consciousness of the believer. This study synthesises the pedagogical ideas of Clement of Alexandria while it follows two independent dimensions of subjects: specific intentionality which is referred to by approaches of the Christian education (in the state of the ideal) and methodology of human modelling having been claimed by the first dimension. In his work the "Paedagogus" (The Instructor), the first systematic writing of Christian pedagogy, the theologian of Alexandria would formulate distinctly and unequivocally the question: "what is the method of Word pedagogy?" and he differentiated the method of the "paedagogus" from the method of the "didasculus". While calling upon some elements of the training methodology from the Old Testament and the New Testament, we give reasons to Clement of Alexandria being place on the line of axiological continuity in relation to Christian pedagogic sources. In the works having been conceived by Clement of Alexandria, a happy association is present which is extremely dear to the theologian: culture and pedagogy; they are both integrating "the fairest and the most perfect objects in life", and pedagogy, in a particular manner, constitutes the way to "guide man's soul from childhood on the right path of virtues".

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