Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 2) - VIII - Clement of Alexandria commenced

Required reading
Ante-Nicene Fathers (Volume 2) (Available from Amazon or free here) - Commence Clement of Alexandria's 'Exhortation to the heathen' by reading Chapters 1 to 3.
 
My summary
Today we begin Clement of Alexandria's works.

Similarly to other Early Church Fathers, Clement bewails the immorality of pagan Gods (usually citing sexual and violent behaviours) and holds up the Christian God as the only true one.

Thus statements like the following are common: 'Such are the mysteries of the Atheists. And with reason I call those Atheists who know not the true God, and pay shameless worship to a boy torn in pieces by the Titans, and a woman in distress, and to parts of the body that in truth cannot be mentioned for shame, held fast as they are in the double impiety, first in that they know not God, not acknowledging as God Him who truly is; the other and second is the error of regarding those who exist not, as existing and calling those gods that have no real existence, or rather no existence at all, who have nothing but a name. Wherefore the apostle reproves us, saying, “And ye were strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.”'

What grabbed me
Interestingly homosexual practices were condemned by Clement too: 'Hercules, the son of Zeus—a true son of Zeus—was the offspring of that long night, who with hard toil accomplished the twelve labours in a long time, but in one night deflowered the fifty daughters of Thestius, and thus was at once the debaucher and the bridegroom of so many virgins. It is not, then, without reason that the poets call him a cruel wretch and a nefarious scoundrel. It were tedious to recount his adulteries of all sorts, and debauching of boys. For your gods did not even abstain from boys, one having loved Hylas, another Hyacinthus, another Pelops, another Chrysippus, and another Ganymede. Let such gods as these be worshipped by your wives, and let them pray that their husbands be such as these—so temperate; that, emulating them in the same practices, they may be like the gods. Such gods let your boys be trained to worship, that they may grow up to be men with the accursed likeness of fornication on them received from the gods.'

An appeal to pagans against such practice demonstrates that even those outside the church were not comfortable with homosexuality.

Next week's reading
Conclude Clement of Alexandria's 'Exhortation to the heathen' by reading Chapters 1 to 3.

Now it's your turn
Please post your own notes and thoughts in the comments section below.