Abstract

 The study Old Church Ethics between the Bible and the Stoic-Platonian Teaching about Virtue. An Introduction in the reading of ‘Quis dives salvetur’ by Clement of Alexandria’ is a short presentation of the second Christian century as “the laboratory of the Christian theology” rather than being determined by the “Gnostic crisis”(Harnack). In Quis dives salvetur, Clement of Alexandria thinks according to the Stoical categories even when speaking about the property. Nevertheless, there are some attitudes in his work which are different from the Stoical thinking, attitudes infl uenced by the Holy Scriptures: on the basis of the theology of Creation he considers the material goods and property as being given by God for the welfare of man. Being detached from the matter is absolutely important. The study highlights the fact that, besides the common elements of the Stoical and Christian ethics, it is not right to call the differences as being “thin” (E: Mühlenberg). The work of Clement of Alexandria is a valuble result of the second century Christan theology, where the biblical infl uence is stronger than the philosophical one.

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