He mentions in his Stromata quite a few times that Hermes (a Greek god he equates with Egyptian Thoth) wrote many books used by mystery religions, that concern astrology, ritual practice, and worship, varying between four and forty-two in number. He also mentions a few other gods and divine heroes that he believes were real Egyptians and Greeks who got deified after the fact. He states in chapter 21 of the Stromata:
“Of those too who at one time lived as men among the Egyptians, but were constituted gods by human opinion, were Hermes the Theban, and Asclepius of Memphis, Tireseus and Manto, again at Thebes, as Euripides says.”
Clement goes on to list a whole bunch of minor prophets and legendary figures that he believes were real people, like the seer Idmon, whose existence would imply that the whole Argonaut mission was a historical fact.
The notion that the greek gods were historical people whose reports received embellishments existed before Christianity, and is called in current scholarship as Euhemerism. In Jewish thought the book of Wisdom provides an example of euhemerization:
When people could not honour monarchs in their presence, since they lived at a distance, they imagined their appearance far away, and made a visible image of the king whom they honoured, so that by their zeal they might flatter the absent one as though present. Then the ambition of the artisan impelled even those who did not know the king to intensify their worship. For he, perhaps wishing to please his ruler, skilfully forced the likeness to take more beautiful form, and the multitude, attracted by the charm of his work, now regarded as an object of worship the one whom shortly before they had honoured as a human being. And this became a hidden trap for humankind, because people, in bondage to misfortune or to royal authority, bestowed on objects of stone or wood the name that ought not to be shared. (14:17-21)
Early Christian writers followed this idea. Not just Clement, but Tertullian and Cyprian are examples of it.
Euhemerism is possibly background to Titus 1:12. There the author quotes a Cretan writer saying that Cretans are all liars, among other things. The probable context of this saying, as other ancient authors suggest, is the Cretan claim that Zeus was buried on their island. This was offensive to those who worshipped Zeus as Lord over all.
Clement of Alexandria [d. 215 AD] Reading a passage from Odysseus and saying, “Homer seems to be talking about ‘Father’ and ‘Son’ here.” goes into his trivia: | Clement of Alexandria; Stromateis 5
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