Quick note. Scholars like to think they know who Clement was or at least that he shared the same beliefs as regarding the messianic status of Jesus. I am not so sure about this. I think I have proved that he was a member of the heretical community identified by Irenaeus as 'the Marcosians.' I happen to think that 'Mark' of the 'Marcosians' was really St. Mark of Alexandria but that's another story. Clement wrote a famous three volume work called 'the Pedagogue' which represents a kind of 'introduction' to Christianity in many ways. Clement deliberately avoids revealing the mystical secrets of his Alexandrian tradition but in the process he leaves us with a most interesting mystery - who is the figure he describes as 'the Pedagogue' of the Church?
I know most people take the word pedagogue to simply mean 'instructor' but this isn't the full implication of the term. In my mind Clement was far too knowledgeable about what the term 'messiah' to allow for the one so identified to be designated a 'pedagogue.' Here is the description of the meaning of the term from A Day in Old Athens, by William Stearns Davis (1910) making clear that a pedagogue was not an 'instructor' so much as a 'slave guide':
It is a great day for an Athenian boy when he is given a pedagogue. This slave (perhaps purchased especially for the purpose) is not his teacher, but he ought to be more than ordinarily honest, kindly, and well informed. His prime business is to accompany the young master everywhere out-of-doors, especially to the school and to the gymnasium; to carry his books and writing tablets; to give informal help upon his lessons; to keep him out of every kind of mischief; to teach him social good manners; to answer the thousand questions a healthy boy is sure to ask; and finally, in emergencies, if the schoolmaster or his father is not at hand, to administer a needful whipping. A really capable pedagogue can mean everything to a boy; but it is asking too much that a purchased slave should be an ideal companion.* [* No doubt frequently the pedagogue would be an old family servant of good morals, loyalty, and zeal. In that case the relation might be delightful] Probably many pedagogues are responsible for their charges' idleness or downright depravity. It is a dubious system at the best.
The assigning of the pedagogue is simultaneous with the beginning of school days; and the Athenians are not open to the charge of letting their children waste their time during possible study hours. As early as Solon's day (about 590 B.C.) a law had to be passed forbidding schools to open BEFORE daybreak, or to be kept open after dusk. This was in the interest not of good eyesight, but of good morals. Evidently schools had been keeping even longer than through the daylight. In any case, at gray dawn every yawning schoolboy is off, urged on by his pedagogue, and his tasks will continue with very little interruption through the entire day. It is therefore with reason that the Athenian lads rejoice in the very numerous religious holidays. [Chapter IX]
As I said, the messiah could not be imagined by Jews to be identified as the 'pedagogue' of Israel. Indeed when we scroll through Clement's references to the concept of 'pedagogue' in the Pedagogue it is clear that he never once identifies the Pedagogue with 'Christ.'
The Pedagogue is Jesus the Word of God as Clement makes clear throughout the work:
When, then, the heavenly guide, the Word, was inviting men to salvation, the appellation of hortatory was properly applied to Him: his same word was called rousing (the whole from a part). For the whole of piety is hortatory, engendering in the kindred faculty of reason a yearning after true life now and to come. But now, being at once curative and preceptive, following in His own steps, He makes what had been prescribed the subject of persuasion, promising the cure of the passions within us. Let us then designate this Word appropriately by the one name Pedagogue. The Pedagogue being practical, not theoretical, His aim is thus to improve the soul, not to teach, and to train it up to a virtuous, not to an intellectual life." [Ped. i.1]
I am utterly convinced that the manner in which Clement uses the word 'pedagogue' - i.e. slave guide - to apply to Jesus the heavenly Logos can be used to identify him with the heretics described by Irenaeus as those who "prefer the Gospel of Mark [and] separate Jesus from Christ, alleging that Christ remained impassible, but that it was Jesus who suffered." [AH iii. 11. 7]
In other words, Clement might have hypocritically mouthed the Roman claims about Jesus as Christ but the concept was alien to his Alexandrian tradition. Jesus was instead a monophysite angelic being - exactly as the Marcionites imagined him - who came from heaven to manifest his good blessings upon humanity in the form of the dissemination of knowledge of the true Father.
Look at the complete absence of reference to the concept of 'Jesus Christ' in the next passage:
it is time for us in due course to say who our Instructor is. He is called Jesus: Sometimes He calls Himself a shepherd, and says, "I am the good Shepherd." According to a metaphor drawn from shepherdS, who lead the sheep, is hereby understood the Instructor, who leads the children--the Shepherd who tends the babes. For the babes are simple, being figuratively described as sheep. "And they shall all," it is said, "be one flock, and one shepherd." The Word, then, who leads the children to salvation, is appropriately called the Pedagogue.
With the greatest clearness, accordingly, the Word has spoken respecting Himself by Hosea: "I am your Pedagogue." Now piety is instruction, being the learning of the service of God, and training in the knowledge of the truth, and right guidance which leads to heaven. And the word "instruction" is employed variously. For there is the instruction of him who is led and learns, and that of him who leads and teaches; and there is, thirdly, the guidance itself; and fourthly, what is taught, as the commandments enjoined." [Ped. i.7]
As I said this is only the beginning of our investigation, but it seems quite obvious that the term pedaogue was entirely incompatible with the expectation associated with the messiah. That's why I think the idea here develops from the traditional Alexandrian portrait of Jesus the pedagogue AND little St. Mark the child disciple (see the Passio Petri Sancti). It might even have something to do with Secret Mark's story of Jesus raising his beloved neaniskos ...
UPDATE I went through all the references to pedagogue in Philo and I think it confirms my hypothesis that Clement got his idea that the Logos was the pedagogue. Again, everything is compatible with what we read in the Church Fathers about the Marcionite Chrestos. This is NOT an INCARNATE figure but a heavenly figure associated with bread which in turn is the spiritual flesh of the messianic age sought by Christians. Does this make sense?
