From quotation to "collaging": the ancient heritage in the early Christian writings

Clement of Alexandria and Tertullian often weave into the text of their works quotations or paraphrases from writings by ancient poets end philosophers. A. Mehat, considering this Clement''s technique, attributes to him the use of the genre of cento and believes that the Alexandrian theologian, combining classical and biblical phrases, tries to accustom the Greeks to "this barbarous language". The article suggests that with the help of a cascade of classical allusions and reminiscences Clement and Tertullian sought to make their treaties similar to works of the contemporary pagan authors in order to refute the common opinion about the lack of education and ignorance of representatives of the new religion and to bring Christianity to the truth-seeking intellectuals. The earlier Church writers did not dare to use such inclusions for decorating their works and appealed to classical quotations only as evidence of paganism. To denote the method applied by Clement and Tertullian, the author of the article uses the term collaging and shows the difference between collages in the poetry of avant-garde poets (for example, in The Cantos by Ezra Pound) and collages in protrepticos, diatribes, invectives, etc. of early Christian theologians.