The Christian Schools of Alexandria, Part I [pp. 33-56]

The Christian Schools of Alexandria.
He did not burn his philosophical understood perfectly the importance of
books and anathematize his masters; the object, provided the assertion were
like St. Paul, he availed himself of the true, as it might turn out to be. Ungood that was in them and commended less Clement had spoken of asceticism,
it, and then proclaimed that he had the of the perfect man, and of the true
key of the treasure which they had Gnostic, his teaching would not have
labored to find and had not found. come home to the self-denying student,
This explains how it is that, in Clement to the thoughtful sage, to the brilliant
of Alexandria, the philosopher's man- youth, to all that was great and genertle seems almost to hide the simple ous and amiable in the huge heathen
garb of the Christian. This also ex- society of the crowded city. As it was,
plains why he is called, and indeed he gained a hearing, and, having done
calls himself, an Eclectic in his sys- so, he said to the Alexandrians, "Your
tem; and this marks out the drift and masters in philosophy are great and
the aim of the many allusions to phi- noble: I honor them, I admire and
losophy that we find in his extant accept them; but they did not go far
works, and in the traditions of his enough, as you all acknowledge. Come
teaching that have come down to us. to us, then, and we will show what is
If Christianity was truly called a phi- wanting in them. Listen to these old
losophy, what should we expect in its Hebrew writers whom I will quote to
champion but that he should be a you. You see that they treated of all
philosopher? Men in these days read your problems, and had solved the
the Stromata, and find that it is, on deepest of them, whilst your forethe outside, more like Plato than like fathers were groping in darkness. All
Jesus Christ; and thus they make their light, and much more, is our insmall account of it, because they can- heritance. The truth, which you seek,
not understand its style, or the reason we possess.'What you worship, withfor its adoption. The grounds of ques- out knowing it, that I preach to you.'
tions and the forms of thought have God's Word has been made flesh-has
shifted since the days of the catechet- lived on this earth, the model man, the
ical school. But Clement's fellow- absolute man. Come to us, and we
citizens understood him. The thrifty will show you how you may know God
young Byzantine, for instance, under- through him, and how through him God
stood him, who had been half-inclined communicates himself to you." But
to join the Stoics, but had come, in his here he stopped. The "discipline of
threadbare pallium, to hear the Chris- the secret" allowed him to go no furtian teacher, and who was told that ther in public. The listening Chrisasceticism was very good and com- tians knew well what he meant; his
mendable, but that the end of it all was pagan hearers only surmised that there
God and the love of God, and that was more behind. And.was it not
this end could only be attained by a much that Christianity should thus
Christian. The languid but intellectual measure strength and challenge a conman of fashion understood him, who test with the old Greek civilization on
had grown sick of the jargon of his equal terms, and about those very matPlatonist professors about the perfect ters of intellect and high ethics in which
man and the archetypal humanity, and it especially prided itself?
who now felt his inmost nature stirred But the contest, never a friendly
to its depths by the announcement and one, save with the dullest and easiest
description of the Word made flesh. of the pagan philosophers, very soon
The learned stranger from Antioch or grew to be war to the knife. We have
Athens, seeking for the truth, under- said that the quiet lovers of literature
stood him, when he said that the Chris- among the heathen men of science
tian dogma alone could create and per- were perfectly ready to admit the
fect the true Gnostic or Knower; he Christian philosophy to a fair share
47