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

The C'hristian Schools of Alexandrcia.
and conventional guise, were shut and
clenched, when they saw in its train
the rough mechanic, the poor maidservant, the negro, and the harlot.
There could be no compromise between two systems such as these.
For a time it might have seemed as
if they could decide their quarrel in
the schools, but the old Serpent and
his chief agents knew better: and so
did Clement and the Christian doctors,
at the very time that they were taking
advantage of fair weather to occupy
every really strong position which the
enemy held. The struggle soon grew
into the deadly hand-to-hand grapple
that ended in leaving the corpse of
paganism on the ground, dead but not
buried, to be gradually trodden out of
sight by a new order of things.
It must not, however, be supposed
that the Christian school of Alexandria was wholly, or even chiefly, employed in controversy with the schools
of the heathen. The first care of the
Church was, as at all times, the household of the faith: a care, however, in
the fulfilment of which there is less
that strikes as novel or interesting at
first sight than in that remarkable aggressive movement of which it has
been our object to give some idea.
But even in the Church's householdworking there is much that is both
instructive and interesting, as we get
a glimpse of it in Clement of Alexandria. The Church in Alexandria, as
elsewhere, was made up of men from
every lot and condition of life. There
were officials, civil and military, merchants, shop-keepers, work-peopleplain, hard-striving men, husbands,
and fathers of families. In the wake
of the upper thousands followed a long
and wide train - the multitude who
compose the middle classes of a great
city; and it was from their ranks that
the Church was mainly recruited.
They might not feel much interest
in the university, beyond the fact that
its numerous and wealthy students
were a welcome stimulus to trade;
but still they had moral and intellect 4
ual natures. They must have craved
for some kind of food for their minds
and hearts, and cannot have been satisfied with the dry, unnourishing scraps
that were flung to them by the supercilious philosophers. They must have
felt no small content-those among
them who had the grace to hearken
to the teachings of Clement-when he
told them that the philosophy he taught
was as much for them as for their masters and their betters. They listened
to him, weighed his words, and accepted them; and then a great question arose. It was a question that was
being debated and settled at Antioch,
at Rome, and at Athens, no less than
at Alexandria; but at Alexandria it
was Clement who answered it. "We
believe your good tidings," they said;
"but tell us, must we change our lives
wholly and entirely? Is everything
that we have been doing so far, and
our fathers have been doing before
us, miserably and radically wrong?"
They had bought and sold; they had
married and given in marriage; they
had filled their warehouses and freighted their ships; they had planted and
builded, and brought up their sons and
daughters. They had loved money,
and the praise of their fellow-men;
they had their fashions and their customs, old and time-honored, and so interwoven with their very life as to be
almost identified with it. Some of their
notions and practices the bare announcement of the Gospel sufficiently
condemned; and these must go at once.
But where was the line to he drawn?
Did the Gospel aim at regenerating
the world by forbidding marriage and
laying a ban on human labor; by
making life intolerable with asceticism; by emptying the streets and the
market-places, and driving men to
Nitria and the frightful rocks of the
Upper Nile? And what made the
question doubly exciting was the twofold fact, first, that in those very days
men and women were continually fleeing from home and family, and hiding
in the desert; and secondly, that there
were in that very city congregations of
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