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

The Christian Schools of Alexandria.
men calling themselves Christians, who he is, in whom there is no sin, great
proclaimed that it was wrong to marry, or small, nor any temptation to sin;
and that flesh-meat and wine were sin- God in the figure of a man, stainless,
fiul indulgences. obedient to his Father's will; the
The answer that Clement gave to Word, true God, who is in the Father,
these questionings is found mainly in who is at the Father's right hand, true
that work of his which is called Paeda- God in the form of a man; to whom
gogus, or "The Teacher." The an- we must strive with all our might to
swer needed was a sharp, a short, and make ourselves like." It sounds like
a decisive one. It needed to be like a the commencement of a children's re surgical operation-rapidly performed, treat in one of our modern cities to
completed, with nothing further to be hear Clement proclaim so anxiously
done but to fasten the bandages, and that the teacher and model of men is
leave the patient to the consequences, no other than Jesus, and that we must
whatever they might be. Society had all become children, and go and listen
to be reset. We need not repeat for to him and study him; yet it is a sen.
the thousandth time the fact of the un- tence that must have spoken to the
utterable corruptness and rottenness of very inmost hearts of all who had a
the whole pagan world. It was not thought or care for their souls in
that there were wanting certain true Alexandria; and one can perceive,
ideas of duty toward the state, the in the terms used in the original
family, the fellow-citizen: the evil lay Greek, a conscious adaptation of epi far deeper. It was not good sense that thets to meet more than one Platonic
was wanting; it was the sense of the difficulty. It was the reconciliation of
supernatural. "Let us eat and drink, the true with the beautiful. The Alex for to-morrow we die," was the formula andrians, Greek and Egyptian, with
that expressed the code of popular mo- their Greek longings for the beautiful,
rality; and because men could not "eat and their Egyptian tendings to the
and drink" comfortably and luxurious- sensible, were not put off by Clement
tly without some sort of law, order, and with a cold abstraction. A mathema mutual compact, it followed as a neces- tical deity, formed out of lines, rela s.ary consequence that there must be tions, and analogies, such as Neo law, order, and compact. It was not, Platonism offered, was well enough
therefore, that Clement had merely to for the lecture-room, but had small
-hold up the Gospel and show them its hold upon the heart. Christianity
; meaning here and its application there. restored the thrilling sense of a per He had to shift the very groundwork sonal God, which Neo-Platonism de.,of morality, to take up the very foun- stroyed, but for which men still sighed,
dations of the moral acts that go to though they knew not what they were
make- up life as viewed in the light of sighing for; and Christianity, by
xight:and wrong. IHe had to substi- Clement's mouth, taught that the liv _tute heaven for earth, hereafter for ing and lovely life of Jesus was to be
:here,God for self. And he did so- the elid and the measure of the life of
in a fashion not unknown in the Catho- all. They were to follow him: "My
lie Church since, as indeed it had been angel shall walk before you," is Clem not.:unknown to St. Paul long before. ent's own quotation. And having
'He simply held. up to them the cruci- thus laid down the regenerating prin fix. Let any one turn to the com- ciple-God through Jesus Christ —
.mencement of the Pedagogus, and he descends safely and fearlessly into
he: will find a description of what a details. Minutely and carefully he
:teacher ought to be. At the begin- handles the problems of life, and sets
ning of the second chapter he will them straight by the light of the life of
read these words:'";My children, our Jesus.
.teacher's like the lF3atlr, whose Son These details and these directions,
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