'christianity is the heir of all past time and the interpreter of the future'
'philosophy also is a creation of Divine Providence'./
'the true Gnostic makes all philosophy his own,
because it is the divine preparation for the gospel;
he uses and studies the world because the world leads him to God'.
these sentences of his form suitable mottoes for ..clement,
since they express exactly the position taken up under his influence by the christian school of alexandria,
in advance of st. justin and in direct opposition to tertullian.
it is at last recognized that God was educating the world before the coming of Christ,
and that not by judaism alone.
the truth is now established that reason as well as revelation is a gift of God
and being so established, christian teachers have no longer any hesitation
in using existing philosophic methods and working over such philosophic doctrines the christian theology.
for a thousand years the great city of alexandria was the centre of all learning
and never, except in athens at her best period, was there such a brilliant home of culture.
founded in 322 bc by alexander the great, 15 years after the death of plato,
it at once assumed a literary importance
and on alexander's death the ptolemies nobly carried out the founder's intention.
the first of them established a library with 50,000 rolls of books,
the number of books gradually increasing to 500,000 or according to one account 700,000.
it was to the ptolemies also that the jews owed the septuagint.
the library was in two buildings-the museum (a place for musing or reflection) and the temple of serapis.
of these, the former was partially destroyed by fire in the time of julius caesar,
but replenished by cleopatra's present of the pregamus collection to mark antony.
the temple of serapis was destroyed in a christian riot in 391
and soon after that time both the learning and the christianity of alexandria began to decay,
until both alike were swept away by mahommedanism in the seventh century.
when hadrian visted alexandrea, he wrote that
'no one was idle-not even the blind, the lame or the crippled'
also that the people wer 'fickle, uncertain, blown about by every gust of rumour'.
the fact was that alexandrians were eclectic and critical.
the special feature of the alexandrian thought, christian, jewish and pagan alike,
was that it tried to absorb the best of everything
and be satisfied with nothing.
thus when origen, the great successor of clement, attended the lectures of the neo platonists,
over the door of the school were the opening verses of john's gospel
while numenius, a pagan, said that plato was only moses speaking greek.
but there was also a strong imaginative sentiment in all the schools,
which had 'a tendency to evaprate religion into allegory and philosophy into dreamy speculation,
while the critical spirit marred the creative power'.
thus alexandria..'with her learning and subtlety gathered together and fused all the elements of the old world
and created in her own manner a sort of universalism, vague rather than broad,
in which the religions of east and west were alike deprived of their exclusive character,
judaism itself being made to enter into alliance with the polytheistic religions,
which it so long proscribed.
born of this heterogeneous union, the alexandrian mind rose above all national divergences,
but it also rose above reality and above history, to the cloudy summits of speculation
and was utterly wanting in the historic sense.
strong in its allegorical method, it sported with facts;
and its philosophical theories were at once aspiring and unsubstantial.
the great proportion of jews in alexandria was remarkable.
a considerable number were imported by alexander himself into the city
and another forced importation was afterwards made in the time of ptolemy soter.
by the time of clement the nation had increased their numbers
to about 100,000 out of a total population of 300,000 besides the slaves
and they occupied two out of the five quarters into which the city was divided.
no wonder then that the influence of jewish upon alexandrian thought was very considerable.
but the reverse was also the case.
even earlier than our Lord's time, there were many jewish teachers in alexandria,
who caught the allegorizing spirit, and applied it widely to the old testament.
at the same time they had to some extent transformed
the jewish idea of Jehovah into the platonic idea of God or possibly his 'idea of the good'.
against this tendency, philo, the principal jewish-alexandrine, who was a contemporary of our Lord,
raised a partial protest;
partial, because he was himself carried away by the allegorizing tendency to a great extent.
but while he admitted that much of the less essential parts of the old testament were full of allegory,
there was always, he taught, an irreducible minimum, which was not only exactly and literally true,
but of divine revelation
and accordance with this revelation must be the test of the truth of all other philosophies.
the jews were, in his vies, priests and prophets for all mankind.
here, then, were two important facts which paved the way for the acceptance of christianity.
there had been a distinct revelation from God which established AUTHORITY:
there was a revealed message from God to ALL MANKIND.
but when it came to metaphysics, philo adapted himself to platonic views;
as, for instance, the divine apathy-that the first cause was behind all thought and feeling, passionless
also that matter was eternal.
but again, as thought and power must necessarily precede creation,
he accepted a theory of personalities, something like the aeons of the gnostics.
thought and power were among them;
but the chief of these forces was the Logos, the Mind of God declaring itself,
but a persona Mind and also essentially God.
here, then, were the two schools of though with which christianity had to contend,
and which she finally vanquished
the one an Eclectic Pagan school, which was founded mainly on plato,
but had incorporated material from all the other philosophic systems of the world;
the other a jewish school following to some extent the same lines
but with a foundation of Revelation, a message to mankind,
and a literature which christianity had already annexed.
the greeks had and opinion (pistis...faith): the jews a practical conviction (gnOsis...knowledge).
according to a tradition which lightfoot considers may be accepted,
the alexandrean church was founded by st. mark, probably as early as 40.
hence it was often called the evangelical see.
it is probable also that mark was the emissary of peter.
the catechetical school, which became so celebrated later on, may have been also founded by mark..
for a long time, however, it was only a training school for catechumens.
the correctness of the list of early alexandrine bishops is very doubtful,
nor were any of them prominent characters till towards the end of the third century.
the head of the catechetical school, who was appointed by the bishop,
but not necessarily even in orders, was a much more important personage.
...clement represents in three different ways a transitional period in christian history:
a transition from oral tradition to written definitions
from a study of the main points of revelation to that of the whole realm of human experience
a taking over of the whole life as an object of christian discipline.
his works are full of learning and contain quotations from 500 other authors.
he quotes from nearly all the books of the bible and also from many uncanonical books,
as if they were scripture.
like his predecessors and his contemporary tertullian, he recognizes
the 'tradition of the blessed doctrine derived directly from the holy apostles.'.
but the chief point in all his teaching is his claim..that the world's education was on a divine plan
and that if the law was the schoolmaster to lead the jews to Christ,
philosophy was the schoolmaster to lead the greek mind there.
...as regards clement's theology, his view was that it was impossible to give any written account of GOD,
that He was raised above all speech and thought and therefore undemonstrable
...yet God is completely known through the SON (logos)
who is wisdom, truth, science and everything of the same order.
thus He is the demonstration and explanation of truth
and the incarnation of the logos is the crown and consummation of the history of the world..
..of the trinity..'the Father of the universe is one: the Word of the universe is one:
the HOLY SPIRIT is one and the same everywhere
..as regards the atonement, 'christians are redeemed from corruption by the blood of the Lord
the Lord gave Himself as a Victim for us ..
..as regards BAPTISM..'it is a sovereign medicine, by which we are cleansed from all our sins
and cease at once to be wicked.
sins after baptism were to be purged by discipline, of which a part was public confession. (note: bible?)
this discipline is so necessary, that if not completed here, it must be after death
and it is then effected by a fire which pervades the soul, which is not destructive, but discriminating. (note!!!!)
LORD'S SUPPER..in eucharistic doctrine clement is rather deficient
and he seems rather to tend to symbolic teaching. (note: wrong?)
thus, 'the Lord in the Gospel brought this out by symbols,
when He said 'eat My flesh' and 'drink My blood' ,
describing exactly by metaphors the drinkable properties of faith and the promise'.
this is so unlike MOST of the patristic teaching
(note: is this or the bible the standard? is there no room for different interpretations?)
that one cannot help feeling that he was carried away by his tendency to allegorize.
li
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