Part 8

Error was rapidly creeping into the church, and it came principally through these schools, as has already been seen. However, truth was not abandoned for error without a struggle. Mosheim says: “The estimation in which human learning should be held was a question on which the Christians were about equally divided. For while many thought that the literature and writings of the Greeks ought to receive attention, _there were others who contended that true piety and religion were endangered by such studies_.”[66] People then, as now, looked to the leaders in the church for guidance; and it was hard, when these studies were popular, for the conscientious to withdraw entirely to what the others called a narrow, limited education. It often led to contention among members of the same church, and often even parents and children failed to agree on the subject.

[Sidenote: Wrong methods retained]

“But gradually,” continues Mosheim, “the _friends of philosophy and literature acquired the ascendency_. To this issue Origen contributed very much; for having early imbibed the principles of the NEW PLATONISM, _he inauspiciously applied them to theology_, and earnestly recommended them to the numerous youth who attended on his instruction. And the greater the influence of this man, which quickly spread over the whole Christian world, the more readily was his method of explaining the sacred doctrines propagated.”

[Sidenote: Origin of the papacy]

The days when the papacy should be recognized as the beast of Revelation 13 were fast approaching. Such experiences in the history of education in the Christian church show how rapidly the life of the Master, the Spirit of truth, was giving place to the form of godliness which denied the power thereof. One reading thus the pages of history can not fail to see that the papacy _was formed in the minds of men_, WAS PROPAGATED IN THE SCHOOLS, AND REALLY TOOK BIRTH IN THE EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM THEN DEVELOPED. The political power, which was called upon to help the church, simply carried out at the point of the sword those principles which were developed in the schools. The two streams—paganism and apostate Christianity—united; and in the mad current which flowed from their confluence, men’s souls were lost forever.

CHRISTIAN EDUCATION is the pure water of life, clear and sparkling, which flows from the throne of God; but when mingled with the turbid waters of the valley, it is lost sight of, and the current is evil. The part played by Platonic philosophy can not be overlooked. The foundation had already been laid in the third century for the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, and that “noontide of the papacy which was the world’s moral midnight” was fast approaching.

X

THE PAPACY—AN EDUCATIONAL PROBLEM

Previous chapters have revealed these facts: 1. That the Jewish nation was set as a light to the world. This light was to shine by means of education, and the Jews were to be teachers of the nations. 2. The Jewish nation lost its position as leader in educational reform, and, consequently, in all other particulars, because it departed from the pure system of education delivered to the Fathers, and mingled with the heathen, especially with the Greeks and the Egyptians.

In substantiation of this fact we have these words of Neander: “The Jews, completely imbued with the elements of Hellenic culture, _endeavored to find a mean between it and the religion of their fathers_, which they had no wish to renounce. To this end they availed themselves of the system most in vogue with those who, in Alexandria, busied themselves with religious matters—that of the _Platonic philosophy_, which had already acquired a mighty influence over their own intellectual life.... On the one hand, they firmly adhered to the religion of their fathers.... On the other hand, their minds were possessed by a philosophical culture at variance with these convictions. They were themselves not unconscious of the conflicting elements that filled their minds, and must have felt constrained to seek some artificial method of combining them into a harmonious whole. Thus they would be involuntarily driven to intercalate in _the old records of religion_, which for them possessed the highest authority, a _sense foreign to their true spirit_, supposing all the while that they were thereby really exalting their dignity as the source of all wisdom.”[67] 3. _This intercalation of Greek philosophy_ with the truth delivered to the Jewish nation brought the schools of the Hebrews to such a position that the Son of man, when receiving His education, avoided them altogether, and in His public teaching warned His people against the schools of the doctors, who for the Word of God taught the traditions of men. _This mingling of education then meant the crucifixion of Christ and the ruin of the Jewish nation._ 4. The early Christian church, composed of members called out from the Jewish schools and from the purely pagan doctrines, at first taught their children truths based upon the Scriptures; but before the close of the first century, the tendency to commingle Christian teachings and heathen philosophy was already noticeable. Paul, writing to the Thessalonians, referring to this fact, said, “The _mystery of iniquity_ doth already work.”

[Sidenote: Papal education sophistry]

This tendency, seen in the days of Paul, grew into a habit; and as Christian youth prepared for gospel work by attending the schools at Alexandria and elsewhere, an entire change took place.

It now becomes our duty to follow this changed system of education, which is indeed but a mixture of Christian and pagan, and hence not a separate and distinct system at all. It was designated by the apostle to the Gentiles as “the mystery of iniquity.” As found in the third century, Mosheim described it thus: “It is necessary, however, to observe that the methods now used of defending Christianity, and attacking Judaism and idolatry, degenerated much from the primitive simplicity, and the true rule of controversy. The _Christian doctors_, who had been _educated in the schools of the rhetoricians and sophists_, rashly employed the arts and evasions of their subtle masters in the service of Christianity; and, intent only upon defeating the enemy, they were too little attentive to the means of victory, indifferent whether they acquired it by artifice or plain dealing. This method of disputing, which the ancients called economical, and which _had victory for its object, rather than truth_, was, in consequence of the prevailing taste for rhetoric and sophistry, almost universally approved.”[68]

The effect of the Christian schools’ teaching Greek literature, sophistry, and rhetoric was bearing its fruit in an unmistakable way. The simplicity of the gospel and of the man of God, who was the _truth_, was fast passing away. Even at this early date we find the germ of the order of Jesuits, who, in the Middle Ages, carried out the theory of the Platonists, and asserted “that it was no sin for a person to employ falsehood and fallacies for the support of truth, when it was in danger of being borne down.” It was at this time, and under the influence of these same doctors and teachers, that there arose the practice of attributing the writing of certain books to illustrious authors; “hence, the book of canons, which certain artful men ascribed falsely to the apostles, ... and many other productions of that nature, which, for a long time, were too much esteemed by credulous men.”[69] How far men had departed from the simplicity of the gospel is evident.

[Sidenote: Error introduced by teachers]

The spread of ideas contrary to the purity of the gospel was almost universally begun in the schools professing to be Christian; and teachers were, almost without exception, the leaders in these intellectual moves, which in reality form the basis for every change in government or religion. Throughout the history of the centuries, men have arisen who were noted for their intellectual prowess, men of strong mind, who were searching for truth. By tracing the work of a few representative teachers through the first three or four centuries, _we see the papacy appearing as the direct result of educational principles_.

In order to make this clear, let us begin with the teachings of Clement in the school of Alexandria. It may be hard to distinguish between truth and error, as we trace the intricate windings of philosophy in the days of the early church; but it is necessary to find the origin of those leading principles of the papacy against which the Reformation contended. In order to do so, we go to the source of the stream, which is usually found at Alexandria, in the schools conducted by Christian teachers, or doctors, as they are often called. The foremost, the all-absorbing doctrine of the papacy, is the substitution of works for faith. Christ’s one lesson, illustrated in hundreds of ways, to the multitudes and to the few, was wisdom by faith, eternal life by faith. The early church was founded upon this principle, and faith in God’s Word was the first maxim in the home school, in the church school, and in the seminaries of the early Christians. Faith gives the hearing ear, as in the case of Solomon; this gives the ability to _study_, which brings true wisdom.

[Sidenote: Corruption took place gradually]

How or where faith was lost can not be stated in positive terms. As wood, under favorable conditions, changes, bit by bit, into solid stone, one atom of wood giving place to a grain of sand, and so on till the form of the tree, once an embodiment of life, now lies a hard and lifeless stone, retaining, however, each scar of branch and leaf, each crack or wrinkle of the bark, yea, even the annual marks of growth and the grain of the wood; so faith in God’s Word was lost, atom by atom, and the lost faith was replaced by human philosophy. Alexandria was to the Christian school what the marsh is to the fallen tree. Much Greek philosophy contained elements of truth; many truths were by the Greeks put in brilliant settings. God himself had evidently revealed to the minds of men, such as Plato, Pythagoras, Aristotle, and others, principles of truth; but it was not supposed that men to whom had been opened the treasures of wisdom and knowledge through His word and through His Son should ever find it necessary to search for a few gems of truth amidst a mass of error. Turning from the pure light to search for these stray thoughts in Greek philosophy, _men lost their faith in God, failed to give His word its proper place_, and erelong the living, fruit-bearing tree was but an image of its former self, molded in stone.

That the reader may see that this mingling of truth and error was adopted in place of the pure word, he is referred to Neander’s description of Clement and his quotations of that eminent scholar’s reasoning.[70]

[Sidenote: Clement’s school work]

Without taking the space necessary to give this quotation, we pass to the thought that Clement introduced this Greek philosophy into the school he was teaching, and through his disciples paved the way for the papacy in its power. Of the Alexandrian school we read: “What was the original aim of the school itself? Was it at the outset merely an institution for communicating religious instruction to the heathen, or had there long existed in Alexandria a school for educating teachers for the Christian church—a sort of theological seminary for the clergy?... We find that originally a single person was appointed by the bishop of Alexandria to hold the office of catechist, whose business it was to give religious instruction to the heathen and probably _also to the children of the Christians in that place_.... Men were required for this office who possessed a perfect acquaintance with the Grecian religion, AND MOST ESPECIALLY MUST THEY HAVE RECEIVED A PHILOSOPHICAL EDUCATION, SO AS TO BE ABLE TO CONVERSE AND TO DISPUTE WITH ANY LEARNED PAGANS, who, after long investigation on other questions, might turn their attention to Christianity.

“_It was not enough to teach here, as in other churches, the main doctrines of Christianity...._ WITH THESE ENLIGHTENED CATECHUMENS, it was necessary to go back to the primitive sources of the religion in Scripture itself, and to seek to initiate them into the understanding of it—for such required a faith which would stand the _test of scientific examination_.”[71]

In order to meet the demands made by pagans and Greek philosophers the school stooped from its exalted position of teaching a wisdom acquired by faith, and substituted a course of study which “would _stand the test of scientific examination_.”

[Sidenote: Clement and higher criticism]

Clement, one of the earliest teachers in this school, “points out the need of high and rich talents in the holder of the catechetical office at Alexandria.” “The range of instruction imparted by these men,” says Neander, “gradually extended itself, for they were the first who ... attempted to satisfy a want deeply felt by numbers—the want of a _scientific exposition of the faith, and of a Christian_ science.” Here is perhaps the best place for one to attribute the change from faith to a scientific demonstration of the truths of the universe. Here is marked the time, so far as one is able to point it out with definiteness, of the transit from education by faith to education of the senses, from the spiritual to the intellectual and the physical. The fruit and the utter folly of the wisdom of the Greek and Egyptian sages (?) of this intellectual system are seen in its ripened state in the Dark Ages.

[Sidenote: Christian students fed on pagan ideas]

The same paragraph in Neander continues: “To their school were attracted not only those educated pagans, who, having by their teaching been converted to Christianity, and being seized with a desire to devote themselves and all they possessed to its service, chose ... the Alexandrian catechists for their guides, but also _those youths_, who, having been brought up within the Christian pale, were thirsting after a more profound knowledge, in order to prepare themselves for the office of _church teachers_.”[72]

[Sidenote: Opposing voices]

This school did not find its pathway always strewn with roses; for there were church teachers of the primitive class “who looked chiefly to the practical and real, ... and who were in continual dread of a corruption of Christianity by the admixture of foreign philosophical elements,” and these offered some opposition to the transit from an education of faith in God’s Word to one of scientific investigation and reason.

[Sidenote: Clement’s justification]

Those were days of lively debate, and the defenders of Christian education more than once contended for its principles. “‘Thus much,’ observes Clement, ‘I would say to those who are so fond of complaining: if the philosophy is unprofitable, still the study of it is profitable, if any good is to be derived from thoroughly demonstrating that it is an unprofitable thing.’” This argument is indulged in at the present time by those who espouse the cause of modern education, and wish to defend the study of the classics and the doctrine of evolution.

The words of Clement in his arguments sound doubly striking, when we remember that to-day the feeling that the education of the senses will ultimately tend to the grasping of eternal truth by faith is just as firmly held as then, notwithstanding the fact that a careful investigation shows that this can never be the case, and that the only avenue to _truth_ is through faith, first, last, and all the time. He says: “Perhaps the latter [philosophy] was given to the Greeks in a special sense, as preliminary to our Lord calling the Gentiles, since it educated them as the law did the Jews, for Christianity; and philosophy was a preparatory step for those who were to be conducted through Christ to perfection.”[73]

[Sidenote: Clement lost his faith]

Accordingly, we find Clement perpetually verging toward the gnostic or platonic position. “With an idea of faith which flowed from the very essence of Christianity, there was associated in his mind the still lingering notion, derived from the Platonic philosophy, of an opposition between a _religion of cultivated minds_, and arrived at by the medium of science, and a religion of the many, who were shackled by the senses and entangled in mere opinion.”[74]

[Sidenote: Birth of the papacy]

Here is distinctly seen the beginnings of that system of education which elevates the few and holds the masses in subjection. Herein lies the wellspring of a monarchical government and a papal hierarchy. It was the propagation of the system of education introduced into the Alexandrian school by Clement that formed the papacy. We are not surprised to read in history of the contest between the churches of Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome. Rome as arbiter was called to decide between the Greek Catholics and the Alexandrians; and from the downfall of both her rivals she gained the pontifical throne; but it was only to crown the educational ideas of the Alexandrian school, and sway the world by the enforcement of the principles of that system of instruction _which substitutes scientific research for faith_.

God had once called his people out of Egypt; but the church, forsaking the purity of the gospel, returned thither for its education. The Reformation was its second call, and to-day the third call is sounding. Having followed with some care the ideas first introduced by Clement, and finding that the result of the position taken by this teacher was that faith was destroyed and scientific reason substituted, we turn to the further development of this educational idea as advocated by one of Clement’s most noted pupils and his successor in the Alexandrian school. I refer to Origen.

[Sidenote: Origen]

Origen was born 185 A.D., in Alexandria; he received a most liberal education, and was initiated at an early age into Hellenic science and art; the principles of Christianity were instilled into his mind by such teachers as Clement of Alexandria.[75] “He says himself that it was an outward motive that first led him to busy himself with the study of Platonic philosophy, and to make himself better acquainted generally with the systems of those who differed from himself. _The moving cause was his intercourse with heretics and pagans who had received a philosophical education._”

“Attracted by his great reputation, such persons” came often to him, and he thus defends himself for bestowing his time on the Greek philosophy: “When I had wholly devoted my time to the promulgation of the divine doctrines, and the fame of my skill in them began to be spread abroad, so that both heretics and others, such as had been conversant with the Greek sciences, and particularly men from the philosophical schools, came to visit me, it _seemed to me necessary that I should examine the doctrinal opinions of the heretics, and what the philosophers pretended to know of the truth_.”[76]

These facts concerning Origen are given because the argument is strikingly similar to that used by many ministers and teachers of the present day, and because it shows how the Platonic philosophy gained such a foothold in so-called Christian schools, and grew into the papacy.

[Sidenote: Representatives of three systems]

There are three individuals who stand as representatives of three systems of education. PLATO personifies heathen philosophy; CHRIST said of Himself, “I am the ... truth;” ORIGEN personifies the mixture of the two,—truth and error,—and hence stands, from an educational standpoint, as _the father of the papacy_, which is the mystery of iniquity. It behooves us now to follow carefully the work of this man. After doing so, one can more readily understand why the beast is represented as having several heads.[77]

[Sidenote: Faith displaced by speculation]

I quote extensively from Mosheim: “The principal doctrines of Christianity were now explained _to the people_ in their native purity and simplicity, without any mixture of abstract reasonings or subtile inventions; nor were the feeble minds of the multitude loaded with a great variety of precepts. But the CHRISTIAN DOCTORS who had applied themselves to the study of letters and philosophy, soon abandoned the frequented paths, and _struck out into the devious wilds of fancy_. The Egyptians distinguished themselves in this new method of explaining the truth. They looked upon it as a noble and glorious task to bring the doctrines of celestial wisdom into a certain subjection to the precepts of their philosophy, and to make deep and profound researches into the intimate and hidden nature of those truths which the divine Saviour had delivered to his disciples. ORIGEN WAS AT THE HEAD OF THIS SPECULATIVE TRIBE. This great man, enchanted by the charms of the _Platonic philosophy_, set it up as the test of all religion, and imagined, that the reasons of each doctrine were _to be found in that favorite philosophy, and their nature and extent to be determined by it_. It must be confessed that he handled this matter with modesty and with caution; but he still gave an example to his disciples, the abuse of which could not fail to be pernicious, and under the authority of which, they would naturally indulge themselves without restraint in every wanton fancy. And so, indeed, the case was; for the disciples of Origen, breaking forth from the limits fixed by their master, _interpreted, in the most licentious manner_, the divine truths of _religion according to the tenor of Platonic philosophy_. From these teachers the _philosophical or scholastic theology_ derives its origin.”[78]

[Sidenote: Beginning of higher criticism]

Mosheim says: “Origen unquestionably stands at the head of the interpreters of the Bible in this century. But with pain it must be added, he was first among those who have found in the Scriptures a secure retreat for all errors and idle fancies. _As this most ingenious man could see no possible method of vindicating all that is said in the Scriptures against the cavils of the heretics_ and the enemies of Christianity, PROVIDED HE INTERPRETED THE LANGUAGE OF THE BIBLE LITERALLY, he concluded that he must expound the sacred volume _in the way in which the PLATONISTS WERE ACCUSTOMED TO EXPLAIN THE HISTORY OF THEIR GODS_.”[79]

[Sidenote: Higher criticism is Platonism]