This system overthrew those of the Gnostics, attracted Greek philosophers, and justified ecclesiastical Christianity. If one undertook to subject it to a new process of sublimation from the standpoint given in the "contemplative life", little else would be left than the unchangeable spirit, the created spirit, and the ethic. But no one is justified in subjecting it to this process.[814] The method according to which Origen preserved whatever appeared valuable in the content of tradition is no less significant than his system of ethics and the great principle of viewing everything created in a relative sense. Supposing minds of a radical cast, to have existed at the close of the history of ancient civilisation, what would have been left to us? The fact of a strong and undivided religious interest attaching itself to the traditions of the philosophers and of the two Testaments was the condition—to use Origen's own language—that enabled a new world of spirits to arise after the old one had finished its course.
During the following century Origen's theology at first acted in its entirety. But it likewise attained this position of influence, because some important propositions could be detached from their original connection and fitted into a new one. It is one of the peculiarities of this ecclesiastical philosophy of religion that the most of its formulæ could be interpreted and employed in utramque partem. The several propositions could be made to serve very different purposes not only by being halved, but also by being grouped. With this the relative unity that distinguishes the system no doubt vanished; but how many are there who strive after unity and completeness in their theory of the world? Above all, however, there was something else that necessarily vanished, as soon as people meddled with the individual propositions, and enlarged or abridged them. We mean the frame of mind which produced them, that wonderful unity between the relative view of things and the absolute estimate of the highest good attainable by the free spirit that is certain of its God. But a time came, nay, had already come, when a sense of proportion and relation was no longer to be found.
In the East the history of dogma and of the Church during the succeeding centuries is the history of Origen's philosophy. Arians and orthodox, critics and mystics, priests who overcame the world and monks who shunned it but were eager for knowledge[815] could appeal to this system and did not fail to do so. But, in the main problem that Origen set for the Church in this religious philosophy of his, we find a recurrence of that propounded by the so-called Gnosticism two generations earlier. He solved it by producing a system which reconciled the faith of the Church with Greek philosophy; and he dealt Gnosticism its death-blow. This solution, however, was by no means intended as the doctrine of the Church, since indeed it was rather based on the distinction between Church belief and theology, and consequently on the distinction between the common man and the theologian. But such a distinction was not permanently tenable in a Church that had to preserve its strength by the unity and finality of a revealed faith, and no longer tolerated fresh changes in the interpretation of its possession. Hence a further compromise was necessary. The Greek philosophy, or speculation, did not attain real and permanent recognition within the Church till a new accommodation, capable of being accounted both Pistis and Gnosis, was found between what Origen looked on as Church belief and what he regarded as Gnosis. In the endeavours of Irenæus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus were already found hesitating, nay, we may almost say naïve, attempts at such an accommodation; but ecclesiastical traditionalism was unable to attain complete clearness as to its own position till it was confronted with a philosophy of religion that was no longer heathen or Gnostic, but had an ecclesiastical colouring.
But, with this prospect, we have already crossed the border of the third century. At its beginning there were but few theologians in Christendom who were acquainted with speculation, even in its fragmentary form. In the course of the century it became a recognised part of the orthodox faith, in so far as the Logos doctrine triumphed in the Church. This development is the most important that took place in the third century; for it denoted the definite transformation of the rule of faith into the compendium of a Greek philosophical system, and it is the parallel of a contemporaneous transformation of the Church into a holy commonwealth (see above, chapter 3).
Footnote 656:[ (return) ]
Guericke, De schola, quæ Alex. floruit catechetica 1824, 1825. Vacherot, Hist. crit. de l'école d'Alex., 1846-51. Reinkens, De Clemente Alex., 1850. Redepenning, Origenes Thl. I. p. 57 ff. Læmmer, Clem. Al. de Logo doctrina, 1855. Reuter, Clem. theolog. moralis, 1853. Cognat, Clement d'Alex. Paris, 1859. Westcott, Origen and the beginnings of Christian Philosophy (Contemporary Review, May 1879). Winter, Die Ethik des Clemens von Alex., 1882. Merk, Cl. Alex, in seiner Abhängigkeit von der griech. Philosophie, Leipzig, 1879 (see besides Overbeck, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1879. No. 20 and cf. above all his disquisitions in the treatise "Ueber. die Anfänge der patristischen Litteratur,") Hist. Ztschr. N.F., Vol. XII., pp. 455-472 Zahn, Forschungen, Vol. III. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, Oxford, 1886. Kremmer, De catal. heurematum, Lips. 1890. Wendland, Quæst. Musonianæ, Berol. 1886. Bratke, Die Stellung des Clem. Alex. z. antiken Mysterienwesen (Stud. u. Krit. 1888, p. 647 ff). On Alexander of Jerusalem see Routh, Reliq. Sacr. T. II. p. 161 sq.; on Julius Africanus see Gelzer, Sextus Jul. Afr. I. Thl., 1880, p. 1 ff., Spitta, Der Brief des Jul. Afr. an Aristides, Halle 1877, and my article in the Real-Encykl. On Bardesanes see Hilgenfeld, B., der letzte Gnostiker, 1864, and Hort's article in the Dictionary of Christian Biography. On the labours in scientific theology on the part of the so-called Alogi in Asia Minor and of the Roman Theodotianists see Epiph. hær. 51, Euseb., H. E. V. 28 and my article "Monarchianismus" in the R.-Encykl. f. protest. Theol. 2nd. ed., Vol. X., pp. 183 ff., 188 ff. On the tendencies even of orthodox Christians to scientific theology see Tertull., de præscr. hær. 8 ff. (cf. the first words of c. 8: "Venio itaque ad illum articulum, quem et nostri prætendunt ad ineundam curiositatem. Scriptum est, inquiunt, Quærite et invenietis" etc.).
Footnote 657:[ (return) ]
This manner of expression is indeed liable to be misunderstood, because it suggests the idea that something new was taking place. As a matter of fact the scientific labours in the Church were merely a continuation of the Gnostic schools under altered circumstances, that is, under the sway of a tradition which was now more clearly defined and more firmly fenced round as a noli me tangere.
Footnote 658:[ (return) ]
This was begun in the Church by Irenæus and Tertullian and continued by the Alexandrians. They, however, not only adopted theologoumena from Paulinism, but also acquired from Paul a more ardent feeling of religious freedom as well as a deeper reverence for love and knowledge as contrasted with lower morality.
Footnote 659:[ (return) ]
We are not able to form a clear idea of the school of Justin. In the year 180 the schools of the Valentinians, Carpocratians, Tatian etc. were all outside the Church.
Footnote 660:[ (return) ]
On the school of Edessa see Assemani, Bibl. orient., T. III., P. II., p. 924; Von Lengerke, De Ephraemi arte hermen., p. 86 sq.; Kihn, Die Bedeutung der antiochenischen Schule etc., pp. 32 f. 79 f., Zahn, Tatian's Diatessaron, p. 54. About the middle of the 3rd century Macarius, of whom Lucian the Martyr was a disciple, taught at this school. Special attention was given to the exegesis of the Holy Scriptures.
Footnote 661:[ (return) ]
Overbeck, l.c., p. 455, has very rightly remarked: "The origin of the Alexandrian school of catechists is not a portion of the Church history of the 2nd century, that has somehow been left in the dark by a mere accident; but a part of the well-defined dark region on the map of the ecclesiastical historian of this period, which contains the beginnings of all the fundamental institutions of the Church as well as those of the Alexandrian school of catechists, a school which was the first attempt to formulate the relationship of Christianity to secular science." We are, moreover, still in a state of complete uncertainty as to the personality and teaching of Pantænus (with regard to him see Zahn, "Forschungen" Vol. III., pp. 64 ff. 77 ff). We can form an idea of the school of catechists from the 6th Book of Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History and from the works of Clement and Origen.