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.
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.
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]
Clement’s school work