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.”
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.
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]
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.