Church and State as Seen in the Formation of ChristendomAllies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Religion
Church and State as Seen in the Formation of Christendom
Allies, T. W. (Thomas William)
Church and state; Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600; Religion and state
under him, who increased in number as time went on. A crowd of learned
men, bishops, saints, and martyrs, came out of this school. The envy and
hatred of the heathens were so incited by it, that they often surrounded
the house with soldiers, seized upon students, and led them away to
execution. The renown of the school was so great in the middle of the
third century, that Anatolius, a pupil of it, was sought by the heathen
themselves to succeed Aristoteles in the headship of the Alexandrian
university.
Another school of the like kind was set up by Origen at Cæsarea in
Palestine, and became famous. Rome also possessed a learned school,
founded by Justin, concerning which, however, we know very little.[174]
Edessa and Antioch possessed the like. It is apparent how important such
schools must have been for the formation of a learned clergy. The more
the Christian Church increased, and spread to all ranks of society, the
more need there became for learning in its defenders.
But great as was the renown won by these schools, and important as were
the services rendered by them to the Christian Church in the advance of
learning, in building up that progress from faith to knowledge—that
growth of knowledge founded upon faith which marks the whole ante-nicene
period—nevertheless the development of the sacred science was connected
not so much with a regular course of teaching in the schools as with the
vehement struggle for life which the Church was then waging on the one
hand against Judaism and heathendom, on the other hand against the great
heresies which successively attacked all the main truths of religion and
the chief mysteries of Christianity.[175] Also, it must ever be
remembered that the gift of infallible teaching, derived from the
assistance of the Holy Spirit, is lodged, not in science, even not in
theological science, but in the magisterium of the Church.[176] The most
accomplished defence during all this period of the Church against the
attacks of heathenism is, by common consent, allotted to the work of
Origen in reply to Celsus. There is also a like consent that the same
author's work upon Principles is the first attempt at systematic
theology; but with all its ability, learning, and acuteness, it is not
free from great errors. The one is a pure success, the other shows that
the contact with Platonic philosophy had led the author in certain points
astray. Again, all his genius and all his zeal did not save Tertullian
from falling into Montanism, nor from discharging upon the chief ruler of
the Church the sarcasm which he had so often employed against its
enemies. In inquiring closely into the belief of some of those whose
conversion from heathenism I have above instanced, an illustrious writer
says: "It must be considered that the authors whom I have above cited
whatever be the authority of some of them, cannot be said to speak _ex
cathedra_, even if they had the right to do so, and do not speak as a
Council may speak.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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