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]