There are three individuals who stand as representatives of three systems of education. PLATO personifies heathen philosophy; CHRIST said of Himself, “I am the ... truth;” ORIGEN personifies the mixture of the two,—truth and error,—and hence stands, from an educational standpoint, as _the father of the papacy_, which is the mystery of iniquity. It behooves us now to follow carefully the work of this man. After doing so, one can more readily understand why the beast is represented as having several heads.[77] [Sidenote: Faith displaced by speculation] I quote extensively from Mosheim: “The principal doctrines of Christianity were now explained _to the people_ in their native purity and simplicity, without any mixture of abstract reasonings or subtile inventions; nor were the feeble minds of the multitude loaded with a great variety of precepts. But the CHRISTIAN DOCTORS who had applied themselves to the study of letters and philosophy, soon abandoned the frequented paths, and _struck out into the devious wilds of fancy_. The Egyptians distinguished themselves in this new method of explaining the truth. They looked upon it as a noble and glorious task to bring the doctrines of celestial wisdom into a certain subjection to the precepts of their philosophy, and to make deep and profound researches into the intimate and hidden nature of those truths which the divine Saviour had delivered to his disciples. ORIGEN WAS AT THE HEAD OF THIS SPECULATIVE TRIBE. This great man, enchanted by the charms of the _Platonic philosophy_, set it up as the test of all religion, and imagined, that the reasons of each doctrine were _to be found in that favorite philosophy, and their nature and extent to be determined by it_. It must be confessed that he handled this matter with modesty and with caution; but he still gave an example to his disciples, the abuse of which could not fail to be pernicious, and under the authority of which, they would naturally indulge themselves without restraint in every wanton fancy. And so, indeed, the case was; for the disciples of Origen, breaking forth from the limits fixed by their master, _interpreted, in the most licentious manner_, the divine truths of _religion according to the tenor of Platonic philosophy_. From these teachers the _philosophical or scholastic theology_ derives its origin.”[78] [Sidenote: Beginning of higher criticism]