We have noted the great church of Alexandria as a most complete instance of the growth whereby from the mother see the hierarchy took possession of a land. But the principle of such growth was the ecclesiastical rule, and its strength the energy with which that rule was preserved. This rule was twofold: the rule of discipline, or outward regimen, what we now call a constitution; and the rule of Faith. What the church of Alexandria was in discipline has been seen above: and now just at this time we have in the first great teacher of this church, who has come down to us, the most decisive exhibition of this rule as a defence against this same gnostic heresy. “As,” says Clement, “a man like those under the enchantment of Circe should become a beast, so whoever has kicked against the tradition of the Church, and started aside into the opinions of human heresies, has ceased to be a man of God, and faithful to the Lord.” ... “There are three states of the soul, ignorance, opinion, knowledge. Those who are in ignorance, are the Gentiles; those in knowledge, the true Church; those in opinion, the adherents of heresies.” ... “We have learnt that bodily pleasure is one thing, which we give to the Gentiles; strife a second, which we adjudge to heresies; joy a third, which is the property of the Church.” Again, he speaks of those who “not using the divine words well, but perversely, neither enter themselves into the kingdom of heaven, nor suffer those whom they have deceived to attain the truth. They have not indeed the key to the entrance, but rather a false key, whereby they do not enter as we do through the Lord’s tradition, drawing back the veil, but cutting out a side way, and secretly digging through the Church’s wall, they transgress the truth, and initiate into rites of error the soul of the irreligious. For that they have made their human associations later than the Catholic Church, it needs not many words to show.” Then, after referring to the origin and propagation “of the Lord’s teaching,”(237) exactly after the mode of Irenæus and Tertullian, he concludes, “So it is clear from the most ancient and true Church, that these heresies coming in subsequently to it, and others still later, are innovations from it, as coins of adulterate stamp. From what has been said, then, I consider it manifest that the true Church, the really ancient Church, is one, in which are enrolled all who are just according to (God’s) purpose. For inasmuch as there is one God and one Lord, therefore that which is most highly precious is praised for being alone, since it is an imitation of the one Principle. The one Church, then, which they try by force to cut up into many heresies, falls under the same category as the nature of the One. So then we assert that the ancient and Catholic Church is one alone in its foundation, in its idea, in its origin, and in its excellence, collecting by the will of the one God, through the one Lord, into the unity of one