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| Introductory Notice.
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Introductory Notice
to
Alexander, Bishop of
Alexandria.
————————————
[a.d. 2732395
| 2395 The
first date is conjectural. | –313–326.] The records
of the Ante-Nicene period, so far as Alexandria is concerned, are
complete in this great primate, the friend and patron of Athanasius,
and, with him, the master-spirit of the great Council of
Nicæa. I have so arranged the “Fragments” of the
Edinburgh series in this volume as to make them a great and important
integer in rounding out and fulfilling the portraiture of the school
and the See of Alexandria. The student will thus have at hand the
materials for a covetable survey of the Alexandrian
Fathers,—their history, their influence, and their immense
authority in early Christendom. In an elucidation2396
I venture to
condense my thoughts upon some points which it has been the interest of
unbelievers to misrepresent, and to colour for their own
purposes. But, as the limitations of my editorial duty do not
allow me to enter upon a dissertation, I am thankful to refer the
reader to the truly valuable though by no means exhaustive work of Dr.
Neale on The Patriarchate of Alexandria. His statements
are not, indeed, to be received with unreserving confidence; for, in
spite of his pure and lofty purposes, his mind had been formed under
the strong bias of a transient fashion in divinity, and he always
surveyed his subject from an Occidental if not from a Latin (I do not
mean a strictly Roman) point of view. To other popular historians
I need not refer the student, save, by anticipation, to the list of
authorities which will be furnished in the concluding volume of this
series.2397
| 2397
For liberal references, consult Hagenbach, Text-Book of the
History of Doctrine; by all means using Professor Smith’s
edition, New York, 1861. |
Let us reflect, then, upon the epoch to which we
have now come. The intense sufferings, labours, and intellectual
as well as moral struggles, of the three heroic centuries, are closing,
and Alexander of Alexandria is the grand figure of the period.
Diocletian is preparing to let loose upon the sheep of Christ the
ferocious wolves of the tenth persecution. Lucian is founding the
school of Antioch,2398
| 2398
For the matters touching the theology of the period, the student
should prepare himself by consulting Waterland, History of the
Athanasian Creed (Works, vol. iv., London), and Van
Oosterzee, Christian Dogmatics, New York, 1874. I wonder
that Professor Smith could, so unreservedly, commend
Hagenbach. | revising the New Testament, and, in
fact, the whole Bible of the Fathers, for his labours included the
version of the Seventy. Unhappily, the ambitious Arius, who calls
him master, has begun to trouble the evangelical See of St. Mark; and
Achillas, notwithstanding the warnings of Peter, has laid hands upon
him, and made him a presbyter. He aspires to be made a
bishop. But anon a boy is playing on the shore at Alexandria in
whom a flaming genius for the priesthood already manifests
itself. Alexander, looking forth from his windows, sees him
“playing church” with his schoolmates, and actually dipping
a young pagan in the sea, “in the name of the Father,”
etc. No doubt something of the kind did occur, and thus was the
boy Athanasius brought to the notice of his bishop. But even
Dupin rejects the rest of the story, that Alexander decided the question of
the boy-baptism in favour of its validity, as the Latins would have us
believe. Anyhow, we have this miracle of precocity attending
Alexander as his deacon at the Council of Nicæa, and then soon
after succeeding to his episcopal chair. Athanasius is the
grandest figure of the primitive ages after the apostles fell
asleep. Raised up to complete their testimony to the eternal
Logos, and to suffer like them, we soon behold him the noble example of
constancy against the new perils of the world’s favour and the
patronage of the Cæsars. “Athanasius against
the world” was in two senses his great encomium, and the epitome
of his glorious life and warfare. Not less was it
“Athanasius for the world.” Alas! the majestic
school of Pantænus and Clement soon after comes to its enigmatical
decline. Some plants, when they have borne their superlative
flower and fruit, mysteriously decay. It was so, alas! with the
great Christian academy that not improbably owes its beginnings to
Apollos.
Translator’s Introductory
Notice.
Alexander was appointed
successor to Achillas,2399
| 2399
[Here given Achilles; but I preserve unity of usage in
this respect, the rather as Achilles is the name of a
contemporary heretic.] | as Bishop of Alexandria, about
a.d. 312. The virtues of this prelate,
which Eusebius has passed over entirely without mention, other
ecclesiastical writers have greatly extolled. For on all sides he
is styled “the staunchest upholder of evangelical
doctrine,” “the patron and protector of apostolic
doctrine;” and “that bishop of divine faith, full of wisdom
and of zeal enkindled by the Holy Spirit.” He was the first
to detect and to condemn Arius;2400
| 2400 [i.e.,
in his great and final heresy. Of his former condemnation, see
pp. 262–263, supra.] | and taking his stand upon passages of Holy
Scripture, as Theodoret remarks,2401
he taught that the Son of God was of one
and the same majesty with the Father, and had the same substance with
the Father who begat Him.
At first he sought to bring back Arius from his
heresy. But when he perceived that he openly and obstinately
taught his false doctrines, he assembled a first and then a second
synod of the bishops of Egypt, and degraded him from the order of the
priesthood,2402
| 2402 [To
which Achilles had admitted him. See p. 268, supra.
In spite of the warnings, pp. 263–265, supra.] | and cut him off
from the communion of the Church. This proving ineffectual, the
Council of Nicæa was convened, in which he was finally
condemned. In combating the Arian heresy, Alexander endured,
although at a great age, many trials, and died shortly after the
holding of the council.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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