Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Elucidations.
PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP 
Elucidations.
————————————
I.
(Some points, p. 289.)
That the theology of the
great school of Alexandria had a character of its own, is most
apparent; I should be the last to deny it. As its succession of
teachers was like that of hereditary descent in a family, a family
likeness is naturally to be found in this school, from the great
Clement to the great Athanasius. It is a school that hands on the
traditions in which Apollos had been reared; it not less reflects the
Greek influences always dominant in the capital of the Macedonian hero;
but it is a school in which the Gospel of Christ as the Light of the
world was always made predominant: and, while a most
liberal view of human knowledge was inculcated in it, yet the
faith was always exalted as the mother and mistress of the true
gnosis and of all science. The wise men of this world were
summoned with an imperial voice, from this eldest seat and centre of
Christian learning, to cast their crowns and their treasures at the
feet of Jesus. With a generous patronage Clement conceded all he
could to the philosophy of the Greeks, and yet sublimely rose above it
to a sphere it never discovered, and looked down upon all merely human
intellect and its achievements like Uriel in the sun.
It was the special though unconscious mission of
this school to prepare the way, and to shape the thought of
Christendom, for the great epoch of the (nominal) conversion of the
empire, and for the all-important synodical period, its logical
consequence. It was in this school that the technical formulas of
the Church were naturally wrought out. The process was like that
of the artist who has first to make his own tools. He does many
things, and resorts to many contrivances, never afterwards necessary
when once the tools are complete and his laboratory furnished with all
he wants for his work. To my mind, therefore, it is but a pastime
of no practical worth to contrast the idiosyncrasies of Clement with
those of Origen, and to set up distinctions between the Logos of this
doctor and that.2480
| 2480 See,
against Petavius and others, Dr. Holmes’s learned note, vol. iii.
p. 628, Elucidation I. | The
differences to be descried belong to the personal peculiarities of
great minds not yet guided to unity of diction by a scientific
theology. The marvel is their harmony of thought. Their
ends and their antagonisms are the same. The outcome of their
mental efforts and their pious faith is seen in the result.
Alexander was their product, and Athanasius (bringing all their sheaves
to the Church’s garner, winnowed and harvested) is the perpetual
gnomon of the Alexandrian school. Its testimony, its
prescription, its harmony and unity, are all summed up in
him.
It is extraordinary that many truly evangelical
critics seem to see, in the subordination taught by
Origen,2481
| 2481
Vol. iv. p. 343, this series; also Elucidation II. p. 382. | something not
reconcileable with the Nicene orthodoxy. Even Bishop Bull is a
subordinationist, and so are all the great orthodox
divines. When Origen maintains the μοναρχία
(the Father as the root and source of the Godhead, as do all the
Greeks2482
| 2482 On
Tertullian’s orthodoxy, see notes, vol. iii. p. 600, etc. | ), and also a
subordination of the Son in the divine οὐσία, he is surely
consistent with the Athanasian doctrine;2483
| 2483
When we consider his refinements about the words substance,
idea, image, etc., in the dispute with Celsus, while yet these
terms were not reduced to precision, we cannot but detect his effort to
convey an orthodox notion. Observe Dr. Spencer’s short but
useful note, vol. iv. p. 603, note 3. | and, if he is led to affirm a
diversity of essence in connection with this subordination, he does it
with such limitations as should convince us that he, too, would have
subscribed the ὁμοούσιον,
in which Alexandrians no whit inferior to him finally formulated the
convictions and testimonies of their predecessors.2484
| 2484
See vol. iv. p. 382, Elucidations I., II., and III. |
II.
(Since the body of the Catholic Church is one, etc., p.
296.)
As so shortly preceding the meeting of the Great
Council, this letter is most important as a clear testimony to the
meaning the first council attached to that article of the Creed which
affirms “one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.” We
must compare the Treatises of Cyprian for the West, with this
and the Letter of Firmilian2485
| 2485
Vol. v. p. 390, this series. | for the East, as clearly elucidating
the contemporary mind of the Church, and hence the meaning of those
words which reflect their mind in the Creed. To make any
reflections of my own would be out of place, save only, negatively, as
I compare it with the modern creed of the Council of Trent (Pius IV.),
which defines the Catholic Church to be the communion which
acknowledges the Church of Rome as “the mother and mistress of
churches.”
The concluding section of this letter is decisive
as to the absolute autonomy of the Alexandrian
diœcese.2486
| 2486
See the force of this spelling, p. 240, supra. | To all the other churches
Alexander merely communicates his sentence, which they are all bound to
respect. Whether the Christian Church at this period reflected
the Apostolic Institutions is not the question, but merely what its
theory was in the fourth century, and how far East and West accorded
with the theory of Cyprian.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|
