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SAINT CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
150-215 A.D.
BY
F. R. MONTGOMERY HITCHCOCK
PART
I
I. CLEMENT’S HOME, THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA
II.CLEMENT’S HOME AND ITS VARYINGFORTUNES
III.CLEMENT AND UNIVERSITY LIFE IN ALEXANDRIA
IV.CLEMENT’S
EARLY RELIGIOUS SURROUNDINGS AND THE COPTIC CHURCH
V. CLEMENT
AND THE JEWS .
VI. CLEMENT
AND PHILO’S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
VII. CLEMENT
AND THE CATECHETICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA AND PHILOSOPHICAL STUDIES
CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA
PART I
CHAPTER I
CLEMENT’S HOME; THE CITY OF ALEXANDRIA
The
life and work of Clement of Alexandria could not, perhaps, be more favourably introduced to the notice of our readers than by
a brief account of the historic city in which that life was lived and that work
was done, and a general summary of the various influences that helped to mould and develop the character and genius of the man.
The
city was founded by the great Alexander whose name it bore. Having crushed the
Persian power for ever on the plains of Issus, 333 BC, the Macedonian conqueror
had paused for a short breathingspace in his career
of victory to settle affairs in Palestine and Egypt. During this period of rest
he founded Alexandria, an extensive and regular city, built on a beautiful and
commodious site, and destined to become the great emporium of the East.
On
the north side its walls were washed by the blue waves of the Mediterranean,
while the fine lake Mareotis formed its boundary on the south. The city,
moreover, had the advantage of possessing two harbours,
one facing the north-east and the other the south-west, so that it was possible
for ships to sail in and out in all weathers, and was also connected with the
interior of the country by a large canal.
Thus
Alexandria was admirably situated for commerce; and as a large proportion of
its inhabitants consisted of enterprising Jews and Greeks, it soon came to the
front in the trade of the world. It has been said that the East and West met
together in this centre to buy and sell and get gain.
It was no wonder then, considering its great natural advantages, that the city
very rapidly assumed vast proportions, covering in its prosperous days as much
ground as modern Paris, registering nearly half-a-million free citizens, and
having at its disposal more capital even than Rome.
In
the days of the Empire, it was the corn-export from this great sea-port that
supplied the Roman granaries; so much so, that many a time the Imperial city
lay at the mercy of the Prefect of Egypt, who might easily have starved it out,
by detaining the cornfleet in the harbours of Alexandria; a fact which helps us to appreciate
the charge so frequently made against Athanasius of conspiring to delay the
corn from Africa.
In
spite of all this wealth and influence, Alexandria could not have been called a
beautiful city. The climate was mild, being tempered by the fresh Etesian
breezes from the sea. And the buildings were handsome and massive, conspicuous
among them being the synagogue of the Jews, the colossal Temple of Serapis, the
extensive museum containing the famous library founded by Ptolemy Philadelphus,
with adjacent parks for foreign animals, the Botanical Gardens, and the
Observatory, from which the great Eratosthenes calculated the orbits of the
planets. But there was little variety of shadow and sunlight, and there were no
mountains to relieve the dull monotony of the unchanging coast-line. The city
itself, however, was nobly planned. As one approached its southern gate, which
was called the Moon Gate, there was a fine view of the limpid lake Mareotis,
with its ferry-boats, barges, and winged Egyptian craft plying backwards and
forwards between the city and the interior of the country; while the busy scene
on the quays, where the stately Roman galleys were being laden with corn by a
motley crowd of Copts, Nubians, Greeks, and Jews, lent a certain interest and
animation to the outlook.
Leaving
behind him this Babel of tongues and bustling confusion, the visitor would
arrive at the Moon Gate, and passing beneath its noble portal would enter the
spacious streets of this great worldcity. For,
indeed, it was a world in miniature, being cosmopolitan in every respect. Men
and women of every colour, condition, religion, and
phase of thought might be seen on each side—a pleasing contrast to the
uniformity of the city.
One
great street ran from the south gate to the northern, flanked on either side by
spacious colonnades—a special feature of this town—which afforded a pleasant
promenade to the citizens in the hot weather, when they could enjoy the
pleasure of a country stroll in the very heart of the city. It were easy to
imagine the picturesque effect of the scene at night in those broad porticoes,
when the torches carried hither and thither by the votaries of religion or
pleasure flashed in the darkness like broken gleams of another sun, as their
own poet has described it, and made the lofty arches yet more vast; while on
either hand noble edifices, temples, synagogues, churches, palaces, and towers
towered aloft.
The
great shadowy mass that rose high above the roofs of the city buildings into
the bosom of the sky was the superb Temple of Serapis, the God of Pontus,
carried from Sinope by the first Ptolemy to share the majesty of Isis. This
mighty structure, celebrated by Ammianus and Rufinus as one of the wonders of
the world, erected on a basis a hundred feet high, and surrounded by a
quadrangular portico that rested on four hundred monolithic columns—one of
which alone remains the solitary guardian of past glories—was no mean rival of
the grandeur of the Roman Capitol. Within its stately halls, in Clement’s day,
were preserved rare treasures of gold and silver, and yet more precious than
all these—a valuable library.
Passing
by this magnificent edifice, which was still standing in all its glory in the
second century, and advancing still further up the main street, one came to a
great open space, or piazza, formed by the intersection of the two principal
thoroughfares of the city, and named Alexander’s Place after the great
conqueror (Achilles Tatius). From this point, the so-called Omphalos of the
city, the great seaport could be seen to its best advantage. Still proceeding
in the shelter of the cloisters, after an hour’s walk one stood beneath the
grand arch of the Gate of the Sun, and gazed upon the deep-blue waves of the
great midland sea, sparkling in the rays of the sun and studded with the white
sails of myriads of galleys. Yonder out to sea, by the left horn of the
crescent-shaped harbour, stood the tall white tower
of Pharos, the ancient lighthouse, on its own island, connected by moat and
drawbridge with the pier; while on the right side of the harbour,
as one faced the sea, the Caesareum, formerly a
temple, in Clement’s day a church, rose in view, guarded by two tall obelisks,
similar to that now standing on the Thames Embankment, which in Egyptian
fashion stood sentinel before the sanctuary of Isis. Alongside this building
was a great high-walled enclosure, the Bruchium, the
royal quarter. Within these precincts lay the palaces of the Ptolemies, and the
world-renowned Museum (University), with its statues, pillars, and frescoes,
the wonder of the world. But, alas! the famous library, founded by Ptolemy
Soter on the suggestion of Demetrius Phalereus, was
no more. It had been completely destroyed during the siege of the city by
Casar. Clement, however, had the advantage of being able to study in the library
of the Serapeum, the nucleus of which consisted of some 500,000 volumes, which
Antony had sent as a present to Cleopatra from Pergamum.
It
was within the walls of the Bruchium that that
ill-starred general and the fickle Queen of the Nile celebrated their premature
triumph over Parthia and the world.
These
are some of the interesting facts that are known of this proud metropolis of
kings and illustrious home of scholars. Such were the surroundings of the
obscure life of the retiring teacher of Alexandria. Within those city walls
his placid days were spent; and in the shadow of those colonnades the gentle
student often paced the marble pavement, and turned his thoughtful, tearful
eyes to gaze upon the proud relics of a not inglorious past.
CHAPTER II
CLEMENT’S HOME ANDF HIS VARYING FORTUNES
In
this chapter we shall say something of the opulence of the city and the
character of its citizens. Alexandria certainly occupied the place of Athens in
intellectual life, but in its magnificence and luxury, in its marts, bazaars,
processions, and troops of slaves, it reminded one of an Oriental capital.
Under the Ptolemies the monarchy of Egypt was restored, and the fine arts
flourished under the most generous of patrons.
In
the pages of Athenaeus one reads a very interesting account of the coronation
feast of Ptolemy Philadelphus, in whose praise Theocritus composed his
seventeenth idyll. In the inner pavilion, where the king sat enthroned (the
historian informs us), a sumptuous repast was spread under awnings of scarlet,
richly dight, suspended from pillars stately as the palm. Under these hangings
one hundred and thirty-five couches of beautiful and costly workmanship were
placed for the guests of the royal party; while on the silken tapestry that draped
the walls with its folds of silver and gold, were inwoven the adventures of the
gods. Above this ran a frieze of gold and silver shields, in the niches of
which were placed in halfrelief comic, tragic, and satyric groups. The ground, although the season was
midwinter, was literally strewn with roses; while around the pavilion stood a
hundred marble effigies, to say nothing of the untold wealth of flagons, vases, jewelled vessels, and precious metals that were
displayed in lavish profusion. The masquerade commenced with a procession of
the morning star Heosphorus, followed by a masque of
kings and gods, satyrs, maidens, poets, Dionysus, and Maenads; while the
company of the evening star, Hesperus, brought the show to an end. During this
performance sixteen hundred waiters, clad in white, with ivy wreaths around
their brows, handed around silver and golden cups of wine to the guests.
That
exhibition, the magnificence of which almost beggars description, gives us some
idea of the opulence of the city, which in after years brought in nearly £7,000,000 sterling in the way of revenue to the
emperor’s private purse.
The
Copts, the native inhabitants, accustomed to be pampered with gifts and shows
of such a nature, were, as might be expected, fickle, unruly, and dangerous.
They frequently became embroiled in strife with the Jews, whose wealth excited
their cupidity, and at such times the Delta, the Jewish quarter, literally ran red
with Hebrew blood. On several occasions tumults of a very terrible nature were
enkindled, and by the most trivial causes: notably the civil war, which was
caused in later years by a dispute between a soldier and a citizen about a pair
of shoes, and which ended in the complete destruction of the Bruchium and its palaces.
Juvenal
in his fifteenth satire—a poetical version of a village fight between Ombos (identified by Professor Petrie with Nubt-Ombos) and Tentyra—gives a
gruesome account of the barbarous cruelty of the Egyptians, who deemed it a
sacrilege to taste a leek, but would not abstain from eating raw human flesh
when excited by faction fury. Theocritus likewise describes, in a manner that
makes one’s blood curdle, the Egyptian marauder lurking in a dark passage ready
to pounce out upon the unsuspecting passer-by and throttle him.
The
Egyptians indeed do not bear an enviable reputation in the Greek and Latin
classics. There are frequent comments on their dishonesty and secret violence,
of which the following will suffice—
Noxia Alexandrea dolis aptissima tellus
Such
was the general character of the populace of Alexandria, who were ever ready to
take part in a street riot or a faction fight, but were entirely wanting in any
true military spirit. “Imbelle vulgus” is Juvenal’s
accurate description of them. Still, they were a very industrious people on the
whole, both sexes being engaged in the different factories, where a brisk trade
in glass-blowing, linen-weaving, and papyrus-making was carried on. In some of
their ways the Egyptians presented a strange contrast to the habits of other
nations. Herodotus tells us that their women buy and sell in the market, while
the men sit at home plying the loom. Of this statement we find an echo in Soph. Oed. 335, where Oedipus, contrasting
the faithful energy of his daughters with the selfish worthlessness of his
sons, exclaims—
“Oh
like in all things, both in nature’s bent
And
mode of life, to Egypt’s evil ways,
Where
men indoors sit weaving at the loom,
And
wives outdoors must earn their daily bread.”
The
modern town, called by the Turks Skanderieh, has very
little traces of its former grandeur, except a column wrongly called Pompey’s
Pillar. This, a monolithic block of red granite, about sixty-seven feet high
and weighing about 276 tons, stands on a mound of earth some forty feet high.
The capital and base are very rude and unfinished. A Greek inscription on the
plinth shows that it was erected in honour of
Diocletian by some prefect, of whose name only the two letters P O are legible.
Alexandria
indeed fared ill when the fierce Arabs conquered the land. The ancient granary
of Rome, the storied seat of philosophy and the early stronghold of
Christianity, it rapidly sank to the position of a third-rate city when the Fatimite caliphs built New Cairo (967). For many centuries
it remained in that dishonoured state, until, in very
recent times, the importance of its position, lying as it does directly on the
route to India, has restored to the city something of its ancient prestige and
trade. Thus it has again become the chief commercial town of Egypt. To it are
conveyed from Cairo the principal products of the interior, cotton, coffee,
linseed, wool, senna, rice, gum, feathers, hides, beans, and com, by rail,
river, and canal. During the past ninety years the city has made wonderful
progress. When Napoleon made his celebrated campaign in Egypt, it consisted of
nothing but a congeries of Arab huts, old ruins, and fortifications.
The
modern town does not, however, occupy exactly the same site as the ancient home
of Clement. It is built on the peninsula—once the mole or pier on which Caesar
was well-nigh killed—which connects the ancient isle of Pharos with the
mainland. Thanks to the Etesian winds the climate is as salubrious as ever; but
the Turkish quarter of the town, as one might expect, is a standing reproach to
civilization.
Of
the two harbours the western is the better, being
protected by a line of reefs from the sea. It could, however, only be
approached with great difficulty, until at length an English company
constructed a breakwater and docks, and thus converted it into a safe port.
CHAPTER III
CLEMENT AND UNIVERSITY LIFE IN ALEXANDRIA
It
was probably in the Museum, the University of Alexandria, that the youthful
Clement was educated. Here, under excellent tutors, the boy would read the
famous Anthology, the turgid epic of Apollonius Rhodius,
the didactic poem of Aratus on the weather, the Epigrams and the “ Causes ” of
Callimachus, with its love story of Acontius and Cydippe (remarkable as being the first appearance of the
sentimental romance in literature), and, above all, the sweet Bucolics and
elaborate court poems of Theocritus.
These
works formed the fashionable course of study at the time when Homer was
regarded as commonplace, and the Greek drama was thought to be Unnatural by
the hypercritical and insipid mind of the day. With an egotism worthy of modern
days, each president of the University; in his turn, sought to make his “forte”
the “rage” of literary circles.
Under
Callimachus the epigram became very popular among a certain class. Apollonius,
who succeeded him, caused the bias of public opinion to turn in favour of the epic; while the rustic idyll of Theocritus
carried the young students by storm, and caused many to aspire to the dignity of
a Bucolic poet. Modern taste, however, has reversed the process, and restored
the old classics to their proper place, thanks to the excellent judgment and
indefatigable labours of the great Aristarchus, once
librarian in this Museum.
During
his University career, Clement also pursued some of the more solid, if less
artistic, studies in science that had been founded by Euclid on geometry,
Eratosthenes on geography, and Hipparchus on astronomy. These names are
sufficient in themselves, that of Euclid being well known to every school-boy,
for his weal or his woe, to show the importance of the science school at the
Alexandrian University. It was, indeed, the most distinguished mathematical college
in the world, and in Clement’s day was appointed by the mutual consent of all
the Churches to calculate the time at which the movable feast of Easter should
be celebrated in each year.
We
can easily believe that the average student trained in the wisdom of such great
masters would, on the whole, be a more thoughtful and intelligent specimen than
the ordinary pass-man, or even honourman of the
modern Universities.
The
prominence of this Museum in the intellectual world was originally due to the
great advantages, held out by the former kings of Egypt, to any scholar or student
who would pursue his studies in the great library which Ptolemy had founded in
his metropolis. This academy was founded on the principles of the schools in
Athens, the precursors of all mediaeval and modern universities and colleges.
We are informed that the foundation of Ptolemy contained a common hall, cloisters,
and gardens, and that it was under the presidency of a principal who was a
priest, but whose religious duties were apparently confined to the formal cult
of the Muses, a feature borrowed from the Academy at Athens.
In
addition to this magnificent establishment there was also a Jewish school, in
which the works of Philo, the Septuagint, and the books of Wisdom were
carefully studied.
But
there was now rising into fame a school destined to eclipse both these, the
famous Catechetical School of the Christians, in which Pantaenus was the first
to occupy the chair of Divinity; Clement, his pupil, was the second; and the
famous Origen was the third.
With
these literary and religious institutions, exercising an incalculable influence
upon the life and tone of her citizens, Alexandria for many years flourished as
a seat of learning and culture. However, its intellectual life and lustre received a death-blow when Caliph Omar (early in the
seventh century) sacked the city and burnt its books, saying that “they were
useless if they agreed with the Koran, and also useless if they differed from
it.”
We
are glad to say, that he did not succeed altogether in his infamous purpose,
for one of the most valuable MSS. of the ancient library is now in the
possession of the British Museum. It is called the Codex Alexandrinus,
the manuscript of Alexandria. In the year 1628 Cyrillus Lucaris,
patriarch of that diocese, sent as a present to Charles I this MS., which
contains the Septuagint almost complete, the whole of the New Testament with
the exception of St. Matthew, and with the additional epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians.
This
priceless treasure was deposited in the British Museum, 1753. It consists of
four volumes of large quarto size, written on vellum in double columns, with usual
capital letters without spaces and accents.
This
ancient and valuable relic surely gives the British student an increased
interest in the illustrious University of Alexandria and its noble libraries.
CHAPTER IV
CLEMENTS’ EARLY SURROUDUINGS AND THE COPTIC CHURCH
In
the early days of the Roman occupation, the natives of Egypt were devoted to
the worship of Isis, Osiris, Serapis, and Anubis. And although, at first, the
Romans were very much opposed to this form of religion, and demolished their
temples by order of the Senate, so great a revulsion of feeling afterwards set
in that in 43 BC the Triumvirs built a temple to Isis for public worship.
The
worship of Isis became very fashionable in Rome on account of the licentious
character of her festivals. And from the time of Vespasian she was an
established Roman divinity. Domitian built ethe temples to her and Serapis in
the Campus Martius.
But
Isis was especially a goddess of the sea, as we may gather from the remark of
Juvenal, which refers to a custom very much in vogue among Roman sailors—
“ Pictores quis nescit ab Iside pasci ? ”
Artists
indeed carried on a lucrative trade with sailors, who were supposed to be under
the protection of Isis. When a sailor had a narrow escape from di owning, as
soon as he got ashore he had a picture of the disaster painted and hung it up
with the dripping garments in a temple of Neptune or Isis as a tribute-offering
for his salvation.
This
custom has been immortalized by the verses of Horace—
“The
sacred wall on which a tablet hangs
And
vestments dripping from the brine,
These
I have hung with supplication
An
offering to strong Sea-God’s shrine”.
The
story is told by Lucian that Zeus ordered Hermes to take Io across the seas to
Egypt and make her into Isis, saying, “Let her be a goddess of the country; and
let her be the dispenser of the winds and the saviour of the voyagers.” Thus it came to pass that Isis became the favourite deity of sailors. And so when Tibullus ventured on a sea-voyage, his beloved
Delia made a vow to Isis, and the poet in the storm exclaimed—
“Of what use is your Isis to me now, my
Delia?”
Such
was the ancient deity of those Copts who afterwards embraced Christianity in
large numbers, and adhered to it through trial and persecution with their proverbial
zeal and fury.
The
monks and hermits and ascetics of Egypt were Copts, and always the most
terrible champions of what they held to be the orthodox views. Antony, the
founder of the monastic system, was the friend of Athanasius, the national hero,
around whom the Anchorites rallied whenever his life or doctrine was assailed.
In their caves and convents on the banks of the Nile, the great Coptic bishop,
who stood alone against the world, ever found a secure retreat. On one occasion
when he sought refuge among them, they came in their hundreds out of their
cells to welcome him as a persecuted patriot, and he cried out in wonderment,
“Who are these that fly as a cloud and as doves to their cotes?”. Then the
abbot took the bridle of his ass, and by the light of a thousand torches, led
him to their home in the sandy hills, where he was far beyond the reach of his
persecutors.
Thus
it was a strong national feeling which instigated the Copts to side with their
national bishop against the Arians, who were essentially Greek. For Arius the
heresiarch himself had been a pupil in the school of Lucian of Antioch, which
was famous for its grammatical and rationalistic exegesis of scripture. We may
infer this from the fact that he addressed Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, in a
letter preserved by Epiphanius as sillokianistis,
himself fellow-pupil of Lucian. And in all their dissensions, riots, and
schisms, they clung to their countryman with a wonderful tenacity. It was,
indeed, a red-letter day in the annals of Alexandria, when the exiled bishop
was allowed to return to his diocese for a time (346 a.d.).
Then the people passed out in vast numbers to receive him, as he rode over the
flower-strewn and carpeted streets, with such illuminations, acclamations, and festal
rejoicings, that the saying, “It is like the day when the Pope Athanasius came
home,” passed into a proverb. The Christian Copts of today retain this old feud
with the Greek Church. Indeed, it is said that the whole Nubian Church became
Moslem rather than join the Church at Constantinople.
There
is a great deal of truth in that saying. For the Copts were so exasperated by
the canons of the Council of Chalcedon that they would never be reconciled with
the heterodox adherents—as they considered them—of the Greek Church, and even
preferred to fall into the hands of the Saracens. Indeed they hated the Greek
Church and the Greek Empire of Byzantium so much, that they abjured the manners
and language of the Greeks, refused to intermarry with them, and would not
perform the commonest offices of humanity for them.
Yet
we must not look on the Church of Egypt as only a remnant of the sect of Jacobites. “It is the only living representative” (writes
Dean Stanley) “of the most venerable nation of all antiquity.” It contains, he
asserts, all that is left of the lore and lineage of Egypt. And its ancient
liturgies, which are written in the dialect of the Pharaohs, retain the ancient
name of the city of Alexandria—Rhacotis.
The
Coptic form of service is very primitive. The congregation exchange a universal
kiss of peace, the worshippers wear turbans on their heads, and remove their
slippers; while children, acting as deacons, remind one of that scene witnessed
by the aged Bishop of Alexandria. As that prelate was sitting one day in a
turret which commanded a view of the great Mediterranean Sea, he saw some
little boys playing in a very solemn way upon the beach. Summoning them to his
presence, he questioned them, and found that they had been playing at
“baptism,” and that one of their number, duly elected, had followed the
prescribed ritual, and dipped each of them in the water with the usual formula.
The venerable bishop pronounced the ceremony valid, and never lost sight of the
boy-bishop, whom he afterwards made his Archdeacon. The bishop was Alexander;
the boy was Athanasius.
Alexandria,
once the chief sanctuary of the country, was now, in the time of Clement, the
Patriarchal see of Egypt. It was said to have been founded by St. Mark, and its
bishop was the only one who bore the name of “Pope” in the earlier centuries of
the Christian era. After the Council of Nicaea, he was called the “Judge of the
World” from his decision concerning the date of Easter, and was generally
regarded with the veneration paid in later days to the Bishop of Rome.
Indeed,
Gregory of Nazianzus said that the head of the Alexandrian Church is the head
of the world.
The
patriarch of that diocese was the Metropolitan of all Egypt, and allowed no
other bishop to ordain in his jurisdiction. While in civil matters “he had
gradually usurped the state and authority of a civil magistrate ... and the
Prefects of Egypt were awed or provoked by the Imperial power of these
Christian Pontiffs” (Gibbon).
So
much for the position and importance of the Alexandrian patriarchate of which
Athanasius was the first conspicuous representative.
The
patriarch at the present day has a residence in Cairo. Ten other bishops, the
representatives of some three hundred of older days, dwell in the same' city.
And only forty monasteries out of six hundred have survived the destructive
work of the Arab, while the Copts, themselves, have been reduced to some 30,000
families. “They are a race of illiterate beggars,” says Gibbon, “whose only
consolation is derived from the superior wretchedness of the Greek patriarch
and his diminutive congregation.” This statement is partly true, for it was a
great source of sorrow to Cyril Lucar, the Patriarch
of Constantinople, to know that the heretics were ten times more numerous than
his orthodox Greek.
The
Coptic Church is Monophysite, that is, it was so vehemently opposed to the
Arian heresy, which denied the divine nature of our Lord, and to the Nestorian
theory by which His two natures were divided, that it maintained that Christ
had one nature alone, and that a mixture of the human and the divine.
CHAPTER V
CLEMENT AND THE JEWS
The
campaigns of the great world-conqueror, Alexander of Macedon, prepared the
minds of men, in a general way, for the doctrines of the Gospel, some three centuries
before it was preached, by spreading Greek culture, thought, and language in
the most distant countries of the world, and so fusing into one Greek and
Barbarian. But, in a more particular manner, this end was attained in
Alexandria, his new city, where the conqueror invited the Jews, to whom he was
very partial, to settle in great numbers.
Here,
in the very heart of civilization, where the culture of the Greek, the mystic
lore of the Copt, the discipline of the Roman, and the religiousness of the Jew
were blended together, a cosmopolitan form of thought developed, which, in
spite ‘of certain peculiarities, afterwards became a soil admirably prepared
for the seed of life.
There
is a very interesting account of the first meeting of the Jews and the
Macedonian hero in the History of Josephus. After their return from captivity,
the Jews had remained the loyal subjects of the “Great King.” Nehemiah, it
seems, was the last governor sent from the Court of Persia. After his death,
Judea was placed under the control of the Satrap of Coele-Syria, to whom the
high-priest was responsible for the administration of affairs. The history of
this period is without any striking incident until we come to the priesthood of
Jaddua, when news of the invasion of Asia, and the overthrow of the Persian
monarch, their suzerain, in the decisive battles at the Granicus (334 BC), and
at Issus (333 BC), spread a panic among the well-affected inhabitants of
Palestine, which was increased tenfold when the invader turned his all-powerful
arms in the direction of Syria, captured Damascus, carried Sidon by assault,
and laid siege to the great city of Tyre. From that place he sent a message to
Jerusalem to demand an oath of submission and supplies from the high-priest.
These were refused. The, king vowed vengeance, and after the fall of Tyre,
marched straight to the Holy City.
In
the meantime the Jews were in terrible consternation, and Jaddua was greatly
troubled. However, reassured by a dream, in which he was advised to receive the
approaching Alexander as a friend, he ordered the city to be decorated with
flags and garlands for the reception of the conqueror, and went forth in full
pontifical attire, followed by an imposing procession of the priests, to meet
the king on the march, or ever he drew nigh the city walls.
But
when the great victor beheld the holy name Jahveh inscribed in golden letters
on the tiara of the high-priest, it is said that he fell down and worshipped,
to the great astonishment of the Chaldean princes and the indignation of his
own friends, who scoffingly inquired why he, who had “made the whole world do
him homage, knelt before the Jewish priest”?
“It
is not the high-priest whom I worship,” returned Alexander, “but his God Who
gave him the priesthood. In a vision at Dios in Macedonia, I saw Him arrayed in
those robes, and when I was considering how I might conquer Asia, He urged me
to cross the sea without delay, saying that He would Himself lead my army and
give me the victory.”
Then
the king, rising from his knees, took the high-priest by the hand, and entering
the city, sacrificed before the people in the Temple. This story may be a myth.
It
is, however, a fact, that Alexander dealt very leniently with the Jews, to whom
he granted their ancient privileges and liberties. And when a few months
afterwards he founded his city of Alexandria in Egypt, he gave the Jewish
settlers the preference.
For a
long period the Jewish colony in Egypt had rest, and multiplied; and as usual
grew very rich, and lent large sums of money at interest to the uncircumcised.
They were governed by one of their own princes, called the Alabarch, and by a
Sanhedrim, and occupied two of the five districts (Nomi) of the city. Moreover,
Ptolemy Philadelphus conferred additional advantages upon the flourishing house
of Israel. Nor were they long without a temple. For during the dark days when
Antiochus the Syrian was working off his rage on the country of Judea, and
seeking by every indignity, pollution, and oppression, to destroy the Jewish
Law and Worship, we read that Onias, the son of the
high-priest, escaped to Egypt, and there obtained the permission of Ptolemy Philometer to erect a temple in the Heliopolitan nome, after the same pattern as the Temple of Jerusalem,
and to consecrate Levites and priests to its service. It is said that Onias quoted the following prediction of Isaiah to Ptolemy
as a plea for the building of this temple—
“In
that day shall five cities in the land of Egypt speak the language of Canaan,
and swear to the Lord of hosts; one shall be called, The city of Heres (= the city of the Sun, Heliopolis). In that day
shall there be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt, and a
pillar at the border thereof to the Lord.”
This
temple of Heliopolis, built by Onias, though somewhat
smaller, was similar in design to the ancient fane in Jerusalem. It stood con a
foundation 60 feet high, but instead of the massive golden candle-stick, a
golden lamp was suspended by a golden chain from the vaulted roof; it was also
adorned with votive gifts. This temple remained standing until the time of
Vespasian, who ordered it to be demolished in consequence of a tumult raised by
the Jews in Egypt.
Moreover,
the Jews had a celebrated synagogue in Alexandria, which was built on a
magnificent scale, and in which seventy golden chairs, studded with gems, were
placed for the Sanhedrim. This edifice was burnt down in the time of Trajan.
Needless
to say,, the Jews in Egypt soon forgot their ancient tongue, and the recension
of their scriptures by Ezra. They found it more convenient to have a
translation in the Greek language. This translation —the origin of which is wrapt in mystery—is called the Septuagint version, from the
tradition (now universally rejected) of Aristeas, who
stated that it was made in seventy-two days by seventy learned Jews. These, the
story goes, were sent by Eleazar the high-priest to Ptolemy Philadelphus, who
was then engaged in founding his magnificent library at Alexandria (283 BC). On
their arrival, the Egyptian monarch, with a view to test their inspiration,
shut them up by pairs in cells, and on the completion of the translations, which
agreed verbatim with one Another, is said by Josephus to have given the
translators half a million sterling for their work
Clement,
following Irenaeus, gives the same account of the origin of the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament. In the Stromateis he
writes: “They say that the Scriptures both of the law and of the prophets were
translated from the Hebrew into the Greek language in the reign of Ptolemy, the
son of Lagos, or according to others in that of Ptolemy Philadelphus, and that
Demetrius Phalereus displayed the greatest zeal and
accuracy in superintending this work.”
He
then proceeds to relate the story we have just told, which he firmly believed,
regarding such an origin as the result of a special intervention of Providence
on behalf of the Greeks. “For it need not occasion wonder,” he says, “that the
God who inspired the prophecy should inspire the translation. For when the
Scriptures had been lost in the captivity of Nabuchodonosor, Esdras (Ezra) the
Levite and priest under divine inspiration restored them in the reign of
Artaxerxes.”
Clement
then quotes from the work of Aristobulus, addressed to Philometor,
in order to show that Plato was versed in the Jewish law. The passage runs to
the effect that even before the time of Demetrius, previous to the time of the
Persians and of Alexander, the account of the Exodus from Egypt and the Jewish
code of laws had been translated into Greek, so that they were well known both
to Pythagoras and to Plato, “the Atticizing Moses, as Noumenius the Pythagorean philosopher styled him.
This
story, however, although attested by such an authority as Clement, is evidently
an invention. The translation was originally made for the use of the
Alexandrian Jews, and was the work of various authors, who, to judge from the
introduction of Coptic words, were natives of Egypt.
Dr. Edersheim suggests (History of Jewish Nation) that
both the Samaritan and the Septuagint translations of the Pentateuch are based
on an old Aramaean Targum or Paraphrase. He cites several passages in the LXX
version, which can only be understood with the help of the Hagada,
the apocryphal Prophets, and the Halacah, the
apocryphal Pentateuch.
For
example, he takes the translation of the book of Joshua, and shows that the
Greek of chapter xiii. 22 can only be understood in the light of the Hagadic story, that Balaam had by magic flown into the air,
but that Phinehas threw him to the ground and killed him in the fall. And the
remarkable addition in the Septuagint version to Joshua xxiv. 30—“There they
placed with him on the tomb, in which they buried him there, the stone knives
with which he had the children of Israel circumcised in Galilee, when he led
them out of Egypt, as the Lord had appointed them”—is also due to the same
source of legend—the Jewish Hagada.
These
passages prove that this Greek translation was made under the combined
influences of the Jewish Targums, ancient paraphrases of the text, and the
Talmud, the collection of oral traditions and interpretations on the law, and
were only committed to writing in the second century after Christ, but existed
for centuries before in the memory of individuals. Be this as it may, the
translation shows abundant traces of mistakes, corrections, additions, and
omissions.
Though
it was, at first, intended only for the Egyptian, it came to be used very
largely by the Palestinian, Jews; and came to be regarded as a work of the
highest authority until that sacred race, unable to answer the arguments which
the Christians based upon it, disowned it, and made use of a very literal
version by Aquila, especially written from the national standpoint, about 160 a.d.
A
well-known version of this work, which had gradually become full of errors by
reason of the inaccuracy of transcribers, was undertaken by Origen in the
beginning of the third century.
This
great scholar of Alexandria spent twenty-eight years in collating the Greek
text with the original Hebrew, and three other Greek translations, the literal
rendering of Aquila, the moderate one of Theodotion, and the free one of
Symmachus, Ebionite Jews.
This
recension is variously termed the Tetrapla (which contains the four Greek versions of Aquila, Symmachus, the Septuagint,
and Theodotion), and the Hexapla (which contains two additional columns, the
Hebrew text in its original characters, and also in Greek characters). Origen
marked all the changes he made in the text very carefully.
A
long time after his death, Eusebius and Pamphilus found this great work in an
obscure place in the city of Tyre, and removed it to the library of Pamphilus
the martyr, where Jerome saw it a hundred years later. It is supposed to have
perished in the sack of the city by the Arabs, a.d. 653.
There
were three further recensions of the Septuagint, one by Eusebius from the Hexaplar text of Origen, one revision of the common
Greek text by Lucian, and another by Hesychius. Upon these three recensions all
MSS. and printed editions of the Septuagint now in use are based.
This
much will suffice to show the important position of the great Jewish colony in
Alexandria (in the world of letters as well as in worldly riches), and to prepare
us for the great problem its noblest sons endeavoured to solve—the reconciliation of Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition.
CHAPTER VI
CLEMENT AND PHILO’S PHILOSOPHICAL PROBLEM
In
order to understand the position and influence of an Alexandrian Jew, let us
take the case of Philo (who was already advanced in years, a.d. 40), when he undertook an embassy to Caligula on behalf of the Jews. He was a
man of wealth, position, and learning, and the brother of the Alabarch
Alexander, who lent fabulous sums of money to Agrippa. Brought up from his
infancy to believe in the divine source of every letter of the Septuagint
version of the Old Testament, made by the Jews of Alexandria, and in after
years becoming a firm adherent of the Platonic philosophy, he found it hard to
reconcile his reason and his faith. He instinctively held to the Scriptures,
while his reason assented to the philosophy.
To
deliver himself from this dilemma, he set himself to seek for universal
principles of thought in the Old Testament. Needless to say, he did not find
them. And this failure was due in a large measure to his uncritical method' of
study. For he did not adhere to the recognized rules of interpretation, and
paid no heed whatever to the grammar, history, logical development, textual
and comparative criticism of the works he studied. Having failed, then, to find
the principles of Greek philosophy in the Pentateuch of Moses, he arrived at
the extraordinary conclusion that everything in Scripture was allegorical; that
nothing was to be literally interpreted, but that the most abstruse and,
far-fetched meaning was the most probable.
Thus
the letter of the text was spirited away by Philo, while the so-called spirit
was retained. In this way Philo thought he would be able to find his Greek
universals in the law of Moses, and so to defend the sacred literature of his
countrymen from the sneers of heathen moralists and the jeers of Pagan
sceptics. While, on the other hand, he fondly hoped to satisfy the
narrow-minded literalism of the Pharisees, who worshipped the letter, but
disregarded the spirit of the law.
If he
succeeded in doing this, he would achieve the darling project of his heart—the
reconciliation of Greek philosophy and Jewish tradition.
But,
of course, consistently with the Greek theories he incorporated in his system,
Philo could not conceive the Deity as having any sensible or human quality or
feeling. He identified Him with the Absolute Being, undefinable and supreme,
Who manifests Himself to the mind that soars upwards, disengaging itself from everything
sensible, and so attains to an intellectual intuition of Him. Such a one loves
the Supreme Being for His own sake, and longs to do His will because he apprehends
Him not as man but as God.
There
are others, Philo writes, who know God only after the analogy of man, and
attribute to Him feelings of anger, etc. These have to be trained to virtue by
the hope of reward or fear of punishment, whereas the members of the former
class apprehend God immediately rising to an intellectual insight of His
Being, and so are actuated by love; while they who form the second class know
God only indirectly through the medium of His Creation and His revealed word,
and so are sons of the word rather than of the true Being.
Thus
Philo held that there was an inner and an outer circle of believers, and
introduced the Pagan distinction of esoteric and exoteric into
that religion which is for all alike, the millionaire and the beggar, the
peasant and the peer, the ignorant and the learned.
This
spiritualistic conception of God was directly opposed to the materialistic view
the Alexandrian Jews, in general, had of their Jahveh.
One
extreme had led to the other; and in this case, the mean, as ever, is right.
For
the objective qualities of the Heavenly Father, which were dimly revealed to the
Old Testament saints, but in these latter days more fully revealed in the
person of His Only-Begotten Son, cannot be explained away in this manner. And,
after all, the religion of Philo and his school was but an intellectual
interpretation of Judaism, with all the features of a spiritualized worship,
asceticism, contemplation, rapture, and isolation.
Intimately
connected with this new departure of Judaism, which presented many attractions
to the philosophical, however distasteful it may have been to the Conservative,
Jew, was the sect of the Therapeutic, which some identify with the older
Essenes, but which is, perhaps with more reason, to be regarded as a practical
exposition of the contemplative life, solemnly advocated by many of the Jews in
Egypt, the land of the mystic and the anchorite.
These
Therapeutae were the Contemplatists. They lived, like
the later anchorites, in cells by the Lake Mareotis. To this place, from all
quarters men and women had come, leaving their households and breaking with all
their natural ties, in order to meditate together upon the Being of God, and to
study the law according to the new allegorical method.
They
used to fast for three days out of the seven, and every Sabbath-day met
together to hold a solemn convocation and to partake of a simple meal.
Such
was the soil in which Gnosticism naturally took root.
For
when, influenced by the new doctrine, the members of this sect professed
Christianity, as a general rule, they understood it only after an unreal manner,
and imagined that their intellectual knowledge of God was sufficient to atone
for all their sin.
It
was essentially the mystical nature of the rising religion which commended it
to them, and so the truth, when they did embrace it, became in their hands
imbued with such extraneous elements as theosophy, angel worship, legal
righteousness, the prerogatives of high descent, and the mystery of numbers.
We
must bear in mind that there was a certain class of Jews always hostile to
Christianity—the proselytes of righteousness who had been circumcised, and who
conformed to the stern ritual of Moses in the strictest way.
Of
these Justin Martyr wrote—“They do not only not believe, but, twice as much as
the heathen, blaspheme the name of Christ.”
Whereas
the proselytes of the Gate, who simply pledged themselves to abstain from the
worship of idols and pagan excesses, and to adore the one God, found an
especial attraction in the new Gospel, which threw a fuller light upon the
nature and work of God.
Moreover,
Philo had prepared the way for the doctrine of the Incarnation and Redemption
by his idea of a mediating divine Word—which he, however, regarded as a
manifestation of a person rather than as a personal manifestation—through
which, according to him, the world was connected with God.
It is
very instructive, indeed, to compare this imperfect Logos-theory of Philo with
the true theory of “the Word become flesh ” in the Gospel of St. John. The
Logos of St. John is real, present, and substantial, while the word of Philo is
shadowy, distant, and indistinct.
The
Alexandrian philosopher indeed spoke of the Word as the First-born Son, but on
the subject of His Personality he is altogether silent or vague. According to
Dorner and Dollinger he did not speak of this Word (Logos) as if He were a
distinct Person; while Dr. Jowett declared that Philo had not made up his own
mind on the subject, for at one time he treated his Word as personal, and at
another as impersonal.
In
this controversy we must bear in mind that the word “ person ” is applied to
God in a different sense from that in which it is applied to man. And yet there
is bound to be one element at least in common between the personality of God
and the personality of man, and that is self-consciousness.
The
argument therefore turns on this, whether or no the
Word (Logos) of Philo was regarded by him as a self-conscious Being, aware of
His distinctness and individuality as the Word of St. John manifestly was.
The
Word of Philo, as has been said already, is a mediating Word, through which God
the Abstract, the Intangible One, deals with men and manifests Himself in the
world. But in another passage he spoke of this Word as the “Shadow of God, by
which, as an instrument, he used to make the worlds,” that is, a shadowy instrument,
which can be nothing more than a manifestation of God.
The
Word, Philo goes on to say, fills all things, is the “bond ” of creation, is the
“Eldest Son” and the “Archangel.” He is the “spiritual food of man,” and the
“Intercessor” by whose mediating words the Creator is brought into touch with
His Creation. Yet we can hardly believe that Philo is speaking here of anything
more than a certain attribute of God, as, for example, His wisdom made
incarnate in the world.
If we
take another definition of this Word, “The word of God is the Idea of Ideas,”
we have a reminiscence, or rather a reproduction of the Platonic theory of the
Intelligence (nods). The “Intelligence” is the centre of causality, the agent of creation in the system of the Greek, while the Word
(Logos) is the centre of causality, the agent of
creation in the system of the Jew. But the Nous, “the Royal Mind,” in the
philosophy of Plato is merely a principle of Intelligence in the nature of the
Supreme God, and is not therefore a self-conscious personality. Now the “Word”
of Philo has evidently been founded upon the “Intelligence” of Plato, and as it
has been proved abundantly from the writings of Plato that he did not regard
his “Intelligence” as a person, it would be a straining of the point to read a
self-conscious personality into the Philonic Word, or
to assert that St. John, whose Word is truly a Person manifested in His Work
and Thought, distinct from the Father, and at the same time One with Him,
borrowed his perfect conception from the imperfect idea of Philo.
Philo’s
problem, as stated in the beginning of this chapter, was the reconciliation of
Jewish tradition and Greek philosophy.
Thus
it was that he was led to clothe his Greek theory of an abstract intangible
Deity in a Jewish form, and to represent his Yahveh as the one supreme,
intellectual, and living Being, manifesting Himself through the mediation of an
Intelligence which, in its turn, was manifested through its ideas.
CHAPTER VII
CLEMENT AND THE CATECHETICAL SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA
In a
previous chapter, a very brief allusion was made to the prominent position in
intellectual pursuits which was won by the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
This school was established under the best auspices. The grand problem which
ever engaged the attention of its professors was the reconciliation of the
enlightenment of the age with the Christian doctrine of the Incarnation. One
cannot say that their efforts in this line were entirely crowned with success,
but they, at any rate, helped to give a Christian tone to the new Cosmic
philosophy.
Eusebius,
the great ecclesiastical historian, speaks of a school of theology which
existed in the city from very ancient times. This school was connected with the
diocese of Alexandria, and the appointment of the professor consequently lay in
the hands of the Bishop.
Very
high qualifications were of necessity required in the catechist of this school,
which had a higher aim than mere scriptural exposition, and a larger scope even
than the allegorical interpretation of the Sacred Books.
The
end the teachers had before them was to show the reasonableness of Christianity
to men of reasoning minds, and thus to establish the Christian faith upon a
rational basis.
The
Catechist should then be familiar with Grecian lore, philosophy, and religion,
in order-to cope with the wit and intelligence of a highly cultured race; and
at the same time, to train up a class of students who were preparing for the
different offices of the Christian ministry.
So it
was that Clement, who. succeeded Pantaenus in the chair of theology, freely
used every possible means of helping his pupils; exploring both the ancient and
the recent classical authors, and studying every theory of life, creation, and
God, that was to be found in the collective wisdom of the Greeks, and in the
illumined page of Scripture.
“ All
learning,” he tells us, “ is useful, but the study of the Holy Scriptures is
particularly essential to enable us to verify what we teach, especially when
our pupils come primed with Greek erudition.”
Even
the learned and ready Origen, Clement’s disciple and successor in the chair of
divinity, experienced this very thing, and often found much difficulty in
answering the various questions and quibbles that were put to him by the Greek
students, who apparently derived a great pleasure from the confusion of their
lecturer.
Under
these circumstances, we are not surprised to find that in the highly
intellectual training college, the Articles of the Christian faith were first
formulated and arranged as a system of philosophy, with which we all are
familiar under the name of the gnosis, or science of Alexandria.
Of
Pantaenus, the predecessor of Clement in the professorship in the Christian
school, very little is known beyond the fact that he commenced life as a Stoic,
and that when he became a Christian he inspired all his pupils with an intense
thirst for that knowledge which he could impart^ so well, instructing them all
in the tradition of the holy teaching directly handed down by father to son,
from the Apostles Peter, James, John, and Paul.
The
work his master so well commenced, Clement continued, because, as he tells us,
“Knowledge is intended for use, and rusts when disused, just as wells, when
pumped, yield a purer stream of water than before.”
The
remaining chapters of this book will be devoted to a sketch of the life and a
summary of the teaching of the second, and perhaps the most distinguished, of
the three distinguished lecturers of the Catechetical School of Alexandria.
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