amining Speratus, one of the band of Scillitan martyrs in N. Africa. ' The books and epistles of St. Paul,' Avas the reply [TS i. 2 [1891], p. 114). Tlie feeling grew and spread that it was at once a privilege and a duty thus to make acquaintance with the meaning and teaching of Holy Scripture. In Asia Minor and in Gaul, in Syria and Egypt, this feeling prevailed. Men like Justin Martyr, Tatian, Theophilus of Antioch, became Christians — such is their own acknowledgment — by reading the Scriptures for themselves. By and by wealthy Christians had Bibles copied at their own expense to be given or lent to their poorer brethren. Pamphilus, the friend of Eusebius, whose library at Csesarea was famous, had Bibles copied to keep in stock and to be given away as occasion demanded, ' not only to men but also to women whom he saw devoted to the reading of Scripture ' (Jerome, Apol. c. Rufin. i. 9).
All this intellectual activity devoted to the study of the Scriptures implies throughout the early Church a considerable level of educational attainment. That many of the poorest and least educated found in Christ and His teaching the satisfaction of their deepest needs is manifest from the NT itself (1 Co P^er.)^ ^^^^ Celsus sought to dis- credit the Christian system by aspersing the in- tellectual as well as the moral character of its ad- herents. Origen in answer points to the passages of the OT, especially in the Psalms, which the Christians also use, which inculcate wisdom and understanding, and declares that education, so far from being despised among the Christians, is the pathAvay to virtue and knowledge, the one stable and permanent reality (c. Cels. iii. 49, 72). We must not suppose, however, that the Church of the first days took any steps to provide schools and an educational system of her own. Members of the Christian community had no alternative but to send their sons to the schools of their localities to receive instruction along with scholars who were heathen and accustomed to the usages and customs, the superstitions and fables, often corrupt and un- clean, of paganism. Although the Fathers of the Church did not permit their youth to become in- structors in pagan schools, they did not consider it wise to deny them the advantages of a liberal education, even though associated with falsehood and idolatry. If they had forbidden their attend- ance they would have justly incurred the charges made by Celsus of hostility to learning. Christian parents made a virtue of necessity, which Tertullian approves, only recommending Christian pupils to accept the good and reject the bad [de Idolatria, x. ).
Scarcely less pressing and even more difficult was the question of the propriety of studying the productions of the great pagan writers. Among those who took the liberal view was Justin Martyr, who held that ' those who lived with Logos are Christians, even if they were accounted atheists : of whom among Greeks were Socrates and Hera- clitus ' (Apol. i. 46). Clement of Alexandria was conspicuously broad in his Christian sympathies, and his quotations from classical writers have preserved to us fragments of authors whose works have otherwise perished. Others, like Cyprian, drew a sharp dividing line between pagan philosophy and Christian doctrine.
But though the circumstances of the times rendered separate Christian elementary instruc- tion impossible and inadvisable in the early Church, the Church was not indirterent to the Christian instruction of her members. Foremost among the members belonging to the Body of Christ are ' teachers,' mentioned along with ' apostles ' and ' prophets ' (1 Co 12^^). Elsewhere they are classed with 'pastors' (Eph 4"). Among the gifts that minister to the upbuilding of the social fabric of
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Christianity is 'teaching' (Ro 12'). Power to teacli was a qualification whicli Timothy was charged to look for in the bishops whom he should appoint (1 Ti 3"), and he was told that the servant of the Lord in any office must have aptness to teach (2 Ti 2"*). The teacher as a separate func- tionary seems early to have disappeared from the Church, his functions being absorbed by the more official presbyter or bishop {q.v.), who was always required to be able to teach (Charteris, The Church of Christ, p. 32). The need, however, for institu- tions for higher instruction in the things of Christ came to be felt early. Out of the training of the candidates for baptism grew the catechetical schools in great centres of pagan learning. The first and most notable of them was the catecheti- cal school of Alexandria, of whicli Pantsenus was the founder, and Clement and Origen were the most distinguished ornaments. This was the counter- part of the pagan university, ofiering to philo- sophic pagans an academic and articulated view of the Christian system, and to earnest Christians of intellectual gifts and tastes training for the offices of preachers and teachers. Gregory Thaumaturgus commends Origen as having taught him philo- sophy, logic, mathematics, general literature, and ethics as the ground-work of tlieological training, after which he proceeded to the exposition of the sacred Scriptures. Under Clement and Origen the school was great and prosperous, and schools at Ca'sarea, Jerusalem, and elsewhere w^ere founded upon its model.
The share which woman had in the work of Christian education apart from her influence and work in the home is not made clear in the records of Church history. In the Syriac Didascalia Apostolorum, however, translated by Mrs. M. D. Gibson (1903), we have an official document of the 3rd cent, directing the deaconesses to assist in the baptism of women, to teach and educate them afterwards, and to visit and nurse the sick.