RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
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taught it scientific exegesis, in the sense then understood, and gave it a scientific consciousness; it overthrew the heretical school; it laid down the main problems of future theology; and
4. Signifi- it transformed the primitive spirit of cance and enthusiastic asceticism into one of con- Achieve- templative asceticism. In regard to
ments. the outer world, it forced the Hellenic
mind to take account of the message
of Christianity, it led the conflict with the last phase
of Greek philosophy, Neoplatonism, and defeated
its enemies with their own weapons.
The school had a settled organization under a
single head. A knowledge of the course of study is
obtained from the great tripartite work
5. Organi- of Clement (the "Exhortation to the zation. Heathen," the "Instructor," and the
" Miscellanies ") and from accounts of Origen's teaching. The main subjects of the older philosophy were taught, but the principal thing, to which the whole course led up, was the study of Scripture. The school seems to have had no fixed domicile, at least in Origen's day, but to have met in the teacher's house. There were no fixed payments; rich friends and voluntary offerings from such as could afford them provided for its needs . The list of heads is as follows : Pantsenus, Clement, Origen, Heracles, Dionysius (the latter two afterward bishops), Pierius (Achillas), Theognostus, Serapion, Peter (afterward bishop), Macarius (?) Didymus,
Rhodon. The last-named, the teacher of Philippus Sidetes, migrated to Side in Pamphylia about 405, and the school, shaken already by the Arian controversy and by the unsuccessful struggle of Theophilus with the barbarous monastic orthodoxy, became extinct.
The theology of the Cappadocians, especially Gregory of Nyssa, is a product of the influence of the Alexandrian school, and in so far as this theology, with its echoes of Origenistic teaching, has
6. Later never wholly died out, the work of
Develop- the school has remained effective. It ments. lived on also in the learning of Jerome, Rufinus, and Ambrose, and was valuable to the Western Church. Athanasius has nothing directly to do with the catechetical school, but his teaching on the incarnation of the Logos and his conception of the relations of God and man were in touch with one side of Origenistic speculation. By carrying through the Homoousios he brought about at the same time a view of the person of Christ according to which the divine nature has so absorbed the human, has so made the latter its own, that a practically complete unity of nature exists. He did not work this consequence out thoroughly; there are many uncertainties both in him and in the Cappadocians, his and Origen's disciples; but his teaching and his theological attitude led up to what was later called Monophysitism, in its strictest and most logical form. This attitude did not change when the Church felt obliged to repudiate the attempt of Apollinaris of Laodicea to represent Uinst as a being in whom the Godhead took the Place of the reasonable human soul. On the conwary, it was felt that the theoretical assertion of
e complete and perfect human nature of Christ
in opposition to Apollinaris was a sufficient protection against any dangers incurred in free speculation on the " one nature of the Word made flesh." These speculations were based on the conception of the possibility of a real fusion of the divine and human natures. This conception might be regarded in a twofold aspect, either from the standpoint of historic realism (the divine plan of salvation has historically brought together the two separate natures), or from that of philosophic idealism (the divine plan of salvation declares and makes plain what lies already in the nature of things, in so far as the intellectual creature is in the last resort substantially one with the Godhead). The connection of this with the later teaching of the school is evident ; this connection, rooted as it is in Platonism, comes out in the pneumatic exegesis, although Origen's expositions, which seemed to offend against the rule of faith and Biblical realism, were rejected.
The theologians who represented this line of thought, and who from the beginning of the fifth century are found in conflict with the 7. Repre- school of Antioch, are called the Alexsentatives andrian school. After Macarius, the of the most important of them is Cyril, who is Later known by his numerous commentaries School, and polemical treatises, as well as by the victorious boldness of the position which he took in these controversies. While there may be two opinions about his character, there can be no doubt of the soteriological tendency of his theology. He succeeded in following up the partial victory which he won at the Council of Ephesus (431) and converting it into a complete one. His successor, Dioscurus, accomplished the entire defeat of the theology of Antioch, and at Ephesus in 449 the " one nature of the Word made flesh " was proclaimed to the East. At Chalcedon in 451 came the reaction, but it was brought about not so much by any opposition in the Eastern mind to the formula as by the despotic bearing of its champion. That which was adopted at Chalcedon roundly contradicted, indeed, the Alexandrian theology, but inasmuch as Cyril's orthodoxy was expressly recognized there, the new Byzantine-Roman Church, in spite of its teaching on the two natures, found a place for the Alexandrian school. In the sixth century Leontius and Justinian showed (Second Council of Constantinople, 553) that its influence was not dead — that, on the contrary, the exposition of the decrees of Chalcedon must be determined in accordance with it. No fundamental difference appeared in the attitude of the sixth council (Constantinople, 680-681); and after the Adoptionist controversy the Western theology also became consciously Alexandrian. It has never been able to do more than theoretically to assert the real humanity of Christ, or to reduce it to very narrow limits; it is, after all, essentially Apollinarian and docetic. Consequently in all its phases it has left room for mystical speculations on the relation of the Godhead and humanity, in which the human factor tends to disappear and history to be forgotten. (A. Harnack.)
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