Among the recent publications in Germany, are the following: The first division of the third part (3ter Theil, 1te Abtheilung) of Becker's Manual of Roman Antiquities, by Joachim Marquardt, Professor in the Dantzic Gymnasium. (Prof. M. has carried on the work since Dr. Becker's death.)—Anthology of the Greek Lyric Poets, with Introduction and Notes, by H. W. Stoll.-A Glossary of Homer, Vol. 1, by L. Doederlein.-A Biography of Carl Lachmann, by Martin Hertz.-A Metrical Translation of Euripides' Iphigenia in Tauris, with Notes, by I. A. Hartung.-Catalogue of Homeric Epithets, by Ernst Schulze. -4th edition of Hermann's Sophocles' Ajax.-2d edition of Dr. Hagenbach's Lectures on the Nature and History of the Reformation.-A Commentary on Job, by Dr. E. J. Magnus.-Greek-German Dictionary of the New Testament, by Dr. S. C. Schirlitz. Ecclesiastical Record. DEATHS. Samuel Glover, Cambridge, Mass., Dec 13, S. S. Whitman, Madison, Ia., Jan. 2. aged 67. Nathan Sheffield, Ashford, Conn., aged 88. ORDINATIONS. R. Lockhart, Brownsville, Ohio, Oct. 31. G. A. Ames, Stockbridge, N. Y., Dec. 30. Edwin B. Eddy, Beverly, Mass., Jan. 5. Lauren Pearson, Addison, Me, Jan. 13. O. B. Stone, Xenia, March 10. THE CHRISTIAN REVIEW. No. LXIX. —JULY, 1852. ART. I.-CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA.* THE Christian fathers, who immediately succeeded the apostles, are distinguished for simplicity. They admitted the substantial truths of the gospel without philosophically speculating on them, or endeavoring to frame a connected system of religious truth. They were honest and decided believers in the great facts of Christianity, and its vital principles met with a response in their consciousness. They were satisfied with believing the testimony of Christianity, without inquiring into the latent connections of its principles, or bringing reason to aid them in investigating beneath the surface. And if all the remains which pass under the name of the Apostolical Fathers really proceeded from them, it is evident that not only a genuine simplicity characterized them, but also feebleness of conception, proneness to puerility, and a too high estimate of external observances. Faith and credulity are thus very observable in those early times as marking the same individuals, or one as characteristic of some and the other of another portion. The tendency of such a state of mind, in the absence of powerfully counteracting influences, was undoubtedly to superstition and decay. It was necessary that this process The writer of this article acknowledges his obligations to Böhringer and Neander for the substance of several paragraphs. should be arrested, so that Christianity might stand forth in its inherent power, as capable of conflicting with and overcoming the philosophical schemes of religion, which were the boast of the learned, but which failed to satisfy the cravings of the intellect and the heart; and which were, in reality, conducting the world to destruction. If it be a fact that the Christians of the first age after the apostles, were not only indifferent to the mental culture and the knowledge which the different schools of philosophy furnished, but were actually hostile to them, an explanation can be easily found. Experience had sufficiently shown that the philosophers had no power to remedy the disorder of the human soul, and, therefore, in the esteem of the Christians, they were valueless. The apostles had also cautioned Christians against the false philosophy which was an antagonist to the gospel; and the authority of sacred teachers would naturally keep them aloof from a province over which only pride and presumption seemed to bear sway. Philosophical speculation belonged also to the world from which Christianity had separated them; and the culture of which the world boasted would, at first, be sedulously avoided to an extreme, Christians naturally kept aloof, as far as possible, from what they regarded as inherently, or, by the force of circumstances, contrary to the gospel. While the Christian writings of that early age are without marks of philosophical culture in their authors, they are also noticeably different from the writings of the apostles. They have not the dignity, the depth, the comprehensiveness and just proportions, the freedom from superstition, the universal applicability to man, the pith and weight which stamp the apostolic writings. They could not, in an enlightened age, be easily mistaken for productions of the apostles. An immense chasm lies between the two classes of works; in passing from the one to the other a great descent is made. The important bearing of this distinction on the question of the New Testament writers' inspiration need be only hinted here; for how can the elevation of the apostolic writings, which can be better appreciated by an actual reading of the next succeeding writers, be accounted for if those writings, at the time and in the circumstances in which they were produced, were the fruit of human ingenuity simply? The truth is, Christianity appears in the New Testament as a matured, complete system. It is there in its growth. Nothing is to be added to it. We only need to understand the New Testament in order to understand Christianity. When the apostles left the earth and special inspiration ceased, Christianity, in obedience to the general law of Providence, becoming the care of human agents, the exposition, or exhibition, of its principles was necessarily modified and restricted by the mental peculiarities of those to whose charge it was committed. It was, however, too elastic and too universal in its design and its adaptation to man, everywhere and always, to be for a long time thus restricted. It was destined to become the main spring of human culture; and, consequently, whatever genuine culture had been attained among men, found an appropriate place among the ministries which aided in bringing Christianity to its proper position. That Christianity should come to be viewed intellectually as well as spiritually-that a Christian literature, or a scientific Christian theology, should arise, would be in due time a necessary result. The expansion of mind which could not but take place among Christians, and their inevitable contact with surrounding minds, especially of the educated classes, who either sought honestly an acquaintance with Christianity; or, with partial and distracted views of its nature, became its opponents, would lead to this. After no very long interval, too, some men became Christians who had been trained in Grecian schools, and who came to their manhood with all the stores of Grecian literature, and with acumen made more penetrating by the philosophical studies through which they had passed. These men could not forget what they had learned, nor would their minds cease to be active and inquisitive, now that they had found in Christianity the desired satisfaction for their most pressing wants. Justin Martyr, and Clement of Alexandria, are instances of such men; and it is with the conversion of Justin Martyr that a scientific development of Christianity historically begins. The city of Alexandria, in Egypt, is the spot where the systematic attempt at Christian education commenced. This great city was eminent for its literary character—a central spot between the eastern and the western world, learned men of all schools were attracted to it. Here a philosophical Judaism had been cultivated under Philo, who sought to harmonize Moses and Plato. A Christian church had been early planted in this city; and its teachers, from the peculiarity of their situation, could not but feel the necessity of literary cultivation in Christian families, and especially on the part of those who were to be the leaders of the Christian company. It would, also, naturally seem to them desirable to draw within Christian influences young men, who might otherwise be trained in heathen schools. The custom had early arisen of conducting through a course of instruction those persons who were to be received into the church: such persons were denominated catechumens, and the name catechists designated those who were particularly occupied in their instruction. Thus, probably, originated the catechetical school in Alexandria, which subsequently became eminent, particularly under Origen, as a kind of theological school in which the interpretation of the Scriptures was taught; and theological philosophy, as well as the more elementary branches of grammar, rhetoric, geometry, &c. This was strictly a Christian school, maintaining faith in the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments, and differing widely in this respect from the heretical Gnostics of those times, who also abounded in Alexandria. Clement of Alexandria, or, properly named, Titus Flavius Clemens, was the second catechist of distinction in that school. The epithet Alexandrinus marks the place of his principal labors rather than of his birth; it being uncertain whether he was born at Alexandria or at Athens. Of his early life but little is known. His parents were heathen. He received an extensive Grecian education, and became initiated into the mysteries of the Grecian religion. But the wants of his religious nature were unsatisfied till he became acquainted with Christianity, probably in early manhood. What external means or circumstances contributed to this result, we are not informed; or whether it should be traced to his own reflective tendency and sense of religious wants, united to a consciousness of the need of a revelation from above. Immediately upon this event, he sedulously devoted himself to the study of the Christian religion, resorting to all the distinguished Christian teachers of whom he heard. In the prosecution of his Christian studies he traveled extensively into the East and the West, visiting Greece, Lower Italy, Syria, Palestine and Egypt. He thus collected very diversified attainments, and cherished his tendency to eclecticism, and to those broad, comprehensive views which, however incompatible they might appear to minds of narrower compass, he yet could see to be harmonious results of some common principle. Of all the teachers with whom he had connected himself, Pantænus most attracted his regard. This man was at the head of the catechetical school in Alexandria, and was the first distinguished catechist there whose memory is still preserved. The spirit of Pantænus either found in Clement a remarkable accordance with itself, or else had a singular power to transfuse itself into his pupil. His earnestness of mind made him favor |