Stanger, Frank Bateman

English

Asbury Theological Seminary

Catechetical Schools in the EarlyChristian CenturiesFrank Bateman StangerIntroductionIn a previous article we discovered that the attitude of EarlyChristianity toward education in general was most favorable.^ Atthe very beginning of the Christian era the Christians had no schoolsof their own, and so they sent their children to the secular schoolsfor their education. Soon, however, schools for definite rehgiousinstruction and for detailed theological training were established.These schools were known as catechumenal and catecheticalschools.Some writers distinguish between the catechumenal schoolsand the catechetical schools. This distinction, even though it mayappear superficial to some, is worthy of notice.In the Early Church there grew up, as a matter of necessity, aprocess of instruction for those who desired to become members ofthe Christian community (catechumens) but who lacked the requisite knowledge of doctrine and the requisite moral stability. Ingeneral these were divided into two groups�those who had merelyexpressed the desire to become members of the Church, and thosewho were thought by the Church to be worthy of fuU admission.Only after candidates had undergone some instruction and discipline were they received into full communion through the sacrament of baptism.The tendency in this early period was to postpone this rite ofbaptism for a longer and longer time until eventuaUy the customgave origin to great evhs. These catechumens included children ofbelievers, Jewish converts, and the adult converts of the heathenpopulation. Though to a certain extent the discipline entailed wasintellectual, in that it had to do with doctrines, it was for the mostpart a moral discipline and a moral oversight. In one other respect,in music, this instruction possessed significance. The psalmody ofthe Early Church, especiaUy in the East, was of conspicuous importance. In regard to moral training, this use of music was prob-1 Page 25.Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries 43ably of an importance comparable with the function of music inGreek education.At stated periods in the week, in some places every day, thecatechumens met in the porch or in some other specific portion ofthe Church for instruction and moral training. The custom of catechumenal instruction was universal and through it, supplementedby the oversight of the home which was far more rigid than that ofthe contemporary Roman or Grecian home, the children of theChristian population received their rehgious instruction.From their method, and from their use of the catechism asthe basis of their instruction in subject-matter, the catechumenalschools were also caUed catechetical schools. But by way of distinction this term is better applied to a development of these schoolsin a few locahties into institutions carrying on a higher grade ofwork.The main portion of this paper which foUows is devoted to adiscussion of three of the outstanding catechetical schools in theearly Christian centuries�at Alexandria, at Antioch, and at Jerusalem.I. The School at AlexandriaA study of the Alexandrian School and of the Alexandriantheology�Jewish and Christian Platonism�centers around threerepresentative names: Philo, Clement, and Origen.Philo was bom in 20 B.C. and was a member of a well-knownAlexandrian family. He became a Jewish apologist who wished todefend Judaism against atheism, polytheism, and scepticism. He wasconcemed to prove that the highest forms of revelation and ofhuman wisdom were contained within the compass of the OldTestament. He adopted the old Greek method of allegorism in hisinterpretation of the Scriptures.Philo developed a system of Divine Powers through which Godreveals Himself. In the hierarchy of Powers, the "logos" of God issecond to God Himself. The "logos" of Philo coincides with thePlatonic "nous," and the intelhgible world is the mode which "he"assumes in creating. In the "logos" are inscribed and engraved theconstitutions of aU other things.According to PhUo, the "logos" is the constitutive principle ofhuman individuahty, but "he" is not himself an individual. Therefore, Dean Inge concludes:44 The Asbury SeminarianThe logos doctrine of Philo is nearer to what in Christianity becameMonarchianism than to the Arianism with which it has been compared, orto Athanasian orthodoxy. As the logos of God is the archetype of humanreason, the mind of man is nearer to God than any other created thing. Thegreat helper of mankind in the ascent to God is the logos: and here Philotries to unite his Jewish reverence for the written 'Word' of God with hisPlatonic idealism.2Until the age of Clement, the Christian Church at Alexandrialay in obscurity. Our information is so scanty that it is difficult tosay whether the ideas of Philo and his school were a factor in theAlexandrian Christianity during the greater part of the second century A.D.In the later half of the second century there grew into importance the remarkable Catechetical School at Alexandria�^theearhest school of its kind in the Christian Church. (The schools ofthe apologists�Justin, Tatian, etc.�were private ventures and notattached definitely to the Church.) The oldest Gnostic schools forthe study of rehgious philosophy were in Egypt, and the ChristianCatechetical School may have been modeled partly upon these andpartly upon the Jewish high schools.The school at Alexandria emerges from darkness under Pan-taenus; but we know very httle about its management either underhim or under Clement. There were no class-rooms or coUegiatebuildings. The head of the school gave informal instruction in hisown house, sometimes by lectures, sometimes by conversationclasses. The usual course was for three years. No fees were charged.The lecturer was supported by free gifts from rich students.Education was on much the same lines as that advocated byPhilo. The aim of education was the acquisition of the "gnosis."The instruction consisted partly of moral disciphne and partly ofthe study of philosophy, to which was added the art of expounding,in accordance with the principles of aUegorism, the books whichcontained the special revelation. The Christian teachers placedGreek phUosophy and the Old Testament Scriptures side by side asnecessary to the higher knowledge; and among the phUosophers,though the Platonists and Stoics were most studied, none were excluded except the "godless" Epicureans. The commentaries ofOrigen show that Bibhcal study held a very important place m thecourse.2 Inge, W. R., "Alexandrian Theology," Encyclopaedia of Religion andEthics, I, 311.Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries 45Pantaenus became the first head of the School at Alexandriaaround 185 A.D. He was learned in Greek philosophy, and he ledthe way in the allegorical interpretation of Scripture. His work wasmore catechetical than hterary, and he employed the question andanswer method.Clement was bom about 150 A.D., perhaps at Athens. Aftermany years of leisurely traveling in Italy, Greece, and the East, hecame to Alexandria, where, about 200 A.D., he succeeded Pantaenus as head of the Catechetical School. In 202 or 203 A.D. hewas compeUed by persecution to leave Alexandria, probably forPalestine and Syria. He died around 215 A.D.Dean Inge writes thus about Clement as a thinker:As a thinker, Clement is most important as the author of a syncretisticphilosophy of religion, fusing Platonism and Stoicism in a Christian mould.In Stoicism he found a natural religion, rationalism, moralism, and a predominant interest in psychology and apologetics; in Platonism a cosmology,doctrines of revelation, redemption and salvation, and contemplation as thehighest state.3We come next to the name of Origen in connection with theschool at Alexandria. He was bom around 185 A.D. and was care-fuUy brought up as a Christian. He became a pupil of Pantaenusand Clement, and aheady in his eighteenth year occupied informaUythe position of head of the Catechetical School, the older teachershaving been scattered by persecution. For many years he was occupied in laborious study and teaching, mainly on the Bible. Laterhe was driven from Egypt, and he labored at Caesarea for the lasttwenty years of his life. He died at Tyre in 253 A.D.Origen beheved that that the logos enUghtened ah men according to their capacities. The double achievement of Origen (carryingon what Clement began) was to destroy Gnosticism, and to givephilosophy a recognized place in the creeds of the Church. Thesecond was the price which conservatives had to pay for the first.Henceforth the Church possessed a theology and a philosophy ofrehgion which were far more attractive to the educated mind thanthe barbaric Platonism of the Gnostics.The hst of the heads of the Alexandrian School after Origenis as foUows: Heraclas, Dionysius, Pierius, Theognostus, Serapion,Petius, Macarius, Didymus, and Rhodon.The Catechetical School at Alexandria lost its importance be-3 Inge, W. R., op. cit., p. 315.46 The Asbury Seminariancause of the foUowing facts: (1) After Athanasius the logos doctrine began to decay in importance; (2) Methodius, the School atAntioch, and the CouncU of Constantinople in 533 A.D. attackedOrigen's orthodoxy; (3) The growing power of tradition began tokiU religious phUosophy; (4) Christianity graduaUy degraded intoa reUgion of cultus; (5) The school was finaUy destroyed in theunhappy struggle between TheophUus of Alexandria and the Barbarous orthodoxy of the Egyptian monks.Inge summarizes the contribution of the Alexandrian Schoolin the foUowing paragraphs:The Alexandrians satisfied the legitimate need of their age by providinga scientific doctrine of religion which, while not contradicting the faith, doesnot merely support or explain it in a few places, but raises it to another andhigher intellectual sphere, namely, out of the province of authority andobedience into that of clear knowledge and inward intellectual assent emanating from love to God. Clement and Origen sought to incorporate the bestof Platonism and Stoicism in Christianity.The permanent value of their syncretistic schemes will always be differently judged while men continue to be 'born either Platonists or Aristotelians'; those who would oust metaphysics from theology can have butscanty sympathy with the Alexandrians. But if speculation on Divine truthsis permissible or even necessary, no Christian theologians deserve a higherplace than Clement and Origen, who made a serious and not unsuccessfulattempt to combine in their creed the immanence and transcendence of God,universal law and human freedom, the imiversal and the particular in revelation, a lofty standard of practical ethics and world-forgetting contem-plation.*II. The School at AntiochThe Church of Antioch had played an important part in theearly spread of Christianity, and from early times had been thecenter of important movements in the realm of thought. The earhest reference to anything like an organized Christian school of instruction occurs in connection with the condemnation of the heresyof Paul of Samosata in 269 A.D. At a CouncU of Bishops whichmet at Antioch in that year and which condemned Paul, the latter'steaching was exposed by Malchion, a presbyter, who was the headof a school of Greek learning at Antioch.However, it is in the time of Lucian (died 311 or 312 A.D.),the presbyter and martyr, that the School of Antioch first comesclearly to hght. He is said to have studied in the schools of Edessa4 Inge, W. R., op. cit., p. 319.Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries 47and at Caesarea. The mfluence of Paul of Samosata's teaching uponLucian is unmistakable, and between 270 and 299 A.D. he appearsto have been outside of the communion of the Church. His teachingrepresented a compromise between the Adoptionism of Paul andthe Logos Christology of Origen. At the same time he taught theidea of a created logos, and in this respect he handed on to hisdisciples a tradition which found its most logical expression inArianism. The School of Lucian was the nursery of the Arian doctrine. The Arian leaders, Arius and Eusebius of Nicodedia, werepupils of Lucian.Two unmistakable characteristics of the School of Antiochwere: (1) the use of the dialectical philosophy of Aristotle; (2) thegrammatical and hteral exegesis of Scripture.The history of the later School of Antioch reaUy begins withDiodorus, bishop of Tarsus from 378-394 A.D. He upheld theNicene cause at Antioch. His friendship with Basil is important asmarking the union between Cappadocian and Antiochene orthodoxy. In his opposition to Apollinarism he was led to conceptionsof the person of Christ which in later times caused him to be regarded as a precursor of Nestorianism. He was the inspirer andteacher of the two most famous representatives of the School ofAntioch�Theodore and Chrysostom.Theodore, bishop of Mopsuestia (died 429 A.D.), developedthe teaching of his master Diodorus. He has points of contact withthe Pelagians in his teaching on sin and the faU, free-will andgrace; and in his Christology, he was the immediate precursor ofNestorius.John Chrysostom, bishop of Constantinople (died 407 A.D.),was another representative of this School. He was the popularteacher and preacher rather than the exact theologian, and his commentaries on Scripture, which are marked by profound insight intohuman nature, are the work of a homihst rather than a criticalstudent.The condemnation of Nestorianism by the Church in 43 1 A.D.was fatal to the development of the School of Antioch and to thereputation of its great representatives. But, while the proscriptionof Nestorianism was fatal to the School of Antioch and led to itsdechne, its teaching was carried on under Nestorian influence inthe schools of Edessa and Nisibis.48 The Asbury SeminarianStrawley presents the foUowmg summary of the significance ofthe School at Antioch:The permanent service of the Antiochene school lies in its effort tocorrect a one-sided view of the factors and methods of revelation. To theemotional, mystical religion, which tended to lose the human element in theDivine, whether in inspiration, or the person of Christ, or the relations ofgrace and free-will, it opposed conceptions which endeavoured to do justiceto the dignity and worth of human nature. While the Alexandrian theologystarted from the Divine side, and deduced all its conclusions from that as itssource, the Antiochenes followed the inductive and rationalistic method,which consisted in a careful examination of the facts of human nature andexperience. The philosophical basis of the one was Platonist, whUe that ofthe other was Aristotelian. In Christology the school of Antioch centeredattention upon the historical Christ: in its doctrine of inspiration it affirmedthe immediate and historical reference of Scripture: in anthropology it insisted upon the reality of human freedom. It regarded the purpose of theIncarnation as the accomplishment of man's destiny rather than as the deliverance of him from the consequences of sin. The struggle and conflict provoked by the commandment became a means of educating man to realize hisfreedom of choice and his weakness, and so of raising him out of the stageof subjection to the passions and mortality into the higher life of immortalityand sinlessness which has been won for him by Christ. The two standpoints,the Alexandrian and the Antiochene, represent complementary aspects ofChristian theology.^III. Cyril and His Catechetical Lectures at JerusalemCyril was bom in Jemsalem around 315 A.D. He received aliberal education, and was ordained deacon by Bishop Macarius in335 A.D., and was ordained priest by Bishop Maxunus in 345 A.D.Notwithstanding Cyril's youth he was entmsted with the responsibleduty of instmcting the catechumens in Jemsalem and preparingthem for baptism. In 348 A.D., in his ofiice as catechist, he dehv-ered the Catechetical Lectures by which his name is chiefly known.In 351 A.D. Cyril was made Bishop of Jemsalem, and a stormyecclesiastical career foUowed. Three times he was deposed, andthree times he resumed the occupation of his see. He died in 386A.D.CyrU's Catechetical Lectures were preached "without book"on the evenings of the weeks of Lent in 348 A.D., in the basihcaof the Holy Cross erected on Calvary by St. Helena. These lectures5 Strawley, J. H., "Antiochene Theology," Encyclopaedia of Religionand Ethics, I, 593.Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries 49are valuable because they are the first and only complete exampleof the course of mstruction given in the early centuries to candidates seeking admission to the fuller privileges of the ChristianChurch. Their value is also great because of the testimony theybear to the canon of Scripture, the teaching of the Church on thechief articles of the creed, and on the sacraments, and from the lightthey throw on the ritual of the Church of the fourth century.Cyril's catechetical lectures were eighteen in number. The listof subjects treated in them is as foUows:1. Hortatory2. On sin and confidence in God's pardon3. On baptism4. Abridged account of the Faith5. Nature of Faith6. Monarchy of God7. Father8. Omnipotence9. Creator10. Lord Jesus Christ11. Eternal sonship12. Vkgm birth13. Passion14. Resurrection and ascension15. Second coming16, 17. Holy Ghost1 8. Resurrection of body and the Cathohc ChurchThe style of CyrU's lectures is clear, dignified, and logical;their tone is serious and pious. A brief survey of their lectures wiUindicate clearly that his pupUs were caUed upon to thmk, to putforth mteUectual effort, to discipUne the wiU, to arrive at soundjudgment.Certam outstandmg characteristics of Cyril as a teacher deserve notice:1. He devoted himself to the purely rehgious side of Christianeducation.2. The spirit of his teaching was one of sternness and gentleness splendidly combined.3. The titles of his lectures show a methodical progress ofthought.50 The Asbury Seminarian4. He always prepared the pupils' minds for the new teachingthat was to follow.5. He employed much repetition.6. He had great literary abhity.7. He showed his powers of adaptabihty by packing a smglesentence full of instruction and meaning even for differingtypes of minds.8. He expressed graphically and succinctly the truths hewanted to remain in the minds of his hearers.9. He would solve a theological difl&culty by comparing it tosome fact within the hearers' knowledge.We close our discussion with the foUowing comparison ofClement of Alexandria with Cyril of Jerusalem which has beenmade by Geraldine Hodgson:It has seemed better to put S. Clement of Alexandria and S. Cyril ofJerusalem more or less side by side, because they offer in rather a remarkable way examples of men who, being learned, used their learning unconsciously as it were, for the furtherance of the Christian Faith. They concentrate their attention more closely on the purely religious side of Christianeducation. If S. Clement's Paedagogue seems to deal in the main with moraltraining, S. Cyril's Catechetical Lectures show us the intellectual side ofChristian education, the care for the mind, the appeal to the understanding,the stimulus to the will.^6 Hodgson, G., Primitive Christian Education, pp. 180, 181.

Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries

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Catechetical Schools in the Early Christian Centuries

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