Million Book Collection - The Fishers of Men Ministries

THE SECOND AGE OF THE MARTYR CHURCH. 291was communicated. It was to be expected thatits teachers, such men as Pantaenus, Clement, andOrigen, would be led on from the more elementarywork of imparting the rudiments of the Faith tothe scientific consideration of its deeper mysteries;and even the sight of what was going on aroundthem among ^"-^^ Jews and Greeks would invite thto attempthe construction of a Christian rel o W^fphilosophy.Moreover Gnosticism, of which Alexandria was "the chief focus, had raised the question of the unit}'and nature of the Godhead, and professed a falsegnosis as the perfection of religion. By this alsothoughtfulOminds were led to consider the truerelation of knowledge to faith, and hence to attemptthe first rudiments of a Theology, the Scienceof Faith.To refute heathenism both as a Philosophy andas a Religion, and to set forth Christianity as theabsolute truth, was the very function of such menas Clement and Origen; and the former in hiswork entitled The Pedagoguexhibits the conductof life according to the principles and doctrines ofChristianity; while his Stromata, or Tapestries, exhibitthe building up of science on the foundationof faith.60 We can hardly realise now the difficultieswhich beset his great pupil Grip-en, when,carrying on the master's thought, he endeavouredto found a theology. The fact that he was among60 See Kuhn, Einlcitung in die kathotisclie Dogmatik, i. 345-G.