THE

BIBLICAL REPOSITORY.

No. XIII.

JANUARY, 1834.

ART. I. ON THE CATECHETICAL SCHOOL, OR THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, AT ALEXANDRIA IN EGYPT.

By R. Emerson, Prof. of Ecclesiastical History, in the Theol. Sem. Andover.

Preliminary Remarks on the importance of Theological Education and a knowledge of its history.

In civilized communities, education moulds into its own shape the body politic which it pervades. Hence it ultimately does more, for good or for evil, than all other causes combined. In its widest acceptation, indeed, it virtually embraces all the moral causes which act on man.

Of course that part of history which treats of education, must be deemed of the highest consequence by every contemplative mind. So it has been regarded in every enlightened age and among every enlightened community, both ancient and modern, whether christian, mohammedan, or heathen. But espe

cially is the history of education thus highly regarded among enlightened Christians. And well it may be thus preeminently regarded by them; for pure Christianity is light itself; of course it loves the light, and it delights in the history of this true knowledge, as being the very history of itself. But the history of this light, is nearly the same as the history of sound education.

And what in christian lands has kept alive, and guided, and Vol. IV. No. 13.

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diffused this light of education? what, more than any, and more than all other instrumentality combined? The incontrovertible answer is at hand-viz. the CHRISTIAN MINISTRY. When and wherever the true light has shined, it is they, under God, that have diffused it. This they have done by their preaching, by the books they have written, by the scriptures which they have translated, copied and diffused, by the schools they have instituted, and by the more private methods in which they have given instruction, and the general influence they have exerted in the promotion of knowledge. Scarcely a school or a college in christendom has come into existence or continued to flourish, without their aid and their guidance. Theirs is the merit, then, so far as the merit of man is to be mentioned, in this grand agency of temporal and eternal good.

And so on the other hand, we may say, that when the mantle of ignorance has been drawn over the eyes of the church, or the dark mists of error have filled the christian atmosphere, they are the class of men who must be held as peculiarly responsible. To them more than to all other men, has both the providence and the word of God, committed the key of knowledge, and theirs is the responsibility of opening and of shutting the resplendent temple.

Much has, indeed, been said, and truly said, in mitigation of the charge on them for suffering the dark ages to come on and overcloud the christian nations for a thousand years. There were causes, it is alleged, in the corrupt and decrepid state of the Roman empire, and in the condition of the savage hordes by whom it was overrun, which they could not counteract.* This is doubtless true, if we look only at the state of things when this catastrophe came down upon Europe. And the credit of the scanty light which was kept glimmering, is also to be awarded to the clergy, corrupt as they had become. But we may fairly go back beyond this period, and inquire; Why did not their predecessors, in a more favored period, with resources most ample, truly convert and purify and save the Roman empire from its gathering darkness and approaching dissolution? and why did they not, long before this general wreck, spread the gospel among these savage hordes themselves, and convert and civilize and enlighten even them? The Apostles, few and poor as they were,

* See Tholuck on Heathenism, in the Biblical Repository, Vol. II.

would have done it had they survived to half that period of

time.

With this brief glance at the whole state of the case, then, we may return with the charge, and say, that even in that case, which is the strongest that history affords, the clergy were deeply responsible for that whole millennium of darkness and moral death that overspread the civilized world, and from which Europe itself, the very land of the reformation and of resuscitated science, has not yet recovered, nor will it, perhaps, recover for a century to come.

But here it may well be remarked, that this recovery to genuine christian light and sound education, is to be ascribed to the same class of agents-christian ministers. Without them, the revival of literature, had it occured at all, would have produced no better state of morals than it did among the Saracens in the days of their literary glory; or among the people of France in our own age.

The clergy, then, are the masters of education, and responsible for it; and theirs, under God, is the chief honor of its blessings in christian lands.

This is an important point which I have deemed it needful to present as clearly to view as my brief limits will admit, for the purpose of showing something of the deep interest that attaches to the general subject before us, viz. the christian education of the clergy themselves. For if the clergy are commanded by God, and destined, by the very arrangements of his providence, to educate the people, a tenfold importance is at once seen to accrue to the education of these same ministers of sacred knowledge and improvement. Their education is virtually the education of the whole; and a radical fault or a primary excellence here, must extend, in its effects, with a widening, deepening influence, throughout the whole sphere.

From this view of the subject, I may here remark, that we readily find the solution of a problem of no ordinary difficulty in its first aspect. The problem is this: If the clergy have always been the guides and masters of education, how has it come to pass that, in different countries and ages, such opposite courses have been pursued? such a difference found in the zeal with which they have been prosecuted? and such a contrast in the results? The solution is to be sought in the character of the clergy themselves: and this variation in their char

acter, is to be traced to their education as the prime cause under God.

The variations, then, in the education of the priesthood, and the causes which produce these variations in kind or degree, afford a topic of the very first importance in historical research. These are the seminal causes; small in their origin, perhaps, as the grain of mustard seed; imperceptible as the leaven; and recondite as the source of the winds; but which fill the world, and fill eternity with their effects!

It will here be remembered, as I have already intimated, that I use the term education, in its broad sense, comprising not merely the scientific and literary training of youth, but the whole formation of the mind and character, including the active, moral, and religious principles, as well as intellectual culture.

While ministers have been responsible for the general education of the other classes in christian communities, their own education has been guided by themselves, each generation giving the bias and the impulse to its successor. How has this been done, from time to time? in what manner and with what effect, has this most responsible of all the duties of the leaders in the sacred ministry, been discharged? This is the grand question in ecclesiastical history; and, indeed, in the whole history of christian nations. It is also that which lends the highest importance to the much more glaring and thrilling events of successive ages. For where such events have had a reflex bearing on this primary cause, where they have poured their healing or their polluting infusion back into this perennial fountain, their effects have been found diffusive and lasting. Such for instance were the early persecutions, so needful to check the rising ambition of the man of sin in the new community that was spreading in its youthful vigor through the world, conquering and to conquer. And such, on the other hand, was the effect of the conversion of Constantine and his accession to imperial dominion, and the consequent union of church and state, so fatal to the spiritual hopes and heavenly training of the clergy! Then, the needful check was removed ;-he that had let, was taken out of the way. But when some secular event occurs that affects not this fountain of moral influence, however terrific may be the passing scene, it is but the thunder of the black cloud, without its tempest; the comet that glares through the sphere, but deranges not its movements; as a living writer has termed it, the wind, that bows down for a day the rich grain, but not the hail

that beats it to the earth. Tomorrow all is erect and flourishing as ever.

Such are many of the desolating wars that involve kingdoms, and change dynasties, but leave the arrangements of religion. untouched. But not so the accession of a prince who meddles, however peacefully, with sacred institutions; and not so, the rise of a new doctrine, or a new mode of applying the influence of gospel teachers. And not so, in the primitive ages of the church, was the accession of some famous heathen philosopher to the christian cause, who assumed indeed the badge of the cross, but also still proudly wore the philosopher's garb—a fit emblem of the heathenism it still covered, and with which he was about to infect the church.

Such accessions were an apparent triumph, but proved, in the event, a real and lasting curse to the sacred cause. And in the same manner I might go on to speak of the baptized pride of some conspicuous converts in more recent ages, who are hailed as trophies of grace, but who come into the church, not to adore her Lord, but to be adored themselves-not to help onward in the good old way of truth and harmony and love, but to find or to make some new way to heaven, on every mile-stone of which they may inscribe forever their own renown. I might also remark on the leavening influence of the more unpretending individual who introduces a new philosophy. Whether such philosophy begin in the church or out of it; and whether it pertain at first to matter or to morals; if it gain a lasting eminence, its spirit ere long embues the priesthood and works changes, good or bad, in the cause of religion and human welfare, which surpass in importance the rise or fall of the greatest temporal kingdoms. The empire of Aristotle has been to that of his mighty pupil who conquered the world, as the sun to the transient glare of a meteor. This old dead heathen even reigned as supreme pope over the church for a thousand years. The retrieving conquests of Bacon are still extending, and are more momentous in their benign effects, than all the combined powers and wisdom of his mighty cotemporaries in the cabinet and in the field. The achievements of our own Edwards in his bumble study, are destined to promote a more glorious revolution in the family of man, than even those of Washington himself.

These, and all other causes which have materially affected the education, the doctrines, or the practical efficiency of the clergy, are surely objects worthy of prime consideration and deep study