§ 47. THE THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS AND THEIR MOST CELEBRATED
REPRESENTATIVES.
The Ancient Church reached its highest glory during the 4th and
5th centuries. The number of theological schools properly so-called
(§ 45, 1) was indeed small, and so the most celebrated theologians
were self-taught in theology. But all the greater must the intellectual
resources of this age have been and all the more powerful the general
striving after culture, when the outward means, helps and opportunities
for obtaining scientific training were so few. The middle of the 5th
century, marked by the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451, may be regarded
as the turning point where the greatest height in theological science
and in other ecclesiastical developments was reached, and from this
point we may date the beginnings of decline. After this the spirit
of independent research gradually disappeared from the Eastern as
well as from the Western Church. Political oppression, hierarchical
exclusiveness, narrowing monasticism and encroaching barbarism choked
all free scientific effort, and the industry of compilers took the place
of fresh youthful intellectual production. The authority of the older
church teachers stood so high and was regarded as binding in so eminent
a degree that at the Councils argument was carried on almost solely
by means of quotations from the writings of those fathers who had been
recognised as orthodox.
§ 47.1. =The Theological Schools and Tendencies:=
a. =In the 4th and 5th centuries.=--Since the time of the
two Dionysiuses (§ 33, 7) the Alexandrian theology had
been divided into two different directions which we may
distinguish as the old and the new Alexandrian. =The Old
Alexandrian School= held by the subordinationist view
of Origen and strove to keep open to scientific research
as wide a field as possible. Its representatives showed
deep reverence for Origen but avoided his more eccentric
speculations. Its latest offshoot was the _Semiarianism_
with which it came to an end in the middle of the 4th
century. This same free scientific tendency in theology
was yet more decidedly shown in =the Antiochean School=.
Although at first animated by the spirit which Origen had
introduced into theology, its further development was a
thoroughly independent one, departing from its original
in many particulars. To the allegorical method of
interpretation of the Origenist school it opposed
the natural grammatico-historical interpretation, to its
mystical speculation, clear positive thinking. Inquiry into
the simple literal sense of holy scripture and the founding
of a purely biblical theology were its tasks. Averse to all
mysteries, it strove after a positive, rational conception
of Christianity and after a construction of dogma by
means of clear logical thought. Hence its dogmatic aim was
pre-eminently the careful distinguishing of the divine and
human in Christ and in Christianity, forming a conception
of each by itself and securing especially in both due
recognition of the human. The theology of the national
=East-Syrian Church=, far more than that of the Antiochean
or Græco-Syrian, was essentially bound down by tradition.
It had its seminaries in the theological schools of Nisibis
and Edessa. The oriental spirit was here displayed in an
unrestricted manner; also a tendency to theosophy, mysticism
and asceticism, a special productiveness in developing forms
of worship and constitution, and withal doctrinal stability.
In their exegesis the members of this school co-operated
with the Antiocheans, though not so decidedly, in opposing
the arbitrary allegorizing of the Origenist school, but
their exegetical activity was not, as with the Antiocheans,
scientific and critical but rather practical and homiletical.
=The New Alexandrian School= was the prevailing one for the
4th century so far as Alexandrian culture was concerned.
Its older representatives, at least, continued devotedly
attached to Origen and favourable to the speculative
treatment of Christian doctrine introduced by him. But
they avoided his unscriptural extravagances and carried out
consistently the ecclesiastical elements of his doctrine. By
a firm acceptance of the doctrine of the eternal generation
of the Son they overcame the subordinationism of their
master, and in this broke away from the old Alexandrian
school and came into closer relations to the theology of the
Western church. To the Antiochean school, however, they were
directly opposed in respect of the delight they took in the
mysteries of Christianity, and their disinclination to allow
the reason to rule in theology. The union of the divine and
human in Christ and in Christianity seemed to them a sublime,
incomprehensible mystery, any attempt to resolve it being
regarded as alike useless and profane. But in this way
the human element became more and more lost to view and
became absorbed in the divine. They energetically affirmed
the inseparable union of the two, but thereby lost the
consciousness of their distinctness and fell into the
contrary error of Antiochean onesidedness. With Cyril of
Alexandria the New Alexandrian school properly began to
assume the form of a sect and to show symptoms of decay,
although he himself retained the reputation of an orthodox
teacher. =The Western Theology= of this period, as well as
its North-African precursor (§ 31, 10, 11), energetically
insisted upon the application of Christianity to the life,
the development of the doctrines affecting this matter
and the maintenance of the church system of doctrine as a
strong protection against all wilfulness in doctrine. In
it therefore the traditional theology finds its chief home.
Still the points of contact with the East were so many and
so vital that however much inclined to stability the West
might be, it could not altogether remain unmoved and without
enrichment from the theological movements of the age. Thus
we distinguish in the West four different but variously
inter-connected tendencies. First of all there is the
genuinely _Western_, which is separated on the one hand in
Tertullian and Cyprian, but on the other hand is variously
influenced by the talented teachers of the New Alexandrian
School, which continued to mould and dominate the cultured
theology of the West. Its chief representatives are
Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, and above all, Augustine,
who completely freed the Latin theology from its hitherto
prevailing dependence on the Greek, placing it now upon its
own feet. The representatives of this tendency were at first
in complete accord with the members of the New Alexandrian
school in their opposition to the semi-Arian Origenists
and the Nestorianizing Antiocheans, but then as that school
itself drifted into the position of a heretical sect, they
also decidedly contended for the other side of the truth
which the Antiochean school maintained. A second group of
Western theologians were inspired by the writings of Origen,
without, however, abandoning the characteristics of the
Western spirit. To this class belongs Jerome, who afterwards
repudiated his master and joined the previously named school,
and Rufinus. The third group of Pelagians represent the
practical but cool rationalistic tendency of the West. The
fourth is that of the semi-Pelagians who in the Western
theology intermingle synergistic elements of an Antiochean
complexion.
b. =Of the 6th and 7th Centuries.=--The brilliant period
of theological literature had now closed. There still
were scholars who wrought laboriously upon the original
contributions of the fathers, and reproduced the thoughts
of their predecessors in a new shape suited to the needs
of the time, but spirit and life, creative power and
original productivity had well nigh disappeared. After the
monophysite Johannes Philoponus of Alexandria had commented
on the works of Aristotle and applied their categories
to theology, the Platonic philosophy, hitherto on account
of its ideal contents the favourite of all philosophizing
church fathers, was more and more set aside by the
philosophy of the Stagirite so richly developed on the
formal side. The theology of the Greeks even at so early a
date assumed to some extent the character of Scholasticism.
Alongside of it, however, we have a theosophic mysticism
which reverting from the tendency that had lately come into
vogue to Neoplatonic ideas, drew its chief inspiration from
the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. In the West, in addition to
the general causes of decay, we have also the sufferings of
the times amid the tumult of the migration of the nations.
In Italy Boëthius and Cassiodorus won for themselves
imperishable renown as the fosterers of classical and
patristic studies in an age when these were in danger of
being utterly forgotten. The series of Latin church fathers
in the strict sense ends with Gregory the Great; that of
Greek church fathers with Johannes Damascenus.