Page:The Classical Heritage of the Middle Ages.djvu/128

110 THE CLASSICAL HERITAGE [chap. could never cease to pliilosophize and confide itself to philosophy, while the Eoman temper was less curious and was averse to speculation. The Koman-minded, legally educated Tertullian is an example of the Roman temperament. To him philosophy is a source of her- esies and a rash interpreter of the nature and ways of God. " What in common have Athens and Jeru- salem? The Academy and the Church? Heretics and Christians? Let them see to it who teach a stoical and Platonic and dialectic Christianity ! "VVe find no need of curiosity reaching beyond Christ Jesus, nor of inquiry beyond the gospel. When we believe, we need nothing further than to believe. Search that you may believe ; then stop. ^ Somewhat on the other side is Justin, who often speaks of Christianity as a philosophy, and realizes that through Platonism he reached Christian truth. But more explicitly the Alexandrians, Clement and Origen, intrenched their Christianity in philosophy, and apprehended it in modes of Platonic thought. With them Christianity is the culmination of philoso- phy, and includes all truth; philosophy is the pre- paratory study. Clement devotes the opening chapter of his Stromata to the vindication of this position: "Before the advent of Christianity," says he, "phi- losophy was needful to the Greeks for righteousness (8iKatoo-vj/>7). Now it is useful to piety for those who attain faith through demonstration. Philosophy was a schoolmaster to the Greeks, as the law was to the 1 Tertullian, De Praescriptionibus adversus Hereticos, VII, x. See also Irenseus, Contra Ilaer., II, 2G, 27. 2 Trypho, II, etc.