"For this (philosophy) was a
schoolmaster to bring "the Hellenic mind," as the law the Hebrews, to
Christ."

[89] _Stromata_, V, 14.

[90] _Ibid._, VI, 5. See also, e.g., I, 19; V, 13.

[91] See Stirling: _Philosophy and Theology_, p. 35.

CHAPTER V

ECLECTIC THEISM

The early Christian writers, so far as they assumed any philosophical
position, were invariably Eclectics. In this, as we have seen, they were
the true children of their age, whose most striking characteristic was
that it had deserted the older systems, while attempting to preserve out
of their ruins the particular truth for which each of the schools had
contended. But with the Christian philosophers it was not merely the
negative influence of scepticism which drove them to Eclecticism. Their
conviction of a sure knowledge of things divine--the final question for
all philosophy--exerted a positive influence as well, which led them to
formulate more or less explicitly a view of the function of philosophy
as an organon of the truth, not merely with reference to the past
history of Greek thought, as their contemporaries outside of the
Christian Church were accustomed to do, but with a view to all possible
speculation on the Deity. For this deposit of revealed truth, to which
they gave assent as the most certain of all knowledge, they regarded as
the _whole_ truth, of which the various speculations of philosophy on
the existence and attributes of God, were but "portions" and
"fragments"--true and trustworthy so far as they went, and from their
own particular standpoint, but, nevertheless, essentially and
necessarily partial, and hence productive, not of certainty, but of mere
opinion.

And this estimate of the function of philosophy with respect to
theological truth, which the Fathers worked out on the basis of the
concrete example of the course of Greek thought, though with a view to a
much wider application, has its justification in the very nature and
conditions of thought itself. For philosophy is essentially a
_process_--its very life depends on its being in motion, in process of
change and development. Each system is evolved out of its predecessors,
and contains within itself the germs of its successors--it is the link
which connects the past with the future. It expresses the
"common-sense," the unconscious convictions and instinctive tendencies
of the time, and the man who first gives voice to this unspoken message
is the philosopher. H