Christianity accomplished much in the reform of the degraded Roman society. The earliest education of the Christians came through their ‘otherworldly’ life, but actual schools, called ‘catechumenal,’ before long furnished a moral and religious training.
After the amalgamation of Christianity with Græco-Roman philosophy, ‘catechetical’ schools furnished a higher training. When higher education came to be utilized by the bishops for training their clergy, institutions known as ‘episcopal’ or ‘cathedral’ schools were founded.
Later, although opposition grew up among the Christians to the culture of Greece and Rome, its impress was found to have been left upon the doctrines and organization of Christianity.
[Sidenote: Impotence of Roman and other ideals.]
[Sidenote: Universal appeal of Christianity.]
=The Ideals of Early Christianity.=--The actual social conditions amid which the religion of Christ was born, and which it was destined to reform, were most degraded. The Roman world had become sunk in vice and corruption. The Roman virtues of patriotism, bravery, and service to the state had largely disappeared with the development of the empire, and were impotent in checking the widespread depravity. Nor could the lofty Greek thought accomplish much, since it was too intellectual and philosophic to touch the masses. The debased Eastern religions, which Rome had admitted in her easy-going skepticism, were still less productive of good. While the more philosophic forms of Judaism and the Roman development of Stoicism tended to raise the tone of morals and pave the way for Christianity, not even these forces could have accomplished a successful reform in Roman society, without the stimulus and wide appeal of the Christian teachings. Christianity was the ethical and universal religion needed as a leaven. Its truths were based on faith rather than understanding, and its appeal was to the instinctive promptings and emotions rather than to the intellect. This made it democratic and enabled it to reach the masses, for everybody can feel and have faith, even where he cannot understand.
=Early Christian Life as an Education.=--Thus it came about that, while the earliest Christians were without schools of their own and were largely illiterate, their religion itself served as an education. They were practically deprived of intellectual development, but they received moral training of a very high order. The very dishonor and unpopularity of the Christian religion, and the segregation of their Church membership, gave the Christian life itself all the effect of a species of schooling. The early Christians showed an extreme reaction to the vicious morals of the time, and endeavored to cultivate the higher ideals inculcated by the teachings of Christ. They had gathered from the statements of the Master that he would soon return and this world would come to an end. They, therefore, concerned themselves entirely with a preparation for ‘Jerusalem the golden’ and ‘the life everlasting,’ and the ideal of this most primitive Christian training may be described as ‘otherworldly.’