48 HISTORY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SCIENCE 



In such an environment it was inevitable that science and 

 rational philosophy should languish, and steadily decline 

 with the extension of the spiritual and temporal power of the 

 medieval Church. 8 



It is interesting to find that this mental attitude was not 

 universal. The ideas of Origen (c. 185-253 a. d.), a Greek 

 Christian of Alexandria, bear some resemblance to those of 

 modern Higher Criticism, in that he denied the exact and 

 literal meaning of certain passages of the Scriptures. He 

 was, moreover, opposed to the doctrine of damnation and hell. 

 But these beliefs brought persecution during the lifetime of 

 Origen and were anathematized in 553. Had they triumphed, 

 in the absence of the allegorical interpretations to which 

 Origen gave credence and which were later extended to a 

 ridiculous degree, the evolution of Christianity might have 

 taken a different course. Synesius, a pupil of Hypatia of 

 Alexandria and who afterwards became Bishop of Cyrene, 

 although accepting Christianity, declines to surrender his 

 freedom of thought. In a statement of his difficulties in 

 accepting the appointment of bishop, he writes as follows: 

 "I must insist upon one other point, beside which all other 

 obstacles are as nothing. It is difficult, if not altogether im- 

 possible, to eradicate from one's soul those convictions which 

 have been gained by means of science. You know that 

 philosophy rejects many of those dogmas which are generally 

 accepted as true. I could never persuade myself, for ex- 

 ample, that the soul was of later origin than the body; nor 

 would I ever say that the world or any of its parts is doomed 

 to destruction; the resurrection, an object of common be- 

 lief, is for me only a sacred allegory and I am far from 

 accepting the views which are ordinarily held." 9 This 

 declaration was like a dying challenge of Greek thought to 

 the gathering spirit of blind belief and superstition. The 

 murder of Hypatia, by a rabble of fanatics (415), was one of 



8 White, A. D., "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology." 



9 Quoted from the article by C. A. Browne, cited in the preceding chapter. 



