THE MEDIEVAL MIND 61 



the handmaid of theology, and natural science vanished 

 from the earth. 



This result was not inherent in the nature of the 

 case ; in the earliest patristic age a different spirit was 

 abroad. 



Of all the Fathers of the Church, Origen, one of 

 the earliest, is most nearly akin to the modern mind. 

 He was born at Alexandria, about 185, of parents 

 who were Greek by race and Christian in religion. 

 Origen laid the foundation of textual criticism of both 

 the New and the Old Testaments, applying critical 

 methods even in discussing the historical aspects of 

 Christ's life and person. He laboured to free Chris- 

 tianity from the tyranny of the Jewish-Babylonian 

 doctrines of damnation and hell ; and, by dwelling 

 on the harmony of the Christian faith, as it appeared 

 to him, with the scientific knowledge of the Alex- 

 andrian Greeks, in which he was proficient, he exercised 

 a great influence both in predisposing the more in- 

 tellectual classes of the community towards the new 

 religion and in directing the theological development 

 of the Church. But he did not escape persecution 

 and, probably, imprisonment during his lifetime ; 

 partly for political reasons and partly out of deference 

 to the prejudices of the more ignorant and ascetic 

 monastic communities of the age and district. His 

 teaching was finally anathematized at the Council of 

 Constantinople in 553, and his authority gave way 

 before the narrow and dogmatic bigotry of the later 

 Fathers. Had Origen's views prevailed, the Middle 

 Ages would have recovered far earlier and more com- 

 pletely the spirit of freedom and fearless enquiry in 

 which they were so lamentably wanting. But we 



