202 Philosophy of Botany. 



nearest to him, and humanity proved itself unworthy of his 

 promise at his ultimate departure that he would send that Holy 

 Spirit that would teach them every truth ; for truth nearly two 

 thousand years had to pass before this Holy Spirit could as- 

 sert his influence in the revelations of science. Christianity, 

 however, is not a reform of Judaism, a mere advance beyond 

 Philo. but a synthesis of the Semitic and Aryan thought, and 

 its strength lies in its power to calm the cravings of the heart 

 and satisfy the postulates of reason. On these premises wnll 

 stand the Christianity of the future. 



Far removed as the essence of the divinity is in the ancient 

 Jewish faith, even as close are both the natures drawn together 

 through the idea of the Logos, a concept of thoroughly Greek 

 origin, explained alread}- by Heraclitus, Zeno, and Athenag- 

 oras. Christianity, confined to Jerusalem, would never have 

 advanced beyond the Talmud. Its inthience on the world at 

 large began with the conversion of men who then represented 

 llie world. \n ho stood in the front rank of philosophical 

 thought, wlio had been educated in the schools of Greek phi- 

 losophy, and who, in adopting Christianity as their religion, 

 showed to the world that they were able honestly to reconcile 

 their own philosophical convictions with the religious and 

 moral teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Those who are truly 

 called the fathers and founders of the Christian church were 

 not the simple-minded fishermen of Galilee, but men who had 

 received the highest education w^hich could be obtained at that 

 time ; that is, Greek education. In Alexandria, at that time 

 the very center of the world, it had to either vanquish the 

 world or to vanish. In the Catechetical school in Alexandria 

 it took a definite form. St. Paul had made a beginning as a 

 philosophical apologete, but St. Clements was a far superior 

 champion to the new faith. 



It is unmistakably true that in the early days the Christian 

 mind was inclined to demonstrate in the order of this universe 

 and from the beauty of nature the greatness and benevolence 

 of its author. Such a bent of the mind to glorify the divinity 

 through the description of its works created a taste for descrip- 

 tions of natural scenery. Some beautiful versions are found 

 in the homilies of ecclesiastical writers in the time of Ter- 



