While the church at Rome was allowing ancient religious ideas and paganism to creep into its teachings, the church in Alexandria was being corrupted by Greek philosophy and constructing doctrines influenced by Plato and the Stoics, which I came across in Wikipedia from which I pull this study from.
It is seen in the writings of Clement of Alexandria head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He united Greek philosophical traditions with Christian doctrine. He used the term "gnostic" for Christians who had attained the deeper teaching of the Logos which he felt was a lesser form of God, he taught that Christ was not really flesh but spirit. He developed a Christian Platonism, of which objects in the everyday world are imperfect copies. He presented the goal of Christian life as deification, or assimilation into God.
He arose from Alexandria's Catechetical School and was well versed in pagan literature which it seems he used to develop his doctrines. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen who followed him as head of Alexandria's Catechetical School and interpreted scripture allegorically and showed himself to be a Neo-Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonist. Like Plotinus, he wrote that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God. He imagined even demons being reunited with God. For Origen like his teacher Clement, God was the First Principle, and Christ, the Logos, was subordinate to him. He did not believe in the ressurection and taught against that the soul died along with the body, being restored to life only at the resurrection (see soul sleep).
His works were used in the formulation of the early churches doctrines, Origen wrote about 6,000 works. A list was given by Eusebius who studied them and seems to have continued some of the false beliefs which he passed on in his writings. He followed Origen later as bishop of Caesarea and spread his ideas as seen in the further development of the Arian controversies. For instance he was involved in the dispute with Eustathius of Antioch who opposed the growing influence of Origen, including his practice of an allegorical exegesis of scripture. Eustathius perceived in Origen's theology the roots of Arianism and fought against it. He was correct facts were to show, as Eusebius was intent upon emphasizing the difference of the persona of the Trinity and maintaining the subordination of the Son (Logos, or Word) to God. The Son (Jesus), as Arianism asserted, is a creature of God. This Logos, as a derivative creature and not truly God as the Father is truly God, could therefore change (Eusebius, with most early theologians, assumed God was immutable), and he assumed a human body without altering the immutable divine Father. The relation of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity Eusebius explained similarly to that of the Son to the Father. No point of this doctrine is original with Eusebius, all is traceable to his teacher Origen.
So we see where the twisting of the nature Christ begins, and the sources that it came from. It was to confuse and mislead many which we see even to this day......
It is seen in the writings of Clement of Alexandria head of the Catechetical School of Alexandria. He united Greek philosophical traditions with Christian doctrine. He used the term "gnostic" for Christians who had attained the deeper teaching of the Logos which he felt was a lesser form of God, he taught that Christ was not really flesh but spirit. He developed a Christian Platonism, of which objects in the everyday world are imperfect copies. He presented the goal of Christian life as deification, or assimilation into God.
He arose from Alexandria's Catechetical School and was well versed in pagan literature which it seems he used to develop his doctrines. Clement is best remembered as the teacher of Origen who followed him as head of Alexandria's Catechetical School and interpreted scripture allegorically and showed himself to be a Neo-Pythagorean, and Neo-Platonist. Like Plotinus, he wrote that the soul passes through successive stages of incarnation before eventually reaching God. He imagined even demons being reunited with God. For Origen like his teacher Clement, God was the First Principle, and Christ, the Logos, was subordinate to him. He did not believe in the ressurection and taught against that the soul died along with the body, being restored to life only at the resurrection (see soul sleep).
His works were used in the formulation of the early churches doctrines, Origen wrote about 6,000 works. A list was given by Eusebius who studied them and seems to have continued some of the false beliefs which he passed on in his writings. He followed Origen later as bishop of Caesarea and spread his ideas as seen in the further development of the Arian controversies. For instance he was involved in the dispute with Eustathius of Antioch who opposed the growing influence of Origen, including his practice of an allegorical exegesis of scripture. Eustathius perceived in Origen's theology the roots of Arianism and fought against it. He was correct facts were to show, as Eusebius was intent upon emphasizing the difference of the persona of the Trinity and maintaining the subordination of the Son (Logos, or Word) to God. The Son (Jesus), as Arianism asserted, is a creature of God. This Logos, as a derivative creature and not truly God as the Father is truly God, could therefore change (Eusebius, with most early theologians, assumed God was immutable), and he assumed a human body without altering the immutable divine Father. The relation of the Holy Spirit within the Trinity Eusebius explained similarly to that of the Son to the Father. No point of this doctrine is original with Eusebius, all is traceable to his teacher Origen.
So we see where the twisting of the nature Christ begins, and the sources that it came from. It was to confuse and mislead many which we see even to this day......
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