possessed the theological library which Eusebius used in the preparation of his learned works. Far more important was the theological school of Antioch, ' 'fly 6 fi-vdos iroie? tovs yi-yavTas. ^ Greg. Orat. xliii. c. 26 (Opera omnia, ed. Bened., Paris, 1842, torn. i. p. Y91 sq.), and similar passages in his other orations, and his Carmen de se ipso et advers. Episc. Comp. Uilmann : Greg. v. Naz. p. 511 sqq. § 48. SCHOOLS OF THE CLEEGY. 237 founded about 290 bj the presbyters Dorotlieus and Lucian. It developed in the course of the fourth century a severe gram- matico-histo-rical exegesis, counter to the Origenistic allegorical method of the Alexandrians ; now in connection with the church doctrine, as in Chrysostom ; now in a rationalizing spirit, as in Theodore of Mopsuestia and Nestorius. The seminary at Edessa, a daughter of the Antiochian school, was started by the learned deacon, Ephraim Syrus (t 378), furnished ministers for Mesopotamia and Persia, and stood for about a hundred years. The Nestorians, at the close of the fifth century, founded a seminary at Nisibis in Mesopotamia, which was organized into several classes and based upon a definite plan of instruction. The West had no such institutions for theological instruc- tion, but supplied itself chiefly from cloisters and private schools of the bishops. Cassiodorus endeavored to engage Pope Aga- petus in founding a learned institution in Rome, but was dis- couraged by the warlike disquietude of Italy. Jerome spent some time at the Alexandrian school under the direction of Did^^mus. 2. Many priests and bishops, as we have already observed, emanated from the monasteries, where they enjoyed the advan- tages of retu'ement from the world, undisturbed meditation, the intercourse of kindred earnest minds, and a large spiritual experience ; but, on the other hand, easily sank into a monkish narrowness, and rarely attained that social culture and compre- hensive knowledge of the world and of men, which is necessary, especially in large cities, for a wide field of labor. 3. In the West there were smaller diocesan seminaries, under the direction of the bishops, who trained their own clergy, both in theory and in practice, as they passed through the subordinate classes of reader, sub-deacon, and deacon. Augustine set a good example of this sort, having at Hippo a "monasterium clericorum," which sent forth many good presbyters and bishops for the various dioceses of North Africa. Similar clerical monasteries or episcopal seminaries arose gradually in the southern countries of Europe, and are very common in the Roman Catholic church to this day. 238 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. 4. Several of the most learned and able fathers of the fourth century received their general scientific education in heathen schools, under the setting sun of the classic culture, and then studied theology either in ascetic retirement or under some distinguished church teacher, or by the private reading of the Scriptures and the earlier church literature. Thus Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen were in the