Therefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith.
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Clement Of Alexandria
AD 215
For the word which, in matters of doctrine, explains and reveals, is that whose province it is to teach. But our Educator.
And when, having senselessly filled themselves, they senselessly played; on that account the law was given them, and terror ensued for the prevention of transgressions and for the promotion of right actions, securing attention, and so winning to obedience to the true Instructor, being one and the same Word, and reducing to conformity with the urgent demands of the law. For Paul says that it was given to be a "schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.".
Perchance, too, philosophy was given to the Greeks directly and primarily, till the Lord should call the Greeks. For this was a schoolmaster to bring "the Hellenic mind "as the law, the Hebrews, "to Christ.".
As far as a sort of training with fear and preparatory discipline goes, leading as it did to the culmination of legislation and to grace.
The law was our schoolmaster. A pædagogue, says S. Jerome, is one who looks after a boy. Among the Greeks he was a slave, whose duty it was to accompany his ward wherever he went, to keep him from loose conduct, to chastise him if need were, and in every way to form his character for good. Such was the office of the law with regard to the Hebrews.
Unto Christ. By a happy figure of speech, S. Paul compares the law to a pdagogue, and faith in Christ to a father, For we are born again by faith in Christ, and become sons of God, thereby passing from the state of pupilage under the law to that of men under Christ.
As for the law, it was put or given because of transgressions, to put a stop, by the punishments prescribed, to idolatry and other crimes, which the Jews had learnt from other nations, particularly in Egypt. The law was a pedagogue, or schoolmaster, to direct and correct and bring men to Christ, our chief Master, our great Mediator, who being now come, we are no longer under our former pedagogue. Christ hath by his grace made all, who believe in him and follow his doctrine, his sons and his adoptive children, whether they were before Jews or Gentiles; now they are all one, united in the same faith, and in the same spirit of charity. All the faithful are to be accounted of the seed of Abraham, and his spiritual children by the accomplishment of the promise. (Witham)
Pedagogue; i.e. schoolmaster, conductor, or instructor. (Challoner)
A custodian is given to infants to rein in an age full of passion and to restrain hearts prone to vice until tender infancy is refined by growth…. Yet the teacher is not a father, nor does the one being instructed look for the custodian’s inheritance. The custodian guards another person’s son and will depart from him when the lawful time of inheritance arrives. .
Now the Tutor is not opposed to the Preceptor, but cooperates with him, ridding the youth from all vice, and having all leisure to fit him for receiving instructions from his Preceptor. But when the youth's habits are formed, then the Tutor leaves him, as Paul says.
