A. The Transformation of the Baptismal Confession into the Apostolic Rule of Faith.

It has been explained (vol. I. p. 157) that the idea of the complete identity of what the Churches possessed as Christian communities with the doctrine or regulations of the twelve Apostles can already be shown in the earliest Gentile-Christian literature. In the widest sense the expression, κανὼν τῆς παραδόσεως (canon of tradition), originally included all that was traced back to Christ himself through the medium of the Apostles and was of value for the faith and life of the Church, together with everything that was or seemed her inalienable possession, as, for instance, the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. In the narrower sense that canon consisted of the history and words of Jesus. In so far as they formed the content of faith they were the faith itself, that is, the Christian truth; in so far as this faith was to determine the essence of everything Christian, it might be termed κανὼν τῆς πίστεως, κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας (canon of the faith, canon of the truth).See Zahn, Glaubensregel und Taufbekenntniss in der alten Kirche in the Zeitschrift f. Kirchl. Wissensch. u. Kirchl. Leben, 1881, Part 6, p. 302 ff., especially p. 314 ff. In the Epistle of Jude, v. 3, mention is made of the ἅπαξ παραδοθεῖσα τοῖς ἁγίοις πίστις and in v. 20 of “building yourselves up in your most holy faith.” See Polycarp, ep. III. 2 (also VII. 2; II. 1). In either case the expressions κανὼν τῆς πίστεως, κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας, or the like, might stand for πίστις, for the faith itself is primarily the canon; but it is the canon only in so far as it is comprehensible and plainly defined. Here lies the transition to a new interpretation of the conception of a standard in its relation to the faith. Voigt has published an excellent investigation of the concept ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας cum synonymis. (Eine verschollene Urkunde des antimont. Kampfes, 1891, pp. 184-205). But the very fact that the extent of what was regarded as tradition of the Apostles was quite undetermined ensured the possibility of the highest degree of freedom; it was also still allowable to give expression to Christian inspiration and to the intuition of enthusiasm without any regard to tradition.

We now know that before the violent conflict with Gnosticism short formulated summaries of the faith had already grown out of the missionary practice of the Church (catechising). The shortest formula was that which defined the Christian faith as belief in the Father, Son, and Spirit.In Hermas, Mand. I., we find a still shorter formula which only contains the confession of the monarchy of God, who created the world, that is the formula πιστέυω εἰς ἕνα θεὸν παντακράτορα, which did not originate with the baptismal ceremony. But though at first the monarchy may have been the only dogma in the strict sense, the mission of Jesus Christ beyond doubt occupied a place alongside of it from the beginning; and the new religion was inconceivable without this. It appears to have been universally current in Christendom about the year 150. In the solemn transactions of the Church, therefore especially in baptism, in the great prayer of the Lord’s Supper, as well as in the exorcism of demons,See on this point Justin, index to Otto’s edition. It is not surprising that formulæ similar to those used at baptism were employed in the exorcism of demons. However, we cannot immediately infer from the latter what was the wording of the baptismal confession. Though, for example, it is an established fact that in Justin’s time demons were exorcised with the words: “In the name of Jesus Christ who was crucified under Pontius Pilate,” it does not necessarily follow from this that these words were also found in the baptismal confession. The sign of the cross was made over those possessed by demons; hence nothing was more natural than that these words should be spoken. Hence they are not necessarily borrowed from a baptismal confession. fixed formulæ were used. They embraced also such articles as contained the most important facts in the history of Jesus.These facts were known to every Christian. They are probably also alluded to in Luke I. 4. We know definitely that not later than about the middle of the second century (about 140 A.D.) the Roman Church possessed a fixed creed, which every candidate for baptism had to profess;The most important result of Caspari’s extensive and exact studies is the establishment of this fact and the fixing of the wording of the Romish Confession. (Ungedruckte, unbeachtete und wenig beachtete Quellen z. Gesch. des Taufsymbols u d. Glaubensregels. 3 Vols. 1866-1875. Alte u. neue Quellen zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols u. d. Glaubensregel, 1879). After this Hahn, Bibliothek d. Symbole u. Glaubensregeln der alten Kirche. 2 Aufl. 1877; see also my article “Apostol. Symbol” in Herzog’s R.E., 2nd. ed., as well as Book I. of the present work, Chap. III. § 2. and something similar must also have existed in Smyrna and other Churches of Asia Minor about the year 150, in some cases, even rather earlier. We may suppose that formulæ of similar plan and extent were also found in other provincial Churches about this time.This supposition is based on observation of the fact that particular statements of the Roman Symbol, in exactly the same form or nearly so, are found in many early Christian writings. See Patr. App. Opp. I. 2, ed. 2, pp. 115-42. Still it is neither probable that all the then existing communities possessed such creeds, nor that those who used them had formulated them in such a rigid way as the Roman Church had done. The proclamation of the history of Christ predicted in the Old Testament, the κήρυγμα τῆς ἀληθέιας, also accompanied the short baptismal formula without being expressed in set terms.The investigations which lead to this result are of a very complicated nature and cannot therefore be given here. We must content ourselves with remarking that all Western baptismal formulæ (creeds) may be traced back to the Roman, and that there was no universal Eastern creed on parallel lines with the latter. There is no mistaking the importance which, in these circumstances, is to be attributed to the Roman symbol and Church as regards the development of Catholicism.

Words of Jesus and, in general, directions for the Christian life were not, as a rule, admitted into the short formulated creed. In the recently discovered “Teaching of the Apostles” (Διδαχὴ τῶν ἀποστόλων) we have no doubt a notable attempt to fix the rules of Christian life as traced back to Jesus through the medium of the Apostles, and to elevate them into the foundation of the confederation of Christian Churches; but this undertaking, which could not but have led the development of Christianity into other paths, did not succeed. That the formulated creeds did not express the principles of conduct, but the facts on which Christians based their faith, was an unavoidable necessity. Besides, the universal agreement of all earnest and thoughtful minds on the question of Christian morals was practically assured.This caused the pronounced tendency of the Church to the formation of dogma, a movement for which Paul had already paved the way. The development of Christianity, as attested, for example, by the Διδαχή, received an additional factor in the dogmatic tradition, which soon gained the upper hand. The great reaction is then found in monasticism. Here again the rules of morality become the prevailing feature, and therefore the old Christian gnomic literature attains in this movement a second period of vigour. In it again dogmatics only form the background for the strict regulation of life. In the instruction given as a preparation for baptism the Christian moral commandments were of course always inculcated, and the obligation to observe these was expressed in the renunciation of Satan and all his works. In consequence of this, there were also fixed formulæ in these cases. Objection was not taken to the principles of morality — at least this was not a primary consideration — for there were many Greeks to whom they did not seem foolishness, but to the adoration of Christ as he was represented in tradition and to the Church’s worship of a God, who, as creator of the world and as a speaking and visible being, appeared to the Greeks, with their ideas of a purely spiritual deity, to be interwoven with the world, and who, as the God worshipped by the Jews also, seemed clearly distinct from the Supreme Being. This gave rise to the mockery of the heathen, the theological art of the Gnostics, and the radical reconstruction of tradition as attempted by Marcion. With the freedom that still prevailed Christianity was in danger of being resolved into a motley mass of philosophic speculations or of being completely detached from its original conditions. “It was admitted on all sides that Christianity had its starting-point in certain facts and sayings; but if any and every interpretation of those facts and sayings was possible, if any system of philosophy might be taught into which the words that expressed them might be woven, it is clear that there could be but little cohesion between the members of the Christian communities. The problem arose and pressed for an answer: What should be the basis of Christian union? But the problem was for a time insoluble. For there was no standard and no court of appeal.” From the very beginning, when the differences in the various Churches began to threaten their unity, appeal was probably made to the Apostles’ doctrine, the words of the Lord, tradition, “sound doctrine”, definite facts, such as the reality of the human nature (flesh) of Christ, and the reality of his death and resurrection.See the Pastoral Epistles, those of John and of Ignatius; also the epistle of Jude, 1 Clem. VII., Polycarp, ad Philipp. VII., II. 1, VI. 3, Justin. In instruction, in exhortations, and above all in opposing erroneous doctrines and moral aberrations, this precept was inculcated from the beginning: ἀπολίπωμεν τὰς κενὰς καὶ ματαίας φροντίδας, καὶ ἔλθωμεν ἐπὶ τὸν ἐυκλεῆ καὶ σεμνὸν τῆς παραδόσεως ἡμῶν κανόνα (“Let us leave off vain and foolish thoughts and betake ourselves to the glorious and august canon of our tradition”). But the very question was: What is sound doctrine? What is the content of tradition? Was the flesh of Christ a reality? etc. There is no doubt that Justin, in opposition to those whom he viewed as pseudo-Christians, insisted on the absolute necessity of acknowledging certain definite traditional facts and made this recognition the standard of orthodoxy. To all appearance it was he who began the great literary struggle for the expulsion of heterodoxy (see his σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν τῶν γεγενημένων ἁιρέσεων); but, judging from those writings of his that have been preserved to us, it seems very unlikely that he was already successful in finding a fixed standard for determining orthodox Christianity.In the apologetic writings of Justin the courts of appeal invariably continue to be the Old Testament, the words of the Lord, and the communications of prophets; hence he has hardly insisted on any other in his anti-heretical work. On the other hand we cannot appeal to the observed fact that Tertullian also, in his apologetic writings, did not reveal his standpoint as a churchman and opponent of heresy; for, with one exception, he did not discuss heretics in these tractates at all. On the contrary Justin discussed their position even in his apologetic writings; but nowhere, for instance, wrote anything similar to Theophilus’ remarks in “ad Autol.,” II. 14. Justin was acquainted with and frequently alluded to fixed formulæ and perhaps a baptismal symbol related to the Roman, if not essentially identical with it. (See Bornemann. Das Taufsymbol Justins in the Ztschr. f. K. G. Vol. III. p. 1 ff.), but we cannot prove that he utilised these formulæ in the sense of Irenæus and Tertullian. We find him using the expression ὀρθογνώμονες in Dial. 80. The resurrection of the flesh and the thousand years’ kingdom (at Jerusalem) are there reckoned among the beliefs held by the ὀρθεγνώμονες κατὰ πάντα Χριστιανοί. But it is very characteristic of the standpoint taken up by Justin that he places between the heretics inspired by demons and the orthodox a class of Christians to whom he gives the general testimony that they are τῆς καθαρᾶς καὶ ἐυσεβοῦς γνώμης, though they are not fully orthodox in so far as they reject one important doctrine. Such an estimate would have been impossible to Irenæus and Tertullian. They have advanced to the principle that he who violates the law of faith in one point is guilty of breaking it all.

The permanence of the communities, however, depended on the discovery of such a standard. They were no longer held together by the conscientia religionis, the unitas disciplinæ, and the fœdus spei. The Gnostics were not solely to blame for that. They rather show us merely the excess of a continuous trans-formation which no community could escape. The gnosis which subjected religion to a critical examination awoke in proportion as religious life from generation to generation lost its warmth and spontaneity. There was a time when the majority of Christians knew themselves to be such, (1) because they had the “Spirit” and found in that an indestructible guarantee of their Christian position, (2) because they observed all the commandments of Jesus (εντολαὶ Ἰησοῦ). But when these guarantees died away, and when at the same time the most diverse doctrines that were threatening to break up the Church were preached in the name of Christianity, the fixing of tradition necessarily became the supreme task. Here, as in every other case, the tradition was not fixed till after it had been to some extent departed from. It was just the Gnostics themselves who took the lead in a fixing process, a plain proof that the setting up of dogmatic formulæ has always been the support of new formations. But the example set by the Gnostics was the very thing that rendered the problem difficult. Where was a beginning to be made? “There is a kind of unconscious logic in the minds of masses of men when great questions are abroad, which some one thinker throws into suitable form.”Hatch, “Organisation of the Church”, p. 96. There could be no doubt that the needful thing was to fix what was “apostolic”, for the one certain thing was that Christianity was based on a divine revelation which had been transmitted through the medium of the Apostles to the Churches of the whole earth. It certainly was not a single individual who hit on the expedient of affirming the fixed forms employed by the Churches in their solemn transactions to be apostolic in the strict sense. It must have come about by a natural process. But the confession of the Father, Son, and Spirit and the kerygma of Jesus Christ had the most prominent place among these forms. The special emphasising of these articles, in opposition to the Gnostic and Marcionite undertakings, may also be viewed as the result of the “common sense” of all those who clung to the belief that the Father of Jesus Christ was the creator of the world, and that the Son of God really appeared in the flesh. But that was not everywhere sufficient, for, even admitting that about the period between 150 and 180 A.D. all the Churches had a fixed creed which they regarded as apostolic in the strict sense — and this cannot be proved, — the most dangerous of all Gnostic schools, viz., those of Valentinus, could recognise this creed, since they already possessed the art of explaining a given text in whatever way they chose. What was needed was an apostolic creed definitely interpreted; for it was only by the aid of a definite interpretation that the creed could be used to repel the Gnostic speculations and the Marcionite conception of Christianity.

In this state of matters the Church of Rome, the proceedings of which are known to us through Irenæus and Tertullian, took, with regard to the fixed Roman baptismal confession ascribed to the Apostles, the following step: The Antignostic interpretation required by the necessities of the times was proclaimed as its self-evident content; the confession, thus explained, was designated as the “Catholic faith” (“fides catholica”), that is the rule of truth for the faith; and its acceptance was made the test of adherence to the Roman Church as well as to the general confederation of Christendom. Irenæus was not the author of this proceeding. How far Rome acted with the cooperation or under the influence of the Church of Asia Minor is a matter that is still obscure,We can only conjecture that some teachers in Asia Minor contemporary with Irenæus, or even of older date, and especially Melito, proceeded in like manner, adhering to Polycarp’s exclusive attitude. Dionysius of Corinth (Eusebius, H. E. IV. 23. 2, 4) may perhaps be also mentioned. and will probably never be determined with certainty. What the Roman community accomplished practically was theoretically established by IrenæusIrenæus set forth his theory in a great work, adv. hæres., especially in the third book. Unfortunately his treatise, λόγος εἰς ἐπίδειξιν τοῦ ἀποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος”, probably the oldest treatise on the rule of faith, has not been preserved Euseb., H. E. V. 26.) and Tertullian. The former proclaimed the baptismal confession, definitely interpreted and expressed in an Antignostic form, to be the apostolic rule of truth (regula veritatis), and tried to prove it so. He based his demonstration on the theory that this series of doctrines embodied the faith of the churches founded by the Apostles, and that these communities had always preserved the apostolic teaching unchanged (see under C).

Viewed historically, this thesis, which preserved Christianity from complete dissolution, is based on two unproved assumptions and on a confusion of ideas. It is not demonstrated that any creed emanated from the Apostles, nor that the Churches they founded always preserved their teaching in its original form; the creed itself, moreover, is confused with its interpretation. Finally, the existence of a fides catholica, in the strict sense of the word, cannot be justly inferred from the essential agreement found in the doctrine of a series of communities.Irenæus indeed asserts in several passages that all Churches — those in Germany, Iberia, among the Celts, in the East, in Egypt, in Lybia and Italy; see I. 10. 2; III. 3. 1; III. 4. 1 sq. — possess the same apostolic kerygma; but “qui nimis probat nihil probat.” The extravagance of the expressions shows that a dogmatic theory is here at work. Nevertheless this is based on the correct view that the Gnostic speculations are foreign to Christianity and of later date. But, on the other hand, the course taken by Irenæus was the only one capable of saving what yet remained of primitive Christianity, and that is its historical justification. A fides apostolica had to be set up and declared identical with the already existing fides catholica. It had to be made the standard for judging all particular doctrinal opinions, that it might be determined whether they were admissible or not.

The persuasive power with which Irenæus set up the principle of the apostolic “rule of truth,” or of “tradition” or simply of “faith,” was undoubtedly, as far as he himself was concerned, based on the facts that he had already a rigidly formulated creed before him and that he had no doubt as to its interpretation.We must further point out here that Irenæus not only knew the tradition of the Churches of Asia Minor and Rome, but that he had sat at the feet of Polycarp and associated in his youth with many of the “elders” in Asia. Of these he knew for certain that they in part did not approve of the Gnostic doctrines and in part would not have done so. The confidence with which he represented his antignostic interpretation of the creed as that of the Church of the Apostles was no doubt owing to this sure historical recollection. See his epistle to Florinus in Euseb., H. E. V. 20 and his numerous references to the “elders” in his great work. (A collection of these may be found in Patr. App. Opp. I. 3, p. 105 sq.) The rule of truth (also ἡ ὑπὸ τῆς ἐκκλησίας κηρυσσομένη ἀλήθεια “the truth proclaimed by the Church;” and τὸ τῆς ἀληθέιας σωμάτιον, “the body of the truth”) is the old baptismal confession well known to the communities for which he immediately writes. (See I. 9. 4; οὕτω δέ καὶ ὁ τὸν κανόνα τῆς ἀληθείας ἀκλινῆ ἐν ἑαυτῷ κατέχων ὃν διὰ τοῦ βαπτρίσματος εἴληφε, “in like manner he also who retains immovably in his heart the rule of truth which he received through baptism”); because it is this, it is apostolic, firm and immovable.Caspari’s investigations leave no room for doubt as to the relation of the rule of faith to the baptismal confession. The baptismal confession was not a deposit resulting from fluctuating anti-heretical rules of faith; but the latter were the explanations of the baptismal confession. The full authority of the confession itself was transferred to every elucidation that appeared necessary, in so far as the needful explanation was regarded as given with authority. Each momentary formula employed to defend the Church against heresy has therefore the full value of the creed. This explains the fact that, beginning with Irenæus’ time, we meet with differently formulated rules of faith, partly in the same writer, and yet each is declared to be the rule of faith. Zahn is virtually right when he says, in his essay quoted above, that the rule of faith is the baptismal confession. But, so far as I can judge, he has not discerned the dilemma in which the Old Catholic Fathers were placed, and which they were not able to conceal. This dilemma arose from the fact that the Church needed an apostolic creed, expressed in fixed formulæ and at the same time definitely interpreted in an anti-heretical sense; whereas she only possessed, and this not in all churches, a baptismal confession, contained in fixed formulæ but not interpreted, along with an ecclesiastical tradition which was not formulated, although it no doubt excluded the most offensive Gnostic doctrines. It was not yet possible for the Old Catholic Fathers to frame and formulate that doctrinal confession, and they did not attempt it. The only course therefore was to assert that an elastic collection of doctrines which were ever being formulated anew, was a fixed standard in so far as it was based on a fixed creed. But this dilemma — we do not know how it was viewed by opponents — proved an advantage in the end, for it enabled churchmen to make continual additions to the rule of faith, whilst at the same time continuing to assert its identity with the baptismal confession. We must make the reservation, however, that not only the baptismal confession, but other fixed propositions as well, formed the basis on which particular rules of faith were formulated.

By the fixing of the rule of truth, the formulation of which in the case of Irenæus (I. l0. 1, 2) naturally follows the arrangement of the (Roman) baptismal confession, the most important Gnostic theses were at once set aside and their antitheses established as apostolic. In his apostolic rule of truth Irenæus himself already gave prominence to the following doctrines:Besides Irenæus I. 10. 1, 2, cf. 9. 1-5; 22. 1: II. 1. 1; 9. 1; 28. 1; 32. 3, 4: III. I-4; 11. 1; 12. 9; 15. 1; 16. 5 sq.; 18. 3; 24. 1: IV. 1. 2; 9. 2; 20. 6; 33. 7 sq.: V. Præf. 12. 5; 20. 1. the unity of God; the identity of the supreme God with the Creator; the identity of the supreme God with the God of the Old Testament; the unity of Jesus Christ as the Son of the God who created the world; the essential divinity of Christ; the incarnation of the Son of God; the prediction of the entire history of Jesus through the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament; the reality of that history; the bodily reception (ἔνσαρκος ἀνάληψις) of Christ into heaven; the visible return of Christ; the resurrection of all flesh (ἀνάστασις πάσης σαρκὸς, πάσης ἀνθρωπότητος), the universal judgment. These dogmas, the antitheses of the Gnostic regulæ,See Iren. I. 31. 3: II. Præf. 19. 8. were consequently, as apostolic and therefore also as Catholic, removed beyond all discussion.

Tertullian followed Irenæus in every particular. He also interpreted the (Romish) baptismal confession, represented it, thus explained, as the regula fidei,This expression is not found in Irenæus, but is very common in Tertullian. and transferred to the latter the attributes of the confession, viz., its apostolic origin (or origin from Christ), as well as its fixedness and completeness.See de præscr. 13: “Hæc regula a Christo instituta nullas habet apud nos quæstiones.” Like Irenæus, though still more stringently, he also endeavoured to prove that the formula had descended from Christ, that is, from the Apostles, and was incorrupt. He based his demonstration on the alleged incontestable facts that it contained the faith of those Churches founded by the Apostles, that in these communities a corruption of doctrine was inconceivable, because in them, as could be proved, the Apostles had always had successors, and that the other Churches were in communion with them (see under C). In a more definite way than Irenæus, Tertullian conceives the rule of faith as a rule for the faith,See l. c. 14: “Ceterum manente forma regulæ in suo ordine quantumlibet quæras at tractes.” See de virg. vol. 1. as the law given to faith,See 1. c. 14: “Fides in regula posita est, habet legem et salutem de observatione legis,” and de vir. vol. 1. also as a “regula doctrinæ” or “doctrina regulæ” (here the creed itself is quite plainly the regula), and even simply as “doctrina” or “institutio”.See de præscr. 21: “Si hæc ita sunt, constat perinde omnem doctrinam, quæ cum illis ecclesiis apostolicis matricibus et originalibus fidei conspiret, veritati deputandum . . . Superest ergo ut demonstremus an hæc nostra doctrina, cujus regulam supra edidimus, de apostolorum traditione censeatur . . . Communicamus cum ecclesiis catholicis, quod nulla doctrina diversa.” De præscr. 32: “Ecclesiæ, quæ licet nullum ex apostolis auctorem suum proferant, ut multo posteriores, tamen in eadem fide conspirantes non minus apostolicæ deputantur pro consanguinitate doctrinæ.” That Tertullian regards the baptismal confession as identical with the regula fidei, just as Irenæus does, is shown by the fact that in de spectac. 4 (“Cum aquam ingressi Christianam fidem in legis suæ verba profitemur, renuntiasse nos diabolo et pompæ et angelis eius ore nostro contestamur.”) the baptismal confession is the lex. He also calls it “sacramentum” (military oath) in ad mart. 3; de idolol. 6; de corona 11; Scorp. 4. But he likewise gives the same designation to the interpreted baptismal confession (de præscr. 20, 32; adv. Marc. IV. 5); for we must regard the passages cited as referring to this. Adv. Marc. I. 21: “regula sacramenti”; likewise V. 20, a passage specially instructive as to the fact that there can be only one regula. The baptismal confession itself had a fixed and short form (see de spectac. 4; de corona, 3: “amplius aliquid respondentes quam dominus in evangelio determinavit”; de bapt. 2: “homo in aqua demissus et inter pauca verba tinctus”; de bapt. 6, 11; de orat. 2 etc.). We can still prove that, apart from a subsequent alteration, it was the Roman confession that was used in Carthage in the days of Tertullian. In de præscr. 26 Tertullian admits that the Apostles may have spoken some things “inter domesticos”, but declares that they could not be communications “quæ aliam regulam fidei superducerent.” As to the content of the regula, it was set forth by Tertullian in three passages.De præscr. 13; de virg. vol.1; adv. Prax. 2. The latter passage is thus worded: “Unicum quidem deum credimus, sub hac tamen dispensatione quam ὀικονομίαν dicimus, ut unici dei sit et filius sermo ipsius, qui ex ipso processerit, per quem omnia facta sunt et sine quo factum est nihil, hunc missum a patre in virginem et ex ea natum, hominem et deum, filium hominis et filium dei et cognominatum Iesum Christum, hunc passum, hunc mortuum et sepultum secundum scripturas et resuscitatum a patre et in cœlo resumptum sedere ad dextram patris, venturum judicare vivos et mortuos; qui exinde miserit secundum promissionem suam a patre spiritum s. paracletum sanctificatorem fidei eorum qui credunt in patrem et filium et spiritum s. Hanc regulam ab initio evangelii decucurrisse.” It is essentially the same as in Irenæus. But Tertullian already gives prominence within the regula to the creation of the universe out of nothing,De præscr. 13. the creative instrumentality of the Logos,L. c. his origin before all creatures,L. c. a definite theory of the Incarnation,L. c.: “id verbum filium eius appellatum, in nomine dei varie visum a patriarchis, in prophetis semper auditum, postremo delatum ex spiritu patris dei et virtute in virginem Mariam, carnem factum,” etc. the preaching by Christ of a nova lex and a nova promissio regni cœlorum,L. c. and finally also the Trinitarian economy of God.Adv. Prax. 2: “Unicum quidem deum credimus, sub hac tamen dispensatione quam ὀικονομίαν dicimus, ut unici dei sit et filius sermo ipsius,” etc. Materially, therefore, the advance beyond Irenæus is already very significant. Tertullian’s regula is in point of fact a doctrina. In attempting to bind the communities to this he represents them as schools.But Tertullian also knows of a “regula disciplinæ” (according to the New Testament) on which he puts great value, and thereby shows that he has by no means forgotten that Christianity is a matter of conduct. We cannot enter more particularly into this rule here. The apostolic “lex et doctrina” is to be regarded as inviolable by every Christian. Assent to it decides the Christian character of the individual. Thus the Christian disposition and life come to be a matter which is separate from this and subject to particular conditions. In this way the essence of religion was split up — the most fatal turning-point in the history of Christianity.

But we are not of course to suppose that at the beginning of the third century the actual bond of union between all the Churches was a fixed confession developed into a doctrine, that is, definitely interpreted. This much was gained, as is clear from the treatise de præscriptione and from other evidence, that in the communities with which Tertullian was acquainted, mutual recognition and brotherly intercourse were made to depend on assent to formulæ which virtually coincided with the Roman baptismal confession. Whoever assented to such a formula was regarded as a Christian brother, and was entitled to the salutation of peace, the name of brother, and hospitality.Note here the use of “contesserare” in Tertullian. See de prascr.2o: “Itaque tot ac tantæ ecclesiæ una est ab apostolis prima, ex qua omnes. Sic omnes prima et omnes apostolicæ, dum una omnes. Probant unitatem communicatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis, quæ iura non alia ratio regit quam eiusdem sacramenti una traditio.” De præscr. 36: “Videamus, quid ecclesia Romanensis cum Africanis ecclesiis contesserarit.” In so far as Christians confined themselves to a doctrinal formula which they, however, strictly applied, the adoption of this practice betokened an advance. The scattered communities now possessed a “lex” to bind them together, quite as certainly as the philosophic schools possessed a bond of union of a real and practical characterWe need not here discuss whether and in what way the model of the philosophic schools was taken as a standard. But we may refer to the fact that from the middle of the second century the Apologists, that is the Christian philosophers, had exercised a very great influence on the Old Catholic Fathers. But we cannot say that 2. John 7-11 and Didache XI. 1 f. attest the practice to be a very old one. These passages only show that it had preparatory stages; the main element, namely, the formulated summary of the faith, is there sought for in vain. in the shape of certain briefly formulated doctrines. In virtue of the common apostolic lex of Christians the Catholic Church became a reality, and was at the same time clearly marked off from the heretic sects. But more than this was gained, in so far as the Antignostic interpretation of the formula, and consequently a “doctrine”, was indeed in some measure involved in the lex. The extent to which this was the case depended, of course, on the individual community or its leaders. All Gnostics could not be excluded by the wording of the confession; and, on the other hand, every formulated faith leads to a formulated doctrine, as soon as it is set up as a critical canon. What we observe in Irenæus and Tertullian must have everywhere taken place in a greater or less degree; that is to say, the authority of the confessional formula must have been extended to statements not found in the formula itself.

We can still prove from the works of Clement of Alexandria that a confession claiming to be an apostolic law of faith,Herein lay the defect, even if the content of the law of faith had coincided completely with the earliest tradition. A man like Tertullian knew how to protect himself in his own way from this defect, but his attitude is not typical. ostensibly comprehending the whole essence of Christianity, was not set up in the different provincial Churches at one and the same time.Hegesippus, who wrote about the time of Eleutherus, and was in Rome about the middle of the second century (probably somewhat earlier than Irenæus), already set up the apostolic rule of faith as a standard. This is clear from the description of his work in Euseb., H. E. IV. 8. 2 (ἐν πέντε συγγράμμασιν τὴν ἀπλανῆ παράδοσιν τ9;ῦ ἀποστολικοῦ κηρύγματος ὑπομνηματισάμενος) as well as from the fragments of this work (l.c. IV. 22. 2, 3: ὁ ὀρθὸς λόγος and § 5 ἐμέρισαν τὴν ἕνωσιν τῆς ἐκκλησίας φθοριμαίοις λόγοις κατὰ τοῦ θεοῦ; see also § 4). Hegesippus already regarded the unity of the Church as dependent on the correct doctrine. Polycrates (Euseb., H. E. V. 24. 6) used the expression ὁ κανὼν τῆς πίστεως in a very wide sense. But we may beyond doubt attribute to him the same conception with regard to the significance of the rule of faith as was held by his opponent Victor The Antimontanist (in Euseb. H. E. V. 16. 22.) will only allow that the martyrs who went to death for the κατὰ ἀλήθειαν πίστις were those belonging to the Church. The regula fidei is not here meant, as in this case it was not a subject of dispute. On the other hand, the anonymous writer in Eusebius, H. E. V. 28. 6, 13 understood by τὸ ἐκκλησιαστικὸν φρόνημα or ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀρχαίας πίστεως the interpreted baptismal confession, just as Irenæus and Tertullian did. Hippolytus entirely agrees with these (see Philosoph. Præf., p. 4. V. 50 sq. and X. 32-34). Whether we are to ascribe the theory of Irenæus to Theophilus is uncertain. His idea of the Church is that of Irenæus (ad Autol. II. 14): δέδωκεν ὁ Θεὸς τῷ κόσμῳ κυμαινομένῳ καὶ χειμαζομένῳ ὑπὸ τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων τὰς συναγωγάς, λεγομένας δὲ ἐκκλησίας ἁγίας, ἐν αἷς καθάπερ λιμέσιν εὐόρμοις ἐν νήσοις ἁι διδασκαλίαι τῆς αληθείας ἐισίν . . . Καὶ ὥσπερ αὖ νῆσοι εἰσιν ἕτεραι πετρώδεις καὶ ἄνυδροι καὶ ἔκαρποι καὶ θηριώδεις καὶ ἀοίκητοι ἐπὶ βλάβῃ τῶν πλεόντων . . . οὕτως εἰσὶν αἱ διδασκαλίαι τῆς πλάνης, λέγω δὲ τῶν αἱρέσεων αἳ ἐξαπολλύουσιν τοὺς προσίοντας αὐταῖς. From this it is clearly manifest that at this period the Alexandrian Church neither possessed a baptismal confession similar to that of Rome, nor understood by “regula fidei” and synonymous expressions a collection of beliefs fixed in some fashion and derived from the apostles.This has been contested by Caspari (Ztschr. f. Kirchl. Wissensch. 1886, Part. 7, p. 352 ff.: “Did the Alexandrian Church in Clement’s time possess a baptismal confession or not”?); but his arguments have not convinced me. Caspari correctly shows that in Clement the expression “ecclesiastical canon” denotes the summary of the Catholic faith and of the Catholic rule of conduct; but he goes on to trace the baptismal confession, and that in a fixed form, in the expression ἡ περὶ τῶν μεγίστων ὁμολογία, Strom. VII. 15. 90 (see remarks on this passage below), and is supported in this view by Voigt, l. c. p. 196 ff. I also regard this as a baptismal confession; but it is questionable if it was definitely formulated, and the passage is not conclusive on the point. But, supposing it to be definitely formulated, who can prove that it went further than the formula in Hermas, Mand. I. with the addition of a mere mention of the Son and Holy Spirit. That a free kerygma of Christ and some other matter were added to Hermas, Mand. I. may still be proved by a reference to Orig., Comm. in Joh. XXXII. 9 (see the passage in vol. I. p. 155.). Clement of Alexandria in his Stromateis appeals to the holy (divine) Scriptures, to the teaching of the Lord,Ἡ κυριακὴ διδασκαλία, e.g., VI. 15. 124; VI. 18. 165; VII. 10. 57; VII. 15. 90; VII. 18. 165, etc. and to the standard tradition which he designates by a great variety of names, though he never gives its content, because he regards the whole of Christianity in its present condition as needing to be reconstructed by gnosis, and therefore as coming under the head of tradition.We do not find in Clement the slightest traces of a baptismal confession related to the Roman, unless we reckon the Θεὸς παντοκράτωρ or εἷς Θ. π. as such. But this designation of God is found everywhere and is not characteristic of the baptismal confession. In the lost treatise on the Passover Clement expounded the “παραδόσεις τῶν ἀρχάιων πρεσβυτέρων” which had been transmitted to him. In one respect therefore, as compared with Irenæus and Tertullian, he to some extent represents an earlier stand-point; he stands midway between them and Justin. From this author he is chiefly distinguished by the fact that he employs sacred Christian writings as well as the Old Testament, makes the true Gnostic quite as dependent on the former as on the latter and has lost that naïve view of tradition, that is, the complete content of Christianity, which Irenæus and Tertullian still had. As is to be expected, Clement too assigns the ultimate authorship of the tradition to the Apostles; but it is characteristic that he neither does this of such set purpose as Irenæus and Tertullian, nor thinks it necessary to prove that the Church had presented the apostolic tradition intact. But as he did not extract from the tradition a fixed complex of fundamental propositions, so also he failed to recognise the importance of its publicity and catholicity, and rather placed an esoteric alongside of an exoteric tradition. Although, like Irenæus and Tertullian, his attitude is throughout determined by opposition to the Gnostics and Marcion, he supposes it possible to refute them by giving to the Holy Scriptures a scientific exposition which must not oppose the κανὼν τῆς ἐκκλησίας, that is, the Christian common sense, but receives from it only certain guiding rules. But this attitude of Clement would be simply inconceivable if the Alexandrian Church of his time had already employed the fixed standard applied in those of Rome, Carthage and Lyons.Considering the importance of the matter it is necessary to quote as copiously as possible from original sources. In Strom. IV. 15. 98, we find the expression ὁ κανὼν τῆς πίστεως; but the context shows that it is used here in a quite general sense. With regard to the statement of Paul: “whatever you do, do it to the glory of God,” Clement remarks ὅσα ὑπὸ τὸν κανόνα τῆς πίστεως ποιεῖν ἐπιτέτραπται. In Strom. I. 19. 96; VI. 15. 125; VI. 18. 165; VII. 7. 41; VII. 15. 90; VII. 16. 105 we find ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἐκκλησίας (ἐκκλησιαστικός). In the first passage that canon is the rule for the right observance of the Lord’s Supper. In the other passages it describes no doubt the correct doctrine, that is, the rule by which the orthodox Gnostic has to be guided in contrast with the heretics who are guided by their own desires (it is therefore parallel to the διδασκαλία τοῦ κυρίου); but Clement feels absolutely no need to mention wherein this ecclesiastical canon consists. In Strom IV. 1.3; VI. 15. 124; VI. 15. 131; VII. 16. 94; we find the expression ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀληθέιας. In the first passage it is said: ἡ γοῦν κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κανόνα γνωστικῆς παραδόσεως φυσιολογία, μᾶλλον δὲ ἐποπτεία, ἐκ τοῦ περὶ κοσμογονίας ἤρτηται λόγου. ἐνθένδε ἀναβαίνουσα ἐπὶ τὸ θεολογικὸν εἶδος. Here no one can understand by the rule of truth what Tertullian understood by it. Very instructive is the second passage in which Clement is dealing with the right and wrong exposition of Scripture. He says first: παρακαταθήκη ἀποδιδομένη Θεῷ ἡ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου διδασκαλίαν διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἀυτοῦ τῆς θεοσεβοῦς παραδόσεως σύνεσίς τε καὶ συνάσκησις; then he demands that the Scriptures be interpreted κατὰ τὸν τῆς ἀληθείας κανόνα, or τ. ἐκκλησ. καν.; and continues (125): κανὼν δὲ ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἡ συνῳδία καὶ ἡ συμφωνία νόμου τε καὶ προφητῶν τῇ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου παρουσίαν παραδιδομένῃ διαθήκῃ. Here then the agreement of the Old Testament with the Testament of Christ is described as the ecclesiastical canon. Apart from the question as to whether Clement is here already referring to a New Testament canon of Scripture, his rule agrees with Tertullian’s testimony about the Roman Church: “legem et prophetas cum evangelicis et apostolicis litteris miscet.” But at any rate the passage shows the broad sense in which Clement used the term “ecclesiastical canon.” The following expressions are also found in Clement: ἡ ἀληθὴς τῆς μακαρίας διδασκαλίασ παράδοσις (I. 1. 11), ἁι ἅγιαι παραδόσεις (VII. 18. 110), ἡ εὐκλεὴς καὶ σεμνὸς τῆς παραδόσεως κανών (all gnosis is to be guided by this, see also ἡ κατὰ τὴν θείαν παράδοσιν φιλοσοφία, I, 1. 15. I: 11. 52., also the expression ἡ θεία παράδοσις (VII. 16. 103), ἡ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ παράδοσις (VII. 16. 95), ἁι τοῦ Χριστοῦ παραδνσεις (VII. 16. 99), ἡ τοῦ κυρίου παράδοσις (VII. 17. 106: VII. 16. 104), ἡ θεοσεβὴς παράδοσις (VI. 15. 124). Its content is not more precisely defined, and, as a rule, nothing more can be gathered from the context than what Clement once calls τὸ κοινὸν τῆς πίστεως (VII. 16. 97). Where Clement wishes to determine the content more accurately he makes use of supplementary terms. He speaks, e.g., in III. 10. 66 of the κατὰ ἀληθείαν εὐαγγελικὸς κανών, and means by that the tradition contained in the Gospels recognised by the Church in contradistinction to that found in other gospels (IV. 4. 15: κατὰ τὸν κανόνα τοῦ εὐαγγελίου = κατὰ τ. εὐαγγ.). In none of these formulæ is any notice taken of the Apostles. That Clement (like Justin) traced back the public tradition to the Apostles is a matter of course and manifest from I. 1. 11, where he gives an account of his early teachers (οἱ μὲν τὴν ἀληθῆ τῆς μακαρίας σώζοντες διδασκαλίας παράδοσιν εὐθὺς ἀπὸ Πέτρου τε καὶ Ἰακώβου, Ἰωάννου τε καὶ Παύλου τῶν ἁγίων ἀποστόλων, παῖς παρὰ πατρὸς ἐκδεχόμενος ἧκον δὴ σὺν θεῷ καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς τὰ προγονικὰ ἐκεῖνα καὶ ἀποστολικὰ καταθησόμενοι σπέρματα). Clement does not yet appeal to a hierarchical tradition through the bishops, but adheres to the natural one through the teachers, though he indeed admits an esoteric tradition alongside of it. On one occasion he also says that the true Gnostic keeps the ἀποστολικὴ καὶ ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ὀρθοτομία τῶν δογμάτων (VII. 16. 104). He has no doubt that: μία ἡ πάντων γέγονε τῶν ἀποστόλων ὥσπερ διδασκαλία οὕτως δὲ καὶ ἡ παράδοσις (VII. 17. 108). But all that might just as well have been written in the first half of the second century. On the tracing back of the Gnosis, the esoteric tradition, to the Apostles see Hypotyp. in Euseb., H. E. II. 1. 4, Strom. VI. 15. 131: αὐτίκα διδάξαντος τοῦ σωτῆρος τοὺς ἀποστόλους ἡ τῆς ἐγγράφου ἄγραφος ἤδη καὶ εἰς ἡμᾶς διαδίδοται παράδοσις. VI. 7. 61: ἡ γνωσις δὲ αὐτὴ ἡ κατὰ διαδοχὰς (this is the only place where I find this expression) εἰς ὀλίγους ἐκ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἀγράφως παραδοθεῖσα κατελήλυθεν, ibid ἡ γνωστικὴ παράδοσις; VII. 10. 55: ἡ γνῶσις ἐκ παραδόσεως διαδιδομένη τοῖς ἀξίους σφᾶς ἀυτοὺς τῆς διδασκαλίας παρεχομένοις οἷον παρακαταθήκη ἐγχειρίζεται. In VII. 17. 106 Clement has briefly recorded the theories of the Gnostic heretics with regard to the apostolic origin of their teaching, and expressed his doubts. That the tradition of the “Old Church”, for so Clement designates the orthodox Church as distinguished from the “human congregation” of the heretics of his day, is throughout derived from the Apostles, he regards as so certain and self-evident that, as a rule, he never specially mentions it, or gives prominence to any particular article as apostolic. But the conclusion that he had no knowledge of any apostolic or fixed confession might seem to be disproved by one passage. It is said in Strom. VII. 15. 90: Μή τι οὖν, εἰ καὶ παραβαίη τις συνθήκας καὶ τὴν ὁμολογίαν παρέλθοι τὴν πρὸς ἡμᾶς, διὰ τὸν ψευσάμενον τὴν ὁμολογίαν ἀφεξόμεθα τῆς ἀληθείας καὶ ἡμεῖς, ἀλλ᾽ ὡς ἀψευδεῖν χρὴ τὸν ἐπιεικῆ καὶ μηδὲν ὧν ὑπέσχηται ἀκυροῦν κἂν ἄλλοι τινὲς παραβαίνωσι συνθήκας, οὕτως καὶ ἡμᾶς κατὰ μηδένα τρόπον τὸν ἐκκλησιαστικὸν παραβαίνειν προσήκει κανόνα καὶ μάλιστα τὴν περὶ τῶν μεγίστων ὁμολογίαν ἡμεῖς μὲν φυλάττομεν, οἱ δὲ παραβαίνουσι. But in the other passages in Clement where ὀμολογίαν appears it nowhere signifies a fixed formula of confession, but always the confession in general which receives its content according to the situation (see Strom. IV. 4. 15; IV. 9. 71; III. 1. 4: ἐγκράτεια σώματος ὐπεροψία κατὰ τὴν πρὸς θεὸν ὁμολογίαν. In the passage quoted it means the confession of the main points of the true doctrine. It is possible or probable that Clement was here alluding to a confession at baptism, but that is also not quite certain. At any rate this one passage cannot prove that Clement identified the ecclesiastical canon with a formulated confession similar to or identical with the Roman, or else such identification must have appeared more frequently in his works. Such a standard did not exist; but Clement made no distinction in the yet unsystematised tradition, even between faith and discipline, because as a theologian he was not able to identify himself with any single article of it without hesitation, and because he ascribed to the true Gnostic the ability to fix and guarantee the truth of Christian doctrine.

Origen, although he also attempted to refute the heretics chiefly by a scientific exegesis of the Holy Scriptures, exhibits an attitude which is already more akin to that of Irenæus and Tertullian than to that of Clement. In the preface to his great work, “De principiis,” he prefixed the Church doctrine as a detailed apostolic rule of faith, and in other instances also he appealed to the apostolic teaching.De princip. 1. I. præf. § 4-10., IV. 2. 2. Yet we must consider the passage already twice quoted, namely, Com. in John. XXXII. 9, in order to determine the practice of the Alexandrian Church at that time. Was this baptismal confession not perhaps compiled from Herm., Mand. I., and Christological and theological teachings, so that the later confessions of the East with their dogmatic details are already to be found here? It may be assumed that in the time of Caracalla and Heliogabalus the Alexandrian Christians had also begun to adopt the principles acted upon in Rome and other communities.That may be also shown with regard to the New Testament canon. Very important is the declaration of Eusebius (H. E. VI. 14) that Origen, on his own testimony, paid a brief visit to Rome in the time of Zephyrinus, “because he wished to become acquainted with the ancient Church of the Romans.” We learn from Jerome (de vir. inl. 61) that Origen there became acquainted with Hippolytus, who even called attention to his presence in the church in a sermon. That Origen kept up a connection with Rome still later and followed the conflicts there with keen interest may be gathered from his works. (See Döllinger, “Hippolytus und Calixtus” p. 254 ff.) On the other hand, Clement was quite unacquainted with that city. Bigg therefore l.c. rightly remarks: “The West is as unknown to Clement as it was to his favourite Homer.” That there was a formulated πίστις καὶ ὁμολογία in Alexandria about 250 A.D. is shown by the epistle of Dionysius (Euseb., H. E. VII. 8) He says of Novatian, ἀνατρέπει τὴν πρὸ λούτρου πίστιν καὶ ὁμολογίαν. Dionysius would hardly have reproduced this Roman reproach in that way, if the Alexandrian Church had not possessed a similar πίστις. The Syrian Churches, or at least a part of them, followed still later.The original of the Apostolic Constitutions has as yet no knowledge of the Apostolic rule of faith in the Western sense. There can be no doubt that, from the last decades of the third century onward, one and the same confession, identical not in its wording, but in its main features, prevailed in the great confederation of Churches extending from Spain to the Euphrates and from Egypt to beyond the Alps.The close of the first homily of Aphraates shows how simple, antique, and original this confession still was in outlying districts at the beginning of the fourth century. On the other hand, there were oriental communities where it was already heavily weighted with theology. It was the basis of the confederation, and therefore also a passport, mark of recognition, etc., for the orthodox Christians. The interpretation of this confession was fixed in certain ground features, that is, in an Antignostic sense. But a definite theological interpretation was also more and more enforced. By the end of the third century there can no longer have been any considerable number of outlying communities where the doctrines of the pre-existence of Christ and the identity of this pre-existent One with the divine Logos were not recognised as the orthodox belief.Cf. the epistles of Cyprian, especially ep. 69. 70. When Cyprian speaks (69. 7) of one and the same law which is held by the whole Catholic Church, and of one symbol with which she administers baptism (this is the first time we meet with this expression), his words mean far more than the assertion of Irenæus that the confession expounded by him is the guiding rule in all Churches; for in Cyprian’s time the intercourse of most Catholic communities with each other was so regulated that the state of things in each was to some extent really known. Cf. also Novatian, “de trinitate seu de regula fidei,” as well as the circular letter of the Synod of Antioch referring to the Metropolitan Paul (Euseb., H. E. VII. 30. 6 . . . ἀποστὰς τοῦ κανόνος ἐπὶ κίβδηλα καὶ νόθα διδάγματα μετελήλυθεν, and the homilies of Aphraates. The closer examination of the last phase in the development of the confession of faith during this epoch, when the apostolic confessions received an interpretation in accordance with the theology of Origen, will be more conveniently left over till the close of our description (see chap. 7 fin). They may have first become an apostolic confession of faith “ through the Nicene Creed. But even this creed was not adopted all at once.

B. The designation of selected writings read in the churches as New Testament Scriptures or, in other words, as a collection of apostolic writings.See the histories of the canon by Credner, Reuss, Westcott, Hilgenfeld, Schmiedel, Holtzmann, and Weiss; the latter two, which to some extent supplement each other, are specially instructive. To Weiss belongs the merit of having kept Gospels and Apostles clearly apart in the preliminary history of the canon (see Th. L. Z. 1886. Nr. 24); Zahn, Gesch. des N. Tlichen Kanons, 2 vols, 1888 ff.; Harnack, Das Neue Test. um d. J. 200, 1889; Voigt, Eine verschollene Urkunde des antimontan. Kampfes, 1891, p. 236 ff.; Weizsäcker, Rede bei der akad. Preisvertheilung, 1892. Nov.; Köppel, Stud. u. Krit. 1891, p. 102 ff.; Barth, Neue Jahrbb. f. deutsche Theologie, 1893, p. 56 ff. The following account gives only a few aspects of the case, not a history of the genesis of the canon.

Every word and every writing which testified of the κύριος (Lord) was originally regarded as emanating from him, that is, from his spirit: Ὅθεν ἡ κυριότης λαλεῖται ἐκεῖ Κύριός ἐστιν. (v. (Didache IV. I; see also 1 Cor. XII. 3). Hence the contents were holy.“Holy” is not always equivalent to “possessing absolute authority.” There are also various stages and degrees of “holy.” In this sense the New Testament is a “residuary product,” just as the idea of its inspiration is a remnant of a much broader view. But on the other hand, the New Testament is a new creation of the Church,I beg here to lay down the following principles as to criticism of the New Testament. (1) It is not individual writings, but the whole book that has been immediately handed down to us. Hence, in the case of difficulties arising, we must first of all enquire, not whether the title and historical setting of a book are genuine or not, but if they are original, or were only given to the work when it became a component part of the collection. This also gives us the right to assume interpolations in the text belonging to the time when it was included in the canon, though this right must be used with caution. (2) Baur’s ‘tendency-criticism’ has fallen into disrepute; hence we must also free ourselves from the pedantry and hair-splitting which were its after effects. In consequence of the (erroneous) assumptions of the Tübingen school of critics a suspicious examination of the texts was justifiable and obligatory on their part. (3) Individual difficulties about the date of a document ought not to have the result of casting suspicion on it, when other good grounds speak in its favour; for, in dealing with writings which have no, or almost no accompanying literature, such difficulties cannot fail to arise. (4) The condition of the oldest Christianity up to the beginning of the second century did not favour literary forgeries or interpolations in support of a definite tendency. (5) We must remember that, from the death of Nero till the time of Trajan, very little is known of the history of the Church except the fact that, by the end of this time, Christianity had not only spread to an astonishing extent, but also had become vigorously consolidated. inasmuch as it takes its place alongside of the Old — which through it has become a complicated book for Christendom, — as a Catholic and apostolic collection of Scriptures containing and attesting the truth.

Marcion had founded his conception of Christianity on a new canon of Scripture,The novelty lies first in the idea itself, secondly in the form in which it was worked out, inasmuch as Marcion would only admit the authority of one Gospel to the exclusion of all the rest, and added the Pauline epistles which had originally little to do with the conception of the apostolic doctrinal tradition of the Church. which seems to have enjoyed the same authority among his followers as was ascribed to the Old Testament in orthodox Christendom. In the Gnostic schools, which likewise rejected the Old Testament altogether or in part, Evangelic and Pauline writings were, by the middle of the second century, treated as sacred texts and made use of to confirm their theological speculations.It is easy to understand that, wherever there was criticism of the Old Testament, the Pauline epistles circulating in the Church would be thrust into the foreground. The same thing was done by the Manichæans in the Byzantine age. On the other hand, about the year 150 the main body of Christendom had still no collection of Gospels and Epistles possessing equal authority with the Old Testament, and, apart from Apocalypses, no new writings at all, which as such, that is, as sacred texts, were regarded as inspired and authoritative.Four passages may be chiefly appealed to in support of the opposite view, viz., 2 Peter III. 16; Polycarp ep. 12. I; Barn. IV. 14; 2 Clem. II. 4. But the first is put out of court, as the second Epistle of Peter is quite a late writing. The second is only known from an unreliable Latin translation (see Zahn on the passage: ‘verba “his scripturis” suspecta sunt, cum interpres in c. II. 3 ex suis inseruerit “quod dictum est”’), and even if the latter were faithful here, the quotation from the Psalms prefixed to the quotation from the Epistle to the Ephesians prevents us from treating the passage as certain evidence. As to the third passage (μήποτε, ὡς γέγραπται, πολλοὶ κλητοὶ, ὀλίγοι δὲ ἐκλεκτοὶ εὑρεθῶμεν), it should be noted that the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, although he makes abundant use of the evangelic tradition, has nowhere else described evangelic writings as γραφή, and must have drawn from more sources than the canonic Gospels. Here, therefore, we have an enigma which may be solved in a variety of ways. It seems worth noting that it is a saying of the Lord which is here in question. But from the very beginning words of the Lord were equally reverenced with the Old Testament (see the Pauline Epistles), This may perhaps explain how the author — like 2 Clem. II. 4: ἑτέρα δὲ γραφὴ λέγει· ὅτι οὖκ ἦλθον καλέσαι δικαίους ἀλλὰ ἁμαρτωλούς — has introduced a saying of this kind with the same formula as was used in introducing Old Testament quotations. Passages, such as Clem. XIII. 4: λέγει ὁ θέος· οὑ χάρις ὑμῖν εἰ ἀγαπᾶτε κ.τ.λ. would mark the transition to this mode of expression. The correctness of this explanation is confirmed by observation of the fact that the same formula as was employed in the case of the Old Testament was used in making quotations from early Christian apocalypses, or utterances of early Christian prophets in the earliest period. Thus we already read in Ephesians V. 14: διὸ λέγει· ἔγειρε ὁ καθεύδων καὶ ἀνάστα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν καὶ ἐπιφαύσει σοι ὁ Χριστός. That, certainly, is a saying of a Christian prophet, and yet it is introduced with the usual “λέγει”. We also find a saying of a Christian prophet in Clem. XXIII. (the saying is more complete in 2 Clem. XI.) introduced with the words: ἡ γραφὴ αὕτη, ὅπου λέγει. These examples may be multiplied still further. From all this we may perhaps assume that the trite formulæ of quotation “γραφὴ γέγραπται,” etc., were applied wherever reference was made to sayings of the Lord and of prophets that were fixed in writings, even when the documents in question had not yet as a whole obtained canonical authority. Finally, we must also draw attention to the following: — The Epistle of Barnabas belongs to Egypt; and there probably, contrary to my former opinion, we must also look for the author of the second Epistle of Clement. There is much to favour the view that in Egypt Christian writings were treated as sacred texts, without being united into a collection of equal rank with the Old Testament. (See below on this point.) Here we leave out of consideration that their content is a testimony of the Spirit. From the works of Justin it is to be inferred that the ultimate authorities were the Old Testament, the words of the Lord, and the communications of Christian prophets.See on Justin Bousset. Die Evv. — Citate Justins. Gött., 1891. We may also infer from the expression of Hegesippus (Euseb., H. E. IV. 22. 3; Stephanus Gobarus in Photius, Bibl. 232. p. 288) that it was not Christian writings, but the Lord himself, who was placed on an equality with Law and Prophets. Very instructive is the formula: “Libri et epistolæ Pauli viri iusti” (αἱ καθ᾽ ἡμᾶς βίβλοι καὶ αἱ προσεπιτούτοις ἐπιστολαὶ Παύλου τοῦ ὁσίου ἀνδρός), which is found in the Acta Mart. Scillit. anno 180 (ed. Robinson, Texts and Studies, 1891, I. 2, p. 114 f.), and tempts us to make certain conclusions. In the later recensions of the Acta the passage, characteristically enough, is worded: “Libri evangeliorum et epistolæ Pauli viri sanctissimi apostoli” or “Quattuor evv. dom. nostri J. Chr. et epp. S. Pauli ap. et omnis divinitus inspirata scriptura.” The memoirs of the Apostles (ἀπομνημονέυματα τῶν ἀποστόλων = τὰ εύαγγέλια) owed their significance solely to the fact that they recorded the words and history of the Lord and bore witness to the fulfilment of Old Testament predictions. There is no mention whatever of apostolic epistles as holy writings of standard authority.It is worthy of note that the Gnostics also, though they quote the words of the Apostles (John and Paul) as authoritative, place the utterances of the Lord on an unattainable height. See in support of this the epistle of Ptolemy to Flora. But we learn further from Justin that the Gospels as well as the Old Testament were read in public worship (Apol. I. 67) and that our first three Gospels were already in use. We can, moreover, gather from other sources that other Christian writings, early and late, were more or less regularly read in Christian meetings.Rev. I. 3; Herm. Vis II. 4; Dionys. Cor. in Euseb., IV. 23. 11. Such writings naturally possessed a high degree of authority. As the Holy Spirit and the Church are inseparable, everything that edifies the Church originates with the Holy Spirit,Tertullian, this Christian of the primitive type, still reveals the old conception of things in one passage where, reversing 2 Tim. III. 16, he says (de cultu fem. I. 3) “Legimus omnem scripturam ædificationi habilem divinitus inspirari.” which in this, as well as every other respect, is inexhaustibly rich. Here, however, two interests were predominant from the beginning, that of immediate spiritual edification and that of attesting and certifying the Christian Kerygma (ἡ ἀσφάλεια τῶν λόγων). The ecclesiastical canon was the result of the latter interest, not indeed in consequence of a process of collection, for individual communities had already made a far larger compilation,The history of the collection of the Pauline Epistles may be traced back to the first century (1 Clem. XLVII. and like passages). It follows from the Epistle of Polycarp that this native of Asia Minor had in his hands all the Pauline Epistles (quotations are made from nine of the latter; these nine imply the four that are wanting, yet it must remain an open question whether he did not yet possess the Pastoral Epistles in their present form), also 1 Peter, 1 John (though he has not named the authors of these), the first Epistle of Clement and the Gospels. The extent of the writings read in churches which Polycarp is thus seen to have had approaches pretty nearly that of the later recognised canon. Compare, however, the way in which he assumes sayings from those writings to be well known by introducing them with “εἰδότες” (I. 3; IV. 1; V. 1). Ignatius likewise shows himself to be familiar with the writings which were subsequently united to form the New Testament. We see from the works of Clement, that, at the end of the second century, a great mass of Christian writings were collected in Alexandria and were used and honoured. but, in the first instance, through selection, and afterwards, but not till then, through addition.

We must not think that the four Gospels now found in the canon had attained full canonical authority by the middle of the second century, for the fact — easily demonstrable — that the texts were still very freely dealt with about this period is in itself a proof of this.It should also be pointed out that Justin most probably used the Gospel of Peter among the ἀπομνημονεύματα; see Texte u. Unters. IX. 2. Our first three Gospels contain passages and corrections that could hardly have been fixed before about the year 150. Moreover, Tatian’s attempt to create a new Gospel from the four shews that the text of these was not yet fixed.See my article in the Zeitschr. f. K. Gesch. Vol. IV. p. 471 ff. Zahn (Tatian’s Diatessaron, 1881) takes a different view. We may remark that he was the first in whom we find the Gospel of JohnJustin also used the Gospel of John, but it is a disputed matter whether he regarded and used it like the other Gospels. alongside of the Synoptists, and these four the only ones recognised. From the assault of the “Alogi” on the Johannine Gospel we learn that about 160 the whole of our four Gospels had not been definitely recognised even in Asia Minor. Finally, we must refer to the Gospel of the Egyptians, the use of which was not confined to circles outside the Church.The Sabellians still used it in the third century, which is a proof of the great authority possessed by this Gospel in Christian antiquity. (Epiph., H. 62. 2.)

From the middle of the second century the Encratites stood midway between the larger Christendom and the Marcionite Church as well as the Gnostic schools. We hear of some of these using the Gospels as canonical writings side by side with the Old Testament, though they would have nothing to do with the Epistles of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles.Euseb., H. E. IV. 29. 5. But Tatian, the prominent Apologist, who joined them, gave this sect a more complete canon, an important fact about which was its inclusion of Epistles of Paul. Even this period, however, still supplies us with no testimony as to the existence of a New Testament canon in orthodox Christendom, in fact the rise of the so-called “Montanism” and its extreme antithesis, the “Alogi”, in Asia Minor soon after the middle of the second century proves that there was still no New Testament canon there; for, if such an authoritative compilation had existed, these movements could not have arisen. If we gather together all the indications and evidence bearing on the subject, we shall indeed be ready to expect the speedy appearance in the Church of a kind of Gospel canon comprising the four Gospels;In many regions the Gospel canon alone appeared at first, and in very many others it long occupied a more prominent place than the other canonical writings. Alexander of Alexandria, for instance, still calls God the giver of the Law, the Prophets, and the Gospels (Theodoret, I. 4). but we are prepared neither for this being formally placed on an equality with the Old Testament, nor for its containing apostolic writings, which as yet are only found in Marcion and the Gnostics. The canon emerges quite suddenly in an allusion of Melito of Sardis preserved by Eusebius,Euseb., H. E. II. 26. 13. As Melito speaks here of the ἀκρίβεια τῶν παλαιῶν βιβλίων, and of τὰ βιβλία τῆς παλαιᾶς διαθήκης, we may assume that he knows τὰ βιβλία τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης. the meaning of which is, however, still dubious; in the works of Irenæus and Tertullian; and in the so-called Muratorian Fragment. There is no direct account of its origin and scarcely any indirect; yet it already appears as something to all intents and purposes finished and complete.We may here leave undiscussed the hesitancy with regard to the admissibility of particular books. That the Pastoral Epistles had a fixed place in the canon almost from the very first is of itself a proof that the date of its origin cannot be long before 180. In connection with this, however, it is an important circumstance that Clement makes the general statement that the heretics reject the Epistles to Timothy (Strom. II. 12. 52: οἱ ἀπὸ τῶν αἱρέσεων τὰς πρὸς Τιμόθεον ἀθετοῦσιν ἐπιστολάς). They did not happen to be at the disposal of the Church at all till the middle of the second century. Moreover, it emerges in the same ecclesiastical district where we were first able to show the existence of the apostolic regula fidei. We hear nothing of any authority belonging to the compilers, because we learn nothing at all of such persons.Yet see the passage from Tertullian quoted, p. 15, note 1; see also the “receptior”, de pudic. 20, the cause of the rejection of Hermas in the Muratorian Fragment and Tertull. de bapt. 17: “Quodsi quæ Pauli perperam scripta sunt exemplum Theclæ ad licentiam mulierum docendi tinguendique defendunt, sciant in Asia presbyterum, qui eam scripturam construxit, quasi titulo Pauli de suo cumulans, convictum atque confessum id se amore Pauli fecisse, loco decessisse.” The hypothesis that the Apostles themselves (or the apostle John) compiled the New Testament was definitely set up by no one in antiquity and therefore need not be discussed. Augustine (c. Faustum XXII. 79) speaks frankly of “sancti et docti homines” who produced the New Testament. We can prove by a series of testimonies that the idea of the Church having compiled the New Testament writings was in no way offensive to the Old Catholic Fathers. As a rule, indeed, they are silent on the matter. Irenæus and Tertullian already treat the collection as simply existent. And yet the collection is regarded by Irenæus and Tertullian as completed. A refusal on the part of the heretics to recognise this or that book is already made a severe reproach against them. Their Bibles are tested by the Church compilation as the older one, and the latter itself is already used exactly like the Old Testament. The assumption of the inspiration of the books; the harmonistic interpretation of them; the idea of their absolute sufficiency with regard to every question which can arise and every event which they record; the right of unlimited combination of passages; the assumption that nothing in the Scriptures is without importance; and, finally, the allegorical interpretation: are the immediately observable result of the creation of the canon.Numerous examples may be found in proof of all these points, especially in the writings of Tertullian, though such are already to be met with in Irenæus also. He is not yet so bold in his allegorical exposition of the Gospels as Ptolemæus whom he finds fault with in this respect; but he already gives an exegesis of the books of the New Testament not essentially different from that of the Valentinians. One should above all read the treatise of Tertullian “de idololatria” to perceive how the authority of the New Testament was even by that time used for solving all questions.

Addendum I. The great confederation of Churches which Cyprian presupposes and which he terms the Church was in truth not complete, for it cannot be proved that it extended to any regions beyond the confines of the Roman Empire or that it even embraced all orthodox and episcopally organised communities within those bounds.Hatch l.c., p. 189 f. But, further, the conditions of the confederation, which only began to be realised in the full sense in the days of Constantine, were never definitely formulated — before the fourth century at least.The gradual union of the provincial communities into one Church may be studied in a very interesting way in the ecclesiastical Fasti (records, martyrologies, calendars, etc.), though these studies are as yet only in an incipient stage. See De Rossi , Roma Sotter, the Bollandists in the 12th vol. for October; Stevenson, Studi in Italia (1879), pp. 439, 458; the works of Nilles; Egli, Altchristl. Studien 1887 (Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1887, no. 13): Duchesne, Les sources du Martyrol. Hieron. Rome 1885, bat above all the latter’s study: Mémoire sur l’origine des diocèses épiscopaux dans l’ancienne Gaule, 1890. The history of the unification of liturgies from the 4th century should also be studied. Accordingly, the idea of the one exclusive Church, embracing all Christians and founded on the bishops, was always a mere theory. But, in so far as it is not the idea, but its realisation to which Cyprian here attaches sole importance, his dogmatic conception appears to be refuted by actual circumstances.There were communities in the latter half of the 3rd century, which can be proved to have been outside the confederation, although in perfect harmony with it in point of belief (see the interesting case in Euseb., H.E. VII. 24. 6). Conversely, there were Churches in the confederation whose faith did not in all respects correspond with the Catholic regula as already expounded. But the fact that it was not the dogmatic system, but the practical constitution and principles of the Church, as based on a still elastic creed, which formed the ultimate determining factor, was undoubtedly a great gain; for a system of dogmatics developed beyond the limits of the Christian kerygma can only separate. Here, however, all differences of faith had of course to be glossed over, for the demand of Apelles: μὴ δεῖν ὅλως ἐξετάζειν τὸν λόγον, ἀλλ᾽ ἕκαστον, ὡς πεπίστευκα, διαμένειν· σωθήσεσθαι γὰρ τοὺς ἐπὶ τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον ἡλπικότας κ.τ.λ., was naturally regarded as inadmissible.

II. The idea of heresy is always decided by the idea of the Church. The designation ἅιρεσις an adherence to something self-chosen in opposition to the acknowledgment of something objectively handed down, and assumes that this is the particular thing in which the apostasy consists. Hence all those who call themselves Christians and yet do not adhere to the traditional apostolic creed, but give themselves up to vain and empty doctrines, are regarded as heretics by Hegesippus, Irenæus, Tertullian, Clement, and Origen. These doctrines are as a rule traced to the devil, that is, to the non-Christian religions and speculations, or to wilful wickedness. Any other interpretation of their origin would at once have been an acknowledgment that the opponents of the Church had a right to their opinions,Hence we need not be surprised to find that the notion of heresy which arose in the Church was immediately coupled with an estimate of it, which for injustice and harshness could not possibly be surpassed in succeeding times. The best definition is in Tertull., de præscr. 6: “Nobis nihil ex nostro arbitrio indulgere licet, sed nec eligere quod aliquis de arbitrio suo induxerit. Apostolos domini habemus auctores, qui nec ipsi quicquam ex suo arbitrio quod inducerent elegerunt, sed acceptam a Christo disciplinam fideliter nationibus assignaverunt.” and such an explanation is not quite foreign to Origen in one of his lines of argument.See Vol. I., p. 224, note 1. Hence the orthodox party were perfectly consistent in attaching no value to any sacramentWe already find this idea in Tertullian; see de bapt. 15: “Hæretici nullum habent consortium nostræ disciplinæ, quos extraneos utique testatur ipsa ademptio communicationis. Non debeo in illis cognoscere, quod mihi est præceptum, quia non idem deus est nobis et illis, nec unus Christus, id est idem, ideoque nec baptismus unus, quia non idem; quem cum rite non habeant, sine dubio non habent, nec capit numerari, quod non habetur; ita nec possunt accipere quia non habent.” Cyprian passed the same judgment on all schismatics, even on the Novatians, and like Tertullian maintained the invalidity of heretical baptism. This question agitated the Church as early as the end of the 2nd century, when Tertullian already wrote against it in Greek. or acts esteemed in their own communion, when these were performed by heretics;As far as possible the Christian virtues of the heretics were described as hypocrisy and love of ostentation (see e.g., Rhodon in Euseb., H. E. V. 13. 2 and others in the second century). If this view was untenable, then all morality and heroism among heretics were simply declared to be of no value. See the anonymous writer in Eusebius, H. E. V. 16. 21, 22; Clem., Strom. VII. 16. 95; Orig., Comm. ad Rom. I. X., c. 5; Cypr., de unit. 14, 15; ep. 73. 21 etc. and this was a practical application of the saying that the devil could transform himself into an angel of light.Tertull., de præscr. 3-6.

III. As soon as the empiric Church ruled by the bishops was proclaimed to be the foundation of the Christian religion, we have the fundamental premises for the conception that everything progressively adopted by the Church, all her functions, institutions, and liturgy, in short, all her continuously changing arrangements were holy and apostolic. But the courage to draw all the conclusions here was restrained by the fact that certain portions of tradition, such as the New Testament canon of Scripture and the apostolic doctrine, had been once for all exalted to an unapproachable height. Hence it was only with slowness and hesitation that Christians accepted the inferences from the idea of the Church in the remaining directions, and these conclusions always continued to be hampered with some degree of uncertainty. The idea of the παράδοσισ ἄγραφος (un-written tradition); i.e., that every custom, however recent, within the sphere of outward regulations, of public worship, discipline, etc., is as holy and apostolic as the Bible and the “faith”, never succeeded in gaining complete acceptance. In this case, complicated, uncertain, and indistinct assumptions were the result.

1. Introduction.Edition by Otto, 9 Vols., 1876 f. New edition of the Apologists (unfinished; only Tatian and Athenagoras by Schwarz have yet appeared) in the Texte und Untersuchungen zur altchristlichen Litteratur-Geschichte, Vol. IV. Tzschirner, Geschichte der Apologetik, 1st part, 1805; id., Der Fall des Heidenthums, 1829. Ehlers, Vis atque potestas, quam philosophia antiqua, imprimis Platonica et Stoica in doctrina apologetarum habuerit, 1859.

The object of the Christian Apologists, some of whom filled ecclesiastical offices and in various ways promoted spiritual progress,It is intrinsically probable that their works directly addressed to the Christian Church gave a more full exposition of their Christianity than we find in the Apologies. This can moreover be proved with certainty from the fragments of Justin’s, Tatian’s and Melito’s esoteric writings. But, whilst recognising this fact, we must not make the erroneous assumption that the fundamental conceptions and interests of Justin and the rest were in reality other than may be inferred from their Apologies. was, as they themselves explained, to uphold the Christianity professed by the Christian Churches and publicly preached. They were convinced that the Christian faith was founded on revelation and that only a mind enlightened by God could grasp and maintain the faith. They acknowledged the Old Testament to be the authoritative source of God’s revelation, maintained that the whole human race was meant to be reached by Christianity, and adhered to the early Christian eschatology. These views as well as the strong emphasis they laid upon human freedom and responsibility, enabled them to attain a firm standpoint in opposition to “Gnosticism”, and to preserve their position within the Christian communities, whose moral purity and strength they regarded as a strong proof of the truth of this faith. In the endeavours of the Apologists to explain Christianity to the cultured world, we have before us the attempts of Greek churchmen to represent the Christian religion as a philosophy, and to convince outsiders that it was the highest wisdom and the absolute truth. These efforts were not rejected by the Churches like those of the so-called Gnostics, but rather became in subsequent times the foundation of the ecclesiastical dogmatic. The Gnostic speculations were repudiated, whereas those of the Apologists were accepted. The manner in which the latter set forth Christianity as a philosophy met with approval. What were the conditions under which ecclesiastical Christianity and Greek philosophy concluded the alliance which has found a place in the history of the world? How did this union attain acceptance and permanence, whilst “Gnosticism” was at first rejected? These are the two great questions the correct answers to which are of fundamental importance for the understanding of the history of Christian dogma.

The answers to these questions appear paradoxical. The theses of the Apologists finally overcame all scruples in ecclesiastical circles and were accepted by the Græco-Roman world, because they made Christianity rational without taking from, or adding to, its traditional historic material. The secret of the epoch-making success of the apologetic theology is thus explained: These Christian philosophers formulated the content of the Gospel in a manner which appealed to the common sense of all the serious thinkers and intelligent men of the age. Moreover, they contrived to use the positive material of tradition, including the life and worship of Christ, in such a way as to furnish this reasonable religion with a confirmation and proof that had hitherto been eagerly sought, but sought in vain. In the theology of the Apologists, Christianity, as the religious enlightenment directly emanating from God himself, is most sharply contrasted with all polytheism, natural religion, and ceremonial. They proclaimed it in the most emphatic manner as the religion of the spirit, of freedom, and of absolute morality. Almost the whole positive material of Christianity is embodied in the story which relates its entrance into the world, its spread, and the proof of its truth. The religion itself, on the other hand, appears as the truth that is surely attested and accords with reason — a truth the content of which is not primarily dependent on historical facts and finally overthrows all polytheism.

Now this was the very thing required. In the second century of our era a great many needs and aspirations were undoubtedly making themselves felt in the sphere of religion and morals. “Gnosticism” and Marcionite Christianity prove the variety and depth of the needs then asserting themselves within the space that the ecclesiastical historian is able to survey. Mightier than all others, however, was the longing men felt to free themselves from the burden of the past, to cast away the rubbish of cults and of unmeaning religious ceremonies, and to be assured that the results of religious philosophy, those great and simple doctrines of virtue and immortality and of the God who is a Spirit, were certain truths. He who brought the message that these ideas were realities, and who, on the strength of these realities, declared polytheism and the worship of idols to be obsolete, had the mightiest forces on his side; for the times were now ripe for this preaching. What formed the strength of the apologetic philosophy was the proclamation that Christianity both contained the highest truth, as men already supposed it to be and as they had discovered it in their own minds, and the absolutely reliable guarantee that was desired for this truth. To the quality which makes it appear meagre to us it owed its impressiveness. The fact of its falling in with the general spiritual current of the time and making no attempt to satisfy special and deeper needs enabled it to plead the cause of spiritual monotheism and to oppose the worship of idols in the manner most easily understood. As it did not require historic and positive material to describe the nature of religion and morality, this philosophy enabled the Apologists to demonstrate the worthlessness of the traditional religion and worship of the different nations.That is, so far as these were clearly connected with polytheism. Where this was not the case or seemed not to be so, national traditions, both the true and the spurious, were readily and joyfully admitted into the catalogus testimoniorum of revealed truth. The same cause, however, made them take up the conservative position with regard to the historical traditions of Christianity. These were not ultimately tested as to their content, for this was taken for granted, no matter how they might be worded; but they were used to give an assurance of the truth, and to prove that the religion of the spirit was not founded on human opinion, but on divine revelation. The only really important consideration in Christianity is that it is revelation, real revelation. The Apologists had no doubt as to what it reveals, and therefore any investigation was unnecessary. The result of Greek philosophy, the philosophy of Plato and Zeno, as it had further developed in the empires of Alexander the Great and the Romans, was to attain victory and permanence by the aid of Christianity. Thus we view the progress of this development to-day,Though these words were already found in the first edition, Clemen (Justin 1890, p. 56) has misunderstood me so far as to think that I spoke here of conscious intention on the part of the Apologists. Such nonsense of course never occurred to me. and Christianity really proved to be the force from which that religious philosophy, viewed as a theory of the world and system of morality, first received the courage to free itself from the polytheistic past and descend from the circles of the learned to the common people.

This constitutes the deepest distinction between Christian philosophers like Justin and those of the type of Valentinus. The latter sought for a religion; the former, though indeed they were not very clear about their own purpose, sought assurance as to a theistic and moral conception of the world which they already possessed. At first the complexus of Christian tradition, which must have possessed many features of attraction for them, was something foreign to both. The latter, however, sought to make this tradition intelligible,. For the former it was enough that they had here a revelation before them; that this revelation also bore unmistakable testimony to the one God, who was a Spirit, to virtue, and to immortality; and that it was capable of convincing men and of leading them to a virtuous life. Viewed superficially, the Apologists were no doubt the conservatives; but they were so, because they scarcely in any respect meddled with the contents of tradition. The “Gnostics”, on the contrary, sought to understand what they read and to investigate the truth of the message of which they heard. The most characteristic feature is the attitude of each to the Old Testament. The Apologists were content to have found in it an ancient source of revelation, and viewed the book as a testimony to the truth, i.e., to philosophy and virtue; the Gnostics investigated this document and examined to what extent it agreed with the new impressions they had received from the Gospel. We may sum up as follows: The Gnostics sought to determine what Christianity is as a religion, and, as they were convinced of the absoluteness of Christianity, this process led them to incorporate with it all that they looked on as sublime and holy and to remove everything they recognised to be inferior. The Apologists, again, strove to discover an authority for religious enlightenment and morality and to find the confirmation of a theory of the universe, which, if true, contained for them the certainty of eternal life; and this they found in the Christian tradition.

At bottom this contrast is a picture of the great discord existing in the religious philosophy of the age itself (see p. 129, vol. I.). No one denied the fact that all truth was divine, that is, was founded on revelation. The great question, however, was whether every man possessed this truth as a slumbering capacity that only required to be awakened; whether it was rational, i.e., merely moral truth, or must be above that which is moral, that is, of a religious nature; whether it must carry man beyond himself; and whether a real redemption was necessary. It is ultimately the dispute between morality and religion, which appears as an unsettled problem in the theses of the idealistic philosophers and in the whole spiritual conceptions then current among the educated, and which recurs in the contrast between the Apologetic and the Gnostic theology. And, as in the former case we meet with the most varied shades and transitions, for no one writer has developed a consistent theory, so also we find a similar state of things in the latter;Note here particularly the attitude of Tatian, who has already introduced a certain amount of the “Gnostic” element into his; “Oratio ad Græcos”, although, he adheres in the main to the ordinary apologetic doctrines. for no Apologist quite left out of sight the idea of redemption (deliverance from the dominion of demons can only be effected by the Logos, i.e., God). Wherever the idea of freedom is strongly emphasised, the religious element, in the strict sense of the word, appears in jeopardy. This is the case with the Apologists throughout. Conversely, wherever redemption forms the central thought, need is felt of a suprarational truth, which no longer views morality as the only aim, and which, again, requires particular media, a sacred history and sacred symbols. Stoic rationalism, in its logical development, is menaced wherever we meet the perception that the course of the world must in some way be helped, and wherever the contrast between reason and sensuousness, that the old Stoa had confused, is clearly felt to be an unendurable state of antagonism that man cannot remove by his own unaided efforts. The need of a revelation had its starting-point in philosophy here. The judgment of oneself and of the world to which Platonism led, the selfconsciousness which it awakened by the detachment of man from nature, and the contrasts which it revealed led of necessity to that frame of mind which manifested itself in the craving for a revelation. The Apologists felt this. But their rationalism gave a strange turn to the satisfaction of that need. It was not their Christian ideas which first involved them in contradictions. At the time when Christianity appeared on the scene, the Platonic and Stoic systems themselves were already so complicated that philosophers did not find their difficulties seriously increased by a consideration of the Christian doctrines. As Apologists, however, they decidedly took the part of Christianity because, according to them, it was the doctrine of reason and freedom.

The Gospel was hellenised in the second century in so far as the Gnostics in various ways transformed it into a Hellenic religion for the educated. The Apologists used it — we may almost say inadvertently — to overthrow polytheism by maintaining that Christianity was the realisation of an absolutely moral theism. The Christian religion was not the first to experience this twofold destiny on Græco-Roman soil. A glance at the history of the Jewish religion shows us a parallel development; in fact, both the speculations of the Gnostics and the theories of the Apologists were foreshadowed in the theology of the Jewish Alexandrians, and particularly in that of Philo. Here also the Gospel merely entered upon the heritage of Judaism.Since the time of Josephus Greek philosophers had ever more and more acknowledged the “philosophical” character of Judaism; see Porphyr., de abstin. anim. II. 26, about the Jews: ἅτε φιλόσοφοι τὸ γένος ὄντες. Three centuries before the appearance of Christian Apologists, Jews, who had received a Hellenic training, had already set forth the religion of Jehovah to the Greeks in that remarkably summary and spiritualised form which represents it as the absolute and highest philosophy, i.e., the knowledge of God, of virtue, and of recompense in the next world. Here these Jewish philosophers had already transformed all the positive and historic elements of the national religion into parts of a huge system for proving the truth of that theism. The Christian Apologists adopted this method, for they can hardly be said to have invented it anew.On the relation of Christian literature to the writings of Philo, cf. Siegfried, Philo von Alexandrien, p. 303 f. We see from the Jewish Sibylline oracles how wide-spread it was. Philo, however, was not only a Stoic rationalist, but a hyper-Platonic religious philosopher. In like manner, the Christian Apologists did not altogether lack this element, though in some isolated cases among them there are hardly any traces of it. This feature is most fully represented among the Gnostics.

This transformation of religion into a philosophic system would not have been possible had not Greek philosophy itself happened to be in process of development into a religion. Such a transformation was certainly very foreign to the really classical time of Greece and Rome. The pious belief in the efficacy and power of the gods and in their appearances and manifestations, as well as the traditional worship, could have no bond of union with speculations concerning the essence and ultimate cause of things. The idea of a religious dogma which was at once to furnish a correct theory of the world and a principle of conduct was from this standpoint completely unintelligible. But philosophy, particularly in the Stoa, set out in search of this idea, and, after further developments, sought for one special religion with which it could agree or through which it could at least attain certainty. The meagre cults of the Greeks and Romans were unsuited for this. So men turned their eyes towards the barbarians. Nothing more clearly characterises the position of things in the second century than the agreement between two men so radically different as Tatian and Celsus. Tatian emphatically declares that salvation comes from the barbarians, and to Celsus it is also a “truism” that the barbarians have more capacity than the Greeks for discovering valuable doctrines.It is very instructive to find Celsus (Origen, c. Cels. I. 2) proceeding to say that the Greeks understood better how to judge, to investigate, and to perfect the doctrines devised by the barbarians, and to apply them to the practice of virtue. This is quite in accordance with the idea of Origen, who makes the following remarks on this point: “When a man trained in the schools and sciences of the Greeks becomes acquainted with our faith, he will not only recognise and declare it to be true, but also by means of his scientific training and skill reduce it to a system and supplement what seems to him defective in it, when tested by the Greek method of exposition and proof, thus at the same time demonstrating the truth of Christianity. Everything was in fact prepared, and nothing was wanting.

About the middle of the second century, however, the moral and rationalistic element in the philosophy and spiritual culture of the time was still more powerful than the religious and mystic; for Neoplatonism, which under its outward coverings concealed the aspiration after religion and the living God, was only in its first beginnings. It was not otherwise in Christian circles. The “Gnostics” were in the minority. What the great majority of the Church felt to be intelligible and edifying above everything else was an earnest moralism.See the section “Justin und die apostolischen Väter” in Engelhardt’s “Christenthum Justin’s des Martyrers”, p. 375 ff., and my article on the so-called 2nd Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians (Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte I. p. 329 ff.). Engelhardt, who on the whole emphasises the correspondences, has rather under- than over-estimated them. If the reader compares the exposition given in Book I., chap. 3, with the theology of the Apologists (see sub. 3), he will find proof of the intimate relationship that may be traced here. New and strange as the undertaking to represent Christianity as a philosophy might seem at first, the Apologists, so far as they were understood, appeared to advance nothing inconsistent with Christian common sense. Besides, they did not question authorities, but rather supported them, and introduced no foreign positive materials. For all these reasons, and also because their writings were not at first addressed to the communities, but only to outsiders, the marvellous attempt to present Christianity to the world as the religion which is the true philosophy, and as the philosophy which is the true religion, remained unopposed in the Church. But in what sense was the Christian religion set forth as a philosophy? An exact answer to this question is of the highest interest as regards the history of Christian dogma.

2. Christianity as Philosophy and as Revelation.

It was a new undertaking and one of permanent importance to a tradition hitherto so little concerned for its own vindication, when Quadratus and the Athenian philosopher, Aristides, presented treatises in defence of Christianity to the emperor.See Euseb., H. E. IV. 3. Only one sentence of Quadratus’ Apology is preserved; we have now that of Aristides in the Syriac language; moreover, it is proved to have existed in the original language in the Historia Barlaam et Joasaph; finally, a considerable fragment of it is found in Armenian. See an English edition by Harris and Robinson in the Texts and Studies I. 1891. German translation and commentary by Raabe in the Texte und Untersuchungen IX. 1892. Eusebius says that the Apology was handed in to the emperor Hadrian; but the superscription in Syriac is addressed to the emperor Titus Hadrianus Antoninus. About a century had elapsed since the Gospel of Christ had begun to be preached. It may be said that the Apology of Aristides was a most significant opening to the second century, whilst we find Origen at its close. Marcianus Aristides expressly designates himself in his pamphlet as a philosopher of the Athenians. Since the days when the words were written: “Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit” (Col. II. 8), it had constantly been repeated (see, as evidence, Celsus, passim) that Christian preaching and philosophy were things entirely different, that God had chosen the fools, and that man’s duty was not to investigate and seek, but to believe and hope. Now a philosopher, as such, pleaded the cause of Christianity. In the summary he gave of the content of Christianity at the beginning of his address, he really spoke as a philosopher and represented this faith as a philosophy. By expounding pure monotheism and giving it the main place in his argument, Aristides gave supreme prominence to the very doctrine which simple Christians also prized as the most important.See Hermas, Mand I. Moreover, in emphasing not only the supernatural character of the Christian doctrine revealed by the Son of the Most High God, but also the continuous inspiration of believers — the new race (not a new school) — he confessed in the most express way the peculiar nature of this philosophy as a divine truth. According to him Christianity is philosophy because its content is in accordance with reason, and because it gives a satisfactory and universally intelligible answer to the questions with which all real philosophers have concerned themselves. But it is no philosophy, in fact it is really the complete opposite of this, in so far as it proceeds from revelation and is propagated by the agency of God, i.e., has a supernatural and divine origin, on which alone the truth and certainty of its doctrines finally depend. This contrast to philosophy is chiefly shown in the unphilosophical form in which Christianity was first preached to the world. That is the thesis maintained by all the Apologists from Justin to Tertullian, With reservations this also holds good of the Alexandrians. See particularly Orig., c. Cels. I. 62. and which Jewish philosophers before them propounded and defended. This proposition may certainly be expressed in a great variety of ways. In the first place, it is important whether the first or second half is emphasised, and secondly, whether that which is “universally intelligible” is to be reckoned as philosophy at all, or is to be separated from it as that which comes by “nature”. Finally, the attitude to be taken up towards the Greek philosophers is left an open question, so that the thesis, taking up this attitude as a starting-point, may again assume various forms. But was the contradiction which it contains not felt? The content of revelation is to be rational; but does that which is rational require a revelation? How the proposition was understood by the different Apologists requires examination.

Aristides. He first gives an exposition of monotheism and the monotheistic cosmology (God as creator and mover of the universe, as the spiritual, perfect, almighty Being, whom all things need, and who requires nothing). In the second chapter he distinguishes, according to the Greek text, three, and, according to the Syriac, four classes of men (in the Greek text polytheists, Jews, Christians, the polytheists being divided into Chaldeans, Greeks, and Egyptians; in the Syriac barbarians, Greeks, Jews, Christians), and gives their origin. He derives the Christians from Jesus Christ and reproduces the Christian kerygma (Son of the Most High God, birth from the Virgin, 12 disciples, death on the cross, burial, resurrection, ascension, missionary labours of the 12 disciples). After this, beginning with the third chapter, follows a criticism of polytheism, that is, the false theology of the barbarians, Greeks, and Egyptians (down to chapter 12). In the 13th chapter the Greek authors and philosophers are criticised, and the Greek myths, as such, are shown to be false. In the 14th chapter the Jews are introduced (they are monotheists and their ethical system is praised; but they are then reproached with worshipping of angels and a false ceremonial). In the 15th chapter follows a description of the Christians, i.e., above all, of their pure, holy life. It is they who have found the truth, because they know the creator of heaven and earth. This description is continued in chapters 16 and 17: “This people is new and there is a divine admixture in it.” The Christian writings are recommended to the emperor.

Justin.Semisch, Justin der Märtyrer, 2 vols., 1840 f. Aubé, S. Justin, philosophe et martyr, 2nd reprint, 1875. Weizsäcker, Die Theologie des Märtyrers Justin’s in the Jahrbuch für deutsche Theologie, 1867, p. 60 ff. Von Engelhardt, Christenthum Justin’s, 1878; id., “Justin”, in Herzog Real Encyklopädie. Stählin, Justin der Märtyrer , 1880. Clemen, Die religionsphilosophische Bedeutung des stoisch-christlichen Eudämonismus in Justin’s Apologie, 1890. Flemming, zur Beurtheilung des Christenthums Justin’s des Martyrers, 1893. Duncker, Logoslehre Justin’s, 1848. Bosse, Der präexistente Christus des Justinus, 1891. In his treatise addressed to the emperor Justin did not call himself a philosopher as Aristides had done. In espousing the cause of the hated and despised Christians he represented himself as a simple member of that sect. But in the very first sentence of his Apology he takes up the ground of piety and philosophy, the very ground taken up by the pious and philosophical emperors themselves, according to the judgment of the time and their own intention. In addressing them he appeals to the λόγος σώϕρων in a purely Stoic fashion. He opposes the truth — also in the Stoic manner — to the δόξαις παλαιῶν.Apol. I. 2, p. 6, ed. Otto. It was not to be a mere captatio benevolentiæ. In that case Justin would not have added: “That ye are pious and wise and guardians of righteousness and friends of culture, ye hear everywhere. Whether ye are so, however, will be shown.”Apol. I. 2, p. 6, sq. His whole exordium is calculated to prove to the emperors that they are in danger of repeating a hundredfold the crime which the judges of Socrates had committed.See the numerous philosophical quotations and allusions in Justin Apology pointed out by Otto. Above all, he made an extensive use of Plato Apology of Socrates. Like a second Socrates Justin speaks to the emperors in the name of all Christians. They are to hear the convictions of the wisest of the Greeks from the mouth of the Christians. Justin wishes to enlighten the emperor with regard to the life and doctrines (βίος καὶ μαθήματα) of the latter. Nothing is to be concealed, for there is nothing to conceal.

Justin kept this promise better than any of his successors. For that very reason also he did not depict the Christian Churches as schools of philosophers (cc. 61-67). Moreover, in the first passage where he speaks of Greek philosophers, Apol. I. 4. p. 16, also I. 7, p. 24 sq: 1. 26. he is merely drawing a parallel. According to him there are bad Christians and seeming Christians, just as there are philosophers who are only so ‘in name and outward show. Such men, too, were in early times called “philosophers” even when they preached atheism. To all appearance, therefore, Justin does not desire Christians to be reckoned as philosophers. But it is nevertheless significant that, in the case of the Christians, a phenomenon is being repeated which otherwise is only observed in the case of philosophers; and how were those whom he was addressing to understand him? In the same passage he speaks for the first time of Christ. He introduces him with the plain and intelligible formula: ὁ διδάσκαλος Χριστός (“the teacher Christ”).Apol. I. 4, p. 14. Immediately thereafter he praises Socrates because he had exposed the worthlessness and deceit of the evil demons, and traces his death to the same causes which are now he says bringing about the condemnation of the Christians. Now he can make his final assertion. In virtue of “reason” Socrates exposed superstition; in virtue of the same reason, this was done by the teacher whom the Christians follow. But this teacher was reason itself; it was visible in him, and indeed it appeared bodily in him. Apol. I. 5, p. 18 sq., see also I. 14 fin.: οὐ σοφιστὴς ὑπῆρχεν ἀλλὰ δύναμις Θεοῦ ὁ λόγος αὐτοῦ ἦν.

Is this philosophy or is it myth? The greatest paradox the Apologist has to assert is connected by him with the most impressive remembrance possessed by his readers as philosophers. In the same sentence where he represents Christ as the Socrates of the barbarians,L. c.: οὐ γὰρ μόνον ἐν Ἕλλησι διὰ Σωκράτους ὑπὸ λόγου ἡλέγχθη ταῦτα, ἀλλὰ καὶ ἐν βαρβάροις ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ τοῦ λόγου μορφωθέντος καὶ ἀνθρώπου καὶ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ κληθέντος. and consequently makes Christianity out to be a Socratic doctrine, he propounds the unheard of theory that the teacher Christ is the incarnate reason of God.

Justin nowhere tried to soften the effect of this conviction or explain it in a way adapted to his readers. Nor did he conceal from them that his assertion admits of no speculative demonstration. That philosophy can only deal with things which ever are, because they ever were, since this world began, is a fact about which he himself is perfectly clear. No Stoic could have felt more strongly than Justin how paradoxical is the assertion that a thing is of value which has happened only once. Certain as he is that the “reasonable” emperors will regard it as a rational assumption that “Reason” is the Son of God,Celsus also admits this, or rather makes his Jew acknowledge it (Orig., c. Cels. II. 31). In Book VI. 47 he adopts the proposition of the “ancients” that the world is the Son of God. he knows equally well that no philosophy will bear him out in that other assertion, and that such a statement is seemingly akin to the contemptible myths of the evil demons.

But there is certainly a proof which, if not speculative, is nevertheless sure. The same ancient documents, which contain the Socratic and super-Socratic wisdom of the Christians, bear witness through prophecies, which, just because they are predictions, admit of no doubt, that the teacher Christ is the incarnate reason; for history confirms the word of prophecy even in the minutest details. Moreover, in so far as these writings are in the lawful possession of the Christians, and announced at the very beginning of things that this community would appear on the earth, they testify that the Christians may in a certain fashion date themselves back to the beginning of the world, because their doctrine is as old as the earth itself (this thought is still wanting in Aristides).

The new Socrates who appeared among the barbarians is therefore quite different from the Socrates of the Greeks, and for that reason also his followers are not to be compared with the disciples of the philosophers.See Apol. II. 10 fin.: Σωκράτει οὐδεὶς ἐπείσθη ὑπὲρ τούτου τοῦ δόγματος ἀποθνήσκειν· Χριστῷ δὲ τῷ καὶ ὑπὸ Σωκράτους ἀπὸ μέρους γνωσθέντι . . . οὐ φιλόσοφοι οὐδὲ φιλόλογοι μόνον ἐπείσθησαν. From the very beginning of things a world-historical dispensation of God announced this reasonable doctrine through prophets, and prepared the visible appearance of reason itself. The same reason which created and arranged the world took human form in order to draw the whole of humanity to itself. Every precaution has been taken to make it easy for any one, be he Greek or barbarian, educated or uneducated, to grasp all the doctrines of this reason, to verify their truth, and test their power in life. What further importance can philosophy have side by side with this, how can one think of calling this a philosophy?

And yet the doctrine of the Christians can only be compared with philosophy. For, so far as the latter is genuine, it is also guided by the Logos; and, conversely, what the Christians teach concerning the Father of the world, the destiny of man, the nobility of his nature, freedom and virtue, justice and recompense, has also been attested by the wisest of the Greeks. They indeed only stammered, whereas the Christians speak. These, however, use no unintelligible and unheard-of language, but speak with the words and through the power of reason. The wonderful arrangement, carried out by the Logos himself, through which he ennobled the human race by restoring its consciousness of its own nobility, compels no one henceforth to regard the reasonable as the unreasonable or wisdom as folly. But is the Christian wisdom not of divine origin? How can it in that case be natural, and what connection can exist between it and the wisdom of the Greeks? Justin bestowed the closest attention on this question, but he never for a moment doubted what the answer must be. Wherever the reasonable has revealed itself, it has always been through the operation of the divine reason. For man’s lofty endowment consists in his having had a portion of the divine reason implanted within him, and in his consequent capacity of attaining a knowledge of divine things, though not a perfect and clear one, by dint of persistent efforts after truth and virtue. When man remembers his real nature and destination, that is, when he comes to himself, the divine reason is already revealing itself in him and through him. As man’s possession conferred on him at the creation, it is at once his most peculiar property, and the power which dominates and determines his nature.The utterances of Justin do not clearly indicate whether the non-Christian portion of mankind has only a σπέρμα τοῦ λόγου as a natural possession, or whether this σπέρμα has in some cases been enhanced by the inward workings of the whole Logos (inspiration). This ambiguity, however, arises from the fact that he did not further discuss the relation between ὁ λόγος and τὸ σπέρμα τοῦ λόγου and we need not therefore attempt to remove it. On the one hand, the excellent discoveries of poets and philosophers are simply traced to τὸ ἔμϕυτον παντὶ γένει ἀνθρώπων σπέρμα τοῦ λόγου (Apol. II. 8), the μέρος σπερματικοῦ λόγου (ibid.) which was implanted at the creation, and on which the human εὕρεσις καὶ θεωρία depend (II. 10). In this sense it may be said of them all that they “in human fashion attempted to understand and prove things by means of reason”; and Socrates is merely viewed as the πάντων εὐτονώτερος (ibid.), his philosophy also, like all pre-Christian systems, being a ϕιλοσοϕία ἁνθρώπειος (II. 15). But on the other hand Christ was known by Socrates though only ἀπὸ μέρους; for “Christ was and is the Logos who dwells in every man”. Further, according to the Apologist, the μέρος τοῦ σπερματικοῦ θείου λόγου bestows the power of recognising whatever is related to the Logos (τό συγγενές II. 13). Consequently it may not only be said: ὅσα παρὰ πᾶσι καλῶς είρηται ἡμῶν, τῶν Χριστιανῶν ἐστί (ibid.), but, on the strength of the “participation” in reason conferred on all, it may be asserted that all who have lived with the Logos (μετὰ λόγου) — an expression which must have been ambiguous — were Christians. Among the Greeks this specially applies to Socrates and Heraclitus (I. 46). Moreover, the Logos implanted in man does not belong to his nature in such a sense as to prevent us saying ὑπὸ λόγου διὰ Σωκράτους ἡλέγχθη κ.τ.λ. (I. 5). Nevertheless αὐτὸς ὁ λόγος did not act in Socrates, for this only appeared in Christ (ibid). Hence the prevailing aspect of the case in Justin was that to which he gave expression at the close of the 2nd Apology (II. 15: alongside of Christianity there is only human philosophy), and which, not without regard for the opposite view, he thus formulated in II. 13 fin.: All non-Christian authors were able to attain a knowledge of true being, though only darkly, by means of the seed of the Logos naturally implanted within them. For the σπορά and μίμημα of a thing, which are bestowed in proportion to one’s receptivity, are quite different from the thing itself, which divine grace bestows on us for our possession and imitation.” All that is reasonable is based on revelation. In order to accomplish his true destiny man requires from the beginning the inward working of that divine reason which has created the world for the sake of man, and therefore wishes to raise man beyond the world to God.“For the sake of man” (Stoic) Apol. I. 10: II. 4, 5; Dial. 41, p. 260A, Apol I. 8: “Longing for the eternal and pure life, we strive to abide in the fellowship of God, the Father and Creator of all things, and we hasten to make confession, because we are convinced and firmly believe that that happiness is really attainable.” It is frequently asserted that it is the Logos which produces such conviction and awakens courage and strength.

Apparently no one could speak in a more stoical fashion. But this train of thought is supplemented by something which limits it. Revelation does retain its peculiar and unique significance. For no one who merely possessed the “seed of the Logos” (σπέρμα τοῦ λόγου), though it may have been his exclusive guide to knowledge and conduct, was ever able to grasp the whole truth and impart it in a convincing manner. Though Socrates and Heraclitus may in a way be called Christians, they cannot be so designated in any real sense. Reason is clogged with unreasonableness, and the certainty of truth is doubtful wherever the whole Logos has not been acting; for man’s natural endowment with reason is too weak to oppose the powers of evil and of sense that work in the world, namely, the demons. We must therefore believe in the prophets in whom the whole Logos spoke. He who does that must also of necessity believe in Christ; for the prophets clearly pointed to him as the perfect embodiment of the Logos. Measured by the fulness, clearness, and certainty of the knowledge imparted by the Logos-Christ, all knowledge independent of him appears as merely human wisdom, even when it emanates from the seed of the Logos. The Stoic argument is consequently untenable. Men blind and kept in bondage by the demons require to be aided by a special revelation. It is true that this revelation is nothing new, and in so far as it has always existed, and never varied in character, from the beginning of the world, it is in this sense nothing extraordinary. It is the divine help granted to man, who has fallen under the power of the demons, and enabling him to follow his reason and freedom to do what is good. By the appearance of Christ this help became accessible to all men. The dominion of demons and revelation are the two correlated ideas. If the former did not exist, the latter would not be necessary. According as we form a lower or higher estimate of the pernicious results of that sovereignty, the value of revelation rises or sinks. This revelation cannot do less than give the necessary assurance of the truth, and it cannot do more than impart the power that develops and matures the inalienable natural endowment of man and frees him from the dominion of the demons.

Accordingly the teaching of the prophets and Christ is related even to the very highest human philosophy as the whole is to the part,Justin has destroyed the force of this argument in two passages (I. 44. 59) by tracing (like the Alexandrian Jews) all true knowledge of the poets and philosophers to borrowing from the books of the Old Testament (Moses). Of what further use then is the σπέρμα λόγου ἔμϕυτον? Did Justin not really take it seriously? Did he merely wish to suit himself to those whom he was addressing? We are not justified in asserting this. Probably, however, the adoption of that Jewish view of the history of the world is a proof that the results of the demon sovereignty were in Justin’s estimation so serious that he no longer expected anything from the σπέρμα λόγου ἔμϕυτον when left to its own resources; and therefore regarded truth and prophetic revelation as inseparable. But this view is not the essential one in the Apology. That assumption of Justin’s is evidently dependent on a tradition, whilst his real opinion was more “liberal”. or as the certain is to the uncertain; and hence also as the permanent is to the transient. For the final stage has now arrived and Christianity is destined to put an end to natural human philosophy. When the perfect work is there; the fragmentary must cease. Justin gave the clearest expression to this conviction. Christianity, i.e., the prophetic teaching attested by Christ and accessible to all, puts an end to the human systems of philosophy that from their close affinity to it may be called Christian, inasmuch as it effects all and more than all that these systems have done, and inasmuch as the speculations of the philosophers, which are uncertain and mingled with error, are transformed by it into dogmas of indubitable certainty.Compare with this the following passages: In Apol. I. 20 are enumerated a series of the most important doctrines common to philosophers and Christians. Then follow the words: “If we then in particular respects even teach something similar to the doctrines of the philosophers honoured among you, though in many cases in a divine and more sublime way; and we indeed alone do so in such a way that the matter is proved etc.” In Apol. I. 44: II. 10. 13 uncertainty, error, and contradictions are shown to exist in the case of the greatest philosophers. The Christian doctrines are more sublime than all human philosophy (II. 15). “Our doctrines are evidently more sublime than any human teaching, because the Christ who appeared for our sakes was the whole fulness of reason” (τὸ λογικὸν το ὅλον, II. 10). “The principles of Plato are not foreign (ἀλλότρια) to the teaching of Christ , but they do not agree in every respect. The same holds good of the Stoics” (II. 13). “We must go forth from the school of Plato” (II. 12). “Socrates convinced no one in such a way that he would have been willing to die for the doctrine proclaimed by him; whereas not only philosophers and philologers, but also artisans and quite common uneducated people have believed in Christ” (II. 10). These are the very people — and that is perhaps the strongest contrast found between Logos and Logos in Justin — among whom it is universally said of Christianity: δύναμις ἐστὶ τοῦ ἀρρήτου πατρὸς καὶ οὐχὶ ἀνθρωπείου κόγου κατασκευή (see also I. 14 and elsewhere.) The practical conclusion drawn in Justin’s treatise from this exposition is that the Christians are at least entitled to ask the authorities to treat them as philosophers (Apol. I. 7, 20: II. 15). This demand, he says, is the more justifiable because the freedom of philosophers is enjoyed even by such people as merely bear the name, whereas in reality they set forth immoral and pernicious doctrines.In Justin’s estimate of the Greek philosophers two other points deserve notice. In the first place, he draws a very sharp distinction between real and nominal philosophers. By the latter he specially means the Epicureans. They are no doubt referred to in I. 4, 7, 26 (I. 14: Atheists). Epicurus and Sardanapalus are classed together in II. 7; Epicurus and the immoral poets in II. 12; and in the conclusion of II. 15 the same philosopher is ranked with the worst society. But according to II. 3 fin. (ἀδύνατον Κυνικῷ, αδιάφορον τὸ τέλος προθεμένῳ, τὸ ἀγαθὸν εἰδέναι πλὴν αδιαφορίας) the Cynics also seem to be outside the circle of real philosophers. This is composed principally of Socrates, Plato, the Platonists and Stoics, together with Heraclitus and others. Some of these understood one set of doctrines more correctly, others another series. The Stoics excelled in ethics (II. 7); Plato described the Deity and the world more correctly. It is, however, worthy of note — and this is the second point — that Justin in principle conceived the Greek philosophers as a unity, and that he therefore saw in their very deviations from one another a proof of the imperfection of their teaching. In so far as they are all included under the collective idea “human philosophy”, philosophy is characterised by the conflicting opinions found within it. This view was suggested to Justin by the fact that the highest truth, which is at once allied and opposed to human philosophy, was found by him among an exclusive circle of fellow-believers. Justin showed great skill in selecting from the Gospels the passages (I. 15-17), that prove the “philosophical” life of the Christians as described by him in c. 14. Here he cannot be acquitted of colouring the facts (cf. Aristides) nor of exaggeration (see, for instance, the unqualified statement: ἅ ἔχομεν εἰς κοινὸν φέροντες καὶ παντὶ δεομένῳ κοινωνοῦντες). The philosophical emperors were meant here to think of the “ϕίλοις πάντα κοινά”. Yet in I. 67 Justin corrected exaggerations in his description. Justin’s reference to the invaluable benefits which Christianity confers on the state deserves notice (see particularly I. 12, 17.) The later Apologists make a similar remark.

3. The doctrines of Christianity as the revealed and rational religion.

The Apologists frequently spoke of the doctrines or “dogmas” of Christianity; and the whole content of this religion as philosophy is included in these dogmas.In the New Testament the content of the Christian faith is nowhere designated as dogma. In Clement (I. II.), Hermas, and Polycarp the word is not found at all; yet Clement (I. 20. 4, 27. 5) called the divine order of nature τά δεδογματισμένα ὑπὸ Θεοῦ. In Ignatius (ad Magn. XIII. 1) we read: σπουδάζετε οὖν βεβαιωθῆ̃ναι ἐν τοῖς δόγμασιν τοῦ κυρίου καὶ τῶν ἀποστόλων, but δόγματα here exclusively mean the rules of life (see Zahn on this passage), and this is also their signification in Διδαχή XI. 3. In the Epistle of Barnabas we read in several passages (I. 6: IX. 7: X. 1, 9 f.) of “dogmas of the Lord”; but by these he means partly particular mysteries, partly divine dispensations. Hence the Apologists are the first to apply the word. to the Christian faith, in accordance with the language of philosophy. They are also the first who employed the ideas θεολογεῖν and θελογία. The latter word is twice found in Justin (Dial. 56) in the sense of “aliquem nominare deum”. In Dial. 113, however, it has the more comprehensive sense of “to make religio-scientific investigations”. Tatian (10) also used the word in the first sense; on the contrary he entitled a book of which he was the author “πρὸς τοὺς ἀποφηναμένους τὰ περὶ Θεοῦ” and not “πρὸς τοὺς θεολογοῦντας”. In Athenagoras (Suppl. 10) theology is the doctrine of God and of all beings to whom the predicate “Deity” belongs (see also 20, 22). That is the old usage of the word. It was thus employed by Tertullian in ad nat. II. 1 (the threefold division of theology; in II. 2, 3 the expression “theologia physica, mythica” refers to this); Cohort, ad Gr. 3, 22. The anonymous writer in Eusebius (H. E. V. 28. 4, 5) is instructive on the point. Brilliant demonstrations of the ancient use of the word “theology” are found in Natorp, Thema und Disposition der aristotelischen Metaphysik (Philosophische Monatshefte, 1887, Parts 1 and 2, pp. 55-64). The title “theology”, as applied to a philosophic discipline, was first used by the Stoics; the old poets were previously called “theologians”, and the “theological” stage was the prescientific one which is even earlier than the “childhood” of “physicists” (so Aristotle speaks throughout). To the Fathers of the Church also the old poets are still οἱ παγαιοὶ θεολόγοι. But side by side with this we have an adoption of the Stoic view that there is also a philosophical theology, because the teaching of the old poets concerning the gods conceals under the veil of myth a treasure of philosophical truth. In the Stoa arose the “impossible idea of a ‘theology’ which is to be philosophy, that is, knowledge based on reason, and yet to have positive religion as the foundation of its certainty.” The Apologists accepted this, but added to it the distinction of a κοσμικὴ and θεολογικὴ σοφία. According to what we have already set forth there can be no doubt about the character of Christian dogmas. They are the rational truths, revealed by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and summarised in Christ (Χριστὸς λόγος καὶ νόμος), which in their unity represent the divine wisdom, and the recognition of which leads to virtue and eternal life. The Apologists considered it their chief task to set forth these doctrines, and hence they can be reproduced with all desirable clearness. The dogmatic scheme of the Apologists may therefore be divided into three component parts. These are: (A) Christianity viewed as monotheistic cosmology (God as the Father of the world); (B) Christianity as the highest morality and righteousness (God as the judge who rewards goodness and punishes wickedness); (C) Christianity regarded as redemption (God as the Good One who assists man and rescues him from the power of the demons).Christ has a relation to all three parts of the scheme, (1) as λόγος: (2) as νόμος, νομοθέτης and κριτής; (3) as διδάσκαλος and σωτήρ. Whilst the first two ideas are expressed in a clear and precise manner, it is equally true that the third is not worked out in a lucid fashion. This, as will afterwards be seen, is, on the one hand, the result of the Apologists’ doctrine of freedom, and, on the other, of their inability to discover a specific significance for the person of Christ within the sphere of revelation. Both facts again are ultimately to be explained from their moralism.

The essential content of revealed philosophy is viewed by the Apologists (see A, B) as comprised in three doctrines.In the reproduction of the apologetical theology historians of dogma have preferred to follow Justin; but here they have constantly overlooked the fact that Justin was the most Christian among the Apologists, and that the features of his teaching to which particular value is rightly attached, are either not found in the others at all (with the exception of Tertullian), or else in quite rudimentary form. It is therefore proper to put the doctrines common to all the Apologists in the foreground, and to describe what is peculiar to Justin as such, so far as it agrees with New Testament teachings or contains an anticipation of the future tenor of dogma. First, there is one spiritual and inexpressibly exalted God, who is Lord and Father of the world. Secondly, he requires a holy life. Thirdly, he will at last sit in judgment, and will reward the good with immortality and punish the wicked with death. The teaching concerning God, virtue, and eternal reward is traced to the prophets and Christ; but the bringing about of a virtuous life (of righteousness) has been necessarily left by God to men themselves; for God has created man free, and virtue can only be acquired by man’s own efforts. The prophets and Christ are therefore a source of righteousness in so far as they are teachers. But as God, that is, the divine Word (which we need not here discuss) has spoken in them, Christianity is to be defined as the Knowledge of God, mediated by the Deity himself, and as a virtuous walk in the longing after eternal and perfect life with God, as well as in the sure hope of this imperishable reward. By knowing what is true and doing what is good man becomes righteous and a partaker of the highest bliss. This knowledge, which has the character of divine instruction,Cicero’s proposition (de nat. deor. II. 66. 167): “nemo vir magnus sine aliquo afflatu divino unquam fuit,” which was the property of all the idealistic philosophers of the age, is found in the Apologists reproduced in the most various forms (see, e.g., Tatian 29). That all knowledge of the truth, both among the prophets and those who follow their teaching, is derived from inspiration was in their eyes a matter of certainty. But here they were only able to frame a theory in the case of the prophets; for such a theory strictly applied to all would have threatened the spontaneous character of the knowledge of the truth. rests on faith in the divine revelation. This revelation has the nature and power of redemption in so far as the fact is undoubted that without it men cannot free themselves from the tyranny of the demons, whilst believers in revelation are enabled by the Spirit of God to put them to flight. Accordingly, the dogmas of Christian philosophy theoretically contain the monotheistic cosmology, and practically the rules for a holy life, which appears as a renunciation of the world and as a new order of society.Justin, Apol. I. 3: Ἡμέτερον οὖν ἔργον καὶ βίου καὶ μαθημάτων τὴν ἐπίσκεψιν πᾶσι παρέχειν. The goal is immortal life, which consists in the full knowledge and contemplation of God. The dogmas of revelation lie between the cosmology and ethics; they are indefinitely expressed so far as they contain the idea of salvation; but they are very precisely worded in so far as they guarantee the truth of the cosmology and ethics.

I. The dogmas which express the knowledge of God and the world are dominated by the fundamental idea that the world as the created, conditioned, and transient is contrasted with something self-existing, unchangeable and eternal, which is the first cause of the world. This self-existing Being has none of the attributes which belong to the world; hence he is exalted above every name and has in himself no distinctions. This implies, first, the unity and uniqueness of this eternal Being; secondly, his spiritual nature, for everything bodily is subject to change; and, finally, his perfection, for the self-existent and eternal requires nothing. Since, however, he is the cause of all being, himself being unconditioned, he is the fulness of all being or true being itself (Tatian 5: καθὸ πᾶσα δύναμις ὁρατῶν τε καὶ αὀράτων αὐτὸς ὑπόστασις ἦν, σὺν αὐτῲ τὰ πάντα). As the living and spiritual Being he reveals himself in free creations, which make known his omnipotence and wisdom, i.e., his operative reason. These creations are, moreover, a proof of the goodness of the Deity, for they can be no result of necessities, in so far as God is in himself perfect. Just because he is perfect, the Eternal Essence is also the Father of all virtues, in so far as he contains no admixture of what is defective. These virtues include both the goodness which manifests itself in his creations, and the righteousness which gives to the creature what belongs to him, in accordance with the position he has received. On the basis of this train of thought the Apologists lay down the dogmas of the monarchy of God (τῶν ὅλων τὸ μοναρχικόν); his supramundaneness (τὸ ἄρρητον, τὸ ἀνέκφραστον, τὸ ἀχώριτον, τὸ ἀκατάληπτον, τὸ ἀπερινόητον, τὸ ἀσύγκριτον, τὸ ἀσυμβίβαστον, τὸ ἀνεκδιηγητόν; see Justin, Apol, II. 6; Theoph. I. 3); his unity (εἷς Θεός); his having no beginning (ἄναρχος, ὅτι ἀγένητος); his eternity and unchangeableness (ἀναλλοίωτος καθότι ἀθάνατος); his perfection (τέλειος); his need of nothing (ἀπροσδεής); his spiritual nature (πνεῦμα ὁ Θεός); his absolute causality (αὐτὸς ὑπάρχων τοῦ παντὸς ἡ ὑπόστασις, the motionless mover, see Aristides c. 1); his creative activity (κτίστης τῶν πάντων); his sovereignty (δεσπότης τῶν ὅλων); his fatherhood (πατὴρ διὰ τὸ εἶναι αὐτὸν πρὸ τῶν ὅλων) his reason-power (God as λόγος, νοῦς, πνεῦμα, σοφία); his omnipotence (παντοκράτωρ ὅτι αὐτὸς τὰ πάντα κρατεῖ καὶ ἐμπεριέχει); his righteousness and goodness (πατὴρ τῆς δικαιοσύνης καὶ πασῶν τῶν ἀρετῶν χρηστότης). These dogmas are set forth by one Apologist in a more detailed, and by another in a more concise form, but three points are emphasised by all. First, God is primarily to be conceived as the First Cause. Secondly, the principle of moral good is also the principle of the world. Thirdly, the principle of the world, that is, the Deity, as being the immortal and eternal, forms the contrast to the world which is the transient. In the cosmology of the Apologists the two fundamental ideas are that God is the Father and Creator of the world, but that, as uncreated and eternal, he is also the complete contrast to it.See the exposition of the doctrine of God in Aristides with the conclusion found in all the Apologists, that God requires no offerings and presents.

These dogmas about God were not determined by the Apologists from the standpoint of the Christian Church which is awaiting an introduction into the Kingdom of God; but were deduced from a contemplation of the world on the one hand (see particularly Tatian, 4; Theophilus, I. 5, 6), and of the moral nature of man on the other. But, in so far as the latter itself belongs to the sphere of created things, the cosmos is the starting-point of their speculations. This is everywhere dominated by reason and order;Even Tatian says in c. 19: Κόσμου μὲν γὰρ ἡ κατασκευὴ καλή, τὸ δὲ ἐν ἀυτῷ πολίτευμα φαῦλον. it bears the impress of the divine Logos, and that in a double sense. On the one hand it appears as the copy of a higher, eternal world, for if we imagine transient and changeable matter removed, it is a wonderful complex of spiritual forces; on the other it presents itself as the finite product of a rational will. Moreover, the matter which lies at its basis is nothing bad, but an indifferent substance created by God,Tatian 5: Οὔτε ἄναρχος ἡ ὕλη καθάπερ ὁ Θεός, οὐδὲ διὰ τὸ ἄναρχον καὶ αὐτὴ ἰσοδύναμος τῷ Θεῷ· γεννητὴ δὲ καὶ οὐχ ὑπό τοῦ ἄλλου γεγονυῖα· μόνον δε ὑπὸ τοῦ πάντων δημιουργοῦ προβεβλημένη. 12. Even Justin does not seem to have taught otherwise, though that is not quite certain; see Apol. I. 10, 59, 64, 67: II. 6. Theophilus I. 4: II. 4, 10, 13 says very plainly: ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων τὰ πάντα ἐποίησεν . . . . τί δὲ μέγα, εἰ ὁ θεὸς ἐξ ὑποκειμένης ὕλης ἐποίει τὸν κόσμον. though indeed perishable. In its constitution the world is in every respect a structure worthy of God.Hence the knowledge of God and the right knowledge of the world are most closely connected; see Tatian 27: ἡ Θεοῦ κατάληψις ἥν ἔχω περὶ τῶν ὅλων. Nevertheless, according to the Apologists, the direct author of the world was not God, but the personified power of reason which they perceived in the cosmos and represented as the immediate source of the universe. The motive for this dogma and the interest in it would be wrongly determined by alleging that the Apologists purposely introduced the Logos in order to separate God from matter, because they regarded this as something bad. This idea of Philo’s cannot at least have been adopted by them as the result of conscious reflection, for it does not agree with their conception of matter; nor is it compatible with their idea of God and their belief in Providence, which is everywhere firmly maintained. Still less indeed can it be shown that they were all impelled to this dogma from their view of Jesus Christ, since in this connection, with the exception of Justin and Tertullian, they manifested no specific interest in the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus. The adoption of the dogma of the Logos is rather to be explained thus: (1) The idea of God, derived by abstraction from the cosmos, did indeed, like that of the idealistic philosophy, involve the element of unity and spirituality, which implied a sort of personality; but the fulness of all spiritual forces, the essence of everything imperishable were quite as essential features of the conception; for in spite of the transcendence inseparable from the notion of God, this idea was neverthless meant to explain the world.The beginning of the fifth chapter of Tatian’s Oration is specially instructive here. Accordingly, they required a formula capable of expressing the transcendent and unchangeable nature of God on the one hand, and his fulness of creative and spiritual powers on the other. But the latter attributes themselves had again to be comprehended in a unity, because the law of the cosmos bore the appearance of a harmonious one. From this arose the idea of the Logos, and indeed the latter was necessarily distinguished from God as a separate existence, as soon as the realisation of the powers residing in God was represented as beginning. The Logos is the hypostasis of the operative power of reason, which at once preserves the unity and unchangeableness of God in spite of the exercise of the powers residing in him, and renders this very exercise possible. (2) Though the Apologists believed in the divine origin of the revelation given to the prophets, on which all knowledge of truth is based, they could nevertheless not be induced by this idea to represent God himself as a direct actor. For that revelation presupposes a speaker and a spoken word; but it would be an impossible thought to make the fulness of all essence and the first cause of all things speak. The Deity cannot be a speaking and still less a visible person, yet according to the testimony of the prophets, a Divine Person was seen by them. The Divine Being who makes himself known on earth in audible and visible fashion can only be the Divine Word. As, however, according to the fundamental view of the Apologists the principle of religion, i.e., of the knowledge of the truth, is also the principle of the world, so that Divine Word, which imparts the right knowledge of the world, must be identical with the Divine Reason which produced the world itself. In other words, the Logos is not only the creative Reason of God, but also his revealing Word. This explains the motive and aim of the dogma of the Logos. We need not specially point out that nothing more than the precision and certainty of the Apologists’ manner of statement is peculiar here; the train of thought itself belongs to Greek philosophy. But that very confidence is the most essential feature of the case; for in fact the firm belief that the principle of the world is also that of revelation represents an important early-Christian idea, though indeed in the form of philosophical reflection. To the majority of the Apologists the theoretical content of the Christian faith is completely exhausted in this proposition. They required no particular Christology, for in every revelation of God by his Word they already recognised a proof of his existence not to be surpassed, and consequently regarded it as Christianity in nuce.According to what has been set forth in the text it is incorrect to assert that the Apologists adopted the Logos doctrine in order to reconcile monotheism with the divine honours paid to the crucified Christ. The truth rather is that the Logos doctrine was already part of their creed before they gave any consideration to the person of the historical Christ, and vice versâ Christ’s right to divine honours was to them a matter of certainty independently of the Logos doctrine. But the fact that the Apologists made a distinction in thesi between the prophetic Spirit of God and the Logos, without being able to make any use of this distinction, is a very clear instance of their dependence on the formulæ of the Church’s faith. Indeed their conception of the Logos continually compelled them to identify the Logos and the Spirit, just as they not unfrequently define Christianity as the belief in the true God and in his Son, without mentioning the Spirit.We find the distinction of Logos (Son) and Spirit in Justin, Apol. I. 5, and in every case where he quotes formulæ (if we are not to assume the existence of interpolation in the text, which seems to me not improbable; see now also Cramer in the Theologische Studien, 1893. pp. 17 ff., 138 ff.). In Tatian 13 fin. the Spirit is represented as ὁ διάκονος τοῦ πεπονθότος Θεοῦ. The conception in Justin, Dial. 116, is similar. Father, Word, and prophetic Spirit are spoken of in Athenag. 10. The express designation τρίας is first found in. Theophilus (but see the Excerpta ex Theodoto); see II. 15: αἰ τρεῖς ἡμέραι τύποι ἑισὶν τῆς τριάδος, τοῦ Θεοῦ καὶ τοῦ λόγου ἀυτοῦ καὶ τῆς σοφίας ἀυτοῦ; see II. 10, 18. But it is just in Theophilus that the difficulty of deciding between Logos and Wisdom appears with special plainness (II. 10). The interposition of the host of good angels between Son and Spirit found in Justin, Apol. I. 5 (see Athenag.), is exceedingly striking. We have, however, to notice, provided the text is right, (1) that this interposition is only found in a single passage, (2) that Justin wished to refute the reproach of ἀθεότης, (3) that the placing of the Spirit after the angels does not necessarily imply a position inferior to theirs, but merely a subordination to the Son and the Father common to the Spirit and the angels, (4) that the good angels were also invoked by the Christians, because they were conceived as mediators of prayer (see my remark on I. Clem. ad Corinth. LVI. 1); they might have found a place here just for this latter reason. On the significance of the Holy Spirit in the theology of Justin, see Zahn Marcellus of Ancyra, p. 228: “If there be any one theologian of the early Church who might be regarded as depriving the Holy Spirit of all scientific raison d’être at least on the ground of having no distinctive(?) activity, and the Father of all share in revelation, it is Justin.” We cannot at bottom say that the Apologists possessed a doctrine of the Trinity. Further their dependence on the Christian tradition is shown in the fact that the most of them expressly designated the Logos as the Son of God.To Justin the name of the Son is the most important; see also Athenag. 10. The Logos had indeed been already called the Son of God by Philo, and Celsus expressly says (Orig., c. Cels. II. 31); “If according to your doctrine the Word is really the Son of God then we agree with you;” but the Apologists are the first to attach the name of Son to the Logos as a proper designation. If, however, the Logos is intrinsically the Son of God, then Christ is the Son of God, not because he is the begotten of God in the flesh (early Christian), but because the spiritual being existing in him is the antemundane reproduction of God (see Justin, Apol. II. 6: ὁ ὑιὸς τοῦ πατρὸς καὶ Θεοῦ, ὁ μόνος λεγόμενος κυριώς ὑιός) — a momentous expression.

The Logos doctrine of the Apologists is an essentially unanimous one. Since God cannot be conceived as without reason, ἄλογος, but as the fulness of all reason,Athenag., l0; Tatian, Orat. 5. he has always Logos in himself. This Logos is on the one hand the divine consciousness itself, and on the other the power (idea and energy) to which the world is due; he is not separate from God, but is contained in his essence.The clearest expression of this is in Tatian 5, which passage is also to be compared with the following: Θεὸς ἦν ἐν ἀρχῇ, τὴν δὲ ἀρχὴν λόγου δύναμιν παρειλήφαμεν. Ὁ γὰρ δεσπότης τῶν ὅλων, αὐτὸς ὑπάρχων τοῦ παντὸς ἡ ὑπόστασις, κατὰ μὲν τὴν μηδέπω γεγενημένην ποίησιν μόνος ἦν· καθὸ δὲ πᾶσα δύναμις, ὁρατῶν τε καὶ ἀοράτων ἀοράτων ἀυτὸς ὑπόστασις ἦν, σὺν αὐτῷ τὰ πάντα· σὺν αὐτῷ διὰ λογικῆς δυνάμεως αὐτὸς καὶ ὁ λόγος, ὅς ἦν ἐν αὐτῷ, ὑπέστησε. Θελήματι δέ τῆς ἁπλότητος αὐτοῦ προπηδᾷ λόγος· ὁ δὲ λόγος, ὀυ κατὰ κενοῦ χωρήσας, ἔργον πρωτότοκον τοῦ πατρὸς γίνεται. Τοῦτον ἴσμεν τοῦ κόσμου τὴν ἀρχήν. Γέγονε δὲ κατὰ μερισμόν, ο̦ κατὰ ἀποκοπήν· τὸ γὰρ ἀποτμηθὲν τοῦ πρώτου κεχώρισται, τὸ δὲ μερισθὲν οἰκονομίας τὴν αἵρεσιν προσλαβὸν οὐκ ἐνδεᾶ τὸν ὅθεν εἴληπται πεπόιηκεν. Ὥστερ γὰρ ἀπὸ μιᾶς δᾳδὸς ἀνάπτεται μὲν πυρὰ πολλὰ, τῆς δὲ πρώτης δᾳδὸς διὰ τὴν ἔξαψιν τῶν πολλῶν δᾳδῶν οὐκ ἐλαττοῦται τὸ φῶς, οὕτω καὶ ὁ λόγος προελθὼν ἐκ τῆς τοῦ πατρὸς δυνάμεως οὐκ ἄλογον πεποίηκε τὸν γεγεννηκότα. In the identification of the divine consciousness, that is, the power of God, with the force to which the world is clue the naturalistic basis of the apologetic speculations is most clearly shown. Cf. Justin, Dial. 128, 129. For the sake of the creation God produced (sent forth, projected) the Logos from himself, that is, he engenderedThe word “beget” (γεννᾶν) is used by the Apologists, especially Justin, because the name “Son” was the recognised expression for the Logos. No doubt the words ἐξερέυγεσθαι, προβάλλεσθαι, προέρχεσθαι, προπηδᾶν and the like express the physical process more exactly in the sense of the Apologists. On the other hand, however, γεννᾶν appears the more appropriate word in so far as the relation of the essence of the Logos to the essence of God is most clearly shown by the name “Son”. him from his essence by a free and simple act of will (Θεὸς ἐκ Θεοῦ πεφυκώς εξ ἑαυτοῦ. Dial. 61). Then for the first time the Logos became a hypostasis separate from God, or, in other words, he first came into existence; and, in virtue of his origin, he possesses the following distinctive features:None of the Apologists has precisely defined the Logos idea. Zahn, 1.c., p. 233, correctly remarks: “Whilst the distinction drawn between the hitherto unspoken and the spoken word of the Creator makes Christ appear as the thought of the world within the mind of God, yet he is also to be something real which only requires to enter into a new relation to God to become an active force. Then again this Word is not to be the thought that God thinks, but the thought that thinks in God. And again it is to be a something, or an Ego, in God’s thinking essence, which enters into reciprocal intercourse with something else in God; occasionally also the reason of God which is in a state of active exercise and without which he would not be rational.” Considering this evident uncertainty it appears to me a very dubious proceeding to differentiate the conceptions of the Logos in Justin, Athenagoras, Tatian, and Theophilus, as is usually done. If we consider that no Apologist wrote a special treatise on the Logos, that Tatian (c. 5) is really the only one from whom we have any precise statements, and that the elements of the conception are the same in all, it appears inadvisable to lay so great stress on the difference as Zahn, for instance, has done in the book already referred to, p. 232, f. Hardly any real difference can have. existed between Justin, Tatian, and Theophilus in the Logos doctrine proper. On the other hand Athenagoras certainly seems to have tried to eliminate the appearance of the Logos in time, and to emphasise the eternal nature of the divine relationships, without, however, reaching the position which Irenæus took up here. (1) The inner essence of the Logos is identical with the essence of God himself; for it is the product of self-separation in God, willed and brought about by himself. Further, the Logos is not cut off and separated from God, nor is he a mere modality in him. He is rather the independent product of the self-unfolding of God (οἰκονομία), which product, though it is the epitome of divine reason, has nevertheless not stripped the Father of this attribute. The Logos is the revelation of God, and the visible God. Consequently the Logos is really God and Lord, i.e., he possesses the divine nature in virtue of his essence. The Apologists, however, only know of one kind of divine nature and this is that which belongs to the Logos. (2) From the moment when he was begotten the Logos is a being distinct from the Father; he is ἀριθμῷ ἐτερόν τι, Θεὸς ἕτερος, Θεὸς δεύτερος (“something different in number, another God, a second God.”) But his personality only dates from that moment. “Fuit tempus, cum patri filius non fuit,” (“there was a time when the Father had no Son”, so Tertullian, adv. Hermog. 3).The λόγος προφορικός is for the first time a hypostasis distinct from the Father, the λόγος ἐνδιάθετος is not.This distinction is only found in Theophilus (II. 10); but the idea exists in Tatian and probably also in Justin, though it is uncertain whether Justin regarded the Logos as having any sort of being before the moment of his begetting. (3) The Logos has an origin, the Father has not; hence it follows that in relation to God the Logos is a creature; he is the begotten, that is, the created God, the God who has a beginning. Wherefore in rank he is below God (ἐν δευτέρᾳ χώρᾳ — δεύτερος Θεός, “in the second place, and a second God”), the messenger and servant of God. The subordination of the Logos is not founded on the content of his essence, but on his origin. In relation to the creatures, however, the Logos is the ἀρχή, i.e., not only the beginning but the principle of the vitality and form of everything that is to receive being. As an emanation (the begotten) he is distinguished from all creatures, for he alone is the Son;Justin, Apol. II. 6., Dial. 61. The Logos is not produced out of nothing, like the rest of the creatures. Yet it is evident that the Apologists did not yet sharply and precisely distinguish between begetting and creating, as the later theologians did; though some of them certainly felt the necessity for a distinction. but, as having a beginning, he again stands on a level with them. Hence the paradoxical expression, ἔργον πρωτότοκον τοῦ πατρός (“first begotten work of the Father”), is here the most appropriate designation. (4) In virtue of his finite origin, it is possible and proper for the Logos to enter into the finite, to act, to speak. and to appear. As he arose for the sake of the creation of the world, he has the capacity of personal and direct revelation which does not belong to the infinite God; nay, his whole essence consists in the very fact that he is thought, word, and deed. Behind this active substitute and vicegerent, the Father stands in the darkness of the incomprehensible, and in the incomprehensible light of perfection as the hidden, unchangeable God.All the Apologists tacitly assume that the Logos in virtue of his origin has the capacity of entering the finite. The distinction which here exists between Father and Son is very pregnantly expressed by Tertullian (adv. Marc. II. 27): “Igitur quæcumque exigitis deo digna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido et, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo. Quæcumque autem ut indigna reprehenditis deputabuntur in filio et viso et audito et congresso, arbitro patris et ministro.” But we ought not to charge the Apologists with the theologoumenon that it was an inward necessity for the Logos to become man. Their Logos hovers, as it were, between God and the world, so that he appears as the highest creature, in so far as he is conceived as the production of God; and again seems to be merged in God, in so far as he is looked upon as the consciousness and spiritual force of God. To Justin, however, the incarnation is irrational, and the rest of the Greek Apologists are silent about it.

With the issuing forth of the Logos from God began the realisation of the idea of the world. The world as κόσμος νοητός is contained in the Logos. But the world is material and manifold, the Logos is spiritual and one. Therefore the Logos is not himself the world, but he is its creator and in a certain fashion its archetype. Justin and Tatian used the expression “beget” (γεννᾶν) for the creation of the world, but in connections which do not admit of any importance being attached to this use. The world was created out of nothing after a host of spirits, as is assumed by most Apologists, had been created along with heaven, which is a higher, glorious world. The purpose of the creation of the world was and is the production of men, i.e., beings possessed of soul and body, endowed with reason and freedom, and therefore made in the image of God; beings who are to partake of the blessedness and perfection of God. Everything is created for man’s sake, and his own creation is a proof of the goodness of God. As beings possessed of soul and body, men are neither mortal nor immortal, but capable either of death or immortality.The most of the Apologists argue against the conception of the natural immortality of the human soul; see Tatian 13; Justin, Dial.5; Theoph. II. 27. The condition on which men can attain the latter introduces us to ethics. The doctrines, that God is also the absolute Lord of matter; that evil cannot be a quality of matter, but rather arose in time and from the free decision of the spirits or angels; and finally that the world will have an end, but God can call the destroyed material into existence, just as he once created it out of nothing, appear in principle to reconcile the dualism in the cosmology. We have the less occasion to give the details here, because they are known from the philosophical systems of the period, especially Philo’s, and vary in manifold ways. All the Apologists, however, are imbued with the idea that this knowledge of God and the world, the genesis of the Logos and cosmos, are the most essential part of Christianity itself.The first chapter of Genesis represented to them the sum of all wisdom, and therefore of all Christianity. Perhaps Justin had already written a commentary to the Hexaëmeron (see my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1, 2, p. 169 f.). It is certain that in the second century Rhodon (Euseb., H. E. V. 13. 8), Theophilus (see his 2nd Book ad Autol.), Candidus, and Apion (Euseb., H. E. V. 27) composed such. The Gnostics also occupied themselves a great deal with Gen. I.-III.; see, e.g., Marcus in Iren. I. 18. This conception is really not peculiar to the Apologists: in the second century the great majority of Christians, in so far as they reflected at all, regarded the monotheistic explanation of the world as a main part of the Christian religion. The theoretical view of the world as a harmonious whole, of its order, regularity and beauty; the certainty that all this had been called into existence by an Almighty Spirit; the sure hope that heaven and earth will pass away, but will give place to a still more glorious structure, were always present, and put an end to the bright and gorgeously coloured, but phantastic and vague, cosmogonies and theogonies of antiquity.

2. Their clear system of morality is in keeping with their relatively simple cosmology. In giving man reason and freedom as an inalienable possession God destined him for incorruptibility (ἀθανασία, ἀφθαρσία), by the attainment of which he was to become a being similar to God.See Theophilus ad Aut. II. 27: Εἰ γὰρ ὁ Θεὸς ἀθάνατον τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς πεποιήκει, Θεὸν αὐτὸν πεποιήκει· πάλιν εἰ θνητὸν ἀυτὸν πεποιήκει ἐδόκει ἄν ὁ Θεὸς αἴτιος εἶναι τοῦ θανάτου αὐτοῦ. Οὔτε οὖν ἀθάνατον ἀυτὸν ἐποίησεν οὔτε μὴν θνητόν, ἀλλὰ δεκτικὸν ἀμφοτέρων; ἵνα, εἰ ῥέψῃ ἐπὶ τὰ τῆς ἀθανασίας τηρήσας τὴν ἑντολὴν τοῦ Θεοῦ, μισθὸν κομίσηται παῤ αὐτοῦ τὴν ἀθανασίαν καὶ γένηται Θεός, εἰ δ᾽ αὖ τραπῇ ἐπὶ τὰ τοῦ θανάτου πράγματα παρακούσας τοῦ Θεοῦ, αὐτὸς ἐαυτῷ αἴτιος ᾖ τοῦ θανάτου. To the gift of imperishability God, however, attached the condition of man’s preserving τὰ τῆς ἀθανασίας (“the things of immortality”), i.e., preserving the knowledge of God and maintaining a holy walk in imitation of the divine perfection. This demand is as natural as it is just; moreover, nobody can fulfil it in man’s stead, for an essential feature of virtue is its being free, independent action. Man must therefore determine himself to virtue by the knowledge that he is only in this way obedient to the Father of the world and able to reckon on the gift of immortality. The conception of the content of virtue, however, contains an element which cannot be clearly apprehended from the cosmology; moral goodness consists in letting oneself be influenced in no way by the sensuous, but in living solely, after the Spirit, and imitating the perfection and purity of God. Moral badness is giving way to any affection resulting from the natural basis of man. The Apologists undoubtedly believe that virtue consists negatively in man’s renunciation of what his natural constitution of soul and body demands or impels him to. Some express this thought in a more pregnant and unvarnished fashion, others in a milder way. Tatian, for instance, says that we must divest ourselves of the human nature within us; but in truth the idea is the same in all. The moral law of nature of which the Apologists speak, and which they find reproduced in the clearest and most beautiful way in the sayings of Jesus,See Justin, Apol. I. 14 ff. and the parallel passages in the other Apologists. calls upon man to raise himself above his nature and to enter into a corresponding union with his fellow-man which is something higher than natural connections. It is not so much the law of love that is to rule everything, for love itself is only a phase of a higher law; it is the law governing the perfect and sublime Spirit, who, as being the most exalted existence on this earth, is too noble for the world. Raised already in this knowledge beyond time and space, beyond the partial and the finite, the man of God, even while upon the earth, is to hasten to the Father of Light. By equanimity, absence of desires, purity, and goodness, which are the necessary results of clear knowledge, he is to show that he has already risen above the transient through gazing on the imperishable and through the enjoyment of knowledge, imperfect though the latter still be. If thus, a suffering hero, he has stood the test on earth, if he has become dead to the world,See Tatian, Orat.11. and many other passages. he may be sure that in the life to come God will bestow on him the gift of immortality, which includes the direct contemplation of God together with the perfect knowledge that flows from it. Along with this the Apologists emphasise the resurrection of the flesh in the strongest way as the specific article of Christian anticipation, and prove the possibility of realising this irrational hope. Yet to the Apologists the ultimate ground of their trust in this early-Christian idea is their reliance on the unlimited omnipotence of God and this confidence is a proof of the vividness of their idea of him. Nevertheless this conception assumes that in the other world there will be a return of the flesh, which on this side the grave had to be overcome and regarded as non-existent. A clearly chiliastic element is found only in Justin. Conversely, the vicious man is given over to eternal death, and in this punishment the righteousness of God is quite as plainly manifested, as in the reward of everlasting life.

3. While it is certain that virtue is a matter of freedom, it is just as sure that no soul is virtuous unless it follows the will of God, i.e., knows and judges of God and all things as they must be known and judged of; and fulfils the commandments of God. This presupposes a revelation of God through the Logos. A revelation of God, complete in itself and mediated by the Logos, is found in the cosmos and in the constitution of man, he being created in his Maker’s image.No uniform conception of this is found in the Apologists; see Wendt, Die Christliche Lehre von der menschlichen Vollkommenheit 1882, pp. 8-20. Justin speaks only of a heavenly destination for which man is naturally adapted. With Tatian and Theophilus it is different. But experience has shown that this revelation is insufficient to enable men to retain clear knowledge. They yielded to the seduction of evil demons, who, by God’s sufferance, took possession of the world, and availed themselves of man’s sensuous side to draw him away from the contemplation of the divine and lead him to the earthly.The idea that the demon sovereignty has led to some change in the psychological condition and capacities of man is absolutely unknown to Justin (see Wendt, l. c., p. 11 f., who has successfully defended the correct view in Engelhardt’s “Das Christenthum Justin’s des Märtyrers” pp. 92 f. 151. f. 266 f., against Stählin, “Justin der Märtyrer und sein neuester Beurtheiler” 1880, p. 16 f.). Tatian expressed a different opinion, which, however, involved him in evident contradictions (see above, p. 191 ff.). The apologetic theology necessarily adhered to the two following propositions: (1) The freedom to do what is good is not lost and cannot be. This doctrine was opposed to philosophic determinism and popular fatalism. (2) The desires of the flesh resulting from the constitution of man only become evil when they destroy or endanger the sovereignty of reason. The formal liberum arbitrium explains the possibility of sin, whilst its actual existence is accounted for by the desire that is excited by the demons. The Apologists acknowledge the universality of sin and death, but refused to admit the necessity of the former in order not to call its guilty character in question. On the other hand they are deeply imbued with the idea that the sovereignty of death is the most powerful factor in the perpetuation of sin. Their believing conviction of the omnipotence of God, as well as their moral conviction of the responsibility of man, protected them in theory from a strictly dualistic conception of the world. At the same time, like all who separate nature and morality in their ethical system, though in other respects they do not do so, the Apologists were obliged in practice to be dualists. The results of this temptation appeared in the facts that humanity as a whole fell a prey to error, was subjected to the bonds of the sensuous and of the demons, and therefore became doomed to death, which is at once a punishment and the natural consequence of want of knowledge of God.Death is accounted the worst evil. When Theophilus (II. 26) represents it as a blessing, we must consider that he is arguing against Marcion. Polytheism is traced to the demons; they are accounted the authors of the fables about the gods; the shameful actions of the latter are partly the deeds of demons and partly lies. Hence it required fresh efforts of the Logos to free men from a state which is indeed in no instance an unavoidable necessity, though a sad fact in the case of almost all. For very few are now able to recognise the one true God from the order of the universe and from the moral law implanted in themselves; nor can they withstand the power of the demons ruling in the world and use their freedom to imitate the virtues of God. Therefore the Almighty in his goodness employed new means through the Logos to call men back from the error of their ways, to overthrow the sovereignty of the demons upon earth, and to correct the disturbed course of the world before the end has yet come. From the earliest times the Logos (the Spirit) has descended on such men as preserved their souls pure, and bestowed on them, through inspiration, knowledge of the truth (with reference to God, freedom, virtue, the demons, the origin of polytheism, the judgment) to be imparted by them to others. These are his “prophets”. Such men are rare among the Greeks (and according to some not found at all), but numerous among the barbarians, i.e., among the Jewish people. Taught by God, they announced the truth about him, and under the promptings of the Logos they also committed the revelations to writings, which therefore, as being inspired, are an authentic record of the whole truth.The Old Testament therefore is not primarily viewed as the book of prophecy or of preparation for Christ, but as the book of the full revelation which cannot be surpassed. In point of content the teaching of the prophets and of Christ is completely identical. The prophetical details in the Old Testament serve only to attest the one truth. The Apologists confess that they were converted to Christianity by reading the Old Testament. Cf. Justin’s and Tatian’s confessions. Perhaps Commodian (Instruct. I. 1) is also be understood thus. To some of the most virtuous among them he himself even appeared in human form and gave directions. He then is a Christian, who receives and follows these prophetic teachings, that have ever been proclaimed afresh from the beginning of the world down to the present time, and are summed up in the Old Testament, Such a one is enabled even now to rescue his soul from the rule of the demons, and may confidently expect the gift of immortality.

With the majority of the Apologists “Christianity” seems to be exhausted in these doctrines; in fact, they do not even consider it necessary to mention ex professo the appearance of the Logos in Christ (see above, p. 189 ff.). But, while it is certain that they all recognised that the teachings of the prophets contained the full revelation of the truth, we would be quite wrong in assuming that they view the appearance and history of Christ as of no significance. In their presentations some of them no doubt contented themselves with setting forth the most rational and simple elements, and therefore took almost no notice of the historical; but even in their case certain indications show that they regarded the manifestation of the Logos in Christ as of special moment.The Oratio of Tatian is very instructive in this respect. In this book he has nowhere spoken ex professo of the incarnation of the Logos in Christ; but in c. 13 fin. he calls the Holy Spirit “the servant of God who has suffered”, and in c. 21 init. he says: “we are not fools and do not adduce anything stupid, when we proclaim that God has appeared in human form.” Similar expressions are found in Minucius Felix. In no part of Aristides’ Apology is there any mention of the pre-Christian appearance of the Logos. The writer merely speaks of the revelation of the Son of God in Jesus Christ. For the prophetic utterances, as found from the beginning, require an attestation, the prophetic teaching requires a guarantee, so that misguided humanity may accept them and no longer take error for truth and truth for error. The strongest guarantee imaginable is found in the fulfilment of prophecy. Since no man is able to foretell what is to come, the prediction of the future accompanying a doctrine proves its divine origin. God, in his extraordinary goodness, not only inspired the prophets, through the Logos, with the doctrines of truth, but has from the beginning put numerous predictions in their mouth. These predictions were detailed and manifold; the great majority of them referred to a more prolonged appearance of the Logos in human form at the end of history, and to a future judgment. Now, so long as the predictions had not yet come to pass, the teachings of the prophets were not sufficiently impressive, for the only sure witness of the truth is its outward attestation. In the history of Christ, however, the majority of these prophecies were fulfilled in the most striking fashion, and this not only guarantees the fulfilment of the relatively small remainder not yet come to pass (judgment, resurrection), but also settles beyond all doubt the truth of the prophetic teachings about God, freedom, virtue, immortality, etc. In the scheme of fulfilment and prophecy even the irrational becomes rational; for the fulfilment of a prediction is not a proof of its divine origin unless it refers to something extraordinary. Any one can predict regular occurrences which always take place, Accordingly, a part of what was predicted had to be irrational. Every particular in the history of Christ has therefore a significance, not as regards the future, but as regards the past. Here everything happened that the word of the prophet might be fulfilled.” Because the prophet had said so, it had to happen. Christ’s destiny attests the ancient teachings of the prophets. Everything, however, depends on this attestation, for it was no longer the full truth that was wanting, but a convincing proof that the truth was a reality and not a fancy.We seldom receive an answer to the question as to why this or that particular occurrence should have been prophesied. According to the ideas of the Apologists, however, we have hardly a right to put that question; for, since the value of the historical consists in its having been predicted, its content is of no importance. The fact that Jesus finds the she-ass bound to a vine (Justin, Apol. 1. 32) is virtually quite as important as his being born of a virgin. Both occurrences attest the prophetic teachings of God, freedom, etc. But prophecy testifies that Christ is the ambassador of God, the Logos that has appeared in human form, and the Son of God. If the future destiny of Jesus is recorded in the Old Testament down to the smallest particular, and the book at the same time declares that this predicted One is the Son of God and will be crucified, then the paying of divine honours to this crucified man, to whom all the features of prophecy apply, is completely justified. The stage marked by Christ in the history of God’s revelation, the content of which is always the same, is therefore the highest and last, because in it the “truth along with the proof” has appeared. This circumstance explains why the truth is so much more impressive and convinces more men than formerly, especially since Christ has also made special provision for the spread of the truth and is himself an unequalled exemplification of a virtuous life, the principles of which have now become known in the whole world through the spread of his precepts.

These statements exhaust the arguments in most of the Apologies; and they accordingly seem neither to have contemplated a redemption by Christ in the stricter sense of the word, nor to have assumed the unique nature of the appearance of the Logos in Jesus. Christ accomplished salvation as a divine teacher, that is to say, his teaching brings about the ἀλλαγή and ἐπαναγωγή of the human race, its restoration to its original destination. This also seems to suffice as regards demon rule. Logically considered, the individual portions of the history of Jesus (of the baptismal Confession) have no direct significance in respect to salvation. Hence the teachings of the Christians seem to fall into two groups having no inward connection, i.e., the propositions treating of the rational knowledge of God, and the predicted and fulfilled historical facts which prove those doctrines and the believing hopes they include.

But Justin at least gave token of a manifest effort to combine the historical statements regarding Christ with the philosophical and moral doctrines of salvation and to conceive Jesus as the Redeemer.In Justin’s polemical works this must have appeared in a still more striking way. Thus we find in a fragment of the treatise πρὸς Μαρκίωνα, quoted by Irenæus (IV. 6. 2), the sentence “unigenitus filius venit ad nos, suum plasma in semetipsum recapitulans.” So the theologoumenon of the recapitulatio per Christum already appeared in Justin. (Vide also Dial. c. Tryph. 100.) If we compare Tertullian’s Apologeticum with his Antignostic writings we easily see how impossible it is to determine from that work the extent of his Christian faith and knowledge. The same is probably the case, though to a less extent, with Justin’s apologetic writings. Accordingly, if the Christian dogmatic of succeeding times is found in the connection of philosophical theology with the baptismal confession, that is, in the “scientific theology of facts”, Justin is, in a certain fashion, the first framer of Church dogma, though no doubt in a very tentative way. (1) He tried to distinguish between the appearance of the Logos in pre-Christian times and in Christ; he emphasised the fact that the whole Logos appeared only in Christ, and that the manner of this appearance has no counterpart in the past. (2) Justin showed in the Dialogue that, independently of the theologoumenon of the Logos, he was firmly convinced of the divinity of Christ on the ground of predictions and of the impression made by his personality.Christians do not place a man alongside of God, for Christ is God, though indeed a second God. There is no question of two natures. It is not the divine nature that Justin has insufficiently emphasised — or at least this is only the case in so far as it is a second Godhead — but the human nature; see Schultz, Gottheit Christi, p. 39 ff. (3) In addition to the story of the exaltation of Christ, Justin also emphasised other portions of his history, especially the death on the cross (together with baptism and the Lord’s Supper) and tried to give them a positive significance. We find allusions in Justin where the various incidents in the history of the incarnate Logos are conceived as a series of arrangements meant to form part of the history of salvation, to paralyse mankind’s sinful history, and to regenerate humanity. He is thus a forerunner of Irenæus and Melito. He adopted the common Christian saying that the blood of Christ cleanses believers and men are healed through his wounds; and he tried to give a mystic significance to the cross. (4) He accordingly spoke of the forgiveness of sins through Christ and confessed that men are changed, through the new birth in baptism, from children of necessity and ignorance into children of purpose and understanding and forgiveness of sins.Even the theologoumenon of the definite number of the elect, which must be fulfilled, is found in Justin (Apol. I. 28, 45). For that reason the judgment is put off by God (II. 7). The Apology of Aristides contains a short account of the history of Jesus; his conception, birth, preaching, choice of the 12 Apostles, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension, sending out of the 12 Apostles are mentioned. Von Engelhardt has, however, quite rightly noticed that these are mere words which have nothing at all corresponding to them in the general system of thought, because Justin remains convinced that the knowledge of the true God, of his will, and of his promises, or the certainty that God will always grant forgiveness to the repentant and eternal life to the righteous, is sufficient to convert the man who is master of himself. Owing to the fundamental conviction which is expressed in the formulæ, “perfect philosophy”, “divine teacher”, “new law”, “freedom”, “repentance”, “sinless life”, “sure hope”, “reward”, “immortality”, the ideas, “forgiveness of sins”, “redemption”, “reconciliation”, “new birth”, “faith” (in the Pauline sense) must remain words,“To Justin faith is only an acknowledgment of the mission and Sonship of Christ and a conviction of the truth of his teaching. Faith does not justify, but is merely a presupposition of the justification which is effected through repentance, change of mind, and sinless life. Only in so far as faith itself is already a free. decision to serve God has it the value of a saving act, which is indeed of such significance that one can say, ‘Abraham was justified by faith.’ In reality, however, this took place through μετάνοια.” The idea of the new birth is exhausted in the thought: Θεὸς καλεῖ εἰς μετάνοιαν, that of the forgiveness of sins in the idea: “God is so good that he overlooks sins committed in a state of ignorance, if man has changed his mind.” Accordingly, Christ is the Redeemer in so far as he has brought about all the conditions which make for repentance. or be relegated to the sphere of magic and mystery. This is in fact already the case in Justin here and there, but in the main there are as yet mere traces of it: the Apologists are no mystics. Nevertheless we must not on that account overlook the intention. Justin tried to see the divine revelation not only in the sayings of the prophets, but in unique fashion in the person of Christ, and to conceive Christ not only as the divine teacher, but also as the “Lord and Redeemer”. In two points he actually succeeded in this. By the resurrection and exaltation of Jesus Justin proved that Christ, the divine teacher, is also the future judge and bestower of reward. Christ himself is able to give what he has promised — a life after death free from sufferings and sins, that is the first point. The other thing, however, which Justin very strongly emphasised is that Jesus is even now reigning in heaven, and shows his future visible sovereignty of the world by giving his own people the power to cast out and vanquish the demons in and by his name. Even at the present time the latter are put to flight by believers in Christ.If we consider how largely the demons bulked in the ideas of the Apologists, we must rate very highly their conviction of the redeeming power of Christ and of his name, a power continuously shown in the victories over the demons. See Justin Apol. II. 6, 8; Dial. 11, 30, 35, 39, 76, 85, 111, 121; Tertull., Apol. 23, 27, 32, 37 etc. Tatian also (16 fin.) confirms it, and c. 12, p. 56, line 7 if. (ed. Otto) does not contradict this. So the redemption is no mere future one; it is even now taking place, and the revelation of the Logos in Jesus Christ is not merely intended to prove the doctrines of the rational religion, but denotes a real redemption, that is, a new beginning, in so far as the power of the demons on earth is overthrown through Christ and in his strength. Jesus Christ, the teacher of the whole truth and of a new law, which is the rational, the oldest, and the divine, the only being who has understood how to call men from all the different nations and in all stages of culture into a union of holy life, the inspiring One, for whom his disciples go to death, the mighty One, through whose name the demons are cast out, the risen One, who will one day reward and punish as judge, must be identical with the Son of God, who is the divine reason and the divine power. In this belief which accompanies the confession of the one God, creator of heaven and earth, Justin finds the special content of Christianity, which the later Apologists, with the probable exception of Melito, reproduced in a much more imperfect and meagre form. One thing, however, Justin in all probability did not formulate with precision, viz., the proposition that the special result of salvation, i.e., immortality, was involved in the incarnation of the Logos, in so far as that act brought about a real secret transformation of the whole mortal nature of man. With Justin, indeed, as with the other Apologists, the “salvation” (σωτηρία) consists essentially in the apportioning of eternal life to the world, which has been created mortal and in consequence of sin has fallen a prey to the natural destiny of “death”; and Christ is regarded as the bestower of incorruptibility who thus brings the creation to its goal; but as a rule Justin does not go beyond this thought. Yet we certainly find hints pointing to the notion of a physical and magical redemption accomplished at the moment of the incarnation. See particularly the fragment in Irenæus (already quoted on page 220), which may be thus interpreted, and Apol. I. 66. This conception, in its most complete shape, would have to be attributed to Justin if the fragment V. (Otto, Corp. Apol. III. p. 256) were genuine. Von Engelhardt, Christenthum Justin’s, p. 432 f., has pronounced against its genuineness; see also my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1, 2, p. 158. In favour of its genuineness see Hilgenfeld, Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theologie, 1883, p. 26 f. The fragments is worded as follows: Πλάσας ὁ Θεὸς κατ᾽ ἀρχὰς τὸν ἄνθρωπον τῆς γνώμης αὐτοῦ τὰ τῆς φύσεως ἀπῃώρησεν ἐντολῇ μιᾷ ποιησάμενος τὴν διάπειραν. Φυλάξαντα μὲν γὰρ ταύτην τῆς ἀθανάτου λήξεως πεποίηκεν ἔσεσθαι, παραβάντα δὲ τῆς ἐναντίας. Οὕτω γεγονὼς ὁ ἄνθρωπος καὶ πρὸς τὴν παράβασιν εὐθὺς ἐλθὼν τὴν φθορὰν φυσικῶς εἰσεδέξατο. Φύσει δὲ τῆς φθορᾶς προσγενομένης ἀναγκαῖον ἦν ὅτι σῶσαι βουλόμενος ἦν τὴν φθοροποιὸν οὐσίαν ἀφανίσας. Τοῦτο δὲ οὐκ ἦν ἑτέρως γενέσθαι, εἰ μήπερ ἡ κατὰ φύσιν ζωὴ προσεπλάκη τῷ τὴν φθορὰν δεξαμένῳ ἀφανιζουσα μὲν τὴν φθοράν, ἀθάνατον δὲ τοῦ λοιποῦ τὸ δεξάμενον διατηροῦσα. Διὰ τοῦτο τὸν λόγον ἐδέησεν ἐν σώματι γενέσθαι, ἵνα (τοῦ θανάτου) τῆς κατὰ φύσιν ἡμᾶς φθορᾶς ἐλευθερώσῃ. Εἰ γὰρ, ὥς φατε, νεύματι μόνον τὸν θάνατον ἡμῶν ἀπεκώλυσεν, οὐ προσῄει μὲν διὰ τὴν βούλησιν ὁ θάνατος, οὐδὲν δὲ ἧττον φθαρτοὶ πάλιν ἦμεν, φυσικὴν ἐν ἑαυτοῖς τὴν φθορὰν περιφέροντες. But the precise form of the presentation makes this very improbable. The question as to how, i.e., in what conceivable way, immortality can be imparted to the mortal nature as yet received little attention from Justin and the Apologists: it is the necessary result of knowledge and virtue. Their great object was to assure the belief in immortality. “Religion and morality depend on the belief in immortality or the resurrection from the dead. The fact that the Christian religion, as faith in the incarnate Son of God the creator, leads to the assurance that the maker of all things will reward piety and righteousness with the bestowal of eternal and immortal life, is the essential advantage possessed by the Christian religion over all others. The righteousness of the heathen was imperfect in spite of all their knowledge of good and evil, because they lacked the certain knowledge that the creator makes the just immortal and will consign the unjust to eternal torment.”! — placement of this note is uncertain — ! Schultz (Gottheit Christi, p. 41) very rightly points out that all the systems of the post-Socratic schools, so far as they practically spread among the people, invariably assume that knowledge, as such, leads to salvation, so that the bestowal of the ἀφθαρσία need not necessarily be thought so naturalistic and mystic a process as we are apt to imagine. The philosophical doctrines of God, virtue, and immortality became through the Apologists the certain content of a world-wide religion, which is Christian because Christ guarantees its certainty. They made Christianity a deistical religion for the whole world without abandoning in word at least the old “teachings and knowledge” (διδάγματα καὶ μαθήματα καὶ μαθήματα) of the Christians. They thus marked out the task of “dogmatic” and, so to speak, wrote the prolegomena for every future theological system in the Church (see Von Engelhardt’s concluding observations in his “Christenthum Justin’s” pp. 447-490, also Overbeck in the Historische Zeitschrift, 1880, pp. 499-505.) At the same time, however, they adhered to the early-Christian eschatology (see Justin, Melito, and, with reference to the resurrection of the flesh, the Apologists generally), and thus did not belie their connection with early Christianity. Weizsäcker, Jahrbücher für deutsche Theologie, 1867, p. 119, has with good reason strongly emphasised this element. See also Stählin, Justin der Märtyrer, 188, p. 63 f., whose criticism of Von Engelhardt’s book contains much that is worthy of note, though it appears to me inappropriate in the main.

Interpretation and Criticism, especially of Justin’s Doctrines.

1. The fundamental assumption of all the Apologists is that there can only be one and the same relation on earth between God and free man, and that it has been conditioned by the creation. This thought, which presupposes the idea of God’s unchangeableness, at bottom neutralises every quasi-historical and mythological consideration. According to it grace can be nothing else than the stimulation of the powers of reason existent in man; revelation is supernatural only in respect of its form, and the redemption merely enables us to redeem ourselves, just as this possibility was given at the creation. Sin, which arose through temptation, appears on the one hand as error which must almost of necessity have arisen so long as man only possessed the “germs of the Logos” (σπέρματα τοῦ λόγου), and on the other as the dominion of sensuousness, which was nearly unavoidable since earthly material clothes the soul and mighty demons have possession of the world. The mythological idea of the invading sway of the demons is really the only interruption of the rationalistic scheme. So far as Christianity is something different from morality, it is the antithesis of the service and sovereignty of the demons. Hence the idea that the course of the world and mankind require in some measure to be helped is the narrow foundation of the thought of revelation or redemption. The necessity of revelation and redemption was expressed in a much stronger and more decisive way by many heathen philosophers of the same period. Accordingly, not only did these long for a revelation which would give a fresh attestation to old truth, but they yearned for a force, a real redemption, a præsens numen, and some new thing. Still more powerful was this longing in the case of the Gnostics and Marcion; compare the latter’s idea of revelation with that of the Apologists. It is probable indeed that the thought of redemption would have found stronger expression among them also, had not the task of proof, which could be best discharged by the aid of the Stoic philosophy, demanded religious rationalism. But, admitting this, the determination of the highest good itself involved rationalism and moralism. For immortality is the highest good, in so far as it is perfect knowledge — which is, moreover, conceived as being of a rational kind, — that necessarily leads to immortality. We can only find traces of the converse idea, according to which the change into the immortal condition is the prius and the knowledge the posterius. But, where this conception is the prevailing one, moralistic intellectualism is broken through, and we can now point to a specific, supernatural blessing of salvation, produced by revelation and redemption. Corresponding to the general development of religious philosophy from moralism into mysticism (transition from the second to the third century), a displacement in this direction can also be noticed in the history of Greek apologetics (in the West it was different); but this displacemcnt was never considerable and therefore cannot be clearly traced. Even later on under altered circumstances, apologetic science adhered in every respect to its old method, as being the most suitable (monotheism, morality, proof from prophecy), a circumstance which is evident, for example, from the almost complete disregard of the New Testament canon of Scripture and from other considerations besides.

2. In so far as the possibility of virtue and righteousness has been implanted by God in men, and in so far as — apart from trifling exceptions — they can actually succeed in doing what is good only through prophetic, i.e., divine, revelations and exhortations, some Apologists, following the early Christian tradition, here and there designate the transformation of the sinner into a righteous man as a work of God, and speak of renewal and regeneration. The latter, however, as a real fact, is identical with the repentance which, as a turning from sin and turning to God, is a matter of free will. As in Justin, so also in Tatian, the idea of regeneration is exhausted in the divine call to repentance. The conception of the forgiveness of sins is also determined in accordance with this. Only those sins can be forgiven, i.e., overlooked, which are really none, i.e., which were committed in a state of error and bondage to the demons, and were well-nigh unavoidable. The blotting out of these sins is effected in baptism, “which is the bath of regeneration in so far as it is the voluntary consecration of one’s own person. The cleansing which takes place is God’s work in so far as baptism was instituted by him, but it is effected by the man who in his change of mind lays aside his sins. The name of God is pronounced above him who repents of his transgressions, that he may receive freedom, knowledge, and forgiveness of his previous sins, but this effects a change only denoting the new knowledge to which the baptised person has attained.” If, as all this seems to show, the thought of a specific grace of God in Christ appears virtually neutralised, the adherence to the language of the cultus (Justin and Tatian) and Justin’s conception of the Lord’s Supper show that the Apologists strove to get beyond moralism, that is, they tried to supplement it through the mysteries. Augustine’s assertion (de predest. sanct. 27) that the faith of the old Church in the efficacy of divine grace was not so much expressed in the opuscula as in the prayers, shows correct insight.

3. All the demands, the fulfilment of which constitutes the virtue and righteousness of men, are summed up under the title of the new law. In virtue of its eternally valid content this new law is in reality the oldest; but it is new because Christ and the prophets were preceded by Moses, who inculcated on the Jews in a transient form that which was eternally valid. It is also new because, being proclaimed by the Logos that appeared in Christ, it announced its presence with the utmost impressiveness and undoubted authority, and contains the promise of reward in terms guaranteed by the strongest proof — the proof from prophecy. The old law is consequently a new one because it appears now for the first time as purely spiritual, perfect, and final. The commandment of love to one’s neighbour also belongs to the law; but it does not form its essence (still less love to God, the place of which is taken by faith, obedience, and imitation). The content of all moral demands is comprehended in the commandment of perfect, active holiness, which is fulfilled by the complete renunciation of all earthly blessings, even of life itself. Tatian preached this renunciation in a specially powerful manner. There is no need to prove that no remains of Judæo-Christianity are to be recognised in these ideas about the new law. It is not Judæo-Christianity that lies behind the Christianity and doctrines of the Apologists, but Greek philosophy (Platonic metaphysics, Logos doctrine of the Stoics, Platonic and Stoic ethics), the Alexandrine-Jewish apologetics, the maxims of Jesus, and the religious speech of the Christian Churches. Justin is distinguished from Philo by the sure conviction of the living power of God, the Creator and Lord of the world, and the steadfast confidence in the reality of all the ideals which is derived from the person of Christ. We ought not, however, to blame the Apologists because to them nearly everything historical was at bottom only a guarantee of thoughts and hopes. As a matter of fact, the assurance is not less important than the content. By dint of thinking one can conceive the highest truth, but one cannot in this way make out the certainty of its reality. No positive religion can do more for its followers than faith in the revelation through Christ and the prophets did for the Apologists. Although it chiefly proved to them the truth of that which we call natural theology and which was the idealistic philosophy of the age, so that the Church appears as the great insurance society for the ideas of Plato and Zeno, we ought not at the same time to forget that their idea of a divine spirit working upon earth was a far more lively and worthy one than in the case of the Greek philosophers.

4. By their intellectualism and exclusive theories the Apologists founded philosophic and dogmatic Christianity (Loofs: “they laid the foundation for the conversion of Christianity into a revealed doctrine.”Loofs continues: “The Apologists, viewing the transference of the concept ‘Son’ to the preëxistent Christ as a matter of course, enabled the Christological problem of the 4th century to be started. They removed the point of departure of the Christological speculation from the historical Christ back into the preëxistence and depreciated the importance of Jesus’ life as compared with the incarnation They connected the Christology with the cosmology, but were not able to combine it with the scheme of salvation. Their Logos doctrine is not a ‘higher’ Christology than the prevailing form; it rather lags behind the genuine Christian estimate of Christ. It is not God who reveals himself in Christ, but the Logos, the depotentiated God, who as God is subordinate to the supreme Deity.” If about the middle of the second century the short confession of the Lord Jesus Christ was regarded as a watchword, passport, and tessera hospitalitas (signum et vinculum), and if even in lay and uneducated circles it was conceived as “doctrine” in contradistinction to heresy, this transformation must have been accelerated through men, who essentially conceived Christianity as the “divine doctrine”, and by whom all its distinctive features were subordinated to this conception or neutralised. As the philosophic schools are held together by their “laws “ (νόμοι) as the “dogmas “ form the real bond between the “friends”, and as, in addition to this, they are united by veneration for the founder, so also the Christian Church appeared to the Apologists as a universal league established by a divine founder and resting on the dogmas of the perfectly known truth, a league the members of which possess definite laws, viz., the eternal laws of nature for everything moral, and unite in common veneration for the Divine Master. In the “dogmas” of the Apologists, however, we find nothing more than traces of the fusion of the philosophical and historical elements; in the main both exist separately side by side. It was not till long after this that intellectualism gained the victory in a Christianity represented by the clergy. What we here chiefly understand by “intellectualism” is the placing of the scientific conception of the world behind the commandments of Christian morality and behind the hopes and faith of the Christian religion, and the connecting of the two things in such a way that this conception appeared as the foundation of these commandments and hopes. Thus was created the future dogmatic in the form which still prevails in the Churches and which presupposes the Platonic and Stoic conception of the world long ago overthrown by science. The attempt made at the beginning of the Reformation to free the Christian faith from this amalgamation remained at first without success.

1. The theological position of Irenæus and the later contemporary Church teachers.

Gnosticism and the Marcionite Church had compelled orthodox Christianity to make a selection from tradition and to make this binding on Christians as an apostolical law. Everything that laid claim to validity had henceforth to be legitimised by the faith, i.e., the baptismal confession and the New Testament canon of Scripture (see above, chap. 2, under A and B). However, mere “prescriptions” could no longer suffice here. But the baptismal confession was no “doctrine”; if it was to be transformed into such it required an interpretation. We have shown above that the interpreted baptismal confession was instituted as the guide for the faith. This interpretation took its matter from the sacred books of both Testaments. It owed its guiding lines, however, on the one hand to philosophical theology, as set forth by the Apologists, and on the other to the earnest endeavour to maintain and defend against all attacks the traditional convictions and hopes of believers, as professed in the past generation by the enthusiastic forefathers of the Church. In addition to this, certain interests, which had found expression in the speculations of the so-called Gnostics, were adopted in an increasing degree among all thinking Christians, and also could not but influence the ecclesiastical teachers.The following exposition will show how much Irenæus and the later old Catholic teachers learned from the Gnostics. As a matter of fact the theology of Irenæus remains a riddle so long as we try to explain it merely from the Apologists and only consider its antithetical relations to Gnosis. Little as we can understand modern orthodox theology from a historical point of view — if the comparison be here allowed — without keeping in mind what it has adopted from Schleiermacher and Hegel, we can just as little understand the theology of Irenæus without taking into account the schools of Valentinus and Marcion. The theological labours, thus initiated, accordingly bear the impress of great uniqueness and complexity. In the first place, the old Catholic Fathers, Melito,That Melito is to be named here follows both from Eusebius, H. E. V. 28. 5, and still more plainly from what we know of the writings of this bishop; see Texte und Untersuchungen zur Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur, I. 1, 2, p. 240 ff.). The polemic writings of Justin and the Antignostic treatise of that “ancient” quoted by Irenæus (see Patr. App. Opp. ed. Gebhardt etc. I. 2, p. 105 sq.) may in a certain sense be viewed as the precursors of Catholic literature. We have no material for judging of them with certainty. The New Testament was not yet at the disposal of their authors, and consequently there is a gap between them and Irenæus. Rhodon,See Eusebius, H. E. V. 13. Irenæus, Hippolytus, and Tertullian were in every case convinced that all their expositions contained the universal Church faith itself and nothing else. Though the faith is identical with the baptismal confession, yet every interpretation of it derived from the New Testament is no less certain than the shortest formula.Tertullian does indeed say in de præscr. 14: “Ceterum manente forma regulæ fidei in suo ordine quantumlibet quæras, et tractes, et omnem libidinem curiositatis effundas, si quid tibi videtur vel ambiguitate pendere vel obscuritate obumbrari”; but the preceding exposition of the regula shows that scarcely any scope remained for the “curiositas”, and the one that follows proves that Tertullian did not mean that freedom seriously. The creation of the New Testament furnished all at once a quite unlimited multitude of conceptions, the whole of which appeared as “doctrines” and offered themselves for incorporation with the “faith”.The most important point was that the Pauline theology, towards which Gnostics, Marcionites) and Encratites had already taken up a definite attitude, could now no longer be ignored. See Overbeck Basler Univ. — Programm, 1877. Irenæus immediately shows the influence of Paulinism very clearly. The limits of the latter therefore seem to be indefinitely extended, whilst on the other hand tradition, and polemics too in many cases, demanded an adherence to the shortest formula. The oscillation between this brief formula, the contents of which, as a rule, did not suffice, and that fulness, which admitted of no bounds at all, is characteristic of the old Catholic Fathers we have mentioned. In the second place, these Fathers felt quite as much need of a rational proof in their arguments with their Christian opponents, as they did while contending with the heathen;See what Rhodon says about the issue of his conversation with Appelles in Euseb., H. E. V. 13. 7: ἐγὼ δὲ γελάσας κατέγνων αὐτοῦ, διότι διδάσκαλος εἶναι λέγων ὀυκ ᾔδει τὸ διδασκόμενον ὕπ᾽ ἀυτοῦ κρατύνειν. and, being themselves children of their time, they required this proof for their own assurance and that of their fellow-believers. The epoch in which men appealed to charisms, and “knowledge” counted as much as prophecy and vision, because it was still of the same nature, was in the main a thing of the past.On the old “prophets and teachers” see my remarks on the Διδαχη, c. 11 ff., and the sections pp. 93-137, of the prolegomena to my edition of this work. The διδάσκαλοι ἀποστολικοὶ καὶ προϕητικοί (Ep. Smyrn. ap. Euseb., H. E. IV. 15. 39) became lay-teachers who were skilful in the interpretation of the sacred traditions. Tradition and reason had taken the place of charisms as courts of appeal. But this change had neither come to be clearly recognised,In the case of Irenæus, as is well known, there was absolutely no consciousness of this, as is well remarked by Eusebius in H. E. V. 7. In support of his own writings, however, Irenæus appealed to no charisms. nor was the right and scope of rational theology alongside of tradition felt to be a problem. We can indeed trace the consciousness of the danger in attempting to introduce new termini and regulations not prescribed by the Holy Scriptures.See the passage already quoted on p. 63, note 1. The bishops themselves in fact encouraged this apprehension in order to warn people against the Gnostics,Irenæus and Tertullian scoffed at the Gnostic terminology in the most bitter way. and after the deluge of heresy, representatives of Church orthodoxy looked with distrust on every philosophic-theological formula.Tertullian, adv. Prax. 3: “Simplices enim quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotæ, quæ major semper credentium pars est, quoniam et ipsa regula fidei a pluribus diis sæculi ad unicum et verum deum transfert, non intellegentes unicum quidem, sed cum sua οἰκονομίᾳ esse credendum, expavescunt ad οἰκονομίαν.” Similar remarks often occur in Origen. See also Hippol., c. Nöet. 11. Such propositions of rationalistic theology as were absolutely required, were, however, placed by Irenæus and Tertullian on the same level as the hallowed doctrines of tradition, and were not viewed by them as something of a different nature. Irenæus uttered most urgent warnings against subtle speculations;The danger of speculation and of the desire to know everything was impressively emphasised by Irenæus, II. 25-28. As a pronounced ecclesiastical positivist and traditionalist, he seems in these chapters disposed to admit nothing but obedient and acquiescent faith in the words of Holy Scripture, and even to reject speculations like those of Tatian, Orat. 5. Cf. the disquisitions II. 25.3: “Si autem et aliquis non invenerit causam omnium quæ requiruntur, cogitet, quia homo est in infinitum minor deo et qui ex parte (cf. II. 28.) acceperit gratiam et qui nondum æqualis vel similis sit factori; II. 26. 1: “ Ἄμείνον καὶ συμφορώτερον, ἰδιώτας καὶ ὀλιγομαθεῖς ὑπάρχειν, καὶ διὰ τῆς ἀγάπης πλησίον γενέσθαι τοῦ Θεοῦ ἤ πολυμαθεῖς καὶ ἐμπείρους δοκοῦντας εἶναι, βλασφήμους εἰς τὸν ἑαυτῶν εὑρίσκεσθαι δεσπότην, and in addition to this the close of the paragraph, II. 27. 1: Concerning the sphere within which we are to search (the Holy Scriptures and “quæ ante oculos nostros occurrunt”, much remains dark to us even in the Holy Scriptures II. 28. 3); II. 28. 1 f. on the canon which is to be observed in all investigations, namely, the confident faith in God the creator, as the supreme and only Deity; II. 28. 2-7: specification of the great problems whose solution is hid from us, viz., the elementary natural phenomena, the relation of the Son to the Father, that is, the manner in which the Son was begotten, the way in which matter was created, the cause of evil. In opposition to the claim to absolute knowledge, i.e., to the complete discovery of all the processes of causation, which Irenæus too alone regards as knowledge, he indeed pointed out the limits of our perception, supporting his statement by Bible passages. But the ground of these limits, “ex parte accepimus gratiam”, is not an early-Christian one, and it shows at the same time that the bishop also viewed knowledge as the goal, though indeed he thought it could not be attained on earth. but yet, in the naïvest way, associated with the faithfully preserved traditional doctrines and fancies of the faith theories which he likewise regarded as tradition and which, in point of form, did not differ from those of the Apologists or Gnostics.The same observation applies to Tertullian. Cf. his point blank repudiation of philosophy in de præsc. 7, and the use he himself nevertheless made of it everywhere. The Holy Scriptures of the New Testament were the basis on which Irenæus set forth the most important doctrines of Christianity. Some of these he stated as they had been conceived by the oldest tradition (see the eschatology), others he adapted to the new necessities. The qualitative distinction between the fides credenda and theology was noticed neither by Irenæus nor by Hippolytus and Tertullian. According to Irenæus I. 10. 3 this distinction is merely quantitative. Here faith and theological knowledge are still completely intermixed. Whilst stating and establishing the doctrines of tradition with the help of the New Testament, and revising and fixing them by means of intelligent deduction, the Fathers think they are setting forth the faith itself and nothing else. Anything more than this is only curiosity not unattended with danger to Christians. Theology is interpreted faith.In point of form this standpoint is distinguished from the ordinary Gnostic position by its renunciation of absolute knowledge, and by its corresponding lack of systematic completeness. That, however, is an important distinction in favour of the Catholic Fathers. According to what has been set forth in the text I cannot agree with Zahn’s judgment (Marcellus of Ancyra, p. 235 f.): “Irenæus is the first ecclesiastical teacher who has grasped the idea of an independent science of Christianity, of a theology which, in spite of its width and magnitude, is a branch of knowledge distinguished from others; and was also the first to mark out the paths of this science.”

Corresponding to the baptismal confession there thus arose at the first a loose system of dogmas which were necessarily devoid of strict style, definite principle, or fixed and harmonious aim. In this form we find them with special plainness in Tertullian.Tertullian seems even to have had no great appreciation for the degree of systematic exactness displayed in the disquisitions of Irenæus. He did not reproduce these arguments at least, but preferred after considering them to fall back on the proof from prescription. This writer was still completely incapable of inwardly connecting his rational (Stoic) theology, as developed by him for apologetic purposes, with the Christological doctrines of the regula fidei, which, after the example of Irenæus, he constructed and defended from Scripture and tradition in opposition to heresy. Whenever he attempts in any place to prove the intrinsic necessity of these dogmas, he seldom gets beyond rhetorical statements, holy paradoxes, or juristic forms. As a systematic thinker, a cosmologist, moralist, and jurist rather than a theosophist, as a churchman, a masterly defender of tradition, as a Christian exclusively guided in practical life by the strict precepts and hopes of the Gospel, his theology, if by that we understand his collective theological disquisitions, is completely devoid of unity, and can only be termed a mixture of dissimilar and, not unfrequently, contradictory propositions, which admit of no comparison with the older theology of Valentinus or the later system of Origen.The more closely we study the writings of Tertullian, the more frequently we meet with inconsistencies, and that in his treatment both of dogmatic and moral questions. Such inconsistencies could not but make their appearance, because Tertullian’s dogmatising was only incidental. As far as he himself was concerned, he did not feel the slightest necessity for a systematic presentation of Christianity. To Tertullian everything lies side by side; problems which chance to turn up are just as quickly solved. The specific faith of Christians is indeed no longer, as it sometimes seems to be in Justin’s case, a great apparatus of proof for the doctrines of the only true philosophy; it rather stands, in its own independent value, side by side with these, partly in a crude, partly in a developed form; but inner principles and aims are nearly everywhere sought for in vain.With reference to certain articles of doctrine, however, Tertullian adopted from Irenæus some guiding principles and some points of view arising from the nature of faith; but he almost everywhere changed them for the worse. The fact that he was capable of writing a treatise like the de præscr. hæret., in which all proof of the intrinsic necessity and of the connection of his dogmas is wanting, shows the limits of his interests and of his understanding. In spite of this he possesses inestimable importance in the history of dogma; for he developed and created, in a disconnected form and partly in the shape of legal propositions, a series of the most important dogmatic formulæ, which Cyprian, Novatian, Hosius, and the Roman bishops of the fourth century, Ambrosius and Leo I., introduced into the general dogmatic system of the Catholic Church. He founded the terminology both of the trinitarian and of the Christological dogma; and in addition to this was the first to give currency to a series of dogmatic concepts (satisfacere, meritum, sacramentum, vitium originis etc., etc.). Finally it was he who at the very outset imparted to the type of dogmatic that arose in the West its momentous bias in the direction of auctoritas et ratio, and its corresponding tendency to assume a legal character (lex, formal and material), peculiarities which were to become more and more clearly marked as time went on.Further references to Tertullian in a future volume. Tertullian is at the same time the first Christian individual after Paul, of whose inward life and peculiarities we can form a picture to ourselves. His writings bring us near himself, but that cannot be said of Irenæus. But, great as is his importance in this respect, it has no connection at all with the fundamental conception of Christianity peculiar to himself, for, as a matter of fact, this was already out of date at the time when he lived. What influenced the history of dogma was not his Christianity, but his masterly power of framing formulæ.

It is different with Irenæus. The Christianity of this man proved a decisive factor in the history of dogma in respect of its content. If Tertullian supplied the future Catholic dogmatic with the most important part of its formulæ, Irenæus clearly sketched for it its fundamental idea, by combining the ancient notion of salvation with New Testament (Pauline) thoughts.Consequently the spirit of Irenæus, though indeed strongly modified by that of Origen, prevails in the later Church dogmatic, whilst that of Tertullian is not to be traced there. Accordingly, as far as the essence of the matter is concerned, the great work of Irenæus is far superior to the theological writings of Tertullian. This appears already in the task, voluntarily undertaken by Irenæus, of giving a relatively complete exposition of the doctrines of ecclesiastical Christianity on the basis of the New Testament, in opposition to heresy. Tertullian nowhere betrayed a similar systematic necessity, which indeed, in the case of the Gallic bishop too, only made its appearance as the result of polemical motives. But Irenæus to a certain degree succeeded in amalgamating philosophic theology and the statements of ecclesiastical tradition viewed as doctrines. This result followed (1) because he never lost sight of a fundamental idea to which he tried to refer everything, and (2) because he was directed by a confident view of Christianity as a religion, that is, a theory of its purpose. The first fundamental idea, in its all-dominating importance, was suggested to Irenæus by his opposition to Gnosticism. It is the conviction that the Creator of the world and the supreme God are one and the same.The supreme God is the Holy and Redeeming One. Hence the identity of the creator of the world and the supreme God also denotes the unity of nature, morality, and revelation. The other theory as to the aim of Christianity, however, is shared by Irenæus with Paul, Valentinus, and Marcion. It is the conviction that Christianity is real redemption, and that this redemption was only effected by the appearance of Christ. The working out of these two ideas is the most important feature in Irenæus’ book. As yet, indeed, he by no means really succeeded in completely adapting to these two fundamental thoughts all the materials to be taken from Holy Scripture and found in the rule of faith; he only thought with systematic clearness within the scheme of the Apologists. His archaic eschatological disquisitions are of a heterogeneous nature, and a great deal of his material, as, for instance, Pauline formulæ and thoughts, he completely emptied of its content, inasmuch as he merely contrived to turn it into a testimony of the oneness and absolute causality of God the Creator; but the repetition of the same main thoughts to an extent that is wearisome to us, and the attempt to refer everything to these, unmistakably constitute the success of his work.What success the early-Christian writings of the second century had is almost completely unknown to us; but we are justified in saying that the five books “adv. hæreses” of Irenæus were successful, for we can prove the favourable reception of this work and the effects it had in the 3rd and 4th centuries (for instance, on Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, Victorinus, Marcellus of Ancyra, Epiphanius, and perhaps Alexander of Alexandria and Athanasius). As is well known, we no longer possess a Greek manuscript, although it can be proved that the work was preserved down to middle Byzantine times, and was quoted with respect. The insufficient Christological and especially the eschatological disquisitions spoiled the enjoyment of the work in later times (on the Latin Irenæus cf. the exhaustive examination of Loof: “The Manuscripts of the Latin translation of Irenæus”, in the “Studies of Church History” dedicated to Reuter, 1887). The old Catholic works written against heretics by Rhodon, Melito, Miltiades, Proculus, Modestus, Musanus, Theophilus, Philip of Gortyna, Hippolytus, and others have all been just as little preserved to us as the oldest book of this kind, the Syntagma of Justin against heresies, and the Memorabilia of Hegesippus. If we consider the criticism to which Tatian’s Christology was subjected by Arethas in the l0th century (Oratio 5 see my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1, 2 p. 95 ff.), and the depreciatory judgment passed on Chiliasm from the 3rd century downwards, and if we moreover reflect that the older polemical works directed against heretics were supplanted by later detailed ones, we have a summary of the reasons for the loss of that oldest Catholic literature. This loss indeed makes it impossible for us to form an exact estimate of the extent and intensity of the effect produced by any individual writing, even including the great work of Irenæus. God the Creator and the one Jesus Christ are really the middle points of his theological system, and in this way he tried to assign an intrinsic significance to the several historical statements of the baptismal confession. Looked at from this point of view, his speculations were almost of an identical nature with the Gnostic.People are fond of speaking of the “Asia Minor” theology of Irenæus, ascribe it already to his teachers, Polycarp and the presbyters, then ascend from these to the Apostle John, and complete, though not without hesitation, the equation: John — Irenæus. By this speculation they win simply everything, in so far as the Catholic doctrine now appears as the property of an “apostolic” circle, and Gnosticism and Antignosticism are thus eliminated. But the following arguments may be urged against this theory: (1) What we know of Polycarp by no means gives countenance to the supposition that Irenæus learned more from him and his fellows than a pious regard for the Church tradition and a collection of historical traditions and principles. (2) The doctrine of Irena us cannot be separated from the received canon of New Testament writings; but in the generation before him there was as yet no such compilation. (3) The presbyter from whom Irenæus adopted important lines of thought in the 4th book did not write till after the middle of the second century. (4) Tertullian owes his Christocentric theology, so far as he has such a thing, to Irenæus (and Melito?). But, while he conceives Christianity as an explanation of the world and as redemption, his Christocentric teaching was opposed to that of the Gnostics. Since the latter started with the conception of an original dualism they saw in the empiric world a faulty combination of opposing elements,Marcion, as is well known, went still further in his depreciatory judgment of the world, and therefore recognised in the redemption through Christ a pure act of grace. and therefore recognised in the redemption by Christ the separation of what was unnaturally united. Irenæus, on the contrary, who began with the idea of the absolute causality of God the Creator, saw in the empiric world faulty estrangements and separations, and therefore viewed the redemption by Christ as the reunion of things unnaturally separated — the “recapitulatio” (ἀνακεφαλαίωσις).See Molwitz, De Ἀνακεφαλαιώσεως in Irenæi theologic potestate, Dresden, 1874. This speculative thought, which involved the highest imaginable optimism in contrast to Gnostic pessimism, brought Irenæus into touch with certain Pauline trains of thought, See, e.g., the Epistle to the Ephesians and also the Epistles to the Romans and Galatians. and enabled him to adhere to the theology of the Apologists. At the same time it opened up a view of the person of Christ, which supplemented the great defect of that theology,But see the remark made above, p. 220, note 1. We might without loss give up the half of the Apologies in return for the preservation of Justin’s chief Antignostic work. surpassed the Christology of the Gnostics,According to the Gnostic Christology Christ merely restores the status quo ante, according to that of Irenæus he first and alone realises the. hitherto unaccomplished destination of humanity. and made it possible to utilise the Christological statements contained in certain books of the New Testament.According to the Gnostic conception the incarnation of the divine, i.e., the fall of Sophia, contains, paradoxically expressed, the element of sin; according to Irenæus’ idea the element of redemption. Hence we must compare not only the Gnostic Christ, but the Gnostic Sophia, with the Christ of the Church. Irenæus himself did so in II. 20. 3.

So far as we know at least, Irenæus is the first ecclesiastical theologian after the time of the Apologists (see Ignatius before that) who assigned a quite specific significance to the person of Christ and in fact regarded it as the vital factor.After tracing in II. 14 the origin of the Gnostic theologoumena to the Greek philosophers Irenæus continues § 7: “Dicemus autem adversus eos: utramne hi omnes qui prædicti sunt, cum quibus eadem dicentes arguimini (Scil. “ye Gnostics with the philosophers”), cognoverunt veritatem aut non cognoverunt? Et si quidem cognoverunt, superflua est salvatoris in hunc mundum descensio. Ut (lege “ad”) quid enim descendebat?” It is characteristic of Irenæus not to ask what is new in the revelations of God (through the prophets and the Logos), but quite definitely: Cur descendit salvator in hunc mundum?” See also lib. III. præf.: “veritas, hoc est dei filii doctrina”, III. 10. 3: “Hæc est salutis agnitio quæ deerat eis, quæ est filii dei agnitio . . . agnitio salutis erat agnitio filii dei, qui et salus et salvator et salutare vere et dicitur et est.” III. I1. 3: III. 12. 7: IV. 24. That was possible for him because of his realistic view of redemption. Here, however, he did not fall into the abyss of Gnosticism, because, as a disciple of the “elders”, he adhered to the early-Christian eschatology, and because, as a follower of the Apologists, he held, along with the realistic conception of salvation, the other dissimilar theory that Christ, as the teacher, imparts to men, who are free and naturally constituted for fellowship with God, the knowledge which enables them to imitate God, and thus by their own act to attain communion with him. Nevertheless to Irenæus the pith of the matter is already found in the idea that Christianity is real redemption, i.e., that the highest blessing bestowed in Christianity is the deification of human nature through the gift of immortality, and that this deification includes the full knowledge and enjoying of God (visio dei). This conception suggested to him the question as to the cause of the incarnation as well as the answer to the same. The question “cur deus — homo”, which was by no means clearly formulated in the apologetic writings, in so far as in these “homo” only meant appearance among men, and the “why” was answered by referring to prophecy and the necessity of divine teaching, was by Irenæus made the central point. The reasons why the answer he gave was so highly satisfactory may be stated as follows: (1) It proved that the Christian blessing of salvation was of a specific kind. (2) It was similar in point of form to the so-called Gnostic conception of Christianity, and even surpassed it as regards the promised extent of the sphere included in the deification. (3) It harmonised with the eschatological tendency of Christendom, and at the same time was fitted to replace the material eschatological expectations that were fading away. (4) It was in keeping with the mystic and Neoplatonic current of the time, and afforded it the highest imaginable satisfaction. (5) For the vanishing trust in the possibility of attaining the highest knowledge by the aid of reason it substituted the sure hope of a supernatural transformation of human nature which would even enable it to appropriate that which is above reason. (6) Lastly, it provided the traditional historical utterances respecting Christ, as well as the whole preceding course of history, with a firm foundation and a definite aim, and made it possible to conceive a history of salvation unfolding itself by degrees (ὀικονομία Θεοῦ). According to this conception the central point of history was no longer the Logos as such, but Christ as the incarnate God, while at the same time the moralistic interest was balanced by a really religious one. An approach was thus made to the Pauline theology, though indeed in a very peculiar way and to some extent only in appearance. A more exact representation of salvation through Christ has, however, been given by Irenæus as follows: Incorruptibility is a habitus which is the opposite of our present one and indeed of man’s natural condition. For immortality is at once God’s manner of existence and his attribute; as a created being man is only “capable of incorruption and immortality” (“capax incorruptionis et immortalitatis”);See II. 24. 3, 4: “Non enim ex nobis neque ex nostra natura vita est; sed secundum gratiam dei datur.” Cf. what follows. Irenæus has in various places argued that human nature inclusive of the flesh is capax incorruptibilitatis, and likewise that immortality is at once a free gift and the realisation of man’s destiny. thanks to the divine goodness, however, he is intended for the same, and yet is empirically “subjected to the power of death” (“sub condicione mortis”). Now the sole way in which immortality as a physical condition can be obtained is by its possessor uniting himself realiter with human nature, in order to deify it “by adoption” (“per adoptionem”), such is the technical term of Irenæus. The deity must become what we are in order that we may become what he is. Accordingly, if Christ is to be the Redeemer, he must himself be God, and all the stress must fall upon his birth as man. “By his birth as man the eternal Word of God guarantees the inheritance of life to those who in their natural birth have inherited death.”Book V. pref.: “Iesus Christus propter immensam suam dilectionem factus est, quod sumus nos, uti nos perficeret esse quod et ipse”: III. 6. 1: “Deus stetit in synagoga deorum . . . de patre et filio et de his, qui adoptionem perceperunt, dicit: hi autem sunt ecclesia. Hæc enim est synagoga dei,” etc.; see also what follows, III. 16. 3: “Filius dei hominis filius factus, ut per eum adoptionem percipiamus, portante homine et capiente et complectente filium dei.” III. 16. 6: “Dei verbum unigenitus, qui semper humano generi adest, unitus et consparsus suo plasmati secundum placitum patris et caro factus, ipse est Iesus Christus dominus noster . . . unus Iesus Christus, veniens per universam dispositionem et omnia in semetipsum recapitulans. In omnibus autem est et homo plasmatio dei, et hominem ergo in semetipsum recapitulans est, invisibilis visibilis factus, et incomprehensibilis factus comprehensibilis, et impassibilis passibilis, et verbum homo, universa in semetipsum recapitulans . . . in semetipsum primatum assumens . . . universa attrahat ad semetipsum apto in tempore.” III. 18. 1: “Quando incarnatus est filius homo et homo factus longam hominum expositionem in se ipso recapitulavit, in compendio nobis salutem præstans, ut quod perdideramus in Adam id est secundum imaginem et similitudinem esse dei, hoc in Christo Iesu reciperemus.” Cf. the whole 18th chapter where the deepest thoughts of the Pauline Gnosis of the death on the cross are amalgamated with the Gnosis of the incarnation; see especially 18. 6, 7: “Ἥνωσεν οὖν τὸν ἄνθρωπον τῷ Θεῷ. Εἰ γὰρ μὴ ἄνθρωπος ἐνίκησεν τὴν ἀντίπαλον τοῦ ἀνθρώπου, οὐκ ἂν δικαίως ἐνικήθη ὁ ἐχθρός. Πάλιν τε, εἰ μὴ ὁ Θεὸς ἐδωρήσατο τὴν σωτηρίαν, οὑκ ἄν βεβαίως ἔσχομεν αὐτήν. Καὶ εἰ μὴ συνηνώθη ὁ ἄνθρωπος τῷ Θεῷ οὐκ ἂν ἡδυνήθη μετασχεῖν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας. Ἔδει γὰρ τὸν μεσίτην Θεοῦ τε καὶ ἀνθρώπων διὰ τῆς ἰδίας πρὸς ἑκατέρους οἰκειὸτητος εἰς φιλίαν καὶ ὁμόνοιαν τοὺς ἀμφοτέρους συναγαγεῖν· καὶ Θεῷ μὲν παραστῆσαι τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἀνθρώποις δὲ γνωρίσαι τὸν Θεόν. Qua enim ratione filiorum adoptionis eius participes esse possemus, nisi per filium eam quæ est ad ipsum recepissemus ab eo communionem, nisi verbum eius communicasset nobis caro factum? Quapropter et per omnem venit ætatem, omnibus restituens eam quæ est ad deum communionem.” The Pauline ideas about sin, law, and bondage are incorporated by Irenæus in what follows. The disquisitions in capp. 19-23 are dominated by the same fundamental idea. In cap. 19 Irenæus turns to those who hold Jesus to be a mere man, “perseverantes in servitute pristinæ inobedientiæ moriuntur, nondum commixti verbo dei patris neque per filium percipientes libertatem . . . privantur munere eius, quod est vita æterna: non recipientes autem verbum incorruptionis perseverant in carne mortali, et sunt debitores mortis, antidotum vitæ non accipientes. Ad quos verbum ait, suum munus gratiæ narrans: Ἐγὼ εἶπα, υἱοὶ ὑψίστου ἐστὲ πάντες καὶ θεοί· ὑμεῖς δὲ ὡς ἄνθρωποι ἀποθνήσκετε. Ταῦτα λέγει πρὸς τοὺς μὴ δεξαμένους τὴν δωρεὰν τῆς υἱοθεσίας, ἀλλ᾽ ἀτιμάζοντας τὴν σάρκωσιν τῆς καθαρᾶς γεννήσεως τοῦ λόγου τοῦ Θεοῦ . . . Εἰς τοῦτο γὰρ ὁ λόγος ἄνθρωπος et qui filius dei est filius hominis factus est, ἵνα ὁ ἄνθρωπος τὸν λόγον χωρήσας καὶ τὴν υἱοθεσίαν λαβὼν υἱὸς γένηται Θεοῦ. Non enim poteramus aliter incorruptelam et immortalitatem percipere, nisi adunati fuissemus incorruptelæ et immortalitati. Quemadmodum autem adunari possumus incorruptelæ et immortalitati, nisi prius incorruptela et immortalitas facta fuisset id quod et nos, ut absorberetur quod erat corruptibile ab incorruptela et quod erat mortale ab immortalitate, ut filiorum adoptionem perciperemus?” III. 21. 10: Εἰ τοίνυν ὁ πρῶτος Ἀδὰμ ἔσχε πατέρα ἄνθρωπον καὶ ἐκ ππέρματος ἐγεννήθη, εἰκὸς ἦν καὶ τὸν δεύτερον Ἀδὰμ λέγειν ἐξ Ἰωσὴφ γεγεννῆσθαι. Εἰ δὲ ἐκεῖνος ἐκ γῆς ἐλήφθη, πλάστης δὲ αὐτοῦ ὁ Θεός, ἔδει καὶ τὸν ἀνακεφαλαιούμενον εἰς αὐτὸν ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ πεπλασμένον ἄνθρωπον τὴν αὐτὴν ἐκείνῳ τῆς γεννήσεως ἔχειν ὁμοιότητα. Εἰς τὶ οὖν πάλιν οὐκ ἔλαβε χοῦν ὁ Θεός, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκ Μαρίας ἐνήργησε τὴν πλάσιν γενέσθαι; Ἵνα μὴ ἀλλη πλάσις γένηται μηδὲ ἀλλὸ τὸ σωζόμενον ἦ, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸς ἐκεῖνος ἀνακεφαλαιωθῇ τηπουμένης τῆς ὁμοιότητος; III. 23. 1: IV. 38: V. 36: IV. 20: V. 16, 19-21, 22. In working out this thought Irenæus verges here and there on soteriological naturalism (see especially the disquisitions regarding the salvation of Adam, opposed to Tatian’s views, in III. 23). But he does not fall into this for two reasons. In the first place, as regards the history of Jesus, he has been taught by Paul not to stop at the incarnation, but to view the work of salvation as only completed by the sufferings and death of Christ (See II. 20. 3: “dominus per passionem mortem destruxit et solvit errorem corruptionemque exterminavit, et ignorantiam destruxit, vitam autem manifestavit et ostendit veritatem et incorruptionem donavit”; III. 16. 9: III. 18. 1-7 and many other passages), that is, to regard Christ as having performed a work. Secondly, alongside of the deification of Adam’s children, viewed as a mechanical result of the incarnation, he placed the other (apologetic) thought, viz., that Christ, as the teacher, imparts complete knowledge, that he has restored, i.e., strengthened the freedom of man, and that redemption (by which he means fellowship with God) therefore takes place only in the case of those children of Adam that acknowledge the truth proclaimed by Christ and imitate the Redeemer in a holy life (V. 1. 1.: “Non enim aliter nos discere poteramus quæ sunt dei, nisi magister noster, verbum exsistens, homo factus fuisset. Neque enim alius poterat enarrare nobis, quæ sunt patris, nisi proprium ipsius verbum . . . Neque rursus nos aliter discere poteramus, nisi magistrum nostrum videntes et per auditum nostrum vocem eius percipientes, ut imitatores quidem operum, factores autem sermonum eius facti, communionem habeamus cum ipso”, and many other passages. We find a combined formula in III. 5.3: “Christus libertatem hominibus restauravit et attribuit incorruptelæ hæreditatem.” But this work of Christ can be conceived as recapitulatio because God the Redeemer is identical with God the Creator; and Christ consequently brings about a final condition which existed from the beginning in God’s plan, but could not be immediately realised in consequence of the entrance of sin. It is perhaps Irenæus’ highest merit, from a historical and ecclesiastical point of view, to have worked out this thought in pregnant fashion and with the simplest means, i.e., without the apparatus of the Gnostics, but rather by the aid of simple and essentially Biblical ideas. Moreover, a few decades later, he and Melito, an author unfortunately so little known to us, were already credited with this merit. For the author of the so-called “Little Labyrinth” (Euseb., H. E. V. 28. 5) can indeed boast with regard to the works of Justin, Miltiades, Tatian, Clement, etc., that they declared Christ to be God, but then continues: Τὰ Εἰρηνάιου τε κὰι Μελίτωνος κὰι τῶν λοιπῶν τίς ἀγνοεῖ βιβλία, θεὸν καὶ ἄνθρωπον καταγγέλλοντα τὸν Χριστόν (“Who is ignorant of the books of Irenæus, Melito, and the rest, which proclaim Christ to be God and man”). The progress in theological views is very precisely and appropriately expressed in these words. The Apologists also professed their belief in the full revelation of God upon earth, that is, in revelation as the teaching which necessarily leads to immortality;Theophilus also did not see further, see Wendt, l.c., 17 ff. but Irenæus is the first to whom Jesus Christ, God and man, is the centre of history and faith.Melito’s teaching must have been similar. In a fragment attributed to him (see my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1, 2 p. 255 ff.) we even find the expression “αἱ δύο οὐσίαι Χριστοῦ”. The genuineness of the fragment is indeed disputed, but, as I think, without grounds. It is certainly remarkable that the formula is not found in Irenæus (see details below). The first Syriac fragment (Otto IX. p. 419) shows that Melito also views redemption as reunion through Christ. Following the method of Valentinus, he succeeded in sketching a history of salvation, the gradual realising of the οἰκονομία Θεοῦ culminating in the deification of believing humanity, but here he always managed to keep his language essentially within the limits of the Biblical. The various acting æons of the Gnostics became to him different stages in the saving work of the one Creator and his Logos. His system seemed to have absorbed the rationalism of the Apologists and the intelligible simplicity of their moral theology, just as much as it did the Gnostic dualism with its particoloured mythology. Revelation had become history, the history of salvation; and dogmatics had in a certain fashion become a way of looking at history, the knowledge of God’s ways of salvation that lead historically to an appointed goal.The conception of the stage by stage development of the economy of God and the corresponding idea of “several covenants” (I. 10. 3: III. 11-15 and elsewhere) denote a very considerable advance, which the Church teachers owe to the controversy with Gnosticism, or to the example of the Gnostics. In this case the origin of the idea is quite plain. For details see below.

But, as this realistic, quasi-historical view of the subject was by no means completely worked out by Irenæus himself, since the theory of human freedom did not admit of its logical development, and since the New Testament also pointed in other directions, it did not yet become the predominating one even in the third century, nor was it consistently carried out by any one teacher. The two conceptions opposed to it, that of the early Christian eschatology and the rationalistic one, were still in vogue. The two latter were closely connected in the third century, especially in the West, whilst the mystic and realistic view was almost completely lacking there. In this respect Tertullian adopted but little from Irenæus. Hippolytus also lagged behind him. Teachers like Commodian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, however, wrote as if there had been no Gnostic movement at all, and as if no Antignostic Church theology existed. The immediate result of the work carried on by Irenus and the Antignostic teachers in the Church consisted in the fixing of tradition and in the intelligent treatment of individual doctrines, which gradually became established. The most important will be set forth in what follows. On the most vital point, the introduction of the philosophical Christology into the Church’s rule of faith, see Chapter 7.

The manner in which Irenæus undertook his great task of expounding and defending orthodox Christianity in opposition to the Gnostic form was already a prediction of the future. The oldest Christian motives and hopes; the letter of both Testaments, including even Pauline thoughts; moralistic and philosophical elements, the result of the Apologists’ labours; and realistic and mystical features balance each other in his treatment. He glides over from the one to the other; limits the one by the other; plays off Scripture against reason, tradition against the obscurity of the Scriptures; and combats fantastic speculation by an appeal sometimes to reason, sometimes to the limits of human knowledge. Behind all this and dominating everything, we find his firm belief in the bestowal of divine incorruptibility on believers through the work of the God-man. This eclectic method did not arise from shrewd calculation. It was equally the result of a rare capacity for appropriating the feelings and ideas of others, combined with the conservative instincts that guided the great teacher, and the consequence of a happy blindness to the gulf which lay between the Christian tradition and the world of ideas prevailing at that time. Still unconscious of the greatest problem, Irenæus with inward sincerity sketched out that future dogmatic method according to which the theology compiled by an eclectic process is to be nothing else than the simple faith itself, this being merely illustrated and explained, developed and by that very process established, as far as “stands in the Holy Scripture”, and — let us add — as far as reason requires. But Irenæus was already obliged to decline answering the question as to how far unexplained faith can be sufficient for most Christians, though nothing but this explanation can solve the great problems, “why more covenants than one were given to mankind, what was the character of each covenant, why God shut up every man unto unbelief, why the Word became flesh and suffered, why the advent of the Son of God only took place in the last times etc.” (I. 10. 3). The relation of faith and theological Gnosis was fixed by Irenæus to the effect that the latter is simply a continuation of the former.It would seem from some passages as if faith and theological knowledge were according to Irenæus simply related as the “is” and the “why”. As a matter of fact, he did express himself so without being really able to maintain the relationship thus fixed; for faith itself must also to some extent include a knowledge of the reason and aim of God’s ways of salvation. Faith and theological knowledge are therefore, after all, closely interwoven with each other. Irenæus merely sought for a clear distinction, but it was impossible for him to find it in his way. The truth rather is that the same man, who, in opposition to heresy, condemned an exaggerated estimate of theoretical knowledge, contributed a great deal to the transformation of that faith into a monistic speculation. At the same time, however, he did not clearly show how the collection of historical statements found in the confession can of itself guarantee a sufficient and tenable knowledge of Christianity. Here the speculative theories are as a matter of fact quite imbedded in the historical propositions of tradition. Will these obscurities remain when once the Church is forced to compete in its theological system with the whole philosophical science of the Greeks, or may it be expected that, instead of this system of eclecticism and compromise, a method will find acceptance which, distinguishing between faith and theology, will interpret in a new and speculative sense the whole complex of tradition? Irenæus’ process has at least this one advantage over the other method: according to it everything can be reckoned part of the faith, providing it bears the stamp of truth, without the faith seeming to alter its nature. It is incorporated in the theology of facts which the faith here appears to be.See I. 10, 2: Καὶ οὔτε ὁ πάνυ δυνατὸς ἐν λόγῳ τῶν ἐν ταῖ ἐκκλησίαις προεστώτων ἕτερα τούτων (scil. than the regula fidei) ἐρεῖ· οὐδείς γὰρ ὑπὲρ τὸν διδάσκαλον· οὔτε ὁ ἀσθενὴς ἐν τῷ λόγῳ ἐλαττώσει τὴν παράδοσιν. Μιᾶς γὰρ καὶ τῆς αὐτῆς πίστεως οὔσης οὔτε ὁ πολὺ περὶ αὐτῆς δυνάμενος εἰπεῖν ἐπλεόνασεν, οὔτε ὁ τὸ ὀλίγον ἡλαττόνησε. The latter, however, imperceptibly becomes a revealed system of doctrine and history; and though Irenæus himself always seeks to refer everything again to the “simple faith” (ψιλὴ πίστις), and to believing simplicity, that is, to the belief in the Creator and the Son of God who became man, yet it was not in his power to stop the development destined to transform the faith into knowledge of a theological system. The pronounced hellenising of the Gospel, brought about by the Gnostic systems, was averted by Irenæus and the later ecclesiastical teachers by preserving a great portion of the early Christian tradition, partly as regards its letter, partly as regards its spirit, and thus rescuing it for the future. But the price of this preservation was the adoption of a series of “Gnostic” formulæ. Churchmen, though with hesitation, adopted the adversary’s way of looking at things, and necessarily did so, because as they became ever further and further removed from the early-Christian feelings and thoughts, they had always more and more lost every other point of view. The old Catholic Fathers permanently settled a great part of early tradition for Christendom, but at the same time promoted the gradual hellenising of Christianity.

2. The Doctrines of the Church.

In the following section we do not intend to give a presentation of the theology of Irenæus and the other Antignostic Church teachers, but merely to set forth those points of doctrine to which the teachings of these men gave currency in succeeding times.

Against the Gnostic thesesSee Böhringer’s careful reviews of the theology of Irenæus and Tertullian (Kirchengeschichte in Biographien, Vol. I. 1st section, 1st half (2nd ed.), pp. 378-612, 2nd half, pp. 484-739). Irenæus and his successors, apart from the proof from prescription, adduced the following intrinsic considerations: (1) In the case of the Gnostics and Marcion the Deity lacks absoluteness, because he does not embrace everything, that is, he is bounded by the kenoma or by the sphere of a second God; and also because his omnipresence, omniscience, and omnipotence have a corresponding limitation.To the proof from prescription belong the arguments derived from the novelty and contradictory multiplicity of the Gnostic doctrines as well as the proofs that Greek philosophy is the original source of heresy. See Iren. II. 14. 1-6; Tertull. de præscr. 7; Apolog. 47 and other places; the Philosophoumena of Hippolytus. On Irenæus’ criticism of Gnostic theology see Kunze, Gotteslehre des Irenäus, Leipzig, 1891, p. 8 ff. (2) The assumption of divine emanations and of a differentiated divine pleroma represents the Deity as a composite, i.e.,See Irenæus II. I. 2-4: II. 31. 1. Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 2-7. Tertullian proves that there can be neither two morally similar, nor two morally dissimilar Deities; see also I. 15. finite being; and, moreover, the personification of the divine qualities is a mythological freak, the folly of which is evident as soon as one also makes the attempt to personify the affections and qualities of man in a similar way.See Irenæus II. 13. Tertullian (ad Valent. 4) very appropriately defined the æons of Ptolemy as “personales substantias extra deum determinatas, quas Valentinus in ipsa summa divinitatis ut sensus et affectus motus incluserat.” (3) The attempt to make out conditions existing within the Godhead is in itself absurd and audacious.See Irenæus, l.c., and elsewhere in the 2nd Book, Tertull. adv. Valent. in several passages. Moreover, Irenæus still treated the first 8 Ptolemaic æons with more respect than the 22 following, because here at least there was some appearance of a Biblical foundation. In confuting the doctrine of æons he incidentally raised several questions (II. 17. 2), which Church theologians discussed in later times, with reference to the Son and Spirit. “Quæritur quemadmodum emissi sunt reliqui æones? Utrum uniti ei qui emiserit, quemadmodum a sole radii, an efficabiliter et partiliter, uti sit unusquisque eorum separatim et suam figurationem habens, quemadmodum ab homine homo . . . Aut secundum germinationem, quemadmodum ab arbore rami? Et utrum eiusdem substantiæ exsistebant his qui se emiserunt, an ex altera quadam substantia substantiam habentes? Et utrum in eodem emissi sunt, ut eiusdem temporis essent sibi? . . . Et utrum simplices quidam et uniformes et undique sibi æquales et similes, quemadmodum spiritus et lumina emissa sunt, an compositi et differentes”? See also II. 17. 4: “Si autem velut a lumine lumina accensa sunt . . . velut verbi gratia a facula faculæ, generatione quidem et magnitudine fortasse distabunt ab invicem; eiusdem autem substantiæ cum sint cum principe emissionis ipsorum, aut omnes impassibiles perseverant aut et pater ipsorum participabit passiones. Neque enim quæ postea accensa est facula, alterum lumen habebit quam illud quod ante eam fuit.” Here we have already a statement of the logical reasons, which in later times were urged against the Arian doctrine. (4) The theory of the passion and ignorance of Sophia introduces sin into the pleroma itself, i.e., into the Godhead.See Iren. II. 17. 5 and II. 18. With this the weightiest argument against the Gnostic cosmogony is already mentioned. A further argument against the system is that the world and mankind would have been incapable of improvement, if they had owed their origin to ignorance and sin.See Iren. II. 4. 2. Irenæus and Tertullian employ lengthy arguments to show that a God who has created nothing is inconceivable, and that a Demiurge occupying a position alongside of or below the Supreme Being is self-contradictory, inasmuch as he sometimes appears higher than this Supreme Being, and sometimes so weak and limited that one can no longer look on him as a God.Tertullian in particular argued in great detail (adv. Marc. I. 9-19) that every God must, above all, have revealed himself as a creator. In opposition to Marcion’s rejection of all natural theology, he represents this science as the foundation of all religious belief. In this connection he eulogised the created world (I. 13) and at the same time (see also the 2nd Book) argued in favour of the Demiurge, i.e., of the one true God. Irenæus urged a series of acute and weighty objections to the cosmogony of the Valentinians (see II. 1-5), and showed how untenable was the idea of the Demiurge as an intermediate being. The doctrines that the Supreme Being is unknown (II. 6), that the Demiurge is the blind instrument of higher æons, that the world was created against the will of the Supreme God, and, lastly, that our world is the imperfect copy of a higher one were also opposed by him with rational arguments. His refutation of the last conception is specially remarkable (II. 7). On the idea that God did not create the world from eternal matter see Tertull., adv. Hermog. The Fathers everywhere argue on behalf of the Gnostic Demiurge and against the Gnostic supreme God. It never occurs to them to proceed in the opposite way and prove that the supreme God may be the Creator. All their efforts are rather directed to show that the Creator of the world is the only and supreme God, and that there can be no other above this one. This attitude of the Fathers is characteristic; for it proves that the apologetico-philosophical theology was their fundamental assumption. The Gnostic (Marcionite) supreme God is the God of religion, the God of redemption; the Demiurge is the being required to explain the world. The intervention of the Fathers on his behalf, that is, their assuming him as the basis of their arguments, reveals what was fundamental and what was accidental in their religious teaching. At the same time, however, it shows plainly that they did not understand or did not feel the fundamental problem that troubled and perplexed the Gnostics and Marcion, viz., the qualitative distinction between the spheres of creation and redemption. They think they have sufficiently explained this distinction by the doctrine of human freedom and its consequences. Accordingly their whole mode of argument against the Gnostics and Marcion is, in point of content, of an abstract, philosophico‑rational kind.But this very method of argument was without doubt specially impressive in the case of the educated, and it is these alone of whom we are here speaking. On the decay of Gnosticism after the end of the 2nd century, see Renan, Origines, Vol. VII, p. 113 ff. As a rule they do not here carry on their controversy with the aid of reasons taken from the deeper views of religion. As soon as the rational argument fails, however, there is really an entire end to the refutation from inner grounds, at least in the case of Tertullian; and the contest is shifted into the sphere of the rule of faith and the Holy Scriptures. Hence, for example, they have not succeeded in making much impression on the heretical Christology from dogmatic considerations, though in this respect Irenæus was still very much more successful than Tertullian.See his arguments that the Gnostics merely assert that they have only one Christ, whereas they actually possess several, III. 16. 1, 8 and elsewhere. Besides, in adv. Marc. II. 27, the latter betrayed what interest he took in the preëxistent Christ as distinguished from God the Father. It is not expedient to separate the arguments advanced by the Fathers against the Gnostics from their own positive teachings, for these are throughout dependent on their peculiar attitude within the sphere of Scripture and tradition.

Irenæus and Hippolytus have been rightly named Scripture theologians; but it is a strange infatuation to think that this designation characterises them as evangelical. If indeed we here understand “evangelical” in the vulgar sense, the term may be correct, only in this case it means exactly the same as “Catholic”. But if “evangelical” signifies “early-Christian”, then it must be said that Scripture theology was not the primary means of preserving the ideas of primitive Christianity; for, as the New Testament Scriptures were also regarded as inspired documents and were to be interpreted according to the regula, their content was just for that reason apt to be obscured. Both Marcion and the chiefs of the Valentinian school had also been Scripture theologians. Irenæus and Hippolytus merely followed them. Now it is true that they very decidedly argued against the arbitrary method of interpreting the Scriptures adopted by Valentinus, and compared it to the process of forming the mosaic picture of a king into the mosaic picture of a fox, and the poems of Homer into any others one might choose;See Iren., I. 9 and elsewhere; Tertull., de præscr. 39, adv. Valent. passim. but they just as decidedly protested against the rejection by Apelles and Marcion of the allegorical method of interpretation,See Tertull., adv. Marc. II. 19, 21, 22: III. 5, 6, 14, 19: V. I.; Orig. Comm. in Matth., T. XV. 3, Opp. III., p. 655; Comm. in ep. ad Rom., T. II. 12. Opp. IV., p. 494 sq.; Pseudo-Orig. Adamantius, De recta in deum fide; Orig. I. pp. 808, 817. and therefore were not able to set up a canon really capable of distinguishing their own interpretation from that of the Gnostics.For this reason Tertullian altogether forbade exegetic disputes with the Gnostics, see de præscr. 16-19: “Ego non ad scripturas provocandum est nec in his constituendum certamen, in quibus aut nulla aut incerta victoria est aut parum certa.” The Scripture theology of the old Catholic Fathers has a twofold aspect. The religion of the Scripture is no longer the original form; it is the mediated, scientific one to be constructed by a learned process; it is, on its part, the strongest symptom of the secularisation that has begun. In a word, it is the religion of the school, first the Gnostic then the ecclesiastical. But it may, on the other hand, be a whole-some reaction against enthusiastic excess and moralistic frigidity; and the correct sense of the letter will from the first obtain imperceptible recognition in opposition to the “spirit” arbitrarily read into it, and at length banish this “spirit” completely. Irenæus certainly tried to mark off the Church use of the Scriptures as distinguished from the Gnostic practice. He rejects the accommodation theory of which some Gnostics availed themselves;See Iren., III. 5. I: III. 12. 6. he emphasises more strongly than these the absolute sufficiency of the Scriptures by repudiating all esoteric doctrines;See Iren., III. 14. 2: III. 15. 1; Tertull., de præscr. 25: “Scripturæ quidem perfecta sunt, quippe a verbo dei et spiritu eius dictæ, nos autem secundum quod minores sumus et novissimi a verbo dei et spiritu eius, secundum hoc et scientia mysteriorum eius indigemus.” he rejects all distinction between different kinds of inspiration in the sacred books;See Iren. II. 35. 2: IV. 34, 35 and elsewhere. Irenæus also asserted that the translation of the Septuagint (III. 21. 4) was inspired. The repudiation of different kinds of inspiration in the Scriptures likewise involved the rejection of all the critical views of the Gnostics that were concealed behind that assumption. The Alexandrians were the first who again to some extent adopted these critical principles. he lays down the maxim that the obscure passages are to be interpreted from the clear ones, not vice versâ;See Iren. II. 10. 1: II. 27. 1, 2. but this principle being in itself ambiguous, it is rendered quite unequivocal by the injunction to interpret everything according to the rule of faithSee Iren. II. 25. 1. and, in the case of all objectionable passages, to seek the type.Irenæus appropriates the words of an Asia Minor presbyter when he says (IV. 32. I): De his quidem delictis, de quibus ipsæ scripturæ increpant patriarchas et prophetas, nos non oportere exprobare eis . . . de quibus autem scripturæ non increpant (scil. delictis), sed simpliciter sunt posits, nos non debere fieri accusatores, sed typum quærere.” Not only did Irenæus explain the Old Testament allegorically, in accordance with traditional usage;See, e.g., IV. 20. 12 where he declares the three spies whom Rahab entertained to be Father, Son, and Spirit. but according to the principle: “with God there is nothing without purpose or due signification” (“nihil vacuum neque sine signo apud deum”) (IV. 2I. 3), he was also the first to apply the scientific and mystical explanation to the New Testament, and was consequently obliged to adopt the Gnostic exegesis, which was imperative as soon as the apostolic writings were viewed as a New Testament. He regards the fact of Jesus handing round food to those lying at table as signifying that Christ also bestows life on the long dead generations;See Iren. IV. 22. 1. and, in the parable of the Samaritan, he interprets the host as the Spirit and the two denarii as the Father and Son.See Iren. III. 17. 3. To Irenæus and also to Tertullian and Hippolytus all numbers, incidental circumstances, etc., in the Holy Scriptures are virtually as significant as they are to the Gnostics, and hence the only question is what hidden meaning we are to give to them. “Gnosticism” is therefore here adopted by the ecclesiastical teachers in its full extent, proving that this “Gnosicism” is nothing else than the learned construction of religion with the scientific means of those days. As soon as Church-men were forced to bring forward their proofs and proceed to put the same questions as the “Gnostics”, they were obliged to work by their method. Allegory, however, was required in order to establish the continuity of the tradition from Adam down to the present time — not merely down to Christ — against the attacks of the Gnostics and Marcion. By establishing this continuity a historical truth was really also preserved. For the rest, the disquisitions of Irenæus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus were to such an extent borrowed from their opponents that there is scarcely a problem that they propounded and discussed as the result of their own thirst for knowledge. This fact not only preserved to their works an early-Christian character as compared with those of the Alexandrians, but also explains why they frequently stop in their positive teachings, when they believe they have confuted their adversaries. Thus we find neither in Irenæus nor Tertullian a discussion of the relation of the Scriptures to the rule of faith. From the way in which they appeal to both we can deduce a series of important problems, which, however, the Fathers themselves did not formulate and consequently did not answer.Justin had already noted certain peculiarities of the Holy Scriptures as distinguished from profane writings. Tertullian speaks of two proprietates iudaicæ literaturæ in adv. Marc. III. 5. 6. But the Alexandrians were the first to propound any kind of complete theories of inspiration.

The doctrine of God was fixed by the old Catholic Fathers for the Christendom of succeeding centuries, and in fact both the methodic directions for forming the idea of God and their results remained unchanged. With respect to the former they occupy a middle position between the renunciation of all knowledge — for God is not abyss and silence — and the attempt to fathom the depths of the Godhead.See above p. 233, note 2, Kunze, l.c. Tertullian, influenced by the Stoics, strongly emphasised the possibility of attaining a knowledge of God. Irenæus, following out an idea which seems to anticipate the mysticism of later theologians, made love a preliminary condition of knowledge and plainly acknowledged it as the principle of knowledge.See Iren., II. 26. I, 13. 4: “Sic et in reliquis omnibus nulli similis erit omnium pater hominum pusillitati: et dicitur quidem secundum hæc propter delectionem, sentitur autem super hæc secundum magnitudinem.” Irenæus expressly says that God cannot be known as regards his greatness, i.e., absolutely, but that he can be known as regards his love, IV. 20. I: “Igitur secundum magnitudem non est cognoscere deum, impossibile est enim mensurari patrem; secundum autem dilectionem eius — hæc est enim quæ nos per verbum eius perducit ad deum — obedientes ei semper discimus quoniam est tantus deus etc.”; in IV. 20. 4 the knowledge of God “secundum dilectionem” is more closely defined by the words “per verbum eius Iesum Christum.” The statements in §§ 5 and 6 are, however, specially important: they who are pure in heart will see God. God’s omnipotence and goodness remove the impossibility of man knowing him. Man comes to know him gradually, in proportion as he is revealed and through love, until he beholds him in a state of perfection. He must be in God in order to know God: ὥσπερ οἱ βλέποντες τὸ φῶς ἐντός εἰσι τοῦ φωτὸς καὶ τῆς λαμπρότητος αὐτοῦ μετέχουσιν, οὕτως οἱ βλέποντες πὸν Θεὸν ἐντός εἰσι τοῦ Θεοῦ, μετέχοντες αὐτοῦ τῆς λαμπρότητος. Καὶ διὰ τοῦτο ὁ ἀχώρητος καὶ ἀκατάληπτος καὶ ἀόρατος ὁρώμενον ἑαυτὸν . . . τοῖς πιστοῖς παρέσχεν, ἵνα ζωοποιήσῃ τοὺς χωροῦντας καὶ βλέποντας αὐτὸν διὰ πίστεως. See also what follows down to the words: μετοχὴ Θεοῦ ἐστὶ τὸ γινώσκειν Θεὸν καὶ ἀπολαύειν τῆς χρηστότητος αὐτοῦ, et homines igitur videbunt deum, ut vivant, per visionem immortales facti et pertingentes usque in deum. Sentences of this kind where rationalism is neutralised by mysticism we seek for in Tertullian in vain. God can be known from revelation, See Iren., IV. 6. 4: Ἐδίδαξεν ἡμᾶς ὁ κύριος, ὅτι Θεὸν εἰδέναι οὐδεὶς δύναται, μὴ οὐχὶ Θεοῦ διδάξαντος, τουτέστιν, ἄνευ Θεοῦ μὴ γινώσκεσθαι τὸν Θεόν· αὐτὸ δὲ τὸ γινώσκεσθαι τὸν Θεὸν θέλημα εἶναι τοῦ πατρός, Γνώσονται γὰρ αὐτὸν οἷς ἀν ἀποκαλύψῃ ὁ υἱός. because he has really revealed himself, that is, both by the creation and the word of revelation. Irenæus also taught that a sufficient knowledge of God, as the creator and guide, can be obtained from the creation, and indeed this knowledge always continues, so that all men are without excuse.Iren. II. 6. 1, 9. 1, 27. 2: III. 25. 1: “Providentiam habet deus omnium propter hoc et consilium dat: consilium autem dans adest his, qui morum providentiam hibent. Necesse est igitur ea quæ providentur et gubernantur cognoscere suum directorem; quæ quidem non sunt irrationalia neque vana, sed habent sensibilitatem perceptam de providentia dei. Et propter hoc ethnicorum quidam, qui minus illecebris ac voluptatibus servierunt, et non in tantum superstitione idolorum coabducti sunt, providentia eius moti licet tenuiter, tamen conversi sunt, ut dicerent fabricatorem huius universitatis patrem omnium providentem et disponentem secundum nos mundum.” Tertull., de testim. animæ; Apolog. 17. In this case the prophets, the Lord himself, the Apostles, and the Church teach no more and nothing else than what must be already plain to the natural consciousness. Irenæus certainly did not succeed in reconciling this proposition with his former assertion that the knowledge of God springs from love resting on revelation. Irenæus also starts, as Apologist and Antignostic, with the God who is the First Cause. Every God who is not that is a phantom;See Iren., IV. 6. 2; Tertull., adv. Marc. I, II. and every sublime religious state of mind which does not include the feeling of dependence upon God as the Creator is a deception. It is the extremest blasphemy to degrade God the Creator, and it is the most frightful machination of the devil that has produced the blasphemia creatoris.See Iren., V. 26. 2. Like the Apologists, the early Catholic Fathers confess that the doctrine of God the Creator is the first and most important of the main articles of Christian faith;See Iren., II. 1. 1 and the Hymn II. 30. 9. the belief in his oneness as well as his absoluteness is the main point.See Iren., III. 8. 3. Very pregnant are Irenæus’ utterances in II. 34. 4 and II. 30. 9: “Principari enim debet in omnibus et dominari voluntas dei, reliqua autem omnia huic cedere et subdita esse et in servitium dedita” . . . “substantia omnium voluntas dei;” see also the fragment V. in Harvey, Iren., Opp. II. p. 477 sq. Because everything originates with God and the existence of eternal metaphysical contrasts is therefore impossible the following proposition (IV. 2, 4), which is proved from the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, holds good: “ex una substantia esse omnia, id est Abraham et Moysem et prophetas, etiam ipsum dominum.” God is all light, all understanding, all Logos, all active spirit;See Iren. II. 28. 4, 5: IV. 11. 2. everything anthropopathic and anthropomorphic is to be conceived as incompatible with his nature. Tertullian also makes the same demand (e.g., adv. Marc. II. 27); for his assertion “deum corpus esse” (adv. Prax. 7: “Quis enim negabit, deum corpus esse, etsi deus spiritus est? spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie”) must be compared with his realistic doctrine of the soul (de anima 6) as well as with the proposition formulated in de carne 11: “omne quod est, corpus est sui generis; nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est.” Tertullian here followed a principle of Stoic philosophy, and in this case by no means wished to teach that the Deity has a human form, since he recognised that man’s likeness to God consists merely in his spiritual qualities. On the contrary Melito ascribed to God a corporeal existence of a higher type (Eusebius mentions a work of this bishop under the title “ὁ περὶ ἐνσωμάτου Θεοῦ λόγος”, and Origen reckoned him among the ichers who recognised that man had also a likeness to God in form (in body); see my Texte und Untersuchungen I. 1. 2, pp. 243, 248. In the second century the realistic eschatological ideas no doubt continued to foster in wide circles the popular idea that God had a form and a kind of corporeal existence. A middle position between these ideas and that of Tertullian and the Stoics seems to have been taken up by Lactantius (Instit. div. VII. 9, 21; de ira dei 2. 18.). The early-Catholic doctrine of God shows an advance beyond that of the Apologists, in so far as God’s attributes of goodness and righteousness are expressly discussed, and it is proved in opposition to Marcion that they are not mutually exclusive, but necessarily involve each other.See Iren., III. 25. 2; Tertulla adv. Marc. I. 23-28: II. 11 sq. Hippolytus briefly defined his doctrine of God in Phil. X. 32. The advance beyond the Apologists’ idea of God consists not only in the thorough discussion of God’s attributes of goodness and righteousness, but also in the view, which is now much more vigorously worked out, that the Almighty Creator has no other purpose in his world than the salvation of mankind. See the 10th Greek fragment of Irenæus (Harvey, II. p. 480); Tertull., de orat. 4: “Summa est voluntatis dei salus eorum, quos adoptavit”; de pænit. 2: “Bonorum dei unus est titulus, salus hominum”; adv. Marc. II. 27: “Nihil tam dignum deo quam salus hominis.” They had here undeniably learned from Marcion; see adv. Marc. I. 17. In the first chapters of the work de orat., however, in which Tertullian expounds the Lord’s Prayer, he succeeded in unfolding the meaning of the Gospel in a way such as was never possible for him elsewhere. The like remark may be made of Origen’s work de orat., and, in general, in the case of most authors who interpreted the Lord’s Prayer in the succeeding period. This prayer kept alive the knowledge of the deepest meaning of the Gospel.

In the case of the Logos doctrine also, Tertullian and Hippolytus simply adopted and developed that of the Apologists, whilst Irenaus struck out a path of his own. In the Apologeticum (c. 21) Tertullian set forth the Logos doctrine as laid down by Tatian, the only noteworthy difference between him and his predecessor consisting in the fact that the appearance of the Logos in Jesus Christ was the uniform aim of his presentation.Apol. 21: “Necesse et igitur pauca de Christo ut deo . . . Jam ediximus deum universitatem hanc mundi verbo et ratione et virtute molitum. Apud vestros quoque sapientes λόγον, id est sermonem et rationem, constat artificem videri universitatis.” (An appeal to Zeno and Cleanthes follows). “Et nos autem sermoni atque rationi itemque virtuti, per quæ omnia molitum deum ediximus, propriam substantiam spiritum inscribimus, cui et sermo insit pronuntianti et ratio adsit disponenti et virtus præsit perficienti. Hunc ex deo prolatum didicimus et prolatione generatum et idcirco filium dei et deum dictum ex unitate substantiæ, nam et deus spiritus (that is, the antemundane Logos is the Son of God). Et cum radius ex sole porrigitur, portio ex summa; sed sol erit in radio, quia solis est radius nec separator substantia sed extenditur (cf. adv. Prax. 8). Ita de spiritu spiritus et deo deus ut lumen de lumine accensum. Manet integra et indefecta materiæ matrix, etsi plures inde traduces qualitatis mutueris: ita et quod de deo profectum est, deus est et dei filius et unus ambo. Ita et de spiritu spiritus et de deo deus modulo alternum numerum, gradu non statu fecit, et a matrice non recessit sed excessit. Iste igitur dei radius, ut retro semper prædicabatur, delapsus in virginem quandam et in utero eius caro figuratus nascitur homo deo mixtus. Caro spiritu instructa nutritur, adolescit, adfatur, docet, operatur et Christus est.” Tertullian adds: “Recipite interim hanc fabulam, similis est vestris.” As a matter of fact the heathen most have viewed this statement as a philosophical speculation with a mythological conclusion. It is very instructive to ascertain that in Hippolytus’ book against Noëtus “the setting forth of the truth” (c. 10 ff.) he begins with the proposition: Θεός ἐβουλήθη κόσμον κτίσαι. The Logos whose essence and working are described merely went forth to realise this intention. He fully explained his Logos doctrine in his work against the Monarchian Praxeas.See Hagemann, Die römische Kirche (1864), p. 172 ff. Here he created the formulæ of succeeding orthodoxy by introducing the ideas “substance” and “person” and by framing, despite of the most pronounced subordinationism and a purely economical conception of the Trinity, definitions of the relations between the persons which could be fully adopted in the Nicene creed.See my detailed exposition of the orthodox side of Tertullian’s doctrine of the Trinity (“orthodox” in the later sense of the word), in Vol. IV. There it is also shown that these formulæ were due to Tertullian’s juristic bias. The formulæ, “una substantia, tres personæ”, never alternates in his case with the others, “una natura, tres personæ”; and so it remained for a long time in the West; they did not speak of “natures” but of “substances” (“nature” in this connection is very rare down to the 5th century). What makes this remarkable is the fact that Tertullian always uses “substance” in the concrete sense “individual substance” and has even expressed himself precisely on the point. He says in de anima 32: “aliud est substantia, aliud natura substantiæ; siquidem substantia propria est rei cuiusque, natura vero potest esse communis. Suscipe exemplum: substantia est lapis, ferrum; duritia lapidis et ferri natura substantia est. Duritia (natura) communicat, substantia discordat. Mollitia lanæ, mollitia plumæ pariant naturalia eorum, substantiva non pariant . . . Et tunc naturæ similitudo notatur, cum substantiæ dissimilitudo conspicitur. Men and animals are similar natura, but not substantia.” We see that Tertullian in so far as he designated Father, Son, and Spirit as one substance expressed their unity as strongly as possible. The only idea intelligible to the majority was a juristic and political notion, viz., that the Father, who is the tota substantia, sends forth officials whom he entrusts with the administration of the monarchy. The legal fiction attached to the concept “person” aided in the matter here. Here also the philosophical and cosmological interest prevails; the history of salvation appears only to be the continuation of that of the cosmos. This system is distinguished from Gnosticism by the history of redemption appearing as the natural continuation of the history of creation and not simply as its correction. The thought that the unity of the Godhead is shown in the una substantia and the una dominatio was worked out by Tertullian with admirable clearness. According to him the unfolding of this one substance into several heavenly embodiments, or the administration of the divine sovereignty by emanated persons cannot endanger the unity; the “arrangement of the unity when the unity evolves the trinity from itself” (“dispositio unitatis, quando unitas ex semetipsa [trinitatem] derivat”) does not abolish the unity, and, moreover, the Son will some day subject himself to the Father, so that God will be all in all.See adv. Prax. 3: “Igitur si et monarchia divina per tot legiones et exercitus angelorum administratur, sicut scriptum est: Milies centies centena milia adsistebant ei, et milies centena milia apparebant ei, nec ideo unius esse desiit, ut desinat monarchia esse, quia per tanta milia virtutum procuratur: quale est ut deus divisionem et dispersionem pati videatur in filio et spiritu sancto, secundum et tertium sortitis locum, tam consortibus substantiæ patris, quam non patitur in tot angelorum numero?” (! !) c. 4: “Videmus igitur non obesse monarchiæ filium, etsi hodie apud filium est, quia et in suo statu est apud filium, et cum suo statu restituetur patri a filio.” L.c.: Monarchia in tot nominibus constituta est, in quot deus voluit.” Here then the Gnostic doctrine of moons is adopted in its complete form, and in fact Hippolytus, who in this respect agrees with Tertullian, has certified that the Valentinians “acknowledge that the one is the originator of all” (“τὸν ἕνα ὁμολογοῦσιν αἴτιον τῶν πάντων”), because with them also, “the whole goes back to one” (“τὸ πᾶν εἰς ἕνα ανατρέχει”).See Hippol., c. Noëtum 11. According to these doctrines the unity is sufficiently preserved (1) if the separate persons have one and the same substance, (2) if there is one possessor of the whole substance, i.e., if everything proceeds from him. That this is a remnant of polytheism ought not to be disputed. The only difference is that Tertullian and Hippolytus limit the “economy of God” (οἰκονομία τοῦ Θεοῦ) to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, while the Gnostics exceed this number.Adv. Prax. 8: “Hoc si qui putaverit, me προβολὴν aliquam introducere id est prolationem rei alterius ex altera, quod facit Valentinus, primo quidem dicam tibi, non ideo non utatur et veritas vocabulo isto et re ac censu eius, quia et hæresis utitur; immo hæresis potius ex veritate accepit quod ad mendacium suum strueret”; cf. also what follows. Thus far then theologians had got already: “The economy is founded on as many names as God willed” (c. 4). According to Tertullian “a rational conception of the Trinity constitutes truth, an irrational idea of the unity makes heresy” (“trinitas rationaliter expensa veritatem constituit, unitas irrationaliter collecta hæresim facit”) is already the watchword of the Christian dogmatic. Now what he considers a rational conception is keeping in view the different stages of God’s economy, and distinguishing between dispositio, distinctio, numerus on the one hand and divisio on the other. At the beginning God was alone, but ratio and sermo existed within him. In a certain sense then, he was never alone, for he thought and spoke inwardly. If even men can carry on conversations with themselves and make themselves objects of reflection, how much more is this possible with God.See adv. Prax. 5. But as yet he was the only person.Tertull., adv. Hermog. 3: “fuit tempus, cum ei filius non fuit.” The moment, however, that he chose to reveal himself and sent forth from himself the word of creation, the Logos came into existence as a real being, before the world and for the sake of the world. For “that which proceeds from such a great substance and has created such substances cannot itself be devoid of substance.” He is therefore to be conceived as permanently separate from God “secundus a deo consititutus, perseverans in sua forma”; but as unity of substance is to be preserved (“alias pater, alias filius, alias non aliud” — “ego et pater unum sumus ad substantiæ unitatem, non ad numeri singularitatem dictum est” — “tres unum sunt, non unus” — “the Father is one person and the Son is another, different persons not different things”, “I and the Father are one refers to unity of substance, not to singleness in number” — “the three are one thing not one person”), the Logos must be related to the Father as the ray to the sun, as the stream to the source, as the stem to the root (see also Hippolytus, c. Noëtum 10).Novatian (de trin. 23) distinguishes very decidedly between “factum esse” and “procedere”. For that very reason “Son” is the most suitable expression for the Logos that has emanated in this way (κατὰ μερισμόν). Moreover, since he (as well as the Spirit) has the same substance as the Father (“unius substantiæ” = ὁμοούσιος) he has also the same powerAdv. Prax. 2: “Custodiatur οἰκονομίας sacramentum, qua unitatem in trinitatem disponit, tres dirigens, tres autem non statu, sed gradu, nec substantia, sed forma, nec potestate, sed specie, unius autem substantiæ et unius status et potestatis.” as regards the world. He has all might in heaven and earth, and he has had it ab initio, from the very beginning of time.See the discussions adv. Prax. 16 ff. On the other hand this same Son is only a part and offshoot; the Father is the whole; and in this the mystery of the economy consists. What the Son possesses has been given him by the Father; the Father is therefore greater than the Son; the Son is subordinate to the Father.Tertull., adv. Marc. III. 6: “filius portio plenitudinis.” In another passage Textullian has ironically remarked in opposition to Marcion (IV. 39): “Nisi Marcion Christum non sabiectum patri infert.” “Pater tota substantia est, filius vero derivatio totius et portio”. Adv. Prax. 9. This paradox is ultimately based on a philosophical axiom of Tertullian: the whole fulness of the Godhead, i.e., the Father, is incapable of entering into the finite, whence also he must always remain invisible, unapproachable, and incomprehensible. The Divine Being that appears and works on earth can never be anything but a part of the transcendent Deity. This Being must be a derived existence, which has already in some fashion a finite element in itself, because it is the hypostatised Word of creation, which has an origin.See the whole 14th chap. adv. Prax. especially the words: “Jam ergo alius erit qui videbatur, quia non potest idem invisibilis definiri qui videbatur, et consequens erit, ut invisibilem patrem intellegamus pro plenitudine maiestatis, visibilem vero filium agnoscamus pro modulo derivationis.” One cannot look at the sun itself, but, “toleramus radium eius pro temperatura portionis, quæ in terram inde porrigitur.” The chapter also shows how the Old Testament theophanies must have given an impetus to the distinction between the Deity as transcendent and the Deity as making himself visible. Adv. Marc. II. 27: Quæcunque exigitis deo digna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido et, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo. Quæcunque autem ut indigna reprehenditis, deputabuntur in filio et viso et audito et congresso, arbitro patris et ministro, miscente in semetipso hominem et deum in virtutibus deum, in pusillitatibus hominem, ut tantum homini conferat quantum deo detrahit.” In adv. Prax. 29 Tertullian showed in very precise terms that the Father is by nature impassible, but the Son is capable of suffering. Hippolytus does not share this opinion; to him the Logos in himself is likewise ἀπαθής (see c. Noëtum 15). We would assert too much, were we to say that Tertullian meant that the Son was simply the world-thought itself; his insistance on the “unius substantiæ” disproves this. But no doubt he regards the Son as the Deity depotentiated for the sake of self-communication; the Deity adapted to the world, whose sphere coincides witht he world-thought, and whose power is identical with that necessary for the world. From the standpoint of humanity this Deity is God himself, i.e., a God whom men can apprehend and who can apprehend them; but from God’s standpoint, which speculation can fix but not fathom, this Deity is a subordinate, nay, even a temporary one. Tertullian and Hippolytus know as little of an immanent Trinity as the Apologists; the Trinity only appears such, because the unity of the substance is very vigorously emphasised; but in truth the Trinitarian process as in the case of the Gnostics, is simply the background of the process that produces the history of the world and of salvation. This is first of all shown by the fact that in course of the process of the world and of salvation the Son grows in his sonship, that is, goes through a finite process;According to Tertullian it is certainly an essential part of the Son’s nature to appear, teach, and thus come into connection with men; but he neither asserted the necessity of the incarnation apart from the faulty development of mankind, nor can this view be inferred from his premises. and secondly by the fact that the Son himself will one day restore the monarchy to the Father.See adv. Prax. 4. the only passage, however, containing this idea, which is derived from 1 Cor. XV. These words no doubt are again spoken not from the standpoint of man, but from that of God; for so long as history lasts “the Son continues in his form.” In its point of departure, its plan, and its details this whole exposition is not distinguished from the teachings of contemporaneous and subsequent Greek philosophers,Cf. specially the attempts of Plotinus to reconcile the abstract unity which is conceived as the principle of the universe with the manifoldness and fulness of the real and the particular (Ennead. lib. III.–V.). Plotinus employs the subsidiary notion μερισμός in the same way as Tertullian; see Hagemann l.c. p. 186 f. Plotinus would have agreed with Tertullian’s proposition in adv. Marc. III. 15: “Dei nomen quasi naturale divinitatis potest in omnes communicari quibus divinitas vindicatur.” Plotinus’ idea of hypostasis is also important, and this notion requires exact examination. but merely differs in its aim. In itself absolutely unfitted to preserve the primitive Christian belief in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, its importance consists in its identification of the historical Jesus with this Logos. By its aid Tertullian united the scientific, idealistic cosmology with the utterances of early Christian tradition about Jesus in such a way as to make the two, as it were, appear the totally dissimilar wings of one and the same building, Following the baptismal confession, Tertullian merely treated the Holy Ghost according to the scheme of the Logos doctrine without any trace of independent interest. In accordance with this, however, the Spirit possesses his own “numerus” — “tertium numen divinitatis et tertium nomen maiestatis”, — and he is a person in the same sense as the Son, to whom, however, he is subordinate, for the subordination is a necessary result of his later origin. See cc. 2, 8: “tertius est spiritus a deo et filio, sicut tertius a radice fructus a frutice, et tertius a fonte rivus a flumine et tertius a sole apex ex radio. Nihil tamen a matrice alienatur a qua proprietates suas ducit. Ita trinitas per consertos et connexos gradus a patre decurrens et monarchiæ nihil obstrepit et οἰκονομίας statum protegit”; de pudic. 21. In de præscr. 13 the Spirit in relation to the Son is called “vicaria vis”. The element of personality in the Spirit is with Tertullian merely a result arising from logical deduction; see his successor Novatian de trin. 29. Hippolytus did not attribute personality to the Spirit, for he says (adv. Noët. 14): Ἕνα Θεὸν ἐρῶ, πρόσωπα δὲ δύο, οἰκονομίᾳ δὲ τρίτην τὴν χάριν τοῦ ἁγίου πνεύματος· πατὴρ μὲν γὰρ εἷς, πρόσωπα δὲ δύο, ὅτι καὶ ὁ υἱός, τὸ δὲ τρίτον τὸ ἅγιον πνεῦμα.” In his Logos doctrine apart from the express emphasis he lays on the creatureliness of the Logos (see Philos. X. 33: Εἰ γὰρ Θεόν σε ἡθέλησε ποῖσαι ὁ Θεός, ἐδύνατο· ἔχεις τοῦ λόγου τὸ παράδειγμα) he quite agrees with Tertullian. See ibid.; here the Logos is called before his coming forth “ἐνδιάθετος τοῦ παντὸς λογισμός”; he is produced ἐκ τῶν ὄντων, i.e., from the Father who then alone existed; his essence is “that he bears in himself the will of him who has begotten him” or “that he comprehends in himself the ideas previously conceived by and resting in the Father.” Cyprian in no part of his writings took occasion to set forth the Logos doctrine in a didactic way; he simply kept to the formula: “Christus deus et homo”, and to the Biblical expressions which were understood in the sense of divinity and preëxistence; see Testim. II. 1-10. Lactantius was still quite confused in his Trinitarian doctrine and, in particular, conceived the Holy Ghost not as a person but as “sanctificatio” proceeding from the Father or from the Son. On the contrary, Novatian, in his work de trinitate, reproduced Tertullian’s views. For details see Dorner Entwickelungsgeschichte I. pp. 563-634, Kahnis, Lehre vom heiligen Geiste; Hagemann, l.c., p. 371 ff. It is noteworthy that Tertullian still very frequently called the preëxistent Christ dei spiritus; see de orat. I: “Dei spiritus et dei sermo et dei ratio, sermo rationis et ratio sermonis et spiritus, utrumque Iesus Christus.”Apol. 21; adv. Prax. 26; adv. Marc. I. 10: III. 6, 16: IV. 21. With peculiar versatility he contrived to make himself at home in both wings.