Revelation is necessary because mankind must be aided from without, ie., by God. In this idea man's need of redemption is acknowledged, though not to the same extent as by Seneca and Epictetus. But no sooner does Minucius perceive the teachings of the prophets to be divine truth than man's natural endowment and the speculation of philosophers sink for him into darkness. Christianity is the wisdom which philosophers sought, but were not able to find.' 2 We may sum up the doctrines of the Apologists as follows: (1) Christianity is revelation, i.e., it is the divine wisdom, proclaimed of old by the prophets and, by reason of its origin, possessing an absolute certainty which can also be recognised in the fulfilment of their predictions. As divine wisdom Christianity is contrasted with, and puts an end to, all natural and philosophical knowledge. (2) Christianity is the enlightenment corresponding to the natural but impaired knowledge of man. It embraces all the elements of truth in philosophy, whence it is the philosophy; and helps man to realise the knowledge with which he is naturally endowed. (3) Revelation of the rational was and is necessary, because man has fallen under the sway of the demons. (4) The efforts of philosophers to ascertain the right knowledge were in vain; and this is, above all, shown by the fact that they neither overthrew polytheism nor brought about a really moral life. Moreover, so far as they discovered the truth, they owed it to the prophets from whom they borrowed 1 Minucius did not enter closely into the significance of Christ any more than Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theophilus; he merely touched upon it (9.4 : 29. 2). He also viewed Christianity as the teaching of the Prophets; whoever acknowledges the latter must of necessity adore the crucified Christ. Tertullian was accordingly the first Apologist after Justin who again considered it necessary to give a detailed account of Christ as the incarnation of the Logos (see the 21st chapter of the Apology in its relation to chaps. 17—20). 2 Among the Greek Apologists the unknown author of the work "de Monarchia", which bears the name of Justin, has given clearest expression to this conception. He is therefore most akin to Minucius (see chap. I.). Here monotheism is designated as the xaloλınù dóža which has fallen into oblivion through bad habit; for τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης φύσεως τὸ κατ ̓ ἀρχὴν συζυγίαν συνέσεως καὶ σωτηρίας λαβούσης εἰς ἐπίγνωσιν ἀληθείας θρησκείας τε τῆς εἰς τὸν ἕνα καὶ πάντων δεσπότην. Accord ing to this, then, only an awakening is required, 1 it; at least it is uncertain whether they even attained a knowledge of fragments of the truth by their own independent efforts. 1 But it is certain that many seeming truths in the writings of the philosophers were imitations of the truth by evil demons. This is the origin of all polytheism, which is, moreover, to some extent an imitation of Christian institutions. (5) The confession of Christ is simply included in the acknowledgment of the wisdom of the prophets; the doctrine of the truth did not receive a new content through Christ; he only made it accessible to the world and strengthened it (victory over the demons; special features ackowledged by Justin and Tertullian). (6) The practical test of Christianity is first contained in the fact that all persons are able to grasp it, for women and uneducated men here become veritable sages; secondly in the fact that it has the power of producing a holy life, and of overthrowing the tyranny of the demons. In the Apologists, therefore, Christianity served itself heir to antiquity, i.e., to the result of the monotheistic knowledge and ethics of the Greeks: Ὅσα οὖν παρὰ πᾶσικαλῶς εἴρηται, ἡμῶν τῶν Χριστιανῶν εστί” (Justin, Apol. II. 13). It traced its origin back to the beginning of the world. Everything true and good which elevates mankind springs from divine revelation, and is at the same time genuinely human, because it is a clear expression of what man finds within him and of his destination (Justin, Apol. I. 46: οἱ μετὰ λόγου βιώσαντες Χριστιανοί εἰσι, κἄν ἄθεοι ἐνομίσθησαν, οἷον ἐν Ἕλλησι μὲν Σωκράτης καὶ Ἡράκλειτος καὶ οἱ ὅμοιοι αὐτοῖς, ἐν βαρβάροις δὲ ̓Αβραὰμ κ.τ.λ., "those that have lived with reason are Christians, even though they were accounted atheists, such as Socrates and Heraclitus and those similar to them among the Greeks, and Abraham etc. among the barbarians"). But everything true and good is Christian, for Christianity is nothing else than the teaching of revelation. No second formula can be imagined in which the claim of Christianity to be the religion of the world is so powerfully expressed (hence also the endeavour of the Apologists to 1 But almost all the Apologists acknowledged that heathendom possessed prophets. They recognise these in the Sibyls and the old poets. The author of the work "de Monarchia” expressed the most pronounced views in regard to this. Hermas (Vis. II. 4), however, shows that the Apologists owed this notion also to an idea that was widespread among Christian people. reconcile Christianity and the Empire), nor, on the other hand, can we conceive of one where the specific content of traditional Christianity is so thoroughly neutralised as it is here. But the really epoch-making feature is the fact that the intellectual culture of mankind now appears reconciled and united with religion. The "dogmas" are the expression of this. Finally, these fundamental presuppositions also result in a quite definite idea of the essence of revelation and of the content of reason. The essence of revelation consists in its form: it is divine communication through a miraculous inward working. All the media of revelation are passive organs of the Holy Spirit (Athenag. Supplic. 7; Pseudo-Justin, Cohort. 8; Justin, Dialogue 115. 7; Apol. I. 31, 33, 36; etc.; see also Hippolytus, de Christo et Antichr. 2). These were not necessarily at all times in a state of ecstasy, when they received the revelations; but they were no doubt in a condition of absolute receptivity. The Apologists had no other idea of revelation. What they therefore viewed as the really decisive proof of the reality of revelation is the prediction of the future, for the human mind does not possess this power. It was only in connection with this proof that the Apologists considered it important to show what Moses, David, Isaiah, etc., had proclaimed in the Old Testament, that is, these names have only a chronological significance. This also explains their interest in a history of the world, in so far as this interest originated in the effort to trace the chain of prophets up to the beginning of history, and to prove the higher antiquity of revealed truth as compared with all human knowledge and errors, particularly as found among the Greeks (clear traces in Justin, first detailed argument in Tatian). If, however, strictly speaking, it is only the form and not the content of revelation that is supernatural in so far as this content coincides with that of reason, it is evident that the Apologists simply took the content of the latter for granted and stated it dogmatically. So, whether they expressed themselves in strictly Stoic fashion or not, they all essentially agree in the assumption that true religion 2 1 See Justin, Apol. I. 31, Dial. 7, p. 30 etc. 2 See Tatian, c. 31 ff. 1 and morality are the natural content of reason. Even Tatian forms no exception, though he himself protests against the idea. 3. The doctrines of Christianity as the revealed 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. According to what we have already set forth there can be no doubt about the character of 1 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 тà dedoyμatio KÉVO ὑπὸ Θεοῦ. In Ignatius (ad Magn. XIII. 1) we read: σπουδάζετε οὖν βεβαιωθῆναι 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 Adaxý 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 ɛoλoyɛv and ɛoλoyía. 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 religioscientific 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 of waλaioì bɛoλóyo. 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 xosμxǹ and θεολογικὴ σοφία. 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). 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. 1 2 The essential content of revealed philosophy is viewed by the Apologists (see A, B) as comprised in three doctrines. 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 1 Christ has a relation to all three parts of the scheme, (1) as λóyoç: (2) as νόμος, νομοθέτης, and κριτής; (3) as διδάσκαλος and σωτήρ. 2 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. |