etc. Complete editions of his works were published by *Car. de la Rue, Paris, 1733, ss. 4 vols. fol. and by Lommatzsch, Berl. 1831, ss.-The doctrinal systems of Clement and Origen together form what is called the theology of the Alexandrian school. The distinguishing characteristics of this theology, in a formal point of view, are a leaning to speculation and allegorical interpretation of the Scriptures; in a material aspect they consist of an attempt to spiritualize the ideas, and idealize the doctrines, and they thus form a striking contrast with the peculiarities of Tertullian in particular. Comp. Guerike, de schola quæ Alexandriæ floruit Catechetica. Hala, 1824, 2 vols. [Neander, 1. c. ii. p. 195–234. Baur, Gnosis, p. 488-543. Comp. also Davidson, 1. c. p. 96, ss. 106, ss.]

§ 27.

THE GENERAL DOGMATIC CHARACTER OF THIS PERIOD.

It was the characteristic feature of the apologetical period, that the whole system of Christianity as a religious-moral fact was considered, and defended, rather than particular doctrines. Still certain doctrines become more prominent, while others receive less attention. Investigations of a theological and christological nature are certainly more numerous than those of an anthropological character, and the Pauline doctrine is supplanted in some degree by that of John.1 On this account the doctrine of human liberty is made more conspicuous in this period than later writers approved.2 Next to theology and christology, eschatology engaged most the attention of Christians at that time, and was more fully developed in the struggle with millennarianism on the one side, and the scepticism of Grecian philosophers on the other.

2 Origen expressly mentions, that the doctrine concerning the freedom of the will forms a part of the prædicatio ecclesiastica, de princ. procem. § 4, ss.

B. SPECIAL HISTORY OF DOCTRINES DURING THE

FIRST PERIOD.

FIRST SECTION.

APOLOGETICO-DOGMATIC PROLEGOMENA.

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY.-REVELATION AND SOURCES OF REVELATION.-SCRIPTURE AND TRADITION.

§ 28.

TRUTH AND DIVINITY OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION IN GENERAL.

*Tzchirner, Geschichte der Apologetik, vol. i. Leipz. 1808. By the same: der Fall des Heidenthums, vol. i. Leipz. 1829. Clausen, H. N., Apologetæ ecclesiæ Christianæ ante-Theodosiani, Havn. 1817, 8. G. H. van Senden, Geschichte der Apologetik von den frühesten Zeiten bis auf unsere Tage. Stuttg. II. 8.

The principal task of this period was to prove the Divine origin of Christianity as the true religion made known by revelation,1 and to set forth the internal as well as external relation which it bore both to Gentiles and to Jews. This was accomplished in different ways, according to the different ideas which obtained regarding the nature of the new religion. The Ebionites considered the principal object of Christianity to be the realisation of the Jewish notions concerning the Messiah,2 the Gnostics regarded it as consisting in the separation of Christianity from its former connection

F

with the Old Test 3 Between these two extremes the. Catholic church endeavoured, on the one hand, to preserve this connection with the old dispensation; on the other, to point men to the new dispensation, and to show the superiority of the latter to the former.

1 Here we must guard against seeking for a distinction between natural and revealed religion, or even for a precise definition of the term "religion." Such definitions of the schoolmen did not make their appearance until later, when theory and practice, science and life being separated, learned men commenced to speculate on the objects of science, and to reduce experimental truths to general ideas. With the first Christians, Christianity and religion were identical; and thus, again, in modern times, the principal object of apologetics has become to prove that Christianity is the religion, i. e. the only one which can satisfy man (comp. Lechler, über den Begriff der Apologetik, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1839, part 3). This view corresponds to the saying of Minucius Felix, Oct. c. 38, towards the end: Gloriamur non consequutos, quod illi (Philosophi) summa intentione quæsiverunt nec invenire potuerunt. Justin M. also shows that revealed truth, as such, does not stand in need of any proof, dial. c. Tryph. c. 7, p. 109: Οὐ γὰρ μετὰ ἀποδείξεως πεποίηνταί ποτε (οἱ προφῆται) τοὺς λόγους, ἅτε ἀνωτέρω πάσης ἀποδείξεως ὄντες ἀξιόπιστοι μάρτυρες τῆς ἀληθείας. Fragm. de Resurr. ab init.: Ο μὲν τὴς ἀληθείας λόγος ἐστὶν ἐλεύθερος καὶ αὐτεξούσιος, ὑπὸ μηδεμίαν βάσανον ἐλέγχου θέλων πίπτειν, μηδὲ τὴν παρὰ τοῖς ἀκούουσι δὲ ἀποδείξεως ἐξέτασιν ὑπομένειν. Τὸ γὰρ εὐγενὲς αὐτοῦ καὶ πεποιθὸς αὐτῷ τῷ πέμψαντι πιστεύεσθαι θέλει...πᾶσα γὰρ ἀπόδειξις ἰσχυροτέρα καὶ πιστοτέρα τοῦ ἀποδρεικνυμένου τυγχανει· εἴ γε τὸ πρότερον ἀπιστούμενον πρινὴ τὴν ἀπόδειξιν ἐλθεῖν, ταύτης κομισθείσης ἔτυχε πίστεως, καὶ τοιοῦτον ἐφάνη, ὁποῖον ἐλέγετο. Τῆς δὲ ἀληθείας ἰσχυρότερον οὐδὲν, οὐδὲ πιστότερον· ὥστε ὁ περὶ ταύτης ἀπόδειξιν αὐτῶν ὅμοιός ἐστι τῷ τὰ φαινόμενα αἰσθήσεσι λόγοις θέλοντι ἀποδείκνυσθαι, διότι φαίνεται. Τῶν γὰρ διὰ τοῦ λόγου λαμβανομένων κριτήριόν ἐστιν ἡ αἴσθησις· αὐτῆς δὲ κριτήριον οὐκ ἔστι πλὴν αὐτῆς. Nor do we find any definitions of the nature and idea of revelation (contrasted with the truths which come to us by nature and reason), of the abstract possibility and necessity of revelation, etc., because such contrasts did not then exist. Christianity (in connection with the Old

Test.) was considered as the true revelation; even the best ideas of earlier philosophers, compared with it, were only like the twilight which precedes the brightness of the rising sun. Comp. Justin M. Dial. c. Tr. ab initio.-Tert. apolog. c. 18 (de testim. animæ, c. 2), speaks very decidedly in favour of the positive character of the Christian religion (fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani), though he also calls the human soul naturaliter christiana (Apol. c. 17), and ascribes to it the innate power of appropriating to itself, without any supernatural aid, all that may be known of the Divine Being by the works of nature, de testim. an. 5. Clement of Alexandria also compares the attempt of philosophers to comprehend the Divine without a higher revelation, to the attempt of a man to run without feet (Cohort. p. 64); and further remarks, that without the light of revelation we should resemble hens which are fattened in a dark cage in order to die (ibid. p. 87). We become the children of God only by the religion of Christ (p. 88, 89), comp. Pæd. i. 2, p. 100, i. 12, p. 156, and in numerous other places. Clement indeed admits that wise men before Christ had approached the truth to a certain extent, but while they sought God by their own wisdom, others (the Christians) find him (better) through the medium of the Logos, comp. Pæd. iii. 8, p. 279. Strom. i. 1, p. 319, ibid. i. 6, p. 336. The Clementine Homilies, however, depart from this idea of a positive revelation (17, 8, and 18, 6), and represent the internal revelation of the heart as the true revelation, the external as a manifestation of the Divine opyý. Comp. Baumgarten-Crusius, ii. p. 783; on the other side, Schliemann, p. 183, ss. 353, ss.

2 According to the Clementine Homilies, there is no essential difference between the doctrine of Jesus and the doctrine of Moses. Comp. Credner, 1. c. part 2, page 254. Schliemann, p. 215, ss.

3 As most of the Gnostics looked upon the demiurgus either as a being that stood in a hostile relation to God, or as a being of inferior rank and limited powers; as they, moreover, considered the entire economy of the Old Test. as a defective and even perverse institution, we can easily conceive that in their view the blessings which have come to us as the effects of the religion of Christ, consist only in our deliverance from the bonds of the demiurgus. (Comp. the §§ on God, the fall, and redemption).

$ 29.

MODE OF ARGUMENT.

From what has been said before, it appears that the Christian apologists did not confine themselves to the New Test., but that they also (in opposition to the Gentiles) defended the history, laws, doctrines, and prophecies of the Old Test. against the attacks of all who were not Jews. After having thus laid a foundation, they proceeded to prove the superiority of Christianity to both the Jewish and Pagan systems, by showing how all the prophecies and types of the O. Test. had been fulfilled in Christ.2 It must, however, be admitted, that they not unfrequently indulged in arbitrary and unnatural interpretations, and that some of their expositions of the types and figures of the law are in a high degree fanciful.3 But as the apologists found in the O. Test. a point of connection with Judaism, so they found in the Grecian philosophy a point of connection with Paganism; with this difference only, that whatever is Divine in the latter, is for the greatest part derived from the O. Test., corrupted by the artifices of demons, and appears, at all events, very imperfect in comparison with Christianity, however great the analogy may be. Even those writers who, like Tertullian, discarded the philosophical development of the understanding, because they perceived in it nothing but an ungodly perversity,7 were compelled to admit a profound psychological connection between human nature and the Christian religion (the testimony of the soul),8 and to derive with others a principal argument for the Divine origin of Christianity from its moral effects. Thus the external argument which is founded upon the miracles of the N. Test.,10 was adduced only as a kind of auxi