FIRST DIVISION. History of the Development of the Church during the Græco-Roman and Græco-Byzantine Periods. (continued 3)

§ 30.8. The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists65 are lost. At the head of this band stood Quadratus of Athens, who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary, Aristides the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise, which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century, was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation. This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,―barbarians who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus, Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christians from Christ,―and of Jesus Christ as the Son of God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a later interpolation (comp. § 52, 3). The genuineness of the second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,―an anti-docetic homily, De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi responsione (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ and those crucified with Him proves His divinity―is both on external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the name Aristides, but recently another Catholic scholar, Dr. Vetter, on close examination found that the name was really that of Aristides.―To a period not much later must be assigned the apologetic dialogue between the Jewish Christian Jason and the Alexandrian Jew Papiscus, in which the proof from prophecy was specially emphasized, and the in principio of Gen. i. 1 was interpreted as meaning in filio. The pagan controversialist Celsus is the first to mention this treatise. He considers it, on account of its allegorical fancies, not so much fitted to cause laughter as pity and contempt, and so regards it as unworthy of any serious reply. Origen, too, esteemed it of little consequence. Subsequently, however, in the 5th century, it obtained high repute and was deemed worthy of a Latin translation by the African bishop Celsus. The controversialist Celsus, and also Origen, Jerome, and the Latin translator, do not name the writer. His name is first given by Maximus Confessor as Ariston of Pella. Harnack has rendered it extremely probable that in the “Altercatio Simonis Judæi et Theophili Christiani” discovered in the 18th century, reported on by Gennadius (§ 47, 16), and ascribed by him to a certain Evagrius, we have a substantially correct Latin reproduction of the old Greek dialogue, in which everything that is told us about the earlier document is met with, and which, though written in the 5th century, in its ways of looking at things and its methods of proof moves within the circle of the Apologists of the 2nd century. In it, just as in those early treatises the method of proof is wholly in accordance with the Old Testament; by it every answer of the Christian to the Jew is supported; at last the Jew is converted and asks for baptism, while he regards the Christians as lator salutis and ægrotorum bone medice with a play probably upon the word Ἰάσων=ἰατρός and from this it is conceivable how Clement of Alexandria supposed Luke, the physician, to be the author of the treatise. Harnack’s conclusion is significant inasmuch as it lends a new confirmation to the fact that the non-heretical Jewish Christianity of the middle of the second century had already completely adopted the dogmatic views of Gentile Christianity. Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and the rhetorician Miltiades of Athens addressed very famous apologies to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. Melito of Sardis was also a highly esteemed apologist, and a voluminous writer in many other departments of theological literature.66 The elaborate introduction to the mystical interpretation of scripture by investigating the mystical meaning of biblical names and words published in Pitra’s “Spicileg. Solesm.” II. III., as “Clavis Melitonis,” belongs to the later period of the middle ages. Melito’s six books of Eclogues deal with the Old Testament as a witness for Christ and Christianity, where he takes as his basis not the LXX. but the Hebrew canon (§ 36, 1).67

§ 30.9. Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.

The earliest and most celebrated of these is Justin Martyr.68 Born at Shechem (Flavia Neapolis) of Greek parents, he was drawn to the Platonic doctrine of God and to the Stoical theory of ethics, more than to any of the other philosophical systems to which, as a pagan, he turned in the search after truth. But full satisfaction he first found in the prophets and apostles, to whom he was directed by an unknown venerable old man, whom he once met by the sea-side. He now in his thirtieth year cast off his philosopher’s cloak and adopted Christianity, of which he became a zealous defender, but thereby called down upon himself the passionate hatred of the pagan sages. His bitterest enemy was the Cynic Crescens in Rome, who after a public disputation with him, did all he could to compass his destruction. In A.D. 165, under Marcus Aurelius, Justin was condemned at Rome to be scourged and beheaded.―His two Apologies, addressed to Antoninus Pius and his son Marcus Aurelius are certainly genuine. Of these, however, the shorter one, the so-called second Apology is probably only a sort of appendix to the first. His Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo is probably a free rendering of a disputation which actually occurred. Except a few fragments, his Σύνταγμα κατὰ Μαρκίωνος have been lost. It is disputed whether that was an integral part of the Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων of which he himself makes mention, or a later independent work. The following are of more than doubtful authenticity: the Λόγος παραινετικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Cohortatio ad Græcos), which seeks to prove that not by the poets nor by the philosophers, but only by Moses and the prophets can the true knowledge of God be found, and that whatever truth is spoken by the former, they had borrowed from the latter; also, the shorter Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Oratio ad Græcos), on the irrationality and immorality of the pagan mythology; further, the short treatise Περὶ μοναρχίας, which proves the vanity of polytheism from the admissions of heathen poets and philosophers; and a fragment Περὶ ἀναστάσεως.―Justin’s theology is of the Gentile Christian type, quite free from any Ebionitic taint, inclining rather to the speculation and ethics of Greek philosophy and to an Alexandrian-Hellenistic conception and exposition of scripture. To these sources everything may be traced in which he unconsciously departs from biblical Paulinism and Catholic orthodoxy. Then in his idea of God and creation, he has not quite overcome the partly pantheistic, partly dualistic, principles derived from the Platonic philosophy. He shows traces of Alexandrian influences in his conception of the person and work of Christ, to whom he assigns merely the role of a divine teacher, who has made known the true idea of God the Creator, of righteousness, and of eternal life, and has won power by death, resurrection and ascension, and will give evidence of it by His coming again to reward the righteousness of the saints with immortal blessedness. He was also led into doctrinal aberrations in the anthropological domain, because his idea of freedom and virtue borrowed from Greek philosophy prevented him from fully grasping the Pauline doctrine of sin. His theory of morals, with its legalistic tendency and its righteousness of works, was grounded not in Judaism but in Stoicism. His chiliasm, too, is not Ebionitic but is immediately derived from scripture, and has less significance for his speculation than the other eschatological principles of Resurrection, Judgment, and Recompence. His Christianity consists essentially of only three elements: Worship of the true God, a virtuous life according to the commandments of Christ, and belief in rewards and punishments hereafter. Over against the pagan philosophy it represents itself as the true philosophy, and over against the Mosaic law as the new law freed from the fetters of ceremonialism. Even in the natural man, in consequence of the divine reason that is innate in him, there dwells the power of living as a Christian: Abraham and Elias, Socrates and Heraclitus, etc., have to such a degree lived according to reason that they must be called Christians. But even they possessed only σπέρματα Λόγου, only a μέρος Λόγου; for the divine reason dwells in men only as Λόγος σπερματικός; in Christ alone as the incarnate Logos it dwells as ὁ πᾶς Λόγος or τὸ Λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον. He is the only true Son of God, pre-mundane but not eternal, the πρῶτον γέννημα τοῦ θεοῦ, or the πρωτότοκος τοῦ θεοῦ, by whom God in the beginning created all things. The Father alone is ὄντως θεός, and the Logos only a divine being of the second rank, a ἕτερος θεὸς παρὰ τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν ὅλων, to whom, however, as such, worship should be rendered. In Justin’s theological speculation the Holy Spirit stands quite in the background, though the baptismal and congregational Trinitarian confession obliged him to assign to the Spirit the rank of an independent divine being, whom the Logos had used for the enlightening of His prophets. Justin too knows nothing of a particular election of Israel as the people of God; with him the Christians as such are the true Israel, the people of God, the children of the faith of Abraham. From the Old Testament he proves the divinity of the person and doctrine of Christ, and from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων (§ 36, 7) he derives his information about the historical life, teaching, and works of Jesus. The Gospel of John, although never mentioned, was not unknown to him, but it appeared to him more as a doctrinal and hortatory treatise than as a historical document, and undoubtedly his Logos doctrine is connected with that of John. He shows himself familiar with the Epistles of Paul, although he never expressly quotes from them.

§ 30.10.

Tatian, a Greek born in Assyria (according to Zahn, a Semite) while engaged as a rhetorician at Rome, was won to Christianity by Justin Martyr, according to Harnack about A.D. 150. As the fruit of youthful zeal, he published an Apologetical Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας, in which he treats the Greek paganism and its culture with withering scorn for even its noblest manifestations, and shared with his teacher the hatred and persecution of the philosopher Crescens. His later written Εὐαγγέλιον διὰ τεσσάρων (§ 36, 7) was a Gospel harmony, in which the removal of all reference to the descent of Jesus from the seed of David, according to the flesh, objected to by Theodoret, was occasioned perhaps more by antipathy to Ebionism than by any sympathy with Gnosticism. Zahn affirms, while Harnack decidedly denies, that this work was originally composed in Syriac. The exclusive use by the Syrians of the Greek name Diatessaron seems to afford a strong argument for a Greek original. Its general agreement with the readings of the so-called Itala (§ 36, 8) witnesses to the West as the place of its composition. The introduction of a Syriac translation of it into church use in the East is to be explained by a longer residence of the author in his eastern home; and its neglect on the part of many of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, and even their complete ignorance of it, may be accounted for by the fact that, while in the far East it was unsuspected, elsewhere it came to be branded as heretical (§ 27, 10).69

Athenagoras, about whose life we have no authentic information, in A.D. 177 addressed his Πρεσβεία (Intercessio) περὶ Χριστιανῶν to Marcus Aurelius, in which he clearly and convincingly disproves the hideous calumnies of Atheism, Ædipodean atrocities, Thyestean feasts (§ 22), and extols the excellence of Christianity in life and doctrine. In the treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως νέκρων he proves, from the general philosophical rather than distinctively Christian standpoint, the necessity of resurrection from the vocation of man in connection with the wisdom, omnipotence and righteousness of God.

Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch († after A.D. 180), was by birth a pagan. His writing Πρὸς Αὐτόλυκον περὶ τῆς τῶν Χριστιανῶν πίστεως is one of the most excellent apologetical treatises of this period. Autolycus was one of his heathen acquaintances. His commentaries and controversial works have been lost. Zahn, indeed, has sought to prove that an extant Latin Commentary on selected passages from the four Gospels in the allegorical style belonging to the first half of the 3rd century, and bearing the name of Theophilus of Antioch, is a substantially faithful translation of the authentic Greek original of A.D. 170. He has also called attention to the great importance of this commentary, not only for the oldest history of the Canon, Text and Exposition, but also for that of the church life, the development of doctrine and the ecclesiastical constitution, especially of the monasticism already appearing in those early times. But while Zahn reached those wonderful results from a conviction that the verbal coincidences of the Latin Church Fathers of the 3rd to the 5th centuries with the supposed Theophilus commentary were examples of their borrowing from it, Harnack has convincingly proved that this so-called commentary is rather to be regarded as a compilation from these same Latin Church Fathers made at the earliest during the second half of the 5th century.

Finally, an otherwise unknown author Hermias wrote under the title Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων (Irrisio gentilium philos.) a short abusive treatise, in a witty but superficial style, of which the fundamental principle is to be found in 1 Cor. iii. 19.

§ 31. The Theological Literature of the Old Catholic Age, A.D. 170-323.

From about A.D. 170, during the Old Catholic Age, scientific theology in conflict with Judaizing, paganizing and monarchianistic heretics progressed in a more vigorous and comprehensive manner than in the apologetical and polemical attempt at self-defence of Post-Apostolic Times. Throughout this period, however, the zeal for apologetics continued unabated, but also in other directions, especially in the department of dogmatics, important contributions were made to theological science. While these developments were in progress, there arose within the Catholic church three different theological schools, each with some special characteristic of its own, the Asiatic, the Alexandrian, and the North African.

§ 31.1. The Theological Schools and Tendencies.―The School of Asia Minor was the outcome of John’s ministry there, and was distinguished by firm grasp of scripture, solid faith, conciliatory treatment of those within and energetic polemic against heretics. Its numerous teachers, highly esteemed in the ancient church, are known to us only by name, and in many cases even the name has perished. Only two of their disciples resident in the West―Irenæus and Hippolytus―are more fully known. A yet greater influence, more widely felt and more enduring, was that of the Alexandrian School.70 Most of its teachers were distinguished by classical culture, a philosophical spirit, daring speculativeness and creative power. Their special task was the construction of a true ecclesiastical gnosis over against the false heretical gnosis, and so the most celebrated teachers of this school have not escaped the charge of unevangelical speculative tendencies. The nursery of this theological tendency was especially this Catechetical School of Alexandria which from an institution for the training of educated Catechumens had grown up into a theological seminary. The North African School by its realism, a thoroughly practical tendency, formed the direct antithesis of the idealism and speculative endeavours of the Alexandrian. It repudiated classical science and philosophy as fitted to lead into error, but laid special stress upon the purity of Apostolic tradition, and insisted with all emphasis upon holiness of life and strict asceticism.―Finally, our period also embraces the first beginnings of the Antiochean School, whose founders were the two presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian. The latter especially gave to the school in its earlier days the tendency to critical and grammatico-historical examination of scripture. At Edessa, too, as early as the end of the 2nd century, we find a Christian school existing.

1. Church Fathers Writing in Greek.

§ 31.2. Church Teachers of the Asiatic Type.

Irenæus, a pupil of Polycarp, was a native of Asia Minor. According to the Vita Polycarpi of Pionius he lived in Rome at the time of Polycarp’s death as a teacher, and it is not improbable that he had gone there in company with his master (§ 37, 2). Subsequently he settled in Gaul, and held the office of presbyter at Lyons. During his absence at Rome as the bearer of a tract by the imprisoned confessors of Lyons on the Montanist controversy to the Roman bishop Eleutherus, Pothinus, the aged bishop of Lyons, fell a victim to the dreadful persecution of Marcus Aurelius which raged in Gaul. Irenæus succeeded him as bishop in A.D. 178. About the time and manner of his death nothing certain is known. Jerome, indeed, once quite casually designates him a martyr, but since none of the earlier Church Fathers, who speak of him, know anything of this, it cannot be maintained with any confidence. Gentleness and moderation, combined with earnestness and decision, as well as the most lively interest in the catholicity of the church and the purity of its doctrine according to scripture and tradition, were the qualities that make him the most important and trustworthy witness to his own age, and led to his being recognised in all times as one of the ablest and most influential teachers of the church and a most successful opponent of heretical Gnosticism. His chief work against the Gnostics: Ἔλεγχος καὶ ἀνατροπὴ τῆς ψευδονύμου γνώσεως (Adv. hæreses) in 5 books, is mainly an ex professo directed against the Valentinians and the schools of Ptolemy and Marcus There is appended to it, beyond what had been proposed at the beginning, a short discussion of the views of other Gnostics, the basis of which may be found in an older treatise, perhaps in the Syntagma of Justin. The last four books give the express scripture proofs to sustain the general confutation, without doing this, however, in a complete manner; at the same time there is rapid movement amid many digressions and excursuses. This work has come down to us in a complete form only in an old translation literally rendered in barbarous Latin, even to the reproduction of misunderstood words, which was used as early as by Tertullian in his treatise against the Valentinians. We are indebted to the writings of the heresiologists Hippolytus and Epiphanius for the preservation of many remarkable fragments of the original, with or without the author’s name. Of his other writings we have only a few faint reminiscences. Two epistles addressed to the Roman presbyter Florinus combat the Valentinian heresy to which Florinus was inclined. During the controversy about Easter (§ 37, 2) he wrote several epistles of a conciliatory character, especially one to Blastus in Rome, an adherent of the Asiatic practice, and in the name of the whole Gallic church, he addressed a letter to the Roman bishop, Victor, and afterwards a second letter in his own name.71

§ 31.3.

Hippolytus, a presbyter and afterwards schismatical bishop at Rome, though scarcely to be designated of Asia Minor, but rather a Lyonese, if not a Roman pupil of Irenæus, belonged to the same theological school. He was celebrated for his comprehensive learning and literary attainments, and yet his career until quite recently was involved in the greatest obscurity. Eusebius, who is the first to refer to him, places him in the age of Alex. Severus (A.D. 222-235), calls him a bishop, without, however, naming his supposed oriental diocese, which even Jerome was unable to determine. The Liberian list of Popes of A.D. 354, describes him as Yppolytus presbyter who was burnt in Sardinia about A.D. 235 along with the Roman bishop, Pontianus (§ 41, 1). In the fifth century, the Roman church gave him honour as a martyr. The poet Prudentius († A.D. 413) who himself saw the crypt in which his bones were laid and which in the book of his martyrdom was pictorially represented, celebrated his career in song. According to him Hippolytus was an adherent of the Novatian schism (§ 41, 3), but returned to the Catholic church and suffered martyrdom at Portus near Rome. According to his own statement quoted by Photius he was a hearer of the doctrinal discourses of Irenæus. A statue representing him in a sitting posture which was exhumed at Rome in A.D. 1551, has on the back of the seat a list of his writings along with an Easter cycle of sixteen years drawn up by him (§ 56, 3). Finally, there was found among the works of Origen a treatise on the various philosophical systems entitled Philosophoumena, which professes to be the first book of a writing in ten books found in Greece in A.D. 1842, Κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων ἔλεγχος. Starting from the position, and seeking to establish it, that the heretics have got their doctrines not from holy scripture, but from astrology, pagan mysteries and the Greek philosophers, this treatise is generally of great importance not only for the history of the heresies of the Gnostics and Monarchians, but also for the history of philosophy. The English editor, E. Miller (Oxon., 1851), attributed the authorship of the whole to Origen, which, however, from the complete difference of style, point of view and position was soon proved to be untenable. Since the writer admits that he was himself the author of a book Περὶ τῆς τοῦ πάντος οὐσίας, and Photius ascribes a book with the same title to the Roman Caius (§ 31, 7), Baur attributes to the latter the composition of the Elenchus. Photius, however, founds his opinion simply upon an apocryphal note on the margin of his copy of the book. Incomparably more important are the evidences for the Hippolytus authorship, which is now almost universally admitted. The Elenchus is not, indeed, enumerated in the list of works on the statue. The book Περὶ τῆς τοῦ πάντος οὐσίας, however, appears there, and it contains the statement that its author also wrote the Elenchus. The author of the Elenchus also states that he had previously written a similar work in a shorter form, and Photius describes such a shorter writing of Hippolytus, dating from the time of his intercourse with Irenæus, under the title Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων. Lipsius has made it appear extremely probable that in the Libellus adv. omnes hæreticos appended to Tertullian’s De præscriptione hæreticorum, and so usually styled a treatise of the Pseudo-Tertullian, we have an abbreviated Latin reproduction of that work; for this one as well as the other begins with Dositheus and ends with Noëtus, and both deal with thirty-two heresies. Epiphanius and Philastrius [Philaster] have used it largely in their heresiological works. The discussion in the Elenchus agrees therewith in many passages but also in many is essentially different, which, however, when we consider the much later date of the first named treatise affords no convincing evidence against the theory that both are by one author. The Elenchus thereby wins a high importance as giving information about the condition of the Roman church during the first decades of the 3rd century, about the position of the author who describes himself in his treatise as a pupil of Irenæus, about his own and his opponents’ way of viewing things, and about his conflict with them leading to schism, though all is told from the standpoint of an interested party (§§ 33, 5; 41, 1). A considerable fragment directed against the errors of Noëtus (§ 33, 5) was perhaps originally a part of his Syntagma,―though not perhaps of the anonymous, so-called Little Labyrinth against the Artemonites (§ 33, 3) or probably against the Monarchians generally, from which Eusebius makes extensive quotations, especially about the Theodotians. This work is ascribed by Photius to the Roman Caius, but without doubt wrongly. Great probability has been given to the recently advanced idea that this book too may have been written by Hippolytus.72

§ 31.4. The Alexandrian Church Teachers.

The first of the teachers of the catechetical school at Alexandria known by name was Pantænus, who had formerly been a Stoic philosopher. About A.D. 190 he undertook a missionary journey into Southern Arabia or India, and died in A.D. 202 after a most successful and useful life. Jerome says of him: Hujus multi quidem in s. Scri. exstant Commentarii, sed Magis viva voce ecclesiis profuit. Of his writings none are preserved.

Titus Flavius Clemens [Clement] was the pupil of Pantænus and his successor at the catechetical school in Alexandria. On his travels undertaken in the search for knowledge he came to Alexandria as a learned pagan philosopher, where probably Pantænus gained an influence over him and was the means of his conversion. During the persecution under Septimius Severus in A.D. 202 he sought in flight to escape the rage of the heathens, in accordance with Matt. x. 23. But he continued unweariedly by writing and discourse to promote the interests of the church till his death in A.D. 220. The most important and most comprehensive of his writings is the work in three parts of which the first part entitled Λόγος προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Cohortatio ad Græcos) with great expenditure of learning seeks to prepare the minds of the heathen for Christianity by proving the vanity of heathenism; the second part, Ὁ παιδαγωγός in three books, with a Hymnus in Salvatorem attached, gives an introduction to the Christian life; and the third part, Στρωματείς (Stromata), that is, patchwork, so-called from the aphoristic style and the variety of its contents, in eight books, setting forth the deep things of Christian gnosis, but in the form rather of a collection of materials than a carefully elaborated treatise. The little tractate Τίς ὁ σωζόμενος πλούσιος (Quis dives salvetur) shows how even wealth may be made contributory to salvation. Among his lost treatises the most important was the Ὑποτυπώσεις in eight books, an expository review of the contents of holy scripture.73

§ 31.5.

Great as was the reputation of Clement, he was far outstripped by his pupil and successor Origen, acknowledged by pagan and Christian contemporaries to be a miracle of scholarship. On account of his indomitable diligence, he was named Ἀδαμάντιος. Celebrated as a philosopher, philologist, critic, exegete, dogmatist, apologist, polemist, etc., posterity has with equal right honoured him as the actual founder of an ecclesiastical and scientific theology, and reproached him as the originator of many heretical opinions (§§ 51; 52, 6). He was born of Christian parents at Alexandria about A.D. 185, was educated under his father Leonidas, Pantænus and Clement, while still a boy encouraged his father when he suffered as a martyr under Septimius Severus in A.D. 202, became the support of his helpless mother and his six orphaned sisters, and was called in A.D. 203 by bishop Demetrius to be teacher of the catechetical school. In order to qualify himself for the duties of his new calling, he engaged eagerly in the study of philosophy under the Neo-Platonist Ammonius Saccas. His mode of life was extremely simple and from his youth he was a strict ascetic. In his eager striving after Christian perfection he had himself emasculated, from a misunderstanding of Matt. xix. 12, but afterwards he admitted that that was a wrong step. His fame advanced from day to day. About A.D. 211 he visited Rome. Accepting an honourable invitation in A.D. 215 he wrought for a long time as a missionary in Arabia, he was then appointed by the celebrated Julia Mammæa (§ 22, 4) to Antioch in A.D. 218; and in A.D. 230 undertook in the interest of the church a journey to Greece through Palestine, where the bishops of Cæsarea and Jerusalem admitted him to the rank of a presbyter. His own bishop, Demetrius, jealous of the daily increasing fame of Origen and feeling that his episcopal rights had been infringed upon, recalled him, and had him at two Alexandrian Synods, in A.D. 231 and 232, arraigned and excommunicated for heresy, self-mutilation and contempt of the ecclesiastical laws of his office. Origen now went to Cæsarea, and there, honoured and protected by the Emperor, Philip the Arabian, opened a theological school. His literary activity here reached its climax. But under Decius he was cast into prison at Tyre, in A.D. 254, and died in consequence of terrible tortures which he endured heroically.―Of his numerous writings74 only a comparatively small number, but those of great value, are preserved; some in the original, others only in a Latin translation. To the department of Biblical Criticism belongs the fruit of twenty-seven years’ labour, the so-called Hexapla, that is, a placing side by side the Hebrew text of the O.T. (first in Hebr. and then in the Gr. letters) and the existing Greek translations of the LXX., Aquila, Symmachus and Theodotion; by the addition in some books of other anonymous translations, it came to be an Octopla or Enneapla. By critical marks on the margin all variations were carefully indicated. The enormous bulk of fifty volumes hindered its circulation by means of transcripts; but the original lay in the library at Cæsarea open to the inspection of all, until lost, probably in the sack of the city by the Arabians in A.D. 653.75 His Exegetical works consist of Σημειώσεις or short scholia on separate difficult passages, Τόμοι or complete commentaries on whole books of the bible, and Ὁμιλίαι or practical expository lectures. Origen, after the example of the Rabbinists and Hellenists, gave a decided preference to the allegorical method of interpretation. In every scripture passage he distinguished a threefold sense, as σῶμα, ψυχή, πνεῦμα, first a literal, and then a twofold higher sense, the tropical or moral, and the pneumatical or mystical. He was not just a despiser of the literal sense, but the unfolding of the mystical sense seemed to him of infinitely greater importance. All history in the bible is a picture of things in the higher world. Most incidents occurred as they are told; but some, the literal conception of which would be unworthy or irrational, are merely typical, without any outward historical reality. The Old Testament language is typical in a twofold sense: for the New Testament history and for the heavenly realities. The New Testament language is typical only of the latter. He regarded the whole bible as inspired, with the exception of the books added by the LXX., but the New Testament in a higher degree than the Old. But even the New Testament had defects which will only be overcome by the revelation of eternity. To the department of Dogmatics belongs his four books Περὶ ἀρχῶν (De Principiis), which have come down to us in a Latin translation of Rufinus with arbitrary interpolations. His Στρωματεῖς in ten books which sought to harmonize the Christian doctrine with Greek philosophy is lost, and also his numerous writings against the heretics. His comprehensive apologetical work in eight books, Contra Celsum (§ 23, 3), has come down to us complete.76 Gregory of Nazianzus [Nazianzen] and Basil the Great made a book entirely from his writings under the title Φιλοκαλία, which contains many passages from lost treatises, and a valuable original fragment from his Περὶ ἀρχῶν. His principal doctrinal characteristics are the following: There is a twofold revelation, the primitive revelation in conscience to which the heathen owe their σπέρματα ἀληθείας, and the historical revelation in holy scripture; there are three degrees of religious knowledge, that of the ψιλὴ πίστις, an unreasoned acceptance of the truth, wrought by God immediately in the heart of men, that of γνῶσις or ἐπιστήμη to which the reasoning mind of man can reach by the speculative development of scripture revelation in his life, and finally, that of σοφία or θεωρία, the vision of God, the full enjoyment of which is attained unto only hereafter. For his doctrine of the Trinity, see § 33, 6. His cosmological, angelological and anthropological views represent a mixture of Platonic, Gnostic and spiritualistic ideas, and run out into various heterodoxies; thus, he believes in timeless or eternal creation, an ante-temporal fall of human souls, their imprisonment in earthly bodies, he denies the resurrection of the body, he believed in the animation and the need and capacity of redemption of the stars and star-spirits, in the restoration of all spirits to their original, ante-temporal blessedness and holiness, ἀποκατάστασις τῶν πάντων. Of his Ascetical Works, the treatise Περὶ εὐχῆς with an admirable exposition of the Lord’s prayer, and a Λόγος προτρεπικὸς εἰς μαρτύριον have been preserved. Of his numerous epistles, the Epistola ad Julium Africanum defends against his correspondent the genuineness of the history of Susannah.

§ 31.6.

Among the successors of Origen in the school of Alexandria the most celebrated, from about A.D. 232, was Dionysius Alexandrinus [of Alexandria]. He was raised to the rank of bishop in A.D. 247, and died in A.D. 265. In speculative power he was inferior to his teacher Origen. His special gift was that of κυβέρνησις. He was honoured by his own contemporaries with the title of The Great. During the Decian persecution he manifested wisdom and good sense as well as courage and steadfastness. The ecclesiastical conflicts of his age afforded abundant opportunities for testing his noble and gentle character, as well as his faithful attachment to the church and zeal for the purity of its doctrine, and on all hands his self-denying amiability wrought in the interests of peace. Of his much-praised writings, exegetical, ascetical, polemical (Περὶ ἐπαγγελιῶν § 33, 9), apologetical (Περὶ φύσεως against the Atomism of Democritus and Epicurus), and dogmatical (§ 33, 7), only fragments are preserved, mostly from his Epistles in quotations by Eusebius. We have, however, one short tract complete addressed to Novatian at Rome (§ 31, 12), containing an earnest entreaty that he should abandon his schismatic rigorism.

Gregory Thaumaturgus was one of Origen’s pupils at Cæsarea. Origen was the means of converting the truth-seeking heathen youth to Christianity, and Gregory clung to his teacher with the warmest affection. He subsequently became bishop of his native city of Neo-Cæsarea, and was able on his death-bed in A.D. 270 to comfort himself with the reflection that he left to his successor no more unbelievers in the city than his predecessor had left him of believers (their number was seventeen). He was called the second Moses and the power of working miracles was ascribed to him. We have from his pen a panegyric on Origen, an Epistle on Church Discipline, a Μετάφρασις εἰς Ἐκκλησιάστην, a Confession of Faith important for the history of the Ante-Nicene period (§ 50, 1): Ἔκθεσις πίστεως. Two other tracts in a Syrian translation are ascribed to him: To Philagrius on Consubstantiality, and To Theopompus on the Passibility of God. Dräseke, however, identifies the first-named with Oratio 45 of Gregory Nazianzus [Nazianzen] and assigns to him the authorship.77

The learned presbyter Pamphilus of Cæsarea, the friend of Eusebius (§ 47, 2) and founder of a theological seminary and the celebrated library of Cæsarea, who died as a martyr under Maximinus, belongs to this group. His Old Testament Commentaries have been lost. In prison he finished his work in five books which he undertook jointly with Eusebius, the Apology for Origen, to which Eusebius independently added a sixth book. Only the first book is preserved in Rufinus’ Latin translation.

§ 31.7. Greek-speaking Church Teachers in other Quarters.

Hegesippus wrote his five books Ὑπομνήματα, about A.D. 180, during the age of the Roman bishop Eleutherus. From his knowledge of the Hebrew language, literature and traditions Eusebius concludes that he was a Jew by birth. He himself says distinctly that in A.D. 155 during the time of bishop Anicetus he was staying in Rome, and that on his way thither he visited Corinth. The opinion formerly current that his Hypomnemata consisted of a collection of historical traditions from the time of the Apostles down to the age of the writer, and so might be called a sort of Church History, arose from the historical character of the contents of eight quotations made from this treatise by Eusebius in his own Church History. It is, however, not borne out by the fact that what Hegesippus tells in his detailed narrative of the end of James the Just (§ 16, 3) occurs, not in the first or second but in the fifth and last book of his treatise. Moreover, among writers against the heretics or Gnostics, Eusebius enumerates in the first place one Hegesippus, having it would seem his Hypomnemata in view. From this circumstance, in conjunction with everything else quoted from and told about him by Eusebius, we may with great probability conclude that the purpose of his writing was to confute the heresies of his age. In doing so he traces them partly to Gentile sources, but partly and mainly to pre-Christian Jewish heresies, seven of which are enumerated. He treats in the first three books of the so-called Gnostics and their relations to heathenism and false Judaism. Then in the fourth book he discusses the heretical Apocrypha and, as contrasted with them, the orthodox ecclesiastical writings, mentioning among them expressly the Epistle of Clemens [Clement] Romanus [of Rome] to the Corinthians. Finally, in the fifth book, he proves from the Apostolic succession of the leaders of the church, the unity and truth of ecclesiastically transmitted doctrine. The historical value of his writing, owing to the confusion and want of critical power shown in the instances referred to, cannot be placed very high. The school of Baur, more particularly Schwegler (see § 20), attached greater importance to him as a supposed representative of the anti-Pauline Judaism of his time. The value of his testimony in this direction, however, is reduced by his acknowledgment of the Epistle of Clement that accords so high a place to the Apostle Paul. His relations to Rome and Corinth, with his judgment on the general unity of faith in the church of his age, prove that he would be by no means disposed to repudiate the Apostle Paul in favour of any Ebionitic tendency.

Caius of Rome, a contemporary of bishop Zephyrinus about A.D. 210, was one of the most conspicuous opponents of Montanism. Eusebius who characterizes him as ἀνὴρ ἐκκλησιαστικός and λογιώτατος, quotes four times from his now lost controversial tract in dialogue form against Proclus the Roman Montanist leader.

§ 31.8.

Sextus Julius Africanus, according to Suidas a native of Libya, took part, as he says himself in his Κεστοῖς, in the campaign of Septimius Severus against Osrhoëne in A.D. 195, became intimate with the Christian king Maanu VIII. of Edessa, whom in his Chronographies he calls ἱερὸς ἀνὴρ, and was often companion in hunting to his son and successor Maanu IX. About A.D. 220 we find him, according to Eusebius and others, in Rome at the head of an embassy from Nicopolis or Emmaus in Palestine petitioning for the restoration of that city. In consequence of Origen addressing him about A.D. 227 as ἀγαπητὸς ἀδελφός it has been rashly concluded that he was then a presbyter or at least of clerical rank. The five books, Χρονογραφίαι, were his first and most important work. This work which was known partly in the original, partly in the citations from it in the Eusebian Chronicle (§ 47, 2), together with its Latin continuation by Jerome proved a main source of information in general history during the Byzantine period and the Latin Middle Age. Beginning with the creation of the world and fixing the whole course of the world’s development at 6,000 years, he set the middle point of this period to the age of Peleg (Gen. x. 25), and in accordance with the chronology of the LXX. and reckoning by Olympiads, proceeded to synchronize biblical and profane history. He assigned the birth of Christ to the middle of the sixth of the thousand year periods, at the close of which he probably expected the beginning of the millennium. From the fragments preserved by later Byzantine chroniclers, Gelzer has attempted to reproduce as far as possible the original work, carefully indicating its sources and authorities. Of the other works of Africanus we have in a complete form only an Epistle to Origen, “a real gem of brilliant criticism spiced with a gentle touch of fine irony” (Gelzer), which combats the authenticity and credibility of the Pseudo-Daniel’s history of Susannah. We have also a fragment quoted in Eusebius from an Epistle to a certain Aristides, which attempts a reconciliation of the genealogies in Matt. and Luke by distinguishing παῖδες νόμῳ and παῖδες φύσει with reference to Deut. xxv. 5. According to Eusebius “the chronologist Julius Africanus,” according to Suidas “Origen’s friend Africanus with the prænomen Sextus,” is also the author of the so called Κεστοί (embroidery), a great comprehensive work of which only fragments have been preserved, in which all manner of wonderful things from the life of nature and men, about agriculture, cattle breeding, warfare, etc., were recorded, so that it had the secondary title Παράδοξα. The excessive details of pagan superstition here reported, much of which, such as that relating to the secret worship of Venus, was distinctly immoral, and its dependence on the secret writings of the Egyptians seem now as hard to reconcile with the standpoint of a believing Christian, as with the sharpness of intellect shown in his criticism of the letter of Susannah. It has therefore been assumed that alongside of the Christian chronologist Julius Africanus there was a pagan Julius Africanus who wrote the Κεστοί,―or, seeing the identity of the two is strongly evidenced both on internal and external grounds, the composition of the Κεστοί is assigned to a period when the author was still a heathen. The facts, however, that the Chronicles close with A.D. 221 and that the Κεστοί is dedicated to Alex. Severus (A.D. 222-235), seem to guarantee the earlier composition of the Chronicles. The author of the Κεστοί, too, by his quotation of Ps. xxxiv. 9 with the formula θεία ῥήματα, shows himself a Christian, and on the other hand, the author of the Chronicles says that at great cost he had made himself acquainted in Egypt with a celebrated secret book.

§ 31.9.

Methodius bishop of Olympus in Lycia, subsequently at Tyre, a man highly esteemed in his day, died as a martyr in A.D. 311. He was a decided opponent of the spiritualism prevailing in the school of Origen. His Συμπόσιον τῶν δέκα παρθένων is a dialogue between several virgins regarding the excellence of virginity written in eloquent and glowing language (transl. in Ante-Nicene Lib., Edin., 1870). Of his other works only outlines and fragments are preserved by Epiphanius and Photius. To these belong Περὶ αὐτεξουσίου καὶ ποθὲν κακά, a polemic against the Platonic-Gnostic doctrine of the eternity of matter as the ultimate ground and cause of sin, which are to be sought rather in the misuse of human freedom; the dialogues Περὶ ἀναστάσεως and Περὶ τῶν γεννητῶν, the former of which combats Origen’s doctrine of the resurrection, and the latter his doctrine of creation. His controversial treatise against Porphyry (§ 23, 3) has been completely lost.

The martyr Lucian of Samosata, born and brought up in Edessa, was presbyter of Antioch and co-founder of the theological school there that became so famous (§ 47, 1), where he, deposed by a Syrian Synod of A.D. 269, and persecuted by the Emperor Aurelian in A.D. 272, as supporter of bishop Paul of Samosata (§ 33, 8), maintained his position under the three following bishops (till A.D. 303) apart from the official church, and died a painful martyr’s death under the Emperor Maximinus in A.D. 312. That secession, however, was occasioned less perhaps through doctrinal and ecclesiastical, than through national and political, anti-Roman and Syrian sympathies with his heretical countrymen of Samosata. For though in the Arian controversy (§ 50, 1) Lucian undoubtedly appears as the father of that Trinitarian-Christological view first recognised and combated as heretical in his pupil Arius in A.D. 318, this was certainly essentially different from the doctrine of the Samosatian. About Lucian’s literary activity only the scantiest information has come down to us. His most famous work was his critical revision of the Text of the Old and New Testaments, which according to Jerome was officially sanctioned in the dioceses of the Patriarchs of Antioch and Constantinople, and thus probably lies at the basis of Theodoret’s and Chrysostom’s exegetical writings. Rufinus’ Latin translation of Eusebius’ Church History gives an extract from the “Apologetical Discourse” in which he seems to have openly confessed and vindicated his Christian faith before his heathen judge.

2. Church Fathers Writing in Latin.

§ 31.10. The Church Teachers of North Africa.―Quintus Septimius Florens Tertullianus [Tertullian] was the son of a heathen centurion of Carthage, distinguished as an advocate and rhetorician, converted somewhat late in life, about A.D. 190, and, after a long residence in Rome, made presbyter at Carthage in A.D. 220. He was of a fiery and energetic character, in his writings as well as in his life pre-eminently a man of force, with burning enthusiasm for the truth of the gospel, unsparingly rigorous toward himself and others. His “Punic style” is terse, pictorial and rhetorical, his thoughts are original, brilliant and profound, his eloquence transporting, his dialectic clear and convincing, his polemic crushing, enlivened with sharp wit and biting sarcasm. He shows himself the thoroughly accomplished jurist in his use of legal terminology and also in the acuteness of his deductions and demonstrations. Fanatically opposed to heathen philosophy, though himself trained in the knowledge of it, a zealous opponent of Gnosticism, in favour of strict asceticism and hostile to every form of worldliness, he finally attached himself, about A.D. 220, to the party of the Montanists (§ 40, 3). Here he found the form of religion in which his whole manner of thought and feeling, the energy of his will, the warmth of his emotions, his strong and forceful imagination, his inclination to rigorous asceticism, his love of bald realism, could be developed in all power and fulness, without let or hindrance. If amid all his enthusiasm for Montanism he kept clear of many of its absurdities, he had for this to thank his own strong common sense, and also, much as he affected to despise it, his early scientific training. He at first wrote his compositions in Greek, but afterwards exclusively in Latin, into which he also translated the most important of his earlier writings. He is perhaps not the first who treated of the Christian truth in this language (§ 31, 12a), but he has been rightly recognised as the actual creator of ecclesiastical Latin. His writings may be divided into three groups.

Apologetical and Controversial Treatises against Jews and Pagans, which belong to his pre-Montanist period. The most important and instructive of these is the Apologeticus adv. Gentes, addressed to the Roman governor. A reproduction of this work intended for the general public, less learned, but more vigorous, scathing and uncompromising, is the treatise in two books entitled Ad Nationes. In the work Ad Scapulam, who as Proconsul of Africa under Septimius Severus had persecuted the Christians with unsparing cruelty, he calls him to account for this with all earnestness and plainness of speech. In the book, De testimonio animæ he carries out more fully the thought already expressed in the Apologeticus c. 17 of the Anima humana naturaliter christiana, and proves in an ingenious manner that Christianity alone meets the religious needs of humanity. The book Adv. Judæos had its origin ostensibly in a public disputation with the Jews, in which the interruptions of his audience interferes with the flow of his discourse.

Controversial Treatises against the Heretics. In the tract De præscriptione hæreticorum he proves that the Catholic church, because in prescriptive possession of the field since the time of the Apostles, is entitled on the legal ground of præscriptio to be relieved of the task of advancing proof of her claims, while the heretics on the other hand are bound to establish their pretensions. A heresiological appendix to this book has been erroneously attributed to Tertullian (see § 31, 3). He combats the Gnostics in the writings: De baptismo (against the Gnostic rejection of water baptism); Adv. Hermogenem; Adv. Valentinianos; De anima (an Anti-Gnostic treatise, which maintains the creatureliness, yea, the materiality of the soul, traces its origin to sexual intercourse, and its mortality to Adam’s sin); De carne Christi (Anti-Docetic): De resurrectione carnis Scorpiace (an antidote to the scorpion-poison of the Gnostic heresy); finally, the five books, Adv. Marcionem. The book Adv. Praxeam is directed against the Patripassians (§ 33, 4). In this work his realism reaches its climax at c. 7 in the statement: “Quis enim negabit, Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est? Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie,”―where, however, he is careful to state that with him corpus and substantia are identical ideas, so that he can also say in c. 10 de carne Christi: “Omne quod est, corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporate nisi quod non est.”

Practical and Ascetical Treatises. His pre-Montanist writings are characterized by moderation as compared with the fanatical rigorism and scornful bitterness against the Psychical, i.e. the Catholics, displayed in those of the Montanist period. To the former class belong: De oratione (exposition of the Lord’s Prayer); De baptismo (necessity of water baptism, disapproval of infant baptism); De pœnitentia; De idolatria; Ad Martyres; De spectaculis; De cultu feminarum (against feminine love of dress); De patientia; Ad uxorem (a sort of testament for his wife, with the exhortation after his death not to marry again, but at least in no case to marry an unbeliever). To the Montanist period belong: De virginibus velandis; De corona militis (defending a Christian soldier who suffered imprisonment for refusing to wear the soldier’s crown); De fuga in persecutione (which with fanatical decision is declared to be a renunciation of Christianity); De exhortatione castitatis and De monogamia (both against second marriages which are treated as fornication and adultery); De pudicitia (recalling his milder opinion given in his earlier treatise De pœnitentia, that every mortal sin is left to the judgment of God, with the possibility of reconciliation); De jejuniis adv. Psychicos (vindication of the fasting discipline of the Montanists, § 40, 4); De pallio (an essay full of wit and humour in answer to the taunts of his fellow-citizens about his throwing off the toga and donning the philosopher’s mantle, i.e. the Pallium, which even the Ascetics might wear).78

§ 31.11. Thascius Cæcilius Cyprianus [Cyprian], descended from a celebrated pagan family in Carthage, was at first a teacher of rhetoric, then, after his conversion in A.D. 245, a presbyter and from A.D. 248 bishop in his native city. During the Decian persecution the hatred of the heathen mob expressed itself in the cry Cyprianum ad leonem; but he withdrew himself for a time in flight into the desert in A.D. 250, from whence he guided the affairs of the church by his Epistles, and returned in the following year when respite had been given. The disturbances that had meanwhile arisen afforded him abundant opportunity for the exercise of that wisdom and gentleness which characterized him, and the earnestness, energy and moderation of his nature, as well as his Christian tact and prudence all stood him in good stead in dealing, on the one hand, with the fallen who sought restoration, and on the other, the rigorous schismatics who opposed them (§ 41, 2). When persecution again broke out under Valerian in A.D. 257 he was banished to the desert Curubis, and when he returned to his oppressed people in A.D. 258, he was beheaded. His epoch-making significance lies not so much in his theological productions as in his energetic and successful struggle for the unity of the church as represented by the monarchical position of the episcopate, and in his making salvation absolutely dependent upon submission to episcopal authority, as well as in the powerful impetus given by him to the tendency to view ecclesiastical piety as an opus operatum (§ 39). As a theologian and writer he mainly attaches himself to the giant Tertullian, whose thoughts he reproduces in his works, with the excision, however, of their Montanist extravagances. Jerome relates that no day passed in which he did not call to his amanuensis: Da magistrum! In originality, profundity, force and fulness of thought, as well as in speculative and dialectic gifts, he stands indeed far below Tertullian, but in lucidity and easy flow of language and pleasant exposition he far surpasses him. His eighty-one Epistles are of supreme importance for the Ch. Hist. of his times, and next to them in value is the treatise “De unitate ecclesiæ” (§ 34, 7). His Liber ad Donatum s. de gratia Dei, the first writing produced after his conversion, contains treatises on the leadings of God’s grace and the blessedness of the Christian life as contrasted with the blackness of the life of the pagan world. The Apologetical writings De idolorum vanitate and Testimonia adv. Judæos, II. iii., have no claims to independence and originality. This applies also more or less to his ascetical tracts: De habitu virginum, De mortalitate, De exhortatione martyrii, De lapsis, De oratione dominica, De bono patientiæ, De zelo et livore, etc. His work De opere et eleemosynis specially contributed to the spread of the doctrine of the merit of works.79

§ 31.12. Various Ecclesiastical Writers using the Latin Tongue.

The Roman attorney Minucius Felix, probably of Cirta in Africa, wrote under the title of Octavius a brilliant Apology, expressed in a fine Latin diction, in the form of a conversation between his two friends the Christian Octavius and the heathen Cæcilius, which resulted in the conversion of the latter. It is matter of dispute whether it was composed before or after Tertullian’s Apologeticus, and to which of the two the origin of thoughts and expressions common to both is to be assigned. Recently Ebert has maintained the opinion that Minucius is the older, and this view has obtained many adherents; whereas the contrary theory of Schultze has reached its climax in assigning the composition of the Octavius to A.D. 300-303, so that he is obliged to ascribe the Octavius as well as the Apologeticus to a compiler of the fourth or fifth century, plagiarizing from Cyprian’s treatise De idolorum vanitate!

Commodianus [Commodus], born at Gaza, was won to Christianity by reading holy scripture, and wrote about A.D. 250 his Instructiones adv. Gentium Deos, consisting of eighty acrostic poems in rhyming hexameters and scarcely intelligible, barbarous Latin. His Carmen apologeticum adv. Jud. et Gent. was first published in 1852.

The writings of his contemporary the schismatical Novatian of Rome (§ 41, 3) show him to have been a man of no ordinary dogmatical and exegetical ability. His Liber de Trinitate s. de Regula fidei is directed in a subordinationist sense against the Monarchians (§ 33). The Epistola de cibis Judaici repudiates any obligation on the part of Christians to observe the Old Testament laws about food; and the Epistola Cleri Romani advocates milder measures in the penitential discipline.

Arnobius was born at Sicca in Africa, where he was engaged as a teacher of eloquence about A.D. 300. For a long time he was hostilely inclined toward Christianity, but underwent a change of mind by means of a vision in a dream. The bishop distrusted him and had misgivings about admitting him to baptism, but he convinced him of the honesty of his intentions by composing the seven books of Disputationes adv. Gentes. This treatise betrays everywhere defective understanding of the Christian truth; but he is more successful in combating the old religion than in defending the new.

The bishop Victorinus of Pettau (Petavium in Styria), who died a martyr during the Diocletian persecution in A.D. 303, wrote commentaries on the Old and New Testament books that are no longer extant. Only a fragment De fabrica mundi on Gen. i. and Scholia on the Apocalypse have been preserved.

Lucius Cœlius Firmianus Lactantius († about A.D. 330), probably of Italian descent, but a pupil of Arnobius in Africa, was appointed by Diocletian teacher of Latin eloquence at Nicomedia. At that place about A.D. 301 he was converted to Christianity and resigned his office on the outbreak of the persecution. Constantine the Great subsequently committed to him the education of his son Crispus, who, at his father’s command, was executed in A.D. 326. From his writings he seems to have been amiable and unassuming, a man of wide reading, liberal culture and a warm heart. The purity of his Latin style and the eloquence of his composition, in which he excels all the Church Fathers, has won for him the honourable name of the Christian Cicero. We often miss in his writings grip, depth and acuteness of thinking; especially in their theological sections we meet with many imperfections and mistakes. He was not only carried away by a fanatical chiliasm, but adopted also many opinions of a Manichæan sort. The Institutiones divinæ in seven bks., a complete exposition and defence of the Christian faith, is his principal work. The Epitome div. inst. is an abstract of the larger works prepared by himself with the addition of many new thoughts. His book De mortibus persecutorum (Engl. trans. by Dr. Burnett, “Relation of the Death of the Primitive Persecutors.” Amsterdam, 1687), contains a rhetorically coloured description of the earlier persecutions as well as of those witnessed by himself during his residence in Nicomedia. It is of great importance for the history of the period but must be carefully sifted owing to its strongly partisan character. Not only the joy of the martyrs but also the proof of a divine Nemesis in the lives of the persecutors are regarded as demonstrating the truth of Christianity. The tract De ira Dei seeks to prove the failure of Greek philosophy to combine the ideas of justice and goodness in its conception of God. The book De opificio Dei proves from the wonderful structure of the human body the wisdom of divine providence. Jerome praises him as a poet; but of the poems ascribed to him only one on the bird phœnix, which, as it rises into life out of its own ashes is regarded as a symbol of immortality and the resurrection, can lay any claim to authenticity.

§ 32. The Apocryphal and Pseudepigraphical Literature.80

The practice, so widely spread in pre-Christian times among pagans and Jews, of publishing treatises as original and primitive divine revelations which had no claim to such a title found favour among Christians of the first centuries, and was continued far down into the Greek and Latin Middle Ages. The majority of the apocryphal or anonymous and pseudepigraphic writings were issued in support of heresies Ebionite or Gnostic. Many, however, were free from heretical taint and were simply undertaken for the purpose of glorifying Christianity by what was then regarded as a harmless pia fraus through a vaticinia post eventum, or of filling up blanks in the early history with myths and fables already existing or else devised for the occasion. They took the subjects of their romances partly from the field of the Old Testament, and partly from the field of the New Testament in the form of Gospels, Acts, Apostolic Epistles and Apocalypses. A number of them are professedly drawn from the prophecies of old heathen seers. Of greater importance, especially for the history of the constitution, worship and discipline of the church are the Eccles. Constitutions put forth under the names of Apostles. Numerous apocryphal Acts of Martyrs are for the most part utterly useless as historical sources.

§ 32.1. Professedly Old Heathen Prophecies.―Of these the Sibylline Writings occupy the most conspicuous place. The Græco-Roman legend of the Sibyls, σιοῦ βούλη (Æol. for θεοῦ βούλη), i.e. prophetesses of pagan antiquity, was wrought up at a very early period in the interests of Judaism and afterwards of Christianity, especially of Ebionite heresy. The extant collection of such oracles in fourteen books were compiled in the 5th or 6th century. It contains in Greek verses prophecies partly purely Jewish, partly Jewish wrought up by a Christian hand, partly originally Christian, about the history of the world, the life and sufferings of Christ, the persecutions of His disciples and the stages in the final development of His kingdom. The Christian participation in the composition of the Sibylline oracles began in the first century, soon after the irruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79, and continued down to the 5th century. The Apologists, especially Lactantius, made such abundant use of these prophecies that the heathens nicknamed them Sibyllists.―Of the prophecies about the coming of Christ ascribed to an ancient Persian seer, Hystaspes, none have been preserved.

§ 32.2. Old Testament Pseudepigraphs.81―These are mostly of Jewish Origin, of which, however, many were held by the early Christians in high esteem.

To this class belongs pre-eminently the Book of Enoch, written originally in Hebrew in the last century before Christ, quoted in the Epistle of Jude, and recovered only in an Ethiopic translation in A.D. 1821. In its present form in which a great number of older writings about Enoch and Noah have been wrought up, the book embraces accounts of the fall of a certain part of the angels (Gen. vi. 1-4; Jude 6; and 2 Pet. ii. 4), also statements of the holy angels about the mysteries of heaven and hell, the earth and paradise, about the coming of the Messiah, etc.

The Assumptio Mosis (ἀνάληψις), from which, according to Origen, the reference to the dispute between Michael and Satan about the body of Moses in the Epistle of Jude is taken, was discovered by the librarian Ceriani at Milan. He found the first part of this book in an old Latin translation and published it in A.D. 1860. In the exercise of his official gift Moses prophesies to Joshua about the future fortunes of his nation down to the appearing of the Messiah. The second part, which is wanting, dealt with the translation of Moses. The exact date of its composition is not determined, but it may be perhaps assigned to the first Christian century.

The so-called Fourth Book of Ezra is first referred to by Clement of Alexandria. It is an Apocalypse after the manner of the Book of Daniel. It was probably written originally in Greek but we possess only translations: a Latin one and four oriental ones―Ethiopic, Arabic, Syriac and Armenian. From these oriental translations the blanks in the Latin version have been supplied, and its later Christian interpolations have been detected. The angel Uriel in seven visions makes known to the weeping Ezra the signs of the approaching destruction of Jerusalem, the decay of the Roman empire, the founding of the Messianic kingdom, etc. The fifth vision of the eagle with twelve wings and three heads seems to fix the date of its composition to the time of Domitian.

In the year 1843 the missionary Krapff sent to Tübingen the title of an Ethiopic Codex, in which Ewald recognised the writing referred to frequently by the Church Fathers as the Book of Jubilees (Ἰωβελαῖα) or the Little Genesis (Λεπτογένεσις). This book, written probably about A.D. 50 or 60, is a complete summary of the Jewish legendary matter about the early biblical history from the creation down to the entrance into Canaan, divided into fifty jubilee periods. The name Little Genesis was given it, notwithstanding its large dimensions, as indicating a Genesis of the second rank.82

§ 32.3. The following Pseudepigraphs are of Christian Origin.

The short romantic History of Assenath, daughter of Potiphar and wife of Joseph (Gen. xli. 45). Its main point is the conversion of Assenath by an angel.

The Testaments of the XII. Patriarchs, after the style of Gen. xlix., written in Greek in the 2nd cent., and quoted by Origen. As in the chapter of Gen. referred to parting counsels are put in the mouth of Jacob, they are here ascribed to his twelve sons. These discourses embrace prophecies of the coming of Christ and His atoning sufferings and death, statements about baptism and the Lord’s supper, about the great Apostle of the Gentiles, the rejection of the O.T. covenant people and the election of the Gentiles, the destruction of Jerusalem and the final completion of the kingdom of God. The book is thus a cleverly compiled and comprehensive handbook of Christian faith, life and hope.

Of the Ascensio Isaiæ (Ἀναβατικόν) and the Visio Isaiæ (Ὅρασις) traces are to be found as early as in Justin Martyr and Tertullian. The Greek original is lost. Dillmann published an old Ethiopic version (Lps., 1877), and Gieseler an old Lat. text (Gött., 1832). Its Cabbalistic colouring commended it to the Gnostics. In its first part, borrowed from an old Jewish document, it tells about the martyrdom of Isaiah who was sawn asunder by King Manasseh; in its second part, entitled Visio Isaiæ it is told how the prophet in an ecstasy was led by an angel through the seven heavens and had revealed to him the secrets of the divine counsels regarding the incarnation of Christ.

A collection in Syriac belonging perhaps to the 5th or 6th century in which other legends about early ages are kept together, is called Spelunca thesaurorum. We are here told about the sepulchre of the patriarch Lamech and the treasures preserved there from which the wise men obtained the gifts which they presented to the infant Saviour. The Ethiopic Vita Adami is an expansion of the book just referred to. This book is manifestly a legendary account of the changes wrought upon all relations of life in our first parents by means of the fall (hence the title: “Conflict of Adam and Eve”), and Golgotha is named as Adam’s burying place. A second and shorter part treats of the Sethite patriarchs down to Noah. The still shorter third part relates the post-diluvian history down to the time of Christ.83

§ 32.4. New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphs.―The Gnostics especially produced these in great abundance. Epiphanius speaks of them as numbering thousands. But the Catholics, too, were unable to resist the temptation to build up the truth by these doubtful means.

Apocryphal Gospels. Complete Gospels existed in considerable numbers, i.e. embracing the period of Christ’s earthly labours, more or less corrupted in the interests of Gnostic or Ebionitic heresy, or independently composed Gospels; but only of a few of these do we possess any knowledge.84 The most important of these are the following: The Gosp. of the Egyptians, esteemed by the Encratites, according to Origen one of the writings referred to in Luke i. 1; also the Gosp. of the XII. Apostles, generally called by the Fathers Εὐαγγ. καθ’ Ἑβραίους originally written in Aramaic; and finally, the Gosp. of Marcion (§ 27, 11). The most important of these is the Gospel of the Hebrews, on account of its relation to our canonical Gospel of Matthew, which is generally supposed to have been written originally in Aramaic.85 Jerome who translated the Hebrew Gospel says of it: Vocatur a plerisque Matthæi authenticum; but this is not his own opinion, nor was it that of Origen and Eusebius. The extant fragments show many divergences as well as many similarities, partly in the form of apocryphal amplifications, partly of changes made for dogmatic reasons. Gospels dealing with particular Periods―referring to the days preceding the birth of Jesus and the period of the infancy or to the closing days of His life, where the heretical elements are wanting or are subordinated to the general interests of Christianity. Of these there was a large number and much of their legendary or fabulous material, especially about the family history of the mother of Jesus (§ 57, 2), has passed over into the tradition of the Catholic Church. Among them may be mentioned; The Protevangel. Jacobi minoris, perhaps the oldest, certainly the most esteemed and most widely spread, written in Greek, beginning with the story of Mary’s birth and reaching down to the death of the children of Bethlehem; The Ev. Pseudo Matthæi, similar in its contents, but continued down to the period of Jesus’ youth, and now existing only in a Lat. translation; The Ev. de nativitate Mariæ, only in Lat., containing the history of Mary down to the birth of Jesus; The Hist. Josephi fabri lignarii down to his death, dating probably from the 4th cent., only now in an Arabic version; The Ev. Infantiæ Salvatoris, only in Arabic, a compilation with no particular dogmatic tendency; Also the so-called Ascension of Mary (§ 57, 2) soon became the subject of apocryphal treatment, for which John was claimed as the authority (John xix. 26), and is preserved in several Greek, Syriac, Arabic and Latin manuscripts; The Ev. Nicodemi (John xix. 39) in Greek and Lat. contains two Jewish writings of the 2nd century. The first part consists of the Gesta or Acta Pilati. There can be no doubt of its identity with the Acta Pilati quoted by Justin, Tert., Euseb., Epiph. It contains the stories of the canonical Gospels variously amplified and an account of the judicial proceedings evidently intended to demonstrate Jesus’ innocence of the charges brought against Him by His enemies. The second part, bearing the title Descensus Christi ad inferos, is of much later origin, telling of the descent of Christ into Hades along with two of the saints who rose with him (Matt. xxvii. 52), Leucius and Carinus, sons of Simeon (Luke ii. 25).86

§ 32.5.

The numerous Apocryphal Histories and Legends of the Apostles were partly of heretical, and partly of Catholic, origin. While the former have in view the establishing of their heretical doctrines and peculiar forms of worship, constitution and life by representing them as Apostolic institutions, the latter arose mostly out of a local patriotic intention to secure to particular churches the glory of being founded by an Apostle. Those inspired by Gnostic influences far exceed in importance and number not only the Ebionitic but also the genuinely Catholic. The Manichæans especially produced many and succeeded in circulating them widely. The more their historico-romantic contents pandered to the taste of that age for fantastic tales of miracles and visions the surer were they to find access among Catholic circles.―A collection of such histories under the title of Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων was received as canonical by Gnostics and Manichæans, and even by many of the Church Fathers. Augustine first named as its supposed author one Leucius. We find this name some decades later in Epiphanius as that of a pupil of John and opponent of the Ebionite Christology, and also in Pacianus of Barcelona as that of one falsely claimed as an authority by the Montanists. According to Photius this collection embraced the Acts of Peter, John, Andrew, Thomas and Paul, and the author’s full name was Leucius Carinus, who also appears in the second part of the Acta Pilati, but in quite other circumstances and surroundings. That all the five books were composed by one author is not probable; perhaps originally only the Acts of John bore the name of Leucius, which was subsequently transferred to the whole. Zahn’s view, on the other hand, is, that the Περίοδοι τῶν ἀποστόλων, especially the Acts of John, was written under the falsely assumed name of John’s pupil Leucius, about A.D. 130, at a time when the Gnostics had not yet been separated from the Church as a heretical sect, was even at a later period accepted as genuine by the Catholic church teachers notwithstanding the objectionable character of much of its contents, its modal docetic Christology and encratite Ethics with contempt of marriage, rejection of animal food and the use of wine and the demand of voluntary poverty, and held in high esteem as a source of the second rank for the Apostolic history. Lipsius considers that it was composed in the interests of the vulgar Gnosticism (§ 27) in the second half of the 2nd, or first half of the 3rd cent., and proves that from Eusebius down to Photius, who brands it as πασῆς αἱρέσεως πηγὴν καὶ μητέρα, the Catholic church teachers without exception speak of it as heretical and godless, and that the frequent patristic references to the Historiæ ecclesiasticiæ do not apply to it but to Catholic modifications of it, which were regarded as the genuine and generally credible original writing of Leucius which were wickedly falsified by the Manichæans.―Catholic modifications of particular Gnostic Περίοδοι, as well as independent Catholic writings of this sort in Greek are still preserved in MS. in great numbers and have for the most part been printed. The Hist. certaminis apostolici in ten books, which the supposed pupil of the Apostles Abdias, first bishop of Babylon, wrote in Hebrew, was translated by his pupil Eutropius into Greek and by Julius Africanus into Latin.87―They are all useless for determining the history of the Apostolic Age, although abundantly so used in the Catholic church tradition. For the history of doctrines and sects, the history of the canon, worship, ecclesiastical customs and modes of thought during the 2nd-4th cents., they are of the utmost importance.

§ 32.6. From the many apocryphal monographs still preserved on the life, works and martyrdom of the biblical Apostles and their coadjutors, in addition to the Pseudo-Clementines already discussed in § 28, 3, the following are the most important.

The Greek Acta Petri et Pauli. These describe the journeys of Paul to Rome, the disputation of the two Apostles at Rome with Simon Magus, and the Roman martyrdom of both, and constitute the source of the traditions regarding Peter and Paul which are at the present day regarded in the Roman Catholic Church as historical. These Acts, however, as Lipsius has shown, are not an original work, but date from about A.D. 160, and consist of a Catholic reproduction of Ebionite or Anti-Pauline, Acts of Peter, with additions from Gentile-Christian traditions of Paul. The Acts of Peter take up the story where the Pseudo-Clementines end, as may be seen even from their Catholic reproduction, for they make Simon Magus, followed everywhere and overcome by the Apostle Peter, at last seek refuge in Rome, where, again unmasked by Peter, he met a miserable end (§ 25, 2). As the Κηρύγματα Πέτρου which formed the basis of the Pseudo-Clementine writings combats the specifically Pauline doctrines as derived from Simon Magus (§ 28, 4), so the Acts of Peter identify him even personally with Paul, for they maliciously and spitefully assign well-known facts from the Apostle’s life to Simon Magus, which are bona fide in the Catholic reproduction assumed to be genuine works of Simon.―The Gnostic Acts of Peter and Acts of Paul had wrought up the current Ebionite and Catholic traditions about the doings and martyr deaths of the two Apostles with fanciful adornments and embellishments after the style and in the interests of Gnosticism. A considerable fragment of these, purified indeed by Catholic hands, is preserved to us in the Passio Petri et Pauli, to which is attached the name of Linus, the pretended successor of Peter. The fortunes of the two Apostles are related quite independently of one another: Paul makes his appearance at Rome only after the death of Peter. Of the non-heretical Acts of Paul which according to Eusebius were in earlier times received in many churches as holy scripture (§ 36, 8), no trace has as yet been discovered.

Among the Greek Acts of John, the remnants of the Leucian Περίοδοι Ἰωάννου preserved in their original form deserve to be first mentioned. According to Zahn, they are one of the earliest witnesses for the genuineness of the Gospel of John, and give the deathblow to the theory that with and after the Apostle John, there was in Ephesus another John the Presbyter distinct from him (§ 16, 2). Lipsius, on the other hand, places their composition in the second half of the 2nd cent., and deprives them of that significance for the life of the Apostle, but admits their great value for a knowledge of doctrines, principles and forms of worship of the vulgar Gnosticism then widely spread. The Πράξεις Ἰωάννου, greatly esteemed in the Greek church, and often translated into other languages, written in the 5th cent. by a Catholic hand and ascribed to Prochoros [Prochorus] the deacon of Jerusalem (Acts vi. 5), is a poetic romance with numerous raisings from the dead, exorcisms, etc., almost wholly the creation of the writer’s own imagination, without a trace of any encratite tendency like the Leucian Περίοδοι and without any particular doctrinal significance.

To the same age and the same Gnostic party as the Leucian Acts of John, belong the Acts of Andrew preserved in many fragments and circulated in various Catholic reproductions. Of these latter the most esteemed were the Acts of Andrew and Matthew in the city of the cannibals.

d. The Catholic reproductions in Greek and Syriac that have come down to us of the Leucian Acts of Thomas are of special value because of the many Gnostic elements which, particularly in the Greek, have been allowed to remain unchanged in the very imperfectly purified text. The scene of the Apostle’s activity is said to be India. The central point in his preaching to sinners is the doctrine that only by complete abstinence from marriage and concubinage can we become at last the partner of the heavenly bridegroom (§ 27, 4). A highly poetical hymn on the marriage of Sophia (Achamoth) is left in the Greek text unaltered, while the Syriac text puts the church in place of Sophia. Then we have two poetical consecration prayers for baptism and the eucharist, in which the Syriac substituted Christ for Achamoth. But besides, even in the Syriac text, a grandly swelling hymn, which is wanting in the Greek text, romances about the fortunes of the soul, which, sent from heaven to earth to fetch a pearl watched by the serpent forgets its heavenly origin and calling, and only remembers this after repeated reminders from heaven, etc. Gutschmied has shown it to be probable that the history groundwork of the Acts of Thomas is borrowed from older Buddhist legends (§ 68, 6).

The Acta Pauli et Thecla, according to Tertullian and Jerome, were composed by a presbyter of Asia Minor who, carried away by the mania for literary forging, excused himself by saying that he had written Pauli amore, but was for this nevertheless deprived of his office. According to these Acts Thecla, the betrothed bride of a young man of importance at Iconium, was won to Christianity by a sermon of Paul on continence as a condition of a future glorious resurrection, forsook her bridegroom, devoted herself to perpetual virginity, and attached herself forthwith to the Apostle whose bodily presence is described as contemptible,―little, bald-headed, large nose, and bandy legs,―but lighted up with heavenly grace. Led twice to martyrdom she was saved by miraculous divine interposition, first from the flames of the pile, then, after having baptized herself in the name of Christ by plunging into a pit full of water, from the rage of devouring animals; whereupon Paul, recognising that sort of baptism in an emergency as valid, sent her forth with the commission: Go hence and teach the word of God! After converting and instructing many, she died in peace in Seleucia. Although Jerome treats our book as apocryphal, the legends of Thecla as given in it were regarded in the West as genuine, and St. Thecla was honoured throughout the whole of the Latin middle ages next to the mother of Jesus as the most perfect pattern of virginity. In the Greek church where we meet with the name first in the Symposium of Methodius, the book remained unsuspected and its heroine, as ἡ ἀπόστολος and ἡ πρωτομάρτυς, was honoured still more enthusiastically than in the West.

The Syriac Doctrina Addæi Apost. was according to its own statement deposited in the library of Edessa, but allusions to later persons and circumstances show that it could not have been written before A.D. 280 (according to Zahn about A.D. 270-290; acc. to Lipsius not before A.D. 360). It assigns the founding of the church of Edessa, which is proved to have been not earlier than A.D. 170, according to local tradition to the Apostle Addai [Addæi] (in Euseb. and elsewhere, Thaddeus: comp. Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18), whom it represents as one of the seventy disciples and as having been sent by Thomas to Abgar Uchomo in accordance with Christ’s promise (§ 13, 2).88

§ 32.7.

Apostolic Epistles. The apocryphal Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans (Col. iv. 16), and that to the Corinthians suggested by the statement in 1 Cor. v. 9, are spiritless compilations from the canonical Epistles. From the Correspondence of Paul with Seneca, quotations are made by Jerome and Augustine. It embraces fourteen short epistles. The idea of friendly relations between these two men suggested by Acts xviii. 12, Gallio being Seneca’s brother, forms the motive for the fiction.

The apocryphal Apocalypses that have been preserved are of little value. An Apocalypsis Petri was known to Clement of Alexandria. The Apoc. Pauli is based on 2 Cor. xii. 2.

Apostolical Constitutions, comp. § 43, 4, 5.89

§ 32.8. The Acts of the Martyrs.―Of the numerous professedly contemporary accounts of celebrated martyrs of the 2nd and 3rd cents., those adopted by Eusebius in his Church History may be accepted as genuine; especially the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna to the Church at Philomelium about the persecution which it suffered (§ 22, 3); also the Report of the Church at Lyons and Vienne to the Christians in Asia and Phrygia about the persecution under Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 177 (§ 22, 3); and an Epistle of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria to Fabian of Antioch about the Alexandrian martyrs and confessors during the Decian persecution. The Acts of the Martyrs of Scillita are also genuine (§ 22, 3); so too the Montanistic History of the sufferings of Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions (§§ 22, 4; 40, 3); as well as the Acta s. Cypriani. The main part of the Martyrdom of Justin Martyr by Simeon Metaphr. (§ 68, 4) belongs probably to the 2nd cent. The Martyrdom of Ignatius (§ 30, 5) professedly by his companions in his last journey to Rome, and the Martyrdom of Sympherosa in the Tiber, who was put to death with her seven sons under Hadrian, as well as all other Acts of the Martyrs professedly belonging to the first four centuries, are of more than doubtful authenticity.

§ 33. The Doctrinal Controversies of the Old Catholic Age.90

The development of the system of Christian doctrine must become a necessity when Christianity meeting with pagan culture in the form of science is called upon to defend her claim to be the universal religion. In the first three centuries, however, there was as yet no official construction and establishment of ecclesiastical doctrine. There must first be a certain measure of free subjective development and wrestling with antagonistic views. A universally acknowledged organ is wanting, such as that subsequently found in the Œcumenical Councils. The persecutions allowed no time and peace for this; and the church had enough to do in maintaining what is specifically Christian in opposition to the intrusion of such anti-Christian, Jewish and Pagan elements as sought to gain a footing in Ebionism and Gnosticism. On the other hand, friction and controversy within the church had already begun as a preparation for the construction of the ecclesiastical system of doctrine. The Trinitarian controversy was by far the most important, while the Chiliastic discussions were of significance for Eschatology.

§ 33.1. The Trinitarian Questions.―The discussion was mainly about the relation of the divine μοναρχία (the unity of God) to the οἰκονομία (the Trinitarian being and movement of God). Then the relation of the Son or Logos to the Father came decidedly to the front. From the time when the more exact determination of this relationship came to be discussed, toward the end of the 2nd cent., the most eminent teachers of the Catholic church maintained stoutly the personal independence of the Logos―Hypostasianism. But the necessity for keeping this view in harmony with the monotheistic doctrine of Christianity led to many errors and vacillations. Adopting Philo’s distinction of λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and λόγος προφορικός (§ 10, 1), they for the most part regarded the hypostasizing as conditioned first by the creating of the world and as coming forth not as a necessary and eternal element in the very life of God but as a free and temporal act of the divine will. The proper essence of the Godhead was identified rather with the Father, and all attributes of the Godhead were ascribed to the Son not in a wholly equal measure as to the Father, for the word of Christ: “the Father is greater than I” (John xiv. 28), was applied even to the pre-existent state of Christ. Still greater was the uncertainty regarding the Holy Spirit. The idea of His personality and independence was far less securely established; He was much more decidedly subordinated, and the functions of inspiration and sanctification proper to Him were ascribed to Christ, or He was simply identified with the Son of God. The result, however, of such subordinationist hypostasianism was that, on the one hand, many church teachers laid undue stress on the fundamental anti-pagan doctrine of the unity of God, just as on the other hand, many had indulged in exaggerated statements about the divinity of Christ. It seemed therefore desirable to set aside altogether the question of the personal distinction of the Son and Spirit from the Father. This happened either in the way clearly favoured by the Ebionites who regarded Christ as a mere man, who, like the prophets, though in a much higher measure, had been endued with divine wisdom and power (dynamic Monarchianism), or in a way more accordant with the Christian mode of thought, admitting that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ, and either identifying the Logos with the Father (Patripassianism), or seeing in Him only a mode of the activity of the Father (modal Monarchianism). Monarchianism in all these forms was pronounced heretical by all the most illustrious fathers of the 3rd cent., and hypostasianism was declared orthodox. But even under hypostasianism an element of error crept in at a later period in the form of subordinationism, and modal Monarchianism approached nearer to the church doctrine by adopting the doctrine of sameness of essence (ὁμοουσία) in Son and Father. The orthodox combination of the two opposites was reached in the 3rd cent, in homoousian hypostasianism, but only in the 4th cent. attained universal acceptance (§ 50).

§ 33.2. The Alogians.―Soon after A.D. 170 in Asia Minor we meet with the Alogians as the first decided opponents from within the church of Logos doctrine laid down in the Gospel by John and the writings of the Apologists. They started in diametrical opposition to the chiliasm of the Montanists and their claims to prophetic gifts, and were thus led not only to repudiate the Apocalypse but also the Gospel of John; the former on account of its chiliast-prophetic contents which embraced so much that was unintelligible, yea absurd and untrue; the latter, first of all on account of the use the Montanists made of its doctrine of the Paraclete in support of their prophetic claims (§ 40, 1), but also on account of its seeming contradictions of and departures from the narratives of the Synoptists, and finally, on account of its Logos doctrine in which the immediate transition from the incarnation of the Logos to the active life of Christ probably seemed to them too closely resembling docetic Gnosticism. They therefore attributed to the Gnosticizing Judaist, Cerinthus, the authorship both of the Fourth Gospel and of the Apocalypse. Of their own Christological theories we have no exact information. Irenæus and Hippolytus deal mildly with them and recognise them as members of the Catholic church. It is Epiphanius who first gives them the equivocal designation of Alogians (which may either be “deniers of the Logos” or “the irrational”), denouncing them as heretical rejecters of the Logos doctrine and the Logos-Gospel. This is the first instance which we have of historical criticism being exercised in the Church with reference to the biblical books.

§ 33.3. The Theodotians and Artemonites.―Epiphanius describes the sect of the Theodotians at Rome as an ἀπόσπασμα τῆς ἀλόγου αἱρέσεως. The main source of information about them is the Little Labyrinth (§ 31, 3), and next to it Hippolytus in his Syntagma, quoted by the Pseudo-Tertullian and Epiphanius, and in his Elenchus. The founder of this sect, Theodotus ὁ σκυτεύς, the Tanner, a man well trained in Greek culture, came A.D. 190 to Byzantium where, during the persecution, he denied Christ, and on this account changed his residence to Rome and devoted himself here to the spread of his dynamic Monarchianism. He maintained ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον εἶναι τὸν Χριστόν,―Spiritu quidem sancto natum ex virgine, sed hominem nudum nulla alia præ cæteris nisi sola justitæ auctoritate. He sought to justify his views by a one-sided interpretation of scripture passages referring to the human nature of Christ.91 But since he acknowledged the supernatural birth of Christ as well as the genuineness of the Gospel of John, and in other respects agreed with his opponents, he could still represent himself as standing on the basis of the Old Catholic Regula fidei (§ 35, 2). Nevertheless the Roman bishop Victor (A.D. 189-199) excommunicated him and his followers. The most distinguished among his disciples was a second Theodotus ὁ τραπεζίτης, the Money-changer. By an exegesis of Heb. v. 6, 10; vi. 20; vii. 3, 17, he sought to prove that Melchisedec was δύναμις τίς μεγίστη and more glorious than Christ; the former was the original type, the latter only the copy; the former was intercessor before God for the angels, the latter only for men; the origin of the former is secret, because truly heavenly, that of Christ open, because born of Mary. The later heresiologists therefore designate his followers Melchisedecians. Laying hold upon the theory φύσει τὸν υἱὸν τοῦ θεοῦ ἐν ἰδέᾳ ἀνθρώπου τότε τῷ Ἀβραὰμ πεφηνέναι which, according to Epiphanius, was held even by Catholics, and also, like the Shepherd of Hermas, identifying the Son of God with the Holy Spirit that descended in baptism on the man Jesus, Theodotus seems from those two points of view to have proceeded to teach, that the historical Christ, because operated upon only dynamically by the Holy Spirit or the Son of God, was inferior to the purely heavenly Melchisedec who was himself the very eternal Son of God. The reproaches directed against the Theodotians by their opponents were mainly these: that instead of the usual allegorical exegesis they used only a literal and grammatical, that they practised an arbitrary system of Textual criticism, and that instead of holding to the philosophy of the divine Plato, they took their wisdom from the empiricists (Aristotle, Euclid, Galen, etc.), and sought by such objectionable means to support their heretical views. We have thus probably to see in them a group of Roman theologians, who, towards the close of the 2nd cent. and the beginning of the 3rd cent. maintained exegetical and critical principles essentially the same as those which the Antiochean school with greater clearness and definiteness set forth toward the end of the 3rd cent. (§§ 31, 1; 47, 1). The attempt, however, which they made to found an independent sect in Rome about A.D. 210 was an utter failure. According to the report of the Little Labyrinth, they succeeded in getting for their bishop a weak-minded confessor called Natalius. Haunted by visions of judgment and beaten sore one night by good angels till in a miserable plight, he hasted on the following morning to cast himself at the feet of bishop Zephyrinus (A.D. 199-217), successor of Victor, and showing his stripes he begged for mercy and restoration.―The last of the representatives of the Theodotians in Rome, and that too under this same Zephyrinus, was a certain Artemon or Artemas. He and his followers maintained that their own doctrine (which cannot be very exactly determined but was also of the dynamic order) had been recognised in Rome as orthodox from the time of the Apostles down to that of bishop Victor, and was first condemned by his successor Zephyrinus. This assertion cannot be said to be altogether without foundation in view, on the one hand, of the agreement above referred to between Theodotus the younger and the Roman Hermas, and on the other hand, of the fact that the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus had passed over to Noëtian Modalism. Artemon must have lived at least until A.D. 260, when Paul of Samosata (§ 33, 8), who also maintained fellowship with the excommunicated Artemonites in Rome, conducted a correspondence with him.

§ 33.4. Praxeas and Tertullian.―Patripassianism, which represented the Father Himself as becoming man and suffering in Christ, may be characterized as the precursor and first crude form of Modalism. It also had its origin during the 2nd cent., in that same intellectually active church of Asia Minor, and from thence the movement spread to Rome, where after a long and bitter struggle it secured a footing in the 3rd cent.―Praxeas, a confessor of Asia Minor and opponent of Montanism, was its first representative at Rome, where unopposed he expounded his views about A.D. 190. As he supported the Roman bishop Victor in his condemnation of Montanism (§ 40, 2), so he seems to have won the bishop’s approval for his Christological theory.92 Perhaps also the excommunication which was at this time uttered against the dynamic Monarchian, Theodotus the Elder, was the result of the bishop’s change of views. From Rome Praxeas betook himself, mainly in the interest of his Anti-Montanist crusade, to Carthage, and there also won adherents to his Christology. Meanwhile, however, Tertullian returned to Carthage, and as a convert to Montanism, hurled against Praxeas and his followers a controversial treatise, in which he laid bare with acute dialectic the weaknesses and inconsistencies, as well as the dangerous consequences of their theory. Just like the Alogians, Praxeas and his adherents refused to admit the doctrine of the Logos into their Christology, and feared that it in connection with the doctrine of the hypostasis would give an advantage to Gnosticism. In the interests of monotheism, as well as of the worship of Christ, they maintained the perfect identity of Father and Son. God became the Son by the assumption of the flesh; under the concept of the Father therefore falls the divinity, the spirit; under that of the Son, the humanity, the flesh of the Redeemer.―Tertullian himself in his Hypostasianism had not wholly got beyond the idea of subordinationism, but he made an important advance in this direction by assuming three stages in the hypostasizing of the Son (Filiatio). The first stage is the eternal immanent state of being of the Son in the Father; the second is the forthcoming of the Son alongside of the Father for the purpose of creating the world; and the third is the going forth of the Son into the world by means of the incarnation.