Note (return) — Chapter I

But the problem which the Apologists solved almost offhand, namely, the task of showing that Christianity was the perfect and certain philosophy, because it rested on revelation, and that it was the highest scientific knowledge of God and the world, was to be rendered more difficult. To these difficulties all that primitive Christianity has up to the present transmitted to the Church of succeeding times contributes its share. The conflict with Gnosticism made it necessary to find some sort of solution to the question, "What is Christian?" and to fix this answer. But indeed the Fathers were not able to answer the question confidently and definitely. They therefore made a selection from tradition and contented themselves with making it binding on Christians. Whatever was to lay claim to authority in the Church had henceforth to be in harmony with the rule of faith and the canon of New Testament Scriptures. That created an entirely new situation for Christian thinkers, that is, for those trying to solve the problem of subordinating Christianity to the Hellenic spirit. That spirit never became quite master of the situation; it was obliged to accommodate itself to it.7 The work first began with the scientific treatment of individual articles contained in the rule of faith, partly with the view of disproving Gnostic conceptions, partly for the purpose of satisfying the Church's own needs. The framework in which these articles were placed virtually continued to be the apologetic theology, for this maintained a doctrine of God and the world, which seemed to correspond to the earliest tradition as much as it ran counter to the Gnostic theses. (Melito), Irenæus, Tertullian and Hippolytus, aided more or less by tradition on the one hand and by philosophy on the other, opposed to the Gnostic dogmas about Christianity the articles of the baptismal confession interpreted as a rule of faith, these articles being developed into doctrines. Here they undoubtedly learned very much from the Gnostics and Marcion. If we define ecclesiastical dogmas as propositions handed down in the creed of the Church, shown to exist in the Holy Scriptures of both Testaments, and rationally reproduced and formulated, then the men we have just mentioned were the first to set up dogmas8—dogmas but no system of dogmatics. As yet the difficulty of the problem was by no means perceived by these men either. Their peculiar capacity for sympathising with and understanding the traditional and the old still left them in a happy blindness. So far as they had a theology they supposed it to be nothing more than the explanation of the faith of the Christian multitude (yet Tertullian already noted the difference in one point, certainly a very characteristic one, viz., the Logos doctrine). They still lived in the belief that the Christianity which filled their minds required no scientific remodelling in order to be an expression of the highest knowledge, and that it was in all respects identical with the Christianity which even the most uncultivated could grasp. That this was an illusion is proved by many considerations, but most convincingly by the fact that Tertullian and Hippolytus had the main share in introducing into the doctrine of faith a philosophically formulated dogma, viz., that the Son of God is the Logos, and in having it made the articulus constitutivus ecclesiæ. The effects of this undertaking can never be too highly estimated, for the Logos doctrine is Greek philosophy in nuce, though primitive Christian views may have been subsequently incorporated with it. Its introduction into the creed of Christendom, which was, strictly speaking, the setting up of the first dogma in the Church, meant the future conversion of the rule of faith into a philosophic system. But in yet another respect Irenæus and Hippolytus denote an immense advance beyond the Apologists, which, paradoxically enough, results both from the progress of Christian Hellenism and from a deeper study of the Pauline theology, that is, emanates from the controversy with Gnosticism. In them a religious and realistic idea takes the place of the moralism of the Apologists, namely, the deifying of the human race through the incarnation of the Son of God. The apotheosis of mortal man through his acquisition of immortality (divine life) is the idea of salvation which was taught in the ancient mysteries. It is here adopted as a Christian one, supported by the Pauline theology (especially as contained in the Epistle to the Ephesians), and brought into the closest connection with the historical Christ, the Son of God and Son of man (filius dei et filius hominis). What the heathen faintly hoped for as a possibility was here announced as certain, and indeed as having already taken place. What a message! This conception was to become the central Christian idea of the future. A long time, however, elapsed before it made its way into the dogmatic system of the Church.9