Note (return) — Chapter VI

"The work of Irenæus still leaves it undecided whether the form of the world's literature, as found in the Christian Church, is destined only to remain a weapon to combat its enemies, or is to become an instrument of peaceful labour within its own territory." With these words Overbeck has introduced his examination of Clement of Alexandria's great masterpiece from the standpoint of the historian of literature. They may be also applied to the history of theology. As we have shown, Irenæus, Tertullian (and Hippolytus) made use of philosophical theology to expel heretical elements; but all the theological expositions that this interest suggested to them as necessary, were in their view part of the faith itself. At least we find in their works absolutely no clear expression of the fact that faith is one thing and theology another, though rudimentary indications of such distinctions are found. Moreover, their adherence to the early-Christian eschatology in its entirety, as well as their rejection of a qualitative distinction between simple believers and "Gnostics," proved that they themselves were deceived as to the scope of their theological speculations, and that moreover their Christian interest was virtually satisfied with subjection to the authority of tradition, with the early-Christian hopes, and with the rules for a holy life. But since about the time of Commodus, and in some cases even earlier, we can observe, even in ecclesiastical circles, the growing independence and might of the aspiration for a scientific knowledge and treatment of the Christian religion, that is of Christian tradition.657 There is a wish to maintain this tradition in its entirety and hence the Gnostic theses are rejected. The selection from tradition, made in opposition to Gnosticism—though indeed in accordance with its methods—and declared to be apostolic, is accepted. But there is a desire to treat the given material in a strictly scientific manner, just as the Gnostics had formerly done, that is, on the one hand to establish it by a critical and historical exegesis, and on the other to give it a philosophical form and bring it into harmony with the spirit of the times. Along with this we also find the wish to incorporate the thoughts of Paul which now possessed divine authority.658 Accordingly schools and scholastic unions now make their appearance afresh, the old schools having been expelled from the Church.659 In Asia Minor such efforts had already begun shortly before the time when the canon of holy apostolic tradition was fixed by the ecclesiastical authorities (Alogi). From the history of Clement of Alexandria, the life of bishop Alexander, afterwards bishop of Jerusalem, and subsequently from the history of Origen (we may also mention Firmilian of Cæsarea), we learn that there was in Cappadocia about the year 200 a circle of ecclesiastics who zealously applied themselves to scientific pursuits. Bardesanes, a man of high repute, laboured in the Christian kingdom of Edessa about the same time. He wrote treatises on philosophical theology, which indeed, judged by a Western standard, could not be accounted orthodox, and directed a theological school which maintained its ground in the third century and attained great importance.660 In Palestine, during the time of Heliogabalus and Alexander (Severus), Julius Africanus composed a series of books on scientific theology, which were specifically different from the writings of Irenæus and Tertullian; but which on the other hand show the closest relationship in point of form to the treatises of the so-called Gnostics. His inquiries into the relationship of the genealogies of Jesus and into certain parts of the Greek Apocalypse of Daniel showed that the Church's attention had been drawn to problems of historical criticism. In his chronography the apologetic interest is subordinate to the historical, and in his Κεστοι, dedicated to Alexander Severus (Hippolytus had already dedicated a treatise on the resurrection to the wife of Heliogabalus), we see fewer traces of the Christian than of the Greek scholar. Alexander of Ælia and Theoktistus of Cæsarea, the occupants of the two most important sees in Palestine, were, contemporaneously with him, zealous patrons of an independent science of theology. Even at that early time the former founded an important theological library; and the fragments of his letters preserved to us prove that he had caught not only the language, but also the scientific spirit of the age. In Rome, at the beginning of the third century, there was a scientific school where textual criticism of the Bible was pursued and where the works of Aristotle, Theophrastus, Euclid, and Galen were zealously read and utilised. Finally, the works of Tertullian show us that, even among the Christians of Carthage, there was no lack of such as wished to naturalise the pursuit of science within the Church; and Eusebius (H. E. V. 27) has transmitted to us the titles of a series of scientific works dating as far back as the year 200 and ascribed to ecclesiastics of that period.