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Chapter III: Conditions of Survival

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§ 1. Popular Appeal

See the references to ch. ii. § 5, concerning the prevalent moral ideas. As to the Montanists and other ascetic and antinomian sects see Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. vol. i, Pt. III, also Hatch, as cited. Concerning the results of the need to appeal to the pagan populace, note the admissions of Mosheim, Ecclesiastical History, 2 Cent. Pt. II, chs. iii and iv; of Dr. John Stoughton, Ages of the Church, 1855, Lect. iv; of Waddington, History of the Christian Church, 1833, pp. 87, 89; and of Milman, History of Christianity, B. iv, chs. i and iii.

§ 2. Economic Causation

The organization of the Assyrian and Babylonian priesthoods may be gathered from Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the Religion of the Ancient Babylonians. On the Greek priesthoods compare Burckhardt, Griechische Culturgeschichte, Bd. II, Abs. II, § ii. As to the wealth of the priestly caste in Egypt see Diodorus Siculus; and on that of Rome, Gibbon's 15th chapter. On the later Judaic priestly finance see the references given as to the Jewish Twelve Apostles under ch. i, § 4. The process of growth of an order of "ethical lecturers" is indicated by C. Martha, Les Moralistes sous l'empire romain, 4e édit. 1881; also by E. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses origines, tom. i, ch. iii. Compare Grote, History of Greece, end of ch. xlvi, and his Plato and the Other Companions of Sokrates, per index, as to the sophists. The financial side of the pagan mysteries is partly illustrated in the Metamorphoses of Apuleius. Compare also Foucart, Des Associations religieuses chez les Grecs. Gibbon's fifteenth chapter deals in the main with a later period, but throws general light on this also. See also Renan's Marc Aurèle, ch. xxxi; and especially Dr. Hatch's Hibbert Lectures, lect. iv, and Lecky's History of European Morals.

§ 3. Organization and Sacred Books

Dr. Hatch's Organization of the Early Christian Churches recognizes, on nominally orthodox principles, the fact that the structure was a natural adaptation to environment, on old type-lines. Of the movement of Apollonius of Tyana, good accounts are given by Professor A. Réville, Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the Third Century, Eng. tr. 1866; by Mr. T. Whittaker in his Apollonius of Tyana, and other Essays (Sonnenschein, 1906); and in the essay of Baur in his Drei Abhandlungen. Two somewhat "free" translations of Philostratus' Life of Apollonius have lately been produced--by Dr. F. C. Conybeare and Professor Phillimore (each 2 vols.)--as to which see the Literary Guide of April, 1913. On the formation of the canon see the references to ch. i, §§ 1, 3. As to Manichæism see those given below, Pt. II, ch. ii.

§ 4. Concession and Fixation

On developments of doctrine in general the fullest modern treatise is Harnack's History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1894, six vols.), but the critical student must revise many of Harnack's judgments. The same author's Outlines of the History of Dogma (Eng. tr. 1893) are at many points suggestive; and Hagenbach's History of Dogma is still useful. Hatch is well worth consulting in this connection.

§ 5. Cosmic Philosophy

As to the Fourth Gospel and the doctrine of the Logos see the references given for ch. i, § 7; also the relevant articles in the Encyclopædia Biblica; the work of Loisy on the Fourth Gospel, before cited; the fourth and fifth chapters of Renan's Les Évangiles, which give his latest ideas on the problem; Reuss's Histoire de la théologie chrétienne au siècle apostolique, 2e édit. 1860, tom. ii, liv. vii; and J. J. Tayler's treatise, An Attempt to Ascertain the Character of the Fourth Gospel (1867). Baur and Strauss may also be profitably studied.

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A Short History of ChristianityChapter III: Conditions of Survival

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