Chapter III: The Doctrinal Development and Apologetical (1)

ACTIVITY OF THE CHURCH.[52]

§ 30. THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC
AGE, A.D. 70-170.[53]

The literary remains of the so-called Apostolic Fathers constitute the first fruits of Patristic-Christian literature. These are in respect of number and scope insignificant, and, inasmuch as they had their origin, from the special individual circumstances of their writers, they were composed for the most part in the form of epistles. The old traditional view that the authors of these treatises had enjoyed the immediate fellowship and instruction of the Apostles is at once too narrow and too wide. Among these writings must be included first of all the recently discovered “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.” About A.D. 130, when Christianity was making its way among the ranks of the cultured, Christian writers began to feel themselves called upon to engage with paganism in a literary warfare defensive and offensive, in order to repel the charges and calumnies raised against their religion and to demonstrate its inner worth in opposition to the moral and religious degradation of heathenism. These writings had a more theological and scientific character than those of the Apostolic Fathers, which had more of a practical and hortatory tendency. The works of these Apologists still extant afford interesting and significant glimpses of the life, doctrine, and thinking of the Christians of that age, which but for these writings would have been almost unknown.

§ 30.1. =The Beginnings of Patristic Literature.=--According to
the established rule of the church we have to distinguish between
New Testament and Patristic literature in this way: to the former
belongs those writings to which, as composed by Apostles or at
least under Apostolic authority, the ancient church assigned
an objectively fundamental and regulative significance for
further ecclesiastical development; while in the latter we have
represented the subjective conception and estimation which the
Church Fathers made of the Christian message of salvation and
the structure they reared upon this foundation. The so-called
Apostolic Fathers may be regarded as occupying a position
midway between the two and forming a transition from the one
to the other, or as themselves constituting the first fruits
of Patristic literature. Indeed as regards the New Testament
writings themselves the ancient church was long uncertain and
undecided as to the selection of them from the multitude of
contemporary writings;[54] and Eusebius still designated several
of the books that were subsequently definitely recognised
ἀντιλεγόμενα; while modern criticism has not only repeated such
doubts as to the genuineness of these writings but has extended
these doubts to other books of the New Testament. But even this
criticism cannot deny the historical significance assigned above
to those New Testament books contested by it, even though it may
feel obliged to reject the account of them given by the ancient
church, and to assign their composition to the Post-Apostolic
Age.--When we turn to the so-called Apostolic Fathers, on closer
examination the usual designation as well as the customary
enumeration of seven names as belonging to the group will be
found too narrow because excluding the New Testament writings
composed by disciples of the Apostles, and too wide because
including names which have no claim to be regarded as disciples
or contemporaries of the Apostles, and embracing writings of
which the authenticity is in some cases clearly disproved, in
other cases doubtful or at least only problematical. We come upon
firm ground when we proceed to deal with the Apologists of the
age of Hadrian. It was not, however, till the period of the Old
Catholic Church, about A.D. 170, that the literary compositions
of the Christians became broadened, deepened and universalized
by a fuller appropriation and appreciation of the elements
of Græco-Latin culture, so as to form an all-sided universal
Christian literature representative of Christianity as a universal
religion.

§ 30.2. =The Theology of the Post-Apostolic Age.=--By far the
greater number of the ecclesiastical writers of this period
belong to the Gentile Christian party. Hence we might suppose
that it would reflect the Pauline type of doctrine, if not in its
full depth and completeness, yet at least in its more significant
and characteristic features. This expectation, however, is not
altogether realised. Among the Church Fathers of this age we
rather find an unconscious deterioration of the original doctrine
of Paul revealing itself as a smoothing down and belittling or
as an ignoring of the genuine Paulinism, which, therefore, as
the result of the struggle against the Gnostic tendency, only in
part overcome, was for the first time fully recognised and proved
finally victorious in the Reformation of the 16th century. On the
one hand, we see that these writers, if they do not completely
ignore the position and task assigned to Israel as the chosen
people of God, minimise their importance and often fail to
appreciate the pædagogical significance of the Mosaic law
(Gal. iii. 24), so that its ceremonial parts are referred to
misunderstanding, want of sense, and folly, or are attributed
even to demoniacal suggestion. But on the other hand, even
the gospel itself is regarded again as a new and higher law,
purified from that ceremonial taint, and hence the task of the
ante-mundane Son of God, begotten for the purpose of creating the
world, but now also manifest in the flesh, from whose influence
upon Old Testament prophets as well as upon the sages of paganism
all revelations of pre-Christian Judaism as well as all σπέρματα
of true knowledge in paganism have sprung, is pre-eminently
conceived of as that of a divine teacher and lawgiver. In this
way there was impressed upon the Old Catholic Church as it
grew up out of Pauline Gentile Christianity a legalistic moral
tendency that was quite foreign to the original Paulinism, and
the righteousness of faith taught by the Apostle when represented
as obedience to the “new law” passed over again unobserved into a
righteousness of works. Redemption and reconciliation are indeed
still always admitted to be conditioned by the death of Christ
and their appropriation to be by the faith of the individual;
but this faith is at bottom nothing more than the conviction
of the divinity of the person and doctrine of the new lawgiver
evidencing itself in repentance and rendering of practical
obedience, and in confident expectation of the second coming
of Christ, and in a sure confidence of a share in the life
everlasting.--The introduction of this legalistic tendency into
the Gentile Christian Church was not occasioned by the influence
of Jewish Christian legalism, nor can it be explained as
the result of a compromise effected between Jewish Christian
Petrinism and Gentile Christian Paulinism, which were supposed
by Baur, Schwegler, etc., to have been, during the Apostolic
Age, irreconcilably hostile to one another. This has been already
proved by Ritschl, who charges its intrusion rather upon the
inability of Gentile Christianity fully to understand the Old
Testament bases of the Pauline doctrine. By means of a careful
analysis of the undisputed writings of Justin Martyr and
by a comparison of these with the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers, Engelhardt has proved that anything extra-, un-, or
anti-Pauline in the Christianity of these Fathers has not so much
an Ebionitic-Jewish Christian, but rather a pagan-philosophic,
source. He shows that the prevalent religio-moral mode of thought
of the cultured paganism of that age reappears in that form
of Christianity not only as an inability to reach a profound
understanding of the Old Testament, but also just as much
as a minimising and depreciating, or disdaining of so many
characteristic features of the Pauline doctrinal resting on Old
Testament foundations.

§ 30.3. =The so-called Apostolic Fathers.=[55]--

a. =Clement of Rome= was one of the first Roman bishops,
probably the third (§ 16, 1). The opinion that he is to
be identified with the Clement named in Phil. iv. 3 is
absolutely unsupported. The sameness of age and residence
in some small measure favours the identifying him with
Tit. Flav. Clemens [Clement], the consul, and cousin of the
Emperor, who on account of his Christianity (?) was executed
in A.D. 95 (§ 22, 1). Besides a multitude of other writings
which subsequently assumed his well-known name (§ 28, 3;
43, 4), there are ascribed to him two so-called Epistles
to the Corinthians, of which however, the second certainly
is not his. The First Epistle which in the ancient church
was considered worthy to be used in public worship, was
afterwards lost, but fragments of it were recovered in
A.D. 1628 in the so-called _Codex Alexandrinus_ (§ 152, 2),
together with a portion of the so-called “Second Epistle.”
Recently however both writings were found in a complete
form by Bryennius, Metropolitan of Serrä in Macedonia, in
a Jerusalem Codex of A.D. 1056 discovered at Constantinople
and published by him.[56] In the following year a Codex
of the Syrian New Testament at Cambridge was more closely
examined,[57] and in it there was found a complete Syriac
translation of both writings inserted between the Catholic
and the Pauline Epistles, while in _Codex Alexandrinus_ they
are placed after the Apocalypse. =The “First” Epistle=, the
date of which is generally given as A.D. 93-95, does not
give the author’s name, but is assigned to Clement of Rome
by Dionysius of Corinth in A.D. 170, as quoted in Eusebius,
and by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, and
described as written from Rome in name of the church of that
place to the church of Corinth, counselling peace and unity.
In the passage c. 58-63, formerly wanting but now restored,
the exhortation passes into a long prayer with intercessions
for those in authority and for the church according to what
was perhaps already the customary form of public prayer in
Rome. Both churches, those of Rome and Corinth, are admitted
without dispute to have been Gentile Christian churches,
which had accepted the Pauline type of doctrine, without
however fully fathoming or understanding it. But Peter also
occupies a position of equal honour alongside of Paul, and
nowhere does any trace appear of a consciousness of any
opposition between the two apostles. The divine sonship
of the Redeemer and His consequent universal sovereignty
are the basis of the Christian confession, but no sort
of developed doctrine of the divinity of Christ is here
found, and even His pre-existence is affirmed only as the
presupposition of the view that He was already operative in
the prophets by His spirit. The Old Testament, allegorically
and typically interpreted, is therefore the source and
proof of Christian doctrine. Of a particular election of
Israel the author knows nothing. Christians as such, whether
descended from Gentiles or from Jews, are the chosen people
of God; Abraham by reason of his faith is their father; and
it is only by faith in the Almighty God that men of all ages
have been justified before God.--In the so-called =Second
“Epistle”= the completed form of the second half proves
what the less complete form rendered probable, that it is
no Epistle but a sermon, and indeed the oldest specimen of
a sermon, that we here possess. The author, who delivered it
somewhere about A.D. 144-150, wrote it out first for his own
use, and then for the church. As it has in its theological
views many points of contact with the _Shepherd of Hermas_
(§ 30, 4), Harnack thinks it probable that a younger
Clement of Rome mentioned by Hermas may be the author;
while Hilgenfeld is inclined to regard it as a youthful
work of Clement of Alexandria (§ 31, 4). It contains a
forcible exhortation to thorough repentance and conversion
in accordance with the command of Christ, with a reference
to the judgment and the future glory. This shows in a
remarkable way what rapid progress had been made from the
religio-moral mode of thought of cultured paganism toward
moralizing legalism, and the smoothing down of Christianity
thereby introduced into the Gentile-Christian Catholic
Church, during the half century between the composition of
the Epistle of Clement and this Clementine discourse. For in
the latter already the gospel is represented as a new law, a
higher divine doctrine of virtue and reward, in which alms,
fasts, and prayer appear as specially meritorious works. The
righteousness that avails with God is still indeed derived
from faith, but this faith is reduced to a belief in the
future recompense of eternal life. Christ as Son of God is
conceived of by the author as a pneumatical heavenly being,
created before the world, who, sent by God into the world
for man’s redemption, took upon Him human σάρξ. But besides
Him, he also knows a second pneumatical hypostasis created
before the world, “before sun and moon,” the ἐκκλησία ζῶσα,
which, as the heavenly body of Christ, is at the same time
the presupposition for the making of the world restored by
His work of salvation. For the creation of this divine pair
of æons, that is, of Christ as the ἄνθρωπος ἐπουράνιος and
of the church as His heavenly σύζυγος, the author refers
to the account of the creation in Gen. i. 27. Of passages
quoted as sayings of Christ several are not to be found in
our Gospels.

§ 30.4.

b. The Epistle known by the name of Paul’s travelling companion
=Barnabas= (Acts iv. 36) was first recovered in the 17th
century. The first 4½ chapters were added from an old Latin
translation, till in the 19th century the _Codex Sinaiticus_
of the New Testament, and recently also the Jerusalem
Codex of Bryennius above referred to, supplied the complete
Greek text.[58] The date of the epistle has been variously
assigned to the age of Domitian, to that of Nerva, to that
of Hadrian; and is placed by Harnack between A.D. 96 and
A.D. 125. Its extravagant allegorical interpretation of
the Old Testament betrays its Alexandrian origin, and in
Gentile-Christian depreciation of the ceremonial law of the
Old Testament it goes so far as to attribute the conception
and actual composition of its books to diabolical inspiration.
It admits indeed a covenant engagement between God and
Israel, but maintains that this was immediately terminated
by Moses’ breaking of the tables of the law. All things
considered the composition of this Epistle by Barnabas is
scarcely conceivable. This was acknowledged by Eusebius
who counted it among the νόθοι, and by Jerome, who placed
it among the Apocrypha. For the rest, however, its type
of doctrine is in essential agreement with that of Paul,
though it fails to penetrate the depths of apostolic
truth. It is at least decidedly free from any taint of
that legalistic-moral conception of Christianity which is
so strongly masked in the discourse of Clement. The divine
sonship, pre-existence, and world-creating activity of Christ
is expressly acknowledged and taught, though there is yet no
reference to the doctrine of the Logos.

c. The prophetical writing known to us as =Pastor Hermæ
[Hermas]=,[59] which was first erroneously attributed by
Origen to Hermas the scholar of Paul at Rome (Rom. xvi. 14),
was so highly esteemed in the ancient church that it was
used in public like the canonical books of the New Testament.
Irenæus quotes it as holy scripture; Clement and Origen
regarded it as inspired, and the African church of the 3rd
century included it in the New Testament canon. On the other
hand, the Muratorian canon (§ 36, 8) had already ranked it
among the Apocrypha that might be used in private but not in
public worship. The book owes its title to the circumstance
that in it an angel appears in the form of a shepherd
instructing Hermas. It contains four visions, in which the
church, which πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη, appears to the author
as an old woman giving instruction (πρεσβυτέρα); it contains
also twelve _Mandata_ of the angel, and finally, ten
_Similitudines_ or parables. The Gentile-Christian origin of
the author is shown by the position which he assigns to the
church as coeval with the creation of the world and as at
first embracing all mankind. The sending of the Son of God
into the world has for its end not the founding but only the
renewing and perfecting of the church, and the twelve tribes
to which the Apostles were to preach the gospel are “the
twelve peoples who dwell on the whole earth” (comp. Deut.
xxxii. 8). In all the three parts the book takes the form of
a continuous earnest call to repentance in view of the early
coming again of Christ, dominated throughout by that same
legalistic conception of the Gospel that we meet with in the
discourse of Clement. Indeed this is more fully carried
out, for it teaches that the true penitent is able not
only to live a perfectly righteous life, but also in good
works, such as fasts, alms, etc., to do more than fulfil the
commands of God, and in this way to win for himself a higher
measure of the divine favour and eternal blessedness. In
Hermas we find no trace of any application of the doctrine
of the Logos to the person of Christ, and the ideas of the
Son of God and the Holy Spirit are confused with one another.
The Son of God as the Holy Spirit is προγενέστερος πάσης
τῆς κτίσεως; at His suggestion and by His means God created
the world; through Him He bears, sustains, and upholds it;
and by Him He redeems it by means of His incarnation, for
the Son of God as the Holy Spirit descends upon the man
Jesus in His baptism. From its prophetical utterances,
its eager expectation of the early return of the Lord,
and its promises of a new outpouring of the Spirit for the
quickening of the church already become too worldly, the
book may be characterized as a precursor of the Montanist
movement (§ 40), although on questions of practical morality,
such as second marriages, martyrdom, fasting, etc., it
exhibits a milder tendency than that of Montanistic rigorism,
and in reference to penitential discipline (§ 39, 2), while
acknowledging the inadmissibility of absolution for a mortal
sin committed after baptism, it nevertheless, owing to
the nearness of the second coming, allows to be proclaimed
by the angel a repeated, though only short, space for
repentance. The date of the composition of this book is
still matter of controversy. Since Hermas is commanded in
the second vision to send a copy of his book to “Clement” in
order to secure its further circulation, most of the earlier
scholars, and among the moderns specially Zahn, identifying
this Clement with the celebrated Roman Presbyter-Bishop
of that name, fix its date at somewhere about A.D. 100.
Recently, however, Harnack, v. Gebhardt, and others have
rightly assigned much greater importance to the testimony
of the Muratorian canon, according to which it was written
somewhere between A.D. 130-160, “_nuperrime temporibus
nostris in urbe Roma_,” by Hermas, the brother of the Roman
bishop Pius (A.D. 139-154).

§ 30.5.

d. =Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch=, is said to have been a
pupil of the Apostle John, though no evidence of this can
be produced from the Epistles ascribed to him. The _Acta
martyrii sancti Ignatii_, extant in five parts, are purely
legendary and full of contradictory statements. According
to a later document, that of the Byzantine chronographer
Joh. Malalas, at the time of the Parthian war during the
visit of Trajan to Antioch in A.D. 115, soon after an
earthquake had been experienced there, he was torn asunder
by lions in the circus as a despiser of the gods. According
to the martyrologies he was transported to Rome and suffered
this fate there, as usually supposed in A.D. 115, in the
opinion of Wieseler and others in A.D. 107 (Lightfoot says
between A.D. 100-118), according to Harnack soon after
A.D. 130.[60] The epistles to various churches and one
to Polycarp ascribed to him have come down to us in three
recensions differing from one another in extent, number and
character. There is a shorter Greek recension containing
seven, a larger Greek form, with expansions introduced for a
purpose, containing thirteen epistles, twelve by and one to
Ignatius, and the shortest of all in a Syriac translation
containing three epistles, those to the Romans, to the
Ephesians, and to Polycarp.[61] According to the first-named
recension, Ignatius is represented as writing all his
epistles during his martyr journey to Rome, but no reference
to this is made in the Syrian recension. Vigorous polemic
against Judaistic and Docetic heresy, undaunted confession
of the divinity of Christ, and unwearied exhortation to
recognise the bishop as the representative of Christ,
while the presbyters are described as the successors of the
Apostles, distinguish these epistles from all other writings
of this age, especially in the two Greek recensions, and
have led many critics to question their genuineness. Bunsen,
Lipsius, Ritschl, etc., regarded the Syrian recension, in
which the hierarchical tendency was more in the background,
as the original and authentic form. Uhlhorn, Düsterdieck,
Zahn, Funk, Lightfoot, Harnack, etc., prefer the shorter
Greek recension, and view the Syrian form as abbreviated
perhaps for liturgical purposes, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar,
etc., deny the genuineness of all three. But even on this
assumption, in determining the date of the composition of
the two shorter recensions, to whichever of them we may
ascribe priority and originality, we cannot on internal
grounds put them later than the middle of the second century,
whereas the larger Greek recension paraphrased and expanded
into thirteen epistles belongs certainly to a much later
date (§ 43, 4).[62]

§ 30.6.

e. =Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna=, had also been according to
Irenæus ordained to this office by the Apostle John. He
died at the stake under Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus Pius?)
in A.D. 166 (or A.D. 155) at an extreme old age (§ 22, 3).
We possess an epistle of his to the Philippians of
practical contents important on account of its New Testament
quotations. Its genuineness, however, has been contested
by modern criticism. It stands and falls with the seven
Ignatian epistles, as it occupies common ground with them.
We have a legendary biography of Polycarp by Pionius dating
from the 4th century, which is reproduced in Lightfoot’s
work.

f. =Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis= in Galatia, was also,
according to Irenæus, a pupil of the Apostle John. This
statement, however, in the opinion of Eusebius and many
moderns, rests upon a confusion between the Apostle and
another John, whom Papias himself distinguishes by the title
πρεσβύτερος (§ 16, 2). He is said to have suffered death
as a martyr under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 163. With
great diligence he collected mediately and immediately
from the mouths of the πρεσβύτεροι, that is, from such as
had intercourse with the Apostles, or had been, like the
above-mentioned John the Presbyter, μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου, oral
traditions about the discourses of the Lord, and set down
the results of his inquiries in a writing entitled Λογίων
κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. A passage quoted by Eusebius in his
_Ch. Hist._, iii. 29, from the preface of this treatise has
given rise to a lively controversy as to whether Papias was a
pupil of the Apostle John and was acquainted with the fourth
Gospel. Another fragment on the history of the origin of
the Gospels of Matthew and Mark has occasioned a dispute
as to whether only these two Gospels were known to him.
Finally, there is preserved in Irenæus a passage giving a
reputed saying of Christ regarding the fantastically rich
fruitfulness of the earth during the thousand years’ reign
(§ 33, 9). He so revels in fantastic and sensuous chiliastic
dreams that Eusebius, who had previously spoken of him as
a learned and well-read man, is driven to pass upon him the
harsh judgment: σφόδρα γάρ τοι σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν.[63]

g. Finally, we must here include an epistle to a certain
=Diognetus= by an unknown writer, who has described himself
as μαθητὴς τῶν ἀποστόλων. Justin Martyr, among whose
writings this epistle got inserted, cannot possibly have
been the author, as both his style and his point of view
are different. The epistle controverts in a spirited manner
the objections of Diognetus to Christianity, views the
pagan deities not, like the other Church Fathers, as demons,
but as unsubstantial phantoms, explains the Old Testament
institutions as human, and so in part foolish enactments,
and maintains keenly and determinedly the opinion that
God for the first time revealed Himself to man in Christ.
He thus, as Dräseke thinks, to some extent favours the
Marcionite view of the Old Testament, so that he regards
it as not improbable that our epistle was composed by a
disciple of Marcion, one perhaps like Apelles, who in the
course of the later development of the school had rejected
many of his master’s crudities (§ 27, 12). He addresses
his discourse to Diognetus, the stoical philosopher who
boasts of Marcus Aurelius as his master. On the other hand,
Overbeck assigns its composition to the Post-Constantine
Age, and the French scholar Doulcet, setting it down to the
age of Hadrian, thinks he has discovered the author to be
the Athenian philosopher Aristides. This idea has been more
fully carried out by Kihn, who endeavours to make out not
only the identity of the author, but that of him to whom the
epistle is addressed: Κράτιστε Διόγνητε, “Almighty son of
Zeus,” that is, Hadrian.

§ 30.7. =The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.=--The
celebrated little treatise bearing the title Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ
τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῖς ἔθνεσιν was discovered by Bryennius
(then metropolitan of Serrä, now of Nicomedia) in the Jerusalem
Codex, to which we also owe the perfect text of the two so-called
Epistles of Clement, and it was edited by this scholar with
prolegomena and notes in Greek, at Constantinople in 1883. It at
once set in motion many learned pens in Germany, France, Holland,
England, and North America.--Eusebius, who first expressly names
it in his list of New Testament writings as τῶν ἀποστόλων αἱ
λεγόμεναι διδαχαί, which Rufinus renders by _Doctrina quæ dicitur
App._, places it in the closest connection with the Epistle of
Barnabas among the ἀντιλεγόμενα νόθα (§ 36, 8). Four years later
Athanasius ranks it as διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν ἀπ. along with the
Shepherd of Hermas, giving it the first place, as a New Testament
supplement corresponding to the Old Testament ἀναγινωσκόμενα
(§ 59, 1). Clement of Alexandria quoting a passage from it uses
the formula, ὑπὸ τῆς γραφῆς εἴρηται, and thus treats it as holy
scripture. In Origen again no sort of reference to it has as
yet been found. From the 39th Festival Epistle of Athanasius,
A.D. 367, which ranks it, as we have just seen, as a New Testament
supplement like the Old Testament Anaginoskomena, we know that
it like these were used at Alexandria παρὰ τῶν πατέρων in the
instruction of catechumens. In the East, according to Rufinus,
when enumerating in his _Expos. Symb. Ap._ the Athanasian
Anaginoskomena, we find alongside of Hermas, instead of
the Didache, the “Two Ways,” _Duæ viæ vel Judicium secundum
Petrum_. Jerome, too, in his _De vir. ill._, mentions among the
pseudo-Petrine writings a _Judicium Petri_. We have here no doubt
a Latin translation or recension of the first six chapters of
the Didache beginning with the words: Ὅδοι δύο εἰσι, these two
ways being the way of life and the way of death. The second title
instead of the twelve Apostles names their spokesman Peter as the
reputed author of the treatise. Soon after the time of Athanasius
our tract passed out of the view of the Church Fathers, but it
reappears in the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the 4th century
(§ 43, 4, 5), of which it formed the root and stem. The Didache
itself, however, should not be ranked among the pseudepigraphs,
for it never claims to have been written by the twelve Apostles
or by their spokesman Peter.--Bryennius and others, from the
intentional prominence given to the twelve Apostles in the
title and from the legalistic moralizing spirit that pervades
the book, felt themselves justified in seeking its origin in
Jewish-Christian circles. But this moralizing character it shares
with the other Gentile-Christian writings of the Post-Apostolic
Age (§ 30, 2), and the restriction of the term “Apostles” by the
word “twelve” was occasioned by this, that the itinerant preachers
of the gospel of that time, who in the New Testament are called
Evangelists (§ 17, 5) were now called Apostles as continuators of
the Apostles’ missionary labours, and also the exclusion of the
Apostle Paul is to be explained by the consideration that the
book is founded upon the sayings of the Lord, the tradition
of which has come to us only through the twelve. It has been
rightly maintained on the other hand by Harnack, that the author
must rather have belonged to Gentile-Christian circles which
repudiated all communion with the Jews even in matters of mere
form; for in chap. viii. 1, 2, resting upon Matt. vi. 5, 16,
he forbids fasting with the hypocrites, “the Jews,” or perhaps
in the sense of Gal. ii. 13, the Jewish-Christians, on Monday
and Thursday, instead of Wednesday and Friday according to the
Christian custom (§ 37, 3), and using Jewish prayers instead
of the Lord’s Prayer. The address of the title: τοῖς ἔθνεσιν
is to be understood according to the analogy of Rom. xi. 13;
Gal. ii. 12-14; and Eph. iii. 1. The author wishes in as brief,
lucid, easily comprehended, and easily remembered form as
possible, to gather together for Christians converted from
heathenism the most important rules for their moral, religious
and congregational life in accordance with the precepts of
the Lord as communicated by the twelve Apostles, and in doing
so furnishes us with a valuable “commentary on the earliest
witnesses for the life, type of doctrine, interests and
ordinances of the Gentile-Christian churches in the pre-Catholic
age.” As to the date of its composition, its connection with
the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas indicates the
period within which it must fall, for the connection is so close
that it must have employed them or they must have employed it.
However, not only is the age of the Epistle of Barnabas, as well
as that of the Shepherd of Hermas, still undetermined, but it is
also disputed whether one or other of these two or the Didache
has priority and originality. On the other hand, the Didache
itself in almost all its data and presuppositions bears so
distinct an impress of an archaic character that one feels
obliged to assign its date as near the Apostolic Age as possible.
Harnack who feels compelled to ascribe priority not only to the
Pseudo-Barnabas, but also to the Shepherd of Hermas, fixes its
date between A.D. 140-165, after Hermas and before Marcion. On
the other hand, Zahn and Funk, Lechler, Taylor, etc., give the
Didache priority even over the Epistle of Barnabas. The place
as well as the time of the composition of this work is matter
of dispute. Those who maintain its Jewish-Christian origin think
of the southern lands to the east or west of the Jordan; others
think of Syria. On account of its connection with the Epistle
of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see
above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its
agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in
omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon
Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of
which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic
prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not
correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside
with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the
eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole
treatise.” That the book, however, does not bear in itself
any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, _e.g._, is
undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted
by Harnack.[64]

§ 30.8. =The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists=[65]
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.=

a. 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.

b. =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]

c. =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.

d. =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.

e. 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.=

a. =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.