Chapter V (2)

But, in addition to this, Irenæus developed a second train of thought. This was the outcome of his Gnostic and realistic doctrine of recapitulation, and evinces clear traces of the influence of Pauline theology. It is, however, inconsistent with the moralistic teachings unfolded above, and could only be united with them at a few points. To the Apologists the proposition: "it is impossible to learn to know God without the help of God" ("impossibile est sine deo discere deum") was a conviction which, with the exception of Justin, they subordinated to their moralism and to which they did not give a specifically Christological signification. Irenæus understood this proposition in a Christological sense,[568] and at the same time conceived the blessing of salvation imparted by Christ not only as the incorruptibility consisting in the beholding of God bestowed on obedience IV. 20. 5-7: IV. 38, but also as the divine sonship which has been won for us by Christ and which is realised in constant fellowship with God and dependence on him.[569] No doubt he also viewed this divine sonship as consisting in the transformation of human nature; but the point of immediate importance here is that it is no longer human freedom but Christ that he contemplated in this connection. Corresponding to this he has now also a different idea of the original destination of man, of Adam, and of the results of the fall. Here comes in the mystical Adam-Christ speculation, in accordance with the Epistles to the Ephesians and Corinthians. Everything, that is, the "longa hominum expositio," was recapitulated by Christ in himself; in other words he restored humanity _to what it originally was_ and again included under one head what was divided.[570] If humanity is restored, then it must have lost something before and been originally in good condition. In complete contradiction to the other teachings quoted above, Irenæus now says: "What we had lost in Adam, namely, our possession of the image and likeness of God, we recover in Christ."[571] Adam, however, is humanity; in other words, as all humanity is united and renewed through Christ so also it was already summarised in Adam. Accordingly "the sin of disobedience and the loss of salvation which Adam consequently suffered may now be viewed as belonging to all mankind summed up in him, in like manner as Christ's obedience and possession of salvation are the property of all mankind united under him as their head."[572] In the first Adam we offended God by not fulfilling his commandments; in Adam humanity became disobedient, wounded, sinful, bereft of life; through Eve mankind became forfeit to death; through its victory over the first man death descended upon us all, and the devil carried us all away captive etc.[573] Here Irenæus always means that in Adam, who represents all mankind as their head, the latter became doomed to death. In this instance he did not think of a hereditary transmission, but of a mystic unity[574] as in the case of Christ, viewed as the second Adam. The teachings in III. 21. 10-23[575] show what an almost naturalistic shape the religious quasi-historical idea assumed in Irenæus' mind. This is, however, more especially evident from the assertion, in opposition to Tatian, that unless Adam himself had been saved by Christ, God would have been overcome by the devil.[576] It was merely his moralistic train of thought that saved him from the conclusion that there is a restoration of _all_ individual men.

This conception of Adam as the representative of humanity corresponds to Irenæus' doctrine of the God-man. The historical importance of this author lies in the development of the Christology. At the present day, ecclesiastical Christianity, so far as it seriously believes in the unity of the divine and human in Jesus Christ and deduces the divine manhood from the work of Christ as his deification, still occupies the same standpoint as Irenæus did. Tertullian by no means matched him here; he too has the formula in a few passages, but he cannot, like Irenæus, account for its content. On the other hand we owe to him the idea of the "two natures," which remain in their integrity--that formula which owes its adoption to the influence of Leo I. and at bottom contradicts Irenæus' thought "the Son of God became the Son of man," ("filius dei factus filius hominis"). Finally, the manner in which Irenæus tried to interpret the historical utterances about Jesus Christ from the standpoint of the Divine manhood idea, and to give them a significance in regard to salvation is also an epoch-making fact.

"Filius dei filius hominis factus," "it is one and the same Jesus Christ, not a Jesus and a Christ, nor a mere temporary union of an æon and a man, but one and the same person, who created the world, was born, suffered, and ascended"--this along with the dogma of God the Creator is the cardinal doctrine of Irenæus:[577] "Jesus Christ truly man and truly God" ("Jesus Christus, vere homo, vere deus").[578] It is only the Church that adheres to this doctrine, for "none of the heretics hold the opinion that the Word of God became flesh" ("secundum nullam sententiam hæreticorum verbum dei caro factum est").[579] What therefore has to be shown is (1) that Jesus Christ is really the Word of God, i.e., is God, (2) that this Word really became man and (3) that the incarnate Word is an inseparable unity. Irenæus maintains the first statement as well against the "Ebionites" as against the Valentinians who thought that Christ's advent was the descent of one of the many æons. In opposition to the Ebionites he emphasises the distinction between natural and adopted Sonship, appeals to the Old Testament testimony in favour of the divinity of Christ,[580] and moreover argues that we would still be in the bondage of the old disobedience, if Jesus Christ had only been a man.[581] In this connection he also discussed the birth from the virgin.[582] He not only proved it from prophecy, but his recapitulation theory also suggested to him a parallel between Adam and Eve on the one hand and Christ and Mary on the other, which included the birth from the virgin.[583] He argues in opposition to the Valentinians that it was really the eternal Word of God himself, who was always with God and always present to the human race, that descended.[584] He who became man was not a being foreign to the world--this is said in opposition to Marcion--but the Lord of the world and humanity, the Son of God, and none other. The reality of the body of Christ, i.e., the essential identity of the humanity of Christ with our own, was continually emphasised by Irenæus, and he views the whole work of salvation as dependent on this identity.[585] In the latter he also includes the fact that Jesus must have passed through and been subjected to all the conditions of a complete human life from birth to old age and death.[586] Jesus Christ is therefore the Son of God who has really become the Son of man; and these are not two Christs but one, in whom the Logos is permanently united with humanity.[587] Irenæus called this union "union of the Word of God with the creature" ("adunitio verbi dei ad plasma")[588] and "blending and communion of God and man" ("commixtio et communio dei et hominis")[589] without thereby describing it any more clearly.[590] He views it as perfect, for, _as a rule_, he will not listen to any separation of what was done by the man Jesus and by God the Word.[591] The explicit formula of two substances or natures in Christ is not found in Irenæus; but Tertullian already used it. It never occurred to the former, just because he was not here speaking as a theologian, but expressing his belief.[592] In his utterances about the God-man Tertullian closely imitates Irenæus. Like the latter he uses the expression "man united with God" ("homo deo mixtus")[593] and like him he applies the predicates of the man to the Son of God.[594] But he goes further, or rather, in the interest of formal clearness, he expresses the mystery in a manner which shows that he did not fully realise the religious significance of the proposition, "the Son of God made Son of man" ("filius dei filius hominis factus"). He speaks of a "corporal and spiritual, i.e., divine, substance of the Lord", ("corporalis et spiritalis (i.e., divina) substantia domini")[595] of "either substance of the flesh and spirit of Christ" ("utraque substantia et carnis et spiritus Christi"), of the "creation of two substances which Christ himself also possesses," ("conditio duarum substantiarum, quas Christus et ipse gestat")[596] and of the "twofold condition not blended but united in one person--God and man" ("duplex status _non confusus sed conjunctus_ in una persona--deus et homo".)[597] Here we already have in a complete form the later Chalcedonian formula of the two substances in one person.[598] At the same time, however, we can clearly see that Tertullian went beyond Irenæus in his exposition.[599] He was, moreover, impelled to combat an antagonistic principle. Irenæus had as yet no occasion to explain in detail that the proposition "the Word became flesh" ("verbum caro factum") denoted no transformation. That he excludes the idea of change, and that he puts stress on the Logos' assumption of flesh from the Virgin is shown by many passages.[600] Tertullian, on the other hand, was in the first place confronted by (Gnostic) opponents who understood John's statement in the sense of the Word's transforming himself into flesh, and therefore argued against the "assumption of flesh from the Virgin" ("assumptio carnis ex virgine");[601] and, in the second place, he had to do with Catholic Christians who indeed admitted the birth from the Virgin, but likewise assumed a change of God into flesh, and declared the God thus invested with flesh to be the Son.[602] In this connection the same Tertullian, who in the Church laid great weight on formulæ like "the crucified God," "God consented to be born" ("deus crucifixus," "nasci se voluit deus") and who, impelled by opposition to Marcion and by his apologetic interest, distinguished the Son as capable of suffering from God the Father who is impassible, and imputed to him human weaknesses--which was already a further step,--sharply emphasised the "distinct function" ("distincte agere") of the two substances in Christ and thus separated the persons. With Tertullian the interest in the Logos doctrine, on the one hand, and in the real humanity, on the other, laid the basis of that conception of Christology in accordance with which the unity of the person is nothing more than an assertion. The "deus factus homo" ("verbum caro factus") presents quite insuperable difficulties, as soon as "theology" can no longer be banished. Tertullian smoothed over these difficulties by juristic distinctions, for all his elucidations of "substance" and "person" are of this nature.

A somewhat paradoxical result of the defence of the Logos doctrine in the struggle against the "Patripassians" was the increased emphasis that now began to be laid on the integrity and independence of the human nature in Christ. If the only essential result of the struggle with Gnosticism was to assert the substantial reality of Christ's body, it was Tertullian who distinguished what Christ did as man from what he did as God in order to prove that he was not a _tertium quid_. The discriminating intellect which was forced to receive a doctrine as a problem could not proceed otherwise. But, even before the struggle with Modalism, elements were present which repressed the naïve confidence of the utterances about the God-man. If I judge rightly, there were two features in Irenæus both of which resulted in a splitting up of the conception of the perfect unity of Christ's person. The first was the intellectual contemplation of the perfect humanity of Jesus, the second was found in certain Old and New Testament texts and the tradition connected with these.[603] With regard to the first we may point out that Irenæus indeed regarded the union of the human and divine as possible only because man, fashioned from the beginning by and after the pattern of the Logos, was an image of the latter and destined for union with God. Jesus Christ is the realisation of our possession of God's image;[604] but this thought, if no further developed, may be still united with the Logos doctrine in such a way that it does not interfere with it, but serves to confirm it. The case becomes different when it is not only shown that the Logos was always at work in the human race, but that humanity was gradually more and more accustomed by him (in the patriarchs and prophets) to communion with God,[605] till at last the perfect man appeared in Christ. For in this view it might appear as if the really essential element in Jesus Christ were not the Logos, who has become the new Adam, but the new Adam, who possesses the Logos. That Irenæus, in explaining the life of Jesus as that of Adam according to the recapitulation theory, here and there expresses himself as if he were speaking of the perfect man, is undeniable: If the acts of Christ are really to be what they seem, the man concerned in them must be placed in the foreground. But how little Irenæus thought of simply identifying the Logos with the perfect man is shown by the passage in III. 19. 3 where he writes: "[Greek: hôsper gar ên anthrôpos hina peirasthê, houtô kai logos hina doxasthê. êsychazontos men tou logou en tô peirazesthai kai staurousthai kai apothnêskein sugginomenou de tô anthrôpô en tô nikan kai hypomenein kai chrêsteuesthai kai anistasthai kai analambanesthai]" ("For as he was man that he might be tempted, so also he was the Logos that he might be glorified. The Logos remained quiescent during the process of temptation, crucifixion and death, but aided the human nature when it conquered, and endured, and performed deeds of kindness, and rose again from the dead, and was received up into heaven"). From these words it is plain that Irenæus preferred to assume that the divine and human natures existed side by side, and consequently to split up the perfect unity, rather than teach a mere ideal manhood which would be at the same time a divine manhood. The "discrete agere" of the two natures proves that to Irenæus the perfect manhood of the incarnate Logos was merely an incidental quality he possessed. In reality the Logos is the perfect man in so far as his incarnation creates the perfect man and renders him possible, or the Logos always exists behind Christ the perfect man. But nevertheless this very way of viewing the humanity in Christ already compelled Irenæus to limit the "deus crucifixus" and to lay the foundation for Tertullian's formulæ. With regard to the second point we may remark that there were not a few passages in both Testaments where Christ appeared as the man chosen by God and anointed with the Spirit. These as well as the corresponding language of the Church were the greatest difficulties in the way of the Logos Christology. Of what importance is an anointing with the Spirit to him who is God? What is the meaning of Christ being born by the power of the Holy Ghost? Is this formula compatible with the other, that he as the Logos himself assumed flesh from the Virgin etc.? Irenæus no doubt felt these difficulties. He avoided them (III. 9. 3) by referring the bestowal of the Spirit at baptism merely to the _man_ Jesus, and thus gave his own approval to that separation which appeared to him so reprehensible in the Gnostics.[606] This separation indeed rescued to future ages the minimum of humanity that was to be retained in the person of Christ, but at the same time it laid the foundation of those differentiating speculations, which in succeeding times became the chief art and subject of dispute among theologians. The fact is that one cannot think in realistic fashion of the "deus homo factus" without thinking oneself out of it. It is exceedingly instructive to find that, in some passages, even a man like Irenæus was obliged to advance from the creed of the one God-man to the assumption of two independent existences in Christ, an assumption which in the earlier period has only "Gnostic" testimony in its favour. Before Irenæus' day, in fact, none but these earliest theologians taught that Jesus Christ had two natures, and ascribed to them particular actions and experiences. The Gnostic distinction of the Jesus _patibilis_ ("capable of suffering") and the Christ [Greek: apathês] ("impassible") is essentially identical with the view set forth by Tertullian adv. Prax., and this proves that the doctrine of the two natures is simply nothing else than the Gnostic, i.e., scientific, adaptation of the formula: "filius dei filius hominis factus." No doubt the old early-Christian interest still makes itself felt in the _assertion_ of the one person. Accordingly we can have no historical understanding of Tertullian's Christology or even of that of Irenæus without taking into account, as has not yet been done, the Gnostic distinction of Jesus and Christ, as well as those old traditional formulæ: "deus passus, deus crucifixus est" ("God suffered, God was crucified").[607]

But beyond doubt the prevailing conception of Christ in Irenæus is the idea that there was the most complete unity between his divine and human natures; for it is the necessary consequence of his doctrine of redemption, that "_Jesus Christus factus est, quod sumus nos, uti nos perficeret esse quod et ipse_"[608] ("Jesus Christ became what we are in order that we might become what he himself is"). But, in accordance with the recapitulation theory, Irenæus developed the "factus est quod sumus nos" in such a way that the individual portions of the life of Christ, as corresponding to what we ought to have done but did not do, receive the value of saving acts culminating in the death on the cross. Thus he not only regards Jesus Christ as "salvation and saviour and saving" ("salus et salvator et salutare"),[609] but he also views his whole life as a work of salvation. All that has taken place between the conception and the ascension is an inner necessity in this work of salvation. This is a highly significant advance beyond the conception of the Apologists. Whilst in their case the history of Jesus seems to derive its importance almost solely from the fulfilment of prophecy, it acquires in Irenæus an independent and fundamental significance. Here also we recognise the influence of "Gnosis," nay, in many places he uses the same expressions as the Gnostics, when he sees salvation accomplished, on the one hand, in the mere appearance of Jesus Christ as the second Adam, and on the other, in the simple acknowledgment of this appearance.[610] But he is distinguished from them by the fact that he decidedly emphasises the personal acts of Jesus, and that he applies the benefits of Christ's work not to the "pneumatic" _ipso facto_, but in principle to all men, though practically only to those who listen to the Saviour's words and adorn themselves with works of righteousness.[611] Irenæus presented this work of Christ from various points of view. He regards it as the realisation of man's original destiny, that is, being in communion with God, contemplating God, being imperishable like God; he moreover views it as the abolition of the consequences of Adam's disobedience, and therefore as the redemption of men from death and the dominion of the devil; and finally he looks upon it as reconciliation with God. In all these conceptions Irenæus fell back upon the _person_ of Christ. Here, at the same time, he is everywhere determined by the content of Biblical passages; in fact it is just the New Testament that leads him to these considerations, as was first the case with the Valentinians before him. How uncertain he still is as to their ecclesiastical importance is shown by the fact that he has no hesitation in reckoning the question, as to why the Word of God became flesh and suffered, among the articles that are a matter of consideration for science, but not for the simple faith (I. 10. 3). Here, therefore, he still maintains the archaic standpoint according to which it is sufficient to adhere to the baptismal confession and wait for the second coming of Christ along with the resurrection of the body. On the other hand, Irenæus did not merely confine himself to describing the fact of redemption, its content and its consequences; but he also attempted to explain the peculiar nature of this redemption from the essence of God and the incapacity of man, thus solving the question "cur deus homo" in the highest sense.[612] Finally, he adopted from Paul the thought that Christ's real work of salvation consists in his death on the cross; and so he tried to amalgamate the two propositions, "_filius dei filius hominis factus est propter nos_" ("the Son of God became Son of man for us") and "filius dei passus est propter nos" ("the Son of God suffered for us") as the most vital ones. He did not, however, clearly show which of these doctrines is the more important. Here the speculation of Irenæus is already involved in the same ambiguity as was destined to be the permanent characteristic of Church speculation as to Christ's work in succeeding times. For on the one hand, Paul led one to lay all the emphasis on the death on the cross, and on the other, the logical result of dogmatic thinking only pointed to the appearance of God in the flesh, but not to a particular work of Christ that had not been already involved in the appearance of the Divine Teacher himself. Still, Irenæus contrived to reconcile the discrepancy better than his successors, because, being in earnest with his idea of Christ as the second Adam, he was able to contemplate the whole life of Jesus as redemption in so far as he conceived it as a recapitulation. We see this at once not only from his conception of the virgin birth as a fact of salvation, but also from his way of describing redemption as deliverance from the devil. For, as the birth of Christ from the Virgin Mary is the recapitulating counterpart of Adam's birth from the virgin earth, and as the obedience of the mother of Jesus is the counterpart of Eve's disobedience, so the story of Jesus' temptation is to him the recapitulating counterpart of the story of Adam's temptation. In the way that Jesus overcame the temptation by the devil (Matt. IV.) Irenæus already sees the redemption of mankind from Satan; even then Jesus bound the strong one. But, whereas the devil seized upon man unlawfully and deceitfully, no injustice, untruthfulness, or violence is displayed in the means by which Jesus resisted Satan's temptation.[613] As yet Irenæus is quite as free from the thought that the devil has real rights upon man, as he is from the immoral idea that God accomplished his work of redemption by an act of deceit. But, on the strength of Pauline passages, many of his teachings rather view redemption from the devil as accomplished by the _death_ of Christ, and accordingly represent this death as a ransom paid to the "apostasy" for men who had fallen into captivity. He did not, however, develop this thought any further.[614]

His idea of the _reconciliation_ of God is just as rudimentary, and merely suggested by Biblical passages. He sometimes saw the means of reconciliation solely in obedience and in the "righteous flesh" as such, at other times in the "wood." Here also the recapitulation theory again appears: through disobedience at the tree Adam became a debtor to God, and through obedience at the tree God is reconciled.[615] But teachings as to vicarious suffering on the part of Christ are not found in Irenæus, and his death is seldom presented from the point of view of a sacrifice offered to God.[616] According to this author the reconciliation virtually consists in Christ's restoring man to communion and friendship with God and procuring forgiveness of sins; he very seldom speaks of God being offended through Adam's sin (V. 16. 3). But the incidental mention of the forgiveness of sins resulting from the redemption by Christ has not the meaning of an _abolition_ of sin. He connects the redemption with this only in the form of Biblical and rhetorical phrases; for the vital point with him is the abolition of the _consequences_ of sin, and particularly of the sentence of death.[617] Here we have the transition to the conception of Christ's work which makes this appear more as a completion than as a restoration. In this connection Irenæus employed the following categories: _restoring of the likeness of God in humanity_; _abolition of death_; _connection and union of man with God_; _adoption of men as sons of God and as gods_; _imparting of the Spirit who now becomes accustomed to abide with men_;[618] _imparting of a knowledge of God culminating in beholding him_; _bestowal of everlasting life_. All these are only the different aspects of one and the same blessing, which, being of a divine order, could only be brought to us and implanted in our nature by God himself. But inasmuch as this view represents Christ not as performing a reconciling but a perfecting work, his _acts_ are thrust more into the background; his work is contained in his constitution as the God-man. Hence this work has a universal significance for all men, not only as regards the present, but as regards the past from Adam downwards, in so far as they "according to their virtue in their generation have not only feared but also loved God, and have behaved justly and piously towards their neighbours, and have longed to see Christ and to hear his voice."[619] Those redeemed by Jesus are immediately joined by him into a unity, into the true humanity, the Church, whose head he himself is.[620] This Church is the communion of the Sons of God, who have attained to a contemplation of him and have been gifted with everlasting life. In this the work of Christ the God-man is fulfilled.

In Tertullian and Hippolytus, as the result of New Testament exegesis, we again find the same aspects of Christ's work as in Irenæus, only with them the mystical form of redemption recedes into the background.[621]

Nevertheless the _eschatology_ as set forth by Irenæus in the fifth Book by no means corresponds to this conception of the work of Christ as a restoring and completing one; it rather appears as a remnant of antiquity directly opposed to the speculative interpretation of redemption, but protected by the _regula fidei_, the New Testament, especially Revelation, and the material hopes of the great majority of Christians. But it would be a great mistake to assume that Irenæus merely repeated the hopes of an earthly kingdom just because he still found them in tradition, and because they were completely rejected by the Gnostics and guaranteed by the _regula_ and the New Testament.[622] The truth rather is that he as well as Melito, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Lactantius, Commodian, and Victorinus lived in these hopes no less than did Papias, the Asia Minor Presbyters and Justin.[623] But this is the clearest proof that all these theologians were but half-hearted in their theology, which was forced upon them, in defence of the traditional faith, by the historical situation in which they found themselves. The Christ, who will shortly come to overcome Antichrist, overthrow the Roman empire, establish in Jerusalem a kingdom of glory, and feed believers with the fat of a miraculously fruitful earth, is in fact a quite different being from the Christ who, as the incarnate God, has already virtually accomplished his work of imparting perfect knowledge and filling mankind with divine life and incorruptibility. The fact that the old Catholic Fathers have both Christs shows more clearly than any other the middle position that they occupy between the acutely hellenised Christianity of the theologians, i.e., the Gnostics, and the old tradition of the Church. We have indeed seen that the twofold conception of Christ and his work dates back to the time of the Apostles, for there is a vast difference between the Christ of Paul and the Christ of the supposedly inspired Jewish Apocalypses; and also that the agency in producing this conjunction may be traced back to the oldest time; but the union of a precise Christological Gnosis, such as we find in Irenæus and Tertullian, with the retention in their integrity of the imaginative series of thoughts about Antichrist, Christ as the warrior hero, the double resurrection, and the kingdom of glory in Jerusalem, is really a historical novelty. There is, however, no doubt that the strength of the old Catholic theology in opposition to the Gnostics lies in the accomplishment of this union, which, on the basis of the New Testament, appeared to the Fathers possible and necessary. For it is not systematic consistency that secures the future of a religious conception within a church, but its elasticity, and its richness in dissimilar trains of thought. But no doubt this must be accompanied by a firm foundation, and this too the old Catholic Fathers possessed--the church system itself.

As regards the details of the eschatological hopes, they were fully set forth by Irenæus himself in Book V. Apart from the belief that the returning Nero would be the Antichrist, an idea spread in the West during the third century by the Sibylline verses and proved from Revelation, the later teachers who preached chiliastic hopes did not seriously differ from the Gallic bishop; hence the interpretation of Revelation is in its main features the same. It is enough therefore to refer to the fifth Book of Irenæus.[624] There is no need to show in detail that chiliasm leads to a peculiar view of history, which is as much opposed to that resulting from the Gnostic theory of redemption, as this doctrine itself forbids the hope of a bliss to be realised in an earthly kingdom of glory. This is not the proper place to demonstrate to what extent the two have been blended, and how the chiliastic scheme of history has been emptied of its content and utilised in the service of theological apologetics.

But the Gnostics were not the only opponents of chiliasm. Justin, even in his time, knew orthodox Christians who refused to believe in an earthly kingdom of Christ in Jerusalem, and Irenæus (V. 33 ff.), Tertullian, and Hippolytus[625] expressly argued against these. Soon after the middle of the second century, we hear of an ecclesiastical party in Asia Minor, which not only repudiated chiliasm, but also rejected the Revelation of John as an untrustworthy book, and subjected it to sharp criticism. These were the so-called Alogi.[626] But in the second century such Christians were still in the minority in the Church. It was only in the course of the third century that chiliasm was almost completely ousted in the East. This was the result of the Montanistic controversy and the Alexandrian theology. In the West, however, it was only threatened. In this Church the first literary opponent of chiliasm and of the Apocalypse appears to have been the Roman Presbyter Caius. But his polemic did not prevail. On the other hand the learned bishops of the East in the third century used their utmost efforts to combat and extirpate chiliasm. The information given to us by Eusebius (H. E. VII. 24), from the letters of Dionysius of Alexandria, about that father's struggles with whole communities in Egypt, who would not give up chiliasm, is of the highest interest. This account shews that wherever philosophical theology had not yet made its way the chiliastic hopes were not only cherished and defended against being explained away, but were emphatically regarded as Christianity itself.[627] Cultured theologians were able to achieve the union of chiliasm and religious philosophy; but the "simplices et idiotæ" could only understand the former. As the chiliastic hopes were gradually obliged to recede in exactly the same proportion as philosophic theology became naturalised, so also their subsidence denotes the progressive tutelage of the laity. The religion they understood was taken from them, and they received in return a faith they could not understand; in other words, the old faith and the old hopes decayed of themselves and the _authority_ of a mysterious faith took their place. In this sense the extirpation or decay of chiliasm is perhaps the most momentous fact in the history of Christianity in the East. With chiliasm men also lost the living faith in the nearly impending return of Christ, and the consciousness that the prophetic spirit with its gifts is a real possession of Christendom. Such of the old hopes as remained were at most particoloured harmless fancies which, when allowed by theology, were permitted to be added to dogmatics. In the West, on the contrary, the millennial hopes retained their vigour during the whole third century; we know of no bishop there who would have opposed chiliasm. With this, however, was preserved a portion of the earliest Christianity which was to exercise its effects far beyond the time of Augustine.

Finally, we have still to treat of the altered conceptions regarding the Old Testament which the creation of the New produced among the early-Catholic Fathers. In the case of Barnabas and the Apologists we became acquainted with a theory of the Old Testament which represented it as the Christian book of revelation and accordingly subjected it throughout to an allegorical process. Here nothing specifically new could be pointed out as having been brought by Christ. Sharply opposed to this conception was that of Marcion, according to which the whole Old Testament was regarded as the proclamation of a Jewish God hostile to the God of redemption. The views of the majority of the Gnostics occupied a middle position between the two notions. These distinguished different components of the Old Testament, some of which they traced to the supreme God himself and others to intermediate and malevolent beings. In this way they both established a connection between the Old Testament, and the Christian revelation and contrived to show that the latter contained a specific novelty. This historico-critical conception, such as we specially see it in the epistle of Ptolemy to Flora, could not be accepted by the Church because it abolished strict monotheism and endangered the proof from prophecy. No doubt, however, we already find in Justin and others the beginning of a compromise, in so far as a distinction was made between the moral law of nature contained in the Old Testament--the Decalogue--and the ceremonial law; and in so far as the literal interpretation of the latter, for which a pedagogic significance was claimed, was allowed in addition to its typical or Christian sense. With this theory it was possible, on the one hand, to do some sort of justice to the historical position of the Jewish people, and on the other, though indeed in a meagre fashion, to give expression to the novelty of Christianity. The latter now appears as the _new_ law or the law of freedom, in so far as the moral law of nature had been restored in its full purity without the burden of ceremonies, and a particular historical relation to God was allowed to the Jewish nation, though indeed more a wrathful than a covenant one. For the ceremonial regulations were conceived partly as tokens of the judgment on Israel, partly as concessions to the stiffneckedness of the people in order to protect them from the worst evil, polytheism.

Now the struggle with the Gnostics and Marcion, and the creation of a New Testament had necessarily a double consequence. On the one hand, the proposition that the "Father of Jesus Christ is the creator of the world and the God of the Old Testament" required the strictest adherence to the unity of the two Testaments, so that the traditional apologetic view of the older book had to undergo the most rigid development; on the other hand, as soon as the New Testament was created, it was impossible to avoid seeing that this book was superior to the earlier one, and thus the theory of the novelty of the Christian doctrine worked out by the Gnostics and Marcion had in some way or other to be set forth and demonstrated. We now see the old Catholic Fathers engaged in the solution of this twofold problem; and their method of accomplishing it has continued to be the prevailing one in all Churches up to the present time, in so far as the ecclesiastical and dogmatic practice still continues to exhibit the inconsistencies of treating the Old Testament as a Christian book in the strict sense of the word and yet elevating the New above it, of giving a typical interpretation to the ceremonial law and yet acknowledging that the Jewish people had a covenant with God.

With regard to the first point, viz., the maintenance of the unity of the two Testaments, Irenæus and Tertullian gave a most detailed demonstration of it in opposition to Marcion,[628] and primarily indeed with the same means as the older teachers had already used. It is Christ that prophesied and appeared in the Old Testament; he is the householder who produced both Old and New Testaments.[629] Moreover, as the two have the same origin, their meaning is also the same. Like Barnabas the early Catholic Fathers contrived to give all passages in the Old Testament a typical Christian sense: it is the same truth which we can learn from the prophets and again from Christ and the Apostles. With regard to the Old Testament the watchword is: "Seek the type" ("Typum quæras").[630] But they went a step further still. In opposition to Marcion's antitheses and his demonstration that the God of the Old Testament is a petty being and has enjoined petty, external observances, they seek to show in syntheses that the same may be said of the New. (See Irenæus IV. 21-36). The effort of the older teachers to exclude everything outward and ceremonial is no longer met with to the same extent in Irenæus and Tertullian, at least when they are arguing and defending their position against the Gnostics. This has to be explained by two causes. In the first place Judaism (and Jewish Christianity) was at bottom no longer an enemy to be feared; they therefore ceased to make such efforts to avoid the "Jewish" conception of the Old Testament. Irenæus, for example, emphasised in the most naïve manner the observance of the Old Testament law by the early Apostles and also by Paul. This is to him a complete proof that they did not separate the Old Testament God from the Christian Deity.[631] In connection with this we observe that the radical antijudaism of the earliest period more and more ceases. Irenæus and Tertullian admitted that the Jewish nation had a covenant with God and that the literal interpretation of the Old Testament was justifiable. Both repeatedly testified that the Jews had the right doctrine and that they only lacked the knowledge of the Son. These thoughts indeed do not attain clear expression with them because their works contain no systematic discussions involving these principles. In the second place the Church itself had become an institution where sacred ceremonial injunctions were necessary; and, in order to find a basis for these, they had to fall back on Old Testament commandments (see Vol. I., chap. 6, p. 291 ff.). In Tertullian we find this only in its most rudimentary form;[632] but in the course of the third century these needs grew mightily[633] and were satisfied. In this way the Old Testament threatened to become an authentic book of revelation to the Church, and that in a quite different and much more dangerous sense than was formerly the case with the Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists.

With reference to the second point, we may remark that just when the decay of antijudaism, the polemic against Marcion, and the new needs of the ecclesiastical system threatened the Church with an estimate of the Old Testament hitherto unheard of, the latter was nevertheless thrust back by the creation and authority of the New Testament, and this consequently revived the uncertain position in which the sacred book was henceforth to remain. Here also, as in every other case, the development in the Church ends with the _complexus oppositorum_, which nowhere allows all the conclusions to be drawn, but offers the great advantage of removing every perplexity up to a certain point. The early-Catholic Fathers adopted from Justin the distinction between the Decalogue, as the moral law of nature, and the ceremonial law; whilst the oldest theologians (the Gnostics) and the New Testament suggested to them the thought of the (relative) novelty of Christianity and therefore also of the New Testament. Like Marcion they acknowledged the literal sense of the ceremonial law and God's covenant with the Jews; and they sought to sum up and harmonise all these features in the thought of an economy of salvation and of a history of salvation. This economy and history of salvation which contained the conception of a divine _accommodation and pedagogy_, and which accordingly distinguished between constituent parts of different degrees of value (in the Old Testament also), is the great result presented in the main work of Irenæus and accepted by Tertullian. It is to exist beside the proof from prophecy without modifying it;[634] and thus appears as something intermediate between the Valentinian conception that destroyed the unity of origin of the Old Testament and the old idea which neither acknowledged various constituents in the book nor recognised the peculiarities of Christianity. We are therefore justified in regarding this history of salvation approved by the Church, as well as the theological propositions of Irenæus and Tertullian generally, as a Gnosis "toned down" and reconciled with Monotheism. This is shown too in the faint gleam of a historical view that still shines forth from this "history of salvation" as a remnant of that bright light which may be recognised in the Gnostic conception of the Old Testament.[635] Still, it is a striking advance that Irenæus has made beyond Justin and especially beyond Barnabas. No doubt it is mythological history that appears in this history of salvation and the recapitulating story of Jesus with its saving facts that is associated with it; and it is a view that is not even logically worked out, but ever and anon crossed by the proof from prophecy; yet for all that it is development and history.

The fundamental features of Irenæus' conception are as follow: The Mosaic law and the New Testament dispensation of grace both emanated from one and the same God, _and were granted for the salvation of the human race in a form appropriate to the times_.[636] The two are in part different; but the difference must be conceived as due to causes[637] that do not affect the unity of the author and of the main points.[638] We must make the nature of God and the nature of man our point of departure. God is always the same, man is ever advancing towards God; God is always the giver, man always the receiver;[639] God leads us ever to the highest goal; man, however, is not God from the beginning, but is destined to incorruptibility, which he is to attain step by step, advancing from the childhood stage to perfection (see above, p. 267 f.). This progress, conditioned by the nature and destination of man, is, however, dependent on the revelation of God by his Son, culminating in the incarnation of the latter and closing with the subsequent bestowal of the Spirit on the human race. In Irenæus therefore the place of the many different revelation-hypostases of the Valentinians is occupied by the one God, who stoops to the level of developing humanity, accommodates himself to it, guides it, and bestows on it increasing revelations of grace.[640] The fundamental knowledge of God and the moral law of nature, i.e., natural morality, were already revealed to man and placed in his heart[641] by the creator. He who preserves these, as for example the patriarchs did, is justified. (In this case Irenæus leaves Adam's sin entirely out of sight). But it was God's will to bring men into a higher union with himself; wherefore his Son descended to men from the beginning and accustomed himself to dwell among them. The patriarchs loved God and refrained from injustice towards their neighbours; hence it was not necessary that they should be exhorted with the strict letter of the law, since they had the righteousness of the law in themselves.[642] But, as far as the great majority of men are concerned, they wandered away from God and fell into the sorriest condition. From this moment Irenæus, keeping strictly to the Old Testament, only concerns himself with the Jewish people. These are to him the representatives of humanity. It is only at this period that the training of the human race is given to them; but it is really the Jewish _nation_ that he keeps in view, and through this he differs very decidedly from such as Barnabas.[643] When righteousness and love to God died out in Egypt, God led his people forth so that man might again become a disciple and imitator of God. He gave him the written law (the Decalogue), which contains nothing else than the moral law of nature that had fallen into oblivion.[644] But when they made to themselves a golden calf and chose to be slaves rather than free men, then the Word, through the instrumentality of Moses, gave to them, as a particular addition, the commandments of slavery (the ceremonial law) in a form suitable for their training. These were bodily commandments of bondage which did not separate them from God, but held them in the yoke. The ceremonial law was thus a pedagogic means of preserving the people from idolatry; but it was at the same time a type of the future. Each constituent of the ceremonial law has this double signification, and both of these meanings originate with God, i.e., with Christ; for "how is Christ the end of the law, if he be not the beginning of it?" ("quomodo finis legis Christus, si non et initium eius esset") IV. 12. 4. Everything in the law is therefore holy, and moreover we are only entitled to blame such portions of the history of the Jewish nation as Holy Scripture itself condemns. This nation was obliged to circumcise itself, keep Sabbaths, offer up sacrifices, and do whatever is related of it, so far as its action is not censured. All this belonged to the state of bondage in which men had a _covenant_ with God and in which they also possessed the right faith in the one God and were taught before hand to follow his Son (IV. 12, 5; "lex prædocuit hominem sequi oportere Christum"). In addition to this, Christ continually manifested himself to the people in the prophets, through whom also he indicated the future and prepared men for his appearance. In the prophets the Son of God accustomed men to be instruments of the Spirit of God and to have fellowship with the Father in them; and in them he habituated himself to enter bodily into humanity.[645] Hereupon began the last stage, in which men, being now sufficiently trained, were to receive the "testamentum libertatis" and be adopted as Sons of God. By the union of the Son of God with the flesh the _agnitio filii_ first became possible to all; that is the fundamental novelty. The next problem was to restore the law of freedom. Here a threefold process was necessary. In the first place the Law of Moses, the Decalogue, had been disfigured and blunted by the "traditio seniorum". First of all then the pure moral law had to be restored; secondly, it was now necessary to extend and fulfil it by expressly searching out the inclinations of the heart in all cases, thus unveiling the law in its whole severity; and lastly the _particularia legis_, i.e., the law of bondage, had to be abolished. But in the latter connection Christ and the Apostles themselves avoided every transgression of the ceremonial law, in order to prove that this also had a divine origin. The non-observance of this law was first permitted to the Gentile Christians. Thus, no doubt, Christ himself is the end of the law, but only in so far as he has abolished the law of bondage and restored the moral law in its whole purity and severity, and given us himself.

The question as to the difference between the New Testament and the Old is therefore answered by Irenæus in the following manner. It consists (1) in the _agnitio filii_ and consequent transformation of the slaves into children of God; and (2) in the restoration of the law, which is a law of freedom just because it excludes bodily commandments, and with stricter interpretation lays the whole stress on the inclinations of the heart.[646] But in these two respects he finds a real addition, and hence, in his opinion, the Apostles stand higher than the prophets. He proves this higher position of the Apostles by a surprising interpretation of 1 Cor. XII. 28, conceiving the prophets named in that passage to be those of the Old Testament.[647] He therefore views the two Testaments as of the same nature, but "greater is the legislation which confers liberty than that which brings bondage" ("maior est legisdatio quæ in libertatem, quam quæ data est in servitutem"). Through the two covenants the accomplishment of salvation was to be hastened "for there is one salvation and one God; but the precepts that form man are numerous, and the steps that lead man to God are not a few;" ("una est enim salus et unus deus; quæ autem formant hominem, præcepta multa et non pauci gradus, qui adducunt hominem ad deum"). A worldly king can increase his benefits to his subjects; and should it not also be lawful for God, though he is always the same, to honour continually with greater gifts those who are well pleasing to him? (IV. 9. 3). Irenæus makes no direct statement as to the further importance which the Jewish people have, and in any case regards them as of no consequence after the appearance of the covenant of freedom. Nor does this nation appear any further even in the chiliastic train of thought. It furnishes the Antichrist and its holy city becomes the capital of Christ's earthly kingdom; but the nation itself, which, according to this theory, had represented all mankind from Moses to Christ, just as if all men had been Jews, now entirely disappears.[648]

This conception, in spite of its want of stringency, made an immense impression, and has continued to prevail down to the present time. It has, however, been modified by a combination with the Augustinian doctrine of sin and grace. It was soon reckoned as Paul's conception, to which in fact it has a distant relationship. Tertullian had already adopted it in its essential features, amplified it in some points, and, in accordance with his Montanist ideas, enriched it by adding a fourth stage (ab initio--Moses--Christ--Paraclete). But this addition was not accepted by the Church.[649]

3. _Results to ecclesiastical Christianity._

As we have shown, Irenæus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus had no strictly systematised theology; they formulated theological propositions because their opponents were theologians. Hence the result of their labours, so far as this was accepted by the Western Church of the third century, does not appear in the adoption of a systematic philosophical dogmatic, but in theological fragments, namely, the rule of faith fixed and interpreted in an antignostic sense[650]. As yet the rule of faith and theology nowhere came into collision in the Western Churches of the third century, because Irenæus and his younger contemporaries did not themselves notice any such discrepancies, but rather imagined all their teachings to be expositions of the faith itself, and did not trouble their heads about inconsistencies. If we wish to form a notion as to what ideas had become universally prevalent in the Church in the middle of the third century let us compare Cyprian's work "Testimonia", written for a layman, with Novatian's work "De Trinitate".