I
PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE OF
THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
II
THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE
HISTORY OF DOGMA
CHAPTER I.
PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
§©I. The Idea and Task of the History of Dogma.
1. The History of Dogma is a discipline of general Church History,
which has for its object the dogmas of the Church. These dogmas are the doctrines
of the Christian faith logically formulated and expressed for scientific and apologetic
purposes, the contents of which are a knowledge of God, of the world, and of the
provisions made by God for man’s salvation. The Christian Churches teach them as
the truths revealed in Holy Scripture, the acknowledgment of which is the condition
of the salvation which religion promises. But as the adherents of the Christian
religion had not these dogmas from the beginning, so far, at least, as they form
a connected system, the business of the history of dogma is, in the first place,
to ascertain the origin of Dogmas (of Dogma), and then secondly, to describe their
development (their variations).
2. We cannot draw any hard and fast line between the time of the
origin and that of the development of dogma; they rather shade off into one another.
But we shall have to look for the final point of division at the time when an article
of faith logically formulated and scientifically expressed, was first raised to
the articulus constitutivus ecclesia, and as such
was universally enforced by the Church. Now that first happened when the doctrine
of Christ, as the pre-existent and personal Logos of God, had obtained acceptance
everywhere in the confederated Churches as the revealed and
fundamental doctrine of faith, that is, about the end of the third century or the
beginning of the fourth. We must therefore, in our account, take this as the final
point of division.Weizsäcker, Gott. Gel. Anz. 1886, p. 823 f. says, “It is
a question whether we should limit the account of the genesis of Dogma to the Antenicene
and designate all else as a development of that. This is undoubted correct so long
as our view is limited to the history of dogma of the Greek Church in the second
period, and the development of it by the Œcumenical Synods. On the other hand, the
Latin Church, in its own way and in its own province, becomes productive from the
days of Augustine onwards; the formal signification of dogma in the narrower sense
becomes different in the middle ages. Both are repeated in a much greater measure
through theReformation. We may therefore in process, in opposition to that division
into genesis and development, regard the whole as a continuous process, in which
the contents as well as the formal authority of dogma are in process of continuous
development.” This view is certainly just, and I think is indicated by myself in
what follows. We have to decide here, as so often elsewhere in our account, between
rival points of view. The view favoured by me has the advantage of making the nature
of dogma clearly appear as a product of the mode of thought of the early church,
and that is what it has remained, in spite of all changes both in form and substance,
till the present day. As to the development of dogma, it seems to have closed
in the Eastern Church with the seventh Œcumenical Council (787). After that time
no further dogmas were set up in the East as revealed truths. As to the Western
Catholic, that is, the Romish Church, a new dogma was promulgated as late as the
year 1870, which claims to be, and in point of form really is, equal in dignity
to the old dogmas. Here, therefore, the History of Dogma must extend to the present
time. Finally, as regards the Protestant Churches, they are a subject of special
difficulty in the sphere of the history of dogma; for at the present moment there
is no agreement within these Churches as to whether, and in what sense, dogmas (as
the word was used in the ancient Church) are valid. But even if we leave the present
out of account and fix our attention on the Protestant Churches of the 16th century,
the decision is difficult. For, on the one hand, the Protestant faith, the Lutheran
as well as the Reformed (and that of Luther no less), presents itself as a doctrine
of faith which, resting Catholic canon of scripture, is, in point of form, quite
analogous to the Catholic doctrine of faith, has a series of dogmas in common with
it, and only differs in a few. On the other hand, Protestantism
has taken its stand in principle on the Gospel exclusively, and declared
its readiness at all times to test all doctrines afresh by a true understanding
of the Gospel. The Reformers, however, in addition to this, began to unfold a conception
of Christianity which might be described, in contrast with the Catholic type of
religion, as a new conception, and which indeed draws support from the old dogmas,
but changes their original significance materially and formally. What this conception
was may still be ascertained from those writings received by the Church, the Protestant
symbols of the 16th century, in which the larger part of the traditionary dogmas
are recognised as the appropriate expression of the Christian religion, nay, as
the Christian religion itself.See Kattenbusch. Luther’s Stellung zu den ökumenischen
Symbolen, 1883. Accordingly, it can neither be maintained that the expression
of the Christian faith in the form of dogmas is abolished in the Protestant Churches—the
very acceptance of the Catholic canon as the revealed record of faith is opposed
to that view—nor that its meaning has remained absolutely unchanged.See Ritschl.
Geschichte des Pietismus, I. p. 80 ff.: 93 ff., II. p. 60 f.: 88 f. “The Lutheran
view of life did not remain pure and undefiled, but was limited and obscured by
the preponderance of dogmatic interests. Protestantism was not delivered from the
womb of the Western Church of the middle ages in full power and equipment, like
Athene from the head of Jupiter. The incompleteness of its ethical view, the splitting
up of its general conceptions into a series of particular dogmas, the tendency to
express its beliefs as a hard and fast whole, are defects which soon made Protestantism
appear to disadvantage in comparison with the wealth of mediæval theology and asceticism.
. . The scholastic form of pure doctrine is really only the provisional, and not
the final form of Protestantism.” The history of dogma has simply to recognise
this state of things, and to represent it exactly as it lies before us in the documents.
But the point to which the historian should advance here still
remains an open question. If we adhere strictly to the definition of the idea of
dogma given above, this much is certain, that dogmas were no longer set up after
the Formula of Concord, or in the case of the Reformed Church, after the decrees
of the Synod of Dort. It cannot, however, be maintained that they have been set
aside in the centuries that
have passed since then; for apart from some Protestant National and
independent Churches, which are too insignificant and whose future is too uncertain
to be taken into account here, the ecclesiastical tradition of the 16th century,
and along it the tradition of the early Church, have not been abrogated in authoritative
form. Of course, changes of the greatest importance with regard to doctrine have
appeared everywhere in Protestantism from the 17th century to the present day. But
these changes cannot in any sense be taken into account in a history of dogma, because
they have not as yet attained a form valid for the Church. However we may changes,
whether we regard them as corruptions or improvements, or explain the want of fixity
in which the Protestant Churches find themselves, as a situation that is forced
on them, or the situation that is agreeable to them and for which they are adapted,
in no sense is there here a development which could be described as history of dogma.
These facts would seem to justify those who, like Thomasius and
Schmid, carry the history of dogma in Protestantism to the Formula of Concord, or,
in the case of the Reformed Church, to the decrees of the Synod of Dort. But it
may be objected to this boundary line; (1) That those symbols have at all times
attained only a partial authority in Protestantism; (2) That as noted above, the
dogmas, that is, the formulated doctrines of faith have different meanings on different
matters in the Protestant and in the Catholic Churches. Accordingly, it seems advisable
within the frame-work of the history of dogma, to examine Protestantism only so
far as this is necessary for obtaining a knowledge of its deviations from the Catholic
dogma materially and formally, that is, to ascertain the original position of the
Reformers with regard to the doctrine of the Church, a position which is beset with
contradictions. The more accurately we determine the relation of the Reformers to
Catholicism, the more intelligible will be the developments which Protestantism
has passed through in the course of its history. But these developments themselves
(retrocession and advance) do not belong to the sphere of the history of dogma,
because they stand in no comparable relation to the course
of the history of dogma within the Catholic Church. As history of Protestant
doctrines they form a peculiar independent province of Church history.
As to the division of the history of dogma, it consists of two
main parts. The first has to describe the origin of dogma, that is, of the Apostolic
Catholic system of doctrine based on the foundation of the tradition authoritatively
embodied in the creeds and Holy Scripture, and extends to the beginning of the fourth
century. This may be conveniently divided into two parts, the first of which will
treat of the preparation, the second of the establishment of the ecclesiastical
doctrine of faith. The second main part, which has to portray the development of
dogma, comprehends three stages. In the first stage the doctrine of faith appears
as Theology and Christology. The Eastern Church has never got beyond this stage,
although it has to a large extent enriched dogma ritually and mystically (see the
decrees of the seventh council). We will have to shew how the doctrines of faith
formed in this stage have remained for all time in the Church dogmas
κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν. The second stage was initiated
by Augustine. The doctrine of faith appears here on the one side completed, and
on the other re-expressed by new dogmas, which treat of the relation of sin and
grace, freedom and grace, grace and the means of grace. The number and importance
of the dogmas that were, in the middle ages, really fixed after Augustine’s time,
had no relation to the range and importance of the questions which they raised,
and which emerged in the course of centuries in consequence of advancing knowledge,
and not less in consequence of the growing power of the Church. Accordingly, in
this second stage which comprehends the whole of the middle ages, the Church as
an institution kept believers together in a larger measure than was possible to
dogmas. These in their accepted form were too poor to enable them to be the expression
of religious conviction and the regulator of Church life. On the other hand, the
new decisions of Theologians, Councils and Popes, did not yet possess the authority
which could have made them incontestable truths of faith. The third stage begins
with the Reformation, which compelled the Church to fix its faith on
the basis of the theological work of the middle ages. Thus arose the
Catholic dogma which has found in the Vatican decrees its provisional settlement.
This Roman Catholic dogma, as it was formulated at Trent, was moulded in express
opposition to the Theses of the Reformers. But these Theses themselves represent
a peculiar conception of Christianity, which has its root in the theology of Paul
and Augustine, and includes either explicitly or implicitly a revision of the whole
ecclesiastical tradition, and therefore of dogma also. The History of Dogma in this
last stage, therefore, has a twofold task. It has, on the one hand, to present the
Romish dogma as a product of the ecclesiastical development of the middle ages under
the influence of the Reformation faith which was to be rejected, and on the other
hand, to portray the conservative new formation which we have in original Protestantism,
and determine its relation to dogma. A closer examination, however, shews that in
none of the great confessions does religion live in dogma, as of old. Dogma everywhere
has fallen into the background; in the Eastern Church it has given place to ritual,
in the Roman Church to ecclesiastical instructions, in the Protestant Churches,
so far as they are mindful of their origin, to the Gospel. At the same time, however,
the paradoxical fact is unmistakable that dogma as such is nowhere at this moment
so powerful as in the Protestant Churches, though by their history they are furthest
removed from it. Here, however, it comes into consideration as an object of immediate
religious interest, which, strictly speaking, in the Catholic Church is not the
case.It is very evident how the mediæval and old catholic dogmas were transformed
in the view which Luther originally took of them. In this view we must remember
that he did away with all the presuppositions of dogma, the infallible Apostolic
Canon of Scripture, the infallible teaching function of the Church, and the infallible
Apostolic doctrine and constitution. On this basis dogmas can only be utterances
which do not support faith, but are supposed by it. But, on the other hand his opposition
to all the Apocryphal saints which the Church has created, compelled him to emphasise
faith alone, and to give it a firm basis in Scripture, in order to free it from
the burden of tradition. Here then, very soon, first by Melanchthon, a summary of
articuli fide was substituted for the faith, and the
Scriptures recovered their place as a rule. Luther himself, however, is responsible
for both, and so it came about that very soon the new evangelic standpoint was explained
almost exclusively by the “abolition of abuses,” and by no means so surely by the
transformation of the whole doctrinal tradition. The classic authority for this
is the Augsburg confession (“hæc fere summa est doctrina apud suos,
in qua cerni potest nihil inesse, quod discrepet a scripturis vel ab ecclesia Catholica
vel ab ecclesia Romana . . . . sed dissensio est de quibusdam abusibus”).
The purified catholic doctrine has since then become the palladium of the Reformation
Churches. The refuters of the Augustana have justly been unwilling to admit the
mere “purifying,” but have noted in addition that the Augustana does not say everything
that was urged by Luther and the Doctors (see Ficker, Die Konfutation des Augsburgischen
Bekenntnisse, 1891). At the same time, however, the Lutheran Church, though not
so strongly as the English, retained the consciousness of being the true Catholics.
But, as the history of Protestantism proves, the original impulse has not remained
inoperative. Though Luther himself all his life measured his personal Christian
standing by an entirely different standard than subjection to a law of faith; yet,
however presumptous the words may sound, we might say that in the complicated struggle
that was forced on him, he did not always clearly understand his own faith.
The Council of Trent was simply wrung from the Romish Church, and she has made the
dogmas of that council
in a certain sense innocuous by the Vatican decrees.In the modern
Romish Church, dogma is, above all, a judicial regulation which one has to submit
to, and in certain circumstances submission alone is sufficient,
fides implicita. Dogma is thereby just as much deprived
of its original sense and its original authority as by the demand of the Reformers,
that every thing should be based upon a clear understanding of the Gospel. Moreover,
the changed position of the Romish Church towards dogma is also shewn by the fact
that it no longer gives a plain answer to the question as to what dogma is. Instead
of a series of dogmas definitely defined, and of equal value, there is presented
an infinite multitude of whole and half dogmas, doctrinal directions, pious opinions,
probable theological propositions, etc. It is often a very difficult question whether
a solemn decision has or has not already been taken on this or that statement, or
whether such a decision is still necessary. Everything that must be believed is
nowhere stated, and so one sometimes hears in Catholic circles the exemplary piety
of a cleric praised with the words that “he believes more than is necessary.” The
great dogmatic conflicts within the Catholic Church, since the Council of Trent,
have been silenced by arbitrary Papal pronouncements and doctrinal directions. Since
one has simply to accommodate oneself to these as laws, it once more appears clear
that dogma has become a judicial regulation, administered by the Pope, which is
carried out in an administrative way and loses itself in an endless casuistry. We
do not mean by this to deny that dogma has a decided value for the pious Catholic
as a summary of the faith. But in the Catholic Church it is no longer piety, but
obedience that is decisive. The solidarity with the orthodox Protestants may be
explained by political reasons, in order, from political reasons again, to condemn,
where it is necessary, all Protestants as heretics and revolutionaries. In
this sense, it may be said that the period of development of dogma is altogether
closed, and that therefore our discipline requires
a statement such as belongs to a series of historical phenomena that
has been completed.
3. The Church has recognised her faith, that is religion itself,
in her dogmas. Accordingly, one very important business of the History of Dogma
is to exhibit the unity that exists in the dogmas of a definite period, and to shew
how the several dogmas are connected with one another and what leading ideas they
express. But, as a matter of course, this undertaking has its limits in the degree
of unanimity which actually existed in the dogmas of the particular period. It may
be shewn without much difficulty, that a strict though by no means absolute unanimity
is expressed only in the dogmas of the Greek Church. The peculiar character of the
western post-Augustinian ecclesiastical conception of Christianity, no longer
finds a clear expression in dogma, and still less is this the case with the conception
of the Reformers. The reason of this is that Augustine, as well as Luther, disclosed
a new conception of Christianity, but at the same time appropriated the old dogmas.See
the discussions of Biedermann (Christliche Dogmatik. 2 Ed. p. 150 f.) about what
he calls the law of stability in the history of religion. But neither Baur’s
nor Kliefoth’s method of writing the history of dogmas has done justice to this
fact. Not Baur’s, because, notwithstanding the division into six periods, it sees
a uniform process in the development of dogma, a process which begins with the origin
of Christianity and has run its course, as is alleged, in a strictly logical way.
Not Kliefoth’s, because, in the dogmas of the Catholic Church which the East has
never got beyond, it only ascertains the establishment of one portion of the Christian
faith, to which the parts still wanting have been successively added in later times.See
Ritschl’s discussion of the methods of the early histories of dogma in the Jahrb.
f. Deutsche Theologie, 1871, p. 181 ff. In contrast with this, we may refer
to the fact that we can clearly distinguish three styles of building in the history
of dogma, but only three; the style of Origen, that of Augustine, and that of the
Reformers. But the dogma of the post-Augustinian Church, as well as that of Luther,
does not
in any way represent itself as a new building, not even as the mere
extension of an old building, but as a complicated rebuilding, and by no means in
harmony with former styles, because neither Augustine nor Luther ever dreamed of
building independently.In Catholicism, the impulse which proceeded from Augustine
has finally proved powerless to break the traditional conception of Christianity,
as the Council of Trent and the decrees of the Vatican have shewn. For that very
reason the development of the Roman Catholic Church doctrine belongs to the history
of dogma. Protestantism must, however, under all circumstances be recognised as
a new thing, which indeed in none of its phases has been free from contradictions.
This perception leads us to the most peculiar phenomenon which meets the historian
of dogma, and which must determine his method.
Dogmas arise, develop themselves and are made serviceable to new
aims; this in all cases takes place through Theology. But Theology is dependent
on innumerable factors, above all on the spirit of the time; for it lies in the
nature of theology that it desires to make its object intelligible. Dogmas are the
product of theology, not inversely; of a theology of course which, as a rule, was
in correspondence with the faith of the time. The critical view of history teaches
this: first we have the Apologists and Origen, then the councils of Nice and Chalcedon;
first the Scholastics, and the Council of Trent. In consequence of this, dogma bears
the mark of all the factors on which the theology was dependent. That is one point.
But the moment in which the product of theology became dogma, the way which led
to it must be obscured; for, according to the conception of the Church, dogma can
be nothing else than the revealed faith itself. Dogma is regarded not as the exponent,
but as the basis of theology, and there-fore the product of theology having passed
into dogma limits, and criticises the work of theology both past and future.Here
then begins the ecclesiastical theology which takes as its starting-point the finished
dogma it strives to prove or harmonise, but very soon, as experience has shewn,
loses its firm footing in such efforts and so occasions new crises. That
is the second point. It follows from this that the history of the Christian religion
embraces a very complicated relation of ecclesiastical dogma and theology, and that
the
ecclesiastical conception of the significance of theology cannot at
all do justice to this significance. The ecclesiastical scheme which is here formed
and which denotes the utmost concession that can be made to history, is to the effect
that theology gives expression only to the form of dogma, while so far as it is
ecclesiastical theology, it presupposes the unchanging dogma, i.e., the substance
of dogma. But this scheme, which must always leave uncertain what the form really
is, and what the substance, is in no way applicable to the actual circumstances.
So far, however, as it is itself an article of faith it is an object of the history
of dogma. Ecclesiastical dogma when put on its defence must at all times take up
an ambiguous position towards theology, and ecclesiastical theology a corresponding
position towards dogma; for they are condemned to perpetual uncertainty as to what
they owe each other, and what they have to fear from each other. The theological
Fathers of dogma have almost without exception failed to escape being condemned
by dogma, either because it went beyond them, or lagged behind their theology. The
Apologist, Origen and Augustine may be cited in support of this; and even in Protestantism,
mutatis mutandis, the same of thing has been repeated,
as is proved by the fate of Melanchthon and Schleiermacher. On the other hand, there
have been few theologians who have not shaken some article of the traditional dogma.
We are wont to get rid of these fundamental facts by hypostatising the ecclesiastical
principle or the common ecclesiastical spirit, and by this normal hypostasis, measuring,
approving or condemning the doctrines of the theologians, unconcerned about the
actual conditions and frequently following a hysteron-proteron. But this is a view
of history which should in justice be left to the Catholic Church, which indeed
cannot dispense with it. The critical history of dogma has, on the contrary, to
shew above all how an ecclesiastical theology has arisen; for it can only give account
of the origin of dogma in connection with this main question. The horizon must be
taken here as wide as possible; for the question as to the origin of theology can
only be answered by surveying all the relations into which the
Christian religion has entered in naturalising itself in the world
and subduing it. When ecclesiastical dogma has once been created and recognised
as an immediate expression of the Christian religion, the history of dogma has only
to take the history of theology into account so far as it has been active in the
formation of dogma. Yet it must always keep in view the peculiar claim of dogma
to be a criterion and not a product of theology. But it will also be able to shew
how, partly by means of theology and partly by other means—for dogma is also dependent
on ritual, constitution, and the practical ideals of life, as well as on the letter,
whether of Scripture, or of tradition no longer understood—dogma in its development
and re-expression has continually changed, according to the conditions under which
the Church was placed. If dogma is originally the formulation of Christian faith
as Greek culture understood it and justified it to itself, then dogma has never
indeed lost this character, though it has been radically modified in later times.
It is quite as important to keep in view the tenacity of dogma as its changes, and
in this respect the Protestant way of writing history, which, here as elsewhere
in the history of the Church, is more disposed to attend to differences than to
what is permanent, has much to learn from the Catholic. But as the Protestant historian,
as far as possible, judges of the progress of development in so far as it agrees
with the Gospel in its documentary form, he is still able to shew, with all deference
to that tenacity, that dogma has been so modified and used to the best advantage
by Augustine and Luther, that its Christian character has in many respects gained,
though in other respects it has become further and further alienated from that character.
In proportion as the traditional system of dogmas lost its stringency it became
richer. In proportion as it was stripped by Augustine and Luther of its apologetic
philosophic tendency, it was more and more filled with Biblical ideas, though, on
the other hand, it became more full of contradictions and less impressive.
This outlook, however, has already gone beyond the limits fixed
for these introductory paragraphs and must not be pursued
further. To treat in abstracto of the
method of the history of dogma in relation to the discovery, grouping, and interpretation
of the material is not to be recommended; for general rules to preserve the ignorant
and half instructed from overlooking the important, and laying hold of what is not
important, cannot be laid down. Certainly everything depends on the arrangement
of the material; for the understanding of history is to find the rules according
to which the phenomena should be grouped, and every advance in the knowledge of
history is inseparable from an accurate observance of these rules. We must, above
all, be on our guard against preferring one principle at the expense of another
in the interpretation of the origin and aim of particular dogmas. The most diverse
factors have at all times been at work in the formation of dogmas. Next to the effort
to determine the doctrine of religion according to the finis
religionis, the blessing of salvation, the following may have been the
most important. (1) The conceptions and sayings contained in the canonical Scriptures.
(2) The doctrinal tradition originating in earlier epochs of the Church, and no
longer understood. (3) The needs of worship and organisation. (4) The effort to
adjust the doctrine of religion to the prevailing doctrinal opinions. (5) Political
and social circumstances. (6) The changing moral ideals of life. (7) The so-called
logical consistency, that is the abstract analogical treatment of one dogma according
to the form of another. (8) The effort to adjust different tendencies and contradictions
in the Church. (9) The endeavour to reject once for all a doctrine regarded as erroneous.
(10) The sanctifying power of blind custom. The method of explaining everything
wherever possible by “the impulse of dogma to unfold itself,” must be given up as
unscientific, just as all empty abstractions whatsoever must be given up as scholastic
and mythological. Dogma has had its history in the individual living man and nowhere
else. As soon as one adopts this statement in real earnest, that mediæval realism
must vanish to which a man so often thinks himself superior while imbedded in it
all the time. Instead of investigating the actual conditions in which believing
and intelligent men have been placed, a system of Christianity has been
constructed from which, as from a Pandora’s box, all doctrines which
in course of time have been formed, are extracted, and in this way legitimised as
Christian. The simple fundamental proposition that that only is Christian which
can be established authoritatively by the Gospel, has never yet received justice
in the history of dogma. Even the following account will in all probability come
short in this point; for in face of a prevailing false tradition the application
of a simple principle to every detail can hardly succeed at the first attempt.
Explanation as to the Conception and Task of the History of
Dogma.
No agreement as yet prevails with regard to the conception of
the history of dogma. Münscher (Handbuch der Christl. D. G. 3rd ed. I. p. 3 f.)
declared that the business of the history of dogma is “To represent all the changes
which the theoretic part of the Christian doctrine of religion has gone through
from its origin up to the present, both in form and substance,” and this definition
held sway for a long time. Then it came to be noted that the question was not about
changes that were accidental, but about those that were historically necessary,
that dogma has a relation to the Church, and that it represents a rational expression
of the faith. Emphasis was put sometimes on one of these elements and sometimes
on the other. Baur, in particular, insisted on the first; V. Hofmann, after the
example of Schleiermacher, on the second, and indeed exclusively (Encyklop. der
theol. p. 257 f.: “The history of dogma is the history of the Church confessing
the faith in words”). Nitzsch (Grundriss der Christl. D. G. I. p. I) insisted on
the third: “The history of dogma is the scientific account of the origin and development
of the Christian system of doctrine or that part of historical theology which presents
the history of the expression of the Christian faith in notions, doctrines and doctrinal
systems.” Thomasius has combined the second and third by conceiving the history
of dogma as the history of the development of the ecclesiastical system of doctrine.
But even this conception is not sufficiently definite, inasmuch
as it fails to do complete justice to the special peculiarity of the subject.
Ancient and modern usage does certainly seem to allow the word dogma to be
applied to particular doctrines, or to a uniform system of doctrine, to fundamental
truths, or to opinions, to theoretical propositions or practical rules, to statements
of belief that have not been reached by a process of reasoning, as well as to those that bear the marks
of such a process. But this uncertainty vanishes on closer examination. We
then see that there is always an authority at the basis of dogma, which gives it
to those who recognise that authority the signification
of a fundamental truth “quæ sine scelere prodi non poterit” (Cicero Quæst. Acad.
IV. 9). But therewith at the
same time is introduced into the idea of dogma a social element (see Biedermann,
Christl. Dogmatik. 2 Edit. I. p. 2 f.); the confessors
of one and the same dogma form a community.
There can be no doubt that these
two elements are also demonstrable
in Christian dogma, and therefore we must reject
all definitions of the history of dogma which do not take them into account. If
we define it as the history of the understanding of Christianity by itself, or as
the history of the changes of the theoretic part of the doctrine of religion or
the like, we shall fail to do justice to the idea of dogma in its most general acceptation.
We cannot describe as dogmas, doctrines such as the Apokatastasis, or the Kenosis
of the Son of God, without coming into conflict with the ordinary usage of language
and with ecclesiastical law.
If we start, therefore,
from the supposition that Christian dogma is an ecclesiastical
doctrine which presupposes revelation as its authority, and therefore claims to be
strictly binding, we shall fail to bring out its real nature with anything like
completeness. That which Protestants and Catholics call
dogmas, are not only ecclesiastical doctrines, but they are also: (1) theses expressed in
abstract terms, forming together a unity, and fixing the contents of the Christian
religion as a knowledge of God, of the world, and of the sacred history under the
aspect of a proof of the truth. But (2) they have
also emerged at a definite stage of the history of the Christian religion; they
shew in their conception as such, and in many details, the influence of that stage,
viz., the Greek period, and they have preserved this character in spite of all their
reconstructions and additions in after periods. This view of dogma Cannot be shaken
by the fact that particular historical facts, Miraculous or not miraculous are described
as dogmas; for here they are regarded as such only in so far as they have got the value
of doctrines which have been inserted in the complete structure of doctrines and
are, on the other hand, members of a chain of proofs, viz., proofs from prophecy.
But as soon as
we perceive this, the parallel between the ecclesiastical dogmas and those of ancient
schools of philosophy appears to be in point of form complete. The only difference
is that revelation is here put as authority in the place of human knowledge, although
the later philosophic schools appealed to revelation also. The theoretical as well
as the practical doctrines which embraced the peculiar conception of the world and
the ethics of the school, together with their rationale, were described in these
schools as dogmas. Now, in so far as the adherents of the Christian religion possess
dogmas in this sense, and form a community which has gained an understanding of
its religious faith by analysis and by scientific definition and grounding, they
appear as a great philosophic school in the ancient sense of the word. But they
differ from such a school in so far as they have always eliminated the process of
thought which has led to the dogma, looking upon the whole system of dogma as a
revelation and there-fore, even in respect of the reception of the dogma, at least
at first, they have taken account not of the powers of human understanding, but
of the Divine enlightenment which is bestowed on all the willing and the virtuous.
In later times, indeed, the analogy was far more complete, in so far as the Church
reserved the full possession of dogma to a circle of consecrated and initiated individuals.
Dogmatic Christianity is therefore a definite stage in the history of the development
of Christianity. It corresponds to the antique mode of thought, but has nevertheless continued to a
very great extent in the
following epochs, though subject to great transformations. Dogmatic
Christianity stands between Christianity as
the religion of the Gospel, presupposing a personal experience and dealing
with disposition and conduct, and Christianity as a religion of cultus,
sacraments, ceremonial and obedience, in short of
superstition, and it can be united with either the one or the other. In itself
and in spite of all its mysteries
it is always intellectual Christianity, and therefore there is always the danger here that as
knowledge it may supplant religious faith, or connect it with
a doctrine of religion, instead of
with God and a living experience.
If then the discipline of the history of dogma is to be what
its name purports, its object is the very dogma which is so formed, and its fundamental
problem will be to discover how it has arisen. In the history of the canon our method
of procedure has for long been to ask first of all, how the canon originated, and then to examine the changes through
which it has passed. We must proceed in the same way with the history of dogma, of which the history of the canon is simply
a part. Two objections will be raised against
this. In the first place, it will be said that from
the very first the Christian religion has included a definite religious faith as
well as a definite ethic, and that therefore Christian dogma is as original as
Christianity itself, so that there can be no question about a genesis, but only as to a
development or alteration of dogma within the Church. Again it will be said, in
the second place, that dogma as defined above, has validity only for a definite
epoch in the history of the Church, and that it is therefore quite impossible to
write a comprehensive history of dogma in the sense we have indicated.
As to the first objection, there can of course be no doubt that the Christian religion is founded on a message, the contents of which are a definite belief in
God and in Jesus Christ whom he has sent, and that the promise of salvation
is attached to this belief. But faith in the Gospel and the later dogmas of the Church are not related to each other as theme and the
way in which it is worked out, any more than the dogma of the New Testament canon is only the explication
of the original reliance of Christians on the word of their Lord and the
continuous working of the Spirit; but in these later dogmas an entirely
new element has entered into the Conception of religion. The message
of religion appears here Clothed in a knowledge of the world and of
the ground of the World which had already been obtained without any
reference to it, and therefore religion itself has here become a doctrine
Which has, indeed, its certainty in the Gospel, but only in part derives
its contents from it, and which can also be appropriated by such as
are neither poor in spirit nor weary itnd heavy laden. Now, it may of
course be shewn that a philosophic conception of the Christian religion
is possible, Ind began to make its appearance from the very first, as
in the case of Paul. But the Pauline gnosis has neither been simply
identified with the Gospel by Paul himself (I Cor. III. 2 f.:
XII. 3: Phil. I. 18) nor is it analogous to the later dogma, not to speak of
being identical with it. The characteristic of this dogma is that it
represents itself in no sense as foolishness, but as wisdom, and at
the same time desires to be regarded as the contents of revelation itself.
Dogma in its conception and development is a work of the Greek spirit
on the soil of the Gospel. By comprehending in itself and giving excellent
expression to the religious conceptions contained in Greek philosophy
and the Gospel, together with its Old Testament basis; by meeting the
search for a revelation as well as the desire for a universal knowledge;
by subordinating itself to the aim of the Christian religion to bring
a Divine life to humanity as well as to the aim of philosophy to know
the world: it became the instrument by which the Church conquered the
ancient world and educated the modern nations. But this dogma—one cannot
but admire its formation or fail to regard it as a great achievement
of the spirit, which never again in the history of Christianity has
made itself at home with such freedom and boldness in religion—is the
product of a comparatively long history which needs to be deciphered; for it is obscured by the completed dogma. The Gospel itself is not
dogma, for belief in the Gospel provides room for knowledge only so
far as it is a state of feeling and
course of action, that is a definite form of life. Between
practicl faith in the Gospel and the historico-critical account of the Christian religion and its
history, a third element can no longer be thrust in without its coming into conflict
with faith, or with the historical data--the only thing left is the practical
task of defending the
faith. But a third
element has been thrust into the history of this religion, viz., dogma, that is, the philosophical means
which were used in early times for the purpose of making the Gospel intelligible
have been fused with the contents of the Gospel and raised to dogma. This dogma, next to the Church,
has become a real world power, the pivot in the history of the Christian
religion. The transformation of the
Christian faith into dogma is indeed no accident, but
has its reason is in spiritual character of the Christian religion, which
at all times will feel the need of a scientific apologetic.Weizsäcker, Apostolic Age, Vol. I. p. 123. “Christianity
as religion is absolutely inconceivable without theology;
first of all, for the same reasons which called forth the Pauline theology. As a
religion it cannot be separated from the religion of its founder, hence not from
historical knowledge. And as Monotheism and belief in a world purpose, it is the
religion of reason with the inextinguishable impulse of thought. The first gentile
Christians therewith gained the proud consciousness of a gnosis.” But of
ecclesiastical Christianity which rests on dogma ready made, as produced by an
earlier epoch, this conception holds good only in a very qualified way; and of
the vigorous Christian piety of the earliest and of every period, it may also be
said that it no less feels the impulse to think against reason than with reason. But the question here is not
as to something indefinite and general, but as to the definite dogma formed in
the first centuries, and binding even yet.
This already touches on the second objection which was raised above, that dogma, in the
given sense of the word, was too narrowly conceived, and could not in this
conception be applied throughout the whole history of the Church. This objection would only
be justified, if our task were to carry the history of the development of dogma
through the whole history of the Church. But the question is just whether we are right
in proposing such a task. The Greek Church has no history of dogma after the
seven great Councils, and it is incomparably more important to recognise this fact than to
register the theologoumena which were
later on introduced by Individual Bishops and scholars in the East, who were partly
Influenced by the West. Roman Catholicism in its dogmas, though, as noted above,
these at present do not very clearly characterise it, is to-day essentially—that
is, so far as it is religion—what it was 1500 years ago, viz., Christianity as Understood
by the ancient world. The changes which dogma has experienced in the course of its
development in western Catholicism are certainly deep and radical: they have, in
point of fact, as has been indicated in the text above, modified the position of
the Church towards Christianity as dogma. But as the Catholic Church herself maintains
that she adheres to Christianity in the old dogmatic sense, this claim of hers cannot
be contested. She has embraced new things and changed her relations to the old,
but still preserved the old. But she has further developed new dogmas according
to the scheme of the old. The decrees of Trent and of the Vatican are formally analogous
to the old dogmas. Here, then, a history of dogma may really be carried forward
to the present day without thereby shewing that the definition of dogma given above
is too narrow to embrace the new doctrines. Finally, as to Protestantism, it has
been briefly explained above why the changes in Protestant systems of doctrine are
not to be taken up into the history of dogma. Strictly speaking, dogma, as dogma,
has had no development in Protestantism, inasmuch as a secret note of interrogation
has been here associated with it from the very beginning. But the old dogma has
continued to be a power in it, because of its tendency to look back and to seek
for authorities in the past, and partly in the original unmodified form. The dogmas
of the fourth and fifth centuries have more influence to-day in wide circles of
Protestant Churches than all the doctrines which are concentrated around justification
by faith. Deviations from the latter are borne comparatively easy, while as a rule,
deviations from the former are followed by notice to quit the Christian communion,
that is, by excommunication. The historian of to-day would have no difficulty in
answering the question whether the power of Protestantism as a Church lies
at present in the elements which it has in common
with the old dogmatic Christianity, or in that by which it is distinguished from
it. Dogma, that is to say, that type of Christianity which was formed in ecclesiastical
antiquity, has not been suppressed even in Protestant Churches, has really not
been modified or replaced by a new conception of the Gospel. But, on the other hand,
who could deny that the Reformation began to disclose such a conception, and that
this new conception was related in a very different way to the traditional dogma
from that of the new propositions of Augustine to the dogmas handed down to him?
Who could further call in question that, in consequence of the reforming impulse
in Protestantism, the way was opened up for a conception which does not identify
Gospel and dogma, which does not disfigure the latter by changing or paring down
its meaning while failing to come up to the former? But the historian who has to
describe the formation and changes of dogma can take no part in these developments.
It is a task by itself more rich and comprehensive than that of the historian of
dogma, to portray the diverse conceptions that have been formed of the Christian
religion, to portray how strong men and weak men, great and little minds have explained
the Gospel outside and inside the frame-work of dogma, and how under the cloak,
or in the province of dogma, the Gospel has had its own peculiar history. But the
more limited theme must not be put aside. For it can in no way be conducive to historical
knowledge to regard as indifferent the peculiar character of the expression of Christian
faith as dogma, and allow the history of dogma to be absorbed in a general history
of the various conceptions of Christianity. Such a “liberal” view would not agree
either with the teaching of history or with the actual situation of the Protestant
Churches of the present day: for it is, above all, of crucial importance to perceive
that it is a peculiar stage in the development of the human spirit which is described
by dogma. On this stage, parallel with dogma and inwardly united with it, stands
a definite psychology, metaphysic and natural philosophy, as well as a view of
history of a definite type. This is the conception of the
world obtained by antiquity
after almost a thousand years’ labour, and it is the same connection
of theoretic perceptions and practical ideals which it accomplished. This stage
on which the Christian religion has also entered we have in no way as yet transcended,
though science has raised itself above it.In this sense it is correct to class dogmatic theology
as historical theology, as Schleiermacher has done. If we, maintain that
for practical reasons it must be taken out of the province of historical theology,
then we must make it part of practical theology. By dogmatic theology here, we understand
the exposition of Christianity in the form of Church doctrine, as it has been shaped
since the second century. As distinguished from it, a branch of theological study
must be conceived which harmonises the historical exposition of the Gospel with
the general state of knowledge of the time. The Church can as little dispense with
such a discipline as there can be a Christianity which does not account to itself
for its basis and spiritual contents. But the Christian religion, as it was
not born of the culture of the ancient world, is not for ever chained to it. The
form and the new contents which the Gospel received when it entered into that world
have only the same guarantee of endurance as that world itself. And that endurance
is limited. We must indeed be on our guard against taking episodes for decisive
crises. But every episode carries us forward, and retrogressions are unable to undo
that progress. The Gospel since the Reformation, in spite of retrograde movements
which have not been wanting, is working itself out of the forms which it was once
compelled to assume, and a true comprehension of its history will also contribute
to hasten this process.
1. The definition given above, p. 17: “Dogma in its conception
and development is a work of the Greek spirit on the soil of the Gospel,”
has frequently been distorted by my critics, as they have suppressed the words “on
the soil of the Gospel.” But these words are decisive. The foolishness of identifying
dogma and Greek philosophy never entered my mind; on the contrary, the peculiarity
of ecclesiastical dogma seemed to me to lie in the very fact that, on the one hand,
it gave expression to Christian Monotheism and the central significance of the person
of Christ, and, on the other hand, comprehended this religious faith and the historical knowledge
connected with it in a philosophic system. I have given quite
as little ground for the accusation that I look upon the whole development of the
history of dogma as a pathological process within the history of the Gospel. I
do not even look upon the history of the origin of the Papacy as such a process,
not to speak of the history of dogma. But the perception that “everything must happen
as it has happened” does not absolve the historian from the task of ascertaining
the powers which have formed the history, and distinguishing between original and
later, permanent and transitory, nor from the duty of stating his own opinion.
2. Sabatier has published a thoughtful treatise on “Christian Dogma: its Nature
and its Development,” I agree with the author in this, that in dogma—rightly understood—two
elements are to be distinguished, the religious proceeding from the experience
of the individual or from the religious spirit of the Church, and the intellectual
or theoretic. But I regard as false the statement which he makes, that the intellectual
element in dogma is only the symbolical expression of religious experience. The
intellectual element is itself again to be differentiated. On the one hand, it certainly
is the attempt to give expression to religious feeling, and so far is symbolical;
but, on the other hand, within the Christian religion it belongs to the essence
of the thing itself, inasmuch as this not only awakens feeling, but has a quite
definite content which determines and should determine the feeling. In this sense
Christianity without dogma, that is, without a clear expression of its content,
is inconceivable. But that does not justify the unchangeable permanent significance
of that dogma which has once been formed under definite historical conditions.
3. The word “dogmas” (Christian dogmas) is, if I see correctly, used among us
in three different senses, and hence spring all manner of misconceptions and errors.
By dogmas are denoted: (1) The historical doctrines of the Church. (2) The historical
facts on which the Christian religion is reputedly or actually founded. (3) Every
definite exposition of the contents of Christianity is described as dogmatic. In
contrast with this the attempt has been made in the following presentation to
use dogma
only in the sense first stated. When I speak, therefore, of the decomposition of
dogma, I mean by that, neither the historical facts which really establish the Christian
religion, nor do I call in question the necessity for the Christian and the Church
to have a creed. My criticism refers not to the general genus dogma, but to the
species, viz., the defined dogma, as it was formed on the soil of the ancient world,
and is still a power, though under modifications.
§©2. History of the History of Dogma.
The history of dogma as a historical and critical discipline had
its origin in the last century through the works of Mosheim, C. W. F. Walch, Ernesti,
Lessing and Semler. Lange gave to the world in 1796 the first attempt at a history
of dogma as a special branch of theological study. The theologians of the Early
and Mediaeval Churches have only transmitted histories of Heretics and of Literature,
regarding dogma as unchangeable.See Eusebius’ preface to
his Church History. Eusebius in this work set himself a comprehensive task, but
in doing so he never in the remotest sense thought of a history of dogma. In place
of that we have a history of men “who from generation to generation proclaimed the
word of God orally or by writing,” and a history of those who by their passion for
novelties, plunged themselves into the greatest errors. This presupposition is so much a part of the
nature of Catholicism that it has been maintained till the present day. It is there-fore
impossible for a Catholic to make a free, impartial and scientific investigation
of the history of dogma.See for example,
B. Schwane, Dogmengesch. d. Vornicänischen Zeit, 1862, where the sense in which
dogmas have no historical side is first expounded, and then it is shewn that dogmas,
“notwithstanding, present a certain side which permits a historical consideration,
because in point of fact they have gone through historical developments.” But these
historical developments present themselves simply either as solemn promulgations
and explications, or as private theological speculations. There have, indeed, at almost all times before
the Reformation, been critical efforts in the domain of Christianity, especially
of western Christianity, efforts which in some cases have led to the proof
of the novelty and inadmissibility of particular
dogmas. But, as a rule, these efforts were of the nature of a polemic against the
dominant Church. They scarcely prepared the way for, far less produced a historical
view of, dogmatic tradition.If we leave out of account
the Marcionite gnostic criticism of ecclesiastical Christianity, Paul of Samosata
and Marcellus of Ancyra may be mentioned as men who, in the earliest period, criticised
the apologetic Alexandrian theology which was being naturalised (see the remarkable
statement of Marcellus in Euseb. C. Marc. I. 4: τὸ τοῦ δόγματος ὄνομα τῆς ἀνθρωπίνης ἔχεται βουλῆς τε καὶ γνώμης
κ.τ.λ., which I have chosen as the motto of this book). We know
too little of Stephen Gobarus (VI. cent.) to enable us to estimate his review of
the doctrine of the Church and its development (Photius Bibl. 232). With regard
to the middle ages (Abelard “Sic et Non”), see Reuter, Gesch. der relig. Aufklärung
im MA., 1875. Hahn Gesch. der Ketzer, especially in the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries,
3 vols., 1845. Keller, Die Reformation und die alteren Reform-Parteien, 1885. The progress of the sciencesSee Voigt, Die Wiederbelebung des classischen Alterthums, 2
vols., 1881, especially vol. II. p. 1 ff. 363 ff. 494 ff. (“Humanism
and the science of history”). The direct importance of humanism for illuminating
the history of the middle ages is very little, and least of all for the history
of the Church and of dogma. The only prominent works here are those of Saurentius
Valla and Erasmus. The criticism of the scholastic dogmas of the Church and the
Pope began as early as the 12th century. For the attitude of the Renaissance to
religion, see Burckhardt, Die Cultur der Renaissance, 2 vols., 1877. and the
conflict with Protestantism could here, for the Catholic Church, have no other effect
than that of leading to the collecting, with great learning, of material for the
history of dogma,Baronius, Annals Eccles. XIi. vol. 1588-1607. Chief
work: Dionysius Petavius, Opus de theologicis dogmatibus. 4 vols. (incomplete) 1644-1650.
See further Thomassin, Dogmata theologica. 3 vols. 1684-1689. the establishing of the consensus patrum et doctorum, the exhibition
of the necessity of a continuous explication of dogma, and the description of the
history of heresies pressing in from without, regarded now as unheard-of novelties,
and again as old enemies in new masks. The modern Jesuit-Catholic historian indeed
exhibits, in certain circumstances, a manifest indifference to the task of establishing
the semper idem in the faith of the Church, but this indifference is at present
regarded with disfavour, and, besides, is only an apparent one, as the continuous
though inscrutable
guidance of the Church
by the infallible teaching of the Pope is the more emphatically maintained.See Holtzmann, Kanon und Tradition,
1859. Hase, Handbuch der protest, Polemik. 1878. Joh. Delitszch, Das Lehrsystem
der röm. Kirche, 1875. New revelations, however, are rejected, and bold assumptions
leading that way are not favoured: See Schwane, above work p. 11: “The content
of revelation is not enlarged by the decisions or teaching of the Church, nor are
new revelations added in course of time. . . . Christian truth cannot therefore in
its content be completed by the Church, nor has she ever claimed the right of doing
so, but always where new designations or forms of dogma became necessary for the
putting down of error or the instruction of the faithful, she would always teach
what she had received in Holy Scripture or in the oral tradition of the Apostles.”
Recent Catholic accounts of the history of dogma are Klee, Lehrbuch der D.G. 2 vols.
1837, (Speculative). Schwane, Dogmengesch. der Vornicänischen Zeit, 1862, der patrist.
Zeit, 1869; der Mittleren Zeit, 1882. Bach, Die D.G. des MA. 1873. There is a wealth
of material for the history of dogma in Kuhn’s Dogmatik, as well as in the great
controversial writings occasioned by the celebrated work of Bellarmin; Disputationes
de controversiis Christianæ fidei adversus hujus temporis hæreticos, 1581-1593.
It need not be said that, in spite of their inability to treat the history of dogma
historically and critically, much may be learned from these works, and some other
striking monographs of Roman Catholic scholars. But everything in history that is
fitted to shake the high antiquity and unanimous attestation of the Catholic dogmas,
becomes here a problem, the solution of which is demanded, though indeed its carrying
out often requires a very exceptional intellectual subtlety.
It may be maintained that the Reformation
opened the way for a critical treatment of the history of dogma.Historical interest in Protestantism has grown up
around the questions as to the power of the Pope, the significance of Councils,
or the Scripturalness of the doctrines set up by them, and about the meaning of
the Lord’s supper, of the conception of it by the Church Fathers; (see Œcolampadius
and Melanchthon.) Protestants were too sure that the doctrine of justification was
taught in the scriptures to feel any need of seeking proofs for it by studies in
the history of dogma, and Luther also dispensed with the testimony of history for
the dogma of the Lord’s supper. The task of shewing how far and in what way Luther
and the Reformers compounded with history has not even yet been taken up. And yet
there may be found in Luther’s writings surprising and excellent critical comments
on the history of dogma and the theology of the Fathers, as well as genial conceptions
which have certainly remained inoperative; see especially the treatise “Von den
Conciliis und Kirchen,” and his judgment on different Church Fathers. In the first
edition of the Loci of Melanchthon we have also critical material for
estimating the old systems of dogma. Calvin's depreciatory estimate of the
Trinitarian and Christological Formula, which, however, he retracted at a later
period is well known. But even in Protestant
Churches, at first, historical investigations remained
under the ban of the confessional system of doctrine
and were used only for polemics.Protestant Church history was brought into being by the Interim, Flacius being its
Father; see his Catalogus Testium Veritatis, and the so-called Magdeburg Centuries,
1559-1574; also Jundt., Les Centuries de Magdebourg, Paris, 1883. Von Engelhardt
(Christenthum Justin’s, p. 9 ff.) has drawn attention to the estimate of Justin
in the Centuries, and has justly insisted on the high importance of this first attempt
at a criticism of the Church Fathers. Kliefoth (Einl. in d. D.G. 1839) has the merit
of pointing out the somewhat striking judgment of A. Hyperius on the history of
dogma. Chemnitz, Examen concilii Tridentini, 1565. Forbesius a Corse (a Scotsman).
Instructiones historico-theologiæ de doctrina Christiana, 1645. Church history itself up to the 18th century was
not regarded as a theological discipline in the strict sense of the word; and the
history of dogma existed only within the sphere of dogmatics as a collection of
testimonies to the truth, theologia patristica. It was only after the material
had been prepared in the course of the 16th and 17th centuries by scholars of the
various Church parties, and, above all, by excellent editions of the Fathers,The learning, the diligence
in collecting, and the carefulness of the Benedictines and Maurians, as well as
of English, Dutch and French theologians, such as Casaubon, Vossius, Pearson, Dalläus,
Spanheim, Grabe, Basnage, etc. have never since been equalled, far less surpassed.
Even in the literary, historical and higher criticism these scholars have done splendid
work, so far as the confessional dogmas did not come into question.
and after Pietism had exhibited the difference between Christianity
and Ecclesiasticism, and had begun to treat the traditional confessional structure
of doctrine with indifference,See especially, G. Arnold,
Unpartheyische Kirchen- und Ketzerhistorie, 1699 also Baur, Epochen der
kirchlichen Geschichtsschreibung, p. 84 ff.; Floring, G. Arnold als Kirchenhistoriker,
Darmstadt, 1883. The latter determines correctly the measure of Arnold’s importance.
His work was the direct preparation for an impartial examination of the history
of dogma, however partial it was in itself. Pietism, here and there, after Spener,
declared war against scholastic dogmatics as a hindrance to piety, and in doing
so broke the ban under which the knowledge of history lay captive. that a critical investigation was entered on.
The man who was the Erasmus of the 18th century, neither orthodox
nor pietistic, nor rationalistic, but capable of appreciating all these tendencies; familiar with English, French and Italian literature; influenced by the spirit
of the new English
Science,The investigations of the so-called
English Deists about the Christian religion contain the first, and to some extent
a very significant free-spirited attempt at a critical view of the history of dogma
(see Lechler, History of English Deism, 1841). But the criticism is an abstract,
rarely a historical one. Some very learned works bearing on the history of dogma
were written in England against the position of the Deists, especially by Lardner: see also at an earlier time Bull, Defensio fidei nic. while avoiding all statements of it that
would endanger positive Christianity: John Lorenz Mosheim, treated Church history
in the spirit of his great teacher Leibnitz,Calixtus of Helmstädt was the forerunner of Leibnitz
with regard to Church history. But the merit of having recognised the main problem
of the history of dogma does not belong to Calixtus. By pointing out what Protestantism
and Catholicism had in common he did not in any way clear up the historical-critical
problem. On the other hand the Consensus repetitus of the Wittenberg theologians
shews what fundamental questions Calixtus had already stirred. and by impartial analysis, living
reproduction, and methodical artistic form raised it for the first time to the rank
of a science. In his monographic works also, he endeavours to examine impartially
the history of dogma, and to acquire the historic stand-point between the estimate
of the orthodox dogmatics and that of Gottfried Arnold. Mosheim, averse to all fault-finding
and polemic, and abhorring theological crudity as much as pietistic narrowness and undevout Illuminism, aimed at an actual correct knowledge of history, in accordance
with the principle of Leibnitz, that the valuable elements which are everywhere
to be found in history must be sought out and recognised. And the richness and many-sidedness
of his mind qualified him for gaining such a knowledge. But his latitudinarian
dogmatic standpoint as well as the anxiety to awaken no controversy or endanger
the gradual naturalising of a new science and culture, caused him to put aside the
most important problems of the history of dogma and devote his attention to political
Church history as well as to the more indifferent historical questions. The opposition
of two periods which he endeavoured peacefully to reconcile could not in this way
be permanently set aside.Among the numerous historical writings of Mosheim
may be mentioned specially his Dissert ad hist. Eccles. pertinentes. 2 vols. 1731-1741,
as well as the work: “De rebus Christianorum ante Constantinum M. Commentarii,”
1753; see also “Institutions hist. Eccl.” last Edition, 1755. In Mosheim’s sense, but without the
spirit of that great man, C. W. F. Walch taught on the subject and
described the religious controversies of the Church with an effort to be
impartial, and has thus made generally accessible the abundant material
collected by the diligence of earlier scholars.Walch, “Entwurf einer vollständigen
Historie der Ketzereien, Spaltungen und Religionsstreitigkeiten bis auf die Zeiten
der Reformation.” II Thle (incomplete), 1762-1785. See also his “Entwurf einer
vollständigen Historie der Kirchenversammlungen,” 1759, as well as numerous monographs
on the history of dogma. Such were already produced by the older Walch, whose
a Histor. theol. Einleitung in die Religionsstreitigkeiten der Ev. Luth.
Kirche,” 5 vols. 1730-1739, and “Histor.-theol. Einleit. in die Religionsstreitigkeiten
welche sonderlich ausser der Ev. Luth. Kirche entstanden sind 5 Thle,” 1933-1736,
had already put polemics behind the knowledge of history (see Gass. “Desch. der
protest. Dogmatik,” 3rd Vol. p. 205 ff.). Walch, moreover, in the “Gedanken von der
Geschichte der Glaubenslehre,” 1756, gave the impulse that was needed to fix attention
on the history of dogma as a special discipline. The stand-point which he took up
was still that of subjection to ecclesiastical dogma, but without confessional narrowness.
Ernesti in his programme of the year 1759, “De theologiæ historiæ et dogmaticæ
conjungendæ necessitate,” gave eloquent expression to the idea that Dogmatic
is a positive science which has to take its material from history, but that history
itself requires a devoted and candid study, on account of our being separated from
the earlier epochs by a complicated tradition.Opusc. p. 576 f.: “Es quo fit,
ut nullo modo in theologicis, quæ omnia e libris antiquis hebraicis, græcis, latinis ducuntur,
possit aliquis bene in definiendo versari et a peccatis multis et magnis sibi cavere,
nisi litteras et historiam assumat.” The title of a programme of Crusius, Ernesti’s
opponent, “De dogmatum Christianorum historia cum probatione dogmatum non confundenda,”
1770, is significant of the new insight which was steadily making way. He has also shewn in his celebrated
“Antimuratorius,” that an impartial and critical investigation of the problems of
the history of dogma, might render the most effectual service to the polemic against
the errors of Romanism. Besides, the greater part of the dogmas were already unintelligible
to Ernesti, and yet during his lifetime the way was opened up for that tendency
in theology, which, prepared in Germany by Chr. Thomasius, supported by English
writers, drew the sure principles of faith and life from what is called
reason, and therefore was not only indifferent to
the system of dogma, but felt it more and more to be the tradition of unreason and
of darkness. Of the three requisites of a historian ; knowledge of his subject,
candid criticism, and a capacity for finding himself at home in foreign interests
and ideas, the Rationalistic Theologians who had outgrown Pietism and passed through
the school of the English Deists and of Wolf, no longer possessed the first, a knowledge
of the subject, to the same extent as some scholars of the earlier generation. The
second, free criticism, they possessed in the high degree guaranteed by the conviction
of having a rational religion; the third, the power of comprehension, only in a
very limited measure. They had lost the idea of positive religion, and with it a
living and just conception of the history of religion.
In the history of thought there is always
need for an apparently disproportionate expenditure of power, in order to produce
an advance in the development. And it would appear as if a certain self-satisfied
narrow-mindedness within the progressing ideas of the present, as well as a great
measure of inability even to understand the past and recognise its own dependence
on it, must make its appearance, in order that a whole generation may be freed
from the burden of the past. It needed the absolute certainty which Rationalism
had found in the religious philosophy of the age, to give sufficient courage to
subject to historical criticism the central dogmas on which the Protestant system
as well as the Catholic finally rests, the dogmas of the canon and inspiration on
the one hand, and of the Trinity and Christology on the other. The work of Lessing
in this respect had no great results. We to-day see in his theological writings
the most important contribution to the understanding of the earliest history of
dogma, which that period supplies; but we also understand why its results were
then so trifling. This was due, not only to the fact that Lessing was no theologian
by profession, or that his historical observations were couched in aphorisms, but
because, like Leibnitz and Mosheim, he had a capacity for appreciating the history
of religion which forbade him to do violence to that history or to sit in judgment
on it, and because his
philosophy in its bearings on the case allowed him to seek no more from his materials than
an assured understanding of them; in a word again, because he was no theologian.
The Rationalists, on the other hand, who within certain limits were no less his
opponents than the orthodox, derived the strength of their opposition to the systems
of dogma, as the Apologists of the second century had already done with regard to
polytheism, from their religious belief and their inability to estimate these systems
historically. That, however, is only the first impression which one gets here from
the history, and it is everywhere modified by other impressions. In the first place,
there is no mistaking a certain latitudinarianism in several prominent theologians
of the rationalistic tendency. Moreover, the attitude to the canon was still frequently,
in virtue of the Protestant principle of scripture, an uncertain one, and it was
here chiefly that the different types of rational supernaturalism were developed.
Then, with all subjection to the dogmas of Natural religion, the desire for a real
true knowledge was unfettered and powerfully excited. Finally, very significant
attempts were made by some rationalistic theologians to explain in a real historical
way the phenomena of the history of dogma, and to put an authentic and historical
view of that history in the place of barren pragmatic or philosophic categories.
The special zeal with which the older rationalism applied itself
to the investigation of the canon, either putting aside the history of dogma, or
treating it merely in the frame-work of Church history, has only been of advantage
for the treatment of our subject. It first began to be treated with thoroughness
when the historical and critical interests had become more powerful than the rationalistic.
After the important labours of Semler, which here, above all, have wrought in the
interests of freedom,Semler, Einleitung zu
Baumgartens evang. Glaubenslehre, 1759: also Geschichte der Glaubenslehre, zu Baumgartens
Untersuch. theol. Streitigkesten, 1762-1764. Semler paved the way for the view that
dogmas have arisen and been gradually developed under definite historical conditions.
He was the first to grasp the problem of the relation of Catholicism to early Christianity,
because he freed the early Christian documents from the letters of the Canon. Schröckh
(Christl. Kirchengesch., 1786) in the spirit of Semler described with impartiality and care the changes of
the dogmas. and after some monographs on the history
of dogma,Rössler, Lehrbegriff der Christlichen Kirche in
den 3 ersten Jahrb., 1775; also, Arbeiten by Burscher, Heinrich, Stäudlin,
etc., see especially, Löffler’s “Abhandlung welche eine kurze Darstellung der Entstehungsart
der Dreieinigkeit enthält, 1792, in the translation of Souverain’s Le Platonisme
devoilé, 1700. The question as to the Platonism of the Fathers, this fundamental
question of the history of dogma, was raised even by Luther and Flacius, and was
very vigorously debated at the end of the 17th and beginning of the 18th centuries,
after the Socinians had already affirmed it strongly. The question once more emerges
on German soil in the church history of G. Arnold, but cannot he said to have received
the attention it deserves in the 150 years that have followed (see the literature
of the controversy in Tzsohirner, Fall des Heidenthums, p. 580 f.). Yet the problem
was first thrust aside by the speculative view of the history of christianity. S. G. Lange for the first time treated the history of dogma as a special
subject.Lange. Ausführ. Gesch. der
Dogmen, oder der Glaubenslehre der Christl. Kirche nach den Kirchenvater ausgearbeitet.
1796. Unfortunately, his comprehensively planned and carefully written work,
which shews a real understanding of the early history of dogma, remains in-complete.
Consequently, W. Münscher, in his learned manual, which was soon followed
by his compendium of the history of dogma, was the first to produce a complete
presentation of our subject.Münscher, Handb. d. Christl. D. G. 4 vols. first 6
Centuries 1797-1809; Lehrbuch, 1st Edit. 1811; 3rd Edit. edited by v. Cölln,
Hupfeld and Neudecker, 1832-1838. Planck’s epoch-making work: Gesch. der Veränderungen
und der Bildung unseres protestantischen Lehrbegriffs. 6 vols. 1791-1800, had already
for the most part appeared. Contemporary with Münscher are Wundemann, Gesch. d.
Christl. Glaubenslehren vom Zeitalter des Athanasius bis auf Gregor. d. Gr. 2 Thle.
1789-1799; Münter, Handbuch der alteren Christl. D. G. hrsg. von Ewers. 2 vols.
1802-1804; Stäudlin, Lehrbuch der Dogmatik und Dogmengeschichte, 1800, last Edition
1822, and Beck, Comment. hist. decretorum religionis Christianæ, 1801. Münscher’s compendium is a counterpart to Giesler’s
Church history; it shares with that the merit of drawing from the sources, intelligent
criticism and impartiality, but with a thorough knowledge of details it fails to
impart a real conception of the development of ecclesiastical dogma. The division
of the material into particular loci, which, in three sections, is carried through
the whole history of the Church, makes insight into the whole Christian conception
of the different epochs impossible, and the prefixed “General History
of Dogma,” is far too sketchily treated to make up
for that defect. Finally, the connection between the development of dogma and the
general ideas of the time is not sufficiently attended to. A series of manuals followed
the work of Münscher, but did not materially advance the study.Augusti, Lehrb. d. Christl. D. G. 1805.
4 Edit. 1835. Berthold, Handb. der D. G. 2 vols. 1822-1823. Schickedanz, Versuch
einer Gesch. d. Christl. Glaubenslehre, etc. 1827. Rüperti, Geschichte der Dogmen,
1831. Lenz, Gesch. der Christl. Dogmen. 2 parts. 1834-1835.
J. G. V. Engelhardt, Dogmengesch. 1839. See also Giesler, Dogmengesch. 2 vols. edited
by Redepenning, 1855: also Illgen, Ueber den Werth der Christl. D. G. 1817. The compendium
of Baumgarten Crusius,Baumgarten Crusius, Lehrb.
d. Christl. D. G. 1852: also conpendium d. Christl. D. G. 2 parts 1830-1846, the
second part edited by Hase. and that of F. K. Meier,Meier, Lehrb. d. D. G,
1840, 2nd Edit. revised by G. Baur 1854. stand out prominently among them.
The work of the former is distinguished by its independent learning as well as by
the discernment of the author that the centre of gravity of the subject lies in the so-called general history of dogma.The “Special History of Dogma,” in
Baumgarten Crusius, in which every particular dogma is by itself pursued through
the whole history of the Church, is of course entirely unfruitful. But even the
opinions which are given in the “General History of Dogma,” are frequently very far from
the mark (Cf. e.g., § 14 and p. 67), which is the more surprising as no one can
deny that he takes a scholarly view of history. The work
of Meier goes still further, and accurately perceives that the division into a
general and special history of dogma must be altogether given up, while it is
also characterised by an accurate setting and proportional arrangement of the
facts.Meier’s Lehrbuch is formally and materially a very important
piece of work, the value of which has not been sufficiently recognised, because
the author followed neither the track of Neander nor of Bauer. Besides the excellences
noted in the text, may be further mentioned, that almost everywhere Meier has distinguished
correctly between the history of dogma and the history of theology, and has given
an account only of the former.
The great spiritual revolution at the
beginning of our century, which must in every respect be regarded as a reaction
against the efforts of the rationalistic epoch, changed also the conceptions of
the Christian religion and its history. It appears therefore plainly in the treatment
of the history of dogma. The advancement and deepening of Christian life, the zealous
study of the past, the new philosophy which no longer
thrust history aside, but endeavoured to appreciate it in all its phenomena as
the history of the spirit, all these factors co-operated in begetting a new temper,
and accordingly, a new estimate of religion proper and of its history. There were
three tendencies in theology that broke up rationalism; that which was identified
with the names of Schleiermacher and Neander, that of the Hegelians, and that of
the Confessionalists. The first two were soon divided into a right and a left,
in so far as they included conservative and critical interests from their very commencement.
The conservative elements have been used for building up the modern confessionalism,
which in its endeavours to go back to the Reformers has never actually got beyond
the theology of the Formula of Concord, the stringency of which it has no doubt
abolished by new theologoumena and concessions of all kinds. All these tendencies
have in common the effort to gain a real comprehension of history and be taught
by it, that is, to allow the idea of development to obtain its proper place, and
to comprehend the power and sphere of the individual. In this and in the deeper
conception of the nature and significance of positive religion, lay the advance
beyond Rationalism. And yet the wish to understand history, has in great measure
checked the effort to obtain a true knowledge of it, and the respect for history
as the greatest of teachers, has not resulted in that supreme regard for facts which
distinguished the critical rationalism. The speculative pragmatism, which, in the
Hegelian School, was put against the “lower pragmatism,” and was rigorously carried
out with the view of exhibiting the unity of history, not only neutralised the historical
material, in so far as its concrete definiteness was opposed, as phenomenon, to
the essence of the matter, but also curtailed it in a suspicious way, as may be
seem for example, in the works of Baur. Moreover, the universal historical suggestions
which the older history of dogma had given were not at all, or only very little
regarded. The history of dogma was, as it were, shut out by the watchword of the
immanent development of the spirit in Christianity. The disciples of Hegel, both of the
right and of the left, were, and still are, agreed in this watch-word,Biedermann
(Christl. Dogmatik. 2 Edit. I vol. p. 332 f.) says, “The history of the development
of the Dogma of the Person of Christ will bring before us step by step the ascent
of faith in the Gospel of Jesus Christ to its metaphysical basis in the nature of
his person. This was the quite normal and necessary way of actual faith, and is
not to be reckoned as a confused mixture of heterogeneous philosophical opinions. . . .
The only thing taken from the ideas of contemporary philosophy was the special
material of consciousness in which the doctrine of Christ’s Divinity was at any
time expressed. The process of this doctrinal development was an inward necessary
one.” the working
out of which, including an apology for the course of the history of dogma, must
be for the advancement of conservative theology. But at the basis of the statement
that the history of Christianity is the history of the spirit, there lay further
a very one-sided conception of the nature of religion, which confirmed the false
idea that religion is theology. It will always, however, be the imperishable merit
of Hegel’s great disciple, F. Chr. Baur, in theology, that he was the first who
attempted to give a uniform general idea of the history of dogma, and to live through
the whole process in himself, without renouncing the critical acquisitions of the
18th century.Baur, Lehrbuch
der Christl. D. G. 1847. 3rd Edit. 1867: also Vorles. über die Christl. D. G. edited
by F. Baur, 1865-68. Further the Monographs, “Ueber die Christl. Lehre v. d. Versöhnung
in ihrer gesch. Entw.” 1838: Ueber die Christl. Lehre v. d. Dreieinigkeit u. d.
Menschwerdung.” 1841: etc. D. F. Strauss, preceded him with his work: Die Christl.
Glaubenslehre in ihrer gesch. Entw. 2 vols. 1840-41. From the stand-point of the
Hegelian right we have: Marheineke, Christl. D. G. edited by Matthias and Vatke,
1849. From the same stand-point, though at the same time influenced by Schleiermacher,
Dorner wrote “The History of the Person of Christ.” His brilliantly written manual of the history of dogma, in which
the history of this branch of theological science is relatively treated with the
utmost detail, is, however, in material very meagre, and shews in the very first
proposition of the historical presentation an abstract view of history.See p. 63: “As Christianity
appeared in contrast with Judaism and Heathenism, and could only represent a new
and peculiar form of the religious consciousness in distinction from both, reducing
the contrasts of both to a unity in itself, so also the first difference of tendencies
developing themselves within Christianity, must be determined by the relation in
which it stood to Judaism on the one hand, and to Heathenism on the other.” Compare
also the very characteristic introduction to the first volume of the “Vorlesungen.”
Neander, whose “Christliche Dogmengeschichte,” 1857, is distinguished
by the variety of its points
of view, and keen apprehension of particular forms of doctrine, shews a far more
lively and therefore a far more just conception of the Christian religion. But
the general plan of the work, (General history of dogma—loci, and these
according to the established scheme), proves that Neander has not succeeded in
giving real expression to the historical character of the study, and in
attaining a clear insight into the progress of the development.Hagenbach’s Manual of the
history of dogma, might be put alongside of Neander’s work. It agrees with it both
in plan and spirit. But the material of the history of dogma, which it offers in
superabundance, seems far less connectedly worked out than by Neander. In Shedd’s
history of Christian doctrine the Americans possess a presentation of the history
of dogma worth noting, 2 vols. 3 Edit. 1883. The work of Fr. Bonifas. Hist. des
Dogmes. 2 vols. 1886, appeared after the death of the author and is not important.
Kliefoth’s thoughtful and instructive, “Einleitung
in die Dogmengeschichte,” 1839, contains the programme for the conception
of the history of dogma characteristic of the modern confessional theology. In this
work the Hegelian view of history, not without being influenced by Schleiermacher,
is so represented as to legitimise a return to the theology of the Fathers. In the
successive great epochs of the Church several circles of dogmas have been successively
fixed, so that the respective doctrines have each time been adequately formulated.No doubt Kliefoth also
maintains for each period a stage of the disintegration of dogma, but this is not
to be understood in the ordinary sense of the word. Besides, there are ideas in
this introduction which would hardly obtain the approval of their author to-day.
Disturbances of the development are due to the influence of sin. Apart from this, Kliefoth’s conception is in point of form equal to that of Baur and Strauss, in
so far as they also have considered the theology represented by themselves as the
goal of the whole historical development. The only distinction is that, according
to them, the next following stage always cancels the preceding, while according
to Kliefoth, who, moreover, has no desire to give effect to mere traditionalism,
the new knowledge is added to the old. The new edifice of true historical knowledge,
according to Kliefoth, is raised on the ruins of Traditionalism, Scholasticism,
Pietism, Rationalism and Mysticism. Thomasius (Das Bekenntniss der
evang.-luth. Kirche in der Consequenz seines Princips,
1848) has, after the example of Sartorius, attempted to justify by history the Lutheran
confessional system of doctrine from another side, by representing it as the true
mean between Catholicism and the Reformed Spiritualism. This conception has found
much approbation in the circles of Theologians related to Thomasius, as against
the Union Theology. But Thomasius is entitled to the merit of having produced a
Manual of the history of dogma which represents in the most worthy mannerThomasius’ Die Christl.
Dogmengesch. als Entwickel. Gesch. des Kirchl. Lehrbegriffs. 2 vols. 1874–76. 2nd
Edit. intelligently and carefully edited by Bonwetsch. and Seeberg, 1887. (Seeberg
has produced almost a new work in vol. II.) From the same stand-point is the manual
of the history of dogma by H. Schmid, 1859, (in the 4th Ed. revised and
transformed into an excellent collection of passages from the sources by Hauck,
1887) as well as the Luther. Dogmatik (Vol. II. 1864: Der Kirchenglaube) of Kahnis,
which, however, subjects particular dogmas to a freer criticism. the Lutheran
confessional view of the history of dogma. The introduction, as well as the selection
and arrangement of his material, shews that Thomasius has learned much from Baur.
The way in which he distinguishes between central and peripheral dogmas is, accordingly,
not very appropriate, especially for the earliest period. The question as to the
origin of dogma and theology is scarcely even touched by him. But he has an impression
that the central dogmas contain for every period the whole of Christianity, and
that they must therefore be apprehended in this sense.See Vol. I. p. 14. The presentation is dominated
throughout by the idea of the self-explication of dogma, though a malformation has
to be admitted for the middle ages,See Vol. I. p. 11. “The
first period treats of the development of the great main dogmas which were to become
the basis of the further development (the Patristic age). The problem of the second
period was, partly to work up this material theologically, and partly to develop
it. But this development, under the influence of the Hierarchy, fell into false
paths, and became partly, at least, corrupt (the age of Scholasticism), and therefore
a reformation was necessary. It was reserved for this third period to carry back
the doctrinal formation, which had become abnormal, to the old sound paths, and
on the other hand, in virtue of the regeneration of
the Church which followed, to deepen it and fashion it according to that form which
it got in the doctrinal systems of the Evangelic Church, while the remaining part
fixed its own doctrine in the decrees of Trent (period of the Reformation.).” This
view of history, which from the Christian stand-point, will allow absolutely nothing
to be said against the doctrinal formation of the early Church, is a retrogression
from the view of Luther and the writers of the “Centuries,” for these were well
aware that the corruption did not first begin in the middle ages. and therefore the formation of dogma is almost
everywhere justified as the testimony of the Church represented as completely hypostatised,
and the outlook on the history of the time is put into the
background. But narrow and insufficient as the complete view here is, the
excellences of the work in details are great, in respect of exemplary clearness
of presentation, and the discriminating knowledge and keen comprehension of the
author for religious problems. The most important work done by Thomasius is contained
in his account of the history of Christology.
In his outlines of the history of Christian
dogma (Grundriss der Christl. Dogmengesch. 1870), which unfortunately has not been
carried beyond the first part (Patristic period), F. Nitzsch, marks an advance in
the history of our subject. The advance lies, on the one hand, in the extensive
use he makes of monographs on the history of dogma, and on the other hand, in the
arrangement. Nitzsch has advanced a long way on the path that was first entered
by F. K. Meier, and has arranged his material in a way that far excels all earlier
attempts. The general and special aspects of the history of dogma are here almost
completely worked into one,This fulfils a requirement urged by Weizsäcker (Jahrb. f. Deutsche Theol. 1866, p. 170 ff.). and in the main divisions, “Grounding
of the old Catholic Church doctrine,” and “Development of the old Catholic
Church doctrine,” justice is at last done to the most important problem which
the history of dogma presents, though in my opinion the division is not made at
the right place, and the problem is not so clearly kept in view in the execution
as the arrangement would lead one to expect.See Ritschl’s Essay, “Ueber die
Methode der alteren Dogmengeschichte” (Jahrb. f. deutsche Theol. 1871. p. 191 ff.)
in which the advance made by Nitzsch is estimated, and at the same time an arrangement
proposed for the treatment of the earlier history of dogma which would group the
material more clearly and more suitable than has been done by Nitzsch. After having
laid the foundation for a correct historical estimate of the development of early
Christianity in his work “Entstehung der Alt-Katholischen Kirche,” 1857, Ritschl
published an epoch-making study in the history of dogma in his “History of the doctrine
of justification and reconciliation,” 2 edit. 1883. We have no superabundance of
good monographs on the history of dogma. There are few that give such exact information
regarding the Patristic period as that of Von Engelhardt “Ueber das Christenthum
Justin’s,” 1878, and Zahn’s work on Marcellus, 1867. Among the investigators of
our age, Renan above all has clearly recognised that there are only two main periods
in the history of dogma, and that the changes which Christianity experienced after
the establishment of the Catholic Church bear no proportion to the changes which
preceded. His words are as follows (Hist. des origin. du Christianisme T. VII. p.
503 f.):—the division about the year 180 is certainly placed too early, regard being
had to what was then really authoritative in the Church.—“Si nous comparons maintenant
le Christianisme, tel qu’il existait vers l’an 180, an Christianisme du IVe et
du Ve siècle, au Christianisme du moyen âge, an Christianisme de nos jours, nous
trouvons qu’en réalité it s’est augmente des très peu de chose
dans les siècles qui ont suivis. En 180, le nouveau Testament est clos: it ne s’y ajoutera plus un
seul livre nouveau(?). Lentement, les Épitres de Paul ont conquis leur place à la
suite des Evangiles, dans le code sacré et dans la liturgie. Quant aux dogmes,
rien n’est fixé; mais le germe de tout existe; presque aucune idée n’apparaitra
qui ne puisse faire valoir des autorités du 1er et du 2e siècle. Il y a du trop,
il y a des contradictions; le travail théologique consistera bien plus á émonder,
à écarter des superfuites qu’à inventer du nouveau. L’Église laissera tomber une
foule de choses mal commencées, elle sortira de bien des impasses. Elle a encore
deux cœurs, pour ainsi dire; elle a plusieurs têtes; ces anomalies tomberont; mais
aucun dogme vraiment original ne se formera plus.” Also the discussions in chapter
28–34 of the same volume. H. Thiersch (Die Kirche im Apostolischen Zeitalter, 1852)
reveals a deep insight into the difference between the spirit of the New Testament
writers and the post-Apostolic Fathers, but he has overdone these differences, and
sought to explain them by the mythological assumption of an Apostasy. A great amount
of material for the history of dogma may be found in the great work of Böhringer,
Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, oder die Kirchengeschichte in Biographien. 2
Edit. 1864. Nitzsch has freed himself from that speculative view of the history
of dogma which reads ideas into it. No doubt idea and motive on the one hand, form
and expression on the other, must be distinguished for every period. But the historian
falls into vagueness as
soon as he seeks and professes to find behind the demonstrable ideas and
aims which have moved a period, others of which, as a matter of fact, that period
itself knew nothing at all. Besides, the invariable result of that procedure is
to concentrate the attention on the theological and philosophical points of dogma,
and either neglect or put a new construction on the most concrete and important,
the expression of the religious faith itself. Rationalism has been reproached with
“throwing out the child with the bath,” but this is really worse, for here the child
is thrown out while the bath is
retained. Every advance in the
future treatment of our subject will further depend on the effort to comprehend
the history of dogma without reference to the momentary opinions of the present,
and also on keeping it in closest connection with the history of the Church, from
which it can never be separated without damage. We have something to learn on this
point from rationalistic historians of dogma.By the connection with
general church history we must, above all, understand, a continuous regard to the
world within which the church has been developed, The most recent works on the history
of the church and of dogma, those of Renan, Overbeck (Anfänge der patristischen
Litteratur). Aube, Von Engelhardt (Justin), Kühn (Minucius Felix). Hatch (“Organization
of the Early Church,” and especially his posthumous work “The influence of Greek
ideas and usages upon the Christian Church,” 1890, in which may be found the most
ample proof for the conception of the early history of dogma which is set forth
in the following pages), are in this respect worthy of special note. Deserving of
mention also is R. Rothe, who, in his “Vorlesungen über Kirchengeschichte,” edited
by Weingarten,” 1875, 2 vols., gave most significant suggestions towards a really
historical conception of the history of the church and of dogma. To Rothe belongs
the undiminished merit of realising thoroughly the significance of a nationality
in church history. But the theology of our century is also indebted for the first
scientific conception of Catholicism, not to Marheineke or Winer, but to Rothe (see
Vol. II. pp. 1–11 especially p. 7 f.). “The development of the Christian Church
in the Græco-Roman world was not at the same time a development of that world by
the Church and further by Christianity. There remained, as the result of the process,
nothing but the completed Church. The world which had built it had made itself bankrupt
in doing so.” With regard to the origin and development of the Catholic cultus and
constitution, nay, even of the Ethic (see Luthardt, Die antike Ethik, 1887, preface),
that has been recognised by Protestant scholars, which one always hesitates to recognise
with regard to catholic dogma: see the excellent remarks of Schwegler, Nachapostolisches
Zeitalter, Vol. I. p. 3 ff. It may be hoped that an intelligent consideration of
early christian literature will form the bridge to a broad and intelligent view
of the history of dogma. The essay of Overbeck mentioned above (Histor. Zeitschrift
N. F. XII. p. 417 ff.) may be most heartily recommended in this respect. It is very
gratifying to find an investigator so conservative as Sohm, now fully admitting
that “Christian theology grew up in the second and third centuries, when its foundations
were laid for all time (?), the last great production of the Hellenic Spirit.”
(Kirchengeschichte im Grundriss. 1888, p. 37). The same scholar in his
very important Kirchenrecht. Bd. I. 1892. has transferred to the history of the origin of Church law and Church organization,
the points of view which I have applied in the following account to the consideration
of dogma. He has thereby succeeded in correcting many old errors and prejudices;
but in my opinion he has obscured the truth by exaggerations connected with a conception,
not only of original Christianity, but also of the Gospel in general, which is partly
a narrow legal view, partly an enthusiastic one. He has arrived ex errare per veritatem
ad errorem; but there are few books from which so much may be learned about early
church history as from this paradoxical “ Kirchenrecht.” But progress is finally dependent
on a true perception of what the Christian religion originally was, for this perception
alone enables us to distinguish that which sprang out of the inherent power of Christianity
from that which it has assimilated in the course of its history. For the historian,
however, who does not wish to serve a party, there are two standards in accordance with
which he may criticise the history
of dogma. He may either, as far as this is possible, compare it with the Gospel,
or he may judge it according to the historical conditions of the time and the result.
Both ways can exist side by side, if only they are not mixed up with one another.
Protestantism has in principle expressly recognised the first, and it will also
have the power to bear its conclusions ; for the saying of Tertullian still holds
good in it; “Nihil veritas erubescit nisi solummodo abscondi.” The historian
who follows this maxim, and at the same time has no desire to be wiser than the
facts, will, while furthering science, perform the best service also to every Christian
community that desires to build itself upon the Gospel.
After the appearance of the first and
second editions of this Work, Loofs published, “Leitfaden für seine Vorlesungen
über Dogmengeschichte,” Halle, 1889, and in the following year, “Leitfaden zum Studium
der Dogmengeschichte, zunächst für seine Vorlesungen,” (second and enlarged edition
of the first-named book). The work in its conception of dogma and its history comes
pretty near that stated above, and it is distinguished by independent investigation
and excellent selection of material. I myself have published a “Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte,”
2 Edit. in one vol. 1893. (Outlines of the History of Dogma, English translation.
Hodder and Stoughton). That this has not been written in vain, I have the pleasure
of seeing from not a few notices of professional colleagues. I may mention the Church
history of Herzog in the new revision by Koffmane, the first vol. of the Church
history of Karl Müller, the first vol. of the Symbolik of Kattenbusch, and Kaftan’s
work. “The truth of the Christian religion.” Wilhelm Schmidt, “Der alte Glaube
und die Wahrheit des Christenthums,” 1891, has attempted to furnish a refutation
in principle of Kaftan’s work.
II
THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA
§ I. Introductory.
THE
Gospel presents itself as an Apocalyptic message
on the soil of the Old Testament, and as the fulfilment of the law and the prophets,
and yet is a new thing, the creation of a universal religion on the basis of
that of the Old Testament. It appeared when the time was fulfilled, that is,
it is not without a connection with the stage of religious and spiritual development
which was brought about by the intercourse of Jews and Greeks, and was established
in the Roman Empire; but still it is a new religion because it cannot be separated
from Jesus Christ. When the traditional religion has become too narrow the new
religion usually appears as something of a very abstract nature; philosophy
comes upon the scene, and religion withdraws from social life and becomes a
private matter. But here an overpowering personality has appeared—the Son of
God. Word and deed coincide in that personality, and as it leads men into a
new communion with God, it unites them at the same time inseparably with itself,
enables them to act on the world as light and leaven, and joins them together
in a spiritual unity and an active confederacy.
2. Jesus Christ brought no new doctrine, but
he set forth in his own person a holy life with God and before God, and gave
himself in virtue of this life to the service of his brethren in order to win
then for the Kingdom of God, that is, to lead them out of selfishness and the
world to God, out of
the natural connections
and contrasts to a union in love, and prepare them for an eternal kingdom and
an eternal life. But while working for this Kingdom of God he did not withdraw
from the religious and political communion of his people, nor did he induce
his disciples to leave that communion. On the contrary, he described the Kingdom
of God as the fulfilment of the promises given to the nation, and himself as
the Messiah whom that nation expected. By doing so he secured for his new message,
and with it his own person, a place in the system of religious ideas and hopes,
which by means of the Old Testament were then, in diverse forms, current in
the Jewish nation. The origin of a doctrine concerning the Messianic hope,
in which the Messiah was no longer an unknown being, but Jesus of Nazareth,
along with the new temper and disposition of believers was a direct result of
the impression made by the person of Jesus. The conception of the Old Testament
in accordance with the analogia fidei,
that is, in accordance with the conviction
that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, was therewith given. Whatever sources
of comfort and strength Christianity, even in its New Testament, has possessed
or does possess up to the present, is for the most part taken from the Old Testament,
viewed from a Christian stand-point, in virtue of the impression of the person
of Jesus. Even its dross was changed into gold; its hidden treasures were brought
forth, and while the earthly and transitory were recognised as symbols of the
heavenly and eternal, there rose up a world of blessings, of holy ordinances,
and of sure grace prepared by God from eternity. One could joyfully make oneself
at home in it; for its long history guaranteed a sure future and a blessed
close, while it offered comfort and certainty in all the changes of life to
every individual heart that would only raise itself to God. From the positive
position which Jesus took up towards the Old Testament, that is, towards the
religious traditions of his people, his Gospel gained a footing which, later
on, preserved it from dissolving in the glow of enthusiasm, or melting away
in the ensnaring dream of antiquity, that dream of the indestructible Divine
nature of the human spirit, and the nothingness and baseness of all material
things.The Old Testament of itself alone could not have convinced the Græco-Roman world.
But the converse question might perhaps be raised as to what results the Gospel
would have had in that world without its union with the Old Testament. The Gnostic
Schools and the Marcionite Church are to some extent the answer. But would they
ever have arisen without the presupposition of a Christian community which
recognised the Old Testament? But from the positive attitude of
Jesus to the Jewish tradition, there followed also, for a generation that had
long been accustomed to grope after the Divine active in the world, the summons
to think out a theory of the media of revelation, and so put an end to the uncertainty
with which speculation had hitherto been afflicted. This, like every theory
of religion, concealed in itself the danger of crippling the power of faith; for men are ever prone to compound with religion itself by a religious theory.
3. The result of the preaching of Jesus,
however, in the case of the believing Jews, was not only the illumination of
the Old Testament by the Gospel and the confirmation of the Gospel by the Old
Testament, but not less, though indirectly, the detachment of believers from
the religious community of the Jews from the Jewish Church. How this came about
cannot be discussed here: we may satisfy ourselves with the fact that it was
essentially accomplished in the first two generations of believers. The Gospel
was a message for humanity even when there was no break with Judaism; but
it seemed impossible to bring this message home to men who were not Jews in
any other way than by leaving the Jewish Church. But to leave that Church was
to declare it to be worthless, and that could only be done by conceiving it
as a malformation from its very commencement, or assuming that it had temporarily
or completely fulfilled its mission. In either case it was necessary to put
another in its place, for, according to the Old Testament, it was unquestionable
that God had not only given revelations, but through these revelations had
founded a nation, a religious community. The result, also, to which the conduct
of the unbelieving Jews, and the social union of the disciples of Jesus required
by that conduct, led, was carried home with irresistible power: believers
in Christ are the community of God, they are the true Israel, the
ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ:
but the Jewish Church persisting in its unbelief
is the Synagogue of Satan. Out of this consciousness sprang—first as a power
in which one believed, but which immediately began to be operative, though not
as a commonwealth—the Christian Church, a special communion of hearts on the
basis of a personal union with God, established by Christ and mediated by the
Spirit; a communion whose essential mark was to claim as its own the Old Testament
and the idea of being the people of God, to sweep aside the Jewish conception
of the Old Testament and the Jewish Church, and thereby gain the shape and power
of a community that is capable of a mission for the world.
4. This independent Christian community could
not have been formed had not Judaism, in consequence of inner and outer developments,
then reached a point at which it must either altogether cease to grow or burst
its shell. This community is the presupposition of the history of dogma, and
the position which it took up towards the Jewish tradition is, strictly speaking,
the point of departure for all further developments, so far as with the removal
of all national and ceremonial peculiarities it proclaimed itself to be what
the Jewish Church wished to be. We find the Christian Church about the middle
of the third century, after severe crisis, in nearly the same position to the
Old Testament and to Judaism as it was 150 or 200 years earlier.We here leave out of account
learned attempts to expound Paulinism. Nor do we take any notice of certain
truths regarding the relation of the Old Testament to the New, and regarding
the Jewish religion, stated by the Antignostic church teachers, truths which
are certainly very important, but have not been sufficiently utilised. It makes the same
claim to the Old Testament, and builds its faith and hope upon its teaching.
It is also, as before, strictly anti-national; above all, anti-judaic, and
sentences the Jewish religious community to the abyss of hell. It might appear,
then, as though the basis for the further development of Christianity as a church
was completely given from the moment in which the first breach of believers
with the synagogue and the formation of independent
Christian communities took place. The problem, the solution of which will always exercise
this church, so far as it reflects upon its faith, will be to turn the Old Testament
more completely to account in its own sense, so as to condemn the Jewish Church
with its particular and national forms.
5. But the rule even for the Christian use
of the Old Testament lay originally in the living connection in which one stood
with the Jewish people and its traditions, and a new religious community, a
religious commonwealth, was not yet realised, although it existed for faith
and thought. If again we compare the Church about the middle of the third century
with the condition of Christendom 150 or 200 years before, we shall find that there
is now a real religious commonwealth, while at the earlier period there were
only communities who believed in a heavenly Church, whose earthly image they
were, endeavoured to give it expression with the simplest means, and lived
in the future as strangers and pilgrims on the earth, hastening to meet the
Kingdom of whose existence they had the surest guarantee. We now really find
a new commonwealth, politically formed
and equipped with fixed forms of all kinds. We recognise in these forms few
Jewish, but many Græco-Roman features, and finally we perceive also in the
doctrine of faith on which this common-wealth is based, the philosophic spirit
of the Greeks. We find a Church as a political union and worship institute,
a formulated faith and a sacred learning; but one thing we no longer find,
the old enthusiasm and individualism which had not felt itself fettered by subjection
to the authority of the Old Testament. Instead of enthusiastic independent
Christians, we find a new literature of revelation, the New Testament, and Christian
priests. When did these formations begin? How and by what influence was the
living faith transformed into the creed to be believed, the surrender to Christ
into a philosophic Christology, the
Holy Church into the corpus permixtum, the glowing hope of the Kingdom of
heaven into a doctrine of immortality and deification, prophecy into a learned
exegesis and theological science, the bearers of the spirit into clerics, the
brethren into laity held in tutelage, miracles and
healings into nothing or into priestcraft,
the fervent prayers into a solemn ritual, renunciation of the world into a jealous
dominion over the world, the “spirit” into constraint and law ?
There can be no doubt about the answer: these
formations are as old in their origin as the detachment of the Gospel from the
Jewish Church. A religious faith which seeks to establish a communion of its
own in opposition to another, is compelled to borrow from that other what it
needs. The religion which is life and feeling of the heart cannot be converted
into a knowledge determining the motley multitude of men without deferring to
their wishes and opinions. Even the holiest must clothe itself in the same
existing earthly forms as the profane if it wishes to found on earth a confederacy
which is to take the place of another, and if it does not wish to enslave, but
to determine the reason. When the Gospel was rejected by the Jewish nation,
and had disengaged itself from all connection with that nation, it was already
settled whence it must take the material to form for itself a new body and be
transformed into a Church and a theology. National and particular, in the ordinary
sense of the word, these forms could not be: the contents of the Gospel were
too rich for that; but separated from Judaism, nay, even before that separation,
the Christian religion came in contact with the Roman world and with a culture
which had already mastered the world, viz., the Greek. The Christian Church
and its doctrine were developed within the Roman world and Greek culture in
opposition to the Jewish Church. This fact is just as important for the history
of dogma as the other stated above, that this Church was continuously nourished
on the Old Testament. Christendom was of course conscious of being in opposition
to the empire and its culture, as well as to Judaism; but this from the beginning—apart
from a few exceptions—was not without reservations. No man can serve two masters; but in setting up a spiritual power in this world one must serve an earthly
master, even when he desires to naturalise the spiritual in the world. As a
consequence of the complete break with the Jewish Church there followed not
only the strict necessity of quarrying the stones for the
building of the Church from the Græco-Roman world, but also the idea that Christianity
has a more positive relation to that world than to the synagogue. And, as the
Church was being built, the original enthusiasm must needs vanish. The separation
from Judaism having taken place, it was necessary that the spirit of another
people should be admitted, and should also materially determine the manner of
turning the Old Testament to advantage.
6. But an inner necessity was at work here
no less than an outer. Judaism and Hellenism in the age of Christ were opposed
to each other, not only as dissimilar powers of equal value, but the latter
having its origin among a small people, became a universal spiritual power,
which, severed from its original nationality, had for that very reason penetrated
foreign nations. It had even laid hold of Judaism, and the anxious care of her
professional watchmen to hedge round the national possession, is but a proof
of the advancing decomposition within the Jewish nation. Israel, no doubt,
had a sacred treasure which was of greater value than all the treasures of
the Greeks,—the living God; but in what miserable vessels was this treasure
preserved, and how much inferior was all else possessed by this nation in comparison
with the riches, the power, the delicacy and freedom of the Greek spirit and
its intellectual possessions. A movement like that of Christianity, which discovered
to the Jew the soul whose dignity was not dependent on its descent from Abraham,
but on its responsibility to God, could not continue in the frame-work of Judaism
however expanded, but must soon recognise in that world which the Greek spirit
had discovered and prepared, the field which belonged to it:
εἰκότως Ἰουδαίοίς μὲν νόμος, Ἕλλεσι δὲ φιλοσοφία μέχρις τῆς παρουσίας
ἐντεῦθεν δὲ ἡ κλῆσις ἡ καθολική
[to the Jews the law, to the Greeks Philosophy, up to the Parousia; from
that time the catholic invitation]. But the Gospel at first was preached exclusively
to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and that which inwardly united it
with Hellenism did not yet appear in any doctrine or definite form of knowledge.
On the contrary, the Church doctrine of faith, in the preparatory
stage, from the Apologists up to the time of Origen,
hardly in any point shews the traces, scarcely even the remembrance of a time in
which the Gospel was not detached from Judaism. For that very reason it is absolutely
impossible to understand this preparation and development solely from the writings
that remain to us as monuments of that short earliest period. The attempts at deducing
the genesis of the Church’s doctrinal system from the theology of Paul, or from
compromises between Apostolic doctrinal ideas, will always miscarry; for they fail
to note that to the most important premises of the Catholic doctrine of faith belongs
an element which we cannot recognise as dominant in the New Testament.There is indeed no single writing of the new
Testament which does not betray the influence of the mode of thought and general
conditions of the culture of the time which resulted from the Hellenising of the
east: even the use of the Greek translation of the Old Testament attests this fact.
Nay, we may go further, and say that the Gospel itself is historically unintelligible,
so long as we compare it with an exclusive Judaism as yet unaffected by any foreign
influence. But on the other hand, it is just as clear that, specifically, Hellenic
ideas form the pre-suppositions neither for the Gospel itself, nor for the most
important New Testament writings. It is a question rather as to a general spiritual
atmosphere created by Hellenism, which above all strengthened the individual element,
and with it the idea of completed personality, in itself living and responsible.
On this foundation we meet with a religious mode of thought in the Gospel and the
early Christian writings, which so far as it is at all dependent on an earlier mode
of thought, is determined by the spirit of the Old Testament (Psalms and Prophets)
and of Judaism. But it is already otherwise with the earliest Gentile Christian
writings. The mode of thought here is so thoroughly determined by the Hellenic spirit
that we seem to have entered a new world when we pass from the synoptists, Paul
and John, to Clement, Barnabas, Justin or Valeutinus. We may therefore say, especially
in the frame-work of the history of dogma, that the Hellenic element has exercised
an influence on the Gospel first on Gentile Christian soil, and by those who were
Greek by birth, if only we reserve the general spiritual atmosphere above referred
to. Even Paul is no exception; for in spite of the well-founded statement of
Weizsäcker (Apostolic Age, vol. I. Book II) and Heinrici (Das 2
Sendschreiben an die Korinthier, 1887, p. 578 ff.), as to the Hellenism of Paul,
it is certain that the Apostle’s mode of religious thought, in the strict sense
of the word, and therefore also the doctrinal formation peculiar to him, are but
little determined by the Greek spirit. But it is to he specially noted that as a
missionary and an Apologist he made use of Greek ideas (Epistles to the Romans and
Corinthians). He was not afraid to put the Gospel into Greek modes of thought. To
this extent we can already observe in him the beginning of the development which
we can trace so clearly in the Gentile Church from Clement to Justin, and from Justin
to Irenæus.
viz., the HellenicThe complete universalism
of salvation is given in the Pauline conception of Christianity. But this conception
is singular. Because: (1) the Pauline
universalism is based on a criticism of the Jewish religion as religion, including
the Old Testament, which was not understood and therefore not received by Christendom
in general. (2) Because Paul not only formulated no national anti-judaism, but always
recognised the prerogative of the people of Israel as a people. (3) Because his
idea of the Gospel, with all his Greek culture, is independent of Hellenism in its
deepest grounds. This peculiarity of the Pauline Gospel is the reason why little
more could pass from it into the common consciousness of Christendom than the universalism
of salvation, and why the later development of the Church cannot be explained from
Paulinism. Baur, therefore, was quite right when he recognised that we must exhibit
another and more powerful element in order to comprehend the post-Pauline formations.
In the selection of this element, however, he has
made a fundamental mistake by introducing the narrow national Jewish Christianity,
and he has also given much too great scope to Paulinism by wrongly conceiving
it as Gentile Christian doctrine. One great difficulty for the historian of the
early Church is that he cannot start from Paulinism, the plainest phenomenon of
the Apostolic age, in seeking to explain the following development, that in fact
the premises for this development are not at all capable of being indicated in the
form of outlines, just because they were too general. But, on the other hand, the
Pauline theology, this theology of one who had been a Pharisee, is the strongest
proof of the independent and universal power of the impression made by the Person
of Jesus. spirit. As far backwards as we can trace the history of the propagation
of the Church’s doctrine of faith, from the middle of the third century to the end
of the first, we nowhere perceive a leap, or the sudden influx of an entirely new
element. What we perceive is rather the gradual disappearance of an original element,
the Enthusiastic and Apocalyptic, that is, of the sure consciousness of an immediate
possession of the Divine Spirit, and the hope of the future conquering the present; individual piety conscious of itself and sovereign, living in the future world,
recognising no external authority and no external barriers. This piety became ever
weaker and passed away: the utilising of the Codex of Revelation, the Old Testament,
proportionally increased with the Hellenic influences which controlled the process,
for the two went always hand in hand. At an earlier period the Churches made very
little use of either, because they had in individual religious inspiration on the
basis of Christ’s preaching and the sure hope of his Kingdom which was near at hand,
much more than either could bestow. The factors whose
co-operation we observe in
the second and third centuries, were already operative among the earliest Gentile
Christians. We nowhere find a yawning gulf in the great development which lies between
the first Epistle of Clement and the work of Origen,
Περὶ ἀρχῶν. Even the importance which
the “Apostolic” was to obtain, was already foreshadowed by the end of the first
century, and enthusiasm always had its limits.In the main writings of the New Testament
itself we have a twofold conception of the Spirit. According to the one he comes
upon the believer fitfully, expresses himself in visible signs, deprives men of
self-consciousness, and puts them beside themselves. According to the other, the
spirit is a constant possession of the Christian, operates in him by enlightening
the conscience and strengthening the character, and his fruits are love, joy, peace,
patience, gentleness, etc. (Gal. V. 22).
Paul above all taught Christians to value these fruits of the spirit higher
than all the other effects of his working. But he has not by any means produced
a perfectly clear view on this point: for “he himself spoke with more tongues than
they all.” As yet “Spirit” lay within “Spirit.” One felt in the spirit of sonship
a completely new gift coming from God and recreating life, a miracle of God; further,
this spirit also produced sudden exclamations—“Abba, Father” and thus shewed himself
in a way patent to the senses. For that very reason, the spirit of ecstasy and of
miracle appeared identical with the spirit of sonship. (See Gunkel, Die Wirkungen
d. h. Geistes nach der popularen Anschauung der Apostol. Zeit. Göttingen, 1888). The most decisive division, therefore,
falls before the end of the first century; or more correctly, the relatively new
element, the Greek, which is of importance for the forming of the Church as a commonwealth,
and consequently for the formation of its doctrine, is clearly present in the churches
even in the Apostolic age. Two hundred years, however, passed before it made itself
completely at home in the Gospel, although there were points of connection inherent
in the Gospel.
7. The cause of the great historical
fact is clear. It is given in the fact that the Gospel, rejected by the majority
of the Jews, was very soon proclaimed to those who were not Jews, that after a few
decades the greater number of its professors were found among the Greeks, and that,
consequently. the development leading to the Catholic dogma took place within Grco-Roman
culture. But within this culture there was lacking the power of understanding either
the idea of the completed Old Testament theocracy, or the idea of the Messiah.
Both of these essential elements of the original proclamation, therefore,
must either be neglected or remodelled.It may even be said here that the ἀθανασία (ζωὴ αἰώνιος), on the one hand,
and the ἐκκλησία, on the other, have
already appeared in place of the Βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ,
and that the idea of Messiah has been finally replaced by that of the Divine Teacher and of God manifest in the flesh. But it is hardly allowable to mention details
however important, where the whole aggregate of ideas, of religious historical
perceptions and presuppositions, which were based on the old Testament, understood
in a Christian sense, presented itself as something new and strange. One can easily
appropriate words, but not practical ideas. Side by side with the Old Testament
religion as the presupposition of the Gospel, and using its forms of thought, the
moral and religious views and ideals dominant in the world of Greek culture could
not but insinuate themselves into the communities consisting of Gen-tiles. From
the enormous material that was brought home to the hearts of the Greeks, whether
formulated by Paul or by any other, only a few rudimentary ideas could at first
be appropriated. For that very reason, the Apostolic Catholic doctrine of faith
in its preparation and establishment, is no mere continuation of that which, by
uniting things that are certainly very dissimilar, is wont to be described as “Biblical Theology of the New Testament.” Biblical Theology, even when
kept within reasonable limits, is not the presupposition of the history of dogma.
The Gentile Christians were little able to comprehend the controversies which stirred
the Apostolic age within Jewish Christianity. The presuppositions of the history
of dogma are given in certain fundamental ideas, or rather motives of the Gospel,
(in the preaching concerning Jesus Christ, in the teaching of Evangelic ethics and
the future life, in the Old Testament capable of any interpretation, but to be interpreted
with reference to Christ and the Evangelic history), and in the Greek spirit.It is one of the merits of Bruno
Bauer (Christus und die Cäsaren, 1877),
that he has appreciated the real significance of the Greek element in the Gentile
Christianity which became the Catholic Church and doctrine, and that he has
appreciated
the influence of the Judaism of the Diaspora as a preparation for this Gentile Christianity.
But these valuable contributions have unfortunately been deprived of their convincing
power by a baseless criticism of the early Christian literature, to which Christ
and Paul have fallen a sacrifice. Somewhat more cautious are the investigations
of Havet in the fourth volume of Le Christianisme, 1884; Le Nouveau Testament. He
has won great merit by the correct interpretation of the elements of
Gentile Christianity developing themselves to catholicism, but his literary criticism
is often unfortunately entirely abstract, reminding one of the criticism of Voltaire,
and therefore his statements in detail are, as a rule, arbitrary and untenable.
There is a school in Holland at the present time closely related to Bruno Bauer
and Havet, which attempts to banish early Christianity from the world. Christ and
Paul are creations of the second century: the history of Christianity begins with
the passage of the first century into the second—a peculiar phenomenon on the soil
of Hellenised Judaism in quest of a Messiah. This Judaism created Jesus Christ just
as the later Greek religious philosophers created their Saviour (Apollonius, for
example). The Marcionite Church produced Paul, and the growing Catholic Church completed
him. See the numerous treatises of Loman, the Verisimilia of Pierson and Naber (1886),
and the anonymous English work “Antigua Mater” (1887), also the works of Steck (see
especially his Untersuchung über den Galaterbrief). Against these works see P.
V. Schmidt’s “Der Galaterbrief,” 1892. It requires a deep knowledge of the problems
which the first two centuries of the Christian Church present, in order not to thrust
aside as simply absurd these attempts, which as yet have failed to deal with the
subject in a connected way. They have their strength in the difficulties and riddles
which are contained in the history of the formation of the Catholic tradition in
the second century. But the single circumstance that we are asked to regard as a
forgery such a document as the first Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians, appears
to me, of itself, to be an unanswerable argument against the new hypotheses.
8. The foregoing statements involve that the difference
between the development which led to the Catholic doctrine of religion and the original
condition, was by no means a total one. By recognising the Old Testament as a book
of Divine revelation, the Gentile Christians received along with it the religious
speech which was used by Jewish Christians, were made dependent upon the interpretation
which had been used from the very beginning, and even received a great part of the
Jewish literature which accompanied the Old Testament. But the possession of a common
religious speech and literature is never a mere outward bond of union, however
strong the impulse be to introduce the old familiar contents into the newly acquired
speech. The Jewish, that is, the Old Testament element, divested of its national
peculiarity, has remained the basis of Christendom. It has saturated this element with
the Greek spirit, but has always clung to its
main idea, faith in God as the creator and ruler of the world. It has in the course
of its development rejected important parts of that Jewish element, and has borrowed
others at a later period from the great treasure that was transmitted to it. It
has also been able to turn to account the least adaptable features, if only for
the external confirmation of its own ideas. The Old Testament applied to Christ
and his universal Church has always remained the decisive document, and it was long
ere Christian writings received the same authority, long ere individual doctrines
and sayings of Apostolic writings obtained an influence on the formation of ecclesiastical
doctrine.
9. From yet another side there makes its appearance
an agreement between the circles of Palestinian believers in Jesus and the Gentile
Christian communities, which endured for more than a century, though it was of course
gradually effaced. It is the enthusiastic element which unites them, the consciousness
of standing in an immediate union with God through the Spirit, and receiving directly
from God’s hand miraculous gifts, powers and revelations, granted to the individual
that he may turn them to account in the service of the Church. The depotentiation
of the Christian religion, where one may believe in the inspiration of another,
but no longer feels his own, nay, dare not feel it, is not altogether coincident
with its settlements on Greek soil. On the contrary, it was more than two centuries
ere weakness and reflection suppressed, or all but suppressed, the forms in which
the personal consciousness of God originally expressed itself.It would be a fruitful task, though
as yet it has not been undertaken, to examine how long visions, dreams and apocalypses,
on the one hand, and the claim of speaking in the power and name of the Holy Spirit,
on the other, played a rôle in the early Church; and further to shew how they nearly died out among the
laity, but continued to live among the clergy and the monks, and how, even among
the laity, there were again and again sporadic outbreaks of them. The material which
the first three centuries present is very great. Only a few may he mentioned here: Ignat. ad. Rom. VII. 2: ad Philad VII. ad. Eph. XX. I. etc.:
1 Clem. LXIII. 2: Martyr. Polyc.: Acta Perpet. et Felic: Tertull de animo XLVII.: “Major pæne
vis hominum e visionibus deum discunt.” Orig. c. Celsum. 1. 46:
πολλοὶ ὡσπερεὶ ἅκοντες προσεληλύθασι χριστιανισμῶ, πνεύματός τινός τρέψαντος . . .
καὶ φαντασιώσαντος αὐτοὺς ὕπαρ ἤ ὄναρ (even Arnobius was ostensibly led
to Christianity by a dream). Cyprian makes
the most extensive use of dreams, visions, etc., in his letters, see for example
Ep. XI. 3–5: XVI. 4 (“præter nocturnas visiones per dies quoque impletur apud nos
spiritu sancto puerorum innocens ætas, quæ in ecstasi videt,” etc.); XXXIX. i:
LXVI. Io (very interesting: “quamquam sciam somnia ridicula et visiones ineptas
quibusdam videri, sed utique illis, qui malunt contra sacerdotes credere quam sacerdoti,
sed nihil mirum, quando de Joseph fratres sui dixerunt: ecce somniator ille,” etc.).
One who took part in the baptismal controversy in the great Synod of Carthage writes,
“secundum motum animi mei et spiritus Sancti.” The enthusiastic element was always
evoked with special power in times of persecution, as the genuine African matyrdoms,
from the second half of the third century, specially shew. Cf. especially the passio Jacobi, Mariani, etc. But where the enthusiasm was not convenient it was called,
as in the case of the Montanists, dæmonic. Even Constantine operated with dreams
and visions of Christ (see his Vita). Now it certainly lies in the nature of
enthusiasm, that it can assume the most diverse forms of expression,
and follow very different impulses, and so far it frequently separates instead
of uniting. But so long as criticism and reflection are not yet awakened, and a
uniform ideal hovers before one, it does unite, and in this sense there existed
an identity of disposition between the earliest Jewish Christians and the still
enthusiastic Gentile Christian communities.
10.
But, finally, there is a still further uniting element between the beginnings of
the development to Catholicism, and the original condition of the Christian religion
as a movement within Judaism, the importance of which cannot be over-rated, although
we have every reason to complain here of the obscurity of the tradition. Between
the Græco-Roman world which was in search of a spiritual religion, and the Jewish
commonwealth which already possessed such a religion as a national property, though
vitiated by exclusiveness, there had long been a Judaism which, penetrated by the
Greek spirit, was, ex professo, devoting itself to the task of bringing a new religion
to the Greek world, the Jewish religion, but that religion in its kernel Greek,
that is, philosophically moulded, spiritualised and secularised. Here then was
already consummated an intimate union of the Greek spirit with the Old Testament
religion, within the Empire and to a less degree in Palestine itself. If everything
is not to be dissolved into a grey mist, we must clearly distinguish this union
between Judaism and Hellenism and the spiritualising of religion it produced, from the
powerful but indeterminable influences which the Greek spirit exercised on all things Jewish,
and which have been a historical condition of the Gospel. The alliance, in my opinion,
was of no significance at all for the origin
of the Gospel, but was of the most decided importance,
first, for the propagation of Christianity, and then, for the development of Christianity
to Catholicism, and for the genesis of the Catholic doctrine of faith.As to the
first, the recently discovered “Teaching of the Apostles” in its first moral part,
shews a great affinity with the moral philosophy which was set up by Alexandrian
Jews and put before the Greek world as that which had been revealed: see Massebieau,
L’enseignement des XII. Apôtres. Paris. 1884, and in the Journal
“Le Témoignage,” 7 Febr. 1885. Usener,
in his Preface to the Ges. Abhandl. Jacob Bernays’, which he edited, 1885, p. v.
f., has, independently of Massebieau, pointed out the relationship of chapters 1-5
of the “Teaching of the Apostles” with the Phocylidean poem (see Bernays’ above
work, p. 192 ff.). Later Taylor “The teaching of the twelve Apostles,” 1886,
threw out the conjecture that the Didache had a Jewish foundation, and I reached
the same conclusion independently of him: see my Treatise: Die Apostellehre und
die jüdischen beiden Wege, 1886. We cannot
certainly name any particular personality who was specially active in this, but
we can mention three facts which prove more than individual references. (1) The
propaganda of Christianity in the Diaspora followed the Jewish propaganda and partly
took its place, that is, the Gospel was at first preached to those Gentiles who
were already acquainted with the general outlines of the Jewish religion, and who
were even frequently viewed as a Judaism of a second order, in which Jewish and
Greek elements had been united in a peculiar mixture. (2)
The conception of the Old Testament, as we find
it even in the earliest Gentile Christian teachers, the method of spiritualising
it, etc., agrees in the most surprising way with the methods which were used by
the Alexandrian Jews. (3) There are Christian documents in no small number and
of unknown origin, which completely agree in plan, in form and contents with Græco-Jewish writings of the Diaspora, as for example, the Christian Sibylline Oracles,
and the pseudo-Justinian treatise, “de Monarchia.” There are numerous tractates
of which it is impossible to say with certainty whether they are of Jewish or of
Christian origin.
The Alexandrian and non-Palestinian Judaism is still Judaism. As the Gospel seized
and moved the whole of Judaism, it must also have been operative in the non-Palestinian
Judaism. But that already foreshadowed the transition of the Gospel to the non-Jewish
Greek region, and the fate which it was to experience there. For that non-Palestinian
Judaism formed the bridge between the Jewish Church and the Roman Empire, together
with its culture.It is well known that Judaism at the time of
Christ embraced a great many different tendencies. Beside Pharisaic Judaism as the
stem proper, there was a motley mass of formations which resulted from the contact
of Judaism with foreign ideas, customs and institutions (even with Babylonian and
Persian), and which attained importance for the development of the predominant church,
as well as for the formation of the so-called gnostic Christian communions. Hellenic
elements found their way even into Pharisaic theology. Orthodox Judaism itself has
marks which shew that no spiritual movement was able to escape the influence which
proceeded from the victory of the Greeks over the east. Besides, who would venture
to exhibit definitely the origin and causes of that spiritualising of religions
and that limitation of the moral standard of which we can find so many traces in
the Alexandrian age? The nations who inhabited the eastern shore of the Mediterranean
sea, had from the fourth century B. C., a common history, and therefore had similar
convictions. Who can decide what each of them acquired by its own exertions, and
what it obtained through interchange of opinions? But in proportion as we see this
we must be on our guard against jumbling the phenomena together and effacing them.
There is little meaning in calling a thing Hellenic, as that really formed an element
in all the phenomena of the age. All our great political and ecclesiastical parties
to-day are dependent on the ideas of 1789, and again on romantic ideas. It is just
as easy to verify this as it is difficult to determine the measure and the manner
of the influence for each group. And yet the understanding of it turns altogether
on this point. To call Pharisaism, or the Gospel, or the old Jewish Christianity
Hellenic, is not paradox, but confusion. The Gospel passed into the world chiefly by this bridge. Paul
indeed had a large share in this, but his own Churches did not understand the way
he led them, and were not able on looking back to find it.The Acts of the Apostles is in this respect
a most instructive book. It, as well as the Gospel of Luke, is a document of Gentile
christianity developing itself to Catholicism: Cf. Overbeck in his Commentar z.
Apostelgesch. But the comprehensive judgment of Havet (in the work above mentioned,
IV. p. 395 is correct. “L’hellénisme tient assez peu
de place clans le N. T., du moins l’hellénisme voulu et réfléchi. Ces livres sont
écrits en grec et leurs auteurs vivaient en pays grec; il y a donc eu chez eux infiltration
des idées et des sentiments helléniques; quelquefois même l’imagination hellénique
y a pénétré comme dans le 3 évangile et dans les Actes . . . . Dans son ensemble, le
N. T. garde le caractère d’un livre hébraïque Le christianisme ne commence avoir
une littérature et des doctrines vraiment helléniques
qu’au milieu du second siècle. Mais il
y avait un judaïsme, celui d’Alexandrie, qui avait faite alliance avec 1’hellénisme avant même qu’il y eût des chrétiens.” He indeed
became
a Greek to the Greeks, and even began the undertaking of placing the treasures
of Greek knowledge at the service of the Gospel. But the knowledge of Christ crucified,
to which he subordinated all other knowledge as only of preparatory value, had
nothing in common with Greek philosophy, while the idea of justification and the
doctrine of the Spirit (Rom. VIII.), which together formed the peculiar contents
of his Christianity, were irreconcilable with the moralism and the religious ideals
of Hellenism. But the great mass of the earliest Gentile Christians became Christians
because they perceived in the Gospel the sure tidings of the benefits and obligations
which they had already sought in the fusion of Jewish and Greek elements. It is
only by discerning this that we can grasp the preparation and genesis of the Catholic
Church and its dogma.
From the foregoing statements
it appears that there fall to be considered as presuppositions of the origin of
the Catholic Apostolic doctrine of faith, the following topics, though of unequal
importance as regards the extent of their influence.
(a). The Gospel of Jesus Christ.
(b). The common preaching of Jesus Christ in the first generation of believers.
(c). The current exposition of the Old Testament, the Jewish speculations and hopes of the future, in their significance
for the earliest types of Christian preaching.The right of distinguishing (b)
and (c) may be contested. But if we surrender this we therewith surrender
the right to distinguish kernel and husk in the original proclamation of the
Gospel. The dangers to which the attempt is exposed should not frighten us from
it, for it has its justification in the fact that the Gospel is neither doctrine
nor law.
(d). The religious conceptions, and the religious philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews, in their significance for the later
restatement of the Gospel.
(e). The religious dispositions of the Greeks and Romans of the first two centuries, and the current Græco-Roman philosophy
of religion.
§ 2. The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to His own testimony concerning Himself.
I. The Fundamental Features.
The Gospel entered into the world as an apocalyptic eschatological message,
apocalyptical and eschatological not only in its form, but also in its contents.
But Jesus announced that the kingdom of God had already begun with his own work,
and those who received him in faith became sensible of this beginning; for the “apocalyptical”
was not merely the unveiling of the future, but above all the revelation of God
as the Father, and the “eschatological” received its counterpoise in the view of
Jesus’ work as Saviour, in the assurance of being certainly called to the kingdom,
and in the conviction that life and future dominion is hid with God the Lord and
preserved for believers by him. Consequently, we are following not only the indications
of the succeeding history, but also the requirement of the thing itself, when,
in the presentation of the Gospel, we
place in the foreground, not that which unites it with the contemporary disposition
of Judaism, but that which raises it above it. Instead of the hope of inheriting
the kingdom, Jesus had also spoken simply of preserving the soul, or the life. In
this one substitution lies already a transformation of universal significance, of
political religion into a religion that is individual and therefore holy; for the
life is nourished by the word of God, but God is the Holy One.
The Gospel is the glad message
of the government of the world and of every individual soul by the almighty and
holy God, the Father and Judge. In this dominion of God, which frees men from the
power of the Devil, makes them rulers in a heavenly kingdom in contrast with the
kingdoms of the world, and which will also be sensibly realised in the future on
just about to appear, is secured life for all men who yield themselves to God, although
they should lose the world and the earthly life. That is, the soul which is pure
and holy in connection with God, and in imitation of the Divine
perfection is eternally preserved with God, while those who
would gain the world and preserve their life, fall into the hands of the Judge who
sentences them to Hell. This dominion of God imposes on men a law, an old and yet
a new law, viz., that of the Divine perfection and therefore of undivided love to
God and to our neighbour. In this love, where it sways the inmost feeling, is presented
the better righteousness (better not only with respect to the Scribes and Pharisees,
but also with respect to Moses, see Matt. V.), which corresponds to the perfection
of God. The way to attain it is a change of mind, that is, self-denial, humility
before God, and heartfelt trust in him. In this humility and trust in God there
is contained a recognition of one’s own unworthiness; but the Gospel calls to the
kingdom of God those very sinners who are thus minded, by promising the forgiveness
of the sins which hitherto have separated them from God. But the Gospel which appears
in these three elements, the dominion of God, a better righteousness embodied in
the law of love, and the forgiveness of sin, is inseparably connected with Jesus
Christ; for in preaching this Gospel Jesus Christ everywhere calls men to himself.
In him the Gospel is word and deed; it has become his food, and therefore his personal
life, and into this life of his he draws all others. He is the Son who knows the
Father. In him men are to perceive the kindness of the Lord; in him they are to
feel God’s power and government of the world, and to become certain of this consolation; they are to follow him the meek and lowly, and while he, the pure and holy one,
calls sinners to himself, they are to receive the assurance that God through him
forgiveth sin.
Jesus Christ has by no express statement thrust this connection
of his Gospel with his Person into the foreground. No words could have certified
it unless his life, the overpowering impression of his Person, had created it.
By living, acting and speaking from the riches of that life which he lived with
his Father, he became for others the revelation of the God of whom they formerly
had heard, but whom they had not known. He declared his Father to be their Father
and they understood him. But he also declared himself to be
Messiah, and in so doing gave an intelligible expression
to his abiding significance for them and for his people. In a solemn hour at the
close of his life, as well as on special occasions at an earlier period, he referred
to the fact that the surrender to his Person which induced them to leave all and
follow him, was no passing element in the new position they had gained towards God
the Father. He tells them, on the contrary, that this surrender corresponds to the
service which he will perform for them and for the many, when he will give his life
a sacrifice for the sins of the world. By teaching them to think of him and of his
death in the breaking of bread and the drinking of wine, and by saying of his death
that it takes place for the remission of sins, he has claimed as his due from all
future disciples what was a matter of course so long as he sojourned with them,
but what might fade away after he was parted from them. He who in his preaching
of the kingdom of God raised the strictest self-examination and humility to a law,
and exhibited them to his followers in his own life, has described with clear consciousness
his life crowned by death as the imperishable service by which men in all ages will
be cleansed from their sin and made joyful in their God. By so doing he put himself
far above all others, although they were to become his brethren; and claimed a
unique and permanent importance as Redeemer and Judge. This permanent importance
as the Lord he secured, not by disclosures about the mystery of his Person, but
by the impression of his life and the interpretation of his death. He interprets
it, like all his sufferings, as a victory, as the passing over to his glory, and
in spite of the cry of God-forsakenness upon the cross, he has proved himself able
to awaken in his followers the real conviction that he lives and is Lord and Judge
of the living and the dead.
The religion of the Gospel is based on this belief in Jesus
Christ, that is, by looking to him, this historical person, it becomes certain to
the believer that God rules heaven and earth, and that God, the Judge, is also Father
and Redeemer. The religion of the Gospel is the religion which makes the highest
moral demands, the simplest and the most difficult,
and discloses the contradiction in which every man
finds himself towards them. But it also procures redemption from such misery, by
drawing the life of men into the inexhaustible and blessed life of Jesus Christ,
who has overcome the world and called sinners to himself.
In making this attempt to put together the fundamental features
of the Gospel, I have allowed myself to be guided by the results of this Gospel
in the case of the first disciples. I do not know whether it is permissible to present
such fundamental features apart from this guidance. The preaching of Jesus Christ
was in the main so plain and simple, and in its application so manifold and rich,
that one shrinks from attempting to systematise it, and would much rather merely
narrate according to the Gospel. Jesus searches for the point in every man on which
he can lay hold of him and lead him to the Kingdom of God. The distinction of good
and evil—for God or against God—he would make a life question for every man, in
order to shew him for whom it has become this, that he can depend upon the God whom
he is to fear. At the same time he did not by any means uniformly fall back upon
sin, or even the universal sinfulness, but laid hold of individuals very diversely,
and led them to God by different paths. The doctrinal concentration of redemption
on sin was certainly not carried out by Paul alone; but, on the other hand, it did
not in any way become the prevailing form for the preaching of the Gospel. On the
contrary, the antitheses, night, error, dominion of demons, death and light, truth,
deliverance, life, proved more telling in the Gentile Churches. The consciousness
of universal sinfulness was first made the negative fundamental frame of mind of
Christendom by Augustine.
II. Details.
1. Jesus announced the Kingdom of God which stands in opposition
to the kingdom of the devil, and therefore also to the kingdom of the world, as
a future Kingdom, and yet it is presented in his preaching as present; as an invisible,
and yet it was visible—for one actually saw it. He lived and
spoke within the circle of eschatological ideas which Judaism had developed more
than two hundred years before: but he controlled them by giving them a new content
and forcing them into a new direction. Without abrogating the law and the prophets
he, on fitting occasions, broke through the national, political and sensuous eudæmonistic
forms in which the nation was expecting the realisation of the dominion of God,
but turned their attention at the same time to a future near at hand, in which believers
would be delivered from the oppression of evil and sin, and would enjoy blessedness
and dominion. Yet he declared that even now, every individual who is called into
the kingdom may call on God as his Father, and be sure of the gracious will of God,
the hearing of his prayers, the forgiveness of sin. and the protection of God even
in this present life.Therewith are, doubtless, heavenly blessings bestowed in
the present. Historical investigation has, notwithstanding, every reason for closely
examining, whether, and in how far, we may speak of a present for the Kingdom of
God, in the sense of Jesus. But even if the question had to be answered in the negative,
it would make little or no difference for the correct understanding of Jesus’ preaching.
The Gospel viewed in its kernel is independent of this question. It deals with the
inner constitution and mood of the soul. But everything in this proclamation is directed to the life
beyond: the certainty of that life is the power and earnestness of the Gospel.
2. The conditions of entrance to the kingdom are, in the first
place, a complete change of mind, in which a man renounces the pleasures of this
world, denies himself, and is ready to surrender all that he has in order to save
his soul; then, a believing trust in God’s grace which he grants to the humble and
the poor, and therefore hearty confidence in Jesus as the Messiah chosen and called
by God to realise his kingdom on the earth. The announcement is therefore directed
to the poor, the suffering, those hungering and thirsting for righteousness, not
to those who live, but to those who wish to be healed and redeemed, and finds them
prepared for entrance into, and reception of the blessings of the kingdom of
God,The question whether, and in what degree, a man of himself
can earn righteousness before God is one of those theoretic questions to which
Jesus gave no answer. He fixed his attention on all the gradations of the moral
and religious conduct of his countrymen as they were immediately presented to him,
and found some prepared for entrance into the kingdom of God, not by a technical
mode of outward preparation, but by hungering and thirsting for it, and at the same
time unselfishly serving their brethren. Humility and love unfeigned were always
the decisive marks of these prepared ones. They are to be satisfied with righteousness
before God, that is, are to receive the blessed feeling that God is gracious to
them as sinners, and accepts them as his children. Jesus, however, allows the popular
distinction of sinners and righteous to remain, but exhibits its perverseness by
calling sinners to himself, and by describing the opposition of the righteous to
his Gospel as a mark of their godlessness and hardness of heart. while it brings down upon the self-satisfied, the rich
and those proud of their righteousness, the judgment of obduracy and the damnation
of Hell.
3. The commandment of undivided love to God and the brethren,
as the main commandment, in the observance of which righteousness is realised, and
forming the antithesis to the selfish mind, the lust of the world, and every arbitrary
impulse,The blessings of the kingdom were frequently represented
by Jesus as a reward for work done. But this popular view is again broken through
by reference to the fact that all reward is the gift of God’s free grace. corresponds to the blessings of the Kingdom of God, viz., forgiveness
of sin, righteousness, dominion and blessedness. The standard of personal worth
for the members of the Kingdom is self-sacrificing labour for others, not any
technical mode of worship or legal preciseness. Renunciation of the world together
with its goods, even of life itself in certain circumstances, is the proof of a
man’s sincerity and earnestness in seeking the Kingdom of God; and the meekness.
which renounces every right, bears wrong patiently, requiting it with kindness,
is the practical proof of love to God, the conduct that answers to God’s perfection.
4. In the proclamation and founding of this kingdom, Jesus
summoned men to attach themselves to him, because he had recognised himself to be
the helper called by God, and therefore also the Messiah who was promised.Some Critics—most recently Havet, Le Christianisme et ses
origines, 1884. T. IV. p. 15 ff.—have called in question the fact that Jesus called
himself Messiah. But this article of the Evangelic tradition seems to me to stand
the test of the most minute investigation. But, in the case of Jesus, the consciousness
of being the Messiah undoubtedly rested on the certainty of being the
Son of God, therefore of knowing the Father and being constrained to proclaim that
knowledge. He gradually declared
himself to the people as such by the names he assumed,We can gather with certainty from the Gospels that Jesus
did not enter on his work with the announcement: Believe in me for I am the Messiah.
On the contrary, he connected his work with the baptising movement of John, but
carried that movement further, and thereby made the Baptist his forerunner (Mark I. 15:
πεπλήρωται ὁ καιρὸς καὶ ἤγγικεν ἤ βασιλεία
τοῦ θεοῦ· μετανοεῖτε καὶ πιστεύετε ἐν τῷ εὐαγγελίω). He was in no hurry to urge anything that went beyond
that message, but gradually prepared, and cautiously required of his followers an
advance beyond it. The goal to which he led them was to believe in him as Messiah
without putting the usual political construction on the Messianic ideal.
for the names “Anointed,” “King,” “Lord,” “Son of David,” “Son of Man,” “Son
of God,” all denote the Messianic office, and were familiar to the greater part
of the people.Even “Son of Man” probably means Messiah: we do not know
whether Jesus had any special reason for favouring this designation which springs
from Dan. VII. The objection to interpreting the word as Messiah really resolves
itself into this, that the disciples (according to the Gospels) did not at once
recognise him as Messiah. But that is explained by the contrast of his own peculiar
idea of Messiah with the popular idea. The confession of him as Messiah was the
keystone of their confidence in him, inasmuch as by that confession they separated
themselves from old ideas. But though, at first, they express only the call, office, and power
of the Messiah, yet by means of them and especially by the designation Son of God,
Jesus pointed to a relation to God the Father, then and in its immediateness unique,
as the basis of the office with which he was entrusted. He has, however, given no
further explanation of the mystery of this relation than the declaration that the
Son alone knoweth the Father, and that this knowledge of God and Sonship to God
are secured for all others by the sending of the Son.The distinction between the Father and the Son stands out
just as plainly in the sayings of Jesus, as the complete obedient subordination
of the Son to the Father. Even according to John’s Gospel, Jesus finishes the work
which the Father has given him, and is obedient in everything even unto death. He
declares Mat. XIX. 17:
εἱ̂ς ἐστιν ὁ ἀγαθός. Special notice should be given to
Mark XIII. 32, (Matt. XXIV, 36). Behind the only manifested life of Jesus, later speculation
has put a life in which he wrought, not in subordination and obedience, but in like
independence and dignity with God. That goes beyond the utterances of Jesus even
in the fourth Gospel. But it is no advance beyond these, especially in the religious
view and speech of the time, when it is announced that the relation of the Father to the Son lies beyond time. It is not even
improbable that the sayings in the fourth Gospel referring to this, have a basis
in the preaching of Jesus himself. In the
proclamation of God as Father,Paul knew that the designation of God as the Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ, was the new Evangelic confession. Origen was the first among
the Fathers (though before him Marcion) to recognise that the decisive advance beyond
the Old Testament stage of religion, was given in the preaching of God as Father;
see the exposition of the Lord’s Prayer in his treatise De oratione. No doubt the
Old Testament, and the later Judaism knew the designation of God as Father; but
it applied it to the Jewish nation, it did not attach the evangelic meaning to the
name, and it did not allow itself in any way to be guided in its religion by this
idea. as well as in the
other proclamation that all the members of the kingdom following the will of God
in love, are to become one with the Son and through him with the Father,See the farewell discourses in John, the fundamental ideas
of which are, in my opinion, genuine, that is, proceed from Jesus. the message
of the realised kingdom of God receives its richest, inexhaustible content: the
Son of the Father will be the first-born among many brethren.
5. Jesus as the Messiah chosen by God has definitely distinguished
himself from Moses and all the Prophets: as his preaching and his work are the
fulfilment of the law and the prophets, so he himself is not a disciple of Moses,
but corrects that law-giver; he is not a Prophet, but Master and Lord. He proves
this Lordship during his earthly ministry in the accomplishment of the mighty deeds
given him to do, above all in withstanding the Devil and his kingdom,The historian cannot regard a miracle as a sure given
historical event: for in doing so he destroys the mode of consideration on which
all historical investigation rests. Every individual miracle remains
historically quite doubtful, and a summation of things doubtful never leads to
certainty. But should the historian, notwithstanding, be convinced that Jesus
Christ did extraordinary things, in the strict sense miraculous things, then,
from the unique impression he has obtained of this person, he infers the
possession by him of supernatural power. This conclusion itself belongs to the
province of religious faith: though there has seldom been a strong faith which
would not have drawn it. Moreover, the healing miracles of Jesus are the only
ones that come into consideration in a strict historical examination. These
certainly cannot be eliminated from the historical accounts without utterly
destroying them. But how unfit are they of themselves, after 1800 years, to secure
any special importance to him to whom they are attributed, unless that importance
was already established apart from them. That he could do with him-self what he
would, that he created a new thing without overturning the old, that he won men
to himself by announcing the Father, that he inspired without fanaticism, set up
a kingdom without politics, set men free from the world without asceticism, was a teacher without theology, at a time of fanaticism
and politics, asceticism and theology, is the great miracle of his person, and that
he who preached the Sermon on the Mount declared himself in respect of his life
and death, to be the Redeemer and Judge of the world, is the offence and foolishness
which mock all reason. and—according
to the law of the Kingdom of God—for that very reason in the
service which he performs. In this service Jesus also reckoned the sacrifice of
his life, designating it as a “λύτρν” which he offered for the redemption of
man.See Mark X. 45—That Jesus at the celebration of the first Lord’s
supper described his death as a sacrifice which he should offer for the forgiveness
of sin, is clear from the account of Paul. From that account it appears to be certain
that Jesus gave expression to the idea of the necessity and saving significance
of his death for the forgiveness of sins, in a symbolical ordinance (based on the
conclusion of the covenant, Exod. XXIV. 3 ff., perhaps, as Paul presupposes, on
the Passover), in order that his disciples by repeating it in accordance with the
will of Jesus, might be the more deeply impressed by it. Certain observations based
on John VI., on the supper prayer in the Didache, nay, even on the report of Mark,
and supported at the same time by features of the earliest practice in which it
had the character of a real meal, and the earliest theory of the supper, which viewed
it as a communication of eternal life and an anticipation of the future existence,
have for years made me doubt very much whether the Pauline account and the Pauline
conception of it, were really either the oldest, or the universal and therefore
only one. I have been strengthened in this suspicion by the profound and remarkable
investigation of Spitta (z. Gesch. u. Litt. d. Urchristenthums: Die urchristl. Traditionen
ü. den Urspr. u. Sinnd. Abendmahls, 1893). He sees in the supper as not instituted,
but celebrated by Jesus, the festival of the Messianic meal, the anticipated triumph
over death, the expression of the perfection of the Messianic work, the symbolic
representation of the filling of believers with the powers of the Messianic kingdom
and life. The reference to the Passover and the death of Christ was attached to
it later, though it is true very soon. How much is thereby explained that was hitherto
obscure—critical, historical, and dogmatico-historical questions—cannot at all be
stated briefly. And yet I hesitate to give a full recognition to Spitta’s exposition: the words I. Cor. XI. 23:
ἐγὼ γὰρ παρέλαβον ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου, ὃ καὶ παρέδωκα ὑμῖν κ.τ.λ.,
are too strong for me. Cf. besides, Weizsäcker’s investigation in
“The Apostolic Age.” Lobstein, La doctrine de la s. cène, 1889. A. Harnack i. d. Texten u. Unters. VII. 2 p. 139 if. Schürer, Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1891, p. 29 if. Jülicher
Abhandl. f. Weizsäker, 1892, p. 215 ff. But he declared at the same time that his Messianic work was not yet fulfilled
in his subjection to death. On the contrary, the close is merely initiated by his
death; for the completion of the kingdom will only appear when he returns in glory
in the clouds of heaven to judgment. Jesus seems to have announced this speedy return
a short time before his death, and to have comforted his disciples at his departure,
with the assurance
that he would immediately enter into a supramundane position
with God.With regard to the eschatology, no one can say in detail
what proceeds from Jesus, and what from the disciples. What has been said in the
text does not claim to be certain, but only probable. The most important, and at
the same time the most certain point, is that Jesus made the definitive fate of
the individual depend on faith, humility and love. There are no passages in the
Gospel which conflict with the impression that Jesus reserved day and hour to God,
and wrought in faith and patience as long as for him it was day.
6. The instructions of Jesus to his disciples are accordingly
dominated by the thought that the end,—the day and hour of which, however, no one
knows,—is at hand. In consequence of this, also, the exhortation to renounce all
earthly good takes a prominent place. But Jesus does not impose ascetic commandments
as a new law, far less does he see in asceticism, as such, sanctificationHe did not impose on every one, or desire from every one
even the outward following of himself: see Mark V. 18-19. The “imitation of Jesus,”
in the strict sense of the word, did not play any noteworthy role either in the
Apostolic or in the old Catholic period.—he
himself did not live as an ascetic, but was reproached as a wine-bibber—but he prescribed
a perfect simplicity and purity of disposition, and a singleness of heart which
remains invariably the same in trouble and renunciation, in possession and use of
earthly good. A uniform equality of all in the conduct of life is not commanded:
“To whom much is given, of him much shall be required.” The
disciples are kept as far from fanaticism and overrating of spiritual results as
from asceticism. “Rejoice not that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice
that your names are written in heaven.” When they besought him to teach them to
pray, he taught them the “Lord’s prayer”, a prayer which demands such a collected
mind, and such a tranquil, childlike elevation of the heart to God, that it cannot
be offered at all by minds subject to passion or preoccupied by any daily cares.
7. Jesus himself did not found a new religious community, but
gathered round him a circle of disciples, and chose Apostles whom he commanded to
preach the Gospel. His preaching was universalistic inasmuch as it attributed no
value to ceremonialism as such, and placed the fulfilment of the Mosaic
law in the exhibition of its moral contents, partly against
or beyond the letter. He made the law perfect by harmonising its particular requirements
with the fundamental moral requirements which were also expressed in the Mosaic
law. He emphasised the fundamental requirements more decidedly than was done by
the law itself, and taught that all details should be referred to them and deduced
from them. The external righteousness of Pharisaism was thereby declared to be not
only an outer covering, but also a fraud, and the bond which still united religion
and nationality in Judaism was sundered.It is asserted by well-informed investigators, and may be
inferred from the Gospels (Mark XII. 32–34; Luke X. 27, 28), perhaps also from the
Jewish original of the Didache, that some representatives of Pharisaism, beside
the pedantic treatment of the law, attempted to concentrate it on the fundamental
moral commandments. Consequently, in Palestinian and Alexandrian Judaism at the
time of Christ, in virtue of the prophetic word and the Thora, influenced also,
perhaps, by the Greek spirit which everywhere gave the stimulus to inwardness, the
path was indicated in which the future development of religion was to follow. Jesus
entered fully into the view of the law thus attempted, which comprehended it as
a whole and traced it back to the disposition. But he freed it from the contradiction
that adhered to it, (because, in spite of and alongside the tendency to a deeper
perception, men still persisted in deducing righteousness from a punctilious observance
of numerous particular commandments, because in so doing they became self-satisfied,
that is, irreligious, and because in belonging to Abraham, they thought they had
a claim of right on God). For all that, so far as a historical understanding of
the activity of Jesus is at all possible, it is to be obtained from the soil of
Pharisaism, as the Pharisees were those who cherished and developed the Messianic
expectations, and because, along with their care for the Thora, they sought also
to preserve, in their own way, the prophetic inheritance. If everything does not
deceive us, there were already contained in the Pharisaic theology of the age, speculations
which were fitted to modify considerably the narrow view of history, and to prepare
for universalism. The very men who tithed mint, anise and cummin, who kept their
cups and dishes outwardly clean, who, hedging round the Thora, attempted to hedge
round the people, spoke also of the sum total of the law. They made room in their
theology for new ideas which are partly to be described as advances, and on the
other hand, they have already pondered the question even in relation to the law,
whether submission to its main contents was not sufficient for being numbered among
the people of the covenant (see Renan: Paul). In particular the whole sacrificial
system, which Jesus also essentially ignored, was therewith thrust into the background. Baldensperger (Selbstbewusstsein Jesu. p. 46) justly says, “There lie before us
definite marks that the certainty of the nearness of God in the Temple (from the
time of the Maccabees) begins to waver, and the efficacy of the temple institutions
to be called in question. Its recent desecration by the Romans, appears to the author
of the Psalms of Solomon (II. 2) as a kind
of Divine requital for the sons of Israel themselves having
been guilty of so grossly profaning the sacrificial gifts. Enoch calls the shewbread
of the second Temple polluted and unclean . . . There had crept in among the pious
a feeling of the insufficiency of their worship, and from this side the Essenic
schism will certainly represent only the open outbreak of a disease which had already
begun to gnaw secretly at the religious life of the nation”: see here the excellent
explanations of the origin of Essenism in Lucius (Essenism, 75 ff. 509 ff.). The
spread of Judaism in the world, the secularization and apostacy of the priestly
caste, the desecration of the Temple, the building of the Temple at Leontopolis,
the perception brought about by the spiritualising of religion in the empire of
Alexander the Great, that no blood of beasts can be a means of reconciling God—all
these circumstances must have been absolutely dangerous and fatal, both to the local
centralisation of worship, and to the statutory sacrificial system. The proclamation
of Jesus (and of Stephen) as to the overthrow of the Temple, is therefore no absolutely
new thing, nor is the fact that Judaism fell back upon the law and the Messianic
hope, a mere result of the destruction of the Temple. This change was rather prepared
by the inner development. Whatever point in the preaching of Jesus we may fix on,
we shall find, that—apart from the writings of the Prophets and the Psalms, which
originated in the Greek Maccabean periods—parallels can be found only in Pharisaism,
but at the same time that the sharpest contrasts must issue from it. Talmudic Judaism
is not in every respect the genuine continuance of Pharisaic Judaism, but a product
of the decay which attests that the rejection of Jesus by the spiritual leaders
of the people had deprived the nation and even the Virtuosi of Religion of their
best part: (see for this the expositions of Kuenen “Judaismus und Christenthum,”
in his (Hibbert) lectures on national religions and world religions). The ever
recurring attempts to deduce the origin of Christianity from Hellenism, or even
from the Roman Greek culture, are there also rightly, briefly and tersely rejected.
Also the hypotheses, which either entirely eliminate the person of Jesus or make
him an Essene, or subordinate him to the person of Paul, may be regarded as definitively
settled. Those who think they can ascertain the origin of Christian religion from
the origin of Christian Theology will indeed always think of Hellenism: Paul will
eclipse the person of Jesus with those who believe that a religion for the world
must be born with a universalistic doctrine. Finally, Essenism will continue in
authority with those who see in the position of indifference which Jesus took to
the Temple worship, the main thing, and who, besides, create for themselves an “Essenism
of their own finding.” Hellenism, and also Essenism, can of course indicate to the
historian some of the conditions by which the appearance of Jesus was prepared and
rendered possible; but they explain only the possibility, not the reality of the
appearance. But this with its historically not deducible power is the decisive thing.
If some one has recently said that “the historical speciality of the person of Jesus” is not the main
thing in Christianity; he has thereby betrayed that he does not know how a religion
that is worthy of the name is founded, propagated, and maintained. For the latest
attempt to put the Gospel in a historical connection with Buddhism (Seydel. Das
Ev. von Jesus in seinem Verhältnissen zur Buddha-Sage, 1882: likewise, Die Buddha-Legende
und das Leben Jesu, 1884), see, Oldenburg, Theol. Lit.-Ztg. 1882, Col. 415 f.; 1884,
185 f. However much necessarily remains obscure to us in the ministry of Jesus when
we seek to place it in a historical connection, what is known is sufficient to
confirm the judgment that his preaching developed a germ in the religion of Israel
(see the Psalms) which was finally guarded and in many respects developed by the
Pharisees, but which languished and died under their guardianship. The power of
development which Jesus imported to it was not a power which he himself had to
borrow from without; but doctrine and speculation were as far from him as ecstasy
and visions. On the other hand, we must remember we do not know the history of Jesus
up to his public entrance on his ministry, and that therefore we do not know whether
in his native province he had any connection with Greeks. Political and national elements may probably have
been made prominent in the hopes of the future, as Jesus appropriated
them for his preaching. But from the conditions to which the realising of the hopes
for the individual was attached, there already shone the clearer ray which was to
eclipse those elements, and one saying such as Matt. XXII. 31., annulled at once
political religion and religious politics.
Supplement 1.—The idea of the inestimable inherent value of
every individual human soul, already dimly appearing in several psalms, and discerned
by Greek Philosophers, though as a rule developed in contradiction to religion,
stands out plainly in the preaching of Jesus. It is united with the idea of God
as Father, and is the complement to the message of the communion of brethren realising
itself in love. In this sense the Gospel is at once profoundly individualistic and
Socialistic. The prospect of gaining life, and preserving it for ever, is therefore
also the highest which Jesus has set forth; it is not, however, to be a motive,
but a reward of grace. In the certainty of this prospect, which is the converse
of renouncing the world, he has proclaimed the sure hope of the resurrection, and
consequently the most abundant compensation for the loss of the natural life. Jesus
put an end to the vacillation and uncertainty which in this respect still prevailed
among the Jewish people of his day. The confession of the Psalmist, “Whom have
I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon the earth that I desire beside thee”, and the fulfilling of the Old Testament commandment, “Love thy neighbour as thyself”, were for the first time presented in their connection in the person of Jesus.
He himself therefore is Christianity, for the “impression of his person convinced
the disciples of the facts of forgiveness of sin and the second
birth, and gave them courage to believe in and to lead a
new life”. We cannot therefore state the “doctrine” of Jesus; for it appears
as a supramundane life which must be felt in the person of Jesus, and its truth
is guaranteed by the fact that such a life can be lived.
Supplement 2.—The history of the Gospel contains two great
transitions, both of which, however, fall within the first century; from Christ
to the first generation of believers, including Paul, and from the first,
Jewish Christian, generation of these believers to the Gentile Christians; in
other words, from Christ to the brotherhood of believers in Christ, and from
this to the incipient Catholic Church. No later transitions in the Church can
be compared with these in importance. As to the first, the question has
frequently been asked, Is the Gospel of Christ to be the authority or the Gospel
concerning Christ? But the strict dilemma here is false. The Gospel certainly
is the Gospel of Christ. For it has only, in the sense of Jesus, fulfilled its
Mission when the Father has been declared to men as he was known by the Son, and
where the life is swayed by the realities and principles which ruled the life of
Jesus Christ. But it is in accordance with the mind of Jesus and at the same
time a fact of history, that this Gospel can only be appropriated and adhered to
in connection with a believing surrender to the person of Jesus Christ. Yet
every dogmatic formula is suspicious, be-cause it is fitted to wound the spirit
of religion; it should not at least be put before the living experience in
order to evoke it; for such a procedure is really the admission of the half
belief which thinks it necessary that the impression made by the person must be
supplemented. The essence of the matter is a personal life which awakens life
around it as the fire of one torch kindles another. Early as weakness of faith
is in the Church of Christ, it is no earlier than the procedure of making a
formulated and ostensibly proved confession the foundation of faith, and
therefore demanding, above all, subjection to this confession. Faith assuredly
is propagated by the testimony of faith, but dogma is not in itself that
testimony.
The peculiar character of the Christian religion is conditioned
by the fact that every reference to God is at the
same time a reference to Jesus Christ, and vice versa. In this sense the Person
of Christ is the central point of the religion, and inseparably united with the
substance of piety as a sure reliance on God. Such a union does not, as is
supposed, bring a foreign element into the pure essence of religion. The pure
essence of religion rather demands such a union; for “the reverence for
persons, the inner bowing before the manifestation of moral power and goodness
is the root of all true religion” (W. Herrmann). But the Christian religion
knows and names only one name before which it bows. In this rests its positive
character, in all else, as piety, it is by its strictly spiritual and inward
attitude, not a positive religion alongside of others, but religion itself. But
just because the Person of Christ has this significance is the knowledge and
understanding of the “historical Christ” required: for no other comes within
the sphere of our knowledge. “The historical Christ” that, to be sure, is not
the powerless Christ of contemporary history shewn to us through a coloured
biographical medium, or dissipated in all sorts of controversies, but Christ as
a power and as a life which towers above our own life, and enters into our life
as God's Spirit and God's Word, (see Herrmann, Der Verkehr des Christen mit
Gott. 2. Edit. 1892, [i. e., “The Fellowship of the Christian with God”, an
important work included in the present series of translations. Ed.]: Kähler,
Der sog. historische Jesus und der geschichtliche biblische Christus, 1892). But
historical labour and investigation are needed in order to grasp this Jesus
Christ ever more firmly and surely.
As to the second transition, it brought with it the most
important changes, which, however, became clearly manifest only after the lapse
of some generations. They appear, first, in the belief in holy consecrations,
efficacious in themselves, and administered by chosen persons; further, in the
conviction, that the relation of the individual to God and Christ is, above all,
conditioned on the acceptance of a definite divinely attested law of faith and
holy writings; further, in the opinion that God has established Church
arrangements, observance of which
is necessary and meritorious, as well as in the opinion
that a visible earthly community is the people of a new covenant. These
assumptions, which formally constitute the essence of Catholicism as a religion,
have no support in the teaching of Jesus, nay, offend against that teaching.
Supplement 3.—The question as to what new thing Christ has
brought, answered by Paul in the words, “If any man be in Christ he is a new
creature, old things are passed away, behold all things are become new”, has
again and again been pointedly put since the middle of the second century by
Apologists, Theologians and religious Philosophers within and without the
Church, and has received the most varied answers. Few of the answers have
reached the height of the Pauline confession. But where one cannot attain to
this confession, one ought to make clear to oneself that every answer which does
not lie in the line of it is altogether unsatisfactory; for it is not difficult
to set over against every article from the preaching of Jesus an observation
which deprives it of its originality. It is the Person, it is the fact of his
life that is new and creates the new. The way in which he called forth and
established a people of God on earth, which has become sure of God and of
eternal life; the way in which he set up a new thing in the midst of the old
and transformed the religion of Israel into the religion: that is the mystery
of his Person, in which lies his unique and permanent position in the history of
humanity.
Supplement 4.—The conservative position of Jesus towards
the religious traditions of his people had the necessary result that his
preaching and his Person were placed by believers in the frame-work of this
tradition, which was thereby very soon greatly expanded. But, though this way of
understanding the Gospel was certainly at first the only possible way, and
though the Gospel itself could only be preserved by such means (see § 1), yet it
cannot be mistaken that a displacement in the conception of the Person and
preaching of Jesus, and a burdening of religious faith, could not but forthwith
set in, from which developments followed, the premises of which would be vainly
sought for in the words of the Lord (see
§§ § 3, 4). But here the question arises as to whether the
Gospel is not inseparably connected with the eschatological world-renouncing
element with which it entered into the world, so that its being is destroyed
where this is omitted. A few words may be devoted to this question. The Gospel
possesses properties which oppose every positive religion, because they
depreciate it, and these properties form the kernel of the Gospel. The
disposition which is devoted to God, humble, ardent and sincere in its love to
God and to the brethren, is as an abiding habit, law, and at the same time a
gift of the Gospel, and also finally exhausts it. This quiet, peaceful element
was at the beginning strong and vigorous, even in those who lived in the world
of ecstasy and expected the world to come. One may be named for all, Paul. He
who wrote I. Cor. XIII. and Rom. VIII. should not, in spite of all that he has
said elsewhere, be called upon to witness that the nature of the Gospel is
exhausted in its world-renouncing, ecstatic and eschatological elements, or at
least that it is so inseparable united with these as to fall along with them. He
who wrote those chapters, and the greater than he who promised the kingdom of
heaven to children and to those who were hungering and thirsting for
righteousness, he to whom tradition ascribes the words: “Rejoice not that the
spirits are subject to you. but rather rejoice that your names are written in
heaven”—both attest that the Gospel lies above the antagonisms between this
world and the next, work and retirement from the world, reason and ecstasy,
Judaism and Hellenism. And because it lies above them it may be united with
either, as it originally unfolded its powers under the ruins of the Jewish
religion. But still more; it not only can enter into union with them, it must
do so if it is other-wise the religion of the living and is itself living. It
has only one aim; that man may find God and have him as his own God, in order to
gain in him humility and patience, peace, joy and love. How it reaches this goal
through the advancing centuries, whether with the co-efficients of Judaism or
Hellenism, of renunciation of the world or of culture, of mysticism or the
doctrine of predestination, of Gnosticism or
Agnosticism, and whatever other incrustations there may yet
be which can defend the kernel, and under which alone living elements can
grow—all that belongs to the centuries. However each individual Christian may
reckon to the treasure itself the earthly vessel in which he hides his treasure;
it is the duty and the right, not only of the religious, but also of the
historical estimate to distinguish between the vessel and the treasure; for the
Gospel did not enter into the world as a positive statutory religion, and cannot
therefore have its classic manifestation in any form of its intellectual or
social types, not even in the first. It is therefore the duty of the historian
of the first century of the Church, as well as that of those which follow, not
to be content with fixing the changes of the Christian religion, but to examine
how far the new forms were capable of defending, propagating and impressing the
Gospel itself. It would probably have perished if the forms of primitive
Christianity had been scrupulously maintained in the Church; but now primitive
Christianity has perished in order that the Gospel might be preserved. To study
this progress of the development, and fix the significance of the newly
received forms for the kernel of the matter, is the last and highest task of the
historian who himself lives in his subject. He who approaches from without must
be satisfied with the general view that in the history of the Church some things
have always remained, and other things have always been changing.
Literature.—Weiss. Biblical Theology of the New Testament.
T. and T. Clark. Wittichen. Beitr. z. bibl. Theol. 3. Thle. 1864-72.
Schurer. Die Predigt Jesu in ihrem Verhaltniss z. A. T. u
z. Judenthum, 1882.
Wellhausen. Abriss der Gesch. Israels u. Juda's (Skizzen
u. Vorarbeiten) 1. Heft. 1884.
Baldensperger. Das Selbstbewusstsein Jesu im Licht der
Messianischen Hoffnungen seiner Zeit, 1888, (2 Aufl. 1891). The prize essays of
Schmoller and Issel, Ueber die Lehre vom Reiche Gottes irn N. Test. 1891
(besides Gunkel in d. Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1893. No. 2).
Wendt. Die Lehre Jesu. (The teaching of Jesus. T. and
T. Clark. English translation.)
Job. Weiss. Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes, 1892.
Bousset. Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judenthum,
1892.
C. Holtzman. Die Offenbarung durch Christus und das Neue
Testament (Zeitschr. f. Theol. und Kirche I. p. 367 ff.) The special literature
in the above work of Weiss, and in the recent works on the life of Jesus, and
the Biblical Theology of the New Testament by Beyschlag. [T. T. Clark]
§ 3. The Common Preaching concerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation of Believers.
Men had met with Jesus Christ and in him had found the
Messiah. They were convinced that God had made him to be wisdom and
righteousness, sanctification and redemption. There was no hope that did not
seem to be certified in him, no lofty idea which had not become in him a living
reality. Everything that one possessed was offered to him. He was everything
lofty that could be imagined. Everything that can be said of him was already
said in the first two generations after his appearance. Nay, more: he was felt
and known to be the ever living one Lord of the world and operative principle of
one's own life. “To me to live is Christ and to die is gain;” “He is the way, the truth and the life.” One could now for
the first time be certain of the resurrection and eternal life, and with that
certainty the sorrows of the world melted away like mist before the sun, and the
residue of this present time became as a day. This group of facts which the
history of the Gospel discloses in the world, is at the same time the highest
and most unique of all that we meet in that history: it is its seal and
distinguishes it from all other universal religions. Where in the history of
mankind can we find anything resembling this, that men who had eaten and drunk
with their Master should glorify him, not only as the revealer of God, but as
the Prince of life, as the Redeemer and Judge of the world, as the living power
of its existence, and that a choir of Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians,
wise and foolish,
should along with them immediately confess that out of the
fulness of this one man they have received grace for grace? It has been said
that Islam furnishes the unique example of a religion born in broad daylight,
but the community of Jesus was also born in the clear light of day. The darkness
connected with its birth is occasioned not only by the imperfection of the
records, but by the uniqueness of the fact, which refers us back to the
uniqueness of the Person of Jesus.
But though it certainly is the first duty of the historian
to signalise the overpowering impression made by the Person of Jesus on the
disciples, which is the basis of all further developments, it would little
become him to renounce the critical examination of all the utterances which have
been connected with that Person with the view of elucidating and glorifying it;
unless he were with Origen to conclude that Jesus was to each and all whatever
they fancied him to be for their edification. But this would destroy the
personality. Others are of opinion that we should conceive him, in the sense of
the early communities, as the second God who is one in essence with the Father,
in order to understand from this point of view all the declarations and
judgments of these communities. But this hypothesis leads to the most violent
distortion of the original declarations, and the suppression or concealment of
their most obvious features. The duty of the historian rather consists in fixing
the common features of the faith of the first two generations, in explaining
them as far as possible from the belief that Jesus is Messiah, and in seeking
analogies for the several assertions. Only a very meagre sketch can be given in
what follows. The presentation of the matter in the frame-work of the history of
dogma does not permit of more, because as noted above, § 1, the presupposition of
dogma forming itself in the Gentile Church is not the whole infinitely rich
abundance of early Christian views and perceptions. That presupposition is
simply a proclamation of the one God and of Christ transferred to Greek soil,
fixed merely in its leading features and otherwise very plastic, accompanied by
a message regarding the future, and demands for a holy life. At the
same time the Old Testament and the early Christian
Palestinian writings with the rich abundance of their contents, did certainly
exercise a silent mission in the earliest communities, till by the creation of
the canon they became a power in the Church.
1. The contents of the faith of the disciples,See the brilliant investigations of Weizsäcker (Apost.
Zeitalter. p. 36) as to the earliest significant names, self-designations, of
the disciples. The twelve were in the first place “μαθηταί” (disciples and
family-circle of Jesus, see also the significance of James and the brethren of
Jesus), then witnesses of the resurrection and therefore Apostles; very soon
there appeared beside them, even in Jerusalem, Prophets and Teachers. and the
common proclamation which united them, may be comprised in the following
propositions. Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised by the prophets. Jesus
after his death is by the Divine awakening raised to the right hand of God, and
will soon return to set up his kingdom visibly upon the earth. He who believes
in Jesus, and has been received into the community of the disciples of Jesus,
who, in virtue of a sincere change of mind, calls on God as Father, and lives
according to the commandments of Jesus, is a saint of God, and as such can be
certain of the sin-forgiving grace of God, and of a share in the future glory,
that is, of redemption.The christian preaching is very pregnantly described in
Acts XXVIII. 31, as
κηρύσσειν τὴν Βασιλείαν τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ διδάσκειν τὰ περὶ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ.
A community of Christian believers was formed within the
Jewish national community. By its organisation, the close brotherly union of its
members, it bore witness to the impression which the Person of Jesus had made on
it, and drew from faith in Jesus and hope of his return, the assurance of
eternal life, the power of believing in God the Father and of fulfilling the
lofty moral and social commands which Jesus had set forth. They knew themselves
to be the true Israel of the Messianic time (see § 1), and for that very reason
lived with all their thoughts and feelings in the future. Hence the Apocalyptic
hopes which in manifold types were current in the Judaism of the time, and which
Jesus had not demolished, continued to a great extent in force (see § 4). One
guarantee for their fulfilment was supposed to be possessed in the various
manifestations of the Spirit,On the spirit of God (of Christ) see note, p. 50. The
earliest christians felt the influence of the spirit as one coming on them from
without. which were displayed in the
members of the new communities at their entrance, with which an act of baptism
seems to have been united from the very first,It cannot be directly proved that Jesus instituted
baptism, for Matth. XXVIII. 19, is not a saying of the Lord. The reasons for
this assertion are: (1) It is only a later stage of the tradition that
represents the risen Christ as delivering speeches and giving commandments. Paul
knows nothing of it. (2) The Trinitarian formula is foreign to the mouth of
Jesus, and has not the authority in the Apostolic age which it must have had if
it had descended from Jesus himself. On the other hand, Paul knows of no other
way of receiving the Gentiles into the Christian communities than by baptism,
and it is highly probable that in the time of Paul all Jewish Christians were
also baptised. We may perhaps assume that the practice of baptism was continued
in consequence of Jesus' recognition of John the Baptist and his baptism, even
after John himself had been removed. According to John IV. 2, Jesus himself
baptised not, but his disciples under his superintendence. It is possible only
with the help of tradition to trace back to Jesus a “Sacrament of Baptism,” or
an obligation to it ex necessitate salutis, though it is credible that tradition
is correct here. Baptism in the Apostolic age was εἰς τὸ ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν, and
indeed εἰς τὸ ὄνομα (1. Cor. I. 13:
Acts XIX. 5). We cannot make out
when the formula, εἰς τὸ ὄνομα τοῦ πατρὸς, καὶ τοῦ ὑιοῦ, καὶ τοῦ ἀγίου
ρνεύματος, emerged. The formula, εἰς τὸ ὄνομα, expresses that the person
baptised is put into a relation of dependence on him into whose name he is
baptised. Paul has given baptism a relation to the death of Christ, or justly
inferred it from the εἰς ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν. The descent of the spirit on the
baptised very soon ceased to be regarded as the necessary and immediate result
of baptism; yet Paul, and probably his contemporaries also, considered the grace
of baptism and the communication of the spirit to be inseparably united. See
Scholten. Die Taufformel. 1885. Holtzman, Die Taufe im N. T. Ztsch. f. wiss.
Theol. 1879. and in their gatherings. They
were a guarantee that believers really were the ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ, those
called to be saints, and, as such, kings and priests unto GodThe designation of the Christian community as ἐκκλησία
originates perhaps with Paul, though that is by no means certain; see as to this
“name of honour,” Sohm, Kirchenrecht, Vol. I. p. 16 ff. The words of the Lord,
Matt. XVI. 18: XVIII. 17, belong to a later period. According to
Gal. I. 22,
ταῖς ἐν Χριστῷ
is added to the ταῖς ἐκκλησίαις τῆς Ἰουδαίας. The independence
of every individual Christian in and before God is strongly insisted on in the
Epistles of Paul, and in the Epistle of Peter, and in the Christian portions of
Revelations: ἡμᾶς βασιλείαν, ἱερεῖς τῷ θεῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὐτοῦ. for whom the
world, death and devil are overcome, although they still rule the course of the
world. The confession of the God of Israel as the Father of Jesus,
and of Jesus as Christ and LordJesus is regarded with adoring reverence as Messiah and
Lord, that is, these are regarded as the names which his Father has given him.
Christians are those who call on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ (1 Cor. I.
2): every creature must bow before him and confess him as Lord (Phil. II. 9):
see Deissmann on the N. T. formula “in Christo Jesu.” was sealed by the
testimony of the possession of the Spirit, which as Spirit of God assured every
individual of his call to the kingdom, united him personally with God himself
and became to him the pledge of future glory.The confession of Father, Son and Spirit is therefore the
unfolding of the belief that Jesus is the Christ; but there was no intention of
expressing by this confession the essential equality of the three persons, or
even the similar relation of the Christian to them. On the contrary, the Father
in it is regarded as the God and Father over all, the Son as revealer, redeemer
and Lord, the Spirit as a possession, principle of the new supernatural life and
of holiness. From the Epistles of Paul we perceive that the Formula, Father, Son
and Spirit, could not yet have been customary, especially in Baptism. But it was
approaching (2 Cor. XIII. 13).
2. As the Kingdom of God which was announced had not yet
visibly appeared, as the appeal to the Spirit could not be separated from the
appeal to Jesus as Messiah, and as there was actually nothing possessed but the
reality of the Person of Jesus, so, in preaching, all stress must necessarily
fall on this Person. To believe in him was the decisive fundamental
requirement, and, at first, under the presupposition of the religion of Abraham
and the Prophets, the sure guarantee of salvation. It is not surprising then to
find that in the earliest Christian preaching Jesus Christ comes before us as
frequently as the Kingdom of God in the preaching of Jesus himself. The image of
Jesus and the power which proceeded from it were the things which were really
possessed. Whatever was expected was expected only from Jesus the exalted and
returning one. The proclamation that the Kingdom of heaven is at hand must
therefore become the proclamation that Jesus is the Christ, and that in him the
revelation of God is complete. He who lays hold of Jesus lays hold in him of
the grace of God and of a full salvation. We cannot, however, call this in
itself a displacement: but as soon as the proclamation that Jesus is the Christ
ceased to be made with the same emphasis and the same meaning that it
had in his own preaching, and what sort of blessings they
were which he brought, not only was a displacement inevitable, but even a
dispossession. But every dispossession requires the given forms to be filled
with new contents. Simple as was the pure tradition of the confession: “Jesus is
the Christ,” the task of rightly appropriating and handing down entire the
peculiar contents which Jesus had given to his self-witnessing and preaching
was nevertheless great, and in its limit uncertain. Even the Jewish Christian
could perform this task only according to the measure of his spiritual
understanding and the strength of his religious life. Moreover, the external
position of the first communities in the midst of contemporaries who had
crucified and rejected Jesus, compelled them to prove, as their main duty, that
Jesus really was the Messiah who was promised. Consequently, everything united
to bring the first communities to the conviction that the proclamation of the
Gospel with which they were entrusted, resolved itself into the proclamation
that Jesus is the Christ. The
διδάσκειν τηρεῖν πάντα ὃσα ἐνετείλατο ὀ Ἰησοῦς
(teaching to observe all that Jesus had commanded), a thing of heart and life, could
not lead to reflection in the same degree, as the
διδάσκειν ὅτι οὖτὸς ἐστιν ὁ χριστὸς τοῦ θεοῦ
(teaching that this is the Christ of God); for a community which
possesses the Spirit does not reflect on whether its conception is right, but,
especially a missionary community, on what the certainty of its faith rests.
The proclamation of Jesus as the Christ, though rooted
entirely in the Old Testament, took its start from the exaltation of Jesus,
which again resulted from his suffering and death. The proof that the entire Old
Testament points to him, and that his person, his deeds and his destiny are the
actual and precise fulfilment of the Old Testament predictions, was the foremost
interest of believers, so far as they at all looked backwards. This proof was
not used in the first place for the purpose of making the meaning and value of
the Messianic work of Jesus more intelligible, of which it did not seem to be in
much need, but to confirm the Messiahship of Jesus. Still, points of view for
contemplating the Person and work of Jesus could not fail to be got from the
words of the Prophets.
The fundamental conception of Jesus dominating
everything was, according to the Old Testament, that God had chosen him and
through him the Church. God had chosen him and made him to be both Lord and
Christ. He had made over to him the work of setting up the Kingdom, and had led
him through death and resurrection to a supramundane position of sovereignty, in
which he would soon visibly appear and bring about the end. The hope of Christ's
speedy return was the most important article in the “Christology,” inasmuch as
his work was regarded as only reaching its conclusion by that return. It was the
most difficult, inasmuch as the Old Testament contained nothing of a second
advent of Messiah. Belief in the second advent became the specific Christian
belief.
But the searching in the scriptures of the Old Testament,
that is, in the prophetic texts, had already, in estimating the Person and
dignity of Christ, given an important impulse towards transcending the
frame-work of the idea of the theocracy completed solely in and for Israel.
Moreover, belief in the exaltation of Christ to the right hand of God, caused
men to form a corresponding idea of the beginning of his existence. The
missionary work among the Gentiles, so soon begun and so rich in results, threw
a new light on the range of Christ's purpose and work, and led to the
consideration of its significance for the whole human race. Finally, the
self-testimony of Jesus summoned them to ponder his relation to God the Father,
with the presuppositions of that relation, and to give it expression in
intelligible statements. Speculation had already begun on these four points in
the Apostolic age, and had resulted in very different utterances as to the
Person and dignity of Jesus (§ 4).The Christological utterances which are found in the New
Testament writings, so far as they explain and paraphrase the confession of
Jesus as the Christ and the Lord, may be almost entirely deduced from one or
other of the four points mentioned in the text. But we must at the same time
insist that these declarations were meant to be explanations of the confession
that “Jesus is the Lord,” which of course included the recognition that Jesus by
the resurrection became a heavenly being (see Weizsäcker in above mentioned
work, p. 110). The solemn protestation of Paul, I Cor. XII. 3;
διὸ γνωρίζω ὑμῖν ὅτι οὐδεις ἐν πνεύματι
θεοῦ λαλῶν λέγει, ΑΝΑΘΕΜΑ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ, καὶ
οὐδεις δύναται εἰπεῖν, ΚΥΡΙΟΣ ΙΗΣΟΥΣ εἰ μὴ ἐν πνεύματι
ἁγίῳ (cf. Rom. X. 9),
shews that he who acknowledged Jesus as the Lord, and accordingly believed in
the resurrection of Jesus, was regarded as a full-born Christian. It undoubtedly excludes from the Apostolic
age the independent authority of any christological dogma besides that
confession and the worship of Christ connected with it. It is worth notice,
however, that those early Christian men who recognised Christianity as the
vanquishing of the Old Testament religion (Paul, the Author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews, John) all held that Christ was a being who had come down from
heaven.
3. Since Jesus had appeared and was believed on as the
Messiah promised by the Prophets, the aim and contents of his mission seemed
already to be therewith stated with sufficient clearness. Further, as the work
of Christ was not yet completed, the view of those contemplating it was, above
all, turned to the future. But in virtue of express words of Jesus, and in the
consciousness of having received the Spirit of God, one was already certain of
the forgiveness of sin dispensed by God, of righteousness before him, of the
full knowledge of the Divine will, and of the call to the future Kingdom as a
present possession. In the procuring of these blessings not a few perceived with
certainty the results of the first advent of Messiah, that is, his work. This
work might be seen in the whole activity of Christ. But as the forgiveness of
sins might be conceived as the blessing of salvation which included with
certainty every other blessing, as Jesus had put his death in express relation
with this blessing, and as the fact of this death so mysterious and offensive
required a special explanation, there appeared in the foreground from the very
beginning the confession, in I Cor. XV. 3:
παρέδωκα ὑμῖν ἐν πρώτοις, ὁ καὶ παρέλαβον,
ὅτι Χριστὸς ἀπέθανεν ὑπὲρ
τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν.
“I delivered unto you first of all that which I also
received, that Christ died for our sins.” Not only Paul, for whom, in virtue of
his special reflections and experiences, the cross of Christ had become the
central point of all knowledge, but also the majority of believers, must have
regarded the preaching of the death of the Lord as an essential article, in the
preaching of Christ,Compare in their fundamental features the common
declarations about the saving value of the death of Christ in Paul, in the
johannine writings, in 1st Peter, in the Epistle to the Hebrews, and in the
Christian portions of the book of Revelation:
Τῷ ἀγαπῶνί ἡμᾶς καὶ λύσαντι
ἡμᾶς ἐκ τοῦ ἁμαρτιῶν
ἐν τῷ αἵματι αὐτῷ, αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα:
Compare the reference to Isaiah LIII. and the Passover lamb:
the utterances about the “lamb” generally in the early
writings: see Westcott, The Epistles of John, p. 34 f.: The idea of the blood of
Christ in the New Testament. seeing that, as a rule, they placed
it somehow under the aspect of a sacrifice offered to God.
Still, there were very different conceptions of the value of the death as a
means of procuring salvation, and there may have been many who were satisfied
with basing its necessity on the fact that it had been predicted,
(ἀπέθανεν κατὰ τὰς γραφάς:
“he died for our sins according to the scriptures”), while
their real religious interests were entirely centered in the future glory to be
procured by Christ. But it must have been of greater significance for the
following period that, from the first, a short account of the destiny of Jesus
lay at the basis of all preaching about him (see a part of this in
1. Cor. XV.
1-11). Those articles in which the identity of the Christ who had appeared with
the Christ who had been promised stood out with special clearness, must have
been taken up into this report, as well as those which transcended the common
expectations of Messiah, which for that very reason appeared of special
importance, viz., his death and resurrection. In putting together this report,
there was no intention of describing the “work” of Christ. But after the
interest which occasioned it had been obscured, and had given place to other
interests, the customary preaching of those articles must have led men to see in
them Christ's real performance, his “work.”This of course could not take place otherwise than by
reflecting on its significance. But a dislocation was already completed as soon
as it was isolated and separated from the whole of Jesus, or even from his
future activity. Reflection on the meaning or the causes of particular facts
might easily, in virtue of that isolation, issue in entirely new conceptions.
4. The firm confidence of the disciples in Jesus was rooted
in the belief that he did not abide in death, but was raised by God. That Christ
had risen was, in virtue of what they had experienced in him, certainly only
after they had seen him, just as sure as the fact of his death, and became the
main article of their preaching about him.See the discriminating statements of Weizsäcker,
“Apostolic Age,” p. 1 f., especially as to the significance of Peter as first
witness of the resurrection. Cf. 1 Cor. XV. 5 with Luke XXIV. 34: also the
fragment of the “Gospel of Peter” which unfortunately breaks off at the point
where one expects the appearance of the Lord to Peter. But in the
message of the risen Lord was contained not only the
conviction that he lives again, and now lives for ever, but also the assurance
that his people will rise in like manner and live eternally. Consequently, the
resurrection of Jesus became the sure pledge of the resurrection of all
believers, that is of their real personal resurrection. No one at the beginning
thought of a mere immortality of the spirit, not even those who assumed the
perishableness of man's sensuous nature. In conformity with the uncertainty
which yet adhered to the idea of resurrection in Jewish hopes and speculations,
the concrete notions of it in the Christian communities were also fluctuating.
But this could not affect the certainty of the conviction that the Lord would
raise his people from death. This conviction, whose reverse side is the fear of
that God who casts into hell, has become the mightiest power through which the
Gospel has won humanity.It is often said that Christianity rests on the belief in
the resurrection of Christ. This may be correct, if it is first declared who
this Jesus Christ is, and what his life signifies. But when it appears as a
naked report to which one must above all submit, and when in addition, as often
happens, it is supplemented by the assertion that the resurrection of Christ is
the most certain fact in the history of the world, one does not know whether he
should marvel more at its thoughtlessness or its unbelief. We do not need to
have faith in a fact, and that which requires religious belief, that is, trust
in God, can never be a fact which would hold good apart from that belief. The
historical question and the question of faith must therefore be clearly
distinguished here. The following points are historically certain. (1) That none
of Christ's opponents saw him after his death. (2) That the disciples were convinced that they had seen
him soon after his death. (3) That the succession and number of those appearances can
no longer be ascertained with certainty. (4) That the disciples and Paul were
conscious of having seen Christ not in the crucified earthly body, but in
heavenly glory—even the later incredible accounts of the appearances of Christ,
which strongly emphasise the reality of the body, speak at the same time of such
a body as can pass through closed doors, which certainly is not an earthly body.
(5) That Paul does not compare the manifestation of Christ given to him with any
of his later visions, but, on the other hand, describes it in the words (Gal. I.
15: ὅτε εὐδόκησεν ὁ θεὸς
ἀποκαλύψαι τὸν ὑιὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοί, and yet
puts it on a level with the appearances which the earlier Apostles had seen.
But, as even the empty grave on the third day can by no means be regarded as a
certain historical fact, because it appears united in the accounts with manifest
legendary features, and further because it is directly excluded by the way in
which Paul has portrayed the resurrection 1 Cor. XV. it follows: (1) That every
conception which represents the resurrection of Christ as a simple reanimation
of his mortal body, is far from the original conception, and (2) that the
question generally as to whether Jesus has risen, can have
no existence for any one who looks at it apart from the contents and worth of the Person of Jesus. For the mere fact that friends and adherents of Jesus were convinced that they had seen him, especially when they themselves explain that he appeared to them in heavenly glory, gives, to those who are in earnest about fixing historical facts, not the least cause for the assumption that Jesus did not continue in the grave.
History is therefore at first unable to bring any succour to faith here. However firm may have been the faith of the disciples in the appearances of Jesus in their midst, and it was firm, to believe in appearances which others have had is a frivolity which is always revenged by rising doubts. But history is still of service to faith: it limits its scope and therewith shews the province to which it belongs. The question which history leaves to faith is this: Was Jesus Christ swallowed up of death, or did he pass through suffering and the cross to glory, that is, to life, power and honour? The disciples would have been convinced of that in the sense in which Jesus meant them to understand it,
though they had not seen him in glory (a consciousness of this is found in Luke XXIV. 26:
οὐχὶ ταῦτα ἔδει
παθεῖν τὸν Χριστὸν καί
εὐσελθεῖν εἰς τὴν δόξαν
αὐτοῦ;
and Joh. XX. 29:
ὅτι εώρακας με πεπίστευκας, μακαριοι
οἱ μὴ ἰδοντες καὶ πιστέυσαντες)
and we might probably add, that no appearances of the Lord could permanently have convinced them of his life, if they had not possessed in their hearts the impression of his Person. Faith in the eternal life of Christ and in our own eternal life is not the condition of becoming a disciple of Jesus, but is the final confession of discipleship. Faith has by no means to do with the knowledge of the form in which Jesus lives, but only with the conviction that he is the living Lord The determination of the form was immediately dependent on the most varied general ideas of the future life, resurrection, restoration, and glorification of the body, which were current at the time.
The idea of the rising again of the body of Jesus appeared comparatively
early, because it was this hope which animated wide circles
of pious people for their own future. Faith in Jesus, the living Lord, in spite
of the death on the cross, cannot be generated by proofs of reason or authority,
but only to-day in the same way as Paul has confessed of himself:
ὅτε εὐδόκησεν ὁ θεὸς ἀποκαλύψσαι
τὸν ὑιὸν αὐτοῦ ἐν ἐμοὶ. The conviction of having seen the
Lord was no doubt of the greatest importance for the disciples and made them
Evangelists: but what they saw cannot at first help us. It can only then obtain
significance for us when we have gained that confidence in the Lord which Peter
has expressed in Mark VIII. 29. The Christian even to-day confesses with Paul:
εἰ ἐν τῇ ζωῇ ταύτὴ ἐν
χριστῷ ἡλπικότες ἐσμὲν μόνον, ἐλεεινότεροι πάντων ἀνθρώπων ἐσμέν.
He believes in a future life for himself with God because he
believes that Christ lives. That is the peculiarity and paradox of Christian
faith. But these are not convictions that can be common and matter of course to
a deep feeling and earnest thinking being standing amid nature and death, but
can only be possessed by those who live with their whole hearts and minds in
God, and even they need the prayer: “I believe, help thou mine unbelief.” To act
as if faith in eternal life and in the living Christ was the simplest thing in
the world, or a dogma to which one has just to submit, is irreligious. The whole
question about the resurrection of Christ, its mode and its significance, has
thereby been so thoroughly confused in later Christendom, that we are in the
habit of considering eternal life as certain, even apart from Christ. That, at
any rate, is not Christian. It is Christian to pray that God would give the
Spirit to make us strong to overcome the feelings and the doubts of nature, and
create belief in an eternal life through the experience of “dying to live.”
Where this faith, obtained in this way, exists, it has always been supported by
the conviction that the Man lives who brought life and immortality to light. To
hold fast this faith is the goal of life, for only what we consciously strive
for is in this matter our own. What we think we possess is very soon lost.
5. After the appearance of Paul, the earliest communities
were greatly exercised by the question as to how believers obtain the
righteousness which they possess, and what significance a precise observance of
the law of the Fathers may have in connection with it. While some would hear of
no change in the regulations and conceptions which had hitherto existed, and
regarded the bestowal of righteousness by God as possible only on condition of a
strict observance of the law, others taught that Jesus as Messiah had procured
righteousness for his people, had fulfilled the law once for all, and had
founded a new covenant, either in opposition to the old, or as a stage above it.
Paul especially saw in the death of Christ the end of the law, and deduced
righteousness solely from faith in Christ, and sought to prove from the Old
Testament itself, by means of historical speculation, the merely temporary
validity of the law and therewith the abrogation of the Old
Testament religion. Others, and this view, which is not
everywhere to be explained by Alexandrian influences (see above p. 72 f.), is
not foreign to Paul, distinguished between spirit and letter in the Mosaic law,
giving to everything a spiritual significance, and in this sense holding that
the whole law as νόμος τνευματικός was binding. The question whether
righteousness comes from the works of the law or from faith, was displaced by
this conception, and therefore remained in its deepest grounds unsolved, or was
decided in the sense of a spiritualised legalism. But the detachment of
Christianity from the political forms of the Jewish religion, and from
sacrificial worship, was also completed by the conception, although it was
regarded as identical with the Old Testament religion rightly understood. The
surprising results of the direct mission to the Gentiles would seem to have
first called forth those controversies (but see Stephen) and given them the
highest significance. The fact that one section of Jewish
Christians, and even some of the Apostles at length recognised the right of the
Gentile Christians to be Christians without first becoming Jews, is the
clearest proof that what was above all prized was faith in Christ and surrender
to him as the Saviour. In agreeing to the direct mission to the Gentiles the
earliest Christians, while they themselves observed the law, broke up the
national religion of Israel, and gave expression to the conviction that Jesus
was not only the Messiah of his people, but the redeemer of humanity.Weizsäcker (Apostolic Age, p. 73) says very justly: “The
rising of Judaism against believers put them on their own feet. They saw
themselves for the first time persecuted in the name of the law, and therewith
for the first time it must have become clear to them, that in reality the law
was no longer the same to them as to the others. Their hope is the coming
kingdom of heaven, in which it is not the law, but their Master from whom they
expect salvation. Everything connected with salvation is in him. But we should
not investigate the conditions of the faith of that early period, as though the
question had been laid before the Apostles whether they could have part in the
Kingdom of heaven without circumcision, or whether it could be obtained by
faith in Jesus, with or without the observance of the law. Such questions had no
existence for them either practically or as questions of the school. But though
they were Jews, and the law which even their Master had not abolished, was for
them a matter of course, that did not exclude a change of inner position towards
it, through faith in their Master and hope of the Kingdom. There is an inner
freedom which can grow up along-side of all the constraints of birth, custom,
prejudice, and piety. But this only comes into consciousness, when a demand is
made on it which wounds it, or when it is assailed on account of an inference
drawn not by its own consciousness, but only by its opponents. The
establishment of the universal character of the Gospel, that is, of Christianity
as a religion for the world, became now, however, a problem, the solution of
which, as given by Paul, but few were able to understand or make their own.
6. In the conviction that salvation is entirely bound up
with faith in Jesus Christ, Christendom gained the consciousness of being a new
creation of God. But while the sense of being the true Israel was thereby, at
the same time, held fast, there followed, on the one hand, entirely new
historical perspectives, and on the other, deep problems which demanded
solution. As a new creation of God, ἡ ἐκκλησία τοῦ θεοῦ, the community was
conscious of having been chosen by God in Jesus before the foundation of the
world. In the conviction of being the true Israel, it claimed for itself the whole
historical development recorded in the Old Testament,
convinced that all the divine activity there recorded had the new community in
view. The great question which was to find very different answers, was how, in
accordance with this view, the Jewish nation, so far as it had not recognised
Jesus as Messiah, should be judged. The detachment of Christianity from Judaism
was the most important preliminary condition, and therefore the most important
preparation, for the Mission among the Gentile nations, and for union with the
Greek spirit.
Supplement 1.—Renan and others go too far when they say
that Paul alone has the glory of freeing Christianity from the fetters of
Judaism. Certainly the great Apostle could say in this connection also:
περισσότερον αὐτῶν πάντων ἐκοπίασα, but there were others beside him
who, in the power of the Gospel, transcended the limits of Judaism. Christian
communities, it may now be considered certain, had arisen in the empire, in Rome
for example, which were essentially free from the law without being in any way
determined by Paul's preaching. It was Paul's merit that he clearly formulated
the great question, established the universalism of Christianity in a peculiar
manner, and yet in doing so held fast the character of Christianity as a
positive religion, as distinguished from Philosophy and Moralism. But the later
development presupposes neither his clear formulation nor his peculiar
establishment of universalism, but only the universalism itself.
Supplement 2.—The dependence of the Pauline Theology on the
Old Testament or on Judaism is overlooked in the traditional contrasting of
Paulinism and Jewish Christianity, in which Paulinism is made equivalent to
Gentile Christianity. This theology, as we might a priori suppose, could, apart
from individual exceptions, be intelligible as a whole to born Jews, if to any,
for its doctrinal presuppositions were strictly Pharisaic, and its boldness in criticising the Old Testament, rejecting and asserting the law in its
historical sense, could be as little congenial to the Gentile Christians as its
piety towards the Jewish people. This judgment is confirmed by a glance at the
fate of Pauline Theology in the 120 years that followed. Marcion was the only
Gentile Christian who understood Panl, and even he misunderstood him: the rest never got beyond
the appropriation of particular Pauline sayings, and
exhibited no comprehension especially of the theology of the Apostle, so far as
in it the universalism of Christianity as a religion is proved, even without
recourse to Moralism and without putting a new construction on the Old
Testament religion. It follows from this, however, that the scheme “Jewish
Christianity”—“Gentile Christianity” is insufficient. We must rather, in the
Apostolic age, at least at its close, distinguish four main tendencies that may
have crossed each other here and there,Only one of these four tendencies—the Pauline, with the
Epistle to the Hebrews and the Johannine writings which are related to
Paulinism—has seen in the Gospel the establishment of a new religion. The rest
identified it with Judaism made perfect, or with the Old Testament religion
rightly understood. But Paul, in connecting Christianity with the promise given
to Abraham, passing thus beyond the actual Old Testament religion, has not only
given it a historical foundation, but also claimed for the Father of the Jewish
nation a unique significance for Christianity. As to the tendencies named 1 and
2, see Book I. chap. 6. (within which again different shades
appear). (1) The Gospel has to do with the people of Israel, and with the
Gentile world only on the condition that believers attach themselves to the
people of Israel. The punctilious observance of the law is still necessary and
the condition on which the messianic salvation is bestowed (particularism and
legalism, in practice and in principle, which, however, was not to cripple the
obligation to prosecute the work of the Mission). (2) The Gospel has to do with
Jews and Gentiles: the first, as believers in Christ, are under obligation as
before to observe the law, the latter are not; but for that reason they cannot
on earth fuse into one community with the believing Jews. Very different
judgments in details were possible on this stand-point; but the bestowal of
salvation could no longer be thought of as depending simply on the keeping of
the ceremonial commandments of the lawIt is clear from Gal. II. 11 ff. that Peter then and for
long before occupied in principle the stand-point of Paul: see the judicious
remarks of Weizsäcker in the book mentioned above, p. 75 f. (universalism in principle,
particularism in practice; the prerogative of Israel being to some extent
clung to). (3) The Gospel has to do with both Jews and Gentiles; no one is any
longer under obligation to observe
the law; for the law is abolished (or fulfilled), and the
salvation which Christ's death has procured is appropriated by faith. The law
(that is the Old Testament religion) in its literal sense is of divine origin,
but was intended from the first only for a definite epoch of history. The
prerogative of Israel remains, and is shewn in the fact that salvation was first
offered to the Jews, and it will be shewn again at the end of all history. That
prerogative refers to the nation as a whole, and has nothing to do with the
question of the salvation of individuals (Paulinism: universalism in principle
and in practice, and Antinomianism in virtue of the recognition of a merely
temporary validity of the whole law; breach with the traditional religion of
Israel; recognition of the prerogative of the people of Israel; the clinging
to the prerogative of the people of Israel was not, however, necessary on this
stand-point: see the epistle to the Hebrews and the Gospel of John). (4) The
Gospel has to do with Jews and Gentiles: no one need therefore be under
obligation to observe the ceremonial commandments and sacrificial worship,
because these commandments themselves are only the wrappings or moral and
spiritual commandments which the Gospel has set forth as fulfilled in a more
perfect form (universalism in principle and in practice in virtue of a
neutralising of the distinction between law and Gospel, old and new;
spiritualising and universalising of the law).These four tendencies were represented in the Apostolic
age by those who had been born and trained in Judaism, and they were
collectively transplanted into Greek territory. But we cannot be sure that the
third of the above tendencies found intelligent and independent representatives
in this domain, as there is no certain evidence of it. Only one who had really
been subject to it, and therefore understood it, could venture on a criticism of
the Old Testament religion. Still, it may be noted that the majority of
non-Jewish converts in the Apostolic age had probably come to know the Old
Testament beforehand—not always the Jewish religion, (see Havet, Le Christianisme, T. IV. p.
120: “Je ne sais s'il y est entré, du vivant de Paul,
un seul païen: je veux dire un homme, qui ne connût pas déjà, avant d'y entrer,
le judaism et la Bible”). These indications will shew how mistaken and
misleading it is to express the different tendencies in the Apostolic age and
the period closely following by the designations “Jewish Christianity—Gentile
Christianity.” Short watchwords are so little appropriate here that one might
even with some justice reverse the usual conception, and maintain that what is
usually understood by Gentile Christianity (criticism of the Old Testament
religion) was possible only within Judaism, while that which is frequently
called Jewish Christianity is rather a conception which must have readily suggested
itself to born Gentiles superficially acquainted with the Old Testament.
Supplement 3.—The appearance of Paul is the most
important fact in the history of the Apostolic age. It is impossible to give in
a few sentences an abstract of his theology and work; and the insertion here of
a detailed account is forbidden, not only by the external limits, but by the aim
of this investigation. For, as already indicated (§ 1), the doctrinal
formation in the Gentile Church is not connected with the whole phenomenon of
the Pauline theology, but only with certain leading thoughts which were only in
part peculiar to the Apostle. His most peculiar thoughts acted on the
development of Ecclesiastical doctrine only by way of occasional stimulus. We
can find room here only for a few general outlines.The first edition of this volume could not appeal to
Weizsäcker's work, Das Apostolisehe Zeitalter der Christlichen Kirche, 1886,
[second edition translated in this series]. The author is now in the happy
position of being able to refer the readers of his imperfect sketch to this
excellent presentation, the strength of which lies in the delineation of
Paulinism in its relation to the early Church, and to early Christian theology
(p. 79-172). The truth of Weizsäcker's expositions of the inner relations (p. 85
f.), is but little affected by his assumptions concerning the outer relations,
which I cannot everywhere regard as just. (The work of Weizsäcker as a whole
is, in my opinion, the most important work on Church history we have received
since Ritschl's “Entstehung der alt-katholischen Kirche.” 2 Aufl. 1857.)
(1) The inner conviction that Christ had revealed himself
to him, that the Gospel was the message of the crucified and risen Christ, and
that God had called him to proclaim that message to the world, was the power and
the secret of his personality and his activity. These three elements were a
unity in the consciousness of Paul, constituting his conversion and determining
his after-life. (2) In this conviction he knew himself to be a new creature, and
so vivid was this knowledge that he was constrained to become a Jew to the Jews,
and a Greek to the Greeks in order to gain them. (3) The crucified and risen
Christ became the central point of his theology, and not only the central point,
but the one source and ruling principle. The Christ was not in his estimation
Jesus of Nazareth now exalted, but the mighty personal spiritual being in divine
form who had for a time
humbled himself, and who as Spirit has broken up the world
of law, sin and death, and continues to overcome them in believers. (4) Theology
therefore was to him, looking forwards, the doctrine of the liberating power of
the Spirit (of Christ) in all the concrete relations of human life and need. The
Christ who has already overcome law, sin and death, lives as Spirit, and through
his Spirit lives in believers, who for that very reason know him not after the
flesh. He is a creative power of life to those who receive him in faith in his
redeeming death upon the cross, that is to say, to those who are justified. The
life in the Spirit, which results from union with Christ, will at last reveal
itself also in the body (not in the flesh). (5) Looking backwards, theology was
to Paul a doctrine of the law and of its abrogation; or more accurately, a
description of the old system before Christ in the light of the Gospel, and the
proof that it was destroyed by Christ. The scriptural proof, even here, is only
a superadded support to inner considerations which move entirely within the
thought that that which is abrogated has already had its due, by having its
whole strength made manifest that it might then be annulled,—the law, the flesh
of sin, death: by the law the law is destroyed, sin is abolished in sinful
flesh, death is destroyed by death. (6) The historical view which followed from
this begins, as regards Christ, with Adam and Abraham; as regards the law, with
Moses. It closes, as regards Christ, with the prospect of a time when he shall
have put all enemies beneath his feet, when God will be all in all; as regards
Moses and the promises given to the Jewish nation, with the prospect of a time
when all Israel will be saved. (7) Paul's doctrine of Christ starts from the
final confession of the primitive Church, that Christ is with the Father as a
heavenly being and as Lord of the living and the dead. Though Paul must have
accurately known the proclamation concerning the historical Christ, his theology
in the strict sense of the word does not revert to it: but springing over the
historical, it begins with the pre-existent Christ (the Man from heaven), whose
moral deed it was to assume the flesh in self-denying love, in order to break
for all men the powers of nature and
the doom of death. But he has pointed to the words and
example of the historical Christ in order to rule the life
in the Spirit. (8) Deductions, proofs, and perhaps also
conceptions, which in point of form betray the theology of the Pharisaic schools, were forced from the Apostle by
Christian opponents, who would only grant a place to the message of
the crucified Christ beside the δικαιοσύνη ἐξ
ἔργων. Both as an exegete and as a typologist he appears as a disciple of the Pharisees. But his dialectic about law, circumcision
and sacrifice, does not form the kernel of his religious mode
of thought, though, on the other hand, it was unquestionably his very Pharisaism which qualified him for becoming what he was. Pharisaism embraced nearly everything lofty which Judaism apart from Christ at all possessed, and its
doctrine of providence, its energetic insistance on making manifest
the religious contrasts, its Messianic expectations, its
doctrines of sin and predestination, were conditions for the genesis of a
religious and Christian character such as Paul.Kabisch, Die Eschatologie des Paulus, 1893, has shewn how
strongly the eschatology of Paul was influenced by the later Pharisaic Judaism.
He has also called attention to the close connection between Paul's
doctrine of sin and the fall, and that of the Rabbis. This first Christian of the
second generation is the highest product of the Jewish spirit under the creative
power of the Spirit of Christ. Pharisaism had fulfilled its mission for the
world when it produced this man. (9) But Hellenism also had a share in the
making of Paul, a fact which does not conflict with his Pharisaic origin, but is
partly given with it. In spite of all its exclusiveness the desire for making
proselytes especially in the Diaspora, was in the blood of Pharisaism. Paul
continued the old movement in a new way, and he was qualified for his work among
the Greeks by an accurate knowledge of the Greek translation of the Old
Testament, by considerable dexterity in the use of the Greek language, and by a
growing insight into the spiritual life of the Greeks. But the peculiarity of his Gospel as a message from the
Spirit of Christ, which was equally near to and equally distant from every
religious and moral mode of thought
among the nations of the world, signified much more than
all this. This Gospel—who can say whether Hellenism had already a share in its
conception—required that the missionary to the Greeks should become a Greek and
that believers should come to know, “all things are yours, and ye are
Christ's.” Paul, as no doubt other missionaries besides him, connected the
preaching of Christ with the Greek mode of thought; he even employed
philosophic doctrines of the Greeks as presuppositions in his apologetic,Some of the Church Fathers (see Socr. H. E. III. 16) have
attributed to Paul an accurate knowledge of Greek literature and philosophy: but
that cannot be proved. The references of Heinrici (2 Kor -Brief. p. 537-604) are
worthy of our best thanks; but no certain judgment can be formed about the
measure of the Apostles' Greek culture, so long as we do not know how great was
the extent of spiritual ideas which were already precipitated in the speech of
the time. and
therewith prepared the way for the introduction of the Gospel to the Græco-Roman
world of thought. But, in my opinion, he has nowhere allowed that world of
thought to influence his doctrine of salvation. This doctrine, however, was so
fashioned in its practical aims that it was not necessary to become a Jew in
order to appropriate it. (10) Yet we cannot speak of any total effect of
Paulinism, as there was no such thing. The abundance of its details was too
great and the greatness of its simplicity too powerful, its hope of the future
too vivid, its doctrine of the law too difficult, its summons to a new life in
the spirit too mighty to be comprehended and adhered to even by those
communities which Paul himself had founded. What they did comprehend was its
Monotheism, its universalism, its redemption, its eternal life, its asceticism;
but all this was otherwise combined than by Paul. The style became Hellenic, and
the element of a new kind of knowledge from the very first, as in the Church of
Corinth, seems to have been the ruling one. The Pauline doctrine of the
incarnate heavenly Man was indeed apprehended; it fell in with Greek notions,
although it meant something very different from the notions which Greeks had
been able to form of it.
Supplement 4.—What we justly prize above all else in
the New Testament is that it is a union of the three groups,
Synoptic Gospels, Pauline Epistles,The epistle to the Hebrews and the first epistle of
Peter, as well as the Pastoral epistles belong to the Pauline circle; they are
of the greatest value because they shew that certain fundamental features of
Pauline theology took effect after-wards in an original way, or received
independent parallels, and because they prove that the cosmic Christology of
Paul made the greatest impression and was continued. In Christology, the epistle
to the Ephesians in particular, leads directly from Paul to the pneumatic
Christology of the post-apostolic period. Its non-genuineness is by no means
certain to me. and Johannine
writings, in which are expressed the richest contents of the earliest history of
the Gospel. In the Synodic Gospels and the epistles of Paul are represented two
types of preaching the Gospel which mutually supplement each other. The
subsequent history is dependent on both, and would have been other than it is
had not both existed alongside of each other. On the other hand, the peculiar
and lofty conception of Christ and of the Gospel, which stands out in the
writings of John, has directly exercised no demonstrable influence on the
succeeding development—with the exception of one peculiar movement, the
Montanistic which, however, does not rest on a true understanding of these
writings—and indeed partly for the same reason that has prevented the Pauline
theology as a whole from having such an influence. What is given in these
writings is a criticism of the Old Testament as religion, or the independence of
the Christian religion, in virtue of an accurate knowledge of the Old Testament
through development of its hidden germs. The Old Testament stage of religion is
really transcended and over-come in the Johannine Christianity, just as in
Paulinism, and in the theology of the epistle to the Hebrews. “The circle of
disciples who appropriated this characterisation of Jesus is,” says Weizsäcke, “a revived Christ-party in the higher sense.” But this transcending of the Old
Testament religion was the very thing that was unintelligible, because there
were few ripe for such a conception. Moreover, the origin of the Johannine
writings is, from the stand-point of a history of literature and dogma, the most
marvellous enigma which the early history of Christianity presents: Here we have
portrayed a Christ who clothes the indescribable with words, and proclaims as
his own self-testimony what his disciples have experienced
in him, a speaking, acting, Pauline Christ, walking on the
earth, far more human than the Christ of Paul and yet far more Divine, an
abundance of allusions to the historical Jesus, and at the same time the most
sovereign treatment of the history. One divines that the Gospel can find no
loftier expression than John XVII.: one feels that Christ himself put these
words into the mouth of the disciple, who gives them back to him, but word and
thing, history and doctrine are surrounded by a bright cloud of the
suprahistorical. It is easy to shew that this Gospel could as little have been
written without Hellenism, as Luther's treatise on the freedom of a Christian
man could have been written without the “Deutsche Theologie.” But the reference
to Philo and Hellenism is by no means sufficient here, as it does not
satisfactorily explain even one of the external aspects of the problem. The
elements operative in the Johannine theology were not Greek Theologoumena—even
the Logos has little more in common with that of Philo than the name, and its
mention at the be-ginning of the book is a mystery, not the solution of oneIn the Ztschr. für Theol. und Kirche, II. p. 1.89 if. I
have discussed the relation of the prologue of the fourth Gospel to the whole
work and endeavoured to prove the following: “The prologue of the Gospel is not
the key to its comprehension. It begins with a well-known great object, the
Logos, re-adapts and transforms it—implicitly opposing false Christologies—in
order to substitute for it Jesus Christ, the μονογενὴς θέος, or in order to unveil it as this Jesus Christ. The idea
of the Logos is allowed to fall from the moment that this takes place.” The
author continues to narrate of Jesus only with the view of establishing the
belief that he is the Messiah, the Son of God. This faith has for its main
article the recognition that Jesus is descended from God and from heaven; but
the author is far from endeavouring to work out this recognition from
cosmological, philosophical considerations. According to the Evangelist, Jesus
proves himself to be the Messiah, the Son of God, in virtue of his
self-testimony, and because he has brought a full knowledge of God and
life—purely supernatural divine blessings. (Cf. besides, and partly in
opposition, Holtzmann, i. d. Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol. 1893.) The author's
peculiar world of theological ideas, is not, however, so entirely isolated in
the early Christian literature as appears on the first impression. If, as is
probable, the Ignatian Epistles are independent of the Gospel of John, further,
the Supper prayer in the Didache, finally, certain mystic theological phrases in
the Epistle of Barnabas, in the second epistle of Clement, and in Hermas: a
complex of Theologoumena may be put together, which reaches back to the
primitive period of the Church, and may be conceived as the general ground for
the theology of John. This complex has on its side a close connection with the
final development of the Jewish Hagiographic literature under Greek influence.—but
the Apostolic testimony concerning Christ has
created from the old faith of Psalmists and Prophets, a new faith in a man who
lived with the disciples of Jesus among the Greeks. For that very reason, in
spite of his abrupt Anti Judaism, we must without doubt regard the Author as a
born Jew.
Supplement 5.—The authorities to which the Christian
communities were subjected in faith and life, were these: (1) The Old Testament
interpreted in the Christian sense. (2) The tradition of the Messianic history
of Jesus. (3) The words of the Lord: see the epistles of Paul, especially I
Corinthians. But every writing which was proved to have been given by the Spirit
has also to be regarded as an authority, and every tested Christian Prophet and
Teacher inspired by the Spirit could claim that his words be received and
regarded as the words of God. Moreover, the twelve whom Jesus had chosen had a
special authority, and Paul claimed a similiar authority for himself (διατάξεις
τῶν ἀποστόλων). Consequently, there were numerous courts of appeal in
the earliest period of Christendom, of diverse kinds and by no means strictly
defined. In the manifold gifts of the spirit was given a fluid element
indefinable in its range and scope, an element which guaranteed freedom of
development, but which also threatened to lead the enthusiastic communities to
extravagance.
Literature.—Weiss, Biblical Theology of the New
Testament, 1884. Beyschlag, New Testament Theology, 1892. Ritschl, Entstehung
der Alt-Katholischen Kirche, 2 Edit. 1857. Reuss, History of Christian Theology
in the Apostolic Age, 1864. Baur, The Apostle Paul, 1866. Holsten, Zum
Evangelium des Paulus und Petrus, 1868. Pfleiderer, Paulinism, 1873: also, Das
Urchristenthum, 1887. Schenkel, Das Christusbild der Apostel, 1879. Renan,
Origins of Christianity, Vols. II.—IV. Havet, Le Christianisme et ses orig. T.
IV. 1884. Lechler, The Apostolic and Post-Apostolic Age, 1885. Weizsäcker, The
Apostolic Age, 1892. Hatch, Article “Paul” in the Encyclopædia Britannica.
Everett, The Gospel of Paul. Boston, 1893. On the origin and earliest history of
the Christian proofs from prophecy, see my “Texte und Unters. z. Gesch. der
Alt-Christl.” Lit. I. 3, p. 56 f.
§ 4. The Current Exposition of the Old Testament, and
the Jewish hopes of the future, in their significance for the earliest types of Christian preaching.
Instead of the frequently very fruitless investigations
about “Jewish-Christian”, and “Gentile-Christian”, it should be asked, What
Jewish elements have been naturalised in the Christian Church, which were in no
way demanded by the contents of the Gospel? Have these elements been simply
weakened in course of the development, or have some of them been strengthened
by a peculiar combination with the Greek? We have to do here, in the first
instance, with the doctrine of Demons and Angels, the view of history, the
growing exclusiveness, the fanaticism; and on the other hand, with the cultus,
and the Theocracy, expressing itself in forms of law.
1. Although Jesus had in principle abolished the methods of
pedantry, the casuistic treatment of the law, and the subtleties of prophetic
interpretation, yet the old Scholastic exegesis remained active in the
Christian communities above all the unhistorical local method in the exposition
of the Old Testament, both allegoristic and Haggadic; for in the exposition of
a sacred text—and the Old Testament was regarded as such—one is always required
to look away from its historical limitations and to expound it according to the
needs of the present.The Jewish religion, specially since the (relative) close
of the canon, had become more and more a religion of the Book. The traditional view exercised its influence on the
exposition of the Old Testament, as well as on the representations of the
person, fate and deeds of Jesus, especially in those cases where the question
was about the proof of the fulfilment of prophecy, that is, of the Messiahship
of Jesus. (See above § 3, 2.) Under the impression made by the history of Jesus
it gave to many Old Testament passages a sense that was foreign to them, and, on
the other hand, enriched the life of Jesus with new facts, turning the interest
at the same time to details which were frequently unreal
and seldom of striking importance.Examples of both in the New Testament are numerous. See
above all, Matt. I. II. Even the belief that Jesus was born of a Virgin sprang
from Isaiah VII. 14. It cannot, however, be proved to be in the writings of Paul
(the two genealogies in Matt. and Luke directly exclude it: according to
Dillmann, Jahrb. f. protest. Theol. p. 192 ff. Luke I. 34, 35 would be the
addition of a redactor); but it must have arisen very early, as the Gentile
Christians of the second century would seem to have unanimously confessed it
(see the Romish Symbol. Ignatius, Aristides, Justin, etc.). For the rest, it was
long before theologians recognised in the Virgin birth of Jesus more than
fulfilment of a prophecy, viz., a fact of salvation. The conjecture of Usener,
that the idea of the birth from a Virgin is a heathen myth which was received by
the Christians, contradicts the entire earliest development of Christian
tradition, which is free from heathen myths so far as these had not already been
received by wide circles of Jews, (above all, certain Babylonian and Persian
Myths), which in the case of that idea is not demonstrable. Besides, it is in
point of method not permissible to stray so far when we have near at hand such a
complete explanation as Isaiah VII. 14. Those who suppose that the reality of
the Virgin birth must be held fast, must assume that a misunderstood prophecy
has been here fulfilled (on the true meaning of the passage see Dillmann
[Jesajas, 5 Aufl. p. 69]: “of the birth by a Virgin [i.e., of one who at the
birth was still a Virgin.] the Hebrew text says nothing . . . Immanuel as beginning
and representative of the new generation, from which one should finally take
possession of the king's throne”). The application of an unhistorical local
method in the exposition of the Old Testament—Haggada and Rabbinic
allegorism—may be found in many passages of Paul (see, e.g., Gal. III. 16, 19;
IV. 22–31; 1 Cor. IX. 9;
X. 4; XI. 10; Rom. IV. etc.).
2. The Jewish Apocalyptic literature, especially as it
flourished since the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, and was impregnated with new
elements borrowed from an ethico-religious philosophy, as well as with
Babylonian and Persian myths (Greek myths can only be detected in very small
number), was not banished from the circles of the first professors of the
Gospel, but was rather held fast, eagerly read, and even extended with the view
of elucidating the promises of Jesus.The proof of this may be found in the quotations in early
Christian writings from the Apocalypses of Enoch, Ezra, Eldad and Modad, the
assumption of Moses and other Jewish Apocalypses unknown to us. They were
regarded as Divine revelations beside the Old Testament; see the proofs of their
frequent and long continued use in Schürer's “History of the Jewish people in
the time of our Lord.” But the Christians in receiving these Jewish Apocalypses
did not leave them intact, but adapted them with greater or less Christian
additions (see Esra, Enoch, Ascension of Isaiah). Even the Apocalypse of John
is, as Vischer (Texte u. Unters. 3 altchristl. lit. Gesch. Bd. II. H. 4) has
shown, a Jewish Apocalypse adapted to a Christian meaning. But in this activity, and in the
production of little Apocalyptic prophetic sayings and articles, (see in the
Epistle to the Ephesians, and in those of Barnabas and Clement) the Christian
labour here in the earliest period seems to have exhausted itself. At least we
do not know with certainty of any great Apocalyptic writing of an original kind
proceeding from Christian circles. Even the Apocalypse of Peter which, thanks to
the discovery of Bouriant, we now know better, is not a completely original work
as contrasted with the Jewish Apocalypses.
Though their contents seem to have been modified on
Christian soil, and especially the uncertainty about the person of the Messiah
exalted to victory and coming to judgment,The Gospel reliance on the Lamb who was slain very
significantly pervades the Revelation of John, that is, its Christian parts.
Even the Apocalypse of Peter shews Jesus Christ as the comfort of believers and
as the Revealer of the future. In it (v. 3,) Christ says; “Then will God come to
those who believe on me, those who hunger and thirst and mourn, etc.” yet the sensuous earthly hopes were
in no way repressed. Green fat meadows and sulphurous abysses, white horses and
frightful beasts, trees of life, splendid cities, war and blood-shed filled the
fancy,These words were written before the Apocalypse of Peter
was discovered. That Apocalypse confirms what is said in the text. Moreover, its
delineation of Paradise and blessedness are not wanting in poetic charm and
power. In its delineation of Hell, which prepares the way for Dante's Hell, the
author is scared by no terror. and threatened to obscure the simple and yet, at bottom, much more
affecting maxims about the judgment which is certain to every individual soul,
and drew the confessors of the Gospel into a restless activity, into politics,
and abhorrence of the State. It was an evil inheritance which the Christians
took over from the Jews,These ideas, however, encircled the earliest Christendom
as with a wall of fire, and preserved it from a too early contact with the
world. an inheritance which makes it impossible to
reproduce with certainty the eschatological sayings of Jesus. Things directly
foreign were mixed up with them, and, what. was most serious, delineations of
the hopes of the future could easily lead to the undervaluing of the most
important gifts and duties of the Gospel.An accurate examination of the eschatological sayings of
Jesus in the synoptists shews that much foreign matter is mixed with them (see
Weiffenbach, Der Wiederkunftsgedanke Jesu, 1875). That the tradition here was
very uncertain, because influenced by the Jewish Apocalyptic, is shewn by the
one fact that Papias (in Iren. V. 33) quotes as words of the Lord which had been
handed down by the disciples, a group of sayings which we find in the Apocalypse
of Baruch, about the amazing fruitfulness of the earth during the time of the
Messianic Kingdom.
3. A wealth of mythologies and poetic ideas was
naturalised and legitimisedWe may here call attention to an interesting remark of
Goethe. Among his Apophthegms (no. 537) is the following: “Apocrypha: It would
be important to collect what is historically known about these books, and to
shew that these very Apocryphal writings with which the communities of the first
centuries of our era were flooded, were the real cause why Christianity at no
moment of political or Church history could stand forth in all her beauty and
purity.” A historian would not express himself in this way, but yet there lies
at the root of this remark a true historical insight. in the Christian communities, chiefly by the
reception of the Apocalyptic literature, but also by the reception of artificial
exegesis and Haggada. Most important for the following period were the
speculations about Messiah, which were partly borrowed from expositions of the
Old Testament and from the Apocalypses, partly formed in-dependently, according
to methods the justice of which no one contested, and the application of which
seemed to give a firm basis to religious faith.
Some of the Jewish Apocalyptists had already attributed
pre-existence to the expected Messiah, as to other precious things in the Old
Testament history and worship, and, without any thought of denying his human
nature, placed him as already existing before his appearing in a series of
angelic beings.See Schürer, History of the Jewish people. Div. II. vol.
II. p. 160 f.; yet the remarks of the Jew Trypho in the dialogue of Justin shew
that the notions of a pre-existent Messiah were by no means very widely spread
in Judaism. (See also Orig. c. Cels. 1. 49: “A Jew would not at all admit that
any Prophet had said the Son of God will come; they avoided this designation and
used instead the saying, the anointed of God will come.”) The Apocalyptists and
Rabbis attributed pre-existence, that is, a heavenly origin, to many sacred
things and persons, such as the Patriarchs, Moses, the Tabernacle, the Temple
vessels, the city of Jerusalem. That the true Temple and the real Jerusalem were
with God in heaven and would come down from heaven at the appointed time, must
have been a very wide-spread idea, especially at the time of the destruction of
Jerusalem, and even earlier than that (see Gal. IV. 26:
Rev. XXI. 2: Heb. XII. 22).
In the Assumption of Moses (c. I) Moses says of himself: Dominus invenit
me, qui ab initio orbis terrarum præparatus sum, ut sim arbiter (μεσίτης)
testamenti illius (τῆς διαθήκης αὐτοῦ).
In the Midrasch Bereschith rabba VIII. 2. we read, “R. Simeon ben Lakisch says,
'The law was in existence 2000 years before the creation of the world.’” In the
Jewish treatise Προσευχὴ Ἰωσήφ, which
Origen has several times quoted, Jacob says of himself (ap. Orig. torn. II. in
Joann. c. 25. Op. IV. 84: “ὁ γὰρ λαλῶν πρὸς
ὑμᾶς, ἐγω Ἰακὼβ καὶ Ἰσραήλ, ἄγγελος θεοῦ εἰμὶ ἐγὼ καὶ πνεῦμα ἀρχικὸν καὶ Ἀβραὰμ
καὶ Ἰσαὰκ προεκτίσθησαν προ παντος ἔργου, ἐγὼ δὲ Ἰακὼβ . . . . ἐγὼ πρωτογονος
παντὸ ζώος ζωουμένου ὑπὸ θεοῦ.”
These examples could easily be increased. The Jewish speculations about Angels
and Mediators, which at the time of Christ grew very luxuriantly among the
Scribes and Apocalyptists, and endangered the purity and vitality of the Old
Testament idea of God, were also very important for the development of Christian
dogmatics. But neither these speculations, nor the notions of heavenly
Archetypes, nor of pre-existence, are to be referred to Hellenic influence. This
may have co-operated here and there, but the rise of these speculations in
Judaism is not to be explained by it; they rather exhibit the Oriental stamp.
But, of course, the stage in the development of the nations had now been
reached, in which the creations of Oriental fancy and Mythology could be fused
with the ideal conceptions of Hellenic philosophy. This took place in accordance with an established
method of speculation, so far as an attempt was made
thereby to express the special value of an empiric object, by distinguishing
between the essence and the inadequate form of appearance, hypostatising the
essence, and exalting it above time and space. But when a later appearance was
conceived as the aim of a series of preparations, it was frequently
hypostatised and placed above these preparations even in time. The supposed aim
was, in a kind of real existence, placed, as first cause, before the means which
were destined to realise it on earth.The conception of heavenly ideals of precious earthly
things followed from the first naive method of speculation we have mentioned,
that of a pre-existence of persons from the last. If the world was created for
the sake of the people of Israel, and the Apocalyptists expressly taught that,
then it follows that in the thought of God Israel was older than the world. The
idea of a kind of pre-existence of the people of Israel follows from this. We
can still see this process of thought very plainly in the shepherd of Hermas,
who expressly declares that the world was created for the sake of the Church. In
consequence of this he maintains that the Church was very old, and was created
before the foundation of the world. See Vis. I. 2. 4: II. 4. 11: Διατί
οὖν πρεσβυτέρα (sci1. ἡ ἐκκλησία):
Ὅτι, φησίν, πάντων πρώτη ἐκτισθη διὰ τοῦτο πρεσβυτέρα,
καὶ διὰ
ταύτην ὁ κόσμος κατηρτίσθη. But in order to estimate aright the bearing
of these speculations, we must observe that, according to them, the precious
things and persons, so far as they are now really manifested, were never
conceived as endowed with a double nature. No hint is given of such an
assumption; the sensible appearance was rather conceived as a mere wrapping
which was necessary only to its becoming visible, or, conversely, the
pre-existence or the archetype was no longer thought of in presence of the
historical appearance of the object. That pneumatic form of existence was not
set forth in accordance with the analogy of existence verified by sense, but was
left in suspense. The idea of “existence” here could run through all the stages
which, according to the Mythology and Metaphysic of the time, lay between what
we now call “valid,” and the most concrete being. He who nowadays undertakes to
justify the notion of pre-existence, will find himself in a very different
situation from these earlier times, as he will no longer be able to count on
shifting conceptions of existence. See Appendix I. at the end of this Vol. for a
fuller discussion of the idea of pre-existence.
Some of the first confessors of the Gospel, though not all
the writers of the New Testament, in accordance with the same method, went
beyond the declarations which Jesus himself had made about his person, and
endeavoured to conceive its value and absolute significance abstractly and
speculatively. The religious convictions (see § 3. 2): (1) That the founding of
the Kingdom of God on earth, and the mission of Jesus as the perfect mediator,
were from eternity based on God's plan of Salvation, as his main purpose; (2)
that the exalted Christ was called into a position of Godlike Sovereignty
belonging to him of right; (3) that God himself was manifested in Jesus, and
that he therefore surpasses all mediators of the Old Testament, nay, even all
angelic powers,—these convictions with some took the form that Jesus
pre-existed, and that in him has appeared and taken flesh a heavenly being
fashioned like God, who is older than the world, nay, its creative principle.It must be observed here that Palestinian Judaism,
without any apparent influence from Alexandria, though not independently of the
Greek spirit, had already created a multitude of intermediate beings between God
and the world, avowing thereby that the idea of God had become stiff and rigid.
“Its original aim was simply to help the God of Judaism in his need.” Among
these intermediate beings should be specially mentioned the Memra of God (see
also the Shechina and the Metatron).
The conceptions of the old Teachers, Paul, the author of the Epistle to the
Hebrews, the Apocalypse, the author of the first Epistle of Peter, the fourth
Evangelist, differ in many ways when they attempt to define these convictions
more closely. The latter is the only one who has recognised with perfect
clearness that the premundane Christ must be assumed to be θεὸς
ὥν ἐν ἀρχῆ πρός τὸν θεόν, so as not to endanger by this speculation the
contents and significance of the revelation of God which was given in Christ.
This, in the earliest period, was essentially a religious problem, that is, it
was not introduced for the explanation of cosmological problems, (see,
especially, Epistle to the Ephesians, I Peter; but also the Gospel of John), and
there stood peacefully beside
it, such conception as recognised the equipment of the man
Jesus for his office in a communication of the Spirit at his baptism,See Justin. Dial. 48. fin: Justin certainly is not
favourably disposed towards those who regard Christ as a “man among men,” but he
knows that there are such people. or in
virtue of Isaiah VII., found the germ of his unique nature in his miraculous
origin.The miraculous genesis of Christ in the Virgin by the
Holy Spirit and the real pre-existence are of course mutually exclusive. At a
later period, it is true, it became necessary to unite them in thought. But as soon as that speculation was detached from its original
foundation, it necessarily withdrew the minds of believers from the
consideration of the work of Christ, and from the contemplation of the
revelation of God which was given in the ministry of the historical person
Jesus. The mystery of the person of Jesus in itself, would then necessarily
appear as the true revelation.There is the less need for treating this more fully here,
as no New Testament Christology has become the direct starting-point of later
doctrinal developments. The Gentile Christians had transmitted to them, as an
unanimous doctrine, the message that Christ is the Lord who is to be worshipped,
and that one must think of him as the Judge of the living and the dead, that is,
ὡς περὶ θεοῦ. But it certainly could not
fail to be of importance for the result that already many of the earliest
Christian writers, and therefore even Paul, perceived in Jesus a spiritual being
come down from heaven (πνεῦμα) who was
ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ, and whose real act of
love consisted in his very descent.
A series of theologoumena and religious problems for the
future doctrine of Christianity lay ready in the teaching of the Pharisees and
in the Apocalypses (see especially the fourth book of Ezra), and was really
fitted for being of service to it; e.g., doctrines about Adam, universal
sinfulness, the fall, predestination, Theodocy, etc., besides all kinds of ideas
about redemption. Besides these spiritual doctrines there were not a few
spiritualised myths which were variously made use of in the Apocalypses. A rich,
spiritual, figurative style, only too rich and therefore confused, waited for
the theological artist to purify, reduce and vigorously fashion. There really
remained very little of the Cosmico-Mythological in the doctrine of the great
Church.
Supplement.—The reference to the proof from
prophecy, to the current exposition of the Old Testament, the Apocalyptic
and the prevailing methods of speculation, does not suffice
to explain all the elements which are found in the different types of Christian
preaching. We must rather bear in mind here that the earliest communities were
enthusiastic, and had yet among them prophets and ecstatic persons. Such
circumstances will always directly produce facts in the history. But, in the
majority of cases, it is absolutely impossible to account subsequently for the
causes of such productions, because their formation is subject to no law
accessible to the understanding. It is therefore inadmissible to regard as
proved the reality of what is recorded and believed to be a fact, when the
motive and interest which led to its acceptance can no longer be ascertained.The creation of the New Testament canon first paved the
way for putting an end, though only in part, to the production of Evangelic
“facts” within the Church. For Hermas (Sim. IX. 16) can relate that the Apostles
also descended to the under world and there preached. Others report the same of
John the Baptist. Origen in his homily on 1. Kings XXVII. says that Moses,
Samuel and all the Prophets descended to Hades and there preached. A series of
facts of Evangelic history which have no parallel in the accounts of our
Synoptists, and are certainly legendary, may be but together from the epistle of
Barnabas, Justin, the second epistle of Clement, Papias, the Gospel to the
Hebrews, and the Gospel to the Egyptians. But the synoptic reports themselves,
especially in the articles for which we have only a solitary witness, shew an
extensive legendary material, and even in the Gospel of John, the free
production of facts cannot be mistaken. Of what a curious nature some of these
were, and that they are by no means to be entirely explained from the Old
Testament, as for example, Justin's account of the ass on which Christ rode into
Jerusalem, having been bound to a vine, is shewn by the very old fragment in one
source of the Apostolic constitutions (Texte u. Unters. II, 5. p. 28 ff.); ὅτε
ᾒτωσεν ὁ διδάσκαλος τὸν ἂρτον καὶ τὸ ποτήριον καὶ ηὐλόγησεν αὐτὰ λέγων· τοῦτο
ἐστι τὸ σῶμά μου καὶ τὸ αἷμα, οὐκ ἐπὲτρεψε ταύταις the women) συστῆναι ἡμῖν . .
. . Μάρθα εἶπεν διὰ Μαριάμ, ὅτι εἶδεν αὐτὴν μειδιῶταν. Μαρία εἶπεν οὐκέτι
ἐγέλασα. Narratives such as those of Christ's descent to Hell and ascent
to heaven, which arose comparatively late, though still at the close of the
first century (see Book I. Chap. 3) sprang out of short formula containing an
antithesis (death and resurrection, first advent in lowliness, second advent in
glory: descensus de cœlo, ascensus in cœlum; ascensus in cœlum, descensus ad
inferna) which appeared to be required by Old Testament predictions, and were
commended by their naturalness. Just as it is still, in the same way naively
inferred: if Christ rose bodily he must also have ascended bodily (visibly?)
into heaven.
Moreover, if we consider the conditions, outer and inner,
in which the preaching of Christ in the first decades was placed, conditions
which in every way threatened the Gospel with extravagance, we shall only see
cause to wonder that it
continued to shine forth amid all its wrappings. We can
still, out of the strangest “fulfilments”, legends and mythological ideas, read
the religious conviction that the aim and goal of history is disclosed in the
history of Christ, and that the Divine has now entered into history in a pure
form.
Literature.—The Apocalypses of Daniel, Enoch, Moses,
Baruch, Ezra; Schürer, History of the Jewish People in the time of Christ;
Baldensperger, in the work already mentioned. Weber, System der Altsynagogalen
palästinischen Theologie, 1880, Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures, 1883. Hilgenfeld, Die
jüdische Apokalyptik, 1859. Wellhausen, Sketch of the History of Israel and
Judah, 1887. Diestel, Gesch. des A. T. in der Christl. Kirche, 1869. Other
literature in Schürer. The essay of Hellwag in the Theol. Jahrb. von Baur and
Zeller, 1848, “Die Vorstellung von der Präexistenz Christi in der ältesten
Kirche”, is worth noting; also Joël; Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang
des 2 Christl. Jahrhunderts, 1880— 1883.
§ 5. The Religious Conceptions and the Religious
Philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews, in their significance for the later formulation of the Gospel.
1. From the remains of the Jewish Alexandrian literature
and the Jewish Sibylline writings, also from the work of Josephus, and
especially from the great propaganda of Judaism in the Græco-Roman world, we may
gather that there was a Judaism in the Diaspora, for the consciousness of which
the cultus and ceremonial law were of comparatively subordinate importance;
while the monotheistic worship of God, apart from images, the doctrines of
virtue and belief in a future reward beyond the grave, stood in the foreground
as its really essential marks. Converted Gentiles were no longer everywhere
required to be even circumcised; the bath of purification was deemed sufficient.
The Jewish religion here appears transformed into a universal human ethic and a
monotheistic cosmology. For that reason, the idea of the Theocracy as well as
the Messianic hopes of the future faded away or were uprooted. The latter,
indeed, did not altogether pass away; but as the oracles
of the Prophets were made use of mainly for the purpose of
proving the antiquity and certainty of monotheistic belief, the thought of the
future was essentially exhausted in the expectation of the dissolution of the
Roman empire, the burning of the world, and the eternal recompense. The specific
Jewish element, however, stood out plainly in the assertion that the Old
Testament, and especially the books of Moses, were the source of all true
knowledge of God, and the sum total of all doctrines of virtue for the nations,
as well as in the connected assertion that the religious and moral culture of
the Greeks was derived from the Old Testament, as the source from which the
Greek Poets and Philosophers had drawn their inspiration.The Sibylline Oracles, composed by Jews, from 160 B.C. to
189 A.D. are specially instructive here: see the Editions of Friedlieb. 1852;
Alexandre, 1869; Rzach. 1891. Delaunay, Moines et Sibylles dans l’antiquité
judéo-grecque, 1874. Schürer in the work mentioned above. The writings of
Josephus also yield rich booty, especially his apology for Judaism in the two
books against Apion. But it must be noted that there were Jews enlightened by
Hellenism, who were still very zealous in their observance of the law. “Philo
urges most earnestly to the observance of the law in opposition to that party
which drew the extreme inferences of the allegoristic method, and put aside the
outer legality as something not essential for the spiritual life. Philo thinks
that by exact observance of these ceremonies on their material side, one will
also come to know better their symbolical meaning” (Siegfried, Philo, p. 157).
These Jews and the Greeks converted by them formed, as it
were, a Judaism of a second order without law, i.e., ceremonial law, and
with a minimum of statutory regulations. This Judaism prepared the soil for the
Christianising of the Greeks, as well as for the genesis of a great Gentile
Church in the empire, free from the law; and this the more that, as it seems,
after the second destruction of Jerusalem, the punctilious observance of the
lawDirect evidence is certainly almost entirely wanting
here, but the indirect speaks all the more emphatically: see § 3, Supplement 1.
2. was imposed more strictly than before on all who worshipped the God of the
Jews.The Jewish propaganda, though by no means effaced, gave
way very distinctly to the Christian from the middle of the second century. But
from this time we find few more traces of an enlightened Hellenistic Judaism.
Moreover, the Messianic expectation also seems to have somewhat given way to
occupation with the law. But the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as
other Jewish terms certainly played a great rôle in Gentile and Gnostic magical
formulæ of the third century, as may be seen e.g., from many passages in Origen
c. Celtum.
The Judaism just portrayed, developed itself, under the
influence of the Greek culture with which it came in contact, into a kind of
Cosmopolitanism. It divested itself, as religion, of all national forms, and
exhibited itself as the most perfect expression of that “natural” religion which
the stoics had disclosed. But in proportion as it was enlarged and spiritualised
to a universal religion for humanity, it abandoned what was most peculiar to it,
and could not compensate for that loss by the assertion of the thesis that the
Old Testament is the oldest and most reliable source of that natural religion,
which in the traditions of the Greeks had only witnesses of the second rank. The
vigour and immediateness of the religious feeling was flattened down to a
moralism, the barrenness of which drove some Jews even into Gnosis, mysticism
and asceticism.The prerogative of Israel was, for all that, clung to:
Israel remains the chosen people.
2. The Jewish Alexandrian philosophy of religion, of which
Philo gives us the clearest conception,The brilliant investigations of Bernays, however, have
shewn how many-sided that philosophy of religion was. The proofs of asceticism
in this Hellenistic Judaism are especially of great interest for the history of
dogma (see Theophrastus' treatise on piety). In the eighth Epistle of
Heraclitus, composed by a Hellenistic Jew in the first century, it is said
(Bernays, p. 182). “So long a time before, O Hermodorus, saw thee that Sibyl,
and even then thou wert” (εἶδρ σε πρὸ ποσούτου
αἰῶνος, Ερμόδωρε, ἡ Σίβυλλα ἐκείνη, καὶ τότε ἦσθα). Even here then the
notion is expressed that foreknowledge and predestination invest the known and
the deter-mined with a kind of existence. Of great importance is the fact that
even before Philo, the idea of the wisdom of God creating the world and passing
over to men had been hypostatised in Alexandrian Judaism (see Sirach, Baruch.
the wisdom of Solomon, Enoch, nay, even the book of Proverbs). But so long as
the deutero-canonical Old Testament, and also the Alexandrine and Apocalyptic
literature continue in the sad condition in which they are at present, we can
form no certain judgment and draw no decided conclusions on the subject. When
will the scholar appear who will at length throw light on these writings, and
therewith or the section of inner Jewish history most interesting to the
Christian theologian? As yet we have only a most thankworthy preliminary study
in Schürer's great work, and beside it particular or dilettante attempts which
hardly shew what the problem really is, far less solve it. What disclosures even
the fourth book of the Maccabees alone yields for the connection of the Old
Testament with Hellenism! is the scientific theory which
corresponded to this religious conception. The theological system which Philo,
in accordance with the example of
others, gave out as the Mosaic system revealed by God, and
proved from the Old Testament by means of the allegoric exegetic method, is
essentially identical with the system of Stoicism, which had been mixed with
Platonic elements and had lost its Pantheistic materialistic impress. The
fundamental idea from which Philo starts is a Platonic one; the dualism of God
and the world, spirit and matter. The idea of God itself is therefore abstractly
and negatively conceived (God, the real substance which is not finite), and has
nothing more in common with the Old Testament conception. The possibility,
however, of being able to represent God as acting on matter, which as the finite
is the non-existent, and therefore the evil, is reached, with the help of the
Stoic λόγοι as working powers and of the
Platonic doctrine of archetypal ideas, and in outward connection with the Jewish
doctrine of angels and the Greek doctrine of demons, by the introduction of
intermediate spiritual beings which, as personal and impersonal powers
proceeding from God, are to be thought of as operative causes and as
Archetypes. All these beings are, as it were, comprehended in the Logos. By the
Logos Philo understands the operative reason of God, and consequently also the
power of God. The Logos is to him the thought of God and at the same time the
product of his thought, therefore both idea and power. But further, the Logos is
God himself on that side of him which is turned to the world, as also the ideal
of the world and the unity of the spiritual forces which produce the world and
rule in it. He can therefore be put beside God and in opposition to the world;
but he can also, so far as the spiritual contents of the world are comprehended
in him, be put with the world in contrast with God. The Logos accordingly
appears as the Son of God, the foremost creature, the representative, Viceroy,
High Priest, and Messenger of God; and again as principle of the world, spirit
of the world, nay, as the world itself. He appears as a power and as a person,
as a function of God and as an active divine being. Had Philo cancelled the
contradiction which lies in this whole conception of the Logos, his system would
have been demolished; for that system with its hard antithesis of
God and the world, needed a mediator who was, and yet was
not God, as well as world. From this contrast, however, it further followed that
we can only think of a world-formation by the Logos, not of a world-creation.“So far as the sensible world is a work of the Logos, it
is called νεώτερος ὑιός (quod deus
immut. 6. I. 277), or according to Prov. VIII. 22, an offspring of God and
wisdom: ἡ δὲ παραδεξαμένη τὸ τοῦ θεοῦ σπέρμα
τελεσφόροις ὠδῖσι τὸν μόνον καὶ ἀγαπητὸν αἰσθητὸν ὑιὸν ἀπεκύησε τὸνδε τὸν κὸσμον
(de ebriet. 8. I. 361 f.). So far as the Logos is High Priest his relation to
the world is symbolically expressed by the garment of the High Priest, to which
exegesis the play on the word κόσμος, as meaning both ornament and world, lent
its aid.” This speculation (see Siegfried. Philo. 235) is of special importance,
for it shews how closely the ideas κὸσμος
and λὸγος were connected.
Within this world man is regarded as a microcosm, that is, as a being of Divine
nature according to his spirit, who belongs to the heavenly world, while the
adhering body is a prison which holds men captive in the fetters of sense, that
is, of sin.
The Stoic and Platonic ideals and rules of conduct (also
the Neo-pythagorean) were united by Philo in the religious Ethic as well as in
the Cosmology. Rationalistic moralism is surmounted by the injunction to strive
after a higher good lying above virtue. But here, at the same time, is the point
at which Philo decidedly goes beyond Platonism, and introduces a new thought
into Greek Ethics, and also in correspondence therewith into theoretic
philosophy. This thought, which indeed lay altogether in the line of the
development of Greek philosophy, was not, however, pursued by Philo into all its
consequences, though it was the expression of a new frame of mind. While the
highest good is resolved by Plato and his successors into knowledge of truth,
which truth, together with the idea of God, lies in a sphere really accessible
to the intellectual powers of the human spirit, the highest good, the Divine
original being, is considered by Philo, though not invariably, to be above
reason, and the power of comprehending it is denied to the human intellect.
This assumption, a concession which Greek speculation was compelled to make to
positive religion for the supremacy which was yielded to it, was to have
far-reaching consequences in the future. A place was now for the first time
provided in philosophy for a
mythology to be regarded as revelation. The highest
truths which could not otherwise be reached, might be sought for in the oracles
of the Deity; for knowledge resting on itself had learnt by experience its
inability to attain to the truth in which blessedness consists. In this very
experience the intellectualism of Greek Ethics was, not indeed cancelled, but
surmounted. The injunction to free oneself from sense and strive upwards by
means of knowledge, remained; but the wings of the thinking mind bore it only to
the entrance of the sanctuary. Only ecstasy produced by God himself was able to
lead to the reality above reason. The great novelties in the system of Philo,
though in a certain sense the way had al-ready been prepared for them, are the
introduction of the idea of a philosophy of revelation and the advance beyond
the absolute intellectualism of Greek philosophy, an advance based on
scepticism, but also on the deep-felt needs of life. Only the germs of these are
found in Philo, but they are already operative. They are innovations of
world-wide importance: for in them the covenant between the thoughts of reason
on the one hand, and the belief in revelation and mysticism on the other, is
already so completed that neither by itself could permanently maintain the
supremacy. Thought about the world was henceforth dependent, not only on
practical motives, it is always that, but on the need of a blessedness and peace
which is higher than all reason. It might, perhaps, be allowable to say that
Philo was the first who, as a philosopher, plainly expressed that need, just
because he was not only a Greek, but also a Jew.Of all the Greek Philosophers of the second century,
Plutarch of Chäronea, died c. 125 A.D., and Numenius of Apamea, second half of
the second century, approach nearest to Philo; but the latter of the two was
undoubtedly familiar with Jewish philosophy, specially with Philo, and probably
also with Christian writings.
Apart from the extremes into which the ethical counsels of
Philo run, they contain nothing that had not been demanded by philosophers
before him. The purifying of the affections, the renunciation of sensuality, the
acquisition of the four cardinal virtues, the greatest possible simplicity of
life, as well
as a cosmopolitan disposition are enjoined.As to the way in which Philo (see also 4 Maccab. V. 24)
learned to connect the Stoic ethics with the authority of the Torah, as was also
done by the Palestinian Midrash, and represented the Torah as the foundation of
the world, and therewith as the law of nature: see Siegfried, Philo, p. 156. But the
attainment of the highest morality by our own strength is despaired of, and man
is directed beyond himself to God's assistance. Redemption begins with the
spirit reflecting on its own condition; it advances by a knowledge of the world
and of the Logos, and it is perfected, after complete asceticism, by mystic
ecstatic contemplation in which a man loses himself, but in return is entirely
filled and moved by God.Philo by his exhortations to seek the blessed life, has
by no means broken with the intellectualism of the Greek philosophy, he has only
gone beyond it. The way of knowledge and speculation is to him also the way of
religion and morality. But his formal principle is supernatural and leads to a
supernatural knowledge which finally passes over into sight. In this condition man has a foretaste of the
blessedness which shall be given him when the soul, freed from the body, will be
restored to its true existence as a heavenly being.
This system, notwithstanding its appeal to revelation, has,
in the strict sense of the word, no place for Messianic hopes, of which nothing
but very insignificant rudiments are found in Philo. But he was really animated
by the hope of a glorious time to come for Judaism. The synthesis of the
Messiah and the Logos did not lie within his horizon.But everything was now ready for this synthesis, so that
it could be, and immediately was, completed by Christian philosophers.
3. Neither Philo's philosophy of religion, nor the mode of
thought from which it springs, exercised any appreciable influence on the first
generation of believers in Christ.We cannot discover Philo's influence in the writings of
Paul. But here again we must remember that the scripture learning of Palestinian
teachers developed speculations which appear closely related to the Alexandrian,
and partly are so, but yet cannot be deduced from them. The element common to
them must, for the present at least, be deduced from the harmony of conditions
in which the different nations of the East were at that time placed, a harmony
which we cannot exactly measure. But its practical ground-thoughts, though in
different degrees, must have found admission very early into the Jewish
Christian circles of the Diaspora, and through them to Gentile Christian
circles also. Philo's philosophy of religion became
operative among Christian teachers from the beginning of
the second century,The conception of God's relation to the world as given in
the fourth Gospel is not Philonic. The Logos doctrine there is therefore
essentially not that of Philo. (Against Kuenen and others, see p. 93.) and at a later period actually obtained the significance of
a standard of Christian theology, Philo gaining a place among Christian writers.
The systems of Valentinus and Origen presuppose that of Philo. It can no longer,
however, be shewn with certainty how far the direct influence of Philo reached,
as the development of religious ideas in the second century took a direction
which necessarily led to views similar to those which Philo had anticipated (see
§ 6, and the whole following account).
Supplement.—The hermeneutic principles (the
“Biblical-alchemy”), above all, became of the utmost importance for the
following period. These were partly invented by Philo himself, partly
traditional,—the Haggadic rules of exposition and the hermeneutic principles of
the Stoics having already at an earlier period been united in Alexandria. They
fall into two main classes: “first, those according to which the literal sense
is excluded, and the allegoric proved to be the only possible one; and then,
those according to which the allegoric sense is discovered as standing beside
and above the literal sense.”Siegfried (Philo. pp. 160–197) has presented in detail
Philo's allegorical interpretation of scripture, his hermeneutic principles and
their application. Without an exact knowledge of these principles we cannot
understand the Scripture expositions of the Fathers, and therefore also cannot
do them justice. That these rules permitted the discovery of a
new sense by minute changes within a word, was a point of special importance.See Siegfried, Philo, p. 176. Yet, as a rule, the method
of isolating and adapting passages of scripture, and the method of unlimited
combination were sufficient.
Christian teachers went still further in this direction, and, as can be proved,
altered the text of the Septuagint in order to make more definite what suggested
itself to them as the meaning of a passage, or in order to give a satisfactory
meaning to a sentence which appeared to them unmeaning or offensive.Numerous examples of this may he found in the epistle of
Barnabas (see cc. 4–9), and in the dialogue of Justin with Trypho (here they are
objects of controversy, see cc. 71–73, 120), but also in many other Christian
writings, (e.g. 1 Clem. ad Cor. VIII. 3: XVII. 6: XXIII. 3, 4: XXVI. 5: XLVI. 2:
2 Clem. XIII. 2). These Christian additions were long retained in the Latin
Bible, (see also Lactantius and other Latins: Pseudo-Cyprian de aleat. 2 etc.),
the most celebrated of them is the addition “a ligno” to “dominus regnavit” in
Psalm XCVI., see Credner, Beiträge II. The treatment of the Old Testament in the
epistle of Barnabas is specially instructive, and exhibits the greatest formal
agreement with that of Philo. We may close here with the words in which
Siegfried sums up his judgment on Philo: “No Jewish writer has contributed so
much as Philo to the breaking up of particularism and the dissolution of
Judaism. The history of his people, though he believed in it literally, was in
its main points a didactic allegoric poem for enabling him to inculcate the
doctrine that man attains the vision of God by mortification of the flesh. The
law was regarded by him as the best guide to this, but it had lost its exclusive
value, as it was admitted to be possible to reach the goal without it, and it
had, besides, its aim outside itself. The God of Philo was no longer the old
living God of Israel, but an imaginary being who, to obtain power over the
world, needed a Logos by whom the palladium of Israel, the unity of God, was
taken a prey. So Israel lost everything which had hitherto characterised her.” Nay,
attempts were not wanting
among Christians in the second century—they were aided by
the uncertainty that existed about the extent of the Septuagint, and by the want
of plain predictions about the death upon the cross—to determine the Old
Testament canon in accordance with new principles; that is, to alter the text on
the plea that the Jews had corrupted it, and to insert new books into the Old
Testament, above all, Jewish Apocalypses revised in a Christian sense.
Tertullian (de cultu fem. 1. 3,) furnishes a good example of the latter. “Scio scripturam Enoch, quæ hunc ordinem angelis dedit, non recipi a quibusdam, quia
nec in armorium Judaicum admittitur . . . sed cum Enoch eadem scriptura etiam de
domino prædicarit, a nobis quidem nihil omnino reiciendum est quod pertinet ad
nos. Et legimus omnem scripturam ædificationi habilem divinitus inspirari. A
Judæis potest jam videri propterea reiecta, sicut et cetera fera quæ Christum
sonant. . . . . Eo accedit quod Enoch apud Judam apostolum testimonium
possidet.” Compare also the history of the Apocalypse of Ezra in the Latin
Bible (Old Testament). Not only the genuine Greek portions of the Septuagint,
but also many Apocalypses were quoted by Christians in the second century as of
equal value with the Old Testament. It was the New Testament that slowly put an
end to these tendencies towards the formation of a Christian Old Testament.
To find the spiritual meaning of the sacred text, partly
beside the literal, partly by excluding it, became the watchword for the
“scientific” Christian theology which was possible only on this basis, as it
endeavoured to reduce the immense and dissimilar material of the Old Testament
to unity with the Gospel, and both with the religious and scientific culture of
the Greeks,—yet without knowing a relative standard, the application of which
would alone have rendered possible in a loyal way the solution of the task.
Here, Philo was the master; for he first to a great extent poured the new wine
into old bottles. Such a procedure is warranted by its final purpose; for
history is a unity. But applied in a pedantic and stringently dogmatic way it
is a source of deception, of untruthfulness, and finally of total blindness.
Literature.—Gefrörer, Das Jahr des Heils, 1838.
Parthey, Das Alexandr. Museum, 1838. Matter, Hist. de l’école d’Alex. 1840.
Dähne, Gesch. Darstellung der jüd.-alex. Religionsphilos. 1834. Zeller, Die
Philosophie der Griechen, III. 2. 3rd Edition. Mommsen, History of Rome, Vol. V.
Siegfried, Philo van Alex. 1875. Massebieau, Le Classement des Œuvres de Philon.
1889. Hatch, Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889. Drummond, Philo Judæus, 1888. Bigg,
The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. Schürer, History of the Jewish
People. The investigations of Freudenthal (Hellenistische Studien), and Bernays
(Ueber das phokylideische Gedicht; Theophrastos' Schrift über Frömmigkeit; Die
heraklitischen Briefe). Kuenen, Hibbert Lectures: “Christian Theology could have
made and has made much use of Hellenism. But the Christian religion cannot have
sprung from this source.” Havet thinks otherwise, though in the fourth volume of
his “Origines” he has made unexpected admissions.
§ 6. The Religious Dispositions of the Greeks and Romans
in the first two centuries, and the current Græco-Roman Philosophy of Religion.
1. After the national religion and the religious sense
generally in cultured circles had been all but lost in the age of
Cicero and Augustus, there is noticeable in the Græco-Roman
world from the beginning of the second century a revival of religious feeling
which embraced all classes of society, and appears, especially from the middle
of that century, to have increased from decennium to decennium.Proofs in Friedländer, Sittengeschichte, vol. 3. Parallel with
it went the not altogether unsuccessful attempt to restore the old national
worship, religious usages, oracles, etc. In these attempts, however, which were
partly superficial and artificial, the new religious needs found neither
vigorous nor clear expression. These needs rather sought new forms of
satisfaction corresponding to the wholly changed conditions or the time,
including intercourse and mixing of the nations; decay of the old republican
orders, divisions and ranks; monarchy and absolutism and social crises;
pauperism; influence of philosophy on the domain of public morality and law;
cosmopolitanism and the rights of man; influx of Oriental cults into the West;
knowledge of the world and disgust with it. The decay of the old political cults
and syncretism produced a disposition in favour of monotheism both among the
cultured classes who had been prepared for it by philosophy, and also gradually
among the masses. Religion and individual morality became more closely
connected. There was developed a corresponding attempt at spiritualising the
worship alongside of and within the ceremonial forms, and at giving it a
direction towards the moral elevation of man through the ideas of moral
personality, conscience, and purity, The ideas of repentance and of expiation
and healing of the soul became of special importance, and consequently such
Oriental cults came to the front as required the former and guaranteed the
latter. But what was sought above all, was to enter into an inner union with the
Deity, to be saved by him and become a partaker in the possession and enjoyment
of his life. The worshipper consequently longed to find a “præsens numen” and
the revelation of him in the cultus, and hoped to put himself in possession of
the Deity by asceticism and mysterious rites. This new piety longed for health
and purity of soul, and elevation above earthly things, and in connection with
these a divine, that
is a painless and eternal, life beyond the grave (“renatus
in æternum taurobolio”). A world beyond was desired, sought for, and viewed
with an uncertain eye. By detachment from earthly things and the healing of its
diseases (the passions) the freed, new born soul should return to its divine
nature and existence. It is not a hope of immortality such as the ancients had
dreamed of for their heroes, where they continue, as it were, their earthly
existence in blessed enjoyment. To the more highly pitched self-consciousness
this life had become a burden, and in the miseries of the present, one hoped for
a future life in which the pain and vulgarity of the unreal life of earth would
be completely laid aside (Ἐγκράτεια and
ἀνάστασις). If the new moralistic
feature stood out still more emphatically in the piety of the second century, it
vanished more and more behind the religious feature, the longing after lifeSee the chapter on belief in immortality in Friedländer,
Sittengesch. Roms Bde. 3. Among the numerous mysteries known to us, that of
Mythras deserves special consideration. From the middle of the second century
the Church Fathers saw in it, above all, the caricature of the Church. The
worship of Mithras had its redeemer, its mediator, hierarchy, sacrifice, baptism
and sacred meal. The ideas of expiation, immortality, and the Redeemer God, were
very vividly present in this cult, which of course, in later times, borrowed
from Christianity: see the accounts of Marquardt, Réville, and the Essay of
Sayous, Le Taurobole in the Rev. de l’Hist. des Religions, 1887, where the
earliest literature is also utilised. The worship of Mithras in the third
century became the most powerful rival of Christianity. In connection with this
should be specially noted the cult of Æsculapius, the God who helps the body
and the soul; see my essay “Medicinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte,”
1892. p. 93 ff.
and after a Redeemer God. No one could any longer be a God who was not also a saviour.Hence the wide prevalence of the cult of Æsculapius.
With all this Polytheism was not suppressed, but only put
into a subordinate place. On the contrary, it was as lively and active as ever.
For the idea of a numen supremum did not exclude belief in the existence
and manifestation of sub-ordinate deities. Apotheosis came into currency. The
old state religion first attained its highest and most powerful expression in
the worship of the emperor, (the emperor glorified as “dominus ac deus noster”,Dominus in certain circumstances means more than deus;
see Tertull. Apol. It signifies more than Soter: see Irenæus I. 1. 3; .
. . . . τὸν σωτῆρα λέγουσιν, οὐδὲ γὰρ κύριον ὀνομάζειν αὐτὸν θὲλουσιν—κύριος and
δεσπότης are almost synonymous. See Philo. Quis. rer. div. heres. 6: συνώνυμα
ταῦτα εἶναι λέγεται.
as “præsens et corporalis deus”,
the Antinous cult, etc.), and in many circles an incarnate
ideal in the present or the past was sought, which might be worshipped as
revealer of God and as God, and which might be an example of life and an
assurance of religious hope. Apotheosis became less offensive in proportion as,
in connection with the fuller recognition of the spiritual dignity of man, the
estimate of the soul, the spirit, as of supramundane nature, and the hope of its
eternal continuance in a form of existence befitting it, became more general.
That was the import of the message preached by the Cynics and the Stoics, that
the truly wise man is Lord, Messenger of God, and God upon the earth. On the
other hand, the popular belief clung to the idea that the gods could appear and
be visible in human form, and this faith, though mocked by the cultured, gained
numerous adherents, even among them, in the age of the Antonines.We must give special attention here to the variability
and elasticity of the concept “θεὸς”,
and indeed among the cultured as well as the uncultured (Orig. prolegg. in
Psalm. in Pitra, Anal. T. II. p. 437i according to a Stoic source; κατ᾽
ἄλλον δέ τρόπον λέγεσθαι θεὸν ζῷον ἀθάνατον λογικὸν σπουδαῖον, ὥστε πᾶσαν
ἀστείαν ψυχήν θεὸν ὑπάρχειν, κἃν περιόχηται, ἄλλως δὲ λενεσθαι θεὸν τὸ καθ᾽ αὑτὸ
ὄν ζῷνν ἀθάνατον ὡς τὰ ἐν ἀνθρωποις σοφοῖς περιεχομένας ψυχὰς μὴ ὑπάρχειν
θεούς). They still regarded the Gods as passionless, blessed men living
for ever. The idea therefore of a θεοποίησις,
and on the other hand, the idea of the appearance of the Gods in human form
presented no difficulty (see Acts XIV. 11: XXVIII. 6). But philosophic
speculation—the Platonic, as well as in yet greater measure the Stoic, and in
the greatest measure of all the Cynic—had led to the recognition of something
divine in man's spirit (πνεῦμα, νοῦς). Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations frequently speaks
of the God who dwells in us. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. VI. 14. 113) says: οὕτως
δύναμιν λαβοῦσα κυριακὴν ἡ ψυχὴ μελετᾷ εἶναι θεός, κακὸν μὲν οὐδὲν ἄλλο πλὴν
ἀγνοίας εἶναι νομίζουσα. In Bernays' Heraclitian Epistles, pp. 37 f. 135
f., will be found a valuable exposition of the Stoic [Heraclitian] thesis and
its history, that men are Gods. See Norden, Beitrage zur Gesch. d. griech.
Philos. Jahrb. f. klass. Philol. XIX. Suppl. Bd. p. 373 ff., about the Cynic
Philosopher who, contemplating the life and activity of man [κατάσκοπος],
becomes its ἐπίσκοπος, and further κύριός,
ἄγγελος θεοῦ, θεὸς ἐν ἀνθρώποις. The passages which he adduces are of
importance for the history of dogma in a twofold respect. (1) They present
remarkable parallels to Christiology [one even finds the designations, κύριος,
ἄγγελος, κατάσκοπος, ἐπίσκοπος, θεὸς associated with the philosophers as
with Christ, e.g, in Justin; nay, the Cynics and Neoplatonics speak of
ἐπίσκοποι δαίμονες; cf. also the
remarkable narrative in Laertius VI. 102, concerning the Cynic Menedemus; οὗτὸς,
καθά φησιν Ἰππόβοτος, εἰς ποσος τον
τερατείας ἤλασεν, ὥστε Ἐρινύος ἀναλαβὼν
σχῆμα περιῄει, λέγων ἐπισκοπος ἀφἶχθαι ἐξ Ἅιδου τῶν ἁμαρτόμένων, ὅπως πάλιν
κατιὼν ταςτα ἀπαγγέλλοι τοῖς ἐκεῖ, δαίμοσιν (2) They also explain how the
ecclesiastical ἐπίσκοποι came to be so
highly prized, inasmuch as these also were from a very early period regarded as
mediators between God and man, and considered as
ἐν ἀνθρώποις θεοί). There where not a few who in the first and
second centuries, appeared with the claim to be regarded as a God or an organ
inspired and chosen by God (Simon Magus [cf. the manner of his treatment in
Hippol. Philos. VI. 8: see also Clem. Hom. II. 27], Apollonius of Tyana (?), see
further Tacitus Hist. II. 51: “Mariccus . . . . iamque adsertor Galliarum et
deus, nomen id sibi indiderat,”; here belongs also the gradually developing
worship of the Emperor: “dominus ac deus noster.” Cf. Augustus, Inscription of
the year 25/24 B.C. in Egypt, [where the Ptolemies were for long described as
Gods]: Ύπὲρ Καίσαρος Αὐτοκράττορος θεοῦ (Zeitschrift für Ægypt. Sprache.
XXXI. Bd. p. 3). Domitian: θεὸς Ἀδριανός,
Kaibel Inscr. Gr. 829. 1053. θεός Σεουῆρος
Ευσεβῆς, 1061—the Antinous cult with its prophets. See also Josephus on
Herod Agrippa. Antiq. XIX. 8. 2. (Euseb. H. E. II. Io). The flatterers said to
him, θεὸν προσαγορεύοντες· εἰ καί μέχρι νῦν ὡς
ἄνθρωπον ἐφοβήθημεν, ἀλλὰ τούντεῦθεν κρείττονα σε θνητῆς τῆς φύσεως ὁμολογοῦμεν.
Herod himself, § 7, says to his friends in his sickness;
ὁ θεὸς ὑμῖν ἐγὼ ἤδη καταστρέφειν ἐπιτάττομαι
τὸν βίον . . . . ὁ κληθεις ἀθάνατος ὑφ᾽ ἡμῶν ἤδη θανεῖν ἀπάγομαι). On
the other hand, we must mention the worship of the founder in some philosophic
schools, especially among the Epicureans. Epictetus says (Moral. 15), Diogenes
and Heraclitus and those like them are justly called Gods. Very instructive in
this connection are the reproaches of the heathen against the Christians, and of
Christian partisans against one another with regard to the almost divine
veneration of their teachers. Lucian (Peregr. II) reproaches the Christians in
Syria for having regarded Peregrinus as a God and a new Socrates. The heathen in
Smyrna, after the burning of Polycarp, feared that the Christians would begin to
pay him divine honours (Euseb. H. E. IV. 15. 41). Cæcilius in Minucius Felix
speaks of divine honours being paid by Christians to priests. (Octav. IX. 10.)
The Antimontanist (Euseb. H. E. V. 18. 6) asserts that the Montanists worship
their prophet and Alexander the Confessor as divine. The opponents of the Roman
Adoptians (Euseb. H. E. V. 28) reproach them with praying to Galen. There are
many passages in which the Gnostics are reproached with paying Divine honours to
the heads of their schools, and for many Gnostic schools (the Carpocratians, for
example) the reproach seems to have been just. All this is extremely
instructive. The genius, the hero, the founder of a new school who promises to
shew the certain way to the vita beata, the emperor, the philosopher,
(numerous Stoic passages might be noted here) finally man, in so far as he is
inhabited by νοῦς—could all somehow be
considered as θεοί, so elastic was the
concept. All these instances of Apotheosis in no way endangered the Monotheism
which had been developed from the mixture of Gods and from philosophy; for the
one supreme Godhead can unfold his inexhaustible essence in a variety of
existences, which, while his creatures as to their origin, are parts of his
essence as to their contents. This Monotheism does not yet exactly disclaim its
Polytheistic origin. The Christian, Hermas, says to his Mistress (Vis. I. 1. 7)
οὐ πάντοτέ σε ὡς θεάν ἡγησάμην, and the
author of the Epistle of Diognetus writes (X. 6) ταῦτα
τοις ἐπιδεομένοις χορηγῶν (i.e., the rich man)
θεὸς
γίνεται τῶν λαμβανόντων. That the concept θεὸς
was again used only of one God, was due to the fact that one now started from
the definition “qui vitam æternam habet,” and again from the definition “qui est
super omnia et originem nescit.” From the latter followed the absolute unity of
God, from the former a plurality of Gods. Both could be so harmonised (see
Tertull. adv. Prax. and Novat. de Trinit.) that one could assume that the God qui est super omnia,
might allow his monarchy to be administered by several
persons, and might dispense the gift of immortality and with it a relative
divinity.
The new thing which was here developed, continued to be
greatly obscured by the old forms of worship which reasons of state and pious
custom maintained. And the new piety, dispensing with a fixed foundation, groped
uncertainly around, adapting the old rather than rejecting it. The old religious
practices of the Fathers asserted themselves in public life generally, and the
reception of new cults by the state, which was certainly effected, though with
many checks, did not disturb them. The old religious customs stood out
especially on state holidays, in the games in honour of the Gods, frequently
degenerating into shameless immorality, but yet protecting the institutions of
the state. The patriot, the wise man, the sceptic, and the pious man compounded
with them, for they had not really at bottom outgrown them, and they
knew of nothing better to substitute for the
services they still rendered to society (see the λόγος ἀληθής of Celsus).
2. The system of associations, naturalised centuries before
among the Greeks, was developed under the social and political pressure of the
empire, and was greatly extended by the change of moral and religious ideas. The
free unions, which, as a rule, had a religious element and were established for
mutual help, support, or edification, balanced to some extent the prevailing
social cleavage, by a free democratic organisation. They gave to many
individuals in their small circle the rights which they did not possess in the
great world, and were frequently of service in obtaining admission for new
cults. Even the new piety and cosmopolitan disposition seem to have turned to
them in order to find within them forms of expression. But the time had not
come for the greater corporate unions, and of an organised connection of
societies in one city with those of another we know nothing. The state kept these
associations under strict control. It granted them only to
the poorest classes (collegia tenuiorum) and had the strictest laws in
readiness for them. These free unions, however, did not in their historical
importance approach the fabric of the Roman state in which they stood. That
represented the union of the greater part of humanity under one head, and also
more and more under one law. Its capital was the capital of the world, and also,
from the beginning of the third century, of religious syncretism. Hither
migrated all who desired to exercise an influence on the great scale: Jew,
Chaldean, Syrian priest, and Neoplatonic teacher. Law and Justice radiated from
Rome to the provinces, and in their light nationalities faded away, and a
cosmopolitanism was developed which pointed beyond itself, because the moral
spirit can never find its satisfaction in that which is realised. When that
spirit finally turned away from all political life, and after having laboured
for the ennobling of the empire, applied itself, in Neoplatonism, to the idea of
a new and free union of men, this certainly was the result of the felt failure
of the great creation, but it nevertheless had that creation for its
presupposition. The Church appropriated piecemeal the great apparatus of the
Roman state, and gave new powers, new significance and respect to every article
that had been depreciated. But what is of greatest importance is that the Church
by her preaching would never have gained whole circles, but only individuals,
had not the universal state already produced a neutralising of nationalities and
brought men nearer each other in temper and disposition.
3. Perhaps the most decisive factor in bringing about the
revolution of religious and moral convictions and moods, was philosophy, which
in almost all its schools and representatives, had deepened ethics, and set it
more and more in the fore-ground. After Possidonius, Seneca, Epictetus, and
Marcus Aurelius of the Stoical school, and men like Plutarch of the Platonic,
attained to an ethical view, which, though not very clear in principle
(knowledge, resignation, trust in God), is hardly capable of improvement in
details. Common to them all, as distinguished from the early Stoics, is the
value put upon the soul, (not the entire human nature), while in some
of them there comes clearly to the front a religious mood,
a longing for divine help, for redemption and a blessed life beyond the grave,
the effort to obtain and communicate a religious philosophical therapeutic of
the soul.The longing for redemption and divine help is, for example,
clearer in Seneca than in the Christian philosopher, Minucius Felix: see Kühn, Der Octavius des M. F. 1882, and Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1883. No. 6. From the beginning of the second century, however, already
announced itself that eclectic philosophy based on Platonism, which after two or
three generations appeared in the form of a school, and after three generations
more was to triumph over all other schools. The several elements of the
Neoplatonic philosophy, as they were already foreshadowed in Philo, are clearly
seen in the second century, viz., the dualistic opposition of the divine and the
earthly, the abstract conception of God, the assertion of the unknowableness of
God, scepticism with regard to sensuous experience, and distrust with regard to
the powers of the understanding, with a greater readiness to examine things and
turn to account the result of former scientific labour; further, the demand of
emancipation from sensuality by means of asceticism, the need of authority,
belief in a higher revelation, and the fusion of science and religion. The
legitimising of religious fancy in the province of philosophy was already begun.
The myth was no longer merely tolerated and re-interpreted as formerly, but
precisely the mythic form with the meaning imported into it was the precious
element.See the so-called Neopythagorean philosophers and the
so-called forerunners of Neoplatonism. (Cf. Bigg, The Platonists of Alexandria,
p. 250, as to Numenius.) Unfortunately, we have as yet no sufficient
investigation of the question what influence, if any, the Jewish Alexandrian
Philosophy of religion had on the development of Greek philosophy in the second
and third centuries. The answering of the question would be of the greatest
importance. But at present it cannot even be said whether the Jewish philosophy
of religion had any influence on the genesis of Neoplatonism. On the relation of
Neoplatonism to Christianity and their mutual approximation, see the excellent
account in Tzschirner, Fall des Heidenthums, pp. 574-618. Cf. also Réville,, La
Religion à Rome. 1886. There were, however, in the second century numerous representatives
of every possible philosophic view. To pass over the frivolous writers of the
day, the Cynics criticised the traditional
mythology in the interests of morality and religion.The Christians, that is the Christian preachers, were
most in agreement with the Cynics (see Lucian's Peregrinus Proteus), both on the
negative and on the positive side; but for that very reason they were hard on
one another (Justin and Tatian against Crescens)—not only because the Christians
gave a different basis for the right mode of life from the Cynics, but above
all, because they did not approve of the self-conscious, contemptuous, proud
disposition which Cynicism produced in many of its adherents. Morality
frequently underwent change for the worse in the hands of Cynics, and became the
morality of a “Gentleman,” such as we have also experience of in modern
Cynicism. But
there were also men who opposed the “ne quid nimis” to every form of practical
scepticism, and to religion at the same time, and were above all intent on
preserving the state and society, and on fostering the existing arrangements
which appeared to be threatened far more by an intrusive religious than by a
nihilistic philosophy.The attitude of Celsus, the opponent of the Christians,
is specially instructive here. Yet men whose interest was ultimately practical and
political, became ever more rare, especially as from the death of Marcus
Aurelius, the maintenance of the state had to be left more and more to the
sword of the Generals. The general conditions from the end of the second century
were favourable to a philosophy which no longer in any respect took into real
consideration the old forms of the state.
The theosophic philosophy which was prepared for in the
second century,For the knowledge of the spread of the idealistic
philosophy the statement of Origen (c. Celsum VI. 2) that Epictetus was admired
not only by scholars, but also by ordinary people who felt in themselves the
impulse to be raised to something higher, is well worthy of notice. was, from the stand-point of enlightenment and knowledge of
nature, a relapse; but it was the expression of a deeper religious need, and
of a self-knowledge such as had not been in existence at an earlier period. The
final consequences of that revolution in philosophy, which made consideration of
the inner life the starting-point of thought about the world, only now began to
be developed. The ideas of a divine, gracious providence, of the relationship of
all men, of universal brotherly love, of a ready forgiveness of wrong, of
forbearing patience, of insight into one's own weakness—affected no doubt with many shadows—became, for wide
circles, a result of the practical philosophy of the Greeks as well as the
conviction of inherent sinfulness, the need of redemption, and the eternal value
and dignity of a human soul which finds rest only in God. These ideas,
convictions and rules, had been picked up in the long journey from Socrates to
Ammonius Saccas: at first, and for long afterwards, they crippled the interest
in a rational knowledge of the world; but they deepened and enriched the inner
life, and therewith the source of all knowledge. Those ideas, however, lacked as
yet the certain coherence, but, above all, the authority which could have
raised them above the region of wishes, presentiments, and strivings, and have
given them normative authority in a community of men. There was no sure
revelation, and no view of history which could be put in the place of the no
longer prized political history of the nation or state to which one belonged.This point was of importance for the propaganda of
Christianity among the cultured. There seemed to be given here a reliable,
because revealed, Cosmology and history of the world—which already contained the
foundation of everything worth knowing. Both were needed and both were here set
forth in closest union.
There was, in fact, no such thing as certainty. In like manner, there was no
power which might overturn idolatry and abolish the old, and therefore one did
not get beyond the wavering between self-deification, fear of God, and
deification of nature. The glory is all the greater of those statesmen and
jurists who, in the second and third centuries, introduced human ideas of the
Stoics into the legal arrangements of the empire, and raised them to standards.
And we must value all the more the numerous undertakings and performances in
which it appeared that the new view of life was powerful enough in individuals
to beget a corresponding practice even without a sure belief in revelation.The universalism as reached by the Stoics is certainly
again threatened by the self-righteous and self-complacent distinction between
men of virtue and men of pleasure, who, properly speaking, are not men.
Aristotle had already dealt with the virtuous elite in a notable way. He says
(Polit. 3. 13. p. 1284), that men who are distinguished by perfect virtue should
not be put on a level with the ordinary mass, and should not be subjected to the
constraints of a law adapted to the average man. “There is no law for these
elect, who are a law to themselves.”
Supplement.—For the correct understanding of the
beginning of Christian theology, that is, for the Apologetic and Gnosis, it is
important to note where they are dependent on Stoic and where on Platonic lines
of thought. Platonism and Stoicism, in the second century, appeared in union
with each other: but up to a certain point they may be distinguished in the
common channel in which they flow. Wherever Stoicism prevailed in religious
thought and feeling, as, for example, in Marcus Aurelius, religion gains
currency as natural religion in the most comprehensive sense of the word.
The idea of revelation or redemption scarcely emerges. To this rationalism the
objects of knowledge are unvarying, ever the same: even cosmology attracts
interest only in a very small degree. Myth and history are pageantry and masks.
Moral ideas (virtues and duties) dominate even the religious sphere, which in
its final basis has no independent authority. The interest in psychology and
apologetic is very pronounced. On the other hand, the emphasis which, in
principle, is put on the contrast of spirit and matter, God and the world, had
for results: inability to rest in the actual realities of the cosmos, efforts
to unriddle the history of the universe backwards and forwards, recognition of
this process as the essential task of theoretic philosophy, and a deep, yearning
conviction that the course of the world needs assistance. Here were given the
conditions for the ideas of revelation, redemption, etc., and the restless
search for powers from whom help might come, received here also a scientific
justification. The rationalistic apologetic interests thereby fell into the
background: contemplation and historical description predominated.Notions of pre-existence were readily suggested by the
Platonic philosophy; yet this whole philosophy rests on the fact that one again
posits the thing (after stripping it of certain marks as accidental or
worthless, or ostensibly foreign to it) in order to express its value in this
form, and hold fast the permanent in the change of the phenomena.
The stages in the ecclesiastical history of dogma, from the
middle of the first to the middle of the fifth century, correspond to the
stages in the history of the ancient religion during the same period. The
Apologists, Irenæus, Tertullian,
Hippolytus; the Alexandrians; Methodius, and the
Cappadocians; Dionysius, the Areopagite, have their parallels in Seneca,
Marcus Aurelius; Plutarch, Epictetus, Numenius; Plotinus, Porphyry; Iamblichus
and Proclus.
But it is not only Greek philosophy that comes into
question for the history of Christian dogma. The whole of Greek culture must be
taken into account. In his posthumous work Hatch has shewn in a masterly way how
that is to be done. He describes the Grammar, the Rhetoric, the learned
Profession, the Schools, the Exegesis, the Homilies, etc., of the Greeks, and
everywhere shews how they passed over into the Church, thus exhibiting the
Philosophy, the Ethic, the speculative Theology, the Mysteries, etc., of the
Greeks, as the main factors in the process of forming the ecclesiastical mode of
thought.
But, besides the Greek, there is no mistaking the special
influence of Romish ideas and customs upon the Christian Church. The following
points specially claim attention: (1) The conception of the contents of the
Gospel and its application as “salus legitima,” with the results which
followed from the naturalising of this idea. (2) The conception of the word of
Revelation, the Bible, etc., as “lex.” (3) The idea of tradition in its
relation to the Romish idea. (4) The Episcopal constitution of the Church,
including the idea of succession, of the Primateship and universal Episcopate,
in their dependence on Romish ideas and institutions (the Ecclesiastical
organisation in its dependence on the Roman Empire). (5) The separation of the
idea of the “sacrement” from that of the “mystery,” and the development of the
forensic discipline of penance. The investigation has to proceed in a historical
line, described by the following series of chapters: Rome and Tertullian; Rome
and Cyprian; Rome, Optatus and Augustine; Rome and the Popes of the fifth
century. We have to shew how, by the power of her constitution and the
earnestness and consistency of her policy, Rome a second time, step by step,
conquered the world, but this time the Christian world.See Tzschirn. i. d. Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch. XII. p 215 if.
“The genesis of the Romish Church in the second century.” What he presents is no
doubt partly incomplete, partly overdone and not proved: yet much of what he
states is useful.
Greek philosophy exercised the greatest influence not only
on the Christian mode of thought, but also through that, on the institutions of
the Church. The Church never indeed be-came a philosophic school: but yet in her
was realised in a peculiar way, that which the Stoics and the Cynics had aimed
at. The Stoic (Cynic) Philosopher also belonged to the factors from which the
Christian Priests or Bishops were formed. That the old bearers of the
Spirit—Apostles, Prophets, Teachers—have been changed into a class of
professional moralists and preachers, who bridle the people by counsel and
reproof (νουθετεῖν καὶ ἐλέγχειν), that
this class considers itself and de-sires to be considered as a mediating Kingly
Divine class, that its representatives became “Lords” and let themselves be
called “Lords,” all this was prefigured in the Stoic wise man and in the Cynic
Missionary. But so far as these several “Kings and Lords” are united in the idea
and reality of the Church and are subject to it, the Platonic idea of the
republic goes beyond the Stoic and Cynic ideals, and subordinates them to it.
But this Platonic ideal has again obtained its political realisation in the
Church through the very concrete laws of the Roman Empire, which were more and
more adopted, or taken possession of. Consequently, in the completed Church we
find again the philosophic schools and the Roman Empire.
Literature.—Besides the older works of Tzschirner,
Döllinger, Burckhardt, Preller, see Friedländer, Darstellungen aus der
Sittengesch. Roms in der Zeit von August bis zum Ausgang der Antonine, 3 Bd.
Aufl. Boissier, La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, 2 Bd. 1874. Ramsay,
The Church in the Roman Empire before 170. London, 1893. Réville, La Religion à
Rome sous les Sévères, 1886. Schiller, Geschichte der Röm Kaiserzeit, 1883.
Marquardt, Römische Staatsverwaltung, 3 Bde. 1878. Foucart, Les Associations
Relig. chez les Grecs, 1873. Liebeman, Z. Gesch. u. Organisation d. Röm. Vereinswesen, 189o. K. J. Neumann, Der Röm. Staat und die allg. Kirche, Bd. I.
1890. Leopold Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, 2 Bd. 1882. Heinrici, Die Christengemeinde
Korinth's und die religiösen Genossenschaften der
Griechen, in der Ztschr. f. wissensch. Theol. 1876-77. Hatch, The Influence of
Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church. Buechner, De neocoria, 1888.
Hirschfeld. Z. Gesch. d. röm. Kaisercultus. The Histories of Philosophy by
Zeller, Erdmann, Ueberweg, Strümpell, Windelband, etc. Heinze, Die Lehre vom
Logos in der Griech. Philosophie, 1872. By same Author, Der Eudämonismus in der
Griech. Philosophic, 1883. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philos.
Schriften, 3 Thle. 1877-1883. These investigations are of special value for the
history of dogma, because they set forth with the greatest accuracy and care,
the later developments of the great Greek philosophic schools, especially on
Roman soil. We must refer specially to the discussions on the influence of the
Roman on the Greek Philosophy. Volkmann, Die Rhetorik der Griechen und Römer, 1872.
Supplementary.
Perhaps the most important fact for the following
development of the history of Dogma, the way for which had already been
prepared in the Apostolic age, is the twofold conception of the aim of Christ's
appearing, or of the religious blessing of salvation. The two conceptions were
indeed as yet mutually dependent on each other, and were twined together in the
closest way, just as they are presented in the teaching of Jesus himself; but
they began even at this early period to be differentiated. Salvation, that is to
say, was conceived, on the one hand, as sharing in the glorious kingdom of
Christ soon to appear, and everything else was regarded as preparatory to this
sure prospect; on the other hand, however, attention was turned to the
conditions and to the provisions of God wrought by Christ, which first made men
capable of attaining that portion, that is, of becoming sure of it. Forgiveness
of sin, righteousness, faith, knowledge, etc., are the things which come into
consideration here, and these blessings themselves, so far as they have as their
sure result life in the kingdom of Christ, or more accurately eternal life, may be
regarded as salvation. It is manifest that these two
conceptions need not be exclusive. The first regards the final effect as the
goal and all else as a preparation, the other regards the preparation, the facts
already accomplished by Christ and the inner transformation of men as the main
thing, and all else as the natural and necessary result. Paul, above all, as may
be seen especially from the arguments in the epistle to the Romans,
unquestionably favoured the latter conception and gave it vigorous expression.
The peculiar conflicts with which he saw himself confronted, and, above all, the
great controversy about the relation of the Gospel and the new communities to
Judaism, necessarily concentrated the attention on questions as to the
arrangements on which the community of those sanctified in Christ should rest,
and the conditions of admission to this community. But the centre of gravity of
Christian faith might also for the moment be removed from the hope of Christ's
second advent, and would then necessarily be found in the first advent, in
virtue of which salvation was already prepared for man, and man for salvation
(Rom. III.–VIII.). The dual development of the conception of Christianity which
followed from this, rules the whole history of the Gospel to the present day.
The eschatological view is certainly very severely repressed, but it always
breaks out here and there, and still guards the spiritual from the
secularisation which threatens it. But the possibility of uniting the two
conceptions in complete harmony with each other, and on the other hand, of
expressing them antithetically, has been the very circumstance that has
complicated in an extraordinary degree the progress of the development of the
history of dogma. From this follows the antithesis, that from that conception
which somehow recognises salvation itself in a present spiritual possession,
eternal life in the sense of immortality may be postulated as final result,
though not a glorious kingdom of Christ on earth; while, conversely, the
eschatological view must logically depreciate every blessing which can be
possessed in the present life.
It is now evident that the theology, and, further, the
Hellenising, of Christianity, could arise and has arisen in connection,
not with the eschatological, but only with the other
conception. Just because the matters here in question were present spiritual
blessings, and because, from the nature of the case, the ideas of forgiveness of
sin, righteousness, knowledge, etc., were not so definitely outlined in the
early tradition, as the hopes of the future, conceptions entirely new and very
different, could, as it were, be secretly naturalised. The spiritual view left
room especially for the great contrast of a religious and a moralistic
conception, as well as for a frame of mind which was like the eschatological in
so far as, according to it, faith and knowledge were to be only preparatory
blessings in contrast with the peculiar blessing of immortality, which of
course was contained in them. In this frame of mind the illusion might easily
arise that this hope of immortality was the very kernel of those hopes of the
future for which old concrete forms of expression were only a temporary shell.
But it might further be assumed that contempt for the transitory and finite as
such, was identical with contempt for the kingdom of the world which the
returning Christ would destroy.
The history of dogma has to shew how the old
eschatological view was gradually repressed and transformed in the Gen-tile
Christian communities, and how there was finally developed and carried out a
spiritual conception in which a strict moralism counterbalanced a luxurious
mysticism, and wherein the results of Greek practical philosophy could find a
place. But we must here refer to the fact, which is already taught by the
development in the Apostolic age, that Christian dogmatic did not spring from
the eschatological, but from the spiritual mode of thought. The former had
nothing but sure hopes and the guarantee of these hopes by the Spirit, by the
words of prophecy and by the apocalyptic writings. One does not think, he lives
and dreams, in the eschatological mode of thought; and such a life was vigorous
and powerful till beyond the middle of the second century. There can be no
external authorities here; for one has at every moment the highest authority in
living operation in the Spirit. On the other hand, not only does the
ecclesiastical christology essentially spring from the spiritual way of
thinking, but very specially also the
system of dogmatic guarantees. The co-ordination of λόγος
θεοῦ, διδαχή κύριου, κήρυγμα τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων [word of God,
teaching of the Lord, preaching of the twelve Apostles],
which lay at the basis of all Gentile Christian speculation almost from the very
beginning, and which was soon directed against the enthusiasts, originated in a
conception which regarded as the essential thing in Christianity, the sure
knowledge which is the condition of immortality. If, however, in the following
sections of this historical presentation, the pervading and continuous
opposition of the two conceptions is not everywhere clearly and definitely
brought into prominence, that is due to the conviction that the historian has no
right to place the factors and impelling ideas of a development in a clearer
light than they appear in the development itself. He must respect the
obscurities and complications as they come in his way. A clear discernment of
the difference of the two conceptions was very seldom attained to in
ecclesiastical antiquity, because they did not look beyond their points of
contact, and because certain articles of the eschatological conception could
never be suppressed or remodelled in the Church. Goethe (Dichtung und Wahrheit,
II. 8,) has seen this very clearly. “The Christian religion wavers between its
own historic positive element and a pure Deism, which, based on morality, in its
turn offers itself as the foundation of morality. The difference of character
and mode of thought shew themselves here in infinite gradations, especially as
another main distinction co-operates with them, since the question arises, what
share the reason, and what the feelings, can and should have in such
convictions.” See, also, what immediately follows.
2. The origin of a series of the most important Christian
customs and ideas is involved in an obscurity which in all probability will
never be cleared up. Though one part of those ideas may be pointed out in the
epistles of Paul, yet the question must frequently remain unanswered, whether he
found them in existence or formed them independently, and accordingly the other
question, whether they are exclusively indebted to the activity of Paul for
their spread and naturalisation in Christendom. What was the original conception of
baptism? Did Paul develop independently his own
conception? What significance had it in the following period? When and where
did baptism in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit arise, and how did it
make its way in Christendom? In what way were views about the saving value of
Christ's death developed alongside of Paul's system? When and how did belief in
the birth of Jesus from a Virgin gain acceptance in Christendom? Who first
distinguished Christendom, as ἐκκλησία τοῦ
θεοῦ, from Judaism, and how did the concept
ἐκκλησία become current? How old is the triad: Apostles,
Prophets and Teachers? When were Baptism and the Lord's Supper grouped together?
How old are our first three Gospels? To all these questions and many more of
equal importance there is no sure answer. But the greatest problem is presented
by Christology, not indeed in its particular features doctrinally expressed,
these almost everywhere may be explained historically, but in its deepest roots
as it was preached by Paul as the principle of a new life (2 Cor. V. 17), and
as it was to many besides him the expression of a personal union with the
exalted Christ (Rev. II. 3). But this problem exists only for the historian who
considers things only from the outside, or seeks for objective proofs. Behind
and in the Gospel stands the Person of Jesus Christ who mastered men's hearts,
and constrained them to yield themselves to him as his own, and in whom they
found their God. Theology attempted to describe in very uncertain and feeble
outline what the mind and heart had grasped. Yet it testifies of a new life
which, like all higher life, was kindled by a Person, and could only be
maintained by connection with that Person. “I can do all things through Christ
who strengtheneth me.” “I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me.” These
convictions are not dogmas and have no history, and they can only be propagated
in the manner described by Paul, Gal. I. 15, 16.
3. It was of the utmost importance for the legitimising of
the later development of Christianity as a system of doctrine. that early
Christianity had an Apostle who was a theologian, and that his Epistles were
received into the canon. That the doctrine about Christ has become the main
article in Christianity
is not of course the result of Paul's preaching, but is
based on the confession that Jesus is the Christ. The theology of Paul was not
even the most prominent ruling factor in the transformation of the Gospel to the
Catholic doctrine of faith, although an earnest study of the Pauline Epistles by
the earliest Gentile Christian theologians, the Gnostics, and their later
opponents, is unmistakable. But the decisive importance of this theology lies in
the fact that, as a rule, it formed the boundary and the foundation—just as
the words of the Lord himself—for those who in the following period
endeavoured to ascertain original Christianity, because the Epistles attesting
it stood in the canon of the New Testament. Now, as this theology comprised both
speculative and apologetic elements, as it can be thought of as a system, as it
contained a theory of history and a definite conception of the Old
Testament,—finally, as it was composed of objective and subjective ethical
considerations and included the realistic elements of a national religion (wrath
of God, sacrifice, reconciliation, Kingdom of glory), as well as profound
psychological perceptions and the highest appreciation of spiritual blessings,
the Catholic doctrine of faith as it was formed in the course of time, seemed,
at least in its leading features, to be related to it, nay, demanded by it. For
the ascertaining of the deep-lying distinctions, above all for the perception
that the question in the two cases is about elements quite differently
conditioned, that even the method is different,—in short, that the Pauline
Gospel is not identical with the original Gospel and much less with any later
doctrine of faith, there is required such historical judgment and such honesty
of purpose not to be led astray in the investigation by the canon of the New
Testament,What is meant here is the imminent danger of taking the
several constituent parts of the canon, even for historical investigation, as
constituent parts, that is, of explaining one writing by the standard of another
and so creating an artificial unity. The contents of any of Paul's epistles, for
example, will be presented very differently if it is considered by itself and in
the circumstances in which it was written, or if attention is fixed on it as
part of a collection whose unity is presupposed. that no change in the prevailing ideas can be hoped for for long
years to come. Besides, critical theology
has made it difficult to gain an insight into the great
difference that lies between the Pauline and the Catholic theology, by the
one-sided prominence it has hitherto given to the antagonism between Paulinism
and Judaistic Christianity. In contrast with this view the remark of Havet,
though also very one-sided, is instructive, “Quand on vient de relire Paul, on
ne peut méconnaître le caractère élevé de son œuvre. Je dirai en un mot, qu'il a
agrandi dans une proportion extraordinaire l’attrait que le judaïsme exerçait
sur le monde ancien” (Le Christianisme, T. IV. p. 216). That, however, was only
very gradually the case and within narrow limits. The deepest and most important
writings of the New Testament are incontestably those in which Judaism is
understood as religion, but spiritually overcome and subordinated to the Gospel
as a new religion,—the Pauline Epistles, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the
Gospel and Epistle of John. There is set forth in these writings a new and
exalted world of religious feelings, views and judgments, into which the
Christians of succeeding centuries got only meagre glimpses. Strictly speaking,
the opinion that the New Testament in its whole extent comprehends a unique
literature is not tenable; but it is correct to say that between its most
important constituent parts and the literature of the period immediately
following there is a great gulf fixed.
But Paulinism especially has had an immeasurable and
blessed influence on the whole course of the history of dogma, an influence it
could not have had if the Pauline Epistles had not been received into the canon.
Paulinism is a religious and Christocentric doctrine, more inward and more
powerful than any other which has ever appeared in the Church. It stands in the
clearest opposition to all merely natural moralism, all righteousness of works,
all religious ceremonialism, all Christianity without Christ. It has therefore
become the con-science of the Church, until the Catholic Church in Jansenism
killed this her conscience. “The Pauline reactions describe the critical epochs
of theology and the Church.”See Bigg, The Christian Platonist of Alexandria, pp. 53,
283 ff. One might
write a history of dogma as a history of the Pauline
reactions in the Church, and in doing so would touch on all the turning-points
of the history. Marcion after the Apostolic Fathers; Irenæus, Clement and
Origen after the Apologists; Augustine after the Fathers of the Greek Church;Reuter (August. Studien, p. 492) has drawn a valuable
parallel between Marcion and Augustine with regard to Paul.
the great Reformers of the middle ages from Agobard to Wessel in the bosom of
the mediæval Church; Luther after the Scholastics; Jansenism after the council
of Trent:—everywhere it has been Paul, in these men, who produced the
Reformation. Paulinism has proved to be a ferment in the history of dogma, a
basis it has never been.Marcion of course wished to raise it to the exclusive
basis, but he entirely misunderstood it. Just as it had that significance in Paul himself, with
reference to Jewish Christianity, so it has continued to work through the
history of the Church.
DIVISION I.
THE GENESIS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA,
OR
THE GENESIS OF
THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC DOGMATIC THEOLOGY,
AND
THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC ECCLESIASTICAL
SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE.
BOOK I.
THE PREPARATION.
Ἐάν μυρίους παιδαγωγοὺς ἔχητε ἐν χριστῷ ἀλλ᾽ οὐ
πολλους πατέρας
1 Cor. IV. 15.
Eine jede Idee tritt als ein fremder Gast in die Erscheinung,
und wie sie sich zu realisiren beginnt, ist sie kaum von Phantasie und Phantasterei
zu unterscheiden.
Goethe, Sprüche in Prosa,
566.
BOOK I
THE PREPARATION
CHAPTER I
HISTORICAL SURVEY
THE first century of the existence of Gentile Christian communities
is particularly characterised by the following features:
I. The rapid disappearance of Jewish Christianity.This fact
must have been apparent as early as the year too. The first direct evidence of it
is in Justin (Apol. I. 53).
II. The enthusiastic character of the religious temper: the Charismatic
teachers and the appeal to the Spirit.Every individual was, or at least should
have been conscious, as a Christian, of having received the
πνεῦμα θεοῦ, though that does not exclude spiritual
grades. A special peculiarity of the enthusiastic nature of the religious temper
is that it does not allow reflection as to the authenticity of the faith in which
a man lives. As to the Charismatic teaching, see my edition of the Didache (Texte
u. Unters. II. 1. 2. p. 93 ff.).
III. The strength of the hopes for the future, Chiliasm.The
hope of the approaching end of the world and the glorious kingdom of Christ still
determined men’s heart; though exhortations against theoretical and practical scepticism
became more and more necessary. On the other hand, after the Epistles to the Thessalonians,
there were not wanting exhortations to continue sober and diligent.
IV. The rigorous endeavour to fulfil the moral precepts of Christ,
and truly represent the holy and heavenly community of God in abstinence from everything
unclean, and in love to God and the brethren here on earth “in these last days.There
was a strong consciousness that the Christian Church is, above all, a union for
a holy life, as well as a consciousness of the obligation to help one another, and
use all the blessings bestowed by God in the service of our neighbours. Justin (2
Apol. in Euseb. H. E. IV. 17. 10) calls Christianity
τὸ διδασκάλιον τῆς θείας ἀρετῆς.
V. The want of a fixed doctrinal form in relation to the abstract
statement of the faith, and the corresponding variety and freedom of Christian preaching
on the basis of clear formulæ and an increasingly rich tradition.
VI. The want of a clearly defined external authority in the communities,
sure in its application, and the corresponding independence and freedom of the individual
Christian in relation to the expression of the ideas, beliefs and hopes of faith.The
existing authorities (Old Testament, sayings of the Lord, words of Apostles) did
not necessarily require to be taken into account; for the living acting Spirit,
partly attesting himself also to the senses, gave new revelations. The validity
of these authorities therefore held good only in theory, and might in practice be
completely set aside. (Cf., above all, the Shepherd of Hermas.)
VII. The want of a fixed political union of the several communities
with each other—every ecclesia is an image complete in itself, and an embodiment
of the whole heavenly Church—while the consciousness of the unity of the holy Church
of Christ which has the spirit in its midst, found strong expression.Zahn
remarks (Ignatius. v. A. p. VII.): “I do not believe it to be the business of that
province of historical investigation which is dependent on the writings of the so-called
Apostolic Fathers as main sources, to explain the origin of the universal Church
in any sense of the term; for that Church existed before Clement and Hermas, before
Ignatius and Polycarp. But an explanatory answer is needed for the question: By
what means did the consciousness of the “universal Church,” so little favoured by
our circumstances, maintain itself unbroken in the post-Apostolic communities? This
way of stating it obscures, at least, the problem which here lies before us, for
it does not take account of the changes which the idea “universal Church” underwent
up to the middle of the third century—besides, we do not find the title before Ignatius.
In so far as the “universal Church” is set forth as an earthly power recognisable
in a doctrine or in political forms, the question as to the origin of the idea is
not only allowable, but must be regarded as one of the most important. On the earliest
conception of the “Ecclesia” and its realisation, see the fine investigations of
Sohm “Kirchenrecht,” I. p. 1 ff., which, however, suffer from being a little overdriven.
VIII. A quite unique literature in which were manufactured facts
for the past and for the future, and which did not submit to the usual literary
rules and forms, but came forward with the loftiest pretensions.See the important
essay of Overbeck: Ueber die Anfänge d. patrist. Litteratur (Hist. Ztschr. N. F.
Bd. XII. pp. 417-472). Early Christian literature, as a rule, claims to be inspired
writing. One can see, for example, in the history of the resurrection in the recently
discovered Gospel of Peter (fragment) how facts were remodelled or created.
IX. The reproduction of particular sayings and arguments of Apostolic
Teachers with an uncertain understanding of them.The writings of men of the
Apostolic period, and that immediately succeeding, attained in part a wide circulation,
and in some portions of them, often of course incorrectly understood, very great
influence. How rapidly this literature was diffused, even the letters, may be studied
in the history of the Epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of Clement, and other
writings.
X. The rise of tendencies which endeavoured to hasten in every
respect the inevitable process of fusing the Gospel with the spiritual and religious
interests of the time, viz., the Hellenic, as well as attempts to separate the Gospel
from its origins and provide for it quite foreign presuppositions. To the latter
belongs, above all, the Hellenic idea that knowledge is not a charismatic supplement
to the faith, or an outgrowth of faith alongside of others, but that it coincides
with the essence of faith itself.That which is here mentioned is of the greatest
importance; it is not a mere reference to the so-called Gnostics. The foundations
for the Hellenising of the Gospel in the Church were already laid in the first century
(50-150).
The sources for this period are few, as there was not much written,
and the following period did not lay itself out for preserving a great part of the
literary monuments of that epoch. Still we do possess a considerable number of writings
and important fragments,We should not over-estimate the extent of early Christian
literature. It is very probable that we know, so far as the titles of hooks are
concerned, nearly all that was effective, and the greater part, by very diverse
means, has also been preserved to us. We except, of course, the so-called Gnostic
literature of which we have only a few fragments. Only from the time of Commodus,
as Eusebius H. E. V. 21. 27, has remarked, did the great Church preserve an extensive
literature. and further important inferences here are rendered possible by
the monuments of the following period, since the conditions of the first century
were not changed in a moment, but were partly, at least, long preserved, especially
in certain national Churches and in remote communities.It is therefore important
to note the locality in which a document orginates, and the more so the earlier
the document is. In the earliest period, in which the history of the Church was
more uniform, and the influence from without relatively less, the differences are
still in the background. Yet the spirit of Rome already announces itself in the
Epistle of Clement, that of Alexandria in the Epistle of Barnabas, that of the East
in the Epistles of Ignatius.
Supplement.—The main features of the message concerning
Christ, of the matter of the Evangelic history, were fixed in the first and second
generations of believers, and on Palestinian soil. But yet, up to the middle of
the second century, this matter was in many ways increased in Gentile Christian
regions, revised from new points of view, handed down in very diverse forms, and
systematically allegorised by individual teachers. As a whole, the Evangelic history
certainly appears to have been completed at the beginning of the second century.
But in detail, much that was new was produced at a later period—and not only in
Gnostic circles—and the old tradition was recast or rejected.The history of
the genesis of the four Canonical Gospels, or the comparison of them, is instructive
on this point. Then we must bear in mind the old Apocryphal Gospels, and the way
in which the so-called Apostolic Fathers and Justin attest the Evangelic history,
and in part reproduce it independently; the Gospels of Peter, of the Egyptians,
and of Marcion; the Diatesseron of Tatian; the Gnostic Gospels and Acts of the Apostles,
etc. The greatest gap in our knowledge consists in the fact, that we know so little
about the course of things from about the year 61 to the beginning of the reign
of Trajan. The consolidating and remodelling process must, for the most part, have
taken place in this period. We possess probably not a few writings which belong
to that period; but how are we to prove this? how are they to be arranged? Here
lies the cause of most of the differences, combinations and uncertainties; many
scholars, therefore, actually leave these 40 years out of account, and seek to place
everything in the first three decennia of the second century.
CHAPTER II.
THE ELEMENT COMMON TO ALL CHRISTIANS AND THE BREACH WITH JUDAISM
ON account of the great differences among those who, in the first
century, reckoned themselves in the Church of God, and called themselves by the
name of Christ,See, as to this, Celsus in Orig. III. 10 ff. and V. 59 ff.
it seems at first sight scarcely possible to set up marks which would hold good
for all, or even for nearly all, the groups. Yet the great majority had one thing
in common, as is proved, among other things, by the gradual expulsion of Gnosticism.
The conviction that they knew the supreme God, the consciousness of being responsible
to him (Heaven and Hell), reliance on Jesus Christ, the hope of an eternal life,
the vigorous elevation above the world—these are the elements that formed the fundamental
mood. The author of the Acts of Thecla expresses the general view when he (c. 5.7)
co-ordinates τὸν τοῦ χριστοῦ λόγον, with λόγος θεοῦ
περὶ ἐγκατείας, καὶ ἀναστάσεως. The following particulars may here be specified.The
marks adduced in the text do not certainly hold good for some comparatively unimportant
Gnostic groups, but they do apply to the great majority of them, and in the main
to Marcion also.
I. The Gospel, because it rests on revelation, is the sure manifestation
of the supreme God, and its believing acceptance guarantees salvation (σωτερία).
II. The essential content of this manifestation (besides the revelation
and the verification of the oneness and spirituality of God),Most of the Gnostic
schools know only one God, and put all emphasis on he knowledge of the oneness,
supramundaneness, and spirituality of this God. The Æons, the Demiurgus, the God
of matter, do not come near this God though they are called Gods. See the testimony
of Hippolytus c. Noet. II; καὶ γὰρ πάντες ἀπεκλείσθησαν
εἰς τοῦτο ἄκοντες εἰπεῖν, ὅτι τὸ πᾶν εἰς ἕνα ἀνατρέχει. εἰ οὖν τὰ πάντα εἰς ἕνα
ἀνατρέχει καὶ κατὰ θύαλεντῖνον καὶ κατὰ Μαρκίωνα. Κήρίνθόν τὲ καὶ πᾶσαν τὴν ἐκείνων
φλυαρίαν, καὶ ἄκοντες εἰς τοῦτο περιέπεσαν, ἵνα τὸν ἕνα ὅμολογήσωσιν αἴτιον τῶν
πάντων οὕτως οὖν συντρέχουσιν καὶ αὐτοὶ μὴ θέλοντες τῇ ἀληθείᾳ ἕνα θεὸν λέγειν ποιήσαντα
ὡς ἠθέλσεν. is, first of all, the message of the resurrection and
eternal life (ἀνάστασις, ζωὴ ἀιώνιος), then
the preaching of moral purity and continence (ἐγκράτεια),
on the basis of repentance
toward God (μετάνοια), and of
an expiation once assured by baptism, with eye ever fixed on the requital of good
and evil.Continence was regarded as the condition laid down by God for the
resurrection and eternal life. The sure hope of this was for many, if not for the
majority, the whole sum of religion, in connection with the idea of the requital
of good and evil which was now firmly established. See the testimony of the heathen
Lucian, in Peregrinus Proteus.
III. This manifestation is mediated by Jesus Christ, who is the
Saviour (σωτήρ) sent by God “in these last
days,” and who stands with God himself in a union special and unique, (cf. the ambiguous
παῖς θεοῦ, which was much used in the earliest
period). He has brought the true and full knowledge of God, as well as the gift
of immortality (γνώσις καὶ ζωἡ, or
γνώσις τῆς ζωῆς, as an expression for the sum
of the Gospel. See the supper prayer in the Didache, c. IX. and X.;
εὐχαριστοῦμέν σοι, πάτερ ἡμῶν ὑπερ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ γνώσεως
ἧς ἐγνώρισας ἡμῖν διὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ παιδός σου), and is for that very reason
the redeemer (σώτηρ and victor over the demons)
on whom we are to place believing trust. But he is, further, in word and walk the
highest example of all moral virtue, and therefore in his own person the law for
the perfect life, and at the same time the God-appointed lawgiver and judge.Even
where the judicial attributes were separated from God (Christ) as not suitable,
Christ was still comprehended as the critical appearance by which every man is placed
in the condition which belongs to him. The Apocalypse of Peter expects that God
himself will come as Judge. See the Messianic expectations of Judaism, in which
it was always uncertain whether God or the Messiah would hold the judgment.
IV. Virtue, as continence, embraces as its highest task, renunciation
of temporal goods and separation from the common world; for the Christian is not
a citizen, but a stranger on the earth, and expects its approaching destruction.Celsus
(Orig. c. Celsum, V. 59) after referring to the many Christian parties mutually
provoking and fighting with each other, remarks (V. 64) that though they differ
much from each other, and quarrel with each other, you can yet hear from them all
the protestation, “The world is crucified to me and I to the world.” In the earliest
Gentile Christian communities brotherly love for reflective thought falls into the
background behind ascetic exercises of virtue, in unquestionable deviation from
the sayings of Christ, but in fact it was powerful. See the testimony of Pliny and
Lucian, Aristides, Apol. 15, Tertull. Apol. 39.
V. Christ has committed to chosen men, the Apostles (or to one
Apostle), the proclamation of the message he received from God; consequently, their
preaching represents that of Christ himself. But, besides, the Spirit of God rules
in Christians, “the Saints.” He bestows upon them special gifts, and, above all,
continually raises up among them Prophets and spiritual Teachers who receive revelations
and communications for the edification of others, and whose injunctions are to be
obeyed.
VI. Christian Worship is a service of God in spirit and in truth
(a spiritual sacrifice), and therefore has no legal ceremonial and statutory rules.
The value of the sacred acts and consecrations which are connected with the cultus,
consists in the communication of spiritual blessings. (Didache X.,
ἡμιν δὲ ἐχαρίσω, δέσποτα, πνευματικὴν τροφήν καὶ ποτὸν
καὶ ζωὴν αἰώνιον διὰ τοῦ παιδός σου).
VII. Everything that Jesus Christ brought with him, may be summed
up in γνώσις καὶ ζωή, or in the knowledge of
immortal life.The word “life” comes into consideration in a double sense,
viz., as soundness of the soul and as immortality. Neither, of course, is to be
separated from the other. But I have attempted to shew in my essay, “Medicinisches
aus der ältesten Kirchengesch.” (1892), the extent to which the Gospel in the earliest
Christendom was preached as medicine and Jesus as a Physician, and how the Christian
Message was really comprehended by the Gentiles as a medicinal religion. Even the
Stoic philosophy gave itself out as a soul therapeutic, and Æsculapius was worshipped
as a Saviour-God; but Christianity alone was a religion of healing.
To possess the perfect knowledge was, in wide circles, an expression for the sum
total of the Gospel.Heinrici, in his commentary on the epistles to the Corinthians,
has dealt very clearly with this matter; see especially (Bd. II. p. 557 ff.) the
description of the Christianity of the Corinthians: “On what did the community base
its Christian character? It believed in one God who had revealed himself to it through
Christ, without denying the reality of the hosts of gods in the heathen world (I.
VIII. 6). It hoped in immortality without being clear as to the nature of the Christian
belief in the resurrection (I. XV.) It had no doubt as to the requital of good and
evil (I. IV. 5: 2 V. so: XI. 15: Rom. II. 4),
without understanding the value of self-denial, claiming no merit, for the sake
of important ends. It was striving to make use of the Gospel as a new doctrine of
wisdom about earthly and super-earthly things, which led to the perfect and best
established knowledge (1 I. 21: VIII. 1). It boasted of special operations of the
Divine Spirit, which in themselves remained obscure and non-transparent, and therefore
unfruitful (1. XIV), while it was prompt to put aside as obscure, the word of the
Cross as preached by Paul (2. IV. 1 f.). The hope of the near Parousia, however,
and the completion of all things, evinced no power to effect a moral transformation
of society. We herewith obtain the outline of a conviction that was spread over
the widest circles of the Roman Empire.” Naturam si expellas furca,
tamen usque recurret.
VIII. Christians, as such, no longer take into account the distinctions
of race, age, rank, nationality and worldly culture, but the Christian community
must be conceived as a communion resting on a divine election. Opinions were divided
about the ground of that election.
IX. As Christianity is the only true religion, and as it is no
national religion, but somehow concerns the whole of humanity, or its best part,
it follows that it can have nothing in common with the Jewish nation and its contemporary
cultus. The Jewish nation in which Jesus Christ appeared, has, for the time at least,
no special relation to the God whom Jesus revealed. Whether it had such a relation
at an earlier period is doubtful (cf. here, e.g., the attitude of Marcion,
Ptolemæus the disciple of Valentinus, the author of the Epistle of Barnabas, Aristides
and Justin); but certain it is that God has now cast it off, and that all revelations
of God, so far as they took place at all before Christ, (the majority assumed that
there had been such revelations and considered the Old Testament as a holy record),
must have aimed solely at the call of the “new people”, and in some way prepared
for the revelation of God through his Son.Nearly all Gentile Christian groups
that we know, are at one in the detachment of Christianity from empiric Judaism;
the “Gnostics,” however, included the Old Testament in Judaism, while the greater
part of Christians did not. That detachment seemed to be demanded by the claims
of Christianity to be the one, true, absolute and therefore oldest religion, foreseen
from the beginning. The different estimates of the Old Testament in Gnostic circles
have their exact parallels in the different estimates of Judaism among the other
Christians; cf. for example, in this respect, the conception stated in the Epistle
of Barnabas with the views of Marcion, and Justin with Valentinus. The particulars
about the detachment of the Gentile Christians from the Synagogue, which was prepared
for by the inner development of Judaism itself, and was required by the fundamental
fact that the Messiah, crucified and rejected by his own people, was recognised
as Saviour by those who were not Jews, cannot be given in the frame-work of a history
of dogma; though, see Chaps. III. IV. VI. On the other hand, the turning away from
Judaism is also the result of the mass of things which were held in common with
it, even in Gnostic circles. Christianity made its appearance in the Empire in the
Jewish propaganda. By the preaching of Jesus Christ who brought the gift of eternal
life, mediated the full knowledge of God, and assembled round him in these last
days a community, the imperfect and hybrid creations of the Jewish propaganda in
the empire were converted into independent formations. These formations were far
superior to the synagogue in power of attraction, and from the nature of the case
would very soon be directed with the utmost vigour against the synagogue.
CHAPTER III.
THE COMMON FAITH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF KNOWLEDGE
IN GENTILE CHRISTIANITY AS IT WAS BEING
DEVELOPED INTO CATHOLICISMThe statements made in this chapter need special
forbearance, especially as the selection from the rich and motley material—cf. only
the so-called Apostolic Fathers—the emphasising of this, the throwing into the background
of that element, cannot here be vindicated. It is not possible, in the compass of
a brief account, to give expression to that elasticity and those oscillations of
ideas and thoughts which were peculiar to the Christians of the earliest period.
There was indeed, as will be shewn, a complex of tradition in many respects fixed,
but this complex was still under the dominance of an enthusiastic fancy, so that
what at one moment seemed fixed, in the next had disappeared. Finally, attention
must be given to the fact that when we speak of the beginnings of knowledge, the
members of the Christian community in their totality are no longer in question,
but only individuals who of course were the leaders of the others. If we had no
other writings from the times of the Apostolic Fathers than the first Epistle of
Clement and the Epistle of Polycarp, it would he comparatively easy to sketch a
clear history of the development connecting Paulinism with the Old-Catholic Theology
as represented by Iræneus, and so to justify the traditional ideas. But besides
these two Epistles which are the classic monuments of the mediating tradition, we
have a great number of documents which shew us how manifold and complicated the
development was. They also teach us how carefnl we should be in the interpretation
of the post-Apostolic documents that immediately followed the Pauline Epistles,
and that we must give special heed to the paragraphs and ideas in them, which distinguish
them from Paulinism. Besides, it is of the greatest importance that those two Epistles
originated in Rome and Asia Minor, as these are the places where we must seek the
embryonic stage of old-Catholic doctrine. Numerous fine threads, in the form of
fundamental ideas and particular views, pass over from the Asia Minor theology of
the post-Apostolic period into the old-Catholic theology.
§©1. The Communities and the Church.
THE confessors of the Gospels, belonging to organised communities
who recognised the Old Testament as the Divine record of revelation, and prized
the Evangelic tradition as a public message for all, to which, in its undiluted
form, they wished to adhere truly and sincerely, formed the stem of
Christendom both as to extent and importance.The Epistle to
the Hebrews (X. 25), the Epistle of
Barnabas (IV. 10), the Shepherd of Hermas
(Sim. IX. 26. 3), but especially the Epistle of Ignatius and still later documents,
shew that up to the middle of the second century, and even later, there were Christians
who, for various reasons, stood outside the union of communities, or wished to have
only a loose and temporary relation to them. The exhortation:
ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνερχόμενοι συνζητεῖτε περὶ τοῦ κοινῇ
συμφέροντος (see my note on Didache XVI. 2, and cf. for the expression the
interesting State Inscription which was found at Magnesia on the Meander. Bull,
Corresp. Hellen. 1883 p. 506: ἀπαγορεύω μήτε συνέρχεσθαι
τοὺς ἀρτοκόκους κατ᾽ ἑταιρίαν μήτε παρεστηκότας θρασύνεσθαι. πειθάρχεἰν δε πάντως
τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινῇ συμφέροντος ἐπιταττομένοις κ.τ.λ. or the exhortation: κολλᾶσθε
τοἶς ἁγίοις, ὅτι οἱ κολλώμενοι αὐτοῖς ἁγιασθήσονται (1 Clem. 46. 2, introduced
as γραφὴ) runs through most of the writings
of the post-Apostolic and pre-catholic period. New doctrines were imported by wandering
Christians who, in many cases, may not themselves have belonged to a community,
and did not respect the arrangements of those they found in existence, but sought
to form conventicles. If we remember how the Greeks and Romans were wont to get
themselves initiated into a mystery cult, and took part for a long time in the religious
exercises, and then, when they thought they had got the good of it, for the most
part or wholly to give up attending, we shall not wonder that the demand to become
a permanent member of a Christian community was opposed by many. The statements
of Hermas are specially instructive here. The communities stood to each other
in an outwardly loose, but inwardly firm connection, and every community by the
vigour of its faith, the certainty of its hope, the holy character of its life,
as well as by unfeigned love, unity and peace, was to be an image of the holy Church
of God which is in heaven, and whose members are scattered over the earth. They
were, further, by the purity of their walk and an active brotherly disposition,
to prove to those without, that is to the world, the excellence and truth of the
Christian faith.“Corpus sumus,” says Tertullian, at
a time when this description had already become an anachronism, “de
conscientia religionis et disciplinæ unitate et spei foedere.” (Apol. 39:
cf. Ep. Petri ad Jacob. I.; εἷς θεὸς, εἷς νόμος, μία
ἐλπίς). The description was applicable to the earlier period, when there
was no such thing as a federation with political forms, but when the consciousness
of belonging to a community and of forming a brotherhood (ἀδελφότης)
was all the more deeply felt: See, above all, 1 Clem. and Corinth., the Didache
(9-15), Aristides, Apol 15: “and when they have become Christians they call them
(the slaves) brethren without hesitation . . . . for they do not call them brethren
according to the flesh, but according to the spirit and in God;” cf. also the statements
on brotherhood in Tertullian and Minucius Felix (also Lucian). We have in 1 Clem.
1. 2. the delineation of a perfect Christian Church. The Epistles of Ignatius are
specially instructive as to the independence of each individual community: 1 Clem.
and Didache, as to the obligation to assist stranger communities by counsel and
action, and to support the travelling brethren. As every Christian is a
πάροικος, so every community is a
παροικοῦσα τὴν πόλιν, but it is under obligation
to give an example to the world, and must watch that “the name be not blasphemed.”
The importance of the social element in the oldest Christian communities, has been
very justly brought into prominence in the latest works on the subject (Renan, Heinrici,
Hatch). The historian of dogma must also emphasise it, and put the fluid notions
of the faith in contrast with the definite consciousness of moral tasks. See 1.
Clem. 47-50; Polyc. Ep. 3; Didache 1 ff.; Ignat. ad Eph. 14, on
ἀγάπη as the main requirement. Love demands
that everyone: “ζητεῖ τὸ κοινωφελὲς πᾶσιν καὶ μὴ τὸ
ἑαυτοῦ” (1. Clem. 48. 6. with parallels; Didache 16. 3; Barn. 4. 10; Ignatius).
The hope
that the Lord would speedily appear to gather into his Kingdom the
believers who were scattered abroad, punishing the evil and rewarding the good,
guided these communities in faith and life. In the recently discovered “Teaching
of the Apostles” we are confronted very distinctly with ideas and aspirations of
communities that are not influenced by Philosophy.
The Church, that is the totality of all believers destined to
be received into the kingdom of God (Didache, 9. 10), is the holy Church, (Hermas)
because it is brought together and preserved by the Holy Spirit. It is the one Church,
not because it presents this unity outwardly, on earth the members of the Church
are rather scattered abroad, but because it will be brought to unity in the kingdom
of Christ, because it is ruled by the same spirit and inwardly united in a common
relation to a common hope and ideal. The Church, considered in its origin, is the
number of those chosen by God,1 Clem. 59. 2, in the church prayer;
ὅπως τὸν ἀριθμὸν τὸν κατηριθμημένον τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν αὐτοῦ
ἐν ὅλῳ κόσμῳ διαφυλάξῃ ἄθραυστον ὁ δημιουργὸς τῶν ἁπάντων διὰ τοῦ ἡγαπημένου παιδὸς
αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. the true Israel,See 1 Clem., 2 Clem., Ignatius
(on the basis of the Pauline view; but see also
Rev. II. 9). nay, still more, the final purpose of God, for the
world was created for its sake.See Hermas (the passage is given above, p.
103, note.) There were in connection with these doctrines in the earliest
period, various speculations about the Church: it is a heavenly Æon, is older than
the world, was created by God at the beginning of things as a companion of the heavenly
Christ;See Hermas. Vis. I.-III. Papias. Fragm. VI. and VII. of my edition,
2 Clem. 14: ποηοῦντες τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐσόμεθα
ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς πρώτης τῆς πνευματικῆς, τῆς πρὸ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἐκτισμένης
. . . . ἐκκλησία ζῶσα σῶμά ἐστι Χριστοῦ· λέγει γάρ ἡ γραφή· ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν
ἄνθρωπον ἄρσεν καί θῆλυ. Τὸ ἄρσεν ἐστὶν ὁ Χριστός, τὸ θῆλυ ἡ ἐκκλησία.
its members form the new nation
which is really the oldest nation,See Barn. 13 (2 Clem. 2).
it is the λαὸς ὁ τοῦ ἡγαπημένου ὁ φιλούμενος καὶ φιλῶν
αὐτνόν,See Valentinus in Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 52. “Holy Church”, perhaps
also in Marcion, if his text (Zahn. Gesch. des N. T. lichen Kanons, II p. 502) in
Gal. IV. 21, read; ἥτις ἐστὶν μήτηρ ἡμῶν, γεννῶσα
εἰς ἣν ἐπηγγειλάμεθα ἁγίαν ἐκκλησίαν.
the people whom God has prepared “in the Beloved”,Barn. 3. 6. etc.
The creation of God, the Church, as it is of an antemundane and heavenly nature,
will also attain its true existence only in the Æon of the future, the Æon of the
Kingdom of Christ. The idea of a heavenly origin, and of a heavenly goal of the
Church, was therefore an essential one, various and fluctuating as these speculations
were. Accordingly, the exhortations, so far as they have in view the Church, are
always dominated by the idea of the contrast of the kingdom of Christ with the kingdom
of the world. On the other hand, he who communicated knowledge for the present time,
prescribed rules of life, endeavoured to remove conflicts, did not appeal to the
peculiar character of the Church. The mere fact, however, that from nearly the beginning
of Christendom, there were reflections and speculations not only about God and Christ,
but also about the Church, teaches us how profoundly the Christian consciousness
was impressed with being a new people, viz., the people of God.We are also
reminded here of the “tertium genus.” The nickname of the
heathen corresponded to the self-consciousness of the Christians, (see Aristides,
Apol.). These speculations of the earliest Gentile Christian time about Christ
and the Church, as inseparable correlative ideas, are of the greatest importance,
for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in them, but rather have their origin
in the Apostolic tradition. But for that very reason the combination very soon,
comparatively speaking, be-came obsolete or lost its power to influence. Even the
Apologists made no use of it, though Clement of Alexandria and other Greeks held
it fast, and the Gnostics by their Æon “Church” brought it into discredit. Augustine
was the first to return to it.
The importance attached to morality is shewn in Didache
cc. 1-6, with parallels.See also the letter of Pliny, the paragraphs
about Christian morality in the first third-part of Justin’s apology, and especially
the apology of Aristides, c. 15. Aristides portrays Christianity by portraying Christian
morality. “The Christians know and believe in God, the creator of heaven and of
earth, the God by whom all things consist, i.e., in him from whom they have
received the commandments which they have written in their hearts, commandments
which they observe in faith and in the expectation of the world to come. For this
reason they do not commit adultery, nor practise unchastity, nor bear false witness,
nor covet that with which they are entrusted, or what does not belong to them, etc.”
Compare how in the Apocalypse of Peter definite penalties in hell are portrayed
for the several forms of immorality. But this section and the statements
so closely related to it in the pseudo-phocylidean poem which is probably of Christian
origin, as well as in Sibyl, II. v. 56-148, which is likewise to be regarded as
Christian, and in many other Gnomic paragraphs, shews at the same time, that in
the memorable expression and summary statement of higher moral commandments, the
Christian propaganda had been preceded by the Judaism of the Diaspora, and had entered
into its labours. These statements are throughout de-pendent on the Old Testament
wisdom, and have the closest relationship with the genuine Greek parts of the Alexandrian
Canon, as well as with Philonic exhortations. Consequently, these moral rules, “the
two ways,” so aptly compiled and filled with such an elevated spirit, represent
the ripest fruit of Jewish as well as of Greek development. The Christian spirit
found here a disposition which it could recognise as its own. It was of the utmost
importance, however, that this disposition was already expressed in fixed forms
suitable for didactic purposes. The young Christianity therewith received a gift
of first importance. It was spared a labour in a region, the moral, which experience
shews can only be performed in generations, viz., the creation of simple fixed impressive
rules, the labour of the Catechist. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were
not of themselves sufficient here. Those who in the second century attempted to
rest in these alone, and turned aside from the Judheo-Greek inheritance, landed
in Marcionite or Encratite doctrines.An investigation of the Græco-Jewish,
Christian literature of gnomes and moral rules, commencing with the Old Testament
doctrine of wisdom on the one hand, and the Stoic collections on the other, then
passing beyond the Alexandrian and Evangelic gnomes up to the Didache, the Pauline
tables of domestic duties, the Sibylline sayings, Phocylides, the Neopythagorean
rules, and to the gnomes of the enigmatic Sextus, is still an unfulfilled task.
The moral rules of the Pharisaic Rabbis should also be included. We can see,
especially
from the Apologies of Aristides (c. 15), Justin and Tatian (see also
Lucian), that the earnest men of the Græco-Roman world were won by the morality
and active love of the Christians.
§©2. The Foundations of the Faith.
The foundations of the faith—whose abridged form was, on the one
hand, the confession of the one true God, μὸνος ἀληθινὸς,Herm.
Mand. I. has merely fixed the Monotheistic confession:
πρῶτον πάντων πίστευσον, ὅτι εἷς ἐστὶν ὁ θεὸς, ὁ τὰ
πάντα κτίσας καὶ καταρτίσας, κ.τ.λ. See Praed. Petri in Clem. Strom. VI.
6. 48: VI. 5. 39: Aristides gives in c. 2. of his Apology the preaching of Jesus
Christ: but where he wishes to give a short expression of Christianity he is satisfied
with saying that Christians are those who have found the one true God. See, e.
g., c. 15 “Christians have . . . . found the truth .... They know and believe
in God, the creator of heaven and of earth, by whom all things consist, and from
whom all things come, who has no other god beside him, and from whom they have received
commandments which they have written in their hearts, commandments which they observe
in faith and in expectation of the world to come.” It is interesting to note how
Origen, Comm. in Joh. XXXII 9, has brought
the Christological Confession into approximate harmony with that of Hermas First,
Mand. I. is verbally repeated and then it is said:
χρὴ δὲ καὶ πιστεύειν, ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς καὶ πασῃ τῇ τερὶ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὴν
θεοτητα καὶ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα· ἀληθείᾳ δεὶ δὲ καὶ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πιστεύειν πνεῦμα, καὶ
ὅτι αὐτεξούσιοι ὄντες κολαζόμεθα μὲν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἁμαρτάνομεν, τιμώμεθα δὲ ἐφ᾽ οἷς εὖ
πραττομεν. and of Jesus, the Lord, the Son of God, the Saviour,Very
instructive here is 2 Clem. ad Corinth. 20. 5: τῷ
μόνῳ θεῷ ἀοράτῳ, πατρὶ τῆς ἀληθείας, τῷ ἐξαποστείλαντι ἡμῖν τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ ἀρχηγὸν
τῆς ἀφθαρσίας, δι᾽ οὗ καὶ ἐφανέρωσεν ἡμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὴν ἐπουράνιον ζωήν,
αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα. On the Holy Spirit see previous note. and also of the
Holy Spirit; and on the other hand, the confident hope of Christ’s kingdom and the
resurrection—were laid on the Old Testament interpreted in a Christian sense together
with the Apocalypses,They were quoted as ἡ γραφὴ,
τὰ βιβλία, or with the formula ὁ θεὸς (κύριος)
λέγει. Also “Law and Prophets,” “Law Prophets and Psalms.” See the original
of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions. and the progressively
enriched traditions about Jesus Christ. (ἡ παράδοσις—
ὁ παραδοθεὶς λόγος— ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας or τὴς παραδόσεως—ἡ πίστις— ὁ κανών τῆς
πίστεως—ὁ δοθεῖσα πίστις—τὸ κήρυγμα—τὰ
διδὰγματα τοῦ χριστοῦ—ἡ διδαχὴ—τὰ μαθήματα, or τὸ μάθημα).See the collection
of passages in Patr. App. Opp. edit. Gebhardt. I. 2 p. 133, and the formula, Diogn.
11: ἀποστόλων γένομενος μαθητὴς γὶνομαι διδάσκαλος
εθνῶν, τὰ παραδοθέντα ἀξίως ὑπηρετῶν γινομένοις ἀληθείας μαθηταῖς. Besides
the Old Testament and the traditions about Jesus (Gospels), the Apocalyptic writings
of the Jews, which were regarded as writings of the Spirit, were also drawn upon.
Moreover, Christian letters and manifestoes proceeding from Apostles, prophets,
or teachers, were read. The Epistles of Paul were early collected and obtained wide
circulation in the first half of the second century but they were not Holy Scripture
in the specific sense, and therefore their authority was not unqualified.
The Old Testament revelations and oracles were regarded as pointing to Christ; the
Old Testament itself, the words of God spoken by the Prophets, as the primitive
Gospel of salvation, having in view the new people, which is, however, the oldest,
and belonging to it alone.Barn. 5. 6, οἱ προφηται,
ἀπὸ τοῦ κύριου ἐχοντες τὴν χάριν, εἰς αὐτὸν ἑπροφήτευσαν. Ignat. ad Magn.
8. 2: cf. also Clem. Paedag. I. 7. 59: ὁ γὰρ αὐτὸς
οὗτος παιδαγωγὸς τότε μὲν “φοβηθήση κύριον τὸν θεὸν ἔλεγεν, ἡμῖν δὲ “ὰγαπήσεις κύριον
τὸν θεὸν σου” ταρῄνεσεν. διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐντέλλεται ἡμῖν “παύσασθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων ὐμῶν”
τῶν ταλαιῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, “μάθετε καλὸν ποιεῖν, ἔκκλινον ἀπὸ κακοῦ καὶ ποίησον ἀγαθόν,
ἡγάπησας δικαιοσύνην, ἐμίσησας ἀνομίαν” αὕτη μου ἡ νέα διαθήκη παλαὶῷ κεχαραγμένη
γράμματι. The exposition of the Old Testament, which, as a rule, was
of course read in the Alexandrian Canon of the Bible, turned it into a Christian
book. A historical view of it, which no born Jew could in some measure fail to take,
did not come into fashion, and the freedom that was used in interpreting the Old
Testament,—so far as there was a method, it was the Alexandrian Jewish—went the
length of even correcting the letter and enriching the contents.See above
§©5, p. 114 f.
The traditions concerning Christ on which the communities were
based, were of a twofold character. First, there were words of the Lord, mostly
ethical, but also of eschatological content, which were regarded as rules, though
their expression was uncertain, ever changing, and only gradually assuming a fixed
form. The διδάγματα τοῦ χριστοῦ are often just
the moral commandments.See my edition of the Didache, Prolegg. p. 32 ff.;
Rothe, “De disciplina arcani origine,” 1841. Second, the foundation of the
faith, that is, the assurance of the blessing of salvation, was formed by a proclamation
of the history of Jesus concisely expressed, and
composed with reference to prophecy.The earliest example is
1. Cor. XI. 1 f. It is different in
1 Tim. III. 16 where already the question
is about τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον: See Patr.
App. Opp. I. 2. p. 134. The confession of God the Father Almighty, of Christ
as the Lord and Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit,Father, son, and spirit:
Paul; Matt. XXVIII. 19; 1 Clem. ad.
Cor. 58. 2, (see 2. 1. f.: 42. 3: 46. 6); Didache 7; Ignat. Eph. 9. 1; Magn. 13.
1. 2.; Philad. inscr.; Mart. Polyc. 14. I. 2; Ascens.
Isai. 8. 18: 9. 27:
10. 4:
11. 32 ff.; Justin passim; Montan. ap. Didym. de trinit. 411; Excerpta
ex Theodot. 80; Pseudo Clem. de virg. 1. 13. Yet the omission of the Holy Spirit
is frequent, as in Paul; or the Holy Spirit is identified with the Spirit of Christ.
The latter takes place even with such writers as are familiar with the baptismal
formula, Ignat. ad Magn. 15; κεκτημένοι ἀδιάκριτον
πνεῦμα, ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς.
was, at a very early period in the communities, united with the short proclamation
of the history of Jesus, and at the same time, in certain cases, referred expressly
to the revelation of God (the Spirit) through the prophets.The formulæ run:
“God who has spoken through the Prophets,” or the “Prophetic Spirit,” etc.
The confession thus conceived had not everywhere obtained a fixed definite expression
in the first century (cc. 50-150). It would rather seem that, in most of the communities,
there was no exact formulation beyond a confession of Father, Son and Spirit, accompanied
in a free way by the historical proclamation.That should be assumed as certain
in the case of the Egyptian Church, yet Caspari thinks he can shew that already
Clement of Alexandria presupposes a symbol. It is highly probable, however,
that a short confession was strictly formulated in the Roman community before the
middle of the second century,Also in the communities of Asia Minor (Smyrna);
for a combination of Polyc. Ep. c. 2 with c. 7, proves that in Smyrna the
παραδοθεὶς λόγος must have been something like
the Roman Symbol, see Lightfoot on the passage; it cannot be proved that it was
identical with it. See, further, how in the case of Polycarp the moral element is
joined on to the dogmatic. This reminds us of the Didache and has its parallel even
in the first homily of Aphraates. expressing belief in the Father, Son and
Spirit, embracing also the most important facts in the history of Jesus, and mentioning
the Holy Church, as well as the two great blessings of Christianity, the forgiveness
of sin, and the resurrection of the dead (ἄφεσις ἁμαρτιῶν,
σαρκὸςSee Caspari, Quellen z. Gesch. des Taufsymbols, III. p. 3. ff.,
and Patr. App. Opp. 1. 2. pp. 115-142. The old Roman Symbol reads:
Πιστεύω εἰς θεὸν πατέρα παντοκράτορα καὶ εἰς Χριτὸν
Ἰησοῦν (τὸν) ὑιὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῇ, (on this word see Westcott’s Excursus
in his commentary on 1st John) τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν τὸν
γεννηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου, τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντιον Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα
καὶ ταφέντα; τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἀναβάντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς, καθήμενον
ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρός, ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς· καὶ εἰς πνεῦμα ἅγιον,
ἁγίαν ἐκκλισίαν, ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, ἀμήν. To estimate this
very important article aright we must note the following: (1) It is not a formula
of doctrine, but of confession. (2) It has a liturgical form which is shewn in the
rhythm and in the disconnected succession of its several members, and is free from
everything of the nature polemic. (3) It tapers off into the three blessings, Holy
Church, forgiveness of sin, resurrection of the body, and in this as well as in
the fact that there is no mention of γνῶσις (ἀλήθεια)
καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνος, is revealed an early Christian untheological attitude. (4)
It is worthy of note, on the other hand, that the birth from the Virgin occupies
the first place, and all reference to the baptism of Jesus, also to the Davidic
Sonship, is wanting. (5) It is further worthy of note, that there is no express
mention of the death of Jesus, and that the Ascension already forms a special member
(that is also found elsewhere, Ascens. Isaiah,
c. 3. 13.
ed. Dillmann. p. 13. Murator. Fragment, etc.). Finally, we should consider the want
of the earthly Kingdom of Christ and the mission of the twelve Apostles, as well
as, on the other hand, the purely religious attitude, no notice being taken of the
new law. Zahn (Das Apostol. Symbolum, 1893) assumes, “That in all essential respects
the identical baptismal confession which Justin learned in Ephesus about 130, and
Marcion confessed in Rome about 145, originated at latest somewhere about 120”.
In some “unpretending notes” (p. 37 ff.) he traces this confession back to a baptismal
confession of the Pauline period (“it had already assumed a more or less stereotyped
form in the earlier Apostolic period”), which, however, was somewhat revised, so
far as it contained, for example, “of the house of David”, with reference to Christ.
“The original formula, reminding us of the Jewish soil of Christianity, was thus
remodelled, perhaps about 70-120, with retention of the fundamental features so
that it might appear to answer better to the need of candidates for baptism, proceeding
more and more from the Gentiles. . . . This changed formula soon spread on all sides.
It lies at the basis of all the later baptismal confessions of the Church, even
of the East. The first article was slightly changed in Rome about 200-220”. While
up till then, in Rome as everywhere else, it had read
πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα θεὸν παντοκράτορα, it was now
changed in πιστεύω εἰς θεὸν πετέρα παντοκράτορα.
This hypothesis, with regard to the early history of the Roman Symbol, presupposes
that the history of the formation of the baptismal confession in the Church, in
east and west, was originally a uniform one. This cannot be proved; besides, it
is refuted by the facts of the following period. It presupposes secondly, that there
was a strictly formulated baptismal confession outside Rome before the middle of
the second century, which likewise cannot he proved; (the converse rather is probable,
that the fixed formulation proceeded from Rome). Moreover, Zahn himself retracts
everything again by the expression “more or less stereotyped form;” for what is
of decisive interest here is the question, when and where the fixed sacred form
was produced. Zahn here has set up the radical thesis that it can only have taken
place in Rome between 200 and 220. But neither his negative nor his positive proof
for a change of the Symbol in Rome at so late a period is sufficient. No sure conclusion
as to the Symbol can be drawn from the wavering regulæ fidei of Irenæus and Tertullian,
which contain the “unum”; further, the “unum”
is not found in the western provincial Symbols, which, however, are in part earlier
than the year 200. The Romish correction must therefore have been subsequently taken
over in the provinces (Africa?). Finally, the formula
θεὸν πάτερα παντοκράτορα beside the more frequent
θεὸν παντοκράτορα, is attested by Irenæus,
I. 10. 1, a decisive passage. With our present means we cannot attain to any direct
knowledge of Symbol formation before the Romish Symbol. But the following hypotheses,
which I am not able to establish here, appear to me to correspond to the facts of
the case and to be fruitful: (1) There were, even in the earliest period, separate
Kerygmata about God and Christ: see the Apostolic writings, Hermas, Ignatius,
etc. (2) The Kerygma about God was the confession of the one God of creation,
the almighty God. (3) The Kerygma about Christ had essentially the same historical
contents everywhere, but was expressed in diverse forms: (a) in the form of the
fulfilment of prophecy, (b) in the form κατὰ σάκρα,
κατὰ πνεῦμα, (c) in the form of the first and second advent, (d) in the form,
καταβάς-ἀναβάς; these forms were also partly
combined. (4) The designations “Christ”, “Son of God” and “Lord”; further, the birth
from the Holy Spirit, or κατὰ πνεῦμα, the sufferings
(the practice of exorcism contributed also to the fixing and naturalising of the
formula “crucified under Pontius Pilate”), the death, the resurrection, the coming
again to judgment, formed the stereotyped content of the Kerygma about Jesus.
The mention of the Davidic Sonship, of the Virgin Mary, of the baptism by John,
of the third day, of the descent into Hades, of the demonstratio
veræ carnis post resurrectionem , of the ascension into heaven and the
sending out of the disciples, were additional articles which appeared here and there.
The σάκρα λαβών, and the like, were very early
developed out of the forms (b) and (d). All this was already in existence at the
transition of the first century to the second. (5) The proper contribution of the
Roman community consisted in this, that it inserted the Kerygma about God
and that about Jesus into the baptismal formula; widened the clause referring to
the Holy Spirit, into one embracing Holy Church, forgiveness of sin, resurrection
of the body; excluded theological theories in other respects; undertook a reduction
all round, and accurately defined everything up to the last world. (6) The western
regulæ fide do not fall back exclusively on the old
Roman Symbol, but also on the earlier freer Kerygmata about God and about
Jesus which were common to the east and west; not otherwise can the regulæ fide
of Irenæus and Tertullian, for example, be explained. But the symbol became more
and more the support of the regula. (7) The eastern confessions (baptismal
symbols) do not fall back directly on the Roman Symbol, but were probably on the
model of this symbol, made up from the provincial Kerygmata, rich in contents
and growing ever richer, hardly, however, before the third century. (8) It cannot
be proved, and it is not probable, that the Roman Symbol was in existence before
Hermas, that is, about 135.). But, however the proclamation might be handed
down, in a form somehow fixed, or in a free form, the disciples of
Jesus, the (twelve) Apostles, were regarded as the authorities who mediated and
guaranteed it. To them was traced
back in the same way everything that was narrated of the history of
Jesus, and everything that was inculcated from his sayings.See the fragment
in Euseb. H. E. III. 39, from the work of Papias. Consequently, it may be
said, that beside the Old
Testament, the chief court of appeal in the communities was formed
by an aggregate of words and deeds of the Lord ;—for the history and the suffering
of Jesus are his deed: ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὑπέμεινεν παθεῖν,
κ.τ.λ.,—fixed in certain fundamental features, though constantly enriched,
and traced back to apostolic testimony.Διδαχὴ
κύριον διὰ τῶν ιβ᾽ ἀποστόλων (Διδ. inscr.)
is the most accurate expression (similarly 2. Pet.
III. 2). Instead of this might be said simply
ὁ κύριος (Hegesipp.). Hegesippus (Euseb. H.
E., IV. 22. 3: See also Steph. Gob.) comprehends the ultimate authorities under
the formula: ὠς ὁ νομος κηρύσσει καὶ οἱ προφῆται καὶ
ὁ κύριος; just as even Pseudo Clem. de Virg. I. 2: “Sicut
ex lege ac prophetis et a domino nostro Jesu Christo didicimus.” Polycarp
(6. 3) says: καθὼς αὐτὸς ἐνετείλατο καὶ οἱ εὐαγγελισάμενοι
ἡμᾶς ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ προφῆται οἱ προκηρύξαντες τὴν ἔλευσιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν.
In the second Epistle of Clement (14. 2) we read:
τὰ βιβλία (O. T.) καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι; τὸ εὐαγγέλιον
may also stand for ὁ κύριος (Ignat., Didache.
2 Clem. etc.). The Gospel, so far as it is described, is quoted as
τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τ. ἀποστόλων (Justin, Tatian),
or on the other hand, as αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί,
(Dionys. Cor. in Euseb. H. E. IV. 23. 12: at a later period in Tertull. and Clem.
Alex.). The words of the Lord, in the same way as the words of God, are called simply
τά λόγια (κυριακά). The declaration of Serapion
at the beginning of the third century (Euseb., H. E. VI. 12. 3):
ἡμεῖς καὶ Πέτρον καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀποστόλους ἀποδεχόμεθα
ὡς Χριστόν, is an innovation in so far as it puts the words of the Apostles
fixed in writing and as distinct from the words of the Lord, on a level with the
latter. That is, while differentiating the one from the other, Serapion ascribes
to the words of the apostles and those of the Lord equal authority. But the development
which led to this position, had already begun in the first century. At a very early
period there were read in the communities, beside the Old Testament, Gospels, that
is collections of words of the Lord, which at the same time contained the main facts
of the history of Jesus. Such notes were a necessity (Luke
1. 4: ἵνα ἐπιγνῶς περιὶ ὧν κατηχήθης
λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν), and though still indefinite and in many ways unlike,
they formed the germ for the genesis of the New Testament. (See Weiss. Lehrb. d.
Einleit in d. N. T. p. 21 ff.) Further, there were read Epistles and Manifestoes
by apostles, prophets and teachers, but, above all, Epistles of Paul. The Gospels
at first stood in no connection with these Epistles, however high they might be
prized. But there did exist a connection between the Gospels and the
ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπταις καὶ ὑπηρέταις τοῦ λόγου,
so far as these mediated the tradition of the Evangelic material, and on their testimony
rests the Kerygma of the Church about the Lord as the Teacher, the crucified
and risen One. Here lies the germ for the genesis of a canon which will comprehend
the Lord and the Apostles, and will also draw in the Pauline Epistles. Finally,
Apocalypses were read as Holy Scriptures.
The authority which the Apostles in this way enjoyed, did not,
in any great measure, rest on the remembrance of direct services which the twelve
had rendered to the Gentile Churches: for, as the want of reliable concrete traditions
proves, no such services had been rendered, at least not by the twelve.
On the contrary, there was a theory operative here regarding the
special authority which the twelve enjoyed in the Church at Jerusalem, a theory
which was spread by the early missionaries, including Paul, and sprang from the
a priori consideration that the tradition about Christ, just because it grew
up so quickly,Read, apart from all others, the canonical Gospels, the remains
of the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, and perhaps the Shepherd of Hermas: see also
the statements of Papias. must have been entrusted to eye-witnesses who were
commissioned to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, and who fulfilled that commission.
The a priori character of this assumption is shewn by the fact that—with
the exception of reminiscences of an activity of Peter and John among the
ἔθνη, not sufficiently clear to usThat
Peter was in Antioch follows from Gal. II.;
that he laboured in Corinth, perhaps before the composition of the first epistle
to the Corinthians, is not so improbable as is usually maintained (1 Cor.; Dionys.
of Corinth); that he was at Rome even is very credible. The sojourn of John in Asia
Minor cannot, I think, be contested.—the twelve, as a rule, are regarded
as a college, to which the mission and the tradition are traced back.See
how in the three early “writings of Peter” (Gospel, Apocalypse, Kerygma)
the twelve are embraced in a perfect unity. Peter is the head and spokesman for
them all. That such a theory, based on a dogmatic construction of history,
could have at all arisen, proves that either the Gentile Churches never had a living
relation to the twelve, or that they had very soon lost it in the rapid disappearance
of Jewish Christianity, while they had been referred to the twelve from the beginning.
But even in the communities which Paul had founded and for a long time guided, the
remembrance of the controversies of the Apostolic age must have been very soon effaced,
and the vacuum thus produced filled by a theory which directly traced back the
status quo of the Gentile Christian communities to a tradition of the twelve
as its foundation. This fact is extremely paradoxical, and is not altogether explained
by the assumptions that the Pauline-Judaistic controversy had not made a great impression
on the Gentile Christians, that the way in which Paul, while fully recognising the
twelve, had insisted on his own independent importance, had long ceased to be really
understood,
and that Peter and John had also really been missionaries to the Gentiles.
The guarantee that was needed for the “teaching of the Lord” must finally be given
not by Paul, but only by chosen eye-witnesses. The less that was known about them,
the easier it was to claim them. The conviction as to the unanimity of the twelve,
and as to their activity in founding the Gentile Churches, appeared in these Churches
as early as the urgent need of protection against the serious consequences of unfettered
religious enthusiasm and unrestrained religious fancy. This urgency cannot be dated
too far back. In correspondence therewith, the principle of tradition in the Church
(Christ, the twelve Apostles) in the case of those who were intent on the unity
and completeness of Christendom, is also very old. But one passed logically from
the Apostles to the disciples of the Apostles, “the Elders,” without at first claiming
for them any other significance than that of reliable hearers (Apostoli
et discentes ipsorum). In coming down to them, one here and there betook
oneself again to real historical ground, disciples of Paul, of Peter, of John.See
Papias and the Reliq. Presbyter. ap. Iren., collecta in Parr. Opp. I. 2, p. 105:
see also Zahn, Forschungen. III., p. 156 f. Yet even here legends with a
tendency speedily got mixed with facts, and because, in consequence of this theory
of tradition, the Apostle Paul must needs fall into the background, his disciples
also were more or less forgotten. The attempt which we have in the Pastoral Epistles
remained without effect, as regards those to whom these epistles were addressed.
Timothy and Titus obtained no authority outside these epistles. But so far as the
epistles of Paul were collected, diffused, and read, there was created a complex
of writings which at first stood beside the “Teaching of the Lord by the twelve
Apostles”, without being connected with it, and only obtained such connection by
the creation of the New Testament, that is, by the interpolation of the Acts of
the Apostles, between Gospels and Epistles.The Gentile-Christian conception
of the significance of the twelve—a fact to be specially noted—was all but unanimous
(see above Chap. II.): the only one who broke through it was Marcion. The writers
of Asia Minor, Rome and Egypt, coincide in this point. Beside the Acts of the Apostles,
which is specially instructive see 1 Clem. 42; Barn. 5. 9. 8. 3: Didache inscr.;
Hermas. Vis. III. 5, 11; Sim. IX. 15, 16, 17, 25; Petrusev-Petrusapok. Præd. Petr.
ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48; Ignat. ad Trall. 3; ad Rom. 4; ad Philad. 5; Papias;
Polyc.; Aristides; Justin passim; inferences from the great work of Irenæus, the
works of Tertull. and Clem. Alex.; the Valentinians. The inference that follows
from the eschatological hope, that the Gospel has already been preached to the world,
and the growling need of having a tradition mediated by eye-witnesses co-operated
here, and out of the twelve who were in great part obscure, but who had once been
authoritative in Jerusalem and Palestine, and highly esteemed in the Christian Diaspora
from the beginning, though unknown, created a court of appeal which presented itself
as not only taking a second rank after the Lord himself, but as the medium through
which alone the words of the Lord became the possession of Christendom, as he neither
preached to the nations nor left writings. The importance of the twelve in the main
body of the Church may at any rate be measured by the facts, that the personal activity
of Jesus was confined to Palestine, that he left behind him neither a confession
nor a doctrine, and that in this respect the tradition tolerated no more corrections.
Attempts which were made in this direction, the fiction of a semi-Gentile origin
of Christ, the denial of the Davidic Sonship, the invention of a correspondence
between Jesus and Abgarus, meeting of Jesus with Greeks, and much else, belong only
in part to the earliest period, and remained as really inoperative as they were
uncertain (according to Clem. Alex., Jesus himself is the Apostle to the Jews; the
twelve are the Apostles to the Gentiles in Euseb. H. E. VI. 14). The notion about
the helve Apostles evangelising the world in accordance with the commission of Jesus,
is consequently to be considered as the means by which the Gentile Christians got
rid of the inconvenient fact of the merely local activity of Jesus. (Compare how
Justin expresses himself about the Apostles: their going out into all the world
is to him one of the main articles predicted in the Old Testament, Apol. 1. 39;
compare also the Apology of Aristides, c. 2, and the passage of similar tenor in
the Ascension of Isaiah, where the “adventus XII. discipulorum” is regarded as one
of the fundamental facts of salvation, c. 3. 13, ed. Dillmann, p. 13, and a passage
such as Iren. fragm. XXIX. in Harvey II., p. 494, where the parable about the grain
of mustard seed is applied to the λόγος ἀπουράνιος,
and the twelve Apostles; the Apostles are the branches
ὑφ᾽ ὧν κλάδων σκεπασθέντες οἱ πάντες ὡς ὅρνεα ὑπὸ
καλιὰν συνελθόντα μετέλαβον τῆς ἐξ αὐτῶν προερχομένης ἐδωδίμου καὶ ἐπουρανίου τροφῆς
Hippol., de Antichr. 61. Orig c. Cels. III. 28.) This means, as it was empty of
contents, was very soon to prove the very most convenient instrument for establishing
ever new historical connections, and legitimising the status quo in the communities.
Finally, the whole catholic idea of tradition was rooted in that statement which
was already, at the close of the first century, formulated by Clement of Rome (c.
42): οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἡμῖν εὐηγγελίσθησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Ἰησοῦς ὁ χριστὸς ἀπρ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξεπόμφθη. ὁ χριστὸς οὖν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ,
καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ· ἐγένοντο οὖν ἀμφότερα εὐτάκτῶς ἐκ θελήματος θεοῦ
κ.τ.λ. Here, as in all similar statements which elevate the Apostles into
the history of revelation, the unanimity of all the Apostles is always presupposed,
so that the statement of Clem. Alex. (Strom. VII., 17, 108:
μία ἡ πάντων γέγονε τῶν ἀποστόλων ὥσπερ διδασκαλία
οὕτως δὲ καὶ ἡ παράδοσις; see Tertull., de præscr. 32: “Apostoli
non diversa inter se docuerent,” Iren. alii), contains no innovation, but
gives expression to an old idea. That the twelve unitedly proclaimed one and the
same message, that they proclaimed it to the world, that they were chosen to this
vocation by Christ, that the communities possess the witness of the Apostles as
their rule of conduct (Excerp. ex Theod. 25. ὥσπερ
ὑπὸ τῶν ζωδίων ἡ γένεσις διοικεῖται, οὕτως ὐπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἡ ἀναγέννησις
are authoritative theses which can be traced back as far as we have any remains
of Gentile-Christian literature. It was thereby presupposed that the unanimous
kerygma of the twelve Apostles, which the communities possess as
κανὼν τῆς παραδόσεως (1 Clem. 7), was public
and accessible to all. Yet the idea does not seem to have been everywhere kept at
a distance, that besides the kerygma a still deeper knowledge was transmitted
by the Apostles, or by certain Apostles, to particular Christians who were specially
gifted. Of course we have no direct evidence of this; but the connection in which
certain Gnostic unions stood at the beginning with the communities developing themselves
to Catholicism, and inferences from utterances of later writers (Clem. Alex. Tertull.),
make it probable that this conception was present in the communities here and there
even in the age of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. It may be definitely said that
the peculiar idea of tradition (θεός—χριστος—οἱ δώδεκα
ἀποστόλοι—ἐκκλησίαι) in the Gentile Churches is very old, but that it was
still limited in its significance at the beginning, and was threatened (1) by a
wider conception of the idea “Apostle” (besides, the fact is important, that Asia
Minor and Rome were the very places where a stricter idea of “Apostle” made its
appearance: See my Edition of the Didache, p. 117); (2) by free prophets and teachers
moved by the Spirit, who introduced new conceptions and rules, and whose word was
regarded as the word of God; (3) by the assumption, not always definitely rejected,
that besides the public tradition of the kerygma there was a secret tradition.
That Paul, as a rule, was not included in this high estimate of the Apostles is
shewn by this fact, among others, that the earlier Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles
are much less occupied with his person than with the rest of the Apostles. The features
of the old legends which make the Apostles in their deeds, their fate, nay, even
in appearance as far as possible equal to the person of Jesus himself, deserve special
consideration, (see, for example, the descent of the Apostles into hell in
Herm. Sim. IX. 16); for it is just here that the fact above established,
that the activity of the Apostles was to make up for the want of the activity of
Jesus himself among the nations, stands clearly out. (See Acta Johannis ed. Zahn,
p. 246: ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος ἡμᾶς εἰς ἀποστολὴν ἐθνῶν, ὁ
ἐκπέμψας ἡμας εἰς τὴν οἰκουμένην θεός, ὁ δειξας ἑαυτὸν διὰ τῶν ἀποςτολῶν,
also the remarkable declaration of Origen about the Chronicle [Hadrian], that what
holds good of Christ, is in that Chronicle transferred to Peter; finally we may
recall to mind the visions in which an Apostolic suddenly appears as Christ.) Between
the judgment of value: ἡμεῖς τούς ἀποστόλους ἀποδεχόμεθα
ὡς Χριστὸν, and those creations of fancy in which the Apostles appear as
gods and demigods, there is certainly a great interval; but it can be proved that
there are stages lying between the extreme points. It is therefore permissible to
call to mind here the oldest Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, although they may
have originated almost completely in Gnostic circles (see also the Pistis Sophia
which brings a metaphysical theory to the establishment of the authority of the
Apostles, p. 11, 14, see Texte u. Unters. VII. 2. p. 61 ff.). Gnosticism here, as
frequently elsewhere, is related to common Christianity, as excess progressing to
the invention of a myth with a tendency, to a historical theorem determined by the
effort to maintain one’s own position, (cf. the article from the kerygma
of Peter in Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48: Ἐξελεξάμην ὑμᾶς
δωδεκα μαθηπὰς, κ.τ.λ., the introduction to the basal writing of the first
6 books of the Apostolic Constitutions, and the introduction to the Egyptian ritual,
κατὰ κέλευσίν τοῦ κυρίου ὑμῶν, κ.ὼ.λ.). Besides,
it must be admitted that the origin of the idea of tradition and its connection
with the twelve, is obscure: what is historically reliable here has still to be
investigated; even the work of Seufert (Der Urspr. u. d. Bedeutung des Apostolats
in der christl. Kirche der ersten zwei Jahrhunderte, 1887) has not cleared up the
dark points. We will, perhaps, get more light by following the important hint given
by Weizäcker (Apost. Age, p. 13 ff.) that Peter was the first witness of the resurrection,
and was called such in the kerygma of the communities (see
1 Cor. XV. 5: Luke XXIV. 34).
The twelve Apostles are also further called οἱ περὶ
τὸν Πετρὸν (Mrc. fin. in L. Ign. ad Smyrn. 3; cf.
Luke VIII. 45;
Acts. II. 14; Gal. I. 18 f;
1 Cor. XV. 5), and it is a correct
historical reminiscence when Chrysostom says (Hom. in Joh. 88),
ὁ Πέτρος ἔκκριτος ἡν τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ πτόμα τῶν μαθητῶν
καὶ κορυφή τοῦ σόρου. Now, as Peter was really in personal relation with
important Gentile-Christian communities, that which held good of him, the recognized
head and spokesman of the twelve, was perhaps transferred to these. One has finally
to remember that besides the appeal to the twelve there was in the Gentile Churches
an appeal to Peter and Paul (but not for the evangelic kerygma), which has
a certain historical justification; cf. Gal. II.
8; 1 Cor. I. 12 f.,
IX. 5; I Clem. Ign. ad Rom. 4, and
the numerous later passages. Paul in claiming equality with Peter, though Peter
was the head and mouth of the twelve and had himself been active in mission work,
has perhaps contributed most towards spreading the authority of the twelve. It is
notable how rarely we find any special appeal to John in the tradition of the main
body of the Church. For the middle of the 2nd century, the authority of the twelve
Apostles may be expressed in the following statements: (1) They were missionaries
for the world; (2) They ruled the Church and established Church Offices; (3) They
guaranteed the true doctrine, (a) by the tradition going back to them, (b) by writings;
(4) They are the ideals of Christian life; (5) They are also directly mediators
of salvation—though this point is uncertain.
§©3. The Main Articles of Christianity and the Conceptions
of Salvation. Eschatology.
1. The main articles of Christianity were (1) belief in God the
δεσπότης, and in the Son in virtue of proofs
from prophecy, and the teaching of the Lord as attested by the Apostles; (2) discipline
according to the standard of the words of the Lord; (3) baptism;
(4) the common offering of prayer, culminating in the Lord’s Supper
and the holy meal; (5) the sure hope of the nearness of Christ’s glorious kingdom.
In these appears the unity of Christendom, that is, of the Church which possesses
the Holy
Spirit.See Διδαχὴ, c. 1-10,
with parallel passages. On the basis of this unity Christian knowledge was
free and manifold. It was distinguished as σοφία,
σύνεσις, ἐπιστήμη, γνῶσις (τῶν δικαιωμάτων), from the λόγος θεοῦ τῆς πίστεως,
and the κλῆσις τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, and the
ἐντολαὶ τῆς διδαχῆς (Barn. 16, 9, similarly Hermas). Perception and knowledge
of Divine things was a Charism, possessed only by individuals; but, like all Charisms,
it was to be used for the good of the whole. In so far as every actual perception
was a perception produced by the Spirit, it was regarded as important and indubitable
truth, even though some Christians were unable to understand it. While attention
was given to the firm inculcation and observance of the moral precepts of Christ,
as well as to the awakening of sure faith in Christ, and while all waverings and
differences were excluded in respect of these, there was absolutely no current doctrine
of faith in the communities, in the sense of a completed theory; and the theological
speculations of even closely related Christian writers of this epoch, exhibit, the
greatest differences.Cf., for example, the first epistle of Clement to the
Corinthians with the Shepherd of Hermas. Both documents originated in Rome.
The productions of fancy, the terrible or consoling pictures of the future pass
for sacred knowledge, just as much as intelligent and sober reflections, and edifying
interpretation of Old Testament sayings. Even that which was afterwards separated
as Dogmatic and Ethics was then in no way distinguished.Compare how dogmatic
and ethical elements are inseparably united in the Shepherd, in first and second
Clement, as well as in Polycarp and Justin. The communities gave expression
in the cultus, chiefly in the hymns and prayers, to what they possessed in their
God and their Christ; here sacred formulæ were fashioned and delivered to the members.Note
the hymnal parts of the Revelation of John, the great prayer with which the first
epistle of Clement closes, the “carmen dicere Christo quasi deo”
reported by Pliny, the eucharist prayer in the Διδαχὴ,
the hymn
1 Tim. III. 16, the fragments from
the prayers which Justin quotes, and compare with these the declaration of the anonymous
writer in Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 5, that the belief of the earliest Christians in the
Deity of Christ might be proved from the old Christian hymns and odes. In the epistles
of Ignatius the theology frequently consists of an aimless stringing together of
articles manifestly originating in hymns and the cultus. The problem of surrendering
the world in the hope of a life beyond was regarded as the practical side of the
faith, and the unity in temper and disposition resting on faith in the saving revelation
of God in Christ, permitted the highest degree
of freedom in knowledge, the results of which were absolutely without
control as soon as the preacher or the writer was recognised as a true teacher,
that is inspired by the Spirit of God.The prophet and teacher express what
the Spirit of God suggest to them. Their word is therefore God’s word, and their
writings, in so far as they apply to the whole of Christendom, are inspired, holy
writings. Further, not only does Acts XV. 22 f.
exhibit the formula; ἔδοξεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀγίῳ καὶ
ἡμῖν (see similar passages in the Acts), but the Roman writings also appeal
to the Holy Spirit (1 Clem. 63. 2): likewise
Barnabas, Ignatius, etc. Even in the controversy about the baptism of heretics a
Bishop gave his vote with the formula “secundum motum animi mei
et spiritus sancti” (Cypr. Opp. ed. Hartel. I. p. 457). There was
also in wide circles a conviction that the Christian faith, after the night of error,
included the full knowledge of everything worth knowing, that precisely in its most
important articles it is accessible to men of every degree of culture, and that
in it, in the now attained truth, is contained one of the most essential blessings
of Christianity. When it is said in the Epistle of Barnabas (II. 2. 3);
τῆς πίστεως ἡμῶν εἰσὶν βοηθοὶ φόβος καὶ ὑπομονή, τὰ
δὲ συμμαχοῦντα ἡμῖν μακροθυμία καὶ ἐγκράτεια· τούτων μενόντων τὰ πρὸς κόριον ἁγνῶς,
συνευφραίνονταί αὐτοῖς σοφία, σύνεσις, ἐπιστήμη, γνῶσις, knowledge appears
in this classic formula to be an essential element in Christianity, conditioned
by faith and the practical virtues, and dependent on them. Faith takes the lead,
knowledge follows it: but of course in concrete cases it could not always be decided
what was λόγος τῆς πίστεως, which implicitly
contained the highest knowledge, and what the special
γνώσις; for in the last resort the nature of
the two was regarded as identical, both being represented as produced by the Spirit
of God.
2. The conceptions of Christian salvation, or of redemption, were
grouped around two ideas, which were themselves but loosely connected with each
other, and of which the one influenced more the temper and the imagination, the
other the intellectual faculty. On the one hand, salvation, in accordance with the
earliest preaching, was regarded as the glorious kingdom which was soon to appear
on earth with the visible return of Christ, which will bring the present course
of the world to an end, and introduce for a definite series of centuries, before
the final judgment, a new order of all things to the
joy and blessedness of the saints.The so-called Chiliasm—the
designation is unsuitable and misleading—is found wherever the Gospel is not yet
Hellenised (see, for example, Barn. 4. 15; Hermas; 2 Clem.; Papias [Euseb. III.
39]; Διδαχὴ, 10. 16; Apoc. Petri; Justin, Dial. 32, 51, 80, 82, 110, 139; Cerinthus),
and must be regarded as a main element of the Christian preaching (see my article
“Millenium” in the Encycl. Brit.). In it lay not the least of the power of Christianity
in the first century, and the means whereby it entered the Jewish propaganda in
the Empire and surpassed it. The hopes springing out of Judaism were at first but
little modified, that is, only so far as the substitution of the Christian communities
for the nation of Israel made modification necessary. In all else, even the details
of the Jewish hopes of the future were retained, and the extra-canonical Jewish
Apocalypses (Esra, Enoch, Baruch, Moses, etc.) were diligently read alongside of
Daniel. Their contents were in part joined on to sayings of Jesus, and they served
as models for similar productions (here, therefore, an enduring connection with
the Jewish religion is very plain). In the Christian hopes of the future, as in
the Jewish eschatology, may be distinguished essential and accidental, fixed and
fluid elements To the former belong (1) the notion of a final fearful conflict with
the powers of the world which is just about to break out τὸ τέλειον σκάνδαλον ἤγγικεν,
(2) belief in the speedy return of Christ, (3) the conviction that after conquering
the secular power (this was variously conceived, as God’s Ministers, as “that which
restrains”—2 Thess. II. 6, as a pure kingdom of Satan; see the various estimates
in Justin, Melito, Irenæus and Hyppolytus), Christ will establish a glorious kingdom
on the earth, and will raise the saints to share in that kingdom, and (4) that he
will finally judge all men. To the fluid elements belong the notions of the Antichrist,
or of the secular power culminating in the Antichrist, as well as notions about
the place, the extent, and the duration of Christ’s glorious kingdom. But it is
worthy of special note, that Justin regarded the belief that Christ will set up
his kingdom in Jerusalem, and that it will endure for 1000 years, as a necessary
element of orthodoxy, though he confesses he knew Christians who did not share this
belief, while they did not, like the pseudo-Christians, reject also the resurrection
of the body (the promise of Montanus that Christ’s kingdom would be let down at
Pepuza and Tymion is a thing by itself, and answers to the other promises and pretensions
of Montanus). The resurrection of the body is expressed in the Roman Symbol, while,
very notably, the hope of Christ’s earthly kingdom is not there mentioned, (see
above, p. 157). The great inheritance which the Gentile Christian communities received
from Judaism, is the eschatological hopes, along with the Monotheism assured by
revelation and belief in providence. The law as a national law was abolished. The
Old Testament became a new book in the hands of the Gentile Christians. On the contrary,
the eschatological hopes in all their details, and with all the deep shadows which
they threw on the state and public life, were at first received, and maintained
themselves in wide circles pretty much unchanged, and only succumbed in some of
their details just as in Judaism—to the changes which resulted from the constant
change of the political situation. But these hopes were also destined in great measure
to pass away after the settlement of Christianity on Græco-Roman soil. We may set
aside the fact that they did not occupy the foreground in Paul, for we do not know
whether this was of importance for the period that followed. But that Christ would
set up the kingdom in Jerusalem, and that it would be an earthly kingdom with sensuous
enjoyments—these and other notions contend, on the one hand, with the vigorous antijudaism
of the communities, and on the other, with the moralistic spiritualism, in the pure
carrying out of which the Gentile Christians, in the East at least, increasingly
recognised the essence of Christianity. Only the vigorous world-renouncing enthusiasm
which did not permit the rise of moralistic spiritualism and mysticism, and the
longing for a time of joy and dominion that was born of it, protected for a long
time a series of ideas which corresponded to the spiritual disposition of the great
multitude of converts, only at times of special oppression. Moreover, the Christians,
in opposition to Judaism, were, as a rule, instructed to obey magistrates, whose
establishment directly contradicted the judgment of the state contained in the Apocalypses.
In such a conflict, however, that judgment necessarily conquers at last, which makes
as little change as possible in the existing forms of life. A history of the gradual
attenuation and subsidence of eschatological hopes in the II.-IV. centuries can
only be written in fragments. They have rarely—at best, by fits and starts—marked
out the course. On the contrary, if I may say so, they only gave the smoke: for
the course was pointed out by the abiding elements of the Gospel, trust in God and
the Lord Christ, the resolution to a holy life, and a firm bond of brotherhood.
The quiet, gradual change in which the eschatological hopes passed away, fell into
the background, or lost important parts, was, on the other hand, a result of deep-reaching
changes in the faith and life of Christendom. Chiliasm as a power was broken up
by speculative mysticism, and on that account very much later in the West than in
the East. But speculative mysticism has its centre in christology. In the earliest
period, this, as a theory, belonged more to the defence of religion than to religion
itself. Ignatius alone was able to reflect on that transference of power from Christ
which Paul had experienced. The disguises in which the apocalyptic eschatological
prophecies were set forth, belonged in part to the form of this literature, (in
so far as one could easily be given the lie if he became too plain, or in so far
as the prophet really saw the future only in large outline), partly it had to be
chosen in order not to give political offence. See Hippol., comm. in Daniel (Georgiades,
p. 49, 51: νοεῖν ὀφείλομεν τὰ κατὰ καιρὸν συμβαίνοντα καὶ εἰδοτας σιωπᾶν); by above
all, Constantine, orat. ad. s. cœtum 19, on some verses of Virgil which are interpreted
in a Christian sense,” but that none of the rulers in the capital might be able
to accuse their author of violating the laws of the state with his poetry, or of
destroying the traditional ideas of the procedure about the gods, he concealed the
truth under a veil.” That holds good also of the Apocalyptists and the poets of
the Christian Sibylline sayings. In connection with this the hope of the
resurrection of the body occupied the
foreground.The hope of the resurrection of the body (1
Clem. 26. 3: ἀναστήσεις τὴν σάρκα μου ταύτην.
Herm. Sim. V. 7. 2: βλέπε μήποτε ἀναβῇ ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν
σου τὴν σάρκα σου ταύτην φθαρτὴν εἶναι. Barn. 5. 6 f.: 21. 1: 2 Clem. 1:
καὶ μή λεγέτω τις ὑμῶν ὅτι αὕτη ἡ σὰρξ οὐ κρίνεται
οὐδὲ ἀνίσταται. Polyc. Ep. 7. 2: Justin, Dial. 80 etc.,) finds its place
originally in the hope of a share in the glorious kingdom of Christ. It therefore
disappears or is modified wherever that hope itself falls into the background. But
it finally asserted itself throughout and became of independent importance, in a
new structure of eschatological expectations, in which it attained the significance
of becoming the specific conviction of Christian faith. With the hope of the resurrection
of the body was originally connected the hope of a happy life in easy blessedness,
under green trees in magnificent fields with joyous feeding flocks, and flying angels
clothed in white. One must read the Revelation of Peter, the Shepherd, or the Acts
of Perpetua and Felicitas, in order to see how entirely the fancy of many Christians,
and not merely of those who were uncultured, dwelt in a fairyland in which they
caught sight now of the Ancient of Days, and now of the Youthful Shepherd, Christ.
The most fearful delineations of the torments of Hell formed the reverse side to
this. We now know, through the Apocalypse of Peter, how old these delineations are.
On the other hand, salvation appeared to be given in the truth, that is, in the
complete and certain knowledge of God, as contrasted with the error of heathendom
and the night of sin, and this truth included the certainty of the gift
of eternal life, and all conceivable spiritual blessings.The
perfect knowledge of the truth and eternal life are connected in the closest way
(see p. 144, note 1), because the Father of truth is also Prince of life (see Diognet.
12: οὐδὲ γάρ ξωὴ ἄνευ γνώσεως οὐδὲ γνῶσις ἀσφαλὴς
ἄνευ ζωῆς ἀληθοῦς· διὸ πλησιον ἐκάτερον πεφύτευται, see also what follows).
The classification is a Hellenic one, which has certainly penetrated also into Palestinian
Jewish theology. It may be reckoned among the great intuitions, which in the fulness
of the times, united the religious and reflective minds of all nations. The Pauline
formula, “Where there is forgiveness of sin, there also is life and salvation”,
had for centuries no distinct history. But the formula, “Where there is truth, perfect
knowledge, there also is eternal life”, has had the richest history in Christendom
from the beginning. Quite apart from John, it is older than the theology of the
Apologists (see, for example, the Supper prayer in the Didache, 9. 10, where there
is no mention of the forgiveness of sin, but thanks are given,
ὑπὲρ τῆς γνώσεως καὶ πίστεως καὶ ἀθανασίας ἧς ἐγνώρισεν
ἡμῖν ὁ θεὸς διὰ Ἰησοῦ, or ὑπὲρ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ γνώσεως, and 1 Clem. 36. 2: διὰ τούτο
ἡθέλησεν ὁ δεσπότης τῆς ἀθανάτου γνώσεως ἡμᾶς γεύσασθαι). It is capable of
a very manifold content, and has never made its way in the Church without reservations,
but so far as it has we may speak of a hellenising of Christianity. This is shewn
most clearly in the fact that the ἀθανασία,
identical with ἀφθαρσία and
ζωὴ αἰώνιος, as is proved by their being often
interchanged, gradually supplanted the βασιλεία τοῦ
θεοῦ (χριστοῦ) and thrust it out of the sphere of religious intuition and
hope into that of religious speech. It should also be noted at the same time, that
in the hope of eternal life which is bestowed with the knowledge of the truth, the
resurrection of the body is by no means with certainty included. It is rather added
to it (see above) from another series of ideas. Conversely, the words
ζωὴν αἰώνιον were first added to the words
σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν in the western Symbols at
a comparatively late period, while in the prayers they are certainly very old.
Of these the community, so far as it is a community of saints, that is, so far as
it is ruled by the Spirit of God, already possesses forgiveness of sins and righteousness.
But, as a rule, neither blessing was understood in a strictly religious sense, that
is to say, the effect of their religious sense was narrowed.
The moralistic view, in which eternal life is the wages and reward
of a perfect moral life wrought out essentially by one’s own power, took the place
of first importance at a very early period. On this view, according to which the
righteousness of God is revealed in punishment and reward alike, the forgiveness
of sin only meant a single remission of sin in connection with entrance into the
Church by baptism,Even the assumption of such a remission is fundamentally
in contradiction with moralism; but that solitary remission of sin was not called
in question, was rather regarded as distinctive of the new religion, and was established
by an appeal to the omnipotence and special goodness of God, which appears just
in the calling of sinners. In this calling, grace as grace is exhausted (Barn. 5.
9; 2 Clem. 2. 4-7). But this grace itself seems to be annulled, inasmuch as the
sins committed before baptism were regarded as having been committed in a state
of ignorance (Tertull. de bapt. I.: delicta pristinæ cæcitatis),
ou account of which it seemed worthy of God to forgive them, that is, to accept
the repentance which followed on the ground of the new knowledge. So considered,
everything, in point of fact, amounts to the gracious gift of knowledge, and the
memory of the saying, “Jesus receiveth sinners”, is completely obscured. But the
tradition of this saying and many like it, and above all, the religious instinct,
where it was more powerfully stirred, did not permit a consistent development of
that moralistic conception. See for this, Hermas. Sim. V. 7. 3:
περὶ τῶν προτέρων ἀγνοημάτων τῷ θεῷ μονῷ δυνατὸν ἴασιν
δοῦναι· αὐτοῦ γὰρ ἐστι πᾶσα ἐξουσία. Præd. Petri ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 48: ὅσα
ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ τις ὑμῶν ἐποίησεν μὴ εἐδὼς σαφῶς τὸν θεὸν, ἐὰν ἐπιγνοὺς μετανοήσῃ, τάντα
αὐτῷ ἀφεθήσεται τὰ ἀμαρτήματα. Aristides, Apol. 17: “The Christians offer
prayers (for the unconverted Greeks) that they may be converted from their error.
But when one of them is converted he is ashamed before the Christians of the works
which he has done. And he confesses to God, saying: ‘I have done these things in
ignorance.’ And he cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because he
had done them in ignorance, in the earlier period when he mocked and jeered at the
true knowledge of the Christians.” Exactly the same in Tertull. de pudic. 10. init.
The statement of this same writer (1. c. fin), “Cessatio delicti
radix est veniæ, ut venia sit pænitentiæ fructus”, is a pregnant expression
of the conviction of the earliest Gentile Christians. and righteousness became
identical with virtue. The idea is indeed still operative, especially in the oldest
Gentile-Christian writings known to us, that sinlessness rests upon a new creation
(regeneration) which is effected in baptism;This idea appears with special
prominence in the Epistle of Barnabas (see 6. II. 14); the new formation (ἀναπλασσειν)
results through the forgiveness of sin. In the moralistic view the forgiveness of
sin is the result of the renewal that is spontaneously brought about on the ground
of knowledge shewing itself in penitent feeling. but, so far as dissimilar
eschatological hopes do not operate, it is everywhere in danger of being supplanted
by the other idea, which maintains
that there is no other blessing in the Gospel than the perfect truth
and eternal life. All else is but a sum of obligations in which the Gospel is presented
as a new law. The christianising of the Old Testament supported this conception.
There was indeed an opinion that the Gospel, even so far as it is a law, comprehends
a gift of salvation which is to be grasped by faith (νόμος
ἄνευ ζυγοῦ ἀνάγκης,Barn. 2. 6, and my notes on the passage.
νόμος τ. ἐλευθερίας,James
I. 25. Christ himself the law); Hermas. Sim. VIII. 3. 2;
Justin Dial. II. 43; Praed. Petri in Clem., Strom. I. 29. 182; II. 15. 68.
but this notion, as it is obscure in itself, was also an uncertain one and was gradually
lost. Further, by the “law” was frequently meant in the first place, not the law
of love, but the commandments of ascetic holiness, or an explanation and a turn
were given to the law of love, according to which it is to verify itself above all
in asceticism.Didache, c I., and my notes on the passage (Prolegg. p. 45 f.).
The expression of the contents of the Gospel in the concepts
ἐπαγγελία (ζωὴ αἰῴνιος) γνῶσις (ἀληθεία) νόμος (ἐγκρὰτέια),
seemed quite as plain as it was exhaustive, and the importance of faith which was
regarded as the basis of hope and knowledge and obedience in a holy life, was at
the same time in every respect perceived.The concepts
ἐπαγγελία, γνῶσις, νόμος, form the Triad on
which the later catholic conception of Christianity is based, though it can he proved
to have been in existence at an earlier period. That
πίστις must everywhere take the lead was undoubted,
though we must not think of the Pauline idea of πίστις.
When the Apostolic Fathers reflect upon faith, which, however, happens only incidentally,
they mean a holding for true of a sum of holy traditions, and obedience to them,
along with the hope that their consoling contents will yet be fully revealed. But
Ignatius speaks like a Christian who knows what he possesses in faith in Christ,
that is, in confidence in him. In Barn. I.: Polyc. Ep. 2, we find “faith, hope love”;
in Ignatius, “faith and love”. Tertullian, in an excellent exposition, has shewn
how far patience is a temper corresponding to Christian faith (see besides the Epistle
of James).
Supplement 1.—The moralistic view of sin, forgiveness of
sin, and righteousness, in Clement, Barnabas, Polycarp and Ignatius, gives place
to Pauline formulæ; but the uncertainty with which these are reproduced, shews that
the Pauline idea
has not been clearly seen.See Lipsius De Clementis. R. ep ad.
Cor. priore disquis. 1855. It would be in point of method inadmissible to conclude
from the fact that in 1 Clem. Pauline formulæ are relatively most faithfully produced,
that Gentile Christianity generally understood Pauline theology at first, but gradually
lost this understanding in the course of two generations. In Hermas, however,
and in the second Epistle of Clement, the consciousness of being under grace, even
after baptism, almost completely disappears behind the demand to fulfil the tasks
which baptiser imposes.Formally: τηρήσατε τὴν
σάρκα ἁγνὴν καὶ τὴν σφραγῖδα ἄσπιλον (2 Clem.
8. 6.) The idea that serious sins, in the case of the baptised,
no longer should or can be forgiven, except under special circumstances, appears
to have prevailed in wide circles, if not everywhere.Hermas (Mand.
IV. 3) and Justin presuppose it. Hermas of course sought and found a
way of meeting the results of that idea which were threatening the Church with decimation;
but he did not question the idea itself. Because Christendom is a community of saints
which has in its midst the sure salvation, all its members—this is the necessary
inference—must lead a sinless life. It reveals the earnestness of those early
Christians and their elevated sense of freedom and power; but it might be united
either with the highest moral intensity, or with a lax judgment on the little sins
of the day. The latter, in point of fact, threatened to become more and more the
presupposition and result of that idea—for there exists here a fatal reciprocal
action.
Supplement 2.—The realisation of salvation—as
βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ and as
ἀφθαρσία—being expected from the future, the
whole present possession of salvation might be comprehended under the title of vocation
(κλῆσις): see, for example, the second Epistle
of Clement. In this sense gnosis itself was regarded as something only preparatory.
Supplement 3.—In some circles the Pauline formula about
righteousness and salvation by faith alone, must, it would appear, not infrequently
(as already in the Apostolic age itself) have been partly misconstrued, and partly
taken advantage of as a cloak for laxity. Those who resisted such a disposition,
and therefore also the formula in the post-Apostolic age, shew indeed by their opposition
how little they have hit upon or understood the Pauline idea of faith: for they
not only issued the watchword “faith and works” (though the Jewish ceremonial law
was not thereby meant), but they admitted, and not only hypothetically,
that one might have the true faith even though in his case that faith
remained dead or united with immorality. See, above all, the Epistle of James and
the Shepherd of Hermas; though the first Epistle of John comes also into consideration
(III. 7: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous”).The formula, “righteousness
by faith alone,” was really repressed in the second century; but it could not he
entirely destroyed: see my Essay, “Gesch. d. Seligkeit allein durch den Glauben
in der alten K.” Ztsch. f. Theol, u. Kirche. I. pp. 82-105.
Supplement 4.—However similar the eschatological expectations
of the Jewish Apocalyptists and the Christians may seem, there is yet in one respect
an important difference between them. The uncertainty about the final consummation
was first set aside by the Gospel. It should be noted as highly characteristic of
the Jewish hopes of the future, even of the most definite, how the beginning of
the end, that is, the overthrow of the world-powers and the setting up of the earthly
kingdom of God, was much more certainly expressed than the goal and the final end.
Neither the general judgment, nor what we, according to Christian tradition, call
heaven and hell, should be described as a sure possession of Jewish faith in the
primitive Christian period. It is only in the Gospel of Christ, where everything
is subordinated to the idea of a higher righteousness and the union of the individual
with God, that the general judgment and the final condition after it are the clear,
firmly grasped goal of all meditation. No doctrine has been more surely preserved
in the convictions and preaching of believers in Christ than this. Fancy might roam
ever so much and, under the direction of the tradition, thrust bright and precious
images between the present condition and the final end, the main thing continued
to be the great judgment of the world, and the certainty that the saints would go
to God in heaven, the wicked to hell. But while the judgment, as a rule, was connected
with the Person of Jesus himself (see the Romish Symbol: the words
κριτὴς ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν, were very frequently
applied to Christ in the earliest writings), the moral condition of the individual,
and the believing recognition of the Person of Christ were put in the closest relation.
The Gentile Christians held firmly
to this. Open the Shepherd, or the second Epistle of Clement, or any
other early Christian writing, and you will find that the judgment, heaven and hell,
are the decisive objects. But that shews that the moral character of Christianity
as a religion is seen and adhered to. The fearful idea of hell, far from signifying
a backward step in the history of the religious spirit, is rather a proof of its
having rejected the morally indifferent point of view, and of its having become
sovereign in union with the ethical spirit.
§©4. The Old Testament as Source of the Knowledge of Faith.The
only thorough discussion of the use of the Old Testament by an Apostolic Father,
and of its authority, that we possess, is Wrede’s “Untersuchungen zum 1 Clementsbrief”
(1891). Excellent preliminary investigations, which, however, are not everywhere
quite reliable, may be found in Hatch’s Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889. Hatch has
taken up again the hypothesis of earlier scholars, that there were very probably
in the first and second centuries systematised extracts from the Old Testament (see
pp. 203-214). The hypothesis is not yet quite establised (see Wrede, above work,
p. 65), but yet it is hardly to be rejected. The Jewish catechetical and missionary
instruction in the Diaspora needed such collections, and their existence seem to
be proved by the Christian Apologies and the Sybilline books.
The sayings of the Old Testament, the word of God, were believed
to furnish inexhaustible material for deeper knowledge. The Christian prophets were
nurtured on the Old Testament, the teachers gathered from it the revelation of the
past, present and future (Barn. 1. 7), and
were therefore able as prophets to edify the Churches; from it was further drawn
the confirmation of the answers to all emergent questions, as one could always find
in the Old Testament what he was in search of. The different writers laid the holy
book under contribution in very much the same way; for they were all dominated by
the presupposition that this book is a Christian book, and contains the explanations
that are necessary for the occasion. There were several teachers,—e.g., Barnabas,—who
at a very early period boasted of finding in it ideas of special profundity and
value—these were always an expression of the difficulties that were being felt.
The plain words of the Lord as generally known, did not seem sufficient
to satisfy the craving for knowledge, or to solve the problems that
were emerging;It is an extremely important fact that the words of the Lord
were quoted and applied in their literal sense (that is chiefly for the statement
of Christian morality) by Ecclesiastical authors, almost without exception. up to
and inclusive of Justin. It was different with the theologians of the age, that
is the Gnostics, and the Fathers from Irenæus. their origin and form also
opposed difficulties at first to the attempt to obtain from them new disclosures
by re-interpretation. But the Old Testament sayings and histories were in part unintelligible,
or in their literal sense offensive; they were at the same time regarded as fundamental
words of God. This furnished the conditions for turning them to account in the way
we have stated. The following are the most important points of view under which
the Old Testament was used. (1) The Monotheistic cosmology and view of nature were
borrowed from it (see, for example, 1 Clem.). (2) It was used to prove that the
appearance and entire history of Jesus had been foretold centuries, nay, thousands
of years beforehand, and that the founding of a new people gathered out of all nations
had been predicted and prepared for from the very beginning.Justin was not
the first to do so, for it had already been done by the so-called Barnabas (see
especially c. 13) and others. On the proofs from prophecy see my Texte und Unters.
Bd. I. 3. pp. 56-74. The passage in the Praed. Petri (Clem. Strom. VI. 15. 128)
is very complete: Ἡμεῖς ἀναπτίξαντες τὰς βίβλους ἃς
εἴχομεν τῶν προφητῶν, ἃ μὲν διὰ παραβολῶν ἃ δὲ διὰ αἰνιγμάτων ἡ δὲ αὐθεντικῶ; καὶ
αὐτολεξεί τὸν Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ὀνομαζόντων, εὓρμεν καὶ τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν
θανατον καὶ τὸν σταυρὸν καὶ τὰς λοιπάς κολάσεις πάσας, ὃσας ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι,
καὶ τὴν ἔγερσιν καὶ τὴν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάληψιν πρὸ τοῦ Ἱερσόλυμα κριθῆναι, καθὼς
ἐγέγραπτο ταῦτα πάντα ἃ ἔδει αὐτὸν παθεῖν καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτὸν ἃ ἔσται· ταῠτα οὖν ἐπιγνόντες
ἐπιστεύσαμεν τῷ θεῷ διὰ τῶν γεγραμμένων εἰς αὐτὸν. With the help of the Old
Testament the teachers dated back the Christian religion to the beginning of the
human race, and joined the preparations for the founding of the Christian community
with the creation of the world. The Apologists were not the first to do so, for
Barnabas and Hermas, and before these, Paul, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews,
and others had already done the same. This was undoubtedly to the cultured classes
one of the most impressive articles in the missionary preaching. The Christian religion
in this way got a hold which the others—with the exception of the Jewish—lacked.
But for that very reason, we must guard against turning it into a formula, that
the Gentile Christians had comprehended the Old Testament essentially through the
scheme of prediction and fulfilment. The Old Testament is certainly the book of
predictions, but for that very reason the complete revelation of God which needs
no additions and excludes subsequent changes. The historical fulfilment only proves
to the world the truth of those revelations. Even the scheme of shadow and reality
is yet entirely out of sight. In such circumstances the question necessarily arises,
as to what independent meaning and significance Christ’s appearance could have,
apart from that confirmation of the Old Testament. But, apart from the Gnostics,
a surprisingly long time passed before this question was raised, that is to say,
it was not raised till the time of Irenæus. (3) It was used as
a means of verifying all principles and institutions of the Christian
Church,—the spiritual worship of God without images, the abolition of all ceremonial
legal precepts, baptism, etc. (4) The Old Testament was used for purposes of exhortation
according to the formula a minori ad majus ; if God
then punished and rewarded this or that in such a way, how much more may we expect,
who now stand in the last days, and have received the
κλῆσις τῆς ἐπαγγελίας. (5) It was proved from
the Old Testament that the Jewish nation is in error, and either never had a covenant
with God or has lost it, that it has a false apprehension of God’s revelations,
and therefore has, now at least, no longer any claim to their possession. But beyond
all this, (6) there were in the Old Testament books, above all, in the Prophets
and in the Psalms, a great number of sayings—confessions of trust in God and of
help received from God, of humility and holy courage, testimonies of a world-overcoming
faith and words of comfort, love and communion—which were too exalted for any cavilling,
and intelligible to every spiritually awakened mind. Out of this treasure which
was handed down to the Greeks and Romans, the Church edified herself, and in the
perception of its riches was largely rooted the conviction that the holy book must
in every line contain the highest truth.
The point mentioned under (5) needs, however, further explanation.
The self-consciousness of the Christian community of being the people of God, must
have been, above all, expressed in its position towards Judaism, whose mere existence—even
apart from actual assaults—threatened that consciousness most seriously. A certain
antipathy of the Greeks and Romans towards Judaism co-operated here with a law of
self-preservation. On all hands, therefore, Judaism as it then existed was abandoned
as a sect judged and rejected by God, as a
society of hypocrites,See Διδαχὴ,
8. as a synagogue of Satan,See the Revelation of John
II. 9: III. 9; but see
also the “Jews” in the Gospels of John and Peter. The latter exonerates Pilate almost
completely, and makes the Jews and Herod responsible for the crucifixion.
as a people seduced by an evil angel,See Barn.
9. 4. In the second epistle of Clement the Jews are called: “οἱ
δοκοῦντες ἔχειν θεὸν,” cf. Præd. Petri in Clem. Strom. VI. 5. 41:
μηδὲ κατὰ Ἰουδαίους σέβεσθε· καὶ γὰρ ἐκεῖνοι μόνοι
οἰόμενοι τὸν θεὸν γιγνώσκειν οὐκ ἐπίστανται, λατρεύοντες ἀγγέλοις καὶ ἀρχαγγέλοις,
μηνὶ καὶ σελήνη, καὶ ἐὰν μὴ σελήνη φανῇ, σάββατον οὐκ ἀγουσι τὸ λεκόμενον πρῶτον,
οὐδὲ γεομηνίαν ἄγουσιν, οὐδὲ ἄζυμα, οὐδὲ ἑορτήν, οὐδὲ μεγάλην ἡμέραν. (Cf.
Diognet. 34.) Even Justin does not judge the Jews more favourably than the Gentiles,
but less favourably; see Apol. I. 37, 39, 43, 44, 47, 53, 60. On the other hand,
Aristides (Apol. c. 14, especially in the Syrian text) is much more friendly disposed
to the Jews and recognises them more. The words of Pionius against and about the
Jews in the “Acta Pionii,” c. 4, are very instructive. and the Jews were
declared to have no further right to the possession of the Old Testament. Opinions
differed, however, as to the earlier history of the nation and its relation to the
true God. While some denied that there ever had been a covenant of salvation between
God and this nation, and in this respect recognised only an intention of God,Barn.
4. 6. f.: 14. 1. f. The author of Præd. Petri must have had a similar view of the
matter. which was never carried out because of the idolatry of the people,
others admitted in a hazy way that a relation did exist; but even they referred
all the promises of the Old Testament to the Christian people.Justin in the
Dialogue with Trypho.
While the former saw in the observance of the letter of the law, in the case of
circumcision, sabbath, precepts as to food, etc., a proof of the special devilish
temptation to which the Jewish people succumbed,Barn. 9. f. It is a thorough
misunderstanding of Barnabas’ position towards the Old Testament to suppose it possible
to pass over his expositions, c. 6-10, as oddities and caprices, and put them aside
as indifferent or unmethodical. There is nothing here unmethodical, and therefore
nothing arbitrary. Barnabas’ strictly spiritual idea of God, and the conviction
that all (Jewish) ceremonies are of the devil, compel his explanations. These are
so little ingenious conceits to Barnabas that, but for them, he would have been
forced to give up the Old Testament altogether. The account, for example, of Abraham
having circumcised his slaves would have forced Barnabas to annul the whole authority
of the Old Testament if he had not succeeded in giving it a particular interpretation.
He does this by combining other passages of Genesis with the narrative, and then
finding in it no longer circumcision, but a prediction of the crucified Christ.
the latter saw in circumcision a signBarn 9.
6: ἀλλ᾽ ἐρεῖς· καὶ μὴν περιτέτμηται ὁ λαὸς
εἰς σφραγῖδα. given by
God, and in virtue of certain considerations acknowledged that the
literal observance of the law was for the time God’s intention and command, though
righteousness never came from such observance. Yet even they saw in the spiritual
the alone true sense, which the Jews had denied, and were of opinion that the burden
of ceremonies was a pædagogic necessity with reference to a people stiff-necked
and prone to idolatry, i.e., a defence of monotheism, and gave an interpretation
to the sign of circumcision which made it no longer a blessing, but rather the mark
for the execution of judgment on Israel.See the expositions of Justin in the
Dial. (especially, 16, 18, 20, 30, 40-46); Von Engelhardt, “Christenthum Justin’s,”
p. 429. ff. Justin has the three estimates side by side. (1) That the ceremonial
law was a pædagogic measure of God with reference to a stiff-necked people prone
to idolatry. (2) That it—like circumcision—was to make the people conspicuous for
the execution of judgment, according to the Divine appointment. (3) That in the
ceremonial legal worship of the Jews is exhibited the special depravity and wickedness
of the nation. But Justin conceived the Decalogue as the natural law of reason,
and therefore definitely distinguished it from the ceremonial law.
Israel was thus at all times the pseudo-Church. The older people
does not in reality precede the younger people, the Christians, even in point of
time; for though the Church appeared only in the last days, it was foreseen and
created by God from the beginning. The younger people is therefore really the older,
and the new law rather the original law.See Ztschr. für K. G, I., p. 330 f.
The Patriarchs, Prophets, and men of God, however, who were favoured with the communication
of God’s words, have nothing inwardly in common with the Jewish people. They are
God’s elect who were distinguished by a holy walk, and must be regarded as the forerunners
and fathers of the Christian people.This is the unanimous opinion of all writers
of the post-Apostolic age. Christians are the true Israel; and therefore all Israel’s
predicates of honour belong to them. They are the twelve tribes, and therefore Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob, are the Fathers of the Christians. This idea, about which there
was no wavering, cannot everywhere be traced back to the Apostle Paul. The Old Testament
men of God were in certain measure Christians. See Ignat. Magn. 8. 2:
οἱ προφῆται κατὰ Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν έζησαν.
To the question how such holy men appeared exclusively, or almost exclusively, among
the Jewish people, the documents preserved to us yield no answer.
§©5. The Knowledge of God and of the World. Estimate of the
World.
The knowledge of faith was, above all, the knowledge of God as
one, supramundane, spiritual,God was naturally conceived and represented as
corporeal by uncultured Christians, though not by these alone, as the later controversies
prove (e.g., Orig. contra Melito; see also Tertull. De anima). In the case
of the cultured, the idea of a corporeality of God may be traced back to Stoic influences;
in the case of the uncultured, popular ideas co-operated with the sayings of the
Old Testament literally understood, and the impression of the Apocalyptic images.
and almighty (παντοκράτωρ); God is creator
and governor of the world and therefore the Lord.See
Joh. IV. 22; ἡμεῖς προσκυνοῦμεν ὃ οἴδαμεν.
I Clem. 59. 3. 4; Herm. Mand. I.; Præd. Petri in Clem. Strom. VI. 5. 9.:
γινωσκετε ὅτι εἷς θεὸς ἐστιν ὅς ἀρχὴν πάντων ἐποίησεν,
καὶ τέλους ἐξουσίαν ἔχων. Aristides Apol. 15 (Syr.): “The Christians know
and believe in God, the creator of heaven and of earth.” Chap. 16: “Christians as
men who know God, pray to him for things which it becomes him to give and them to
receive.” (Similarly Justin.) From very many old Gentile Christian writings we hear
it as a cry of joy. “We know God the Almighty; the night of blindness is past” (see,
e.g., 2 Clem. c. 1). God is δεσπότης, a designation
which is very frequently used (it is rare in the New Testament). Still more frequently
do we find κύριος. As the Lord and Creator,
God is also called the Father (of the world) so 1 Clem. 19. 2:
ὁ πατὴρ καὶ κτίστης τοῦ σύμπαντος κόσμου. 35.
3: δημιουργὸς καὶ πατῆρ τῶν αἰώνων. This use
of the name Father for the supreme God was, as is well known, familiar to the Greeks,
but the Christians alone were in earnest with the name. The creation out of nothing
was made decidedly prominent by Hermas, see Vis. I. 1. 6, and my notes on the passage.
In the Christian Apocrypha, in spite of the vividness of the idea of God, the angels
play the same rôle as in the Jewish, and as in the current Jewish speculations.
According to Hermas, e.g., all God’s actions are mediated by special angels,
nay, the Son of God himself is represented by a special angel, viz., Michael, and
works by him. But outside the Apocalypses there seems to have been little interest
in the good angels. But as he created the world a beautiful ordered whole
(monotheistic view of nature)See, for example, 1 Clem. 20. for the
sake of man,This is frequent in the Apologists; see also Diogn. 10. 2: but
Hermas, Vis. II. 4. I (see also Cels. ap. Orig. IV. 23) says:
διὰ τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ὁ κόσμος κατηρτίσθη (cf.
I. 1. 6. and my notes on the passage). Aristides (Apol. 16) declares it as his conviction
that “the beautiful things,” that is, the world, are maintained only for the sake
of Christians; see, besides, the words (I. c.); “I have no doubt, that the earth
continues to exist (only) on account of the prayers of the Christians.” Even the
Jewish Apocalyptists wavered between the formulæ, that the world was created for
the sake of man, and for the sake of the Jewish nation. The two are not mutually
exclusive. The statement in the Eucharistic prayer of Didache, 9. 3,
ἔκτισας τὰ πάντα ἕνεκεν τοῦ ὀνόματος σου, is
singular. he is at the same time the God of goodness and
redemption (θεὸς σωτήρ), and
the true faith in God and knowledge of him as the Father,God is named the
Father, (1) in relation to the Son (very frequent), (2) as Father of the world (see
above), (3) as the merciful one who has proved his goodness, declared his will,
and called Christians to be his sons (1 Clem. 23. 1; 29, 1; 2 Clem. 1. 4; 8. 4;
10. 1; 14. 1; see the index to Zahn’s edition of the Ignatian Epistles; Didache.
1. 5; 9. 2. 3; 10. 2.) The latter usage is not very common; it is entirely wanting,
for example, in the Epistle of Barnabas. Moreover, God is also called
πετὴρ τῆς ἀληθείας, as the source of all truth
(2 Clem. 3. 1: 20, 5: θεὸς τ. ἀληθείας). The
identity of the Almighty God of creation with the merciful God of redemption is
the tacit presupposition of all declarations about God, in the case of both the
cultured and the uncultured. It is also frequently expressed (see, above all, the
Pastoral Epistles), most frequently by Hermas (Vis. I. 3. 4), so far as the declaration
about the creation of the world is there united in the closest way with that about
the creation of the Holy Church. As to the designation of God in the Roman Symbol,
as the “Father Almighty,” that threefold exposition just given may perhaps allow
it. is made perfect only in the knowledge of the identity of the God of creation
and the God of redemption. Redemption, however, was necessary, because at the beginning
humanity and the world alike fell under the dominion of evil demons,The present
dominion of evil demons, or of one evil demon, was just as generally presupposed
as man’s need of redemption, which was regarded as a result of that dominion. The
conviction that the world’s course (the πολιτεία ἐν
τῷ κοσμῳ: the Latins afterwards used the word Sæculum)
is determined by the devil, and that the dark one (Barnabas) has dominion, comes
out most prominently where eschatological hopes obtain expression. But where salvation
is thought of as knowledge and immortality, it is ignorance and frailty from which
men are to be delivered. We may here also assume with certainty that these, in the
last instance, were traced back by the writers to the action of demons. But it makes
a very great difference whether the judgment was ruled by fancy which saw a real
devil everywhere active, or whether, in consequence of theoretic reflection, it
based the impression of universal ignorance and mortality on the assumption of demons
who have produced them. Here again we must note the two series of ideas which intertwine
and struggle with each other in the creeds of the earliest period; the traditional
religious series, resting on a fanciful view of history—it is essentially identical
with the Jewish Apocalyptic: see, for example, Barn. 4—and the empiric moralistic
(see 2 Clem. 1. 2-7, as a specially valuable discussion, or Præd. Petri in Clem.
Strom. VI. 5, 39, 40), which abides by the fact that men have fallen into ignorance,
weakness and death (2 Clem. 1. 6: ὁ βίος ἡμῷν ὅλος
ἄλλο οὐδὲν ἦν εἰ μὴ θάνατος). But, perhaps, in no other point, with the exception
of the ἀνάστασις σαρκὸς, has the religious
conception remained so tenacious as in this, and it decidedly prevailed, especially
in the epoch with which we are now dealing. Its tenacity may be explained, among
other things, by the living impression of the polytheism that surrounded the communities
on every side. Even where the national gods were looked upon as dead idols—and that
was perhaps the rule, see Præd. Petri, I. c.; 2 Clem. 3. 1; Didache, 6—one could
not help assuming that there were mighty demons operative behind them, as otherwise
the frightful power of idolatry could not be explained. But, on the other hand,
even a calm reflection and a temper unfriendly to all religious excess must have
welcomed the assumption of demons who sought to rule the world and man. For by means
of this assumption, which was wide-spread even among the Greeks, humanity seemed
to be unburdened, and the presupposed capacity for redemption could therefore be
justified in its widest range. From the assumption that the need of redemption was
altogether due to ignorance and mortality, there was but one step, or little more
than one step, to the assumption that the need of redemption was grounded in a condition
of man for which he was not responsible, that is, in the flesh. But this step, which
would have led either to dualism (heretical Gnosis) or to the abolition of the distinction
between natural and moral, was not taken within the main body of the Church. The
eschatological series of ideas with its thesis that death, evil and sin entered
into humanity at a definite historical moment, when the demons took possession of
the world, drew a limit which was indeed overstepped at particular points, but was
in the end respected. We have therefore the remarkable fact that, on the one hand,
early Christian (Jewish) eschatology called forth and maintained a disposition in
which the Kingdom of God and that of the world (Kingdom of the devil) were felt
to be absolutely opposed (practical dualism), while, on the other hand, it rejected
theoretic dualism. Redemption through Christ, however, was conceived in the eschatological
Apocalyptic series of ideas as essentially something entirely in the future, for
the power of the devil was not broken, but rather increased (or it was virtually
broken in believers and increased in unbelievers) by the first advent of Christ,
and therefore the period between the first and second advent of Christ belongs to
οὗτος ὁ αἰών (see Barn. 2. 4; Herm. Sim. I;
2. Clem. 6. 3: ἔστιν δὲ οὗτος ὁ αἰὼν καὶ ὁ μέλλων
δύο ἐχθροί· οὗτος λέγει μοιχείαν καὶ φθορὰν καὶ φιλαργουρίαν καὶ ἀπάτην, ἐκεῖνος
δὲ τούτοις ἀποστάσσεται; Ignat. Magn. 5. 2). For that very reason, the second
coming of Christ must, as a matter of course, be at hand, for only through it could
the first advent get its full value. The painful impression that nothing had been
outwardly changed by Christ’s first advent (the heathen, moreover, pointed this
out in mockery to the suffering Christians), must be destroyed by the hope of his
speedy coming again. But the first advent had its independent significance in the
series of ideas which regarded Christ as redeeming man from ignorance and mortality;
for the knowledge was already given and the gift of immortality could only of course
be dispensed after this life was ended, but then immediately. The hope of Christ’s
return was therefore a superfluity, but was not felt or set aside as such, because
there was still a lively expectation of Christ’s earthly Kingdom. of the
evil one. There was no
universally accepted theory as to the origin of this dominion; but
the sure and universal conviction was that the present condition and course of the
world is not of God, but is of the devil. Those, however, who believed in God, the
almighty creator, and were expecting the transformation of the earth, as well as
the visible dominion of Christ upon it, could not be seduced into accepting a dualism
in principle (God
and devil: spirit and matter). Belief in God, the creator, and eschatological
hopes preserved the communities from the theoretic dualism that so readily suggested
itself, which they slightly touched in many particular opinions, and which threatened
to dominate their feelings. The belief that the world is of God and therefore good,
remained in force. A distinction was made between the present constitution of the
world, which is destined for destruction, and the future order of the world which
will be a glorious “restitutio in integrum”, The theory of
the world as an articulated whole which had already been proclaimed by the Stoics,
and which was strengthened by Christian monotheism, would not, even if it had been
known to the uncultured, have been vigorous enough to cope with the impression of
the wickedness of the course of this world, and the vulgarity of all things material.
But the firm belief in the omnipotence of God, and the hope of the world’s transformation
grounded on the Old Testament, conquered the mood of absolute despair of all things
visible and sensuous, and did not allow a theoretic conclusion, in the sense of
dualism in principle, to be drawn from the practical obligation to renounce the
world, or from the deep distrust with regard to the flesh.
§©6. Faith in Jesus Christ.
1. As surely as redemption was traced back to God himself, so
surely was Jesus (ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν) held to be
the mediator of it. Faith in Jesus was therefore, even for Gentile Christians, a
compendium of Christianity. Jesus is mostly designated with the same name as God,No
other name adhered to Christ so firmly as that of
κύριος: see a specially clear evidence of this, Novatian de trinit. 30, who
argues against the Adoptian and Modalistic heretics thus: “Et in
primis illud retorquendum in istos, qui duorum nobis deorum controversiam facere
præsumunt. Scriptum est, quod negare non possunt: “Quoniam unus est dominus.” De
Christo ergo quid sentiunt? Dominum esse, aut ilium omnino non esse? Sed dominum
illum omnino non dubitant. Ergo si vera est illorum ratiocinatio, jam duo sunt domini.”
On κύριος = δεσποτης, see above, p. 119, note.
ὁ κύριος (ἡμῶν), for we must remember the ancient
use of this title. All that has taken place or will take place with reference to
salvation, is
traced back to the “Lord.” The carelessness of the early Christian
writers about the bearing of the word in particular cases,Specially instructive
examples of this are found in the Epistle of Barnabas and the second Epistle of
Clement. Clement (Ep. 1) speaks only of faith in God. shews that in a religious
relation, so far as there was reflection on the gift of salvation, Jesus could directly
take the place of God. The invisible God is the author, Jesus the revealer and mediator,
of all saving blessings. The final subject is presented in the nearest subject,
and there is frequently no occasion for expressly distinguishing them, as the range
and contents of the revelation of salvation in Jesus coincide with the range and
contents of the will of salvation in God himself. Yet prayers, as a rule, were addressed
to God: at least, there are but few examples of direct prayers to Jesus belonging
to the first century (apart from the prayers in the Act. Joh. of the so-called Leucius).
The usual formula rather reads: θεῷ ἐξομολογούμεθα
διὰ Ἰ. Χρ.—θεῷ δόξα διά Ἰ. Χρ.See 1 Clem. 59—61.
Διδαχή, c. 9. 10. Yet Novatian (de trinit.
14) exactly reproduces the old idea, “Si homo tantummodo Christus,
cur homo in orationibus mediator invocatur, cum invocatio hominis ad præstandam
salutem inefficax judicetur.” As the Mediator, High Priest, etc., Christ
is of course always and every-where invoked by the Christians, but such invocations
are one thing and formal prayer another. The idea of the congruence of God’s will
of salvation with the revelation of salvation which took place through Christ, was
further continued in the idea of the congruence of this revelation of salvation
with the universal preaching of the twelve chosen Apostles (see above, p. 162 ff.),
the root of the Catholic principle of tradition. But the Apostles never became “οἱ
κύριοι,” though the concepts διδαχὴ, (λόγος)
κύριου, διδαχὴ (κήρυγμα) τῶν ἀποστόλων were just as interchangeable as
λόγος θεοῦ and λόγος χριστοῦ. The full formula
would be λὸγος θεοῦ διὰ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ διὰ τῶν ἀποστόλων.
But as the subjects introduced by ara are chosen and perfect media, religious usage
permitted the abbreviation.
2. As the Gentile Christians did not understand the significance
of the idea that Jesus is the Christ (Messiah), the designation “χριστός”
had either to be given up in their communities, or to subside into a mere name.In
the epistle of Barnabas “Jesus Christ” and “Christ” appear each once, but “Jesus”
twelve times: in the Didache “Jesus Christ” once, “Jesus” three times. Only in the
second half of the second century, if I am not mistaken, did the designation “Jesus
Christ,” or “Christ,” become the current one, more and more crowding out the simple
“Jesus.” Yet the latter designation—and this is not surprising—appears to have continued
longest in the regular prayers. It is worthy of note that in the Shepherd there
is no mention either of the name Jesus or of Christ. The Gospel of Peter also says
ὁ κύριος where the other Gospels use these
names. But even where,
through the Old Testament, one was reminded of the meaning of the
word, and allowed a value to it, he was far from finding in the statement that Jesus
is the Lord’s anointed, a clear expression of the dignity peculiar to him. That
dignity had therefore to be expressed by other means. Nevertheless the eschatological
series of ideas connected the Gentile Christians very closely with the early Christian
ideas of faith, and therefore also with the earliest ideas about Jesus. In the confession
that God choseSee 1 Clem. 64: ὁ θεὸς, ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος
τὸν κύριον Ἰησοῦν Χριστὸν καὶ ἡμᾶς δι᾽ αὐτοῦ εἰς λαὸν περιούσιον δῷν. κ.τ.λ.
(It is instructive to note that wherever the idea of election is expressed, the
community is immediately thought of, for in point of fact the election of the Messiah
has no other aim than to elect or call the community; Barn. 3. 6:
ὁ λαὸς ὅν ἡτοίμασεν ἡν τῷ ᾐγαπημόνῳ αὐτοῦ.)
Herm. Sim. V. 2: ἐκλεξάμενος δοῦλόν τινα πιστὸ καὶ
εὐάρεστον. V. 6. 5. Justin, Dial. 48: μὴ ἀρνεῖσθαι
ὅτι οὑτός ἐστιν ὁ Χριστὸς, ἐὰν φαίνηται ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἐξ ἀνθρώπον γεννηθεὶς καὶ ἐκλογῇ
γενόμενος εἰς τὸ Χριστὸν εἰναι ἀποδεικνύηται. and preparedSee
Barn. 14. 5: Ἰησοῦς εἰς τοῦτο ἡτοιμασθη, ἵνα . . .
. ἡμᾶς λυτρωσάμενος ἐκ τοῦ σκότους διάθηται ἐν ἡμῖν διαθήκην λόγῳ. The same
word concerning the Church, 1. c. 3. 6. and 5. 7:
αὐτὸς ἐαυτῷ τὸν λαὸν τὸν καινὸν ἐτοιμάζων. 14. 6. Jesus, that Jesus
is the Angel“Angel” is a very old designation for Christ (see Justin’s Dial.)
which maintained itself up to the Nicean controversy, and is expressly claimed for
him in Novatian’s treatise “de trinit.” 11. 25 ff. (the word was taken from Old
Testament passages which were applied to Christ). As a rule, however, it is not
to be understood as a designation of the nature, but of the office of Christ as
such, though the matter was never very clear. There were Christians who used it
as a designation of the nature, and from the earliest times we find this idea contradicted.
(See the Apoc. Sophoniæ, ed Stern, 1886, IV. fragment, p. 10: “He appointed no Angel
to come to us, nor Archangel, nor any power, but he transformed himself into a man
that he might come to us for our deliverance.” Cf. the remarkable parallel, ep.
ad. Diagn. 7. 2: . . . . οὐ, καθάπερ ἄν τις εἰκάσειεν
ἃνθρωπος, ὑπηρέτην τινὰ πέμψας ἣ ἄγγελον ἣ ἄρχοντα ἣ τινα τῶν διεπόντων τὰ ἐπίγεια
ἣ τινα τῶν πεπιστευμένων τὰς ἐν οὐρανοῖς διοικήσεις, ἀλλ᾽ αὐτὸν τὸν τεχνίτην καὶ
δημιουργὸν τῶν ὅλων, κ.τ.λ.) Yet it never got the length of a great controversy,
and as the Logos doctrine gradually made way, the designation “Angel” became harmless
and then vanished. and the servant of God,Παῖς
(after Isaiah): this designation, frequently united with
Ἰησοῦς and with the adjectives
ἅγιος and ἡγαπημένος
(see Barn. 3. 6: 4. 3: 4. 8: Valent. ap. Clem. Alex, Strom. VI. 6. 52, and the Ascensio
Isaiæ), seems to have been at the beginning a usual one. It sprang undoubtedly from
the Messianic circle of ideas, and at its basis lies the idea of election. It is
very interesting to observe how it was gradually put into the background and finally
abolished. It was kept longest in the liturgical prayers: see 1 Clem. 59. 2; Barn.
61: 9. 2; Acts iii. 13. 26; iv. 27. 30; Didache, 9. 2. 3; Mart. Polyc. 14. 20; Act.
Pauli et Theclæ, 17. 24; Sibyl. I. v. 324, 331, 364; Diogn. 8, 9, 10:
ὁ ἁγαπητὸς παῖς, 9. I; also Ep. Orig. ad Afric.
init; Clem. Strom. VII. 1. 4: ὁ μονογενὴς παῖς,
and my note on Barn. 6. 1. In the Didache (9. 2) Jesus as well as David is in one
statement called “Servant of God.” Barnabas, who calls Christ the “Beloved,” uses
the same expression for the Church (4. 1. 9); see also Ignat. ad Smyrn. inscr.
that he will judge
the living and the dead,See the old Roman Symbol and
Acts X. 42; 2 Tim. IV. 1;
Barn. 7. 2; Polyc. Ep. 2. 1;
2 Clem. 2. 1; Hegesipp. in Euseb., H. E. III. 20 6: Justin Dial. 118.
etc., expression is given to ideas about Jesus, in the Gentile Christian communities,
which are borrowed from the thought that he is the Christ called of God and entrusted
with an office.There could of course be no doubt that Christ meant the “anointed”
(even Aristides Apol. 2 fin., if Nestle’s correction is right, Justin’s Apol. 1.
4 and similar passages do not justify doubt on that point). But the meaning and
the effect of this anointing was very obscure. Justin says (Apol. II. 6):
Χριστὸς μὲν κατὰ τὸ κεχρῖσθαι καὶ κοσμῆσαι τα πάντα
δι᾽ αὐτοῦ τὸν θεὸν λέγεται, and therefore (see Dial. 76 fin.) finds in this
designation an expression of the cosmic significance of Christ. Besides,
there was a very old designation handed down from the circle of the disciples, and
specially intelligible to Gentile Christians, though not frequent and gradually
disappearing, viz., “the Master”.See the Apologists Apost. K. O. (Texte v.
Unters. II. 5. p. 25), προορῶντας τοὺς λόγους τοῦ
διδασκάλου ἡμῶν, ibid., p. 28: ὅτε ᾔτησεν ὁ
διδασκάλος τὸν ἄρτον, ibid. p. 30: προέλεγεν,
ὅτε ἐδίδασκν. Apost. Constit. (original writing) III. 6:
αὐτὸς ὁ διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν καὶ κύριος. III. 7:
ὁ κύριος καὶ διδάσκαλος ἡμῶν εἷπεν. III. 19:
III. 20: V. 12: 1 Clem. 13. 1 . . . . τῶν λόγων τοῦ
κύριου Ἰησοῦ, οὓς ἐλάκησεν διδάσκων. Polyc. Ep. 2:
μνημονεύοντες ὧν εἶπεν ὁ κυρίος διδάσκων. Ptolem.
ad Floram. 5: ἡ διδασκαλια τοῦ σωτῆρος.
3. But the earliest tradition not only spoke of Jesus as
κύριος, σωτήρ, and
διδάσκαλος, but as
“ὁ ὑιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ”, and this name was firmly
adhered to in the Gentile Christian communities.The baptismal formula, which
had been naturalised everywhere in the communities at this period, preserved it
above all. The addition of ἴδιος, πρωτόποκος
is worthy of notice. Μονογενής (= the only
begotten and also the beloved) is not common; it is found only in John, in Justin,
in the Symbol of the Romish Church, and in Mart. Polyc. (Diogn. 10. 3). It
followed immediately from this that Jesus belongs to the sphere of God, and that,
as is said in the earliest preaching known to us,The so-called second Epistle
of Clement begins with the words: Ἀδελφοί, οὕτως δεῖ
ἦμᾶς φρονεῖν περὶ Ἰησοῦ, ὡς περὶ θεοῦ, ὡς περὶ κριτοῦ ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν,
(this order in which the Judge appears as the higher is also found in Barn. 7. 2),
καὶ οὐ δεῖ ἡμᾶς μικρὰ φρονεῖν περὶ τῆς σωτηρίας ἡμῶν·
ἐν τᾧ γὰρ φρονεῖν ἡμᾶς μικρὰ περὶ αὐτοῦ, μικρὰ καί ἐλριζομεν λαβεῖν. This
argumentation (see also the following verses up to II. 7) is very instructive; for
it shews the grounds on which the φρονεῖν περὶ αὐτοῦ
ὡς περὶ θεοῦ was based. H. Schultz, (L. v. d. Gottheit Christi, p. 25 f.)
very correctly remarks: “In the second Epistle of Clement, and in the Shepherd,
the Christological interest of the writer ends in obtaining the assurance, through
faith in Christ as the world-ruling King and Judge, that the community of Christ
will receive a glory corresponding to its moral and ascetic works. one must
think of him “ὡς περὶ θεοῦ”.
This formula describes in a classic manner the indirect “theologia
Christi” which we find unanimously expressed in all witnesses of the earliest epoch.Pliny
in his celebrated letter (96), speaks of a “Carmen dicere Christo
quasi deo” on the part of the Christians. Hermas has no doubt that the Chosen
Servant, after finishing his work, will be adopted as God’s Son, and therefore has
been destined from the beginning, εἰς ἐξουσίαν μεγάλην
καὶ κυριύτητα (Sim. V. 6. 1). But that simply means that he is now in a Divine
sphere, and that one must think of him as of God. But there was no unanimity beyond
that. The formula says nothing about the nature or constitution of Jesus. It might
indeed appear from Justin’s dialogue that the direct designation of Jesus as
θεός (not as
ὁ θεός) was common in the communities; but not only are there some passages
in Justin him-self to be urged against this, but also the testimony of other writers.
Θεός, even without the article, was in no case
a usual designation for Jesus. On the contrary, it was always quite definite occasions
which led them to speak of Christ as of a God. In the first place there were Old
Testament passages such as
Ps. XLV. 8: CX. 1 f., etc.,
which, as soon as they were interpreted in relation to Christ, led to his getting
the predicate θεός. These passages, with many
others taken from the Old Testament, were used in this way by Justin. Yet it is
very well worth noting, that the author of the Epistle of Barnabas avoided this
expression, in a passage which must have suggested it. (12, 10, 11 on
Ps. CX. 4.) The author of the Didache calls him “ὁ
θεός Δάβιδ” on the basis of the above psalm. It is manifestly therefore in
liturgical formulæ of exalted paradox, or living utterances of religious feeling
that Christ is called God. See Ignat. ad Rom. 6.
3; ἐπιτρέψατέ μοι μιμητὴν εἶναι τοῦ παθους
τοῦ θεοῦ μου (the μον here should be
observed); ad Eph. 1. 1:
ἀναζωπυρήσαντες ἐν αἴματι θεοῦ: Tatian Orat.
13: διάκονος τοῦ πεπονθότος θεοῦ. As to the
celebrated passage 1 Clem. ad Cor. 2, 10: τὰ παθήματα
αὐτοῦ, (the αὐτοῦ refers to
θεός) we may perhaps observe that that
ὁ θεός stands far apart. However, such a consideration
is hardly in place. The passages just adduced shew that precisely the union of suffering
(blood, death) with the concept “God”—and only this union—must have been in Christendom
from a very early period; see Acts XX. 28
. . . τὴν ἐκκλησίαν τοῦ θεοῦ ἣν περιεποιήσατο διὰ
τοῦ αἵματος τοῦ ἰδίου, and from a later period, Melito, Fragm. (in Routh
Rel., Sacra I. 122): ὁ θεὸς πέπονθεν ὑπὸ δεξιάς Ἰσραηλιτίδος,
Anonym. ap. Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 11; ὁ εὔσπλαγχνος
θεός καὶ κυριός ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς οὐκ ἐβούλετο ἀπολέσθαι μάρτυρα τῶν ἰδίων παθημάτων;
Test. XII. Patriarch. (Levi 4): ἐπὶ τῷ πάθει τοῦ ὑψίστου;
Tertull. de carne 5; “passiones dei,” ad Uxor II. 3: “sanguine
dei.” Tertullian also speaks frequently of the crucifying of God, the flesh
of God, the death of God. (See Lightfoot, Clem. of Rome, p. 400 sq.) These formulæ
were first subjected to examination in the Patripassian controversy. They were rejected
by Athanasius, for example, in the fourth century (cf. Apollin. II. 13. 14. Opp.
I. p. 758); πῶς οὖν γεγράφατε ὅτι θεός ὁ διὰ σάρκος
παθὼν καὶ ἃναστάς, . . . . οὐδαμοῦ δὲ αἷμα θεοῦ δίχα σαρκὸς παραδεδώκασιν αἱ γραφαὶ
ἣ θεὸν διὰ σαρκὸς παθόντα καὶ ἀναστάντα. They continued in use in the west
and became of the utmost significance in the christological controversies of the
fifth century. It is not quite certain whether there is a “theologia
Christi” in such passages as Tit. II. 13:
2 Pet. I. 1 (see the controversies on
Rom. IX. 5). Finally,
θεός and Christus were often interchanged in
religious discourse (see above). In the so-called second Epistle of Clement (c.
1. 4) the dispensing of light, knowledge, is traced back to Christ. It is said of
him that, like a Father, he has called us children, he has delivered us, he has
called us into existence out of non-existence, and in this God himself is not thought
of. Indeed he is called (2. 2. 3) the hearer of prayer and controller of history;
but immediately thereon a saying of the Lord is introduced as a saying of God (Matt.
IX. 13). On the contrary,
Isaiah XXIX. 13, is quoted 3. 5) as
a declaration of Jesus, and again (13. 4) a saying of the Lord with the formula:
λέγει ὁ θεός. It is Christ who pitied us (3.
1: 16. 2); he is described simply as the Lord who hath called and redeemed us (5.
1: 8. 2: 9. 5: etc.). Not only is there frequent mention of the
ἐντλαι (ἐντάλματα) of Christ, but 6, 7 (see
14. 1) speak directly of a ποιεῖν τὸ θέλημα τοῦ Χριστὸῦ.
Above all, in the entire first division (up to 9. 5) the religious situation is
for the most part treated as if it were something essentially between the believer
and Christ. On the other hand, (10. 1) the Father is he who calls (see also 16.
1), who brings salvation (9. 7), who accepts us as sons (9. 10: 16. 1); he has given
us promises (11. 1. 6. 7); we expect his kingdom, nay, the day of his appearing
(12. 1 f.: 6. 9: 9. 6: 11. 7: 12. 1). He will judge the world, etc.; while in 17.
4 we read of the day of Christ’s appearing, of his kingdom and of his function of
Judge, etc. Where the preacher treats of the relation of the community to God, where
he describes the religious situation according to its establishment or its consummation,
where he desires to rule the religious and moral conduct, he introduces, without
any apparent distinction, now God himself, and now Christ. But this religious view,
in which acts of God coincide with acts of Christ, did not, as will be shewn later
on, influence the theological speculations of the preacher. We have also to observe
that the interchanging of God and Christ is not always an expression of the high
dignity of Christ, but, on the contrary, frequently proves that the personal significance
of Christ is misunderstood, and that he is regarded only as the dependent revealer
of God. All this shews that there cannot have been many passages in the earliest
literature where Christ was roundly designated θεός.
It is one thing to speak of the blood (death, suffering) of God, and to describe
the gifts of salvation brought by Christ as gifts of God, and another thing to set
up the proposition that Christ is a God (or God). When, from the end of the second
century, one began to look about in the earlier writings for passages
ἐν οἷς θεολογεῖται ὁ χριστός, because the matter
had become a subject of controversy, one could, besides the Old Testament, point
only to the writings of authors from the time of Justin, (to apologists and controversialists)
as well as to Psalms and odes (see the Anonymn. in Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 4–6). In
the following passages of the Ignatian Epistles “θεός”
appears as a designation of Christ; he is called ὁ
θεὸς ἡμῶν in Ephes. inscript; Rom. inscr. bis 3. 2; Polyc. 8. 3;
Eph. 1. 1, αῖμα θεοῦ;
Rom. 6. 3,
τὸ πάθος τοῦ θεοῦ μου; Eph. 7. 2, ἐ99 σαρκὶ γενόμενος
θεός, in another reading, ἐν ἀνθρώπῳ θεός, Smyrn. I. 1.,
Ἰ. Χρ. ὁ θεός ὁ οὕτως ὑμᾶς ποφίσας. The latter
passage, in which the relative clause must he closely united with “θεός,”;
seems to form the transition to the three passages (Trail. 7. I; Smyrn. 6. 1; 10.
1), in which Jesus is called θεος without addition.
But these passages are critically suspicious, see Lightfoot in loco. In the same
way the “deus Jesus Christus” in Polyc. Ep. 12. 2, is suspicious,
and indeed in both parts of the verse. In the first, all Latin codd. have “dei
filius,” and in the Greek codd. of the Epistle, Christ is nowhere called
θεός. We have a keen polemic against the designation
of Christ as θεός in Clem. Rom. Homil. XVI.
15 sq.; Ὁ Πέτρος ἀπεκρίθη· ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν οὔτε θεοὺς
εἶναι ἐφθέγξατο παρὰ τὸν κτίσαντα τὰ πάντα οὔτε ἑαυτὸν θεὸν εἶναι ἀνηγόρευσεν, ὑιὸν
δὲ θεοῦ τοῦ τὰ πάντα διακοσμήσαντος τὸν εἱπόντα αὐτὸν εὐλόγως ἐμακάρισεν καὶ ὁ Σίμων
ἀπεκρίνατο· οὐ δοκεῖ σοι οὖν τὸν ἀπὸ θεὸν εἶναι; καὶ ὁ Πέτρος ἔφη· πῶς τοῦτο εἶναι
δύναται, φράσον ἡμῖν, τοῦτο γὰρ ἡμεῖς εἰπεῖν σοι οὐ δυνάμεθα ὃτι μὴ ἡκούσαμεν παρ᾽
αὐτοῦ.
We must think about Christ as we think about God, because, on the one hand, God
had exalted him, and committed to him as Lord, judgment over
the living and the dead, and because, on the other hand, he has brought
the knowledge of the truth, called sinful men, delivered them from the dominion
of demons, and hath led, or will lead them, out of the night of death and corruption
to eternal life. Jesus Christ is “our faith”, “our hope”, “our
life”, and in this sense “our God”. The religious assurance that he
is this, for we find no wavering on this point, is the root of the “theologia Christi”;
but we must also remember that the formula “θεός”
was inserted beside “κύριος,” that the “dominus
ac deus” was very common at that time,On the further use of the word
θεός in antiquity, see above, §©8, p. 120 f.;
the formula “θεός ἐκ θεοῦ” for Augustus, even
24 years before Christ’s birth; on the formula “dominus ac deus,”
see John XX. 28; the interchange of these
concepts in many passages beside one another in the anonymous writer (Euseb. II.
E. V. 28. 11.) Domitian first allowed himself to be called “dominus
ac deus.” Tertullian Apol. 10. 11, is very instructive as to the general
situation in the second century. Here are brought forward the different causes which
then moved men, the cultured and the uncultured, to give to this or that personality
the predicate of Divinity. In the third century the designation of “domus ac deus
noster” for Christ was very common, especially in the west. (See Cyprian, Pseudo-Cyprian,
Novatian; in the Latin Martyrology a Greek ὁ κύριος
is also frequently so translated.) But only at this time had the designation come
to be in actual use even for the Emperor. It seems at first sight to follow from
the statements of Celsus (in Orig. c. Cels. III. 22-43) that this Greek had and
required a very strict conception of the Godhead; but his whole work shews how little
that was really the case. The reference to these facts of the history of the time
is not made with the view of discovering the “theologia Christi”
itself in its ultimate roots—these roots lie elsewhere, in the person of Christ
and Christian experience; but that this experience, before any technical reflection,
had so easily and so surely substituted the new formula instead of the idea of Messiah,
can hardly be explained without reference to the general religious ideas of the
time. and that a Saviour (σωτήρ) could
only be represented somehow as
a Divine being.The combination of
θεὸς and σωτήρ
in the Pastoral Epistles is very important. The two passages in the New Testament
in which perhaps a direct “theologia Christi” may be recognised, contain likewise
the concept σωτὴρ; see
Tit. II. 13; προσδεχόμενοι τὴν μακαρίαν
ἐλπίδα καὶ ἐπιφάνειαν τῆς δόξης τοῦ μεγάλου θεοῦ καὶ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Χριστοῦ Ἰησοῦ
(cf. Abbot, Journal of the Society of Bibl. Lit., and Exeg. 1881. June. p. 3 sq.):
2 Pet. I. 1: ἐν δικαιοσυνῃ τοῦ θεοῦ ἡμῶν
καὶ σωτῆρος. Ἰ. Χρ. In both cases the ἡμῶν
should be specially noted., Besides, θεὸς σωτήρ
is also an ancient formula. Yet Christ never was, as “θεός”,
placed on an equality with the Father,A very ancient formula ran “θεὸς
καὶ θεὸς ὑιὸς,” see Cels. ap. Orig II. 30; Justin, frequently: Alterc. Sim.
et Theoph. 4, etc. The formula is equivalent to θεὸς
μονογενής (see Joh. I. 18).—monotheism
guarded against that. Whether he was intentionally and deliberately identified with
Him the following paragraph will shew.
4. The common confession did not go beyond the statements that
Jesus is the Lord, the Saviour, the Son of God, that one must think of him as of
God, that dwelling now with God in heaven, he is to be adored as
προστάτης καὶ βοηθὸς τῆς ἀσθενείας, and as ἀρχιερεὺς
τῶν προσφορῶν ἡμῶν [as guardian and helper of the weak and as High Priest
of our oblations], to be feared as the future Judge, to be esteemed most highly
as the bestower of immortality, that he is our hope and our faith. There are found
rather, on the basis of that confession, very diverse conceptions of the Person,
that is, of the nature of Jesus, beside each other,Such conceptions are found
side by side in the same writer. See, for example, the second Epistle of Clement,
and even the first. which collectively exhibit a certain analogy with the
Greek theologies, the naive and the philosophic.See §©6, p. 120. The idea
of a θεοποιήσις was as common as that of the
appearances of the gods. In wide circles, however, philosophy had long ago naturalised
the idea of the λόγος τοῦ θεοῦ. But now there
is no mistaking a new element everywhere. In the case of the Christologies which
include a kind of θεοπιιήσις, it is found in
the fact that the deified Jesus was to be recognised not as a Demigod or Hero, but
as Lord of the world, equal in power and honour to the Deity. In the case of those
Christologies which start with Christ as the heavenly spiritual being, it is found
in the belief in an actual incarnation. These two articles, as was to be expected,
presented difficulties to the Gentile Christians and the latter more than the former.
There was as yet no such thing here as ecclesiastical “doctrines” in the strict
sense of the word, but rather conceptions more or less fluid, which were not seldom
fashioned
ad hoc.This is usually overlooked. Christological doctrinal
conceptions are frequently constructed by a combination of particular passages,
the nature of which does not permit of combination. But the fact that there was
no universally recognised theory about the nature of Jesus till beyond the middle
of the second century, should not lead us to suppose that the different theories
were anywhere declared to be of equal value, etc., therefore more or less equally
valid; on the contrary, everyone, so far as he had a theory at all, included his
own in the revealed truth. That they had not yet come into conflict is accounted
for, on the one hand, by the fact that the different theories ran up into like formulæ,
and could even frequently be directly carried over into one another; and on the
other hand, by the fact that their representatives appealed to the same authorities.
But we must, above all, remember that conflict could only arise after the enthusiastic
element, which also had a share in the formation of Christology, had been suppressed,
and problems were felt to be such, that is, after the struggle with Gnosticism,
or even during that struggle. These may be reduced collectively to two.Both
were clearly in existence in the Apostolic age. Jesus was either regarded
as the man whom God hath chosen, in whom the Deity or the Spirit of God dwelt, and
who, after being tested, was adopted by God and invested with dominion, (Adoptian
Christology);Only one work has been preserved entire which gives clear expression
to the Adoptian Christology, viz., the Shepherd of Hermas (see Sim. V. and IX. 1.
12). According to it, the Holy Spirit—it is not certain whether he is identified
with the chief Archangel—is regarded as the pre-existent Son of God, who is older
than creation, nay, was God’s counsellor at creation. The Redeemer is the virtuous
man (σάρξ) chosen by God, with whom that Spirit
of God was united. As he did not defile the Spirit, but kept him constantly as his
companion, and carried out the work to which the Deity had called him, nay, did
more than he was commanded, he was in virtue of a Divine decree adopted as a son
and exalted to μεγάλη ἐξουσια καὶ κυριότης.
That this Christology is set forth in a book which enjoyed the highest honour and
sprang from the Romish community, is of great significance. The representatives
of this Christology, who in the third century were declared to be heretics, expressly
maintained that it was at one time the ruling Christology at Rome and had been handed
down by the Apostles. (Anonym. H. E. V. 28. 3, concerning the Artemonites:
φασὶ τοὺς μὲν προτέρους ἅπαντας καί αὐτοὺς τοὺς ἀποστόλους
παρειληφέναι τε καὶ δεδιδαχέναι ταῦτα, ἅ νῦν οὗτοι λέγουσι, καὶ τετηρῆσθαι τὴν ἀλήθεια
τοῦ κηρύγματος μέχρι τῶν χρόνων τοῦ Βίκτορος . . . ἀπὸ δὲ τοῦ διαδόχου αὐτοῦ Ζεφυρίνου
παρακεχαράχθαι τὴν ἀλήθειαν.) This assertion, though exaggerated, is not
incredible after what we find in Hermas. It cannot, certainly, be verified by a
superficial examination of the literary monuments preserved to us, but a closer
investigation shews that the Adoptian Christology must at one time have been very
widespread, that it continued here and there undisturbed up to the middle of the
third century (see the Christology in the Acta Archelai. 49. 50), and that it continued
to exercise great influence even in the fourth and fifth centuries (see Book II.
c. 7). Something similar is found even in some Gnostics, e.g., Valentinus himself
(see Iren. I. 11. 1: καὶ τὸν Χριστὸν δὲ οὐκ ἀπὸ τῶν
ἐν τῷ πληρώματι αἰώνων προβεβλῆσθαι, ἀλλὰ ὑπὸ τῆς μητρὸς, ἔξω δὲ γενομένης, κατὰ
τὴν γνώμην τῶν κρειττόνων ἀποκεκυῆσθαι μετὰ σκιᾶς τινός. Καὶ τοῦτον μέν, ἅτε ἅρρενα
ὑπάρχοντα, ἀποκὸψαντα ὑφ᾽ ἑαυτοῦ τὴν σκιὰν, ἀναδραμεῖν εἱς τὸ πλήρωμα. The
same in the Exc. ex Theodot §§©22, 23, 32, 33), and the Christology of Basilides
presupposes that of the Adoptians. Here also belongs the conception which traces
back the genealogy of Jesus to Joseph. The way in which Justin (Dialogues 48, 49,
87 ff.) treats the history of the baptism of Jesus, against the objection of Trypho
that a pre-existent Christ would not have needed to be filled with the Spirit of
God. is instructive. It is here evident that Justin deals with objections which
were raised within the communities themselves to the pre-existence of Christ, on
the ground of the account of the baptism In point of fact, this account (it had,
according to very old witnesses, see Resch, Agrapha Christi, p. 307, according to
Justin; for example, Dial. 88, 103, the wording: ἅμα
τῷ ἀναβῆναι αὐτὸν ἀπὸ τοῦ ποταμοῦ τοῦ Ἰορδάνου, τῆς φωνῆς αὐτοῦ λεχθείσης υἱός μου
εἶ σύ, ἐγὼ σήμερον γεγέννηκά σε; see the Cod. D. of Luke. Clem. Alex. etc.)
forms the strongest foundation of the Adoptian Christology, and hence it is exceedingly
interesting to see how one compounds with it from the second to the fifth century,
an investigation which deserves a special monograph. But, of course, the edge was
taken off the report by the assumption of the miraculous birth of Jesus from the
Holy Spirit, so that the Adoptians in recognising this, already stood with one foot
in the camp of their opponents. It is now instructive to see here how the history
of the baptism, which originally formed the beginning of the proclamation of Jesus’
history, is suppressed in the earliest formulæ, and therefore also in the Romish
Symbol, while the birth from the Holy Spirit is expressly stated. Only in Ignatius
(ad Smyrn. I: cf. ad Eph. 18. 2) is the baptism taken into account in the confession;
but even he has given the event a turn by which it has no longer any significance
for Jesus himself (just as in the case of Justin, who concludes from the resting
of the Spirit in his fulness upon Jesus, that there will be no more prophets among
the Jews, spiritual gifts being rather communicated to Christians; compare also
the way in which the baptism of Jesus is treated in
John I.). Finally, we must point out that in the Adoptian Christology
the parallel between Jesus and all believers who have the Spirit and are Sons of
God, stands out very clearly. (Cf. Herm. Sim. V. with Maud. III. V. 1: X. 2: most
important is Sim. V. 6. 7.) But this was the very thing that endangered the whole
view. Celsus, I. 57, addressing Jesus, asks; “If thou sayest that every man whom
Divine Providence allows to be born (this is of course a formulation for which Celsus
alone is responsible) is a son of God, what advantage hast thou then over others?”
We can see already in the Dialogue of Justin the approach of the later great controversy,
whether Christ is Son of God κατὰ γνώμην or κατὰ φύσιν,
that is, had a pre-existence: “καί γὰρ εἶσι τινες,
he says, ἀπὸ τοῦ ἱμετέρου γένους ὁμολογοῦντες αὐτὸν Χριστὸν εἶναι, ἄνθρωπον δὲ ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων γενόμενον ἀποφαινόμενοι, οἷς οὐ συντίθεμαι” (c. 48). or Jesus
was regarded as a heavenly spiritual being (the highest after God) who took
flesh, and again returned to heaven after the completion of his work
on earth (pneumatic Christology).This Christology, which may be traced back
to the Pauline, but which can hardly have its point of departure in Paul alone,
is found also in the Epistle to the Hebrews and in the writings of John, including
the Apocalypse, and is represented by Barnabas, I and 2 Clem., Ignatius, Polycarp,
the author of the Pastoral Epistles, the Authors of Præd. Petri, and the Altercatio
Jasonis et Papisci, etc. The Classic formulation is in 2 Clem. 9. 5:
Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος ὁ σώσας ἡμᾶς ὣν μὲν τὸ πρῶτον πνεθμα
ἐγήνετο σὰρξ καὶ οὥτως ἡμᾶς ἡκάλεσεν. According to Barnabas (5. 3), the pre-existent
Christ is παντὸς τοῦ κοσμου κύριος; to him
God said, ἀπὸ καταβολῆς κὸσμου, “Let us make
man, etc.” He is (5. 6) the subject and goal of all Old Testament revelation. He
is οὐχὶ ὑιὸς ἀνθρώπου ἀλλ: ὑιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, τωπῷ δὲ
ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς (12. 10); the flesh is merely the veil of the Godhead,
without which man could not have endured the light (5. 10). According to 1 Clement,
Christ is τὸ σκῆπτρον τῆς μελαγοσύνης τοῦ θεοῦ
(16. 2), who, if he had wished, could have appeared on earth
ἐν κόμπῳ ἀλαζονείας; he is exalted far above
the angels (32), as he is the Son of God (παθήματα
τοῦ θεοῦ, 2. 1); he hath spoken through the Holy Spirit in the Old Testament
(22. 1). It is not certain whether Clement understood Christ under the
λόγος μεγαλοσύνης τοῦ θεοῦ (27. 4). According
to 2 Clem., Christ and the Church are heavenly spiritual existences which have appeared
in the last times. Gen. 1. 27 refers to their creation (c. 14; see my note on the
passage: We learn from Origen that a very old Theologoumenon identified Jesus with
the ideal of Adam, the Church with that of Eve. Similar ideas about Christ are found
in Gnostic Jewish Christians); one must think about Christ as about God (I. 1).
Ignatius writes (Eph. 7. 2): Εἰς, ἰατρός ἐστιν σαρκικός
τε καὶ πνευματικός, γεννητὸς καὶ ἀγέννητος, ἐν σαρκὶ γενόμενος θεὸς, ἐν θανάτῳ ζωὴ
ἀληθινή, καὶ ἐκ Μαρίας καὶ ἐκ θεοῦ, πρῶτον παθητος καὶ τότε ἀπαθής Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς
ὁ κύριος ἡμῶν. As the human predicates stand here first, it might appear
as though, according to Ignatius, the man Jesus became God (ὁ
θεός ἡμῶν, Cf. Eph. inscr.: 18. 2). In point of fact, he regards Jesus as
Son of God only by his birth from the Spirit; but on the other hand, Jesus is
ἀφ᾽ ἑνὸς πατρός προελθῶν (Magn. 7. 2), is
λόγος θεοὕ (Magn. 8. 2), and when Ignatius
so often emphasises the truth of Jesus’ history against Docetism (Trall. 9. for
example), we must assume that he shares the thesis with the Gnostics that Jesus
is by nature a spiritual being. But it is well worthy of notice that Ignatius, as
distinguished from Barnabas and Clement, really gives the central place to the historical
Jesus Christ, the Son of God and the Son of Mary, and his work. The like is found
only in Irenæus. The pre-existence of Christ is presupposed by Polycarp. (Ep. 7.
1); but, like Paul, he strongly emphasises a real exaltation of Christ (2. 1). The
author of Præd. Petri calls Christ the λόγος
(Clem. Strom. I. 29, 182). As Ignatius calls him this also, as the same designation
is found in the Gospel, Epistles, and Apocalypse of John (the latter a Christian
adaptation of a Jewish writing), in the Act. Joh. (see Zahn, Acta Joh. p. 220),
finally, as Celsus (II. 31) says quite generally, “The Christians maintain that
the Son of God is at the same time his incarnate Word,” we plainly perceive that
this designation for Christ was not first started by professional philosophers (see
the Apologists, for example, Tatian, Orat. 5, and Melito Apolog. fragm. in the Chron.
pasch. p. 483, ed. Dindorf: Χριστὸς ὤν θεοῦ λόγος
πρό αἰώνων). We do not find in the Johannine writings such a Logos speculation
as in the Apologists, but the current expression is taken up in order to shew that
it has its truth in the appearing of Jesus Christ. The ideas about the existence
of a Divine Logos were very widely spread; they were driven out of philosophy into
wide circles. The Author of the Alterc. Jas. et Papisci conceived the phrase in
Gen. I. 1, ἐνἀρχῇ, as equivalent
to ἐν ὑιῷ (χριστῷ) Jerome, Quæst. hebr. in
Gen. p. 3; see Tatian Orat. 5: θεὸς ἡν ἐν ἀρχῇ τὴν
δὲ ἀρχὴν λόγου δύναμιν παρειλήφαμεν. Ignatius (Eph. 3) also called Christ
ἡ γνώμη τοῦ πατρός (Eph. 17:
ἡ γνῶσις τοῦ θεοῦ); that is a more fitting
expression than λόγος. The subordination of
Christ as a heavenly being to the Godhead is seldom or never carefully emphasised,
though it frequently comes plainly into prominence. Yet the author of the second
Epistle of Clement does not hesitate to place the pre-existent Christ and the pre-existent
Church on one level, and to declare of both that God created them (c. 14). The formulæ
φανεροῦσθαι ἐν σαρκί, or
γίγνεσθαι σάρξ, are characteristic of this
Christology. It is worthy of special notice that the latter is found in all those
New Testament writers who have put Christianity in contrast with the Old Testament
religions, and proclaimed the conquest of that religion by the Christian, viz.,
Paul, John, and the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews. These two
Christologies which are, strictly speaking, mutually exclusive—the
man who has become a God, and the Divine being who has appeared in human form—yet
came very near each other when the Spirit of God implanted in the man Jesus was
conceived
as the pre-existent Son of God,Hermas, for example, does this
(therefore Link; Christologie des Hermas, and Weizsäcker, Gott. Gel. Anz. 1886,
p. 830, declare his Christology to be directly pneumatic): Christ is then identified
with this Holy Spirit (see Acta Archel. 50), similarly Ignatius (ad Magn. 15):
κεκτημένοι ἀδιάκριτον πνεῦμα, ὁς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς,
This formed the transition to Gnostic conceptions on the one hand, to pneumatic
Christology on the other. But in Hermas the real substantial thing in Jesus is the
σάρξ. and when, on the other hand, the
title, Son of God, for that pneumatic being was derived only from the miraculous
generation in the flesh; yet both these seem to have been the rule.Passages
may indeed be found in the earliest Gentile Christian literature in which Jesus
is designated Son of God, independently of his human birth and before it (so in
Barnabas, against Zahn), but they are not numerous. Ignatius very clearly deduces
the predicate “Son” from the birth in the flesh. Zahn, Marcellus, p. 216 ff.
Yet, in spite of all transitional forms, the two Christologies may be clearly distinguished.
Characteristic of the one is the development through which Jesus is first to become
a Godlike Ruler,The distinct designation “θεοποίησις”
is not found, though that may be an accident. Hermas has the thing itself quite
distinctly, (see Epiph. c. Alog. H. 51. 18: νομίζοντες
ἀπὸ Μαρίας καὶ δεῦρο Χριστὸν αὐτὸν καλεῖσθαι καί ὑιὸν θεοῦ, καὶ εἶναι μὲν πρότερον
ψιλὸν ἄνθρωπον, κατὰ προκοπὴν δὲ εἰληφέναι τὴν τοῦ ὑιοῦ τοῦ θεοῦ προσηγορίαν).
The stages of the προκοπὴ were undoubtedly
the birth, baptism and resurrection. Even the adherents of the pneumatic Christology
could not at first help recognising that Jesus, through his exaltation, got more
than he originally possessed. Yet in their case this conception was bound to become
rudimentary, and it really did so.
and connected therewith, the value put on the miraculous event at
the baptism; of the other, a naive docetism.The settlement with Gnosticism
prepared a still always uncertain end for this naive Docetism. Apart from Barn 5.
12, where it plainly appears, we have to collect laboriously the evidences of it
which have not accidentally either perished or been concealed. In the communities
of the second century there was frequently no offence taken at Gnostic docetism
(see the Gospel of Peter, Clem. Alex., Adumbrat. in Joh. Ep. I. c. 1. [Zahn, Forsch.
z. Gesch. des N. T.-lichen Kanons, III p. 87]; “Fertur ergo in traditionibus,
quoniam Johannes ipsum corpus, quod erat extrinsecus, tangens manum suam in profunda
misisse et duritiam carnis nullo modo reluctatam esse, sed locum manui præbuisse
discipuli.” Also Acta Joh. p. 209, ed. Zahn). In spite of all his polemic
against “δόκησις” proper, one can still perceive
a “moderate docetism” in Clem. Alex., to which indeed certain narratives in the
Canonical Gospels could not but lead. The so-called Apocryphal literature (Apocryphal
Gospels and Acts of Apostles), lying on the boundary between heretical and common
Christianity, and preserved only in scanty fragments and extensive alterations,
was, it appears, throughout favourable to Docetism. But the later recensions attest
that it was read in wide circles. For no one as yet thought of affirming
two natures in Jesus:Even such a formulation as we find in Paul (e.g.,
Rom. I. 3 f. κατὰ σάρκα—κατὰ πνεῦμα)
does not seem to have been often repeated (yet see
1 Clem. 32. 2). It is of value to Ignatius only, who has before his mind
the full Gnostic contrast. But even to him we cannot ascribe any doctrine of two
natures: for this requires as its presupposition, the perception that the divinity
and humanity are equally essential and important for the personality of the Redeemer
Christ. Such insight, however, presupposes a measure and a direction of reflection
which the earliest period did not possess. The expression “δύο
οὐσίαι Χριστοῦ” first appears in a fragment of Melito, whose genuineness
is not, however, generally recognised (see my Texte u. Unters. I. 1. 2. p. 257).
Even the definite expression for Christ, θεὸς ὣν ὀμοῦ
τε καὶ ἄνθρωπος, was fixed only in consequence of the Gnostic controversy.
the Divine dignity appeared rather, either as a gift,Hermas (Sim. V. 6. 7)
describes the exaltation of Jesus thus: ἵνα καὶ ἡ
σάρξ αὕτη, δουλεύσασα τῷ πνεύμαρι ἀμέμπτως, σχῇ τόπον τινὰ κατασκήνώσεως, καὶ μὴ
δοξῃ τὸν μισθὸν τῆς δουλείας αὐτῆς ἀπολωλεκέναι. The point in question is
a reward of grace which consists in a position of rank (see Sim. V. 6. 1). The same
thing is manifest from the statements of the later Adoptians. (Cf. the teaching
of Paul Samosata.) or the human nature (σάρξ)
as a veil assumed for a time, or as the metamorphosis of the Spirit.Barnabas,
e.g., conceives it as a veil (5. 10: εἰ γὰρ μή ἦλθεν
εν σαρκί, οὐδ᾽ ἄν πως οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἐσώθησαν βλέποντες αὐτόν· ὅτε τὸν μέλλοντα μὴ
εἶναι ἥλιον ἐμβλέποντες οὐκ ἰσχύσουσιν εἰς τὰς ἀκτῖνας αὐτοῦ ἀντοφθαλμῆσαι).
The formulation of the Christian idea in Celsus is instructive (c. Cels. VI. 69):
“Since God is great and not easily accessible to the view, he put his spirit in
a body which is like our own, and sent it down in order that we might be instructed
by it.” To this conception corresponds the formula:
ἔρχεσθαι (φανεροῦσθαι) εν σαρκί (Barnabas,
frequently; Polyc. Ep. 7. 1). But some kind of transformation must also have been
thought of (see 2 Clem. 9. 5, and Celsus IV. 18: “Either God, as these suppose,
is really transformed into a mortal body ...” Apoc. Sophon. ed Stern. 4 fragm. p.
10; “He has transformed himself into a man who comes to us to redeem us”). This
conception might grow out of the formula σάρξ ἐγένετο
(Ignat. ad Eph. 7. 2 is of special importance here). One is almost throughout here
satisfied with the σάρξ of Christ, that is
the ἀληθεία τῆς σαρκός, against the heretics
(so Ignatius, who was already antignostic in his attitude). There is very seldom
any mention of the humanity of Jesus. Barnabas (12), the author of the Didache (c.
10. 6. See my note on the passage), and Tatian questioned the Davidic Sonship of
Jesus, which was strongly emphasised by Ignatius; nay, Barnabas even expressly rejects
the designation “Son of Man” (12. 10; ἴδε πάλιν Ἰησοῦς,
οὐχὶ ὑιὸς ἀνθρώπου ἀλλὰ ὑιὸς τοῦ θεοῦ, τύπῳ δὲ ἐν σαρκὶ φανερωθείς). A docetic
thought, however, lies in the assertion that the spiritual being Christ only assumed
human flesh, however, much the reality of the flesh may be emphasised. The passage
1 Clem. 49. 6, is quite unique: τὸ αἷμα
αὐτοῦ ἔδωκεν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς . . . καὶ τὴν σάρκα ὑπὲρ τῆς σαρκὸς ἡμῶν καὶ
τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπὸρ τῶν ψυχῶν ἥμῶν. One would fain believe this an interpolation;
the same idea is first found in Irenæus. (V. 1. 1). The formula that Jesus
was a mere man (ψίλὸς ἄνθρωπος),
was undoubtedly always and from the first regarded as offensive.Even Hermas
does not speak of Jesus as ἄνθρωπος (see Link).
This designation was used by the representatives of the Adoptian Christology only
after they had expressed their doctrine antithetically and developed it to a theory,
and always with a certain reservation. The “ἄνθρωπος
Χριστὸς Ἰησοῦς” in 1 Tim. II. 5
is used in a special sense. The expression ἄνθρωπος
for Christ appears twice in the Ignatian Epistles (the third passage Smyrn. 4. 2:
αὐτοῦ με ἐνδυναμοῦντος τοῦ τελείου ἀνθρωπου γενομένου,
apart from the γενομένου, is critically suspicious, as well as the fourth,
Eph. 7. 2; see above), in both passages, however, in connections which
seem to modify the humanity; see Eph. 20. 1:
οἰκονομία εἰς τὸν καινὸν ἄνθρωπον Ἰησοῦν Χριστόν;
Eph. 20. 2: τῷ ὑιῷ ἀνθρώπου καὶ ὑιῷ θεοῦ.
But the converse formulæ, which identified the person of Jesus in its essence with
the Godhead itself, do not seem to have been rejected with the same decision.See
above p. 185, note; p. 189, note. We have no sure evidence that the later so-called
Modalism (Monarchianism) had representatives before the last third of the second
century; yet the polemic of Justin, Dial. 128. seems to favour the idea, (the passage
already presupposes controversies about the personal independence of the pre-existent
pneumatic being of Christ beside God; but one need not necessarily think of such
controversies within the communities; Jewish notions might be meant, and this, according
to Apol. 1. 63, is the more probable). The judgment is therefore so difficult, because
there were numerous formulæ in practical use which could be so understood, as if
Christ was to be completely identified with the God-head itself (see Ignat. ad Eph.
7. 2, besides Melito in Otto. Corp. Apol. IX. p. 419, and Noëtus in the Philos.
IX. 10, p. 448). These formula may, in point of fact, have been so understood, here
and there, by the rude and uncultivated. The strongest again is presented in writings
whose authority was always doubtful: see the Gospel of the Egyptians (Epiph. H.
62. 2), in which must have stood a statement somewhat to this effect:
τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι πατέρα, τὸν αὐτὸν εἶναι ὑιὸν, τὸν
αὐτὸν εἶναι ἅγιον πνεῦμα, and the Acta Joh. (ed. Zahn, p. 220 f., 240 f.:
ὁ ἀγαθὸς ἡμῶν θεὸς ὁ εὔσπλαγχνος, ὁ ἐλεήμων, ὁ ἅγιος,
ὁ καθαρός, ὁ ἀμίαντος, ὁ μόνος, ὁ εἷς, ὁ ἀμετάβλητος, ὁ εἰλικρινής, ὁ ἄδολος, ὁ
μὴ ὀργιζόμενος, ὁ πᾶσης ἡμῖν λεγομένης ἣ νοουμένης προσηγορίας ἀνώτερος καὶ ὑψηλότερος
ἡμῶν θεὸς Ἰησοῦς). In the Act. Joh. are found also prayers with the address
θεὲ Ἰησοῦ Χριστέ (pp. 242, 247). Even Marcion
and in part the Montanists—both bear witness to old traditions—put no value on the
distinction between God and Christ; cf. the Apoc. Sophon. A witness to a naive Modalism
is found also in the Acta Pionii 9: “Quem deum colis? Respondit:
Christum. Polemon (judex): Quid ergo? iste alter est? [the co-defendant Christians
had immediately before confessed God the Creator]. Respondit: Non; sed ipse quem
et ipsi paullo ante confessi sunt; cf. c. 16. Yet a reasoned Modalism may
perhaps he assumed here. See also the Martyr Acts; e.g., Acta Petri, Andrae,
Pauli et Dionysiæ 1 (Ruinart, p. 205): ἡμεῖς οἱ Χριστὸν
τὸν βασιλέα ἔχομεν, ὅτι ἀληθινὸς θεός ἐστιν καὶ ποιητὴς οὐρανοῦ καὶ γῆς καὶ θαλάσσης.
“Oportet me magis deo vivo et vero, regi sæculorum omnium
Christo, sacrificium offerre.” Act. Nicephor. 3 (p. 285). I take no note
of the Testament of the twelve Patriarchs, out of which one can, of course, beautifully
verify the strict Modalistic, and even the Adoptian Christology. But the Testamenta
are not a primitive or Jewish Christian writing which Gentile Christians have revised,
but a Jewish writing christianised at the end of the second century by a Catholic
of Modalistic views. But he has given us a very imperfect work, the Christology
of which exhibits many contradictions. It is instructive to find Modalism in the
theology of the Simonians, which was partly formed according to Christian ideas;
see Irenæus I. 23, 1: “hic igitur a multis quasi deus glorificatus
est, et docuit semetipsunr esse qui inter Judæos quidem quasi filius apparuerit,
in Samaria autem quasi pater descenderit in reliquis vero gentibus quasi Spiritus
Sanctus adventaverit. Yet such formulæ may have been
very rare, and even objects of suspicion, in the leading ecclesiastical
circles, at least until after the middle of the second century we can point to them
only in documents which hardly found approbation in wide circles. The assumption
of the existence of at least one heavenly and eternal spiritual being beside God
was plainly demanded by the Old Testament writings, as they were understood; so
that even those whose Christology did not require them to reflect on that heavenly
being were forced to recognise it.That is a very important fact which clearly
follows from the Shepherd, Even the later school of the Adoptians in Rome, and the
later Adoptians in general, were forced to assume a divine hypostasis beside the
Godhead, which of course sensibly threatened their Christology. The adherents of
the pneumatic Christology partly made a definite distinction between the pre-existent
Christ and the Holy Spirit (see, e.g., 1 Clem.
22. 1), and partly made use of formulæ from which one could infer an
identity of the two. The conceptions about the Holy Spirit were still quite fluctuating:
whether he is a power of God, or personal; whether he is identical with the pre-existent
Christ, or is to be distinguished from him; whether he is the servant of Christ
(Tatian Orat. 13); whether he is only a gift of God to believers, or the eternal
Son of God, was quite uncertain. Hermas assumed the latter, and even Origen (de
princip. præf. c. 4) acknowledges that it is not yet decided whether or not the
Holy Spirit is likewise to be regarded as God’s Son. The baptismal formula prevented
the identification of the Holy Spirit with the pre-existent Christ, which so readily
suggested itself. But so far as Christ was regarded as a
πνεῦμα, his further demarcation from the angel
powers was quite uncertain, as the Shepherd of Hermas proves (though see
1 Clem. 36). For even Justin, in a passage, no doubt, in which his sole
purpose was to shew that the Christians were not ἄθεοι,
could venture to thrust in between God, the on and the Spirit, the good angels as
beings who were worshipped and adored by the Christians (Apol I. 6 [if the text
be genuine and not an interpolation]; see also the Suppl. of Athanagoras). Justin,
and certainly most of those who accepted a pre-existence of Christ, conceived of
it as a real pre-existence. Justin was quite well acquainted with the controversy
about the independent quality of the power which proceeded from God. To him it is
not merely, “Sensus, motus, affectus dei,” but a “personalis
substantia” (Dial. 128). The pneumatic Christology
accordingly meets us wherever there is an earnest occupation with
the Old Testament, and wherever faith in Christ as the perfect revealer of God occupies
the foreground, therefore not in Hermas, but Certainly in Barnabas, Clement, etc.
The future belonged to this Christology because the current exposition of the Old
Testament seemed directly to require it, because it alone permitted the close connection
between creation and redemption, because it furnished the proof that the world and
religion rest upon the same Divine basis, because it was represented in the most
valuable writings of the early period of Christianity, and finally, because it had
room for the speculations about the Logos. On the other hand, no direct and natural
relation to the world and to universal history could be given to the Adoptian Christology,
which was originally determined eschatologically. If such a relation, however, were
added to it, there resulted formulæ such as that of two Sons of God, one natural
and eternal, and one adopted, which corresponded neither to the letter of the Holy
Scriptures, nor to the Christian preaching. Moreover, the revelations of God in
the Old Testament made by Theophanies must have seemed, because of this their form,
much more exalted than the revelations made through a man raised to power and glory,
which Jesus constantly seemed
to be in the Adoptian Christology. Nay, even the mysterious personality
of Melchisedec, without father or mother, might appear more impressive than the
Chosen Servant, Jesus, who was born of Mary, to a mode of thought which, in order
to make no mistake, desired to verify the Divine by outer marks. The Adoptian Christology,
that is the Christology which is most in keeping with the self-witness of Jesus
(the Son as the chosen Servant of God), is here shewn to be unable to assure to
the Gentile Christians those conceptions of Christianity which they regarded as
of highest value. It proved itself insufficient when confronted by any reflection
on the relation of religion to the cosmos, to humanity, and to its history. It might,
perhaps, still have seemed doubtful about the middle of the second century as to
which of the two opposing formulæ, “Jesus is a man exalted to a Godlike dignity”
and “Jesus is a divine spiritual being incarnate”, would succeed in the Church.
But one only needs to read the pieces of writing which represent the latter thesis,
and to compare them, say, with the Shepherd of Hermas, in order to see to which
view the future must belong. In saying this, however, we are anticipating; for the
Christological reflections were not yet vigorous enough to overcome enthusiasm and
the expectation of the speedy end of all things; and the mighty practical tendency
of the new religion to a holy life did not allow any theory to become the central
object of attention. But, still, it is necessary to refer here to the controversies
which broke out at a later period; for the pneumatic Christology forms an essential
article which cannot be dispensed with, in the expositions of Barnabas, Clement
and Ignatius; and Justin shews that he cannot conceive of a Christianity without
the belief in a real pre-existence of Christ. On the other hand, the liturgical
formulæ, the prayers, etc., which have been preserved, scarcely ever take notice
of the pre-existence of Christ; they either comprise statements which are borrowed
from the Adoptian Christology, or they testify in an unreflective way to the Dominion
and Deity of Christ.
5. The ideas of Christ’s work which were influential in the communities—Christ
as Teacher: creation of knowledge, setting
up of the new law; Christ as Saviour: creation of life, overcoming
of the demons, forgiveness of sins committed in the time of error,—were by some,
in conformity with Apostolic tradition and following the Pauline Epistles, positively
connected with the death and resurrection of Christ, while others maintained them
without any connection with these events. But one nowhere finds independent thorough
reflections on the connection of Christ’s saving work with the facts proclaimed
in the preaching, above all, with the death on the cross and the resurrection as
presented by Paul. The reason of this undoubtedly is that in the conception of the
work of salvation, the procuring of forgiveness fell into the background, as this
could only be connected by means of the notion of sacrifice, with a definite act
of Jesus, viz., with the surrender of his life. Consequently, the facts of the destiny
of Jesus combined in the preaching formed only for the religious fancy, not for
reflection, the basis of the conception of the work of Christ, and were therefore
by many writers, Hermas, for example, taken no notice of. Yet the idea of suffering
freely accepted, of the cross and of the blood of Christ, operated in wide circles
as a holy mystery in which the deepest wisdom and power of the Gospel must somehow
lie concealed.See the remarkable narrative about the cross in the fragment
of the Gospel of Peter, and in Justin, Apol. I. 55. The peculiarity and uniqueness
of the work of the historical Christ seemed, however, to be prejudiced by the assumption
that Christ, essentially as the same person, was already in the Old Testament the
Revealer of God. All emphasis must therefore fall on this—without a technical reflection
which cannot be proved—that the Divine revelation has now, through the historical
Christ, become accessible and intelligible to all, and that the life which was promised
will shortly be made manifest.We must, above all things, be on our guard here
against attributing dogmas to the churches, that is to say, to the writers of this
period. The difference in the answers to the question, How far and by what means
Jesus procured salvation? was very great, and the majority undoubtedly never at
all raised the question, being satisfied with recognising Jesus as the revealer
of God’s saving will (Didache, 10. 2: εὐχαριστοῦμέν
σοι, πάτερ ἅγιε, ὑπερ τοῦ ἀγίου ὀνόματός σου, οὖ καεσκήνωσας ἐν ταῖς καρδίας ἡμῶν
καὶ ὑπέρ τῆς γνώσεως καὶ πίστεως αί ἀθανασίας, ἧς ἐγνώρισας ἡμῖν διὰ Ἰησοῦ τοῦ ταιδος
σου), without reflecting on the fact that this saving will was already revealed
in the Old Testament. There is nowhere any mention of saving work of Christ in the
whole Didache—nay, even the Kerygma about him is not taken notice of. The
extensive writing of Hermas shews that this is not an accident. There is absolutely
no mention here of the birth, death, resurrection, etc., of Jesus, although the
author in Sim. V. had an occasion for mentioning them. He describes the work of
Jesus as (1) preserving the people whom God had chosen, (2) purifying the people
from sin, (3) pointing out the path of life and promulgating the Divine law (cc.
5. 6). This work however, seems to have been performed by the whole life and activity
of Jesus; even to the purifyng of sin the author has only added the words; (καὶ
αὐτὸς τὰς ἁμαρτίας αὐτῶν ἐκαθάρισε) πολλὰ κοπιάσας καὶ πολλοὺς κόποὺς ἡντληκώς
(Sim. V. 6. 2). But we must further note that Hermas held the proper and obligatory
work of Jesus to be only the preservation of the chosen people (from demons in the
last days, and at the end), while in the other two articles he saw a performance
in excess of his duty, and wished undoubtedly to declare therewith, that the purifying
from sin and the giving of the law are not, strictly speaking, integral parts of
the Divine plan of salvation, but are due to the special goodness of Jesus (this
idea is explained by Moralism). Now, as Hermas and others saw the saving activity
of Jesus in his whole labours, others saw salvation given and assured in the moment
of Jesus’ entrance into the world, and in his personality as a spiritual being become
flesh. This mystic conception, which attained such wide-spread recognition later
on, has a representative in Ignatius, if one can at all attribute clearly conceived
doctrines to this emotional confessor. That something can be declared of Jesus,
κατὰ πνεῦμα and κατὰ σάρκα—this is the mystery
on which the significance of Jesus seems to Ignatius essentially to rest, but how
far is not made clear. But the πάθος (αἷμα, σταυρός)
and ἀναστάσις of Jesus are to the same writer
of great significance, and by forming paradoxical formulæ of worship, and turning
to account reminiscences of Apostolic sayings, he seems to wish to base the whole
salvation brought by Christ on his suffering and resurrection (see Lightfoot on
Eph. inscr. Vol. II, p. 25). In this connection also, he here and there regards
all articles of the Kerygma as of fundamental significance. At all events,
we have in the Ignatian Epistles the first attempt in the post-Apostolic literature
to connect all the theses of the Kerygma about Jesus as closely as possible
with the benefits which he brought. But only the will of the writer is plain here,
all else is confused, and what is mainly felt is that the attempt to conceive the
blessings of salvation as the fruit of the sufferings and resurrection, has deprived
them of their definiteness and clearness. In proof we may adduce the following:
If we leave out of account the passages in which Ignatius speaks of the necessity
of repentance for the Heretics, or the Heathen, and the possibility that their sins
may be forgiven (Philad. 3. 2: 8. 1; Smyrn. 4. 1: 5. 3; Eph. 10. 1), there remains
only one passage in which the forgiveness of sin is mentioned, and that only contains
a traditional formula (Smyrn. 7. 1: σάρξ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,
ἡ ὑπέρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν παθοῦσα). The same writer, who is constantly speaking
of the πάθος and
ἀναστάσις of Christ, has nothing to say to
the communities to which he writes, about the forgiveness of sin. Even the concept
“sin,” apart from the passages just quoted, appears only once, viz.,
Eph. 14. 2: οὐδεὶς πίστιν ἐπαγγελλόμενος
ἁμαρτάνει. Ignatius has only once spoken to a community about repentance
(Smyrn. 9. 1). It is characteristic that the summons to repentance runs exactly
as in Hermas and 2 Clem., the conclusion only being peculiarly Ignatian. It is different
with Barnabas, Clement and Polycarp. They (see 1 Clem.
7. 4: 12. 7:
21. 6: 49. 6:
Barn. 5. 1 ff.) place the forgiveness of
sin procured by Jesus in the foreground, connect it most definitely with the death
of Christ, and in some passages seem to have a conception of that connection, which
reminds us of Paul. But this just shews that they are dependent here on Paul (or
on 1st Peter), and on a closer examination we perceive that they very imperfectly
understand Paul, and have no independent insight into the series of ideas which
they reproduce. That is specially plain in Clement. For, in the first place, he
everywhere passes over the resurrection (he mentions it only twice, once as a guarantee
of our own resurrection, along with the Phœnix and other guarantees, 24. 1; and
then as a means whereby the Apostles were convinced that the kingdom of God will
come, 42. 3). In the second place, he in one passage declares that the
χάρις μετανοίας was communicated to the world
through the shedding of Christ’s blood (7. 4.). But this transformation of the
ἄφοσις ἁμαρτιῶν into
χάρις μετανοίας plainly shews that Clement
had merely taken over from tradition the special estimate of the death of Christ
as procuring salvation; for it is meaningless to deduce the
χάρις μετανοίας from the blood of Christ. Barnabas
testifies more plainly that Christ behoved to offer the vessel of his spirit as
a sacrifice for our sins (4. 3: 5. 1), nay, the chief aim of his letter is to harmonise
the correct understanding of the cross, the blood, and death of Christ in connection
with baptism, the forgiveness of sin, and sanctification (application of the idea
of sacrifice). He also unites the death and resurrection of Jesus (5. 6:
αὐτὸς δὲ ἵνα καταργήσῃ τὸν θάνατον καὶ τὴν ἐκ νεκρῶν
ἀνάστασιν δείξη, οτι ἐν σαρκὶ ἕδει αὐτὸν φανερωθῆναι, ὑπέμεινεν, ἵνα καὶ τοῖς πατράσιν
τὴν ἐπαγγελίαν ἀποδῷ καὶ αὐτὸς εαυτῷ τὸν λαὸν τὸν καινὸν ἑτοιμάζων, ἐπιδείξῃ, τῆς
γῆς ὤν, ὅτρ τήν ὡνάστασιγ αὐτὸς ποιήσας κρινεῖ): but the significance of
the death of Christ is for him, at bottom, the fact that it is the fulfilment of
prophecy. But the prophecy is related, above all, to the significance of the tree,
and so Barnabas on one occasion says with admirable clearness (5, 13);
αὐτὸς δὲ ἡθέλησεν οὕτω παθεῖν· ἔδει γὰρ ἵνα ἐπὶ ξύλου
πάθῃ. The notion which Barnabas entertains of the
σάρξ of Christ suggests the supposition that
he could have given up all reference to the death of Christ, if it had not been
transmitted as a fact and predicted in the Old Testament. Justin shews still less
certainty. To him also, as to Ignatius, the. cross (the death) of Christ is a great—nay,
the greatest mystery, and he sees all things possible in it (see Apol. 1. 35, 55).
He knows, further, as a man acquainted with the Old Testament, how to borrow from
it very many points of view for the significance of Christ’s death, (Christ the
sacrifice, the Paschal lamb; the death of Christ the means of redeeming men; death
as the enduring of the curse for us; death as the victory over the devil; see Dial.
44, 90, 91, 111, 134). But in the discussions which set forth in a more intelligible
way the significance of Christ, definite facts from the history have no place at
all, and Justin nowhere gives any indication of seeing in the death of Christ more
than the mystery of the Old Testament, and the confirmation of its trustworthiness.
On the other hand, it cannot be mistaken that the idea of an individual righteous
man being able effectively to sacrifice himself for the whole, in order through
his voluntary death to deliver them from evil, was not unknown to antiquity. Origen
(c. Celsum 1. 31) has expressed himself on this point in a very instructive way.
The purity and voluntariness of him who sacrifices himself are here the main things.
Finally, we must be on our guard against supposing that the expressions
σωτηρία, ἀπολύτρωσις and the like, were as
a rule related to the deliverance from sin. In the superscription of the Epistle
from Lyons, for example, (Euseb. H E. V. I. 3: οἱ
αὐτὴν τῆς ἀπολυτρώσεως ἡμῖν πίστιν καὶ ἐλπιδα ἔχοντες) the future redemption
is manifestly to be understood by ἀπολύτρωσις.
As to the facts of the history of Jesus, the real and the supposed,
the circumstance that they formed the ever repeated proclamation about Christ gave
them an extraordinary significance. In addition to the birth from the Holy Spirit
and the Virgin, the death, the resurrection, the exaltation to the right hand of
God, and the coming again, there now appeared more definitely the ascension to heaven,
and also, though more uncertainly, the descent into the kingdom of the dead. The
belief that Jesus ascended into heaven forty days after the resurrection, gradually
made way against the older conception, according to which resurrection and ascension
really coincided, and against other ideas which maintained a longer
period between the two events. That probably is the result of a reflection
which sought to distinguish the first from the later manifestations of the exalted
Christ, and it is of the utmost importance as the beginning of a demarcation of
the times. It is also very probable that the acceptance of an actual
ascensus in cœlum, not a mere assumptio,
was favourable to the idea of an actual descent of Christ de
cœlo, therefore to the pneumatic Christology and vice versa. But there
is also closely connected with the ascensus in cœlum,
the notion of a descensus ad inferna, which commended
itself on the ground of Old Testament prediction. In the first century, however,
it still remained uncertain, lying on the borders of those productions
of religious fancy which were not able at once to acquire a right
of citizenship in the communities.On the Ascension, see my edition of the
Apost. Fathers I. 2, p. 138. Paul knows nothing of an Ascension, nor is it mentioned
by Clement, Ignatius, Hermas, or Polycarp. In no case did it belong to the earliest
preaching. Resurrection and sitting at the right hand of God are frequently united
in the formulæ (Eph. I. 20:
Acts. II. 32 ff.) According to Luke XXIV.
51, and Barn. 15. 9, the ascension
into heaven took place on the day of the resurrection (probably also according to
Joh. XX. 17; see also the fragment of
the Gosp. of Peter), and is hardly to he thought of as happening but once. (Joh.
III. 13: VI. 62; see also
Rom. X. 6 f.; Eph. IV. 9 f.;
I Pet. III. 19 f.; very instructive for
the origin of the notion), According to the Valentinians and Ophites, Christ ascended
into heaven 18 months after the resurrection (Iren. I. 3. 2: 30. 14); according
to the Ascension of Isaiah, 545 days (ed. Dillmann, pp. 43, 57 etc.); according
to Pistis Sophia 11 years after the resurrection. The statement that the Ascension
took place 40 days after the resurrection is first found in the Acts of the Apostles.
The position of the ἀνελήμφθη ἐν δόξῃ, in the
fragment of an old Hymn, 1 Tim. III. 16,
is worthy of note, in so far as it follows the ὤφθη
ἀγγέλοις. ἐκηρύχθη ἐν ἔθνεσιν, ἐπιστεύθη ἐν κόσμῳ. Justin speaks very frequently
of the Ascension into heaven (see also Aristides). It is to him a necessary part
of the preaching about Christ. On the descent into hell, see the collection of passages
in my edition of the Apost. Fathers, III. p. 232. It is important to note that it
is found already in the Gospel of Peter (ἐκήρυξας
τοῖς κοιμωμένοις; ναί), and that even Marcion recognised it (in Iren. I.
27. 3), as well as the Presbyter of Irenæus (IV. 27. 2), and Ignatius (ad Magn.
9. 3); see also Celsus in Orig. II. 43. The witnesses to it are very numerous; sec
Huidekoper, “The belief of the first three centuries concerning Christ’s mission
to the under-world.” New York, 1876.
One can plainly see that the articles contained in the Kerygma
were guarded and defended in their reality (κατ᾽ ἀληθείαν)
by the professional teachers of the Church, against sweeping attempts
at explaining them away, or open attacks on them.See the Pastoral
Epistles, and the Epistles of Ignatius and Polycarp. But they did not yet
possess the value of dogmas, for they were neither put in an indissoluble union
with the idea of salvation, nor were they stereotyped in their extent, nor were
fixed limits set to the imagination in the concrete delineation and conception of
them.The “facts” of the history of Jesus were handed down to the following
period as mysteries predicted in the Old Testament, but the idea of sacrifice was
specially attached to the death of Christ, certainly without any closer definition.
It is very noteworthy that in the Romish baptismal confession, the Davidic Sonship
of Jesus, the baptism, the descent into the under-world, and the setting up of a
glorious Kingdom on the earth, are not mentioned. These articles do not appear even
in the parallel confessions which began to be formed. The hesitancy that yet prevailed
here with regard to details is manifest from the fact, for example, that instead
of the formula “Jesus was born of (ἐκ) Mary,”
is found the other, “He was born through (διὰ)
Mary,” (see Justin, Apol. I. 22, 31-33, 54, 63; Dial. 23, 43, 45, 48, 54, 57, 63,
66, 75, 85, 87, l00, 105, 120, 127). Iren. (I. 7. 2) and Tertull. (de carne 20)
first contested the δὶα against the Valentinians.
§©7. The Worship, the Sacred Ordinances, and the Organisation
of the Churches.
It is necessary to examine the original forms of the worship and
constitution, because of the importance which they acquired in the following period
even for the development of doctrine.
1. In accordance with the purely spiritual idea of God, it was
a fixed principle that only a spiritual worship is well
pleasing to Him, and that all ceremonies are abolished,
ῖνα ὁ καινὸς νόμος τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ μὴ
ἀνθρωποποιητον ἔχῃ τὴν προσφοράν.This was strongly emphasised; see
my remarks on Barn. 2. 3. The Jewish cultus
is often brought very close to the heathen by Gentile Christian writers. Præd. Petri
(Clem. Strom. VI. 5. 41): καινῶς τὸν θεὸν διὰ τοῦ
Ψριστοῦ σεβόμεθα. The statement in Joh. IV.
24: πνεῦμα ὁ θεὸς, καὶ τοὺς προσκυνοῦντας
αὐτὸν ἐν πνεύματι καί ἀληθείᾳ δεῖ προσκυνεῖν, was for long the guiding principle
for the Christian worship of God. But as the Old Testament and the Apostolic
tradition made it equally certain that the worship of God is a sacrifice, the Christian
worship of God was set forth under the aspect of the spiritual sacrifice. In the
most general sense it was conceived as the offering of the heart and of obedience,
as well as the consecration of the whole personality, body and soul (Rom.
XIII. 1) to God.Ps. LI. 19
is thus opposed to the ceremonial system (Barn. 2.
10). Polycarp consumed by fire is (Mart. 14. 1) compared to a
κριὸς ἐπίσημος ἐκ μεγάλου ποιμνίου εἰς προσφοράν,
ὁλοκαύτωμα δεκτὸν τῷ θεῷ ἀτοιμασμένον. Here, with a change of the
figure, the individual Christian and the whole community were described as a temple
of God.See Barn. 6. 15:
16. 7-9; Tatian Orat. 15; Ignat. ad Eph. 9. 15; Herm. Mand. V. etc. The
designation of Christians as priests is not often found. In a more special
sense, prayer as thanksgiving and intercessionJustin, Apol. 1. 9: Dial. 117:
Ὅτι μὲν οὖν καὶ εὐχαι καὶ εὐχαριστίαι, ὑπό τῶν ἀξίων
γινόμεναι, τέλειαι μόναι καὶ εὐάρεστοι εἰσι τῷ θεῷ θυσίαι, καὶ αὐτός φημι;
see also still the later Fathers; Clem. Strom. VII. 6. 31:
ἡμεῖς δι᾽ εὐχῆς τιμῶμεν τὸν θεὸν, καὶ ταύτην τὴν θυσίαν
ἀρίστην, καὶ ἀγιωτάτην μετὰ δικαιοσύνης ἀναπέμπομεν τῷ δικαίῳ λόγῳ; Iren.
III. 18. 3. Ptolem. ad Floram. 3: προσφορὰς προσφέρειν
προσέταξεν ἡμῖν ὁ σωτήρ, ἀλλὰ οὐχί τὰς δι᾽ ἀλόγων ζώων ἣ τούτων τῶν θωμιαμάτων ἀλλὰ
διὰ πνευματικῶν αἴνων καὶ δοξῶν καὶ εὐχαριστίας καὶ διὰ τῆς εἰς τοὶς πλησίον κοινωνίας
καὶ ε̰ποιίας.
was regarded as the sacrifice which was to be accompanied, without constraint or
ceremony, by fasts and acts of compassionate love.The Jewish regulations about
fastings, together with the Jewish system of sacrifice were rejected; but on the
other hand, in virtue of words of the Lord, fasts were looked upon as a necessary
accompaniment of prayer, and definite arrangements were already made for them (see
Barn. 3; Didache 8; Herm. Sim. V. 1. ff.
The fast is to have a special value from the fact that whatever one saved by means
of it, is to be given to the poor (see Hermas and Aristides, Apol. 15; “And if any
one among the Christians is poor and in want, and they have not overmuch of the
means of life, they fast two or three days, in order that they may provide those
in need with the food they require”). The statement of
James I. 27: θρησκεία καθαρὰ καὶ ἀμίαντος
παρὰ τῷ θέῷ καὶ πατρὶ αὕτη ἐστίν, ἐπισκέπτεσθαι ὀρφάνους καὶ χήρας ἐν
τῇ θλίψει αὐτῶν, was again and again inculcated in diverse phraseology
(Polycarp. Ep. 4, called the Widows θυσιαστήριον
of the community). Where moralistic views preponderated, as in Hermas and 2 Clement,
good works were already valued in detail; prayers, fasts, alms appeared separately,
and there was already introduced, especially under the influence of the so-called
deutero-canonical writings of the Old Testament, the idea of a special meritoriousness
of certain performances in fasts and alms (see 2
Clem. 16. 4). Still, the idea of the Christian moral life as a whole
occupied the foreground (see Didache, cc. 1-5), and the exhortations to love God
and one’s neighbour, which, as exhortations to a moral life, were brought forward
in every conceivable relation, supplemented the general summons to renounce the
world, just as the official diaconate of the churches originating in the cultus
prevented the decomposition of them into a society of ascetics. Finally,
prayers offered by the worshipper in the public worship of the community,
and the gifts brought by them, out of which were taken the elements for the Lord’s
supper, and which were used partly in the common meal, and partly in support of
the poor, were regarded as sacrifice in the most special sense (προσφορὰ,
δῶρα).For details, see below in the case of the Lord’s Supper. It is
specially important that even charity, through its union with the cultus, appeared
as sacrificial worship (see e.g., Polyc. Ep. 4. 3). For the following
period, however, it became of the utmost importance, (1) that the idea of sacrifice
ruled the whole worship, (2) that it appeared in a special manner in the celebration
of the Lord’s supper, and consequently invested that ordinance with a new meaning,
(3) that the support of the poor, alms, especially such alms as had been gained
by prayer and fasting, was placed under the category of sacrifice (Heb.
XIII. 16); for this furnished the occasion for giving the widest application
to the idea of sacrifice, and thereby substituting for the original Semitic Old
Testament idea of sacrifice with its spiritual interpretation, the Greek idea with
its interpretation.The idea of sacrifice adopted by the Gentile Christian
communities was that which was expressed in individual prophetic sayings and in
the Psalms, a spiritualising of the Semitic Jewish sacrificial ritual, which, however,
had not altogether lost its original features. The entrance of Greek ideas of sacrifice
cannot be traced before Justin. Neither was there as yet any reflection as to the
connection of the sacrifice of the Church with the sacrifice of Christ upon the
cross. It may, however, be maintained that the
changes imposed on the Christian religion by Catholicism, are at no
point so obvious and far-reaching, as in that of sacrifice, and especially in the
solemn ordinance of the Lord’s supper, which was placed in such close connection
with the idea of sacrifice.
2. When in the “Teaching of the Apostles,” which may be regarded
here as a classic document, the discipline of life in accordance with the words
of the Lord, Baptism, the order of fasting and prayer, especially the regular use
of the Lord’s prayer, and the Eucharist are reckoned the articles on which the Christian
community rests, and when the common Sunday offering of a sacrifice made pure by
a brotherly disposition, and the mutual exercise of discipline are represented as
decisive for the stability of the individual community,See my Texte und Unters. z. Gesch. d. Altchristl. Lit .II. 1.
2, p. 88 ff., p. 137 ff. we perceive that the general
idea of a pure spiritual worship of God has nevertheless been realised in definite
institutions, and that, above all, it has included the traditional sacred ordinances,
and adjusted itself to them as far as that was possible.There neither was a “doctrine” of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper,
nor was there any inner connection presupposed between these holy actions. They
were here and there placed together as actions by the Lord. This could only take effect
under the idea of the symbolical, and therefore this idea was most firmly attached
to these ordinances. But the symbolical of that time is not to be considered as
the opposite of the objectively real, but as the mysterious, the God produced (μυστήριον),
as contrasted with the natural, the profanely clear. As to Baptism, which was administered
in the name of the Father, Son and Spirit, though Cyprian, Ep. 73. 16-18, felt compelled
to oppose the custom of baptising in the name of Jesus, we noted above (Chap. III.
p. 161 f.) that it was regarded as the bath of regeneration, and as renewal of life,
inasmuch as it was assumed that by it the sins of the past state of blindness were
blotted out.Melito, Fragm. XII. (Otto. Corp. Apol. IX. p. 418).
Δύο συνεστη τὰ ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτημάτων παρεχόμενα, πάθος
διὰ Χριστόν καὶ βάπτισμα. But as faith was
looked upon as the necessary condition,There is no sure trace of infant baptism in this epoch; personal
faith is a necessary condition (see Hermas, Vis. III. 7. 3; Justin, Apol. 1. 61).
“Prius est prædicare posterius tinguere” (Tertull. “de bapt.” 14). and as on the other
hand, the forgiveness of the sins of the past was in itself deemed worthy of God,On the basis of repentance. See Præd. Petri in Clem. Strom.
VI. 5. 43, 48. the asserted specific result of baptism remained still very uncertain, and the
hard tasks which it imposed, might seem more important than the merely retrospective
gifts which it proffered.See especially the second Epistle of Clement; Tertull. “de
bapt.” 15: “Felix aqua quæ semel abluit, qum ludibrio pecatoribus non est. Under such circumstances the rite could not fail to
lead believers about to be baptized to attribute value here to the mysterious as
such.The sinking and rising in baptism, and the immersion, were regarded
as significant but not indispensable symbols (see Didache. 7). The most important
passages for baptism are Didache 7: Barn. 6. 11: 11. 1. 11 (the connection in which
the cross of Christ is here placed to the water is important; the tertium comp.
is that forgiveness of sin is the result of both); Herm. Vis. III. 3, Sim. IX.
16, Mand. IV. 3 (ἑτέρα μετάνοια οὐκ ἔστιν εἰ μὴ ἐκείνη, ὅτε εἰς
ὕδωρ κατέβημεν καὶ ἐλάβομεν ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν τῶν προτέρῶν);
2 Clem. 6. 9: 7. 6: 8. 6. Peculiar is Ignat. ad. Polyc. 6. 2: τὸ βάπτισμα ὑμῶν μενέτω ὡς ὅπλα. Specially
important is Justin, Apol I. 61. 65. To this also belong many passages from Tertullian’s
treatise “de bapt.”; a Gnostic baptismal hymn in the third pseudo-Solomonic ode
in the Pistis Sophia, p. 131, ed. Schwartze; Marcion’s baptismal formula in Irenæus
I. 21. 3. It clearly follows from the seventh chapter of the Didache that its author
held that the pronouncing of the sacred names over the baptised and over the water
was essential, but that immersion was not; see the thorough examination of this
passage by Schaff. “The oldest church manual called the teaching of the twelve Apostles”
pp. 29-57. The controversy about the nature of John’s baptism in its relation to
Christian baptism is very old in Christendom; see also Tertull. “de bapt.” 10. Tertullian
sees in John’s baptism only a baptism to repentance, not to forgiveness. But that always creates a state of things which not only facilitates, but
positively prepares for the introduction of new and strange ideas. For neither fancy nor reflection can long continue in the
vacuum of mystery. The names σφραγίς and φωτισμός, which at that period came into fashion for baptism, are instructive,
inasmuch as neither of them is a direct designation of the presupposed effect of
baptism, the forgiveness of sin, and as, besides, both of them evince a Hellenic
conception. Baptism
in being called the seal,In Hermas and 2 Clement. The expression probably arose from
the language of the mysteries: see Appuleius, “de Magia,” 55: “Sacrorum pleraque
initia in Græcia participavi. Eorum quædam signa et monumenta tradita mihi a sacerdotibus
sedulo conservo.” Ever since the Gentile Christians conceived baptism (and the Lord’s
Supper) according to the mysteries, they were of course always surprised by the
parallel with the mysteries themselves. That begins with Justin. Tertullian, “de
bapt.” 5, says: “Sed enim nationes extraneæ, ab omni intellectu spiritalium potestatum
eadem efficacia idolis suis subministrant. Sed viduis aquis sibi mentiuntur. Nam
et sacris quibusdam per lavacrum initiantur, Isidis alicujus aut Mithræ; ipsos etiam
deos suos lavationibus efferunt. Ceterum villas, domos, templa totasque urbes aspergine
circumlatæ aqua expiant passim. Certe ludis Apollinaribus et Eleusiniis tinguuntur,
idque se in regenerationem et impunitatem periuriorum suorum agere præsumunt. Item
penes veteres, quisquis se homicidio infecerat, purgatrices aquas explorabat.” De
praescr., 40: “Diabolus ipsas quoque res sacramentorum divinorum idolorum mysteriis
æmulatur. Tingit et ipse quosdam, utique credentes et fideles suos; expositionem
delictorum de lavacro repromittit, et si adhuc memini, Mithras signat illic in frontibus
milites suos, celebrat et panis oblationem et imaginem resurrectionis inducit . . . .
summum pontificem in unius nuptiis statuit, habet et virgines, habet et continentes.”
The ancient notion that matter has a mysterious influence on spirit came very early
into vogue in connection with baptism. We see that from Tertullian’s treatise on
baptism and his speculations about the power of the water (c. 1 ff.). The water
must, of course have been first consecrated for this purpose (that is, the demons
must be driven out of it). But then it is holy water with which the Holy Spirit
is united, and which is able really to cleanse the soul. See Hatch, “The influence
of Greek ideas, etc.,” p. 19. The consecration of the water is certainly very old:
though we have no definite witnesses from the earliest period. Even for the exorcism
of the baptised before baptism I know of no earlier witness than the Sentent. LXXXVII.
episcoporum (Hartel. Opp. Cypr. I. p. 450, No. 37: “primo per mantis impositionem
in exorcismo, secundo per baptismi regenerationem”). is regarded as the guarantee of a
blessing, not as the blessing itself, at least the relation to it remains obscure;
in being called enlightenment,Justin is the first who does so (I. 61). The word comes from
the Greek mysteries. On Justin’s theory of baptism, see also I. 62. and Von Engelhardt,
“Christenthum Justin’s,” p. 102 f. it is placed directly under an aspect that is foreign
to it. It would be different if we had to think of φωτισμός as a gift of the Holy
Spirit, which is given to the baptised as real principle of a new life and miraculous
powers. But the idea of a necessary union of baptism with a miraculous communication
of the Spirit seems to have been lost very early, or to have become uncertain, the
actual state of things being no longer favourable
to it;Paul unites baptism and the communication of the Spirit: but
they were very soon represented apart, see the accounts in the Acts of the Apostles,
which are certainly very obscure because the author has evidently never himself
observed the descent of the Spirit, or anything like it. The ceasing of special
manifestations of the Spirit in and after baptism, and the enforced renunciation
of seeing baptism accompanied by special shocks, must be regarded as the first stage
in the sobering of the churches. at any rate, it does not explain the designation of baptism
as φωτισμός.
As regards the Lord’s Supper, the most important point is that
its celebration became more and more the central point, not only for the worship
of the Church, but for its very life as a Church. The form of this celebration,
the common meal, made it appear to be a fitting expression of the brotherly unity
of the community (on the public confession before the meal, see Didache, 14, and
my notes on the passage). The prayers which it included presented themselves as
vehicles for bringing before God, in thanksgiving and intercession, every thing
that affected the community; and the presentation of the elements for the holy ordinance
was naturally extended to the offering of gifts for the poor brethren, who in this
way received them from the hand of God himself. In all these respects, however,
the holy ordinance appeared as a sacrifice of the community, and indeed, as it was
also named εὐχαριστία, a sacrifice of thanksgiving.The idea of the whole transaction of the Supper as a sacrifice
is plainly found in the Didache, (c. 14), in Ignatius, and above all in Justin (I.
65 f.). But even Clement of Rome presupposes it, when (in cc. 40–44) he draws a
parallel between bishops and deacons and the Priests and Levites of the Old Testament,
describing as the chief function of the former (44. 4) προσφέρειν τὰ δῶρα. This
is not the place to enquire whether the first celebration had, in the mind of its
founder, the character of a sacrificial meal; but, certainly, the idea, as it was
already developed at the time of Justin, had been created by the churches. Various
reasons tended towards seeing in the Supper a sacrifice. In the first place, Malachi
I. 11, demanded a solemn Christian sacrifice: see my notes on Didache, 14. 3. In
the second place, all prayers were regarded as sacrifice, and therefore the solemn
prayers at the Supper must be specially considered as such. In the third place,
the words of institution τοῦτο ποιεῖτε, contained a command with regard to a definite
religious action. Such an action, however, could only be represented as a sacrifice,
and this the more that the Gentile Christians might suppose that they had to understand
ποιεῖν in the sense of θύειν. In the fourth place, payments in kind were necessary
for the “agapæ” connected with the Supper, out of which were taken the bread and
wine for the Holy celebration; in what other aspect could these offerings in the
worship be regarded than as προσφοραί for the purpose of a sacrifice? Yet the spiritual
idea so prevailed that only the prayers were regarded as the θυσία proper, even
in the case of Justin (Dial. 117). The elements are only δῶρα, προσφοραί, which
obtain their value from the prayers in which thanks are given for the gifts of creation
and redemption as well as for the holy meal, and entreaty is made for the introduction
of the community into the Kingdom of God (see Didache, 9. 10). Therefore, even the
sacred meal itself is called εὐχαριστία (Justin, Apol. I. 66: ἡ τροφὴ αὕτη καλεἷται
παρ᾽ ἡμῖν εὐχαριστία. Didache 9. 1: Ignat., because it is τροφὴ εὐχαριστηθεῖςα.
It is a mistake to suppose that Justin already understood the body of Christ to
be the object of ποιεῖν, and therefore thought of a sacrifice of this body (I.
66). The real sacrificial act in the Supper consists rather, according to Justin,
only in the εὐχαριστίαν ποιεῖν, whereby the κοινὸς ἄρτος becomes the ἄρτος τῆς εὐχαριστίας. The sacrifice
of the Supper in its essence, apart from the offering of alms, which in the practice
of the Church was closely united with it, is nothing but a sacrifice of prayer:
the sacrificial act of the Christian here also is nothing else than an act of prayer
(see Apol. I. 13, 65–67; Dial. 28, 29, 41, 70, 116–118). As an act of sacrifice, all the
termini technici which the Old Testament applied to sacrifice
could be applied to it, and all the wealth of ideas which the Old Testament connects
with sacrifice could be transferred to it. One cannot say that anything absolutely
foreign was therewith introduced into the ordinance, however doubtful it may be
whether in the idea of its founder the meal was thought of as a sacrificial meal.
But it must have been of the most wide-reaching significance, that a wealth of ideas
was in this way connected with the ordinance, which had nothing whatever in common
either with the purpose of the meal as a memorial of Christ’s death,Justin lays special stress on this purpose. On the other hand,
it is wanting in the Supper prayers of the Didache, unless c. 9. 2 be regarded as
an allusion to it. or with the
mysterious symbols of the body and blood of Christ. The result was that the one
transaction obtained a double value. At one time it appeared as the προσφορά and
θυσία of the Church,The designation θυσία is first found in the Didache, c. 14. as the pure sacrifice which is presented to the great king
by Christians scattered over the world, as they offer to him their prayers and place
before him again what he has bestowed in order to receive it back with thanks and
praise. But there is no reference in this to the mysterious words, that the bread
and wine are the body of Christ broken and the blood of Christ shed for the forgiveness
of sin. These words, in and of themselves, must have challenged
a special consideration. They called forth the recognition in the sacramental action,
or rather in the consecrated elements, of a mysterious communication of God, a gift
of salvation, and this is the second aspect. But on a purely spiritual conception
of the Divine gift of salvation, the blessings mediated through the Holy Supper
could only be thought of as spiritual (faith, knowledge, or eternal life), and the
consecrated elements could only be recognised as the mysterious vehicles of these
blessings. There was yet no reflection on the distinction between symbol and vehicle;
the symbol was rather regarded as the vehicle, and vice versa. We shall search in
vain for any special relation of the partaking of the consecrated elements to the
forgiveness of sin. That was made impossible by the whole current notions of sin
and forgiveness. That on which value was put was the strengthening of faith and
knowledge, as well as the guarantee of eternal life; and a meal in which there was
appropriated not merely common bread and wine, but a τροφὴ πνευματική, seemed
to have a bearing upon these. There was as yet little reflection; but there can
be no doubt that thought here moved in a region bounded, on the one hand, by the
intention of doing justice to the wonderful words of institution which had been
handed down, and on the other hand, by the fundamental conviction that spiritual
things can only be got by means of the Spirit.The Supper was regarded as a “Sacrament” in so far as a blessing
was represented in its holy food. The conception of the nature of this blessing
as set forth in John VI. 27-58, appears to have been the most common. It may be
traced back to Ignatius, ad Eph. 20. 2: ἕνα ἄρτον κλῶντες ὅς ἐστιν φάρμακον ἀθανασίας,
ἀντίδοτος τοῦ μὴ ἀτοθανεῖν ἀλλὰ ζῆν ἐν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ διὰ παντός. Cf. Didache, 10.
3: ἡμῖν ἐχαρίσω πνευματικὴν τροφὴν καὶ ποτὸν καὶ ζωὴν αἰώνιον; also 10. 21: εὐχαριστοῦμέν
σοι ὑπὲρ τῆς γνωσεως καὶ πίστεως καὶ ἀθανασίας. Justin Apol. I. 66: ἐκ τῆς τροφῆς
ταύτης αἷμα καὶ σάρκες κατὰ μεταβολὴν τρέφονται ἡμῶν (κατὰ μεταβολήν, that is, the
holy food, like all nourishment, is completely transformed into our flesh; but what
Justin has in view here is most probably the body of the resurrection. The expression,
as the context shews, is chosen for the sake of the parallel to the incarnation).
Iren. IV. 18. 5: V. 2. 2 f. As to how the elements are related to the body and blood
of Christ, Ignatius seems to have expressed himself in a strictly realistic way
in several passages, especially ad. Smyr. 7. 1: εὐχαριστίας καὶ προσευχῆς ἀπέχονται
διὰ τὸ μὴ ὁμολογεῖν, τὴν εὐχαριστίαν σάρκα εἶνει τοῦ σωτῆρος ἡμῶν Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ,
τὴν ὑπὲρ τῶν ἁμαρτιῶν ἡμῶν παθοῦσαν. But many passages shew that Ignatius was far
from such a conception, and rather thought as John did. In Trall. 8, faith is described
as the flesh, and love as the blood of Christ; in Rom. 7, in one breath the flesh
of Christ is called the bread of God, and the blood ἀγάπη ἄφθαρτος. In Philad. 1,
we read: αἷμα Ἰ Χρ. ἥτις ἐστὶν χαρὰ αἰώνιος καὶ παράμονος. In Philad. 5, the Gospel
is called the flesh of Christ, etc. Hofling is therefore right in saying (Lehre
v. Opfer, p. 39): “The Eucharist is to Ignatius σάρξ of Christ, as a visible Gospel,
a kind of Divine institution attesting the content of πίστις, viz., belief in the
σάρξ παθοῦσα, an institution which is at the same time, to the community, a means
of representing and preserving its unity in this belief.” On the other hand, it
cannot be mistaken that Justin (Apol. I. 66) presupposed the identity, miraculously
produced by the Logos, of the consecrated bread and the body he had assumed. In
this we have probably to recognise an influence on the conception of the Supper,
of the miracle represented in the Greek Mysteries: Οὐχ ὡς κοινὸν ἄρτον οὐδὲ κοινὸν
πόμα ταῦτα λαμβάνομεν, ἀλλ᾽ ὅν τρόπον διὰ λόγου θεοῦ σαρκοποιηθεῖς Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς
ὁ σωτὴρ ἡμῶν καὶ σάρκα καὶ αἱμα ὑπερ σωτηρίας ἡμῶν ἔσχεν, οὕτως καὶ τὴν δι᾽ εὐχῆς
λόγου τοῦ παρ᾽ αὐτοῦ εὐχαριστηθεῖσαν τροφήν, ἐξ ἧι αἱμα καὶ σάρκες κατὰ μεταβολὴν
τρέφονται ἡμῶν, ἐκείνου τοῦ σαρκοποιηθέντος Ἰησοῦ καὶ σάρκα καὶ αἷμα θδιδάχθημεν
εἶναι (See Von Otto on the passage). In the Texte u.
Unters. VII. 2. p. 117 ff.,
I have shewn that in the different Christian circles of the second century, water
and only water was often used in the Supper instead of wine, and that in many regions
this custom was maintained up to the middle of the third century (see Cypr. Ep.
63). I have endeavoured to make it further probable that even Justin in his Apology
describes a celebration of the Lord’s Supper with bread and water. The latter has
been contested by Zahn, “Bread and wine in the Lord’s Supper, in the early Church,”
1892, and Jülicher, Zur Gesch. der Abendmahisfeier in der aeltesten Kirche (Abhandl.
f. Weiszäcker, 1892, p. 217 ff.). There was thus attached
to the Supper the idea of sacrifice, and of a sacred gift guaranteed
by God. The two things were held apart, for there is as yet no trace of that conception
according to which the body of Christ represented in the breadIgnatius calls the thank-offering the flesh of Christ, but the
concept “flesh of Christ” is for him itself a spiritual one. On the contrary, Justin
sees in the bread the actual flesh of Christ, but does not connect it with the idea
of sacrifice. They are thus both as yet far from the later conception. The numerous
allegories which are already attached to the Supper (one bread, equivalent to one
community; many scattered grains bound up in the one bread, equivalent to the Christians
scattered abroad in the world, who are to be gathered together into the Kingdom
of God; one altar, equivalent to one assembly of the community, excluding private
worship, etc.), cannot as a group be adduced here. is the sacrifice
offered by the community. But one feels almost called upon here to construe from
the premises the later development of the idea, with due regard to the ancient Hellenic
ideas of sacrifice.
3. The natural distinctions among men, and the differences of
position and vocation which these involve, were not to be abolished in the Church,
notwithstanding the independence and equality of every individual Christian, but
were to be consecrated: above all, every relation of natural piety was to be respected.
Therefore the elders also acquired a special authority, and were to receive the
utmost deference and due obedience. But, however important the organisation that
was based on the distinction between πρεσβύτεροι and νεώτεροι, it ought not to be
considered as characteristic of the Churches, not even where there appeared at the
head of the community a college of chosen elders, as was the case in the greater
communities and, perhaps, soon everywhere. On the contrary, only an organisation
founded on the gifts of the Spirit (χαρίσματα) bestowed on the Church by God,Cf. for the following my arguments in the larger edition of
the “Teaching of the Apostles” Chap. 5, (Texte u. Unters. II. 1. 2). The numerous
recent enquiries (Loening, Loofs, Réville etc.) will be found referred to in Sohm’s
Kirchenrecht. Vol. I. 1892, where the most exhaustive discussions are given.
corresponded to the original peculiarity of the Christian community. The Apostolic
age therefore transmitted a twofold organi sation to the communities. The one was
based on the διακονία τοῦ λὸγου, and was regarded as established directly
by God; the other stood in the closest connection with the economy of the Church,
above all with the offering of gifts, and so with the sacrificial service. In the
first were men speaking the word of God, commissioned and endowed by God, and bestowed
on Christendom, not on a particular community, who as ἀπὸστολοι, προφῆται, and διδάσκαλοι
had to spread the Gospel, that is to edify the Church of Christ. The were regarded
as the real ἡγούμενοι in the communities, whose words given them by the Spirit all
were to accept in faith. In the second were ἐπισκοποι, and διάκονοι, appointed by
the individual congregation and endowed with the charisms of leading and helping,
who had to receive and administer the gifts, to perform the sacrificial service
(if there were no prophets present), and take charge of the affairs of the community.That the bishops and deacons were, primarily, officials connected
with the cultus is most clearly seen from 1 Clem. 40-44, but also from the connection
in which the 14th Chap. of the Didache stands with the 15th (see the οὖν 15.1),
to which Hatch in conversation called my attention. The φιλοξενία and the intercourse
with other communities (the fostering of the “unitas”) belonged, above all, to the
affairs of the Church. Here, undoubtedly, from the beginning lay an important part
of the bishop’s duties. Ramsay (“The Church in the Roman Empire,” p. 361 ff.) has
emphasised this point exclusively, and therefore one-sidedly. According to him,
the monarchical Episcopate sprang from the officials who were appointed ad hoc and
for a time, for the purpose of promoting intercourse with other churches. It lay in the
nature of the case that as a rule the ἐπίσκοποι, as independent
officials, were chosen from among the elders, and might thus coincide with the chosen
πρεσβύτεροι. But a very important development takes place in the second half of
our epoch. The prophets and teachers—as the result of causes which followed the
naturalising of the Churches in the world—fell more and more into the background,
and their function, the solemn service of the word, began to pass over to the officials
of the community, the bishops, who already played a great role in the public worship.
At the same time, however, it appeared more and more fitting to entrust one official,
as chief leader (superintendent of public worship), with the reception of gifts
and their administration, together with the care of the unity of public worship;
that is, to appoint one bishop instead of a number of bishops, leaving, however,
as before, the college of presbyters, as προϊστάμενοι τῆς ἐκκλησίας, a kind of senate
of the community.Sohm (in the work mentioned above) seeks to prove that the monarchical
Episcopate originated in Rome and is already presupposed by Hermas. I hold that
the proof for this has not been adduced, and I must also in great part reject the
bold statements which are fastened on to the first Epistle of Clement. They may
be comprehended in the proposition which Sohm, p. 158, has placed at the head of
his discussion of the Epistle. “The first Epistle of Clement makes an epoch in the
history of the organisation of the Church. It was destined to put an end to the
early Christian constitution of the Church.” According to Sohm (p. 165), another
immediate result of the Epistle was a change of constitution in the Romish Church,
the introduction of the monarchical Episcopate. That, however, can only be asserted,
not proved; for the proof which Sohm has endeavoured to bring from Ignatius’ Epistle
to the Romans and the Shepherd of Hermas, is not convincing. Moreover, the idea of the chosen bishops and deacons as the antitypes
of the Priests and Levites, had been formed at an early period in connection with
the idea of the new sacrifice. But we find also the idea, which
is probably the earlier of the two, that the prophets and teachers,
as the commissioned preachers of the word, are the priests. The hesitancy in applying
this important allegory must have been brought to an end by the disappearance of
the latter view. But it must have been still more important that the bishops, or
bishop, in taking over the functions of the old λαλοῦντες τὸν λόγον, who were not
Church officials, took over also the profound veneration with which they were regarded
as the special organs of the Spirit. But the condition of the organisation in the
communities about the year 140, seems to have been a very diverse one. Here and
there, no doubt, the convenient arrangement of appointing only one bishop was carried
out, while his functions had not perhaps been essentially increased, and the prophets
and teachers were still the great spokesmen. Conversely, there may still have been
in other communities a number of bishops, while the prophets and teachers no longer
played regularly an important role. A fixed organisation was reached, and the Apostolic
episcopal constitution established, only in consequence of the so-called Gnostic
crisis, which was epoch-making in every respect. One of its most important presuppositions,
and one that has struck very deep into the development of doctrine must, however,
be borne in mind here. As the Churches traced back all the laws according to which
they lived, and all the blessings they held sacred, to the tradition of the twelve
Apostles, because they regarded them as Christian only on that presupposition, they
also in like manner, as far as we can discover, traced back their organisation of
presbyters, i.e., of bishops and deacons, to Apostolic appointment. The notion
which followed quite naturally, was that the Apostles themselves had appointed the
first church officials.See, above all, 1 Clem. 42, 44, Acts of the Apostles, Pastoral
Epistles, etc. That idea may have found support in some actual cases
of the kind, but this does not need to be considered here; for these cases would
not have led to the setting up of a theory. But the point in question here is a
theory, which is nothing else than an integral part of the general theory, that
the twelve Apostles
were in every respect the middle term between Jesus and the present
Churches (see above, p. 158). This conception is earlier than the great Gnostic
crisis, for the Gnostics also shared it. But no special qualities of the officials,
but only of the Church itself, were derived from it, and it was believed that the
independence and sovereignty of the Churches were in no way endangered by it, because
an institution by Apostles was considered equivalent to an institution by the Holy
Spirit, whom they possessed and whom they followed. The independence of the Churches
rested precisely on the fact that they had the Spirit in their midst. The conception
here briefly sketched was completely transformed in the following period by the
addition of another idea—that of Apostolic succession,This idea is Romish. See Book II. chap 11. C. and then became, together
with the idea of the specific priesthood of the leader of the Church, the most
important means of exalting the office above the community.We must remember here that besides the teachers, elders and
deacons, the ascetics (virgins, widows, celibates, abstinentes) and the martyrs
(confessors) enjoyed a special respect in the Churches, and frequently laid hold
of the government and leading of them. Hermas enjoins plainly enough the duty of
esteeming the confessors higher than the presbyters (Vis. III. 1. 2). The widows
were soon entrusted with diaconal tasks connected with the worship, and received
a corresponding respect. As to the limits of this, there was, as we can gather from
different passages, much disagreement. One statement in Tertullian shews that the
confessors had special claims to be considered in the choice of a bishop (adv. Valent.
4: “Speraverat Episcopatum Valentinus, quia et ingenio poterat et eloquio. Sed alium
ex martyrii prærogativa loci potitum indignatus de ecclesia authenticæ regulæ abrupit“). This statement is strengthened by other passages;
see Tertull. de fuga; 11: “Hoc sentire et facere omnem servum dei oportet, etiam
minor’s loci, ut maioris fieri possit, si quern gradum in persecutionis tolerantia
ascenderit”; see Hippol. in the Arab. canons, and also Achelis, Texte u. Unters.
VI. 4. pp. 67, 220: Cypr. Epp. 38. 39. The way in which confessors and ascetics,
from the end of the second century, attempted to have their say in the leading of
the Churches, and the respectful way in which it was sought to set their claims
aside, shew that a special relation to the Lord, and therefore a special right with
regard to the community, was early acknowledged to these people, on account of their
archievements. On the transition of the old prophets and teachers into wandering
ascetics, later into monks, see the Syriac Pseudo-Clementine Epistles, “de virginitate,”
and my Abhandl. i. d. Sitzungsberichten d. K. Pr. Akad. d. Wissensch. 1891, p. 361 ff.
Supplementary.
This review of the common faith and the beginnings of knowledge,
worship and organisation in the earliest Gentile Christianity will have shewn that
the essential premises for the development of Catholicism were already in existence
before the middle of the second century, and before the burning conflict with Gnosticism.
We may see this, whether we look at the peculiar form of the Kerygma, or at the
expression of the idea of tradition, or at the theology with its moral and philosophic
attitude. We may therefore conclude that the struggle with Gnosticism hastened the
development, but did not give it a new direction. For the Greek spirit, the element
which was most operative in Gnosticism, was already concealed in the earliest Gentile
Christianity itself; it was the atmosphere which one breathed; but the elements
peculiar to Gnosticism were for the most part rejected.See Weizsäcker. Gött. Gel. Anz. 1886, No. 21, whose statements
I can almost entirely make my own. We may even go back a step
further (see above, pp. 41, 76). The great Apostle to the Gentiles himself, in his
epistle to the Romans and in those to the Corinthians, transplanted the Gospel into
Greek modes of thought. He attempted to expound it with Greek ideas, and not only
called the Greeks to the Old Testament and the Gospel, but also introduced the Gospel
as a leaven into the religious and philosophic world of Greek ideas. Moreover, in
his pneumatico-cosmic Christology he gave the Greeks an impulse towards a theologoumenon,
at whose service they could place their whole philosophy and mysticism. He preached
the foolishness of Christ crucified, and yet in doing so proclaimed the wisdom
of the nature-vanquishing Spirit, the heavenly Christ. From this moment was established
a development which might indeed assume very different forms, but in which all the
forces and ideas of Hellenism must gradually pass over to the Gospel. But even with
this the last word has not been said; on the contrary, we must remember that the
Gospel itself belonged to the fulness of the times, which
is indicated by the inter-action of the Old Testament and the
Hellenic religions (see above, pp. 41, 56).
The documents which have been preserved from the first century
of the Gentile Church are, in their relation to the history of Dogma, very diverse.
In the Didache we have a Catechism for Christian life dependent on a Jewish Greek
Catechism, and giving expression to what was specifically Christian in the prayers
and in the order of the Church. The Epistle of Barnabas, probably of Alexandrian
origin, teaches the correct, Christian, interpretation of the Old Testament, rejects
the literal interpretation and Judaism as of the devil, and in Christology essentially
follows Paul. The Romish first Epistle of Clement, which also contains other Pauline
reminiscences (reconciliation and justification), represents the same Christology,
but it set it in a moralistic mode of thought. This is a most typical writing in
which the spirit of tradition, order, stability, and the universal ecclesiastical
guardianship of Rome is already expressed. The moralistic mode of thought is classically
represented by the Shepherd of Hermas and the second Epistle of Clement, in which,
besides, the eschatological element is very prominent. We have in the Shepherd the
most important document for the Church Christianity of the age, reflected in the
mirror of a prophet who, however, takes into account the concrete relations. The
theology of Ignatius is the most advanced, in so far as he, opposing the Gnostics,
brings the facts of salvation into the foreground, and directs his Gnosis not so
much to the Old Testament as to the history of Christ. He attempts to make Christ κατὰ τνεῦμα
and κατὰ σάρκα the central point of Christianity. In this sense his
theology and speech is Christocentric, related to that of Paul and the fourth Evangelist,
(specially striking is the relationship with Ephesians,) and is strongly contrasted
with that of his contemporaries. Of kindred spirit with him are Melito and Irenæus,
whose forerunner he is. He is related to them as Methodius at a later period was
related to the classical orthodox theology of the fourth and fifth centuries. This
parallel is appropriate not merely in point of form: it is rather one and the same
tendency of mind which passes
over from Ignatius to Melito, Irenæus, Methodius, Athanasius,
Gregory of Nyssa (here, however, mixed with Origenic elements), and to Cyril of
Alexandria. Its characteristic is that not only does the person of Christ as the
God-man form the central point and sphere of theology, but also that all the main
points of his history are mysteries of the world’s redemption. (Ephes. 19). But
Ignatius is also distinguished by the fact that behind all that is enthusiastic,
pathetic, abrupt, and again all that pertains to liturgical form, we find in his
epistles a true devotion to Christ (ὁ θεός μου). He is laid hold of by Christ:
Cf. Ad. Rom. 6: ἐκεῖνον ζητῶ, τὸν ὑπερ ἡμῶν ἀποθανόντα, ἐκεῖνον θέλω, τὸν δι᾽ ἡμᾶς
ἀναστάντα; Rom. 7: ὁ ἐμὸς ἔρως ἐσταύρωται καὶ οὐκ ἔστιν ἐν ἐμοὶ πῦρ φιλοϋλον. As
a sample of his theological speech and his rule of faith, see ad Smyrn. I: ἐνόησα
ὑμᾶς κατηρτισμένους ἐν ἀκινήτῳ πίστει, ὥσπερ καθηλωμένους ἐν τῷ σταυρῷ τοῦ κυριοῦ
Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ σαρκί τε καὶ πνεύμαρι καὶ ἡδρασμένους ἐν ἀγάπῃ ἐν τῶ αἵμαρι Χριστοῦ,
πεπληροφορημένους εἰς τὸν κυρίου ἡμῶν, ἀληθῶς ὄντα ἐκ γένους Δαβὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, ὑιὸν
θεοῦ κατὰ θέλημα καὶ δύναμιν θεοῦ, γεγενημένον ἀληθῶς ἐκ παρθένου, βεβαπτισμένον
ὑπὸ Ἰωάννοῦ, ἵνα πληρωθῇ πᾶσα δικαιοσύνη ὑπ᾽ αὐτοῦ, ἀληθῶς ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου καὶ
Ἡρώδου τετράρχου καθηλωμένον ὑπέρ ἡμῶν ἐν σαρκί—ἀφ᾽ οὗ καρποῦ ἡμεῖς, ἀπὸ τοῦ θεομακαρίτου
αὐτοῦ πάθους—ἵνα ἄρῃ σύσσημον εἰς τούς αἰῶνας διά τῆς ἀναστάσεως εἰς τούς ἀγίους
καὶ πιστοὺς αὐτοῦ εἴτε ἐν Ἰουδαίοις εἴτε ἐν ἴθνεσιν ἐν ἑνὶ σώματη τῆς ἐκκλησίας
αὐτοῦ. The Epistle of Polycarp is characterised by its dependence on earlier Christian
writings (Epistles of Paul, I Peter, I John), consequently by its conservative attitude
with regard to the most valuable traditions of the Apostolic period. The Kerygma
of Peter exhibits the transition from the early Christian literature to the apologetic
(Christ as νὸμος and as λόγος).
It is manifest that the lineage, “Ignatius, Polycarp, Melito,
Irenæus,” is in characteristic contrast with all others, has deep roots in the Apostolic
age, as in Paul and in the Johannine writings, and contains in germ important factors
of the future formation of dogma, as it appeared in Methodius, Athanasius, Marcellus,
Cyril of Jerusalem. It is very doubtful, therefore, whether we are justified in
speaking of an Asia
Minor theology. (Ignatius does not belong to Asia Minor.) At any
rate, the expression, Asia Minor-Romish Theology, has no justification. But it has
its truth in the correct observation, that the standards by which Christianity and
Church matters were measured and defined must have been similar in Rome and Asia
Minor during the second century. We lack all knowledge of the closer connections.
We can only again refer to the journey of Polycarp to Rome, to that of Irenæus by
Rome to Gaul, to the journey of Abercius and others. (Cf. also the application of
the Montanist communities in Asia Minor for recognition by the Roman bishop.) In
all probability, Asia Minor, along with Rome, was the spiritual centre of Christendom
from about 60-200; but we have but few means for describing how this centre was
brought to bear on the circumference. What we do know belongs more to the history
of the Church than to the special history of dogma.
Literature.—The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. See
the edition of v. Gebhardt, Harnack, Zahn, 1876. Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test. extra Can.
recept. fasc. IV. 2 edit. 1884, has collected further remains of early Christian
literature. The Teaching of the twelve Apostles. Fragments of the Gospel and Apocalypse
of Peter (my edition, 1893). Also the writings of Justin and other apologists, in
so far as they give disclosures about the faith of the communities of his time,
as well as statements in Celsus Ἀληθὴς Λόγος, in Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria,
and Tertullian. Even Gnostic fragments may be cautiously turned to profit. Ritschl,
Entstehung der altkath. Kirche, 2 Aufl. 1857. Pfleiderer, Das Urchristenthum, 1887.
Renan, Origins of Christianity, vol. V. V. Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justin’s,
d. M. 1878, p. 375 ff. Schenkel, Das Christusbild der Apostel, etc., 1879. Zahn,
Gesch. des N.-Tlichen Kanons, 2 Bde. 1888. Behm, Das Christliche Gesetzthum der
Apostolischen Väter (Zeitschr. f. kirchl. Wissensch. 1886). Dorner, History of the
doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1845. Schultz, Die Lehre von der Gottheit Christi,
1881, p. 22 ff: Höfling, Die Lehre der ältesten Kirche vom Opfer, 1851, Höfling,
Das Sacrament d. Taufe, 1848. Kahnis, Die Lehre vom Abendmahl, 1851. Th. Harnack,
Der Christliche Gemeindegottedienst
im Apost. u. Altkath. Zeitalter, 1854. Hatch, Organisation of
the Early Church, 1883. My Prolegomena to the Didache (Texte u. Unters. II. Bd.
H. 1, 2). Diestel, Gesch. des A. T. in der Christl. Kirche, 1869. Sohm, Kirchenrecht,
1892. Monographs on the Apostolic Fathers: on 1 Clem.: Lipsius, Lightfoot (most
accurate commentary), Wrede; on 2 Clem.: A. Harnack (Ztschr. f. K. Gesch. 1887);
on Barnabas: J. Müller; on Hermas: Zahn, Hückstädt, Link; on Papias: Weiffenbach,
Leimbach, Zahn, Lightfoot; on Ignatius and Polycarp: Lightfoot (accurate commentary)
and Zahn; on the Gospel and Apocalypse of Peter: A. Harnack; on the Kerygma of Peter:
von Dobschütz; on Acts of Thecla: Schlau.
CHAPTER IV
THE ATTEMPTS OF THE GNOSTICS TO CREATE AN APOSTOLIC
DOGMATIC, AND A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY; OR, THE ACUTE SECULARISING OF CHRISTIANITY.
§ I. The Conditions for the Rise of Gnosticism.
The Christian communities were originally unions for a holy life
on the ground of a common hope, which rested on the belief that the God who has
spoken by the Prophets has sent his Son Jesus Christ, and through him revealed eternal
life, and will shortly make it manifest. Christianity had its roots in certain facts
and utterances, and the foundation of the Christian union was the common hope, the
holy life in the Spirit according to the law of God, and the holding fast to those
facts and utterances. There was, as the foregoing chapter will have shewn, no fixed
Didache beyond that.We may consider here once more the articles which are embraced
in the first ten chapters of the recently discovered Διδαχὴ τῶν ἀποστόλων, after
enumerating and describing which, the author continues (11. 1): ὃς ἃν οὖν ἐλθών
διδάξῃ ὑμᾶς ταῦτα πάντα τὰ προειρημένα, δέξασθε αὐτόν. There was abundance of fancies, ideas, and knowledge, but
these had not yet the value of being the religion itself. Yet the belief that Christianity
guarantees the perfect knowledge, and leads from one degree of clearness to another,
was in operation from the very beginning. This conviction had to be immediately
tested by the Old Testament, that is, the task was imposed on the majority of thinking
Christians, by the circumstances in which the Gospel had been proclaimed to them,
of making the Old Testament intelligible to themselves, in
other words, of using this book as a Christian book, and of finding
the means by which they might be able to repel the Jewish claim to it, and refute
the Jewish interpretation of it. This task would not have been imposed, far less
solved, if the Christian communities in the Empire had not entered into the inheritance
of the Jewish propaganda, which had al-ready been greatly influenced by foreign
religions (Babylonian and Persian, see the Jewish Apocalypses), and in which an
extensive spiritualising of the Old Testament religion had already taken place.
This spiritualising was the result of a philosophic view of religion, and this philosophic
view was the outcome of a lasting influence of Greek philosophy and of the Greek
spirit generally on Judaism. In consequence of this view, all facts and sayings
of the Old Testament in which one could not find his way were allegorised. “Nothing
was what it seemed, but was only the symbol of something invisible. The history
of the Old Testament was here sublimated to a history of the emancipation of reason
from passion.” It describes, however, the beginning of the historical development
of Christianity, that as soon as it wished to give account of itself, or to turn
to advantage the documents of revelations which were in its possession, it had to
adopt the methods of that fantastic syncretism. We have seen above that those writers
who made a diligent use of the Old Testament had no hesitation in making use of
the allegorical method. That was required not only by the inability to understand
the verbal sense of the Old Testament, presenting diverging moral and religious
opinions, but, above all, by the conviction that on every page of that book Christ
and the Christian Church must be found. How could this conviction have been maintained
unless the definite concrete meaning of the documents had been already obliterated
by the Jewish philosophic view of the Old Testament?
This necessary allegorical interpretation, however, brought into
the communities an intellectual philosophic element, γνώσις, which was perfectly
distinct from the Apocalyptic dreams, in which were beheld angel hosts on white
horses, Christ with eyes as a flame of fire, hellish beasts, conflict and
victory.”It is a good tradition which designates the so-called Gnosticism
simply as Gnosis, and yet uses this word also for the speculations of non Gnostic
teachers of antiquity (e.g., of Barnabas). But the inferences which follow have
not been drawn. Origen says truly (c. Celsus III. 12): “As men, not only the labouring
and serving classes, but also many from the cultured classes of Greece, came to
see something honourable in Christianity, sects could not fail to arise, not simply
from the desire for controversy and contradiction, but because several scholars
endeavoured to penetrate deeper into the truth of Christianity. In this way sects
arose which received their names from men who indeed admired Christianity in its
essence, but from many different causes had arrived at different conceptions of
it.” In this γνώσις, which attached itself to the Old Testament,
many began to see the specific blessing which was promised to mature faith, and
through which it was to attain perfection. What a wealth of relations, hints, and
intuitions seemed to disclose itself, as soon as the Old Testament was considered
allegorically, and to what extent had the way been prepared here by the Jewish philosophic
teachers! From the simple narratives of the Old Testament had already been developed
a theosophy, in which the most abstract ideas had acquired reality, and from which
sounded forth the Hellenic canticle of the power of the Spirit over matter and sensuality,
and of the true home of the soul. Whatever in this great adaptation still remained
obscure and unnoticed, was now lighted up by the history of Jesus, his birth, his
life, his sufferings and triumph. The view of the Old Testament as a document of
the deepest wisdom, transmitted to those who knew how to read it as such, unfettered
the intellectual interest which would not rest until it had entirely transferred
the new religion from the world of feelings, actions and hopes, into the world of
Hellenic conceptions, and transformed it into a metaphysic. In that exposition of
the Old Testament which we find, for example, in the so-called Barnabas, there is
already concealed an important philosophic, Hellenic element, and in that sermon
which bears the name of Clement (the so-called second Epistle of Clement), conceptions
such as that of the Church, have already assumed a bodily form and been joined in
marvellous connections, while, on the contrary, things concrete have been transformed
into things invisible.
But once the intellectual interest was unfettered, and the new
religion had approximated to the Hellenic spirit by means of a philosophic view
of the Old Testament, how could that spirit be prevented from taking complete and
immediate possession of it, and where, in the first instance, could the power be
found that was able to decide whether this or that opinion was incompatible with
Christianity? This Christianity, as it was, unequivocally excluded all polytheism,
and all national religions existing in the Empire. It opposed to them the one God,
the Saviour Jesus, and a spiritual worship of God. But at the same time it summoned
all thoughtful men to knowledge by declaring itself to be the only true religion,
while it appeared to be only a variety of Judaism. It seemed to put no limits to
the character and extent of the knowledge, least of all to such knowledge as was
able to allow all that was transmitted to remain, and at the same time abolish it
by transforming it into mysterious symbols. That really was the method which every
one must and did apply who wished to get from Christianity more than practical motives
and super earthly hopes. But where was the limit of the application? Was not the
next step to see in the Evangelic records also new material for spiritual interpretations,
and to illustrate from the narratives there, as from the Old Testament, the conflict
of the spirit with matter, of reason with sensuality? Was not the conception, that
the traditional deeds of Christ were really the last act in the struggle of those
mighty spiritual powers whose conflict is delineated in the Old Testament, at least
as evident as the other, that those deeds were the fulfilment of mysterious promises?
Was it not in keeping with the consciousness possessed by the new religion of being
the universal religion, that one should not be satisfied with mere beginnings of
a new knowledge, or with fragments of it, but should seek to set up such knowledge
in a complete and systematic form, and so to exhibit the best and universal system
of life as also the best and universal system of knowledge of the world? Finally,
did not the free and yet so rigid forms in which the Christian communities were
organised, the union of the mysterious with a wonderful publicity, of the spiritual with
significant rites (baptism and the Lord’s Supper), invite men to
find here the realisation of the ideal which the Hellenic religious spirit was
at that time seeking, viz., a communion which, in virtue of a Divine revelation,
is in possession of the highest knowledge, and therefore leads the holiest life;
a communion which does not communicate the knowledge by discourse, but by
mysterious efficacious consecrations and by revealed dogmas? These questions are
thrown out here in accordance with the direction which the historical progress
of Christianity took. The phenomenon called Gnosticism gives the answer to
them.The majority of Christians in the second century belonged no
doubt to the uncultured classes and did not seek abstract knowledge, nay, were distrustful
of it; see the λόγος ἀληθής of Celsus, especially III. 44, and the writings of the
Apologists. Yet we may infer from the treatise of Origen against Celsus, that the
number of “Christiani rudes” who cut themselves off from theological and philosophic
knowledge, was about the year 240 a very large one; and Tertullian says (Adv. Prax.
3): “Simplices quique, ne dixerim imprudentes et idiotæ, quæ major semper credentium
pars est,” cf. de jejun. 11: “Major pars imperitorum apud gloriosissimam multitudinem
psychicorum.”
§ 2. The Nature of Gnosticism.
The Catholic Church afterwards claimed as her own those writers
of the first century (60-160) who were content with turning speculation to account
only as a means of spiritualising the Old Testament, without, however, attempting
a systematic reconstruction of tradition. But all those who in the first century
undertook to furnish Christian practice with the foundation of a complete systematic
knowledge, she declared false Christians, Christians only in name. Historical enquiry
cannot accept this judgment. On the contrary, it sees in Gnosticism a series of
undertakings, which in a certain way is analogous to the Catholic embodiment of
Christianity, in doctrine, morals, and worship. The great distinction here consists
essentially in the fact that the Gnostic systems represent the acute secularising
or hellenising of Christianity, with the rejection of the Old Testament;Overbeck (Stud. z. Gesch. d. alten Kirche. p. 184) has the merit
of having first given convincing expression to this view of Gnosticism. while
the Catholic system, on the
other hand, represents a gradual process of the same kind with
the conservation of the Old Testament. The traditional religion on being, as it
were, suddenly required to recognise itself in a picture foreign to it, was yet
vigorous enough to reject that picture; but to the gradual, and one might say indulgent
remodelling to which it was subjected, it offered but little resistance, nay, as
a rule, it was never conscious of it. It is therefore no paradox to say that Gnosticism,
which is just Hellenism, has in Catholicism obtained half a victory. We have, at
Ieast, the same justification for that assertion—the parallel may be permitted—as
we have for recognising a triumph of 18th century ideas in the first Empire, and
a continuance, though with reservations, of the old regime.
From this point of view the position to be assigned to the Gnostics
in the history of dogma, which has hitherto been always misunderstood, is obvious.
They were, in short, the Theologians of the first century.The ability of the prominent Gnostic teachers has been recognised
by the Church Fathers: see Hieron. Comm. in Osee. II. to, Opp. VI. 1: “Nullus potest
hæresim struere, nisi qui ardens ingenii est et habet dona naturæ quæ a deo artifice
sunt creata: talis fait Valentinus, talis Marcion, quos doctissimos legimus, talis
Bardesanes, cujus etiam philosophi admirantur ingenium.” It is still more important
to see how the Alexandrian theologians (Clement and Origen) estimated the exegetic
labours of the Gnostics and took account of them. Origen undoubtedly recognised
Herakleon as a prominent exegete, and treats him most respectfully even where he
feels compelled to differ from him. All Gnostics cannot, of course, be regarded
as theologians. In their totality they form the Greek society with a Christian name. They were the first
to transform Christianity into a system of doctrines (dogmas). They were the first
to work up tradition systematically. They undertook to present Christianity as the
absolute religion, and therefore placed it in definite opposition to the other religions,
even to Judaism. But to them the absolute religion, viewed in its contents, was
identical with the result of the philosophy of religion for which the support of
a revelation was to be sought. They are therefore those Christians who, in a swift
advance, attempted to capture Christianity for Hellenic culture, and Hellenic culture
for Christianity, and who gave up the Old Testament in order to facilitate the conclusion
of the covenant between the two powers, and make it possible to
assert the absoluteness of Christianity.—But the significance
of the Old Testament in the religious history of the world lies just in this, that,
in order to be maintained at all, it required the application of the allegoric method,
that is, a definite proportion of Greek ideas, and that, on the other hand, it opposed
the strongest barrier to the complete hellenising of Christianity. Neither the
sayings of Jesus, nor Christian hopes, were at first capable of forming such a barrier.
If, now, the majority of Gnostics could make the attempt to disregard the Old Testament,
that is a proof that, in wide circles of Christendom, people were at first satisfied
with an abbreviated form of the Gospel, containing the preaching of the one God,
of the resurrection and of continence,—a law and an ideal of practical life.Otherwise the rise of Gnosticism cannot at all be explained. In
this form, as it was realised in life, the Christianity which dispensed with “doctrines” seemed capable of union with every form of thoughtful and earnest philosophy,
because the Jewish foundation did not make its appearance here at all. But the majority
of Gnostic undertakings may also be viewed as attempts to transform Christianity
into a theosophy, that is, into a revealed metaphysic and philosophy of history,
with a complete disregard of the Jewish Old Testament soil on which it originated,
through the use of Pauline ideas,Cf. Bigg, “The Christian Platonists of Alexandria,” p. 83:
“Gnosticism was in one respect distorted Paulinism” and under the influence of the Platonic spirit.
Moreover, comparison is possible between writers such as Barnabas and Ignatius,
and the so-called Gnostics, to the effect of making the latter appear in possession
of a completed theory, to which fragmentary ideas in the former exhibit a striking
affinity.
We have hitherto tacitly presupposed that in Gnosticism the Hellenic
spirit desired to make itself master of Christianity, or more correctly of the Christian
communities. This conception may be, and really is still contested. For according
to the accounts of later opponents, and on these we are almost exclusively dependent
here, the main thing with the Gnostics seems to have been the reproduction of Asiatic
Mythologoumena of all kinds, so that we should rather have to
see in Gnosticism a union of Christianity with the most remote
Oriental cults and their wisdom. But with regard to the most important Gnostic systems
the words hold true, “The hands are the hands of Esau, but the voice is the voice
of Jacob.” There can be no doubt of the fact, that the Gnosticism which has become
a factor in the movement of the history of dogma, was ruled in the main by the Greek
spirit, and determined by the interests and doctrines of the Greek philosophy of
religion,Joel, “Blick in die Religionsgesch.” Vol I. pp. 101-170, has
justly emphasised the Greek character of Gnosis, and insisted on the significance
of Platonism for it. “The Oriental element did not always in the case of the Gnostics
originate at first hand, but had already passed through a Greek channel.” which doubtless had already assumed a syncretistic character. This fact
is certainly concealed by the circumstance that the material of the speculations
was taken now from this, and now from that Oriental religious philosophy, from astrology
and the Semitic cosmologies. But that is only in keeping with the stage which the
religious development had reached among the Greeks and Romans of that time.The age of the Antonines was the flourishing period of Gnosticism.
Marquardt (Römische Staatsverwaltung, vol. 3, p. 81) says of this age: “With the
Antonines begins the last period of the Roman religious development, in which two
new elements enter into it. These are the Syrian and Persian deities, whose worship
at this time was prevalent not only in the city of Rome, but in the whole empire,
and at the same time Christianity, which entered into conflict with all ancient
tradition, and in this conflict exercised a certain influence even on the Oriental
forms of worship. The
cultured, and these primarily come into consideration here, no longer had a religion
in the sense of a national religion, but a philosophy of religion. They were, however,
in search of a religion, that is, a firm basis for the results of their speculations,
and they hoped to obtain it by turning themselves towards the very old Oriental
cults, and seeking to fill them with the religious and moral knowledge which had
been gained by the Schools of Plato and of Zeno. The union of the traditions and
rites of the Oriental religions, viewed as mysteries, with the spirit of Greek philosophy
is the characteristic of the epoch. The needs, which asserted themselves with equal
strength, of a complete knowledge of the All, of a spiritual God, a sure and therefore
very old revelation,
atonement and immortality, were thus to be satisfied at one and
the same time. The most sublimated spiritualism enters here into the strangest union
with a crass superstition based on Oriental cults. This superstition was supposed
to insure and communicate the spiritual blessings. These complicated tendencies
now entered into Christianity.
We have accordingly to ascertain and distinguish in the prominent
Gnostic schools, which, in the second century on Greek soil, became an important
factor in the history of the Church, the Semitic-cosmological foundations, the Hellenic
philosophic mode of thought, and the recognition of the redemption of the world
by Jesus Christ. Further, we have to take note of the three elements of Gnosticism,
viz., the speculative and philosophical, the mystic element connection with worship,
and the practical, ascetic. The close connection in which these three elements appear,It is a special merit of Weingarten (Histor. Ztschr. Bd. 45.
1881. p. 441 f.) and Koffmane (De Gnosis nach ihrer Tendenz und Organisation, 1881)
to have strongly emphasised the mystery character of Gnosis, and in connection with
that, its practical aims. Koffmane, especially, has collected abundant material
for proving that the tendency of the Gnostics was the same as that of the ancient
mysteries, and that they thence borrowed their organisation and discipline. This
fact proves the proposition that Gnosticism was an acute hellenising of Christianity.
Koffmane has, however, undervalued the union of the practical and speculative tendency
in the Gnostics, and, in the effort to obtain recognition for the mystery character
of the Gnostic communities, has overlooked the fact that they were also schools.
The union of mystery-cultus and school is just, however, their characteristic. In
this also they prove themselves the forerunners of Neoplatonism and the Catholic
Church. Moehler in his programme of 1831 (Urspr. d. Gnosticismus Tübingen), vigorously
emphasised the practical tendency of Gnosticism, though not in a convincing way.
Hackenschmidt (Anfänge des katholischen Kirchenbegriffs, p. 83 f.) has judged correctly.
the total transformation of all ethical into cosmological problems, the upbuilding
of a philosophy of God and the world on the basis of a combination of popular Mythologies,
physical observations belonging to the Oriental (Babylonian) religious philosophy,
and historical events, as well as the idea that the history of religion is the last
act in the drama-like history of the Cosmos—all this is not peculiar to Gnosticism,
but rather corresponds to a definite stage of the general development. It may, however,
be asserted that Gnosticism anticipated the general development, and that not
only with regard to Catholicism, but also with regard to Neoplatonism,
which represents the last stage in the inner history of Hellenism.We have also evidence of the methods by which ecstatic visions
were obtained among the Gnostics: see the Pistis Sophia, and the important role
which prophets and Apocalypses played in several important Gnostic communities (Barcoph
and Barcabbas, prophets of the Basilideans; Martiades and Marsanes among the Ophites;
Philumene in the case of Apelles; Valentinian prophecies; Apocalypses of Zostrian,
Zoroaster, etc.). Apocalypses were also used by some under the names of Old Testament
men of God and Apostles. The Valentinians
have already got as far as Jamblichus. The name Gnosis, Gnostics, describes excellently
the aims of Gnosticism, in so far as its adherents boasted of the absolute knowledge,
and faith in the Gospel was transformed into a knowledge of God, nature and history.
This knowledge, however, was not regarded as natural, but in the view of the Gnostics
was based on revelation, was communicated and guaranteed by holy consecrations,
and was accordingly cultivated by reflection supported by fancy. A mythology of
ideas was created out of the sensuous mythology of any Oriental religion, by the
conversion of concrete forms into speculative and moral ideas, such as “Abyss,”
“Silence,” “Logos,” “Wisdom,” “Life,” while the mutual relation and number of these
abstract ideas were determined by the data supplied by the corresponding concretes.
Thus arose a philosophic dramatic poem similar to the Platonic, but much more complicated,
and therefore more fantastic, in which mighty powers, the spiritual and good, appear
in an unholy union with the material and wicked, but from which the spiritual is
finally delivered by the aid of those kindred powers which are too exalted to be
ever drawn down into the common. The good and heavenly which has been drawn down
into the material, and therefore really non-existing, is the human spirit, and the
exalted power who delivers it is Christ. The Evangelic history as handed down is
not the history of Christ, but a collection of allegoric representations of the
great history of God and the world. Christ has really no history. His appearance
in this world of mixture and confusion is his deed, and the enlightenment of the
spirit about itself is the result which springs out of that deed. This
enlightenment itself is life. But the enlightenment is dependent
on revelation, asceticism and surrender to those mysteries which Christ founded,
in which one enters into præsens numen and which in mysterious
ways promote the process of raising the spirit above the sensual. This rising above
the sensual is, however, to be actively practised. Abstinence therefore, as a rule,
is the watchword. Christianity thus appears here as a speculative philosophy which
redeems the spirit by enlightening it, consecrating it, and instructing it in the
right conduct of life. The Gnosis is free from the rationalistic interest in the
sense of natural religion. Because the riddles about the world which it desires
to solve are not properly intellectual, but practical, because it desires to be
in the end γνῶσις σωτηρίας, it removes into the region of the supra-rational the
powers which are supposed to confer vigour and life on the human spirit. Only a
μάθησις, however, united with μυσταγωγία resting on revelation leads thither, not
an exact philosophy. Gnosis starts from the great problem of this world, but occupies
itself with a higher world, and does not wish to be an exact philosophy, but a philosophy
of religion. Its fundamental philosophic doctrines are the following: (1) The indefinable,
infinite nature of the Divine primeval Being exalted above all thought. (2) Matter
as opposed to the Divine Being, and therefore having no real being, the ground of
evil. (3) The fulness of divine potencies, sons, which are thought of partly as
powers, partly as real ideas, partly as relatively independent beings, presenting
in gradation the unfolding and revelation of the Godhead, but at the same time rendering
possible the transition of the higher to the lower. (4) The Cosmos as a mixture
of matter with divine sparks, which has arisen from a descent of the latter into
the former, or, as some say, from the perverse, or at least merely permitted undertaking
of a subordinate spirit. The Demiurge, therefore, is an evil, intermediate, or weak,
but penitent being; the best thing therefore in the world is aspiration. (5) The
deliverance of the spiritual element from its union with matter, or the separation
of the good from the world of sensuality by the Spirit of Christ which operates
through knowledge, asceticism,
and holy consecration: thus originates the perfect Gnostic, the
man who is free from the world, and master of himself, who lives in God and prepares
himself for eternity. All these are ideas for which we find the way prepared in
the philosophy of the time, anticipated by Philo, and represented in Neoplatonism
as the great final result of Greek philosophy. It lies in the nature of the case
that only some men are able to appropriate the Christianity that is comprehended
in these ideas, viz., just as many as are capable of entering into this kind of
Christianity, those who are spiritual. The others must be considered as non-partakers
of the Spirit from the beginning, and therefore excluded from knowledge as the
profanum vulgus. Yet some—the Valentinians, for example—made a distinction in this
vulgus, which can only be discussed later on, because it is connected with the position
of the Gnostics towards Jewish Christian tradition.
The later opponents of Gnosticism preferred to bring out the fantastic
details of the Gnostic systems, and thereby created the prejudice that the essence
of the matter lay in these. They have thus occasioned modern expounders to speculate
about the Gnostic speculations in a manner that is marked by still greater strangeness.
Four observations shew how unhistorical and unjust such a view is, at least with
regard to the chief systems. (1) The great Gnostic schools, wherever they could,
sought to spread their opinions. But it is simply incredible that they should have
expected of all their disciples, male and female, an accurate knowledge of the details
of their system. On the contrary, it may be shewn that they often contented themselves
with imparting consecration, with regulating the practical life of their adherents,
and instructing them in the general features of their system.See Koffmane, beforementioned work, p. 5 f. (2) We see how in
one and the same school—for example, the Valentinian—the details of the religious
metaphysic were very various and changing. (3) We hear but little of conflicts between
the various schools. On the contrary, we learn that the books of doctrine and edification
passed from one school to
another.See Fragm. Murat. V. 81 f.; Clem. Strom. VII. 17. 108; Orig.
Hom. 34. The Marcionite Antitheses were probably spread among other Gnostic sects.
The Fathers frequently emphasise the fact that the Gnostics were united against
the Church: Tertullian de præscr. 42: “Et hoc est, quod schismata apud hæreticos
fere non sunt, quia cum Sint, non parent. Schisma est enim unitas ipsa.” They certainly
also delight in emphasising the contradictions of the different schools; but they
cannot point to any earnest conflict of these schools with each other. We know definitely
that Bardasanes argued against the earlier Gnostics, and Ptolemæus against Marcion. (4) The fragments of Gnostic writings which have been
preserved, and this is the most important consideration of the four, shew that the
Gnostics devoted their main strength to the working out of those religious, moral,
philosophical and historical problems which must engage the thoughtful of all times.See the collection, certainly not complete, of Gnostic fragments
by Grabe (Spicileg.) and Hilgenfeld (Ketzergeschichte). Our books on the history
of Gnosticism take far too little notice of these fragments as presented to us,
above all, by Clement and Origen, and prefer to keep to the doleful accounts of
the Fathers about the “Systems,” (better in Heinrici: Valent. Gnosis, 1871). The
vigorous efforts of the Gnostics to understand the Pauline and Johannine ideas,
and their in part surprisingly rational and ingenious solutions of intellectual
problems, have never yet been systematically estimated. Who would guess, for example,
from what is currently known of the system of Basilides, that, according to Clement,
the following proceeds from him, (Strom. IV. 12. 18): ὡς αὐτός φησιν ὁ Βασιλείδης,
ἓν μέρος ἐκ τοῦ λεγομένου θελήματος τοῦ θεοῦ ὑπειλήφαμεν, τὸ ἡγαπηκέναι ἅπαντα.
ὅτι λόγον ἀποσώζουσι πρὸς τὸ πᾶν ἅπαντα· ἕτερον δὲ τὸ μηδενὸς ἐπιθυμεῖν, καὶ τὸ
τρίτον μισείν μηδὲ ἕν? and where do we find, in the period before Clement of Alexandria,
faith in Christ united with such spiritual maturity and inner freedom as in Valentinus,
Ptolemæus and Heracleon?
We only need to read some actual Gnostic document, such as the Epistle of Ptolemæus
to Flora, or certain paragraphs of the Pistis Sophia, in order to see that the fantastic
details of the philosophic poem can only, in the case of the Gnostics themselves,
have had the value of liturgical apparatus, the construction of which was not of
course matter of indifference, but hardly formed the principle interest. The things
to be proved and to be confirmed by the aid of this or that very old religious philosophy,
were certain religious and moral fundamental convictions, and a correct conception
of God, of the sensible, of the creator of the world, of Christ, of the Old Testament,
and the evangelic tradition. Here were actual dogmas. But how the grand fantastic
union of all the
factors was to be brought about, was, as the Valentinian school
shews, a problem whose solution was ever and again subjected to new attempts.Testament of Tertullian (adv. Valent. 4) shews the difference
between the solution of Valentinus, for example, and his disciple Ptolemæus. “Ptolemæus
nomina et numeros Æonum distinxit in personales substantias, sed extra deum determinatas,
quas Valentinus in ipsa summa divinitatis ut sensus et affectus motus incluserat.”
It is, moreover, important that Tertullian himself should distinguish this so clearly. No
one to-day can in all respects distinguish what to those thinkers was image and
what reality, or in what degree they were at all able to distinguish image from
reality, and in how far the magic formulæ of their mysteries were really objects
of their meditation. But the final aim of their endeavours, the faith and knowledge
of their own hearts which they instilled into their disciples, the practical rules
which they wished to give them, and the view of Christ which they wished to confirm
them in, stand out with perfect clearness. Like Plato, they made their explanation
of the world start from the contradiction between sense and reason, which the thoughtful
man observes in himself. The cheerful asceticism, the powers of the spiritual and
the good which were seen in the Christian communities, attracted them and seemed
to require the addition of theory to practice. Theory without being followed by
practice had long been in existence, but here was the as yet rare phenomenon of
a moral practice which seemed to dispense with that which was regarded as indispensable,
viz., theory. The philosophic life was already there; how could the philosophic
doctrine be wanting, and after what other model could the latent doctrine be reproduced
than that of the Greek religious philosophy?There is nothing here more instructive than to hear the judgments
of the cultured Greeks and Romans about Christianity, as soon as they have given
up the current gross prejudices. They shew with admirable clearness the way in which
Gnosticism originated. Galen says (quoted by Gieseler, Church Hist. 1. 1. 4): “Hominum plerique orationem demonstrativam continuam mente assequi nequeunt, quare indigent,
ut instituantur parabolis. Veluti nostro tempore videmus, homines illos, qui Christiani
vocantur, fidem suam e parabolis petiisse. Hi tamen interdum talia faciunt, qualia
qui vere philosophantur. Nam quod mortem contemnunt, id quidem omnes ante oculos
habemus; item quod verecundia quadam ducti ab usu rerum venerearam abhorrent. Sunt
enim inter eos feminas et viri, qui per totam vitam a concubitu abstinuerint; sunt
etiam qui in animis regendis coërcendisque et in accerrimo honestatis studio eo
progressi sint, ut nihil cedant vere philosophantibus.” Christians, therefore, are
philosophers without philosophy. What a challenge for them to produce such, that
is to seek out the latent philosophy! Even Celsus could not but admit a certain
relationship between Christians and philosophers. But as he was convinced that the
miserable religion of the Christians could neither include nor endure a philosophy,
he declared that the moral doctrines of the Christians were borrowed from the philosophers
(I. 4). In course of his presentation (V. 65: VI. 12, 15-19, 42: VII. 27-35) he
deduces the most decided marks of Christianity, as well as the most important sayings
of Jesus from (misunderstood) statements of Plato and other Greek philosophers.
This is not the place to shew the contradictions in which Celsus was involved by
this. But it is of the greatest significance that even this intelligent man could
only see philosophy where he saw something precious. The whole of Christianity from
its very origin appeared to Celsus (in one respect) precisely as the Gnostic systems
appear to us, that is, these really are what Christianity as such seemed to Celsus
to be. Besides, it was constantly asserted up to the fifth century that Christ had
drawn from Plato’s writings. Against those who made this assertion, Ambrosius (according
to Augustine, Ep. 31. C. 8) wrote a treatise, which unfortunately is no longer in
existence. That the Hellenic
spirit in Gnosticism turned with such eagerness to the Christian
communities and was ready even to believe in Christ in order to appropriate the
moral powers which it saw operative in them, is a convincing proof of the extraordinary
impression which these communities made. For what other peculiarities and attractions
had they to offer to that spirit than the certainty of their conviction (of eternal
life), and the purity of their life? We hear of no similar edifice being erected
in the second century on the basis of any other Oriental cult—even the Mithras cult
is scarcely to be mentioned here—as the Gnostic was on the foundation of the Christian.The Simonian system at most might be named, on the basis of
the syncretistic religion founded by Simon Magus. But we know little about it, and
that little is uncertain. Parallel attempts are demonstrable in the third century
on the basis of various “revealed” fundamental ideas (ἡ ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφία). The Christian communities, however, together with their worship of Christ, formed
the real solid basis of the greater number and the most important of the Gnostic
systems, and in this fact we have, on the very threshold of the great conflict,
a triumph of Christianity over Hellenism. The triumph lay in the recognition of
what Christianity had already performed as a moral and social power. This recognition
found expression in bringing the highest that one possessed as a gift to be consecrated
by the new religion, a philosophy of religion whose end was plain
and simple, but whose means were mysterious and complicated.
§ 3. History of Gnosticism and the forms in which it appeared.
In the previous section we have been contemplating Gnosticism
as it reached its prime in the great schools of Basilides and Valentinus, and those
related to them,Among these I reckon those Gnostics whom Irenæus (I. 29-31)
has portrayed, as well as part of the so-called Ophites, Peratæ, Sethites and the
school of the Gnostic Justin (Hippol. Philosoph. V. 6-28). There is no reason for
regarding them as earlier or more Oriental than the Valentinians, as is done by
Hilgenfeld against Baur, Möller, and Gruber (the Ophites, 1864). See also Lipsius,
“Ophit. Systeme,” i. d. Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1863. IV. 1864, I. These schools
claimed for themselves the name Gnostic (Hippol. Philosoph V. 6). A part of them,
as is specially apparent from Orig. c. Celsus. VI., is not to be reckoned Christian.
This motley group is but badly known to us through Epiphanius, much better through
the original Gnostic writings preserved in the Coptic language. (Pistis Sophia and
the works published by Carl Schmidt. Texte u. Unters. Bd. VIII.) Yet these original
writings belong, for the most part, to the second half of the third century (see
also the important statements of Porphyry in the Vita Plotini. c. 16), and shew
a Gnosticism burdened with an abundance of wild speculations, formulæ, mysteries,
and ceremonial. However, from these very monuments it becomes plain that Gnosticism
anticipated Catholicism as a ritual system (see below). at the close of the period we are now considering, and became
an important factor in the history of dogma. But this Gnosticism had (1) preliminary
stages, and (2) was always accompanied by a great number of sects, schools and undertakings
which were only in part related to it, and yet, reasonably enough, were grouped
together with it.
To begin with the second point, the great Gnostic schools were
flanked on the right and left by a motley series of groups which at their extremities
can hardly be distinguished from popular Christianity on the one hand, and from
the Hellenic and the common world on the other.On Marcion, see the following Chapter. On the right were communities
such as the Encratites, which put all stress on a strict asceticism, in support
of which they urged the example of Christ, but which here and there fell into dualistic
ideas.We know that from the earliest period (perhaps we might refer
even to the Epistle to the Romans) there were circles of ascetics in the Christian
communities who required of all, as an inviolable law, under the name of Christian
perfection, complete abstinence from marriage, renunciation of possessions, and
a vegetarian diet. (Clem. Strom. III. 6. 49: ὑπὸ διαβόλου ταύτην παραδίδοθσαι δογματίζουσι,
μιμεῖσθαι δ᾽ αὐτοὺς οἱ μεγάλαυχοί φασι τὸν κύριον μήτε γήμαντα, μήτε τι ἐν τῷ κόσμῳ
κτησάμενον μᾶλλον παρὰ τοὺς ἄλλους νενοηκέναι τὸ εὐαγγέλιον καυχόμενοι—Here then,
already, imitation of the poor life of Jesus, the “Evangelic” life, was the watchword.
Tatian wrote a book, περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν σωτῆρα καταρτισμοῦ, that is, on perfection
according to the Redeemer: in which he set forth the irreconcilability of the worldly
life with the Gospel). No doubt now existed in tht; Churches that abstinence from
marriage, from wine and flesh, and from possessions, was the perfect fulfilling
of the law of Christ (βαστάζειν ὅλον τὸν ζυγὸν τοῦ κύριου). But in wide circles strict
abstinence was deduced from a special charism, all boastfulness was forbidden, and
the watchword given out: ὅσον δύνασαι ἁγνεύσεις, which may be understood as a compromise
with the worldly life as well as a reminiscence of a freer morality (see my notes
on Didache, c. 6: 11, 11 and Prolegg. p. 42 ff.). Still, the position towards asceticism
yielded a hard problem, the solution of which was more and more found in distinguishing
a higher and a lower though sufficient morality, yet repudiating the higher morality
as soon as it claimed to be the alone authoritative one. On the other hand, there
were societies of Christian ascetics who persisted in applying literally to all
Christians the highest demands of Christ, and thus arose, by secession, the communities
of the Encratites and Severians. But in the circumstances of the time even they
could not but be touched by the Hellenic mode of thought, to the effect of associating
a speculative theory with asceticism, and thus approximating to Gnosticism. This
is specially plain in Tatian, who connected himself with the Encratites, and in
consequence of the severe asceticism which he prescribed, could no longer maintain
the identity of the supreme God and the creator of the world (see the fragments
of his later writings in the Corp. Apol. ed. Otto. T. VI.). As the Pauline Epistles
could furnish arguments to either side, we see some Gnostics, such as Tatian himself,
making diligent use of them, while others, such as the Severians, rejected them.
(Euseb. H. E. IV. 29, 5, and Orig. c. Cels. V. 65). The Encratite controversy was,
on the one hand, swallowed up by the Gnostic, and on the other hand, replaced by
the Montanistic. The treatise written in the days of Marcus Aurelius by a certain
Musanus (where?) which contains warnings against joining the Encratites (Euseb.
H. E. VI. 28) we unfortunately no longer possess. There were, further, whole communities which, for decennia, drew their
views of Christ from books which represented him as a heavenly
spirit who had merely assumed an apparent body.See Eusebius, H. E. VI. 12. Docetic elements are apparent even
in the fragment of the Gospel of Peter recently discovered. There were also individual teachers
who brought forward peculiar opinions without thereby causing any immediate stir
in the Churches.Here, above all, we have to remember Tatian, who in his highly
praised Apology had already rejected altogether the eating of flesh (c. 23) and
set up very peculiar doctrines about the spirit, matter, and the nature of man (c.
12 ff.). The fragments of the Hypotyposes of Clem. of Alex. show how much one had
to bear in some rural Churches at the end of the second century. On the left there were schools such as the Carpocratians, in which
the philosophy and communism of Plato
were taught, the son of the founder and second teacher Epiphanes honoured
as a God (at Cephallenia), as Epicurus was in his school, and the image of Jesus
crowned along with those of Pythagoras, Plato and Aristotle.See Clem. Strom. III. 2. 5; Ἐπιφάνης, ὑιὸς Καρποκράτους, ἔζησε
τὰ πάντα ἔτη ἑπτακαίδεκα καί θεὸς ἐν Σαμῃ τῆς Κεφαλληνίας τετίμηται, ἔνθα αὐτῷ ἱερὸν
ῥυτῶν λίθων, βωμοί, τεμένη, μουσεῖον, ᾠκοδόμηταί τε καί καθιέρωται, καὶ συνιόντες
εἰς τὸ ἱερὸν οἱ Καφαλλῆνες κατὰ νουμηνίαν γενέθλιον ἀποθέωσιν θύουσιν Ἐπιφάνει,
ππένδουσι τε καὶ εὐωχοῦνται καί ὕμνοι λέγονται. Clement’s quotations from the writings
of Epiphanes shew him to be a pure Platonist: the proposition that property is theft
is found in him. Epiphanes and his father, Carpocrates, were the first who attempted
to amalgamate Plato’s State with the Christian ideal of the union of men with each
other. Christ was to them, therefore, a philosophic Genius like Plato, see Irenæus.
I. 25. 5: “Gnosticos autem se vocant, etiam imagines, quasdam quidem depictas, quasdam
autem et de reliqua materia fabricatas habent et eas coronant, et proponent eas
cum imaginibus mundi philosophorum, videlicet cum imagine Pythagoræ et Platonis
et Aristotelis et reliquorum, et reliquam observationem circa eas similiter ut gentes
faciunt.” On this left flank
are, further, swindlers who take their own way, like Alexander of Abonoteichus,
magicians, soothsayers, sharpers and jugglers, under the sign-board of Christianity,
deceivers and hypocrites who appear using mighty words with a host of unintelligible
formulæ, and take up with scandalous ceremonies in order to rob men of their money
and women of their honour.See the “Gnostics” of Hermas, especially the false prophet whom
he portrays, Maud XI., Lucian’s Peregrinus, and the Marcus, of whose doings Irenæus
(I. 13 ff.) gives such an abominable picture. To understand how such people were
able to obtain a following so quickly in the Churches, we must remember the respect
in which the “prophets” were held (see Didache XI.). If one had once given the impression
that he had the Spirit, he could win belief for the strangest things, and could
allow himself all things possible (see the delineations of Celsus in Orig. c. Cels.
VII. 9. 11). We hear frequently of Gnostic prophets and prophetesses: see my notes
on Herm. Mand. XI. 1. and Didache XI. 7. If an early Christian element is here preserved
by the Gnostic schools, it has undoubtedly been hellenised and secularised as the
reports shew. But that the prophets altogether were in danger of being secularised
is shewn in Didache XI. In the case of the Gnostics the process is again only hastened. All this was afterwards called “Heresy” and “Gnosticism,”
and is still so called.The name Gnostic originally attached to schools which had so
named themselves. To these belonged above all, the so-called Ophites, but not the
Valentinians or Basilideans. And these names may be retained, if
we will understand by them nothing else than the world taken into
Christianity, all the manifold formations which resulted from the first contact
of the new religion with the society into which it entered. To prove the existence
of that left wing of Gnosticism is of the greatest interest for the history of dogma,
but the details are of no consequence. On the other hand, in the aims and undertakings
of the Gnostic right, it is just the details that are of greatest significance,
because they shew that there was no fixed boundary between what one may call common
Christian and Gnostic Christian. But as Gnosticism, in its contents, extended itself
from the Encratites and the philosophic interpretation of certain articles of the
Christian proclamation as brought forward without offence by individual teachers
in the communities, to the complete dissolution of the Christian element by philosophy,
or the religious charlatanry of the age, so it exhibits itself formally also in
a long series of groups which comprised all imaginable forms of unions. There were
churches, ascetic associations, mystery cults, strictly private philosophic schools,Special attention should be given to this form, as it became
in later times of the very greatest importance for the general development of doctrine
in the Church. The sect of Carpocrates was a school. Of Tatian, Irenæus says (I.
28. 1): Τατίανος Ἰουστινου ἀκροατὴς γεγονώς . . . . μετὰ δὲ τὴν ἐκείνου
μαρτυρίαν ἀποστὰς τῆς ἐκκλησίας, οἰήματι διδασκάλου ἐπαρθεὶς . . . . ἴδιον χαρακτῆρα
διδασκαλείου συνεστήσατο. Rhodon (in Euseb. H. E. V. 13. 4) speaks of a Marcionite
διαασκαλεῖον. Other names were: “Collegium” (Tertull. ad Valent. 1); “Secta,” the
word had not always a bad meaning; αἵρεσις, ἐκκλησία (Clem. Strom. VII. 16. 98;
on the other hand, VII. 15. 92: Tertull. de præscr. 42: plerique nec Ecclesias habent);
θίασος (Iren. I. 13, 4, for the Marcosians), συναγωγή, σύστημα, διατριβή, αἱ ἀθρώπιναι
συνηλύσεις, factiuncula, congregatio, conciliabulum, conventiculum. The mystery-organisation
most clearly appears in the Naassenes of Hippolytus, the Marcosians of Irenæus,
and the Elkasites of Hippolytus, as well as the Coptic-Gnostic documents that have
been preserved. (See Koffmane, above work, pp. 6-22). free unions for edification, entertainments by Christian charlatans and deceived
deceivers, who appeared as magicians and prophets, attempts at founding new religions
after the model and under the influence of the Christian, etc. But, finally, the
thesis that Gnosticism is identical with an acute secularising of Christianity in
the widest sense of the word, is confirmed by the study of its own literature. The
early Christian production
of Gospel and Apocalypses was indeed continued in Gnosticism,
yet so that the class of “Acts of the Apostles” was added to them, and that didactic,
biographic and “belles lettres” elements were received into them, and claimed a
very important place. If this makes the Gnostic literature approximate to the profane,
that is much more the case with the scientific theological literature which Gnosticism
first produced. Dogmatico-philosophic tracts, theologico-critical treatises, historical
investigations and scientific commentaries on the sacred books, were, for the first
time in Christendom, composed by the Gnostics, who in part occupied the foremost
place in the scientific knowledge, religious earnestness and ardour of the age.
They form in every respect the counterpart to the scientific works which proceeded
from the contemporary philosophic schools. Moreover, we possess sufficient knowledge
of Gnostic hymns and odes, songs for public worship, didactic poems, magic formulæ,
magic books, etc., to assure us that Christian Gnosticism took possession of a whole
region of the secular life in its full breadth, and thereby often transformed the
original forms of Christian literature into secular.The particulars here belong to church history. Overbeck (“Ueber
die Anfänge der patristischen Litteratur” in d. hist. Ztschr. N. F. Bd. XII. p.
417 ff.) has the merit of being the first to point out the importance, for the history
of the Church, of the forms of literature as they were gradually received in Christendom.
Scientific, theological literature has undoubtedly its origin in Gnosticism. The
Old Testament was here, for the first time, systematically and also in part historically
criticised; a selection was here made from the primitive Christian literature; scientific
commentaries were here written on the sacred hooks (Basilides and especially the
Valentinians, see Heracleon’s comm. on the Gospel of John [in Origen]; the Pauline
Epistles were also technically expounded; tracts were here composed on dogmatico-philosophic
problems (for example, περὶ δικαιοσύνης—τερὶ προσφυοῦς ψυχῆς—ἡθικὰ—περὶ ἐγκρατείας
ἡ περὶ εὐνουχίας), and systematic doctrinal systems already constructed (as the
Basilidean and Valentinian); the original form of the Gospel was here first transmuted
into the Greek form of sacred novel and biography (see, above all, the Gospel of
Thomas, which was used by the Marcosians and Naassenes, and which contained miraculous
stories from the childhood of Jesus); here, finally, psalms, odes and hymns were
first composed (see the Acts of Lucius, the psalms of Valentinus, the psalms of
Alexander the disciple of Valentinus, the poems of Bardesanes). Irenæus, Tertullian
and Hippolytus have indeed noted that the scientific method of interpretation followed
by the Gnostics, was the same as that of the philosophers (e.g., of Philo). Valentinus,
as is recognised even by the Church Fathers, stands out prominent for his mental
vigour and religious imagination; Heracleon for his exegetic theological ability;
Ptolemy for his ingenious criticism of the Old Testament and his keen perception
of the stages of religious development (see his Epistle to Flora in Epiphanius,
hær. 33. c. 7). As a specimen of the language of Valentinus one extract from a homily
may suffice (in Clem. Strom. IV. 13. 89). Ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς ἀθάνατοί ἐστε καὶ τέκνα ζωῆς
ἐστε αἰωνίας, καὶ τὸν θάνατον ἡθέλετε μερίσασθαι εἰς ἐαυτούς, ἵνα δαπανήσιτε αὐτὸν
καὶ ἀναλώσητε, καὶ ἀποθάνή ὁ θάνατος ἐν ὑμῖν καὶ δι᾽ ὑμῶν, ὅταν γὰρ τὸν μὲν κόσμον
λύητε, αὐτοι δὲ μὴ κατλύησθε, κυριεύετε τῆς κρίσεως καὶ τῆς φθορᾶς ἀπάσης. Basilides
falls into the background behind Valentinus and his school. Yet the Church Fathers,
when they wish to summarise the most important Gnostics, usually mention Simon Magus,
Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion (even Apelles). On the relation of the Gnostics to
the New Testament writings and to the New Testament, see Zahn, Gesch. des N. T.-lichen Kanons. I. 2. p. 718. If,
however, we bear in mind how all this at a later period was gradually
legitimised in the Catholic Church, philosophy, the science of the sacred books,
criticism and exegesis, the ascetic associations, the theological schools, the mysteries,
the sacred formulæ, the superstition, the charlatanism, all kinds of profane literature,
etc., it seems to prove the thesis that the victorious epoch of the gradual hellenising
of Christianity followed the abortive attempts at an acute hellenising.
The traditional question as to the origin and development of Gnosticism,
as well as that about the classification of the Gnostic systems, will have to be
modified in accordance with the foregoing discussion. As the different Gnostic systems
might be contemporary, and in part were undoubtedly contemporary, and as a
graduated relation holds good only between some few groups, we must, in the
classification, limit ourselves essentially to the features which have been
specified in the foregoing paragraph, and which coincide with the position of
the different groups to the early Christian tradition in its connection with the
Old Testament religion, both as a rule of practical life, and of the common
cultus.Baur’s classification of the Gnostic systems, which rests on
the observation of how they severally realised the idea of Christianity as the absolute
religion in contrast to Judaism and Heathenism, is very ingenious and contains a
great element of truth. But it is insufficient with reference to the whole phenomenon
of Gnosticism, and has been carried out by Baur by violent abstractions.
As to the origin of Gnosticism, we see how, even in the earliest
period, all possible ideas and principles foreign to Christianity force their way
into it, that is, are brought in
under Christian rules, and find entrance, especially in the consideration
of the Old Testament.The question, therefore, as to the time of the origin of Gnosticism
as a complete phenomenon cannot be answered. The remarks of Hegesippus (Euseb. H.
E. IV. 22) refer to the Jerusalem Church, and have not even for that the value of
a fixed datum. The only important question here is the point of time at which the
expulsion or secession of the schools and unions took place in the different national
churches. We might be satisfied with the observation that the manifold
Gnostic systems were produced by the increase of this tendency. In point of fact
we must admit that in the present state of our sources, we can reach no sure knowledge
beyond that. These sources, however, give certain indications which should not be
left unnoticed. If we leave out of account the two assertions of opponents, that
Gnosticism was produced by demonsJustin Apol. 1. 26. and—this, however, was said at a comparatively
late period—that it originated in ambition and resistance to the ecclesiastical
office, the episcopate, we find in Hegesippus, one of the earliest writers on the
subject, the statement that the whole of the heretical schools sprang out of Judaism
or the Jewish sects; in the later writers, Irenæus, Tertullian and Hippolytus, that
these schools owe most to the doctrines of Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, etc.Hegesippus in Euseb. H. E. IV. 22, Iren. II. 14. 1 f., Tertull.
de præscr. 7, Hippol. Philosoph. The Church Fathers have also noted the likeness
of the cultus of Mithras and other deities.
But they all agree in this, that a definite personality, viz., Simon the
Magician, must be regarded as the original source of the heresy. If we try it by
these statements of the Church Fathers, we must see at once that the problem in
this case is limited—certainly in a proper way. For after Gnosticism is seen to
be the acute secularising of Christianity the only question that remains is, how
are we to account for the origin of the great Gnostic schools, that is, whether
it is possible to indicate their preliminary stages. The following may be
asserted here with some confidence: Long before the appearance of Christianity,
combinations of religion had taken place in Syria and Palestine,We must leave the Essenes entirely out of account here, as their
teaching, in all probability, is not to be considered syncretistic in the strict
sense of the word, (see Lucius, “Der Essenismus,” 1881,) and as we know absolutely
nothing of a greater diffusion of it. But we need no names here, as a syncretistic,
ascetic Judaism could and did arise everywhere in Palestine and the Diaspora.
especially in Samaria, in so far, on the one hand, as the Assyrian
and Babylonian religious philosophy, together with its myths, as well as the Greek
popular religion with its manifold interpretations, had penetrated as far as the
eastern shore of the Mediterranean, and been accepted even by the Jews; and, on
the other hand, the Jewish Messianic idea had spread and called forth various movements.Freudenthal’s a Hellenistische Studien” informs us as to the
Samaritan syncretism; see also Hilgenfeld’s “Ketzergeschichte,” p. 149 ff. As to
the Babylonian mythology in Gnosticism, see the statements in the elaborate article,
“Manichäismus,” by Kessler (Real-Encycl. für protest. Theol., 2 Aufl.).
The result of every mixing of national religions, however, is to break through the
traditional, legal and particular forms.Wherever traditional religions are united under the badge of
philosophy a conservative syncretism is the result, because the allegoric method,
that is, the criticism of all religion, veiled and unconscious of itself, is able
to blast rocks and bridge over abysses. All forms may remain here under certain
circumstances, but a new spirit enters into them. On the other hand, where philosophy
is still weak, and the traditional religion is already shaken by another, there
arises the critical syncretism in which either the gods of one religion are subordinated
to those of another, or the elements of the traditional religion are partly eliminated
and replaced by others. Here, also, the soil is prepared for new religious formations,
for the appearance of religious founders. For the Jewish religion syncretism signified
the shaking of the authority of the Old Testament by a qualitative distinction of
its different parts, as also doubt as to the identity of the supreme God with the
national God. These ferments were once more set in motion by Christianity. We know
that in the Apostolic age there were attempts in Samaria to found new religions,
which were in all probability influenced by the tradition and preaching concerning
Jesus. Dositheus, Simon Magus, Cleobius, and Menander appeared as Messiahs or bearers
of the God-head, and proclaimed a doctrine in which the Jewish faith was strangely
and grotesquely mixed with Babylonian myths, together with some Greek additions.
The mysterious worship, the breaking up of Jewish particularism, the criticism of
the Old Testament,—which for long had had great difficulty in retaining its authority
in many circles, in consequence of the
widened horizon and the deepening of religious feeling,—finally,
the wild syncretism, whose aim, however, was a universal religion, all contributed
to gain adherents for Simon.It was a serious mistake of the critics to regard Simon Magus
as a fiction, which, moreover, has been given up by Hilgenfeld (Ketzergeschichte,
p. 163 ff.), and Lipsius (Apocr. Apostelgesch. II. 1),—the latter, however, not
decidedly. The whole figure as well as the doctrines attributed to Simon (see Acts
of the Apostles, Justin, Irenæus, Hippolytus) not only have nothing improbable in
them, but suit very well the religious circumstances which we must assume for Samaria.
The main point in Simon is his endeavour to create a universal religion of the supreme
God. This explains his success among the Samaritans and Greeks. He is really a counterpart
to Jesus, whose activity can just as little have been unknown to him as that of
Paul. At the same time it cannot be denied that the later tradition about Simon
was the most confused and biassed imaginable, or that certain Jewish Christians
at a later period may have attempted to endow the magician with the features of
Paul in order to discredit the personality and teaching of the Apostle. But this
last assumption requires a fresh investigation. His enterprise appeared to the Christians as a diabolical
caricature of their own religion, and the impression made by the success which Simonianism
gained by a vigorous propaganda even beyond Palestine into the West, supported this
idea.Justin. Apol. 1 26: Καὶ σχεδὸν πάντες μὲν Σαμαρεις, ὀλίγοι δὲ
καὶ ἐν ἄλλοις ἔθνεσιν, ὡς τὸν πρῶτον θεὸν Σίμωνα ὁμολογοῦντες, ἐκεῖνον καὶ προσκυνοῦσιν
(besides the account in the Philos. and Orig. c. Cels. 1. 57: VI. II). The positive
statement of Justin that Simon came even to Rome (under Claudius) can hardly be
refuted from the account of the Apologist himself, and therefore not at all. (See
Renan, “Antichrist”.) We can therefore understand how, afterwards, all heresies were traced back
to Simon. To this must be added that we can actually trace in many Gnostic systems
the same elements which were prominent in the religion proclaimed by Simon (the
Babylonian and Syrian), and that the new religion of the Simonians, just like Christianity,
had afterwards to submit to be transformed into a philosophic, scholastic doctrine.We have it as such in the Μὲγάλη Ἀπόφασις which Hippolytus (Philosoph.
VI. 19. 20) made use of. This Simonianism may perhaps have related to the original,
as the doctrines of the Christian Gnostics to the Apostolic preaching.
The formal parallel to the Gnostic doctrines was therewith established. But even
apart from these attempts at founding new religions, Christianity in Syria, under
the influence of foreign religions and speculation on the philosophy of religion,
gave a powerful impulse to the criticism of the law and the prophets which
had already been awakened. In consequence of this, there appeared,
about the transition of the first century to the second, a series of teachers who,
under the impression of the Gospel, sought to make the Old Testament capable of
furthering the tendency to a universal religion, not by allegorical interpretation,
but by a sifting criticism. These attempts were of very different kinds. Teachers
such as Cerinthus clung to the notion that the universal religion revealed by Christ
was identical with undefiled Mosaism, and therefore maintained even such articles
as circumcision and the Sabbath commandment, as well as the earthly kingdom of the
future. But they rejected certain parts of the law, especially, as a rule, the sacrificial
precepts, which were no longer in keeping with the spiritual conception of religion.
They conceived the creator of the world as a subordinate being distinct from the
supreme God, which is always the mark of a syncretism with a dualistic tendency;
introduced speculations about Æons and angelic powers, among whom they placed Christ,
and recommended a strict asceticism. When, in their Christology, they denied the
miraculous birth, and saw in Jesus a chosen man on whom the Christ, that is, the
Holy Spirit, descended at the baptism, they were not creating any innovation, but
only following the earliest Palestinian tradition. Their rejection of the authority
of Paul is explained by their efforts to secure the Old Testament as far as possible
for the universal religion.The Heretics opposed in the Epistle to the Colossians may belong
to these. On Cerinthus, see Polycarp in Iren. III. 3. 2, Irenæus (I. 26. 1: III.
11. I), Hippolytus and the redactions of the Syntagma, Cajus in Euseb. III. 28.
2, Hilgenfeld, Ketzergeschichte, p. 411 ff. To this category belong also the Ebionites
and Elkasites of Epiphanius. (See Chap. 6.) There were others who rejected all ceremonial commandments
as proceeding from the devil, or from some intermediate being, but yet always held
firmly that the God of the Jews was the supreme God. But alongside of these stood
also decidedly anti-Jewish groups, who seem to have been influenced in part by the
preaching of Paul. They advanced much further in the criticism of the Old Testament,
and perceived the impossibility of saving it for the Christian universal religion.
They rather connected this religion with the cultus-wisdom of
Babylon and Syria, which seemed more adapted for allegorical interpretations, and
opposed this formation to the Old Testament religion. The God of the Old Testament
appears here at best as a subordinate Angel of limited power, wisdom and goodness.
In so far as he was identified with the creator of the world, and the creation of
the world itself was regarded as an imperfect or an abortive undertaking, expression
was given both to the anti-Judaism and to that religious temper of the time which
could only value spiritual blessing in contrast with the world and the sensuous.
These systems appeared more or less strictly dualistic, in proportion as they did
or did not accept a slight co-operation of the supreme God in the creation of man;
and the way in which the character and power of the world-creating God of the Jews
was conceived, serves as a measure of how far the several schools were from the
Jewish religion and the Monism that ruled it. All possible conceptions of the God
of the Jews, from the assumption that he is a being supported in his undertakings
by the supreme God, to his identification with Satan, seem to have been exhausted
in these schools. Accordingly, in the former case, the Old Testament was regarded
as the revelation of a subordinate God, in the latter as the manifestation of Satan,
and therefore the ethic—with occasional use of Pauline formulæ—always assumed an
antinomian form compared with the Jewish law, in some cases antinomian even in the
sense of libertinism. Correspondingly, the anthropology exhibits man as bipartite,
or even tripartite, and the Christology is strictly docetic and anti-Jewish. The
redemption by Christ is always, as a matter of course, related only to that element
in humanity which has an affinity with the Godhead.The two Syrian teachers, Saturninus and Cerdo, must in particular
be mentioned here. The first (See Iren. I. 24. 1. 2, Hippolyt. and the redactions
of the Syntagma) was not strictly speaking a dualist, and therefore allowed the
God of the Old Testament to be regarded as an Angel of the supreme God, while at
the same time he distinguished him from Satan. Accordingly, he assumed that the
supreme God co-operated in the creation of man by angel powers—sending a ray of
light, an image of light, that should be imitated as an example and enjoined as
an ideal. But all men have not received the ray of light. Consequently, two classes
of men stand in abrupt contrast with each other. History is the conflict of the
two. Satan stands at the head of the one, the God of the Jews at the head of the
other. The Old Testament is a collection of prophecies out of both camps. The truly
good first appears in the Æon Christ, who assumed nothing cosmic, did not even submit
to birth. He destroys the works of Satan (generation, eating of flesh), and delivers
the men who have within them a spark of light. The Gnosis of Cerdo was much coarser.
(Iren. I. 27. 1, Hippolyt. and the redactions.) He contrasted the good God and the
God of the Old Testament as two primary beings. The latter he identified with the
creator of the world. Consequently, he completely rejected the Old Testament and
everything cosmic and taught that the good God was first revealed in Christ. Like
Saturninus he preached a strict docetism; Christ had no body, was not born, and
suffered in an unreal body. All else that the Fathers report of Cerdo’s teaching
has probably been transferred to him from Marcion, and is therefore very doubtful.
It is uncertain whether we should think of the spread of these
doctrines in Syria in the form of a school, or of a cultus; probably it was both.
From the great Gnostic systems as formed by Basilides and Valentinus they are distinguished
by the fact that they lack the peculiar philosophic, that is Hellenic, element,
the speculative conversion of angels and /Eons into real ideas, etc. We have almost
no knowledge of their effect. This Gnosticism has never directly been a historical
factor of striking importance, and the great question is whether it was so indirectly.This question might perhaps be answered if we had the Justinian
Syntagma against all heresies; but in the present condition of our sources it remains
wrapped in obscurity. What may be gathered from the fragments of Hegesippus, the
Epistles of Ignatius, the Pastoral Epistles and other documents, such as, for example,
the Epistle of Jude, is in itself so obscure, so detached and so ambiguous that
it is of no value for historical construction. That is to say, we do not know whether this Syrian Gnosticism was, in the strict
sense, the preparatory stage of the great Gnostic schools, so that the schools should
be regarded as an actual reconstruction of it. But there can be no doubt that the
appearance of the great Gnostic schools in the Empire, from Egypt to Gaul, is contemporaneous
with the vigorous projection of Syrian cults westwards, and therefore the assumption
is suggested, that the Syrian Christian syncretism was also spread in connection
with that projection, and underwent a change corresponding to the new conditions.
We know definitely that the Syrian Gnostic, Cerdo, came to Rome, wrought there,
and exercised an influence
on Marcion. But no less probable is the assumption that the great
Hellenic Gnostic schools arose spontaneously, in the sense of having been independently
developed out of the elements to which undoubtedly the Asiatic cults also belonged,
without being influenced in any way by Syrian syncretistic efforts. The conditions
for the growth of such formations were nearly the same in all parts of the Empire.
The great advance lies in the fact that the religious material as contained in the
Gospel, the Old Testament, and the wisdom connected with the old cults, was philosophically,
that is scientifically, manipulated by means of allegory, and the aggregate of mythological
powers translated into an aggregate of ideas. The Pythagorean and Platonic, more
rarely the Stoic philosophy, were compelled to do service here. Great Gnostic schools,
which were at the same time unions for worship, first enter into the clear light
of history in this form, (see previous section), and on the conflict with these,
surrounded as they were by a multitude of dissimilar and related formations, depends
the progress of the development.There are, above all, the schools of the Basilideans, Valentinians
and Ophites. To describe the systems in their full development lies, in my opinion,
outside the business of the history of dogma and might easily lead to the mistake
that the systems as such were controverted, and that their construction was peculiar
to Christian Gnosticism. The construction, as remarked above, is rather that of
the later Greek philosophy, though it cannot be mistaken that, for us, the full
parallel to the Gnostic systems first appears in those of the Neoplatonists. But
only particular doctrines and principles of the Gnostics were really called in question
their critique of the world, of providence, of the resurrection, etc.; these therefore
are to be adduced in the next section. The fundamental features of an inner development
can only be exhibited in the case of the most important, viz., the Valentinian school.
But even here we must distinguish an Eastern and a Western branch. (Tertull. adv.
Valent. I.: “Valentiniani frequentissimum plane collegium inter hæreticos.” Iren.
1. I.; Hippol. Philos. VI. 35; Orig. Hom. II. 5 in Ezech. Lomm. XIV. p. 40: “Valentini
robustissima secta”.)
We are no longer able to form a perfectly clear picture of how
these schools came into being, or how they were related to the Churches. It lay
in the nature of the case that the heads of the schools, like the early itinerant
heretical teachers, devoted attention chiefly, if not exclusively, to those who
were already Christian, that is, to the Christian
communities.Tertull. de præscr. 42: “De verbi autem administratione quid dicam,
cum hoc sit negotium illis, non ethnicos convertendi, sed nostros evertendi? Hanc
magis gloriam captant, si stantibus ruinam, non si jacentibus elevationem operentur.
Quoniam et ipsum opus eorum non de suo proprio ædificio venit, sed de veritatis
destructione; nostra suffodiunt, ut sua ædificent. Adime illis legem Moysis et prophetas
et creatorem deum, accusationem eloqui non habent.” (See adv. Valent. I. init.)
This is hardly a malevolent accusation. The philosophic interpretation of a religion
will always impress those only on whom the religion itself has already made an impression. From the Ignatian Epistles, the Shepherd of Hermas
(Vis. III. 7. 1: Sim. VIII. 6. 5: IX. 19. and especially 22), and the Didache (XI.
I. 2) we see that those teachers who boasted of a special knowledge and sought to
introduce “strange” doctrines, aimed at gaining the entire churches. The beginning,
as a rule, was necessarily the formation of conventicles. In the first period therefore,
when there was no really fixed standard for warding off the foreign doctrines—Hermas
is unable even to characterise the false doctrines—the warnings were commonly exhausted
in the exhortation: κολλᾶσθε τοῖς ἁγίοις, ὅτι οἱ κολλώμενοι αὐτοῖς ἁγιασθήσονται,
[“connect yourselves with the saints, because those who are connected with them
shall be sanctified”]. As a rule, the doctrines may really have crept in unobserved,
and those gained over to them may for long have taken part in a two-fold
worship, the public worship of the churches, and the new consecration. Those teachers
must of course have assumed a more aggressive attitude who rejected the Old Testament.
The attitude of the Church, when it enjoyed competent guidance, was one of decided
opposition towards unmasked or recognised false teachers. Yet Irenæus’ account of
Cerdo in Rome shews us how difficult it was at the beginning to get rid of a false
teacher.Iren. III. 4. 2: Κέρδων εἰς τὴν ἐκκλησίαν ἐλθῶν καὶ ἐξομολογούμενος,
οὕτως διετέλεσε, ποτὲ μὲν λαθροδιδασκαλῶν ποτὲ δὲ πάλιν ἐξομολογούμενος, ποτὲ δὲ
ἐλεγγόμενος ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἐδίδασκε κακῶς, καὶ ἀφιστάμενος τῆς τῶν ἀδελφῶν συνοδίας; see
besides the valuable account of Tertull. de præscr. 30. The account of Irenæus (I.
13) is very instructive as to the kind of propaganda of Marcus, and the relation
of the women he deluded to the Church. Against actually recognised false teachers
the fixed rule was to renounce all intercourse with them (2 Joh. 10. 11; Iren. ep.
ad Florin on Polycarp’s procedure, in Euseb. H. E. V. 20. 7; Iren. III. 3. 4). But
how were the heretics to be surely known? For Justin, about the year 150, the
Marcionites, Valentinians, Basilideans and Saturninians are groups
outside the communities, and undeserving of the name “Christians.”Among those who justly bore this name he distinguishes those
of οἱ ορθεγνώμενες κατὰ πάντα χριστανοί εἰσιν (Dial. 80). There must therefore
have been at that time, in Rome and Asia Minor at least, a really perfect separation
of those schools from the Churches (it was different in Alexandria). Notwithstanding,
this continued to be the region from which those schools obtained their adherents.
For the Valentinians recognised that the common Christians were much better than
the heathen, that they occupied a middle position between the “pneumatic” and the
“hylic,” and might look forward to a kind of salvation. This admission, as well
as their conforming to the common Christian tradition, enabled them to spread their
views in a remarkable way, and they may not have had any objection in many cases,
to their converts remaining in the great Church. But can this community have perceived,
everywhere and at once, that the Valentinian distinction of “psychic” and “pneumatic”
is not identical with the scriptural distinction of children and men in understanding?
Where the organisation of the school (the union for worship) required a long time
of probation, where degrees of connection with it were distinguished, and a strict
asceticism demanded of the perfect, it followed of course that those on the lower
stage should not be urged to a speedy break with the Church.Very important is the description which Irenæus (III. 15. 2)
and Tertullian have given of the conduct of the Valentinians as observed by themselves
(adv. Valent. 1). “Valentiniani nihil magis curant quam occultare, quod prædicant;
si tamen prædicant qui occultant. Custodiæ officium conscientiæ officium est (a
comparison with the Eleusinian mysteries follows). Si bona fide quæras, concreto
vultu, suspenso supercilio, Altum est, aiunt. Si subtiliter temptes per ambiguitates
bilingues communem fidem adfirmant. Si scire to subostendas negant quidquid agnoscunt.
Si cominus certes, tuam simplicitatem sua cæde dispergunt. Ne discipulis quidem
propriis ante committunt quam suos fecerint. Habent artificium quo prius persuadeant
quam edoceant.” At a later period Dionysius of Alex. in Euseb. H. E. VII. 7, speaks
of Christians who maintain an apparent communion with the brethren, but resort to
one of the false teachers (cf. as to this Euseb. H. E. VI. 2. 13). The teaching
of Bardesanes influenced by Valentinus, who, moreover, was hostile to Marcionitism,
was tolerated for a long time in Edessa (by the Christian kings), nay, was recognised.
The Bardesanites and the “Palutians” (catholics) were differentiated only after
the beginning of the third century. But after the creation of the
catholic confederation of churches, existence was made more and
more difficult for these schools. Some of them lived on somewhat like our freemason-unions;
some, as in the East, became actual sects (confessions), in which the wise and the
simple now found a place, as they were propagated by families. In both cases they
ceased to be what they had been at the beginning. From about 210 they ceased to
be a factor of the historical development, though the Church of Constantine and
Theodosius was alone really able to suppress them.
§ 4. The most important Gnostic Doctrines.
We have still to measure and compare with the earliest tradition
those Gnostic doctrines which, partly at once and partly in the following period,
became important. Once more, however, we must expressly refer to the fact that the
epoch-making significance of Gnosticism for the history of dogma must not be sought
chiefly in the particular doctrines, but rather in the whole way in which Christianity
is here conceived and transformed. The decisive thing is the conversion of the Gospel
into a doctrine, into an absolute philosophy of religion, the transforming of the
disciplina Evangelii into an asceticism based on a dualistic conception, and into
a practice of mysteries.There can be no doubt that the Gnostic propaganda was seriously
hindered by the inability to organise and discipline Churches, which is characteristic
of all philosophic systems of religion. The Gnostic organisation of schools and
mysteries was not able to contend with the episcopal organisation of the Churches;
see Ignat. ad Smyr. 6. 2; Tertull. de præscr. 41. Attempts at actual formation of
Churches were not altogether wanting in the earliest period; at a later period they
were forced on some schools. We have only to read Iren. III. 15. 2 in order to see
that these associations could only exist by finding support in a Church. Irenæus
expressly remarks that the Valentinians designated the Common Christians καθολικοί
(communes) καὶ ἐκκλησιαστικοί, but that they, on the other hand, complained that
“we kept away from their fellowship without cause, as they thought like ourselves.” We have now briefly to shew, with due regard to the earliest
tradition, how far this transformation was of positive or negative significance
for the following period, that is, in what respects the following development was anticipated by
Gnosticism, and in what respects Gnosticism was disavowed by this
development.The differences between the Gnostic Christianity and that of
the Church, that is, the later ecclesiastical theology, were fluid, if we observe
the following points. (1) That even in the main body of the Church the element of
knowledge was increasingly emphasised, and the Gospel began to be converted into
a perfect knowledge of the world (increasing reception of Greek philosophy, development
of πίστις to γνῶσις. (2) That the dramatic eschatology began to fade away. (3) That
room was made for docetic views, and value put upon a strict asceticism. On the
other hand we must note: (i) That all this existed only in germ or fragments within
the great Church during the flourishing period of Gnosticism. (2) That the great
Church held fast to the facts fixed in the baptismal formula (in the Kerygma) and
to the eschatological expectations, further, to the creator of the world as the
supreme God, to the unity of Jesus Christ, and to the Old Testament, and therefore
rejected dualism. (3) That the great Church defended the unity and equality of the
human race, and therefore the uniformity and universal aim of the Christian salvation.
(4) That it rejected every introduction of new, especially of Oriental, Mythologies,
guided in this by the early Christian consciousness and a sure intelligence. A deeper,
more thorough distinction between the Church and the Gnostic parties hardly dawned
on the consciousness of either. The Church developed herself instinctively into
an imperial Church, in which office was to play the chief role. The Gnostics sought
to establish or conserve associations in which the genius should rule, the genius
in the way of the old prophets or in the sense of Plato, or in the sense of a union
of prophecy and philosophy. In the Gnostic conflict, at least at its close, the
judicial priest fought with the virtuoso and overcame him.
(1) Christianity, which is the only true and absolute religion,
embraces a revealed system of doctrine (positive).
(2) This doctrine contains mysterious powers, which are communicated
to men by initiation (mysteries).
(3) The revealer is Christ (positive), but Christ alone, and only
in his historical appearance—no Old Testament Christ (negative); this appearance
is itself redemption: the doctrine is the announcement of it and of its presuppositions
(positive).The absolute significance of the person of Christ was very plainly
expressed in Gnosticism (Christ is not only the teacher of the truth, but the manifestation
of the truth), more plainly than where he was regarded as the subject of Old Testament
revelation. The pre-existent Christ has significance in some Gnostic schools, but
always a comparatively subordinate one. The isolating of the person of Christ, and
quite as much the explaining away of his humanity, is manifestly out of harmony
with the earliest tradition. But, on the other hand, it must not be denied that
the Gnostics recognised redemption in the historical Christ: Christ personally procured
it (see under 6. h.).
(4) Christian doctrine is to be drawn from the Apostolic
tradition, critically examined. This tradition lies before us
in a series of Apostolic writings, and in a secret doctrine derived from the Apostles
(positive).In this thesis, which may be directly corroborated by the most
important Gnostic teachers, Gnosticism shews that it desires in thesi (in a way
similar to Philo) to continue on the soil of Christianity as a positive religion.
Conscious of being bound to tradition, it first definitely raised the question,
What is Christianity? and criticised and sifted the sources for an answer to the
question. The rejection of the Old Testament led it to that question and to this
sifting. It may be maintained with the greatest probability, that the idea of a
canonical collection of Christian writings first emerged among the Gnostics (see
also Marcion). They really needed such a collection, while all those who recognised
the Old Testament as a document of revelation, and gave it a Christian interpretation,
did not at first need a new document, but simply joined on the new to the old, the
Gospel to the Old Testament. From the numerous fragments of Gnostic commentaries
on New Testament writings which have been preserved, we see that these writings
then enjoyed canonical authority, while at the same period we hear nothing of such
an authority nor of commentaries in the main body of Christendom (see Heinrici,
“Die Valentinianische Gnosis, u. d. h. Schrift,” 1871). Undoubtedly sacred writings
were selected according to the principle of apostolic origin. This is proved by
the inclusion of the Pauline Epistles in the collections of books. There is evidence
of such having been made by the Naassenes, Peratæ, Valentinians, Marcion, Tatian
and the Gnostic Justin. The collection of the Valentinians and the Canon of Tatian
must have really coincided with the main parts of the later Ecclesiastical Canon.
The later Valentinians accommodated themselves to this Canon, that is, recognised
the books that had been added (Tertull. de præscr. 38). The question as to who first
conceived and realised the idea of a Canon of Christian writings, Basilides, or
Valentinus, or Marcion, or whether this was done by several at the same time, will
always remain obscure, though many things favour Marcion. If it should even be proved
that Basilides (see Euseb. H. E. IV. 7. 7) and Valentinus himself regarded the Gospels
only as authoritative, yet the full idea of the Canon lies already in the fact of
their making these the foundation and interpreting them allegorically. The question
as to the extent of the Canon afterwards became the subject of an important controversy
between the Gnostics and the Catholic Church. The Catholics throughout took up the
position that their Canon was the earlier, and the Gnostic collection the corrupt
revision of it (they were unable to adduce proof, as is attested by Tertullian’s
de præscr.). But the aim of the Gnostics to establish themselves on the uncorrupted
apostolic tradition gathered from writings, was crossed by three tendencies, which,
moreover, were all jointly operative in the Christian communities, and are therefore
not peculiar to Gnosticism. (1) By faith in the continuance of prophecy, in which
new things are always revealed by the Holy Spirit (the Basilidean and Marcionite
prophets). (2) By the assumption of an esoteric secret tradition of the Apostles
(see Clem. Strom. VII. 17. 106. 108; Hipp. Philos. VII. 20; Iren. I. 25. 5: III.
2. 1; Tertull. de præscr. 25. Cf. the Gnostic book, Πίστις Σοφία, which in great
part is based on doctrines said to be imparted by Jesus to his disciples after his
resurrection). (3) By the inability to oppose the continuous production of Evangelic
writings, in other words, by the continuance of this kind of literature and
the addition of Acts of the Apostles (Gospel of the Egyptians (?), other Gospels,
Acts of John, Thomas, Philip, etc. We know absolutely nothing about the conditions
under which these writings originated, the measure of authority which they enjoyed,
or the way in which they gained that authority). In all these points which in Gnosticism
hindered the development of Christianity to the “religion of a new book,” the Gnostic
schools shew that they stood precisely under the same conditions as the Christian
communities in general (see above Chap. 3. § 2). If all things do not deceive us,
the same inner development may be observed even in the Valentinian school as in
the great Church, viz., the production of sacred Evangelic and Apostolic writings,
prophecy and secret gnosis falling more and more into the background, and the completed
Canon becoming the most important basis of the doctrine of religion. The later Valentinians
(see Tertull. de præscr. and adv. Valent.) seem to have appealed chiefly to this
Canon, and Tatian no less (about whose Canon, see my Texte u. Unters. I. 1. 2. pp.
213-218). But finally we must refer to the fact that it was the highest concern
of the Gnostics to furnish the historical proof of the Apostolic origin of their
doctrine by an exact reference to the links of the tradition (see Ritschl, Entstehung
der altkath. Kirche. 2nd ed. p. 338 f.). Here again it appears that Gnosticism shared
with Christendom the universal presupposition that the valuable thing is the Apostolic
origin (see above p. 160 f.), but that it first created artificial chains of tradition,
and that this is the first point in which it was followed by the Church: (see the
appeals to the Apostolic Matthew, to Peter and Paul, through the mediation of “Glaukias”
and “Theodas,” to James and the favourite disciples of the Lord, in the case of
the Naassenes, Ophites, Basilideans and Valentinians, etc.; see, further, the close
of the Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora in Epistle H. 33. 7: Μαθήσῃ ἑξῆς καὶ τὴν τούτου
ἀρχήν τε καὶ γέννησιν, ἀξιουμένη τῆς ἀποστολικῆς παραδόσεως, ἣ ἐκ διαδοχῆς καὶ ἡμεῖς
παρειλήφαμεν, μετὰ καιροῦ [sic] κανονίσαι πάντας τοὺς λόγους τῇ τοῦ σωτῆρος διδασκαλίᾳ,
as well as the passages adduced under 2). From this it further follows that the
Gnostics may have compiled their Canon solely according to the principle of Apostolic
origin. Upon the whole we may see here how foolish it is to seek to dispose of Gnosticism
with the phrase, “lawless fancies.” On the contrary, the Gnostics purposely took
their stand on the tradition—nay, they were the first in Christendom who determined
the range, contents and manner of propagating the tradition. They are thus the first
Christian theologians.
As exoteric it is comprehended in the regula fideiHere also we have a point of unusual historical importance.
As we first find a new Canon among the Gnostics, so also among them (and in Marcion)
we first meet with the traditional complex of the Christian Kerygma as a doctrinal
confession (regula fide), that is, as a confession which, because it is fundamental,
needs a speculative exposition, but is set forth by this exposition as the summary
of all wisdom. The hesitancy about the details of the Kerygma only shews the general
uncertainty which at that time prevailed. But again we see that the later Valentinians
completely accommodated themselves to the later development in the Church (Tertull.
adv. Valent. I.: “communem fidem adfirmant”), that is, attached themselves, probably
even from the first, to the existing forms; while in the Marcionite Church a peculiar
regula was set up by a criticism of the tradition. The regula, as a matter of course,
was regarded as Apostolic. On Gnostic regulæ, see Iren. I. 21. 5, 31. 3: II. præf.:
II. 19. 8: III. 11. 3: III. 16. 1. 5: Ptolem. ap. Epiph. h. 33. 7; Tertull. adv.
Valent. 1. 4: de præscr. 42: adv. Marc. I. 1: IV. 5. 17; Ep. Petri ad Jacob in Clem.
Hom. c. 1. We still possess, in great part verbatim, the regula of Apelles, in Epiphan.
h. 44. 2. Irenæus (I. 7. 2) and Tertull. (de carne, 20) state that the Valentinian
regula contained the formula, “γεννηθέντα διὰ Μαρίας”; see on this, p. 205. In noting
that the two points so decisive for Catholicism, the Canon of the New Testament
and the Apostolic regula, were first, in the strict sense, set up by the Gnostics
on the basis of a definite fixing and systematising of the oldest tradition, we
may see that the weakness of Gnosticism here consisted in its inability to exhibit
the publicity of tradition and to place its propagation in close connection with
the organisation of the churches.
(positive), as esoteric it is propagated by chosen teachers.We do not know the relation in which the Valentinians placed
the public Apostolic regula fide to the secret doctrine derived from one Apostle.
The Church, in opposition to the Gnostics, strongly emphasised the publicity of
all tradition. Yet afterwards, though with reservations, she gave a wide scope to
the assumption of a secret tradition.
(5) The documents of revelation (Apostolic writings), just because
they are such, must be interpreted by means of allegory, that is, their deeper meaning
must be extracted in this way (positive).The Gnostics transferred to the Evangelic writings, and demanded
as simply necessary, the methods which Barnabas and others used in expounding the
Old Testament (see the samples of their exposition in Irenæus and Clement. Heinrici,
l.c.). In this way, of course, all the specialities of the system may be found in
the documents. The Church at first condemned this method (Tertull. de præcr. 17-19.
39; Iren. I. 8. 9), but applied it herself from the moment in which she had adopted
a New Testament Canon of equal authority with that of the Old Testament. However,
the distinction always remained, that in the confrontation of the two Testaments
with the views of getting proofs from prophecy, the history of Jesus described in
the Gospels was not at first allegorised. Yet afterwards the Christological dogmas
of the third and following centuries demanded a docetic explanation of many points
in that history.
(6) The following may be noted as the main points in the Gnostic
conception of the several parts of the regula fide:
(a) The difference between the supreme God and the creator of
the world, and therewith the opposing of redemption and creation, and therefore
the separation of the Mediator of revelation from the Mediator of creation.In the Valentinian, as well as in all systems not coarsely dualistic,
the Redeemer Christ has no doubt a certain share in the constitution of the highest
class of men, but only through complicated mediations. The significance which is
attributed to Christ in many systems for the production or organisation of the upper
world may be mentioned. In the Valentinian system there are several mediators. It
may be noted that the abstract conception of the divine primitive Being seldom called
forth a real controversy. As a rule, offence was taken only at the expression.
(b) The separation of the supreme God from the God of the Old
Testament, and therewith the rejection of the Old Testament, or the assertion
that the Old Testament contains no revelations of the supreme God, or at least
only in certain parts.The Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora is very instructive here. If
we leave out of account the peculiar Gnostic conception, we have represented in
Ptolemy’s criticism the later Catholic view of the Old Testament, as well as also
the beginning of a historical conception of it. The Gnostics were the first critics
of the Old Testament in Christendom. Their allegorical exposition of the Evangelic
writings should be taken along with their attempts at interpreting the Old Testament
literally and historically. It may be noted, for example, that the Gnostics were
the first to call attention to the significance of the change of name for God in
the Old Testament; see Iren. II. 35. 3. The early Christian tradition led to a procedure
directly the opposite. Apelles, in particular, the disciple of Marcion, exercised
an intelligent criticism on the Old Testament; see my treatise, “de Apellis gnosi,”
p. 71 sq., and also Texte u. Unters. VI. 3, p. 111 ff. Marcion himself recognised
the historical contents of the Old Testament as reliable and the criticism of most
Gnostics only called in question its religious value.
(c) The doctrine of the independence and eternity of matter.
(d) The assertion that the present world sprang from a fall of
man, or from an undertaking hostile to God, and is therefore the product of an
evil or intermediate being.Ecclesiastical opponents rightly put no value on the fact that
some Gnostics advanced to Pan-Satanism with regard to the conception of the world,
while others beheld a certain justitia civilis ruling in the world. For the standpoint
which the Christian tradition had marked out, this distinction is just as much a
matter of indifference as the other, whether the Old Testament proceeded from an
evil, or from an intermediate being. The Gnostics attempted to correct the judgment
of faith about the world and its relation to God, by an empiric view of the world.
Here again they are by no means “visionaries”, however fantastic the means by which
they have expressed their judgment about the condition of the world, and attempted
to explain that condition. Those, rather, are “visionaries” who give themselves
up to the belief that the world is the work of a good and omnipotent Deity, however
apparently reasonable the arguments they adduce. The Gnostic (Hellenistic) philosophy
of religion at this point comes into the sharpest opposition to the central point
of the Old Testament Christian belief, and all else really depends on this. Gnosticism
is antichristian so far as it takes away from Christianity its Old Testament foundation,
and belief in the identity of the creator of the world with the supreme God. That
was immediately felt and noted by its opponents.
(e) The doctrine that evil is inherent in matter and therefore
is a physical potence.The ecclesiastical opposition was long uncertain on this point.
It is interesting to note that Basilides portrayed the sin inherent in the child
from birth in a way that makes one feel as though he were listening to Augustine
(see the fragment from the 23rd book of the Ἐξηγητικά, in Clem., Strom. VI. 12.
83). But it is of great importance to note how even very special later terminologies,
dogmas, etc., of the Church, were in a certain way anticipated by the Gnostics.
Some samples will be given below; but meanwhile we may here refer to a fragment
from Apelles’ Syllogisms in Ambrosius (de Parad. V. 28): “Si hominem non perfectum
fecit deus, unusquisque autem per industriam propriam perfectionem sibi virtutis
adsciscit: non ne videtur plus sibi homo adquirere, quam ei deus contulit?” One
seems here to be transferred into the fifth century.
(f) The assumption of Æons, that is, real powers and heavenly
persons in whom is unfolded the absoluteness of the Godhead.The Gnostic teaching did not meet with a vigorous resistance
even on this point, and could also appeal to the oldest tradition. The arbitrariness
in the number, derivation and designation of the Æons was contested. The aversion
to barbarism also co-operated here, in so far as Gnosticism delighted in mysterious
words borrowed from the Semites. But the Semitic element attracted as well as repelled
the Greeks and Romans of the second century. The Gnostic terminologies within the
Æon speculations were partly reproduced among the Catholic theologians of the third
century; most important is it that the Gnostics have already made use of the concept
“ὁμοούσιος”; see Iren., I. 5. I: ἀλλὰ τὸ μὲν πνευματικὸν μὴ δεδυνῆσθαι αὐτὴν μορφῶσαι,
ἐπειδὴ ὁμοούσιον ὑπῆρχέν αὐτῇ (said of the Sophia): L. 5. 4, καὶ τοῦτον εἶναι τὸν
κατ᾽ εἰκόνα καὶ ὁμοίωσιν γεγονότα· κατ᾽ εἰκόνα μὲν τὸν ὑλικὸν ὑπάρχειν, παραπλήσιον
μὲν, ἀλλ᾽ οὐχ ὁμοούσιον τῷ θεῷ καθ᾽ ὁμοίωσιν δὲ τὸν ψυχικόν. I. 5. 5: τὸ δὲ κύημα
τῆς μητρὸς τῆς “Ἀχαμώθ,” ὁμοούσιον ὑπάρχον τῇ μητρίς. In all these cases the word
means “of one substance.” It is found in the same sense in Clem., Hom. 20. 7: see
also Philos. VII. 22; Clem., Exc. Theod. 42. Other terms also which have acquired
great significance in the Church since the days of Origen (e.g., ἀγέννητος) are
found among the Gnostics, see Ep. Ptol. ad Floram, 5; and Bigg. (1. c. p. 58, note
3) calls attention to the appearance of τρίας in Excerpt. ex. Theod. § 80, perhaps
the earliest passage.
(g) The assertion that Christ revealed a God hitherto unknown.
(h) The doctrine that in the person of Jesus Christ—the Gnostics
saw in it redemption, but they reduced the person to the physical nature—the heavenly
Æon, Christ, and the human appearance of that Æon must be clearly distinguished,
and a “distincte agere” ascribed to each. Accordingly, there were some, such as
Basilides, who acknowledged no real union between Christ and the man Jesus, whom,
besides, they regarded as an earthly man. Others, e.g., part of the Valentinians,
among whom the greatest differences prevailed,—see Tertull. adv. Valent. 39—taught
that the body of Jesus was
a heavenly psychical formation, and sprang from the womb of Mary
only in appearance. Finally, a third party, such as Saturninus, declared that the
whole visible appearance of Christ was a phantom, and therefore denied the birth
of Christ.The characteristic of the Gnostic Christology is not Docetism
in the strict sense, but the doctrine of the two natures, that is, the distinction
between Jesus and Christ, or the doctrine that the Redeemer as Redeemer was not
a man. The Gnostics based this view on the inherent sinfulness of human nature,
and it was shared by many teachers of the age without being based on any principle
(see above, p. 196 f.). The most popular of the three Christologies briefly characterised
above was undoubtedly that of the Valentinians. It is found, with great variety
of details, in most of the nameless fragments of Gnostic literature that have been
preserved, as well as in Apelles. This Christology might be accommodated to the
accounts of the Gospels and the baptismal confession; (how far is shewn by the regula
of Apelles, and that of the Valentinians may have run in similar terms). It was
taught here that Christ had passed through Mary as a channel; from this doctrine
followed very easily the notion of the Virginity of Mary, uninjured even after the
birth—it was already known to Clem. Alex. (Strom. VII. 16. 93). The Church also,
later on, accepted this view. It is very difficult to get a clear idea of the Christology
of Basilides, as very diverse doctrines were afterwards set up in his school as
is shewn by the accounts. Among them is the doctrine, likewise held by others, that
Christ in descending from the highest heaven took to himself something from every
sphere through which he passed. Something similar is found among the Valentinians,
some of whose prominent leaders made a very complicated phenomenon of Christ, and
gave him also a direct relation to the demiurge. There is further found here the
doctrine of the heavenly humanity, which was afterwards accepted by ecclesiastical
theologians. Along with the fragments of Basilides the account of Clem. Alex. seems
to me the most reliable. According to this, Basilides taught that Christ descended
on the man Jesus at the baptism. Some of the Valentinians taught something similar:
the Christology of Ptolemy is characterised by the union of all conceivable Christology
theories. The different early Christian conceptions may be found in him. Basilides
did not admit a real union between Christ and Jesus; but it is interesting to see
how the Pauline Epistles caused the theologians to view the sufferings of Christ
as necessarily based on the assumption of sinful flesh, that is, to deduce from
the sufferings that Christ has assumed sinful flesh. The Basilidean Christology
will prove to be a peculiar preliminary stage of the later ecclesiastical Christology.
The anniversary of the baptism of Christ was to the Basilideans as the day of the
ἐπιφάνεια, a high festival day (see Clem., Strom. I. 21. 146): they fixed it for
the 6th (2nd) January. And in this also the Catholic Church has followed the Gnosis.
The real docetic Christology as represented by Saturninus (and Marcion) was radically
opposed to the tradition, and struck out the birth of Jesus, as well as the first
30 years of his life. An accurate exposition of the Gnostic Christologies, which
would carry us too far here, (see especially Tertull., de carne Christi,) would
shew that a great part of the questions which occupy Church theologians till the
present day were already raised by the Gnostics; for example, what happened to the
body of Christ after the resurrection? (see the doctrines of Apelles and Hermogenes);
what significance the appearance of Christ had for the heavenly and Satanic powers?
what meaning belongs to his sufferings, although there was no real suffering for
the heavenly Christ, but only for Jesus? etc. In no other point do the anticipations
in the Gnostic dogmatic stand out so plainly; (see the system of Origen; many passages
bearing on the subject will be found in the third and fourth volumes of this work,
to which readers are referred). The Catholic Church has learned but little from
the Gnostics, that is, from the earliest theologians in Christendom, in the doctrine
of God and the world, but very much in Christology; and who can maintain that she
has ever completely overcome the Gnostic doctrine of the two natures, nay, even
Docetism? Redemption viewed in the historical person of Jesus, that is, in the appearance
of a Divine being on the earth, but the person divided and the real history of Jesus
explained away and made inoperative, is the signature of the Gnostic Christology—this,
however, is also the danger of the system of Origen and those systems that are dependent
on him (Docetism) as well as, in another way, the danger of the view of Tertullian
and the Westerns (doctrine of two natures). Finally, it should be noted that the
Gnosis always made a distinction between the supreme God and Christ, but that, from
the religious position, it had no reason for emphasising that distinction. For to
many Gnostics, Christ was in a certain way the manifestation of the supreme God
himself, and therefore in the more popular writings of the Gnostics (see the Acta
Johannis) expressions are applied to Christ which seem to identify him with God.
The same thing is true of Marcion and also of Valentinus (see his Epistle in Clem.,
Strom. II. 20. 114: εἷς δὲ ἐστιν ἀγαθός, οὗ πάρουσία ἡ διὰ τοῦ ὑιοῦ φανέρωσις).
This Gnostic estimate of Christ has undoubtedly had a mighty influence on the later
Church development of Christology. We might say without hesitation that to most
Gnostics Christ was a πνεῦμα, ὁμοούσιον τῷ πατρί. The details of the life, sufferings
and resurrection of Jesus are found in many Gnostics transformed, complemented and
arranged in the way in which Celsus (Orig., c. Cels. I. II.) required for an impressive
and credible history. Celsus indicates how everything must have taken place if Christ
had been a God in human form. The Gnostics in part actually narrate it so. What
an instructive coincidence! How strongly the docetic view itself was expressed in
the case of Valentinus, and how the exaltation of Jesus above the earthly was thereby
to be traced hack to his moral struggle, is shewn in the remarkable fragment of
a letter (in Clem., Strom. III. 7. 59): Πάντα ὑπομείνας ἣγκρατὴς τὴν θεότητα Ἰησοῦς
εἰργάζετο. ἣσθιεν γὰρ καὶ ἔπιεν ἰδίως οὐκ ἀποδιδοὺς τὰ βρώματα, ποσαύτη ἦν αὐτῷ
τῆς ἐγκρατείας δύναμις, ὥστε καὶ μὴ φθαρῆναι τὴν τροφὴν ἐν αὐτῷ ἐπεὶ τὸ φθείρεσθαι
αὐτὸς οῦκ εἶχεν. In this notion, however, there is more sense and historical meaning
than in that of the later ecclesiastical aphtharto-docetism.
Christ separates that which is unnaturally united, and thus leads
everything back again to himself; in this redemption consists (full contrast to
the notion of the ἀνακεφαλαίωσις.
(i) The conversion of the ἐκκλησία (it was no innovation to regard
the heavenly Church as an Æon) into the college of the pneumatic, who alone, in
virtue of their psychological endowment, are capable of Gnosis and the divine life, while the
others, likewise in virtue of their constitution, as hylic perish.
The Valentinians, and probably many other Gnostics also, distinguished between
pneumatic, psychic and hylic. They regarded the psychic as capable of a certain
blessedness, and of a corresponding certain knowledge of the supersensible, the
latter being obtained through Pistis, that is, through Christian faith.The Gnostic distinction of classes of men was connected with
the old distinction of stages in spiritual understanding, but has its basis in a
law of nature. There were again empirical and psychological views—they must have
been regarded as very important, had not the Gnostics taken them from the traditions
of the philosophic schools—which made the universalism of the Christian preaching
of salvation appear unacceptable to the Gnostics. Moreover, the transformation of
religion into a doctrine of the school, or into a mystery cult, always resulted
in the distinction of the knowing from the profanum vulgus. But in the Valentinian
assumption that the common Christians as psychical occupy an intermediate stage,
and that they are saved by faith, we have a compromise which completely lowered
the Gnosis to a scholastic doctrine within Christendom. Whether and in what way
the Catholic Church maintained the significance of Pistis as contrasted with Gnosis,
and in what way the distinction between the knowing (priests) and the laity was
there reached will be examined in its proper place. It should be noted, however,
that the Valentinian, Ptolemy, ascribes freedom of will to the psychic (which the
pneumatic and hylic lack), and therefore has sketched by way of by-work a theology
for the psychical beside that for the pneumatic, which exhibits striking harmonies
with the exoteric system of Origen. The denial by Gnosticism of free will, and therewith
of moral responsibility, called forth very decided contradiction. Gnosticism, that
is, the acute hellenising of Christianity, was wrecked in the Church on free will,
the Old Testament and eschatology.
(k) The rejection of the entire early christian eschatology, especially
the second coming of Christ, the resurrection of the body, and Christ’s Kingdom
of glory on the earth; and, in connection with this, the assertion that the deliverance
of the spirit from the sensuous can be expected only from the future, while the
spirit enlightened about itself already possesses immortality, and only awaits its
introduction into the pneumatic pleroma.The greatest deviation of Gnosticism from tradition appears
in eschatology, along with the rejection of the Old Testament and the separation
of the creator of the world from the supreme God. Upon the whole our sources say
very little about the Gnostic eschatology. This, however, is not astonishing; for
the Gnostics had not much to say on the matter, or what they had to say found expression
in their doctrine of the genesis of the world, and that of redemption through Christ.
We learn that the regula of Apelles closed with the words: ἀνέπτη εἰς οὐρανὸν ὅθεν
καὶ ἧκε, instead of ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς. We know that Marcion,
who may already he mentioned here, referred the whole eschatological expectations
of early Christian times to the province of the god of the Jews, and we hear that
Gnostics (Valentinians) retained the words σαρκος ἀνάστασιν, but interpreted them
to mean that one must rise in this life, that is perceive the truth (thus the “resurrectio
a mortuis”, that is, exaltation above the earthly, took the place of the “resurrectio
mortuorum”; see Iren. II. 31. 2: Tertull., de resurr. carnis, 19). While the Christian
tradition placed a great drama at the close of history, the Gnostics regard the
history itself as the drama, which virtually closes with the (first) appearing of
Christ. It may not have been the opinion of all Gnostics that the resurrection has
already taken place, yet for most of them the expectations of the future seem to
have been quite faint, and above all without significance. The life is so much included
in knowledge, that we nowhere in our sources find a strong expression of hope in
a life beyond (it is different in the earliest Gnostic documents preserved in the
Coptic language), and the introduction of the spirits into the Pleroma appears very
vague and uncertain. But it is of great significance that those Gnostics who, according
to their premises, required a real redemption from the world as the highest good,
remained finally in the same uncertainty and religious despondency with regard to
this redemption, as characterised the Greek philosophers. A religion which is a
philosophy of religion remains at all times fixed to this life, however strongly
it may emphasise the contrast between the spirit and its surroundings, and however
ardently it may desire redemption. The desire for redemption is unconsciously replaced
by the thinker’s joy in his knowledge, which allays the desire (Iren., III. 15.
2: “Inflatus est iste [scil. the Valentinian proud of knowledge] neque in cœlo,
neque in terra putat se esse, sed intra Pleroma introisse et complexum jam angelum
suum, cum institorio et supercilio incedit gallinacei elationem habens . . . . Plurimi,
quasi jam perfecti, semetipsos spiritales vocant, et se nosse jam dicunt eum qui
sit intra Pleroma ipsorum refrigerii locum”). As in every philosophy of religion,
an element of free thinking appears very plainly here also. The eschatological hopes
can only have been maintained in vigour by the conviction that the world is of God.
But we must finally refer to the fact that, even in eschatology, Gnosticism only
drew the inferences from views which were pressing into Christendom from all sides,
and were in an increasing measure endangering its hopes of the future. Besides,
in some Valentinian circles, the future life was viewed as a condition of education,
as a progress through the series of the (seven) heavens; i.e., purgatorial
experiences in the future were postulated. Both afterwards, from the time of Origen,
forced their way into the doctrine of the Church (purgatory, different ranks in
heaven). Clement and Origen being throughout strongly influenced by the Valentinian
eschatology.
In addition to what has been mentioned here, we must finally fix
our attention on the ethics of Gnosticism. Like the ethics of all systems which
are based on the contrast between the sensuous and spiritual elements of human nature,
that of the Gnostics took a twofold direction. On the one hand, it sought to suppress
and uproot the sensuous, and thus became strictly ascetic (imitation of Christ as
motive of asceticism;See the passage Clem., Strom. III. 6, 49, which is given above, p. 239.
Christ and the Apostles represented as ascetics);Cf. the Apocryphal Acts of Apostles and diverse legends of Apostles
(e.g., in Clem. Alex.). on the other
hand, it treated the sensuous element as indifferent, and so became libertine, that
is, conformed to the world. The former was undoubtedly the more common, though there
are credible witnesses to the latter; the frequentissimum collegium in particular,
the Valentinians, in the days of Irenæus and Tertullian, did not vigorously enough
prohibit a lax and world-conforming morality;More can hardly be said: the heads of schools were themselves
earnest men. No doubt statements such as that of Heracleon seem to have led to laxity
in the lower sections of the collegium: ὁμολογίαν εἶναι τὴν μὲν ἐν τῇ πίστει καὶ
πολιτείᾳ, τὴν δὲ ἐν φωνῇ· ἡ μὲν οὐν ἐν φωνῇ ὁμολογια καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν ἐξουσιῶν γίνεται,
ἥν μόνην ὁμολογίαν ἡγοῦνται εἶναι οἱ πολλοί, οὐχ ὑγιῶς δύνανται δὲ ταύτην τὴν ὁμολογίαν
καὶ οἱ ὑποκρισαὶ ὁμολογεῖν. and among the Syrian and Egyptian
Gnostics there were associations which celebrated the most revolting orgies.See Epiph. h. 26, and the statements in the Coptic Gnostic works.
(Schmidt, Texte u. Unters. VIII, I. 2, p. 566 ff.) As
the early Christian tradition summoned to a strict renunciation of the world and
to self-control, the Gnostic asceticism could not but make an impression at the
first; but the dualistic basis on which it rested could not fail to excite suspicion
as soon as one was capable of examining it.There arose in this way an extremely difficult theoretical problem,
but practically a convenient occasion for throwing asceticism altogether overboard,
with the Gnostic asceticism, or restricting it to easy exercises. This is not the
place for entering into the details. Shibboleths, such as φεύγετε οὐ τὰς φύσεις
ἀλλὰ τὰς γνώμας τῶν κακὧν, may have soon appeared. It may be noted here, that the
asceticism with gained the victory in Monasticism was not really that which sprang
from early Christian, but from Greek impulses, without, of course, being based on
the same principle. Gnosticism anticipated the future even here. That could be much
more clearly proved in the history of the worship. A few points which are of importance
for the history of dogma may be mentioned here: (1) The Gnostics viewed the traditional
sacred actions (Baptism and the Lord’s Supper) entirely as mysteries, and applied
to them the terminology of the mysteries (some Gnostics set them aside as psychic);
but in doing so they were only drawing the inference from changes which were then
in process throughout Christendom. To what extent the later Gnosticism in particular
was interested in sacraments may he studied especially in the Pistis Sophia and
the other Coptic works of the Gnostics, which Carl Schmidt has edited; see, for
example, Pistis Sophia, p. 233. “Dixit Jesus ad suos μαθήτας: ἀμην, dixi vobis,
haud adduxi quidquam in κόσμον veniens nisi hunc ignem et hanc aquam et hoc vinum
et hunc sanguinem.” (2) They increased the holy actions by the addition of new ones,
repeated baptisms (expiations), anointing with oil, sacrament of confirmation (ἀπολύτρωσις);
see, on Gnostic sacraments, Iren. I. 20, and Lipsius, Apokr. Apostelgesch. I. pp.
336–343, and cf. the πυκνῶς μετανοοῦσι in the delineation of the Shepherd of Hermas.
Mand XI. (3) Marcus represented the wine in the Lord’s Supper as actual blood in
consequence of the act of blessing: see Iren., I. 13. 2: ποτήρια οἴνῳ κακραμένα
προσποιούμενος εὐχαριστεῖν. Καὶ ἐπί πλέον ἐκτείνων τὸν λόγον τῆς ἐπικλῆσεως, πορφύρεα
καὶ ἐρυθρὰ ἀναφαίνεσθαι ποιεῖ, ὡς δοκεῖν τὴν ἀπὸ τῶν ὑπὸρ τὰ ὅλα χάριν τὸ αἷμα τὸ
ἑαυτῆς στάζειν ἐν ἐκείνῳ τῷ ποτηρίῳ διὰ τῆς ἐπικλήσεως αὐτοῦ, καὶ ὑπεριμείρεσθαι
τοὺς παρόντας ἐξ ἐκείν9;υ γεύσασθαι τοῦ πόματος, ἵνα καὶ εἰς αὐτοὺς ἐπομβρήσῃ ἡ
διὰ τοῦ μάγου τούτου κληϊζομένη χάρις. Marcus was indeed a charlatan; but religious
charlatanry afterwards became very earnest, and was certainly taken earnestly by
many adherents of Marcus. The transubstantiation idea in reference to the elements
in the mysteries is also plainly expressed in the Excerpt. ex. Theodot. § 82: καὶ
ὁ ἄρτος καὶ τὸ ἔλαιον ἁγιάζεται τῇ δύναμει τοῦ ὀνόματος οὐ τὰ αὐτὰ όντα κατὰ τὸ
φαινόμενον οἷα ἐλήφθη, ἀλλὰ δυνάμει εἰς δύναμιν πνευματικήν μεταβέβληται (that is,
not into a new super-terrestrial material, not into the real body of Christ, but
into a spiritual power) οὕτως καὶ τὸ ὕδωρ καὶ τὸ ἐξορκιζόμενον καὶ τὸ βαπτίσμα γινόμενον
οὐ μόνον χωρεῖ τὸ χεῖρον,
ἀλλὰ καὶ ἀγιασμὸν
πποσλαμβάνει. Irenæus possessed a liturgical
handbook of the Marcionites, and communicates many sacramental formulæ from it (I.
c. 13 sq.). In my treatise on the Pistis Sophia (Texte u. Unters. VII. 2. pp. 59–94)
I think I have shewn (“The common Christian and the Catholic elements of the Pistis
Sophia”) to what extent Gnosticism anticipated Catholicism as a system of doctrine
and an institute of worship. These results have been strengthened by Carl Schmidt
(Texte u. Unters. VIII. I. 2). Even purgatory, prayers for the dead, and many other
things raised in speculative questions and definitely answered, are found in those
Coptic Gnostic writings and are then met with again in Catholicism. One general
remark may be permitted in conclusion. The Gnostics were not interested in apologetics,
and that is a very significant fact. The πνεῦμα in man was regarded by them as a
supernatural principle, and on that account they are free from all rationalism and
moralistic dogmatism. For that very reason they are in earnest with the idea of
revelation, and do not attempt to prove it or convert its contests into natural
truths. They did endeavour to prove that their doctrines were Christian, but renounced
all proof that revelation is the truth (proofs from antiquity). One will not easily
find in the case of the Gnostics themselves the revealed truth described as philosophy,
or morality as the philosophic life. If we compare, therefore, the first and fundamental
system of Catholic doctrine, that of Origen, with the system of the Gnostics, we
shall find that Origen, like Basilides and Valentinus, was a philosopher of revelation,
but that he had besides a second element which had its origin in apologetics.
Literature.—The writings of Justin (his syntagma against heresies
has not been preserved), Irenæus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria,
Origen, Epiphanius, Philastrius and Theodoret; cf. Volkmar, Die Quellen der Ketzergeschichte,
1885.
Lipsius, Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios, 1875; also Die Quellen
der altesten Ketzergeschichte, 1875.
Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik d. Gesch. Gnostic, 1873 (continued
i. D. Ztschr. f. d. hist. Theol. 1874, and in Der Schrift de Apellis gnosi monarch.
1874).
Of Gnostic writings we possess the book Pistis Sophia, the writings
contained in the Coptic Cod. Brucianus, and the Epistle of Ptolemy to Flora; also
numerous fragments, in connection with which Hilgenfeld especially deserves thanks,
but which still require a more complete selecting and a more thorough discussion
(see Grabe, Spicilegium T. I. II. 1700. Heinrici, Die Valentin. Gnosis, u. d. H.
Schrift, 1871).
On the (Gnostic) Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, see Zahn, Acta
Job. 1880, and the great work of Lipsius, Die apokryphen Apostelgeschichten, I.
Vol., 1883; II. Vol., 1887. (See also Lipsius, Quellen d. röm. Petrussage, 1872.)
Neander, Genet. Entw. d. vornehmsten gnostischen Systeme, 1818.
Matter, Hist. crit. du gnosticisme, 2 Vols., 1828.
Baur, Die Christl. Gnosis, 1835.
Lipsius, Der Gnosticismus, in Ersch. und Gruber’s Allg. Encykl.
71 Bd. 1860.
Moeller, Geschichte d. Kosmologie i. d. Griech. K. bis auf Origenes.
1860.
King, The Gnostics and their remains, 1873.
Mansel, The Gnostic heresies, 1875.
Jacobi, Art. “Gnosis” in Herzog’s Real Encykl. 2nd Edit.
Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums, 1884, where
the more recent special literature concerning individual Gnostics is quoted.
Lipsius, Art. “Valentinus” in Smith’s Dictionary of Christian
Biography.
Harnack, Art. “Valentinus” in the Encykl. Brit.
Harnack, Pistis Sophia in the Texte und Unters. VII. 2. Carl Schmidt,
Gnostische Schriften in koptischer Sprache aus dem Codex Brucianus (Texte und Unters. VIII. 1. 2).
Joël, Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte zu Anfang des 2 Christl. Jahrhunderts, 2 parts, 188o, 1883.
Renan, History of the Origins of Christianity. Vols. V. VI. VII.
CHAPTER V
MARCION’S ATTEMPT TO SET ASIDE THE OLD TESTAMENT FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY,
TO PURIFY TRADITION, AND TO REFORM CHRISTENDOM ON THE BASIS OF THE PAULINE GOSPEL.
Marcion cannot be numbered among the Gnostics in the strict sense
of the word.He belonged to Pontus and was a rich shipowner: about 139 he
came to Rome already a Christian, and for a short time belonged to the church there.
As he could not succeed in his attempt to reform it, he broke away from it about
144. He founded a church of his own and developed a very great activity. He spread
his views by numerous journeys, and communities bearing his name very soon arose
in every province of the Empire (Adamantius, de recta in deum fide, Origen, Opp.
ed. Delarue I. p. 809: Epiph. h. 42. p. 668. ed. Oehler). They were ecclesiastically
organised (Tertull., de præscr. 41, and adv. Marc. IV. 5) and possessed bishops,
presbyters, etc. (Euseb. H. E. IV. 15. 46: de Mart. Palæst. X. 2: Les Bas and Waddington,
Inscript. Grecq. et Latines rec. en Grêce et en Asie Min. Vol. III. No. 2558). Justin
(Apol. 1. 26) about 150 tells us that Marcion’s preaching had spread κατὰ πᾶν γένος
ἀνθρώπων, and by the year 155, the Marcionites were already numerous in Rome (Iren.
III. 34). Up to his death, however, Marcion did not give up the purpose of winning
the whole of Christendom, and therefore again and again sought connection with it
(Iren. I. c.; Tertull., de præscr. 30), likewise his disciples (see the conversation
of Apelles with Rhodon in Euseb. H. E. V. 13. 5, and the dialogue of the Marcionites
with Adamantius). It is very probable that Marcion had fixed the ground features
of his doctrine, and had laboured for its propagation, even before he came to Rome.
In Rome the Syrian Gnostic Cerdo had a great influence on him, so that we can even
yet perceive, and clearly distinguish the Gnostic element in the form of the Marcionite
doctrine transmitted to us. For (1) he was not guided by any speculatively scientific, or even
by an apologetic, but by a soteriological interest.“Sufficit,” said the Marcionites, “unicum opsus deo nostro,
quod hominem liberavit summa et præcipua bonitate sua” (Tertull. adv. Marc. I. 17). (2) He therefore put all emphasis
on faith, not on Gnosis.Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, declared (Euseb. H. E. V.
13. 5) σωθήσεσθαι τοὺς ἐπί τὸν ἐσταυρωμένον ἡλπικότας, μόνον ἐὰν ἐν ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς
εὐρίσκωνται. (3) In the exposition of his ideas he neither applied
the elements of any Semitic religious wisdom,
nor the methods of the Greek philosophy of religion.This is an extremely important point. Marcion rejected all allegories.
(See Tertull., adv. Marc. II. 19. 21. 22: III. 5. 6. 14. 19: IV. 15. 20: V. 1; Orig.,
Comment. in Matth. T. XV. 3 Opp. III. p. 655: in. ep. ad. Rom. Opp. IV. p. 494 sq.:
Adamant., Sect. I, Orig. Opp. I. pp. 808. 817; Ephr. Syrus. hymn. 36 Edit. Benedict,
p. 520 sq.) and describes this method as an arbitrary one. But that simply means
that he perceived and avoided the transformation of the Gospel into Hellenic philosophy.
No philosophic formulæ are found in any of his statements that have been handed
down to us. But what is still more important, none-of his early opponents have attributed
to Marcion a system, as they did to Basilides and Valentinus. There can be no doubt
that Marcion did not set up any system (the Armenian, Esnik, first gives a Marcionite
system, but that is a late production, see my essay in the Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol.
1896. p. 80 f.). He was just as far from having any apologetic or rationalistic
interest. Justin (Apol. I. 58) says of the Marcionites; ἀπόδειξιν μηδεμίαν περὶ
ὧν λέγουσιν ἔχουσιν, ἀλλὰ ἀλόγως ὡς ὑπὸ λύκου ἄρνες συνηπρασμένοι κτλ. Tertullian
again and again casts in the teeth of Marcion that he has adduced no proof. See
I. 11 sq.: III. 2. 3. 4: IV. 11: “Subito Christus, subito et Johannes. Sic sunt
omnia apud Marcionem, quæ suum et plenum habent ordinem apud creatorem.” Rhodon
(Euseb., H. E. V. 13. 4) says of two prominent genuine disciples of Marcion: μὴ
εὑρίοκοντες τὴν διαίρεσιν τῶν πραγμάτων, ὡς οὐδὲ ἐκεῖνος, δυὸ ἀρχὰς ἀπεφήναντο ψιλῶς
καὶ ἀναποδείκτῶς. Of Apelles, the most important of Marcion’s disciples who laid
aside the Gnostic, borrows of his master, we have the words (l. c.): μὴ δεῖν ὅλως
ἐξετάζειν τὸν λόγον, ἀλλ᾽ ἐκαστον, ὡς πεπίστευκε, διαμένειν. Σωθήσεσθαι γὰρ τοὺς
ἐτί τὸν ἐσταρωμένον ἡλπικότας ἀπεφαίνετο, μόνον ἐὰν ἐν ἔργοις ἀγαθοῖς εὐρίσκωνται
. . . . τὸ δὲ πῶς ἔστι μία ἀρχή, μὴ γινώσκειν ἔλεγεν, οὕτω δὲ κινεῖσθαι μόνον
. . . . μὴ ἐπίστασθαι πῶς εἷς ἐστὶν ἀγέννητος θεός, τοῦτο δὲ πιστεύειν. It was Marcion’s
purpose therefore to give all value to faith alone, to make it dependent on its
own convincing power, and avoid all philosophic paraphrase and argument. The contrast
in which he placed the Christian blessing of salvation, has in principle nothing
in common with the contract in which Greek philosophy viewed the summum bonum. Finally,
it may he pointed out that Marcion introduced no new elements Æons, Matter, etc.)
into his evangelic views, and leant on no Oriental religious science. The later
Marcionite speculations about matter (see the account of Esnik) should not be charged
upon the master himself, as is manifest from the second book of Tertullian against
Marcion. The assumption that the creator of the world created it out of a materia
subjacens is certainly found in Marcion (see Tertull., 1. 15; Hippol., Philos. X.
19); but he speculated no further about it, and that assumption itself was not rejected,
for example, by Clem. Alex. (Strom. II. 16. 74: Photius on Clement’s Hypotyposes).
Marcion did not really speculate even about the good God; yet see Tertull., adv.
Marc. I. 14. 15: IV. 7: “Mundus ille superior”—“cœlum tertium.” (4) He never
made the distinction between an esoteric and an exoteric form of religion. He rather
clung to the publicity of the preaching, and endeavoured to reform Christendom,
in opposition to the attempts at founding schools for those who
knew and mystery cults for such as were in quest of initiation.
It was only after the failure of his attempts at reform that he founded churches
of his own, in which brotherly equality, freedom from all ceremonies, and strict
evangelical discipline were to rule.Tertull., de præscr. 41. sq.; the delineation refers chiefly
to the Marcionites (see Epiph. h. 42. c. 3. 4, and Esnik’s account) on the Church
system of Marcion, see also Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 14, 21, 23, 24, 28, 29: III.
1, 22: IV. 5, 34: V. 7, 10, 15, 18. Completely carried away with the novelty,
uniqueness and grandeur of the Pauline Gospel of the grace of God in Christ, Marcion
felt that all other conceptions of the Gospel, and especially its union with the
Old Testament religion, was opposed to, and a backsliding from, the truth.Marcion himself originally belonged to the main body of the
Church, as is expressly declared by Tertullian and Epiphanius, and attested by one
of his own letters. He accordingly
supposed that it was necessary to make the sharp antitheses of Paul, law and gospel,
wrath and grace, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness, death
and life, that is the Pauline criticism of the Old Testament religion, the foundation
of his religious views, and to refer them to two principles, the righteous and wrathful
god of the Old Testament, who is at the same time identical with the creator of
the world, and the God of the Gospel, quite unknown before Christ, who is only love
and mercy.Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 2. 19: “Separatio legis et evangelii
proprium et principale opus est Marcionis . . . ex diversitate sententiarum utriusque
instrumenti diversitatem quoque argumentatur deorum.” II. 28, 29: IV. 1. 1. 6: “Dispares
deos, alterum, judicem, ferum, bellipotentem; alterum mitem, placidum et tantummodo
bonum atque optimum.” Iren. I. 27. 2. This Paulinism in its religious strength, but without dialectic, without
the Jewish Christian view of history, and detached from the soil of the Old Testament,
was to him the true Christianity. Marcion, like Paul, felt that the religious value
of a statutory law with commandments and ceremonies, was very different from that
of a uniform law of love.Marcion maintained that the good God is not to be feared. Tertull.,
adv. Marc. I. 27: “Atque adeo præ se ferunt Marcionitæ: quod deum suum omnino non
timeant. Malus autem, inquiunt, timebitur; bonus autem diligitur.” To the question
why they did not sin if they did not fear their God, the Marcionites answered in
the words of Rom. VI. 1. 2. (l. c.). Accordingly,
he had a capacity for appreciating the Pauline idea of faith;
it is to him reliance on the unmerited grace of God which is revealed in Christ.
But Marcion shewed himself to be a Greek influenced by the religious spirit of the
time, by changing the ethical contrast of the good and legal into the contrast between
the infinitely exalted spiritual and the sensible which is subject to the law of
nature, by despairing of the triumph of good in the world and, consequently, correcting
the traditional faith that the world and history belong to God, by an empirical
view of the world and the course of events in it,Tertull., adv. Marc. I. 2: II. 5. a view to which he was no doubt
also led by the severity of the early Christian estimate of the world. Yet to him
systematic speculation about the final causes of the contrast actually observed,
was by no means the main thing. So far as he himself ventured on such a speculation
he seems to have been influenced by the Syrian Cerdo. The numerous
contradictions which arise as soon as one attempts to reduce Marcion’s
propositions to a system, and the fact that his disciples tried all possible
conceptions of the doctrine of principles, and defined the relation of the two
Gods very differently, are the clearest proof that Marcion was a religious
character, that he had in general nothing to do with principles, but with living
beings whose power he felt, and that what he ultimately saw in the Gospel was
not an explanation of the world, but redemption from the world,See the passage adduced, p. 267, note 2, and Tertull., I. 19:
“Immo inquiunt Marcionitæ, deus poster, etsi non ab initio, etsi non per conditionem,
sed per semetipsum revelatus est in Christi Jesu.” The very fact that different
theological tendencies (schools) appeared within Marcionite Christianity and were
mutually tolerant, proves that the Marcionite Church itself was not based on a formulated
system of faith. Apelles expressly conceded different forms of doctrine in Christendom,
on the basis of faith in the Crucified and a common holy ideal of life (see p. 268).—redemption from
a world which even in the best that it can offer has nothing that can reach the
height of the blessing bestowed in Christ.Tertull. I. 13. “Narem contrahentes impudentissimi Marcionitæ
convertuntur ad destructionem operum creatoris. Nimirum, inquiunt, grande opus et
dignum deo mundus?” The Marcionites (Iren. IV. 34. 1) put the question to their
ecclesiastical opponents: “Quid novi attulit dominus veniens?” and therewith caused
them no small embarrassment.
Special attention may be called to the following particulars.
1. Marcion explained the Old Testament in its literal sense and
rejected every allegorical interpretation. He recognised it as the revelation of
the creator of the world and the god of the Jews, but placed it, just on that account,
in sharpest contrast to the Gospel. He demonstrated the contradictions between the
Old Testament and the Gospel in a voluminous work (the ἀνσιθἑσεις).On these see Tertull. I. 19: II. 28. 29: IV. I. 4. 6: Epiph.;
Hippol. Philos. VII. 30; the book was used by other Gnostics also (it is very probable
that 1 Tim. VI. 20, an addition to the Epistle—refers to Marcion’s Antitheses).
Apelles, Marcion’s disciple, composed a similar work under the title of “Syllogismi.”
Marcion’s Antitheses, which may still in part be reconstructed from Tertullian,
Epiphanius, Adamantius, Ephraem, etc., possessed canonical authority in the Marcionite
church, and therefore took the place of the Old Testament. That is quite clear from
Tertull., I. 19 (cf. IV. 1): Separatio legis et Evangelii proprium et principale
opus est Marcionis, nec poterunt negare discipuli ejus, quod in summo (suo) instrumento
habent, quo denique initiantur et indurantur in hanc hæresim. In the god
of the former book he saw a being whose character was stern justice, and therefore
anger, contentiousness and unmercifulness. The law which rules nature and man appeared
to him to accord with the characteristics of this god and the kind of law revealed
by him, and therefore it seemed credible to him that this god is the creator and
lord of the world (κοτμοκράτωρ). As the law which governs the world is inflexible
and yet, on the other hand, full of contradictions, just and again brutal, and as
the law of the Old Testament exhibits the same features, so the god of creation
was to Marcion a being who united in himself the whole gradations of attributes
from justice to malevolence, from obstinacy to inconsistency.Tertullian has frequently pointed to the contradictions in the
Marcionite conception of the god of creation. These contradictions, however, vanish
as soon as we regard Marcion’s god from the point of view that he is like his revelation
in the Old Testament. Into this conception
of the creator of the world, the characteristic of which is that it cannot be systematised,
could easily be fitted the Syrian Gnostic theory which regards him as an evil being,
because he belongs to this world and to matter. Marcion did not accept it in principle,The creator of the world is indeed to Marcion “malignus,” but
not “malus.”
but touched it lightly and adopted certain inferences.Marcion touched on it when he taught that the “visibilia” belonged
to the god of creation, but the “invisibilia” to the good God (I. 16). He adopted
the consequences, inasmuch as he taught docetically about Christ, and only assumed
a deliverance of the human soul. On
the basis of the Old Testament and of empirical observation, Marcion
divided men into two classes, good and evil, though he regarded them all, body and
soul, as creatures of the demiurge. The good are those who strive to fulfil the
law of the demiurge. These are outwardly better than those who refuse him obedience.
But the distinction found here is not the decisive one. To yield to the promptings
of Divine grace is the only decisive distinction, and those just men will shew themselves
less susceptible to the manifestation of the truly good than sinners. As Marcion
held the Old Testament to be a book worthy of belief, though his disciple, Apelles,
thought otherwise, he referred all its predictions to a Messiah whom the creator
of the world is yet to send, and who, as a war-like hero, is to set up the earthly
kingdom of the “just” God.See especially the third book of Tertull. adv. Marcion.
2. Marcion placed the good God of love in opposition to the creator
of the world.“Solius bonitatis,” “deus melior,” were Marcion’s standing expressions
for him. This God has only been revealed in Christ. He was absolutely unknown
before Christ,“Deus incognitus” was likewise a standing expression. They maintained
against all attacks the religious position that, from the nature of the case, believers
only can know God, and that this is quite sufficient (Tertull., I. 11.) and men were in every respect strange to him.Marcion firmly emphasised this and appealed to passages in Paul;
see Tertull. I. 11. 19. 23: “Scio dicturos, atqui hanc esse principalem et perfectam
bonitatem, cum sine ullo debito familiaritatis in extraneos voluntaria et libera
effunditur, secundum quam inimicos quoque nostros et hoc nomine jam extraneos deligere
jubeamur.” The Church Fathers therefore declared that Marcion’s good God was a thief
and a robber. See also Celsus, in Orig. VI. 53. Out of pure goodness
and mercy, for these are the essential attributes of this God who judges not and
is not wrathful, he espoused the cause of those beings who were foreign to him,
as he could not bear to have them any longer tormented by their just and yet malevolent
lord.See Esnik’s account, which, however, is to be used cautiously. The God of love appeared in Christ and proclaimed a new kingdom (Tertull.,
adv. Marc. III. 24. fin.). Christ called to himself the weary and heavy
laden,Marcion has strongly emphasised the respective passages in Luke’s
Gospel: see his Antitheses, and his comments on the Gospel as presented by Tertullian
(1. IV). and proclaimed to them that he would deliver them from
the fetters of their lord and from the world. He shewed mercy to all while he sojourned
on the earth, and did in every respect the opposite of what the creator of the world
had done to men. They who believed in the creator of the world nailed him to the
cross. But in doing so they were unconsciously serving his purpose, for his death
was the price by which the God of love purchased men from the creator of the world.That can be plainly read in Esnik, and must have been thought
by Marcion himself, as he followed Paul (see Tertull., 1. V. and I. 11). Apelles
also emphasised the death upon the cross. Marcion’s conception of the purchase can
indeed no longer be ascertained in its details. But see Adamant., de recta in deum
fide, sect. I. It is one of his theoretic contradictions that the good God who is
exalted above righteousness should yet purchase men.
He who places his hope in the Crucified can now be sure of escaping from the power
of the creator of the world, and of being translated into the kingdom of the good
God. But experience shews that, like the Jews, men who are virtuous according to
the law of the creator of the world, do not allow themselves to be converted by
Christ; it is rather sinners who accept his message of redemption. Christ, therefore,
rescued from the under-world, not the righteous men of the Old Testament (Iren.
I. 27. 3), but the sinners who were disobedient to the creator of the world. If
the determining thought of Marcion’s view of Christianity is here again very clearly
shewn, the Gnostic woof cannot fail to be seen in the proposition that the good
God delivers only the souls, not the bodies of believers. The antithesis of spirit
and matter, appears here as the decisive one, and the good God of love becomes the
God of the spirit, the Old Testament god the god of the flesh. In point of fact,
Marcion seems to have given such a turn to the good God’s attributes of love and
incapability of wrath, as to make Him the apathetic, infinitely exalted Being, free
from all affections. The contradiction in which Marcion is here involved is evident,
because he taught expressly that the spirit of man is in itself just as foreign
to the good God as his body. But the strict asceticism which
Marcion demanded as a Christian, could have had no motive without
the Greek assumption of a metaphysical contrast of flesh and Spirit, which in fact
was also apparently the doctrine of Paul.
3. The relation in which Marcion placed the two Gods, appears
at first sight to be one of equal rank.Tertull. I. 6: “Marcion non negat creatorem deum esse.” Marcion himself, according to the most
reliable witnesses, expressly asserted that both were uncreated, eternal, etc. But
if we look more closely we shall see that in Marcion’s mind there can be no thought
of equality. Not only did he himself expressly declare that the creator of the world
is a self-contradictory being of limited knowledge and power, but the whole doctrine
of redemption shews that he is a power subordinate to the good God. We need not
stop to enquire about the details, but it is certain that the creator of the world
formerly knew nothing of the existence of the good God, that he is in the end completely
powerless against him, that he is overcome by him, and that history in its issue
with regard to man is determined solely by its relation to the good God. The just
god appears at the end of history, not as an independent being hostile to the good
God, but as one subordinate to him,Here Tertull., I. 27, 28, is of special importance; see also
II. 28; IV. 29 (on Luke XII. 41–46): IV. 30. Marcion’s idea was this. The good God
does not judge or punish; but He judges in so far as he keeps evil at a distance
from Him: it remains foreign to Him. “Marcionitæ interrogati quid fiet peccatori
cuique die illo? respondent abici ilium quasi ab oculis”. “Tranquilitas est et
mansuetudinis segregare solummodo et partem ejus cum infidelibus ponere”. But what
is the end of him who is thus rejected? “Ab igne, inquiunt, creatoris deprehendetur”.
We might think with Tertullian that the creator of the world would receive sinners
with joy: but this is the god of the law who punishes sinners. The issue is twofold:
the heaven of the good God, and the hell of the creator of the world. Either Marcion
assumed with Paul that no one can keep the law, or he was silent about the end of
the “righteous” because he had no interest in it. At any rate, the teaching of Marcion
closes with an outlook in which the creator of the world can no longer be regarded
as an independent god. Marcion’s disciples (see Esnik) here developed a consistent
theory: the creator of the world violated his own law by killing the righteous Christ,
and was therefore deprived of all his power by Christ. so that some scholars, such as Neander, have
attempted to claim for Marcion a doctrine of one principle, and to deny that he
ever held the complete independence of the creator of the world,
the creator of the world being simply an angel of the good God. This inference may
certainly be drawn with little trouble, as the result of various considerations,
but it is forbidden by reliable testimony. The characteristic of Marcion’s teaching
is just this, that as soon as we seek to raise his ideas from the sphere of practical
considerations to that of a consistent theory, we come upon a tangled knot of contradictions.
The theoretic contradictions are explained by the different interests which here
cross each other in Marcion. In the first place, he was consciously dependent on
the Pauline theology, and was resolved to defend everything which he held to be
Pauline. Secondly, he was influenced by the contrast in which he saw the ethical
powers involved. This contrast seemed to demand a metaphysical basis, and its actual
solution seemed to forbid such a foundation. Finally, the theories of Gnosticism,
the paradoxes of Paul, the recognition of the duty of strictly mortifying the flesh,
suggested to Marcion the idea that the good God was the exalted God of the spirit,
and the just god the god of the sensuous, of the flesh. This view, which involved
the principle of a metaphysical dualism, had something very specious about it,
and to its influence we must probably ascribe the fact that Marcion no longer attempted
to derive the creator of the world from the good God. His disciples who had theoretical
interests in the matter, no doubt noted the contradictions. In order to remove them,
some of these disciples advanced to a doctrine of three principles, the good God,
the just creator of the world, the evil god, by conceiving the creator of the world
sometimes as an independent being, sometimes as one dependent on the good God. Others
reverted to the common dualism, God of the spirit and God of matter. But Apelles,
the most important of Marcion’s disciples, returned to the creed of the one God
(μία ἀρχὴ), and conceived the creator of the world and Satan as his angels, without
departing from the fundamental thought of the master, but rather following suggestions
which he himself had given.Schools soon arose in the Marcionite church, just as they did
later on in the main body of Christendom (see Rhodon in Euseb., H. E. V. 13. 2-4).
The different doctrines of principles which were here developed (two, three, four
principles; the Marcionite Marcus’s doctrine of two principles in which the creator
of the world is an evil being, diverges furthest from the Master) explain the different
accounts of the Church Fathers about Marcion’s teaching. The only one of the disciples
who really seceded from the Master was Appelles (Tertull., de præscr. 30). His teaching
is therefore the more important, as it shews that it was possible to retain the
fundamental ideas of Marcion without embracing dualism. The attitude of Apelles
to the Old Testament is that of Marcion in so far as he rejects the book. But perhaps
he somewhat modified the strictness of the Master. On the other hand, he certainly
designated much in it as untrue and fabulous. It is remarkable that we meet with
a highly honoured prophetess in the environment of Apelles: in Marcion’s church
we hear nothing of such, nay, it is extremely important as regards Marcion that
he has never appealed to the Spirit and to prophets. The “sanctiores feminæ” (Tertull.
V. 8) are not of this nature, nor can we appeals even to V. 15. Moreover, it is
hardly likely that Jerome ad Eph. III. 5, refers to Marcionites. In this complete
disregard of early Christian prophecy, and in his exclusive reliance on literary
documents, we see in Marcion a process of despiritualising, that is, a form of secularisation
peculiar to himself. Marcion no longer possessed the early Christian enthusiasm
as, for example, Hermas did. Apart from Apelles,
who founded a Church of his own, we hear nothing of the controversies
of disciples breaking up the Marcionite church. All those who lived in the faith
for which the master had worked—viz., that the laws ruling in nature and history,
as well as the course of common legality and righteousness, are the antitheses of
the act of Divine mercy in Christ, and that cordial love and believing confidence
have their proper contrasts in self-righteous pride and the natural religion of
the heart,—those who rejected the Old Testament and clung solely to the Gospel proclaimed
by Paul, and finally, those who considered that a strict mortification of the flesh
and an earnest renunciation of the world were demanded in the name of the Gospel,
felt themselves members of the same community, and to all appearance allowed perfect
liberty to speculations about final causes.
4. Marcion had no interest in specially emphasising the distinction
between the good God and Christ, which according to the Pauline Epistles could not
be denied. To him Christ is the manifestation of the good God himself.Marcion was fond of calling Christ “Spiritus salutaris.” From
the treatise of Tertullian we can prove both that Marcion distinguished Christ from
God, and that he made no distinction (see, for example, I. 11, 14: II. 27: III.
8, 9, 11: IV. 7). Here again Marcion did not think theologically. What he regarded
as specially important was that God has revealed himself in Christ, “per semetipsum.”
Later Marcionites expressly taught Patripassianism, and have on that account been
often grouped with the Sabellians. But other Christologies also arose in Marcion’s
church, which is again a proof that it was not dependent on scholastic teaching,
and therefore could take part in the later development of doctrines. But
Marcion taught that Christ assumed absolutely nothing from the
creation of the Demiurge, but came down from heaven in the 15th year of the Emperor
Tiberius, and after the assumption of an apparent body, began his preaching in the
synagogue of Capernaum.See the beginning of the Marcionite Gospel. This pronounced docetism which denies that Jesus was born,
or subjected to any human process of development,Tertullian informs us sufficiently about this. The body of
Christ was regarded by Marcion merely as an “umbra”, a “phantasma.” His disciples
adhered to this, but Apelles first constructed a “doctrine” of the body of Christ. is the strongest expression
of Marcion’s abhorrence of the world. This aversion may have sprung from the severe
attitude of the early Christians toward the world, but the inference which Marcion
here draws, shews that this feeling was, in his case, united with the Greek estimate
of spirit and matter. But Marcion’s docetism is all the more remarkable that, under
Paul’s guidance, he put a high value on the fact of Christ’s death upon the cross.
Here also is a glaring contradiction which his later disciples laboured to remove.
This much, however, is unmistakable, that Marcion succeeded in placing the greatness
and uniqueness of redemption through Christ in the clearest light, and in beholding
this redemption in the person of Christ, but chiefly in his death upon the cross.
5. Marcion’s eschatology is also quite rudimentary. Yet he assumed
with Paul that violent attacks were yet in store for the Church of the good God
on the part of the Jewish Christ of the future, the Antichrist. He does not seem
to have taught a visible return of Christ, but, in spite of the omnipotence and
goodness of God, he did teach a twofold issue of history. The idea of a deliverance
of all men, which seems to follow from his doctrine of boundless grace, was quite
foreign to him. For this very reason he could not help actually making the good
God the judge, though in theory he rejected the idea,
in order not to measure the will and acts of God by a human standard.
Along with the fundamental proposition of Marcion, that God should be conceived
only as goodness and grace, we must take into account the strict asceticism which
he prescribed for the Christian communities, in order to see that that idea of God
was not obtained from antinomianism. We know of no Christian community in the second
century which insisted so strictly on renunciation of the world as the Marcionites.
No union of the sexes was permitted. Those who were married had to separate ere
they could be received by baptism into the community. The sternest precepts were
laid down in the matter of food and drink. Martyrdom was enjoined; and from the
fact that they were ταλαίπωροι καὶ μισούμενοι
in the world, the members were to know that they were disciples of Christ.The strict asceticism of Marcion and the Marcionites is reluctantly
acknowledged by the Church Fathers; see Tertull., de præscr. 30: “Sanctissimus magister”;
I. 28, “carni imponit sanctitem.” The strict prohibition of marriage: I. 29: IV.
11, 17, 29, 34, 38: V. 7, 8, 15, 18; prohibition of food: 1. 14; cynical life: Hippol.,
Philos. VII. 29; numerous martyrs: Euseb., H. E. V. 16. 21, and frequently elsewhere.
Marcion named his adherents (Tertull. IV. 9 36) “συνταλαίπωροι
καὶ συμμισούμενοι.” It is questionable whether Marcion himself allowed the
repetition of baptism; it arose in his church. But this repetition is a proof that
the prevailing conception of baptism was not sufficient for a vigorous religious
temper. With
all that, the early Christian enthusiasm was wanting.
6. Marcion defined his position in theory and practice towards
the prevailing form of Christianity, which, on the one hand, shewed throughout its
connection with the Old Testament, and, on the other, left room for a secular ethical
code, by assuming that it had been corrupted by Judaism, and therefore needed a
reformation.Tertull. I. 20. “Aiunt, Marcionem non tam innovasse
regulam separatione legis et evangelii quam retro adulteratam recurasse”;
see the account of Epiphanius, taken from Hippolytus, about the appearance of Marcion
in Rome (h. 42. 1. 2). But he could not fail to note that this corruption was not of recent
date, but belonged to the oldest tradition itself. The consciousness of this moved
him to a historical criticism of the whole Christian tradition.Here again we must remember that Marcion appealed neither to
a secret tradition nor to the “Spirit,” in order to appreciate the epoch-making
nature of his undertaking. Marcion was the
first Christian who undertook such a task. Those writings to which he owed his religious convictions,
viz., the Pauline Epistles, furnished the basis for it. He found
nothing in the rest of Christian literature that harmonised with the Gospel of Paul.
But he found in the Pauline Epistles hints which explained to him this result of
his observations. The twelve Apostles whom Christ chose did not understand him,
but regarded him as the Messiah of the god of creation.In his estimate of the twelve Apostles Marcion took as his
standpoint Gal. II. See Tertull. I. 20: IV. 3 (generally IV. 1-6), V. 3; de præscr.
22, 23. He endeavoured to prove from this chapter that from a misunderstanding of
the words of Christ, the twelve Apostles had proclaimed a different Gospel than
that of Paul; they had wrongly taken the Father of Jesus Christ for the god of creation.
It is not quite clear how Marcion conceived the inward condition of the Apostles
during the lifetime of Jesus (see Tertull. III. 22: IV. 3, 39). He assumed that
they were persecuted by the Jews as the preachers of a new God. It is probable,
therefore, that he thought of a gradual obscuring of the preaching of Jesus in the
case of the primitive Apostles. They fell hack into Judaism; see Iren. III. 2. 2.
“Apostolos admiscuisse ea quæ sunt legalia salvatoris verbis”;
III, 12. 12: “Apostoli quæ sunt Judæorum sentientes scripserunt”
etc.; Tertull. V. 3: “Apostolos vultis Judaismi magis adfines subintelligi.”
The expositions of Marcion in Tertull. IV. 9. 11, 13, 21, 24, 39: V. 13, shew that
he regarded the primitive Apostles as out and out real Apostles of Christ. And therefore Christ inspired
Paul by a special revelation, lest the Gospel of the grace of God should be lost
through falsifications.The call of Paul was viewed by Marcion as a manifestation of
Christ, of equal value with His first appearance and ministry; see the account of
Esnik. “Then for the second time Jesus came down to the lord of the creatures in
the form of his Godhead, and entered into judgment with him on account of his death
. . . . And Jesus said to him: ‘Judgment is between me and thee, let no one be judge
but thine own laws . . . . hast thou not written in this thy law, that he who killeth
shall die?’ And he answered, ‘I have so written’ . . . . Jesus said to him, ‘Deliver
thyself therefore into my hands’ . . . . The creator of the world said, ‘Because
I have slain thee I give thee a compensation, all those who shall believe on thee,
that thou mayest do with them what thou pleasest.’ Then Jesus left him and carried
away Paul, and shewed him the price, and sent him to preach that we are bought with
this price, and that all who believe in Jesus are sold by this just god to the good
one.” This is a most instructive account; for it shews that in the Marcionite schools
the Pauline doctrine of reconciliation was transformed into a drama, and placed
between the death of Christ and the call of Paul, and that the Pauline Gospel was
based, not directly on the death of Christ upon the cross, but a theory of it converted
into history. On Paul as the one apostle of the truth, see Tertull. I. 20: III.
5, 14: IV. 2 sq.: IV. 34: V. I. As to the Marcionite theory that the promise to
send the Spirit was fulfilled in the mission of Paul, an indication of the want
of enthusiasm among the Marcionites, see the following page, note 2. But even Paul had been understood only by few (by none?).
His Gospel had also been misunderstood—nay, his Epistles had been falsified in many passages,Marcion must have spoken ex professo in his Antitheses about
the Judaistic corruptions of Paul’s Epistles and the Gospel. He must also have known
Evangelic writings bearing the names of the original Apostles, and have expressed
himself about them (Tertull. IV. 1-6). in order
to make them teach the identity of the god of creation and the God of redemption.
A new reformation was therefore necessary. Marcion felt himself entrusted with this
commission, and the church which he gathered recognised this vocation of his to
be the reformer.Marcion’s self-consciousness of being a reformer, and the recognition
of this in his church is still not understood, although his undertaking itself and
the facts speak loud enough. (1) The great Marcionite church called itself after
Marcion (Adamant., de recta in deum fide. I. 809; Epiph. h. 42, p. 668, ed. Oehler:
Μαρκίων σοῦ τὸ ὄνομα ἐπικέκληνται οἱ ὑπο σοῦ ἡπατημένοι
ὡς σεαυτὸν κηρύξαντος καὶ οὐχί Χριστόν. We possess a Marcionite inscription
which begins: συναγωγὴ Μαρκιωνιστῶν). As the
Marcionites did not form a school, but a church, it is of the greatest value for
shewing the estimate of the master in this church, that its members called themselves
by his name. (2) The Antitheses of Marcion had a place in the Marcionite canon (see
above, p. 272). This canon therefore embraced a book of Christ, Epistles of Paul,
and a book of Marcion, and for that reason the Antitheses were always circulated
with the canon of Marcion. (3) Origen (in Luc. hom. 25. T. III. p. 962) reports
as follows: “Denique in tantam quidam dilectionis audaciam proruperunt,
ut nova quædam et inaudita super Paulo monstra confingerent. Alli enim aiunt, hoc
quod scriptum est, sedere a dextris salvatoris et sinistris, de Paulo et de Marcione
dici, quod Paulus sedet a dextris, Marcion sedet a sinistris. Porro alii legentes:
Mittam vobis advocatum Spiritum veritatis, nolunt intelligere tertiam personam a
patre et filio, sed Apostolum Paulum.” The estimate of Marcion which appears
here is exceedingly instructive. (4) An Arabian writer, who, it is true, belongs
to a later period, reports that Marcionites called their founder “Apostolorum
principem.” (5) Justin, the first opponent of Marcion, classed him with Simon
Magus and Menander; that is, with demonic founders of religion. These testimonies
may suffice. He did not appeal to a new revelation such as he presupposed for
Paul. As the Pauline Epistles and an authentic εὐαγγέλιον
κυρίου were in existence, it was only necessary to purify these from interpolations,
and restore the genuine Paulinism which was just the Gospel itself. But it was also
necessary to secure and preserve this true Christianity for the future. Marcion,
in all probability, was the first to conceive and, in great measure, to realise
the idea of placing Christendom on the firm foundation of a definite theory of what
is Christian—but not of basing it on a theological doctrine—and of establishing
this theory by a fixed
collection of Christian writings with canonical authority.On Marcion’s Gospel see the Introductions to the New Testament
and Zahn’s Kanonsgeschichte, Bd. I., p. 585 ff. and II., p. 409. Marcion attached
no name to his Gospel, which, according to his own testimony, he produced from the
third one of our Canon (Tertull., adv. Marc. IV. 2. 3. 4). He called it simply
εὐαγγέλιον (κυρίον), but held that it was the
Gospel which Paul had in his mind when he spoke of his Gospel. The later Marcionites
ascribed the authorship of the Gospel partly to Paul, partly to Christ himself,
and made further changes in it. That Marcion chose the Gospel called after Luke
should be regarded as a make-shift; for this Gospel, which is undoubtedly the most
Hellenistic of the four Canonical Gospels, and therefore comes nearest to the Catholic
conception of Christianity, accommodated itself in its traditional form but little
better than the other three to Marcionite Christianity. Whether Marcion took it
for a basis because in his time it had already been connected with Paul (or really
had a connection with Paul), or whether the numerous narratives about Jesus as the
Saviour of sinners led him to recognise in this Gospel alone a genuine kernel, we
do not know. He
was not a systematic thinker, but he was more; for he was not only a religious character,
but at the same time a man with an organising talent, such as has no peer in the
early Church. If we think of the lofty demands he made on Christians, and, on the
other hand, ponder the results that accompanied his activity, we cannot fail to
wonder. Wherever Christians were numerous about the year 160, there must have been
Marcionite communities with the same fixed but free organisation, with the same
canon and the same conception of the essence of Christianity, pre-eminent for the
strictness of their morals and their joy in martyrdom.The associations of the Encratites and the community founded
by Apelles stood between the main body of Christendom and the Marcionite church.
The description of Celsus (especially V. 61-64 in Orig.) shews the motley appearance
which Christendom presented soon after the middle of the second century. He there
mentions the Marcionites, and a little before (V. 59), the “great Church.” It is
very important that Celsus makes the main distinction consist in this, that some
regarded their God as identical with the God of the Jews, whilst others again declared
that “theirs was a different Deity, who is hostile to that of the Jews, and that
it was he who had sent the Son.” (V. 61.) The Catholic Church was
then only in process of growth, and it was long ere it reached the solidity won
by the Marcionite church through the activity of one man, who was animated by a
faith so strong that he was able to oppose his conception of Christianity to all
others as the only right one, and who did not shrink from making selections from
tradition instead of explaining it away. He was the first who laid the firm foundation
for establishing what is Christian, because, in view of the absoluteness
of his faith,One might be tempted to comprise the character of Marcion’s
religion in the words, “The God who dwells in my breast can profoundly excite my
inmost being. He who is throned above all my powers can move nothing outwardly.”
But Marcion had the firm assurance that God has done something much greater than
move the world: he has redeemed men from the world, and given them the assurance
of this redemption, in the midst of all oppression and enmity which do not cease. he had no desire to appeal either to a secret evangelic tradition,
or to prophecy, or to natural religion.
Remarks.—The innovations of Marcion are unmistakable. The way
in which he attempted to sever Christianity from the Old Testament was a bold stroke
which demanded the sacrifice of the dearest possession of Christianity as a religion,
viz., the belief that the God of creation is also the God of redemption. And yet
this innovation was partly caused by a religious conviction, the origin of which
must be sought not in heathenism, but on Old Testament and Christian soil. For the
bold Anti-judaist was the disciple of a Jewish thinker, Paul, and the origin of
Marcion’s antinomianism may be ultimately found in the prophets. It will always
be the glory of Marcion in the early history of the Church that he, the born heathen,
could appreciate the religious criticism of the Old Testament religion as formerly
exercised by Paul. The antinomianism of Marcion was ultimately based on the strength
of his religious feeling, on his personal religion as contrasted with all statutory
religion. That was also its basis in the case of the prophets and of Paul, only
the statutory religion, which was felt to be a burden and a fetter, was different
in each case. As regards the prophets, it was the outer sacrificial worship, and
the deliverance was the idea of Jehovah’s righteousness. In the case of Paul, it
was the pharisaic treatment of the law, and the deliverance was righteousness by
faith. To Marcion it was the sum of all that the past had described as a revelation
of God: only what Christ had given him was of real value to him. In this conviction
he founded a Church. Before him there was no such thing in the sense of a community
firmly united by a fixed conviction, harmoniously organised, and spread over the
whole world. Such a
Church the Apostle Paul had in his mind’s eye, but he was not
able to realise it. That in the century of the great mixture of religion the greatest
apparent paradox was actually realised—namely, a Paulinism with two Gods and without
the Old Testament; and that this form of Christianity first resulted in a church
which was based not only on intelligible words, but on a definite conception of
the essence of Christianity as a religion, seems to be the greatest riddle which
the earliest history of Christianity presents. But it only seems so. The Greek,
whose mind was filled with certain fundamental features of the Pauline Gospel (law
and grace), who was therefore convinced that in all respects the truth was there,
and who on that account took pains to comprehend the real sense of Paul’s statements,
could hardly reach any other results than those of Marcion. The history of Pauline
theology in the Church, a history first of silence, then of artificial interpretation,
speaks loudly enough. And had not Paul really separated Christianity as religion
from Judaism and the Old Testament? Must it not have seemed an inconceivable inconsistency,
if he had clung to the special national relation of Christianity to the Jewish people,
and if he had taught a view of history in which for pædagogic reasons indeed, the
Father of mercies and God of all comfort had appeared as one so entirely different?
He who was not capable of translating himself into the consciousness of a Jew, and
had not yet learned the method of special interpretation, had only the alternative,
if he was convinced of the truth of the Gospel of Christ as Paul had proclaimed
it, of either giving up this Gospel against the dictates of his conscience, or striking
out of the Epistles whatever seemed Jewish. But in this case the god of creation
also disappeared, and the fact that Marcion could make this sacrifice proves that
this religious spirit, with all his energy, was not able to rise to the height of
the religious faith which we find in the preaching of Jesus.
In basing his own position and that of his church on Paulinism,
as he conceived and remodelled it, Marcion connected himself with that part of the
earliest tradition of Christianity which is best known to us, and has enabled us
to understand
his undertaking historically as we do no other. Here we have the
means of accurately indicating what part of this structure of the second century
has come down from the Apostolic age and is really based on tradition, and what
has not. Where else could we do that? But Marcion has taught us far more. He does
not impart a correct understanding of early Christianity, as was once supposed,
for his explanation of that is undoubtedly incorrect, but a correct estimate of
the reliability of the traditions that were current in his day alongside of the
Pauline. There can be no doubt that Marcion criticised tradition from a dogmatic
stand-point. But would his undertaking have been at all possible if at that time
a reliable tradition of the twelve Apostles and their teaching had existed and been
operative in wide circles? We may venture to say no. Consequently, Marcion gives
important testimony against the historical reliability of the notion that the common
Christianity was really based on the tradition of the twelve Apostles. It is not
surprising that the first man who clearly put and answered the question, “What is
Christian?” adhered exclusively to the Pauline Epistles, and therefore found a very
imperfect solution. When more than 1600 years later the same question emerged for
the first time in scientific form, its solution had likewise to be first attempted
from the Pauline Epistles, and therefore led at the outset to a one-sidedness similar
to that of Marcion. The situation of Christendom in the middle of the second century
was not really more favourable to a historical knowledge of early Christianity than
that of the 18th century, but in many respects more unfavourable. Even at that time,
as attested by the enterprise of Marcion, its results, and the character of the
polemic against him, there were besides the Pauline Epistles no reliable documents
from which the teaching of the twelve Apostles could have been gathered. The position
which the Pauline Epistles occupy in the history of the world is, however, described
by the fact that every tendency in the Church which was unwilling to introduce into
Christianity the power of Greek mysticism, and was yet no longer influenced by the
early Christian eschatology, learned from the Pauline Epistles a Christianity
which, as a religion, was peculiarly vigorous. But that position
is further described by the fact that every tendency which courageously disregards
spurious traditions is compelled to turn to the Pauline Epistles, which, on the
one hand, present such a profound type of Christianity, and on the other darken
and narrow the judgment about the preaching of Christ himself by their complicated
theology. Marcion was the first, and for a long time the only Gentile Christian
who took his stand on Paul. He was no moralist, no Greek mystic, no Apocalyptic
enthusiast, but a religious character, nay, one of the few pronouncedly typical
religious characters whom we know in the early Church before Augustine. But his
attempt to resuscitate Paulinism is the first great proof that the conditions under
which this Christianity originated do not repeat themselves, and that therefore
Paulinism itself must receive a new construction if one desires to make it the basis
of a Church. His attempt is a further proof of the unique value of the Old Testament
to early Christendom, as the only means at that time of defending Christian monotheism.
Finally, his attempt confirms the experience that a religious community can only
be founded by a religious spirit who expects nothing from the world.
Nearly all ecclesiastical writers, from Justin to Origen, opposed
Marcion. He appeared already to Justin as the most wicked enemy. We can understand
this, and we can quite as well understand how the Church Fathers put him on a level
with Basilides and Valentinus, and could not see the difference between them. Because
Marcion elevated a better God above the god of creation, and consequently robbed
the Christian God of his honour, he appeared to be worse than a heathen (Sentent.
episc. LXXXVII., in Hartel’s edition of Cyprian, I. p. 454; “Gentiles
quamvis idola colant, tamen summum deum patrem creatorem cognoscunt et confitentur
[!]; in hunc Marcion, blasphemat, etc.”), as a blaspheming emissary of demons,
as the first-born of Satan (Polyc., Justin, Irenæus). Because he rejected the allegoric
interpretation of the Old Testament, and explained its predictions as referring
to a Messiah of the Jews who was yet to come, he seemed to be a Jew (Tertull., adv.
Marc. III.). Because he deprived Christianity
of the apologetic proof (the proof from antiquity) he seemed to
be a heathen and a Jew at the same time (see my Texte u. Unters. I. 3, p. 68; the
antitheses of Marcion became very important for the heathen and Manichæan assaults
on Christianity). Because he represented the twelve Apostles as unreliable witnesses,
he appeared to be the most wicked and shameless of all heretics. Finally, because
he gained so many adherents, and actually founded a church, he appeared to be the
ravening wolf (Justin, Rhodon), and his church as the spurious church. (Tertull.,
adv. Marc. IV. 5.) In Marcion the Church Fathers chiefly attacked what they attacked
in all Gnostic heretics, but here error shewed itself in its worst form. They learned
much in opposing Marcion (see Bk. II.). For instance, their interpretation of the
regula fidei and of the New Testament received a directly Antimarcionite
expression in the Church. One thing, however, they could not learn from him, and
that was how to make Christianity into a philosophic system. He formed no such system,
but he has given a clearly outlined conception, based on historic documents, of
Christianity as the religion which redeems the world.
Literature.—All anti-heretical writings of the early Church, but
especially Justin, Apol. I. 26, 58; Iren. I. 27; Tertull., adv. Marc. I-V.; de præscr.;
Hippol., Philos.; Adamant., de recta in deum fidei; Epiph. h. 42; Ephr. Syr.; Esnik.
The older attempts to restore the Marcionite Gospel and Apostolicum have been antiquated
by Zahn’s Kanonsgeschichte, l. c. Hahn (Regimonti, 1823) has attempted to restore
the Antitheses. We are still in want of a German monograph on Marcion (see the whole
presentation of Gnosticism by Zahn, with his Excursus, l. c.). Hilgenfeld, Ketzergesch.
p. 316 f. 522 f.; cf. my work, Zur Quellenkritik des Gnosticismus, 1873; de Apelles
Gnosis Monarchia, 1874; Beiträge z. Gesch. der Marcionitischen Kirchen (Ztschr.
f. wiss. Theol. 1876). Marcion’s Commentar zum Evangelium (Ztschr. f. K. G. Bd.
IV. 4). Apelles Syllogismen in the Texte u. Unters. VI. H. 3. Zahn, die Dialoge
des Adamantius in the Ztschr. f. K-Gesch. IX. p. 193 ff. Meyboom, Marcion en de
Marcionieten, Leiden, 1888.
CHAPTER VI
APPENDIX: THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE JEWISH CHRISTIANS.
I. Original Christianity was in appearance Christian Judaism,
the creation of a universal religion on Old Testament soil. It retained, therefore,
so far as it was not hellenised, which never altogether took place, its original
Jewish features. The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob was regarded as the Father
of Jesus Christ, the Old Testament was the authoritative source of revelation, and
the hopes of the future were based on the Jewish ones. The heritage which Christianity
took over from Judaism shews itself on Gentile Christian soil, in fainter or distincter
form, in proportion as the philosophic mode of thought already prevails, or recedes
into the background.The attitude of the recently discovered “Teaching of the twelve
Apostles” is strictly universalistic, and hostile to Judaism as a nation, but shews
us a Christianity still essentially uninfluenced by philosophic elements. The impression
made by this fact has caused some scholars to describe the treatise as a document
of Jewish Christianity. But the attitude of the Didache is rather the ordinary one
of universalistic early Christianity on the soil of the Græco-Roman world. If we
describe this as Jewish Christian, then from the meaning which we must give to the
words “Christian” and “Gentile Christian,” we tacitly legitimise an undefined and
undefinable aggregate of Greek ideas, along with a specifically Pauline element,
as primitive Christianity, and this is perhaps not the intended, but yet desired,
result of the false terminology. Now, if we describe even such writings as the Epistle
of James and the Shepherd of Hermas as Jewish Christian, we therewith reduce the
entire early Christianity, which is the creation of a universal religion on the
soil of Judaism, to the special case of an indefinable religion. The same now appears
as one of the particular values of a completely indeterminate magnitude. Hilgenfeld
(Judenthum und Judenchristenthum, 1886; cf. also Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1886 H.
4.) advocates another conception of Jewish Christianity in opposition to the following
account. Zahn. Gesch. des N.T.-lich. Kanons, II. p. 668 ff. has a different view
still. To describe the appearance of the Jewish, Old Testament, heritage
in the
Christian faith, so far as it is a religious one, by the name
Jewish Christianity, beginning at a certain point quite arbitrarily chosen, and
changeable at will, must therefore necessarily lead to error, and it has done so
to a very great extent. For this designation makes it appear as though the Jewish
element in the Christian religion were something accidental, while it is rather
the case that all Christianity, in so far as something alien is not foisted into
it, appears as the religion of Israel perfected and spiritualised. We are therefore
not justified in speaking of Jewish Christianity where a Christian community, even
one of Gentile birth, calls itself the true Israel, the people of the twelve tribes,
the posterity of Abraham; for this transfer is based on the original claim of Christianity
and can only be forbidden by a view that is alien to it. Just as little may we designate
Jewish Christian the mighty and realistic hopes of the future which were gradually
repressed in the second and third centuries. They may be described as Jewish, or
as Christian; but the designation Jewish Christian must be rejected; for it gives
a wrong impression as to the historic right of these hopes in Christianity. The
eschatological ideas of Papias were not Jewish Christian, but Christian; while,
on the other hand, the eschatological speculations of Origen were not Gentile Christian,
but essentially Greek. Those Christians who saw in Jesus the man chosen by God and
endowed with the Spirit, thought about the Redeemer not in a Jewish Christian, but
in a Christian manner. Those of Asia Minor who held strictly to the 14th of Nisan
as the term of the Easter festival, were not influenced by Jewish Christian, but
by Christian or Old Testament considerations. The author of the “Teaching of the
Apostles,” who has transferred the rights of the Old Testament priests with respect
to the first fruits to the Christian prophets, shews himself by such transference
not as a Jewish Christian, but as a Christian. There is no boundary here; for Christianity
took possession of the whole of Judaism as religion, and it is therefore a most
arbitrary view of history which looks upon the Christian appropriation of the Old
Testament religion, after any point, as no longer Christian, but only Jewish Christian.
Wherever the
universalism of Christianity is not violated in favour of the
Jewish nation, we have to recognise every appropriation of the Old Testament as
Christian. Hence this proceeding could be spontaneously undertaken in Christianity,
as was in fact done.
2. But the Jewish religion is a national religion, and Christianity
burst the bonds of nationality, though not for all who recognised Jesus as Messiah.
This gives the point at which the introduction of the term “Jewish Christianity”
is appropriate.Or even Ebionitism; the designations are to be used as synonymous. It should be applied exclusively to those Christians who really
maintained in their whole extent, or in some measure, even if it were to a minimum
degree, the national and political forms of Judaism and the observance of the Mosaic
law in its literal sense, as essential to Christianity, at least to the Christianity
of born Jews, or who, though rejecting these forms, nevertheless assumed a prerogative
of the Jewish people even in Christianity (Clem., Homil. XI. 26:
ἐὰν ὁ ἀλλόφυλος τὸν νόμον πράξῃ, Ἰουδαῖός ἐστιν, μὴ
πράξας δέ Ἕλλην; “If the foreigner observe the law he is a Jew, but if not
he is a Greek”).The more rarely the right standard has been set up in the literature
of Church history for the distinction of Jewish Christianity, the more valuable
are those writings in which it is found. We must refer, above all, to Diestel, Geschichte
des A. T. in der Christl. Kirche, p. 44, note 7. To this Jewish Christianity is opposed, not Gentile Christianity,
but the Christian religion, in so far as it is conceived as universalistic and anti-national
in the strict sense of the term (Presupp. § 3), that is, the main body of Christendom
in so far as it has freed itself from Judaism as a nation.See Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1883. Col. 409 f. as to the attempt of
Joel to make out that the whole of Christendom up to the end of the first century
was strictly Jewish Christian, and to exhibit the complete friendship of Jews and
Christians in that period (“Blicke in die Religionsgesch.” 2 Abth. 1883). It is
not improbable that Christians like James, living in strict accordance with the
law, were for the time being respected even by the Pharisees in the period preceding
the destruction of Jerusalem But that can in no case have been the rule. We see
from Epiph. h. 29. 9. and from the Talmud what was the custom at a later period.
It is not strange that this Jewish Christianity was subject to
all the conditions which arose from the internal and external position of the Judaism
of the time; that is, different tendencies
were necessarily developed in it, according to the measure of
the tendencies (or the disintegrations) which asserted themselves in the Judaism
of that time. It lies also in the nature of the case that, with one exception, that
of Pharisaic Jewish Christianity, all other tendencies were accurately parallelled
in the systems which appeared in the great, that is, anti-Jewish Christendom. They
were distinguished from these, simply by a social and political, that is, a national
element. Moreover, they were exposed to the same influences from without as the
synagogue and as the larger Christendom, till the isolation to which Judaism as
a nation, after severe reverses condemned itself, became fatal to them also. Consequently,
there were besides Pharisaic Jewish Christians, ascetics of all kinds who were joined
by all those over whom Oriental religious wisdom and Greek philosophy had won a
commanding influence. (See above, p. 242 f.)
In the first century these Jewish Christians formed the majority
in Palestine, and perhaps also in some neighbouring provinces. But they were also
found here and there in the West.
Now the great question is whether this Jewish Christianity as
a whole, or in certain of its tendencies, was a factor in the development of Christianity
to Catholicism. This question is to be answered in the negative, and quite as much
with regard to the history of dogma as with regard to the political history of the
Church. From the stand-point of the universal history of Christianity, these Jewish
Christian communities appear as rudimentary structures which now and again, as objects
of curiosity, engaged the attention of the main body of Christendom in the East,
but could not exert any important influence on it, just because they contained a
national element.
The Jewish Christians took no considerable part in the Gnostic
controversy, the epoch-making conflict which was raised within the pale of the larger
Christendom about the decisive question, whether and to what extent the Old Testament
should remain a basis of Christianity, although they themselves were no less occupied
with the question.There were Jewish Christians who represented the position of
the great Church with reference to the Old Testament religion, and there were some
who criticised the Old Testament like the Gnostics. Their contention may have remained
as much an internal one as that between the Church Fathers and Gnostics (Marcion)
did, so far as Jewish Christianity is concerned. Their may have been relations between
Gnostic Jewish Christians and Gnostics not of a national Jewish type, in Syria and
Asia Minor, though we are completely in the dark on the matter. The issue of this conflict in
favour of that party which recognised the Old Testament in its
full extent as a revelation of the Christian God, and asserted the closest connection
between Christianity and the Old Testament religion, was so little the result of
any influence of Jewish Christianity, that the existence of the latter would only
have rendered that victory more difficult unless it had already fallen into the
background as a phenomenon of no importance.From the mere existence of Jewish Christians, those Christians
who rejected the Old Testament might have argued against the main body of Christendom
and put before it the dilemma: either Jewish Christian or Marcionite. Still more
logical indeed was the dilemma: either Jewish, or Marcionite Christian. How completely insignificant it was
is shewn not only by the limited polemics of the Church Fathers, but perhaps still
more by their silence, and the new import which the reproach of Judaising obtained
in Christendom after the middle of the second century. In proportion as the Old
Testament, in opposition to Gnosticism, became a more conscious and accredited possession
in the Church, and at the same time, in consequence of the naturalising of Christianity
in the world, the need of regulations, fixed rules, statutory enactments etc., appeared
as indispensable, it must have been natural to use the Old Testament as a holy code
of such enactments. This procedure was no falling away from the original anti-Judaic
attitude, provided nothing national was taken from the book, and some kind of spiritual
interpretation given to what had been borrowed. The “apostasy” rather lay simply
in the changed needs. But one now sees how those parties in the Church, to which
for any reason this progressive legislation was distasteful, raised the reproach
of “Judaising,”So did the Montanists and Antimontanists mutually reproach each
other with Judaising (see the Montanist writings of Tertullian). Just in the same
way the arrangements as to worship and organisation, which were ever being more
richly developed, were described by the freer parties as Judaising, because they
made appeal to the Old Testament, though, as regards their contents, they had little
in common with Judaism. But is not the method of claiming Old Testament authority
for the regulations rendered necessary by circumstances nearly as old as Christianity
itself? Against whom the lost treatise of Clement of Alexandria “κανών
ἐκκλησιαστικὸς ἣ προς τοὺς Ἰουδαίζοντας” (Euseb. H. E. VI. 13. 3.) was directed,
we cannot tell. But as we read, Strom., VI. 15. 125, that the Holy Scriptures are
to be expounded according to the ἐκκλησιαστικὸς κανὼν,
and then find the following definition of the Canon:
κανὼν δὲ ἐκκλησιαστικός ἡ συνωδία καὶ συμφωνία νόμου
τε καὶ προφητῶν τῆ κατὰ τὴν τοῦ κυρίου παρουσίαν παραδιδομένῃ διαθήκῃ, we
may conjecture that the Judaisers were those Christians who, in principle or to
some extent, objected to the allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament. We
have then to think either of Marcionite Christians or of “Chiliasts,” that is,
the old Christians who were still numerous in Egypt about the middle of the third
century (see Dionys. Alex. in Euseb., H. E. VII. 24). In the first case, the title
of the treatise would be paradoxical. But perhaps the treatise refers to the Quarto-decimans,
although the expression κανὼν ἐκκλησιαστικός
seems too ponderous for them (see, however, Orig., Comm. in Matth. n. 76, ed. Delarue
III., p. 895). Clement may possibly have had Jewish Christians before him. See Zahn,
Forschungen, vol. III., p. 37 f. and
further, how conversely the same reproach was hurled at those
Christians who resisted the advancing hellenising of Christianity, with regard,
for example, to the doctrine of God, eschatology, Christology, etc.Cases of this kind are everywhere, up to the fifth century,
so numerous that they need not be cited. We may only remind the reader that the
Nestorian Christology was described by its earliest and its latest opponents as
Ebionitic. But while this
reproach is raised, there is nowhere shewn any connection between those described
as Judaising Christians and the Ebionites. That they were identified off-hand is
only a proof that “Ebionitism” was no longer known. That “Judaising” within Catholicism
which appears, on the one hand, in the setting up of a Catholic ceremonial law (worship,
constitution, etc.), and on the other, in a tenacious clinging to less hellenised
forms of faith and hopes of faith, has nothing in common with Jewish Christianity,
which desired somehow to confine Christianity to the Jewish nation.Or were those western Christians Ebionitic who, in the fourth
century, still clung to very realistic Chiliastic hopes, who, in fact, regarded
their Christianity as consisting in these? Speculations
that take no account of history may make out that Catholicism became more and more
Jewish Christian. But historical observation, which reckons only with concrete quantities,
can discover in Catholicism, besides Christianity, no element which it would have
to describe as Jewish Christian. It observes only a progressive hellenising, and
in consequence of this, a progressive spiritual legislation which
utilizes the Old Testament, a process which went on for centuries
according to the same methods which had been employed in the larger Christendom
from the beginning.The hellenising of Christianity went hand in hand with a more
extensive use of the Old Testament; for, according to the principles of Catholicism,
every new article of the Church system must be able to legitimise itself as springing
from revelation. But, as a rule, the attestation could only be gathered from the
Old Testament, since religion here appears in the fixed form of a secular community.
Now the needs of a secular community for outward regulations gradually became so
strong in the Church as to require palpable ceremonial rules. But it cannot be denied
that from a certain point of time, first by means of the fiction of Apostolic constitutions
(see my edition of the Didache, Prolegg. p. 239 ff.), and then without this fiction,
not, however, as a rule, without reservations, ceremonial regulations were simply
taken over from the Old Testament. But this transference (see Bk. II.) takes place
at a time when there can be absolutely no question of an influence of Jewish Christianity.
Moreover, it always proves itself to be catholic by the fact that it did not in
the least soften the traditional anti-Judaism. On the contrary, it attained its
full growth in the age of Constantine. Finally, it should not be overlooked that
at all times in antiquity certain provincial churches were exposed to Jewish influences,
especially in the East and in Arabia, that they were therefore threatened with being
Judaised, or with apostasy to Judaism, and that even at the present day certain
Oriental Churches shew tokens of having once been subject to Jewish influences (see
Serapion in Euseb. H. E. VI. 12. 1, Martyr. Pion., Epiph. de mens. et pond 15. 18;
my Texte u. Unters. I. 3. p. 73 f., and Wellhausen, Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, Part.
3. p. 197 ff.; actual disputations with Jews do not seem to have been common, though
see Tertull., adv. Jud. and Orig. c. Cels. I. 45, 49, 55: II. 31. Clement also keeps
in view Jewish objections). This Jewish Christianity, if we like to call it so,
which in some regions of the East was developed through an immediate influence of
Judaism on Catholicism, should not, however, be confounded with the Jewish Christianity
which is the most original form in which Christianity realised itself. This was
no longer able to influence the Christianity which had shaken itself free from the
Jewish nation (as to futile attempts, see below), any more than the protecting covering
stripped from the new shoot can ever again acquire significance for the latter. Baur’s brilliant attempt to explain Catholicism as a product
of the mutual conflict and neutralising of Jewish and Gentile Christianity, (the
latter, according to Baur, being equivalent to Paulinism) reckons with two factors,
of which the one had no significance at all, and the other only an indirect effect,
as regards the formation of the Catholic Church. The influence of Paul in this direction
is exhausted in working out the universalism of the Christian religion, for a Greater
than he had laid the foundation for this movement, and Paul did not realise it by
himself alone. Placed on this height Catholicism was certainly
developed by means of conflicts and compromises, not, however,
by conflicts with Ebionitism, which was to all intents and purposes discarded as
early as the first century, but as the result of the conflict of Christianity with
the united powers of the world in which it existed, on behalf of its own peculiar
nature as the universal religion based on the Old Testament. Here were fought triumphant
battles, but here also compromises were made which characterise the essence of Catholicism
as Church and as doctrine.What is called the ever-increasing “legal” feature of Gentile
Christianity and the Catholic Church is conditioned by its origin, in so far as
its theory is rooted in that of Judaism spiritualised and influenced by Hellenism.
As the Pauline conception of, the law never took effect, and a criticism of the
Old Testament religion which is just law, neither understood nor ventured upon in
the larger Christendom—the forms were not criticised, but the contents spiritualised—so
the theory that Christianity is promise and spiritual law is to be regarded as the
primitive one. Between the spiritual law and the national law there stand indeed
ceremonial laws which, without being spiritually interpreted, could yet be freed
from the national application. It cannot be denied that the Gentile Christian communities
and the incipient Catholic Church were very careful and reserved in their adoption
of such laws from the Old Testament, and that the later Church no longer observed
this caution. But still it is only a question of degree, for there are many examples
of that adoption in the earliest period of Christendom. The latter had no cause
for hurry in utilizing the Old Testament so long as there was no external or internal
policy, or so long as it was still in embryo. The decisive factor lies here again
in enthusiasm and not in changing theories. The basis for these was supplied from
the beginning. But a community of individuals under spiritual excitement builds
on this foundation something different from an association which wishes to organise
and assert itself as such on earth. (The history of Sunday is specially instructive
here; see Zahn, Gesch. des Sonntags, 1878, as well as the history of the discipline
of fasting, see Linsenmayr, Entwickelung der Kirchl. Fastendisciplin. 1877, and
Die Abgabe des Zehnten. In general, cf. Ritschl., Entstehung der Altkath. Kirche,
2 edit. pp. 312 ff. 331 ff. 1 Cor. IX. 9, may be noted).
A history of Jewish Christianity and its doctrines does not therefore,
strictly speaking, belong to the history of dogma, especially as the original distinction
between Jewish Christianity and the main body of the Church lay, as regards its
principle, not in doctrine, but in policy. But seeing that the opinions of the teachers
in this Church regarding Jewish Christianity throw light upon their own stand-point,
also that up till about the middle of the second century Jewish Christians were
still numerous and undoubtedly formed the great majority
of believers in Palestine,Justin, Apol. I. 53, Dial. 47; Euseb., H. E. IV. 5; Sulpic.
Sev., Hist. Sacr. II. 31; Cyrill, Catech. XIV. 15. Important testimonies in Origen,
Eusebius, Epiphanius and Jerome. and finally, that
attempts—unsuccessful ones indeed—on the part of Jewish Christianity to bring
Gentile Christians under its sway did not cease till about the middle of the
third century, a short sketch may be appropriate here.No Jewish Christian writings have been transmitted to us, even
from the earliest period; for the Apocalypse of John which describes the Jews as
a synagogue of Satan is not a Jewish Christian book (III. 9 especially, shews that
the author knows of only one covenant of God, viz., that with the Christians). Jewish
Christian sources lie at the basis of our synoptic Gospels, but none of them in
their present form is a Jewish Christian writing. The Acts of the Apostles is so
little Jewish Christian, its author seemingly so ignorant of Jewish Christianity,
at least so unconcerned with regard to it that to him the spiritualised Jewish law,
or Judaism as a religion which he connects as closely as possible with Christianity,
is a factor already completely detached from the Jewish people (see Overbeck’s Commentar
z. Apostelgesch. and his discussion in the Ztschr. f. wiss. Theol. 1872. p. 305
ff.). Measured by the Pauline theology we may indeed, with Overbeck, say of the
Gentile Christianity, as represented by the Author of the Acts of the Apostles,
that it already has germs of Judaism and represents a falling off from Paulinism;
but these expressions are not correct, because they have at least the appearance
of making Paulinism the original form of Gentile Christianity. But as this can neither
be proved nor believed, the religious attitude of the Author of the Acts of the
Apostles must have been a very old one in Christendom. The Judaistic element was
not first introduced into Gentile Christianity by the opponents of Paul, who indeed
wrought in the national sense, and there is even nothing to lead to the hypothesis
that the common Gentile Christian view of the Old Testament and of the law should
be conceived as resulting from the efforts of Paul and his opponents, for the consequent
effect here would either have been null, or a strengthening of the Jewish Christian
thesis. The Jewish element, that is the total acceptance of the Jewish religion
sub specie aternitatis et Christi, is simply the original Christianity of the Gentile
Christians itself considered as theory. Contrary to his own intention, Paul was
compelled to lead his converts to this Christianity, for only for such Christianity
was “the time fulfilled” within the empire of the world. The Acts of the Apostles
gives eloquent testimony to the pressing difficulties which under such circumstances
stand in the way of a historical understanding of the Gentile Christians in view
of the work and the theology of Paul. Even the Epistle to the Hebrews is not a Jewish
Christian writing; but there is certainly a peculiar state of things connected with
this document. For, on the one hand, the author and his readers are free from the
law, a spiritual interpretation is given to the Old Testament religion which makes
it appear to be glorified and fulfilled in the work of Christ, and there is no mention
of any prerogative of the people of Israel. But, on the other hand, because the
spiritual interpretation, as in Paul, is here teleological, the author allows a
temporary significance to the cultus as literally understood, and therefore by his
criticism he conserves the Old Testament religion for the past, while declaring
that it was set aside as regards the present by the fulfilment of Christ. The teleology
of the author, however, looks at everything only from the point of view of shadow
and reality, an antithesis which is at the service of Paul also, but which in his
case vanishes behind the antithesis of law and grace. This scheme of thought which
is to be traced back to a way of looking at things which arose in Christian Judaism,
seeing that it really distinguishes between old and new, stands midway between the
conception of the Old Testament religion entertained by Paul, and that of the common
Gentile Christian as it is represented by Barnabas. The author of the Epistle to
the Hebrews undoubtedly knows of a twofold convenant of God. But the two are represented
as stages, so that the second is completely based on the first. This view was more
likely to be understood by the Gentile Christians than the Pauline, that is, with
some seemingly slight changes, to be recognised as their own. But even it at first
fell to the ground, and it was only in the conflict with the Marcionites that some
Church Fathers advanced to views which seem to be related to those of the Epistle
to the Hebrews. Whether the author of this Epistle was a born Jew or a Gentile—in
the former case he would far surpass the Apostle Paul in his freedom from the national
claims—we cannot, at any rate, recognise in it a document containing a conception
which still prizes the Jewish nationality in Christianity, nay, not even a document
to prove that such a conception was still dangerous. Consequently, we have no Jewish
Christian memorial in the New Testament at all, unless it be in the Pauline Epistles.
But as concerns the early Christian literature outside the Canon, the fragments
of the great work of Hegesippus are even yet by some investigators claimed for Jewish
Christianity. Weizsäcker (Art. “Hegesippus” in Herzog’s R. E. 2 edit.) has shewn
how groundless this assumption is. That Hegesippus occupied the common Gentile Christian
position is certain from unequivocal testimony of his own. If, as is very improbable,
we were obliged to ascribe to him a rejection of Paul, we should have to refer to
Euseb. H. E. IV. 29. 5. (Σευηριανοὶ βλασφημοῦντες
Παῦλον τὸν ἀπόστολον ἀθετοῦσιν αὐτοῦ τὰς ἐπιστολὰς μηδὲ τὰς πράξεις τῶν ἀποστόλων
καταδεχόμενοι, but probably the Gospels; these Severians therefore, like
Marcion, recognised the Gospel of Luke, but rejected the Acts of the Apostles),
and Orig. c. Cels. V. 65: (εἰσὶ γὰρ τινες αἱρέσεις
τὰς Παύλου ἐπιστολὰς τοῦ ἀποστόλου μὴ προσιέμεναι ὥσπερ Ἐβιωναῖοι ἀμφότεροι καὶ
οἱ καλούμενοι ̕Σγκρατηταί). Consequently, our only sources of knowledge of
Jewish Christianity in the post-Pauline period are merely the accounts of the Church
Fathers and some additional fragments (see the collection of fragments of the Ebionite
Gospel and that to the Hebrews in Hilgenfeld, Nov. Test. extra can. rec. fasc. IV.
Ed. 2, and in Zahn, l. c. II. p. 642 ff.). We know better, but still very imperfectly,
certain forms of the syncretistic Jewish Christianity, from the Philosoph. of Hippolytus
and the accounts of Epiphanius, who is certainly nowhere more incoherent than in
the delineation of the Jewish Christians, because he could not copy original documents
here, but was forced to piece together confused traditions with his own observations.
See below on the extensive documents which are even yet, as they stand, treated
as records of Jewish Christianity, viz., the Pseudo-Clementines. Of the pieces of
writing whose Jewish Christian origin is controverted, in so far as they may be
simply Jewish, I say nothing.
Justin vouches for the existence of Jewish Christians, and distinguishes
between those who would force the law even on Gentile
Christians and would have no fellowship with such as did not observe
it, and those who considered that the law was binding only on people of Jewish birth
and did not shrink from fellowship with Gentile Christians who were living without
the law. How the latter could observe the law and yet enter into intercourse with
those who were not Jews is involved in obscurity, but these he recognises as partakers
of the Christian salvation and therefore as Christian brethren, though he declares
that there are Christians who do not possess this large-heartedness. He also speaks
of Gentile Christians who allowed themselves to be persuaded by Jewish Christians
into the observance of the Mosaic law, and confesses that he is not quite sure
of the salvation of these. This is all we learn from Justin,As to the chief localities where Jewish Christians were found,
see Zahn, Kanonsgesch. II. p. 648 ff. but it is instructive
enough. In the first place, we can see that the question is no longer a burning
one: “Justin here represents only the interests of a Gentile Christianity whose
stability has been secured.” This has all the more meaning that in the Dialogue
Justin has not in view an individual Christian community, or the communities of
a province, but speaks as one who surveys the whole situation of Christendom.Dialogue 47.
The very fact that Justin has devoted to the whole question only one chapter of
a work containing 142, and the magmanimous way in which he speaks, shew that the
phenomena in question have no longer any importance for the main body of Christendom.
Secondly, it is worthy of notice that Justin distinguishes two tendencies in Jewish
Christianity. We observe these two tendencies in the Apostolic age (Presupp. § 3);
they had therefore maintained themselves to his time. Finally, we must not overlook
the circumstance that he adduces only the ἔννομος
πολιτεία, “legal polity,” as characteristic of this Jewish Christianity.
He speaks only incidentally of a difference in doctrine, nay, he manifestly presupposes
that the διδάγματα Χριστοῦ, “teachings of Christ,”
are essentially found among them just as among the Gentile Christians; for he regards
the more liberal among them as friends and brethren.Yet it should be noted that the Christians who, according to
Dial. 48, denied the pre-existence of Christ and held him to be a man are described
as Jewish Christians. We should read in the passage in question, as my recent comparison
of the Parisian codex shews, ἀπὸ τοῦ ὑμετέρου γένους.
Yet Justin did not make this a controversial point of great moment.
The fact that even then there were Jewish Christians here and
there who sought to spread the ἔννομος πολιτεία among Gentile Christians has been
attested by Justin and also by other contemporary writers.The so-called Barnabas is considerably older than Justin. In
his Epistle (4. 6) he has in view Gentile Christians who have been converted by
Jewish Christians, when he utters a warning against those who say
ὅτι α διαθήκη ἐκείνων (the Jews)
καὶ ἡμῶν (ἐστιν). But how great the actual
danger was cannot be gathered from the Epistle. Ignatius in two Epistles (ad Magn.
8–10: ad Philad. 6. 9) opposes Jewish Christian intrigues, and characterises them
solely from the point of view that they mean to introduce the Jewish observance
of the law. He opposes them with a Pauline idea (Magn. 8. 1:
εἰ γὰρ μέχρι νῦν κατὰ νόμον, Ἰουδαϊσμὸν ζῶμεν ὁμολογοῦμεν
χάριν μὴ εἰληφέναι), as well as with the common Gentile Christian assumption
that the prophets themselves had already lived κατὰ Χριστόν. These Judaists must
be strictly distinguished from the Gnostics whom Ignatius elsewhere opposes (against
Zahn, Ignat. v. Ant. p. 356 f.). The dangers from this Jewish Christianity cannot
have been very serious, even if we take Magn. 11. 1, as a phrase. There was an active
Jewish community in Philadelphia (Rev. III. 9), and so Jewish Christian plots may
have continued longer there. At the first look it seems very promising that in the
old dialogue of Aristo of Pella a Hebrew Christian, Jason, is put in opposition
to the Alexandrian Jew, Papiscus. But as the history of the little book proves,
this Jason must have essentially represented the common Christian and not the Ebionite
conception of the Old Testament and its relation to the Gospel, etc.; see my Texte
u. Unters. I. 1. 2. p. 115 ff.; I. 3. pp. 115-130. Testimony as to an apostasy to
Judaism is occasionally though rarely given; see Serapion in Euseb., H. E. VI. 12,
who addresses a book to one Domninus, ἐκπεπτωκότα
παρὰ τὸν τοῦ διῶγμοὐ καιρὸν ἀπὸ τῆς εἰς Χριστὸν πίστεως ἐπί τὴν Ἰουδαϊκὴν
ἐθελοθρησκείαν;
see also Acta Pionii, 13. 14. According to Epiphanius, de mens et pond. 14. 15,
Acquila, the translator of the Bible, was first a Christian and then a Jew. This
account is perhaps derived from Origen, and is probably reliable. Likewise according
to Epiphanius (l. c. 17. 18), Theodotion was first a Marcionite and then a Jew.
The transition from Marcionitism to Judaism (for extremes meet) is not in itself incredible. But there is no evidence
of this propaganda having acquired any great importance. Celsus also knows Christians
who desire to live as Jews according to the Mosaic law (V. 61), but he mentions
them only once, and otherwise takes no notice of them in his delineation of, and
attack on, Christianity. We may perhaps infer that he knew of them only from hearsay,
for he simply enumerates them along with the numerous Gnostic sects. Had
this keen observer really known them he would hardly have passed
them over, even though he had met with only a small number of them.It follows from c. Cels. II. 1-3, that Celsus could hardly have
known Jewish Christians. Irenæus placed
the Ebionites among the heretical schools,Iren. 26. 2: III. 11. 7: III. 15. 1, 21. 1: IV. 33. 4: V. 1.
3. We first find the name Ebionti, the poor, in Irenæus. We are probably entitled
to assume that this name was given to the Christians in Jerusalem as early as the
Apostolic age, that is, they applied it to themselves (poor in the sense of the
prophets and of Christ, fit to be received into the Messianic kingdom). It is very
questionable whether we should put any value on Epiph. h. 30. 17. but we can see from his work that in
his day they must have been all but forgotten in the West.When Irenæus adduces as the points of distinction between the
Church and the Ebionites, that besides observing the law and repudiating the Apostle
Paul, the latter deny the Divinity of Christ and his birth from the Virgin and reject
the New Testament Canon (except the Gospel of Matthew), that only proves that the
formation of dogma has made progress in the Church. The less was known of the Ebionites
from personal observation, the more confidently they were made out to be heretics
who denied the Divinity of Christ and rejected the Canon. The denial of the Divinity
of Christ and the birth from the Virgin was, from the end of the second century,
regarded as the Ebionite heresy par excellence, and the Ebionites themselves appeared
to the Western Christians, who obtained their information solely from the East,
to be a school like those of the Gnostics, founded by a scoundrel named Ebion for
the purpose of dragging down the person of Jesus to the common level. It is also
mentioned incidentally, that this Ebion had commanded the observance of circumcision
and the Sabbath; but that is no longer the main thing (see Tertull, de carne 14,
18, 24: de virg. vel. 6: de præscr. 10. 33; Hippol., Syntagma, [Pseudo-Tertull,
11; Philastr. 37; Epiph. h. 30]; Hippol., Philos. VII. 34. The latter passage contains
the instructive statement that Jesus by his perfect keeping of the law became the
Christ). This attitude of the Western Christians proves that they no longer knew
Jewish Christian communities Hence it is all the more strange that Hilgenfeld (Ketzergesch.
p. 422 ff.) has in all earnestness endeavoured to revive the Ebion of the Western
Church Fathers. This was not yet the
case in the East. Origen knows of them. He knows also of some who recognise the
birth from the Virgin. He is sufficiently intelligent and acquainted with history
to judge that the Ebionites are no school, but, as believing Jews, are the descendants
of the earliest Christians, in fact he seems to suppose that all converted Jews
have at all times observed the law of their fathers. But he is far from judging
of them favourably. He regards them as little better than the Jews (Ἰουδαῖοι
καὶ οἱ ὀλίγῳ διαφέροντες
αὐτῶν Ἐβιωναῖοι,
“Jews and Ebionites who differ little from them”). Their rejection
of Paul destroys the value of their recognition of Jesus as Messiah. They appear
only to have assumed Christ’s name, and their literal exposition of the Scripture
is meagre and full of error. It is possible that such Jewish Christians may have
existed in Alexandria, but it is not certain. Origen knows nothing of an inner development
in this Jewish Christianity.See Orig. c. Cels. II. 1: V. 61, 65: de princip. IV. 22; hom.
in Genes. III. 15 (Opp. II, p. 65): hom. in Jerem. XVII. 12 (III. p. 254): in Matth.
T. XVI. 12 (III. p. 494), T. XVII. 12 (III. p. 733); cf. Opp. III. p. 895: hom.
in Lc. XVII. (III. p. 952). That a portion of the Ebionites recognised the birth
from the Virgin was according to Origen frequently attested. That was partly reckoned
to them for righteousness and partly not, because they would not admit the pre-existence
of Christ. The name “Ebionites” is interpreted as a nickname given them by the Church
“beggarly” in the knowledge of scripture, and particularly of Christology. Even in Palestine, Origen seems to have occupied himself
personally with these Jewish Christians, just as little as Eusebius.Eusebius knows no more than Origen (H. E. III. 27) unless we
specially credit him with the information that the Ebionites keep along with the
Sabbath also the Sunday. What he says of Symmachus, the translator of the Bible,
and an Ebionite, is derived from Origen (H. E. VI. 17). The report is interesting,
because it declares that Symmachus wrote against Catholic Christianity, especially
against the Catholic Gospel of Matthew (about the year 200). But Symmachus is to
be classed with the Gnostics, and not with the common type of Jewish Christianity
(see below). We have also to thank Eusebius (H. E. III. 5. 3) for the information
that the Christians of Jerusalem fled to Pella, in Peræa, before the destruction
of that city. In the following period the most important settlements of the Ebionites
must have been in the countries east of the Jordan, and in the heart of Syria (see
Jul. Afric. in Euseb., H. E. I. 7. 14: Euseb., de loc. hebr. in Lagarde, Onomast.
p. 301; Epiph., h. 29. 7: h. 30. 2). This fact explains how the bishops in Jerusalem
and the coast towns of Palestine came to see very little of them. There was a Jewish
Christian community in Beroea with which Jerome had relations (Jerom., de Vir. inl.
3). They lived
apart by themselves and were not aggressive. Jerome is the last who gives us a clear
and certain account of them.Jerome correctly declares (Ep. ad. August. 122. C. 13, Opp.
I. p. 746), “(Ebionitæ) credentes in Christo propter hoc solum a
patribus anathematizati sunt, quod legis cæremonias Christi evangelio miscuerunt,
et sic nova confessa sunt, ut vetera non omitterent.” He, who associated with them, assures us that their
attitude was the same as in the second century, only they seem to have made progress
in the recognition of the birth from the Virgin and
in their more friendly position towards the Church.Ep. ad August. l. c.; Quid dicam de Hebionitis,
qui Christianos esse se simulant? usque hodie per totas orientis synagogas inter
Judæos (!) hæresis est, que dicitur Minæorum et a Pharisæis nunc usque damnatur,
quos vulgo Nazaræos nuncupant, qui credunt in Christum filium dei natum de Virgine
Maria et eum dicunt esse, qui sub pontio Pilato passus est et resurrexit, in quem
et nos credimus; sed dum volunt et Judæi esse et Christiani, nec Judæi sunt nec
Christiani.” The approximation of the Jewish Christian conception to that
of the Catholics shews itself also in their exposition of Isaiah IX. 1. f. (see
Jerome on the passage). Bert we must not forget that there were such Jewish Christians
from the earliest times. It is worthy of note that the name Nazarenes, as applied
to Jewish Christians, is found in the Acts of the Apostles XXIV. 5, in the Dialogue
of Jason and Papiscus, and then first again in Jerome. Jerome at
one time calls them Ebionites and at another Nazarenes, thereby proving that these
names were used synonymously.Zahn, l. c. p. 648 ff. 668 ff. has not convinced me of the contrary,
but I confess that Jerome’s style of expression is not everywhere clear. There is not the least ground for distinguishing
two clearly marked groups of Jewish Christians, or even for reckoning the distinction
of Origen and the Church Fathers to the account of Jewish Christians themselves,
so as to describe as Nazarenes those who recognised the birth from the Virgin and
who had no wish to compel the Gentile Christians to observe the law, and the others
as Ebionites. Apart from syncretistic or Gnostic Jewish Christianity, there is but
one group of Jewish Christians holding various shades of opinion, and these from
the beginning called themselves Nazarenes as well as Ebionites. From the beginning,
likewise, one portion of them was influenced by the existence of a great Gentile
Church which did not observe the law. They acknowledged the work of Paul and experienced
in a slight degree influences emanating from the great Church.Zahn, (1. c.) makes a sharp distinction between the Nazarenes,
on the one side, who used the Gospel of the Hebrews, acknowledged the With from
the Virgin, and in fact the higher Christology to some extent, did not repudiate
Paul, etc., and the Ebionites on the other, whom he simply identifies with the Gnostic
Jewish Christians, if I am not mistaken. In opposition to this, I think I must adhere
to the distinction as given above in the text and in the following: (1) Non-Gnostic,
Jewish Christians (Nazarenes, Ebionites), who appeared in various shades, according
to their doctrine and attitude to the Gentile Church, and whom, with the Church
Fathers, we may appropriately classify as strict or tolerant (exclusive or liberal).
(2) Gnostic or syncretistic Judæo-Christians who are also termed Ebionites. But the gulf
which separated them from that Church did not thereby become narrower.
That gulf was caused by the social and political separation of these Jewish Christians,
whatever mental attitude, hostile or friendly, they might take up to the great Church.
This Church stalked over them with iron feet, as over a structure which in her opinion
was full of contradictions throughout (“Semi-christiani”), and was disconcerted
neither by the gospel of these Jewish Christians nor by anything else about them.This Gospel no doubt greatly interested the scholars of the
Catholic Church from Clement of Alexandria onwards. But they have almost all contrived
to evade the hard problem which it presented. It may be noted, incidentally, that
the Gospel of the Hebrews, to judge from the remains preserved to us, can neither
have been the model nor the translation of our Matthew, but a work independent of
this, though drawing from the same sources, representing perhaps to some extent
an earlier stage of the tradition. Jerome also knew very well that the Gospel of
the Hebrews was not the original of the canonical Matthew, but he took care not
to correct the old prejudice. Ebionitic conceptions, such as that of the female
nature of the Holy Spirit, were of course least likely to convince the Church Fathers.
Moreover, the common Jewish Christians hardly possessed a Church theology, because
for them Christianity was something entirely different from the doctrine of a school.
On the Gospel of the Hebrews, see Handmann (Texte u. Unters V. 3), Resch, Agrapha
(1. c. V. 4), and Zahn, l. c. p. 642 ff.
But as the Synagogue also vigorously condemned them, their position up to their
extinction was a most tragic one. These Jewish Christians, more than any other Christian
party, bore the reproach of Christ.
The Gospel, at the time when it was proclaimed among the Jews,
was not only law, but theology, and indeed syncretistic theology. On the other hand,
the temple service and the sacrificial system had begun to lose their hold in certain
influential circles.We have as yet no history of the sacrificial system and the
views as to sacrifice in the Græco-Roman epoch of the Jewish Nation. It is urgently
needed. We have pointed out above (Presupp. §§ I. 2. 5) how great
were the diversities of Jewish sects, and that there was in the Diaspora, as well
as in Palestine itself, a Judaism which, on the one hand, followed ascetic impulses,
arid on the other, advanced to a criticism of the religious tradition without giving
up the national claims. It may even be said that in theology the boundaries between
the orthodox Judaism of the Pharisees and a syncretistic Judaism were of an elastic
kind. Although religion, in those
circles, seemed to be fixed in its legal aspect, yet on its theological
side it was ready to admit very diverse speculations, in which angelic powers especially
played a great rôle.We may remind readers of the assumptions, that the world was
created by angels, that the law was given by angels, and similar ones which are
found in the theology of the Pharisees. Celsus (in Orig. I. 26: V. 6) asserts generally
that the Jews worshipped angels, so does the author of the Prædicatio Petri, as
well as the apologist Aristides. Cf. Joël, Blicke in die Religionsgesch. I Abth.,
a book which is certainly to be used with caution (see Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1881. Coll.
184 ff.). That introduced into Jewish monotheism an element of differentiation,
the results of which were far-reaching. The field was prepared for the formation
of syncretistic sects. They present themselves to us on the soil of the earliest
Christianity, in the speculations of those Jewish Christian teachers who are opposed
in the Epistle to the Colossians, and in the Gnosis of Cerinthus (see above, p.
247). Here cosmological ideas and myths were turned to profit. The idea of God was
sublimated by both. In consequence of this, the Old Testament records were subjected
to criticism, because they could not in all respects be reconciled with the universal
religion which hovered before men’s minds. This criticism was opposed to the Pauline
in so far as it maintained, with the common Jewish Christians and Christendom as
a whole, that the genuine Old Testament religion was essentially identical with
the Christian. But while those common Jewish Christians drew from this the inference
that the whole of the Old Testament must be adhered to in its traditional sense
and in all its ordinances, and while the larger Christendom secured for itself the
whole of the Old Testament by deviating from the ordinary interpretation, those
syncretistic Jewish Christians separated from the Old Testament, as interpolations,
whatever did not agree with their purer moral conceptions and borrowed speculations.
Thus, in particular, they got rid of the sacrificial ritual and all that was connected
with it by putting ablutions in their place. First the profanation, and afterwards
the abolition of the temple worship after the destruction of Jerusalem, may have
given another new and welcome impulse to this by coming to be regarded as its Divine
confirmation (Presupp. § 2). Christianity now
appeared as purified Mosaism. In these Jewish Christian undertakings
we have undoubtedly before us a series of peculiar attempts to elevate the Old Testament
religion into the universal one, under the impression of the person of Jesus; attempts,
however, in which the Jewish religion, and not the Jewish people, was to bear the
costs by curtailment of its distinctive features. The great inner affinity of these
attempts with the Gentile Christian Gnostics has already been set forth. The firm
partition wall between them, however, lies in the claim of these Jewish Christians
to set forth the pure Old Testament religion, as well as in the national Jewish
colouring which the constructed universal religion was always to preserve. This
national colouring is shewn in the insistance upon a definite measure of Jewish
national ceremonies as necessary to salvation, and in the opposition to the Apostle
Paul, which united the Gnostic Judæo-Christians with the common type, those of
the strict observance. How the latter were related to the former, we do not know,
for the inner relations here are almost completely unknown to us.No reliance can be placed on Jewish sources, or on Jewish scholars,
as a rule. What we find in Joël, l. c. I. Abth. p. 101 ff. is instructive. We may
mention Grätz, Gnosticismus und Judenthum (Krotoschin, 1846), who has called attention
to the Gnostic elements in the Talmud, and dealt with several Jewish Gnostics and
Antignostics, as well as with the book of Jezira. Grätz assumes that the four main
dogmatic points in the book Jezira, viz., the strict unity of the deity, and, at
the same time, the negation of the demiurgic dualism, the creation out of nothing
with the negation of matter, the systematic unity of the world and the balancing
of opposites, were directed against prevailing Gnostic ideas.
Apart from the false doctrines opposed in the Epistle to the Colossians,
and from Cerinthus, this syncretistic Jewish Christianity which aimed at making
itself a universal religion meets us in tangible form only in three phenomena:We may pass over the false teachers of the Pastoral Epistles,
as they cannot be with certainty determined, and the possibility is not excluded
that we have here to do with an arbitrary construction; see Holtzman, Pastoralbriefe,
p. 150 f. in the Elkesaites of Hippolytus and Origen; in the Ebionites with their associates
of Epiphanius, sects very closely connected, in fact to be viewed as one party of
manifold shades;Orig. in Euseb. VI. 38; Hippol., Philos. IX. 13 ff., X. 29;
Epiph., h. 30, also h. 19. 53; Method., Conviv. VIII. to. From the confused account
of Epiphanius, who called the common Jewish Christians Nazarenes, the Gnostic type
Ebionites and Sampsmi, and their Jewish forerunners Osseni, we may conclude, that
in many regions where there were Jewish Christians they yielded to the propaganda
of the Elkesaite doctrines, and that in the fourth century there was no other syncretistic
Jewish Christianity besides the various shades of Elkesaites. and
in the activity of Symmachus.I formerly reckoned Symmachus, the translator of the Bible,
among the common Jewish Christians; but the statements of Victorinus Rhetor on Gal.
I. 19. II. 26 (Migne T. VIII. Col. 1155. 1162) shew that he has a close affinity
with the Pseudo-Clementines, and is also to be classed with the Elkesaite Alcibiades.
“Nam Jacobum apostolum Symmachiani faciunt quasi duodecimum et hunc
secuntur, qui ad dominum nostrum Jesum Christum adjungunt Judaismi observationem,
quamquam etiam Jesum Christum fatentur; dicunt enim eum ipsum Adam esse et esse
animam generalem, et aliæ hujusmodi blasphemiæ.” The account given by Eusebius,
H. E. VI. 17 (probably on the authority of Origen, see also Demonstr. VII. 1) is
important: Τῶν γε μὲν ἑρμηχευτῶν αὐτῶν δὴ τούτων ἰστέον,
Ἐβιωναίον τὸν Σύμμαχον γεγονέναι . . . . καὶ ὑπομνήματα δὲ τοῦ Συμμάχου εἰσέτι νῦν
φερεται, ἐν οἶς δοκεῖ πρὸς τὸ κατὺ Ματθαῖον ἀποτεινόμενος εὐαγγέλιον τὴν δεδηλωμένην
αἵρεσιν κρατύνειν. Symmachus therefore adopted an aggressive attitude towards
the great Church, and hence we may probably class him with Alcibiades who lived
a little later. Common Jewish Christianity was no longer aggressive in the second
century. We observe here a form of religion
as far removed from that of the Old Testament as from the Gospel, subject to strong
heathen influences, not Greek, but Asiatic, and scarcely deserving the name “Christian,”
because it appeals to a new revelation of God which is to complete that given in
Christ. We should take particular note of this in judging of the whole remarkable
phenomenon. The question in this Jewish Christianity is not the formation of a philosophic
school, but to some extent the establishment of a kind of new religion, that is,
the completion of that founded by Christ, undertaken by a particular person basing
his claims on a revealed book which was delivered to him from heaven. This book
which was to form the complement of the Gospel, possessed, from the third century,
importance for all sections of Jewish Christians so far as they, in the phraseology
of Epiphanius, were not Nazarenes.Wellhausen (l. c. Part III. p. 206) supposes that Elkesai is
equivalent to Alexius. That the receiver of the “book” was a historical person is
manifest from Epiphanius’ account of his descendants (h. 19 2: 53. 1). From Hipp.
Philosoph. IX. 16, p. 468, it is certainly probable, though not certain, that the
book was produced by the unknown author as early as the time of Trajan. On the other
hand, the existence of the sect itself can be proved only at the beginning of the
third century, and therefore we have the possibility of an ante-dating of the “book”.
This seems to have been Origen’s opinion. The whole system reminds
one of Samaritan Christian syncretism;Epiph. (h. 53. 1) says of the Elkesaites:
οὔτε χριστιανοὶ ὑπάρχοντει οὔτε Ἰουδαῖοι οὔτε Ἕλληνες,
ἀλλὰ μέσον ἀπλῶς ὑπάρχοντες. He pronounces a similar judgment as to the Samaritan
sects (Simonians), and expressly (h. 30. 1) connects the Elkesaites with them. but we must be on our
guard against identifying the two phenomena, or even regarding them as similar.
These Elkesaite Jewish Christians held fast by the belief that Jesus was the Son
of God, and saw in the “book” a revelation which proceeded from him. They did not
offer any worship to their founder,The worship paid to the descendants of this Elkesai, spoken
of by Epiphanius, does not, if we allow for exaggerations, go beyond the measure
of honour which was regularly paid to the descendants of prophets and men of God
in the East. Cf. the respect enjoyed by the blood relations of Jesus and Mohammed. that is, to the receiver of the “book,” and
they were, as will be shewn, the most ardent opponents of Simonianism.It the “book” really originated in the time of Trajan, then
its production keeps within the frame-work of common Christianity, for at that time
there were appearing everywhere in Christendom revealed books which contained new
instructions and communications of grace. The reader may be reminded, for example,
of the Shepherd of Hermas. When the sect declared that the “book” was delivered
to Elkesai by a male and a female angel, each as large as a mountain, that these
angels were the Son of God and the Holy Spirit, etc., we have, apart from the fantastic
colouring, nothing extraordinary.
Alcibiades of Apamea, one of their disciples, came from the East
to Rome about 220-230, and endeavoured to spread the doctrines of the sect in the
Roman Church. He found the soil prepared, inasmuch as he could announce from the
“book” forgiveness of sins to all sinful Christians, even the grossest transgressors,
and such forgiveness was very much needed. Hippolytus opposed him, and had an opportunity
of seeing the book and becoming acquainted with its contents. From his account and
that of Origen we gather the following: (1) The sect is a Jewish Christian one,
for it requires the νόμου πολιτεία (circumcision
and the keeping of the Sabbath), and repudiates the Apostle Paul; but it criticises
the Old Testament and rejects a part of it. (2) The objects of its faith are the
“Great and most High God,” the Son of God (the “Great King”), and the Holy Spirit
(thought of as female); Son and Spirit appear as angelic powers. Considered outwardly,
and according to
his birth, Christ is a mere man, but with this peculiarity, that
he has already been frequently born and manifested (πολλάκις γεννηθέντα καὶ γεννώμενον
πεφηνέναι καὶ φύεσθαι, ἀλλάσσοντα γενέσεις καὶ μετενσωματούμενον, cf. the testimony
of Victorinus as to Symmachus). From the statements of Hippolytus we
cannot be sure whether he was identified with the Son of God,It may be assumed from Philos. X. 29 that, in the opinion of
Hyppolytus, the Elkesaites identified the Christ from above with the Son of God,
and assumed that this Christ appeared on earth in changing and purely human forms,
and will appear again (αὐτὸν δὲ μεταγγιζόμενον ἐν
σώμασι πολλοῖς πολλάκις καὶ νῦν δὲ ἐν τῷ Ἰησοῦ, ὁμοίως ποτὲ μὲν ἐκ τοῦ θεοῦ γεγενῆσθαι,
ποτὲ δὲ πνεῦμα γεγονέναι, ποτὲ δὲ ἐκ παρθένου, ποτὲ δὲ οὔ καὶ τοῦτον δὲ μετέπειτα
ἀεὶ ἐν σώματι μεταγγίζεσθαι καὶ ἐν πολλοῖς κατὰ καιροὺς δείκνυσθαι). As the
Elkesaites (see the account by Epiphanius) traced back the incarnations of Christ
to Adam, and not merely to Abraham, we may see in this view of history the attempt
to transform Mosaism into the universal religion. But the Pharisaic theology had
already begun with these Adam speculations, which are always a sign that the religion
in Judaism is feeling its limits too narrow. The Jews in Alexandria were also acquainted
with these speculations. at any rate the
assumption of repeated births of Christ shews how completely Christianity was meant
to be identified with what was supposed to be the pure Old Testament religion. (3)
The “book” proclaimed a new forgiveness of sin, which, on condition of faith in
the “book” and a real change of mind, was to be bestowed on every one, through the
medium of washings, accompanied by definite prayers which are strictly prescribed.
In these prayers appear peculiar Semitic speculations about nature (“the seven witnesses:
heaven, water, the holy spirits, the angels of prayer, oil, salt, earth”). The old
Jewish way of thinking appears in the assumption that all kinds of sickness and
misfortune are punishments for sin, and that these penalties must therefore be removed
by atonement. The book contains also astrological and geometrical speculations in
a religious garb. The main thing, however, was the possibility of a forgiveness
of sin, ever requiring to be repeated, though Hippolytus himself was unable to point
to any gross laxity. Still, the appearance of this sect represents the attempt to
make the religion of Christian Judaism palatable to the world. The possibility of
repeated forgiveness of sin, the speculations about numbers, elements,
and stars, the halo of mystery, the adaptation to the forms of
worship employed in the “mysteries,” are worldly means of attraction which shew
that this Jewish Christianity was subject to the process of acute secularization.
The Jewish mode of life was to be adopted in return for these concessions. Yet its
success in the West was of small extent and short-lived.
Epiphanius confirms all these features, and adds a series of new
ones. In his description, the new forgiveness of sin is not so prominent as in that
of Hippolytus, but it is there. From the account of Epiphanius we can see that these
syncretistic Judæo-Christian sects were at first strictly ascetic and rejected marriage
as well as the eating of flesh, but that they gradually became more lax. We learn
here that the whole sacrificial service was removed from the Old Testament by the Elkesaites and declared to be non-Divine, that is non-Mosaic, and that fire was
consequently regarded as the impure and dangerous element, and water as the good
one.In the Gospel of these Jewish Christians Jesus is made to say
(Epiph. h. 30. 16) ἦλθον καταλῦσαι τὰς θυσιας, καὶ
ἐὰν μὴ ταύσησθε τοῦ θύεὶν, οὐ παύσεται ἀφ᾽ ὑμῶν ἡ ὁργὴ. We see the essential
progress of this Jewish Christianity within Judaism in the opposition in principle
to the whole sacrificial service (vid. also Epiph., h. 19. 3). We learn further, that these sects acknowledged no prophets and men of God
between Aaron and Christ, and that they completely adapted the Hebrew Gospel of
Matthew to their own views.On this new Gospel see Zahn, Kanongesch. II. p. 724. In addition to this book, however, (the Gospel of the
12 Apostles), other writings, such as Περίοδοι Πέτρου
διὰ Κλήμεντος Ἀναβαθμοὶ Ἰακώβου and similar histories of Apostles, were held
in esteem by them. In these writings the Apostles were represented as zealous ascetics,
and, above all, as vegetarians, while the Apostle Paul was most bitterly opposed.
They called him a Tarsene, said he was a Greek, and heaped on him gross abuse. Epiphanius
also dwells strongly upon their Jewish mode of life (circumcision, Sabbath), as
well as their daily washings,It is incorrect to suppose that the lustrations were meant to
take the place of baptism, or were conceived by these Jewish Christians as repeated
baptisms. Their effect was certainly equal to that of baptism. But it is nowhere
hinted in our authorities that they were on that account made equivalent to the
regular baptism. and gives some information about the
constitution and form of worship of these sects (use of baptism:
Lord’s Supper with bread and water). Finally, Epiphanius gives particulars about
their Christology. On this point there were differences of opinion, and these differences
prove that there was no Christological dogma. As among the common Jewish Christians,
the birth of Jesus from the Virgin was a matter of dispute. Further, some identified
Christ with Adam, others saw in him a heavenly being (ἄνωθεν
ὄν), a spiritual being, who was created before all, who was higher than all
angels and Lord of all things, but who chose for himself the upper world; yet this
Christ from above came down to this lower world as often as he pleased. He came
in Adam, he appeared in human form to the patriarchs, and at last appeared on earth
as a man with the body of Adam, suffered, etc. Others again, as it appears, would
have nothing to do with these speculations, but stood by the belief that Jesus was
the man chosen by God, on whom, on account of his virtue, the Holy Spirit—ὃπερ
ἐστίν ὁ Χριστός—descended at the baptism.The characteristic here, as in the Gentile Christian Gnosis,
is the division of the person of Jesus into a more or less indifferent medium, and
into the Christ. Here the factor constituting his personality could sometimes be
placed in that medium, and sometimes in the Christ spirit, and thus contradictory
formulæ could not but arise. It is therefore easy to conceive how Epiphanius reproaches
these Jewish Christians with a denial, sometimes of the Divinity, and sometimes
of the humanity of Christ (see h. 30 14). (Epiph. h. 30. 3, 14, 16). The
account which Epiphanius gives of the doctrine held by these Jewish Christians regarding
the Devil, is specially instructive (h. 30. 16): Δύο
δὲ τινας συνιστῶσιν ἐκ θεοῦ τεταγμένους, ἕνα μὲν τὸν Χριστὸν, ἕνα δὲ τὸν διάβολον.
καὶ τὸν μὲν Χριστὸν λέγουσι τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος εἰληφέναι τὸν κλῆρον, τὸν δὲ διάβολον
τοῦτον πεπιστεῦσθαι ὀν αἰῶνα, ἐκ προσταγῆς δῆθεν τοῦ παντοκράτορος κατὰ αἴτησιν
ἑκατέρων αὑτῶν. Here we have a very old Semitico-Hebraic idea preserved in
a very striking way, and therefore we may probably assume that in other respects
also, these Gnostic Ebionites preserved that which was ancient. Whether they did
so in their criticism of the Old Testament, is a point on which we must not pronounce
judgment.
We might conclude by referring to the fact that this syncretistic
Jewish Christianity, apart from a well-known missionary effort
at Rome, was confined to Palestine and the neighbouring countries, and might consider
it proved that this movement had no effect on the history and development of CatholicismThis syncretistic Judaism had indeed a significance for the
history of the world, not, however, in the history of Christianity, but for the
origin of Islam. Islam, as a religious system, is based partly on syncretistic Judaism
(including the Zabians, so enigmatic in their origin), and, without questioning
Mohammed’s originality, can only be historically understood by taking this into
account. I have endeavoured to establish this hypothesis in a lecture printed in
MS. form, 1877. Cf. now the conclusive proofs in Wellhausen, 1. c. Part III. p.
197-212. On the Mandeans, see Brandt, Die Mandäische Religion, 1889; (also Wellhausen
in d. deutschen Lit. Ztg., 1890 No. I. Lagarde i. d. Gött. Gel. Anz., 1890, No.
10). were it not for two voluminous writings which still continue to be regarded as
monuments of the earliest epoch of syncretistic Jewish Christianity. Not only did
Baur suppose that he could prove his hypothesis about the origin of Catholicism
by the help of these writings, but the attempt has recently been made on the basis
of the Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions and Homilies, for these are the writings in
question, to go still further and claim for Jewish Christianity the glory of having
developed by itself the whole doctrine, worship and constitution of Catholicism,
and of having transmitted it to Gentile Christianity as a finished product which
only required to be divested of a few Jewish husks.See Bestmann, Gesch. der Christ]. Sitte, Bd. II. 1 Part: Die
judenchristliche Sitte, 1883; also, Theol. Lit. Ztg., 1883. Col. 269 ff. The same
author, Der Ursprung der Katholischen Christenthums und des Islams, 1884; also Theol.
Lit. Ztg. 1884, Col. 291 ff. It is therefore necessary
to subject these writings to a brief examination. Every-thing depends on the time
of their origin, and the tendencies they follow. But these are just the two questions
that are still unanswered. Without depreciating those worthy men who have earnestly
occupied themselves with the Pseudo-Clementines,See Schliemann, Die Clementinen, etc., 1844; Hilgenfeld, Die
Clementinischen Recogn. u. Homil, 1848; Ritschl, in d. Allg. Monatschrift f. Wissensch.
u. Litt., 1852. Uhlhorn, Die Homil. u. Recogn., 1854, Lehmann, Die Clement. Schriften,
1869; Lipsius, in d. Protest. K. Ztg., 1869, p. 477 ff.; Quellen der Romische Petrussage,
1872. Uhlhorn, in Herzog’s R. Encykl. (Clementinen) 2 Edit. III. p. 286, admits:
“There can be no doubt that the Clementine question still requires further discussion.
It can hardly make any progress worth mentioning until we have collected better
the material, and especially till we have got a corrected edition with an exhaustive
commentary. The theory of the genesis, contents and aim of the pseudo-Clementine
writings unfolded by Renan (Orig. T. VII. p. 74-l01) is essentially identical with
that of German scholars. Langen (die Clemensromane, 1890) has set up very bold hypotheses,
which are based on the assumption that Jewish Christianity was an important church
factor in the second century, and that the pseudo-Clementines are comparatively
old writings. it may be asserted, that in this region everything
is as yet in darkness, especially as no agreement has been reached
even in the question of their composition. No doubt such a result appears to have
been pretty nearly arrived at as far as the time of composition is concerned, but
that estimate (150-170, or the latter half of the second century) not only awakens
the greatest suspicion, but can be proved to be wrong. The importance of the question
for the history of dogma does not permit the historian to set it aside, while, on
the other hand, the compass of a manual does not allow us to enter into an exhaustive
investigation. The only course open in such circumstances is briefly to define one’s
own position.
1. The Recognitions and Homilies, in the form in which we have
them, do not belong to the second century, but at the very earliest to the first
half of the third. There is nothing, however, to prevent our putting them a few
decades later.There is no external evidence for placing the pseudo-Clementine
writings in the second century. The oldest witness is Origen (IV. p. 401, Lommatzsch);
but the quotation: “Quoniam opera bona, quæ fiunt ab infidelibus,
in hoc sæculo its prosunt,” etc., is not found in our Clementines, so that
Origen appears to have used a still older version. The internal evidence all points
to the third century (canon, composition, theological attitude, etc.). Moreover,
Zahn, (Gött. Gel. Anz. 1876. No. 45) and Lagarde have declared themselves in favour
of this date; while Lipsius (Apokr. Apostelgesch. II. 1) and Weingarten (Zeittafeln,
3 Edit. p. 23) have recently expressed the same opinion. The Homilies presuppose
(1) Marcion’s Antitheses, (2) Apelles’ Syllogisms, (3) perhaps Callistus’ edict
about penance (see III. 70) and writings of Hippolytus (see also the expression
ἐπὶσκοπος ἐπισκόπων. Clem. ep. ad Jacob I.,
which is first found in Tertull., de pudic. I.). (4) The most highly developed form
of polemic against heathen mythology. (5) The complete development of church apologetics,
as well as the conviction that Christianity is identical with correct and absolute
knowledge. They further presuppose a time when there was a lull in the persecution
of Christians, for the Emperor, though pretty often referred to, is never spoken
of as a persecutor, and when the cultured heathen world was entirely disposed in
favour of a eclectic monotheism. Moreover, the remarkable Christological statement
in Hom. XVI. 15. 16. points to the third century, in fact probably even presupposes
the theology of Origen; Cf. the sentence: τοῦ πατρὸς
τὸ μή γεγεννῆσθαι ἐστιν, ὑιοῦ δὲ τὸ γεγεννῆσθαι λεννητὸν δὲ ἀγεννήτῳ ἤ καὶ αὐτυγεννήτῳ
οὐ συνκρίνεται. Finally, the decided repudiation of the awakening of Christian
faith by visions and dreams, and the polemic against these is also no doubt of importance
for determining the date; see XVII. 14-19. Peter says, § 18:
τὸ ἀδιδάκτως ἄνευ ὀπτασίας καὶ ὀνείρων μαθεῖν ἀποκάλυψίς
ἐστιν, he had already learned that at his confession (Matt. XVI). The question,
ἔι τις δἰ ὀπτασίαν πρὸς διδασκαλίαν σοφισθῆναι δύναται,
is answered in the negative, § 19.
2. They were not composed in their present form by heretical Christians,
but most probably by Catholics. Nor do they aim at forming a theological system,This is also acknowledged in Koffmane, Die Gnosis, etc., p.
33. or spreading the views of a sect. Their primary object is to oppose Greek polytheism,
immoral mythology, and false philosophy, and thus to promote edification.The Homilies, as we have them, are mainly composed of the speeches
of Peter and others. These speeches oppose polytheism, mythology and the doctrine
of demons, and advocate monotheism, ascetic morality and rationalism. The polemic
against Simon Magus almost appears as a mere accessory.
3. In describing the authors as Catholic, we do not mean that
they were adherents of the theology of Irenæus or Origen. The instructive point
here, rather, is that they had as yet no fixed theology, and therefore could without
hesitation regard and use all possible material as means of edification. In like
manner, they had no fixed conception of the Apostolic age, and could therefore appropriate
motley and dangerous material. Such Christians, highly educated and correctly trained
too, were still to be found, not only in the third century, but even later. But
the authors do not seem to have been free from a bias, inasmuch as they did not
favour the Catholic, that is the Alexandrian, apologetic theology which was in process
of formation
4. The description of the Pseudo-Clementine writings, naturally
derived from their very form, as “edifying, didactic romances for the refutation
of paganism,” is not inconsistent with the idea that the authors at the same time
did their utmost to oppose heretical phenomena, especially the Marcionite church
and Apelles, together with heresy and heathenism in general, as represented by Simon
Magus.
5. The objectionable materials which the authors made use of were
edifying for them, because of the position assigned therein to Peter, because of
the ascetic and mysterious elements they contained, and the opposition offered to
Simon, etc. The offensive features, so far as they were still contained in these
sources, had already become unintelligible and harmless. They were partly conserved
as such and partly removed.
6. The authors are to be sought for perhaps in Rome, perhaps in
Syria, perhaps in both places, certainly not in Alexandria.
7. The main ideas are: (1) The monarchy of God. (2) the syzygies
(weak and strong). (3) Prophecy (the true Prophet). (4) Stoical rationalism, belief
in providence, good works, φιλανθρωπία, etc.
= Mosaism. The Homilies are completely saturated with stoicism, both in their ethical
and metaphysical systems, and are opposed to Platonism, though Plato is quoted in
Hom. XV. 8, as Ἑλλήνων τοφός τις (a wise man
of the Greeks). In addition to these ideas we have also a strong hierarchical tendency.
The material which the authors made use of was in great part derived from syncretistic
Jewish Christian tradition, in other words, those histories of the Apostles were
here utilised which Epiphanius reports to have been used by the Ebionites (see above).
It is not probable, however, that these writings in their original form were in
the hands of the narrators; the likelihood is that they made use of them in revised
forms.
8. It must be reserved for an accurate investigation to ascertain
whether those modified versions which betray clear marks of Hellenic origin were
made within syncretistic Judaism itself, or whether they are to be traced back to
Catholic writers. In either case, they should not be placed earlier than about the
beginning of the third century, but in all probability one or two generations later
still.
9. If we adopt the first assumption, it is most natural to think
of that propaganda which, according to the testimony of Hippolytus and Origen, Jewish
Christianity attempted in Rome in the age of Caracalla and Heliogabalus, through
the medium of the Syrian, Alcibiades. This coincides with the last
great advance of Syrian cults into the west, and is at the same
time the only one known to us historically. But it is further pretty generally admitted
that the immediate sources of the Pseudo-Clementines already presuppose the existence
of Elkesaite Christianity. We should accordingly have to assume that in the West
this Christianity made greater concessions to the prevailing type, that it gave
up circumcision and accommodated itself to the Church system of Gentile Christianity,
at the same time withdrawing its polemic against Paul.
10. Meanwhile the existence of such a Jewish Christianity is not
as yet proved, and therefore we must reckon with the possibility that the remodelled
form of the Jewish Christian sources, already found in existence by the revisers
of the Pseudo-Clementine Romances, was solely a Catholic literary product. In this
assumption, which commends itself both as regards the aim of the composition and
its presupposed conditions, we must remember that, from the third century onwards,
Catholic writers systematically corrected, and to a great extent reconstructed,
the heretical histories which were in circulation in the churches as interesting
reading, and that the extent and degree of this reconstruction varied exceedingly,
according to the theological and historical insight of the writer. The identifying
of pure Mosaism with Christianity was in itself by no means offensive when there
was no further question of circumcision. The clear distinction between the ceremonial
and moral parts of the Old Testament, could no longer prove an offence after the
great struggle with Gnosticism.This distinction can also be shewn elsewhere in the Church of
the third century. But I confess I do not know how Catholic circles got over the
fact that, for example, in the third book of the Homilies many passages of the old
Testament are simply characterised as untrue, immoral and lying. Here the Homilies
remind one strongly of the Syllogisms of Apelles, the author of which, in other
respects, opposed them in the interest of his doctrine of creating angels. In some
passages the Christianity of the Homilies really looks like a syncretism composed
of the common Christianity, the Jewish Christian Gnosticism, and the criticism of
Apelles. Hom. VIII. 6-8 is also highly objectionable. The strong insistance upon the unity of God, and
the rejection of the doctrine of the Logos, were by no means uncommon in the beginning
of the third century; and in the
speculations about Adam and Christ, in the views about God and
the world and such like, as set before us in the immediate sources of the Romances,
the correct and edifying elements must have seemed to outweigh the objectionable.
At any rate, the historian who, until further advised, denies the existence of a
Jewish Christianity composed of the most contradictory elements, lacking circumcision
and national hopes, and bearing marks of Catholic and therefore of Hellenic influence,
judges more prudently than he who asserts, solely on the basis of Romances which
are accompanied by no tradition and have never been the objects of assault, the
existence of a Jewish Christianity accommodating itself to Catholicism which is
entirely unattested.
11. Be that as it may, it may at least be regarded as certain
that the Pseudo-Clementines contribute absolutely nothing to our knowledge of the
origin of the Catholic Church and doctrine, as they shew at best in their immediate
sources a Jewish Christianity strongly influenced by Catholicism and Hellenism.
12. They must be used with great caution even in seeking to determine
the tendencies and inner history of syncretistic Jewish Christianity. It cannot
be made out with certainty, how far back the first sources of the Pseudo-Clementines
date, or what their original form and tendency were. As to the first point, it has
indeed been said that Justin, nay, even the author of the Acts of the Apostles,
presupposes them, and that the Catholic tradition of Peter in Rome and of Simon
Magus are dependent on them (as is still held by Lipsius); but there is so little
proof of this adduced that in Christian literature up to the end of the second century
(Hegesippus?) we can only discover very uncertain traces of acquaintance with Jewish
Christian historical narrative. Such indications can only be found to any considerable
extent in the third century, and I do not mean to deny that the contents of the
Jewish Christian histories of the Apostles contributed materially to the formation
of the ecclesiastical legends about Peter. As is shewn in the Pseudo-Clementines,
these histories of the Apostles especially opposed Simon Magus and
his adherents (the new Samaritan attempt at a universal religion),
and placed the authority of the Apostle Peter against them. But they also opposed
the Apostle Paul, and seem to have transferred Simonian features to Paul, and Pauline
features to Simon. Yet it is also possible that the Pauline traits found in the
magician were the outcome of the redaction, in so far as the whole polemic against
Paul is here struck out, though certain parts of it have been woven into the polemic
against Simon. But probably the Pauline features of the magician are merely an appearance.
The Pseudo-Clementines may to some extent be used, though with caution, in determining
the doctrines of syncretistic Jewish Christianity. In connection with this we must
take what Epiphanius says as our standard. The Pantheistic and Stoic elements which
are found here and there must of course be eliminated. But the theory of the genesis
of the world from a change in God himself (that is from a
προβολή), the assumption that all things emanated
from God in antitheses (Son of God—Devil; heaven—earth; male—female; male and female
prophecy), nay, that these antitheses are found in God himself (goodness, to which
corresponds the Son of God—punitive justice, to which corresponds the Devil), the
speculations about the elements which have proceeded from the one substance, the
ignoring of freedom in the question about the origin of evil, the strict adherence
to the unity and absolute causality of God, in spite of the dualism, and in spite
of the lofty predicates applied to the Son of God—all this plainly bears the Semitic
Jewish stamp.
We must here content ourselves with these indications. They were
meant to set forth briefly the reasons which forbid our assigning to syncretistic
Jewish Christianity, on the basis of the Pseudo-Clementines, a place in the history
of the genesis of the Catholic Church and its doctrine.
Bigg, The Clementine Homilies (Studia Biblica et Eccles. II.,
p. 157 ff.), has propounded the hypothesis that the Homilies are an Ebionitic revision
of an older Catholic original (see p. 184: “The Homilies as we have it, is a recast
of an orthodox work by a highly unorthodox editor.” P. 175: “The Homilies
are surely the work of a Catholic convert to Ebionitism, who thought
he saw in the doctrine of the two powers the only tenable answer to Gnosticism.
We can separate his Catholicism from his Ebionitism just as surely as his Stoicism”).
This is the opposite of the view expressed by me in the text. I consider Bigg’s
hypothesis well worth examining, and at first sight not improbable; but I am not
able to enter into it here.
APPENDIX I.
On the Conception of Pre-existence.
On account of the importance of the question, we may be here permitted
to amplify a few hints given in Chap. II., § 4, and elsewhere, and to draw a clearer
distinction between the Jewish and Hellenic conceptions of pre-existence.
According to the theory held by the ancient Jews and by the whole
of the Semitic nations, everything of real value that from time to time appears
on earth has its existence in heaven. In other words, it exists with God, that is
God possesses a knowledge of it; and for that reason it has a real being. But it
exists beforehand with God in the same way as it appears on earth, that is with
all the material attributes belonging to its essence. Its manifestation on earth
is merely a transition from concealment to publicity (φανεροῦσθαι).
In becoming visible to the senses, the object in question assumes no attribute that
it did not already possess with God. Hence its material nature is by no means an
inadequate expression of it, nor is it a second nature added to the first. The truth
rather is that what was in heaven before is now revealing itself upon earth, without
any sort of alteration taking place in the process. There is no assumptio naturæ
novæ, and no change or mixture. The old Jewish theory of pre-existence is founded
on the religious idea of the omniscience and omni-potence of God, that God to whom
the events of history do not come as a surprise, but who guides their course. As
the whole history of the world and the destiny of each individual are recorded on
his tablets or books, so also each thing is ever present before him. The decisive
contrast is between God and the creature. In designating the latter as “foreknown”
by God, the primary idea is not to ennoble the creature, but
rather to bring to light the wisdom and power of God. The ennobling
of created things by attributing to them a pre-existence is a secondary result (see
below).
According to the Hellenic conception, which has become associated
with Platonism, the idea of pre-existence is independent of the idea of God; it
is based on the conception of the contrast between spirit and matter, between the
infinite and finite, found in the cosmos itself. In the case of all spiritual beings,
life in the body or flesh is at bottom an inadequate and unsuitable condition, for
the spirit is eternal, the flesh perishable. But the pre-temporal existence, which
was only a doubtful assumption as regards ordinary spirits, was a matter of certainty
in the case of the higher and purer ones. They lived in an upper world long before
this earth was created, and they lived there as spirits without the “polluted garment
of the flesh.” Now if they resolved for some reason or other to appear in this finite
world, they cannot simply become visible, for they have no “visible form.” They
must rather “assume flesh,” whether they throw it about them as a covering, or really
make it their own by a process of transformation or mixture. In all cases—and here
the speculation gave rise to the most exciting problems—the body is to them something
inadequate which they cannot appropriate without adopting certain measures of precaution,
but this process may indeed pass through all stages, from a mere seeming appropriation
to complete union. The characteristics of the Greek ideas of pre-existence may consequently
be thus expressed. First, the objects in question to which pre-existence is ascribed
are meant to be ennobled by this attribute. Secondly, these ideas have no relation
to God. Thirdly, the material appearance is regarded as something inadequate. Fourthly,
speculations about phantasma, assumptio naturæ humanæ, transmutatio, mixtura, duæ
naturæ, etc., were necessarily associated with these notions.
We see that these two conceptions are as wide apart as the poles.
The first has a religious origin, the second a cosmological and psychological; the
first glorifies God, the second the created spirit.
However, not only does a certain relationship in point of form
exist between these speculations, but the Jewish conception is also found in a shape
which seems to approximate still more to the Greek one.
Earthly occurrences and objects are not only regarded as “foreknown”
by God before being seen in this world, but the latter manifestation is frequently
considered as the copy of the existence and nature which they possess in heaven,
and which remains unalterably the same, whether they appear upon earth or not. That
which is before God experiences no change. As the destinies of the world are recorded
in the books, and God reads them there, it being at the same time a matter of indifference,
as regards this knowledge of his, when and how they are accomplished upon earth,
so the Tabernacle and its furniture, the Temple, Jerusalem, etc., are before God
and continue to exist before him in heaven, even during their appearance on earth
and after it.
This conception seems really to have been the oldest one. Moses
is to fashion the Temple and its furniture according to the pattern he saw on the
Mount (Exod. XXV. 9. 40: XXVI. 30:
XXVII. 8: Num. VIII. 4). The Temple and Jerusalem
exist in heaven, and they are to be distinguished from the earthly Temple and the
earthly Jerusalem; yet the ideas of a φανεροῦσθαι
of the thing which is in heaven and of its copy appearing on earth, shade into one
another and are not always clearly separated.
The classing of things as original and copy was at first no more
meant to glorify them than was the conception of a pre-existence they possessed
within the knowledge of God. But since the view which in theory was true of everything
earthly, was, as is naturally to be expected, applied in practice to nothing but
valuable objects—for things common and ever recurring give no impulse to such speculations—the
objects thus contemplated were ennobled, because they were raised above the multitude
of the commonplace. At the same time the theory of original and copy could not fail
to become a starting point for new speculations, as soon as the contrast between
the spiritual and material began to assume importance among the Jewish people.
That took place under the influence of the Greek spirit; and was
perhaps also the simultaneous result of an intellectual or moral development which
arose independently of that spirit. Accordingly, a highly important advance in the
old ideas of pre-existence appeared in the Jewish theological literature belonging
to the time of the Maccabees and the following decades. To begin with, these conceptions
are now applied to persons, which, so far as I know, was not the case before this
(individualism). Secondly, the old distinction of original and copy is now interpreted
to mean that the copy is the inferior and more imperfect, that in the present æon
of the transient it cannot be equivalent to the original, and that we must therefore
look forward to the time when the original itself will make its appearance, (contrast
of the material and finite and the spiritual).
With regard to the first point, we have not only to consider passages
in Apocalypses and other writings in which pre-existence is attributed to Moses,
the patriarchs, etc., (see above, p. 102), but we must, above all, bear in mind
utterances like Ps. CXXXIX. 15, 16. The individual saint soars upward to the thought
that the days of his life are in the book of God, and that he himself was before
God, whilst he was still unperfect. But, and this must not be overlooked, it was
not merely his spiritual part that was before God, for there is not the remotest
idea of such a distinction, but the whole man, although he is בָּשָׂר.
As regards the second point, the distinction between a heavenly
and an earthly Jerusalem, a heavenly and an earthly Temple, etc., is sufficiently
known from the Apocalypses and the New Testament. But the important consideration
is that the sacred things of earth were regarded as objects of less value, instalments,
as it were, pending the fulfilment of the whole promise. The desecration and subsequent
destruction of sacred things must have greatly strengthened this idea. The hope
of the heavenly Jerusalem comforted men for the desecration or loss of the earthly
one. But this gave at the same time the most powerful impulse to reflect whether it
was not an essential feature of this temporal state, that everything
high and holy in it could only appear in a meagre and inadequate form. Thus the
transition to Greek ideas was brought about. The fulness of the time had come when
the old Jewish ideas, with a slightly mythological colouring, could amalgamate with
the ideal creations of Hellenic philosophers.
These, however, are also the general conditions which gave rise
to the earliest Jewish speculations about a personal Messiah, except that, in the
case of the Messianic ideas within Judaism itself, the adoption of specifically
Greek thoughts, so far as I am able to see, cannot be made out.
Most Jews, as Trypho testifies in Justin’s Dialogue 49, conceived
the Messiah as a man. We may indeed go a step further and say that no Jew at bottom
imagined him otherwise; for even those who attached ideas of pre-existence to him,
and gave the Messiah a supernatural background, never advanced to speculations about
assumption of the flesh, incarnation, two natures and the like. They only transferred
in a specific manner to the Messiah the old idea of pre-terrestrial existence with
God, universally current among the Jews. Before the creation of the world the Messiah
was hidden with God, and, when the time is fulfilled, he makes his appearance. This
is neither an incarnation nor a humiliation, but he appears on earth as he exists
before God, viz., as a mighty and just king, equipped with all gifts. The writings
in which this thought appears most clearly are the Apocalypse of Enoch (Book of
Similitudes, Chap. 46-49) and the Apocalypse of Esra (Chap. 12-14). Support to this
idea, if anything more of the kind had been required, was lent by passages like
Daniel VII. 13 f. and Micah, V. 1. Nowhere do we find in Jewish writings a conception
which advances beyond the notion that the Messiah is the man who is with God in
heaven; and who will make his appearance at his own time. We are merely entitled
to say that, as the same idea was not applied to all persons with the same certainty,
it was almost unavoidable that men’s minds should have been led to designate the
Messiah as the man from heaven. This thought was adopted by Paul (see below), but
I know of no Jewish writing which gave clear expression to it.
Jesus Christ designated himself as the Messiah, and the first
of his disciples who recognised him as such were native Jews. The Jewish conceptions
of the Messiah consequently passed over into the Christian community. But they received
an impulse to important modifications from the living impression conveyed by the
person and destiny of Jesus. Three facts were here of pre-eminent importance. First,
Jesus appeared in lowliness, and even suffered death. Secondly, he was believed
to be exalted through the resurrection to the right hand of God, and his return
in glory was awaited with certainty. Thirdly, the strength of a new life and of
an indissoluble union with God was felt issuing from him, and therefore his people
were connected with him in the closest way.
In some old Christian writings found in the New Testament and
emanating from the pen of native Jews, there are no speculations at all about the
pre-temporal existence of Jesus as the Messiah, or they are found expressed in a
manner which simply embodies the old Jewish theory and is merely distinguished from
it by the emphasis laid on the exaltation of Jesus after death through the resurrection.
1. Pet. I. 18 ff. is a classic passage:
ἐλυτρώθητε τιμίῳ αἵματι ὼς ἀμνοῦ ἀμώμου καὶ
ἀσπίλου Χριστοῦ, προεγνωσμένου μὲν πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, φανερωθέντος δὲ ἐπ᾽
ἐσχάτου τῶν χρόνων δι᾽ ὑμᾶς τοὺς δι᾽ αὐτοῦ πιστοὺς εἰς θεὸν τὸν ἐγείραντα
αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν καὶ δόξαν αὐτῷ δόντα, ὥστε τὴν πίστιν ὑμῶν καὶ ἐλπίδα
εἶναι εἰς θεόν. Here we find a conception of the pre-existence of Christ
which is not yet affected by cosmological or psychological speculation, which does
not overstep the boundaries of a purely religious contemplation, and which arose
from the Old Testament way of thinking, and the living impression derived from the
person of Jesus. He is “fore-known (by God) before the creation of the world,” not
as a spiritual being without a body, but as a Lamb without blemish and without spot;
in other words, his whole personality together with the work which it was to carry
out, was within God’s eternal knowledge. He “was manifested in these last days for
our sake,” that is, he is now visibly what he already was before God. What is meant
here is not an incarnation, but a revelatio. Finally, he appeared in order that
our faith and
hope should now be firmly directed to the living God, that God
who raised him from the dead and gave him honour. In the last clause expression
is given to the specifically Christian thought, that the Messiah Jesus was exalted
after crucifixion and death; from this, however, no further conclusions are drawn.
But it was impossible that men should everywhere rest satisfied
with these utterances, for the age was a theological one. Hence the paradox of the
suffering Messiah, the certainty of his glorification through the resurrection,
the conviction of his specific relationship to God, and the belief in the real union
of his Church with him did not seem adequately expressed by the simple formulæ
προεγνωσμένος, φανερωθείς. In reference to
all these points, we see even in the oldest Christian writings, the appearance of
formulæ which fix more precisely the nature of his pre-existence, or in other words
his heavenly existence. With regard to the first and second points there arose the
view of humiliation and exaltation, such as we find in Paul and in numerous writings
after him. In connection with the third point the concept “Son of God” was thrust
into the fore-ground, and gave rise to the idea of the image of God (2 Cor. IV.
4; Col. I. 15; Heb. I. 2;
Phil. II. 6). The fourth point gave occasion to the formation
of theses, such as we find in Rom. VIII. 29: πρωτότοκον
ἐν πολλοῖς ἀδελφοῖσ, Col. I. 18: πρωτότοκος
ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν (Rev. I. 5),
Eph. II. 6: συνήγειρεν
καὶ συνεκάθισεν ἐν τοῖς ἐπουρανίοις ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ,
I. 4:
ὁ θεὸς ἐξελέξατο ἡμᾶς ἐν Χριστῷ πρὸ καταβολῆς
κόσμου, I. 22: ὁ θεὸς ἔδωκεν τὸν Χριστὸν κεφαλὴν
ὑπὲρ πάντα τῇ ἐκκλησίᾳ ἥτις ἐστὶν τὸ σῶμα αὐτοῦ, etc. This purely
religious view of the Church, according to which all that is predicated of Christ
is also applied to his followers, continued a considerable time. Hermas declares
that the Church is older than the world, and that the world was created for its
sake (see above, p. 103), and the author of the so-called 2nd Epistle of Clement
declares (Chap. 14) . . . . . . . ἔσομεθα ἐκ τῆς
ἐκκλησίας τῆς πρώτης τῆς πνευματικῆς, τῆς πρὸ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἐκτισμένης
. . . . , οὐκ οἴομαι δὲ ὑμᾶς ἀγνοεῖν, ὅτι ἐκκλησία ζῶσα σῶμά ἐστιν Χριστοῦ. λέγει γὰρ
ἡ γραφή. Ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄρσεν καὶ θῆλυ. τὸ ἄρσεν ἐστὶν ὁ Χριστός
τὸ
θῆλυ ἡ ἐκκλησία. Thus Christ
and his Church are inseparably connected. The latter is to be conceived as pre-existent
quite as much as the former; the Church was also created before the sun and the
moon, for the world was created for its sake. This conception of the Church illustrates
a final group of utterances about the pre-existent Christ, the origin of which might
easily be misinterpreted unless we bear in mind their reference to the Church. In
so far as he is προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου,
he is the ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ
(Rev. III. 14),
the πρωτότοκος πάσης κτίσεως, etc. According
to the current conception of the time, these expressions mean exactly the same as
the simple προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου,
as is proved by the parallel formulæ referring to the Church. Nay, even the further
advance to the idea that the world was created by him (Cor. Col. Eph. Heb.) need
not yet necessarily be a μετάβασις εἰς ἄλλο γένος;
for the beginning of things (ἀρχή) and their
purpose form the real force to which their origin is due (principle
ἀρχή). Hermas indeed calls the Church older
than the world simply because “the world was created for its sake.”
All these further theories which we have quoted up to this time
need in no sense alter the original conception, so long as they appear in an isolated
form and do not form the basis of fresh speculations. They may be regarded as the
working out of the original conception attaching to Jesus Christ
προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, φανερωθείς κ.τ.λ.;
and do not really modify this religious view of the matter. Above all, we find in
them as yet no certain transition to the Greek view which splits up his personality
into a heavenly and an earthly portion; it still continues to be the complete Christ
to whom all the utterances apply. But, beyond doubt, they already reveal the strong
impulse to conceive the Christ that had appeared as a divine being. He had not been
a transitory phenomenon, but has ascended into heaven and still continues to live.
This post-existence of his gave to the ideas of his pre-existence a support and
a concrete complexion which the earlier Jewish theories lacked.
We find the transition to a new conception in the writings of
Paul. But it is important to begin by determining the relationship
between his Christology and the views we have been hitherto considering.
In the Apostle’s clearest trains of thought everything that he has to say of Christ
hinges on his death and resurrection. For this we need no proofs, but see, more
especially Rom. I. 3 f.: περὶ
τοῦ υἱοῦ αὐτοῦ, τοῦ γενομένου ἐκ σπέρματος Δαυεὶδ κατὰ σάρκα, τοῦ ὁρισθέντος
υἱοῦ θεοῦ ἐν δυνάμει κατὰ πνεῦμα ἀγιωςύνης ἐξ ἀναστάσεως νεκρῶν, Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ
τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. What Christ became and his significance for us now are
due to his death on the cross and his resurrection. He condemned sin in the flesh
and was obedient unto death. Therefore he now shares in the
δόξα of God. The exposition in 1 Cor. XV. 45,
also (ὁ ἔσχατος Ἀδὰμ εἰς πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν, ἀλλ᾽
οὐ πρῶτον τὸ πνευματικὸν ἀλλὰ τὸ ψυχικόν, ἔπειτα τὸ πνευματικόν. ὁ πρῶτος
ἄνθρωπος ἐκ γῆς χοϊκός ὁ δεύτερος ἄνθρωπος ἐξ οὐρανοῦ) is still
capable of being understood as to its fundamental features, in a sense which agrees
with the conception of the Messiah, as κατ᾽ ἐξοχήν,
the man from heaven who was hidden with God. There can be no doubt, however, that
this conception, as already shewn by the formulæ in the passage just quoted, formed
to Paul the starting-point of a speculation, in which the original theory assumed
a completely new shape. The decisive factors in this transformation were the Apostle’s
doctrine of “spirit and flesh,” and the corresponding conviction that the Christ
who is not be known “after the flesh,” is a spirit, namely, the mighty spiritual
being (πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν), who has condemned
sin in the flesh, and thereby enabled man to walk not after the flesh, but after
the spirit.
According to one of the Apostle’s ways of regarding the matter,
Christ, after the accomplishment of his work, became the
πνεῦμα ζωοποιοῦν through the resurrection.
But the belief that Jesus always stood before God as the heavenly man, suggested
to Paul the other view, that Christ was always a “spirit,” that he was sent down
by God, that the flesh is consequently something inadequate and indeed hostile to
him, that he nevertheless assumed it in order to extirpate the sin dwelling in the
flesh, that he therefore humbled himself by appearing, and that this humiliation
was the deed he performed.
This view is found in 2 Cor. VIII. 9:
Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς δι᾽ ὑμᾶς ἐπτώχευσεν πλούσιος ὤν;
in Rom. VIII. 3: ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἑαυτοῦ ὑιὸν πόμψας
ἐν ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας καὶ περὶ ἁμαρτίας κατέκρινεν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν ἐν
τῆ σαρκί; and in Phil. II. 5 f.: Χριστος Ἰησοῦς
ἐν μορφῇ θεοῦ ὑπάρχων . . . . . ἑαυτὸν ἐκένωσεν μόρφην δούλου λαβών, ἐν ὁμοιώματι
ἀνθρώπων γενόμενος, καὶ σχήματι εὐρεθεὶς ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἐταπείνωσεν ἑαυτὸν κ.τ.λ.
In both forms of thought Paul presupposes a real exaltation of Christ. Christ receives
after the resurrection more than he ever possessed (τὸ
ὄνομα τὸ ὑπὲρ πᾶν ὄνομα). In this view Paul retains a historical interpretation
of Christ, even in the conception of the πνεῦμα Χριστός.
But whilst many passages seem to imply that the work of Christ began with suffering
and death, Paul shews in the verses cited, that he already conceives the appearance
of Christ on earth as his moral act, as a humiliation, purposely brought about by
God and Christ himself, which reaches its culminating point in the death on the
cross. Christ, the divine spiritual being, is sent by the Father from heaven to
earth, and of his own free will he obediently takes this mission upon himself. He
appears in the ὁμοιώματι σαρκὸς ἁμαρτίας, dies
the death of the cross, and then, raised by the Father, ascends again into heaven
in order henceforth to act as the κύριος ζώντων and
νεκρῶν, and to become to his own people the principle of a new life in the
spirit.
Whatever we may think about the admissibility and justification
of this view, to whatever source we may trace its origin and however strongly we
may emphasise its divergencies from the contemporaneous Hellenic ideas, it is certain
that it approaches very closely to the latter; for the distinction of spirit and
flesh is here introduced into the concept of pre-existence, and this combination
is not found in the Jewish notions of the Messiah.
Paul was the first who limited the idea of pre-existence by referring
it solely to the spiritual part of Jesus Christ, but at the same time gave life
to it by making the pre-existing Christ (the spirit) a being who, even during his
pre-existence, stands independently side by side with God.
He was also the first to designate Christ’s
σάρξ as “assumpta,”
and to recognise its assumption as in itself a humiliation. To him
the appearance of Christ was no mere φανεροῦσθαι,
but a κενοῦσθαι, ταπεινοῦσθαι, πτωχεύειν.
These outstanding features of the Pauline Christology must have
been intelligible to the Greeks, but, whilst embracing these, they put everything
else in the system aside, Χριστὸς ὁ κύριος ὁ σώσας
ἡμᾶς, ὣν μὲν τὸ πρῶτον πνεῦμα, ἐγένετο σάρξ καὶ οὕτως ἡμᾶς ἐκάλεσεν, says
2 Clem. (9. 5), and that is also the Christology of 1 Clement, Barnabas and many
other Greeks. From the sum total of Judæo-Christian speculations they only borrowed,
in addition, the one which has been already mentioned: the Messiah as προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου is for
that very reason also ἡ ἀρχὴ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ θεοῦ,
that is the beginning, purpose and principle of the creation The Greeks, as the
result of their cosmological interest, embraced this thought as a fundamental proposition.
The complete Greek Christology then is expressed as follows:
Χριστὸς, ὁ σώσας ἡμᾶς, ὣν μὲν τὸ πρῶτον πνεῦμα καὶ
πάσης κτίσεως ἀρχὴ, ἐγένετο σάρξ καὶ οὕτως ἡμᾶς ἐκάλεσεν. That is the fundamental,
theological and philosophical creed on which the whole Trinitarian and Christological
speculations of the Church of the succeeding centuries are built, and it is thus
the root of the orthodox system of dogmatics; for the notion that Christ was the
ἀρχὴ πάσης κτίσεως necessarily led in some
measure to the conception of Christ as the Logos. For the Logos had long been regarded
by cultured men as the beginning and principle of the creation.These hints will have shewn that Paul’s theory occupies a middle
position between the Jewish and Greek ideas of pre-existence. In the canon, however,
we have another group of writings which likewise gives evidence of a middle position
with regard to the matter, I mean the Johannine writings. If we only possessed the
prologue to the Gospel of John with its “ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν
ὁ λόγος” the “πάντα δι᾽ αὐτοῦ ἐγένετο” and the “ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο” we
could indeed point to nothing but Hellenic ideas. But the Gospel itself, as is well
known, contains very much that must have astonished a Greek, and is opposed to the
philosophical idea of the Logos. This occurs even in the thought,
“ὁ λόγος σάρξ ἐγένετο,” which in itself is
foreign to the Logos conception. Just fancy a proposition like the one in VI. 44,
οὐδεὶς δύναται ἐλθεῖν πρὸς με, εἄν μὴ ὁ πατὴρ
ὁ πέμψας με ἑλκύση αὐτὸν, or in
V. 17. 21, engrafted on Philo’s system,
and consider the revolution it would have caused there. No doubt the prologue to
some extent contains the themes set forth in the presentation that follows, but
they are worded in such a way that one cannot help thinking the author wished to
prepare Greek readers for the paradox he had to communicate to them, by adapting
his prologue to their mode of thought. Under the altered conditions of thought which
now prevail, the prologue appears to us the mysterious part, and the narrative that
follows seems the portion that is relatively more intelligible. But to the original
readers, if they were educated Greeks, the prologue must have been the part most
easily understood. As nowadays a section on the nature of the Christian religion
is usually prefixed to a treatise on dogmatics, in order to prepare and introduce
the reader, so also the Johannine prologue seems to be intended as an introduction
of this kind. It brings in conceptions which were familiar to the Greeks, in fact
it enters into these more deeply than is justified by the presentation which follows;
for the notion of the incarnate Logos is by no means the dominant one here. Though
faint echoes of this idea may possibly be met with here and there in the Gospel—I
confess I do not notice them—the predominating thought is essentially the conception
of Christ as the Son of God, who obediently executes what the Father has shewn and
appointed him. The works which he does are allotted to him, and he performs them
in the strength of the Father. The whole of Christ’s farewell discourses and the
intercessory prayer evince no Hellenic influence and no cosmological speculation
whatever, but shew the inner life of a man who knows himself to be one with God
to a greater extent than any before him, and who feels the leading of men to God
to be the task he had received and accomplished. In this consciousness he speaks
of the glory he had with the Father before the world was (XVII. 4 f.:
ἐγώ σε ἐδόξασα ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς τὸ ἔργον τελειώσας
ὁ δέδωκας μοι ἵνα ποιήσω· καὶ νῦν δόξασον με σύ, πάτερ, παρὰ σέαυτῷ τῇ δόξῃ
ῇ εἶχον πρὸ τοῦ τὸν κόσμον εἶναι παρὰ σοι). With this we must compare
verses like III. 13: οὐδεὶς ἀναβέβηκεν εἰς τὸν
οὐρανὸν εἰ μὴ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ καταβάς, ὁ ὑιὸς τοῦ ἀνθρώπου,
and III. 31: ὁ ἄνωθεν ὲρχόμενος ἐπάνω πάντων ἐστιν.
ὁ ὤν ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἐκ τῆς γῆς ἐστιν καὶ ἐκ τῆς γῆς λαλεῖ ὁ ἐκ τοῦ οὐρανοῦ
ἐρχόμενος ἐπάνω πάντων ἐστιν (see also I. 30:
VI. 33, 38, 41 f. 50 f.
58, 62: VIII. 14, 58; XVII. 24). But though the pre-existence is strongly expressed
in these passages, a separation of τνεῦμα (λόγος)
and σάρξ in Christ is nowhere assumed in the
Gospel except in the prologue. It is always Christ’s whole personality to which
every sublime attribute is ascribed. The same one who “can do nothing of himself”
is also the one who was once glorious and will yet be glorified. This idea, however,
can still be referred to the προεγνωσμένος πρὸ καταβολῆς
κόσμου, although it gives a peculiar δοξα with God to him who was foreknown
of God, and the oldest conception is yet to be traced in many expressions, as, for
example, I. 31: κάγὼ οὐκ ἤδειν αὐτόν, ἀλλ᾽ ἵνα
φανερωθή τῷ Ἰσρὰηλ διὰ τοῦτο ἦλθον, V. 19: οὐ δύναται ὁ ὐιὸς ποιεῖν ἀφ᾽ εἀυτοῦ
οὐδὲν ἄν μή τι βλέπῃ τὸν πατέρα ποιοῦντα, V. 36:
VIII. 38:
ἅ ἐγὼ ἕωρακα παρὰ τῷ πατρὶ λαλῷ, VIII. 40:
τὴν ἀλήθειαν ὑμῖν λελάληκα ἥν ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ θεοῦ,
XII. 49: XV. 15: πάντα ἅ ἤκουσα παρὰ τοῦ πατρός μου ἔγνώρισα ὐμῖν.
With this transition the theories concerning Christ are removed
from Jewish and Old Testament soil, and also that of religion (in the strict sense
of the word), and transplanted to the Greek one. Even in his pre-existent state
Christ is an independent power existing side by side with God. The pre‑existence
does not refer to his whole appearance, but only to a part of
his essence; it does not primarily serve to glorify the wisdom and power of the
God who guides history, but only glorifies Christ, and thereby threatens the monarchy
of God.This is indeed counterbalanced in the fourth Gospel by the thought
of the complete community of love between the Father and the Son, and the pre-existence
and descent of the latter here also tend to the glory of God. In the sentence “God
so loved the world,” etc., that which Paul describes in Phil. II. becomes at the
same time an act of God, in fact the act of God. The sentence “God is love” sums
up again all individual speculations, and raises them into a new and most exalted
sphere. The appearance of Christ is now an “assumption of flesh,” and immediately
the intricate questions about the connection of the heavenly and spiritual being
with the flesh simultaneously arise and are at first settled by the theories of
a naive docetism. But the flesh, that is the human nature created by God, appears
depreciated, because it was reckoned as something unsuitable for Christ, and foreign
to him as a spiritual being. Thus the Christian religion was mixed up with the refined
asceticism of a perishing civilization, and a foreign substructure given to its
system of morality, so earnest in its simplicity.If it had been possible for speculation to maintain the level
of the Fourth Gospel, nothing of that would have happened; but where were there
theologians capable of this? But the most questionable result
was the following. Since the predicate “Logos,” which at first, and for a long time,
coincided with the idea of the reason ruling in the cosmos, was considered as the
highest that could be given to Christ, the holy and divine element, namely, the
power of a new life, a power to be viewed and laid hold of in Christ, was transformed
into a cosmic force and thereby secularised.
In the present work I have endeavoured to explain fully how the
doctrine of the Church developed from these premises into the doctrine of the Trinity
and of the two natures. I have also shewn that the imperfect beginnings of Church
doctrine, especially as they appear in the Logos theory derived from cosmology,
were subjected to wholesome corrections—by the Monarchians, by Athanasius, and by
the influence of
biblical passages which pointed in another direction. Finally,
the Logos doctrine received a form in which the idea was deprived of nearly all
cosmical content. Nor could the Hellenic contrast of “spirit” and “flesh” become
completely developed in Christianity, because the belief in the bodily resurrection
of Christ, and in the admission of the flesh into heaven, opposed to the principle
of dualism a barrier which Paul as yet neither knew nor felt to be necessary. The
conviction as to the resurrection of the flesh proved the hard rock which shattered
the energetic attempts to give a completely Hellenic complexion to the Christian
religion.
The history of the development of the ideas of pre-existence is
at the same time the criticism of them, so that we need not have recourse to our
present theory of knowledge which no longer allows such speculations. The problem
of determining the significance of Christ through a speculation concerning his natures,
and of associating with these the concrete features of the historical Christ, was
originated by Hellenism. But even the New Testament writers, who appear in this
respect to be influenced in some way by Hellenism, did not really speculate concerning
the different natures, but, taking Christ’s spiritual nature for granted, determined
his religious significance by his moral qualities—Paul by the moral act of humiliation
and obedience unto death, John by the complete dependence of Christ upon God and
hence also by his obedience, as well as the unity of the love of Father and Son.
There is only one idea of pre-existence which no empiric contemplation of history
and no reason can uproot. This is identical with the most ancient idea found in
the Old Testament, as well as that prevalent among the early Christians, and consists
in the religious thought that God the Lord directs history. In its application to
Jesus Christ, it is contained in the words we read in 1 Pet. I. 20:
προεγνωσμένου μὲν πρὸ καταβολῆς κόσμου, φανερωθεὶς
δὲ δι᾽ ὑμᾶς τοὺς δι᾽ αὐτοῦ πιστοὺς εἰς θεὸν τὸν ἐγείραντα αὐτὸν ἐκ νεκρῶν
καὶ δόξαν αὐτῷ δόντα, ὥστε τὴν πίστιν ὑμῶν καὶ ἐλπίδα εἶναι εἰς θεόν.
APPENDIX II.
Liturgy and the Origin of Dogma.
The reader has perhaps wondered why I have made so little reference
to Liturgy in my description of the origin of dogma. For according to the most modern
ideas about the history of religion and the origin of theology, the development
of both may be traced in the ritual. Without any desire to criticise these notions,
I think I am justified in asserting that this is another instance of the exceptional
nature of Christianity. For a considerable period it possessed no ritual at all,
and the process of development in this direction had been going on, or been completed,
a long time before ritual came to furnish material for dogmatic discussion.
The worship in Christian Churches grew out of that in the synagogues,
whereas there is no trace of its being influenced by the Jewish Temple service (Duchesne,
Origines du Culte Chrétien, p. 45 ff.). Its oldest constituents are accordingly
prayer, reading of the scriptures, application of scripture texts, and sacred song.
In addition to these we have, as specifically Christian elements, the celebration
of the Lord’s Supper, and the utterances of persons inspired by the Spirit. The
latter manifestations, however, ceased in the course of the second century, and
to some extent as early as its first half. The religious services in which a ritual
became developed were prayer, the Lord’s Supper and sacred song. The Didache had
already prescribed stated formulæ for prayer. The ritual of the Lord’s Supper was
determined in its main features by the memory of its institution. The sphere of
sacred song remained the most unfettered, though here also, even at an early period—no
later in fact than the end of the first and beginning of
the second century—a fixed and a variable element were distinguished;
for responsory hymns, as is testified by the Epistle of Pliny and the still earlier
Book of Revelation, require to follow a definite arrangement. But the whole, though
perhaps already fixed during the course of the second century, still bore the stamp
of spirituality and freedom. It was really worship in spirit and in truth, and this
and no other was the light in which the Apologists, for instance, regarded it. Ritualism
did not begin to be a power in the Church till the end of the second century; though
it had been cultivated by the “Gnostics” long before, and traces of it are found
at an earlier period in some of the older Fathers, such as Ignatius.
Among the liturgical fragments still preserved to us from the
first three centuries two strata may de distinguished. Apart from the responsory
hymns in the Book of Revelation, which can hardly represent fixed liturgical pieces,
the only portions of the older stratum in our possession are the Lord’s Prayer,
originating with Jesus himself and used as a liturgy, together with the sacramental
prayers of the Didache. These prayers exhibit a style unlike any of the liturgical
formulæ of later times; the prayer is exclusively addressed to God, it returns thanks
for knowledge and life; it speaks of Jesus the παῖς θεοῦ (Son of God) as the mediator;
the intercession refers exclusively to the Church, and the supplication is for the
gathering together of the Church, the hastening of the coming of the kingdom and
the destruction of the world. No direct mention is made of the death and resurrection
of Christ. These prayers are the peculiar property of the Christian Church. It cannot,
however, be said that they exercised any important influence on the history of dogma.
The thoughts contained in them perished in their specific shape; the measure of
permanent importance they attained in a more general form, was not preserved to
them through these prayers.
The second stratum of liturgical pieces dates back to the great
prayer with which the first Epistle of Clement ends, for in many respects this prayer,
though some expressions in it remind us of the older type
διά τοῦ ἡγαπημένου παιδός σου Ἰησοῦν Χριστοῦ,
“through thy beloved son Jesus Christ”), already
exhibits the characteristics of the later liturgy, as is shewn,
for example, by a comparison of the liturgical prayer in the Constitutions of the
Apostles (see Lightfoot’s edition and my own). But this piece shews at the same
time that the liturgical prayers, and consequently the liturgy also, sprang from
those in the synagogue, for the similarity is striking. Here we find a connection
resembling that which exists between the Jewish “Two Ways” and the Christian instruction
of catechumens. If this observation is correct, it clearly explains the cautious
use of historical and dogmatic material in the oldest liturgies—a precaution not
to their disadvantage. As in the prayers of the synagogue, so also in Christian
Churches, all sorts of matters were not submitted to God or laid bare before Him,
but the prayers serve as a religious ceremony, that is, as adoration, petition
and intercession. Σὺ εἶ ὁ θεὸς μόνος καὶ Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς
ὁ παῖς σου καὶ ἡμεῖς λαός σου καὶ πρόβατα τῆς νομῆς σου, (thou art God alone
and Jesus Christ is thy son, and we are thy people and the sheep of thy pasture).
In this confession, and expressive Christian modification of that of the synagogue,
the whole liturgical ceremony is epitomised. So far as we can assume and conjecture
from the scanty remains of Ante-Nicene liturgy, the character of the ceremony was
not essentially altered in this respect. Nothing containing a specific dogma or
theological speculation was admitted. The number of sacred ceremonies, already considerable
in the second century, (how did they arise?) was still further increased in the
third; but the accompanying words, so far as we know, expressed nothing but adoration,
gratitude, supplication and intercession. The relations expressed in the liturgy
became more comprehensive, copious and detailed; but its fundamental character was
not changed. The history of dogma in the first three centuries is not reflected
in their liturgy.
APPENDIX III.
NEOPLATONISM.
The Historical Significance and Position of Neoplatonism.
The political history of the ancient world ends with the Empire
of Diocletian and Constantine, which has not only Roman and Greek, but also Oriental
features. The history of ancient philosophy ends with the universal philosophy of
Neoplatonism, which assimilated the elements of most of the previous systems, and
embodied the result of the history of religion and civilisation in East and West.
But as the Roman Byzantine Empire is at one and the same time a product of the final
effort and the exhaustion of the ancient world, so also Neoplatonism is, on one
side, the completion of ancient philosophy, and, on another, its abolition. Never
before in the Greek and Roman theory of the world did the conviction of the dignity
of man and his elevation above nature attain so certain an expression as in Neoplatonism;
and never before in the history of civilisation did its highest exponents, notwithstanding
all their progress in inner observation, so much undervalue the sovereign significance
of real science and pure knowledge as the later Neoplatonists did. Judged from
the stand-point of pure science, of empirical knowledge of the world, the philosophy
of Plato and Aristotle marks a momentous turning-point, the post-Aristotelian a
retrogression, the Neoplatonic a complete declension. But judging from the stand-point
of religion and morality, it must be admitted that the ethical temper which Neoplatonism
sought to beget and confirm was the highest and purest which the culture of the
ancient world produced. This necessarily took place at the expense of science: for on
the soil of polytheistic natural religions, the knowledge of nature
must either fetter and finally abolish religion, or be fettered and abolished by
religion. Religion and ethic, however, proved the stronger powers. Placed between
these and the knowledge of nature, philosophy, after a period of fluctuation finally
follows the stronger force. Since the ethical itself, in the sphere of natural religions,
is unhesitatingly conceived as a higher kind of “nature,” conflict with the empirical
knowledge of the world is unavoidable. The higher “physics,” for that is what religious
ethics is here, must displace the lower or be itself displaced. Philosophy must
renounce its scientific aspect, in order that man’s claim to a supernatural value
of his person and life may be legitimised.
It is an evidence of the vigour of man’s moral endowments that
the only epoch of culture which we are able to survey in its beginnings, its progress,
and its close, ended not with materialism, but with the most decided idealism. It
is true that in its way this idealism also denotes a bankruptcy; as the contempt
for reason and science, and these are contemned when relegated to the second place,
finally leads to barbarism, because it results in the crassest superstition, and
is exposed to all manner of imposture. And, as a matter of fact, barbarism succeeded
the flourishing period of Neoplatonism. Philosophers themselves no doubt found their
mental food in the knowledge which they thought themselves able to surpass; but
the masses grew up in superstition, and the Christian Church, which entered on the
inheritance of Neoplatonism, was compelled to reckon with that and come to terms
with it. Just when the bankruptcy of the ancient civilisation and its lapse into
barbarism could not have failed to reveal themselves, a kindly destiny placed on
the stage of history barbarian nations, for whom the work of a thousand years had
as yet no existence. Thus the fact is concealed, which, however, does not escape
the eye of one who looks below the surface, that the inner history of the ancient
world must necessarily have degenerated into barbarism of its own accord, because
it ended with the renunciation of this world. There is no desire either to enjoy
it, to master it, or to know it as it really is. A new
world is disclosed for which everything is given up, and men are
ready to sacrifice insight and understanding, in order to possess this world with
certainty; and, in the light which radiates from the world to come, that which in
this world appears absurd becomes wisdom, and wisdom becomes folly.
Such is Neoplatonism. The pre-Socratic philosophers, declared
by the followers of Socrates to be childish, had freed themselves from theology,
that is the mythology of the poets, and constructed a philosophy from the observation
of nature, without troubling themselves about ethics and religion. In the systems
of Plato and Aristotle physics and ethics were to attain to their rights, though
the latter no doubt already occupied the first place; theology, that is popular
religion, continues to be thrust aside. The post-Aristotelian philosophers of all
parties were already beginning to withdraw from the objective world. Stoicism, indeed,
seems to fall back into the materialism that prevailed before Plato and Aristotle;
but the ethical dualism which dominated the mood of the Stoic philosophers did not
in the long run tolerate the materialistic physics; it sought and found help in
the metaphysical dualism of the Platonists, and at the same time reconciled itself
to the popular religion by means of allegorism, that is it formed a new theology.
But it did not result in permanent philosophic creations. A one-sided development
of Platonism produced the various forms of scepticism which sought to abolish confidence
in empirical knowledge. Neoplatonism, which came last, learned from all schools.
In the first place, it belongs to the series of post-Aristotelian systems and, as
the philosophy of the subjective, it is the logical completion of them. In the second
place, it rests on scepticism; for it also, though not at the very beginning, gave
up both confidence and pure interest in empirical knowledge. Thirdly, it can boast
of the name and authority of Plato; for in metaphysics it consciously went back
to him and expressly opposed the metaphysics of the Stoics. Yet on this very point
it also learned something from the Stoics; for the Neoplatonic conception of the
action of God on the world, and of the nature and origin of matter, can only be
explained by reference to the dynamic pantheism of the Stoics. In other
respects, especially in psychology, it is diametrically opposed
to the Stoa, though superior. Fourthly, the study of Aristotle also had an influence
on Neoplatonism. That is shewn not only in the philosophic methods of the Neoplatonists,
but also, though in a subordinate way, in their metaphysics. Fifthly, the ethic
of the Stoics was adopted by Neoplatonism, but this ethic necessarily gave way to
a still higher view of the conditions of the spirit. Sixthly and finally, Christianity
also, which Neoplatonism opposed in every form (especially in that of the Gnostic
philosophy of religion), seems not to have been entirely without influence. On this
point we have as yet no details, and these can only be ascertained by a thorough
examination of the polemic of Plotinus against the Gnostics.
Hence, with the exception of Epicureanism, which Neoplatonism
dreaded as its mortal enemy, every important system of former times was drawn upon
by the new philosophy. But we should not on that account call Neoplatonism an eclectic
system in the usual sense of the word. For in the first place, it had one pervading
and all-predominating interest, the religious; and in the second place, it introduced
into philosophy a new supreme principle, the super-rational, or the super-essential.
This principle should not be identified with the “Ideas” of Plato or the “Form”
of Aristotle. For as Zeller rightly says: “In Plato and Aristotle the distinction
of the sensuous and the intelligible is the strongest expression for belief in the
truth of thought; it is only sensuous perception and sensuous existence whose relative
falsehood they presuppose; but of a higher stage of spiritual life lying beyond
idea and thought, there is no mention. In Neoplatonism, on the other hand, it is
just this super-rational element which is regarded as the final goal of all effort,
and the highest ground of all existence; the knowledge gained by thought is only
an intermediate stage between sensuous perception and the super-rational intuition;
the intelligible forms are not that which is highest and last, but only the media
by which the influences of the formless original essence are communicated to the
world. This view therefore presupposes not merely doubt of the reality of sensuous
existence and sensuous notions, but absolute doubt,
aspiration beyond all reality. The highest intelligible is not
that which constitutes the real content of thought, but only that which is presupposed
and earnestly desired by man as the unknowable ground of his thought.” Neoplatonism
recognised that a religious ethic can be built neither on sense-perception nor on
knowledge gained by the understanding, and that it cannot be justified by these;
it therefore broke both with intellectual ethics and with utilitarian morality.
But for that very reason, having as it were parted with perception and understanding
in relation to the ascertaining of the highest truth, it was compelled to seek for
a new world and a new function in the human spirit, in order to ascertain the existence
of what it desired, and to comprehend and describe that of which it had ascertained
the existence. But man cannot transcend his psychological endowment. An iron ring
incloses him. He who does not allow his thought to be determined by experience falls
a prey to fancy, that is thought which cannot be suppressed assumes a mythological
aspect: superstition takes the place of reason, dull gazing at something incomprehensible
is regarded as the highest goal of the spirit’s efforts, and every conscious activity
of the spirit is subordinated to visionary conditions artificially brought about.
But that every conceit may not be allowed to assert itself, the gradual exploration
of every region of knowledge according to every method of acquiring it, is demanded
as a preliminary—the Neoplatonists did not make matters easy for themselves,—and
a new and mighty principle is set up which is to bridle fancy, viz., the authority
of a sure tradition. This authority must be superhuman, otherwise it would not come
under consideration; it must therefore be divine. On divine disclosures, that is
revelations, must rest both the highest super-rational region of knowledge and the
possibility of knowledge itself. In a word, the philosophy which Neoplatonism represents,
whose final interest is the religious, and whose highest object is the super-rational,
must be a philosophy of revelation.
In the case of Plotinus himself and his immediate disciples, this
does not yet appear plainly. They still shew confidence in the
objective presuppositions of their philosophy; and have, especially
in psychology, done great work and created something new. But this confidence vanishes
in the later Neoplatonists. Porphyry, be-fore he became a disciple of Plotinus,
wrote a book περὶ τῆς ἐκλογίων φιλοσοφίας; as a philosopher he no longer required
the “λόγια”. But the later representatives of the system sought for their philosophy
revelations of the Godhead. They found them in the religious traditions and cults
of all nations. Neoplatonism learned from the Stoics to rise above the political
limits of nations and states, and to widen the Hellenic consciousness to a universally
human one. The spirit of God has breathed throughout the whole history of the nations,
and the traces of divine revelation are to be found everywhere. The older a religious
tradition or cultus is, the more worthy of honour, the more rich in thoughts of
God it is. Therefore the old Oriental religions are of special value to the Neoplatonists.
The allegorical method of interpreting myths, which was practised by the Stoics
in particular, was accepted by Neoplatonism also. But the myths, spiritually explained,
have for this system an entirely different value from what they had for the Stoic
philosophers. The latter adjusted themselves to the myths by the aid of allegorical
explanation; the later Neoplatonists, on the other hand, (after a selection in which
the immoral myths were sacrificed, see, e.g., Julian) regarded them as the proper
material and sure foundation of philosophy. Neoplatonism claims to be not only the
absolute philosophy, completing all systems, but at the same time the absolute
religion,
confirming and explaining all earlier religions. A rehabilitation of all ancient
religions is aimed at (see the philosophic teachers of Julian and compare his great
religious experiment); each was to continue in its traditional form, but at the
same time each was to communicate the religious temper and the religious knowledge
which Neoplatonism had attained, and each cultus is to lead to the high morality
which it behoves man to maintain. In Neoplatonism the psychological fact of the
longing of man for something higher, is exalted to the all-predominating principle
which ex-plains the world. Therefore the religions, though they are to be purified
and spiritualised, become the foundation of philosophy.
The Neoplatonic philosophy therefore presupposes the religious
syncretism of the third century, and cannot be understood without it. The great
forces which were half unconsciously at work in this syncretism, were reflectively
grasped by Neoplatonism. It is the final fruit of the developments resulting from
the political, national and religious syncretism which arose from the undertakings
of Alexander the Greek and the Romans.
Neoplatonism is consequently a stage in the history of religion;
nay, its significance in the history of the world lies in the fact that it is so.
In the history of science and enlightenment it has a position of significance only
in so far as it was the necessary transition stage through which humanity had to
pass, in order to free itself from the religion of nature and the depreciation of
the spiritual life, which oppose an insurmountable barrier to the highest advance
of human knowledge. But as Neoplatonism in its philosophical aspect means the abolition
of ancient philosophy, which, however, it desired to complete, so also in its religious
aspect it means the abolition of the ancient religions which it aimed at restoring.
For in requiring these religions to mediate a definite religious knowledge, and
to lead to the highest moral disposition, it burdened them with tasks to which they
were not equal, and under which they could not but break down. And in requiring
them to loosen, if not completely destroy, the bond which was their only stay, namely,
the political bond, it took from them the foundation on which they were built. But
could it not place them on a greater and firmer foundation? Was not the Roman Empire
in existence, and could the new religion not become dependent on this in the same
way as the earlier religions had been dependent on the lesser states and nations?
It might be thought so, but it was no longer possible. No doubt the political history
of the nations round the Mediterranean, in their development into the universal
Roman monarchy, was parallel to the spiritual history of these nations in their
development into monotheism and a universal system of morals; but the spiritual
development in the end far outstripped the political: even the Stoics attained to
a height which the political development could only partially reach. Neoplatonism
did indeed attempt to gain a connection
with the Byzantine Roman Empire: one noble monarch, Julian, actually
perished as a result of this endeavour: but even before this the profounder Neoplatonists
discerned that their lofty religious philosophy would not bear contact with the
despotic Empire, because it would not bear any contact with the “world” (plan of
the founding of Platonopolis). Political affairs are at bottom as much a matter
of indifference to Neoplatonism as material things in general. The idealism of the
new philosophy was too high to admit of its being naturalised in the despiritualised,
tyrannical and barren creation of the Byzantine Empire, and this Empire itself needed
unscrupulous and despotic police officials, not noble philosophers. Important and
instructive, therefore, as the experiments are, which were made from time to time
by the state and by individual philosophers, to unite the monarchy of the world
with Neoplatonism, they could not but be ineffectual.
But, and this is the last question which one is justified in raising
here, why did not Neoplatonism create an independent religious community? Since
it had already changed the ancient religions so fundamentally, in its purpose to
restore them; since it had attempted to fill the old naive cults with profound philosophic
ideas, and to make them exponents of a high morality; why did it not take the further
step and create a religious fellowship of its own? Why did it not complete and confirm
the union of gods by the founding of a church which was destined to embrace the
whole of humanity, and in which, beside the one ineffable Godhead, the gods of all
nations could have been worshipped? Why not? The answer to this question is at the
same time the reply to another, viz., Why did the christian church supplant Neoplatonism?
Neoplatonism lacked three elements to give it the significance of a new and permanent
religious system. Augustine in his confessions (Bk. VII. 18-21) has excellently
described these three elements. First and above all, it lacked a religious founder;
secondly, it was unable to give any answer to the question, how one could permanently
maintain the mood of blessedness and peace; thirdly, it lacked the means of winning
those who could not speculate. The “people” could not learn the philosophic exercises
which it recommended as
the condition of attaining the enjoyment of the highest good;
and the way by which even the “people” can attain to the highest good was hidden
from it. Hence these “wise and prudent” remained a school. When Julian attempted
to interest the common uncultured man in the doctrines and worship of this school,
his reward was mockery and scorn.
Not as philosophy and not as a new religion did Neoplatonism become
a decisive factor in history, but, if I may say so, as a frame of mind.Excellent remarks on the nature of Neoplatonism may be found
in Eucken, Gött. Gel. Anz., 1 März, 1884. p. 176 ff.: this sketch was already written
before I saw them. “We find the characteristic of the Neoplatonic epoch in the effort
to make the inward, which till then had had alongside of it an independent outer
world as a contrast, the exclusive and all-determining element. The movement which
makes itself felt here, outlasts antiquity and prepares the way for the modern period;
it brings about the dissolution of that which marked the culminating point of ancient
life, that which we are wont to call specifically classic. The life of the spirit,
till then conceived as a member of an ordered world and subject to its laws, now
freely passes beyond these bounds, and attempts to mould, and even to create, the
universe from itself. No doubt the different attempts to realise this desire reveal,
for the most part, a deep gulf between will and deed; usually ethical and religious
requirements of the naive human consciousness must replace universally creative
spiritual power, but all the insufficient and unsatisfactory elements of this period
should not obscure the fact that, in one instance, it reached the height of a great
philosophic achievement, in the case of Plotinus.” The feeling
that there is an eternal highest good which lies beyond all outer experience and
is not even the intelligible, this feeling, with which was united the conviction
of the entire worthlessness of everything earthly, was produced and fostered by
Neoplatonism. But it was unable to describe the contents of that highest being and
highest good, and therefore it was here compelled to give itself entirely up to
fancy and aesthetic feeling. Therefore it was forced to trace out “mysterious ways
to that which is within,” which, however, led no-where. It transformed thought into
a dream of feeling; it immersed itself in the sea of emotions; it viewed the old
fabled world of the nations as the reflection of a higher reality, and transformed
reality into poetry; but in spite of all these efforts it was only able, to use
the words of Augustine, to see from afar the land which it desired. It broke this
world into fragments; but nothing remained to it, save a ray from a world beyond,
which was only an indescribable “something.”
And yet the significance of Neoplatonism in the history of our
moral culture has been, and still is, immeasurable. Not only because it refined
and strengthened man’s life of feeling and sensation, not only because it, more
than anything else, wove the delicate veil which even to-day, whether we be religious
or irreligious, we ever and again cast over the offensive impression of the brutal
reality, but, above all, because it begat the consciousness that the blessedness
which alone can satisfy man is to be found somewhere else than in the sphere of
knowledge. That man does not live by bread alone is a truth that was known before
Neoplatonism; but it proclaimed the profounder truth, which the earlier philosophy
had failed to recognise, that man does not live by knowledge alone. Neoplatonism
not only had a propadeutic significance in the past, but continues to be, even now,
the source of all the moods which deny the world and strive after an ideal, but
have not power to raise themselves above esthetic feeling, and see no means of getting
a clear notion of the impulse of their own heart and the land of their desire.
Historical Origin of Neoplatonism.
The forerunners of Neoplatonism were, on the one hand, those Stoics
who recognise the Platonic distinction of the sensible and supersensible world,
and on the other, the so-called Neopythagoreans and religious philosophers, such
as Posidonius, Plutarch of Chæronea, and especially Numenius of Apamea.Plotinus, even in his lifetime, was reproached with having borrowed
most of his system from Numenius. Porphyry, in his “Vita Plotini,” defended him
against this reproach. Nevertheless,
these cannot be regarded as the actual Fathers of Neoplatonism; for the philosophic
method was still very imperfect in comparison with the Neoplatonic, their principles
were uncertain, and the authority of Plato was not yet regarded as placed on an
unapproachable height. The Jewish and Christian philosophers of the first and second
centuries stand very much nearer the later Neoplatonism than Numenius. We would
probably see this more clearly if we knew the development of Christianity in Alexandria
in the second century, But, unfortunately,
we have only very meagre fragments to tell us of
this. First and above all, we must mention Philo. This philosopher who interpreted
the Old Testament religion in terms of Hellenism had, in accordance with his idea
of revelation, already maintained that the Divine Original Essence is supra-rational,
that only ecstasy leads to Him, and that the materials for religious and moral knowledge
are contained in the oracles of the Deity. The religious ethic of Philo, a combination
of Stoic, Platonic, Neopythagorean and Old Testament gnomic wisdom, already bears
the marks which we recognise in Neoplatonism. The acknowledgment that God was exalted
above all thought was a sort of tribute which Greek philosophy was compelled to
pay to the national religion of Israel, in return for the supremacy which was here
granted to the former. The claim of positive religion to be something more than
an intellectual conception of the universal reason was thereby justified. Even religious
syncretism is already found in Philo; but it is something essentially different
from the later Neoplatonic, since Philo regarded the Jewish cult as the only valuable
one, and traced back all elements of truth in the Greeks and Romans to borrowings
from the books of Moses.
The earliest Christian philosophers, especially Justin and Athenagoras,
likewise prepared the way for the speculations of the later Neoplatonists by their
attempts, on the one hand, to connect Christianity with Stoicism and Platonism,
and on the other, to exhibit it as supra-Platonic. The method by which Justin, in
the introduction to the Dialogue with Trypho, attempts to establish the Christian
knowledge of God, that is the knowledge of the truth, on Platonism, Scepticism and
“Revelation,” strikingly reminds us of the later methods of the Neoplatonists. Still
more is one reminded of Neoplatonism by the speculations of the Alexandrian Christian
Gnostics, especially of Valentinus and the followers of Basilides. The doctrines
of the Basilidians(?) communicated by Hippolytus (Philosoph. VII. c. 20 sq.), read
like fragments from the didactic writings of the Neoplatonists: Ἐπεὶ οὐδὲν ἦν οὐκ ὕλήm οὐκ οὐσία, οὐκ ἀούσιον, οὐκ ἀπλοῦν,
οὐκ σύνθετον, οὐκ ἀνόητον, οὐκ ἀναίσθητον, οὐκ ἄνθρωπος . . . . . . οὐκ ὣν θεὸς
ἀνοήτως, ἀναισθήτως ἀβούλως ἀπροαιρέτως, ἀπαθῶς, ἀνεπιθυμήτιος
κόσμον ἡθέλησε ποιῆσαι . . . . . . Οὕτως οὐκ ὣν θεὸς ἀποὶησε
κόσμον οὐκ ὄντα ἐξ οὐκ ὅντων, καταβαλόμενος καὶ ὑποστήσας σπερμα τι ἓν ἔχον πᾶσαν
ἐν ἑαυτῷ τῆς τοῦ κόσμου πανστερμίαν. Like the Neoplatonists, these Basilidians did
not teach an emanation from the Godhead, but a dynamic mode of action of the Supreme
Being. The same can be asserted of Valentinus who also places an unnamable being
above all, and views matter not as a second principle, but as a derived product.
The dependence of Basilides and Valentinus on Zeno and Plato is, besides, un-doubted.
But the method of these Gnostics in constructing their mental picture of the world
and its history was still an uncertain one. Crude primitive myths are here received,
and naively realistic elements alternate with bold attempts at spiritualising. While
therefore, philosophically considered, the Gnostic systems are very unlike the finished
Neoplatonic ones, it is certain that they contained almost all the elements of the
religious view of the world which we find in Neoplatonism.
But were the earliest Neoplatonists really acquainted with the
speculations of men like Philo, Justin, Valentinus and Basilides? Were they familiar
with the Oriental religions, especially with the Jewish and the Christian? And,
if we must answer these questions in the affirmative, did they really learn from
these sources?
Unfortunately, we cannot at present give certain, and still less
detailed, answers to these questions. But, as Neoplatonism originated in Alexandria,
as Oriental cults confronted every one there, as the Jewish philosophy was prominent
in the literary market of Alexandria, and that was the very place where scientific
Christianity had its headquarters, there can, generally speaking, be no doubt that
the earliest Neoplatonists had some acquaintance with Judaism and Christianity.
In addition to that, we have the certain fact that the earliest Neoplatonists had
discussions with (Roman) Gnostics (see Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in koptischer
Sprache, pp. 603-665, and that Porphyry entered into elaborate controversy with
Christianity. In comparison with the Neoplatonic philosophy, the system of Philo
and the Gnostics appears in many respects an anticipation which had a certain influence
on the former, the precise nature of which
has still to be ascertained. But the anticipation is not wonderful,
for the religious and philosophic temper which was only gradually produced on Greek
soil, existed from the first in such philosophers as took their stand on the ground
of a revealed religion of redemption. Iamblichus and his followers first answer
completely to the Christian Gnostic schools of the second century; that is to say,
Greek philosophy, in its immanent development, did not attain till the fourth century
the position which some Greek philosophers who had accepted Christianity, had already
reached in the second. The influence of Christianity—both Gnostic and Catholic—on
Neoplatonism was perhaps very little at any time, though individual Neoplatonists
since the time of Amelius employed Christian sayings as oracles, and testified their
high esteem for Christ.
Sketch of the History and Doctrines of Neoplatonism.
Ammonius Saccas (died about 245), who is said to have been born
a Christian, but to have lapsed into heathenism, is regarded as the founder of the
Neoplatonic school in Alexandria. As he has left no writings, no judgment can be
formed as to his teaching. His disciples inherited from him the prominence which
they gave to Plato and the attempts to prove the harmony between the latter and
Aristotle. His most important disciples were Origen the Christian, a second heathen
Origen, Longinus, Herennius, and, above all, Plotinus. The latter was born in the
year 205, at Lycopolis in Egypt, laboured from 224 in Rome, and found numerous adherents
and admirers, among others the Emperor Galienus and his consort, and died in lower
Italy about 270. His writings were arranged by his disciple Porphyry, and edited
in six Enneads.
The Enneads of Plotinus are the fundamental documents of Neoplatonism.
The teaching of this philosopher is mystical, and, like all mysticism, it falls
into two main portions. The first and theoretic part shews the high origin of the
soul, and how it has departed from this its origin. The second and practical part
points out the way by which the soul can again be raised to the Eternal and the
Highest. As the soul with
its longings aspires beyond all sensible things and even beyond
the world of ideas, the Highest must be something above reason. The system therefore
has three parts. I. The Original Essence. II. The world of ideas and the soul. III.
The world of phenomena. We may also, in conformity with the thought of Plotinus,
divide the system thus: A. The supersensible world (1. The Original Essence; 2.
the world of ideas; 3. the soul). B. The world of phenomena. The Original Essence
is the One in contrast to the many; it. is the Infinite and Unlimited in contrast
to the finite; it is the source of all being, therefore the absolute causality and
the only truly existing; but it is also the Good, in so far as everything finite
is to find its aim in it and to flow back to it. Yet moral attributes cannot be
ascribed to this Original Essence, for these would limit it. It has no attributes
at all: it is a being without magnitude, without life, without thought; nay, one
should not, properly speaking, even call it an existence; it is something above
existence, above goodness, and at the same time the operative force without any
substratum. As operative force the Original Essence is continually begetting something
else, without itself being changed or moved or diminished. This creation is not
a physical process, but an emanation of force; and because that which is produced
has any existence only in so far as the originally Existent works in it, it may
be said that Neoplatonism is dynamical Pantheism. Everything that has being is directly
or indirectly a production of the “One.” In this “One” everything so far as it has
being, is Divine, and God is all in all. But that which is derived is not like the
Original Essence itself. On the contrary, the law of decreasing perfection prevails
in the derived. The latter is indeed an image and reflection of the Original Essence,
but the wider the circle of creations extends the less their share in the Original
Essence. Hence the totality of being forms a gradation of concentric circles which
finally lose themselves almost completely in non-being, in so far as in the last
circle the force of the Original Essence is a vanishing one. Each lower stage of
being is connected with the Original Essence only by means of the higher stages;
that which is
inferior receives a share in the Original Essence only through
the medium of these. But everything derived has one feature, viz., a longing for
the higher; it turns itself to this so far as its nature allows it.
The first emanation of the Original Essence is the Νοῦς it is
a complete image of the Original Essence and archetype of all existing things; it
is being and thought at the same time, World of ideas and Idea. As image the Nov;
is equal to the Original Essence, as derived it is completely different from it.
What Plotinus understands by Νοῦς is the highest sphere which the human spirit can
reach (κόσμος νοητός) and at the same time pure thought itself.
The soul which, according to Plotinus, is an immaterial substance
like the Νοῦς,On this sort of Trinity, see Bigg, “The Christian Platonists
of Alexandria,” p. 248 f. is an image and product of the immovable Νοῦς. It is related to
the Νοῦς as the latter is to the Original Essence. It stands between the Νοῦς and
the world of phenomena. The Νοῦς penetrates and enlightens it, but it itself already
touches the world of phenomena. The Νοῦς is undivided, the soul can also preserve
its unity and abide in the Νοῦς; but it has at the same time the power to unite
itself with the material world and thereby to be divided. Hence it occupies a middle
position. In virtue of its nature and destiny it belongs, as the single soul (soul
of the world), to the supersensible world; but it embraces at the same time the
many individual souls; these may allow themselves to be ruled by the Νοῦς, or they
may turn to the sensible and be lost in the finite.
The soul, an active essence, begets the corporeal or the world
of phenomena. This should allow itself to be so ruled by the soul that the manifold
of which it consists may abide in fullest harmony. Plotinus is not a dualist like
the majority of Christian Gnostics. He praises the beauty and glory of the world.
When in it the idea really has dominion over matter, the soul over the body, the
world is beautiful and good. It is the image of the upper world, though a shadowy
one, and the gradations of better or worse in it are necessary to the harmony of
the whole. But, in point of fact, the unity and harmony
in the world of phenomena disappear in strife and opposition.
The result is a conflict, a growth and decay, a seeming existence. The original
cause of this lies in the fact that a substratum, viz., matter, lies at the basis
of bodies. Matter is the foundation of each (τὸ βάθος ἑκάστου ἡ ὕλη); it is the
obscure, the indefinite, that which is without qualities, the μὴ ὄν. As devoid of
form and idea it is the evil, as capable of form the intermediate.
The human souls that are sunk in the material have been ensnared
by the sensuous, and have allowed themselves to be ruled by desire. They now seek
to detach themselves entirely from true being, and striving after independence fall
into an unreal existence. Conversion therefore is needed, and this is possible,
for freedom is not lost.
Now here begins the practical philosophy. The soul must rise again
to the highest on the same path by which it descended: it must first of all return
to itself. This takes place through virtue, which aspires to assimilation with God
and leads to Him. In the ethics of Plotinus all earlier philosophic systems of virtue
are united and arranged in graduated order. Civic virtues stand lowest, then follow
the purifying, and finally the deifying virtues. Civic virtues only adorn the life,
but do not elevate the soul as the purifying virtues do; they free the soul from
the sensuous and lead it back to itself and thereby to the Νοῦς. Man becomes again
a spiritual and permanent being, and frees himself from every sin, through asceticism.
But he is to reach still higher; he is not only to be without sin, but he is to
be “God.” That takes place through the contemplation of the Original Essence, the
One, that is through ecstatic elevation to Him. This is not mediated by thought,
for thought reaches only to the Νοῦς, and is itself only a movement. Thought is
only a preliminary stage towards union with God. The soul can only see and touch
the Original Essence in a condition of complete passivity and rest. Hence, in order
to attain to this highest, the soul must subject itself to a spiritual “Exercise.”
It must begin with the contemplation of material things, their diversity and harmony,
then retire into itself and sink itself in its own essence, and thence
mount up to the Νοῦς, to the world of ideas; but, as it still
does not find the One and Highest Essence there, as the call always comes to it
from there: “We have not made ourselves” (Augustine in the sublime description of
Christian, that is Neoplatonic, exercises), it must, at it were, lose sight of itself
in a state of intense concentration, in mute contemplation and complete forgetfulness
of all things. It can then see God, the source of life, the principle of being,
the first cause of all good, the root of the soul. In that moment it enjoys the
highest and indescribable blessedness; it is itself, as it were, swallowed up by
the deity and bathed in the light of eternity.
Plotinus, as Porphyry relates, attained to this ecstatic union
with God four times during the six years he was with him. To Plotinus this religious
philosophy was sufficient; he did not require the popular religion and worship.
But yet he sought their support. The Deity is indeed in the last resort only the
Original Essence, but it manifests itself in a fulness of emanations and phenomena.
The Νοῦς is, as it were, the second God; the λόγοι which are included in it are
gods; the stars are gods etc. A strict monotheism appeared to Plotinus a poor thing.
The myths of the popular religion were interpreted by him in a particular sense,
and he could justify even magic, soothsaying and prayer. He brought forward reasons
for the worship of images, which the Christian worshippers of images subsequently
adopted. Yet, in comparison with the later Neoplatonists, he was free from gross
superstition and wild fanaticism. He cannot, in the remotest sense, be reckoned
among the “deceivers who were themselves deceived,” and the restoration of the ancient
worship of the Gods was not his chief aim.
Among his disciples the most important were Amelius and Porphyry.
Amelius changed the doctrine of Plotinus in some points, and even made use of the
prologue of the Gospel of John. Porphyry has the merit of having systematized and
spread the teaching of his master, Plotinus. He was born at Tyre, in the year 233;
whether he was for some time a Christian is uncertain; from 263-268 he was a pupil
of Plotinus at Rome; before that he wrote the work περὶ τῆς ἐκ λογίων φιλοσοφίας,
which shews that he wished to base philosophy on
revelation; he lived a few years in Sicily, (about 270) where
he wrote his “fifteen books against the Christians”; he then returned to Rome, where
he laboured as a teacher, edited the works of Plotinus, wrote himself a series of
treatises, married in his old age, the Roman Lady Marcella, and died about the year
303. Porphyry was not an original, productive thinker, but a diligent and thorough
investigator, characterized by great learning, by the gift of an acute faculty for
philological and historical criticism, and by an earnest desire to spread the true
philosophy of life, to refute false doctrines, especially those of the Christians,
to ennoble man and draw him to that which is good. That a mind so free and noble
surrendered itself entirely to the philosophy of Plotinus and to polytheistic mysticism,
is a proof that the spirit of the age works almost irresistibly, and that religious
mysticism was the highest possession of the time. The teaching of Porphyry is distinguished
from that of Plotinus by the fact that it is still more practical and religious.
The aim of philosophy, according to Porphyry, is the salvation of the soul. The
origin and the guilt of evil lie not in the body, but in the desires of the soul.
The strictest asceticism (abstinence from cohabitation, flesh and wine) is therefore
required in addition to the knowledge of God. During the course of his life Porphyry
warned men more and more decidedly against crude popular beliefs and immoral cults.
“The ordinary notions of the Deity are of such a kind that it is more godless to
share them than to neglect the images of the gods.” But freely as he criticised
the popular religions, he did not wish to give them up. He contended for a pure
worship of the many gods, and recognised the right of every old national religion,
and the religious duties of their professors. His work against the Christians is
not directed against Christ, or what he regarded as the teaching of Christ, but
against the Christians of his day, and against the sacred books which, according
to Porphyry, were written by impostors and ignorant people. In his acute criticism
of the genesis or what was regarded as Christianity in his day, he spoke bitter
and earnest truths, and therefore acquired the name of the fiercest and most formidable
of all the enemies of Christians. His work was destroyed (condemned by an edict
of Theodosius II. and Valentinian, of the year 448), and even
the writings in reply (by Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, Philostorgius, etc.,)
have not been preserved. Yet we possess fragments in Lactantius, Augustine, Macarius
Magnes and others, which attest how thoroughly Porphyry studied the Christian writings
and how great his faculty was for true historical criticism.
Porphyry marks the transition to the Neoplatonism which subordinated
itself entirely to the polytheistic cults, and which strove, above all, to defend
the old Greek and Oriental religions against the formidable assaults of Christianity.
Iamblichus, the disciple of Porphyry (died 330), transformed Neoplatonism “from
a philosophic theorem into a theological doctrine.” The doctrines peculiar to Iamblichus
can no longer be deduced from scientific, but only from practical motives. In order
to justify superstition and the ancient cults, philosophy in Iamblichus becomes
a theurgic mysteriosophy, spiritualism. Now appears that series of “Philosophers”
in whose case one is frequently unable to decide whether they are deceivers or deceived,
“decepti deceptores,” as Augustine says. A mysterious mysticism of numbers plays
a great role. That which is absurd and mechanical is surrounded with the halo of
the sacramental; myths are proved by pious fancies and pietistic considerations
with a spiritual sound; miracles, even the most foolish, are believed in and are
performed. The philosopher becomes the priest of magic, and philosophy an instrument
of magic. At the same time the number of Divine Beings is infinitely increased by
the further action of unlimited speculation. But this fantastic addition which Iamblichus
makes to the inhabitants of Olympus is the very fact which proves that Greek philosophy
has here returned to mythology, and that the religion of nature was still a power.
And yet no one can deny that, in the fourth century, even the noblest and choicest
minds were found among the Neoplatonists. So great was the declension that this
Neoplatonic philosophy was still the protecting roof for many influential and earnest
thinkers, although swindlers and hypocrites also concealed themselves under this
roof. In relation to some points of doctrine, at any rate, the dogmatic of Iamblichus
marks an advance.
Thus, the emphasis he lays on the idea that evil has its seat
in the will, is an important fact; and in general the significance he assigns to
the will is perhaps the most important advance in psychology, and one which could
not fail to have great influence on dogmatic also (Augustine). It likewise deserves
to be noted that Iamblichus disputed Plotinus’ doctrine of the divinity of the human
soul.
The numerous disciples of Iamblichus (Aedesius, Chrysantius, Eusebius,
Priscus, Sopater, Sallust and especially Maximus, the most celebrated) did little
to further speculation; they occupied themselves partly with commenting on the writings
of the earlier philosophers (particularly Themistius), partly as missionaries of
their mysticism. The interests and aims of these philosophers are best shewn in
the treatise “De mysteriis Ægyptiorum.” Their hopes were strengthened when their
disciple Julian, a man enthusiastic and noble, but lacking in intellectual originality,
ascended the imperial throne, 361 to 363. This emperor’s romantic policy of restoration,
as he himself must have seen, had, however, no result, and his early death destroyed
every hope of supplanting Christianity.
But the victory of the Church in the age of Valentinian and Theodosius,
unquestionably purified Neoplatonism. The struggle for dominion had led philosophers
to grasp at and unite themselves with everything that was hostile to Christianity.
But now Neoplatonism was driven out of the great arena of history. The Church and
its dogmatic, which inherited its estate, received along with the latter superstition,
polytheism, magic, myths and the apparatus of religious magic. The more firmly all
this established itself in the Church and succeeded there, though not without finding
resistance, the freer Neoplatonism becomes. It does not by any means give up its
religious attitude or its theory of knowledge, but it applies itself with fresh
zeal to scientific investigations and especially to the study of the earlier philosophers.
Though Plato remains the divine philosopher, yet it may be noticed how, from about
400, the writings of Aristotle were increasingly read and prized. Neoplatonic schools
continue to flourish in the chief cities of the empire up to the beginning of the
fifth century, and in
this period they are at the same time the places where the theologians
of the Church are formed. The noble Hypatia, to whom Synesius, her enthusiastic
disciple, who was afterwards a bishop, raised a splendid monument, taught in Alexandria.
But from the beginning of the fifth century ecclesiastical fanaticism ceased to
tolerate heathenism. The murder of Hypatia put an end to philosophy in Alexandria,
though the Alexandrian school maintained itself in a feeble form till the middle
of the sixth century. But in one city of the East, removed from the great highways
of the world, which had become a provincial city and possessed memories which the
Church of the fifth century felt itself too weak to destroy, viz., in Athens, a
Neoplatonic school continued to flourish. There, among the monuments of a past time,
Hellenism found its last asylum. The school of Athens returned to a more strict
philosophic method and to learned studies. But as it clung to religious philosophy
and undertook to reduce the whole Greek tradition, viewed in the light of Plotinus’
theory, to a comprehensive and strictly articulated system, a philosophy arose here
which may be called scholastic. For every philosophy is scholastic which considers
fantastic and mythological material as a noli me tangere, and treats it in logical
categories and distinctions by means of a complete set of formulæ. But to these
Neoplatonists the writings of Plato, certain divine oracles, the Orphic poems, and
much else which were dated back to the dim and distant past, were documents of standard
authority and inspired divine writings. They took from them the material of philosophy,
which they then treated with all the instruments of dialectic.
The most prominent teachers at Athens were Plutarch (died 433),
his disciple Syrian (who, as an exegete of Plato and Aristotle, is said to have
done important work, and who deserves notice also because he very vigorously emphasised
the freedom of the will), but, above all, Proclus (411-485). Proclus is the great
scholastic of Neoplatonism. It was he “who fashioned the whole traditional material
into a powerful system with religious warmth and formal clearness, filling up the
gaps and reconciling the contradictions by distinctions and speculations.”
“Proclus,” says Zeller, “was the first who, by the strict logic
of his system, formally completed the Neoplatonic philosophy and gave it, with due
regard to all the changes it had undergone since the second century, that form in
which it passed over to the Christian and Mohammedan middle ages. Forty-four years
after the death of Proclus the school of Athens was closed by Justinian (in the
year 529); but in the labours of Proclus it had completed its work, and could now
really retire from the scene. It had nothing new to say; it was ripe for death,
and an honourable end was prepared for it. The words of Proclus, the legacy of Hellenism
to the Church and to the middle ages, attained an immeasurable importance in the
thousand years which followed. They were not only one of the bridges by which the
philosophy of the middle ages returned to Plato and Aristotle, but they determined
the scientific method of the next thirty generations, and they partly produced,
partly strengthened and brought to maturity the medieval Christian mysticism in
East and West.
The disciples of Proclus—Marinus, Asclepiodotus, Ammonius, Zenodotus,
Isidorus, Hegias, Damascius—are not regarded as prominent. Damascius was the last
head of the school at Athens. He, Simplicius, the masterly commentator on Aristotle,
and five other Neoplatonists migrated to Persia after Justinian had issued the edict
closing the school. They lived in the illusion that Persia, the land of the East,
was the seat of wisdom, righteousness and piety. After a few years they returned
with blasted hopes to the Byzantine kingdom.
At the beginning of the sixth century Neoplatonism died out as
an independent philosophy in the East; but almost at the same time, and this is
no accident, it conquered new regions in the dogmatic of the Church through the
spread of the writings of the pseudo-Dionysius; it began to fertilize Christian
mysticism, and filled the worship with a new charm.
In the West, where, from the second century, we meet with few
attempts at philosophic speculation, and where the necessary conditions for mystical
contemplation were wanting, Neoplatonism only gained a few adherents here and there.
We
know that the rhetorician, Marius Victorinus, (about 350) translated
the writings of Plotinus. This translation exercised decisive influence on the mental
history of Augustine, who borrowed from Neoplatonism the best it had, its psychology,
introduced it into the dogmatic of the Church, and developed it still further. It
may be said that Neoplatonism influenced the West at first only through the medium
or under the cloak of ecclesiastical theology. Even Boethius—we can now regard this
as certain—was a Catholic Christian. But in his mode of thought he was certainly
a Neoplatonist. His violent death in the year 525, marks the end of independent
philosophic effort in the West. This last Roman philosopher stood indeed almost
completely alone in his century, and the philosophy for which he lived was neither
original nor firmly grounded and methodically carried out.
Neoplatonism and Ecclesiastical Dogmatic.
The question as to the influence which Neoplatonism had on the
history of the development of Christianity is not easy to answer; it is hardly possible
to get a clear view of the relation between them. Above all, the answers will diverge
according as we take a wider or a narrower view of so-called “Neoplatonism.” If
we view Neoplatonism as the highest and only appropriate expression for the religious
hopes and moods which moved the nations of Græco-Roman Empire from the second to
the fifth centuries, the ecclesiastical dogmatic which was developed in the same
period may appear as a younger sister of Neoplatonism which was fostered by the
elder one, but which fought and finally conquered her. The Neoplatonists themselves
described the ecclesiastical theologians as intruders who appropriated Greek philosophy,
but mixed it with foreign fables. Hence Porphyry said of Origen (in Euseb., H. E.
VI. 19): “The outer life of Origen was that of a Christian and opposed to the law;
but, in regard to his views of things and of the Deity, he thought like the Greeks,
inasmuch as he introduced their ideas into the myths of other peoples.” This judgment
of Porphyry is at any rate more
just and appropriate than that of the Church theologians about
Greek philosophy, that it had stolen all its really valuable doctrines from the
ancient sacred writings of the Christians. It is, above all, important that the
affinity of the two sides was noted. So far, then, as both ecclesiastical dogmatic
and Neoplatonism start from the feeling of the need of redemption, so far as both
desire to free the soul from the sensuous, so far as they recognise the inability
of man to attain to blessedness and a certain knowledge of the truth without divine
help and without a revelation, they are fundamentally related. It must no doubt
be admitted that Christianity itself was already profoundly affected by the influence
of Hellenism when it began to outline a theology; but this influence must be traced
back less to philosophy than to the collective culture and to all the conditions
under which the spiritual life was enacted. When Neoplatonism arose ecclesiastical
Christianity already possessed the fundamental features of its theology, that is,
it had developed these, not by accident, contemporaneously and independent of Neoplatonism.
Only by identifying itself with the whole history of Greek philosophy, or claiming
to be the restoration of pure Platonism, was Neoplatonism able to maintain that
it had been robbed by the church theology of Alexandria. But that was an illusion.
Ecclesiastical theology appears, though our sources here are unfortunately very
meagre, to have learned but little from Neoplatonism even in the third century,
partly because the latter itself had not yet developed into the form in which the
dogmatic of the church could assume its doctrines, partly because ecclesiastical
theology had first to succeed in its own region, to fight for its own position and
to conquer older notions intolerable to it. Origen was quite as independent a thinker
as Plotinus; but both drew from the same tradition. On the other hand, the influence
of Neoplatonism on the Oriental theologians was very great from the fourth century.
The more the Church expressed its peculiar ideas in doctrines which, though worked
out by means of philosophy, were yet unacceptable to Neoplatonism (the christological
doctrines), the more readily did theologians in all other questions resign themselves
to the influence of the latter system. The doctrines of the
incarnation, of the resurrection of the body, and of the creation
of the word, in time formed the boundary lines between the dogmatic of the Church
and Neoplatonism; in all else ecclesiastical theologians and Neoplatonists approximated
so closely that many among them were completely at one. Nay, there were Christian
men, such as Synesius, for example, who in certain circumstances were not found
fault with for giving a speculative interpretation of the specifically Christian
doctrines. If in any writing the doctrines just named are not referred to, it is
often doubtful whether it was composed by a Christian or a Neoplatonist. Above all,
the ethical rules, the precepts of the right life, that is asceticism, were always
similar. Here Neoplatonism in the end celebrated its greatest triumph. It introduced
into the Church its entire mysticism, its mystic exercises, and even the magical
ceremonies as expounded by Iamblichus. The writings of the pseudo-Dionysius contain
a Gnosis in which, by means of the doctrines of lamblichus and doctrines like those
of Proclus, the dogmatic of the Church is changed into a scholastic mysticism with
directions for practical life and worship. As the writings of this pseudo-Dionysius
were regarded as those of Dionysius the disciple of the Apostle, the scholastic
mysticism which they taught was regarded as apostolic, almost as a divine science.
The importance which these writings obtained first in the East, then from the ninth
or the twelfth century also in the West, cannot be too highly estimated. It is impossible
to explain them here. This much only may be said, that the mystical and pietistic
devotion of to-day, even in the Protestant Church, draws its nourishment from writings
whose connection with those of the pseudo-Areopagitic can still be traced through
its various intermediate stages.
In antiquity itself Neoplatonism influenced with special directness
one Western theologian, and that the most important, viz., Augustine. By the aid
of this system Augustine was freed from Manichaeism, though not completely, as well
as from scepticism. In the seventh Book of his confessions he has acknowledged his
indebtedness to the reading of Neoplatonic writings. In the most essential doctrines,
viz., those about God, matter, the relation of God to the world, freedom and evil,
Augustine
always remained dependent on Neoplatonism; but, at the same time,
of all theologians in antiquity he is the one who saw most clearly and shewed most
plainly wherein Christianity and Neoplatonism are distinguished. The best that has
been written by a Father of the Church on this subject, is contained in Chapters
9-21 of the seventh Book of his confessions.
The question why Neoplatonism was defeated in the conflict with
Christianity, has not as yet been satisfactorily answered by historians. Usually
the question is wrongly stated. The point here is not about a Christianity arbitrarily
fashioned, but only about Catholic Christianity and Catholic theology. This conquered
Neoplatonism after it had assimilated nearly everything it possessed. Further,
we must note the place where the victory was gained. The battle-field was the empire
of Constantine, Theodosius and Justinian. Only when we have considered these and
all other conditions are we entitled to enquire in what degree the specific doctrines
of Christianity contributed to the victory, and what share the organisation of the
Church had in it. Undoubtedly, however, we must always give the chief prominence
to the fact that the Catholic dogmatic excluded polytheism in principle, and at
the same time found a means by which it could represent the faith of the cultured
mediated by science as identical with the faith of the multitude resting on authority.
In the theology and philosophy of the middle ages mysticism was
the strong opponent of rationalistic dogmatism; and, in fact, Platonism and Neoplatonism
were the sources from which, in the age of the Renaissance and in the following
two centuries, empiric science developed itself in opposition to the rationalistic
dogmatism which disregarded experience. Magic, astrology, alchemy, all of which
were closely connected with Neoplatonism, gave an effective impulse to the observation
of nature and consequently to natural science, and finally prevailed over formal
and barren rationalism. Consequently, in the history of science, Neoplatonism has
attained a significance and performed services of which men like Iamblichus and
Proclus never ventured to dream. In point of fact, actual history is often more
wonderful and capricious than legends and fables.
Literature.—The best and fullest account of Neoplatonism, to which
I have been much indebted in preparing this sketch, is Zeller’s Die Philosophie
der Griechen, III. Theil, 2 Abtheilung (3 Auflage, 1881) pp. 419-865. Cf. also Hegel,
Gesch. d. Philos. III. 3 ff. Ritter, IV. pp. 571-728: Ritter et Preller, Hist. phil.
græc. et rom. § 531 ff. The Histories of Philosophy by Schwegler, Brandis, Brucker,
Thilo, Strümpell, Ueberweg (the most complete survey of the literature is found
here), Erdmann, Cousin, Prantl. Lewes. Further: Vacherot, Hist. de l’école d’Alexandria,
1846, 1851. Simon, Hist. de l’école d’Alexandria, 1845. Steinhart, articles “Neuplatonismus,”
“Plotin,” “Porphyrius,” “Proklus “ in Pauly, Realencyclop. des klass. Alterthums.
Wagenmann, article “Neuplatonismus” in Herzog, Realencyklopädie f. protest. Theol.
T. X. (2 Aufl.) pp. 519-529. Heinze, Lehre vom Logos, 1872, p. 298 f. Richter, Neuplatonische
Studien, 4 Hefte.
Heigl, Der Bericht des Porphyrios über Origenes, 1835. Redepenning,
Origenes I. p. 421 f. Dehaut, Essai historique sur la vie et la doctrine d’Ammonius
Saccas, 1836. Kirchner, Die Philosophie des Plotin, 1854. (For the biography of
Plotinus, cf. Porphyry, Eunapius, Suidas; the latter also in particular for the
later Neoplatonists.) Steinhart, De dialectica Plotini ratione, 1829, and Meletemata
Plotiniana, 1840. Neander, Ueber die welthistorische Bedeutung des 9ten
Buchs in der 2ten Enneade des Plotinos, in the Adhandl. der Berliner
Akademie, 1843. p. 299 f. Valentiner, Plotin u. s. Enneaden, in the Theol. Stud.
u. Kritiken, 1864, H. 1. On Porphyrius, see Fabricius, Bibl. gr. V. p. 725 f. Wolff,
Porph. de philosophia ex oraculis haurienda librorum reliquiæ, 1856. Müller, Fragmenta
hist. gr. III. 688 f. Mai, Ep. ad Marcellam, 1816. Bernays, Theophrast. 1866. Wagenmann,
Jahrbücher für Deutsche Theol. Th. XXIII. (1878) p. 269 f. Richter, Zeitschr. f.
Philos. Th. LII. (1867) p. 30 f. Hebenstreit, de Iamblichi doctrina, 1764. Harless,
Das Buch von den ägyptischen Mysterien, 1858. Meiners, Comment. Societ. Götting.
IV. p. 50 f. On Julian, see the catalogue of the rich literature in the Realencyklop.
f. prot. Theol. Th. VII. (2 Aufl.) p. 287; and Neumann, Juliani libr. c. Christ.
quæ supersunt, 1880. Hoche, Hypatia, in “Philologus,” Th. XV.
(1860) p. 435 f. Bach, De Syriano philosopho, 1862. On Proclus,
see the Biography of Marinus and Freudenthal in “Hermes” Th. XVI. p. 214 f. On Boethius,
cf. Nitzsch, Das System des Boëthius, 1860. Usener, Anecdoton Holderi, 1877.
On the relation of Neoplatonism to Christianity and its significance
in the history of the world, cf. the Church Histories of Mosheim, Gieseler, Neander,
Baur; also the Histories of Dogma by Baur and Nitzsch. Also Löffler, Der Platonismus,
der Kirchenväter, 1782. Huber, Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter, 1859. Tzschirner,
Fall des Heidenthums, 1829. Burckhardt, Die Zeit Constantin’s des Grossen, p. 155
f. Chastel, Hist. de la destruction du Paganisme dans l’empire d’Orient, 1850. Beugnot,
Hist. de la destruction du Paganisme en Occident. 1835. E. v. Lasaulx, Der Untergang
des Hellenismus, 1854. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. Réville,
La réligion à Rome sous les Sévères, 1886. Vogt, Neuplatonismus und Christenthum,
1836. Ullmann, Einfluss des Christenthums auf Porphyrius, in Stud. und Krit., 1832.
On the relation of Neoplatonism to Monasticism, cf. Keim, Aus
dem Urchristenthum, 1178, p. 204 f. Carl Schmidt, Gnostische Schriften in Koptischer
Sprache, 1892 (Texte u. Unters., VIII. 1. 2). See, further, the Monographs on Origen,
the later Alexandrians, the three Cappadocians, Theodoret, Synesius, Marius Victorinus,
Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysius, Maximus, Scotus Erigena and the Mediæval Mystics. Special
prominence is due to Jahn, Basilius Plotinizans, 1838. Dorner, Augustinus, 1875.
Bestmann, Qua ratione Augustinus notiones philos. Græcæ adhibuerit, 1877. Loesche,
Augustinus Plotinizans, 1881. Volkmann, Synesios, 1869.
On the after effects of Neoplatonism on Christian Dogmatic, see
Ritschl, Theologie und Metaphysik. 2 Aufl. 1887.