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OUTLINES
OF THE
HISTORY OF DOGMA
BY
Db. ADOLF HARNACK
ProfesfOT of Church History in the Univertity of Berlin
TRANSLATED BT
EDWIN KNOX MITCHELL, M.A.
Professor of Orceco-Romnn and Ecutem Church History in Hartford Theological Seminary
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I, > ' 4 I
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NEW YORK
FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY
LONDON AND TORONTO 1893 ^ Printed in the United States
^^y
"/^/^O-
COPTKIOBT, 1808, BT TBB FUNK & WAGNALUS COMPAmr
[fiegUtered at Stationen^ EaU, London, Eng.]
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1
PREFACE.
THE English translation of my "Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte" has been made, in accordance with my expressed wish, by my former pupil and esteemed friend, Mr. Edwin Knox Mitchell. It is my pleasant duty to ex- press to him here my heartiest thanks.
English and American theological literature possess excellent works, but they are not rich in products within the realm of the History of Dogma. I may therefore perhaps hope that my "Grundriss" will supply a want. I shall be most happy, if I can with this book do my English and American friends and fellow-work- ers some service — a small return for the rich benefit which I have reaped from their labors. In reality, however, there no longer exists any distinction between German and English theo- logical science. The exchange is now so brisk that scientific theologians of all evangelical lands form already one Concilium.
Adolf Harnace.
WnJCSBSDORF NEAR BSBUN,
March 17th, 1802«
I**
Si I.
Vllr
--■<
^T.
>»i
Tt
Stii
CONTENTS.
Prologomeiia to the Discipline 1
I. Idea and Aim of the Higtoiy of Dogma 1
n. Narrative of the History of Dogma ... 8
Presuppositians of the History of Dogma .... 10
m. Introductory 10
IV. TheQospel of Jesus Christ according to His Own
Testimony Vf^
V. The General Proclamation concerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation of His Adherents 18
VI. The Current Exposition of the Old Testament and the Jewish Future Hope, in their Bearing on the Earliest Formulation of the Christian Message . 28 Vn. The Religious Conceptions and the Religious Philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews in their Bear- ing on the Transformation of the Gospel Message . 28 Vni. The Religious Disposition of the Greeks and Ro- mans in the First Two Centuries and the Contem- porary GrsBco-Roman Philosophy of Religion . . 82
PAET I.
THE RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA.
Book I.
THB PREPARATION.
Chapter I.— Historical Survey 89
Chapter U. — Ground Common to Christians and Attitude
Taken toward Judaism 40
Chapter HI.— The Common Faith and the Beginnings of Self -Recognition in that Gentile Christianity nUch was to Derelop into Catholicism . 48
• » •
Vlll CONTENTS.
PAOI
Chapter IV. — Attempt of the Gnostics to Construct an Apostolic Doctrine of Faith and to Produce a Christian Theology ; or, the Acute Secularization of Christianity 58
Chapter V. — Marcion's Attempt to Set Aside the Old Tes- tament as the Foundation of the Grospel, to Purify Tradition, and to Reform Christianity on the Basis of the Pauline (Gospel 70
Chapter VI. — Supplement : The Christianity of the Jewish
Christians 74
Book n.
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION.
Chapter L— Historical Survey 81
Section L EstabUahrnent of Christianity 08 a Church and |
its Oradual Secularization, n
Chapter II.— The Setting Forth of the Apostolic Rules \
(Norms) for Ecclesiastical Christianity. The Catholic Church 84
A. The Recasting of the Baptismal Confession into
the Apostolic Rule of Faith 85
B. The Recognition of a Selection of Well-known
Scriptures as Virtually Belonging to the Old Testament; i. e., as a Compilation of Apostolic |
Scriptures 88
C. The Transformation of the Episcopal Office in the
Church into the Apostolic Office. History of the Transformation of the Idea of the Church 95
Chapter HE. — Continuation: The Old Christianity and
the New Church 100
Section IL Establishment of Christianity as Doctrine and
its Oradual Secularization.
Chapter IV.— Ecclesiastical Christianity and Philosophy'.
The Apologists 117
Chapter V. — Beginnings of an Ecclesiastico-Theological Exposition and Revision of the Rule of Faith in Opposition to Gnosticism on the Presupposition of the New Testament and the Christian Philosophy of the Apologists : IrensBus, Tertullian, Hippoly- tus, Cyprian, Novatian 180
CONTENTS. ix
PAGE
Chapter YI. — ^Tnuosfomiation of Eccleeiastical Tradition into a PhiloBophy of Religion, or the Origin of Scientific Ecclesiastical Theology and Dogmatics : Clement and Origen 149
Chapter Vn.— Decisive Result of Theological Speculation within the Realm of the Rule of Faith, or the Defin- ing of the Ecclesiastical Doctrinal Norm through the Acceptance of the Logos-Chxistology . 166
PAET n.
THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA.
Book I.
HIBrOBT OF THE DEVSLOFMENT OF DOOMA AS DOCTRINE OF THE GOD-HAN UPON THE BASIS OF NATUBAL THEOLOGY.
Chapter I. —Historical Survey 198
Chapter H.— The Fundamental Conception of Salvation
and a General Sketch of the Doctrine of Faith . 206 Chapter HI.— The Sources of KQowledge and the Authori- ties, or Scripture, Tradition, and the Church . 212
A. Th£ Presuppositions of the Doctrine of ScUvatian, or Nat-
unU Theology,
Chapter rv. — ^The Presuppositions and Conceptions of
God, the Creator, as the Dispenser of Salvation . 225
Chapter V. — The Presuppositions and Conceptions of Man
as the Recipient of Salvation .... 220
B. ITie Doctrine of Redemption through the Person of the
Ood-Man in its Historical Development,
Chapter YI.— The Doctrine of the Necessity and Reality of Redemption through the Incarnation of the Son
ofGod 285
Chapter VC— The Doctrine of the Homousion of the Son
of God with God Himself 242
I. Until Council of Nicflea 242
n. Until Death of Constantius 258
in. Until Councils of Constantinople, 881, 883 . . 259 Supplement: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and of the Trinity . 266
X CONTENTS.
PAOlt
Chapter Vm.— The Doctrine of the Perfect Equality as to Nature of the Incarnate Son of God and
Humanity 274
Chapter IX. — Continuation : The Doctrine of the Personal Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the
Incarnate Son of Ood 280
I. The Nestorian Controversy 280
n. The Eutychian Controversy 287
ni. The Monophysite Controversies and the 5th
Council 294
rv. The Monergistic and Monothelitic Controversies, the 6th Council and John of Damascus . 800
C. The Temporal Er^oyment of Redemption.
Chapter X. — The Mysteries, and Matters Akin to Them . 806 Chapter XI. — Conclusion : Sketch of the Historic Begin- nings of the Orthodox System .... 818
Book II.
BZPANSION Ain> BECASrma OF THE DOGMA IKTO A DOCTRINE
OONCERNINa SIN, GRACE AND THE MEANS OF GRACE
UPON THE BASIS OF THE CHURCH.
Chapter I. — Historical Survey 826
Chapter H. — Occidental Christianity and Occidental The- ologians before Augustine 829
Chapter HI. — The World-Historical Position of Augustine
as Reformer of Christian Piety .... 885 > Chapter rv. — ^The World-Historical Position of Augus- tine as Teacher of the Church .... 842 I. Augustine's Doctrine of the First and lAst Things 845 n. The Donatist Contest. The Work *" De Civitate Dei. " The Doctrine of the Church and of the
Means of Grace 854 '
in. The Pelagian Contest. Doctrine of Grace and
of Sin 868
IV. Augustine's Exposition of the Symbol. The
New Doctrine of Religion 876
Chapter v.— History of Dogma in the Occident till the
Beginning of the Middle Ages (480-604) . 882
CONTENTS. XI
PAGE
I. Contest between Semi-Pelagianism and Augustini-
anism 888
n. Gregory the Groat (500-604) 887
Chapter VI. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Carlo-
vingian Renaissance 802
I. A. The Adoption Controversy . . .894
I. B. The Predestination Controversy . • . 895 n. Controversy about the Filioque and about Images 897 m. The Development, in Practice and in Theory, of
the Mass (Dogma of the Eucharist) and of Penance 899 Chapter YII.— History of Dogma in the Time of Clagny, Anselm and Bernard to the End of the 12th
Century 406
I. The Revival of Piety 407
II. On the History of Ecclesiastical Law . 412
ni. The Revival of Science 414
rV. Work upon the Dogma 422
A. The Berengar Controversy 428
B. Anselm's Doctrine of Satisfaction and the Doc- trines of the Atonement of the Theologians of the 12th Century 427
Chapter VIII. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Men- dicant Orders till the Beginning of the 16th
Century 433
I. On the History of Piety 434
n. On the History of Ecclesiastical Law. The Doc- trine of the Church 442
III. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science . . 452
IV. The Reminting of Dogmatics into Scholastics . 461
A. The Working Over of the Traditional Articuli Fidel 462
B. The Scholastic Doctrine of the Sacraments . . 468
C. The Revising of Augustinianism in the Direction
of the Doctrine of Meritorious Works . . 488
Book III.
THB THREE-FOLD ISSUING OF THE HISTOBY OF DOGMA.
Chapter I. — Historical Survey 501
Chapter II. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Roman Ca- tholicism 510
/
/
• •
Xll CONTENTS.
PAGE
I. Codification of the MedisBTal Doctrines in Opposi-
tionto Protestantism (Tridentine Decrees) . . 510 II. Post-Trident ine Development as a Preparation for
the Vatican CJouncil 518
m. The Vatican Council 527
Chapter m. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Anti-Trinita-
rianism and Socinianism 529
I. Historical Introduction 529
II. The Socinian Doctrine 535
Chapter IV. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Protestantism 641
I. Introduction 541
n. Luther *s Christianity 545
ni. Luther's Strictures on the Dominating Ecclesi- astical Tradition and on the Dogma . . . 551 rV. The Catholic Elements Retained with and within
Luther's Christianity 557
•
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE.
L— Idea and Aim of the History of Dogma.
1. Religion is a practical affair with mankind, Beiigioo. since it has to do with our highest happiness and
with those faculties which pertain to a holy life. But in every religion these faculties are closely con- nected with some definite faith or with some defi- nite cult^ which are referred back to Divine Reve- lation. Christianity is that religion in which the impulse and power to a blessed and holy life is bound up with faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ. So far as this God is believed to be the omnipotent Lord of heaven and earth, the Christian religion includes a particular knowledge of God, of the world and of the purpose of created things ; so far, how- ever, as this religion teaches that Gk)d can be truly known only in Jesus Christ, it is inseparable from historical knowledge.
2. The inclination to formulate the content of ^^'SS.^' religion in Articles of Faith is as natural to Chris- tianity as the effort to verify these articles with reference to science and to history. On the other
/
2 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOQMA.
hand the universal and supernatural character of the Christian religion imposes upon its adherents the duty of finding a statement of it which will not be impaired by our wavering knowledge of nature and history; and, indeed, which will be able to maintain itself before every possible theory of nature or of Problem history. The problem which thus arises permits,
Insoluble. ./ jt jt »
indeed, of no absolute solution, since all knowledge is relative; and yet religion essays to bring her ab- solute truth into the sphere of relative knowledge and to reduce it to statement there. But history teaches, and every thinking Christian testifies, that the problem does not come to its solution; even on that account the progressive efforts which have been made to solve it are of value. af"*8oS- ^- "^^^ most thorough-going attempt at solution hitherto is that which the Catholic Church made, and which the churches of the Reformation (with more or less restrictions) have continued to make, viz. : Accepting a collection of Christian and Pre- Christian writings and oral traditions as of Divine origin, to deduce from them a system of doctrine, arranged in scientific form for apologetic purposes, which should have as its content the knowledge of Gk)d and of the world and of the means of salvation ; then to proclaim this complex system {of dogma) as the compendium of Christianity, to demand of every mature member of the Church a faithful ac- ceptance of it, and at the same time to maintain that the same is a necessary preparation for the blesscd-
tion.
i
PROLEGOMENA.
nees promised by the religion. With this augmen- tation the Christian brotherhood, whose character as '^ Catholic Church " is essentially indicated under this conception of Christianity, took a definite and, as was supposed, incontestable attitude toward the science of nature and of history, expressed its relig- ious faith in Qod and Christ, and yet gave (inas- much as it required of aU its members an acceptance of these articles of faith) to the thinking part of the community a system which is capable of a wider and indeed boundless development. Thus arose dog- matte Christianity,
4. The aim of the history of dogma is, (1) To ex- plain the origin of this dogmatic Christianity, and, (2) To describe its development.
5. The history of the rise of dogmatic Christian- ity would seem to close when a well-formulated sys- tem of belief had been established by scientific means, and had been made the '^ articulus constitu- tivus ecclesicBy" and as such had been imposed upon the entire Church. This took place in the transition from the 3d to the 4th century when the Logos- Christology was established. The development of AogcRSL is in abstracto without limit, but in con- creto it has come to an end. For, (a) the Oreek Church maintains that its system of dogma has been complete since the end of the ** Image Controversy " ; (b) the Roman Catholic Church leaves the possibil- ity of the formulating of new dogmas open, but in the Tridentine Coimcil and still more in the Vatican
Aim of
History of
Dogma
Rise of Dogma.
Develop- ment of Dogma.
Qreeic Church.
Roman Chnrch.
f
4 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
has it in fact on political grounds rounded out its dog^ma as a legal system which above all demands obedience and only secondarily conscious faith ; the Roman Catholic Church has consequently abandoned the origmal motive of dogmatic Christianity and has placed a wholly new motive in its stead, retain- E^jmsei- ing the mere semblance of the old ; (c) The Evan- churcheB. gelicdl chuTchcs have, on the one hand, accepted a greater part of the formulated doctrines of dogmatic Christianity and seek to ground them, like the Cath- olic Church, in the Holy Scriptures. But, on the other hand, they took a different view of the author- ity of the Holy Scriptures, they put aside tradition as a source in matters of belief, they questioned the significance of the empirical Church as regards the dogma, and above all they tried to put forward a formulation of the Christian religion, which goes directly back to the **true understanding of the Word of OodJ*^ Thus in principle the ancient dog- matic conception of Christianity was set aside, while however in certain matters no fixed attitude was taken toward the same and reactions began at once and still continue. Therefore is it announced that gjjgg^^ the history of Protestant doctrine will be excluded Exciadei from the history of dogma, and within the former will be indicated only the position of the Reformers and of the churches of the Reformation, out of which the later complicated development grew. Hence the history of dogma can be treated as relatively a com- pleted discipline.
PROLBGOMEKA. 5
6. The claim of the Church that the dogmas are '^^'^^^ simply the exposition of the Christian revelation, ^J^i^ hecaose deduced from the Holy Scriptures, is not ^^ confirmed by historical investigation. On the con- trary, it becomes clear that dogmatic Christianity
(the dc^mas) in its conception and in its construc- tion was the work of the Hellenic spirit upon the Gospel soil. The intellectual medium by which in early times men sought to make the Gk)spel compre- hensible and to establish it securely, became insep- arably blended with the content of the same. Thus arose the dogma, in whose formation, to be sure, other factors (the words of Sacred Scripture, require- ments of the cult, and of the organization, political and social environment, the impulse to push things to their Ic^cal consequences, blind custom, etc.) played a part, yet so that the desire and effort to formulate the main principles of the Christian re- demption, and to explain and develop them, secured the upper hand, at least in the earlier times.
7. Just as the formulating of the dogma proved to JSSrtSSt- be an illusion, so far as the same was to be ihepure uo^. exposition of the Gk)Spel, so also does historical inves- tigation destroy the other illusion of the Church,
viz. : that the dogma, always having been the same therein, have simply been explained, and that eccle- siastical theology has never had any other aim than to explain the unchanging dogma and to refute the heretical teaching pressing in from without. The formulating of the dogma indicates rather that the-
I
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T) OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
ology constructed the dogma, but that the Church must ever conceal the labor of the theologians, which thus places them in an unfortunate plight. In each favorable case the result of their labor has been declared to be a reproduction and they tjiem- selves have been robbed of their best service; as a rule in the progress of history they fell under the condemnation of the dogmatic scheme, whose foun- dation they themselves had laid, and so entire gener- rations of theologians, as well as the chief leaders thereof, have, in the further development of dogma, been afterwards marked and declared to be heretics or held in suspicion. Dogma has ever in the prog- ress of history devoured its own progenitors. Aug^ttne, 8. Although dogmatic Christianity has never, in the process of its development, lost its original style and character as a work of the spirit of perishing antiquity upon Gospel soil (style of the Oreek apologists and of Origin)^ yet it experienced first through Augustine and later through Luther a deeper and more thorough transformation. Both of these men, the latter more than the former, cham- pioned a new and more evangelical conception of Christianity, guided chiefly by Paulinism; Augus- tine however hardly attempted a revision of the tra- ditional dogma, rather did he co-ordinate the old and the new; Lutiier, indeed, attempted it, but did not carry it through. The Christian quality of the dogma gained through the influence of each, and the old traditional system of dogma was relaxed some-
PROLBOOMBNA. 7
what— this was so much the case in Protestantism that one does well, as remarked above, no longer to consider the symbolical teaching of the Protestant churches as wholly a recasting of the old dogma.
9. An understanding of the dogmatico-historic Bniods lo process cannot be secured by isolating the special i><«nM. doctrines and considering them separately (Special History of Dogma) after that the epochs have been previously characterized (General History of Dogma) .
It is much better to consider the ^ general ^ and the " special " in each period and to treat the periods sep- arately, and as much as possible to prove the special doctrines to be the outcome of the fundamental ideas and motives. It is not possible, however, to make more than four principcd divisions, viz. : I. The Ori- gin of Dogma. II. a. The Development of Dogma in accordance with the principles of its original con- ception (Oriental Development from Arianism to the Image-Controversy). II. b. The Occidental Devel- opment of Dogma under the influence of Augustine's Christianity and the Roman papal politics. II. c. The Three-fold Issuing of Dogma (in the churches of the Beformation — in Tridentine Catholicism — and in the criticism of the rationalistic age, i.e., of So- cinianism) .
10. The history of dogma, in that it sets forth the vaJi^ of process of the origin and development of the dogma,
offers the very best means and methods of freeing the Church from dogmatic Christianity, and of hast- ening the inevitable process of emancipation, which
8
OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Mosheim,
etc.
Baronitis,
etc.
Lather, etc.
Sraamiia, etc.
Benedic- tine, etc
Gk)ttfried Arnold.
began with Augustine. But the history of dogma testifies also to the unity and continuity of the Christian faith in the progress of its history, in so far as it proves that certain fundamental ideas of the Gbspel have never been lost, and have defied all attacks.
II.— History of the History of Dogma.
The narrative of the History of Dogma begins first in the 18th century with Mosheim, Walch, Emesti, Leasing, and Semler, since Catholicism in general is not fitted for a critical handling of the subject, al- though learned works have been written by individ- ual Catholic OxeologisaiB (Baronius Bellarmin, Peta- vius, Thomassin, Kuhn, Schwane, Bach, etc.), and since the Protestant churches remained until the 18th century under the ban of confessionalism, al- though important contributions were made in the time of the Reformation (Luther, Okolampad, Mel- anchthon, Flacius, Hyperius, Chemnitz) to the criti- cal treatment of the History of Dogma, based in part upon the labors of the critically disposed humanists (L. Valla; Erasmus, etc.) . But without the learned material, which, on the one hand, the Benedictine and other Orders had gathered together, and, on the other, the Protestant Ccisaubonus, Yossius, Pearson, Dallaus, Spanheim, Qrabe, Basnage, etc., and with- out the grand impulse which pietism gave (Gott- fried Arnold), the work of the 18th century would
PBOLBOOICBNA. 9
have been inoonsiderable. Rationalism robbed the history of dogma of its ecclesiastical interest and gave it over to a critical treatment in which ite darkness was lighted up in part by the lamp of common understanding and in part by the torch of general historical contemplation (first History of Dogma by Lange, 1796, previous works by Sender, uose. Bossier, Ldffler, etc., then the History of Dogma by Munscher, Handb. 4 Bdd. 1797 f., an excellent Mflnwher. Lehrbuch, 1. Aufl. 1811, 3. Aufl. 1832, Munter 2 Bdd. 1802 f, Staudlin 1800 and 1822, Augusti 1805 and 1835, Qieseler, edited by Bedepenning 2 Bdd. 1855). The valuable handbooks of Baumgar- Baum^ar- ten-Crusius 1832, i.e. 1840 and 1846, and of Meier *^*^ 1840, i.e. 1854, mark the transition to a class of works in which an inner understanding of the pro- cess of the History of Dogma has been won, for
which Lessing had already striven, and for which Leadng, Herder, Schleiermacher and the Bomanticists on the ^IS^hir one side, and H^;el and Schelling on the other, had scS^ng. prepared the way. Epoch-making were the writings of F. Chr. Baur (Lehrb. 1847, i.e. 1867, Vorles. Baur. 3. Thl. 1865 f.), in which the dogmatico-historic process, conceived to be sure in a one-sided way, was, so to speak, lived over again (cf . also Strauss, Glaubenslehre 2 Bdd. 1840 f. Marheineke 1849). From the Schleiermacher point of view, is Neander Keander. (2. Thl. 1857) and Hagenbach (1840, i.e. 1867). Domer (History of the Doctrine of the Person of Domer. Christ, 1839 i.e. 1845-53) attempted to unite Hegel
7
1
10
OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Nitcsch.
and Scbleiermacher. From the Lutheran Confes- sional standpoint Eliefoth (Einl. in d. D. G. 1839), Thomasius (2 Bdd. 1874 f. and 1887 edited by Bon- wetsch 1 Bd.), Schmid (1859 i.e. 1887 ed. by Hauck) and, with reservations, Kahnis (The Faith of the Church, 1864). A marked advance is indicated in the History of Dogma by Nitzsch (1 Bd. 1870). For a correct understanding especially of the origin of dogma the labors of Rothe, Bitschl, Benan, Over- beck, V. Engelhardt, Weizsacker and Beville are valuable.
Gospel is
JeHus
Christ
PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE HISTORY
OF DOGMA.
III. — Introductory.
1. The gospel appeared in the "fulness of time." And the Oospel is Jesus Christ. In these sentences the announcement is made that the Gk>spel is the climax of an universal development and yet that it has its power in a personal Life. Jesus Christ " de- stroyed not," but "fulfilled." He witnessed a new life before God and in God, but within the confines of Judaism, and upon the soil of the Old Testament whose hidden treasures he uncovered. It can be shown, that everything that Is "lofty and spiritual " in the Psalms and Prophets, and everything that had been gained through the development of Grecian ethics, is reaffirmed in the plain and simple Gk)spel; but it obtained its power there, because it became
PROLEGOMBKA. 11
life and deed in a PersoUy whose greatness consists also in this, that he did not remould his earthly en- vironment, nor encounter any subsequent rebuff, — in other words, that he did not become entangled in his times.
2. Two generations later there existed, to be sure, j^'^^JJJI no united and homogeneous Churchy but there *^™«^*°'»*- were scattered throughout the wide Roman empire confederated congr^ations of Christian believers (churches) who, for the most part, were Gentile- bom and condenmed the Jewish nation and religion as apostate; they appropriated the Old Testament as theirs by right and considered themselves a ^'new nation **, and yet as the " ancient creation of God ", while in all departments of life and thought certain sacred forms were gradually being put forward. The existence of these confederated Gentile Christian communities is the preliminary condition to the rise of dogmatic Christianity.
The oi^anization of these churches began, indeed. Freeing of
Gospel
in the apostolic times and their peculiar constitution *^"[^^^' is negatively indicate by the freeing of the Gospel ^^"'^• from the Jewish church. While in Islamism the Arabic nation remained for centuries the main trunk of the new religion, it is an astonishing fact in the history of the Gospel, that it soon left its native soil and went forth into the wide world and realized its universal character, not through the transformation of the Jewish religion, but by developing into a world-religion upon Orceco-Roman soil. The Oos-
/
7
12
OUTLINES OF THB HISTORY OF DOOM A.
Gospel World-Re- ligion.
ClMBioal
Epoch of
Gospel
History.
Pfturs Mis- sion.
No Chasm
Between
Earlier
Epoch and
Suooeedinff
Period.
pel became a world-religion in that^ having a message for all mankind^ it preached it to Greek and barbarian^ and accordingly attached itself to the spiritual and political life of the world- wide Roman empire.
3. Since the Qospel in its original form was Jew- ish and was preached only to the Jews, there lay in this transition, which was brought about, in part gradually and without disturbance, and in part through a severe crisis, consequences of the most stringent kind. From the standpoint of the history of the Church and of dogma, the brief history of the Gk)8pel within the bounds of Palestinian Judaism is accordingly a paleontological epoch. And yet this remains the classical epochs not only on account of the Founder and of the original testimony, but quite as much because a Jewish Christian (Paul) recog- nized the Gospel as the power of God, which was able to save both Jew and Greek, and becaiise he designedly severed the Gk)8pel from the Jewish na- tional religion and proclaimed the Christ as the end of the Law. Then other Jewish Christians, personal disciples of Jesus, indeed, followed him in all this (see also the 4th Gk)spel and the Epistle to the Hebrews).
Yet there is in reality no chasm between the older brief epoch and the succeeding period, so far as the Gk)8pel is in itself universalistic, and this character very soon became manifest. But the means by which Paul and his sympathizers set forth the uni-
PROLBQOMSNA. 13
yeraal character of the (Gospel (proTing that the Old Testament religion had been fulfilled and done away with) was little understood, and, vice versa^ the manner and means by which the Gtontile Christians came to an acceptance of the Gkwpel, can only in part be attributed to the preaching of Paul. So far as we now possess in the New Testament subsiaii-^ tied writings in which the Gospel is so thoroughly thought out that it is prized as the aupplanter of the Old Testament religion, and writings which at the same time are not deeply touched with the Greek spirit, does this literature differ radically from all that follows.
4. The growing Gtontile Church, notwithstanding o^^"^,^ Paul's significant relation toward it, did not com- "^S^' prehend, nor really experience the crisis, out of rr^iem. which the Pauline conception of the Gospel arose. In the Jewish propaganda, within which the Old Testament had long i^ce become liberalized and spiritualized, the Gentile Church, entering and grad- ually subjecting the same to itself, seldom felt the problem of the reconciliation of the Old Testament with the Gtospel, since by means of the allegorical method the propaganda had freed themselves from the letter of the law, but had not entirely overcome its spirit; indeed they had simply cast off their national character. Moved by the hostile power of the JewB and later also of the Gentiles and by the consciousness of inherent strength to organize a ^ people " for itsejf, the Church as a matter of course
}
14 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
took on the form of the thought and life of the world in which it lived, casting aside everything polythe- istic, immoral and vulgar. Thus arose the new or- Gentile ionizations, which with all their newness bore testi-
Churches ^ '
R^ned mony to their kinship with the original Palestinian chwSJteS^ churches, in so far as, (1) the Old Testament was
i8tics>
likewise recognized as a primitive revelation, and in so far as, (2) the strong spiritucd monotheism, (3) the outlines of the proclamation concerning Jesus Christ, (4) the consciousness of a direct and living fellowship with Qod through the gift of the Spirit, (5) the expectation of the approaching end of the world, and the earnest conviction of the personal responsibility and accountability of each individual soul were all likewise maintained. To these is to be added finally, that the earliest Jewish-Christian proclamation, yes, the Gospel itself, bears the stamp of the spiritual epochs, out of which it arose, — of the Hellenic age, in which the nations exchanged their wares and religions were transformed, and the idea of the worth and accountability of every soul became widespread; so that the Hellenism which soon pressed so mightily into the Church was not abso- lutely strange and new. History^oi^ 5. The history of dogma has to do with the Qen- ^GteStiTi* tile Church only— the history of theology begins, it Only. . is true, with Paul — , but in order to understand his- torically the basis of the formation of doctrine in the Gentile Church, it must take into consideration, as
«
ly stated, the following as antecedent condi-
PROLEGOMENA. 15
tions: (1) The Oospel of Jest^ Christ (2) The Pnwippo- general and simultaneous proclamation of Jesus Christ in the first generation of believers^ (3) The current understanding and exposition of the Old Testament and the Jewish anticipations of the fu- ture and their speculations^ (4) The religious con- ceptions and the religious philosophy of the Hel- lenistic JewSj (5) The religious attitude of the Greeks and Romans during the first two centu- ries, and the current Orcsco-Roman philosophy of religion,
rv.— The Gospel op Jesus Christ according
TO His Own Testimony.
The Gtospel is the good news of the reign of the ^^^^^^ Ahnighty and Holy God, the Father and Judge of °ioS oT the world and of each individual soul. ' In this reign, which makes men citizens of the heavenly kingdom and gives them to realize their citizenship in the ap- proaching eon, the life of every man who gives him- self to God is secure, even if he should immediately lose the world and his earthly life; while those who seek to win the world and to keep their life fall into the hands of the Judge, who condemns them to hell. This reign of God, in that it rises above all ceremonies and statutes, places men imder a law, which is old and yet new, viz. : Whole-hearted love Love to
•^ ' God and
to God and to one's neighbor. In this love, wher- ^^^ ever it controls the thoughts in their deepest springs, that better justice is exemplified which corresponds
fr
16 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
to the perfection of Gk>d. The way to secure this righteousness is by a change of hearty i.e. by self- denial and humility before Qod and a heart-felt trust in him. In such humility and trust in God the soul realizes its own unworthiness. The Gk)spel, however, calls even sinners, who are so disposed, unto the kingdom of Gk>d, in that it assures them satisfaction with his justice, i.e., g^uarantees them tfie forgiveness of the sins which have hitherto separated them from Gk>d. In the three-fold form, however, in which the Gospel is set forth, (Gk)d's ^?gn^r sovereignty, higher justice [law of love] and for- Lo^For- giveness of sin) it is inseparably connected with
Cri^GIMflB of ^^
Sin. Jesus Christ. For in the proclamation of the Gk)6- pel, Jesus Christ everywhere called men unto him-
wJJdR^id ^^- ^ ^^ ^s *^® Gospel word and deed; it is 'j^ii'' his meat and drink and, therefore, is it become his personal life, and into this life he would draw all men. He is the Son^ who knows the Father. Men should see in him how kind the Lord is; in him they may experience the power and sovereignty of Qod over the world and be comforted in this trust; him, the meek and gentle-hearted One, should they follow ; and inasmuch as he, the holy and pure One, calls sinners unto himself, they should be fully as- sured that God through him forgives sin.
This close connection of his Oospel with his per- son^ Jesus by no means made prominent in wordSy but left his disciples to experience it. He called himself the Son of Man and led them on to the con-
i
PKOLEOOMBNA. 17
fession that he was their Master and Messiah. JesoB ibs-
Blah.
Thereby he gave to his lasting significance for them and for his people a comprehensible expression, and at the close of his life, in an hour of great solenmity, he said to them that his death also like his life was an imperishable service which he rendered to the ^'many" for the forgiveness of sins. By this he raised himself above the plane of all others, although they may already be his brethren; he claimed for himself an unique significance as the Redeemer and '^^^^''^ as the Judge ; for he interpreted his death, like all his suffering, as a triiunph, as the transition to his glory ^ and he proved his power by actually awaken- ing in his disciples the conviction that he still lives and is Lord over the dead and the living. The re- ligion of the Qospel rests upon this faith in Jesus Christ, i.e. looking upon him, that historical Per- son, the believer is convinced that Ood rules heaven and earth, and that Gk)d, the Judge, is also Father and Redeemer. The religion of the Qospel is the re- FrS§Sjni ligion which frees men from all legality, which, how- *" ujf**" ever, at the same time lays upon them the highest moral obUgations^the simplest and the severest- and lays bare the contradiction in which every man finds hunself as regards them. But it brings re- demption out of such necessities, in that it leads men to the gracious God, leaves them in his hands, and draws their life into union with the inexhaustible and blessed life of Jesus Christ, who has overcome
the world and called sinners to himself. 3
18 OX7TLINE8 OF TH1E HISTORT OF DOOHA.
v.— The General Pboglamation oonoerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation of His Adherents.
^cTlIoSl" ^' ^®^ ^^ learned to know Jesus Christ and had found him to be the Messiah. In the first two gen- erations following him everything was said about him which men were in any way able to say. Inas- much as they knew him to be the Risen One, they exalted him as the Lord of the world and of history,
wj^ sitting at the right hand of God, as the Way, the
^^®- Truth and the Life, as the Prince of Life and the living Power of a new existence, as the Conqueror
King. of death and the King of a coming new kingdom. Although strong individual feeling, special experi- ence. Scriptural learning and a fantastic tendency gave from the beginning a form to the confession of him, yet common characteristics of the proclamation can be definitely pointed out. D«?dSio8*5' ^- Th© content of the disciples' belief and the gen- ^* ^' eral proclamation of it on the ground of the certainty of the resurrection of Jesus, can be set forth as fol- lows : Jesus is the Messiah promised by the prophets —he will come again and establish a visible king- dom,— ^they who believe on him and surrender them- selves entirely to this belief, may feel assured of the grace of Qod and of a share in his future glory. A new community of Christian believers thus organized eSSch, itself within the Jewish nation. And this new com-
hml munity believed itself to be the true Israel of the
PROLEGOMENA. 19
Messianic times and lived, accordingly, in all their thoughts and feelings in the future. Thus could all the Jewish apocalyptic expectations retain their pow- er for the time of the second coming of Christ. For the fulfilment of these hopes the new community pos- sessed a guarantee in the sacrificial death of Christ, as also in the manifold manifestations of the Spirit, which were visible upon the members upon their entrance into the brother-hood (from the beginning this introduction seems to have been accompanied by Poneflfdon
^ •'of Spirit,
baptism) and in their gathering together. The pos- ^75522?? session of the Spirit was an assurance to each indi- p**^p- vidual that he was not only a ^ disciple ** but also a '^ called saint," and, as such, a priest and king of God. Faith in the Gk>d of Israel became faith in Qod the Father; added to this was faith in Jesus, the Christ and Son of Gk>d, and the witness of the gift of the Holy Spirit, i.e. of the Spirit of Qod and Christ. In the strength of this faith men lived in the fear of the Judge and in trust in Gk>d, who had already begun the redemption of his own people. The proclamation concerning Jesus, the Christ, g^Jg^^igf rested first of all entirely upon the Old Testament, oVd%ita- yet it had its starting-point in the exaltation of °^°^ Jesus through his resurrection from the dead. To prove that the entire Old Testament pointed toward him, and that his person, his work, his fate were the actual and verbal fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, was the chief interest of believers, in so far as they did not give themselves entirely to ex-
20 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
pectations of the future. This reference did not serve at once to make clear the meaning and worth of the Messianic work — this it did not seem to need — but rather to establish the Messiah-ship of Jesus. However, the Old Testament, as it was then under- stood, gave occasion, through the fixing of the per- son and dignity of Christ, for widening the scope of the thought of IsraePs perfected theocracy. And, in addition, faith in the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of Ood caused men to think of the begin- ning of his existence in harmony therewith. Then the fact of the successful Gentile conversion threw a new light upon the scope of his work, i.e, upon its significance for all mankind. And finally the per- sonal claims of Jesus led men to reflect on his pecu- liar relation to God, the Father. On these four tio?r^ P^^^*» speculation began abeady in the apostoHc age '"in^f^*" and it went on to formulate new statements concern- ^- ing the person and digniiy of Christ. In p^laim- ing Jesus to be the Christ men ceased thereby to proclaim the Gospel, because the rjjpstv navra 8<ra ivereiXaro 6 'Ir^ffou^ was to be included as a matter of course and so did not especially engage the thoughts. That this must be for the future a questionable digression is plain enough; for since everything depends upon the appropriation of the. Person of Jesus, it is not possible for a personal life to be appropriated through opinions about the Person, but only through the record of the concrete Per- sonality.
PROLEGOMENA. 21
3. Upon the basis of the plain words of Jesus and ^^JoSJ^ in the consciousness of the possession of the Spirit men jS^xJom- were ahready assured of a, present possession of the ""ciod.**** forgiveness of sin, of righteousness before Gk>d, of
the full knowledge of the Divine Will and of the call into the future kingdom. In the acquiring of these blessings, surely not a few realized the consequences of the first coming of the Messiah, i.e. his work, and they referred especially the forgiveneas of sin to the death of Christ, and eternal life to his resurrec tion. But no theories touching the relation of the blessings of the Gk)epel to the history of Christ were propounded ; Paul was the first to develop a theology upon the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ and to bring it into relations with the Old Testa- ment religion.
4. This theology was constructed in opposition to ^^ q^ the legalistic righteousness of the pharisees, i.e., to i^^Juc the official religion of the Old Testament. While its ^neas."*^ form was thereby somewhat conditioned, its power
rested in the certainty of the new life of the Spirit, which the Risen One ofi^ered, who through his death overcame the world of the flesh and of sin. With the thought that righteousness comes through faith in Gk>d who raised Jesus from the dead and fulfilled the Law by the legal way of the crucifixion of the Christ upon the cross, Paul wrenched the Gk>spel from its native soil and gave it at the same time through his Christological speculation and his carry- ing out of the contrast of flesh and spirit, a charac-
22 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
teristic stamp which was oomprehensible to the Greeks, although they were illy prepared to accept his special manner of reconciling it with the Law. Through Paul, who was the first theologian, the question of the Law (in theory and practice) and the principles of missionary activity accordingly be- came the absorbing themes in the Christian commu- nities. While he proclaimed freedom from the Law and baptized the heathen, forbidding them to become Jews, others now for the first time consciously made the righteousness of CSiristian believers dependent upon the punctilious observance of the Law and re- HeM^tei jected Paul as an apostle and as a Christian. Yet ^EteSme^ *^® chief disciplcs of Jesus were convinced, perhaps ^^^^ not a little influenced by the success of Paul, and conceded to the heathen the right to become Chris- tians without first becoming Jews. This well at- tested fact is the strongest evidence that Christ had awakened among his personal disciples a faith in himself, which was dearer to them than all the tra- ditions of the fathers. Yet there were among those who accepted the Pauline mission various opinions as to the attitude which one should take toward heathen Christians in ordinary life and intercourse. These opinions held out for a long time. 2*J^<^ As surely as Paul had fought his fight for the ^^^^' whole of Christendom, so sure also is it that the
curred
Ajg^ transformation of the original form of Christianity ^^^ into its universal form took place outside of his aotivily (proof; the Church at Rome). The Juda-
PBOLBOOMBNA. 23
ism of the diaspora was long since surrounded by a retinue of half-bred Grecian brethren, for whom the particular and national forms of the Old Testament religion were hardly existent (see YII.) . And, far- ther, this Judaism itself had begun to transform for the Jews the old religion into a universal and spirit- ual religion without casting aside its forms, which were rather considered significant symbols (mjrster- ies). The Gospel, being received into these circles, completed simply and almost suddenly the process of spiritualizing the old religion, and it stripped off the old forms as shells, replacing them at once in part by new forms {e.g.y circumcision is circimicision of the heart, likewise also baptism; the Sabbath is the glorious kingdom of Christ, etc.). The outward withdrawal from the synagogue is also here a clear proof of the power and self -consciousness of the new religion. The same developed itself rapidly in con- sequence of the hatred of the Jews, who adhered to the old faith. Paul exerted an influence, and the destruction of Jerusalem cleared up entirely the ob- scurities which still remained.
VI. — ^Thb Curbsnt Exposition of the Old Tes- tament AND THE Jewish Future Hope, in THEIR Bearing ON the Earliest Formula- tion OF the Christian Message.
1. Although the method of the pedant, the casuis- ?^^^''
RotAJiiod
tic handling of the Law and the extortion of the by church.
^ OUTLINES O^ tHE &I8T0RY OP DOGMA.
deepest meaning of the prophecies, had been in prin- ciple done away with by Jesus Christ, the old school-exegesis still remained active in the Chris- tian churches, and especially the unhistorical local- method in the exposition of the Old Testament, as well as the allegoristic and the Haggada ; for a sacred text — ^and as such the Old Testament was considered — ever invites men in the exposition of it to disre- gard its historical conditions and interpret it accord- ing to the needs of the time. Especially wherever the proofs of the fulfilment prophecy, i.e., of the Messiah-ship of Jesus was concerned, the received point of view exercised its influence, as well upon the exposition of the Old Testament as upon the conception of the person, fate and deeds of Jesus. It gave, under the strong impression of the history of Jesus, to many Old Testament passages a foreign sense and enriched, on the other hand, the life of Jesus with new facts, throwing the emphasis upon details, which were often unreal and seldom of prime importance. aSS? ^* "^^^ Jewish apocalyptic literature, as it flour- ^ture* R?" ished after the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, was not forbidden within the circles of the first believers of the Gospel, but rather was it retained and read as an explanation of the prophecies of Jesus and, as it were, cultivated. Although the content of the same appeared modified and the imcertainty regarding the person of the Messiah who was to appear in judg- ment was done away with, the earthly sensuous
tained.
PROLEGOMENA. 25
hopes were by no means wholly repressed. Confused pictures fiUed the fancy, threatened to obscure the plain and earnest description of the judgment which every individual soul is sure of, and drove many friends of the Qospel into a restless turmoil and into a detestation of the state. Consequently the repro- duction of the eschatological discourses of Jesus be- came indefinite; even things wholly foreign were mingled therewith, and the true aim of the Christian life and hope began to waver.
3. Through the apocalyptic literature, the artificial Hythoioei- exegesis and the Haggada, a mass of mythological m^^l^ and poetical ideas crowded into the Christian com- ^ ^^^ munities and were legitimized. The most impor- tant for the succeeding times were the speculations in regard to the Messiah, which were drawn in part from the Old Testament and the apocalypses and in part were constructed in accordance with methods whose right no one questioned and whose adoption seemed to give security to the faith. Long since in the Jewish religion men had given to everything that is and that happens an existence within the knowledge of Gk)d, but they had in reality confilned this representation to that only which is really im- portant. The advancing religious thought had above Pre-Ezist.
ence As-
all included individuals also, that is, the most promi- 2(^,^^^J|^ nent, within this speculation which should glorify Ood, and sd a pre-existence was ascribed also to the Messiah, but of such a nature that by virtue of it he abides vrith God during his ^earthly manifesta-
26 OUTIJtXES OF THB HI8TORY OF DOGMA.
tion. In oppoBition to this, the Hellenic ideas of pre-existenoe rooted themselves in the distinguishing^ of QoA and matter; spirit and flesh. According to the same the Spirit is pre-existent and visible na- tore is only a shell which it assumes. Here was the soil for ideas about the incarnation, the assump- tion of a second nature, etc. In the time of Christ these Hellenic ideas influenced the Jewish and thus both were so spread abroad that even the most prom- inent Christian teachers adopted them. The relig- ious convictions (see V. 2), that, (1) the establish- ment of the kingdom of Qod upon the earth and the sending of Jesus as the perfect Mediator was from etemitv the highest purpose in Gk)d's plan of salva- tion, that, (2) the glorified Christ has entered into his own proper position of Gk>d-like dominion, that, (3) in Jesus Ood has revealed himself, and that he therefore excels all Old Testament mediators, yes, the angel-powers themselves — these convictions were so fixed (not without the influence of Hellenic thought) that Jesus pre-existed, i.e. that in him a heavenly Being of like rank with Gk)d, older than the world, yes even its creating Principle, has ap- J^RiouB peared and assumed our flesh. The religious root of ^"uSS!*" ^^^ speculation lay in sentences such as I. Pet. 1, 20 ; its forms of statement were varied even accord- ing to the intelligence of the teacher and his famil- iarity with the apocalyptic theology or with the HeUenio philosophy of religion, in which intermedi- liagB (above all the Logos) played a great role.
PROLEGOMENA.
27
Only the Fourth Evaogelist — ^he hardly belongs to the 1st century — saw with perfect clearness that the pre-eartUy Christ must be established as ^eo9 ^y iv dpj^ «f>^9 ^^j* *e<Jv, in order not to endanger the content and significance of the revelation of God in Christ. In addition there prevailed in wide circles such con- ceptions also as recognissed in a spiritual communi- cation at his baptism the equipment of the man Jesus (see the genealogies, the beginning of the Gfospel of Mark) for his office, or found upon the basis of Isa. vii. in his miraculous birth (from a virgin) the germ of his unique being. (The rise and spread of this representation is wholly indistinct to us; Paul seems not to have known it; in the be- ginning of the 2d century it is almost universal.) On the other hand, it is of ^great significance that every teacher who recognized the new in Christian ity as religion ascribed pre-existence to Christ.
Supplement. — A reference to the witness of proph- ecy, to the current exposition of the Old Testament, to apocalyptic writings and valid methods of specu- lation was not sufficient to dear up every new point which cropped out in the statement of the Christian message. The earliest brother-hoods were enthusias- tic, had prophets in the midst of them, etc. Under such conditions facts were produced outright contin- ually in the history (e.gr., as particularly weighty, the ascension of Christ and his descent into hell). It is farther not possible to point out the motive to 8adi productions, which first only by the creation of
Biaeaod Bpreod
Earliest
Brother-
boodfl Eu-
thusiastlc.
FactR Pro- duced.
2S OUTLINKS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
the New Testament Canon reached a by no means complete end, t.e., now became enriched by compre- hensible mythologamena.
VII. — The Religious Conceptions and the Re- ligious Philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews in Their Bearing on the Transfor- ication of the (lospel message.
^^^^ 1. From the remnants of Jewish- Alexandrian lit- ^[^ac^' erature (reference is also made to the Sibylline ^ ^^^' Oracles as well as to Josephus) and from the great propaganda of Judaism in the GrsBCO-Roman world, it may be inferred that there was a Judaism in tiie diaspora to whose consciousness the cultus and the ceremonial law disappeared entirely behind the mono- theistic worship of Qod without images, behind the moral instruction and the faith in a future reward beyond. Circumcision itself was no longer abso- lutely required of those converted to Judaism ; one was also satisfied with the cleansing bath. The Jewish religion seemed here transformed into a com- mon hmnan morality and into a monotheistic €X>S' mology. Accordingly the thought of the theocracy as well as the Messianic hope grew dim. The latter did not entirely fail, however, but the prophecies were valued chiefly for the proof of the antiquity of the Jewish monotheism, and the thought of the future itself in the expectation of the destruction of the », of the burning of the world and —
PBOLEOOMBNA. • 29
what is weightiest — ^the general judgment That which is specifically Jewish preserved itself under a high regard for the Old Testament, which was con- sidered as the fountain of all wisdom (also for the Oredc philosophy and the elements of truth in the non- Jewish religions). Many intelligent men also observed punctiliously the Law for the sake of its symbolical significance. Such Jews, together with their converts from the Greeks, formed a new Juda- ^^^fSS^" ism upon the foundation of the old. And these pre- ^ pared the soil for the Christianizing of the Greeks, as weH as for the establishment within the empire of a great Gtentile Church free from the Law; under the influence of Greek culture it developed into a kind of universal society with a monotheistic back- ground. As religion it laid aside the national forms, put itself forward as the most perfect form of that ^natural" religion, which the Stoa had discovered. But in that way it became more moralistic and lost a part of the religious energy, which the prophets and psalmists possessed. The inner union of Juda- ism and the Hellenistic philosophy of religion indi- cates a great advance in the history of religion and culture, but the same did not lead to strong religious creations. Its productions passed over into ^ Chris- tianity."
2. The Jewish- Alexandrian philosophy of religion Jewiah- had its most noted defender in Philo, — the perfect fJ^SShy^oi Greek and the sincere Jew, who turned the religious ^{K!^ philosophy of his time in the direction of Neo-
30
OUTLINBS OF THS HISTOR7 OF DOGMA.
Ascetic Virtue.
<« Aldxan-
lOMMlll* of
Ion
Platonism and prepared the way for a Christian theology, which was able to rival the philosophy. Philo was a Platonist and a Stoic, but at the same time a revelation-philosopher; he placed the final end in that which is above reason and therefore the highest power in the Divine communication. On the other hand, he saw in the human spirit some- thing Divine and bridged over the contrast between Ood and creature-^trtf, between nature and history, by means of the personal-impersonal Logos, out of which he explained religion and the world whoee material, it is true, remained to him wholly perish- able and evil. His ethical tendencies had, therefore, in principle a strong ascetic character, however much he might guard the earthly virtues as relative. Vir- tue is freedom from the sensuous and it is made per- fect through the touch of Divinity. This touch sur- passes all knowledge; the latter, however, is to be highly prized as the way. Meditation upon the world is by Philo dependent upon the need of hap- pipess and freedom, which is higher than all reason. On^-may say that Philo is therefore the first who, as a philosopher, gave to this need a clear expression, because he was not only a Greek, but also a Jew imbued with the Old Testament within whose view, it is true, the synthesis of the Messiah and of the Logos did not lay.
3. The practical fundamental conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy of religion must, in diflFerent have found an entrance very early into
PBOI^BGOMIENA. 31
the Jewish-Christian cirdee of the diaspora, and through the same also into the Gentile-Christian ; or rather the soil was already prepared wherever these thou^ts became widespread. After the beginning of the 2d century the philosophy of Philo also be- came influential through Christian teachers, espe- cially his Logos-doctrine^ as the expression of the unity of religion, nature and history; and above all his fundamental hermeneuttc principles. Thesys- vaientinus
and Origen
terns of Valentine and Origen presuppose the system ^"^^ of Philo. His fine dualism and allegorical art {^ the Biblical alchemy") became acceptable also to the learned men of the Church; to find the spiritual meaning of the sacred text, in part alongside the letter and in part outside, was the watchword of scientific Christian theology, which in general was possible only upon such a basis, since it strove, with- out reo^nizing a relative standard, to unify the monstrous and discordant material of Hie Old Testa- ment and the Gkwpel, and to reconcile both with the rdig^on and scientific culture of the Qreeks. Here Philo was a master, for he first in the largest sengp poured the new wine into the old wine-skins — ^a pro- cedure in its ultimate intention justified, since his- tory is a unit; but in its pedantic and scholastic execution the same was a source of illusions, of un- reality and finally of stultification.
32 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
VIII. — The Religious Disposition of the Greeks and Romans in the First Two Centuries and the Contemporary GiLfico- RoMAN Philosophy of Religion.
ra«nw5?d 1- I^ *^® *8® ^f Cicero and Augustus the people's ^iVouflT religion and the religious sense in general was cdmoert
in da and
sdoentu- entirely wanting in cultured circles, but after the end of the 1st century of our era a revival of the relig- ious sense is noticeable in the Grseco-Roman world, which affected all grades of society and seemed after the middle of the 2d century to grow stronger from decennium to decennium. Parallel with it went the not fruitless attempt to restore the old national cults, religious usages, oracles, et cetera. Meanwhile the new religious needs of the time did not reach a vig- orous or imtroubled expression through this effort, which was made in part from above and in part by artificial means. The same sought, far more in ac- cordance with the wholly changed conditions of the times, to find new forms of gratification (intermin- gling and intercourse of nations— downfall of the old republican constitutions, institutions and classes — monarchy and absolutism — social crises and pauper* ism — influence of philosophy, religion, morality and law — cosmopolitanism and human rights — influx of Oriental cults — knowledge of the world and sa- tiety). Under the influence of philosophy a dispo- sition toward monotheism was developed out of the downfall of the political cults and the syncietism..
i
PROLEGOMENA. 33
Beligion and individual morality became more ^'|g^. closely united: Spiritualization of the cults^ en- *i^tS!* nobling of marty idea of ethical personality^ of con- science and of purity. Repentance and pardon became of importance, also inner union with the Divinity, longing for revelation {asceticism and mysterious rites as a means of appropriating the Divine), yearning after a painless, eternal Ufe be- yond the grave (apotheosis); the earthly life as a phantom life (hyxpartta and a:ifdirraatsi) . Just as in the 2d century the moral swing was the stronger, so in the 3d century the religious increased more and more — thirst for life. Polytheism was not thereby over- come, but only shoved aside upon a lower plane, where it was as active as ever. The numen supre- mum revealed its fulness in a thousand forms (demi- gods), going upward (apotheosis, emperor cult, " dominus ac deus noster ") and downward (mani- festations in nature and in history) . The soul itself is a super-earthly being ; the ideal of the perfect man and of the Leader (Bedeemer) was developed and sought after. The new remained in part concealed by the old cidtus forms, which the state and piety protected or restored; there was a feeling-around after forms of expression, and yet the wise, the skeptic, the pious and the patriot capitulated to the cultish traditions.
Social Or-
2. The formation of social organizations, on the Jom^-
one hand, and the founding of the monarchical ^^~.
world-wide Roman empire, on the other, had the ism. 8
^
34
OUTLINES OF THS HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Stoicism, Platonism.
Neo-Plftt- onlsm*
greatest significance as r^^ards the deTelopment of something new. Eyerywhere there sprang up that cosmopolitan feeling, which points beyond itself, there toward the practice of charity, here toward the uniting of mankind under one head and the wip- ing out of national lines. The Church appropriated, piece for piece^ the gpreat apparatus of the earthly Roman empire; in its constitution, perhaps, it also saw the portrayal of the Divine economy.
3. Perhaps the most decisive factor in the change of the religious-ethical attitude was the philosophy, which in almost all its schools had more and more brought ethics forward and deepened the same. Upon the soil of Stoicism, Posidonius, Seneca, Epic- tetus and Marcus Aurelius, and upon the soil of Platonism, men like Plutarch had achieved an ethi- cal-outlook, which in its principles (knowledge, res- ignation, trust in Gk)d) was obscure, yet in some particulars scarcely admits of improvement. Com- mon to them all is the great value put upon the soul. A religious bent, the desire for Divine assistance, for redemption and for a life beyond, comes out dis- tinctly in some of them ; most clearly in the Neo- Platonists and those who anticipated them in the 3d centurj* (preparation by Philo). Characteristics of this moile of tliought are the dualistic contrasting of the Divine and the earthly, the abstract idea of Grod, tho abortion of the unkiiowableness of God, skepti- eisnt in reganl to sonso-oxi)orience and distrust of tho i)OwerB of nvison ; at tho same time great readi-
PROLBOOlfKNA. 35
nesB to investigate and to utilize the results ot the previous scientific labors; and farther, the demand for freedom from the sensuous through asceticism, the want of an authority, belief in a higher revela- tion and the fusing of religion, science and mythol- ogj. Already men began to legitimize the relig- R«iiffious ious fantasie within the realm of philosophy, by u^u-
mixed.
reaching back and seizing the myths as the vehicle of the deepest wisdom (romanticism). The theo- sophical philosophy which had thus equipped itself was from the standpoint of natural science and clear thinking in many wajrs a retrogression (yet not in all particulars, e.g. the Neo-Platonic psychology is far^ better than the Stoic) ; but it was an expression for the deeper religious needs and the better self- knowledge. The inner life with its desires was now altogether the starting-point for all thought concern- ing the world. Thoughts of the divine, gracious Providence, of the kinship of all men, of the conunon fraternal love, of the ready and willing forgiveness of wrong, of the indulgent patience, of the insight into their own weaknesses were no less the product of the practical philosophy of the Greeks for wide circles, than the conviction of the inherent sinful- ness, of the need of redemption and of the value of a human soul which finds its rest only in God. But Reyeiatioii
*' and Relig
men possessed no sure revelation^ no comprehensive *^SJ^™" and satisfactory religious communion^ no vigorous ^*""°^- and religious genius and no conception of history^ which coidd take the place of the no longer valuable
A
36 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
political history; men possessed no certitude and they did not get beyond the wavering between the fear of Qod and the deification of nature. Yet with this philosophy^ the highest the age had to offer ^ the Oospel allied itself^ and the stages of the Ecclesiastical History of Dogma during the first fwe centuries correspond to the stages of the Hellenistic Philosophy of Religion within the same period.
introduc- As an introduction to the study of the history of to g^»toiy dogma the following works are to be especially com- mended: Schiirer, G^schichte des judischen Volks im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 2. Bd. 1885 (English translation published by T. Sc T. Clark). Weber, System der altsynagogalen palastinensischen The- ologie, 1880. Kuenen, Volksreligion und Weltre- ligion, 1883. Wellhausen, Abriss der Geschichte Israel's und Juda's (Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, 1. Heft, 1884). Weiss, Lehrbuch der bibl. Theolo- gie, 4. Aufl., 1884. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbe- wustsein Jesu im Licht der messianischen Hoff- nungen seiner Zeit, 1888. Leben Jesu von Keim, Weiss and others and the Einleitungen in das N. T. von Reuss, Hilgenfeld, Mangold, Holtzmaun und Weiss. Weizsacker, Apostolisches Zeitalter, 1886. Renan, Hist, des Orig. du Christianisme, T. II.- IV. Pfleideror, Das Urchristendum, 1887, Dies- tel, G^chichte des A. T. i. der christl. Kirche,
PROLEGOMENA. 37
1869, Siegfried, Philo v. Alex. 1875. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. Die Untersuchimgen von Freudenthal (' Hellenistische Stadien') and Bemays. Boiseier, La Religion Romaine d'Auguste anx Antonins, 2 vols., 1871. Reville, La Religion k Rome sous lee Sevdres, 1886 (German by Kriiger 1888). Priedlander, Dar- stellmigen aus der Sittengesehichte Rome in der Zeit von Aug^ust bis zu Ausgang der Antonine, 3. Bdd. 5. Aufl. Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, 3. Bdd. 1878. Leopold Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, 2 Bdd. 1882. Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos, 1872. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philoB. Schriften, 3 Thle. 1877. Die Lehrbucher der G-eschichte der Philosophie von Zeller, Ueber- weg, Strumpell and others.
\
part l*^
THE RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA.
BOOK I,
THE PREPARATION.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL SURVEY.
THE first century of the existence of Gtentile- ^§J^J^ Christian communities is characterized, (1) by oogjj««^- the rapid retirement of Jewish Christianity, (2) by religious enthusiasm and the strength of the future hope, (3) by a severe morality deduced from the Masters' teaching, (4) by the manifold form and freedom of expression of belief, on the basis of plain formulas and ever increasing tradition, (5) by the lack of a definite authority, in the transition to a recognized outward authority among the churches, (6) by the lack of a political connection among the various communities, and by an organizaticm which was firm and yet permitted individual liberty, (7) by the development of a peculiar literary activity, claiming assent to its newly produced facts, (8) by
the reproduction of detached phrases and individual
89
40 OTJTUNES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
inferences from the apostolical teaching, without a clear understanding of the same, (9) by the crofH ping out of those tendencies which served in every way to hasten the process already b^^un of fusing^ the Qospel with the spiritual and religious interests of the time, — with Hellenism, — as well as by numer- ous attempts to wrench the Gospel free from its native setting and to introduce elements foreign to it. And finally, above all, it belonged to the (Hel- lenic) representation to consider knowledge, not as a (charismatic) supplement to faith, but as of like essence with it.
CHAPTER IL
GROUND COMMON TO CHRISTIANS AND ATTITUDE TAKEN TOWARD JUDAISM.
Beliefs That the great majority of Christians had com-
Common
%Ss*'' "^^^ beliefs is indicated by this fact, among others, that gnosticism was gradually expelled from the churches. Assurance of the knowledge of the true God, consciousness of responsibility to him, faith in Christ, hope in eternal life, exaltation above the pres- ent world, — ^these were fundamental thoughts. If we enter into details the following points may be noted:
Ooflpei. 1. The Gk)6pel, being founded upon a revelation, is the reliable message of the true Qodj the faithful acceptance of which guarantees salvation;
THE PREPARATIOK. 41
2. The real content of this message is spiritual oojrt«»t of monotheism, the announcement of the resurrection
and eternal life, as well as the proclamation of moral purity and abstinence on the ground of repentance toward God and of attested cleansing through bap- tism in remembrance of the reward of good and evil;
3. This message comes to us through Jesus Christ, t£^^ who " in these last days " is the commissioned Sa- ^^^^*^^^ viour and stands in a peculiar relationship with God.
He is the Bedeemer (ff^tnjp) because he has brought full knowledge of Gk)d and the gift of eternal life (^ya<re9 and Cwi^, and especially r^mat^ rij? C»?9, the ex- pression for the summa of the Gk)6pel). He is also the highest Prototyjw of every ethical virtue, the Law-Giver and the Law of the perfect life, and accordingly the Conqueror of demons and the Judge of the world;
4. Virtue is abstinence (a renunciation of the good virtne is
Abstinence
things of this world, in which the Christian is a "odLoTe. stranger, and whose destruction is awaited) and brotherly love;
5. The message of the Christ is entrusted to ^^^ chosen men, to apostles, and more especially to one ^u^ apostle; their preaching is the preaching of the Christ. Moreover, the Spirit of Gkxl reproduces his
gifts and graces in the ^saints," and thus equips special '^prophets and teachers," who receive com munications for the edification of others;
6. Christian worship is the offering of spiritual worship.
42
OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
Basis of Brother- hood.
Christian- ity and Judaism.
sacrifice without regard to statutory rites and cere- monies; the holy offices and anointings, which are connected with the Christian cult, have their virtue in this, that spiritual blessings are therewith im- parted;
7. The barriers of sex, age, position and nation- ality vanish entirely for Christians, as Christians; the Christian brotherhood rests upon the Divine election and is organized through the gifts of the Spirit; in regard to the ground of election there were divers views;
8. Since Christianity is the only true religion and is not a national religion, but belongs to all mankind and pertains to our inmost life, it follows that it can have no special alliance with the Jewish people, or with their peculiar cult. The Jewish people of to- day, at least, stand in no favored relationship with the God whom Jesus has revealed; whether they formerly did is doubtful; this, however, is certain, that God has cast them off, and that the whole Divine revelation, so far as there was any revela- tion prior to Christ (the majority believed in one and looked upon the Old Testament as Holy Scripture) had as its end the calling of a ^ new nation " and the spreading of the revelation of God through his Son.
f
THB PREPARATION.
43
CHAPTER III.
THE COMMON FAITH AND THB BEGINNINGS OF SELF- RECOGNITION IN THAT GENTILE CHRISTIANITY WHICH WAS TO DEVELOP INTO CATHOLICISM.
Sources : Theumtings of the so-called Apoetolic Fathera, inferences drawn from the Works of the Apologists of the 2d century ; Ritschl, Entstehung der alt-kath. Kirche, 2. Ed. 1857; Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justins, 1878; Pflei- derer, Daa Urchristenthiun, 1887.
1. The Christian Communities and the Church. — Both the outlines and the character of the founda- tions of Christianity were fixed by those disciples of the faith, who were members of well-ordered Chris- tian communitiesy and who accepted the Old Testa- ment as an original Divine revelation and prized the Gospel tradition as a free message for all, which tthould be kept faithfully pure. Each little brother- hood should, through the strength of its faith, the certainty of its hope and the holy ordering of its life, as well as through love and peace, be an image of the holy Church of Qod, which is in heaven and whose members are scattered over the earth; it should, also, in the purity of its daily life and in the g^uineness of its brotherly kindness be an ensample to those who are ^ without,'' i.e. to the alien world. In the recently discovered ^ Teaching of the Apos- tles " we come upon the sphere of interest in those communities who had not yet been influenced by phUosophical speculation. They awaited the return
FIxIhk of OutllDM
and Char- acter of
CSirlatian-
1
44
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
of the Christ, and urged a holy life ("Two Ways," dependence of its ethical rules upon the Jewish- Alex- andrian gnomic and the Sermon on the Mount) and, without outward union and a common polity, they recognized themselves as belonging to the new and yet original creation of God, to the Church, which is the true Eve, the Bride of the heavenly Christ (Tertull. Apolog. 39 : coitus sumus de conscientia religionis et discipUnae unitate et spei foedere ;
II. Clem. 14 : ^roeoDvTey t6 ^iXiifia too narpb^ ^ftwv ledfie^ ix TiJ? ixxXr^ffta^ r^y Trpwrrj^ t^9 )rveo/iar(x^9, T^y npo ^Xtou xai ffsXijvfj^ IxTifffiivi^^ . . . ixxX-^ffia t^wtra ffw/id itrrt Xpt- trroib " Xi-j^€t ydip ^ ypa^TJ * inotJ^ffev 6 ^ed^ rdv HLvOputttov Sptrsv xa( ^f^Xo ' rd ^pfftv itniv 6 Xpurro^^ rb ^^Xo ^ ^xxXi^ffta),
2. The Foundations of the Faith, i.e. of the confessions respecting the One God and Jesus and also the Holy Spirit, were laid by the " Christian- ized" Old Testament Scriptures, together with the apocalypses and the ever increasing traditions con- cerning the Christ (his ethical and eschatological dis- courses, on the one side, and the proclamation of the history of Jesus on the other). Prophecy was proven by theology. Already at an early date short ^^J" <>' articles of faith had been formulated (^ napadotrt^^ 6
ftapado^ei^ Xdyo^y 6 xavlbv rr^^ 7rapad6<reaf^, rd XT^poyfui, ^ dtda^ijj ^ ntffTt^, 6 xavdjv r^y Tziffrson:, etc.). The chUTCh
at Borne had formulated before a.d. 150 the follow- J*]^JjJ|^^® ing creed, which was the basis for all future creeds :
nttneuto sl^ Oedv iraripa Tzavroxpdropa * xa) e/? Xpimdv ^Ijjaoovy uldv alnoo rdv /lovtq/'ev^y rdv xoptou '^/iwv, rdv ytwri-
Founda-
tions of
the Faith.
Old TMta- meat.
• I
THE PREPARATION. 45
^ivra ix irveo/iaTo^ dyiou xa\ Mapia^ r^9 izap^ivou, tov M Ilovrioo IltXdrou <naupw^ivTa xa\ ra^ivTa, Tf Tpirj) ^fiipf ^amdvra ix vexpwv, dvafiavra elf tou^ obpayoo^^ xa^TJ/ievov iv SsStf Tou itarpd^y S^ev Ip^erat xptvai Zfovra^ xa) vexpou^ • xai c/f irveufia aytov^ dyiav ixxlT^aia)^^ &^tatv dfiaprtmv^ (rapxdf
dvd^afftv. Everything that had been prophesied con- Riaeof ceming the Christ in the Old Testament, and that Appeal. had been testified concerning him in the primitive Gk^spel, was referred back to the concurrent teach- ing and testimony of the twelve apostles (Ma^i) xuptou did Tw> t^ dizoffT^Xutv) . The rise of this court of appeal, which was the beginning of the idea of Catholic tradilion, is historically obsciu*e and rests upon an a priori. Of like authority, though not identified with it, is Paul with his Epistles, which were, moreover, diligently read.
3. The Principal Elements of Christianity were Main eio- faith in God, the 5e^-«nj9, and in his Son, on the chri«tian- ground of the fulfilment of prophecy and of the apos- tolic attested teaching of the Lord, the discipline in accordance with the standard laid down by the Mas- ter, baptism culminating in a conmion sacrificial prayer, the communion meal, and the certain hope of the near coming of Christ's glorious kingdom. The confessions of faith were very manifold ; there was not as yet any definite doctrine of faith ; imagi- nation, speculation and the exclusively spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament had the widest range; for man must not quench the Spirit. In the exercise of prayer the congregations expressed that
ity.
46 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
which they possessed in God and in Christ; and the
duty of sacrificing this world for the hoped-for future
tionTof ^PP^^Li^ AS ^^ practical side of faith itself. The
Salvation, varying conceptions of salvation grouped themselves about two centres, which were only loosely con- nected ; the one was fixed chiefly by the disposition
chiiiasm. ^^^ ^^ imagination, the other by the intellect. On the one side, accordingly, salvation was believed to consist in the approaching glorious kingdom of Christ, which should bring joy upon theoarth to the righteous (this realistic Jewish conception was de- rived directl}"^ from the apocalypses : Chiiiasm, and hence the interest in the resurrection of ihe physical body). On the other side, salvation was held to con-
^IfQ^^ sist in a definite and full knowledge of God (and the world), as against the errors of heathenism; and this knowledge disclosed to faith (;re'<n-e9) and hope the gift of life and all imaginable blessings (less em- phasis was accoidingly placed on the resurrection of the physical body). Of these blessings the brother- hood was already in possession of the forgiveness of sin and of righteousness, in so far as theirs was a vfew! brotherhood of saints. But these two blessings ap- peared to be endangered as to their worth by empha- sizing the moral point of view, in accordance with which eternal life is looked upon, for the most part, as the wages and the reward of a perfect moral life lived in one's own strength. It is true that the thought was still present, that sinlessuess rests upon a new moral creation (the new birth) which is real-
«: .
THE PREPARATION. 47
isBd in baptism ; but it was ever in danger of being
crowded out by the other thought, that there are no
blessings in salvation save revealed knowledge and
the eternal life, but rather only a catalogue of duties,
in which the Gk)spel is set forth as the New Law (as
cetic holiness and love) . The ^ Christianizing " of the oospei as
N6W Law.
Old Testament served to promote this Greek concep- tion. The idea, it is true, was already present that the Gh>spel, in so far as it is law {v6/iog)^ includes the
gift of salvation {>o/J-og avsu Zvyoo avdyxyi^ — vdfio^ rify
Ueu^eptaig — Christ himself is the Law) ; but this rep- resentation was always doubtful and was gradually abandoned. The setting forth of the Gospel under the conceptions: t^S^tc? (God and world), inajjeXia (eternal life), vofiog (moral duty), appeared as plain as it was exhaustive, and in every relation the Tre^rrc? was held to be confirmed, since it exhibits itself in knowl- edge as well as in hope and in obedience; but in reality it is only if(<nt^ rij? xXij<rea>9^ a preparation, be- cause the blessings of salvation (the fia<rcX$ia too ^$ou as well as the d^apffia) are conferred in the future.
In this hope of the future, salvation is set forth as realizing itself in a brotherhood^ while in the moral-gnostic view it is considered as an individ- ual possession, and reward and punishment are represented as co-ordinated with it, which results in emptying the conception of God of its content. The Transition,
"^ '^ -^ to Moral-
moral view of sin, forgiveness and righteousness in '**"•
Clement, Barnabas and Poly carp is overlaid by Pau- line phrases and formulas; but the uncertainty with
48 OUTLINBS OP THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
which these are quoted indicates that they were not really understood. In Hermas and II. Clement the ground of the forgiveness of sin is the spontaneous energizing fxerdvota. The wide-spread idea that griev- ous sins could not be forgiven those who had been baptized, but that light sins might be condoned, indicates the complete transition to a barren, theo- retical moralism, which was, however, still overlaid by an apocalyptic enthusiasm. influOTce 4. Tlie Old Testament (zs the Source of the EnowU
of Old •'
Testament ^^g^ qJ Faith contributed, (1) to the development of the monotheistic cosmology, (2) to the setting forth of the proofs of prophecy and of the antiquity of Chris-^ tianity (" older than the world "), (3) to the establish- ing of all the ecclesiastical ideas, rights and cere- monies, which were considered necessary, (4) to the deepening of the life of faith (Psalms and prophetical fragments), (5) to the refuting of Judaism as a nation, t.e. to the proving that this people had been cast off by God, and that they had either never had any covenant with him (Barnabas), or had had a covenant of wrath, or had forfeited their covenant; that they had never understood the Old Testament and were therefore now deprived of it, if, indeed, they had ever been in possession of it (the attitude of the Church as a whole toward the Jewish people and their history appears to have been originaUy as in- definite as the attitude of the gnostics toward the Old Testament) . Attempts to correct the Old Testa- ment and to give it a Christian sense were not want-
¥
THK PREPARATION. 49
ing; in the formation of the New Testament there were mdimentary efforts toward this end.
5. Faith Knowledge was above all a knowledge ood is of Cfod as the only supernatural, spiritual and al- ^Jfe^ mighty Being: God is the Creator and Ruler of tiie world and is therefore the Lord. But inas- much as he created the world as a beautiful, well- ordered whole (monotheistic theory of nature) for Uie sake of man, he is at the same time the Ood of goodness and of redemption (^eo? <ram^/i), and only through the knowledge of the identity of the Creator and Redeemer God does faith in Gk)d as the Father reach its perfection. Redemption, how- ever, was necessary, because mankind and the world in the very beginning fell under the dominion of demons. A general and acceptable theory in re- DomtDion gard to the origin of this dominion did by no means exist; but the conviction was fixed and universal, that the present condition and course of the world is not of God, but of the devil. Still, faith in the al- mighty Creator, and hope in the restoration of the earth did not aUow theoretical dualism to make any headway and practical dualism dominated. The practical
Dualism.
world is good and belongs to God, but the present course of it is of the devil. Thus men's thoughts os- cillated between the conception of the world as a beautiful and orderly whole, and the impression of the present evil course of things, of the baseness of the sensuous and of the dominion of demons in the world.
4
50
OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
Jesus is I<onl and
Saviour like God.
Titles
Given to
Jesus.
Son of God.
G. Faith in Jesris Christ as the Redeemer was closely identified with faith in Ood as the Redeemer. Jesus is xopto^ and ffo»T7jp like Ood, and the samo words were often used without indicating whether the reference was to him or to God ; for in the Re- vealer and Mediator of salvation (Jesus), the Author (God) is represented (the purpose of salvation and the revelation of it coincide) ; prayer, however, was made to Gkni through Christ. This title given to Jesus (" Christ ^) became indeed a mere name, since there was no real knowledge of the meaning of ^ Messiah." Therefore the Gentile Christians were obliged through other means to find expressions for the dig- nity of Jesus ; but they possessed in the full eschato- logical traditions valuable reminiscences of the orig- inal apprehension of the Person of Jesus. In the confession that God has chosen and specially pre- pared Jesus, that he is the "Angel" and "Servant" of God, and that he shall judge mankind, and simi- lar expressions, other utterances were made concern- ing Jesus, which sprang from the fundamental idea that he was the "Christ" called of God and en- trusted with an office. In addition there was a traditional, though not common, reference to him as "The Teacher."
The title " Son of God " (not " Son of Man ") was traditional, and was maintained without any waver- ing. Out of this grew directly the conception that Jesus belongs to the sphere of God and that one must think of him " ^<: r^tpi tUoh " (II. Clem. 1) . In
i
THE PREPARATIOy. 51
this phrasing of it the indirect theologia Christie in regard to which there w(%8 no wavering^ found ex- pression in classical forms. It is necessary to think of Jesus as one thinks of Gk)d, (1) because he is the God-exalted Lord and Judge, (2) because he brought true knowledge and life and has delivered mankind from the dominion of demons, from error and sin, or will deliver them. Therefore he is <rainj/), xo/9c«y, «5eo9 yauav^ dei filius clc deuSy doniinus ac denSy but not ^ •*£«?. He is "our Hope," "our Faith," the High- Priest of our prayers, and "our Life." Starting from this basis there were divers theories Theorieeoc
Peraon of
in r^ard to the Person of Jesus, which however all J««»- bore a certain analogy to the naive and the philo- sophical Greek " theologies", but there were no uni- versally accepted " doctrines" . We may distinguish here two principal types : Jesus was looked upon as the man whom Gkxl had chosen and in whom the Spirit of God (the Gk>dhead itself) dwelt; he was, in accordance with his own testimony, adopted by God and clothed with authority {Adoption Chris- tology) ; or Jesus was looked upon as a heavenly spiritual Being (the highest heavenly spiritual Being next to (3od), who became incarnate and after the completion of his work upon the earth returned to the heavens (Pneumatic Christology ; two chii»- the transition here to the Logos Christology was easy). These two different Christologies (the Dei- fied man and the Divine Being appearing in the form of a man) were however brought closely to-
52 OUTLINES OF tHE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
gether so soon as the implanted Spirit of Gkxl in the man Jesus was looked upon as the pre-existent Son of God (Hennas), and so soon as the title "8oa of Gjd," as applied to that spiritual Being, was derived from his (miraculous) incarnation — ^both, however, were maintained. Notwithstanding] these transition forms the two Christologiesmaybe clearly- distinguished: In the one case the election (emphasis upon the miraculous occurrence at the baptism) and the exaltation to God are characteristic ; in the other,
NWveDo- a ndive docetism; for as yet there was no two- nature theory (Jesus' divinity was looked upon as a gift, or else his human form as a temporary taber- nacle). The declaration: Jesus was a mere man (ff'tXd^ &)f$pwno(:) was undoubtedly from the beginning and always highly objectionable ; likewise was the denial of the ^ iv aapxl^ ; but the theories which iden-
NJJ^^o- tified the Person of Jesus with the Godhead (ndive modalism) were not cast aside with the same assur- ance. A formal theory of the identity of Qod and Jesus does not seem to have been wide-spread in the Church at large. The acceptance of the existence at least of one heavenly, eternal, spiritual Being dose to God was demanded outright by the Old Testa- ment Scriptures, as men understood them, so that all were constrained to recognize this^ whether or not they had any basis for reconciling their Christology with that heavenly Being.
PDoumatic The pueumatic Christology was always found ogy. wherever men gave themselves to the study of the
f
THE PREPARATION. 53
Old Testament and wherever faith in Christ as the o(»npl6te reTelation of God was the foremost thought, i.e. it is found in all the important and educated Christian writers (not in Hermas, but in Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, etc. ). Because this Christol- ogy seemed to be directly demanded by the Old Tes- tament as then expounded, because it alone united and reconciled creation and redemption, because it fumishied the proof that the world and religion have the same Divine Source, because the most esteemed primitive Scriptures championed it, and, finally, be- cause it gave room for the introduction of the Logos- speculation, it was the Christology of the future. The adoption Christolqgy, however, proved itself ^2P^'? insuflScient over against the consideration of the re- ^'^' lation of religion to the cosmos, to humanity and its history, as well as over against the Old Testa- ment. And the advocates of the pneumatic Chris- tology did not set it forth as a doubtful theologu- menon; their expositions of it (Clement, Ignatius, Barnabas, Justin), on the contrary, indicate that they could not conceive of a Christianity without faith in the divine spiritual Being, Christ. On the other hand, in the liturgical fragments and prayers that have come down to us, we find little reference to the pre-existence; it sufficed that Jesus is now the wpio^i to whom prayer may be addressed.
The representations of the work of Christ (Christ Christ m as teacher: Giving of knowledge, proclaiming of "^^^* the new law; Christ as Saviour: Giving of life, con
54 OUTLINES OP THB HISTORY OP DOGMA.
quering of demons, forgiving of past sins in the time of error) were connected by some (following current tradition, using the Pauline Epistles) with his death and resurrection, by others they were aflSrmed with- out direct reference to these facts. Independent re- flections upon the close union of the saving work of Christ with the facts set forth in his preaching are nowhere found; and yet the representation of the free endurance of suffering, of the cross, and of the blood of Christ, was accepted in many communities as a holy mysterium^ in which the deepest wisdom and power of the Gospel is concealed (Ignatius), although the death on the cross and the forgiveness of sin were by no means everywhere (as in Clement, Polycarp and Barnabas) inseparably joined together (Hennas knows nothing whatever about such a union). The peculiarity and the individuality of the work of the historical ChHst were moreover menaced by the idea that Christ had been the revealer of GK>d in the Old Testament. SlfS^ All the facts pertaining to the history of Jesus, ^^ S the real and the imagined, received an exaggerated significance when reiterated in the work of instruc- tion and when attacked by heretics. To the mirac- ulous birth, death, resurrection, exaltation and return, was added definitely now the ascension on the 40th day and, less definitely, the descent into hell, while the history of the baptism was more and more ig- nored. The reality of these occurrences was strongly emphasi2sed ; but they had not yet become " dogmas'' ;
\
Y
THE PREPABATION. 55
for they were neither inseparably connected with the idea of salvation, nor were they definitely outlined, nor was the fantasie reBtricted in its artistic exuber- ance.
7. That the Worship of Ood should be a pure, wonhip^ spiritual exercise, without oeremonieB, was taken for granted. Every divine service was looked upon as a spiritual offering (of thanks) accompanied with fasting and deeds of compassionate love. The Lord's Supper (eucharist) was held to be an offering ^^^^ in Ihe strictest sense of the word, and everything which was associated with it (e.g. assistance of the poor) became imbued with the idea of sacrifice. Thenceforward the institutional idea found a wide range, notwithstanding the essential spirituality of worship. Starting with the idea of the symbolical^ "mysteries " which were so necessary to the Greeks were soon established. Baptism in the name of the Baptiim. Father, Son and Spirit was esteemed as the mystery through which the sins of blindness are wholly set aside, and which only thenceforward, however, imposes obligations (mortal sins, committed after baptism, were considered unpardonable, and yet pardoning power was reserved for Ood who here and there exercises it upon the earth through in- spired men. The idea and practice of a ^sec- ond repentance" were bom through the stress of necessity, became however wide-spread, and were then established by the prophetical book of Hennas). Baptism was called ^^pa/iig and fwrttTftdg (no infant
66 OUTLINES Ot tHB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
baptism); the uniting of baptism with the gift of the Holy Spirit became somewhat uncertain. The Lord^s Supper was viewed as «pdpfiaxov d^avaffia^^ as a mysterious communication of gnosis and of life (see the eucharistic prayer in the Didache; the for- giveness of sins is not there mentioned) ; it was at once a communion meal and a sacrificial meal. itoaium Realism and symbolism were here mingled together, boiism. jyg^ j^ were the ideas of grace and of sacrificial offering. Hellenic conceptions early crowded in here (see Ignatius, Justin, Apol. I., the close). SSStion' Church organization, as such, exercised no in- fluence upon the form of the statement of belief until about the year 150. And yet the high esteem in which the apostles, prophets and teachers were held laid the foundation for future developments; besides, Ignatius had already declared that the attitude toward the bishop determined the attitude toward Qod and toward Christ, and other teachers insisted that one must follow the "ancients", the disciples of the apostles, in aU things.
s^m of ^^^^ survey indicates that the decisive premises inKmbiyo. for the cvolution of the Catholic system of doctrine were already in existence before the middle of the 2d century and before the heated contest with gnosti- cism.
The records which have come down to us from the 1st century of the Gentile Church are of a very
THE PRBPARATION. 67
varied character from the point of view of the his- tory of dogma. In the Didache we have a catechism Didache. for the Christian life, dependent upon a Jewish- Greek catechism, and bringing out in the prayers and ecclesiastical discipline that which is specifically Christian. The Bamabas-Epistley probably of Al- ^^SSST ezandrian origin, teaches the correct (Christian) interpretation of the Old Testament, casts aside verbal interpretation and Judaism as of the devil, and follows Paul essentially as regards Christology. The same Christology is represented in the Roman 1, Clement-Epistle^ which also contains Pauline \^t reminiscences (in regard to atonement and justifi- cation), but these are conceived from the moral standpoint. It is classically represented in Hermas P|2^ Pastor and in the II, Clement-Epistley where the ^m^tf" eschatological element is also very prominent. The Christology of the former is the adoption; the author of the II. Clem. Epist. has no consistent Christology, but follows various motives. The the- ology of Ignatius is the most advanced, in so far as he, in the contest with the gnostics, made the facts of salvation prominent and drew his own gnosis from the history of Christ rather than from the Old Testament. He sought to make Jesus Christ, xara irveofia and xarA adpxa^ the Centre of Christianity. The Epistle of Polycarp is characteristic on account of its ^^^Jf dependence upon earlier Christian writings (Paul's Epistles, I. Peter, I. John), and on account of its conservative attitude toward the most valuable tra
4
56 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
PnMiicAUo ditions. The Prcedicatio Petri marks the transition
Petri.
from the primitive Christian literary activity to the apologetic writers (Christ as ^^/lo^ and ^^r*^).
CHAPTER IV.
THE ATTEMPT OF THE GNOSTICS TO CONSTRUCT AN APOSTOUC DOCTRINE OF FAITH AND TO PRO- DUCE A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY ; OR, THE ACUTE SECULARIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY.
Sources : The writings of Justin and the early Catholic Fathers, together with Epiphanius and Theodoret. Frag- ments collected by Hilgenfeld, Ketzergesch, 1884. Descrip- tions by Neander, Gnostische System, 1818, Baur, Gnosis, 1835, Lipsius, Gnosticismus, 1860, Moeller, Kosmologie in der griech. Kirche, 1860 ; vide also Renan, Hist. des. Orig. duChristianisme", T. V.-Vn.
Gnoeti- ^- Gnosticism is a manifestation of the great syn- • cretic movement of the 2d and 3d centuries, which was occasioned by the interchange of national relig- ions, by the contact of Orient and Occident, and by the influence of Greek philosophy upon religion in
Alms at a general. It aimed at the winning of a world-relig- ligion. lon^ in which men should be rated, not on the basis of citizenship, but according to the standard of their intellectual and moral aptitude. The Gospel was rec- ognized as a world-religion only in so far as it could be severed from the Old Testament religion and the Old Testament, and be moulded by the religious philosophy of the Greeks and grafted upon the existing cultus-wisdom and practice of occult mys-
THE PREPARATION. 59
teries. The means by which this artificial union was to be brought about was the allegorical method ^JJSJS^ as used long since by the Greek religious philoso phers. The possibility of the rise of a CSiristian gnosticism lay in this, that the Christian conmiu- nitieB had everywhere fallen heir to the heritage of the Jewish propaganda, where there was abready an ^^ exuberant tendency to spiritualize the Old Testament ^ religion, and where the intellectual interest in relig- ion had long been unbridled. Besides, the Gospel of Christ, and especially Christ himself, had made such an overwhelming impression that men were pos- sessed by the strongest impulse to subordinate their highest conceptions to him, whence, as so often, the christian ** victus victori legem dat " attained its right. Fi- ^'*^*- nally the Christian preaching from the beginning promised a gnosis of the wisdom of God, espe cially that of Paul an antinomian gnosis, and the churches in the empire conceived the Christian wisdom as Xoyixij XaTpua^ in accordance with their Greek conceptions; they combined the mysterious with a marvellous openness, the spiritual with the most significant rites, and sought in this way, MysteriooB
Rites
through their organization and through their " phil- osophical life", to realize that ideal for which the HeUenic religious spirit was then striving,— namely, a communion, or fellowship, which, upon the basis of a Divine revelation, comes, into the possession of the highest knowledge and therefore realizes the holiest life, and which communicates this knowledge*
^v
60 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
not through rational discussion, but through mys- terious, efficacious consecrations and revealed doc- trines. suiS>*of ^' W® ^^ ^^"^ prepared to assert, that in gnos- ^^'^^^^^ ticism the acute stage of a process was reached, which began early in the Church and which under- went a slow and distinct evolution under the Catho- lic system. The gnostics were the theologians of the 1st century; they were the first to transform Christianity into a system of doctrines (dogmas); they were the first to treat tradition and the primitive Christian Scriptures systematically ; they undertook to set forth Christianity as the absolute religion, and they therefore placed it in opposition to the other re- ligions, to that of the Old Testament as well (not alone to Judaism) ; but the absolute religion, which they coupled with Christ, was to them essentially identical with the results of the philosophy of religion, for which they had now found the basis in a revelation : They Attempt to were accordingly a class of Christians who essayed
c{^^^- through a sharp onset to conquer Christianity for Hellenism. Hellenic culture, and Hellenic culture for Christian- ity, and they thereby abandoned the Old Testament in order to fitly close up the breach between the two Christian- opposing forccs. Christianity became an occult tbe- cukSi^ osophy (revealed metaphysics and apparition philos- ^^^^' ophy^ permeated with the Platonic spirit and with Pauline ideas, constructed out of the material of an old cultus-wisdom which was acquired through mysteries and the illumined understanding, defined
f
THB PREPABATIOK. 61
by a keen and, in part, true criticism of the Old Testament religion and the scant faith of the Church. Consequently one is obliged to verify in the promi- nent gnostic schools the Semitic cosmological prin- ciples, tiie Hellenig philosophical ideas and the knowledge of the redemption of the world through Christ. And one must also take account of these three factors: The speculative philosophical, the ^^iree cultish-mystical and the dualistic -ascetic. The con- junction of these elements, the entire transformation of every ethical problem into a cosmological prob- lem and, finally, the view that human history is but a continuation of natural history, especially that redemption is but the last act in the drama which had its origin in the Godhead itself and its develop- ment in the world — all these are not peculiar to gnosticism, but a stage in the general development which was in many ways related to Philonism and which anticipated Neo-Platonism and Catholicism. Out of the crass mythology of an Oriental religion, by the transformation of the concrete forms into speculative and ethical ideas, such as ^ Abyss", '' Si- lence^ "Logos", "Wisdom", "Life" (the Semitic names were often retained), there was formed a my- thologQT of notions in which the juxtaposition and the number of these ideas were determined by the pro- pounding of a scheme. Thus was produced a philo- phiicwoph-
ic DnunAtr
sophical, dramatico-poetic representation similar to *^22J**° the Platonic, but far more complicated and therefore more fantastical, in which those mighty powers, the
62 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
spiritual and the good, appeared to have been brought into an unholy alliance with the material and the base, from which however finally the spiritual, as- sisted by kindred powers which are too exalted ever to be abased, is after all rendered free. The good and the heavenly which is degraded to the material is the human spirit; and the sublime Power which o?^> sets it free is the Christ. The Gospel history is not
^"oS?*^" the history of Christ, but a collection of allegorical representations of the groat Divine world-history. Christ has in truth no history; his appearance in this world of confusion and delusion is his own act and the enlightenment of the Spirit, as regards itself, is the effect of this act. This illumination itself is life, but it is dependent upon asceticism and upon a surrender to the mysteries ordained by Christ, in which one comes into communion with a praesens ntuneriy and which in a mysterious way gradually free the spirit from the world of sense. This spiritualize
nen^'he ^^^ procoss should also be actively cultivated. Absti- watch-cry. qquqq jg therefore the watch-cry. Christianity is accordingly a speculative philosophy which redeems the spirit {r^wat^ trwnjpia^)^ inasmuch as it enlight- ens and consecrates it and directs it unto the true way of life. The gnosis is free from the rational- istic interest of the stoa. The powers which give vigor and life to the spirit rule in the supersensible world. The only guide to this world is a fJLdt^<rt^ (not exact philosophy) resting upon a revelation and allied with fiutrra^tu^ia. The fundamental principles
THE PREPARATION. 63
are acooidingly the following: (1) The sapersensi- runda- ble, indefinite and eternal nature of the divine pri- Prtnc^p***- mordial Being, (2) the evil (not real) matter opposed to the divine Being, (3) the plenitude of the divine powers (eons) which, viewed partly as powers, partly as real ideas, partly as relatively independent beings, represent in stages the development and revelation of the Divinity, but which at the same time are intended to make possible the transition from the higher to the lower, {i) the cosmos as a mixture of matter with sparks of the divine Being, and which originated from the descent of the latter into the former, i.e. from a reprehensible undertaking of a subordinate spirit, merely through the Divine suf- ferance, (5) the freeing of the spiritual elements from their union with matter, or the separation of the good from the sensuous world through the Christ- Spirit, which is active in holy consecrations, knowl- edge and asceticism — thus arises the complete gnos- tic, the independent world-free spirit, who lives in Grod and prepares himself for eternity. The rest of mankind are earth-bom (hylikers). Yet leading 5Ji*^|". teachers (School of Valentinus) distinguish also be- tween hylikers and psychikers; the latter were the doers of the law, who lived by law and faith, for whom the common faith is good enough, that is, necessary. The centre of gravity of the gnostic system did not rest in its changing details, which are so imperfectly known to us, but in its aim and in its postulates.
chikera.
64 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Hums of 3. The phasos of gnosticism were as variegated as <5*™- possible (brotherhoods, ascetic orders, cultus of mys- teries, secret schools, free devotional associations, performances by Christian swindlers and betrayed betrayers, attempts to establish new religions after the pattern and under the influence of the Christian religion). Accordingly the relation of gnosticism to that which was common to all Christians and to the individual Christian communities was exceed- ingly varied. On the one hand, gnosticism pene- trated to the very heart of those Christian churches ' in which docetic and dualistic-ascetic influences were largely at work and where there was a strong ' tendency to vary the original form of the kerygma ; on the other hand, there were gnostic communities that remained apart and indeed abhorred all alliances with others. For the history of dogma the right wing of gnosticism and the real stem, the great
ii^^ vti- S^^^^^ school sects (Basilidians, Yalentinians) come
entioians. especially under consideration. The latter wished to establish a higher order of Christians above the common psychikers, who were barely endured. The contest was mainly with these and they were the
?i?eo/™* theologians from whom later generations learned *5»**^ and were the first to write elementary works on dogmatics, ethics, and scientific and exegetical trea- tises; in short, they laid the foundations of Chris- tian theological literature and began the elaboration of Christian tradition. The expulsion of these gnos- tics and of the right wing (Encratites, ^Docetse,''
r
y
THE PREPARATION. 65
Tatian) could be accomplished only slowly and it ^^^^^ was a result of the consolidating of the Christian Tatun. communities into the Catholic Church which was called forth by this gnostic movement.
The rise of gnosticism is fully explained from the Expiana. general conditions under which Christian preaching ^^ on^i- flourished on Roman soil and from its own attraction as a sure announcement of knowledge, life and dis- cipline, attributed directly to a Divine Person who had appeared upon the earth. The Church fathers hold distracted Judaism, together with the demons, responsible for its rise; later they attribute it to the Samaritan messiah, Simon, then to the Greek phi- ^^^on Ma- losophers, and finally to those who show themselves disobedient to ecclesiastical discipline. In all this there was aparticula veri as may be easily shown; the syncretism which led to this Christian gnos- ticism undoubtedly had one of its principal centres in Samaritan-Syrian territory and the other in Alex- ^^°J^^. andria; but it must not be overlooked that the con- *"^**- ditions were everywhere present in the empire for a spontaneous development. On that accoimt it is im- possible to write a history of the development of gnosticism, and it would be so, even if we knew more than we do about the particular systems. We chriBMan can distinguish only between Jewish-Christian and t^(^r». G^entile-Christian gnostics, and can group the latter tics. only according to their greater or less departure from the common Christian faith as exemplified in their varying attitude toward the Old Testament and the
\
\
66 OUTLINES OF THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
demiurge, and then seek out of this to form from an unbiased reading of the Christian writings an idea of "gnostic.'* That the entire many-sided move-
Heiienism. ment, in which Hellenism, with ail its good and bad qualities, sought to adapt the Gospel, should gradu- ally become a Christian, or, rather, an ecclesiastical movement, lay in the nature of the case. But it is not therefore possible to group the systems in the Zd century chronologically according to a Christian standard, since attempts like that of Carpocrates be- long to the earlier and not to the later times.
Difference 4. Although the differences between gnostic Chris-
between
(^istiui- ^^^'^^ty a^d the common ecclesiastical faith, as well c^m^4 ^ ^^ 1^^^ ecclesiastical theology, appear in part fleeting, in so far as in the latter also the question of knowledge was especially emphasized and the Gospel was being transformed into a system of com- plete knowledge in order to subdue the world, and in so far as the i^i<nt^ was made subordinate to the yvwtrt^ and Greek philosophy was more and more employed, and in so far as eschatology was restricted, docetic views allowed free play and a rigid ascetism prized; yet it is true, (1) that at the time when gnosticism was most flourishing all these were found in the Church at large only in germinal, or frag- mentary form, (2) that the Church at large held fast to the settled facts contained in the baptismal con- fession and to the eschatological expectations, retain- ing its belief also in the Creator as the Supreme Gk>d, in the oneness of Jesus Christ and in the Old
THE PREPARATION. 67
Testament, thus rejecting dualism, (3) that the Church maintained the imity and the parity of hu- man kind and therefore the simplicity and universal tendency of the Christian salvation, and (4) that it opposed ever)' attempt to introduce new, Oriental mythologies, guided in this by the early Christian consciousness and a certain independent judgment. However, the Church in its contest with gnosticism learned a great deal from it. The principal points principal
Points un-
which were under discussion may be briefly sum- der discus- marized as follows (the word ^ positive " appended to a gnostic proposition indicates that the doctrine had a positive influence in the development of the Church view and doctrine) : (1) Christianity, which is the only true and absolute religion, contains a re- vealed system of doctrine (pos.), (2) the Revealer is Christ (pos.), but Christ alone^ and Christy only so far as he was made manifest (no O. T. Christ). This manifestation is itself the redemption, — the teaching is the proclamation of this and of the nec- essary presuppositions (pos.), (3) the Christian teach- ing is to be deduced from the apostolic tradition critically treated ; the same is found in the apostolic writings and in an esoteric doctrine transmitted by the apostles (pos.) ; as an open doctrine it is con- densed in the regulafidei (pos.), as an esoteric doc- trine it is transmitted by appointed teachers, (4) the primitive revelation (apostolic Scriptures), even be- cause it is such, must be expounded by means of the allegory, in order to draw out its deeper meaning
68
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Disparity between Supreme Oodand Creator.
DiBtin-
fTulahing
Supreme
God from
Qodof
O. T.
Eternity of matter.
World Product of Intermedi- ate or Eril
Being.
Evil Inher>
ent in
Matter and
a Physical
Agency.
Eons.
Christ Re-
vealer of
Unlcnown
God.
Jesus,
Heavenly
Eon.
(pos.)) (5) as to the separate portions of the regula as the gnostics understood them, the following are to be especially noted :
(a) The disparity between the supreme God and the Creator of the world, and the consequent contrast of redemption and creation, t.e., the separation of the mediator of revelation and the mediator of crea- tion,
(b) the distinguishing of the Supreme Gh)d from the God of the Old Testament, and the consequent rejection of the O. T. ; Le. the declaration that the O. T. does not contain a revelation of the Supreme God, unless it be in certain parts,
(c) the doctrine of the absoluteness and eternity of matter,
(d) the affirmation that the present world came into existence through a fall into sin, i.e. through an undertaking antagonistic to God, and that it is therefore the product of an evil, or intermediate being,
(e) the doctrine that evil is inherent in matter and is a physical agency,
(f) the acceptance of eons, i.e. of real powers and heavenly persons, in whom the absoluteness of the Divinity unfolds itself,
(g) the affirmation that Christ proclaimed a hith- erto unknown Divinity,
(h) the doctrine that in Jesus Christ, the heavenly Eon — the gnostics rightly saw redemption in his Person, but they reduced his Person to a mere self-
THE PREPARATION.
69
existmt Being — Christ and the human manifestation of him are to be dearly distinguished and to each nature a **distincte agere^ was to be given (not dooetism, but the two-nature doctrine is character- istic). Accordingly some, as Basilides, recognized no real imion whatever between Christ and the man Jesus, whom they otherwise accepted as a real man. Others, as a portion of the Valentinians — their Chris- tology was exceedingly complicated and varied — taught that the body of Jesus was a heavenly-psychi- cal form, and that it only apparently came forth from the womb of Mary. Others finally, like Sator- nil, explained that the entire visible manifestation of Christ was only a phantasma, and hence they ques- tioned the reality of his birth,
(i) the transformation of the ixxXijffia (that the heavenly Church was looked upon as an eon was notiiing new) into the collegium of the pneuma- tikers, who alone shall enjoy the highest blessedness, while the hylikers shall suffer destruction and the psychikers with their ffnXi^ irtffrt^ shall obtain only an inferior blessedness,
(k) the rejection of the whole of primitive Chris- tian eschatology, especially the return of Christ and the resurrection of the body ; with this was coupled the affirmation that in the future one should expect only the freeing of the spirit from the veiled life of the senses, while the spirit itself is enlightened and assured of Qcd and already possesses immortality and only awaits an entrance into the pleroma,
BMilides.
Valentin*
iAOB.
Satoniil.
Church is
Collegium
of Pneu-
matikera.
Beiection ofPriml- tire Chrifi- tian Escha- tology.
70 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Duaiistic (1) the dualistic ethics (rifind asoetism) which here
Ethics.
and there may have veered over into libertinism.
How strongly gnosticism anticipated Catholicism becomes apparent especially from its Christology and its doctrine of redemption, from its magic-cult and its doctrine of the sacraments, and from its scientific literature.
^ CHAPTER V.
HARCION'S ATTEMPT TO SET ASIDE THE OLD TES- TAMENT AS THE FOUNDATION OF THE GOSPEL, TO PURIFY TRADITION, AND TO REFORM CHRIS- TIANITY ON THE BASIS OF THE PAULINE GOS- PEL.
>gjjg<»'» Marcion should not be classed with gnostics like PrincipieB. gasilidcs and Valentinus; for (1) he was guided by- no metaphysical, also by no apologetical, but only by a purely soteriological interest, (2) he therefore placed the whole emphasis upon the pure Gbspel and upon faith (not upon knowledge), (3) he did not em- ploy philosophy — at least not as a main principle — in his conception of Christianity, (4) he did not en- deavor to found schools of philosophers, but to re- form, in accordance with the true Pauline Gospel, the churches whose Christianity he believed to be legalistic ( Judaistic) and who, as he thought, denied ''^*^» free grace. When he failed in this, he formed a church of his own. Wholly captivated by the nov- elty, uniqueness and glory of the grace of God in
/'
THE PREPARATION. 71
Christ, he believed that the sharp antitheses of Paul (Law and Gbspel, works and faith, flesh and spirit, sin and righteousness) must be made the foundation of religious conceptions, and that these antitheses must be apportioned between the right- eous, angry Qod of the Old Testament, who is iden- tical with the Creator of the world, and the God of the Gk)spel, who was unknown before Christ, and who is nothing but Love and Mercy. This crass cnMDiua- dualism — a Paulinism without dialectics, Old Testa- ment, or the Jewish-Christian view of history — ^was put forth by Marcion, not without his being influ- enced by the Syrian gnosis (Cerdo). With the ethi- cal contrast of the sublime and good on the one side, and the petty, just and hard on the other, there was joined the contrast between the eternal, spiritual and the limited, sentient, in a way which threatened to debase the problem again to a question of cosmology. In detail, the following points are especially impor- tant:
1. The Old Testament was expounded by Marcion itoojitiOT according to its verbal sense and with a rejection of *«»«>*• all allegorical interpretations; he accepted it as a revelation of the Creator of the world and of the God of the Jews; but even on this account he placed it in sharp antithesis to the Gospel (see the " Antithe- ses") the content of which he discovered solely in the utterances of Jesus and in the Pauline Epistles, ^^^^^ after that he had purified them from supposed Jew- ^tStieB
the Sole
ish interpolations. These interpolations were, ac- oogpei.
0
iZ OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
cording to his idea, of long standing, since the twelve apostles did not understand Jesus and mis- construed his Gospel, making it to correspond with ^^und'Jj?-"^ the Old Testament. Paul, who was called by Christ je«M. ^ restore the true Gospel, was the only one who per- ceived that Jesus had proclaimed a hitherto imknown God of grace in opposition to Jehovah « As his preaching has also been obscured, he, Marcion, has been authorized to restore the pure Gospel. This was the mission which Marcion's church attributed to him, and it gave his " Antitheses " a sort of canon- ical authority.
^5j^}o«»'8 2. Marcion's conception of God and his Christol- ^^ ogy resemble the gnostic in so far as he also empha- sized most clearly the newness, uniqueness and abso- luteness of Christianity in opposition to the Church at large; he surpassed the gnostics, however, in so far as he conceived mankind to be wholly the ofiF- spring of the Creator of the world and found in man's nature nothing akin to the God of Love. But love and grace are according to Marcion the entire substance of the Godhead ; redemption is the most incomprehensible act of the Divine mercy, and everything that the Christian possesses he owes to Christ aloney who is the manifestation of the good God himself. Through his suffering he purchased from the Creator of the world those who believe on Docetiam. him, and won them for himself. The rigid doce- tism, however, which Marcion taught, — the declara- tion that the souls only of men will be saved, — the
THE PREPAKATION. 73
renunciation of the return of Christ and the increas- inglj hard asceticism, even to the prohibition of mar- A^oeti-
ciniL
riage (in spite of the thought that Qod^s love should control the "new " life), are proofs that Marcion was to a certain extent defenceless against Hellenism ; on the other hand, his eschatolog^cal ideas indicate that he was seeking to return to the monarchy of the good Qod.
3. With the view of restoring the Church of the >te?'<»>
^ Biblical
pure Gk)6pel and of gathering together the redeemed canon, who are hated by the God of this world, Marcion caused certain evangelical writings of a particular character to be collected (Luke's Gbspel and 10 Pauline Epistles), laid down certain principles for their interpretation and drew the conununities into a closer, though freer, organization. Inasmuch as he rejected the Old Testament, together with all " natural ^ religion, philosophy and secret tradition, he was obliged to answer the question, What is Christian? out of the historical records. Here, as in many other respects, did he anticipate the Cath- olic Church.
4. The profound conception that the laws which Conception
of NaturOf
rule in nature and history and the course of civil m^'^p^
" Faith.
righteousness are a reflection of the acts of Divine mercy, and that humble faith and fervent love are the very opposite of self-complacent virtue and self- righteousness — ^this conception, which dominated the Christianity of Marcion, and which restrained him from every rationalistic attempt at a system, was not
74
OUTLINES OP THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
clearly maintained by his church as time went on. In order to close up the breaches and to remove the inconsistencies of his conceptions, some of his pupils advanced to a doctrine of three principles, others to a vulgar dualism, without however surrendering en- Apeiies. tii*ely the fundamental ideas of their master. Apelles, however, Marcion's greatest pupil, returned to the confession of the one God, without in other respects surrendering the master's conceptions; and, indeed, he further developed some valuable ideas, at which Marcion had only hinted.
The Church fathers strenuously opposed Marcion as the worst of heretics. In its contest with him the early Catholic Church doctrine was developed in special directions.
CHAPTER VI.
SUPPLEMENT: THE CHRISTIANITY OP THE JEWISH
CHRISTIANS.
Primitive 1. PRIMITIVE Christianity appeared simply as a ^^y- Christian Judaism, the establishment of a universal religion upon the Old Testament basis; accordingly it retained in so far as it was not hellenized — and that was never fully accomplished — the Jewish im- press of its origin; above all it retained the Old Tes- tament as a primitive revelation. Hence the dispo- sition made of the Old Testament was wholly Chris- tiauy proceeding on the assumption that the Chris- tians are the true Israel, that the Old Testament
THE PREPARATION. 75
refers to the Christian organization and teaching, and this, whether a more or less realistic or spiritual interpretation of it was in vogue. The question as to the principles of interpretation was a problem within the Church, so long as no superiority was conceded to the Jewish nation as such, and until the abrogation of the Jewish ceremonies and laws was insisted upon. Therefore the term ^Jewish-Chris- ^^^ tianity " is applicable exclusively to those Christians ^^• who really retained, entirely or in the smallest part, the national and political forms of Judaism and insisted upon the observance of the Mosaic Law without modification as essential to Christianity, at least to the Christianity of the Jewish-bom converts, or who indeed rejected these forms, but acknowl- edged the prerogative of the Sewi&h people also in Christianity (Papias in spite of his chiliasm ; the papias, di- author of the Didache, in spite of his transference of the Old Testament priestly rights to the Chris- tian prophets; Hermas, in spite of the waning an- Hemuu, cient Qreek philosophy ; the adoption Christologists, in spite of their rejection of the Logos, are not Jewish Christians; Paul, however, is because of Romans XL). The strong draft made upon the Old Testament in favor of the Catholic cultus-, doctrine- and discipline-system, is so little a sign of the ad- vance of Jewish Christianity in the Church at large, that it rather runs parallel to the advancing Hellen- ism, and was called forth by it. The formula, " the new lawy" in the Catholic Church is not Jewish,
76 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA
but anti- Jewish, yet it left room for the slipping in of more and more of the Old Testament command- ments into the Church. CtartstSii- ^' Jewish Christianity, once a mighty antagonist * TOme**^ of Paul, was, through his labors and the labors of other teachers, as well as through the native force of the Gk>spel, overcome. In the fall of Jerusalem this conquest was completed. Since then Jewish Christianity has not been a factor in the history of the Church, while Judaism has remained such (in- fluence of Judaism upon the churches of the farthest Ebionites, Orient, in the 4th and 5th centuries). However, fo? Soma Jewish Christians (Ebionites, Nazarenes) existed for some time, and among them the distinctions re- mained which were already formulated in the apos- tolic age. Separated from the main Church origi- nally, not on account of ^ doctrine **, but on account of principles of social Church life, of morals and missionary practice, there were among them the fol- Points in lowing poiuts in controversy : (1) Whether the observ-
"^item"* ^^^ ^^ ^^^ ^^^ ^^ * condition, or the determining condition, of the reception of the Messianic salva- tion, (2) whether the same was to be required also of Gentile-bom converts, in order to their recognition as Christians, (3) whether and to what extent one might hold fellowship with Gentile Christians who de not observe the Law, (4) whether Paul was a chosen servant of Christ, or a Gk)d-hated interloper, (5) whether Jesus was a son of Joseph, or was mirac- ulously begotten of the Holy Spirit. Thus there
THE PREPABATION. 77
were shades of belief within Jewish Christianity (not two dearly distinguished parties) . There seems to have been little literary activity among these Jew- ish Christians, who were expelled by the Jews, (see, however, Symmachus) ; their Gospel was the Hebrew ^^^^"^^ Gospel which was related to the Synoptics (testimony a<*i*i- of Justin, Origen, Eusebius, Jerome, Epiphanius). Justin still recognized the liberal Jewish Chris- tians who observed the Law for themselves alone, and were friendly toward the Gentile Christians, as Christian brethren. As yet no Christological creed, no iTew Testament, divided them, and even in their eschatological expectations, Gtentile and Jewish Christians could still come to an understanding. But the more Jewish Christianity withdrew from the world in general and the more iBrmly the Catholic GraduaJiv Church fixed its doctrine and discipline (add to this '^™,j^*^ the formation of the New Testament canon) and <^"'^- formulated its Logos-Christology, the more foreign and heretical did Jewish C!hristianity appear; and after IrenaBus it was even placed in the same cate- gory with gnosticism. Certain Oriental fathers, however, pass a better judgment upon it.
3. Judaism was in the 1st century a very compli- Judaism
Verv Com-
cated affair on account of foreign influences (Hellen- pucated.
istic Judaism, Samaritans, '^Sects''). Accordingly
there were already 'Agnostic" Jewish Christians, Gnostic
Jewish
(" false teachers " at Colosse, see also the Pastoral christians. Epistles; on the other hand, Simon Magus, Menan- der) who introduced into Christianity angelological
78 OUTLINES OP THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
^SSs^ifo^ speculations (these were also familiar to the phar- nander. jg^^g ^nd the writers of apocalypses) and gave cur- rency to cosmological ideas and myths, through both of which they sublimated the idea of Gk>d, bisected, corrected or transformed the Law (rejection of the blood offering) and gave an impulse to a peculiar asceticism and cultus of mysteries. They continued cerinth. ujjtil far into the Byzantine age. Cerinth (c. 100) retained certain established laws (circumcision) and preached a grossly sensuous, realistic future king- dom; but, on the other hand, he distinguished the supreme God from the Creator of the world, freely criticised the Law and distinguished in the Redeemer the man Jesus from the Christ whom he identified with the Holy Spirit. Another branch of this Jew-
ciemenun ^®^ Christianity is to be found in the Pseudo-
writingB. Clementine Writings. Therein, as appears from thei r sources, the attempt is made by means of stoic ra- tionalism, on the one side, and Oriental mythologic cosmology on the other, to fortify apologetically the conception that the Gospel is the restoration of the pure Mosaic doctrine. The contradictory represen- tations of stoic naturalism and a positive revelation through prophets are to be united through the idea of the one Prophet, who from Adam down has ap-
Ht4d*tS*be P^^^®^ ^^ different forms. The Gospel was believed uon*Sf " to be the restoration of the primitive and universal
Beiigion. religion, which is simply Mosaism freed from all its peculiar characteristics (circumcision, statutes re- specting offerings). Christ is the one true Prophet,
THE PBEPABATION. 79
i¥ho, as it seems, was identified with the first Adam. The stoic idea of the ^oj'ot was accepted, but it was j^S^SSi- justified through a dualisticaUy-oonceived eon-spec- **"^* ulation, in which the early Semitic principles cropped out (masculine-feminine; neutralization of the ethi- cal contradictions in the supreme God). Platonic elements are hardly discernible. But along with the apologetical tendency, the polemical is strongly marked. This is directed, under the form of a refuta- tion of Simon Magus, against every phase of Gentile- Christian gnosticism (also against Marcion), while the primitive writings doubtless contained a polemic against Paul. The polemic and the means made use of prove that the Catholic Church was already in ex- istence. Therefore the Pseudo-Clementine Writings Pteudo- belong to the 3d century. Accordingly it is probable tin® wnt- that the compilers had before them earlier, anti-Paul- century- ine writings. Moreover it is probable that the last redactors were in no sense Jewish Christians, that, also, the above-mentioned characteristics are not ascribable to a group of writers, as such, but that they belong to them only dccidentallyy that primi- tive Jewish Christian writings passed through vari- ous hands and were innocently transmitted and re- vised. This being so, the seeking for a "Pseudo- Clementine System" is a fruitless undertaking; it were better to accept the last narrator as a Catholic Christian who made use of whatever interested him and others, but who was by no means a disciple of Irenseus or Origen. Whether imder such conditions
Elkesaites.
80 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
it is possible to distinguish the gnostic, Jewish- Christian, and anti-Pauline sources is questionable. A third group which did not have in a true sense, like the former, a literary existence is composed of the Elkesaites (in Syria, pushing toward Rome at the beginning of the 3d century) . These were such Jewish-Christians as wholly set aside the Old Testa- ment through their " nature-speciilations " ; who did, however, retain the idea of prophecy, especially of Jesus as a Prophet, but who followed a new prophet that had perfected religion through penitential and cultus ordinances (washings) on the basis of a new scripture revelation. A series of elements belong- ing to this no longer Christian Jewish-Christianity (sources: Hippolytus, Eusebius, Epiphanius), — viz. rigid monotheism, partial criticism of the Old Tes- tament, rejection of blood offering, prohibition of wine, frequent washings, connivance in respect to marriage, perversion of the Messianic idea in the interests of their prophet, discarding of atonement idea and, as it seems, also of the idea of a king- dom, high regard for the relatives of their prophet — reappear again in Islamism, that was in a measure influenced by this ** Jewish-Christianity", which is related to the Sabier. The main Church troubled itself very little about this aberration.
BOOK 11.
THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION.
CHAPTER I.
HISTORICAL 8UBVBY.
RitBchl, Entstehung der altkathl. Kirche, 1857. Benan, Origines, T. V-Vn.
THE second century of the existence of Gentile- ,^tn® •^ Christian-
Christian Churches is characterized by the 2d^tSy.
victorious contest with the gnostics, Marcion and the early Christian enthusiasm; that is, by the de- clining of the acute hellenizing tendency on the one side, and by the suppression of the primitive Chris- tian freedom of expression, discipline and, in part, hope also on the other. An important part of prim- itive Christianity was rescued by the conserving force of tradition (faith in the Creator and Redeemer Gtod) ; but men speculated all the more freely about the world and its wisdom, since they believed that they possessed in the apostolic Scriptures, in the apostolic creed, in the apostolic office, the definite assurance of what is ** Christian'*. The subjectivism
of Christian piety was curbed and the fanciful myth- 6 81
82
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Onofltic SjrstemB Befuted.
Double
Problem.
Firgt: Ori-
grin of
C^oll-
cism as
a Church.
Second: Origin of Scientiflo System of
Faith.
creating tendency was restrained, likewise also the acceptance of wholly foreign material as doctrinal teaching; but the individual was made subject to a sacred primitive record and to the priest, since he was put under the rigid episcopal restraint of the one, holy, apostolic, Catholic Churchy which men identified with the kingdom of Christ as a prepara- tion for blessedness. The gnostic systems were finally refuted; but men then made for themselves out of the kerygma and with the help of Greek philosophy a scientific system of faith, which was a superlative medimn for commending the Church to the intellectual world, but which was nothing but a mystery to the laity, obscuring their faith, or inter- preting the Gospel in the language of the Greek phi- losophy of religion.
2. The problem of the history of dogma for the period from about 150-300 a.d., is a double one: First, it has to describe the origin of Catholicism as a Church, i.e. the rise and development of the apos- tolic-Catholic standards (Rule of Faith, New Testa- ment, Ecclesiastical Office ; standards regarding the holiness of the Church), by which the scattered churches were gradually fused into one empirical Church, which, however, was held to be the apos- toliCy true and Holy Church. Second, it has to describe the rise and development of the scientific system of faith, as this grew up on the circumfer- ence of the Church for apologetical purposes, not it is true as a foreign growth, but rather in closest
THB LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 83
oonnection with the aims of the earliest Gentile Christianity (see Book I. Chap. 3) ; to describe how this, which was originally through revelation sim- ply an assured monotheistic cosmology, Logos-doc- trine and moral theology, became in the contest with gnosticism amalgamated with the ideas of salvation in the ancient mysteries, on the one side, with the Church kerygma and the Old Testament ideas on the other (Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian), and was Sf"^ thus transformed into a complicated system (philo- ^]iSJ" sophical, kerygmatical. Biblical and primitive-Chris- tian-eschatological elements); how, farther, under the influence of the Alexandrians, it was recast into Aiezan-
' driaoB.
an Hellenic, syncretic system in the interest of Catholic gnostics (type of Philo and Valentine) , and how, then, the great breach between scientific dog- matics and the traditional faith was made manifest, which already in the 3d century had received such a thorough solution that the aims of scientific dog- matics and a part of its teaching (above all its Logos-doctrine) were adopted as the faith of the ^^^^ Church; while other things were cast aside or con- ^**®p**^ tested, the realistic propositions of the kerygma were shielded from the spiritualizing tendency that would transform them, and the right of distinguish- ing between a system of faith for thinking minds and a faith for imthinking minds (thus Origen) was fundamentally denied. The four stages of the de- velopment of dogma (Apologists, early Catholic Fathers, Alexandrines, Methodius together with
84 OUTUNBS OF THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
his followers) correspond to the progressive relig^- ious and philosophical development of paganism dur- ing that time : Philosophical theory of morals, idea of salvation (theology and practice of mysteries), Neo-Platonism and reactionary syncretism.
I. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AS A CHURCH AND ITS GRADUAL SECULAR- IZATION.
CHAPTER II.
THE SETTING FORTH OF THB APOSTOLIC RULES (norms) for ECCLESIASTICAL CHRISTIANITF. THE CATHOUC CHURCH.
Rule of '^HE three apostolic norms (Rule of Faith, New Ta»tAraontT Testament, Office) — seelrenaaus, III.: 1 sq., Tertul-
Office.
lian, depraesc. 21. 32. 36.*) — found their way into the different provincial churches at different times, but the three always went together. They had their preparatory stages in the brief kerygmatic confes-
* De praemr, 91: **Con&tat omnem doetrinam 91100 cum ecduUt apo*' tolicU matricUniM ei originalibuB fidei corupiret veritati depuiandam^ id sine duMo tetientem qttod ecdeHae ab apoatolis^ apostoH a Chritto,, Chritttu a deo acoqiHt. " 86 : ** Videamui qmd (ecdetia Boma$Uk) didicerit^ qtUd doeuerit^ cum Africani* quoque eodeaiU contemerarii, Unum deum, dominum novit, crtatorem univerHtaHs^ ei ChrUtum Jemtm ex virgnte Maria JUium dei creatoris^ et cami* resurrectionem; legem et propKeiae cum evangelicis et apoetolicie litteria miacet, inde potai fidem^ earn aqtui signat^ aancto spiritu vestiU eucharistia paadU martyrtiim exhortatwr^ et itaadveraua hanc iristitutionem nominem recipit.^ 88: *'Evolvant ordi^ nem epiacoporum eiiorum^ ita per gucceseionem ab initio decurrentem^ ut primus Ule epiacopua aliquem ex apoatolis vel apoatolicis virim^ qui tamen cum apoBtoliaperaeveravit, Kabuerit auctorem et onleceaaeorem."
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 85
sions, in the authority of the xdpto^ and of the apos- tolic tradition, as well as in the epistles read in the chinches, and finaUj in the deference shown to apostles, prophets and teachers, i.e. to the ^elders" and leaders of the individual churches.
A. The Recasting of the Baptismal Confession Bapunnai into the Apostolic Rule of Faith (Caspari, Quellen Bion. z. Gkech. des Taufsymbols, 4 Bdd.). From the first there was in the Church a kerygma (preaching) of Christ (see Book I., Chap. 3 sub 2) and brief confes- sional formulas (Father, Son and Spirit) ; and espe- cially in the Roman church, at least since ± 140 a. D. , a definite baptismal confession (probably also in Asia Minor). These confessions were ^the faith" and were considered the quintessence of the apostolic preaching and were, therefore, referred back to Christ and ultimately to GKxl himself. But every- thing indeed which seemed inalienable was looked upon as an apostolic rule of faith, e.g. the Christian interpretation of the Old Testament. However, probably nothing was fixed, save that the Roman Roman symbol and the ethical rules {^tda^^i^ xupioo) stood at least upon the same plane as the kerygma of Christ. From the beginning, however, in the work of in- struction, in exhortations and, above all, in the con- tests with false teachings men enjoined : d7toXiitwfie¥
rdif xevd^ xai fiaraia^ fpovtlda^^ xai iX^wfiev M rdv edxXe^ xa\ ae/u^v r^y icapa96trtw9 ^fiwv xaydva (I. Clem. 7 ; cf .
Polyc. epist. 2. 7 ; the Pastoral Epistles, Jude, Ig- natian Letters, also Justin). As the danger from
86
OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Need of External SUuuUrd.
Churches of AsiA Minor and Borne Ac- cept Bap- tismal Confession as Apos- tolic.
gnosticism became acute, men necessarily came to realize that neither the content and compass of "the received faith" ("the sound. doctrine"), nor its interpretation was secured to them. There was need, it seemed, of a fixed outward standard, in order to be able to disprove doctrines such as that of the difference between the supreme Qod and the Creator-God, or such as that of docetism, and to be able to maintain the true conception as apostolic doctrine — ^they needed a definitely interpreted apos- tolic creed. Under these circumstances the partic- ularly closely allied churches of Asia Minor and Rome, whose experience is known to us through IrensBus (he is hardly the first writer on the subject), accepted the fixed Roman baptismal confession as apostolic in such a way that they proclaimed the current anti-gnostic interpretation of it as its self-- evident content, and the expounded confession as "fides catholica^^] i.e. they set it up as a standard of truth in matters of faith and made its acceptance the condition of membership in the Church. This procedure, by which the centre of gravity of Chris- tianity was shifted, (the latter, however, was pre- served from entire dissolution) rests upon two un- proven assertions and an exchange. It is not proven that any confession of this kind emanated from the apostles and that the churches founded by the apos- tles always preserved their teaching without modi- fications; and the confession itself was exchanged for an exposition of it. Finally, the conclusion that
THB LAYING OP THE FOITNDATION. 87
from the virtual agreement in doctrine of a group of churches (bishops) there existed a fides catholica was unjustified. This action established the Cath- cithoiic
^ Argument
oUc argument from tradition and has determined 55t!SoB»r its fundamental significance until the present *^**"****- time : The equivocal right, on the one side, to an- nounce the creed as complete andplain^ and, on the other side, to make it so elastic that one can reject every uncomfortable meaning, is to the present day characteristic of Catholicism. It is also characteris- tic that men identify Christianiiy with a system of faith which the laity cannot imderstand. The lat- ter are therefore oppressed and referred back to the authority,
Tertullian developed the method of IrensBus still "SJJ^^^ farther. As the latter found the chief gnostic ^gSSSS^° teachings already refuted in the baptismal confes- sion, while as yet only the common sense of the Church protested against them; so the former, embracing the confession all the more firmly as au- thority for the faith, found in the regula already the creation of the universe from nothing, the mediator- ship of the Logos in creation, the existence of the same before all creatures, a definite theory in regard to his incarnation, the preaching of a nova lex and of a nova promissiOy and finally also the trinitarian economy and the correct teaching in respect to the natures of Christ (de praescr. 13 ; de virg. 1 ; adv. Prax.j 2, etc.). His " regula " is an apostolic lex et doctrina^ inviolable for every Christian.
88 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
BotIS «ii ^^^y ^^ *^® course of the 3d century did this Cath- oenSS^ olic standard become wide-spread in the Church. Clement of Alexandria did not yet know it (for him the «ava>y r^ff ixxXijffta^ was the anti-gnostic in- terpretation of the Holy Scriptures) ; Origen, how- ever, came very near accepting it (see, de princip, praef.)y i.e. in the beginning of the 3d century the Alexandrian Church was following the Roman, and gradually became " Catholic**. Later still the Syrian churches also followed, as the documentary source of the Apostolic Constitutions proves, which knows nothing of the "apostolic rule of faith" in the Occidental sense. Only at the end of the 3d century did the Catholic Church become a reality through the common apostolic lex and distinguish itself sharply from the heretical parties; remote churches, indeed, probably came first through Nicea to an ac- ceptance of an '^apostolic rule of faith." But even the Nicene creed was not accepted at a single stroke. New-^Mto- B. The Recognition of a Selection of Well- o^Sfa^M known Scriptures as Virtually Belonging to the Old Testament; i.e. as a Compilation of Apostolic Scriptures (see the "Introductions to the N. T." by Reuss, Holtzmann, Weiss). By the side of the Law and the Prophets {rd pt^Ua) there was in the churches the Word of the Lord, or briefly " ^ xOpto^'*^ which was indisputable. The words and deeds of the Lord ("the Gospel") were recorded in numer- ous, oft-revised scriptures closely related to each other, which were called the " Lord's Writings**, also
Apostolic.
ron.
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 89
* ^t€^^ then — jet not till after the middle of the 2d
O^ltliry — " twrfyiXia ^ and ** aTZopLVtiftovtOfiara rwv ano-
tfTOiliw "; these were publicly read at least after c. 140 (Justin). The last named title expresses the judgment, that everjrthing which was reported of the Lord could be traced directly or indirectly to the apostles. Out of these numerous evangelical Tatton^i writings there were in certain churches, already before the middle of the 2d century, four that were prominent — our present Gospels — which, e.g., very soon after 160 were worked over by Tatian into a single Qospel (Diatessaron). About the same time they took on their final form, more than likely in Rome. Together with these writings the Epistles of the apostle Paul, which had been collected earlier, were rtad in the churches, i.e. by the leaders, as the Epistles of Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius and par- ticularly Polycarp testify. While however the Gos- pels had a direct relation to the kerygma and met the requirements of tradition (Ignatius, Justin), such was not the case with the Pauline Epistles. Finally all definite scriptural productions of prophetic spirits (TTvsupuiTo^dpfn) were revered as inspired Holy Scrip- tures, whether they were Jewish apocalypses with high-sounding names, or the writings of Christian prophets and teachers. The rp^^V was primarily the Old Testament, but with, " <> xupto^ Xfyet*^ {yiypaitrat or simply ^^r^O* apocalyptic verses were also cited. Of like worth, but different in kind, was the cita- tion : ^ xoptoq kiyet iv rtp sua^eXttp (fulfilling of proph-
90 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
ecy — ethical rules). Many teachers gladly spoke in the words of the apostle Paul, without according them the same rank as the Scriptures and the Word of the Lord (were the Epistles of Paul publicly read in the churches before c. 180?). Marcion«8 Marcion, who rejected the Old TestazQent and the
Canon.
prophetic proofs, formed a new collection of Scrip- tures and gave it canonical rank (Luke's Gospel, 10 Pauline Epistles). At the same time probably, or a little later, the gnostic school leaders did the same, favoring the writings in widest circulation among the churches, but with new additions (Yalentinus, • Tatian, Encratites) . Everywhere in such circles the Epistles of Paul came to the front; for they were theological, soteriological, and could be interpreted as dualistic. The new critically constituted collec- tions, which the gnostics set over against the Old Testament, were clothed with the same authority as the Old Testament and were allegorically interpreted in harmony with it (still, besides, secret tradition and secret scriptures) . Again, a reference to the tp<^9tj and the xbpw^ did not suffice for the leaders of the Forming churches. It was necessary, (1) to determine which
of N. T. /. 1 1 V
Canon, evangelical writings (in which recension)^ were to be taken into consideration ; it was necessary, (2) to deprive the heretics of everything which could not be discredited as new and false; it was necessary, (3) to put forth such a collection of writings as did not overturn the evidence from tradition, but on the contrary by their inherent qualities even added
THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 91
weight. At first they confined themselves to the proclamation of the four Qospels as the only authen- tic apostolic records of the Lord. These were al- ready held in an esteem so nearly equal to that of the Old Testament, that the immense stride neces- sary to declare the words and letters holy was scarcely recc^nized as an innovation; besides, what the Master had said was from the beginning consid- ered holy. Many and, indeed, most of the churches abode by this decision until far into the 3d century; see, for example, the documentary basis of iiie Apos- tolic Constitutions; some Oriental churches continued to use the Diatessaron. No second collection came to be esteemed, and the four Gospels were joined to the
alongside of these stood the testimony of pneiimatic scribblings, ever however having decreasing dignity (Montanist controversy). But wherever the contest with heresy was most Paurs
Epistles
vehemently carried on and the consolidation of the po^^^. churches upon stable principles was most intelli- """^^^ gently undertaken — in (Asia Minor and) Rome, a new Catholic-apostolic collection of scriptures was opposed to the new gnostic collection, more in defence than in attack. The Epistles of Paul were added to the f omr Gospels (not without some scruples in transforming scriptures which were written for special occasions into Divine oracles and conceal- ing the process even of transformation) and conse- quently included under the argument from tradition.
92 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
BO that through the medium of a very recent book, the Acts of the Apostles, they were associated with the supposed preaching of the twelve apostles, i.e. subordinated to it. The Paul sanctioned by the twelve apostles in the Acts, and made hardly recog- nizable by the Pastoral Epistles, thus became a wit- ness of the ^tSaj^ij SiSl twv t^ dnotnoXutv^ i.e. one was under obligation and had the right to understand him in accordance with the Acts of the Apostles, which surely came into the collection only faute de mieux and was obliged to support a tradition far New Testa- beyoud its otvn words. The two-, more properly
ment
^*8aine^ three-fold new apostolic collection (Gkwpels, Acts, oid*TMt£ Pauline Epistles), now placed as the New Testa- ™^° ment on the same plane with the Old Testament and presently raised above the latter, already recognized by IrenaBUS and Tertullian (in practice, not in theory, the Gbspels and the Pauline Epistles seemed to be of equal worth), gradually came into use in the churches, beginning in the Occident, and when this was once accomplished the result could hardly be disturbed. Whereas a fourth and fifth ingredient could never really win a perfectly firm form. First, men sought to strengthen the history of the apostles by means of scriptures written by the twelve*apos- ties. It was natural that they should wish to have such scriptures, and then there were highly esteemed scriptures from Christian prophets and teachers enough to suggest their acceptance (they could not be ignored), but without any apostolic authority (in
THE LATINO OF THE FOUNDATION.
93
the strict sense) . Thus arose the group of Catholic Epistles^ for the most part denominated apostolic, originally anonymous writings (most scholars held ibem to he pseudonymous), whose ancient authority could be rescued only by ascribing them to the twelve apostles. This group, however, with the exception of two epistles, did not become fixed as regards its extent or its dignity until the 4th century and even later, and this without thereby really en- dangering^— strange to say — the respect given to the entire collection. Second, the apocalypses presented themselves for admission to the new collection. But the time which produced them was wholly gone by and indeed combated them, and the nature of the new collection required apostolic, not prophetic sanction; the latter rather excluded it. The apoca- lypses of Peter and John could, therefore, alone come under consideration. The former was quickly re- jected for some imknown reason and the latter was finally o><s StA nopog rescued for the new collection.
A closed New Testament there was not in the churches in the 8d century; but where there was at hand a second collection, it was used virtually as the Old Testament and no questions were raised. The incomplete coUection served ad hoc every purpose which, as one might think, the complete alone could serve. Catholicism never came, however, to be a religion of the book. The words of the Lord re- mained the standard for the guidance of life, and the development of doctrine pursued its own course
Oiihoiio
Epistles Added.
Apoca- IrpseBof Fe««r and
John.
NoCIofled N. T. in 8d Cen- tury.
X
\
94 OUTLINES OF THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
at all times, being influenced only in a secondary way by the New Testament. R«6uit8 Results: (1) The New Testament conserved the
which fol- ^
oBptanceof ™^os* Valuable part of the primitive literature; but ^' ^' it gave over to destruction almost all the remaining^ literature as being arrogant or corrupt; (2) the New Testament made an end to the production of inspired writings, but it also made an ecclesiastically profane literature possible and likewise set fixed limits to i£; (3) the New Testament obscured the historic sense and the historical origin of its own documents, but it at the same time occasioned the necessity of a thorough-going study of these documents and pro- vided for their active influence in the Church; (4) the New Testament repressed the enthusiastic ten- dency to the production of " facts " ; but, in requiring that aU the statements in its own documents should be considered entirely harmonious, clear, sufficient and spiritual, it necessitated the learned, theological production of new facts and mythological concep- tions; (5) the New Testament set boundaries to the time of revelation, exalted the apostolic age and the apostles themselves to an unapproachable height and thereby helped to lower the Christian ideal and requirements, but it likewise preserved the knowl- edge and power of the same, and became a goad for the conscience; (G) the New Testament guarded effectively the hesitating canonical esteem for the Old Testament; but it likewise made it an offence to exalt the Christian revelation above that of the Old
THS LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 95
Tesiament, and to brood over the specific meaning of the former; (7) the New Testament encouraged the fatal tendency to identify the Master's words with apostolic tradition (teaching of the apostles), bat through the acceptance of the Pauline Epistles it set as a standard the loftiest expression of the con- acioasness of redemption, and through the canoniza- tion of Paulinism it introduced most valuable leaven into the history of the Church; (8) through the claim of the Catholic Church that both Testaments be- longed to her alone, she robbed all other Christian churches of their title-right to them ; but while she made the New Testament a norm, she constructed an armory from which in the time to come the sharpest weapons have been drawn out against her- self.
C. The Transformation of the Episcopal Office Transfop- in the Church into the Apostolic Office, History EpiBropai of the Transformation of the Idea of the Church, Agoetoiic The claim that the apostles formulated a rule of faith was not sufficient; it was necessary to show that the Church had kept the same pure and that she possessed within herself a living court of appeal to decide all points under controversy. Originally men simply referred to the churches founded by the apos- tles, in which the true teaching was to be found, and to the connection of these with the disciples of the apostles and the "ancients". But this appeal of- fered no absolute certainty ; hence IrenaBUs and Ter- tullian, influenced by the imposing development of
Apoeto Suoces
96 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
the episcopate in Rome and by the ancient respect once g^ven to the apostles, prophets and teachers now transferred to the bishops, so conceived of the same that the ^ordo episcoporum per sticcessionem ab initio decurrens " guaranteed to them the inviola- bility of the apostolic inheritance. With each this thesis oscillated between an historical (the churches are those founded by the apostles; the bishops are the disciples of the disciples of the apostles) and a dogmatic aspect. Tet already with IrensBus the lat- ug ter is clearly prominent : " episcopi cum episcopattis sSnT" successione certum veritatis charisma acceperunt '* (the charisma of truth depends upon the ofSce of the bishops which rests upon the apostolic succession) . This thesis is simply a dogmatic expression for the exalted place which the episcopate had already actually won for itself; it did not, moreover, orig- inally in any way entirely identify apostles and bishops; it remained also uncertain in its applica- tion to the individual bishops and left room still for the ancient parity: spiritus^ ecclesia^ fideles, Calixtus of Rome, however (v. Tertull., de pudic; HippoL, Philos. IX.), claimed for himself full apos- tolic regard and apostolic powers, while Tertullian allowed to him only the locus magisterii. In the Orient and in Alexandria the apostolic character of the bishops was quite late in gaining recogni- tion. Ignatius knew nothing about it (the bishop is the representative of Gk>d unto his own church) and neither did Clement, and even the basal docu-
THS LAYING OF THS FOUNDATION. 97
meat of the Apoet. Constitutions is silent. Yet in the time of Origen the doctrine began to establish itself in Alexandria. The idea of the Church was mm of
Church
greatly influenced by this development. Originally '^J'thST* the Church was the heavenly Bride of Christ, the ^^^^SmST abiding-place of the Holy Spirit ; and its Christian claims rested upon its possession of the Spirit, upon its faith in God, its hope and its well-ordered life : He who belongs to the Church is sure of his blessedness ( Holy Church) . Then the Church be- came the visible establishment of this confession of faith (fides in regula posita esty hahet legem et salutem de observatione legis) ; it is the legacy of the apostles, and its Christian character rests upon its possession of the true apostolic teaching {Catholic Church in the sense of universality and pureness of doctrine, — ^the form of expression since the end of the 2d century) . One must be a member of this em- pirical, one apostolic Church in order to partake of salvation, since here alone is found that knowledge which gives blessedness. The Church ceased to be the sure communion of salvation and of the saints and became the condition of salvation (v. the fol- lowing chapter). This conception of the Church (Irenadus, TertuUian, Origen) which represents the development of the churches into the one definite Church — ^a creative act, to be sure, of the Christian spirit — is not evangelic, neither is it hierarchic; it has never entirely disappeared from the Catholic churches. But almost from the beginning it was in-
98 OUTLINES OP THB HISTORY OP DOGMA.
SrShurdi fl^©*^^^ ^y ^^^ hierarchical Church idea. The latter '^^ was only hinted at by Irenseus and Tertullian (the last named finally contended against it and in this contention he even reverted to the primitive Church idea: spiritus equals ecclesiaj imiversal priesthood) ; it was farther developed by Calixtus and other Roman priests, especially by Cyprian, while the Alexandrians blended the earliest Church idea with a mystic-philosophical conception, and Origen, al- though greatly impressed by the empirical Church, never lost sight of its relative significcmce and office.
^iSS^ Calixtus and Cyprian constructed the hierarchical Church idea out of existing relations and the exigen- cies which these imposed; the latter rounded out the standard of the former, but on one point, touching^ the justification of the earthly character of the Church, he lagged behind, while Calixtus had reso- lutely advanced to its completion (v. the following chapter). The crises were so great in the 3d cen- tury that it was nowhere sufficient, — ^save in isolated communities, — ^to simply preserve the Catholic faith ; one must obey the bishops in order to guard the ex- isting Church against the openly proclaimed heathen- ism (in practical life) , heresy and enthusiasm (the primitive Christian recollections). The idea of the one episcopally constituted Church became supreme and the significance of doctrine as a bond of union was left in the background: The Church, resting upon the bishops, who are the successors of the apostles, the representatives of God, is by reason of
THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 99
Uiese fundamental facts itself the apostolic legacy. According to Cyprian the Church is the seat of sal- Tation {extra quam nulla salus)^ as a single^ organ- ized confederation. It rests wholly and solely upon J^^ the episcopate, which, as the continuation of the ^{^ apostolate, equipped with the powers of the apos- tles, is the bearer of these powers. The union of the individual with Gk>d and Christ is therefore con- ceivable only in the form of subordination to the bishops. The attribute, however, of the unity of the Church, which is of equal significance with that of its truth, since the unity comes only through love, manifests itself primarily in the unity of the epis- copate. This has been from the beginning a unit and it remains a unit still, in so far as the bishops are installed by God and continue in brotherly inter- change. The individual bishops are to be considered not only as leaders of their own particular churches, but as the foundation of the one Church {" ecclesia in episcopo est"). Thence it follows farther, that the bishops of those churches founded by the apos- tles possess no longer any peculiar dignity (all bish- oi)s are equal, since they are partakers of the one office). The Roman chair, however, came to have Roman
' ' ' Chair.
a peculiar significance, since it was the chair of the apostle upon whom Christ first conferred the apos- tolic gifts in order to indicate clearly the unity of these gifts and of the Church; and farther also, be- cause historically the Church of this chair was the root and mother of the one Catholic Church. In a
100 OUTLINES OF THB HISTORY OF DOGMA.
severe Carthaginian crisis, Cyprian so appealed to Rome as if communion with this Church (its bishop) was the guarantee of the truth; but later he denied the claims of the Roman bishop to special rights over other churches (contest with Stephen). Fi- nally, although he placed the unity of the organiza- tion of the Church above the unity in articles of faith, the essence of Christianity was guarded by him to this extent, that he demanded of the bishops everywhere a Christian steadfastness, otherwise they ipso facto would forfeit their ofSce. Cyprian also as yet knew nothing of a character indelihilis of the bishops, while Calixtus and other Roman bishops vindicated the same to them. A consequence of his theory was, that he closely identified heretics and schismatics, in which the Church did not then fol- low him. The great one episcopal Church, which he presupposed was by-the-bye a fiction ; such a homo- geneous confederation did not in reality exist; Con- stantine himself could not complete it.
CHAPTER III.
CONTINUATION: THE OLD CHRISTIANITY AND
THE NEW CHURCH.
[See the Literature on MontaDism and Novatianism. ]
Montan- ^' ^^^ denial of the claims of the ethical life, the
*\Tan?8m?" paling of the primitive Christian hopes, the legal and
political forms under which the churches protected
THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 101
tb^nselves against the world and against heresies called forth soon after the middle of the 2d century, first in Asia Minor, then in other Christian commu- nities, a reaction which sought to establish, or rather to re-establish, the primitive times and conditions and to protect Christianity from the secularizing tendency. The result of this crisis (the so-called Montanist crisis and the like) was, that the Church asserted itself all the more strenuously as a legal organization which has its truth in its historical and objective foundation, that it accordingly gave a new significance to the attribute of holiness^ that it expressly authorized a double state, — a spiritual and a secular, — ^within itself, and a double morality, that it exchanged its character as the possessor of certain salvation for that other, viz. to be an indispensable condition for the transmission of salvation and to be an institution for education. The Montanists were compelled to withdraw (the New Testament had already thereby done good service), as well as all Christians who made the truth of the Church de- pendent upon a rigid maintenance of its moral claims. The consequence was that at the end of the 3d cen- tury two great Christian communities put forth claims to be the true Catholic Church : viz. the na- tional Church confederated by Constantine and the Kovatian churches which we refused with the rem- nant of Montanism. The beginnings of the great schism in Rome go back to the time of Hippolytus and Calixtus.
102 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
^Ti^'" 2. The Montanist opposition had undergone a great transformation. Originally it was the stupen- dous undertaking of a Christian prophet (Montanus), who with the assistance of prophetesses felt called upon to realize for Christianity the rich prophetic promises of the Fourth Gospel. He interpreted these in accordance with the Apocalypse, and proclaimed that the Paraclete had appeared in his own person, in whom also Christ, yea, even God Almighty, had come to his own in order to lead them into all truth and to gather together into one fold his scattered flocks. Accordingly it was Montanus' highest aim to lead the Christians forth from their civic relations and communial associations and to form a new, homogeneous brotherhood which, separated from the world, should prepare itself for the descent of the
Oppofled heavenly Jerusalem. The opposition which this ex- fa v Leaden of Church, orbitaut prophetical message encountered from the
leaders of the churches, and the persecutions under Marcus Aurelius, intensified the already lively es- chatological expectations and increased the desire for martyrdom. That which the movement lost, how- ever, in definiteness (in so far as the realization of the ideal of uniting all Christians was not accom- plished, except for a brief period and within narrow limits) it gained again after c. 180 inasmuch as the proclamation of it invested earnest souls with greater power and courage, which served to retard the growing secularizing tendency within the Church. In Asia and Phrygia many Christian communities
THE laAYINO OF THE FOUNDATION. 103
acknowledged in corpore the Divine mission of the ^^SS^d" prophets; in other provinces assemblies were formed ^*^*^ in which the current teachings of these prophets were considered as a Gospel, at the same time vari- ous modifications were going on (sympathies of the confessors in Lyons. The Boman bishops came near acknowledging the new prophecies). In the Mon- tanist churches (c. 190) it was no longer a question of a new organization in the strict sense of the word, or of a radical re-formation of the Christian organi- zations, but rather, wherever the movement can be clearly traced, were these questions already pushed aside, even when they were active and influential. The original prophets had set no bounds to their en- thusiasm; there were also no definite limits to their high pretensions: God and Christ had appeared in them; the Prisca saw Christ living in female form; these prophets made the most extravagant prophecies and spoke in a loftier tone than any one of the apos- tles; they subverted apostolic regulations; they set forth, regardless of every tradition, new command- ments for the Christian life ; they railed at the great body of Christian believers ; they thought themselves to be the last and therefore the highest prophets, the bearers of the final revelation of God. But after they had passed off the stage, their followers sought an agreement with the common Christian churches. They recognized the great Church and begged to be "^j*^^ recognized by it. They were wiDing to bind them- "cSSSi.^ selves to the apostolic regula and to the New Tes-
104 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
tament; they no longer hesitated to accept the ecclesiastical organization (the bishops). And they accordingly demanded the recognition of their own prophets, whom they now sought to commend as successors of the earlier prophets (prophetic succes- sion) ; the " new " prophecy is really a later revela- tion, which, as the Church understands it, presup- poses the earlier; and the later revelation pertains simply and solely (in addition to the confirmation which it gives to the Church teaching as opposed to the gnostic) to the burning questions of Christian discipline which it decides in the interest of a more rigid observance. Therein lay the significance of the new prophecy for its adherents in the empire and accordingly they had bestowed their faith freely. Through the belief that in Phrygia.the Paraclete had given revelations for the entire Church in order to establish a relatively severe regimen (refraining from second marriage, severer fast regulations, mightier attestation of Christianity in daily life, complete readiness for martyrdom), the original en- thusiasm received its death-blow. But this flame was after all a mighty power, since Christendom at large made, between the years 190 and 220, the greatest progress toward the secularization of the Gk)spel. The triumph of Montanism would have been succeeded by a complete change in the owner- ship of the Chiurch and in missionary operations: its churches would have been decimated. Con- cessions, therefore, (the New Testament, apos^
THE LATINO OF THE FOUNDATION. 106
tolica regula^ episcopate) did not help the Monta- nists. The bishops attacked the form of the new ^£^? prophecy as an innovation, threw suspicion on its ''ten^* content, interpreted the earlier future hopes as ma- terialistic and sensuous, and declared the ethical de- mands to be extreme, I^alistic, ceremonial, Jewish, oontraiy to the New Testament, and even heathenish. They set over against the claims of the Montanists to authentic divine oracles, the newly formed New Testament, declared that every requirement was to be found in the declarations of the two Testaments and thus clearly defined a revelation epochs which extended to the present time only through the New Testament, the apostolic teaching and the apostolic office of bishops (in this contest the new ideas were for the first time made perfect, (1) that the Old Tes- tament contained prophetical elements, the New Testament was not prophetic, but apostolic, (2) that apostolic dignity could not be reached by any person of the present day) . They began finally to distin- guish between the morality required of the clergy and that required of the laity (thus in the question of one wife). In this way they discredited that which had once been dear to the whole of Christen- dom, but which they could no longer make use of. In so far as they repelled the edited misuse, they rendered the thing itself less and less powerful (chil- iasm, prophecy, right of laity to speak, rigid sanc- tity), without being able to entirely suppress it. The most vehement contest between the parties was in
106 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGHA.
contiroJer- regard to the question of the forgiveness of sin. The F^i^iTe-^ Montanists, otherwise acknowledging the bishops,
Dess of
Sin. ascribed this right to the Holy Spirit alone (i.e., to those who possess the Holy Spirit), — ^for the power of the Spirit is not necessarily attached to the office — and recognized no human right in the forgiveness of sins, which rested far more on the (rare) laying hold of the Divine mercy {'* potest ecclesia {spirittis) donare delicta, sed non faciam "). They therefore expelled from their churches cJl who had committed mortal sins, committing their souls to God. The bishops on the other hand, contrary to their own principle, were obliged to maintain that baptism alone cleanses from sin, and to vindicate the right conveyed by the power of the keys by a reference to the apostolic office in order to protect the standing of the ever less holy churches against the dissolu- tion which would have resulted from the earlier re- gime. Calixtus was the first to make use of the right of the bishops to forgive sins in the widest sense, and to extend this right even to mortal sins. He was opposed, not only by the Montanist, Tertullian, but in Rome itself by a very high ecclesiastical rival bishop (Hippolytus). The Monta^iists were com- pelled to withdraw with their " devil-prophecy", but they withdrew willingly from a Church which had become "unspiritual" (psychic). The bishops as- serted the stability of the Church at the expense of its Christianity. In the place of the Christianity which had the Spirit in its midst, came the Church
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 107
organization which possessed the New Testament and the spiritual office.
3. Meanwhile the carrying out of the pretensions Biahops of the bishops to the right to forgive sins (opposed gin^e^en in part by the churches and the Christian heroes, sfns^^ the confessors) and the extension of the same to mortal sins (contrary to the early practice, the early conception of baptism and of the Church) was at- tended by great difficulties, cdthough the bishops encountered not only the early practice of the primi- tive rigid discipline, but also a wide-spread laxness. The extension of the forgiveness of sins to adulterers was the occasion of the schism of Hippolytus. After the Decian persecution, however, it was necessary to declare even the greatest sin, apostasy, as pardona- ble, likewise to enlarge the ancient concession that one capital sin after baptism might still be pardona- ble (a practice founded upon the Hermas Pastor) and to abolish all rights of spiritual persons (confessors), i.e, to make the forgiveness of sin dependent upon a r^ular, casuistic, bishoply action (Cornelius of Rome and Cyprian). Only then was the Church ideoof
•^'^ "^ Church
idea radically and totally Changed. The Church in- ^^' eludes the pure and the impure (like Noah's ark) ; its members are not collectively holy and every one is by no means sure of blessedness. The Church, solely in virtue of its endowments, is holy (objective), and these have actually been conferred, together with the pure teaching, upon the bishops (priests and judges in the name of Qod) ; it is an indispensable salva-
108 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
tion institute, so that no one will be blessed who remains without; it is also societas fideiy but not fldeliuniy rather is it a training-school and cultus- institute for salvation. It possesses also, in addition to baptism, a second cure for sin, at least in practice; the theory, however, was still confused and uncer- tain. Now for the first time were the clergy and laity sharply distinguished religiously {^'ecclesia est numerus episcoporum^)^ and the Roman bish- ops stamped the clergy with a character indelibilis (not Cyprian). Now also began the theological speculation in regard to the relation of the Church, as a communion of saints, to the empirical holy Church, to the milder secularizing of Christianity Noyatian tempered* by the ''means of grace.'' But all this ifoi^ could not be accomplished without a great counter- agitation which began at Rome (Novatian) and soon spread among all the provincial churches. Novatian required only a minimum, the unpardona- bleness of the sin of apostasy (upon the earth), other- wise the Church would no more be holy. This minimum, however, had the same significance as the far more radical demands of the Montanists two generations before. There was in it a vital remnant of the ancient Church idea, although it was strange that a Church should consider itself pure (katharoi) and truly evangelical^ merely because of its unwill- ingness to tolerate apostates (later perhaps other Second mortal sinners) . A second Catholic Church, stretch- Church, mg from Spam to Asia Mmor, arose, whose archaic
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 109
fragments of the old discipline, however, did not help it to become a more independent earthly system of life ; nor did it really distinguish itself from the other Church, although it dedared the ministrations of the same invalid (practice of re-baptism) .
With wisdom, foresight and relative severity the bishops in these crises brought their churches around to a new attitude. As it was, they could use only one bishop's Church and they learned to consider themselves rightly as its pupils and as its sheep. At the same time the Church had taken on a form in which it could be a powerful support to the state. Besides, its inner life was much better organized than formerly in the empire, and the treasure of the Gbspel was still ever in its keeping (the image of Christ, the assurance of eternal life, the exercise of mercy) as once the monotheism and piety of the Psalmists remained alive within the hard and foreign shell of the Jewish Church.
Note 1, The Priesthood. The rounding out of the *^|^®^ old Catholic Church idea is clearly manifested in the completed development of a priestly order. Hier- ourgical priests are found first among the gnostics (Marcion's followers) ; in the Church the prophets (Didacbe) and the local ministers (I. Clement) were formerly likened to the Old Testament priests. Tei*- tuUian first calls the bishop a priest, and from that time until about 250 the priestly character of the bish- ops and presbyters was evolved very rapidly in the Orient, as well as in the Occident; so strong indeed
110 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGliA.
was the influence of heathenism at this point that an ordo of priestly assistants (lower ordination) arose (in the Occident first). The completed idea of priest meets us first in Cyprian, in the Roman bishops of that time, and in the document which lies at the basis of the Apostolic Constitutions. The bishops (second- arily also the presbyters) were held to be the repre- sentatives of the Church before Gkxl (they alone are permitted to bring the offering) and representatives of God before the Church (they alone grant or with- hold the Divine grace as judges in the place of Qod and Christ; they are the depositaries of the myster- ies, who dispense a grace which they thought to be an anointing of a materialistic sort). In support of Ma3S*U) *^^^ claim, appeal was made increasingly to the Old s^S Testament priests and the entire Jewish cultus sys- tem, naturally in a supplementary way. Doors and windows were thus thrown open, as regards the rights and duties of the priests, toward heathenism and Judaism, after that they had disregarded the exhortation of the aging TertuUian to return to a common priesthood. Tithes, cleansings and finally Sabbath ordinances (transferred to Sunday) were gradually established. Sacrifice. Note 2. The Sacrificial Offering. Priesthood and sacrifice condition each other. The sacrificial idea had from the beginning the widest play in the Church (see Book I. Chap. 3, Sec. 7) ; therefore the new conception of the priest must of necessity influence the conception of the sacrifice, even though
OU8
Works.
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. Ill
the old representation (pure sacrifice of the spirit, sacrifice of praise, the whole life a sacrifice) still remained. This influence manifested itself in two ways, (1) within the Christian life of sacrifice ^^"^^ was introduced the special acts of fasting, of vol- untary celihacy, of martyrdom, etc. more and more prominently (see among others Hennas) and these received a meritorious, and even "satisfaction" significance (see Tertul.) ; this development appears complete in Cyprian. To him it is self-evident that the Christian, who cannot remain sinless, must through penance (atoning sacrifice) reconcile the angry Gk>d. Deeds done, where special sins are not to be erased, entitle one to a special reward. Next to penitential exercises, the giving of alms is the most effective means (prayer without alms is barren and fruitless) . In the writing, De opere et eleemos. , Cyprian has given an elaborate theory, one might say, concerning alms as a means of grace which a man can provide and which God aecepts. Follow- ing the Decian persecution the opera et eleemosynae crowded into the absolution system of the Church and secured tl^orein a firm footing: One can — through God's indulgence — win again for himself his Chris- tian standing through works. If men had remained wholly satisfied with this, the entire system of moral- ity would have been encompassed by it. Hence it was necessary to enlarge the conception of gratia detj and not as hitherto to make it depend solely upon the sacrament of baptism. This was first accom-
Christ.
112 OUTLINBS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGHA.
^^j^[y_ plished, however, by Augustine; (2) the idea of ^fl4^ sacrifice underwent a change in the cultus. Here also is Cyprian epoch-making. He first clearly as- sociated the specific offering of the Lord's Supper with the specific priesthood; he first declared the passio dominiy and also the sanguis Christi and the dominica hostia the object of the eucharistic offering, and thereby reached the idea of the priestly re-enacting of the sacrifice of Christ {v vpar^opd too irwfiaTo^ xa\ tou oifiaTo^ also in the apostoUc Church regulations) ; he placed the Lord's Supper decidedly under the point of view of the incorporation of the Church and of the individual with Christ, and cer- tified in a clear way for the first time that the commemoration of those taking part in the offering {vivi et defuncti) had a special {deprecatory) sig- nificance. The real effect of the sacrificial meal for those participating was, however, the making of prayers for each other more eflScacious ; for unto the forgiveness of sins in the fullest sense this act could, notwithstanding all the eurichment and lofty repre- sentations of the ceremony, not be referred. There- fore the claim that the service was the re-enactment of the sacrifice of Christ remained still a mere claim ; for against the conception so closely related to the cultus of the times, that participation in the service cleansed from sin as in the mysteries of the magna mater and of Mithras, the fundamental ecclesiastical principle of baptism and repentance stood in opposi- tion. As a sacrificial act the Lord's Supper never
THB LATma OF THX FOUNDATION. 113
attained to equal importance with baptism; but to the popular imagination this solemn ritual, modelled after the ancient mysteries, must have gained the highest significance.
Xote 3. Means of Or ace. Baptism and Eucha- MeMnor rist. That which since Augustine has been called ^p^*™- *" means of grace **, the Church of the 2d and 3d cen- tury did not possess, save in baptism : According to the strict theory the baptized could not expect any new bestowal of means of grace from Christ, he must rather fulfil the law of Christ. But in practice men possessed in absolution, from the moment when mortal sins were absolved, a real means of grace, whose significance was screened by baptism. Re- flection upon this means of grace remained as yet wholly uncertain, in so far as the thought that God absolves the sinner through the priest was crossed by the other (see above), that the penitential acts of sinners the rather secure forgiveness. The ideas con- cerning baptism did not essentially change (Hoefling, Sacrament der Taufe. 2 Bdd. 1846). Forgiveness of sins ivas looked upon in general as the result of baptism (however, here also a moral consideration entered : The sins of the unbaptized are sins of blind- ness ; therefore it is fit that God should absolve the penitent from them) ; actual sinlessness, which it was necessary now to preserve, was considered the result of forgiveness. Often there is mentioned in connec- tion with the remissio and the consecutio atemu tatis the absolutio mortis^ regeneratio hominis,
a
114 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
restitutio ad similitudineni deiy consecutio spirt- tus sancti {^lavacrum regenerationis et sanctifi-
^ijj^ cationis'^)y and all possible blessings as well. The ever-increasing enrichment of the ritual is in part a consequence of the purpose to symbolize these pre- supposed rich effects of baptism ; in part it owes its origin to the desire to worthily equip the great mys- terium. An explanation of the separate acts had already begun (confirmation by the bishop). The water was looked upon as a symbol and vehicle. The introduction of infant baptism lies wholly in the dark (in the time of Tertullian it was already wide-spread, but condemned by him, de bapt. 18, because he held that the cunctatio was indicated by reason of the pondus of the act; Origen referred it back to the apostles). The attempts of some to
Lord's repeat baptism were repelled. The Lord's Supper
Supper.
was looked upon not only as an offering, but also as a divine gift (Monographien von Doellinger 1826, Eahnis 1851, Rueckert 1856), whose effect, however, was never strictly defined, because the rigid scheme (baptismal grace, baptismal duties) excluded such. Imparting of the Divine life through the Holy Sup- per was the chief representation, closely connected with purely superstitious ideas {<pdpfiaxov a^avacias) : the spiritual and the physical were strangely mixed (the bread as jr^a^at^ communication and Co»tj). TSo Church father made a clear discrimination here: The nvUiatio bocanie spiritualistic and the spiritu- alintio ni}n»tioal; but the forgiveness of sins re-
THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 115
treated entirely from view. In accordance with this the representation of the relation of the visible ele- ments to the body of Christ began to take form. A problem (whether symbolical or realistic) no one dreamed of : The symbol is the inherently potential mystery (vehicle), and the mystery apart from the symbol was inconceivable. The flesh of Christ is itself '^ spirit" (no one perhaps thought of the his- torical body) ; but that the spirit becomes perceptible and tangible, was even the distinguishing mark. The anti-gnostic fathers recognized that the con- secrated bread was composed of two inseparable ele- ments,— one earthly and the other heavenly, — and thus saw in the sacrament that which was denied by the gnostics, viz. : The union of the spiritual and the fleshly and the warrant for the resurrection of the flesh which is nourished by the blood of the Lord (even so Tertullian, who has falsely been classed as a pure symbolist). Justin spoke of a transforma- tion, but of a transformation of the participants ; the Justin. idea of the transformation of the elements was, how- ever, already taking form. The Alexandrians saw here, as in everything which the Church at large ^^®,2S.' did, the mystery behind the mystery; they accommo- dated themselves to the administration, but they wished to be such spiritual Christians that they might be continually nourished by the Logos and might partake of a perpetual eucharist. Every- where the service was departing from its original significance and was made more and more precise as
116 OUTLINES OF THS HISTORY OF DOGHA.
r^^atds its form and content, both by the learned and ignorant (practice of infant communion testified toby Cyprian).
Magical mysteries, superstition, authoritative faith and obedience, on the one side, and a highly realistic representation of the freedom, ability and responsibility of the individual in moral matters, on the other side, is the mark of Catholic Christendom. In religious matters authoritatively and supersti- tiously bound, therefore passive; in moral matters free and left to themselves, therefore active.
That the Roman church led the way throughout in this process of broadening the churches into cath- olicity is an historical fact that can be unquestiona- bly proven. But the philosophic-scientific system of doctrine, which was evolved at the same time out of the faith, is not the work of the Roman church and its bishops.
THB LAYING OF THE FOUKDATION. 11?
II. ESTABLISHMENT OF CHRISTIANITY AS
DOCTRINE AND ITS GRADUAL
SECULARIZATION.
CHAPTER IV.
SCCLRSIASTICAL CHRI8TIANITT AND PHILOSOPHT.
THB APOLOGISTS.
M. V. Engelhardt, Das Ghristenthum Justin's, 1878. Ktdm, OctaTiuB, 1882. Ausgabe der Apologeten mit Comxnentar, von Otto.
1. The apoIogistB wishing to declare and defend TbeApou the Christianity of the churches stood therefore in all things upon the basis of the Old Testament, em- phasized the universalism of the Christian revela- tion and held fast to the traditional eschatology. They rejected gnosticism and saw in the moral power which faith gave to the uncultured a princi- pal proof of its genuineness. But anxious to present Christianity to the educated as the highest and surest christian- philosophy, they elaborated as truly Christian the |J^5*r2- moral cast of thought with which the Gentile Chris- "^"*'' tians from the beginning had stamped the Gospel, thereby making Christianity rational and giving it a form which appealed to the common sense of all ' earnest, thinking and reasoning men of the times. Besides, they knew how to use the traditional, posi- tive material, the Old Testament as well as the his- tory and worship of Christ, simply as a verification and attestation of this rational religion which had
118 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOOM A.
been hitherto wanting and had been sought for with fervent desire. In the apologetic theology Chris- tianity is conceived as a religious development brought about by Gkxi hiniself and corresponding to the primitive condition of man and placed in the sharpest contrast with all polytheistic national religions and ceremonial observances. With the greatest energy the apologists proclaimed it to be the religion of the spirit, of freedom and of absolute
^stian morality. The whole positive material of Christian- Teaching "^ *^
fSSS. ity> however, was transformed into a great scheme of evidence; religion did not obtain its content from historical facts — it received it from Divine revela- tion, which is self- witnessing in the creature-reason and freedom of mankind — but the historical facts serve for the attestation of religion, for its elucida- tion^ as against its partial obscuration, and for its universal spreading.
And that was what the majority were seeking. In what religion and morality consist, that they believed they knew; but that these are realities j that their rewards and punishments are sure^ that the true religion excludes all forms of polytheism and idolatry, were claims for which they had no guaran- tee. Christianity as an actual revelation brought the certainty they desired. It gave to the highest product of Greek philosophy and to the sovereignty of theistic morality victory and permanence; it gave to this philosophy as knowledge of the world and as morality for the first time the courage to free itself
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 119
from the polytheism of the past and to descend from the plane of the learned to the plane of the common people.
The apologists were in contrast with the gnostics ^^^^^^ conservative^ inasmuch as they were not really dis- *^^*- posed to investigate at any point the traditions of the Church or to make the content of the same compre- hensible. The argument from prophecy, now how- ever formulated in the most external way, allied them with the Church at large. The gnostics sought in the Gkwpel a new religion^ the apologists by means of the Gospel were confirmed in their relig- urns moral sense. The former emphasized the re- demptive idea and made everything subordinate to it; the latter brought all within the radius of natural religion and relegated the redemptive idea to the circumference. Both hellenized the Gospel; but only the speculations of the apologists were at once legitimized, because they directed everything against polytheism and left the Old Testament and the keryg^ma imtouched and emphasized in the clearest manner freedom and responsibility. Apologists and Apologists
and Onos-
gnostics carried forward the work which the Alex- ^^^nSed" andrian Jewish thinker (Philo) had begun as regards ^wio?' to the Old Testament religion ; but they divided the work, so to speak, between them : The latter devot- ing themselves rather to the Platonic-religious side of the problem and the former to the stoic-rational- istic side. The division however could not l^ sharply made; no apologist entirely overlooked the redemp-
Apologists.
120 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
tive idea (redemption from the power of the demons 'SeS? <^° ^ wrought only by the Logos). With Irenseus lems. begins again in the theological work of the Church the blending of the two problems ; not only the con- test with gnosticism made this necessary, but the spirit of the age turned more and more from the stoic morality to the Neo-Platonic mysticism, within whose shell lay concealed the impulse toward religion. iS^fphT- 2. Christianity is philosophy and revelation: nSd^SeTer This is the thesis of every apologist from Aristides .T^^ii to Minucius Felix. In the declaration that it is philosophy, the apologists encountered the wide- spread opinion among the churches, that it is the antithesis to all worldly wisdom (see the testimony of Celsus) ; but they reconciled this difference through the friendly understanding that Christianity is of supernatural origin and as revelation, notwithstand- ing its rational content, cannot be apprehended save by a divinely illumined understanding. On the principles underlying this conception the apologists were all agreed (Aristides, Justin, Tatian, Melito, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Tertullian, Minucius Felix and others whose writings are attributed to Justin) . The strongest impress of stoic morality and rational- ism is found in Minucius ; Justin's writings (Apol- ogy and Dialc^ue) have the most in common with the faith of the churches. On the other hand Justin and Athenagoras think the most favorably of philos- ophy and of philosophers, while in the succeeding time the judgment became ever harsher (already by
THB LAYING OF THS FOUNDATION. 181
Tatian) without changing the view of the philosophic content of Christianity. The general conviction may be tiins summarized: Christianity is philosophy, be- cause it has a rational element and because it gives a satisfactory and geneiaUy comprehensible answer to thoee questions in regard to which all true philoso- phers have exercised themselves; but it is not a phi- losophy,— indeed it is the direct antithesis to philos- ophy, so far as it is free from all mere notions and opinions and refutes polytheism, i.e., originates from a revelation, therefore has a supernatural. Di- vine origin, upon which finally the truth and cer- tainty of its teaching alone rest. This contrast with philosophy shows itself also above all in the unphil- osophical form in which the Christian preaching went forth. This thesis permits in detail various judgments in regard to the concrete relation of Christianity and philosophy, and it urged the apolo- gists to labor at the problem, why then the rational needed to be revealed at all? The following general convictions however may also be laid down here: (1) Christianity is, according to the apologists, rev- chrifitiaD- elation, i. e. it is the Divine wisdom which from of «>at»on- old has been proclaimed through the prophets and possesses through its origin absolute trustworthiness, which is also clearly evidenced in the fulfilment of the words of the prophets (the evidence from prophecy as the only sure evidence; it has nothing to do with the content of religion, but is an accompani- ment to it) . As Divine wisdom Christianity stands
122 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Chrlttian- ity is Phi- losophy.
Rerelation
Philoso-
Sheni In- ebtedto Prophets.
Christ only Em- phasized Prophets.
opposed to all natural and philosophical knowledge and makes an end to such. (2) Christianity is the manifestation which accords with the natural, though darkened reason of mankind; it includes all the essential elements of philosophy — it is therefore the
philosophy (^ xav9* r^/id^ ipihuTofia^ ij fiapfiapix^ ^tkoffo^ia)
— and it assists mankind to realize the truths which philosophy contains. (3) Revelation of the rational was and is necessary, because mankind has faUen under the dominion of demons. (4) The efforts of the philosophers to discover the true knowledge have been fruitless, which is above all clearly shown by the fact that neither polytheism nor the wide-spread immorality has been overthrown by them. So far as the philosophers -have discovered any truth, they are indebted for it to the prophets (thus the Jewish Alex- andrian philosophers already taught) from whom they borrowed it; it is, to say the least, uncertain whether they also have come to the knowledge of any fragment of the truth through the sporadic activ- ity of the Logos (see Justin on Socrates) ; certain is it, however, that many apparent truths of the philos- ophers are the aping of truth by evil spirits (to these also the whole of polytheism was referred, which is partly also the aping of Christian institutions). (5) The acknowledgment of Christ is simply included in the acknowledgment of the prophetic wisdom ; a new content the teaching of the prophets did not receive through Christ; he only gave it currency and energy (triumph over the demons; Justin and
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 123
Tertullian recognize a new element in the Gospel) . (6) The practical testing of Christianity lies, (a) in its apprehensibility (the unlearned and women be- come wise), (b) in the expulsion of demons, (c) in its ability to produce a holy life. In the apologists Christianity accordingly despoiled antiquity, i.e. the proceeds of the monotheistic knowledge and ethics of
theQreek: oaa ^apd Tzdurt xakS}^ tlprfZai iffiwv rwv ^ptffTtavdtv
i^i (Justin) . It dates itself from the b^inning of chrirtian- the world. Everything true and good that mankind **** ^®*^^<*- extols came through Divine revelation, but is, at the same time, truly human, because it is only a clearer expression of that which men find within themselves. It is at the same time Christian^ since Christianity is nothing but the teaching of revelation. One cannot think of another form in which the claim of Chris- tianity to be the world-religion comes out so strongly (hence the effort to reconcile the world-empire with the new religion) , nor can one think of a second form in which the specific content of the traditional Chris- tianity is so thoroughly neutralized. But its truly ?f*jj*^' epoch-making character lay in this, that the spiritual with^^ig- culture of the race appeared now to be reconciled and allied with religion: Revelation is wholly an out- ward, miraculous communication (passivity of the prophets) of rational truth; but rational truth — theis- tic cosmology and morality — was set forth simply dogmaticaUy and as the common possession of man- kind.
3. The ** dogmas " of Christianity — this conception
124 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
J^^j^n. and the other, ^eokoyia^ were first introduced into *i Tnitiw. pjjiiogQphicai language by the apologists — ^are those rational truths which are reyealed by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and which are all summed up in Christ {Xfinno<: ko^»9 xai v6fio^) and haye as their consequent true virtue and eternal life (Ood, liberty and virtue, eternal reward and eternal punishment, i.e. Christianity as a monotheistic cosmology, as a doctrine of liberty and morals, as a doctrine of re- demption ; the latter however is not clearly set forth). The instruction is referred back to God, the estab- lishment of a virtuous life (of righteousness) God must needs have left to men. The prophets and Christ are therefore fountains of righteousness, in so far as they are Divine teachers. Christianity may be defined as the God-transmitted knowledge of God, and as virtuous conformity to rational law, in the longing and striving after eternal life and in the certainty of reward. Through the knowledge of the truth and through the doing of good, men become righteous and partake of the highest blessedness. Knowledge rests upon faith in the Divine revela- tion. This revelation has also the genius and the power of redemption, in so far as the fact is unques- tionable that mankind cannot without it triumph over the dominion of the demons. All this is con- ceived from the Greek standpoint. £t^?5i (®) Tb® dogmas which set forth the knowledge of of God.*^ God and of the world are dominated by the funda- mental thought, that over against the world as a
THE LATINO OF THE FOUNDATION. 125
created, conditioned and transient existence stands the Self-Ebdstent, Undiangeable and Eternal, who is the primal Cause of the world. He has no attri- butes, which are attributable to the world; therefore he is exalted above every name and has in himself no distinctions (the Platonic expressions concerning Gk>d were held as incomparably good). He is ac- cordingly one and aloney spiritttal and faultless and therefore perfect; in purely negative predicates he is best characterized; and yet he is Origin (Cause) and the Fulness of all existences; he is Will and LifCy therefore also the kind Giver. The foDowing theses remain fixed with the apologists as regards the relation of God to the world: (1) that God is to summary. be thought of primarily as the final Catise^ (2) that the principle of the ethicaUy good is the Principle of the world, (3) that the Principle of the world, i.e. ihe Gkxihead, as immortal and eternal, forms the contrast to the world as the perishable. The dogmas concerning God are not set forth from the stand- point of the redeemed Church, but on the basis of a certain conception of the world on the one hand, and of the moral nature of man on the other; which latter however is a manifestation within the cosmos. The cosmos is everywhere permeated with reason «c<»™«»,
" *^ Permeated
and order (opposition to gnosticism); it bears the ^*'**^'«*- stamp of the Logos (as a reflection of a higher world and as a product of a rational Will). The material also which lies at the basis of its composition is not evil, but was created by God. Still the apologists
son.
126 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA.
did not make Ood the immediate creator of the world, but the personified Divine Reason perceptible in the world and inserted between God and the world. This was done with no reference to Christ and with no thought (in the gnostic sense) of sepa- rating God and the world; the conception of the Logos was already at hand in the religious philos- ophy of the day, and the lofty idea of Gkni required a being, which should represent the actuality and the many-sided activity of God, without doing vio- lence to his unchangeableness (a finer dualism : The
The Logos. Logos is the hypostasis of the active energizing Reason, which makes it possible to think of the God- head itself as resting ^-epoOfftoy ; he is both the re- vealing Word of God, the Divine manifesting him- self audibly and visibly upon the earth, and the creating Reason which expresses himself in the work of his own hands ; he is the Principle of the world and of revelation at the same time. All this is not new ; yet the Logos was not proclaimed by the apologists as a voou/isvov^ but as the surest reality). Beyond the carrying out of the thought that the principle of the cosmos is also the principle of reve- lation the majority did not go; their dependence upon the faith of the Church is evidenced, how- ever, by their failure to clearly distinguish between
History of the Logos and the Holy Spirit. The history of the
Logos.
Logos is as follows: God was never aXo^o^'^ he ever had the Logos within himself as his reason and as the potentiality (idea, energy) of the world (notwith-
THE ULYINQ OF THE FOUNDATION. 127
standing all n^atiye assertions, God and the world were somehow bound together). For the sake of the creation Gk>d put the Logos forth from himself (sent him forth, permitted him to go forth), i.e. through a free simple act of his will generated him out of his own Being. He is now an independent hypostasis ('9eo9 ix Seoo) whose real essence (odffta) is identical with that of Ood; he is not separated from Qoi but only severed, and is also not a mere mode or attribute of God; but is the independent result of the self- unf olding of God, and, although being the compen- dium of the Divine Reason, he did not rob the Father of his reason ; he is God and Lord, possesses the es- sence of the Divine Nature, although he is a second being by the side of God {ftpiOtup irepuv r«, ^ed^ dtbrt- />'»^); but his personality had a beginning ("fuit tempuSy cum patriJUius non fuity " Tertull. ) . Since ^*g?^ then he had a beginning, and the Father did not, he is, as compared with the Father, a Creature^ the begotten, created, manifested God. The subordina- tion lies, not in his essence (for monotheism would then have been destroyed), but in the manner of his orig^ {epyov TzpmroToxov too narpoi;). This made it possible for him to go forth into the iSnite as rea- son, revelation, and activity, while the Father re- mains in the obscurity of his unchangeableness. With the going forth of the Logos begins the reali- zation of the world-idea. He is the Creator and to a creator
and Proto*
degree the Prototype of the world (the one and spir- ^y^- itual Being among the many sentiment creatures),
128 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Doctrines of Free- dom.
Virtue.
RlghteouB-
which had its origin from nothing. Man is the true aim in the creation of the world, and the true aim of man is to attain unto the Divine essence through the reason (image of Gkxl) and freedom created with- in him. As spirit-embodied beings men are neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of death and of eternal life. In the doctrines, that Gk)d is the abso- lute Lord of the material world, that evil is not in- herent in matter but originated in time and through the free decision of the spirit (angel), finally that the world advances toward the light, dualism ap- peared to be fundamentally overcome in the cos- mology. Yet it was not overcome in so far as the sentient was actually looked upon as evil. The apologists held this teaching in regard to God, the Logos, the world and mankind as the essential con- tent of Christianity (of the Old Testament and of the preaching of Christ) .
(b) The doctrines concerning freedom, virtue, righteousness and their reward were so held that God was looked upon simply as Creator and Judge, and not as the principle of a new life (reminiscences in Justin). The aip^apaia is at the same time reward and gift, linked with correct knowledge and virtue. Virtue is withdrawal from the world (man must re- nounce his natural inclinations) and exaltation in every respect above the senses, and love. The moral law is the law for the perfect, exalted spirit, which, inasmuch as it is the loftiest being upon the earth, is too lofty for the same. The spirit should hasten
THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 129
from the earth to the Father of