History of Dogma Volume I Part 7

Martha eipen dia Mariam, hoti eiden auten meidiosan. Maria eipen ouketi egelasa]. Narratives such as those of Christ's descent to h.e.l.l and ascent to heaven, which arose comparatively late, though still at the close of the first century (see Book I. Chap 3) sprang out of short formulae containing an ant.i.thesis (death and resurrection, first advent in lowliness, second advent in glory: descensus de coelo, ascensus in c[oe]lum; ascensus in coelum, descensus ad inferna) which appeared to be required by Old Testament predictions, and were commended by their naturalness. Just as it is still, in the same way naively inferred: if Christ rose bodily he must also have ascended bodily (visibly?) into heaven.]

[Footnote 108: The Sibylline Oracles, composed by Jews, from 160 B.C. to 189 A.D. are specially instructive here: See the Editions of Friedlieb.

1852; Alexandre, 1869; Rzach, 1891. Delaunay, Moines et Sibylles dans l'antiquite judeo-grecque, 1874. Schurer in the work mentioned above.

The writings of Josephus also yield rich booty, especially his apology for Judaism in the two books against Apion. But it must be noted that there were Jews, enlightened by h.e.l.lenism, who were still very zealous in their observance of the law. "Philo urges most earnestly to the observance of the law in opposition to that party which drew the extreme inferences of the allegoristic method, and put aside the outer legality as something not essential for the spiritual life. Philo thinks that by an exact observance of these ceremonies on their material side, one will also come to know better their symbolical meaning" (Siegfried, Philo, p.

157).]

[Footnote 109: Direct evidence is certainly almost entirely wanting here, but the indirect speaks all the more emphatically: see -- 3, Supplements 1, 2.]

[Footnote 110: The Jewish propaganda, though by no means effaced, gave way very distinctly to the Christian from the middle of the second century. But from this time we find few more traces of an enlightened h.e.l.lenistic Judaism. Moreover, the Messianic expectation also seems to have somewhat given way to occupation with the law. But the G.o.d of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, as well as other Jewish terms certainly played a great role in Gentile and Gnostic magical formulae of the third century, as may be seen, e.g., from many pa.s.sages in Origen c. Celsum.]

[Footnote 111: The prerogative of Israel was for all that clung to; Israel remains the chosen people.]

[Footnote 112: The brilliant investigations of Bernays, however, have shewn how many-sided that philosophy of religion was. The proofs of asceticism in this h.e.l.lenistic Judaism are especially of great interest for the history of dogma (See Theophrastus' treatise on piety). In the eighth Epistle of Herac.l.i.tus, composed by a h.e.l.lenistic Jew in the first century, it is said (Bernays, p. 182). "So long a time before, O Hermodorus, saw thee that Sibyl, and even then thou wert" [Greek: eide se pro posoutou aionos, Ermodore he Sibulla ekeine, kai tote estha].

Even here then the notion is expressed that foreknowledge and predestination invest the known and the determined with a kind of existence. Of great importance is the fact that even before Philo, the idea of the wisdom of G.o.d creating the world and pa.s.sing over to men had been hypostatised in Alexandrian Judaism (see Sirach, Baruch, the wisdom of Solomon, Enoch, nay, even the book of Proverbs). But so long as the deutero-canonical Old Testament, and also the Alexandrine and Apocalyptic literature continue in the sad condition in which they are at present, we can form no certain judgment and draw no decided conclusions on the subject. When will the scholar appear who will at length throw light on these writings, and therewith on the section of inner Jewish history most interesting to the Christian theologian? As yet we have only a most thankworthy preliminary study in Schurer's great work, and beside it particular or dilettante attempts which hardly shew what the problem really is, far less solve it. What disclosures even the fourth book of the Maccabees alone yields for the connection of the Old Testament with h.e.l.lenism!]

[Footnote 113: "So far as the sensible world is a work of the Logos, it is called [Greek: neoteros huios] (quod deus immut. 6. I.277), or according to Prov. VIII. 22, an offspring of G.o.d and wisdom: [Greek: he de paradexamene to tou theou sperma telesphorois odisi ton monon kai agapeton aistheton huion apekuese ton de ton kosmon] (de ebriet 8 I. 361 f). So far as the Logos is High Priest his relation to the world is symbolically expressed by the garment of the High Priest, to which exegesis the play on the word [Greek: kosmos], as meaning both ornament and world, lent its aid." This speculation (see Siegfried. Philo, 235) is of special importance; for it shews how closely the ideas [Greek: cosmos] and [Greek: logos] were connected.]

[Footnote 114: Of all the Greek Philosophers of the second century, Plutarch of Charonea, died c. 125 A.D., and Numenius of Apamea, second half of the second century, approach nearest to Philo; but the latter of the two was undoubtedly familiar with Jewish philosophy, specially with Philo, and probably also with Christian writings.]

[Footnote 115: As to the way in which Philo (see also 4 Maccab. V. 24) learned to connect the Stoic ethics with the authority of the Torah, as was also done by the Palestinian Midrash, and represented the Torah as the foundation of the world, and therewith as the law of nature: see Siegfried, Philo, p. 156.]

[Footnote 116: Philo by his exhortations to seek the blessed life, has by no means broken with the intellectualism of the Greek philosophy, he has only gone beyond it. The way of knowledge and speculation is to him also the way of religion and morality. But his formal principle is supernatural and leads to a supernatural knowledge which finally pa.s.ses over into sight.]

[Footnote 117: But everything was now ready for this synthesis so that it could be, and immediately was, completed by Christian philosophers.]

[Footnote 118: We cannot discover Philo's influence in the writings of Paul. But here again we must remember that the scripture learning of Palestinian teachers developed speculations which appear closely related to the Alexandrian, and partly are so, but yet cannot be deduced from them. The element common to them must, for the present at least, be deduced from the harmony of conditions in which the different nations of the East were at that time placed, a harmony which we cannot exactly measure.]

[Footnote 119: The conception of G.o.d's relation to the world as given in the fourth Gospel is not Philonic. The Logos doctrine there is therefore essentially not that of Philo (against Kuenen and others. See p. 93).]

[Footnote 120: Siegfried (Philo. p. 160-197) has presented in detail Philo's allegorical interpretation of scripture, his hermeneutic principles and their application. Without an exact knowledge of these principles we cannot understand the Scripture expositions of the Fathers, and therefore also cannot do them justice.]

[Footnote 121: See Siegfried, Philo. p. 176. Yet, as a rule, the method of isolating and adapting pa.s.sages of scripture, and the method of unlimited combination were sufficient.]

[Footnote 122: Numerous examples of this may be found in the epistle of Barnabas (see c. 4-9), and in the dialogue of Justin with Trypho (here they are objects of controversy, see cc. 71-73, 120), but also in many other Christian writings, (e.g., Clem. ad. Cor. VIII. 3; XVII. 6; XXIII.

3, 4; XXVI. 5; XLVI. 2; 2 Clem. XIII. 2). These Christian additions were long retained in the Latin Bible, (see also Lactantius and other Latins: Pseudo-Cyprian de aleat. 2 etc.), the most celebrated of them is the addition "a ligno" to "dominus regnavit" in Psalm XCVI., see Credner, Beitrage II. The treatment of the Old Testament in the epistle of Barnabas is specially instructive, and exhibits the greatest formal agreement with that of Philo. We may close here with the words in which Siegfried sums up his judgment on Philo. "No Jewish writer has contributed so much as Philo to the breaking up of particularism, and the dissolution of Judaism. The history of his people, though he believed in it literally, was in its main points a didactic allegoric poem for enabling him to inculcate the doctrine that man attains the vision of G.o.d by mortification of the flesh. The law was regarded by him as the best guide to this, but it had lost its exclusive value, as it was admitted to be possible to reach the goal without it, and it had, besides, its aim outside itself. The G.o.d of Philo was no longer the old living G.o.d of Israel, but an imaginary being who, to obtain power over the world, needed a Logos by whom the palladium of Israel, the unity of G.o.d, was taken a prey. So Israel lost everything which had hitherto characterised her."]

[Footnote 123: Proofs in Friedlander, Sittengeschichte, vol. 3.]

[Footnote 124: See the chapter on belief in immortality in Friedlander.

Sittengesch. Roms. Bde. 3. Among the numerous mysteries known to us, that of Mythras deserves special consideration. From the middle of the second century the Church Fathers saw in it, above all, the caricature of the Church. The wors.h.i.+p of Mithras had its redeemer, its mediator, hierarchy, sacrifice, baptism and sacred meal. The ideas of expiation, immortality, and the Redeemer G.o.d, were very vividly present in this cult, which of course, in later times, borrowed much from Christianity: see the accounts of Marquardt, Reville, and the Essay of Sayous, Le Taurobole in the Rev. de l'Hist. des Religions, 1887, where the earliest literature is also utilised. The wors.h.i.+p of Mithras in the third century became the most powerful rival of Christianity. In connection with this should be specially noted the cult of aesculapius, the G.o.d who helps the body and the soul; see my essay "Medicinisches aus der altesten Kirchengeschichte," 1892. p. 93 ff.]

[Footnote 125: Hence the wide prevalence of the cult of aesculapius.]

[Footnote 126: Dominus in certain circ.u.mstances means more than deus; see Tertull. Apol. It signifies more than Soter: see Irenaeus I. 1. 3: [Greek: ton sotera legousin, oude gar kurion onomazein auton thelousin--kurios] and [Greek: despotes] are almost synonymous. See Philo. Quis. rer. div. heres. 6: [Greek: sunonuma tauta einai legetai].]

[Footnote 127: We must give special attention here to the variability and elasticity of the concept [Greek: theos], and indeed among the cultured as well as the uncultured (Orig. prolegg. in Psalm, in Pitra, a.n.a.l. T. II. p. 437, according to a Stoic source; [Greek: kat' allon de tropon legesthai theon zoion athanaton logikon opoudaion, hoste pasan asteian psychen theon huparchein, kan periechetai, allos de legesthai theon to kath' auto on zoion athanaton hos ta en anthropois periechomenas psychas me huparchein theous]). They still regarded the G.o.ds as pa.s.sionless, blessed men living for ever. The idea therefore of a [Greek: theopoiesis], and on the other hand, the idea of the appearance of the G.o.ds in human form presented no difficulty (see Acts XIV. 11; XXVIII. 6). But philosophic speculation--the Platonic, as well as in yet greater measure the Stoic, and in the greatest measure of all the Cynic--had led to the recognition of something divine in man's spirit ([Greek: pneuma, nous]). Marcus Aurelius in his Meditations frequently speaks of the G.o.d who dwells in us. Clement of Alexandria (Strom. VI. 14. 113) says: [Greek: houtos dunamin labousa kuriaken he psyche meletai einai theos, kakon men ouden allo plen agnoias einai nomizousa.] In Bernays' Herac.l.i.tian Epistles, pp. 37 f. 135 f., will be found a valuable exposition of the Stoic (Herac.l.i.tian) thesis and its history, that men are G.o.ds. See Norden, Beitrage zur Gesch. d. griech.

Philos. Jahrb. f. kla.s.s Philol. XIX. Suppl. Bd. p. 373 ff., about the Cynic Philosopher who, contemplating the life and activity of man ([Greek: kataskopos]), becomes its [Greek: episkopos], and further [Greek: kurios, angelos theou, theos en anthropois]. The pa.s.sages which he adduces are of importance for the history of dogma in a twofold respect. (1) They present remarkable parallels to Christology (one even finds the designations, [Greek: kurios, angelos, kataskopos, episkopos, theos] a.s.sociated with the philosophers as with Christ, e.g., in Justin; nay, the Cynics and Neoplatonics speak of [Greek: episkopoi daimones]); cf. also the remarkable narrative in Laertius VI. 102, concerning the Cynic Menedemus; [Greek: houtos, katha phesin Hippobotos, eis tosos ton terateias elasen, hoste Erinuos a.n.a.labon schema perieiei, legon episkopos aphichthai ex Haidou ton hamartomenon, hopos palin kation tasta apangelloi tois ekei, daimosin.] (2) They also explain how the ecclesiastical [Greek: episkopoi] came to be so highly prized, inasmuch as these also were from a very early period regarded as mediators between G.o.d and man, and considered as [Greek: en anthropois theoi].

There were not a few who in the first and second centuries, appeared with the claim to be regarded as a G.o.d or an organ inspired and chosen by G.o.d (Simon Magus [cf. the manner of his treatment in Hippol. Philos.

VI. 8: see also Clem. Hom. II. 27], Apollonius of Tyana (?), see further Tacitus Hist. II. 51: "Mariccus.... iamque adsertor Galliarum et deus, nomen id sibi indiderat"; here belongs also the gradually developing wors.h.i.+p of the Emperor: "dominus ac deus noster." cf. Augustus, Inscription of the year 25; 24 B.C. in Egypt [where the Ptolemies were for long described as G.o.ds] [Greek: Huper Kaisaros Autokrattoros theou]

(Zeitschrift fur Aegypt. Sprache. x.x.xI Bd. p. 3). Domitian: [Greek: theos Adrianos], Kaibel Inscr. Gr. 829. 1053. [Greek: theos Seoueros Eusebes]. 1061--the Antinouscult with its prophets. See also Josephus on Herod Agrippa. Antiq. XIX 8. 2. (Euseb. H. E. II. 10). The flatterers said to him, [Greek: theon prosagoreuontes; ei kai mechri nun hos anthropon ephobethemen, alla tounteuthen kreittona se thnetes tes phuseos h.o.m.ologoumen.] Herod himself, -- 7, says to his friends in his sickness: [Greek: ho theos humin ego ede katastrephein epitattomai ton bion ... ho kletheis athanatos huph' hemon ede thanein apagomai]). On the other hand, we must mention the wors.h.i.+p of the founder in some philosophic schools, especially among the Epicureans Epictetus says (Moral. 15), Diogenes and Herac.l.i.tus and those like them are justly called G.o.ds. Very instructive in this connection are the reproaches of the heathen against the Christians, and of Christian partisans against one another with regard to the almost divine veneration of their teachers. Lucian (Peregr. II) reproaches the Christians in Syria for having regarded Peregrinus as a G.o.d and a new Socrates. The heathen in Smyrna, after the burning of Polycarp, feared that the Christians would begin to pay him divine honours (Euseb. H. E. IV. 15 41). Caecilius in Minucius Felix speaks of divine honours being paid by Christians to priests (Octav. IX. 10). The Antimontanist (Euseb. H. E. V. 18. 6) a.s.serts that the Montanists wors.h.i.+p their prophet and Alexander the Confessor as divine. The opponents of the Roman Adoptians (Euseb. H. E.

V. 28) reproach them with praying to Galen. There are many pa.s.sages in which the Gnostics are reproached with paying Divine honours to the heads of their schools, and for many Gnostic schools (the Carpocratians, for example) the reproach seems to have been just. All this is extremely instructive. The genius, the hero, the founder of a new school who promises to shew the certain way to the _vita beata_, the emperor, the philosopher (numerous Stoic pa.s.sages might be noted here) finally, man, in so far as he is inhabited by [Greek: nous]--could all somehow be considered as [Greek: theoi], so elastic was this concept. All these instances of Apotheosis in no way endangered the Monotheism which had been developed from the mixture of G.o.ds and from philosophy; for the one supreme G.o.dhead can unfold his inexhaustible essence in a variety of existences, which, while his creatures as to their origin, are parts of his essence as to their contents. This Monotheism does not yet exactly disclaim its Polytheistic origin. The Christian, Hermas, says to his Mistress (Vis. I 1. 7) [Greek: ou pantote se hos thean hegesamen], and the author of the Epistle of Diognetus writes (X. 6), [Greek: tauta tois epideomenois ch.o.r.egon], (i.e., the rich man) [Greek: theos ginetai ton lambanonton]. That the concept [Greek: theos] was again used only of one G.o.d, was due to the fact that one now started from the definition "qui vitam aeternam habet," and again from the definition "qui est super omnia et originem nescit." From the latter followed the absolute unity of G.o.d, from the former a plurality of G.o.ds. Both could be so harmonised (see Tertull. adv. Prax. and Novat. de Trinit.) that one could a.s.sume that the G.o.d, _qui est super omnia_, might allow his monarchy to be administered by several persons, and might dispense the gift of immortality and with it a relative divinity.]

[Footnote 128: See the so-called Neopythagorean philosophers and the so-called forerunners of Neoplatonism (Cf. Bigg, The Platonists of Alexandria, p. 250, as to Numenius). Unfortunately, we have as yet no sufficient investigation of the question what influence, if any, the Jewish Alexandrian Philosophy of religion had on the development of Greek philosophy in the second and third centuries. The answering of the question would be of the greatest importance. But at present it cannot even be said whether the Jewish philosophy of religion had any influence on the genesis of Neoplatonism. On the relation of Neoplatonism to Christianity and their mutual approximation, see the excellent account in Tzschirner, Fall des Heidenthums, pp. 574-618. Cf. also Reville, La Religion a Rome, 1886.]

[Footnote 129: The Christians, that is the Christian preachers, were most in agreement with the Cynics (see Lucian's Peregrinus Proteus), both on the negative and on the positive side; but for that very reason they were hard on one another (Justin and Tatian against Crescens)--not only because the Christians gave a different basis for the right mode of life from the Cynics, but above all, because they did not approve of the self-conscious, contemptuous, proud disposition which Cynicism produced in many of its adherents. Morality frequently underwent change for the worse in the hands of Cynics, and became the morality of a "Gentleman,"

such as we have also experience of in modern Cynicism.]

[Footnote 130: The att.i.tude of Celsus, the opponent of the Christians, is specially instructive here.]

[Footnote 131: For the knowledge of the spread of the idealistic philosophy the statement of Origen (c. Celsum VI. 2) that Epictetus was admired not only by scholars, but also by ordinary people who felt in themselves the impulse to be raised to something higher, is well worthy of notice.]

[Footnote 132: This point was of importance for the propaganda of Christianity among the cultured. There seemed to be given here a reliable, because revealed, Cosmology and history of the world--which already contained the foundation of everything worth knowing. Both were needed and both were here set forth in closest union.]

[Footnote 133: The universalism as reached by the Stoics is certainly again threatened by the self-righteous and self-complacent distinction between men of virtue, and men of pleasure, who, properly speaking, are not men. Aristotle had already dealt with the virtuous elite in a notable way. He says (Polit. 3. 13. p. 1284), that men who are distinguished by perfect virtue should not be put on a level with the ordinary ma.s.s, and should not be subjected to the constraints of a law adapted to the average man. "There is no law for these elect, who are a law to themselves."]

[Footnote 134: Notions of pre-existence were readily suggested by the Platonic philosophy; yet this whole philosophy rests on the fact that one again posits the thing (after stripping it of certain marks as accidental, or worthless, or ostensibly foreign to it) in order to express its value in this form, and hold fast the permanent in the change of the phenomena.]

[Footnote 135: See Tzschirn. i.d. Ztschr. f. K.-Gesch. XII. p. 215 ff.

"The genesis of the Romish Church in the second century." What he presents is no doubt partly incomplete, partly overdone and not proved: yet much of what he states is useful.]

[Footnote 136: What is meant here is the imminent danger of taking the several const.i.tuent parts of the canon, even for historical investigation, as const.i.tuent parts, that is, of explaining one writing by the standard of another and so creating an artificial unity. The contents of any of Paul's epistles, for example, will be presented very differently if it is considered by itself and in the circ.u.mstances in which it was written, or if attention is fixed on it as part of a collection whose unity is presupposed.]

[Footnote 137: See Bigg, The Christian Platonist of Alexandria, pp. 53, 283 ff.]

[Footnote 138: Reuter (August. Studien, p. 492) has drawn a valuable parallel between Marcion and Augustine with regard to Paul.]

[Footnote 139: Marcion of course wished to raise it to the exclusive basis, but he entirely misunderstood it.]

DIVISION I.

THE GENESIS OF THE ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA, OR THE GENESIS OF THE CATHOLIC APOSTOLIC DOGMATIC THEOLOGY, AND THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC ECCLESIASTICAL SYSTEM OF DOCTRINE.

BOOK I.

THE PREPARATION.

[Greek: Ean murious paidagogous echete en christoi all' ou pollous pateras.]

1 Cor IV. 15.

Eine jede Idee tritt als ein fremder Gast in die Erscheinung, und wie sie sich zu realisiren beginnt, ist sie kaum von Phantasie und Phantasterei zu unterscheiden.

GOETHE, Spruche in Prosa, 566