The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman Empire Part 26

[37] Barnabas, 9.

[38] _Trypho_, 23.

[39] _Ibid._ 11.

[40] _Jerem._ 31, 31; _Trypho_, 11; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 3.

[41] _Is._ 6, 10; _Trypho_, 12; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 3.

[42] _Ps._ 82, 5; _Trypho_, 124; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 3.

[43] _Is._ 42, 19; _Trypho_, 123, where the plural is used.

[44] _Is._ 29, 11; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 4.

[45] _Trypho_, 133.

[46] _Trypho_, 134.

[47] Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 21; Justin, _Trypho_, 12; Tert. _adv. Marc._ iii, 20.

[48] _Trypho_, 29.

[49] _c. Cels._ ii, 28,

[50] Lactantius, _de mort. persec._ 2.

[51] Tertullian lays down the canon (_adv. Marc._ iii, 5) _pleraque figurate portenduntur per aenigmata et allegorias et parabolas, aliter intelligenda quam scripta sunt_; but (_de resurr. carnis_, 20) _non omnia imagines sed et veritates, nec omnia umbrae sed et corpora, e.g._ the Virgin-birth is not foretold in figure.

[52] _Trypho_, 62, 129; Barnabas, 5, 5; Tert. _adv. Prax._ 12.

[53] _Trypho_, 56.

[54] _Ibid._ 56.

[55] _Ibid._ 56.

[56] _Trypho_, 56, 57.

[57] Trypho, 127. Tert. _adv. Marc._ ii, 27. Quaecunque exigitis deodigna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido et, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo. Quaecunque autem ut indigna reprehenditis, deputabuntur in filio, etc. Cf. on the distinction Tert. _adv. Prax._ 14 ff. Cf. the language of Celsus on G.o.d "descending," see p. 248.

[58] _Trypho_, 126. Other t.i.tles are quoted by Justin, _Trypho_, 61.

[59] _Trypho_, 128. Cf. Tertullian, _adv. Marc._ ii, 27, _Ille est qui descendit, ille qui interrogat, ille qui postulat, ille qui jurat; adv.

Prax._ 15, _Filius itaque est qui...._

[60] _Gen._ 49, 8-12; _Trypho_, 52, 53; _Apol._ i, 32; Cyprian, _Testim._ i, 21.

[61] Tert. _adv. Jud._ 14.

[62] _Trypho_, 40; Tert. _adv. Jud._ 14; Barnabas, 7.

[63] _Trypho_, 66. Isaiah vii and viii.

[64] _Trypho_, 67.

[65] _Trypho_, 71.

[66] _Trypho_, 84. Cf. Tert. _adv. Jud._ 9 = _adv. Marc._ iii, 13.

[67] _Trypho_, 77: Tert. _adv. Jud._ 9 = _adv. Marc._ iii, 13; both referring to _Psalm_ 71.

[68] _Trypho_, 79.

[69] _Trypho_, 75; _Exodus_ 23, 20.

[70] Barnabas, 9, 8 (the subject of 'saith' may in each case be 'he').

Clement of Alexandria cites this and adds a mystic and mathematical account of this suggestive figure 318. _Strom._ vi. 84.

[71] _Trypho_, 142.

[72] Celsus _ap._ Orig. _c. Cels._ iv, 50, 51.

[73] Especially when he finds Celsus referring to the dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as "more worthy of pity and hatred than of laughter"; _c.

Cels._ iv, 52.

[74] Porphyry (cited by Euseb. _E.H._ vi, 19), says they made riddles of what was perfectly plain in Moses, their expositions would not hang together, and they cheated their own critical faculty, _t kritikn tes psyches katagoeteusantes_.

[75] _Trypho_, 137.

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CHAPTER VII

"G.o.dS OR ATOMS?"

In the first two centuries of our era a great change came over the ancient world. A despised and traditional religion, under the stimulus of new cults coming from the East, revived and re-a.s.serted its power over the minds of men. Philosophy, grown practical in its old age, forsook its youthful enthusiasm for the quest of truth, and turned aside to the regulation of conduct, by means of maxims now instead of inspiration, and finally, as we have seen, to apology for the ancient faith of the fathers. Its business now was to reconcile its own monotheistic dogma with popular polytheistic practice. It was perhaps this very reconciliation that threw open the door for the glowing monotheism of the disciples of Jesus; but, whatever the cause, Christianity quickly spread over the whole Roman Empire. We are apt to wonder to-day at the great political and national developments that have altered the whole aspect of Europe since the French Revolution, and to reflect rather idly on their rapidity. Yet the past has its own stories of rapid change, and not the least striking of them is the disappearance of that world of thought which we call Cla.s.sical. By 180 A.D. nearly every distinctive mark of cla.s.sical antiquity is gone--the old political ideas, the old philosophies, the old literatures, and much else with them. Old forms and names remain--there are still consuls and archons, poets and philosophers, but the atmosphere is another, and the names have a new meaning, if they have any at all.

But the mere survival of the names hid for many the fact that they were living in a new era.

[Sidenote: Marcus Aurelius]

In the reign of Marcus Aurelius, however, the signs of change became more evident, and men grew conscious that some transformation of the world was in progress. A great plague, the scanty records of which only allow us to speak in {197} vague terms of an immense reduction in population[1]--barbarism active upon the frontier of an Empire not so well able as it had fancied to defend itself--superst.i.tions, Egyptian and Jewish, diverting men from the ordinary ways of civic duty--such were some of the symptoms that men marked. Under the weight of absurdity, quietism and individualism, the state seemed to be sinking, and all that freedom of mind which was the distinctive boast of h.e.l.lenism was rapidly being lost.

It happens that, while the historical literature of the period has largely perished, a number of authors survive, who from their various points of view deal with what is our most immediate subject--the conflict of religions. Faith, doubt, irritation and fatalism are all represented. The most conspicuous men of letters of the age are undoubtedly the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself and his two brilliant contemporaries, Lucian of Samosata, and Apuleius of Madaura.[2]

Celsus, a man of mind as powerful as any of the three, survives in fragments, but fragments ample enough to permit of re-construction.