History of Dogma - Volume I

Chapter III. The Common Faith and the Beginnings…

THE COMMON FAITH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF KNOWLEDGE
IN GENTILE CHRISTIANITY AS IT WAS BEING
DEVELOPED INTO CATHOLICISM¹⁶³¹⁶³The statements made in this chapter need special forbearance, especially as the selection from the rich and motley material—cf. only the so-called Apostolic Fathers—the emphasising of this, the throwing into the background of that element, cannot here be vindicated. It is not possible, in the compass of a brief account, to give expression to that elasticity and those oscillations of ideas and thoughts which were peculiar to the Christians of the earliest period. There was indeed, as will be shewn, a complex of tradition in many respects fixed, but this complex was still under the dominance of an enthusiastic fancy, so that what at one moment seemed fixed, in the next had disappeared. Finally, attention must be given to the fact that when we speak of the beginnings of knowledge, the members of the Christian community in their totality are no longer in question, but only individuals who of course were the leaders of the others. If we had no other writings from the times of the Apostolic Fathers than the first Epistle of Clement and the Epistle of Polycarp, it would he comparatively easy to sketch a clear history of the development connecting Paulinism with the Old-Catholic Theology as represented by Iræneus, and so to justify the traditional ideas. But besides these two Epistles which are the classic monuments of the mediating tradition, we have a great number of documents which shew us how manifold and complicated the development was. They also teach us how carefnl we should be in the interpretation of the post-Apostolic documents that immediately followed the Pauline Epistles, and that we must give special heed to the paragraphs and ideas in them, which distinguish them from Paulinism. Besides, it is of the greatest importance that those two Epistles originated in Rome and Asia Minor, as these are the places where we must seek the embryonic stage of old-Catholic doctrine. Numerous fine threads, in the form of fundamental ideas and particular views, pass over from the Asia Minor theology of the post-Apostolic period into the old-Catholic theology.

§©1. The Communities and the Church.

THE confessors of the Gospels, belonging to organised communities who recognised the Old Testament as the Divine record of revelation, and prized the Evangelic tradition as a public message for all, to which, in its undiluted form, they wished to adhere truly and sincerely, formed the stem of 151Christendom both as to extent and importance.¹⁶⁴¹⁶⁴The Epistle to the Hebrews (X. 25), the Epistle of Barnabas (IV. 10), the Shepherd of Hermas (Sim. IX. 26. 3), but especially the Epistle of Ignatius and still later documents, shew that up to the middle of the second century, and even later, there were Christians who, for various reasons, stood outside the union of communities, or wished to have only a loose and temporary relation to them. The exhortation: ἐπὶ τὸ αὐτὸ συνερχόμενοι συνζητεῖτε περὶ τοῦ κοινῇ συμφέροντος (see my note on Didache XVI. 2, and cf. for the expression the interesting State Inscription which was found at Magnesia on the Meander. Bull, Corresp. Hellen. 1883 p. 506: ἀπαγορεύω μήτε συνέρχεσθαι τοὺς ἀρτοκόκους κατ᾽ ἑταιρίαν μήτε παρεστηκότας θρασύνεσθαι. πειθάρχεἰν δε πάντως τοῖς ὑπὲρ τοῦ κοινῇ συμφέροντος ἐπιταττομένοις κ.τ.λ. or the exhortation: κολλᾶσθε τοἶς ἁγίοις, ὅτι οἱ κολλώμενοι αὐτοῖς ἁγιασθήσονται (1 Clem. 46. 2, introduced as γραφὴ) runs through most of the writings of the post-Apostolic and pre-catholic period. New doctrines were imported by wandering Christians who, in many cases, may not themselves have belonged to a community, and did not respect the arrangements of those they found in existence, but sought to form conventicles. If we remember how the Greeks and Romans were wont to get themselves initiated into a mystery cult, and took part for a long time in the religious exercises, and then, when they thought they had got the good of it, for the most part or wholly to give up attending, we shall not wonder that the demand to become a permanent member of a Christian community was opposed by many. The statements of Hermas are specially instructive here. The communities stood to each other in an outwardly loose, but inwardly firm connection, and every community by the vigour of its faith, the certainty of its hope, the holy character of its life, as well as by unfeigned love, unity and peace, was to be an image of the holy Church of God which is in heaven, and whose members are scattered over the earth. They were, further, by the purity of their walk and an active brotherly disposition, to prove to those without, that is to the world, the excellence and truth of the Christian faith.¹⁶⁵¹⁶⁵“Corpus sumus,” says Tertullian, at a time when this description had already become an anachronism, “de conscientia religionis et disciplinæ unitate et spei foedere.” (Apol. 39: cf. Ep. Petri ad Jacob. I.; εἷς θεὸς, εἷς νόμος, μία ἐλπίς). The description was applicable to the earlier period, when there was no such thing as a federation with political forms, but when the consciousness of belonging to a community and of forming a brotherhood (ἀδελφότης) was all the more deeply felt: See, above all, 1 Clem. and Corinth., the Didache (9-15), Aristides, Apol 15: “and when they have become Christians they call them (the slaves) brethren without hesitation . . . . for they do not call them brethren according to the flesh, but according to the spirit and in God;” cf. also the statements on brotherhood in Tertullian and Minucius Felix (also Lucian). We have in 1 Clem. 1. 2. the delineation of a perfect Christian Church. The Epistles of Ignatius are specially instructive as to the independence of each individual community: 1 Clem. and Didache, as to the obligation to assist stranger communities by counsel and action, and to support the travelling brethren. As every Christian is a πάροικος, so every community is a παροικοῦσα τὴν πόλιν, but it is under obligation to give an example to the world, and must watch that “the name be not blasphemed.” The importance of the social element in the oldest Christian communities, has been very justly brought into prominence in the latest works on the subject (Renan, Heinrici, Hatch). The historian of dogma must also emphasise it, and put the fluid notions of the faith in contrast with the definite consciousness of moral tasks. See 1. Clem. 47-50; Polyc. Ep. 3; Didache 1 ff.; Ignat. ad Eph. 14, on ἀγάπη as the main requirement. Love demands that everyone: “ζητεῖ τὸ κοινωφελὲς πᾶσιν καὶ μὴ τὸ ἑαυτοῦ” (1. Clem. 48. 6. with parallels; Didache 16. 3; Barn. 4. 10; Ignatius). The hope 152that the Lord would speedily appear to gather into his Kingdom the believers who were scattered abroad, punishing the evil and rewarding the good, guided these communities in faith and life. In the recently discovered “Teaching of the Apostles” we are confronted very distinctly with ideas and aspirations of communities that are not influenced by Philosophy.

The Church, that is the totality of all believers destined to be received into the kingdom of God (Didache, 9. 10), is the holy Church, (Hermas) because it is brought together and preserved by the Holy Spirit. It is the one Church, not because it presents this unity outwardly, on earth the members of the Church are rather scattered abroad, but because it will be brought to unity in the kingdom of Christ, because it is ruled by the same spirit and inwardly united in a common relation to a common hope and ideal. The Church, considered in its origin, is the number of those chosen by God,¹⁶⁶¹⁶⁶1 Clem. 59. 2, in the church prayer; ὅπως τὸν ἀριθμὸν τὸν κατηριθμημένον τῶν ἐκλεκτῶν αὐτοῦ ἐν ὅλῳ κόσμῳ διαφυλάξῃ ἄθραυστον ὁ δημιουργὸς τῶν ἁπάντων διὰ τοῦ ἡγαπημένου παιδὸς αὐτοῦ Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ. the true Israel,¹⁶⁷¹⁶⁷See 1 Clem., 2 Clem., Ignatius (on the basis of the Pauline view; but see also Rev. II. 9). nay, still more, the final purpose of God, for the world was created for its sake.¹⁶⁸¹⁶⁸See Hermas (the passage is given above, p. 103, note.) There were in connection with these doctrines in the earliest period, various speculations about the Church: it is a heavenly Æon, is older than the world, was created by God at the beginning of things as a companion of the heavenly Christ;¹⁶⁹¹⁶⁹See Hermas. Vis. I.-III. Papias. Fragm. VI. and VII. of my edition, 2 Clem. 14: ποηοῦντες τὸ θέλημα τοῦ πατρὸς ἡμῶν ἐσόμεθα ἐκ τῆς ἐκκλησίας τῆς πρώτης τῆς πνευματικῆς, τῆς πρὸ ἡλίου καὶ σελήνης ἐκτισμένης . . . . ἐκκλησία ζῶσα σῶμά ἐστι Χριστοῦ· λέγει γάρ ἡ γραφή· ἐποίησεν ὁ θεὸς τὸν ἄνθρωπον ἄρσεν καί θῆλυ. Τὸ ἄρσεν ἐστὶν ὁ Χριστός, τὸ θῆλυ ἡ ἐκκλησία. its members form the new nation 153which is really the oldest nation,¹⁷⁰¹⁷⁰See Barn. 13 (2 Clem. 2). it is the λαὸς ὁ τοῦ ἡγαπημένου ὁ φιλούμενος καὶ φιλῶν αὐτνόν,¹⁷¹¹⁷¹See Valentinus in Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 52. “Holy Church”, perhaps also in Marcion, if his text (Zahn. Gesch. des N. T. lichen Kanons, II p. 502) in Gal. IV. 21, read; ἥτις ἐστὶν μήτηρ ἡμῶν, γεννῶσα εἰς ἣν ἐπηγγειλάμεθα ἁγίαν ἐκκλησίαν. the people whom God has prepared “in the Beloved”,¹⁷²¹⁷²Barn. 3. 6. etc. The creation of God, the Church, as it is of an antemundane and heavenly nature, will also attain its true existence only in the Æon of the future, the Æon of the Kingdom of Christ. The idea of a heavenly origin, and of a heavenly goal of the Church, was therefore an essential one, various and fluctuating as these speculations were. Accordingly, the exhortations, so far as they have in view the Church, are always dominated by the idea of the contrast of the kingdom of Christ with the kingdom of the world. On the other hand, he who communicated knowledge for the present time, prescribed rules of life, endeavoured to remove conflicts, did not appeal to the peculiar character of the Church. The mere fact, however, that from nearly the beginning of Christendom, there were reflections and speculations not only about God and Christ, but also about the Church, teaches us how profoundly the Christian consciousness was impressed with being a new people, viz., the people of God.¹⁷³¹⁷³We are also reminded here of the “tertium genus.” The nickname of the heathen corresponded to the self-consciousness of the Christians, (see Aristides, Apol.). These speculations of the earliest Gentile Christian time about Christ and the Church, as inseparable correlative ideas, are of the greatest importance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in them, but rather have their origin in the Apostolic tradition. But for that very reason the combination very soon, comparatively speaking, be-came obsolete or lost its power to influence. Even the Apologists made no use of it, though Clement of Alexandria and other Greeks held it fast, and the Gnostics by their Æon “Church” brought it into discredit. Augustine was the first to return to it.

The importance attached to morality is shewn in Didache 154cc. 1-6, with parallels.¹⁷⁴¹⁷⁴See also the letter of Pliny, the paragraphs about Christian morality in the first third-part of Justin’s apology, and especially the apology of Aristides, c. 15. Aristides portrays Christianity by portraying Christian morality. “The Christians know and believe in God, the creator of heaven and of earth, the God by whom all things consist, i.e., in him from whom they have received the commandments which they have written in their hearts, commandments which they observe in faith and in the expectation of the world to come. For this reason they do not commit adultery, nor practise unchastity, nor bear false witness, nor covet that with which they are entrusted, or what does not belong to them, etc.” Compare how in the Apocalypse of Peter definite penalties in hell are portrayed for the several forms of immorality. But this section and the statements so closely related to it in the pseudo-phocylidean poem which is probably of Christian origin, as well as in Sibyl, II. v. 56-148, which is likewise to be regarded as Christian, and in many other Gnomic paragraphs, shews at the same time, that in the memorable expression and summary statement of higher moral commandments, the Christian propaganda had been preceded by the Judaism of the Diaspora, and had entered into its labours. These statements are throughout de-pendent on the Old Testament wisdom, and have the closest relationship with the genuine Greek parts of the Alexandrian Canon, as well as with Philonic exhortations. Consequently, these moral rules, “the two ways,” so aptly compiled and filled with such an elevated spirit, represent the ripest fruit of Jewish as well as of Greek development. The Christian spirit found here a disposition which it could recognise as its own. It was of the utmost importance, however, that this disposition was already expressed in fixed forms suitable for didactic purposes. The young Christianity therewith received a gift of first importance. It was spared a labour in a region, the moral, which experience shews can only be performed in generations, viz., the creation of simple fixed impressive rules, the labour of the Catechist. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were not of themselves sufficient here. Those who in the second century attempted to rest in these alone, and turned aside from the Judheo-Greek inheritance, landed in Marcionite or Encratite doctrines.¹⁷⁵¹⁷⁵An investigation of the Græco-Jewish, Christian literature of gnomes and moral rules, commencing with the Old Testament doctrine of wisdom on the one hand, and the Stoic collections on the other, then passing beyond the Alexandrian and Evangelic gnomes up to the Didache, the Pauline tables of domestic duties, the Sibylline sayings, Phocylides, the Neopythagorean rules, and to the gnomes of the enigmatic Sextus, is still an unfulfilled task. The moral rules of the Pharisaic Rabbis should also be included. We can see, especially 155from the Apologies of Aristides (c. 15), Justin and Tatian (see also Lucian), that the earnest men of the Græco-Roman world were won by the morality and active love of the Christians.

§©2. The Foundations of the Faith.

The foundations of the faith—whose abridged form was, on the one hand, the confession of the one true God, μὸνος ἀληθινὸς,¹⁷⁶¹⁷⁶Herm. Mand. I. has merely fixed the Monotheistic confession: πρῶτον πάντων πίστευσον, ὅτι εἷς ἐστὶν ὁ θεὸς, ὁ τὰ πάντα κτίσας καὶ καταρτίσας, κ.τ.λ. See Praed. Petri in Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 48: VI. 5. 39: Aristides gives in c. 2. of his Apology the preaching of Jesus Christ: but where he wishes to give a short expression of Christianity he is satisfied with saying that Christians are those who have found the one true God. See, e. g., c. 15 “Christians have . . . . found the truth .... They know and believe in God, the creator of heaven and of earth, by whom all things consist, and from whom all things come, who has no other god beside him, and from whom they have received commandments which they have written in their hearts, commandments which they observe in faith and in expectation of the world to come.” It is interesting to note how Origen, Comm. in Joh. XXXII 9, has brought the Christological Confession into approximate harmony with that of Hermas First, Mand. I. is verbally repeated and then it is said: χρὴ δὲ καὶ πιστεύειν, ὅτι κύριος Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς καὶ πασῃ τῇ τερὶ αὐτοῦ κατὰ τὴν θεοτητα καὶ τὴν ἀνθρωπότητα· ἀληθείᾳ δεὶ δὲ καὶ εἰς τὸ ἅγιον πιστεύειν πνεῦμα, καὶ ὅτι αὐτεξούσιοι ὄντες κολαζόμεθα μὲν ἐφ᾽ οἷς ἁμαρτάνομεν, τιμώμεθα δὲ ἐφ᾽ οἷς εὖ πραττομεν. and of Jesus, the Lord, the Son of God, the Saviour,¹⁷⁷¹⁷⁷Very instructive here is 2 Clem. ad Corinth. 20. 5: τῷ μόνῳ θεῷ ἀοράτῳ, πατρὶ τῆς ἀληθείας, τῷ ἐξαποστείλαντι ἡμῖν τὸν σωτῆρα καὶ ἀρχηγὸν τῆς ἀφθαρσίας, δι᾽ οὗ καὶ ἐφανέρωσεν ἡμῖν τὴν ἀλήθειαν καὶ τὴν ἐπουράνιον ζωήν, αὐτῷ ἡ δόξα. On the Holy Spirit see previous note. and also of the Holy Spirit; and on the other hand, the confident hope of Christ’s kingdom and the resurrection—were laid on the Old Testament interpreted in a Christian sense together with the Apocalypses,¹⁷⁸¹⁷⁸They were quoted as ἡ γραφὴ, τὰ βιβλία, or with the formula ὁ θεὸς (κύριος) λέγει. Also “Law and Prophets,” “Law Prophets and Psalms.” See the original of the first six books of the Apostolic Constitutions. and the progressively enriched traditions about Jesus Christ. (ἡ παράδοσις— ὁ παραδοθεὶς λόγος— ὁ κανὼν τῆς ἀληθείας or τὴς παραδόσεως—ἡ πίστις— ὁ κανών τῆς πίστεως—156ὁ δοθεῖσα πίστις—τὸ κήρυγμα—τὰ διδὰγματα τοῦ χριστοῦ—ἡ διδαχὴ—τὰ μαθήματα, or τὸ μάθημα).¹⁷⁹¹⁷⁹See the collection of passages in Patr. App. Opp. edit. Gebhardt. I. 2 p. 133, and the formula, Diogn. 11: ἀποστόλων γένομενος μαθητὴς γὶνομαι διδάσκαλος εθνῶν, τὰ παραδοθέντα ἀξίως ὑπηρετῶν γινομένοις ἀληθείας μαθηταῖς. Besides the Old Testament and the traditions about Jesus (Gospels), the Apocalyptic writings of the Jews, which were regarded as writings of the Spirit, were also drawn upon. Moreover, Christian letters and manifestoes proceeding from Apostles, prophets, or teachers, were read. The Epistles of Paul were early collected and obtained wide circulation in the first half of the second century but they were not Holy Scripture in the specific sense, and therefore their authority was not unqualified. The Old Testament revelations and oracles were regarded as pointing to Christ; the Old Testament itself, the words of God spoken by the Prophets, as the primitive Gospel of salvation, having in view the new people, which is, however, the oldest, and belonging to it alone.¹⁸⁰¹⁸⁰Barn. 5. 6, οἱ προφηται, ἀπὸ τοῦ κύριου ἐχοντες τὴν χάριν, εἰς αὐτὸν ἑπροφήτευσαν. Ignat. ad Magn. 8. 2: cf. also Clem. Paedag. I. 7. 59: ὁ γὰρ αὐτὸς οὗτος παιδαγωγὸς τότε μὲν “φοβηθήση κύριον τὸν θεὸν ἔλεγεν, ἡμῖν δὲ “ὰγαπήσεις κύριον τὸν θεὸν σου” ταρῄνεσεν. διὰ τοῦτο καὶ ἐντέλλεται ἡμῖν “παύσασθε ἀπὸ τῶν ἔργων ὐμῶν” τῶν ταλαιῶν ἁμαρτιῶν, “μάθετε καλὸν ποιεῖν, ἔκκλινον ἀπὸ κακοῦ καὶ ποίησον ἀγαθόν, ἡγάπησας δικαιοσύνην, ἐμίσησας ἀνομίαν” αὕτη μου ἡ νέα διαθήκη παλαὶῷ κεχαραγμένη γράμματι. The exposition of the Old Testament, which, as a rule, was of course read in the Alexandrian Canon of the Bible, turned it into a Christian book. A historical view of it, which no born Jew could in some measure fail to take, did not come into fashion, and the freedom that was used in interpreting the Old Testament,—so far as there was a method, it was the Alexandrian Jewish—went the length of even correcting the letter and enriching the contents.¹⁸¹¹⁸¹See above §©5, p. 114 f.

The traditions concerning Christ on which the communities were based, were of a twofold character. First, there were words of the Lord, mostly ethical, but also of eschatological content, which were regarded as rules, though their expression was uncertain, ever changing, and only gradually assuming a fixed form. The διδάγματα τοῦ χριστοῦ are often just the moral commandments.¹⁸²¹⁸²See my edition of the Didache, Prolegg. p. 32 ff.; Rothe, “De disciplina arcani origine,” 1841. Second, the foundation of the faith, that is, the assurance of the blessing of salvation, was formed by a proclamation of the history of Jesus concisely expressed, and 157composed with reference to prophecy.¹⁸³¹⁸³The earliest example is 1. Cor. XI. 1 f. It is different in 1 Tim. III. 16 where already the question is about τὸ τῆς εὐσεβείας μυστήριον: See Patr. App. Opp. I. 2. p. 134. The confession of God the Father Almighty, of Christ as the Lord and Son of God, and of the Holy Spirit,¹⁸⁴¹⁸⁴Father, son, and spirit: Paul; Matt. XXVIII. 19; 1 Clem. ad. Cor. 58. 2, (see 2. 1. f.: 42. 3: 46. 6); Didache 7; Ignat. Eph. 9. 1; Magn. 13. 1. 2.; Philad. inscr.; Mart. Polyc. 14. I. 2; Ascens. Isai. 8. 18: 9. 27: 10. 4: 11. 32 ff.; Justin passim; Montan. ap. Didym. de trinit. 411; Excerpta ex Theodot. 80; Pseudo Clem. de virg. 1. 13. Yet the omission of the Holy Spirit is frequent, as in Paul; or the Holy Spirit is identified with the Spirit of Christ. The latter takes place even with such writers as are familiar with the baptismal formula, Ignat. ad Magn. 15; κεκτημένοι ἀδιάκριτον πνεῦμα, ὅς ἐστιν Ἰησοῦς Χριστὸς. was, at a very early period in the communities, united with the short proclamation of the history of Jesus, and at the same time, in certain cases, referred expressly to the revelation of God (the Spirit) through the prophets.¹⁸⁵¹⁸⁵The formulæ run: “God who has spoken through the Prophets,” or the “Prophetic Spirit,” etc. The confession thus conceived had not everywhere obtained a fixed definite expression in the first century (cc. 50-150). It would rather seem that, in most of the communities, there was no exact formulation beyond a confession of Father, Son and Spirit, accompanied in a free way by the historical proclamation.¹⁸⁶¹⁸⁶That should be assumed as certain in the case of the Egyptian Church, yet Caspari thinks he can shew that already Clement of Alexandria presupposes a symbol. It is highly probable, however, that a short confession was strictly formulated in the Roman community before the middle of the second century,¹⁸⁷¹⁸⁷Also in the communities of Asia Minor (Smyrna); for a combination of Polyc. Ep. c. 2 with c. 7, proves that in Smyrna the παραδοθεὶς λόγος must have been something like the Roman Symbol, see Lightfoot on the passage; it cannot be proved that it was identical with it. See, further, how in the case of Polycarp the moral element is joined on to the dogmatic. This reminds us of the Didache and has its parallel even in the first homily of Aphraates. expressing belief in the Father, Son and Spirit, embracing also the most important facts in the history of Jesus, and mentioning the Holy Church, as well as the two great blessings of Christianity, the forgiveness of sin, and the resurrection of the dead (ἄφεσις ἁμαρτιῶν, σαρκὸς¹⁸⁸¹⁸⁸See Caspari, Quellen z. Gesch. des Taufsymbols, III. p. 3. ff., and Patr. App. Opp. 1. 2. pp. 115-142. The old Roman Symbol reads: Πιστεύω εἰς θεὸν πατέρα παντοκράτορα καὶ εἰς Χριτὸν Ἰησοῦν (τὸν) ὑιὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῇ, (on this word see Westcott’s Excursus in his commentary on 1st John) τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν τὸν γεννηθέντα ἐκ πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆς παρθένου, τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντιον Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα; τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἐκ νεκρῶν, ἀναβάντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανούς, καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρός, ὅθεν ἔρχεται κρῖναι ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς· καὶ εἰς πνεῦμα ἅγιον, ἁγίαν ἐκκλισίαν, ἄφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν, ἀμήν. To estimate this very important article aright we must note the following: (1) It is not a formula of doctrine, but of confession. (2) It has a liturgical form which is shewn in the rhythm and in the disconnected succession of its several members, and is free from everything of the nature polemic. (3) It tapers off into the three blessings, Holy Church, forgiveness of sin, resurrection of the body, and in this as well as in the fact that there is no mention of γνῶσις (ἀλήθεια) καὶ ζωὴ αἰώνος, is revealed an early Christian untheological attitude. (4) It is worthy of note, on the other hand, that the birth from the Virgin occupies the first place, and all reference to the baptism of Jesus, also to the Davidic Sonship, is wanting. (5) It is further worthy of note, that there is no express mention of the death of Jesus, and that the Ascension already forms a special member (that is also found elsewhere, Ascens. Isaiah, c. 3. 13. ed. Dillmann. p. 13. Murator. Fragment, etc.). Finally, we should consider the want of the earthly Kingdom of Christ and the mission of the twelve Apostles, as well as, on the other hand, the purely religious attitude, no notice being taken of the new law. Zahn (Das Apostol. Symbolum, 1893) assumes, “That in all essential respects the identical baptismal confession which Justin learned in Ephesus about 130, and Marcion confessed in Rome about 145, originated at latest somewhere about 120”. In some “unpretending notes” (p. 37 ff.) he traces this confession back to a baptismal confession of the Pauline period (“it had already assumed a more or less stereotyped form in the earlier Apostolic period”), which, however, was somewhat revised, so far as it contained, for example, “of the house of David”, with reference to Christ. “The original formula, reminding us of the Jewish soil of Christianity, was thus remodelled, perhaps about 70-120, with retention of the fundamental features so that it might appear to answer better to the need of candidates for baptism, proceeding more and more from the Gentiles. . . . This changed formula soon spread on all sides. It lies at the basis of all the later baptismal confessions of the Church, even of the East. The first article was slightly changed in Rome about 200-220”. While up till then, in Rome as everywhere else, it had read πιστεύω εἰς ἕνα θεὸν παντοκράτορα, it was now changed in πιστεύω εἰς θεὸν πετέρα παντοκράτορα. This hypothesis, with regard to the early history of the Roman Symbol, presupposes that the history of the formation of the baptismal confession in the Church, in east and west, was originally a uniform one. This cannot be proved; besides, it is refuted by the facts of the following period. It presupposes secondly, that there was a strictly formulated baptismal confession outside Rome before the middle of the second century, which likewise cannot he proved; (the converse rather is probable, that the fixed formulation proceeded from Rome). Moreover, Zahn himself retracts everything again by the expression “more or less stereotyped form;” for what is of decisive interest here is the question, when and where the fixed sacred form was produced. Zahn here has set up the radical thesis that it can only have taken place in Rome between 200 and 220. But neither his negative nor his positive proof for a change of the Symbol in Rome at so late a period is sufficient. No sure conclusion as to the Symbol can be drawn from the wavering regulæ fidei of Irenæus and Tertullian, which contain the “unum”; further, the “unum” is not found in the western provincial Symbols, which, however, are in part earlier than the year 200. The Romish correction must therefore have been subsequently taken over in the provinces (Africa?). Finally, the formula θεὸν πάτερα παντοκράτορα beside the more frequent θεὸν παντοκράτορα, is attested by Irenæus, I. 10. 1, a decisive passage. With our present means we cannot attain to any direct knowledge of Symbol formation before the Romish Symbol. But the following hypotheses, which I am not able to establish here, appear to me to correspond to the facts of the case and to be fruitful: (1) There were, even in the earliest period, separate Kerygmata about God and Christ: see the Apostolic writings, Hermas, Ignatius, etc. (2) The Kerygma about God was the confession of the one God of creation, the almighty God. (3) The Kerygma about Christ had essentially the same historical contents everywhere, but was expressed in diverse forms: (a) in the form of the fulfilment of prophecy, (b) in the form κατὰ σάκρα, κατὰ πνεῦμα, (c) in the form of the first and second advent, (d) in the form, καταβάς-ἀναβάς; these forms were also partly combined. (4) The designations “Christ”, “Son of God” and “Lord”; further, the birth from the Holy Spirit, or κατὰ πνεῦμα, the sufferings (the practice of exorcism contributed also to the fixing and naturalising of the formula “crucified under Pontius Pilate”), the death, the resurrection, the coming again to judgment, formed the stereotyped content of the Kerygma about Jesus. The mention of the Davidic Sonship, of the Virgin Mary, of the baptism by John, of the third day, of the descent into Hades, of the demonstratio veræ carnis post resurrectionem , of the ascension into heaven and the sending out of the disciples, were additional articles which appeared here and there. The σάκρα λαβών, and the like, were very early developed out of the forms (b) and (d). All this was already in existence at the transition of the first century to the second. (5) The proper contribution of the Roman community consisted in this, that it inserted the Kerygma about God and that about Jesus into the baptismal formula; widened the clause referring to the Holy Spirit, into one embracing Holy Church, forgiveness of sin, resurrection of the body; excluded theological theories in other respects; undertook a reduction all round, and accurately defined everything up to the last world. (6) The western regulæ fide do not fall back exclusively on the old Roman Symbol, but also on the earlier freer Kerygmata about God and about Jesus which were common to the east and west; not otherwise can the regulæ fide of Irenæus and Tertullian, for example, be explained. But the symbol became more and more the support of the regula. (7) The eastern confessions (baptismal symbols) do not fall back directly on the Roman Symbol, but were probably on the model of this symbol, made up from the provincial Kerygmata, rich in contents and growing ever richer, hardly, however, before the third century. (8) It cannot be proved, and it is not probable, that the Roman Symbol was in existence before Hermas, that is, about 135.). But, however the proclamation might be handed 158down, in a form somehow fixed, or in a free form, the disciples of Jesus, the (twelve) Apostles, were regarded as the authorities who mediated and guaranteed it. To them was traced 159back in the same way everything that was narrated of the history of Jesus, and everything that was inculcated from his sayings.¹⁸⁹¹⁸⁹See the fragment in Euseb. H. E. III. 39, from the work of Papias. Consequently, it may be said, that beside the Old 160Testament, the chief court of appeal in the communities was formed by an aggregate of words and deeds of the Lord ;—for the history and the suffering of Jesus are his deed: ὁ Ἰησοῦς ὑπέμεινεν παθεῖν, κ.τ.λ.,—fixed in certain fundamental features, though constantly enriched, and traced back to apostolic testimony.¹⁹⁰¹⁹⁰Διδαχὴ κύριον διὰ τῶν ιβ᾽ ἀποστόλων (Διδ. inscr.) is the most accurate expression (similarly 2. Pet. III. 2). Instead of this might be said simply ὁ κύριος (Hegesipp.). Hegesippus (Euseb. H. E., IV. 22. 3: See also Steph. Gob.) comprehends the ultimate authorities under the formula: ὠς ὁ νομος κηρύσσει καὶ οἱ προφῆται καὶ ὁ κύριος; just as even Pseudo Clem. de Virg. I. 2: “Sicut ex lege ac prophetis et a domino nostro Jesu Christo didicimus.” Polycarp (6. 3) says: καθὼς αὐτὸς ἐνετείλατο καὶ οἱ εὐαγγελισάμενοι ἡμᾶς ἀπόστολοι καὶ οἱ προφῆται οἱ προκηρύξαντες τὴν ἔλευσιν τοῦ κυρίου ἡμῶν. In the second Epistle of Clement (14. 2) we read: τὰ βιβλία (O. T.) καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι; τὸ εὐαγγέλιον may also stand for ὁ κύριος (Ignat., Didache. 2 Clem. etc.). The Gospel, so far as it is described, is quoted as τὰ ἀπομνημονεύματα τ. ἀποστόλων (Justin, Tatian), or on the other hand, as αἱ κυριακαὶ γραφαί, (Dionys. Cor. in Euseb. H. E. IV. 23. 12: at a later period in Tertull. and Clem. Alex.). The words of the Lord, in the same way as the words of God, are called simply τά λόγια (κυριακά). The declaration of Serapion at the beginning of the third century (Euseb., H. E. VI. 12. 3): ἡμεῖς καὶ Πέτρον καὶ τοὺς ἄλλους ἀποστόλους ἀποδεχόμεθα ὡς Χριστόν, is an innovation in so far as it puts the words of the Apostles fixed in writing and as distinct from the words of the Lord, on a level with the latter. That is, while differentiating the one from the other, Serapion ascribes to the words of the apostles and those of the Lord equal authority. But the development which led to this position, had already begun in the first century. At a very early period there were read in the communities, beside the Old Testament, Gospels, that is collections of words of the Lord, which at the same time contained the main facts of the history of Jesus. Such notes were a necessity (Luke 1. 4: ἵνα ἐπιγνῶς περιὶ ὧν κατηχήθης λόγων τὴν ἀσφάλειαν), and though still indefinite and in many ways unlike, they formed the germ for the genesis of the New Testament. (See Weiss. Lehrb. d. Einleit in d. N. T. p. 21 ff.) Further, there were read Epistles and Manifestoes by apostles, prophets and teachers, but, above all, Epistles of Paul. The Gospels at first stood in no connection with these Epistles, however high they might be prized. But there did exist a connection between the Gospels and the ἀπ᾽ ἀρχῆς αὐτόπταις καὶ ὑπηρέταις τοῦ λόγου, so far as these mediated the tradition of the Evangelic material, and on their testimony rests the Kerygma of the Church about the Lord as the Teacher, the crucified and risen One. Here lies the germ for the genesis of a canon which will comprehend the Lord and the Apostles, and will also draw in the Pauline Epistles. Finally, Apocalypses were read as Holy Scriptures.

The authority which the Apostles in this way enjoyed, did not, in any great measure, rest on the remembrance of direct services which the twelve had rendered to the Gentile Churches: for, as the want of reliable concrete traditions proves, no such services had been rendered, at least not by the twelve. 161

On the contrary, there was a theory operative here regarding the special authority which the twelve enjoyed in the Church at Jerusalem, a theory which was spread by the early missionaries, including Paul, and sprang from the a priori consideration that the tradition about Christ, just because it grew up so quickly,¹⁹¹¹⁹¹Read, apart from all others, the canonical Gospels, the remains of the so-called Apocryphal Gospels, and perhaps the Shepherd of Hermas: see also the statements of Papias. must have been entrusted to eye-witnesses who were commissioned to proclaim the Gospel to the whole world, and who fulfilled that commission. The a priori character of this assumption is shewn by the fact that—with the exception of reminiscences of an activity of Peter and John among the ἔθνη, not sufficiently clear to us¹⁹²¹⁹²That Peter was in Antioch follows from Gal. II.; that he laboured in Corinth, perhaps before the composition of the first epistle to the Corinthians, is not so improbable as is usually maintained (1 Cor.; Dionys. of Corinth); that he was at Rome even is very credible. The sojourn of John in Asia Minor cannot, I think, be contested.—the twelve, as a rule, are regarded as a college, to which the mission and the tradition are traced back.¹⁹³¹⁹³See how in the three early “writings of Peter” (Gospel, Apocalypse, Kerygma) the twelve are embraced in a perfect unity. Peter is the head and spokesman for them all. That such a theory, based on a dogmatic construction of history, could have at all arisen, proves that either the Gentile Churches never had a living relation to the twelve, or that they had very soon lost it in the rapid disappearance of Jewish Christianity, while they had been referred to the twelve from the beginning. But even in the communities which Paul had founded and for a long time guided, the remembrance of the controversies of the Apostolic age must have been very soon effaced, and the vacuum thus produced filled by a theory which directly traced back the status quo of the Gentile Christian communities to a tradition of the twelve as its foundation. This fact is extremely paradoxical, and is not altogether explained by the assumptions that the Pauline-Judaistic controversy had not made a great impression on the Gentile Christians, that the way in which Paul, while fully recognising the twelve, had insisted on his own independent importance, had long ceased to be really understood, 162and that Peter and John had also really been missionaries to the Gentiles. The guarantee that was needed for the “teaching of the Lord” must finally be given not by Paul, but only by chosen eye-witnesses. The less that was known about them, the easier it was to claim them. The conviction as to the unanimity of the twelve, and as to their activity in founding the Gentile Churches, appeared in these Churches as early as the urgent need of protection against the serious consequences of unfettered religious enthusiasm and unrestrained religious fancy. This urgency cannot be dated too far back. In correspondence therewith, the principle of tradition in the Church (Christ, the twelve Apostles) in the case of those who were intent on the unity and completeness of Christendom, is also very old. But one passed logically from the Apostles to the disciples of the Apostles, “the Elders,” without at first claiming for them any other significance than that of reliable hearers (Apostoli et discentes ipsorum). In coming down to them, one here and there betook oneself again to real historical ground, disciples of Paul, of Peter, of John.¹⁹⁴¹⁹⁴See Papias and the Reliq. Presbyter. ap. Iren., collecta in Parr. Opp. I. 2, p. 105: see also Zahn, Forschungen. III., p. 156 f. Yet even here legends with a tendency speedily got mixed with facts, and because, in consequence of this theory of tradition, the Apostle Paul must needs fall into the background, his disciples also were more or less forgotten. The attempt which we have in the Pastoral Epistles remained without effect, as regards those to whom these epistles were addressed. Timothy and Titus obtained no authority outside these epistles. But so far as the epistles of Paul were collected, diffused, and read, there was created a complex of writings which at first stood beside the “Teaching of the Lord by the twelve Apostles”, without being connected with it, and only obtained such connection by the creation of the New Testament, that is, by the interpolation of the Acts of the Apostles, between Gospels and Epistles.¹⁹⁵¹⁹⁵The Gentile-Christian conception of the significance of the twelve—a fact to be specially noted—was all but unanimous (see above Chap. II.): the only one who broke through it was Marcion. The writers of Asia Minor, Rome and Egypt, coincide in this point. Beside the Acts of the Apostles, which is specially instructive see 1 Clem. 42; Barn. 5. 9. 8. 3: Didache inscr.; Hermas. Vis. III. 5, 11; Sim. IX. 15, 16, 17, 25; Petrusev-Petrusapok. Præd. Petr. ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48; Ignat. ad Trall. 3; ad Rom. 4; ad Philad. 5; Papias; Polyc.; Aristides; Justin passim; inferences from the great work of Irenæus, the works of Tertull. and Clem. Alex.; the Valentinians. The inference that follows from the eschatological hope, that the Gospel has already been preached to the world, and the growling need of having a tradition mediated by eye-witnesses co-operated here, and out of the twelve who were in great part obscure, but who had once been authoritative in Jerusalem and Palestine, and highly esteemed in the Christian Diaspora from the beginning, though unknown, created a court of appeal which presented itself as not only taking a second rank after the Lord himself, but as the medium through which alone the words of the Lord became the possession of Christendom, as he neither preached to the nations nor left writings. The importance of the twelve in the main body of the Church may at any rate be measured by the facts, that the personal activity of Jesus was confined to Palestine, that he left behind him neither a confession nor a doctrine, and that in this respect the tradition tolerated no more corrections. Attempts which were made in this direction, the fiction of a semi-Gentile origin of Christ, the denial of the Davidic Sonship, the invention of a correspondence between Jesus and Abgarus, meeting of Jesus with Greeks, and much else, belong only in part to the earliest period, and remained as really inoperative as they were uncertain (according to Clem. Alex., Jesus himself is the Apostle to the Jews; the twelve are the Apostles to the Gentiles in Euseb. H. E. VI. 14). The notion about the helve Apostles evangelising the world in accordance with the commission of Jesus, is consequently to be considered as the means by which the Gentile Christians got rid of the inconvenient fact of the merely local activity of Jesus. (Compare how Justin expresses himself about the Apostles: their going out into all the world is to him one of the main articles predicted in the Old Testament, Apol. 1. 39; compare also the Apology of Aristides, c. 2, and the passage of similar tenor in the Ascension of Isaiah, where the “adventus XII. discipulorum” is regarded as one of the fundamental facts of salvation, c. 3. 13, ed. Dillmann, p. 13, and a passage such as Iren. fragm. XXIX. in Harvey II., p. 494, where the parable about the grain of mustard seed is applied to the λόγος ἀπουράνιος, and the twelve Apostles; the Apostles are the branches ὑφ᾽ ὧν κλάδων σκεπασθέντες οἱ πάντες ὡς ὅρνεα ὑπὸ καλιὰν συνελθόντα μετέλαβον τῆς ἐξ αὐτῶν προερχομένης ἐδωδίμου καὶ ἐπουρανίου τροφῆς Hippol., de Antichr. 61. Orig c. Cels. III. 28.) This means, as it was empty of contents, was very soon to prove the very most convenient instrument for establishing ever new historical connections, and legitimising the status quo in the communities. Finally, the whole catholic idea of tradition was rooted in that statement which was already, at the close of the first century, formulated by Clement of Rome (c. 42): οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἡμῖν εὐηγγελίσθησαν ἀπὸ τοῦ κυρίου Ἰησοῦ Χριστοῦ, Ἰησοῦς ὁ χριστὸς ἀπρ τοῦ θεοῦ ἐξεπόμφθη. ὁ χριστὸς οὖν ἀπὸ τοῦ θεοῦ, καὶ οἱ ἀπόστολοι ἀπὸ τοῦ Χριστοῦ· ἐγένοντο οὖν ἀμφότερα εὐτάκτῶς ἐκ θελήματος θεοῦ κ.τ.λ. Here, as in all similar statements which elevate the Apostles into the history of revelation, the unanimity of all the Apostles is always presupposed, so that the statement of Clem. Alex. (Strom. VII., 17, 108: μία ἡ πάντων γέγονε τῶν ἀποστόλων ὥσπερ διδασκαλία οὕτως δὲ καὶ ἡ παράδοσις; see Tertull., de præscr. 32: “Apostoli non diversa inter se docuerent,” Iren. alii), contains no innovation, but gives expression to an old idea. That the twelve unitedly proclaimed one and the same message, that they proclaimed it to the world, that they were chosen to this vocation by Christ, that the communities possess the witness of the Apostles as their rule of conduct (Excerp. ex Theod. 25. ὥσπερ ὑπὸ τῶν ζωδίων ἡ γένεσις διοικεῖται, οὕτως ὐπὸ τῶν ἀποστόλων ἡ ἀναγέννησις are authoritative theses which can be traced back as far as we have any remains of Gentile-Christian literature. It was thereby presupposed that the unanimous kerygma of the twelve Apostles, which the communities possess as κανὼν τῆς παραδόσεως (1 Clem. 7), was public and accessible to all. Yet the idea does not seem to have been everywhere kept at a distance, that besides the kerygma a still deeper knowledge was transmitted by the Apostles, or by certain Apostles, to particular Christians who were specially gifted. Of course we have no direct evidence of this; but the connection in which certain Gnostic unions stood at the beginning with the communities developing themselves to Catholicism, and inferences from utterances of later writers (Clem. Alex. Tertull.), make it probable that this conception was present in the communities here and there even in the age of the so-called Apostolic Fathers. It may be definitely said that the peculiar idea of tradition (θεός—χριστος—οἱ δώδεκα ἀποστόλοι—ἐκκλησίαι) in the Gentile Churches is very old, but that it was still limited in its significance at the beginning, and was threatened (1) by a wider conception of the idea “Apostle” (besides, the fact is important, that Asia Minor and Rome were the very places where a stricter idea of “Apostle” made its appearance: See my Edition of the Didache, p. 117); (2) by free prophets and teachers moved by the Spirit, who introduced new conceptions and rules, and whose word was regarded as the word of God; (3) by the assumption, not always definitely rejected, that besides the public tradition of the kerygma there was a secret tradition. That Paul, as a rule, was not included in this high estimate of the Apostles is shewn by this fact, among others, that the earlier Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles are much less occupied with his person than with the rest of the Apostles. The features of the old legends which make the Apostles in their deeds, their fate, nay, even in appearance as far as possible equal to the person of Jesus himself, deserve special consideration, (see, for example, the descent of the Apostles into hell in Herm. Sim. IX. 16); for it is just here that the fact above established, that the activity of the Apostles was to make up for the want of the activity of Jesus himself among the nations, stands clearly out. (See Acta Johannis ed. Zahn, p. 246: ὁ ἐκλεξάμενος ἡμᾶς εἰς ἀποστολὴν ἐθνῶν, ὁ ἐκπέμψας ἡμας εἰς τὴν οἰκουμένην θεός, ὁ δειξας ἑαυτὸν διὰ τῶν ἀποςτολῶν, also the remarkable declaration of Origen about the Chronicle [Hadrian], that what holds good of Christ, is in that Chronicle transferred to Peter; finally we may recall to mind the visions in which an Apostolic suddenly appears as Christ.) Between the judgment of value: ἡμεῖς τούς ἀποστόλους ἀποδεχόμεθα ὡς Χριστὸν, and those creations of fancy in which the Apostles appear as gods and demigods, there is certainly a great interval; but it can be proved that there are stages lying between the extreme points. It is therefore permissible to call to mind here the oldest Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles, although they may have originated almost completely in Gnostic circles (see also the Pistis Sophia which brings a metaphysical theory to the establishment of the authority of the Apostles, p. 11, 14, see Texte u. Unters. VII. 2. p. 61 ff.). Gnosticism here, as frequently elsewhere, is related to common Christianity, as excess progressing to the invention of a myth with a tendency, to a historical theorem determined by the effort to maintain one’s own position, (cf. the article from the kerygma of Peter in Clem. Strom. VI. 6, 48: Ἐξελεξάμην ὑμᾶς δωδεκα μαθηπὰς, κ.τ.λ., the introduction to the basal writing of the first 6 books of the Apostolic Constitutions, and the introduction to the Egyptian ritual, κατὰ κέλευσίν τοῦ κυρίου ὑμῶν, κ.ὼ.λ.). Besides, it must be admitted that the origin of the idea of tradition and its connection with the twelve, is obscure: what is historically reliable here has still to be investigated; even the work of Seufert (Der Urspr. u. d. Bedeutung des Apostolats in der christl. Kirche der ersten zwei Jahrhunderte, 1887) has not cleared up the dark points. We will, perhaps, get more light by following the important hint given by Weizäcker (Apost. Age, p. 13 ff.) that Peter was the first witness of the resurrection, and was called such in the kerygma of the communities (see 1 Cor. XV. 5: Luke XXIV. 34). The twelve Apostles are also further called οἱ περὶ τὸν Πετρὸν (Mrc. fin. in L. Ign. ad Smyrn. 3; cf. Luke VIII. 45; Acts. II. 14; Gal. I. 18 f; 1 Cor. XV. 5), and it is a correct historical reminiscence when Chrysostom says (Hom. in Joh. 88), ὁ Πέτρος ἔκκριτος ἡν τῶν ἀποστόλων καὶ πτόμα τῶν μαθητῶν καὶ κορυφή τοῦ σόρου. Now, as Peter was really in personal relation with important Gentile-Christian communities, that which held good of him, the recognized head and spokesman of the twelve, was perhaps transferred to these. One has finally to remember that besides the appeal to the twelve there was in the Gentile Churches an appeal to Peter and Paul (but not for the evangelic kerygma), which has a certain historical justification; cf. Gal. II. 8; 1 Cor. I. 12 f., IX. 5; I Clem. Ign. ad Rom. 4, and the numerous later passages. Paul in claiming equality with Peter, though Peter was the head and mouth of the twelve and had himself been active in mission work, has perhaps contributed most towards spreading the authority of the twelve. It is notable how rarely we find any special appeal to John in the tradition of the main body of the Church. For the middle of the 2nd century, the authority of the twelve Apostles may be expressed in the following statements: (1) They were missionaries for the world; (2) They ruled the Church and established Church Offices; (3) They guaranteed the true doctrine, (a) by the tradition going back to them, (b) by writings; (4) They are the ideals of Christian life; (5) They are also directly mediators of salvation—though this point is uncertain.

163

§©3. The Main Articles of Christianity and the Conceptions of Salvation. Eschatology.

1. The main articles of Christianity were (1) belief in God the δεσπότης, and in the Son in virtue of proofs from prophecy, and the teaching of the Lord as attested by the Apostles; (2) discipline according to the standard of the words of the Lord; (3) baptism; 164(4) the common offering of prayer, culminating in the Lord’s Supper and the holy meal; (5) the sure hope of the nearness of Christ’s glorious kingdom. In these appears the unity of Christendom, that is, of the Church which possesses the Holy 165Spirit.¹⁹⁶¹⁹⁶See Διδαχὴ, c. 1-10, with parallel passages. On the basis of this unity Christian knowledge was free and manifold. It was distinguished as σοφία, σύνεσις, ἐπιστήμη, γνῶσις (τῶν δικαιωμάτων), from the λόγος θεοῦ τῆς πίστεως, 166and the κλῆσις τῆς ἐπαγγελίας, and the ἐντολαὶ τῆς διδαχῆς (Barn. 16, 9, similarly Hermas). Perception and knowledge of Divine things was a Charism, possessed only by individuals; but, like all Charisms, it was to be used for the good of the whole. In so far as every actual perception was a perception produced by the Spirit, it was regarded as important and indubitable truth, even though some Christians were unable to understand it. While attention was given to the firm inculcation and observance of the moral precepts of Christ, as well as to the awakening of sure faith in Christ, and while all waverings and differences were excluded in respect of these, there was absolutely no current doctrine of faith in the communities, in the sense of a completed theory; and the theological speculations of even closely related Christian writers of this epoch, exhibit, the greatest differences.¹⁹⁷¹⁹⁷Cf., for example, the first epistle of Clement to the Corinthians with the Shepherd of Hermas. Both documents originated in Rome. The productions of fancy, the terrible or consoling pictures of the future pass for sacred knowledge, just as much as intelligent and sober reflections, and edifying interpretation of Old Testament sayings. Even that which was afterwards separated as Dogmatic and Ethics was then in no way distinguished.¹⁹⁸¹⁹⁸Compare how dogmatic and ethical elements are inseparably united in the Shepherd, in first and second Clement, as well as in Polycarp and Justin. The communities gave expression in the cultus, chiefly in the hymns and prayers, to what they possessed in their God and their Christ; here sacred formulæ were fashioned and delivered to the members.¹⁹⁹¹⁹⁹Note the hymnal parts of the Revelation of John, the great prayer with which the first epistle of Clement closes, the “carmen dicere Christo quasi deo” reported by Pliny, the eucharist prayer in the Διδαχὴ, the hymn 1 Tim. III. 16, the fragments from the prayers which Justin quotes, and compare with these the declaration of the anonymous writer in Euseb. H. E. V. 28. 5, that the belief of the earliest Christians in the Deity of Christ might be proved from the old Christian hymns and odes. In the epistles of Ignatius the theology frequently consists of an aimless stringing together of articles manifestly originating in hymns and the cultus. The problem of surrendering the world in the hope of a life beyond was regarded as the practical side of the faith, and the unity in temper and disposition resting on faith in the saving revelation of God in Christ, permitted the highest degree 167of freedom in knowledge, the results of which were absolutely without control as soon as the preacher or the writer was recognised as a true teacher, that is inspired by the Spirit of God.²⁰⁰²⁰⁰The prophet and teacher express what the Spirit of God suggest to them. Their word is therefore God’s word, and their writings, in so far as they apply to the whole of Christendom, are inspired, holy writings. Further, not only does Acts XV. 22 f. exhibit the formula; ἔδοξεν τῷ πνεύματι τῷ ἀγίῳ καὶ ἡμῖν (see similar passages in the Acts), but the Roman writings also appeal to the Holy Spirit (1 Clem. 63. 2): likewise Barnabas, Ignatius, etc. Even in the controversy about the baptism of heretics a Bishop gave his vote with the formula “secundum motum animi mei et spiritus sancti” (Cypr. Opp. ed. Hartel. I. p. 457). There was also in wide circles a conviction that the Christian faith, after the night of error, included the full knowledge of everything worth knowing, that precisely in its most important articles it is accessible to men of every degree of culture, and that in it, in the now attained truth, is contained one of the most essential blessings of Christianity. When it is said in the Epistle of Barnabas (II. 2. 3); τῆς πίστεως ἡμῶν εἰσὶν βοηθοὶ φόβος καὶ ὑπομονή, τὰ δὲ συμμαχοῦντα ἡμῖν μακροθυμία καὶ ἐγκράτεια· τούτων μενόντων τὰ πρὸς κόριον ἁγνῶς, συνευφραίνονταί αὐτοῖς σοφία, σύνεσις, ἐπιστήμη, γνῶσις, knowledge appears in this classic formula to be an essential element in Christianity, conditioned by faith and the practical virtues, and dependent on them. Faith takes the lead, knowledge follows it: but of course in concrete cases it could not always be decided what was λόγος τῆς πίστεως, which implicitly contained the highest knowledge, and what the special γνώσις; for in the last resort the nature of the two was regarded as identical, both being represented as produced by the Spirit of God.

2. The conceptions of Christian salvation, or of redemption, were grouped around two ideas, which were themselves but loosely connected with each other, and of which the one influenced more the temper and the imagination, the other the intellectual faculty. On the one hand, salvation, in accordance with the earliest preaching, was regarded as the glorious kingdom which was soon to appear on earth with the visible return of Christ, which will bring the present course of the world to an end, and introduce for a definite series of centuries, before the final judgment, a new order of all things to the 168joy and blessedness of the saints.²⁰¹²⁰¹The so-called Chiliasm—the designation is unsuitable and misleading—is found wherever the Gospel is not yet Hellenised (see, for example, Barn. 4. 15; Hermas; 2 Clem.; Papias [Euseb. III. 39]; Διδαχὴ, 10. 16; Apoc. Petri; Justin, Dial. 32, 51, 80, 82, 110, 139; Cerinthus), and must be regarded as a main element of the Christian preaching (see my article “Millenium” in the Encycl. Brit.). In it lay not the least of the power of Christianity in the first century, and the means whereby it entered the Jewish propaganda in the Empire and surpassed it. The hopes springing out of Judaism were at first but little modified, that is, only so far as the substitution of the Christian communities for the nation of Israel made modification necessary. In all else, even the details of the Jewish hopes of the future were retained, and the extra-canonical Jewish Apocalypses (Esra, Enoch, Baruch, Moses, etc.) were diligently read alongside of Daniel. Their contents were in part joined on to sayings of Jesus, and they served as models for similar productions (here, therefore, an enduring connection with the Jewish religion is very plain). In the Christian hopes of the future, as in the Jewish eschatology, may be distinguished essential and accidental, fixed and fluid elements To the former belong (1) the notion of a final fearful conflict with the powers of the world which is just about to break out τὸ τέλειον σκάνδαλον ἤγγικεν, (2) belief in the speedy return of Christ, (3) the conviction that after conquering the secular power (this was variously conceived, as God’s Ministers, as “that which restrains”—2 Thess. II. 6, as a pure kingdom of Satan; see the various estimates in Justin, Melito, Irenæus and Hyppolytus), Christ will establish a glorious kingdom on the earth, and will raise the saints to share in that kingdom, and (4) that he will finally judge all men. To the fluid elements belong the notions of the Antichrist, or of the secular power culminating in the Antichrist, as well as notions about the place, the extent, and the duration of Christ’s glorious kingdom. But it is worthy of special note, that Justin regarded the belief that Christ will set up his kingdom in Jerusalem, and that it will endure for 1000 years, as a necessary element of orthodoxy, though he confesses he knew Christians who did not share this belief, while they did not, like the pseudo-Christians, reject also the resurrection of the body (the promise of Montanus that Christ’s kingdom would be let down at Pepuza and Tymion is a thing by itself, and answers to the other promises and pretensions of Montanus). The resurrection of the body is expressed in the Roman Symbol, while, very notably, the hope of Christ’s earthly kingdom is not there mentioned, (see above, p. 157). The great inheritance which the Gentile Christian communities received from Judaism, is the eschatological hopes, along with the Monotheism assured by revelation and belief in providence. The law as a national law was abolished. The Old Testament became a new book in the hands of the Gentile Christians. On the contrary, the eschatological hopes in all their details, and with all the deep shadows which they threw on the state and public life, were at first received, and maintained themselves in wide circles pretty much unchanged, and only succumbed in some of their details just as in Judaism—to the changes which resulted from the constant change of the political situation. But these hopes were also destined in great measure to pass away after the settlement of Christianity on Græco-Roman soil. We may set aside the fact that they did not occupy the foreground in Paul, for we do not know whether this was of importance for the period that followed. But that Christ would set up the kingdom in Jerusalem, and that it would be an earthly kingdom with sensuous enjoyments—these and other notions contend, on the one hand, with the vigorous antijudaism of the communities, and on the other, with the moralistic spiritualism, in the pure carrying out of which the Gentile Christians, in the East at least, increasingly recognised the essence of Christianity. Only the vigorous world-renouncing enthusiasm which did not permit the rise of moralistic spiritualism and mysticism, and the longing for a time of joy and dominion that was born of it, protected for a long time a series of ideas which corresponded to the spiritual disposition of the great multitude of converts, only at times of special oppression. Moreover, the Christians, in opposition to Judaism, were, as a rule, instructed to obey magistrates, whose establishment directly contradicted the judgment of the state contained in the Apocalypses. In such a conflict, however, that judgment necessarily conquers at last, which makes as little change as possible in the existing forms of life. A history of the gradual attenuation and subsidence of eschatological hopes in the II.-IV. centuries can only be written in fragments. They have rarely—at best, by fits and starts—marked out the course. On the contrary, if I may say so, they only gave the smoke: for the course was pointed out by the abiding elements of the Gospel, trust in God and the Lord Christ, the resolution to a holy life, and a firm bond of brotherhood. The quiet, gradual change in which the eschatological hopes passed away, fell into the background, or lost important parts, was, on the other hand, a result of deep-reaching changes in the faith and life of Christendom. Chiliasm as a power was broken up by speculative mysticism, and on that account very much later in the West than in the East. But speculative mysticism has its centre in christology. In the earliest period, this, as a theory, belonged more to the defence of religion than to religion itself. Ignatius alone was able to reflect on that transference of power from Christ which Paul had experienced. The disguises in which the apocalyptic eschatological prophecies were set forth, belonged in part to the form of this literature, (in so far as one could easily be given the lie if he became too plain, or in so far as the prophet really saw the future only in large outline), partly it had to be chosen in order not to give political offence. See Hippol., comm. in Daniel (Georgiades, p. 49, 51: νοεῖν ὀφείλομεν τὰ κατὰ καιρὸν συμβαίνοντα καὶ εἰδοτας σιωπᾶν); by above all, Constantine, orat. ad. s. cœtum 19, on some verses of Virgil which are interpreted in a Christian sense,” but that none of the rulers in the capital might be able to accuse their author of violating the laws of the state with his poetry, or of destroying the traditional ideas of the procedure about the gods, he concealed the truth under a veil.” That holds good also of the Apocalyptists and the poets of the Christian Sibylline sayings. In connection with this the hope of the resurrection of the body occupied the 169foreground.²⁰²²⁰²The hope of the resurrection of the body (1 Clem. 26. 3: ἀναστήσεις τὴν σάρκα μου ταύτην. Herm. Sim. V. 7. 2: βλέπε μήποτε ἀναβῇ ἐπὶ τὴν καρδίαν σου τὴν σάρκα σου ταύτην φθαρτὴν εἶναι. Barn. 5. 6 f.: 21. 1: 2 Clem. 1: καὶ μή λεγέτω τις ὑμῶν ὅτι αὕτη ἡ σὰρξ οὐ κρίνεται οὐδὲ ἀνίσταται. Polyc. Ep. 7. 2: Justin, Dial. 80 etc.,) finds its place originally in the hope of a share in the glorious kingdom of Christ. It therefore disappears or is modified wherever that hope itself falls into the background. But it finally asserted itself throughout and became of independent importance, in a new structure of eschatological expectations, in which it attained the significance of becoming the specific conviction of Christian faith. With the hope of the resurrection of the body was originally connected the hope of a happy life in easy blessedness, under green trees in magnificent fields with joyous feeding flocks, and flying angels clothed in white. One must read the Revelation of Peter, the Shepherd, or the Acts of Perpetua and Felicitas, in order to see how entirely the fancy of many Christians, and not merely of those who were uncultured, dwelt in a fairyland in which they caught sight now of the Ancient of Days, and now of the Youthful Shepherd, Christ. The most fearful delineations of the torments of Hell formed the reverse side to this. We now know, through the Apocalypse of Peter, how old these delineations are. On the other hand, salvation appeared to be given in the truth, that is, in the complete and certain knowledge of God, as contrasted with the error of heathendom and the night of sin, and this truth included the certainty of the gift 170of eternal life, and all conceivable spiritual blessings.²⁰³²⁰³The perfect knowledge of the truth and eternal life are connected in the closest way (see p. 144, note 1), because the Father of truth is also Prince of life (see Diognet. 12: οὐδὲ γάρ ξωὴ ἄνευ γνώσεως οὐδὲ γνῶσις ἀσφαλὴς ἄνευ ζωῆς ἀληθοῦς· διὸ πλησιον ἐκάτερον πεφύτευται, see also what follows). The classification is a Hellenic one, which has certainly penetrated also into Palestinian Jewish theology. It may be reckoned among the great intuitions, which in the fulness of the times, united the religious and reflective minds of all nations. The Pauline formula, “Where there is forgiveness of sin, there also is life and salvation”, had for centuries no distinct history. But the formula, “Where there is truth, perfect knowledge, there also is eternal life”, has had the richest history in Christendom from the beginning. Quite apart from John, it is older than the theology of the Apologists (see, for example, the Supper prayer in the Didache, 9. 10, where there is no mention of the forgiveness of sin, but thanks are given, ὑπὲρ τῆς γνώσεως καὶ πίστεως καὶ ἀθανασίας ἧς ἐγνώρισεν ἡμῖν ὁ θεὸς διὰ Ἰησοῦ, or ὑπὲρ τῆς ζωῆς καὶ γνώσεως, and 1 Clem. 36. 2: διὰ τούτο ἡθέλησεν ὁ δεσπότης τῆς ἀθανάτου γνώσεως ἡμᾶς γεύσασθαι). It is capable of a very manifold content, and has never made its way in the Church without reservations, but so far as it has we may speak of a hellenising of Christianity. This is shewn most clearly in the fact that the ἀθανασία, identical with ἀφθαρσία and ζωὴ αἰώνιος, as is proved by their being often interchanged, gradually supplanted the βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ (χριστοῦ) and thrust it out of the sphere of religious intuition and hope into that of religious speech. It should also be noted at the same time, that in the hope of eternal life which is bestowed with the knowledge of the truth, the resurrection of the body is by no means with certainty included. It is rather added to it (see above) from another series of ideas. Conversely, the words ζωὴν αἰώνιον were first added to the words σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν in the western Symbols at a comparatively late period, while in the prayers they are certainly very old. Of these the community, so far as it is a community of saints, that is, so far as it is ruled by the Spirit of God, already possesses forgiveness of sins and righteousness. But, as a rule, neither blessing was understood in a strictly religious sense, that is to say, the effect of their religious sense was narrowed. 171The moralistic view, in which eternal life is the wages and reward of a perfect moral life wrought out essentially by one’s own power, took the place of first importance at a very early period. On this view, according to which the righteousness of God is revealed in punishment and reward alike, the forgiveness of sin only meant a single remission of sin in connection with entrance into the Church by baptism,²⁰⁴²⁰⁴Even the assumption of such a remission is fundamentally in contradiction with moralism; but that solitary remission of sin was not called in question, was rather regarded as distinctive of the new religion, and was established by an appeal to the omnipotence and special goodness of God, which appears just in the calling of sinners. In this calling, grace as grace is exhausted (Barn. 5. 9; 2 Clem. 2. 4-7). But this grace itself seems to be annulled, inasmuch as the sins committed before baptism were regarded as having been committed in a state of ignorance (Tertull. de bapt. I.: delicta pristinæ cæcitatis), ou account of which it seemed worthy of God to forgive them, that is, to accept the repentance which followed on the ground of the new knowledge. So considered, everything, in point of fact, amounts to the gracious gift of knowledge, and the memory of the saying, “Jesus receiveth sinners”, is completely obscured. But the tradition of this saying and many like it, and above all, the religious instinct, where it was more powerfully stirred, did not permit a consistent development of that moralistic conception. See for this, Hermas. Sim. V. 7. 3: περὶ τῶν προτέρων ἀγνοημάτων τῷ θεῷ μονῷ δυνατὸν ἴασιν δοῦναι· αὐτοῦ γὰρ ἐστι πᾶσα ἐξουσία. Præd. Petri ap. Clem. Strom. VI. 6. 48: ὅσα ἐν ἀγνοίᾳ τις ὑμῶν ἐποίησεν μὴ εἐδὼς σαφῶς τὸν θεὸν, ἐὰν ἐπιγνοὺς μετανοήσῃ, τάντα αὐτῷ ἀφεθήσεται τὰ ἀμαρτήματα. Aristides, Apol. 17: “The Christians offer prayers (for the unconverted Greeks) that they may be converted from their error. But when one of them is converted he is ashamed before the Christians of the works which he has done. And he confesses to God, saying: ‘I have done these things in ignorance.’ And he cleanses his heart, and his sins are forgiven him, because he had done them in ignorance, in the earlier period when he mocked and jeered at the true knowledge of the Christians.” Exactly the same in Tertull. de pudic. 10. init. The statement of this same writer (1. c. fin), “Cessatio delicti radix est veniæ, ut venia sit pænitentiæ fructus”, is a pregnant expression of the conviction of the earliest Gentile Christians. and righteousness became identical with virtue. The idea is indeed still operative, especially in the oldest Gentile-Christian writings known to us, that sinlessness rests upon a new creation (regeneration) which is effected in baptism;²⁰⁵²⁰⁵This idea appears with special prominence in the Epistle of Barnabas (see 6. II. 14); the new formation (ἀναπλασσειν) results through the forgiveness of sin. In the moralistic view the forgiveness of sin is the result of the renewal that is spontaneously brought about on the ground of knowledge shewing itself in penitent feeling. but, so far as dissimilar eschatological hopes do not operate, it is everywhere in danger of being supplanted by the other idea, which maintains 172that there is no other blessing in the Gospel than the perfect truth and eternal life. All else is but a sum of obligations in which the Gospel is presented as a new law. The christianising of the Old Testament supported this conception. There was indeed an opinion that the Gospel, even so far as it is a law, comprehends a gift of salvation which is to be grasped by faith (νόμος ἄνευ ζυγοῦ ἀνάγκης,²⁰⁶²⁰⁶Barn. 2. 6, and my notes on the passage. νόμος τ. ἐλευθερίας,²⁰⁷²⁰⁷ James I. 25. Christ himself the law);²⁰⁸²⁰⁸ Hermas. Sim. VIII. 3. 2; Justin Dial. II. 43; Praed. Petri in Clem., Strom. I. 29. 182; II. 15. 68. but this notion, as it is obscure in itself, was also an uncertain one and was gradually lost. Further, by the “law” was frequently meant in the first place, not the law of love, but the commandments of ascetic holiness, or an explanation and a turn were given to the law of love, according to which it is to verify itself above all in asceticism.²⁰⁹²⁰⁹Didache, c I., and my notes on the passage (Prolegg. p. 45 f.).

The expression of the contents of the Gospel in the concepts ἐπαγγελία (ζωὴ αἰῴνιος) γνῶσις (ἀληθεία) νόμος (ἐγκρὰτέια), seemed quite as plain as it was exhaustive, and the importance of faith which was regarded as the basis of hope and knowledge and obedience in a holy life, was at the same time in every respect perceived.²¹⁰²¹⁰The concepts ἐπαγγελία, γνῶσις, νόμος, form the Triad on which the later catholic conception of Christianity is based, though it can he proved to have been in existence at an earlier period. That πίστις must everywhere take the lead was undoubted, though we must not think of the Pauline idea of πίστις. When the Apostolic Fathers reflect upon faith, which, however, happens only incidentally, they mean a holding for true of a sum of holy traditions, and obedience to them, along with the hope that their consoling contents will yet be fully revealed. But Ignatius speaks like a Christian who knows what he possesses in faith in Christ, that is, in confidence in him. In Barn. I.: Polyc. Ep. 2, we find “faith, hope love”; in Ignatius, “faith and love”. Tertullian, in an excellent exposition, has shewn how far patience is a temper corresponding to Christian faith (see besides the Epistle of James).

Supplement 1.—The moralistic view of sin, forgiveness of sin, and righteousness, in Clement, Barnabas, Polycarp and Ignatius, gives place to Pauline formulæ; but the uncertainty with which these are reproduced, shews that the Pauline idea 173has not been clearly seen.²¹¹²¹¹See Lipsius De Clementis. R. ep ad. Cor. priore disquis. 1855. It would be in point of method inadmissible to conclude from the fact that in 1 Clem. Pauline formulæ are relatively most faithfully produced, that Gentile Christianity generally understood Pauline theology at first, but gradually lost this understanding in the course of two generations. In Hermas, however, and in the second Epistle of Clement, the consciousness of being under grace, even after baptism, almost completely disappears behind the demand to fulfil the tasks which baptiser imposes.²¹²²¹²Formally: τηρήσατε τὴν σάρκα ἁγνὴν καὶ τὴν σφραγῖδα ἄσπιλον (2 Clem. 8. 6.) The idea that serious sins, in the case of the baptised, no longer should or can be forgiven, except under special circumstances, appears to have prevailed in wide circles, if not everywhere.²¹³²¹³Hermas (Mand. IV. 3) and Justin presuppose it. Hermas of course sought and found a way of meeting the results of that idea which were threatening the Church with decimation; but he did not question the idea itself. Because Christendom is a community of saints which has in its midst the sure salvation, all its members—this is the necessary inference—must lead a sinless life. It reveals the earnestness of those early Christians and their elevated sense of freedom and power; but it might be united either with the highest moral intensity, or with a lax judgment on the little sins of the day. The latter, in point of fact, threatened to become more and more the presupposition and result of that idea—for there exists here a fatal reciprocal action.

Supplement 2.—The realisation of salvation—as βασιλεία τοῦ θεοῦ and as ἀφθαρσία—being expected from the future, the whole present possession of salvation might be comprehended under the title of vocation (κλῆσις): see, for example, the second Epistle of Clement. In this sense gnosis itself was regarded as something only preparatory.

Supplement 3.—In some circles the Pauline formula about righteousness and salvation by faith alone, must, it would appear, not infrequently (as already in the Apostolic age itself) have been partly misconstrued, and partly taken advantage of as a cloak for laxity. Those who resisted such a disposition, and therefore also the formula in the post-Apostolic age, shew indeed by their opposition how little they have hit upon or understood the Pauline idea of faith: for they not only issued the watchword “faith and works” (though the Jewish ceremonial law was not thereby meant), but they admitted, and not only hypothetically, 174that one might have the true faith even though in his case that faith remained dead or united with immorality. See, above all, the Epistle of James and the Shepherd of Hermas; though the first Epistle of John comes also into consideration (III. 7: “He that doeth righteousness is righteous”).²¹⁴²¹⁴The formula, “righteousness by faith alone,” was really repressed in the second century; but it could not he entirely destroyed: see my Essay, “Gesch. d. Seligkeit allein durch den Glauben in der alten K.” Ztsch. f. Theol, u. Kirche. I. pp. 82-105.

Supplement 4.—However similar the eschatological expectations of the Jewish Apocalyptists and the Christians may seem, there is yet in one respect an important difference between them. The uncertainty about the final consummation was first set aside by the Gospel. It should be noted as highly characteristic of the Jewish hopes of the future, even of the most definite, how the beginning of the end, that is, the overthrow of the world-powers and the setting up of the earthly kingdom of God, was much more certainly expressed than the goal and the final end. Neither the general judgment, nor what we, according to Christian tradition, call heaven and hell, should be described as a sure possession of Jewish faith in the primitive Christian period. It is only in the Gospel of Christ, where everything is subordinated to the idea of a higher righteousness and the union of the individual with God, that the general judgment and the final condition after it are the clear, firmly grasped goal of all meditation. No doctrine has been more surely preserved in the convictions and preaching of believers in Christ than this. Fancy might roam ever so much and, under the direction of the tradition, thrust bright and precious images between the present condition and the final end, the main thing continued to be the great judgment of the world, and the certainty that the saints would go to God in heaven, the wicked to hell. But while the judgment, as a rule, was connected with the Person of Jesus himself (see the Romish Symbol: the words κριτὴς ζώντων καὶ νεκρῶν, were very frequently applied to Christ in the earliest writings), the moral condition of the individual, and the believing recognition of the Person of Christ were put in the closest relation. The Gentile Christians held firmly 175to this. Open the Shepherd, or the second Epistle of Clement, or any other early Christian writing, and you will find that the judgment, heaven and hell, are the decisive objects. But that shews that the moral character of Christianity as a religion is seen and adhered to. The fearful idea of hell, far from signifying a backward step in the history of the religious spirit, is rather a proof of its having rejected the morally indifferent point of view, and of its having become sovereign in union with the ethical spirit.

§©4. The Old Testament as Source of the Knowledge of Faith.²¹⁵²¹⁵The only thorough discussion of the use of the Old Testament by an Apostolic Father, and of its authority, that we possess, is Wrede’s “Untersuchungen zum 1 Clementsbrief” (1891). Excellent preliminary investigations, which, however, are not everywhere quite reliable, may be found in Hatch’s Essays in Biblical Greek, 1889. Hatch has taken up again the hypothesis of earlier scholars, that there were very probably in the first and second centuries systematised extracts from the Old Testament (see pp. 203-214). The hypothesis is not yet quite establised (see Wrede, above work, p. 65), but yet it is hardly to be rejected. The Jewish catechetical and missionary instruction in the Diaspora needed such collections, and their existence seem to be proved by the Christian Apologies and the Sybilline books.

The sayings of the Old Testament, the word of God, were believed to furnish inexhaustible material for deeper knowledge. The Christian prophets were nurtured on the Old Testament, the teachers gathered from it the revelation of the past, present and future (Barn. 1. 7), and were therefore able as prophets to edify the Churches; from it was further drawn the confirmation of the answers to all emergent questions, as one could always find in the Old Testament what he was in search of. The different writers laid the holy book under contribution in very much the same way; for they were all dominated by the presupposition that this book is a Christian book, and contains the explanations that are necessary for the occasion. There were several teachers,—e.g., Barnabas,—who at a very early period boasted of finding in it ideas of special profundity and value—these were always an expression of the difficulties that were being felt. The plain words of the Lord as generally known, did not seem sufficient 176to satisfy the craving for knowledge, or to solve the problems that were emerging;²¹⁶²¹⁶It is an extremely important fact that the words of the Lord were quoted and applied in their literal sense (that is chiefly for the statement of Christian morality) by Ecclesiastical authors, almost without exception. up to and inclusive of Justin. It was different with the theologians of the age, that is the Gnostics, and the Fathers from Irenæus. their origin and form also opposed difficulties at first to the attempt to obtain from them new disclosures by re-interpretation. But the Old Testament sayings and histories were in part unintelligible, or in their literal sense offensive; they were at the same time regarded as fundamental words of God. This furnished the conditions for turning them to account in the way we have stated. The following are the most important points of view under which the Old Testament was used. (1) The Monotheistic cosmology and view of nature were borrowed from it (see, for example, 1 Clem.). (2) It was used to prove that the appearance and entire history of Jesus had been foretold centuries, nay, thousands of years beforehand, and that the founding of a new people gathered out of all nations had been predicted and prepared for from the very beginning.²¹⁷²¹⁷Justin was not the first to do so, for it had already been done by the so-called Barnabas (see especially c. 13) and others. On the proofs from prophecy see my Texte und Unters. Bd. I. 3. pp. 56-74. The passage in the Praed. Petri (Clem. Strom. VI. 15. 128) is very complete: Ἡμεῖς ἀναπτίξαντες τὰς βίβλους ἃς εἴχομεν τῶν προφητῶν, ἃ μὲν διὰ παραβολῶν ἃ δὲ διὰ αἰνιγμάτων ἡ δὲ αὐθεντικῶ; καὶ αὐτολεξεί τὸν Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν ὀνομαζόντων, εὓρμεν καὶ τὴν παρουσίαν αὐτοῦ καὶ τὸν θανατον καὶ τὸν σταυρὸν καὶ τὰς λοιπάς κολάσεις πάσας, ὃσας ἐποίησαν αὐτῷ οἱ Ἰουδαῖοι, καὶ τὴν ἔγερσιν καὶ τὴν εἰς οὐρανοὺς ἀνάληψιν πρὸ τοῦ Ἱερσόλυμα κριθῆναι, καθὼς ἐγέγραπτο ταῦτα πάντα ἃ ἔδει αὐτὸν παθεῖν καὶ μετ᾽ αὐτὸν ἃ ἔσται· ταῠτα οὖν ἐπιγνόντες ἐπιστεύσαμεν τῷ θεῷ διὰ τῶν γεγραμμένων εἰς αὐτὸν. With the help of the Old Testament the teachers dated back the Christian religion to the beginning of the human race, and joined the preparations for the founding of the Christian community with the creation of the world. The Apologists were not the first to do so, for Barnabas and Hermas, and before these, Paul, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and others had already done the same. This was undoubtedly to the cultured classes one of the most impressive articles in the missionary preaching. The Christian religion in this way got a hold which the others—with the exception of the Jewish—lacked. But for that very reason, we must guard against turning it into a formula, that the Gentile Christians had comprehended the Old Testament essentially through the scheme of prediction and fulfilment. The Old Testament is certainly the book of predictions, but for that very reason the complete revelation of God which needs no additions and excludes subsequent changes. The historical fulfilment only proves to the world the truth of those revelations. Even the scheme of shadow and reality is yet entirely out of sight. In such circumstances the question necessarily arises, as to what independent meaning and significance Christ’s appearance could have, apart from that confirmation of the Old Testament. But, apart from the Gnostics, a surprisingly long time passed before this question was raised, that is to say, it was not raised till the time of Irenæus. (3) It was used as 177a means of verifying all principles and institutions of the Christian Church,—the spiritual worship of God without images, the abolition of all ceremonial legal precepts, baptism, etc. (4) The Old Testament was used for purposes of exhortation according to the formula a minori ad majus ; if God then punished and rewarded this or that in such a way, how much more may we expect, who now stand in the last days, and have received the κλῆσις τῆς ἐπαγγελίας. (5) It was proved from the Old Testament that the Jewish nation is in error, and either never had a covenant with God or has lost it, that it has a false apprehension of God’s revelations, and therefore has, now at least, no longer any claim to their possession. But beyond all this, (6) there were in the Old Testament books, above all, in the Prophets and in the Psalms, a great number of sayings—confessions of trust in God and of help received from God, of humility and holy courage, testimonies of a world-overcoming faith and words of comfort, love and communion—which were too exalted for any cavilling, and intelligible to every spiritually awakened mind. Out of this treasure which was handed down to the Greeks and Romans, the Church edified herself, and in the perception of its riches was largely rooted the conviction that the holy book must in every line contain the highest truth.

The point mentioned under (5) needs, however, further explanation. The self-consciousness of the Christian community of being the people of God, must have been, above all, expressed in its position towards Judaism, whose mere existence—even apart from actual assaults—threatened that consciousness most seriously. A certain antipathy of the Greeks and Romans towards Judaism co-operated here with a law of self-preservation. On all hands, therefore, Judaism as it then existed was abandoned as a sect judged and rejected by God, as a 178society of hypocrites,²¹⁸²¹⁸See Διδαχὴ, 8. as a synagogue of Satan,²¹⁹²¹⁹See the Revelation of John II. 9: III. 9; but see also the “Jews” in the Gospels of John and Peter. The latter exonerates Pilate almost completely, and makes the Jews and Herod responsible for the crucifixion. as a people seduced by an evil angel,²²⁰

History of Dogma - Volume I

CHAPTER III.