acter of a noble and sincere teacher of the truth. We are not to calumniate him, but only to pity those, who, in pursuance of a delusion which fate has brought upon them, worship him as God since his exaltation to heaven. From such fragments as remain of his work against Christianity, Porphyry seems to have made a special effort to invalidate the authority of Scripture, and to disparage the apostles as compared with their Master. He denied the genuineness of the Book of Daniel, emphasized the disagreement between Peter and Paul at Antioch as being contradictory to the authority of their teaching,1 alleged that the repudiation of sacrifices by Christians was out of harmony with their prescription in the Old Testament,2 and questioned whether the doctrine of eternal punishment could be reconciled with the rule of proportionate penalty which Christ himself enunciated. He also intimated that the late appearance of Christ in the history of the race agrees ill with the supposition of necessary dependence upon him for salvation.1 Hierocles, who wrote in the time of the Diocletian persecution, though assuming to deal with Christianity in a friendly and candid way, was less remote than Porphyry from the tactics of Celsus. As Lactantius represents, he ventured to assail Christ himself, as well as his followers, with odious accusations.5 1 Jerome, Epist., cxi. 6 (Migne). 2 Augustine, Epist., cii. 4 Ibid. Compare Jerome, Epist., cxxxiii. 6 Inst. Div., v. 2, 3. See also Euseb., Adv. Hieroclem. 8 Ibid. IV.-CHRISTIAN APOLOGY. The early Christians were ready to give a reason for their faith and their conduct. Celsus spoke slanderously when he said of them that they reprobated investigation, and cried only, "Believe!" A long list of apologists, held in honor by the Church, refutes the charge. A narrow-minded party may have depreciated any argumentative defence of Christianity; but those who embodied the enlightened sentiment of the Church were willing to take their cause before the bar of reason, and attest its divinity by argument, as well as by holy living and patient suffering. "The representatives of the new religion did not allow a single accusation, a single objection, to fall to the ground: they overcame pagan philosophy with its own weapons.' "1 Soon after the days of the apostles, apologetic treatises began to appear. Some of the earlier are known. only by reputation, or by brief citations. This is true of the apologies of Quadratus, Aristo, Miltiades, and Apollinaris of Hierapolis. The apology of Aristides was recently discovered in Syriac, and a large part of the Greek text identified. Of Melito's numerous writings little remains. The so-called apology which has been found under his name in a Syriac version appears not to have been the apology which is quoted by Eusebius, and indeed, according to the verdict of some of the most competent investigators, is not to be assigned to Melito at all. The anonymous epistle to Diognetus was probably one of the earliest specimens of the extant apologetic literature. Near the same time, appeared the 1 Pressensé. writings of Justin Martyr, defending Christianity before the bar both of heathenism and Judaism. Then followed, in the Greek Church, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen. In the Latin Church, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, Cyprian, and Arnobius were the most conspicuous in this order of writing. Lactantius was also a noted apologist; but, as a Christian writer, he belonged to the beginning of the next period. The apologists differed noticeably among themselves as respects their appreciation of heathen culture. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, Athenagoras, and Minucius Felix are examples of the most favorable estimate. Writers of this class conceived that the divine Word, the universal Reason, which appears full-orbed in the Christian revelation, has shed some rays of light into the souls of all men. Especially in the Greek philosophers they recognized men who had been enriched with genuine glimpses of spiritual truths. They were not unconscious of the mass of errors with which these germs of truth were mingled; still, they took pleasure in pointing out the instances in which philosophy appeared to coincide with Christianity. That the noblest sayings of the philosophers had a certain affinity with the Christian religion, was, in their view, a valuable evidence for the supreme reasonableness of that religion. As examples of a less favorable estimate of heathen culture, we have Tatian among the Greeks, and Tertullian among the Latins. The latter, with his strongly marked characteristics, might be regarded as the founder of a special type of apologetics. He, too, honored the reason in man, but his confidence was more in the unsophisticated reason than in the logic of the philosophers. The so-called philosophers were, in his view, rather patriarchs of heresy and falsehood than of the truth. Such true and valuable sayings as they may have uttered have come not so much from their professional speculation as from the reason native to men, and which even they have not always succeeded in repressing. Tertullian, nevertheless, was not so wholesale in his objections to the philosophers, but that he was ready to quote them when they appeared to be on his side of the question. Arnobius, also, was inclined to a very sharp criticism of heathenism, and sought rather to exhibit features calling for scorn and reproach than to find points of affiliation with Christianity. The worth of his apology, moreover, was impaired by an imperfect understanding of the Christian system. In some of its opinions, it is no exponent of the common thought of the early Church. As might be expected, the apologies of the early Church contain some very palpable defects. Most of them exhibit an excess of allegorical interpretation. Some of the apologists were betrayed into quoting from spurious sources. Thus, we find writers as eminent as Justin Martyr, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria, employing the Sibylline prophecies as though the celebrated oracle of the heathen world had voiced all these testimonies in behalf of theistic and Christian faith,1 1 The writings of Tertullian and Origen contain no instance of an attempt to support the Christian cause by quoting the prophecies of the Sibyl, and Minucius Felix and Cyprian do not so much as mention them. Eusebius indicates that their authority was questioned more or less, and apparently within Christian circles. (Compare Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xviii. 47; Cont. Faust., xiii. 2, 15; see, on the whole subject, whereas it is understood that the great body of these writings were from the hands of Jews and Christians. Of course, it is nothing against the honest intent of these apologists that they drew from such a source. Their fault was simply that of a somewhat incautious zeal in employing the materials that came to their hands. But, whatever defects they may have embraced, the early apologies were, on the whole, a noble defence and commendation of Christianity. Much that they contain is by no means obsolete. Clement of Alexandria gives statements on the limits of demonstration, J. H. Friedlieb, Die Sibyllinischen Weissagungen, introduction, followed by Greek text and German translation.) As examples of the Sibylline verses, we quote the following: "There is one only uncreated God, Who reigns alone, all-powerful, very great, "Blessed shall be those men upon earth (THEOPHILUS, Ad Autol., ii. 36.) Who shall love the great God before all else, — Beholding the great glory of one God." (JUSTIN MARTYR, Cohort. ad Græc., xvi.) "Prostrate on the ground Ephesus shall wail, weeping by the shore, And seeking a temple that has no longer an inhabitant. Isis, thrice-wretched goddess, thou shalt linger by the streams of the Nile; And thou, Serapis, covered with a heap of white stones, Shalt lie a huge ruin in thrice-wretched Egypt." (CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA, Cohort., iv.) Threats of judgment, like those quoted by Clement, are of frequent occurrence in the Sibylline books, the proud Roman capital itself not being spared. |