FIRST SECTION.

History of the Græco-Roman Church during the

Second and Third Centuries (A.D. 70-323).[18]

§ 20. CONTENT, DISTRIBUTION AND BOUNDARIES

OF THIS PERIOD.[19]

As the history of the beginnings of the church has been treated by

us under two divisions, so also the first period of the history of

its development may be similarly divided into the =Post-Apostolic Age=,

which reaches down to the middle of the second century, and the =Age

of the Old Catholic Church=, which ends with the establishment of the

church under and by Constantine, and at that point passes over into the

Age of the œcumenical Catholic or Byzantine-Roman Imperial Church.--As

the Post-Apostolic Age was occupied with an endeavour to appropriate

and possess in a fuller and more vigorous manner the saving truths

transmitted by the Apostles, and presents as the result of its struggles,

errors, and victories, the Old Catholic Church as a unity, firmly bound

from within, strictly free of all compulsion from without, so on the

basis thus gained, the Old Catholic Church goes forward to new conflicts,

failures, and successes, by means of which the foundations are laid for

the future perfecting of it through its establishment by the state into

the Œcumenical Catholic Imperial Church.[20]

§ 20.1. =The Post-Apostolic Age.=--The peril to which the church

was exposed from the introduction of Judaistic and Pagan elements

with her new converts was much more serious not only than the

Jewish spirit of persecution, crushed as it was into impotence

through the overthrow of Jewish national independence, but also

than the persecution of anti-Christian paganism which at this

time was only engaged upon sporadically. All the more threatening

was this peril from the peculiar position of the church during

this age. Since the removal of the personal guidance of the

Apostles that control was wanting which only at a subsequent

period was won again by the establishment of a New Testament

canon and the laying down of a normative rule of faith, as well

as by the formation of a hierarchical-episcopal constitution. In

all the conflicts, then, that occupied this age, the first and

main point was to guard the integrity and purity of traditional

Apostolic Christianity against the anti-Christian Jewish and

Pagan ideas which new converts endeavoured to import into it from

their earlier religious life. Those Judaic ideas thus imported

gave rise to Ebionism; those Pagan ideas gave rise to Gnosticism

(§§ 26-28). And just as the Pauline Gentile Christianity, in so

far as it was embraced under this period (§ 30, 2), secured the

victory over the moderate and non-heretical Jewish Christianity,

this latter became more and more assimilated to the former, and

gradually passed over into it (§ 28, 1). Add to this the need,

ever more pressingly felt, of a sifting of the not yet uniformly

recognised early Christian literature that had passed into

ecclesiastical use (§ 36, 7, 8) by means of the establishment

of a New Testament =canon=; that is, the need of a collection of

writings admitted to be of Apostolic origin to occupy henceforth

the first rank as a standard and foundation for the purposes of

teaching and worship, and to form a bulwark against the flood

of heretical and non-heretical =Pseudepigraphs= that menaced the

purity of doctrine (§ 32). Further, the no less pressing need for

the construction of a universally valid =rule of faith= (§ 35, 2),

as an intellectual bond of union and mark of recognition for

all churches and believers scattered over the earth’s surface.

Then again, in the victory that was being secured by Episcopacy

over Presbyterianism, and in the introduction of a Synodal

constitution for counsel and resolution, the first stage

in the formation of a hierarchical organization was reached

(§ 34). Finally, the last dissolving action of this age was the

suppression of the fanatical prophetic and fanatical rigorist

spirit, which, reaching its climax in =Montanism=, directed

itself mainly against the tendency already appearing on many

sides to tone down the unflinching severity of ecclesiastical

discipline, to make modifications in constitution, life and

conversation in accordance with the social customs of the world,

and to settle down through disregard of the speedy return of

the Lord, so confidently expected by the early Christians, into

an easy satisfaction in the enjoyment of earthly possessions

(§ 40, 5).

§ 20.2. =The Age of the Old Catholic Church.=--The designation

of the universal Christian church as Catholic dates from the time

of Irenæus, that is, from the beginning of this second part of

our first period. This name characterizes the church as the one

universally (καθ’ ὅλου) spread and recognised from the time of

the Apostles, and so stigmatizes every opposition to the one

church that alone stands on the sure foundation of holy scripture

and pure apostolic tradition, as belonging to the manifold

particularistic heretical and schismatical sects. The church

of this particular age, however, has been designated the Old

Catholic Church as distinguished from the œcumenical Catholic

church of the following period, as well as from the Roman

Catholic and Greek Catholic churches, into which afterwards the

œcumenical Catholic church was divided.

At the beginning of this age, the heretical as well as the

non-heretical Ebionism may be regarded as virtually suppressed,

although some scanty remnants of it might yet be found. The most

brilliant period of Gnosticism, too, when the most serious danger

from Paganism within the Christian pale in the form of Hellenic

and Syro-Chaldaic Theosophy and Mysteriosophy threatened the

church, was already past. But in Manichæism (§ 29) there appeared,

during the second half of the third century, a new peril of a

no less threatening kind, inspired by Parseeism and Buddhism,

which, however, the church on the ground of the solid foundations

already laid was able to resist with powerful weapons. On the

other hand the Pagan element within the church asserted itself

more and more decidedly (§ 39, 6) by means of the intrusion of

magico-theurgical superstition into the catholic doctrine of

the efficacy of the church sacraments and sacramental acts

(§ 58). But now also, with Marcus Aurelius, Paganism outside

of Christianity as embodied in the Roman state, begins the

war of extermination against the church that was ever more and

more extending her boundaries. Such manifestation of hostility,

however, was not able to subdue the church, but rather led, under

and through Constantine the Great, to the Christianizing of the

state and the establishment of the church. During the same time

the episcopal and synodal-hierarchical organization of the church

was more fully developed by the introduction of an order of

Metropolitans, and then in the following period it reached its

climax in the oligarchical Pentarchy of Patriarchs (§ 46, 1),

and in the institution of œcumenical Synods (§ 43, 2). By the

condemnation and expulsion of Montanism, in which the inner

development of the Post-Apostolic Age reached its special and

distinctive conclusion, the endeavour to naturalize Christianity

among the social customs of the worldly life was certainly

legitimized by the church, and could now be unrestrictedly

carried out in a wider and more comprehensive way. In the

Trinitarian controversies, too, in which several prominent

theologians engaged, the first step was taken in that

œcumenical-ecclesiastical elaboration of doctrine which occupied

and dominated the whole of the following period (§§ 49-52).

§ 20.3. =The Point of Transition from the One Age to the Other=

may unhesitatingly be set down at A.D. 170. The following are the

most important data in regard thereto. The death about A.D. 165

of Justin Martyr, who marks the highest point reached in the

Post-Apostolic Age, and forms also the transition to the Old

Catholic Age; and Irenæus, flourishing somewhere about A.D. 170,

who was the real inaugurator of this latter age. Besides these

we come upon the beginnings of the Trinitarian controversies

about the year 170. Finally, the rejection of Montanism from the

universal Catholic church was effected about the year 170 by means

of the Synodal institution called into existence for that very

purpose.

I. THE RELATIONSHIP OF EXTRA-CHRISTIAN PAGANISM AND

JUDAISM TO THE CHURCH.[21]

§ 21. THE SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.

Amid all the persecutions which the church during this period had to

suffer it spread with rapid strides throughout the whole Roman empire,

and even far beyond its limits. Edessa, the capital of the kingdom of

Osrhoëne in Mesopotamia, had, as early as A.D. 170, a Christian prince,

named =Abgar Bar Maanu=, whose coins were the first to bear the sign

of the cross. We find Christianity gaining a footing contemporaneously

in Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia. In the third century we find

traces of its presence in Armenia. Paul himself made his way into

Arabia (Gal. i. 17). In the third century Origen received an invitation

from a ἡγούμενος τῆς Ἀραβίας, who wished to receive information about

Christianity. At another time he accepted a call from that country in

order to settle an ecclesiastical dispute (§ 33, 6). From Alexandria,

where Mark had exercised his ministry, the Christian faith spread out

into other portions of Africa, into Cyrene and among the Coptic races,

neighbouring upon the Egyptians properly so-called. The church of

proconsular Africa, with Carthage for its capital, stood in close

connection with Rome. Mauretania and Numidia had, even in the third

century, so many churches, that Cyprian could bring together at Carthage

a Synod of eighty-seven bishops. In Gaul there were several flourishing

churches composed of colonies and teachers from Asia Minor, such as

the churches of Lyons, Vienne, etc. At a later period seven missionary

teachers of the Christian faith came out of Italy into Gaul, among whom

was Dionysius, known as St. Denis, the founder of the church at Paris.

The Roman colonies in the provinces of the Rhine and the Danube had

several flourishing congregations as early as the third century.

The emptiness and corruption of paganism was the negative, the divine

power of the gospel was the positive, means of this wonderful extension.

This divine power was manifested in the zeal and self-denial of

Christian teachers and missionaries (§ 34, 1), in the life and

walk of Christians, in the brotherly love which they showed, in

the steadfastness and confidence of their faith, and above all in

the joyfulness with which they met the cruellest of deaths by martyrdom.

The blood of the martyrs was the seed of the church, and it was not

an unheard-of circumstance that the executioners of those Christian

witnesses became their successors in the noble army of confessors.

§ 22. PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHRISTIANS IN THE

ROMAN EMPIRE.[22]

The Law of the Twelve Tables had already forbidden the exercise

of foreign modes of worship within the Roman empire (_Religiones

peregrinæ_, _Collegia illicita_), for religion was exclusively an affair

of the state and entered most intimately into all civil and municipal

relations, and on this account whatever endangered the national religion

was regarded as necessarily imperilling the state itself. Political

considerations, however, led to the granting to conquered nations

the free use of their own forms of worship. This concession did not

materially help Christianity after it had ceased, in the time of Nero,

to be regularly confounded by the Roman authorities with Judaism,

as had been the case in the time of Claudius, and Judaism, after

the destruction of Jerusalem, had been sharply distinguished from

it. It publicly proclaimed its intention to completely dislodge all

other religions, and the rapidity with which it spread showed how

energetically its intentions were carried out. The close fellowship

and brotherliness that prevailed among Christians, as well as their

exclusive, and during times of persecution even secret assemblies,

aroused the suspicion that they had political tendencies. Their

withdrawal from civil and military services on account of the pagan

ceremonies connected with them, especially their refusal to burn incense

before the statues of the emperor, also the steadfastness of their

faith, which was proof against all violence and persuasion alike, their

retiredness from the world, etc., were regarded as evidence of their

indifference or hostility to the general well-being of the state, as

invincible stiff-neckedness, as contumacy, sedition, and high treason.

The heathen populace saw in the Christians the sacrilegious enemies and

despisers of their gods; and the Christian religion, which was without

temples, altars and sacrifices, seemed to them pure Atheism. The most

horrible calumnies, that in their assemblies (_Agapæ_) the vilest

immoralities were practised (_Concubitus Œdipodei_), children slain

and human flesh eaten (_Epulæ Thyesteæ_, comp. § 36, 5), were readily

believed. All public misfortunes were thus attributed to the wrath

of the gods against the Christians, who treated them with contempt.

_Non pluit Deus, duc ad Christianos!_ The heathen priests also, the

temple servants and the image makers were always ready in their own

common interests to stir up the suspicions of the people. Under such

circumstances it is not to be wondered at that the fire of persecution

on the part of the heathen people and the heathen state continued to

rage for centuries.

§ 22.1. =Claudius, Nero and Domitian.=--Regarding the Emperor

=Tiberius= (A.D. 14-37), we meet in Tertullian with the

undoubtedly baseless tradition, that, impressed by the story

told him by Pilate, he proposed to the Senate to introduce Christ

among the gods, and on the rejection of this proposal, threatened

the accusers of the Christians with punishment. The statement

in Acts xviii. 2, that the Emperor =Claudius= (A.D. 41-54)

expelled from Rome all Jews and with them many Christians also,

is illustrated in a very circumstantial manner by Suetonius:

_Claudius Judæos impulsore Chresto assidue tumultuantes Roma

expulit_. The tumults, therefore, between the Jews and the

Christians, occurring about the year 51 or 52, gave occasion to

this decree. The first persecution of the Christians proceeding

from a Roman ruler which was directed against the Christians as

such, was carried out by the Emperor =Nero= (A.D. 54-68) in the

year 64, in consequence of a nine days’ conflagration in Rome,

the origin of which was commonly ascribed by the people to the

Emperor himself. Nero, however, laid the blame upon the hated

Christians, and perpetrated upon them the most ingeniously

devised cruelties. Sewn up in skins of wild animals they were

cast out to be devoured of dogs; others were crucified, or wrapt

in tow and besmeared with pitch, they were fixed upon sharp

spikes in the imperial gardens where the people gathered to

behold gorgeous spectacles, and set on fire to lighten up

the night (Tac., _Ann._, xv. 44). After the death of Nero the

legend spread among the Christians, that he was not dead but had

withdrawn beyond the Euphrates, soon to return as Antichrist.

Nero’s persecution seems to have been limited to Rome, and to

have ended with his death.--It was under =Domitian= (A.D. 81-96)

that individual Christians were for the first time subjected

to confiscation of goods and banishment for godlessness or the

refusal to conform to the national religion. Probably also, the

execution of his own cousin, the Consul Flavius Clemens [Clement],

on account of his ἀθεότης and his ἐξοκέλλειν εἰς τὰ τῶν Ἰουδαίων

ἔθη (Dio Cass., lxvii. 14), as well as the banishment of Clemens’

[Clement’s] wife, Flavia Domitilla (A.D. 93), was really on

account of their attachment to the Christian faith (§ 30, 3). The

latter at least is proved by two inscriptions in the catacombs to

have been undoubtedly a Christian. Domitian insisted upon having

information as to the political significance of the kingdom of

Christ, and brought from Palestine to Rome two relatives of Jesus,

grandsons of Jude, the brother of the Lord, but their hands horny

with labour satisfied him that his suspicions had been unfounded.

The philanthropic Emperor =Nerva= (A.D. 96-98) recalled the

exiles and did not listen to those who clamoured bitterly against

the Christians, but Christianity continued after as well as

before a _Religo illicita_, or rather was now reckoned such,

after it had been more distinctly separated from Judaism.[23]

§ 22.2. =Trajan and Hadrian.=--With =Trajan= (A.D. 98-117),

whom historians rightly describe as a just, earnest, and mild

ruler, the persecutions of the Christians enter upon a new

stage. He renewed the old strict prohibition of secret societies,

_hetæræ_, which could easily be made to apply to the Christians.

In consequence of this law the younger Pliny, as Governor

of Bithynia, punished with death those who were accused as

Christians, if they would not abjure Christianity. But his

doubts being awakened by the great number of every rank and age

and of both sexes against whom accusations were brought, and in

consequence of a careful examination, which showed the Christians

to be morally pure and politically undeserving of suspicion and

to be guilty only of stubborn attachment to their superstition,

he asked definite instructions from the Emperor. Trajan approved

of what he had done and what he proposed; the Christians were

not to be sought after and anonymous accusations were not to

be regarded, but those formally complained of and convicted, if

they stubbornly refused to sacrifice to the gods and burn incense

before the statues of the Emperor were to be punished with death

(A.D. 112). This imperial rescript continued for a long time

the legal standard for judicial procedure with reference to the

Christians. The persecution under Trajan extended even to Syria

and Palestine. In Jerusalem the aged bishop Simeon, the successor

of James, accused as a Christian and a descendant of David, after

being cruelly scourged, died a martyr’s death on the cross in

A.D. 107. The martyrdom, too, of the Antiochean bishop, Ignatius,

in all probability took place during the reign of Trajan (§ 30, 5).

An edict of toleration supposed to have been issued at a later

period by Trajan, a copy of which exists in Syriac and Armenian,

is now proved to be apocryphal.--During the reign of =Hadrian=

(A.D. 117-138), the people began to carry out in a tumultuous

way the execution of the Christians on the occasion of the

heathen festivals. On the representation of the proconsul of Asia,

Serenius Granianus, Hadrian issued a rescript addressed to his

successor, Minucius Fundanus, against such acts of violence, but

executions still continued carried out according to the forms of

law. The genuineness of the rescript, however, as given at the

close of the first Apology of Justin Martyr, has been recently

disputed by many. In Rome itself, between A.D. 135 and A.D. 137,

bishop Telesphorus, with many other Christians, fell as victims

of the persecution. The tradition of the fourth century, that

Hadrian wished to build a temple to Christ, is utterly without

historical foundation. His unfavourable disposition toward the

Christians clearly appears from this, that he caused a temple of

Venus to be built upon the spot where Christ was crucified, and a

statue of Jupiter to be erected on the rock of the sepulchre, in

order to pollute those places which Christians held most sacred.

§ 22.3. =Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius.=--Under =Antoninus

Pius= (A.D.138-161), the tumultuous charges of the people against

the Christians, on account of visitations of pestilence in many

places, were renewed, but the mildly disposed emperor sought to

protect them as much as possible from violence. The rescript,

however, _Ad Commune Asiæ_, which bears his name is very probably

of Christian authorship.--The persecutions again took a new turn

under =Marcus Aurelius= (A.D. 161-180) who was, both as a man and

a ruler, one of the noblest figures of antiquity. In the pride

of his stoical wisdom, however, despising utterly the enthusiasm

of the Christians, he not only allowed free scope to the popular

hatred, but also introduced the system of espionage, giving to

informers the confiscated property of the Christians, and even

permitting the use of torture, in order to compel them to recant,

and thus gave occasion to unexampled triumphs of Christian

heroism. At Rome, the noble Apologist Justin Martyr, denounced

by his opponent the philosopher Crescens, after cruel and bloody

scourging, died under the executioner’s axe about A.D. 165

(§ 30, 9).--In regard to a very severe persecution endured by

the church of Smyrna, we possess an original report of it sent

from that church to one closely related to it, embellished

with legendary details or interpolated, which Eusebius has

incorporated in his Church History. The substance of it is a

description of the glorious martyr death of their aged bishop

Polycarp (§ 30, 6), who, because he refused to curse the Lord

whom he had served for eighty-six years, was made to mount the

funeral pile, and while rejoicing in the midst of the flames,

received the crown of martyrdom. According to the story the

flames gathered around him like a wind-filled sail, and when a

soldier pierced him with his sword, suddenly a white dove flew

up; moreover the glorified spirit also appeared to a member of

the church in a vision, clothed in a white garment. Eusebius

places the date of Polycarp’s death shortly before A.D. 166.

But since it has been shown by Waddington, on the basis of

an examination of recently discovered inscriptions, that the

proconsul of Asia, Statius Quadratus, mentioned in the report

of the church of Smyrna, did not hold that office in A.D. 166,

but in A.D. 155-156, the most important authorities have come to

regard either A.D. 155 or A.D. 156 as the date of his martyrdom.

Still some whose opinions are worthy of respect refuse to

accept this view, pointing out the absence of that chronological

statement from the report in Eusebius and to its irreconcilability

with the otherwise well-supported facts, that Polycarp was on

a visit to Rome in A.D. 155 (§ 37, 2), and that the reckoning

of the day of his death in the report as ὄντος σαββάτου μεγάλου

would suit indeed the Easter of A.D. 155, as well as that of

A.D. 166, but not that of A.D. 156. [24] The legend of the _Legio

fulminatrix_, that in the war against the Marcomanni in A.D. 174

the prayers of the Christian soldiers of this legion called forth

rain and thunder, and thus saved the Emperor and his army from

the danger of perishing by thirst, whereupon this modified law

against the accusers of the Christians was issued, has, so far

as the first part is concerned, its foundation in history, only

that the heathen on the other hand ascribed the miracle to their

prayer to _Jupiter Pluvius_. [25]--Regarding the persecution

at Lyons and Vienne in A.D. 177, we also possess a contemporary

report from the Christian church of these places (§ 32, 8).

Bishop Pothinus, in his ninetieth year, sank under the effects

of tortures continued during many days in a loathsome prison.

The young and tender slave-girl Blandina was scourged, her

body scorched upon a red-hot iron chair, her limbs torn by wild

beasts and at last her life taken; but under all her tortures she

continued to repeat her joyful confession: “I am a Christian and

nothing wicked is tolerated among us.” Under similar agonies the

boy Ponticus, in his fifteenth year, showed similar heroism. The

dead bodies of the martyrs were laid in heaps upon the streets,

until at last they were burnt and their ashes strewn upon the

Rhone. =Commodus= (A.D. 180-192), the son of Marcus Aurelius, who

in every other respect was utterly disreputable, influenced by

his mistress Marcia, showed himself inclined, by the exercise

of his clemency, to remit the sentences of the Christians. The

persecution at Scillita in North Africa, during the first year

of the reign of Commodus, in which the martyr Speratus suffered,

together with eleven companions, was carried out in accordance

with the edict of Marcus Aurelius.

§ 22.4. =Septimius Severus and Maximinus Thrax.=--=Septimius

Severus= (A.D. 193-211), whom a Christian slave, Proculus,

had healed of a sickness by anointing with oil, was at first

decidedly favourable to the Christians. Even in A.D. 197, after

his triumphal entrance into Rome, he took them under his personal

protection when the popular clamour, which such a celebration

was fitted to excite, was raised against them. The judicial

persecution, too, which some years later, A.D. 200, his deputy

in North Africa carried on against the Christians on the basis

of existing laws because they refused to sacrifice to the genius

of the Emperor, he may not have been able to prevent. On the

other hand, he did himself, in A.D. 202, issue an edict which

forbade conversions to Judaism and Christianity. The storm of

persecution thereby excited was directed therefore first of all

and especially against the catechumens and the neophytes, but

frequently also, overstepping the letter of the edict, it was

turned against the older Christians. The persecution seems

to have been limited to Egypt and North Africa. At Alexandria

Leonidas, the father of Origen, was beheaded. The female slave,

Potamiæna, celebrated as much for her moral purity as for her

beauty, was accused by her master, whose evil passions she had

refused to gratify, as a Christian, and was given over to the

gladiators to be abused. She succeeded, however, in defending

herself from pollution, and was then, along with her mother

Marcella, slowly dipped into boiling pitch. The soldier,

Basilides by name, who should have executed the sentence himself

embraced Christianity, and was beheaded. The persecution raged

with equal violence and cruelty in Carthage. A young woman of

a noble family, Perpetua, in her twenty-second year, in spite

of imprisonment and torture, and though the infant in her arms

and her weeping pagan father appealed to her heart’s affections,

continued true to her faith, and was thrown to be tossed on the

horns of a wild cow, and to die from the dagger of a gladiator.

The slave girl Felicitas who, in the same prison, became a mother,

showed similar courage amid similar sufferings. Persecution

smouldered on throughout the reign of Septimius, showing itself

in separate sporadic outbursts, but was not renewed under his son

and successor =Caracalla= (A.D. 211-217), who in other respects

during his reign stained with manifold cruelties, did little to

the honour of those Christian influences by which in his earliest

youth he had been surrounded (“_lacte Christiano educatus_,”

Tert.).--That Christianity should have a place given it among the

senseless religions favoured by =Elagabalus= or =Heliogabalus=

(A.D. 218-222), was an absurdity which nevertheless secured for

it toleration and quiet. His second wife, Severina or Severa, to

whom Hippolytus dedicated his treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως, was the

first empress friendly to the Christians. =Alexander Severus=

(A.D. 222-235), embracing a noble eclecticism, placed among his

household gods the image of Christ, along with those of Abraham,

Orpheus, and Apollonius of Tyana, and showed himself well

disposed toward the Christians; while at the same time his mother,

Julia Mammæa, encouraged and furthered the scholarly studies of

Origen. The golden saying of Christ, Luke vi. 31, was inscribed

upon the gateway of his palace. His murderer, =Maximinus Thrax=

(A.D. 235-238), from very opposition to his predecessor, became

at once the enemy of the Christians. Clearly perceiving the

high importance of the clergy for the continued existence of the

church, his persecuting edict was directed solely against them.

The imperial position which he had usurped, however, was not

sufficiently secure to allow him to carry out his intentions

to extremities. Under =Gordianus= the Christians had rest, and

=Philip the Arabian= (A.D. 244-249) favoured them so openly and

decidedly, that it came to be thought that he himself had been a

Christian.

§ 22.5. =Decius, Gallus and Valerianus [Valerian].=--Soon after

the accession of =Decius= (A.D. 249-251), in the year 250, a new

persecution broke out that lasted without interruption for ten

years. This was the first general persecution and was directed at

first against the recognised heads of the churches, but by-and-by

was extended more widely to all ranks, and exceeded all previous

persecutions by its extent, the deliberateness of its plan,

the rigid determination with which it was conducted, and the

cruelties of its execution. Decius was a prudent ruler, an

earnest man of the old school, endued with an indomitable

will. But it was just this that drove him to the conclusion

that Christianity, as a godless system and one opposed to

the interests of the state, must be summarily suppressed. All

possible means, such as confiscation of goods, banishment, severe

tortures, or death, were tried in order to induce the Christians

to yield. Very many spoiled by the long peace that they had

enjoyed gave way, but on the other hand crowds of Christians,

impelled by a yearning after the crown of martyrdom, gave

themselves up joyfully to the prison and the stake. Those who

fell away, the _lapsi_, were classified as the _Thurificati_

or _Sacrificati_, who to save their lives had burnt incense or

sacrificed to the gods, and _Libellatici_, who without doing

this had purchased a certificate from the magistrates that they

had done so, and _Acta facientes_, who had issued documents

giving false statements regarding their Christianity. Those were

called _Confessores_ who publicly professed Christ and remained

steadfast under persecution, but escaped with their lives; those

were called _Martyrs_ who witnessing with their blood, suffered

death for the faith they professed. The Roman church could

boast of a whole series of bishops who fell victims to the storm

of persecution: Fabianus [Fabian] in A.D. 250, and Cornelius

in A.D. 253, probably also Lucius in A.D. 254, and Stephanus in

A.D. 257. And as in Rome, so also in the provinces, whole troops

of confessors and martyrs met a joyful death, not only from

among the clergy, but also from among the general members of

the church.--Then again, under =Gallus= (A.D. 251-253), the

persecution continued, excited anew by plagues and famine,

but was in many ways restricted by political embarrassment.

=Valerianus= [Valerian] (A.D. 253-260), from being a favourer of

the Christians, began from A.D. 257, under the influence of his

favourite Macrianus, to show himself a determined persecutor. The

Christian pastors were at first banished, and since this had not

the desired effect, they were afterwards punished with death. At

this time, too, the bishop of Carthage, Cyprian, who under Decius

had for a short season withdrawn by flight into the wilderness,

won for himself the martyr’s crown. So, likewise, in A.D. 258,

suffered Sixtus II. of Rome. The Roman bishop was soon followed

by his deacon Laurentius, a hero among Christian martyrs, who

pointed the avaricious governor to the sick, the poor and the

orphans of the congregation as the treasures of the church, and

was then burnt alive on a fire of glowing coal. But Valerian’s

son, =Gallienus= (A.D. 260-268), by an edict addressed to the

bishops, abolished the special persecuting statutes issued by his

father, without, however, as he is often erroneously said to have

done, formally recognising Christianity as a _Religio licita_.

The Christians after this enjoyed a forty years’ rest; for

the commonly reported cruel persecution of Christians under

=Claudius II.=, (A.D. 268-270) has been proved to be a pure

fable of apocryphal Acts of the Martyrs; and also the persecution

planned by =Aurelian= (A.D. 270-275), toward the close of his

reign, was prevented by his assassination committed by a pagan

officer.

§ 22.6. =Diocletian and Galerius.=--When =Diocletian=

(A.D. 284-305) was proclaimed Emperor by the army in Chalcedon, he

chose Nicomedia in Bithynia as his residence, and transferred the

conduct of the war to the general Maximianus [Maximian] Herculius

with the title of Cæsar, who, after the campaign had been closed

successfully in A.D. 286, was raised to the rank of Augustus or

joint-Emperor. New harassments from within and from without led

the two Emperors in A.D. 286 to name two Cæsars, or sub-Emperors,

who by their being adopted were assured of succession to imperial

rank. Diocletian assumed the administration of the East, and

gave up Illyricum as far as Pontus to his Cæsar and son-in-law

Galerius. Maximian undertook the government of the West, and

surrendered Gaul, Spain and Britain to his Cæsar, Constantius

Chlorus. According to Martyrologies, there was a whole legion,

called =Legio Thebaica=, that consisted of Christian soldiers.

This legion was originally stationed in the East, but was sent

into the war against the Gauls, because its members refused to

take part in the persecution of their brethren. After suffering

decimation twice over without any result, it is said that

=Maximian= left this legion, consisting of 6,600 men, along

with its commander St. Maurice, to be hewn down in the pass of

Agaunum, now called St. Moritz, in the Canton Valais. According to

Rettberg,[26] the historical germ of this consists in a tradition

reported by Theodoret as originating during the fifth or sixth

century, in a letter of Eucherius bishop of Lyons, about the

martyrdom of St. Maurice, who as _Tribunus Militum_ was executed

at Apamea along with seventy soldiers, by the orders of Maximian.

=Diocletian=, as the elder and supreme Emperor, was an active,

benevolent, clear-sighted statesman and ruler, but also a zealous

adherent of the old religion as regenerated by Neo-platonic

influences (§ 24, 2), and as such was inclined to hold

Christianity responsible for many of the internal troubles

of his kingdom. He was restrained from interfering with the

Christians, however, by the policy of toleration which had

prevailed since the time of Gallienus, as well as by his

own benevolent disposition, and not least by the political

consideration of the vast numbers of the Christian population.

His own wife Prisca and his daughter Valeria had themselves

embraced Christianity, as well as very many, and these the truest

and most trustworthy, of the members of his household. Yet the

incessant importunities and whispered suspicions of Galerius were

not without success. In A.D. 298 he issued the decree, that all

soldiers should take part in the sacrificial rites, and thus

obliged all Christian soldiers to withdraw from the army. During

a long sojourn in Nicomedia he finally prevailed upon the Emperor

to order a second general persecution; yet even then Diocletian

persisted, that in it no blood should be shed. This persecution

opened in A.D. 303 with the imperial command to destroy the

stately church of Nicomedia. Soon after an edict was issued

forbidding all Christian assemblies, ordering the destruction of

the churches, the burning of the sacred scriptures, and depriving

Christians of their offices and of their civil rights. A

Christian tore up the edict and was executed. Fire broke out

in the imperial palace and Galerius blamed the Christians for

the fire, and also charged them with a conspiracy against the

life of the Emperor. A persecution then began to rage throughout

the whole Roman empire, Gaul, Spain and Britain alone entirely

escaping owing to the favour of Constantius Chlorus who governed

these regions. All conceivable tortures and modes of death were

practised, and new and more horrible devices were invented from

day to day. Diocletian, who survived to A.D. 313, and Maximian,

abdicated the imperial rank which they had jointly held in

A.D. 305. Their places were filled by those who had been

previously their Cæsars, and Galerius as now the chief Augustus

proclaimed as Cæsars, =Severus= and =Maximinus Daza=, the most

furious enemies of the Christians that could be found, so that the

storm of persecution which had already begun in some measure to

abate, was again revived in Italy by Severus and in the East by

Maximinus. Then in order to bring all Christians into inevitable

contact with idolatrous rites, Galerius in A.D. 308 had all

victuals in the markets sprinkled with wine or water that

had been offered to idols. Seized with a terrible illness,

mortification beginning in his living body, he finally admitted

the uselessness of all his efforts to root out Christianity, and

shortly before his death, in common with his colleague, he issued

in A.D. 311, a formal =edict of toleration=, which permitted to

all Christians the free exercise of their religion and claimed in

return their intercession for the emperor and the empire.--During

this persecution of unexampled cruelty, lasting without

intermission for eight years, many noble proofs were given of

Christian heroism and of the joyousness that martyrdom inspired.

The number of the _Lapsi_, though still considerable, was in

proportion very much less than under the Decian persecution. How

much truth, if any, there may have been in the later assertion of

the Donatists (§ 63, 1), that even the Roman bishop, Marcellinus

[Marcellus] (A.D. 296-304), and his presbyters, Melchiades,

Marcellus and Sylvester, who were also his successors in the

bishopric, had denied Christ and sacrificed to idols, cannot

now be ascertained. Augustine denies the charge, but even

the Felician Catalogue of the Popes reports that Marcellinus

[Marcellus] during the persecution became a _Thurificatus_,

adding, however, the extenuation, that he soon thereafter, seized

with deep penitence, suffered martyrdom. The command to deliver

up the sacred writings gave rise to a new order of apostates,

the so-called _Traditores_. Many had recourse to a subterfuge by

surrendering heretical writings instead of the sacred books and

as such, but the earnest spirit of the age treated these as no

better than _traditors_.[27]

§ 22.7. =Maximinus Daza, Maxentius and Licinius.=--After the

death of Galerius his place was taken by the Dacian Licinius,

who shared with Maximinus the government of the East, the former

taking the European, the latter the Asiatic part along with

Egypt. Constantius Chlorus had died in A.D. 306, and Galerius

had given to the Cæsar Severus the empire of the West. But the

army proclaimed Constantine, son of Constantius, as Emperor.

He also established himself in Gaul, Spain and Britain. Then

also Maxentius, son of the abdicated emperor Maximian, claimed

the Western Empire, was proclaimed Augustus by the Prætorians,

recognised by the Roman senate, and after the overthrow of

Severus, ruled in Italy and Africa.--The pagan fanaticism of

=Maximinus= prevailed against the toleration edict of Galerian.

He heartily supported the attempted expulsion of Christians on

the part of several prominent cities, and commended the measure

on brazen tablets. He forbade the building of churches, punished

many with fines and dishonour, inflicted in some cases bodily

pains and even death, and gave official sanction to perpetrating

upon them all sorts of scandalous enormities. The _Acta Pilati_,

a pagan pseudepigraph filled with the grossest slanders about the

passion of Christ, was widely circulated by him and introduced as

a reading-book for the young in the public schools. =Constantine=,

who had inherited from his father along with his Neo-platonic

eclecticism his toleration of the Christians, secured to the

professors of the Christian faith in his realm the most perfect

quiet. =Maxentius=, too, at first let them alone; but the rivalry

and enmity that was daily increasing between him and Constantine,

the favourer of the Christians, drew him into close connection

with the pagan party, and into sympathy with their persecuting

spirit. In A.D. 312 Constantine led his army over the Alps.

Maxentius opposed him with an army drawn up in three divisions;

but Constantine pressed on victoriously, and shattered his

opponent’s forces before the gates of Rome. Betaking himself to

flight, Maxentius was drowned in the Tiber, and Constantine was

then sole ruler over the entire Western Empire. At Milan he had a

conference with Licinius, to whom he gave in marriage his sister

Constantia. They jointly issued an edict in A.D. 313, which

gave toleration to all forms of worship throughout the empire,

expressly permitting conversion to Christianity, and ordering the

restoration to the Christians of all the churches that had been

taken from them. Soon thereafter a decisive battle was fought

between Maximinus and Licinius. The former was defeated and took

to flight. The friendly relations that had subsisted between

=Constantine= and =Licinius= gave way gradually to estrangement

and were at last succeeded by open hostility. Licinius by

manifesting zeal as a persecutor identified himself with the

pagan party, and Constantine threw in his lot with the Christians.

In A.D. 323 a war broke out between these two, like a struggle

for life and death between Paganism and Christianity. Licinius

was overthrown and Constantine was master of the whole empire

(§ 42, 2). Eusebius in his _Vita Constantini_ reports, on the

basis probably of a sworn statement of the emperor, that during

the expedition against Maxentius in A.D. 312, after praying for

the aid of the higher powers, when the sun was going down, he saw

in heaven a shining cross in the sun with a bright inscription:

τούτῳ νίκα. During the night Christ appeared to him in a dream,

and commanded him to take the cross as his standard in battle

and with it to go into battle confident of victory. In his Church

History, Eusebius makes no mention of this tradition of the

vision. On the other hand there is here the fact, contested

indeed by critics, that after the victory over Maxentius the

emperor had erected his statue in the Roman Forum, with the

cross in his hand, and bearing the inscription: “By this sign of

salvation have I delivered your city from the yoke of the tyrant.

” This only is certain, that the imperial standard, which had the

unexplained name Labarum, bore the sign of the cross with the

monogram of the name of Christ.

§ 23. CONTROVERSIAL WRITINGS OF PAGANISM.

Pagan writers in their published works passed spiteful and

contemptuous judgments upon Christians and Christianity (Tacitus, Pliny,

Marcus Aurelius, and the physician Galen), or, like the rhetorician

Fronto, argued against them with violent invective; while popular wit

ran riot in representing Christianity by word and picture as the devout

worship of an ass. But even the talented satirist Lucian of Samosata was

satisfied with ridiculing the Christians as senseless fools. The first

and also the most important of all really pagan advocates was Celsus,

who in the second century, with brilliant subtlety and scathing sarcasm

sought to prove that the religion of the Christians was the very climax

of unreason. In respect of ability, keenness and bitterness of polemic

he is closely followed by the Neo-platonist Porphyry. Far beneath both

stands Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. Against such attacks the most

famous Christian teachers took the field as Apologists. They disproved

the calumnies and charges of the pagans, demanded fair play for the

Christians, vindicated Christianity by the demonstration of its inner

truth, the witness borne to it by the life and walk of Christians,

its establishment by miracles and prophecies, its agreement with the

utterances and longings of the most profound philosophers, whose wisdom

they traced mediately or immediately from the Old Testament, and on the

other hand, they sought to show the nothingness of the heathen gods, and

the religious as well as moral perversity of paganism.

§ 23.1. =Lucian’s Satire _De Morte Peregrini_= takes the form

of an account given by Lucian to his friend Cronius of the Cynic

Peregrinus Proteus’ burning of himself during the Olympic games

of A.D. 165, of which he himself was a witness. Peregrinus is

described as a low, contemptible man, a parricide and guilty

of adultery, unnatural vice and drunkenness, who having fled

from his home in Palestine joined the Christians, learnt their

θαυμαστὴ σοφία, became their prophet (§ 34, 1), Thiasarch (§ 17, 3)

and Synagogeus, and as such expounded their sacred writings,

even himself composed and addressed to the most celebrated Greek

cities many epistles containing new ordinances and laws. When

cast into prison he was the subject of the most extravagant

attentions on the part of the Christians. Their γραΐδια and χῆραι

(deaconesses) nursed him most carefully, δεῖπνα ποικίλα and λόγοι

ἱεροί (Agapæ) were celebrated in his prison, they loaded him with

presents, etc. Nevertheless on leaving prison, on account of his

having eaten a forbidden kind of meat (flesh offered to idols)

he was expelled by them. He now cast himself into the arms of

the Cynics, travelled as the apostle of their views through the

whole world, and ended his life in his mad thirst for fame by

voluntarily casting himself upon the funeral pile. Lucian tells

with scornful sneer how the superstitious people supposed that

there had been an earthquake and that an eagle flew up from

his ashes crying out: The earth I have lost, to Olympus I fly.

This fable was believed, and even yet it is said that sometimes

Peregrinus will be seen in a white garment as a spirit.--It is

undoubtedly recorded by Aulus Gellius that a Cynic Peregrinus

lived at this time whom he describes as _vir gravis et constans_.

This too is told by the Apologist Tatian, who in him mocks at the

pretension on the part of heathen philosophers to emancipation

from all wants. But neither of them knows anything about his

Christianity or his death by fire. It is nevertheless conceivable

that Peregrinus had for some time connection with Christianity;

but without this assumption it seems likely that Lucian in a

satire which, under the combined influence of personal and class

antipathies, aimed first and chiefly at stigmatizing Cynicism

in the person of Peregrinus, should place Christianity alongside

of it as what seemed to him with its contempt of the world and

self-denial to be a new, perhaps a nobler, but still nothing more

than a species of Cynicism. Many features in the caricature which

he gives of the life, doings and death of Peregrinus seem to have

been derived by him from the life of the Apostle Paul as well as

from the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and especially

from that of Polycarp (§ 22, 3).[28]

§ 23.2. =Worshippers of an Ass= (Asinarii) was a term of

reproach that was originally and from early times applied to the

Jews. They now sought to have it transferred to the Christians.

Tertullian tells of a picture publicly exhibited in Carthage

which represented a man clothed in a toga, with the ears and hoof

of an ass, holding a book in his hand, and had this inscription:

_Deus Christianorum Onochoetes_. This name is variously read. If

read as ὄνου χοητής it means _asini sacerdos_. Alongside of this

we may place the picture, belonging probably to the third century,

discovered in A.D. 1858 scratched on a wall among the ruins

of a school for the imperial slaves, that were then excavated.

It represents a man with an ass’s head hanging on a cross, and

beneath it the caricature of a worshipper with the words written

in a schoolboy’s hand; Alexamenos worships God (A. σεβετε θεον);

evidently the derision of a Christian youth by a pagan companion.

The scratching on another wall gives us probably the answer of

the Christian: _Alexamenos fidelis_.

§ 23.3. =Polemic properly so-called.=--

(a) The Λόγος ἀληθής of =Celsus= is in great part preserved in

the answer of Origen (§ 31, 5). He identifies the author

with that Celsus to whom Lucian dedicated the little work

_Alexander or Pseudomantis_ in which he so extols the

philosophy of Epicurus that it seems he must be regarded as

an Epicurean. Since, however, the philosophical standpoint

of our Celsus is that of a Platonist the assumption of the

identity of the two has been regarded as untenable. But

even our Celsus does not seem to have been a pure Platonist

but an Eclectic, and as such might also show a certain

measure of favour to the philosophy of Epicurus. Their

age is at least the same. Lucian wrote that treatise soon

after A.D. 180, and according to Keim, the Λόγος ἀληθής was

probably composed about A.D. 178. Almost everything that

modern opponents down to our own day have advanced against

the gospel history and doctrine is found here wrought out

with original force and subtlety, inspired with burning

hatred and bitter irony, and highly spiced with invective,

mockery, and wit. First of all the author introduces

a Jew who repeats the slanders current among the Jews,

representing Jesus as a vagabond impostor, His mother

as an adulteress, His miracles and resurrection as lying

fables; then enters a heathen philosopher who proves that

both Judaism and Christianity are absurd; and finally, the

conditions are set forth under which alone the Christians

might claim indulgence: the abandonment of their exclusive

attitude toward the national religion and the recognition

of it by their taking part in the sacrifices appointed by

the state.[29]

(b) The Neo-platonist Porphyry, about A.D. 270, as reported by

Jerome, in the XV. Book of his Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν points to a

number of supposed contradictions in holy scripture, calls

attention to the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal. ii.),

explains Daniel’s prophecies as _Vaticinia post eventum_,

and censures the allegorical interpretation of the

Christians. Although even among the Christians themselves

Porphyry as a philosopher was highly esteemed, and

notwithstanding contact at certain points between his

ethical and religious view of the world and that of the

Christians, perhaps just because of this, he is the worst

and most dangerous of all their pagan assailants. Against

his controversial writings, therefore, the edict of

Theodosius II. ordering them to be burnt was directed

in A.D. 448 (§ 42, 4), and owing to the zeal with which

his works were destroyed the greater part of the treatises

which quoted from it for purposes of controversy also

perished with it--the writings of Methodius of Tyre

(§ 31, 9), Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ 47, 2), Philostorgius

(§ 5, 1) and Apollinaris the younger (§ 47, 5). Of these

according to Jerome those of the last named were the

most important. In the recently discovered controversial

treatise of Macarius Magnes (§ 47, 6) an unnamed pagan

philosopher is combated whose attacks, chiefly directed

against the Gospels, to all appearance verbally agree with

the treatise of Porphyry, or rather, perhaps, with that of

his plagiarist Hierocles.

(c) =Hierocles= who as governor of Bithynia took an active

part in the persecution of Galerius, wrote two books

Λόγοι φιλαλήθεις against the Christians, about A.D. 305,

which have also perished. Eusebius’ reply refers only

to his repudiation of the equality assigned to Christ

and Apollonius of Tyana (§ 24, 1). While the title of

his treatise is borrowed from that of Celsus, he has also

according to the testimony of Eusebius in great part copied

the very words of both of his predecessors.

§ 24. Attempted Reconstruction of Paganism.

All its own more thoughtful adherents had long acknowledged that

paganism must undergo a thorough reform and reconstruction if it were to

continue any longer in existence. In the Augustan Age an effort was made

to bolster up Neopythagoreanism by means of theurgy and magic. The chief

representative of this movement was Apollonius of Tyana. In the second

century an attempt was made to revivify the secret rites of the ancient

mysteries, of Dea Syra, and Mithras. Yet all this was not enough. What

was needed was the setting up of a pagan system which would meet the

religious cravings of men in the same measure as Christianity with its

supernaturalism, monotheism and universalism had done, and would have

the absurdities and impurities that had disfigured the popular religion

stripped off. Such a regeneration of paganism was undertaken in the

beginning of the third century by Neoplatonism. But even this was no

more able than pagan polemics had been to check the victorious career

of Christianity.

§ 24.1. =Apollonius of Tyana= in Cappadocia, a contemporary of

Christ and the Apostles, was a philosopher, ascetic and magician

esteemed among the people as a worker of miracles. As an earnest

adherent of the doctrine of Pythagoras, whom he also imitated

in his dress and manner of life, claiming the possession of the

gifts of prophecy and miracle working, he assumed the role of a

moral and religious reformer of the pagan religion of his fathers.

Accompanied by numerous scholars, teaching and working miracles,

he travelled through the whole of the then known world until

he reached the wonderland of India. He settled down at last in

Ephesus where he died at an advanced age, having at least passed

his ninety-sixth year. At the wish of the Empress Julia, wife

of Septimius Severus, in the third century, Philostratus the

elder composed in the form of a romance in eight books based upon

written and oral sources, a biography of Apollonius, in which

he is represented as a heathen counterpart of Christ, who is

otherwise completely ignored, excelling Him in completeness of

life, doctrine and miraculous powers.[30]

§ 24.2. In =Neo-platonism=, by the combination of all that was

noblest and best in the exoteric and esoteric religion, in the

philosophy, theosophy and theurgy of earlier and later times

in East and West, we are presented with a universal religion

in which faith and knowledge, philosophy and theology, theory

and practice, were so perfectly united and reconciled, and all

religious needs so fully met, that in comparison with its wealth

and fulness, the gnosis as well as the faith, the worship and

the mysteries of the Christians must have seemed one-sided,

commonplace and incomplete. The first to introduce and commend

this tendency, which was carried out in three successive schools

of philosophy, the Alexandrian-Roman, the Syrian and the Athenian,

was the Alexandrian =Ammonius Saccas=,--this surname being

derived from his occupation as a porter. He lived and taught in

Alexandria till about A.D. 250. He sought to combine in a higher

unity the Platonic and the Aristotelian philosophies, giving

to the former a normative authority, and he did not hesitate to

enrich his system by the incorporation of Christian ideas. His

knowledge of Christianity came from Clement of Alexandria and

from Origen, whose teacher in philosophy he had been. Porphyry

indeed affirms that he had previously been himself a Christian,

but had at a later period of life returned to paganism.--The most

distinguished of his scholars, and also the most talented and

profound of all the Neo-platonists, was =Plotinus=, who was in

A.D. 254 a teacher of philosophy at Rome, and died in A.D. 270.

His philosophico-theological system in its characteristic features

is a combination of the Platonic antithesis of the finite world

of sense and the eternal world of ideas with the stoical doctrine

of the world soul. The eternal ground of all being is the one

supramundane, unintelligible and indescribable good (τὸ ἕν, τὸ

ἀγαθόν), from which all stages of being are radiated forth; first;

spirit or the world of ideas (νοῦς, κόσμος νοητός), the eternal

type of all being; and then, from this the world soul (ψυχή);

and from this, finally, the world of phenomena. The outermost

fringe of this evolution, the forms of which the further they are

removed from the original ground become more and more imperfect,

is matter, just as the shadow is the outermost fringe of the

light. It is conceived of as the finite, the fleeting, even as

evil in itself. But imperfect as the world of sense is, it is

nevertheless the vehicle of the ideal world and in many ways

penetrated by the ideas, and the lighting up imparted by the

ideas affords it its beauty. In consequence of those rays shining

in from the realm of ideas, a whole vast hierarchy of divine

forms has arisen, with countless dæmons good and bad, which give

room for the incorporation of all the divine beings of the Greek

and oriental mythologies. In this way myths that were partly

immoral and partly fantastic can be rehabilitated as symbolical

coverings of speculative ideas. The souls of men, too, originate

from the eternal world soul. By their transition, however, into

the world of sense they are hampered and fettered by corporeity.

They themselves complete their redemption through emancipation

from the bonds of sense by means of asceticism and the practice

of virtue. In this way they secure a return into the ideal world

and the vision of the highest good, sometimes as moments of

ecstatic mystical union with that world, even during this earthly

life, but an eternally unbroken continuance thereof is only

attained unto after complete emancipation from all the bonds of

matter.[31]--Plotinus’ most celebrated scholar, who also wrote

his life, and collected and arranged his literary remains, was

=Porphyry=. He also taught in Rome and died there in A.D. 304.

His ἐκ τῶν λογίων φιλοσοφία, a collection of oracular utterances,

was a positive supplement to his polemic against Christianity

(§ 23, 3), and afforded to paganism a book of revelation, a

heathen bible, as Philostratus had before sought to portray a

heathen saviour. Of greater importance for the development of

mediæval scholasticism was his Commentary on the logical works

of Aristotle, published in several editions of the Aristotelian

Organon.--His scholar =Iamblichus= of Chalcis in Cœle-Syria,

who died A.D. 333, was the founder of the Syrian school. The

development which he gave to the Neo-platonic doctrine consisted

chiefly in the incorporation of a fantastic oriental mythology

and theurgy. This also brought him the reputation of being a

magician.--Finally, the Athenian school had in =Proclus=, who

died in A.D. 485, its most distinguished representative. While

on the one hand, he proceeded along the path opened by Iamblichus

to develop vagaries about dæmons and theurgical fancies, on the

other hand, he gave to his school an impulse in the direction of

scholarly and encyclopædic culture.--The Neo-platonic speculation

exercised no small influence on the development of Christian

philosophy. The philosophizing church fathers, whose darling

was Plato, got acquaintance with his philosophical views from

its relatively pure reproduction met with in the works of the

older Neo-platonists. The influence of their mystico-theosophic

doctrine, especially as conveyed in the writings of the

Pseudo-Dionysius (§ 47, 11), is particularly discernible in

the Christian mysticism of the middle ages, and has been thence

transmitted to modern times.[32]

§ 25. Jewish and Samaritan Reaction.

The Judaism of the Apostolic Age in its most characteristic form was

thoroughly hostile to Christianity. The Pharisees and the mass of the

people with their expectation of a political Messiah, took offence at a

Messiah crucified by the Gentiles (1 Cor. i. 13); their national pride

was wounded by the granting of equality to Samaritans and heathens,

while their legal righteousness and sham piety were exposed and censured

by the teachings of Christianity. On the other side, the Sadducees felt

no less called upon to fight to the death against Christianity with its

doctrine of the resurrection (Acts iv. 2; xxiii. 6). The same hostile

feeling generally prevailed among the dispersion. The Jewish community

at Berea (Acts xvii. 2) is praised as a pleasing exception to the

general rule. Finally, in A.D. 70 destruction fell upon the covenant

people and the holy city. The Christian church of Jerusalem, acting upon

a warning uttered by the Lord (Matt. xxiv. 16), found a place of refuge

in the mountain city of Pella, on the other side of Jordan. But when

the Pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (Son of a Star, Num. xxiv. 17), roused

all Palestine against the Roman rule, in A.D. 132, the Palestinian

Christians who refused to assist or recognise the false Messiah,

had again to endure a bloody persecution. Bar-Cochba was defeated in

A.D. 135. Hadrian now commanded that upon pain of death no Jew should

enter Ælia Capitolina, the Roman colony founded by him on the ruins

of Jerusalem. From that time they were deprived of all power and

opportunity for direct persecution of the Christians. All the greater

was their pleasure at the persecutions by the heathens and their zeal

in urging the pagans to extreme measures. In their seminaries they gave

currency to the most horrible lies and calumnies about Christ and the

Christians, which also issued thence among the heathens. On the other

hand, however, they intensified their own anti-Christian attitude

and sought protection against the advancing tide of Christianity

by strangling all spiritual movement under a mass of traditional

interpretations and judgments of men. The Schools of Tiberias and

Babylon were the nurseries of this movement, and the _Talmud_, the first

part of which, the _Mishna_, had its origin during this period, marks

the completion of this anti-Christian self-petrifaction of Judaism. The

disciples of John, too, assumed a hostile attitude toward Christianity,

and formed a distinct set under the name of Hemerobaptists.

Contemporaneously with the first successes of the Apostolic mission, a

current set in among the Samaritans calculated to checkmate Christianity

by the setting up of new religions. Dositheus, Simon Magus and Menander

here made their appearance with claims to the Messiahship, and were at a

later period designated heresiarchs by the church fathers, who believed

that in them they found the germs of the Gnostic heresy (§§ 26 ff.).

§ 25.1. =Disciples of John.=--Even after their master had been

beheaded the disciples of John the Baptist maintained a separate

society of their own, and reproached the disciples of Jesus

because of their want of strict ascetic discipline (Matt. ix. 14,

etc.). The disciples of John in the Acts (xviii. 25; xix. 1-7)

were probably Hellenist Jews, who on their visits to the feasts

had been pointed by John to Christ, announced by him as Messiah,

without having any information as to the further developments of

the Christian community. About the middle of the second century,

however, the Clementine Homilies (§ 28, 3), in which John the

Baptist is designated a ἡμεροβαπτίστης, speaks of gnosticizing

disciples of John, who may be identical with the =Hemerobaptists=,

that is, those who practise baptism daily, of Eusebius (_Hist.

Eccl._, iv. 22). They originated probably from a coalition of

Essenes (§ 8, 4) and disciples of the Baptist who when orphaned

by the death of John persistently refused to join the disciples

of Christ.--We hear no more of them till the Carmelite missionary

John a Jesu in Persia came upon a sect erroneously called

Christians of St. John or Nazoreans.[33] Authentic information

about the doctrine, worship and constitution of this sect that

still numbers some hundred families, was first obtained in the

19th century by an examination of their very comprehensive sacred

literature, written in an Aramaic dialect very similar to that of

the Babylonian Talmud. The most important of those writings the

so-called Great Book (_Sidra rabba_), also called _Ginza_, that

is, thesaurus, has been faithfully reproduced by Petermann under

the title _Thesaurus s. Liber magnus_, etc., 2 vols., Berl.,

1867.--Among themselves the adherents of this sect were styled

=Mandæans=, after one of their numerous divine beings or æons,

_Manda de chaje_, meaning γνῶσις τῆς ζωῆς. In their extremely

complicated religious system, resembling in many respects the

Ophite Gnosis (§ 27, 6) and Manicheism (§ 29), this Æon takes the

place of the heavenly mediator in the salvation of the earthly

world. Among those without, however, they called themselves

Subba, =Sabeans= from צבא or צבע to baptize. Although they

cannot be identified right off with the Disciples of John and

Hemerobaptists, a historical connection between them, carrying

with it gnostic and oriental-heathen influences, is highly

probable. The name Sabean itself suggests this, but still more

the position they assign to John the Baptist as the only true

prophet over against Abraham, Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed. As

adherents of John the Baptist rejected by the Jews the old

Disciples of John had an anti-Jewish character, and by their

own rejection of Christ an anti-Christian character. By shifting

their residence to Babylon, however, they became so dependent

on the Syro-Chaldean mythology, theosophy and theurgy, that they

sank completely into paganism, and so their opposition to Judaism

and Christianity increased into fanatical hatred and horrid

calumniation.[34]

§ 25.2. =The Samaritan Heresiarchs.=

(a) =Dositheus= was according to Origen a contemporary of

Jesus and the Apostles, and gave himself out as the

prophet promised in Deut. xviii. 18. He insisted upon a

curiously strict observance of the Sabbath, and according

to Epiphanius he perished miserably in a cave in consequence

of an ostentatiously prolonged fast. Purely fabulous are

the stories of the Pseudo-Clementine writings (§ 28, 3)

which bring him into contact with John the Baptist as his

scholar and successor, and with Simon Magus as his defeated

rival. More credible is the account of an Arabic-Samaritan

Chronicle,[35] according to which the sect of the

Dostanians at the time of Simon Maccabæus traced their

descent from a Samaritan tribe, while also the Catholic

heresiologies (§ 26, 4) reckon the Dositheans among the

pre-Christian sects. According to a statement of Eulogius

of Alexandria recorded by Photius, the Dositheans and

Samaritans in Egypt in A.D. 588 disputed as to the meaning

of Deut. xviii. 18.

(b) =Simon Magus=, born, according to Justin Martyr, at Gitta

in Samaria, appeared in his native country as a soothsayer

with such success that the infatuated people hailed him as

the δύναμις τοῦ θεοῦ ἡ καλουμένη μεγάλη. When Philip the

Deacon preached the gospel in Samaria, Simon also received

baptism from him, but was sternly denounced by Peter from

whom he wished to buy the gift of communicating the Spirit

(Acts viii). As to the identity of this man with Simon

the Magician, according to Josephus hailing from Cyprus,

who induced the Herodian Drusilla to quit her husband and

become the wife of the Governor Felix (Acts xxiv. 24), it

can scarcely claim to be more than a probability. A vast

collection of fabulous legends soon grew up around the

name of Simon Magus, not only from the Gentile-Christian

and Catholic side, but also from the Jewish-Christian and

heretical side; the latter to be still met with in the

_Pseudo-Clementine Homilies and Recognitions_, while in the

_Acta Petri et Pauli_, we have the Catholic revision and

reproduction of the no longer extant Ebionistic _Acts of

Peter_ (§ 32, 6). These Judaizing heretics particularly

amused themselves by making a very slightly veiled

vile caricature of the great Apostle of the Gentiles by

transferring to the name of the magician many distorted

representations of occurrences in the life and works of the

Apostle Paul. This representation, however, was recognised

in the Acts above referred to and by the church fathers

as originally descriptive of Simon Magus. On the basis of

this legendary conglomerate Irenæus, after the example of

Justin, describes him as _Magister ac progenitor omnium

hæreticorum_. From a house of ill fame in Tyre he bought

a slave girl Helena, to whom he assigned the role of the

world creating Ἔννοια of God. The angels born of her for

the purpose of creating the world had rebelled against her;

she was enslaved, and was imprisoned, sometimes in this,

sometimes in that, human body; at one time in the body of

Helen of Troy, and at last in that of the Tyrian prostitute.

In order to redeem her and with her the world enslaved by

the rebel angels, the supreme God (ὁ ἐστώς) Himself came

down and assumed the form of man, was born unbegotten of

man, suffered in appearance in Judea, and reveals Himself

to the Samaritans as Father, to the Jews as Son, and to the

Gentiles as the Holy Spirit. The salvation of man consists

simply in acknowledging Simon and his Helena as the supreme

gods. By faith only, not by works, is man justified. The

law originated with the evil angels and was devised by them

merely to keep men in bondage under them. This last point

is evidently transferred to the magician partly from the

Apostle Paul, partly from Marcion (§ 27, 11), and is copied

from Ebionite sources. The Simon myth is specially rich in

legends about the magician’s residence in Rome, to which

place he had betaken himself after being often defeated

in disputation by the Apostle Peter, and where he was so

successful that the Romans erected a column in his honour

on an island in the Tiber, which Justin Martyr himself is

said to have seen, bearing the inscription: _Simoni sancto

Deo_. The discovery in A.D. 1574 of the column dedicated

to the Sabine god of oaths, inscribed “_Semoni Sanco Deo

Fidio_,” explains how such a legend may have arisen out

of a misunderstanding. Although by a successful piece of

jugglery--decapitation and rising again the third day,

having substituted for himself a goat whom he had bewitched

to assume his appearance, whose head was cut off--he won

the special favour of Nero, he was thereafter in public

disputation before the emperor unmasked by Peter. In order

to rehabilitate himself he offered to prove his divine

power by ascending up into heaven. For this purpose he

mounted a high tower. Peter adjured the angel of Satan,

which carried him through the air, and the magician

fell with a crash to the ground. Probably there is here

transferred to one magician what is told by Suetonius

(_Nero_, xii.) and Juvenal (_Sat._ iii. 79 ff.) as

happening to a soothsayer in Nero’s time who made an

attempt to fly. The school of Baur (§ 182, 7), after Baur

himself had discovered in the Simon Magus of the Clementine

Homilies a caricature of the Apostle Paul, has come to

question the existence of the magician altogether, and

has attempted to account for the myth as originating from

the hatred of the Jewish Christians to the Apostle of the

Gentiles. Support for this view is sought from Acts viii.,

the offering of money by the magician being regarded as a

maliciously distorted account of the contribution conveyed

by Paul to the church at Jerusalem.[36] Recently, however,

Hilgenfeld, who previously maintained this view, has again

recognised as well grounded the tradition of the Church

Fathers, that Simon was the real author of the ψευδώνυμος

γνῶσις, and has carried out this idea in his

“Ketzergeschichte.”

(c) =Menander= was, according to Justin Martyr, a disciple of

Simon. Subsequently he undertook to play the part of the

Saviour of the world. In doing so, however, he was always,

as Irenæus remarks, modest enough not to give himself out

as the supreme god, but only as the Messiah sent by Him.

He taught, however, that any one who should receive his

baptism would never become old or die.[37]

II. DANGER TO THE CHURCH FROM PAGAN AND JEWISH

ELEMENTS WITHIN ITS OWN PALE.

§ 26. GNOSTICISM IN GENERAL.[38]

The Judaism and paganism imported into the church proved more

dangerous to it than the storm of persecution raging against it from

without. Ebionism (§ 28) was the result of the attempt to incorporate

into Christianity the narrow particularism of Judaism; Heretical Gnosis

or Gnosticism was the result of the attempt to blend with Christianity

the religious notions of pagan mythology, mysteriology, theosophy and

philosophy. These two tendencies, moreover, were combined in a Gnostic

Ebionism, in the direction of which Essenism may be regarded as a

transitional stage (§ 8, 4). In many respects Manichæism (§ 29), which

sprang up at a later period, is related to the Gnosticism of Gentile

Christianity, but also in character and tendency widely different from

it. The church had to employ all her powers to preserve herself from

this medley of religious fancies and to purify her fields from the

weeds that were being sown on every side. In regard to Ebionism and

its gnosticizing developments this was a comparatively easy task. The

Gnosticism of Gentile Christianity was much more difficult to deal with,

and although the church succeeded in overcoming the weed in her fields,

yet many of its seeds continued hidden for centuries, from which sprouts

grew up now and again quite unexpectedly (§§ 54, 71, 108). This struggle

has nevertheless led to the furtherance of the church in many ways,

awakening in it a sense of scientific requirements, stirring it up

to more vigorous battling for the truth, and endowing it with a more

generous and liberal spirit. It had learnt to put a Christian gnosis in

the place of the heretical, a right and wholesome use of speculation and

philosophy, of poetry and art, in place of their misuse, and thus

enabled Christianity to realise its universal destination.

§ 26.1. =Gnosticism= was deeply rooted in a powerful and

characteristic intellectual tendency of the first century. A

persistent conviction that the ancient world had exhausted itself

and was no longer able to resist its threatened overthrow, now

prevailed and drove the deepest thinkers to adopt the boldest and

grandest Syncretism the world has ever beheld, in the blending of

all the previously isolated and heterogeneous elements of culture

as a final attempt at the rejuvenating of that which had become

old (§ 25). Even within the borders of the church this Syncretism

favoured by the prevailing spirit of the age influenced those of

superior culture, to whom the church doctrine of that age did not

seem to make enough of theosophical principles and speculative

thought, while the worship of the church seemed dry and barren.

Out of the fusing of cosmological myths and philosophemes of

oriental and Greek paganism with Christian historical elements in

the crucible of its own speculation, there arose numerous systems

of a higher fantastic sort of religious philosophy, which were

included under the common name of Gnosticism. The pagan element

is upon the whole the prevailing one, inasmuch as in most Gnostic

systems Christianity is not represented as the conclusion and

completion of the development of salvation given in the Old

Testament, but often merely as the continuation and climax of

the pagan religion of nature and the pagan mystery worship.

The attitude of this heretical gnosis toward holy scripture was

various. By means of allegorical interpretation some endeavoured

to prove their system from it; others preferred to depreciate the

Apostles as falsifiers of the original purely gnostic doctrine

of Christ, or to remodel the apostolic writings in accordance

with their own views, or even to produce a bible of their own

after the principles of their own schools in the form of gnostic

pseudepigraphs. With them, however, for the most part the

tradition of ancient wisdom as the communicated secret doctrine

stood higher than holy scripture. Over against the heretical

gnosis, an ecclesiastical gnosis was developed, especially in the

Alexandrian school of theology (Clement and Origen, § 31, 4, 5),

which, according to 1 Cor. xii. 8, 9; xiii. 2, was esteemed

and striven after as, in contradistinction to faith, a higher

stage in the development of the religious consciousness. The

essential distinction between the two consisted in this, that

the latter was determined, inspired and governed by the believing

consciousness of the universal church, as gradually formulated in

the church confession, whereas the former, completely emancipated

therefrom, disported itself in the unrestricted arbitrariness of

fantastic speculation.

§ 26.2. =The Problems of Gnostic Speculation= are: the origin

of the world and of evil, as well as the task, means and end of

the world’s development. In solving these problems the Gnostics

borrowed mostly from paganism the theory of the world’s origin,

and from Christianity the idea of redemption. At the basis

of almost all Gnostic systems there lies the dualism of God

and matter (ὕλη); only that matter is regarded sometimes in a

Platonic sense as non-essential and non-substantial (=μὴ ὄν)

and hence without hostile opposition to the godhead, sometimes

more in the Parsee sense as inspired and dominated by an evil

principle, and hence in violent opposition to the good God.

In working out the theosophical and cosmological process it is

mainly the idea of emanation (προβολή) that is called into play,

whereby from the hidden God is derived a long series of divine

essences (αἰῶνες), whose inherent divine power diminishes in

proportion as they are removed to a distance from the original

source of being. These æons then make their appearance as

intermediaries in the creation, development and redemption of the

world. The substratum out of which the world is created consists

in a mixture of the elements of the world of light (πλήρωμα)

with the elements of matter (κένωμα) by means of nature, chance

or conflict. One of the least and weakest of the æons, who is

usually designated Δημιουργός, after the example of Plato in

the _Timæus_, is brought forward as the creator of the world.

Creation is the first step toward redemption. But the Demiurge

cannot or will not carry it out, and so finally there appears in

the fulness of the times one of the highest æons as redeemer, in

order to secure perfect emancipation to the imprisoned elements

of light by the communication of the γνῶσις. Seeing that matter

is derived from the evil, he appears in a seeming body or at

baptism identifies himself with the psychical Messiah sent by

the Demiurge. The death on the cross is either only an optical

illusion, or the heavenly Christ, returning to the pleroma,

quits the man Jesus, or gives His form to some other man

(Simon of Cyrene, Matt. xxvii. 32) so that he is crucified

instead of Him (Docetism). The souls of men, according as the

pleromatic or hylic predominates in them, are in their nature,

either _Pneumatic_, which alone are capable of the γνῶσις, or

_Psychical_, which can only aspire to πίστις, or finally, _Hylic_

(χοϊκοί, σαρκικοί), to which class the great majority belongs,

which, subject to Satanic influences, serve only their lower

desires. Redemption consists in the conquest and exclusion

of matter, and is accomplished through knowledge (γνῶσις) and

asceticism. It is therefore a chemical, rather than an ethical

process. Seeing that the original seat of evil is in matter,

sanctification is driven from the ethical domain into the

physical, and consists in battling with matter and withholding

from material enjoyments. The Gnostics were thus originally very

strict in their moral discipline, but often they rushed to the

other extreme, to libertinism and antinomianism, in consequence

partly of the depreciation of the law of the Demiurge, partly

of the tendency to rebound from one extreme to the other, and

justified their conduct on the ground of παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί.

§ 26.3. =Distribution.=--_Gieseler_ groups the Gentile Christian

Gnostics according to their native countries into Egyptian or

Alexandrian, whose emanationist and dualistic theories were

coloured by Platonism, and the Syrian, whose views were affected

by Parseeism.--_Neander_ divides Gnostic systems into Judaistic

and Anti-Jewish, subdividing the latter into such as incline to

Paganism, and such as strive to apprehend Christianity in its

purity and simplicity.--_Hase_ arranges them as Oriental, Greek

and Christian.--_Baur_ classifies the Gnostic systems as those

which endeavour to combine Judaism and paganism with Christianity,

and those which oppose Christianity to these.--_Lipsius_ marks

three stages in the development of Gnosticism: the blending

of Asiatic myths with a Jewish and Christian basis which took

place in Syria; the further addition to this of Greek philosophy

either Stoicism or Platonism which was carried out in Egypt;

and recurrence to the ethical principles of Christianity, the

elevation of πίστις above γνῶσις.--_Hilgenfeld_ arranges his

discussion of these systems in accordance with their place in

the early heresiologies.--But none of these arrangements can

be regarded as in every respect satisfactory, and indeed it

may be impossible to lay down any principle of distribution of

such a kind. There are so many fundamental elements and these

of so diverse a character, that no one scheme of division

may suffice for an adequate classification of all Gnostic

systems. The difficulty was further enhanced by the contradiction,

approximation, and confusion of systems, and by their

construction and reconstruction, of which Rome as the capital

of the world was the great centre.

§ 26.4. =Sources of Information.=--Abundant as the literary

productions were which assumed the name or else without the name

developed the principles of Gnosticism, comparatively little of

this literature has been preserved. We are thus mainly dependent

upon the representations of its catholic opponents, and to them

also we owe the preservation of many authentic fragments. The

first church teacher who _ex professo_ deals with Gnosticism is

Justin Martyr (§ 30, 9), whose controversial treatise, however,

as well as that of Hegesippus (§ 31, 7), has been lost. The most

important of extant treatises of this kind are those of Irenæus

in five books _Adv. hæreses_, and of Hippolytus Ἔλεγχος κατὰ

πασῶν αἱρέσεων, the so-called _Philosophoumena_ (§ 31, 3). The

Σύνταγμα κ. π. αἱρ. of Hippolytus is no longer extant in the

original; a Latin translation of it apparently exists in the

_Libellus adv. omnes hæreses_, which has been attributed to

Tertullian. Together with the work of Irenæus, it formed a

query for the later heresiologists, Epiphanius and Philaster

(§ 47, 10, 14), who were apparently unacquainted with the later

written but more important and complete _Elenchus_. Besides these

should be mentioned the writings of Tertullian (§ 31, 10) and

Theodoret (§ 47, 9) referring to this controversy, the _Stromata_

of Clement of Alexandria, and the published discussions of Origen

(§ 31, 4, 5), especially in his Commentary on John, also the five

Dialogues of the Pseudo-Origen (Adamantius) against the Gnostics

from the beginning of the fourth century;[39] and finally many

notices in the Church History of Eusebius. The still extant

fragments of the Gnostic Apocryphal historian of the Apostles

afford information about the teaching and forms of worship of

the later syncretic vulgar Gnosticism, and also from the very

defective representations of them in the works of their Catholic

opponents.

§ 27. THE GENTILE CHRISTIAN GNOSTICISM.

In the older heretical Gnosticism (§ 18, 3), Jewish, pagan,

and Christian elements are found, which are kept distinct, or are

amalgamated or after examination are rejected, what remains being

developed, consolidated and distributed, but in a confused blending.

This is the case with Cerinthus. In Basilides again, who attaches

himself to the doctrines of Stoicism, we have Gnosticism developed under

the influence of Alexandrian culture; and soon thereafter in Valentinus,

who builds on Plato’s philosophy, it attains its richest, most profound

and noblest expression. From the blending of Syro-Chaldæan mythology

with Greek and Hellenistic-Gnostic theories issue the divers Ophite

systems. Antinomian Gnosticism with loose practical morality was an

outgrowth from the contempt shown to the Jewish God that created the

world and gave the law. The genuinely Syrian Gnosticism with its

Parseeist-dualistic ruggedness was most purely represented by Saturninus,

while in Marcion and his scholars the exaggeration of the Pauline

opposition of law and grace led to a dualistic contrast of the God of

the Old Testament and of the New. From the middle of the second century

onwards there appears in the historical development of Gnosticism an

ever-increasing tendency to come to terms with the doctrine of the

church. This is shown by the founders of new sects, Marcion, Tatian,

Hermogenes; and also by many elaborators of early systems, by Heracleon,

Ptolomæus and Bardesanes who developed the Valentinian system, in the

so-called Pistis Sophia, as the exposition of the Ophite system. This

tendency to seek reconciliation with the church is also shown in a

kind of syncretic popular or vulgar Gnosticism which sought to attach

itself more closely to the church by the composition of apocryphal

and pseudepigraphic Gospels and Acts of Apostles under biblical names

and dates (§ 32, 4-6).--The most brilliant period in the history of

Gnosticism was the second century, commencing with the age of Hadrian.

At the beginning of the third century there was scarcely one of the

more cultured congregations throughout the whole of the Roman empire and

beyond this as far as Edessa, that was not affected by it. Yet we never

find the numbers of regular Gnostic congregations exceeding that of the

Catholic. Soon thereafter the season of decay set in. Its productive

power was exhausted, and while, on the one side, it was driven back by

the Catholic ecclesiastical reaction, on the other hand, in respect of

congregational organization it was outrun and outbidden by Manichæism,

and also by Marcionism.

§ 27.1. =Cerinthus=, as Irenæus says, resting on the testimony

of Polycarp, was a younger contemporary of the Apostle John in

Asia Minor; the Apostle meeting the heretic in a bath hastened

out lest the building should fall upon the enemy of the truth.

In his Gnosticism, resting according to Hippolytus on a basis

of Alexandrian-Greek culture, we have the transition from the

Jewish-Christian to a more Gentile than Jewish-Christian Gnostic

standpoint. The continued hold of the former is seen according

to Epiphanius in the maintaining of the necessity of circumcision

and of the observances by Christians of the law given by

disposition of angels, as also, according to Caius of Rome, who

regards him as the author of the New Testament Apocalypse, in

chiliastic expectations. Both of these, however, were probably

intended only in the allegorical and spiritual sense. At the

same time, according to Irenæus and Theodoret, the essentially

Gnostic figure of the Demiurge already appears in his writings,

who without knowing the supreme God is yet useful to Him as

the creator of the world. Even Jesus, the son of Joseph and

Mary, knew him not, until the ἄνω Χριστός descended upon him at

his baptism. Before the crucifixion, which was a merely human

mischance without any redemptive significance, the Christ had

again withdrawn from him.

§ 27.2. =The Gnosticism of Basilides.=--=Basilides= (Βασιλείδης)

was a teacher in Alexandria about A.D. 120-130. He pretends to

derive the gnostic system from the notes of the esoteric teaching

of Christ taken down by the Apostle Matthew and an amanuensis

of Peter called Glaucias. He also made use of John’s Gospel and

Paul’s Epistles to the Romans, Corinthians and Ephesians. He

himself left behind 24 books Ἐξηγητικά and his equally talented

son Isidorus has left a treatise under the title Ἠθικά. Fragments

of both are found in Clement of Alexandria, two passages from

the first are given also in the “Acts of Disputation,” by

Archelaus of Cascar (§ 29, 1). Irenæus, i. 24, who refers to him

as a disciple of Menander (§ 25, 2), and the Pseudo-Tertullian,

c. 41, Epiphanius, 21, and Theodoret, i. 4, describe his system

as grossly dualistic and decidedly emanationist. Hippolytus,

vii. 14 ff., on the other hand, with whom Clement seems

to agree, describes it as a thoroughly monistic system, in

which the theogony is developed not by emanation from above

downwards but by evolution from below upwards. This latter view

which undoubtedly presents this system in a more favourable

light,--according to Baur, Uhlhorn, Jacobi, Möller, Funk, etc.,

its original form: according to Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Volkmar,

etc., a later form influenced by later interpolations of Greek

pantheistic ideas,--makes the development of God and the world

begin with pure nothing: ἦν ὅτε ἦν οὐδέν. The principle of all

development is ὁ οὐκ ὢν θεός, who out of Himself (ἐξ οὐκ ὄντων)

calls chaos into being. This chaos was still itself an οὐκ ὄν,

but yet also the πανσπερμία τοῦ κόσμου upon which now the οὐκ ὢν

θεός as ἀκίνητος κινητής operated attractively by his beauty. The

pneumatic element in the newly created chaos is represented in a

threefold sonship (υἱότης τριμερής) of which the first and most

perfect immediately after creation with the swiftness of thought

takes its flight to the happy realm of non-existence, the Pleroma.

The second less perfect sonship struggles after the first (hence

called, μιμητική), but must, on reaching the borders of the

happy realm, cast aside the less perfect part of its being, which

now as the Holy Spirit (μεθόριον πνεῦμα) forms the vestibule

(στερέωμα) or boundary line between the Pleroma (τὰ ὑπερκόσμια)

and the cosmos, and although severed from the sonship, still,

like a vessel out of which sweet ointment has been taken, it

bears to this lower world some of the perfume adhering to it.

The third sonship being in need of purifying must still remain in

the Panspermia, and is as such the subject of future redemption.

On the other hand, the greatest archon as the most complete

concentration of all wisdom, might and glory which was found

in the psychical elements of chaos, flew up to the firmament as

ἀῤῥητῶν ἀῤῥητότερος. He now fancied himself to be the Supreme God

and ruler of all things, and begot a son, who according to the

predetermination of the non-existing excelled him in insight and

wisdom. For himself and Son, having with them besides six other

unnamed principalities, he founded the higher heavens, the so-

called Ogdoas. After him there arose of chaos a second inferior

Archon with the predicate ἄῤῥητος, who likewise begat a son

mightier than himself, and founded a lower heavenly realm,

the so-called Hebdomas, the planetary heavens. The rest of the

Panspermia was the developed κατὰ φύσιν, that is, in accordance

with the natural principle implanted in it by the non-existent

“at our stage” (τὸ διάστημα τὸ καθ’ ἡμᾶς). As the time drew near

for the manifestation of the children of God, that is, of men

whose pneumatical endowment was derived from the third sonship,

the son of the great Archon through the mediation of the μεθόριον

πνεῦμα first devised the saving plan of the Pleroma. With fear

and trembling now the great Archon too acknowledged his error,

repented of this self-exaltation and with the whole Ogdoas

rejoiced in the scheme of salvation. Through him also the son of

the second Archon is enlightened, and he instructs his father,

who now as the God of the Old Testament prepares the way for the

development of salvation by the law and prophecy. The beginning

is made by Jesus, son of the virgin Mary, who first himself

absorbed the ray of the higher light, and as “the firstborn

of the children of God” became also the Saviour (σωτήρ) of

his brethren. His sufferings were necessary for removing the

psychical and somatical elements of the Panspermia adhering to

him. They were therefore actual, not mere seeming sufferings. His

bodily part returned to the formlessness out of which it sprang;

his psychical part arose from the grave, but in his ascension

returned into the Hebdomas, while his pneumatic being belonging

to the third sonship went up to the happy seat of the οὐκ ὢν θεός.

And as he, the firstborn, so also all the children of God, have

afterwards to perform their task of securing the highest possible

development and perfection of the groaning creation (Rom. viii.

19), that is, of all souls which by their nature are eternally

bound “to our stage.” Then finally, God will pour over all

ranks of being beginning from the lowest the great ignorance

(τὴν μεγάλην ἄγνοιαν) so that no one may be disturbed in their

blessedness by the knowledge of a higher. Thus the restitution of

all things is accomplished.--The mild spirit which pervades this

dogmatic system preserved from extravagances of a rigoristic or

libertine sort the ethical system resulting from it. Marriage was

honoured and regarded as holy, though celibacy was admitted to be

helpful in freeing the soul from the thraldom of fleshly lusts.

§ 27.3. The system set forth by Irenæus and others, as that of

Basilides, represents the Supreme God as _Pater innatus_ or θεὸς

ἄῤῥητος. From him emanates the Νοῦς, from this again the Λόγος,

from this the Φρόνησις, who brings forth Σοφία and Δύναμις. From

the two last named spring the Ἀρχαί, Ἐξουσίαι and Ἄγγελοι, who

with number seven of the higher gods, the primal father, at their

head, constitute the highest heaven. From this as its ἀντίτυπος

radiates forth a second spiritual world, and the emanation

continues in this way, until it is completed and exhausts itself

in the number of 365 spiritual worlds or heavens under the mystic

name Ἀβραξάς or Ἀβρασάξ which has in its letters the numerical

value referred to. This last and most imperfect of these

spiritual worlds with its seven planet spirits forms the heaven

visible to us. Through this three hundred and sixty-five times

repeated emanation the Pleroma approaches the borders of the hyle,

a seething mass of forces wildly tossing against one another.

These rush wildly against it, snatch from it fragments of light

and imprison them in matter. From this mixture the Archon of the

lowest heaven in fellowship with his companions creates the earth,

and to each of them apportions by lot a nation, reserving to

himself the Jewish nation which he seeks to raise above all other

nations, and so introduces envy and ambition into heaven, and

war and bloodshed upon earth. Finally, the Supreme God sends his

First-born, the Νοῦς, in order to deliver men from the power of

the angel that created the world. He assumes the appearance of a

body, and does many miracles. The Jews determined upon his death;

nevertheless they crucified instead of him Simon the Cyrenian,

who assumed his shape. He himself returned to his Father. By

means of the Gnosis which he taught men’s souls are redeemed,

while their bodies perish.--The development of one of these

systems into the other might be most simply explained by assuming

that the one described in the _Elenchus_ of Hippolytus is the

original and that its reconstruction was brought about by the

overpowering intrusion of current dualistic, emanationistic,

and docetic ideas. All that had there been said about the great

Archon must now be attributed to the Supreme God, the _Pater

innatus_, while the inferior archon might keep his place as ruler

of the lowest planetary heaven. The 365 spiritual worlds had

perhaps in the other system a place between the two Archons, for

even Hippolytus, vii. 26, mentions in addition the 365 heavens

to which also he gives the name of the great Archon Abrasax.--It

is a fact of special importance that even Irenæus and Epiphanius

distinguish from the genuine disciples of Basilides the so-called

=Pseudo-Basilideans= as representing a later development, easily

deducible from the second but hardly traceable from the first

account of the system. That with their Gnosis they blended magic,

witchcraft and fantastic superstition appears from the importance

which they attached to mystic numbers and letters. Their

libertine practice can be derived from their antinomian contempt

of Judaism as well as from the theory that their bodies are

doomed to perish. So, too, their axiom that to suffer martyrdom

for the crucified, who was not indeed the real Christ, is foolish,

may be deduced from the Docetism of their system. Abrasax gems

which are still to be met with in great numbers and in great

variety are to be attributed to these Basilideans; but these

found favour and were used as talismans not only among other

Gnostic sects but also among the Alchymists of the Middle Ages.

§ 27.4. =Valentinian Gnosticism.=--=Valentinus=, the most

profound, talented and imaginative of all the Gnostics, was

educated in Alexandria, and went to Rome about A.D. 140, where,

during a residence of more than twenty years, he presided over an

influential school, and exercised also a powerful influence upon

other systems. He drew the materials for his system partly from

holy scripture, especially from the Gospel of John, partly from

the esoteric doctrine of a pretended disciple of Paul, Theodades.

Of his own voluminous writings, in the form of discourses,

epistles and poems, only a few fragments are extant. The

reporters of his teaching, Irenæus, Hippolytus, Tertullian,

Epiphanius, differ greatly from one another in details, and leave

us in doubt as to what really belongs to his own doctrine and

what to its development by his disciples--The fundamental idea of

his system rests on the notion that according to a law founded in

the depths of the divine nature the æons by emanation come into

being as pairs, male and female. The pairing of these æons in

a holy marriage is called a Syzygy. With this is joined another

characteristic notion, that in the historical development of

the Pleroma the original types of the three great crises of the

earthly history, Creation, the Fall, and Redemption, are met with.

On the basis of this he develops the most magnificently poetic

epic of a Christian mythological Theogony and Cosmogony. From the

Βυθός or Αὐτοπάτωρ and its Ἔννοια or Σιγή, evolving his thought

hitherto only in silent contemplation of his own perfection,

emanates the first and highest pair of æons, the Νοῦς or

Μονογενής who alone of all æons can bear to look into the depths

of the perfection of the Father of all, and beside him his bride

Ἀλήθεια. From them spring the Λόγος and Ζωή as the second pair,

and from this pair again Ἄνθρωπος and Ἐκκλησία as the third pair.

The Αὐτοπάτωρ and his Ennoia, with the first and highest pair

of æons emanating for them, and these together with the second

Tetras, form the Ogdoas. The Logos then begets a further removed

circle of five pairs, the Decas, and finally the Anthropos begets

the last series of six pairs, the Dodecas. Therewith the =Pleroma=

attains a preliminary completion. A final boundary is fixed for

it by the Ὅρος emanating from the Father of all, who, being alone

raised above the operation of the law of the Syzygy, is endowed

with a twofold ἐνεργεία, an ἐνεργεία διοριστική, by means of

which he wards off all from without that would hurt, and an

ἐνεργεία ἑδραστική, the symbol of which is the cross, with which

he maintains inward harmony and order. How necessary this was is

soon made apparent. For the Σοφία, the last and least member of

the fourteen æon pairs, impelled by burning desire, tears herself

away from her partner, and seeks to plunge into the Bythos

in order to embrace the Father of All himself. She is indeed

prevented from this by the Horos; but the breach in the Pleroma

has been made. In order to restore the harmony that has thus been

broken, the Monogenes begets with Aletheia a new æon pair, the

Ἄνω Χριστός and the Πνεῦμα ἅγιον which emancipates the Sophia

from her disorderly, passionate nature (Ἐνθύμησις), cuts out this

latter from the Pleroma, but unites again the purified Sophia

with her husband, and teaches all the æons about the Father’s

unapproachable and incomprehensible essence, and about the reason

and end of the Syzygies. Then they all, amid hymns of praise

and thanksgiving, present an offering to the Father, each one of

the best that he has, and form thereof an indescribably glorious

æon-being, the Ἄνω Σωτήρ, and for his service myriads of august

angels, who bow in worship before him.--The basis for the

origination of the =sensible world=, the Ὑστέρημα, consist of

the Enthymesis ejected from the Pleroma into the desert, void

and substanceless Kenoma, which is by it for the first time

filled and vitalized. It is an ἔκτρωμα, an abortion, which however

retains still the æon nature of its divine present, and as such

bears the name of Ἔξω (κάτω) Σοφία or Ἀχαμώθ (הַחָכְמוֹת). Hence even

the blessed spirits of the Pleroma can never forsake her. They

all suffer with the unfortunate, until she who had sprung from

the Pleroma is restored to it purified and matured. Hence they

espouse her, the Ektroma of the last and least of the æons, to

the Ano-Soter, the noblest, most glorious and most perfect being

in the æon-heaven, as her redeemer and future husband. He begins

by comforting the despondent and casting out from her the baser

affections. Among the worst, fear, sorrow, doubt, etc., is found

the basis of the hylic stage of existence; among the better,

repentance, desire, hope, etc., that of the psychic stage of

existence (φύσεις). Over the beings issuing forth from the former

presides Satan; over the psychical forms of being, as their

highest development, presides the Demiurge, who prepares as

his dwelling-place the seven lower heavens, the Hebdomas.

But Achamoth had retired with the pneumatic substratum still

remaining in her into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος, between the

Pleroma and the lower world, whence she, inspired by the

Ano-Soter, operates upon the Demiurge, who, knowing nothing of

her existence, has no anticipation thereof. From the dust of the

earth and pneumatic seed, which unobserved she conveys into it,

he formed man, breathed into him his own psychical breath of

life, and set him in paradise, that is, in the third of his seven

heavens, but banished him to earth, when he disobeyed his command,

and instead of his first ethereal garment clothed him in a

material body. When men had spread upon the earth, they developed

these different natures: _Pneumatical_, which free from the

bondage of every outward law and not subject to the impulses of

the senses, a law unto themselves, travel toward the Pleroma;

next, the _Hylic_, which, hostile to all spirit and law, and

the sport of all lusts and passions, are doomed to irremediable

destruction; and finally, the _Psychical_, which under the

discipline of outward law attain not indeed to a perfect divine

life, but yet to outward righteousness, while on the other hand

they may sink down to the rank and condition of the Hylic natures.

The _Psychical_ natures were particularly numerous among the

Jews. Therefore the Demiurge chose them as his own, and gave

them a strict law and through his prophets promised them a

future Messiah. The _Hylic_ natures which were found mostly among

the heathens, were utterly hateful to him. The _Pneumatical_

natures with their innate longing after the Pleroma, he did not

understand and therefore disregarded; but yet, without knowing

or designing it, he chose many of them for kings, priests, and

prophets of his people, and to his amazement heard from their

lips prophecies of a higher soul, which originated from Achamoth,

and which he did not understand. When the time was fulfilled,

he sent his Messiah in the person of Jesus. When he was baptized

by John, the heaven opened over him and the Ano-Soter descended

upon him. The Demiurge saw it and was astonished, but submitted

himself awe-stricken to the will of the superior deities. The

Soter remained then a year upon the earth. The Jews, refusing to

receive him, nailed his organ, the psychical Messiah, to a cross;

but his sufferings were only apparent sufferings, since the

Demiurge had supplied him in his origin with an ethereal and

only seemingly material body. In consequence of the work of the

Ano-Soter the Pneumatical natures by means of the Gnosis taught

by him, but the Psychical natures by means of Pistis, attain unto

perfection after their kind. When once everything pneumatical and

psychical which was bound up in matter, has been freed from it,

the course of the world has reached its end and the longed-for

time of Achamoth’s marriage will have come. Accompanied by

myriads of his angels, the Soter leads the noble sufferer into

the Pleroma. The pneumatical natures follow her, and as the

Soter is married to Achamoth, the angels are married to them. The

Demiurge goes with his tried and redeemed saints into the Τόπος

τῆς μεσότητος. But from the depths of the Hyle breaks forth a

hidden fire which utterly consumes the Hylic natures and the Hyle

itself.[40]

§ 27.5. According to Hippolytus the Valentinian school split

up into two parties--an Italian party, the leaders of which,

Heracleon and Ptolemæus [Ptolemy], were at Rome, and an Eastern

party to which Axionicus and Bardesanes belonged. =Heracleon= of

Alexandria was a man of a profoundly religious temperament, who

in his speculation inclined considerably toward the doctrine of

the church, and even wrote the first commentary on the Gospel

of John, of which many fragments are preserved in Origen’s

commentary on that gospel. =Ptolemæus= [Ptolemy] drew even

closer than his master to the church doctrine. Epiphanius quotes

a letter of his to his pupil Flora in which, after Marcion’s

example (see § 27, 11), the distinction of the divine and the

demiurgical in the Old Testament, and the relation of the Old

Testament to the New, are discussed. A position midway between

that of the West and of the East is apparently represented

by Marcus and his school. He combined with the doctrine of

Valentinus the Pythagorean and cabbalistic mysticism of numbers

and letters, and joined thereto magical and soothsaying arts.

His followers, the Marcosians, had a form of worship full of

ceremonial observances, with a twofold baptism, a psychical

one in the Kato-Christus for the forgiveness of sins, and a

pneumatical one for affiance with the future heavenly syzygy.

Of the Antiochean Axionicus we know nothing but the name. Of far

greater importance was =Bardesanes=, who flourished according

to Eusebius in the time of Marcus Aurelius, but is assigned by

authentic Syrian documents to the beginning of the third century.

The chief sources of information about his doctrine are the

56 rhyming discourses of Ephraem [Ephraim] against the heretics.

Living at the court and enjoying the favour of the king of Edessa,

he never attacked in his sermons the doctrinal system of the

church, but spread his Gnostic views built upon a Valentinian

basis in lofty hymns of which, besides numerous fragments in

Ephraem [Ephraim], some are preserved in the apocryphal _Acta

Thomae_ (§ 32, 6). Among his voluminous writings there was a

controversial treatise against the Marcionites (see § 27, 11).

In a Dialogue, Περὶ εἱμαρμένης, attributed to him, but probably

belonging to one of his disciples named Philippus, from which

Eusebius (_Præp. Ev._ vi. 10) quotes a passage, the Syrian

original of which, “The Book of the Laws of the Land,” was only

recently discovered,[41] astrology and fatalism are combated

from a Christian standpoint, although the author is still himself

dominated by many Zoroastrian ideas. Harmonius, the highly gifted

son of Bardesanes, distinguished himself by the composition of

hymns in a similar spirit.