Gnosis is in general characterized by fantastic combinations of
Syro-Chaldaic myths and Biblical history with Greek mythology,
philosophy and mysteriosophy. In all its forms the serpent (ὄφις,
נָחָשׁ) plays an important part, sometimes as Kakodemon, sometimes
as Agathodemon. This arose from the place that the serpent
had in the Egyptian and Asiatic cosmology as well as in the
early biblical history. One of the oldest forms of Ophitism is
described by Hippolytus, who gives to its representatives the
name of =Naassenes=, from נָחָשׁ. The formless original essence, ὁ
προών, revealed himself in the first men, Ἀδάμας, Adam, Cadmon,
in whom the pneumatic, psychical and hylic principles were still
present together. As the instrument in creation he is called
Logos or Hermes. The serpent is revered as Agathodemon; it
proceeds from the Logos, transmitting the stream of life to all
creatures. Christ, the redeemer, is the earthly representative of
the first man, and brings peace to all the three stages of life,
because he, by his teaching, directs every one to a mode of life
in accordance with his nature.--The =Sethites=, according to
Hippolytus, taught that there were two principles: an upper one,
τὸ φῶς, an under one, τὸ σκότος, and between these τὸ πνεῦμα, the
atmosphere that moves and causes motion. From a blending of light
with darkness arose chaos, in which the pneuma awakened life.
Then from chaos sprang the soul of the world as a serpent, which
became the Demiurge. Man had a threefold development: hylic or
material in Cain, psychical in Abel, and pneumatical in Seth, who
was the first Gnostic.--The founders of the =Perates=, who were
already known to Clement of Alexandria, are called by Hippolytus
Euphrates and Celbes. Their name implies that they withdrew from
the world of sense in order to secure eternal life here below,
περᾶν τὴν φθοράν. The original divine unity, they taught, had
developed into a Trinity: τὸ ἀγέννητον, ἀυτογενές and γεννητόν,
the Father, the Son, and the Hyle. The Son is the world serpent
that moves and quickens all things (καθολικός ὄφις). It is his
task to restore everything that has sunk down from the two higher
worlds into the lower, and is held fast by its Archon. Sometimes
he turns himself serpent-like to his Father and assumes his
divine attributes, sometimes to the lower world to communicate
them to it. In the shape of a serpent he delivers Eve from the
law of the Archon. All who are outlawed by this Archon, Cain,
Nimrod, etc., belong to him. Moses, too, is an adherent of his,
who erected in the wilderness the healing brazen serpent to
represent him, while the fiery biting serpent of the desert
represent the demons of the Archon. The =Cainites=, spoken of by
Irenæus and Epiphanius, were closely connected with the Perates.
All the men characterized in the Old Testament as godless are
esteemed by them genuine pneumatical beings and martyrs for the
truth. The first who distinguished himself in conflict with the
God of the Jews was Cain; the last who led the struggle on to
victory, by bringing the psychical Messiah through his profound
sagacity to the cross, was Judas Iscariot. The Gnostic =Justin=
is known to us only through Hippolytus, who draws his information
from a _Book of Baruch_. He taught that from the original essence,
ὁ Ἀγαθός or Κύριος, יְהוָֹה, emanated a male principle, Ἐλωείμ, אֱלֹהִים,
which had a pneumatical nature, and a female principle, Ἐδέμ, עֵדֶן,
which was above man (psychical) and below the serpent (hylic).
From the union of this pair sprang twelve ἄγγελοι πατρικοί, who
had in them the father’s nature, and twelve ἄγγελοι μητρικοί,
on whom the mother’s nature was impressed. Together they formed
Paradise, in which Baruch, an angel of Elohim, represented the
tree of life, and Naas, an Edem-angel, represented the tree
of knowledge. The Elohim-angel formed man out of the dust
of Paradise; Edem gave him a soul, Elohim gave him a spirit.
Pressing upward by means of his pneumatical nature Elohim raised
himself to the borders of the realms of light. The Agathos took
him and set him at his right hand. The forsaken Edem avenged
himself by giving power to Naas to grieve the spirit of Elohim
in man. He tempted Eve to commit adultery with him, and got Adam
to commit unnatural vice with him. In order to show the grieved
spirit of man the way to heaven, Elohim sent Baruch first to
Moses and afterwards to other Prophets of the Old Testament;
but Naas frustrated all his efforts. Even from among the heathen
Elohim raised up prophets, such as Hercules whom he sent to fight
against the twelve Edem-angels (his twelve labours), but one of
them named Babel or Aphrodite robbed even this divine hero of his
power (a reminiscence of the story of Omphale). Finally, Elohim
sent Baruch to the peasant boy Jesus, son of Joseph and Mary.
He resisted all the temptations of Naas, who therefore got him
nailed upon the cross. Jesus commended his spirit into the hands
of the Father, into whose heaven he ascended, leaving his body
and soul with Edem. So, after his example, do all the pious.
§ 27.7. The Gnosis of the =Ophites=, described by Irenæus, etc.,
is distinguished from that of the earlier Naasenes [Naassenes]
by its incorporation of Valentinian and dualistic or Saturninian
(see § 27, 9) ideas. From the Bythos who, as the primary being,
is also called the first man, Adam Cadmon, emanates the thought,
ἔννοια, of himself as the second man or son of man, and from
him the Holy Spirit or the Ano-Sophia, who in turn bears the
Ano-Christus and Achamoth. The latter, an imperfect being of
light, who is also called Προύνικος, which according to Epiphanius
means πόρνη, drives about through the dark ocean of chaos, over
which the productive mother, the Holy Spirit, broods, in order
to found for himself in it an independent world of his own. There
dense matter unites with the element of light and darkens it to
such a degree that even the consciousness of its own divine origin
begins to fade away from it. In this condition of estrangement
from God she produces the Demiurge, Jaldabaoth, יַלְדָּא בָּהוּת, son
of chaos; and he, a wicked as well as limited being, full of
arrogance and pride, determines that he himself alone will be
lord and master in the world which he creates. This brings
Achamoth to penitent deliberation. By the vigorous exercise of
all the powers of light dwelling in her, and strengthened by a
gleam of light from above, she succeeds in raising herself from
the realm of chaos into the Τόπος τῆς μεσότητος. Nevertheless
Jaldabaoth brought forth six star spirits or planets after his
own image, and placed himself as the seventh at their head. But
they too think of rebelling. Enraged at this Jaldabaoth glances
wildly upon the deep-lying slime of the Hyle; his frightfully
distorted countenance is mirrored in this refuse of chaos; the
image there comes to life and forms Ophiomorphus or Satan. By
order of Jaldabaoth the star spirits make man; but they produce
only an awkward spiritless being that creeps along the ground. In
order to quicken it and make it stand erect the Demiurge breathes
into it his own breath, but thereby deprives himself of a great
part of that pneumatical element which he had from his mother.
The so-called fall, in which Ophiomorphus or the serpent was only
the unconscious instrument of Achamoth, is in truth the beginning
of the redemption of man, the advance to self-consciousness
and moral freedom. But as a punishment for his disobedience
Jaldabaoth drove him out of the higher material world, Paradise,
into the lower, where he was exposed to the annoyances of
Ophiomorphus, who also brought the majority of mankind, the
heathens, under his authority, while the Jews served Jaldabaoth,
and only a small number of pneumatical natures by the help
of Achamoth kept themselves free from both. The prophets whom
Jaldabaoth sent to his people, were at the same time unconscious
organs of Achamoth, who also sent down the Ano-Christus from the
Pleroma upon the Messiah, whose kingdom is yet to spread among
all nations. Jaldabaoth now let his own Messiah be crucified,
but the Ano-Christus was already withdrawn from him and had
set himself unseen at the right hand of the Demiurge, where he
deprives him and his angels of all the light element which they
still had in them, and gathers round himself the pneumatical
from among mankind, in order to lead them into the Pleroma.--The
latest and at the same time the noblest product of Ophite
Gnosticism is the =Pistis Sophia=,[42] appearing in the middle
of the third century, with a strong tincture of Valentinianism.
It treats mainly of the fall, repentance, and complaint of
Sophia, and of the mysteries that purify for redemption, often
approaching very closely the doctrine of the church.
§ 27.8. =Antinomian and Libertine Sects.=--The later
representatives of Alexandrian Gnosticism on account of the
antinomian tendency of their system fell for the most part into
gross immorality, which excused itself on the ground that the
pneumatical men must throw contempt upon the law of the Demiurge,
ἀντιτάσσεσθαι, (whence they were also called Antitactes), and
that by the practice of fleshly lusts one must weaken and slay
the flesh, παραχρῆσθαι τῇ σαρκί, so as to overcome the powers
of the Hyle. The four following sects may be mentioned as those
which maintained such views.--
a. =The Nicolaitans=, who in order to give themselves the
sanction of primitive Christianity sought to trace their
descent from Nicolaus [Nicolas] the Deacon (Acts vi. 5). But
while they have really no connection with him, they are just
as little to be identified with the Nicolaitans of the
Apocalypse (§ 18, 3).
b. In a similar way the =Simonians= sought to attach themselves
to Simon Magus (§ 25, 2). They gave to the fables associated
with the name of Simon a speculative basis borrowed from
the central idea of the philosophy of Heraclitus, that
the principle of all things (ἡ ἀπέραντος δύναμις) is fire.
From it in three syzygies, νοῦς and ἐπίνοια, φωνή and
ὄνομα, λογισμός and ἐνθύμησις, proceed the six roots of
the supersensible world, and subsequently the corresponding
six roots of the sensible world, Heaven and earth, Sun and
moon, Air and water, in which unlimited force is present
as ὁ ἐστώς, στάς, and στησόμενος. Justin Martyr was already
acquainted with this sect, and also Hippolytus, who quotes
many passages from their chief treatise, entitled, Ἀπόφασις
μεγάλη and reports scandalous things about their foul
worship.
c. =The Carpocratians.= In the system of their founder
Carpocrates, who lived at Alexandria in the first half of
the second century, God is the eternal Mould, the unity
without distinctions, from whom all being flows and to whom
all returns again. From Him the ἄγγελοι κοσμοποιοί revolted.
By the creation of the world they established a distinct
order of existence apart from God and consolidated it by the
law issuing from them and the national religions of Jews and
Gentiles founded by them. Thus true religion or the way of
return for the human spirit into the One and All consists
theoretically in Gnosis, practically in emancipation from
the commands of the Demiurge and in a life κατὰ φύσιν. The
distinction of good and bad actions rests merely on human
opinions. Man is redeemed by faith and love. In order to be
able to overcome the powers that created the world, he is
in need of magic which is intimately connected with Gnosis.
Every human spirit who has not fully attained to this end of
all religious endeavour, is subjected, until he reaches it,
to the assumption of one bodily form after another. Among
the heroes of humanity who with special energy and success
have assailed the kingdom of the Demiurge by contempt
of his law and spread of the true Gnosis, a particularly
conspicuous place is assigned to Jesus, the son of Joseph.
What he was for the Jews, Orpheus, Pythagoras, Plato, etc.,
were for the Gentiles. To the talented son of Carpocrates,
named Epiphanes, who died in his seventeenth year, after
impressing upon his father’s Gnostic system a boundless
communistic and libertine tendency with community of goods
and wives, his followers erected a temple at Cephalonia, in
which they set up for divine honours the statues of Christ
and the Greek philosophers. At the close of their Agapæ,
they indulged in _Concubitus promiscuus_.
d. =The Prodicians= flourished about the time of Clement of
Alexandria, and were connected, perhaps, through their
founder Prodicus, with the Carpocratians. In order to prove
their dominion over the sensible world they were wont to
appear in their assemblies naked, and hence are also called
=Adamites=. So soon as they succeeded in thus reaching
the state of innocence that had preceded the fall, they
maintained that as pneumatical king’s sons they were raised
above all law and entitled to indulge in unbridled lust.
§ 27.9. =Saturninus=, or Satornilus of Antioch, according to
Irenæus, a disciple of Menander, was one of the oldest Syrian
Gnostics, during the age of Hadrian, and the one in whose system
of Dualism the most decided traces of Parsee colouring is found.
From the θεὸς ἄγνωστος the spirit world of the kingdom of light
emanates in successive stages. On the lowest stage stand the
seven planet spirits, ἄγγελοι κοσμοκράτορες, at their head the
creator of the world and the god of the Jews. But from eternity
over against the realm of light stands the Hyle in violent
opposition under the rule of Satanas. The seven star spirits
think to found therein a kingdom free and independent of the
Pleroma, and for this purpose make an inroad upon the kingdom
of the Hyle, and seize upon a part of it. Therefore they form
the sensible world and create man as keeper thereof after a fair
model sent by the good God of which they had a dim vision. But
they could not give him the upright form. The supreme God then
takes pity upon the wretched creature. He sends down a spark
of light σπινθήρ into it which fills it with pneumatical life
and makes it stand up. But Satanas set a hylic race of men
over against this pneumatical race, and persecuted the latter
incessantly by demons. The Jewish god then plans to redeem the
persecuted by a Messiah, and inspires prophets to announce his
coming. But Satan, too, has his prophets, and the Jewish god is
not powerful enough to make his views prevail over his enemy’s.
Finally the good God sends to the earth the Aeon [Æon] Νοῦς, in
what has the appearance of a body, in order that he as σωτήρ may
teach the pneumatical how to escape, by Gnosis and asceticism,
abstaining from marriage and the eating of flesh, not only the
attacks of Satan, but also the dominion of the Jewish god and his
star spirits, how to emancipate themselves from all connection
with matter, and to raise themselves into the realm of light.
§ 27.10. =Tatian and the Encratites.=--The Assyrian Tatian,
converted to Christianity at Rome by Justin Martyr, makes his
appearance as a zealous apologist of the faith (§ 30, 10). In
his later years, however, just as in the case of Marcion, in
consequence of his exaggeration of the Pauline antithesis of
flesh and spirit, law and grace, he was led to propound a theory
of the dualistic opposition between the god of the law, the
Demiurge, and the god of the gospel, which found expression
in a Gnostic-ascetic system, completely breaking away from the
Catholic church, and reaching its conclusion in the hyperascetic
sect of the Encratites that arose in Rome about A.D. 172. He now
became head and leader of this sect, which, with its fanatical
demand of complete abstinence from marriage, from all eating of
flesh and all spirituous liquors, won his approval, and perhaps
from him received its first dogmatic Gnostic impress. Of Tatian’s
Gnostic writings, Προβλήματα and Περὶ τοῦ κατὰ τὸν σωτῆρα
καταρτισμοῦ, only some fragments, with scanty notices of his
Gnostic system, are preserved. His dualistic opposition of the
god of the Old Testament and the god of the New Testament cannot
have meant a thorough hostility, for he makes the Demiurge
sitting in darkness address himself to the supreme God in
the language of prayer, “Let there be light.” He declares,
however, that Adam, as the author of the fall, is incapable
of redemption.--His followers were also called Ὑδροπαραστάται,
Aquarii, because at the Supper they used water instead of wine.
See Lit. at § 30, 10.
§ 27.11. =Marcion and the Marcionites.=--Marcion of Sinope in
Pontus, who died about A.D. 170, was, according to Tertullian,
a rich shipmaster who, on his arrival in Rome, in his early
enthusiasm for the faith, bestowed upon the Church there a rich
present, but was afterwards excommunicated by it as a heretic.
According to the Pseudo-Tertullian and others he was the son of a
bishop who excommunicated him for incontinence with one under the
vow of virginity. The story may possibly be based upon a later
misunderstanding of the charge of corrupting the church as the
pure bride of Christ. He was a man of a fiery and energetic
character, but also rough and eccentric, of a thoroughly
practical tendency and with little speculative talent. He was
probably driven by the hard inward struggles of his spiritual
life, somewhat similar to those through which Paul had passed, to
a full and hearty conception of the free grace of God in Christ;
but conceived of the opposition between law and gospel, which the
Apostle brought into harmony by his theory of the pædogogical
office of the law, as purely hostile and irreconcileable.
At Rome in A.D. 140, the Syrian Gnostic =Cerdo=, who already
distinguished between the “good” God of Christianity and
the “just” God of Judaism, gained an influence over him.
He consequently developed for himself a Gnostic system, the
dominating idea of which was the irreconcilable opposition of
righteousness and grace, law and gospel, Judaism and Christianity.
He repudiated the whole of the Old Testament, and set forth
the opposition between the two Testaments in a special treatise
entitled _Antitheses_. He acknowledged only Paul as an Apostle,
since all the rest had fallen back into Judaism, and of the whole
New Testament he admitted only ten Pauline epistles, excluding
the Pastoral Epistles and the Epistles to the Hebrews, and
admitting the Gospel of Luke only in a mutilated form.[43]
Marcion would know nothing of a secret doctrine and tradition
and rejected the allegorical interpretation so much favoured
by the Gnostics, as well as the theory of emanation and the
subordination of Pistis under Gnosis. While other Gnostics
formed not churches but only schools of select bands of
thinkers, or at most only small gatherings, Marcion, after
vainly trying to reform the Catholic church in accordance with
his exaggerated Paulinism, set himself to establish a well
organised ecclesiastical system, the members of which were
arranged as _Perfecti_ or _Electi_ and _Catechumeni_. Of the
former he required a strict asceticism, abstinence from marriage,
and restriction in food to the simplest and least possible. He
allowed the Catechumens, however, in opposition to the Catholic
practice (§ 35, 1), to take part in all the services, which were
conducted in the simplest possible forms. The moral earnestness
and the practical tendency of his movement secured him many
adherents, of whom many congregations maintained their existence
for a much longer time than the members of other Gnostic sects,
even down to the seventh century. None of the founders of the old
Gnostic sects were more closely connected in life and doctrine
to the Catholic Church than Marcion, and yet, or perhaps just for
that reason, none of them were opposed by it so often, so eagerly
and so bitterly. Even Polycarp, on his arrival in Rome (§ 37, 2),
in reply to Marcion’s question whether he knew him, said:
Ἐπιγνώσκω τὸν πρωτότοκον τοῦ Σατανᾶ.--The general scope and
character of =the System of Marcion= have been variously
estimated. All older ecclesiastical controversialists, Justin,
Rhodon in Eusebius, Tertullian and Irenæus, in their description
and refutation of it seem to recognise only two principles
(ἀρχαί), which stand in opposition to one another, as θεὸς ἀγαθός
and θεὸς δίκαιος. The latter appears as creator of the world,
or Demiurge, the god of the Jews, the giver of the law, unable,
however, by his law to save the Jews and deter them from breaking
it, or to lead back the Gentiles to the observance of it. Then
of his free grace the “good” God, previously quite unknown,
determined to redeem men from the power of the Demiurge. For this
purpose he sends his Logos into the world with the semblance of a
body. By way of accommodation he gives himself out as the Messiah
of the Jewish god, proclaims the forgiveness of sins through free
grace, communicates to all who believe the powers of the divine
life, is at the instigation of the angry Demiurge nailed to the
cross to suffer death in appearance only, preaches to Gentiles
imprisoned in Hades, banishes the Demiurge to Hades, and
ordains the Apostle Paul as teacher of believers.--The later
heresiologists, however, Hippolytus, in his Elenchus, Epiphanius,
Theodoret, and especially the Armenian Esnig (§ 64, 3), are
equally agreed in saying that Marcion recognised three principles
(ἀρχαί); that besides the good God and the righteous God he
admitted an evil principle, the Hyle concentrated in Satan, so
that even the pre-Christian development of the world was viewed
from the standpoint of a dualistic conflict between divine powers.
The righteous God and the Hyle, as a _quasi_ female principle,
united with one another in creating the world, and when the
former saw how fair the earth was, he resolved to people it with
men created of his own likeness. For this purpose the Hyle at his
request afforded him dust, from which he created man, inspiring
him with his own spirit. Both divine powers rejoiced over man as
parents over a child, and shared in his worship. But the Demiurge
sought to gain undivided authority over man, and so commanded
Adam, under pain of death, to worship him alone, and the Hyle
avenged himself by producing a multitude of idols to whom the
majority of Adam’s descendants, falling away from the God of
the law, gave reverence.--The harmonizing of these two accounts
may be accomplished by assuming that the older Church Fathers,
in their conflict with Marcion had willingly restricted
themselves to the most important point in the Marcionite system,
its characteristic opposition of the Gods of the Old and New
Testaments, passing over the points in which it agreed more
or less with other Gnostic systems; or by assuming that later
Marcionites, such as Prepon (§ 27, 12), in consequence of the
palpable defectiveness and inadequacy of the original system of
two principles, were led to give it the further development that
has been described.[44]
§ 27.12. The speculative weakness and imperfection of his system
led =Marcion’s Disciples= to expand and remodel it in many ways.
Two of these, Lucanus and Marcus, are pre-eminent as remodellers
of the system, into which they imported various elements from
that of Saturninus. The Assyrian =Prepon= placed the “righteous”
Logos as third principle between the “good” God and the “evil”
Demiurge. Of all the more nameful Marcionites, =Apelles=, who
died about A.D. 180, inclined most nearly to the church doctrine.
Eusebius tells about a Disputation which took place in Rome
between him and Rhodon, a disciple of Tatian. At the head of his
essentially monistic system Apelles places the ἀγέννητος θεός
as the μία ἀρχή. This God, besides a higher heavenly world, had
created an order of angels, of whom the first and most eminent,
the so-called _Angelus inclytus_ or _gloriosus_ as Demiurge made
the earthly world after the image and to the glory of the supreme
God. But another angel, the ἄγγελος πυρετός, corrupted his
creation, which was already in itself imperfect, by bringing
forth the σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας, with which he clothed the souls enticed
down from the upper world. It was he, too, who spoke to Moses out
of the burning bush, and as the god of the Jews gave the law from
Sinai. The Demiurge soon repented of his ill-fated performance,
and prayed the supreme God to send his Son as redeemer. Christ
appeared, lived, wrought and suffered in a real body. It was not,
however, the σὰρξ ἁμαρτίας that he assumed, but a sinless body
composed out of the four elements which he gave back to the
elements on his ascension to heaven. Towards the close of his
life Apelles seems, under the influence of the mystic revelations
of a prophetess, Philoumena, whose φανερώσεις he published, to
have more and more renounced his Gnostic views. He had already
admitted in his Disputation with Rhodon, that even on the
Catholic platform one may be saved, for the main thing is faith
in the crucified Christ and the doing of his works. He would even
have been prepared to subscribe to the Monotheism of the church,
had he not been hindered by the opposition between the Old
Testament and the New.
§ 27.13. The painter =Hermogenes= in North Africa, about A.D. 200,
whom Tertullian opposed, took offence at the Catholic doctrine of
creation as well as at the Gnostic theory of emanation, because
it made God the author of evil. He therefore assumed an eternal
chaos, from whose striving against the creative and formative
influence of God he explained the origin of everything evil and
vile.
§ 28. EBIONISM AND EBIONITIC GNOSTICISM.[45]
The Jewish-Christianity that maintained separation from
Gentile-Christianity even after the overthrow of the Holy City and its
temple, assumed partly a merely separatist, partly a decidedly heretical
character. Both tendencies had in common the assertion of the continued
obligation to observe the whole of the Mosaic law. But while the former
limited this obligation to the Christians of Jewish descent as the
peculiar stem and kernel of the new Messianic community, and allowed the
Gentile Christians as Proselytes of the Gate to omit those observances,
the latter would tolerate no such concession and outran the Old
Testament monotheism by a barren monarchianism that denied the
divinity of Christ (§ 33, 1). At a later period the two parties were
distinguished as Nazareans and Ebionites. On the other hand, in the
Ebionites described to us by Epiphanius we have a form of Jewish
Christianity permeated by Gnostic elements. These Ebionites, settling
along with the Essenes (§ 8, 4) on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea,
came to be known under the name of Elkesaites. In the Pseudo-Clementine
scheme of doctrine, this Ebionitic Gnosis was carried out in detail and
wrought up into a comprehensive and richly developed system.
§ 28.1. =Nazareans and Ebionites.=--Tertullian and with him most
of the later Church Fathers derive the name Ebionite from Ebion,
a founder of the sect. Since the time of Gieseler, however, the
name has generally been referred to the Hebrew word אֶבְיוֹן meaning
poor, in allusion partly to the actual poverty of the church of
Jerusalem (Gal. ii. 10), partly to the association of the terms
poor and pious in the Psalms and Prophets (comp. Matt. v. 3).
Minucius Felix, c. xxxvi. testifies that the Gentile Christians
were also so designated by those without: _Ceterum quod plerique
“Pauperes” dicimur, non est infamia nostra, sed gloria_. Recently,
however, Hilgenfeld has recurred to the patristic derivation of
the name.--In Irenæus the name Ebionæi makes its first appearance
in literature, and that as a designation of Jewish Christians
as heretics who admitted only a Gospel according to Matthew,
probably the so-called Gospel according to the Hebrews (§ 32, 4),
branded the Apostle Paul as an apostate, insisted upon the
strict observance of the Jewish law, and taught on Christological
questions “_consimiliter ut Cerinthus et Carpocrates_”
(§ 27, 1, 8), while they denied that Christ was born of a virgin,
and regarded Him as a mere man. Origen († A.D. 243) embraced all
Jewish Christians under the name Ἐβιωναῖοι but did not deny the
existence of two very different parties among them (διττοὶ and
ἀμφότεροι Ἐβιωναῖοι). Eusebius does the same. Jerome again is
the first to distinguish the more moderate party by the name
Nazareans (Acts xxiv. 5) from the more extreme who are designated
Ebionites. This too is the practice of Augustine and Theodoret.
The former party acknowledged the virgin birth of Christ and
so His divine origin, assigned to Paul his place as Apostle
to the Gentiles, and made no demand of Gentile Christians that
they should observe the ceremonial law of Moses, although they
believed that they themselves were bound thereby. The latter
again regarded it as absolutely necessary to salvation, and also
held that Christ was the Messiah, but only a man, son of Joseph
by Mary, endowed with divine powers in His baptism. His Messianic
work, according to them, consisted in His fulfilling by His
teaching the Mosaic law. His death was an offence to them, but
they took comfort from the promise of His coming again, when they
looked for the setting up of an earthly Messianic kingdom. Paul
was depreciated by them and made of little account. Ebionites
of both parties continued to exist in small numbers down to the
fifth century, especially in Palestine and Syria. Both however
had sunk by the middle of the second century into almost utter
insignificance. The scanty remains of writings issuing from the
party prove that especially the non-heretical Jewish Christianity
before the close of this century had in great part abandoned its
national Jewish character, and therewith its separate position
as a religious sect, and by adopting the views of the Pauline
Gentile Christianity (§ 30, 2) became gradually amalgamated
with it.[46]
§ 28.2. =The Elkesaites.=--Independent accounts of this sect in
substantial agreement with one another are given by Hippolytus
in his _Elenchus_, by Origen as quoted in Eusebius, and by
Epiphanius. Their designation has also led the Church Fathers
to assume a sect founder of the name of Elxai or Elchasai,
who is said to have lived in the time of Hadrian. The members
of the sect themselves derived their name from חֵיל כְּסָי, δύναμις
κεκαλυμμένη, the hidden power of God operating in them, that is,
the Holy Spirit, the δύναμις ἄσαρκος of the Clementine Homilies.
Probably it was the title of a book setting forth their esoteric
doctrine, which circulated only among those bound under oath to
secrecy. Origen says that the book was supposed to have fallen
down from heaven; Hippolytus says that it was held to have been
revealed by an angel who was the Son of God himself. Elxai
obtained it from the Serians in Parthia and communicated it to
the Sobiai, probably from שֹׁבְעַ; then the Syrian Alcibiades brought
it from Apamea to Rome in the third century. The doctrinal
system of the Elkesaites was very variable, and is represented
by the Church Fathers referred to as a confused mixture of
Christian elements with the legalism of Judaism, the asceticism
of Essenism, and the naturalism of paganism, and exhibiting a
special predilection for astrological and magical fancies. The
law was regarded as binding, especially the precepts concerning
the Sabbath and circumcision, but the sacrificial worship was
abandoned, and the portions of the Old Testament referring to
it as well as other parts. Their doctrine of baptism varied from
that of baptism once administered to that of a baptism by oft
repeated washings on days especially indicated by astrological
signs. Baptism was for the forgiveness of sins and also for the
magical cure of the sick. It was administered in the name of the
Father and the Son, and in addition there were seven witnesses
called, the five elements, together with oil and salt, the latter
as representative of the Lord’s Supper, which was celebrated
with salt and bread without wine. Eating of flesh was forbidden,
but marriage was allowed and highly esteemed. Their Christology
presented the appearance of unsettled fermentation. On the one
hand Christ was regarded as an angel, and indeed as the μέγας
βασιλεύς, of gigantic size, 96 miles high, and 24 miles broad;
but on the other hand, they taught also a repeated incarnation of
Christ as the Son of God, the final One being the Christ born of
the virgin. He represents the male principle, and by his side, as
the female principle, stands the Holy Spirit. Denial of Christ in
times of persecution seemed to them quite allowable. At the time
of Epiphanius,--who identifies them with the _Sampseans_, whose
name was derived from שֶׁמֶשׁ the sun, because in prayer they turned
to the sun, called also Ἡλιακοί,--they had for the most part
their residence round about the Dead Sea, where they got mixed
up with the Essenes of that region.--More recently the Elkesaites
have been brought into connection with the still extant sect
of the Sabeans or Mandeans (§ 25, 1). These Sabeans, from צבע
meaning טבע, βαπτίζειν, are designated by the mediæval Arabic
writers _Mogtasilah_, those who wash themselves, and _Elchasaich_
is named as their founder, and as teaching the existence of two
principles a male and a female. [47]
§ 28.3. =The Pseudo-Clementine Series of Writings= forms a
literature of a romantic historico-didactic description which
originated between A.D. 160 and 170.
a. The so-called =Homiliæ XX Clementis=[48] were prefaced by
two letters to the Apostle James at Jerusalem. The first
of these is from Peter enjoining secrecy in regard to the
“Kerugma” sent therewith. The second is from Clement of Rome
after the death of Peter, telling how he as the founder and
first bishop of the church of Rome had ordained Clement as
his successor, and had charged him to draw up those accounts
of his own career and of the addresses and disputations
of Peter which he had heard while the Apostle pursued and
contended with Simon Magus, and to send them to James as
head of the church, “bishop of bishops, who ruled the church
of Jerusalem and all the churches,” that they might be
certified by him. The historical framework of the book
represents a distinguished Roman of philosophical culture
and of noble birth, named Clement, as receiving his first
acquaintance with Christianity at Rome, and then as going
forth on his travels to Judea as an eager seeker after the
truth. At Alexandria (§ 16, 4) Barnabas convinces him of the
truth of Christianity, and Clement follows him to Cæsarea
where he listens to a great debate between Peter and Simon
Magus (§ 25, 2). Simon defeated betakes himself to flight,
but Peter follows him, accompanied by Clement and two who
had been disciples of the magician, Niceta and Aquila.
Though he goes after him from place to place, Peter does not
get hold of Simon, but founds churches all along his route.
On the way Clement tells him how long before his mother,
Mattidia, and his two brothers had gone on a journey to
Athens, and how his father, Faustus, had gone in search of
them, and no trace of any of them had ever been found. Soon
thereafter the mother is met with, and then it is discovered
that Niceta and Aquila are the lost brothers Faustinus and
Faustinianus. At the baptism of the mother the father also
is restored. Finally at Laodicea Peter and Simon engage a
second time in a four-days’ disputation which ends as the
first. The story concludes with Peter’s arrival at Antioch.
b. The ten books of the so-called =Recognitiones Clementis=,[49]
present us again with the Clement of the historical romance,
the historical here overshadowing the didactic, and a closer
connection with church doctrine being here maintained.
Critical examinations of the relations between the two sets
of writings have more and more established the view that
an older Jewish-Christian Gnostic work lay at the basis
of both. This original document seems to have been used
contemporaneously, but in a perfectly independent manner in
the composition of both; the Homilies using the materials
in an anti-Marcionite interest (§ 27, 11), the Recognitions
using them in such a way as to give as little offence as
possible to their Catholic readers. Still it is questionable
whether this original document, which probably bore the
title of Κηρύγματα Πέτρου, embraced in its earliest form
the domestic romance of Clement, or only treated of the
disputation of Peter with Simon at Cæsarea, and was first
enlarged by addition of the Ἀναγνωρισμοί Κλήμεντος giving
the story of Peter’s travels (Περίοδοι).
c. Finally, extracts from the Homilies, worthless and of
no independent significance, are extant in the form of
two Greek =Epitomæ= (ed. Dressel, Lps., 1859). Equally
unimportant is the Syrian Epitome, edited by Lagarde, Lps.,
1861, a compilation from the Recognitions and the Homilies.
All the three writers of the Epitomes had an interest only
in the romantic narrative.
§ 28.4. =The Pseudo-Clementine Doctrinal System= is represented
in the most complete and most original manner in the Homilies.
In the conversations, addresses, and debates there reported the
author develops his own religious views, and by putting them
in the mouth of the Apostle Peter seeks to get them recognised
as genuine unadulterated primitive Christianity, while all the
doctrines of Catholic Paulinism which he objects to, as well
as those of heretical Gnosticism and especially of Marcionism,
are put into the mouth of Simon Magus, the primitive heretic;
and then an attempt is made at a certain reconciliation and
combination of all these views, the evil being indeed contended
against, but an element of truth being recognised in them all. He
directs his Polemics against the polytheism of vulgar paganism,
the allegorical interpretation by philosophers of pagan myths,
the doctrine of the creation of the world out of nothing and
the sacrificial worship of Judaism, against the hypostatic
Trinity of Catholicism, the chiliasm of the Ebionites, the pagan
naturalistic element in Elkesaism, the dualism, the doctrine
of the Demiurge, the Docetism and Antinomianism of the Gentile
Christian Gnostics. He attempts in his Ironies to point out the
Ebionitic identity of genuine Christianity with genuine Judaism,
emphasizes the Essenic-Elkesaitic demand to abstain from eating
flesh, to observe frequent fasts, divers washings and voluntary
poverty (through a recommendation of early marriages), as well
as the Catholic doctrine of the necessity of baptism for the
forgiveness of sins, and justifies the Gnostic tendency of his
times by setting up a system of doctrine of which the central
idea is the connection of Stoical Pantheism with Jewish Theism,
and is itself thoroughly dualistic: God the eternal pure Being
was originally a unity of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, and his life consisted
in extension and contraction, ἔκτασις and συστολή, the symbol
of which the human heart was a later copy. The result of such
an ἔκτασις was the separation of πνεῦμα and σῶμα, wherewith a
beginning of the development of the world was made. The πνεῦμα is
thus represented as Υἱός, also called Σοφία or Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος
τοῦ μέλλοντος; the Σῶμα is represented as Οὐσία or Ὕλη which four
times parts asunder in twofold opposition of the elements. Satan
springs from the mixing of these elements, and is the universal
soul of the Ἄρχων τοῦ αἰῶνος τούτου. The Σῶμα has thereby become
ἔμψυχον and ζῶον. Thus the Monas has unfolded itself into a Dyas,
as the first link of a long chain of contrasted pairs or Syzygies,
in the first series of which the large and male stands opposite
the small and female, heaven and earth, day and night, etc. The
last Syzygy of this series is Adam as the true male, and Eve as
the false female prophet. In the second series that relation had
come to be just reversed, Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, etc.
In the protoplasts this opposition of truth and falsehood, of
good and evil, was still a physical and necessary one; but in
their descendants, because both elements of their parents are
mixed up in them, it becomes an ethical one, conditioning and
requiring freedom of self-determination. Meanwhile Satan tempted
men to error and sin; but the true prophet (ὁ ἀληθὴς προφήτης) in
whom the divine Πνεῦμα dwelt as ἔμφυτον and ἀένναον, always leads
them back again into the true way of Gnosis and the fulfilment of
the law. In Adam, the original prophet, who had taught whole and
full truth, he had at first appeared, returning again after every
new obscuration and disfigurement of his doctrine under varying
names and forms, but always anew proclaiming the same truth. His
special manifestations were in Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob,
Moses, and finally, in Christ. Alongside of them all, however,
stand false prophets inspired by the spirit of lies, to whom even
John the Baptist belongs, and in the Old Testament many of their
doctrines and prophecies have slipped in along with the true
prophecy. The transition from the original pantheistic to the
subsequent theistic standpoint, in which God is represented as
personal creator of the world, lawgiver, and governor, seems
to have been introduced by means of the primitive partition of
the divine being into Πνεῦμα and Σῶμα. In vain, however, do we
seek an explanation of the contradiction that, on the one hand,
the end of the development of the world is represented as the
separation of the evil from the good for the eternal punishment
of the former, but on the other hand, as a return, through the
purification of the one and the destruction of the other, of all
into the divine being, the ἀνάπαυσις. Equally irreconcilable is
the assertion of the unconditional necessity of Christian baptism
with the assertion of the equality of all stages of revelation.
§ 29. MANICHÆISM.
Manichæism makes its appearance in Persia about the middle of the
third century, independently of the Gentile-Christian Gnosticism of the
Roman empire, which was more or less under the influence of the Greek
philosophy of the second century, but bearing undoubted connection with
Mandæism (§ 25, 1), and Elkesaism (§ 28, 2). In principle and tendency,
it was at various points, as _e.g._ in its theory of emanation, its
doceticism, etc., connected with Gnosticism, but was distinguished
therefrom pre-eminently by using Christian soteriological ideas
and modes of thought as a mere varnish for oriental pagan or
Babylonian-Chaldaic theosophy, putting this in place of Platonic or
Stoical notions which are quite foreign to it, basing the system on
Persian dualism and impregnating it with elements from Buddhist ethics.
Another point in which it is distinguished from Gnosticism is that it
does not present itself as an esoteric form of religion meant only for
the few specially gifted spirits, but distinctly endeavours to build up
a community of its own with a regularly articulated constitution and a
well organized ritual.
§ 29.1. =The Founder.=--What the Greek and Latin Fathers (Titus
of Bostra, Epiphanius, Augustine, etc.) say about the person and
history of the founder of this sect is derived mainly from an
account of a disputation which a bishop Archelaus of Cascar in
Mesopotamia is said to have held with Manes or Manichæus. This
document is written in Syriac and dates about A.D. 320, but it
is simply a polemical work under the guise of a debate between
men with historical names. These “Acts” have come down to us in
a very corrupt Latin version, and contain, especially in their
historical allusions, much that is incredible and legendary,
while in their representation of the doctrine of Manes they are
much more deserving of confidence. According to them the origin
of Manichæism is to be attributed to a far travelled Saracen
craftsman, named Scythianus, who lived in the age of the Apostles.
His disciple, Terebinthus, who subsequently in Babylon took
the name Buddas, and affirmed that he had been born of a
virgin, wrote at the master’s dictation four books, _Mysteria_,
_Capitula_, _Evangelium_, _Thesaurus_, which after his death
came into the possession of a freed slave, Cubricus or Corbicus.
This man made the wisdom taught therein his own, developed it
more fully, appeared in Persia as the founder of a new religion,
and called himself Manes. He was even received at court, but
his failure to heal a prince was used by the jealous magicians
to secure his overthrow. He escaped, however, from prison,
and found a safe hiding place in Arabion, an old castle in
Mesopotamia. Meanwhile he had got access to the sacred writings
of the Christians and borrowed much from them for the further
development of his system. He now gave himself out as the
Paraclete promised by Christ, and by means of letters and
messengers developed a great activity in the dissemination of his
views, especially among Christians. This led to the disputation
of Archelaus above referred to, in which Manes suffered utter
defeat. He was soon thereafter seized by order of the Persian
king, flayed alive, and his stuffed skin publicly exhibited as
a warning.
The reports in Persian documents of the ninth and tenth centuries
though later seem much more credible, and the dates derivable
from Manes’ own writings and those of his disciples quoted in
Arabic documents of the tenth and eleventh centuries, are quite
worthy of acceptance.[50] According to them Fatak the father
of Manes, called Πατέκιος in a Greek oath formula still extant,
was descended from a noble Persian family in Hamadan or Ecbatana,
married a princess of the Parthian Asarcidae, not long before
this, in A.D. 226, driven out by the Persian Sassanidæ, and
settled down with her at Ctesiphon, the Parthian capital. Here
he met with the Mogtasilah, Mandeans or Elkesaites (§ 28, 2),
then removed to Southern Chaldea, and trained his son, born in
A.D. 216, with great care in this faith. But even in his twelfth
year Manes received a divine revelation, which ordained him to
be the founder of a new religion, and in his twenty-fourth year
he was commissioned to preach this religion publicly. On his first
appearance in Persia, on the coronation day of king Sapor I.,
in A.D. 242, he met with so little support that he found it
necessary to keep away from the Persian empire for several
decades, which he spent in foreign lands developing his system
and successfully prosecuting missionary work. It was only about
the end of Sapor’s reign († A.D. 272) that he ventured again to
return. He won over to his views the king’s brother Peroz and
through him found favour temporarily with Sapor, which, however,
soon again turned into dislike. Sapor’s successor, Hormuz or
Hormisdas I., seemed inclined to be tolerant toward him. For
this very reason Bahram or Baranes I. showed himself all the more
hostile, and had him crucified in A.D. 276, his body flayed, and
the skin stuffed with straw thrown out at the gate of the city.
The two accounts may, according to Kessler, be brought into
harmony thus. The name Scythianus was given to Fatak as coming
from Parthia or Scythia. Terebinthus, a corruption of the Aramaic
_tarbitha_, sapling, was given originally as _Nomen appell._ to
the son of Fatak, and was afterwards misunderstood and regarded
as _Nomen propr._ of an additional member of the family,
intermediate between Fatak and Manes. In the Latin Cubricus,
however, we meet with a scornful rendering of his original name,
which he, on his entering independently on his work, exchanged
for the name Manes.[51] The name Buddas seems to indicate some
sort of connection with Buddhism. We also meet with the four
Terebinthus books among the seven chief works of Manes catalogued
in the Fihrist. According to a Persian document the _Evangelium_
bore the title _Ertenki Mani_, was composed by Manes in a cave
in Turkestan, in which he stayed for a long time during his
banishment, and was adorned with beautiful illustrations, and
passed for a book sent down to him direct from heaven.
§ 29.2. =The System.=--The different sets of documents give very
different accounts of the religious system of Manichæism. This is
not occasioned so much by erroneous tradition or misconception as
by the varying stages through which the doctrine of Manes passed.
In Western and Christian lands it took on a richer Christian
colouring than in Eastern and pagan countries. In all its forms,
however, we meet with a groundwork of magical dualism. As in
Parseeism, Ahriman and his Devas stand opposed to Ormuzd and
his Ameshaspentas and Izeds, so also here from all eternity a
luminous ether surrounding the realm of light, the _Terra lucida_,
of the good God, with his twelve æons and countless beings
of light, stands opposed to the realm of darkness, the _Terra
pestifera_, with Satan and his demons. Each of the two kingdoms
consists of five elements: the former of bright light, quickening
fire, clear water, hot air, soft wind; the latter of lurid flame,
scorching fire, grimy slime, dark clouds, raging tempest. In
the one, perfect concord, goodness, happiness, and splendour
prevail; in the other, wild, chaotic and destructive waves dash
confusedly about. Clothing himself in a borrowed ray of light,
Satan prepared himself for a robber campaign in the realm of
light. In order to keep him off the Father of Lights caused to
emanate from him the “Mother of Life,” and placed her as a watcher
on the borders of his realm. She brought forth the first man
(ὁ πρῶτος ἄνθρωπος), who armed with the five pure elements engaged
in battle with the demons. When he sank before their furious
onslaught, God sent a newly emanated æon for his deliverance, the
“living spirit” (ζῶον πνεῦμα), who freed him and vanquished the
demons. But a portion of the ethereal substance of the first man,
his armour of light, had been already devoured by the demoniac
Hyle, and as the _Jesus patibilis_, υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἐμπαθής,
remains imprisoned in it. Out of the elements of light which he
saved the living Spirit now forms the Sun and Moon, and settles
there the first man as _Jesus impatibilis_, υἱὸς ἀνθρώπου ἀπαθής,
while out of the Hyle impregnated with elements of light he
constructs the present earthly world, in order gradually to
deliver the fragments of light bound up in it, the _Jesus
patibilis_ or the soul of the world, and to fit them for
restoration to their eternal home. The first man dwelling in
the sun and the Holy Spirit enthroned in the luminous ether have
to further and direct this process of purification. The sun and
moon are the two light-ships, _lucidæ naves_, which the light
particles wrenched out of the world further increase. The zodiac
with its twelve signs operates in this direction like a revolving
wheel with twelve buckets, while the smaller ship, as new moon,
receives them, and as full moon empties them again into the sun,
which introduces them into the realm of light. In order to check
this process of purification Satan, out of the Hyle and the
imprisoned particles of light, of which he still had possession,
made Adam and Eve after his own image and that of the first man,
and incited them to fleshly lusts and carnal intercourse, so
that the light of their soul became dim and weak, and more and
more the body became its gloomy prison. His demons, moreover,
were continually busying themselves in fastening the chains of
darkness more tightly about their descendants by means of the
false religions of Judaism and paganism. Therefore at last the
_Jesus impatibilis_, clothed with the appearance of a body,
descended from the sun to the earth, to instruct men about their
souls and the means and end of their redemption. The sufferings
and death inflicted upon him by the Prince of Darkness were only
in appearance. The death of the cross and the resurrection were
only sensible representations of the overthrow and final victory
of the _Jesus patibilis_. As in the macrocosm of the earthly
world there is set forth the emancipation of this suffering
Christ from the bonds of hylic matter, so also in the microcosm
represented in each individual man, we have the dominion of the
spirit over the flesh, the redemption of the soul of light from
the prison of the body, and its return to the realm of light,
conceived of as the end and aim of all endeavour. The method
for attaining this consists in the greatest possible abstinence
from all connection and intercourse with the world of sense; the
_Signaculum oris_ in particular demands absolute abstinence from
all animal food and restriction in the use even of vegetable food,
for in the slaughtering of the animal all elements of light are
with the life withdrawn from its flesh, and only hylic elements
remain, whereas in vegetable fare the substances of light there
present contribute to the strengthening of the light in the man’s
own soul. Wine and all intoxicating drinks as “Satan’s gall”
are strictly forbidden, as well as animal food. The _Signaculum
manuum_ prohibits all injuring of animal or plant life, all
avoidable contact with or work upon matter, because the material
is thereby strengthened. The _Signaculum sinus_ forbids all
sensual pleasure and carnal intercourse. The souls of those men
who have perfectly satisfied the threefold injunction, return at
death immediately into the blessed home of light. Those who only
partially observe them must, by transmigration of the soul into
other bodies, of animals, plants or men, in proportion to the
degree of purification attained unto, that is, by metempsychosis,
have the purifying process carried to perfection. But all who
have not entered upon the way of sanctification, are finally
delivered over unreservedly to Satan and hell. The Apostles
greatly misunderstood and falsified this doctrine of Christ;
but in the person of Manes the promised Paraclete appeared, who
taught it again in its original purity. For the most part Manes
accepted the Pauline epistles in which the doctrines of the
groaning creation and the opposition of flesh and spirit must
have been peculiarly acceptable to him; all the more decidedly
did he reject the Acts of the Apostles, and vigorously did
he oppose the account which it gave of the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit as in conflict with his doctrine of the Paraclete.
According to the Fihrist, Manes distinguished from the _Jesus
impatibilis_ who as true redeemer descended to earth in the
appearance of a body, the historical Jesus as prophet of the
Devil, and the false Messiah who for the punishment of his
wickedness suffered actual death on the cross instead of the
true Jesus. The Old Testament he wholly rejected. The god of the
Jews was with him the Prince of Darkness; the prophets with Moses
at their head were the messengers of the Devil. As his own true
precursors--the precursors of the Paraclete--he named Adam, Seth,
Noah, Abraham, Buddha, and Zoroaster.
§ 29.3. =Constitution, Worship, and Missionarizing.=--Manes was
still regarded after his death as the invisibly present head
(_Princeps_) of the church. At the head of the hierarchical order
as his visible representative stood an Imam or Pope, who resided
at Babylon. The first of these, appointed by Manes himself before
his death, was named Sis or Sisinius. The Manichæan ministry
was distributed under him into twelve _Magistri_ and seventy-two
_Bishops_, with presbyters and deacons in numbers as required.
The congregations consisted of Catechumens (_Auditores_) and
Elect (_Electi_, _Perfecti_). The latter were strictly bound
to observe the threefold _Signaculum_. The _Auditores_ brought
them the food necessary for the support of their life and out
of the abundance of their holiness they procured pardon to
these imperfect ones for their unavoidable violation of mineral
and vegetable life in making this provision. The _Auditores_
were also allowed to marry and even to eat animal food; but
by voluntary renunciation of this permission they could secure
entrance into the ranks of the _Electi_. The worship of the
Manichæans was simple, but orderly. They addressed their prayers
to the sun and moon. The Sunday was hallowed by absolute fasting,
and the day of common worship was dedicated to the honour of
the spirit of the sun; but on Monday the _Electi_ by themselves
celebrated a secret service. At their annual chief festival,
that of the Pulpit (βῆμα), on the day of their founder’s death,
they threw themselves down upon the ground in oriental fashion
before a beautifully adorned chair of state, the symbol of their
departed master. The five steps leading up to it represented
the five hierarchical decrees of the _Electi_, _Diaconi_,
_Presbyteri_, _Episcopi_ and _Magistri_. Baptism and the Lord’s
Supper, the former with oil, the latter with bread without wine,
belonged to the secret worship of the Perfect. Oil and bread were
regarded as the most luminous bearers of the universal soul in
the vegetable world.--Notwithstanding the violent persecution
which after the execution of Manes was raised against the
adherents of his doctrine throughout the whole Persian empire,
their number increased rapidly in all quarters, especially in
the East, but also in the West, in Syria, Palestine, Egypt, etc.
Proconsular Africa became the centre of its Western propaganda;
and thence it spread into Italy and Spain. In A.D. 290 Diocletian
issued an edict by which the Proconsul of Africa was required to
burn the leaders of this sect, doubly dangerous as springing from
the hostile Persian empire, along with their books, to execute
with the sword its persistent adherents, or send them to work in
the quarries, and confiscate their goods.--Continuation at § 54, 1.
III. THE DOCTRINAL DEVELOPMENT AND APOLOGETICAL
ACTIVITY OF THE CHURCH.[52]
§ 30. THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE POST-APOSTOLIC
AGE, A.D. 70-170.[53]
The literary remains of the so-called Apostolic Fathers constitute the
first fruits of Patristic-Christian literature. These are in respect of
number and scope insignificant, and, inasmuch as they had their origin,
from the special individual circumstances of their writers, they were
composed for the most part in the form of epistles. The old traditional
view that the authors of these treatises had enjoyed the immediate
fellowship and instruction of the Apostles is at once too narrow
and too wide. Among these writings must be included first of all the
recently discovered “Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.” About A.D. 130,
when Christianity was making its way among the ranks of the cultured,
Christian writers began to feel themselves called upon to engage with
paganism in a literary warfare defensive and offensive, in order to
repel the charges and calumnies raised against their religion and to
demonstrate its inner worth in opposition to the moral and religious
degradation of heathenism. These writings had a more theological and
scientific character than those of the Apostolic Fathers, which had more
of a practical and hortatory tendency. The works of these Apologists
still extant afford interesting and significant glimpses of the life,
doctrine, and thinking of the Christians of that age, which but for
these writings would have been almost unknown.
§ 30.1. =The Beginnings of Patristic Literature.=--According to
the established rule of the church we have to distinguish between
New Testament and Patristic literature in this way: to the former
belongs those writings to which, as composed by Apostles or at
least under Apostolic authority, the ancient church assigned
an objectively fundamental and regulative significance for
further ecclesiastical development; while in the latter we have
represented the subjective conception and estimation which the
Church Fathers made of the Christian message of salvation and
the structure they reared upon this foundation. The so-called
Apostolic Fathers may be regarded as occupying a position
midway between the two and forming a transition from the one
to the other, or as themselves constituting the first fruits
of Patristic literature. Indeed as regards the New Testament
writings themselves the ancient church was long uncertain and
undecided as to the selection of them from the multitude of
contemporary writings;[54] and Eusebius still designated several
of the books that were subsequently definitely recognised
ἀντιλεγόμενα; while modern criticism has not only repeated such
doubts as to the genuineness of these writings but has extended
these doubts to other books of the New Testament. But even this
criticism cannot deny the historical significance assigned above
to those New Testament books contested by it, even though it may
feel obliged to reject the account of them given by the ancient
church, and to assign their composition to the Post-Apostolic
Age.--When we turn to the so-called Apostolic Fathers, on closer
examination the usual designation as well as the customary
enumeration of seven names as belonging to the group will be
found too narrow because excluding the New Testament writings
composed by disciples of the Apostles, and too wide because
including names which have no claim to be regarded as disciples
or contemporaries of the Apostles, and embracing writings of
which the authenticity is in some cases clearly disproved, in
other cases doubtful or at least only problematical. We come upon
firm ground when we proceed to deal with the Apologists of the
age of Hadrian. It was not, however, till the period of the Old
Catholic Church, about A.D. 170, that the literary compositions
of the Christians became broadened, deepened and universalized
by a fuller appropriation and appreciation of the elements
of Græco-Latin culture, so as to form an all-sided universal
Christian literature representative of Christianity as a universal
religion.
§ 30.2. =The Theology of the Post-Apostolic Age.=--By far the
greater number of the ecclesiastical writers of this period
belong to the Gentile Christian party. Hence we might suppose
that it would reflect the Pauline type of doctrine, if not in its
full depth and completeness, yet at least in its more significant
and characteristic features. This expectation, however, is not
altogether realised. Among the Church Fathers of this age we
rather find an unconscious deterioration of the original doctrine
of Paul revealing itself as a smoothing down and belittling or
as an ignoring of the genuine Paulinism, which, therefore, as
the result of the struggle against the Gnostic tendency, only in
part overcome, was for the first time fully recognised and proved
finally victorious in the Reformation of the 16th century. On the
one hand, we see that these writers, if they do not completely
ignore the position and task assigned to Israel as the chosen
people of God, minimise their importance and often fail to
appreciate the pædagogical significance of the Mosaic law
(Gal. iii. 24), so that its ceremonial parts are referred to
misunderstanding, want of sense, and folly, or are attributed
even to demoniacal suggestion. But on the other hand, even
the gospel itself is regarded again as a new and higher law,
purified from that ceremonial taint, and hence the task of the
ante-mundane Son of God, begotten for the purpose of creating the
world, but now also manifest in the flesh, from whose influence
upon Old Testament prophets as well as upon the sages of paganism
all revelations of pre-Christian Judaism as well as all σπέρματα
of true knowledge in paganism have sprung, is pre-eminently
conceived of as that of a divine teacher and lawgiver. In this
way there was impressed upon the Old Catholic Church as it
grew up out of Pauline Gentile Christianity a legalistic moral
tendency that was quite foreign to the original Paulinism, and
the righteousness of faith taught by the Apostle when represented
as obedience to the “new law” passed over again unobserved into a
righteousness of works. Redemption and reconciliation are indeed
still always admitted to be conditioned by the death of Christ
and their appropriation to be by the faith of the individual;
but this faith is at bottom nothing more than the conviction
of the divinity of the person and doctrine of the new lawgiver
evidencing itself in repentance and rendering of practical
obedience, and in confident expectation of the second coming
of Christ, and in a sure confidence of a share in the life
everlasting.--The introduction of this legalistic tendency into
the Gentile Christian Church was not occasioned by the influence
of Jewish Christian legalism, nor can it be explained as
the result of a compromise effected between Jewish Christian
Petrinism and Gentile Christian Paulinism, which were supposed
by Baur, Schwegler, etc., to have been, during the Apostolic
Age, irreconcilably hostile to one another. This has been already
proved by Ritschl, who charges its intrusion rather upon the
inability of Gentile Christianity fully to understand the Old
Testament bases of the Pauline doctrine. By means of a careful
analysis of the undisputed writings of Justin Martyr and
by a comparison of these with the writings of the Apostolic
Fathers, Engelhardt has proved that anything extra-, un-, or
anti-Pauline in the Christianity of these Fathers has not so much
an Ebionitic-Jewish Christian, but rather a pagan-philosophic,
source. He shows that the prevalent religio-moral mode of thought
of the cultured paganism of that age reappears in that form
of Christianity not only as an inability to reach a profound
understanding of the Old Testament, but also just as much
as a minimising and depreciating, or disdaining of so many
characteristic features of the Pauline doctrinal resting on Old
Testament foundations.
§ 30.3. =The so-called Apostolic Fathers.=[55]--
a. =Clement of Rome= was one of the first Roman bishops,
probably the third (§ 16, 1). The opinion that he is to
be identified with the Clement named in Phil. iv. 3 is
absolutely unsupported. The sameness of age and residence
in some small measure favours the identifying him with
Tit. Flav. Clemens [Clement], the consul, and cousin of the
Emperor, who on account of his Christianity (?) was executed
in A.D. 95 (§ 22, 1). Besides a multitude of other writings
which subsequently assumed his well-known name (§ 28, 3;
43, 4), there are ascribed to him two so-called Epistles
to the Corinthians, of which however, the second certainly
is not his. The First Epistle which in the ancient church
was considered worthy to be used in public worship, was
afterwards lost, but fragments of it were recovered in
A.D. 1628 in the so-called _Codex Alexandrinus_ (§ 152, 2),
together with a portion of the so-called “Second Epistle.”
Recently however both writings were found in a complete
form by Bryennius, Metropolitan of Serrä in Macedonia, in
a Jerusalem Codex of A.D. 1056 discovered at Constantinople
and published by him.[56] In the following year a Codex
of the Syrian New Testament at Cambridge was more closely
examined,[57] and in it there was found a complete Syriac
translation of both writings inserted between the Catholic
and the Pauline Epistles, while in _Codex Alexandrinus_ they
are placed after the Apocalypse. =The “First” Epistle=, the
date of which is generally given as A.D. 93-95, does not
give the author’s name, but is assigned to Clement of Rome
by Dionysius of Corinth in A.D. 170, as quoted in Eusebius,
and by Irenæus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, and
described as written from Rome in name of the church of that
place to the church of Corinth, counselling peace and unity.
In the passage c. 58-63, formerly wanting but now restored,
the exhortation passes into a long prayer with intercessions
for those in authority and for the church according to what
was perhaps already the customary form of public prayer in
Rome. Both churches, those of Rome and Corinth, are admitted
without dispute to have been Gentile Christian churches,
which had accepted the Pauline type of doctrine, without
however fully fathoming or understanding it. But Peter also
occupies a position of equal honour alongside of Paul, and
nowhere does any trace appear of a consciousness of any
opposition between the two apostles. The divine sonship
of the Redeemer and His consequent universal sovereignty
are the basis of the Christian confession, but no sort
of developed doctrine of the divinity of Christ is here
found, and even His pre-existence is affirmed only as the
presupposition of the view that He was already operative in
the prophets by His spirit. The Old Testament, allegorically
and typically interpreted, is therefore the source and
proof of Christian doctrine. Of a particular election of
Israel the author knows nothing. Christians as such, whether
descended from Gentiles or from Jews, are the chosen people
of God; Abraham by reason of his faith is their father; and
it is only by faith in the Almighty God that men of all ages
have been justified before God.--In the so-called =Second
“Epistle”= the completed form of the second half proves
what the less complete form rendered probable, that it is
no Epistle but a sermon, and indeed the oldest specimen of
a sermon, that we here possess. The author, who delivered it
somewhere about A.D. 144-150, wrote it out first for his own
use, and then for the church. As it has in its theological
views many points of contact with the _Shepherd of Hermas_
(§ 30, 4), Harnack thinks it probable that a younger
Clement of Rome mentioned by Hermas may be the author;
while Hilgenfeld is inclined to regard it as a youthful
work of Clement of Alexandria (§ 31, 4). It contains a
forcible exhortation to thorough repentance and conversion
in accordance with the command of Christ, with a reference
to the judgment and the future glory. This shows in a
remarkable way what rapid progress had been made from the
religio-moral mode of thought of cultured paganism toward
moralizing legalism, and the smoothing down of Christianity
thereby introduced into the Gentile-Christian Catholic
Church, during the half century between the composition of
the Epistle of Clement and this Clementine discourse. For in
the latter already the gospel is represented as a new law, a
higher divine doctrine of virtue and reward, in which alms,
fasts, and prayer appear as specially meritorious works. The
righteousness that avails with God is still indeed derived
from faith, but this faith is reduced to a belief in the
future recompense of eternal life. Christ as Son of God is
conceived of by the author as a pneumatical heavenly being,
created before the world, who, sent by God into the world
for man’s redemption, took upon Him human σάρξ. But besides
Him, he also knows a second pneumatical hypostasis created
before the world, “before sun and moon,” the ἐκκλησία ζῶσα,
which, as the heavenly body of Christ, is at the same time
the presupposition for the making of the world restored by
His work of salvation. For the creation of this divine pair
of æons, that is, of Christ as the ἄνθρωπος ἐπουράνιος and
of the church as His heavenly σύζυγος, the author refers
to the account of the creation in Gen. i. 27. Of passages
quoted as sayings of Christ several are not to be found in
our Gospels.
§ 30.4.
b. The Epistle known by the name of Paul’s travelling companion
=Barnabas= (Acts iv. 36) was first recovered in the 17th
century. The first 4½ chapters were added from an old Latin
translation, till in the 19th century the _Codex Sinaiticus_
of the New Testament, and recently also the Jerusalem
Codex of Bryennius above referred to, supplied the complete
Greek text.[58] The date of the epistle has been variously
assigned to the age of Domitian, to that of Nerva, to that
of Hadrian; and is placed by Harnack between A.D. 96 and
A.D. 125. Its extravagant allegorical interpretation of
the Old Testament betrays its Alexandrian origin, and in
Gentile-Christian depreciation of the ceremonial law of the
Old Testament it goes so far as to attribute the conception
and actual composition of its books to diabolical inspiration.
It admits indeed a covenant engagement between God and
Israel, but maintains that this was immediately terminated
by Moses’ breaking of the tables of the law. All things
considered the composition of this Epistle by Barnabas is
scarcely conceivable. This was acknowledged by Eusebius
who counted it among the νόθοι, and by Jerome, who placed
it among the Apocrypha. For the rest, however, its type
of doctrine is in essential agreement with that of Paul,
though it fails to penetrate the depths of apostolic
truth. It is at least decidedly free from any taint of
that legalistic-moral conception of Christianity which is
so strongly masked in the discourse of Clement. The divine
sonship, pre-existence, and world-creating activity of Christ
is expressly acknowledged and taught, though there is yet no
reference to the doctrine of the Logos.
c. The prophetical writing known to us as =Pastor Hermæ
[Hermas]=,[59] which was first erroneously attributed by
Origen to Hermas the scholar of Paul at Rome (Rom. xvi. 14),
was so highly esteemed in the ancient church that it was
used in public like the canonical books of the New Testament.
Irenæus quotes it as holy scripture; Clement and Origen
regarded it as inspired, and the African church of the 3rd
century included it in the New Testament canon. On the other
hand, the Muratorian canon (§ 36, 8) had already ranked it
among the Apocrypha that might be used in private but not in
public worship. The book owes its title to the circumstance
that in it an angel appears in the form of a shepherd
instructing Hermas. It contains four visions, in which the
church, which πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη, appears to the author
as an old woman giving instruction (πρεσβυτέρα); it contains
also twelve _Mandata_ of the angel, and finally, ten
_Similitudines_ or parables. The Gentile-Christian origin of
the author is shown by the position which he assigns to the
church as coeval with the creation of the world and as at
first embracing all mankind. The sending of the Son of God
into the world has for its end not the founding but only the
renewing and perfecting of the church, and the twelve tribes
to which the Apostles were to preach the gospel are “the
twelve peoples who dwell on the whole earth” (comp. Deut.
xxxii. 8). In all the three parts the book takes the form of
a continuous earnest call to repentance in view of the early
coming again of Christ, dominated throughout by that same
legalistic conception of the Gospel that we meet with in the
discourse of Clement. Indeed this is more fully carried
out, for it teaches that the true penitent is able not
only to live a perfectly righteous life, but also in good
works, such as fasts, alms, etc., to do more than fulfil the
commands of God, and in this way to win for himself a higher
measure of the divine favour and eternal blessedness. In
Hermas we find no trace of any application of the doctrine
of the Logos to the person of Christ, and the ideas of the
Son of God and the Holy Spirit are confused with one another.
The Son of God as the Holy Spirit is προγενέστερος πάσης
τῆς κτίσεως; at His suggestion and by His means God created
the world; through Him He bears, sustains, and upholds it;
and by Him He redeems it by means of His incarnation, for
the Son of God as the Holy Spirit descends upon the man
Jesus in His baptism. From its prophetical utterances,
its eager expectation of the early return of the Lord,
and its promises of a new outpouring of the Spirit for the
quickening of the church already become too worldly, the
book may be characterized as a precursor of the Montanist
movement (§ 40), although on questions of practical morality,
such as second marriages, martyrdom, fasting, etc., it
exhibits a milder tendency than that of Montanistic rigorism,
and in reference to penitential discipline (§ 39, 2), while
acknowledging the inadmissibility of absolution for a mortal
sin committed after baptism, it nevertheless, owing to
the nearness of the second coming, allows to be proclaimed
by the angel a repeated, though only short, space for
repentance. The date of the composition of this book is
still matter of controversy. Since Hermas is commanded in
the second vision to send a copy of his book to “Clement” in
order to secure its further circulation, most of the earlier
scholars, and among the moderns specially Zahn, identifying
this Clement with the celebrated Roman Presbyter-Bishop
of that name, fix its date at somewhere about A.D. 100.
Recently, however, Harnack, v. Gebhardt, and others have
rightly assigned much greater importance to the testimony
of the Muratorian canon, according to which it was written
somewhere between A.D. 130-160, “_nuperrime temporibus
nostris in urbe Roma_,” by Hermas, the brother of the Roman
bishop Pius (A.D. 139-154).
§ 30.5.
d. =Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch=, is said to have been a
pupil of the Apostle John, though no evidence of this can
be produced from the Epistles ascribed to him. The _Acta
martyrii sancti Ignatii_, extant in five parts, are purely
legendary and full of contradictory statements. According
to a later document, that of the Byzantine chronographer
Joh. Malalas, at the time of the Parthian war during the
visit of Trajan to Antioch in A.D. 115, soon after an
earthquake had been experienced there, he was torn asunder
by lions in the circus as a despiser of the gods. According
to the martyrologies he was transported to Rome and suffered
this fate there, as usually supposed in A.D. 115, in the
opinion of Wieseler and others in A.D. 107 (Lightfoot says
between A.D. 100-118), according to Harnack soon after
A.D. 130.[60] The epistles to various churches and one
to Polycarp ascribed to him have come down to us in three
recensions differing from one another in extent, number and
character. There is a shorter Greek recension containing
seven, a larger Greek form, with expansions introduced for a
purpose, containing thirteen epistles, twelve by and one to
Ignatius, and the shortest of all in a Syriac translation
containing three epistles, those to the Romans, to the
Ephesians, and to Polycarp.[61] According to the first-named
recension, Ignatius is represented as writing all his
epistles during his martyr journey to Rome, but no reference
to this is made in the Syrian recension. Vigorous polemic
against Judaistic and Docetic heresy, undaunted confession
of the divinity of Christ, and unwearied exhortation to
recognise the bishop as the representative of Christ,
while the presbyters are described as the successors of the
Apostles, distinguish these epistles from all other writings
of this age, especially in the two Greek recensions, and
have led many critics to question their genuineness. Bunsen,
Lipsius, Ritschl, etc., regarded the Syrian recension, in
which the hierarchical tendency was more in the background,
as the original and authentic form. Uhlhorn, Düsterdieck,
Zahn, Funk, Lightfoot, Harnack, etc., prefer the shorter
Greek recension, and view the Syrian form as abbreviated
perhaps for liturgical purposes, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar,
etc., deny the genuineness of all three. But even on this
assumption, in determining the date of the composition of
the two shorter recensions, to whichever of them we may
ascribe priority and originality, we cannot on internal
grounds put them later than the middle of the second century,
whereas the larger Greek recension paraphrased and expanded
into thirteen epistles belongs certainly to a much later
date (§ 43, 4).[62]
§ 30.6.
e. =Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna=, had also been according to
Irenæus ordained to this office by the Apostle John. He
died at the stake under Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus Pius?)
in A.D. 166 (or A.D. 155) at an extreme old age (§ 22, 3).
We possess an epistle of his to the Philippians of
practical contents important on account of its New Testament
quotations. Its genuineness, however, has been contested
by modern criticism. It stands and falls with the seven
Ignatian epistles, as it occupies common ground with them.
We have a legendary biography of Polycarp by Pionius dating
from the 4th century, which is reproduced in Lightfoot’s
work.
f. =Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis= in Galatia, was also,
according to Irenæus, a pupil of the Apostle John. This
statement, however, in the opinion of Eusebius and many
moderns, rests upon a confusion between the Apostle and
another John, whom Papias himself distinguishes by the title
πρεσβύτερος (§ 16, 2). He is said to have suffered death
as a martyr under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 163. With
great diligence he collected mediately and immediately
from the mouths of the πρεσβύτεροι, that is, from such as
had intercourse with the Apostles, or had been, like the
above-mentioned John the Presbyter, μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου, oral
traditions about the discourses of the Lord, and set down
the results of his inquiries in a writing entitled Λογίων
κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. A passage quoted by Eusebius in his
_Ch. Hist._, iii. 29, from the preface of this treatise has
given rise to a lively controversy as to whether Papias was a
pupil of the Apostle John and was acquainted with the fourth
Gospel. Another fragment on the history of the origin of
the Gospels of Matthew and Mark has occasioned a dispute
as to whether only these two Gospels were known to him.
Finally, there is preserved in Irenæus a passage giving a
reputed saying of Christ regarding the fantastically rich
fruitfulness of the earth during the thousand years’ reign
(§ 33, 9). He so revels in fantastic and sensuous chiliastic
dreams that Eusebius, who had previously spoken of him as
a learned and well-read man, is driven to pass upon him the
harsh judgment: σφόδρα γάρ τοι σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν.[63]
g. Finally, we must here include an epistle to a certain
=Diognetus= by an unknown writer, who has described himself
as μαθητὴς τῶν ἀποστόλων. Justin Martyr, among whose
writings this epistle got inserted, cannot possibly have
been the author, as both his style and his point of view
are different. The epistle controverts in a spirited manner
the objections of Diognetus to Christianity, views the
pagan deities not, like the other Church Fathers, as demons,
but as unsubstantial phantoms, explains the Old Testament
institutions as human, and so in part foolish enactments,
and maintains keenly and determinedly the opinion that
God for the first time revealed Himself to man in Christ.
He thus, as Dräseke thinks, to some extent favours the
Marcionite view of the Old Testament, so that he regards
it as not improbable that our epistle was composed by a
disciple of Marcion, one perhaps like Apelles, who in the
course of the later development of the school had rejected
many of his master’s crudities (§ 27, 12). He addresses
his discourse to Diognetus, the stoical philosopher who
boasts of Marcus Aurelius as his master. On the other hand,
Overbeck assigns its composition to the Post-Constantine
Age, and the French scholar Doulcet, setting it down to the
age of Hadrian, thinks he has discovered the author to be
the Athenian philosopher Aristides. This idea has been more
fully carried out by Kihn, who endeavours to make out not
only the identity of the author, but that of him to whom the
epistle is addressed: Κράτιστε Διόγνητε, “Almighty son of
Zeus,” that is, Hadrian.
§ 30.7. =The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.=--The
celebrated little treatise bearing the title Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ
τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῖς ἔθνεσιν was discovered by Bryennius
(then metropolitan of Serrä, now of Nicomedia) in the Jerusalem
Codex, to which we also owe the perfect text of the two so-called
Epistles of Clement, and it was edited by this scholar with
prolegomena and notes in Greek, at Constantinople in 1883. It at
once set in motion many learned pens in Germany, France, Holland,
England, and North America.--Eusebius, who first expressly names
it in his list of New Testament writings as τῶν ἀποστόλων αἱ
λεγόμεναι διδαχαί, which Rufinus renders by _Doctrina quæ dicitur
App._, places it in the closest connection with the Epistle of
Barnabas among the ἀντιλεγόμενα νόθα (§ 36, 8). Four years later
Athanasius ranks it as διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν ἀπ. along with the
Shepherd of Hermas, giving it the first place, as a New Testament
supplement corresponding to the Old Testament ἀναγινωσκόμενα
(§ 59, 1). Clement of Alexandria quoting a passage from it uses
the formula, ὑπὸ τῆς γραφῆς εἴρηται, and thus treats it as holy
scripture. In Origen again no sort of reference to it has as
yet been found. From the 39th Festival Epistle of Athanasius,
A.D. 367, which ranks it, as we have just seen, as a New Testament
supplement like the Old Testament Anaginoskomena, we know that
it like these were used at Alexandria παρὰ τῶν πατέρων in the
instruction of catechumens. In the East, according to Rufinus,
when enumerating in his _Expos. Symb. Ap._ the Athanasian
Anaginoskomena, we find alongside of Hermas, instead of
the Didache, the “Two Ways,” _Duæ viæ vel Judicium secundum
Petrum_. Jerome, too, in his _De vir. ill._, mentions among the
pseudo-Petrine writings a _Judicium Petri_. We have here no doubt
a Latin translation or recension of the first six chapters of
the Didache beginning with the words: Ὅδοι δύο εἰσι, these two
ways being the way of life and the way of death. The second title
instead of the twelve Apostles names their spokesman Peter as the
reputed author of the treatise. Soon after the time of Athanasius
our tract passed out of the view of the Church Fathers, but it
reappears in the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the 4th century
(§ 43, 4, 5), of which it formed the root and stem. The Didache
itself, however, should not be ranked among the pseudepigraphs,
for it never claims to have been written by the twelve Apostles
or by their spokesman Peter.--Bryennius and others, from the
intentional prominence given to the twelve Apostles in the
title and from the legalistic moralizing spirit that pervades
the book, felt themselves justified in seeking its origin in
Jewish-Christian circles. But this moralizing character it shares
with the other Gentile-Christian writings of the Post-Apostolic
Age (§ 30, 2), and the restriction of the term “Apostles” by the
word “twelve” was occasioned by this, that the itinerant preachers
of the gospel of that time, who in the New Testament are called
Evangelists (§ 17, 5) were now called Apostles as continuators of
the Apostles’ missionary labours, and also the exclusion of the
Apostle Paul is to be explained by the consideration that the
book is founded upon the sayings of the Lord, the tradition
of which has come to us only through the twelve. It has been
rightly maintained on the other hand by Harnack, that the author
must rather have belonged to Gentile-Christian circles which
repudiated all communion with the Jews even in matters of mere
form; for in chap. viii. 1, 2, resting upon Matt. vi. 5, 16,
he forbids fasting with the hypocrites, “the Jews,” or perhaps
in the sense of Gal. ii. 13, the Jewish-Christians, on Monday
and Thursday, instead of Wednesday and Friday according to the
Christian custom (§ 37, 3), and using Jewish prayers instead
of the Lord’s Prayer. The address of the title: τοῖς ἔθνεσιν
is to be understood according to the analogy of Rom. xi. 13;
Gal. ii. 12-14; and Eph. iii. 1. The author wishes in as brief,
lucid, easily comprehended, and easily remembered form as
possible, to gather together for Christians converted from
heathenism the most important rules for their moral, religious
and congregational life in accordance with the precepts of
the Lord as communicated by the twelve Apostles, and in doing
so furnishes us with a valuable “commentary on the earliest
witnesses for the life, type of doctrine, interests and
ordinances of the Gentile-Christian churches in the pre-Catholic
age.” As to the date of its composition, its connection with
the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas indicates the
period within which it must fall, for the connection is so close
that it must have employed them or they must have employed it.
However, not only is the age of the Epistle of Barnabas, as well
as that of the Shepherd of Hermas, still undetermined, but it is
also disputed whether one or other of these two or the Didache
has priority and originality. On the other hand, the Didache
itself in almost all its data and presuppositions bears so
distinct an impress of an archaic character that one feels
obliged to assign its date as near the Apostolic Age as possible.
Harnack who feels compelled to ascribe priority not only to the
Pseudo-Barnabas, but also to the Shepherd of Hermas, fixes its
date between A.D. 140-165, after Hermas and before Marcion. On
the other hand, Zahn and Funk, Lechler, Taylor, etc., give the
Didache priority even over the Epistle of Barnabas. The place
as well as the time of the composition of this work is matter
of dispute. Those who maintain its Jewish-Christian origin think
of the southern lands to the east or west of the Jordan; others
think of Syria. On account of its connection with the Epistle
of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see
above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its
agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in
omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon
Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of
which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic
prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not
correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside
with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the
eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole
treatise.” That the book, however, does not bear in itself
any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, _e.g._, is
undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted
by Harnack.[64]
§ 30.8. =The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists=[65]
are lost. At the head of this band stood =Quadratus= of Athens,
who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in
which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted
with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace
of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary,
=Aristides= the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion
addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by
Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise,
which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century,
was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at
S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation.
This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator
and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,--barbarians
who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus,
Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and Christians from Christ,--and of Jesus Christ as the Son of
God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into
all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed
the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point
of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos
doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability
to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation
of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a
later interpolation (comp. § 52, 3). The genuineness of the
second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,--an
anti-docetic homily, _De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi
responsione_ (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ
and those crucified with Him proves His divinity--is both on
external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According
to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian
philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the
name Aristides, but recently another Catholic scholar, Dr. Vetter,
on close examination found that the name was really that of
Aristides.--To a period not much later must be assigned the
apologetic dialogue between the Jewish Christian Jason and the
Alexandrian Jew Papiscus, in which the proof from prophecy was
specially emphasized, and the _in principio_ of Gen. i. 1 was
interpreted as meaning _in filio_. The pagan controversialist
Celsus is the first to mention this treatise. He considers it, on
account of its allegorical fancies, not so much fitted to cause
laughter as pity and contempt, and so regards it as unworthy of
any serious reply. Origen, too, esteemed it of little consequence.
Subsequently, however, in the 5th century, it obtained high
repute and was deemed worthy of a Latin translation by the
African bishop Celsus. The controversialist Celsus, and also
Origen, Jerome, and the Latin translator, do not name the writer.
His name is first given by Maximus Confessor as =Ariston of
Pella=. Harnack has rendered it extremely probable that in the
“_Altercatio Simonis Judæi et Theophili Christiani_” discovered
in the 18th century, reported on by Gennadius (§ 47, 16), and
ascribed by him to a certain Evagrius, we have a substantially
correct Latin reproduction of the old Greek dialogue, in which
everything that is told us about the earlier document is met
with, and which, though written in the 5th century, in its ways
of looking at things and its methods of proof moves within the
circle of the Apologists of the 2nd century. In it, just as in
those early treatises the method of proof is wholly in accordance
with the Old Testament; by it every answer of the Christian
to the Jew is supported; at last the Jew is converted and asks
for baptism, while he regards the Christians as _lator salutis_
and _ægrotorum bone medice_ with a play probably upon the word
Ἰάσων=ἰατρός and from this it is conceivable how Clement of
Alexandria supposed Luke, the physician, to be the author of
the treatise. Harnack’s conclusion is significant inasmuch as
it lends a new confirmation to the fact that the non-heretical
Jewish Christianity of the middle of the second century had
already completely adopted the dogmatic views of Gentile
Christianity. =Claudius Apollinaris=, bishop of Hierapolis,
and the rhetorician =Miltiades of Athens= addressed very famous
apologies to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. =Melito of Sardis= was
also a highly esteemed apologist, and a voluminous writer in many
other departments of theological literature.[66] The elaborate
introduction to the mystical interpretation of scripture by
investigating the mystical meaning of biblical names and words
published in Pitra’s “Spicileg. Solesm.” II. III., as “_Clavis
Melitonis_,” belongs to the later period of the middle ages.
Melito’s six books of Eclogues deal with the Old Testament as a
witness for Christ and Christianity, where he takes as his basis
not the LXX. but the Hebrew canon (§ 36, 1).[67]
§ 30.9. =Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.=
a. The earliest and most celebrated of these is =Justin
Martyr=.[68] Born at Shechem (Flavia Neapolis) of Greek
parents, he was drawn to the Platonic doctrine of God and to
the Stoical theory of ethics, more than to any of the other
philosophical systems to which, as a pagan, he turned in
the search after truth. But full satisfaction he first found
in the prophets and apostles, to whom he was directed by an
unknown venerable old man, whom he once met by the sea-side.
He now in his thirtieth year cast off his philosopher’s
cloak and adopted Christianity, of which he became a
zealous defender, but thereby called down upon himself
the passionate hatred of the pagan sages. His bitterest
enemy was the Cynic Crescens in Rome, who after a public
disputation with him, did all he could to compass his
destruction. In A.D. 165, under Marcus Aurelius, Justin
was condemned at Rome to be scourged and beheaded.--His two
Apologies, addressed to Antoninus Pius and his son Marcus
Aurelius are certainly genuine. Of these, however, the
shorter one, the so-called second Apology is probably only
a sort of appendix to the first. His _Dialogus cum Tryphone
Judæo_ is probably a free rendering of a disputation which
actually occurred. Except a few fragments, his Σύνταγμα κατὰ
Μαρκίωνος have been lost. It is disputed whether that was an
integral part of the Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων of which
he himself makes mention, or a later independent work. The
following are of more than doubtful authenticity: the Λόγος
παραινετικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (_Cohortatio ad Græcos_), which
seeks to prove that not by the poets nor by the philosophers,
but only by Moses and the prophets can the true knowledge
of God be found, and that whatever truth is spoken by
the former, they had borrowed from the latter; also, the
shorter Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας (_Oratio ad Græcos_), on the
irrationality and immorality of the pagan mythology; further,
the short treatise Περὶ μοναρχίας, which proves the vanity
of polytheism from the admissions of heathen poets and
philosophers; and a fragment Περὶ ἀναστάσεως.--Justin’s
theology is of the Gentile Christian type, quite free from
any Ebionitic taint, inclining rather to the speculation and
ethics of Greek philosophy and to an Alexandrian-Hellenistic
conception and exposition of scripture. To these sources
everything may be traced in which he unconsciously departs
from biblical Paulinism and Catholic orthodoxy. Then in
his idea of God and creation, he has not quite overcome the
partly pantheistic, partly dualistic, principles derived
from the Platonic philosophy. He shows traces of Alexandrian
influences in his conception of the person and work of
Christ, to whom he assigns merely the role of a divine
teacher, who has made known the true idea of God the Creator,
of righteousness, and of eternal life, and has won power by
death, resurrection and ascension, and will give evidence
of it by His coming again to reward the righteousness
of the saints with immortal blessedness. He was also led
into doctrinal aberrations in the anthropological domain,
because his idea of freedom and virtue borrowed from Greek
philosophy prevented him from fully grasping the Pauline
doctrine of sin. His theory of morals, with its legalistic
tendency and its righteousness of works, was grounded
not in Judaism but in Stoicism. His chiliasm, too, is not
Ebionitic but is immediately derived from scripture, and
has less significance for his speculation than the other
eschatological principles of Resurrection, Judgment, and
Recompence. His Christianity consists essentially of only
three elements: Worship of the true God, a virtuous life
according to the commandments of Christ, and belief in
rewards and punishments hereafter. Over against the pagan
philosophy it represents itself as the true philosophy,
and over against the Mosaic law as the new law freed from
the fetters of ceremonialism. Even in the natural man, in
consequence of the divine reason that is innate in him,
there dwells the power of living as a Christian: Abraham
and Elias, Socrates and Heraclitus, etc., have to such a
degree lived according to reason that they must be called
Christians. But even they possessed only σπέρματα Λόγου,
only a μέρος Λόγου; for the divine reason dwells in men
only as Λόγος σπερματικός; in Christ alone as the incarnate
Logos it dwells as ὁ πᾶς Λόγος or τὸ Λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον. He is
the only true Son of God, pre-mundane but not eternal, the
πρῶτον γέννημα τοῦ θεοῦ, or the πρωτότοκος τοῦ θεοῦ, by whom
God in the beginning created all things. The Father alone is
ὄντως θεός, and the Logos only a divine being of the second
rank, a ἕτερος θεὸς παρὰ τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν ὅλων, to whom,
however, as such, worship should be rendered. In Justin’s
theological speculation the Holy Spirit stands quite in
the background, though the baptismal and congregational
Trinitarian confession obliged him to assign to the Spirit
the rank of an independent divine being, whom the Logos had
used for the enlightening of His prophets. Justin too knows
nothing of a particular election of Israel as the people of
God; with him the Christians as such are the true Israel,
the people of God, the children of the faith of Abraham.
From the Old Testament he proves the divinity of the person
and doctrine of Christ, and from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν
ἀποστόλων (§ 36, 7) he derives his information about the
historical life, teaching, and works of Jesus. The Gospel
of John, although never mentioned, was not unknown to him,
but it appeared to him more as a doctrinal and hortatory
treatise than as a historical document, and undoubtedly
his Logos doctrine is connected with that of John. He shows
himself familiar with the Epistles of Paul, although he
never expressly quotes from them.
§ 30.10.
b. =Tatian=, a Greek born in Assyria (according to Zahn, a
Semite) while engaged as a rhetorician at Rome, was won to
Christianity by Justin Martyr, according to Harnack about
A.D. 150. As the fruit of youthful zeal, he published an
Apologetical Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας, in which he treats the
Greek paganism and its culture with withering scorn for
even its noblest manifestations, and shared with his teacher
the hatred and persecution of the philosopher Crescens.
His later written Εὐαγγέλιον διὰ τεσσάρων (§ 36, 7) was a
Gospel harmony, in which the removal of all reference to
the descent of Jesus from the seed of David, according
to the flesh, objected to by Theodoret, was occasioned
perhaps more by antipathy to Ebionism than by any sympathy
with Gnosticism. Zahn affirms, while Harnack decidedly
denies, that this work was originally composed in Syriac. The
exclusive use by the Syrians of the Greek name _Diatessaron_
seems to afford a strong argument for a Greek original.
Its general agreement with the readings of the so-called
Itala (§ 36, 8) witnesses to the West as the place of its
composition. The introduction of a Syriac translation of it
into church use in the East is to be explained by a longer
residence of the author in his eastern home; and its neglect
on the part of many of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers,
and even their complete ignorance of it, may be accounted
for by the fact that, while in the far East it was
unsuspected, elsewhere it came to be branded as heretical
(§ 27, 10).[69]
c. =Athenagoras=, about whose life we have no authentic
information, in A.D. 177 addressed his Πρεσβεία
(_Intercessio_) περὶ Χριστιανῶν to Marcus Aurelius, in
which he clearly and convincingly disproves the hideous
calumnies of Atheism, Ædipodean atrocities, Thyestean feasts
(§ 22), and extols the excellence of Christianity in life and
doctrine. In the treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως νέκρων he proves,
from the general philosophical rather than distinctively
Christian standpoint, the necessity of resurrection from the
vocation of man in connection with the wisdom, omnipotence
and righteousness of God.
d. =Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch= († after A.D. 180), was
by birth a pagan. His writing Πρὸς Αὐτόλυκον περὶ τῆς τῶν
Χριστιανῶν πίστεως is one of the most excellent apologetical
treatises of this period. Autolycus was one of his heathen
acquaintances. His commentaries and controversial works have
been lost. Zahn, indeed, has sought to prove that an extant
Latin Commentary on selected passages from the four Gospels
in the allegorical style belonging to the first half of the
3rd century, and bearing the name of Theophilus of Antioch,
is a substantially faithful translation of the authentic
Greek original of A.D. 170. He has also called attention
to the great importance of this commentary, not only for
the oldest history of the Canon, Text and Exposition,
but also for that of the church life, the development of
doctrine and the ecclesiastical constitution, especially of
the monasticism already appearing in those early times. But
while Zahn reached those wonderful results from a conviction
that the verbal coincidences of the Latin Church Fathers of
the 3rd to the 5th centuries with the supposed Theophilus
commentary were examples of their borrowing from it, Harnack
has convincingly proved that this so-called commentary is
rather to be regarded as a compilation from these same Latin
Church Fathers made at the earliest during the second half
of the 5th century.
e. Finally, an otherwise unknown author =Hermias= wrote under
the title Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων (_Irrisio gentilium
philos._) a short abusive treatise, in a witty but
superficial style, of which the fundamental principle is
to be found in 1 Cor. iii. 19.
§ 31. THE THEOLOGICAL LITERATURE OF THE OLD CATHOLIC AGE,
A.D. 170-323.
From about A.D. 170, during the Old Catholic Age, scientific theology
in conflict with Judaizing, paganizing and monarchianistic heretics
progressed in a more vigorous and comprehensive manner than in the
apologetical and polemical attempt at self-defence of Post-Apostolic
Times. Throughout this period, however, the zeal for apologetics
continued unabated, but also in other directions, especially in
the department of dogmatics, important contributions were made to
theological science. While these developments were in progress, there
arose within the Catholic church three different theological schools,
each with some special characteristic of its own, the Asiatic, the
Alexandrian, and the North African.
§ 31.1. =The Theological Schools and Tendencies.=--=The School
of Asia Minor= was the outcome of John’s ministry there, and
was distinguished by firm grasp of scripture, solid faith,
conciliatory treatment of those within and energetic polemic
against heretics. Its numerous teachers, highly esteemed in the
ancient church, are known to us only by name, and in many cases
even the name has perished. Only two of their disciples resident
in the West--Irenæus and Hippolytus--are more fully known. A
yet greater influence, more widely felt and more enduring, was
that of the =Alexandrian School=.[70] Most of its teachers were
distinguished by classical culture, a philosophical spirit,
daring speculativeness and creative power. Their special task
was the construction of a true ecclesiastical gnosis over against
the false heretical gnosis, and so the most celebrated teachers
of this school have not escaped the charge of unevangelical
speculative tendencies. The nursery of this theological tendency
was especially this Catechetical School of Alexandria which from
an institution for the training of educated Catechumens had grown
up into a theological seminary. =The North African School= by
its realism, a thoroughly practical tendency, formed the direct
antithesis of the idealism and speculative endeavours of the
Alexandrian. It repudiated classical science and philosophy
as fitted to lead into error, but laid special stress upon the
purity of Apostolic tradition, and insisted with all emphasis
upon holiness of life and strict asceticism.--Finally, our period
also embraces the first beginnings of the =Antiochean School=,
whose founders were the two presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian.
The latter especially gave to the school in its earlier days
the tendency to critical and grammatico-historical examination
of scripture. At =Edessa=, too, as early as the end of the 2nd
century, we find a Christian school existing.