Sidor som bilder
PDF
ePub

one hand, to preserve this connection with the old revelation; on the other, to point out the new and more perfect elements which constituted the peculiarity of the Christian system.

[ocr errors]

(1) Here we must not expect to find a distinction made between religion itself and the Christian religion (natural and revealed), or look for a precise definition of the term religion." Such definitions of the schools did not make their appearance until later, when, science and life being separated, learned men speculated on the objects of science, and reduced experimental truths to general ideas. With the first Christians, Christianity and religion were identical (Augusti, s. 197); as, again, in modern times, the principal object of apologetics must be the proof that Christianity is the religion, i.e. the only one which can satisfy man (comp. Lechler, über den Begriff der Apologetik, in the Studien und Kritiken, 1839, 3). This view corresponds with the saying of Minucius Felix, Oct. c. 38, towards the end: Gloriamur nos consequutos, quod illi (Philosophi) summa intentione quæsiverunt nec invenire potuerunt. Ignatius, ad Rom. iii. : Οὐ πεισμονῆς ἔργον ἀλλὰ μεγέθους ἐστὶν ὁ χριστιανισμὸς, ὅταν μισῆται ὑπὸ κόσμου (cf. Hefele on the passage). Justin M. also shows that revealed truth, as such, does not stand in need of any proof, Dial. c. Tryph. c. 7, p. 109: Oỷ yàp μετὰ ἀποδείξεως πεποίηνται ποτε (οἱ προφῆται) τοὺς λόγους, ἅτε ἀνωτέρω πάσης ἀποδείξεως ὄντες ἀξιόπιστοι μάρτυρες τῆς ἀληθείας. Fragm. de Resurr. ab init.: Ὁ μὲν τῆς ἀληθείας λόγος ἐστὶν ἐλεύθερος καὶ αὐτεξούσιος, ὑπὸ μηδεμίαν βάσανον ἐλέγχου θέλων πίπτειν, μηδὲ τὴν παρὰ τοῖς ἀκούουσι δι' ἀποδείξεως ἐξέτασιν ὑπομένειν. Τὸ γὰρ εὐγενὲς αὐτοῦ καὶ πεποιθὸς αὐτῷ τῷ πέμψαντι πιστεύεσθαι θέλει . . . Πᾶσα γὰρ ἀπόδειξις ἰσχυροτέρα καὶ πιστοτέρα τοῦ ἀποδεικνυμένου. τυγχάνει· εἴ γε τὸ πρότερον ἀπιστούμενον πρὶν ἢ τὴν ἀπόδειξιν ἐλθεῖν, ταύτης κομισθείσης, ἔτυχε πίστεως, καὶ τοιοῦτον ἐφάνη, ὁποῖον ἐλέγετο. Τῆς δὲ ἀληθείας ἰσχυρότερον οὐδὲν, οὐδὲ πιστότερον· ὥστε ὁ περὶ ταύτης ἀπόδειξιν αἰτῶν ὅμοιός ἐστι τῷ τὰ φαινόμενα αἰσθήσεσι, λόγοις θέλοντι ἀποδείκνυσθαι, διότι φαίνεται. Τῶν γὰρ διὰ τοῦ λόγου λαμβανομένων κριτήριόν ἐστιν ἡ αἴσθησις· αὐτῆς δὲ κριτήριον οὐκ ἔστι πλὴν αὐτῆς. Nor do we find any definitions of the nature

and idea of revelation (contrasted with the truths which come to us by nature and reason), nor respecting the abstract possibility and necessity of revelation, etc., because the opposite views did not then exist. Christianity (in connection with the Old Testament) was considered as the true revelation; even the best ideas of earlier philosophers, compared with it, were only the glimmer of anticipation. Comp. Justin M., Dial. c. Tryph. ab initio. Tert. Apol. c. 18 (De Test. Animæ, c. 2), pronounces very decidedly in favour of the positive character of the Christian religion (fiunt, non nascuntur Christiani), though he also calls the human soul, naturaliter christiana (Apol. c. 17), and ascribes to it instinct preceding all teaching, by which it can, as a pupil of nature, attain to a knowledge of the divine in nature; De Test. Anim. c. 5. Clement of Alexandria also compares the attempt to comprehend the divine without a higher revelation, to the attempt to run without feet (Cohort. p. 64); and further remarks, that without the light of revelation we should resemble hens that are fattened in a dark cage in order to die (ibid. p. 87). We become a divine race only by the doctrine of Christ (p. 88, 89), comp. Pæd. i. 2, p. 100, i. 12, p. 156, and in numerous other places. Clement indeed admits that wise men before Christ had approached the truth to a certain extent (compare the next section); but while they sought God by their own wisdom, others (the Christians) find Him (better) through the Logos; comp. Pæd. iii. 8, p. 279; Strom. i. 1, p. 319, ibid. i. 6, p. 336. The pseudo-Clementines, however, depart from this idea of a positive revelation (17. 8 and 18. 6), and represent the internal revelation of the heart as the true revelation, the external as a manifestation of the divine pyn. Compare Baumgarten-Crusius, ii. s. 783; on the other side, Schliemann, s. 183 ff., 353 ff.

(2) According to the Clementine Homilies, there is no specific difference between the doctrine of Jesus and the doctrine of Moses. Comp. Credner, 1.c. Ht. 2, s. 254. SchlieHilgenfeld, s. 283 (?).

mann, s. 215 ff.

(3) As most of the Gnostics looked upon the demiurge either as a being that stood in a hostile relation to God, or as a being of limited powers; as they, moreover, considered the entire economy of the Old Testament as a defective and even a

perverted institution, they could, consistently, look upon the blessings of Christianity only as a deliverance from the bonds of the demiurge. (Comp. the sections on God, the Fall, and Redemption.)

§ 29.

Mode of Proof.

[Comp. Baur, Dogmengesch. s. 76-9; and his Christenthum in d. drei ersten Jahrhund. s. 357-451.]

Accordingly, the Christian apologists, in opposition to the heathen, defended the history, laws, doctrines, and prophecies of the Old Testament against the attacks of those who were not Jews (1). On this basis they proceeded to prove the superiority of Christianity, in contrast with the Jewish as well as the pagan systems, by showing how all the prophecies and types of the Old Testament had been fulfilled in Christ (2); not unfrequently indulging in arbitrary interpretations and typological fancies (3). But as the apologists found in the Old Testament a point of connection with Judaism, so they found in the Grecian philosophy a point of connection with paganism; only with this difference, that whatever is divine in the latter is, for the most part, derived from the Old Testament (4), corrupted by the craft of demons (5), and appearing, at all events, very imperfect in comparison with Christianity, however great the analogy (6). Even those writers who, like Tertullian, discarded a philosophical proof of Christianity because they saw in philosophy only an ungodly perversity (7), could not but admit a profound psychological connection between human nature and the Christian religion (the testimony of the soul) (8), and acknowledged, with the rest, that a leading argument for the divine origin of Christianity was to be derived from its moral effects (9). Thus the external argument from miracles (10) was adduced only as a kind of auxiliary proof, and it was

even now no longer acknowledged in its full authority (11). Another auxiliary proof was derived from the Sibylline oracles (12), while the almost miraculous spread of Christianity in the midst of persecutions (13), and the accomplishment of the prophecy relative to the destruction of Jerusalem (14), were, like the moral argument, taken from what was occurring at the time.

(1) This argument was founded especially upon the high antiquity of the sacred books, and the wonderful care of God. in their preservation; Josephus had argued in a similar manner against Apion, i. 8. Comp. the section on the Scriptures.

(2) Comp. Justin M., Apol. i. c. 32-35, Dial. cum Tryphone, § 7, 8, 11. Athenag. Leg. c. 9. Orig. Contra Cels. i. 2; Comment. in Joh. t. ii. 28. Opp. iv. p. 87. [Aubé, in his work on St. Justin, has reconstructed the argument of Tryphon.]

(3) Ep. Barn. c. 9, where the circumcision of the three hundred and eighteen persons by Abraham (Gen. xvii.) is represented as a prophecy of Christ. The number three hundred and eighteen is composed of three hundred, and eight, and ten. The numeral letters of ten and eight are I and H (n), which are the initials of the name 'Inooûs. The numeral letter of three hundred is T, which is the symbol of the cross. And Clement of Rome, in his first Epistle to the Corinthians, which is generally sober enough, says that the scarlet line, which Rahab was admonished by the spies to hang out of her house, was a type of the blood of Christ, c. 12. So, too, Justin M. Dialog. cum Tryph. § 111. According to the latter, the two wives of Jacob, Leah and Rachel, are types of the Jewish and Christian dispensations; the two goats on the day of atonement, types of the two advents of Christ; the twelve bells upon the robe of the high priest, types of the twelve apostles, etc. Justin carries to an extreme length the symbolism of the cross, which he sees not only in the O. T. (in the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the rod of Aaron, etc.), but also in nature, in the horn of the unicorn, in the human countenance, in the posture of a

man engaged in prayer, in the vessel with its sails, in the plough, in the hammer. Comp. Apol. i. c. 55, Dial. cum Tryph. § 97, and elsewhere. Comp. Minuc. Felix, c. 29, who, however, does not make it the basis of any further argument. Irenæus sees in the three spies of Jericho the three persons of the Trinity, Advers. Hæret. iv. 20. It would be easy to multiply these examples ad infinitum (comp. § 33, note 3). As to the way in which the Septuagint translation was used by Christians in the interpretation of Messianic passages, see Gieseler, Dogmengesch. s. 61 ff. [Thus Clement of Rome, Epist. § 42, cites the passage Isa. lx. 17 as referring to bishops and deacons; while it reads ἄρχοντας and ἐπισκόπους -which may be only because cited incorrectly from memory. The Christians, too, often accused the Jews of falsifying the Hebrew; for example, the noted passages in Justin, Dial. cum Tryph., where he says that they left out, in Ps. xcv. (Heb. xcvi.) 10, ἀπὸ τοῦ ξύλου after ὁ κύριος ἐβασίλευσεν; and Tertullian and Irenæus both cite the passage after Justin; and so in similar passages, alleged to be in Ezra and Jeremiah.] That these arguments were not readily accepted by the philosophically trained heathen is clear from the case of Celsus, who was opposed by Origen from his hermeneutic point of view. Cf. Baur, Dg. s. 347 f.

(4) Justin M. Apol. i. c. 59, Cohort. ad Græc. c. 14. Theophil. Ad Autol. iii. 16, 17, 20, 23. Tatian, Contra Græc. ab init. and c. 25. Tertullian, Apol. c. 19: Omnes itaque substantias, omnesque materias, origines, ordines, venas veterani cujusque stili vestri, gentes etiam plerasque et urbes insignes, canas memoriarum, ipsas denique effigies litterarum indices custodesque rerum, et puto adhuc minus dicimus, ipsos inquam deos vestros, ipsa templa et oracula et sacra, unius interim prophetæ scrinium vincit, in quo videtur thesaurus collocatus totius Judaici sacramenti, et inde etiam nostri. Clem. Alexand. Pæd. ii. c. 1, p. 176; c. 10, p. 224; iii. c. 11, p. 286. Stromata, i. p. 355; vi. p. 752, and many other passages. He therefore calls Plato outright ó é ̔Εβραίων φιλόσοφος, Strom. i. 1. s. 256. Orig. Contra Cels. iv. ab init. der Apologetik, s. 101, 102.

(5) Justin M. Apol. i. c. 54.

Comp. Baur, Gnosis,
Tzschirner, Geschichte

Thus the demons are said to

[ocr errors]
« FöregåendeFortsätt »