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CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS OF THE
SECOND CENTURY
The Hulaean Prize Essay » 1917
\
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS
OF THE
SECOND CENTURY
In their Relation to Modern Thought
BY
PHILIP GARRINGTON
B.A. (CANTAB.), M.A. (NOV. ZEL.)
BAR\\"ELL SCHOLAR OF 8ELWYN COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE
" Casting down imaginations and every high thing that exalteth
itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity
every thought to the obedience of Christ."— 2 Cor. x. 5.
LONDON
SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING
CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE
NORTHUMBERLAND AVENUE, W.G.
NEW YORK : THE M ACMILLAN COMPANY
1921
h-^o^^
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PREFACE
The delay in the publication of this little work needs
apology; it is due to the illness of the author, and his
return to a bookless land. I wish to express my thanks
to the Rev. Canon J. R. Wilford, B.D., of College House,
Christchurchj without whose help it would have been
hard to overcome the latter difficulty ; also to the Rev,
H. C. Money, of Christ Church, Glasgow, who has kindly
consented to read the proofs ; also to the Rev. J. O. F.
Murray, D.D., Master of Selwyn College, Cambridge,
and to the Rev. Professor V. H. Stanton, D.D., Regius
Professor of Divinity, for kindly and practical sympathy.
The book itself does not in any sense claim to be a
learned book ; it is only the product of elementary
theological training combined with a sympathetic read-
ing of the literature of the period — which is not large.
The title, " Apologetics " rather than " Apologists,"
left it open to treat the subject in a general manner :
and it has only been possible to make a few scattered
remarks on what is a vast field of knowledge.
Philip Carrington.
Feast of the Pubification,
The Deaneby, Chbistchukch,
New Zealand.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
The Rise of Christianity .... 9
CHAPTER II
The Champions of Christianity ... 21
CHAPTER III
Christianity and the Old Testament . . 44
CHAPTER IV
Christianity and the Philosophers . . 63
CHAPTER V
Christianity and Superstition ... 83
CHAPTER VI
Christianity and the State . . . .104
7
CONTENTS
CHAPTER VII
PAGE
The Faith of Christianity . . . .122
CHAPTER VIII
Christianity and Modern Thought . .138
Index 153
8
CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS OF
THE SECOND CENTURY
CHAPTER I
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
" And the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch." — The
Acts of the Apostles xi. 26.
" But if ye suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but glorify God
in this name." — The First Epistle of St. Peter iv. 14.
" And these men, who were hated for their immoralities, were called
by the common people Christians." — Tacitus : Annals, xv. 44.
" I found nothing but a degrading and extravagant superstition.
So I deferred the trial and hastened to consult you ; for I thought
the matter worthy of your consideration, especially because of the
number of the accused. For many of every age and rank and even of
both sexes are being accused, or are on the point of being accused ;
and the plague has overrim not only cities, but villages and country-
side. . . . And I felt considerable doubt whether there should be any
discrimination of age, or whether the weak should be differently
treated from the strong ; whether the penitent should be pardoned,
or whether it should be any advantage for a thorough Christian to
recant ; whether the bare ' name ' (without immorality) shoiild be
punished, or the immoralities which go along with the ' name.' " —
Pliny : Ep. 96, To Trajan.
Answer : " They are not to be sought out : if they should be brought
up and convicted they must be punished, provided that whoever
denies he is a Christian and proves it by his actions, that is, by
worshipping our gods, although suspect in the past, shall have pardon
on his penitence. Anonymous accusations should not be received in
any case ; it would be a bad precedent and unworthy of our age." —
Trajan : Ep, 97, To Pliny.
" O perplexity between reasons of state and justice ! He declares
U3 to be innocent by forbidding us to be searched after, and at the
same time commands us to be punished as criminals. What a mass of
kindness and cruelty, connivance and punishment is here confounded
9
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
in one act ! You condemn him therefore when brought whom the laws
forbid to be sought out." — Terttjllian : Apology II.
" The bare application of a name without any fact falHng under
that name is looked upon as neither good nor evil ; but as for our name,
which is tantamount to a crime against a Christian, if we are tried
upon that article we must certainly be acquitted as very good men.
For we are indicted by the name ' Christian ' ; now, ' chrestos ' is a
word for ' kind ' or ' good,' and such a word, surely, cannot be a
just foundation for hatred." — St. Justin : Apology /, 4.
" Then the air and all that is under heaven is in a certain sort anointed
by light and spirit ; and are you unwilling to be anointed (' christos ')
with the oil of God ? Wherefore we are called Christians on this ac-
count, because we are ' anointed' with the oil of God." — Theophilus :
To AutolycuSf i. 12.
I. The First Appearance of Christianity
The most difficult problem which lay before Roman
statesmanship when the Empire was established was
that of Jewish nationality. Not only was there the
Jewish Kingdom itself, situated on the most dangerous
border of the Empire, but little colonies of Jews had
spread far and wide through the world, farther even
than the Roman arms. Personally they were detest-
able ; their commercial power was enormous ; and a
successful rebellion in alliance with the Parthians was
by no means an impossibility. Further, in spite of their
manifest inferiority in the arts of peace and war, they
regarded their nation, their city, and their law as being
as far above Rome as Rome thought herself above the
barbarians.
What made them so difficult to manage was the
independence of their national and religious life. Every
other nation was content to enter the great association
of nations, and let its gods take their seats in the
imperial pantheon. The Jewish God refused to leave
Mount Sion ; and before His face the gods of the nations
were so much brass or stone. To the philosopher this
10
ROME AND JEWISH RELIGION
was, perhaps, immaterial ; to the statesman it was a
serious matter. If the Jewish God demanded this
supreme place in the heavens, it could only lead to the
Jewish nation demanding, and fighting for, the same
supremacy in Mediterranean politics. And, as a matter
of fact, some such war of liberation was continually
breaking out. Further, every patriotic Jew expected
his God to come down, destroy the world, and set up
the last empire at Jerusalem. In this Day of the Lord
only the holy " people," the " law," and the temple
would remain.
The historical inspiration for this hope was found in
the days of David, when the great empires had become
exhausted and Israel had obtained a temporary ascend-
ancy that stretched from Egypt to the Euphrates. The
Jews believed that, by virtue of His covenant with His
people, Jehovah was bound to restore to them this
Kingdom both as a reward to them and as a justification
of Himself. But the failure of the Maccabean dynasty
had profoundly modified this hope, and many religious
people doubted whether this sinful earth was a fitting
scene for the establishment of the Kingdom of God.
Thus it came about that a great majority expected the
Day to appear with destruction at the end of the world
in which God would send His Anointed (Christ), no
mere man, but the heavenly "Son of Man," to re-
establish the Empire of David. The person and office
of this " Christ " were both vague ; but when He came.
He was to " redeem " Israel, that is liberate it from the
Roman yoke, and in His person fulfil the words of the
prophets. In this denouement would be seen by all the
justification of the creation of the world, and the con-
summation of the ages. It was this revelation for
which the whole creation groaned and travailed.
There were false Christs sometimes, who raised
armies to enforce their claims to the Davidic throne :
11
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
the Galilean peasantry among whom they had their
chief success were strong, simple, independent men
with an inherited passion for liberty. When roused
in this way they fought with the fanaticism and fury
of dervishes, and the rebellions had to be put down
with the vast and incredible cruelties told us by
Josephus ; the sight of burning villages, and at one time
as many as two thousand crucifixions, must have taught
the young Jesus, even in His boyhood, that He must
carry His cross along the road to Messiahship. But
such measures are always apt to increase the revolu-
tionary passions they attempt to crush. A far more
satisfactory policy of the Romans was the entente with
the House of Herod, an enlightened prince who had
been educated at Rome, and with the Sadducees, the
priestly but sceptical rulers in Jerusalem.
Tertullian says that Tiberius proposed to the Senate
that Christ should be enrolled among the number of
the gods, and that, failing this, he issued severe penalties
against all who should accuse the worshippers of Christ.
Tertullian is careless and wild, perhaps, in his use of
authority, but he is not likely, in a petition to the
Emperor, to refer to imperial records that do not exist.
The use of the word " Christ " suggests that it was not
Jesus, crucified and risen, whom Tiberius wished to
deify, but the expected Messiah in whose name all
these rebellions occurred. At any rate, it became the
Roman policy not to interfere with the religion of the
Jews ; and it was left to the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem
and to the synagogue authorities elsewhere (Acts ix. 2),
to exercise powers of discipline and punishment in
religious disputes. Is this perhaps the clue to the
scene before Gallio at Corinth ? The proconsul rules
that the matter at issue is one for the synagogue to
decide, thereby recognising Paul's (Gentile) Christians
as a kind of Jew. The Greek Christians then find they
12
MESSIANIC DISTURBANCES
are in a majority in the synagogue, and judicial sentence ^
is passed on Sosthenes as on other occasions on Paul
himself (2 Cor. xi. 24).
But, if the Romans left the Jews to decide their own
religious questions, they were doubly alert to catch any
signs of political activity or rebellion. We can see
how fiercely the light beat upon our Lord's life, and
how careful He had to be not to make any reference
which could possibly have a political meaning. This
must be one of the reasons why He delayed to claim
the title " Christ " and then did so secretly. Long
before they ever heard of Him, the " Name " may have
been known to the Romans ; and the term " Christian "
can have signified to them nothing but rebellion. We
must remember that, although to us the Roman Empire
is almost synonymous with stability, it was then only
an experiment. The Jews had seen many empires
rise and fall, and there was no apparent reason for the
permanence of this one. Indeed, at the death of Nero,
it must have seemed in a very serious condition.
The first half of the century saw great Messianic
agitation : the Jews, continually travelling about, carried
from place to place the seeds of the new hope. The
Order founded by John the Baptist powerfully influenced
the rank and file of Judaism ; we hear of it in Alexandria,
and in Ephesus twenty years later ; and the fourth Gospel
may have these Johannine Jews in mind. They con-
tinue to be mentioned as a Jewish sect far into the
second century. We learn from Suetonius that there
were riots at Rome " at the instigation of Chrestus,"
in consequence of which the Jews were banished from
the city. It seems natural to suppose that these riots
were connected with the Christians, owing to the fact
that we find Aquila and Prisca among the exiles at
Corinth, while the accusations made at Philippi that
1 Acta xviii. 17 does not say it was Gallio's judgment-seat.
13
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
they were " turning the world upside down " probably
refer to the same events in Rome, or at any rate to
something more important than the local preaching
of Paul, for Philippi was on the great road eastward
from Rome. And if it be true that the word " Christ "
had this political connotation, it seems reasonable to
suppose that a similar scene lies behind the statement
that the brethren were called Christians first in Antioch.
To the Roman world, Christianity first appeared as
a part of this vast movement : it can have been dis-
tinguished neither from Judaism nor from the crudest
Messianism. The Acts of the Apostles represents this
period, when the Church was regarded as a party among
the liberal and revolutionary Jews ; and it was the
conservative party among their own community —
called by St. John simply " the Jews " — who were the
first persecutors. They could not long remain under
the protection of such unwilling guardians ; and, even
if the Romans included them under their benevolent
Jewish policy, neither the Jews themselves nor the
Roman people were so kindly disposed. Popular riots,
often engineered by the Jews, were the second form of
persecution which the Christians had to face.
The mob was their second great enemy. In the first
place, the Jews were probably only too glad to see
diverted on to the heads of others the unpopularity
which they themselves had won as foreigners and
followers of strange superstitions. But what must
have brought the trouble to a head was the large number
of conversions from paganism. It was bad enough to
practise horrible superstitions ; but proselytism was
unforgivable — a proselytism, that is, which demanded
that the converts should renounce the gods of their
own country, and anathematise them as devils. When
this " atheism " began to assume threatening propor-
tions, people grew alarmed.
14
POPULAR MISCONCEPTIONS
Popular fury is easily roused against anything icono-
clastic ; and it is quite easy to understand the fury
roused by the spread of this intolerant religion. Not
only did they anathematise the gods of their country
and the divine emperor, but they taught others to do
the same ; they were godless, atheists, treasonable.
They were a confederacy of slaves and women, plotting
to overthrow our lord god the emperor, and divine Rome.
They led off honest men and women to their " love "
feasts — the word " agape " is unfortunate — and there
the most scandalous orgies were held. St. Paul's
picture of the uninitiated outsider entering a Christian
meeting-house (1 Cor. xiv. 23 ff.) gives us a little glimpse
of what an outsider must have thought of the pente-
costal gift. Besides, there were stories darker than
this. The early Christian idea of what is now called
platonic love gave rise to the basest insinuations ; and
the language used about the carefully guarded mystery
of the Holy Eucharist led to a common belief that they
met together to eat a murdered child, a rite connected
with witchcraft.
There was sufficient evidence, too, to afford grounds
for a belief in revolutionary tendencies. The actual
communism of Jerusalem, the virtual communism of
every tiny ecclesia, and the new social morality were
the outstanding features of the faith. Of all the gospel
passages, the ones that seem to have left their deepest
impress on the works of the earliest writers are the
Sermon on the Mount and its like. And the belief in the
destruction of the world and the establishment of a new
Empire on these lines was in the very forefront of the
gospel message. Besides, we must remember the exist-
ence of extremists of an irresponsible type, who needed
the apostolic warnings to be sober, and to work, and to
submit to legitimate authority. There was obviously
much revolutionary excitement on the extreme left.
15
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
Thus we get the popular riots like those at Ephesus
or Rome. An irritating trait in the Christians was their
condemnation of the wonderful temples and images
of the Empire ; and in the case of Ephesus we see the
hierarchy and those who made their living out of the
temples engineering the riot partly, of course, from
motives of self-interest, but partly for the honour of
the goddess whom " all the world reverences." In a
word, the Christians had made themselves thoroughly
unpopular with their secret society, their mysterious
rites and doctrines, and their slaves who thought them-
selves as good as their masters, breaking up family
life and undermining the whole fabric of society. Many
must have been the occasions on which a brother suffered
shame for the " name " of Christian, hurled at him
abusively by the mob ; and many must have been the
Pilates who allowed a mad mob to have its way — thus,
no doubt, perished the faithful martyr Antipas. And
finally Caesar himself, yielding to the people and the
Jews, allowed a spectacular massacre of Christians at
Rome, so long and so bloody that a reaction of pity
ensued even in the hearts of the shallow Italian mob.
So far, however, there seems to have been no official
suppression of the new society.
Meanwhile the theory of the supreme God at Jeru-
salem was working out to the logical catastrophe. It
was impossible for a deified Emperor in Rome to own
as his vassal the Ancient of Days. It had to be fought
out one way or another. Jerusalem was burned to the
ground after the siege in 71, and was finally re-established
in 135 as a heathen city ; in that year came the final
defeat of the last extremist Jews under Bar-Kokhabh.
As long as the God of the Jews lived in a citadel at
Jerusalem, He was dangerous ; so soon as He became a
purely religious conception He was harmless, and the
Jews were allowed to continue the worship and discipline
16
CAUSES OF UNPOPULARITY
of the synagogue. But during these years the Romans
had made the discovery that the Christians were a
distinct body ; Aristides can write : " This is plain to
you, O King, that there are four races of men in the
world: Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians."
(Syriac Version).
Gibbon suggests that this discovery was made when
the Jewish temple-tax was converted to the upkeep
of the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus, and that the
collection of this tax would certainly bring out the
distinction amd make it final. But, in any case, the
Christian had been bound to dissociate himself from the
Jewish policy when it came to fighting for the temple.
On the one hand, Jesus had foretold the destruction
of the temple, perhaps connecting it with Himself;
on the other hand, Christianity was the very opposite
of an armed nationalism. The Christians, therefore,
when they saw the signs, fled to the mountains. But
while the status of the Jew after the war was quite
satisfactory, that of the Christian was a puzzle ; he
had no nation, and therefore no locus standi. As a
society, the existence of Christianity was indefensible
in an Empire which forbade all societies. " Non licet
esse vos" (You have no right to be) was the verdict
of the law. But, when it came to the point, and it
was found, after due inquiry, that the society was revolu-
tionary, that it was secret and atheistic, and that it
refused the oath of allegiance to the divine Emperor,
it became obvious that it could not be allowed to
continue. Its members were enemies of the human
race, and the magnitude of their conspiracy was the
measure of the fear which it inspired. Yet no steps
were taken to root it up, or even to seek out its members ;
only if information were laid, or if there were a popular
outburst (as in the case of St. Polycarp) the officials
were bound to act, very often, it seems, with great
2 17
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
reluctance ; for they had sooner or later to recognise
that the Christians were their best subjects. This then
is the way in which Christianity came into conflict with
the Empire ; it was as a political development, as a
society, as an imperium in imperio, that its existence
was felt to be impossible : and an " apology " is an
attempt to defend Christianity in this conflict. Yet
the apologists never do defend it solely on these grounds ;
for, though Christianity does appear as an organised
society, yet its foundation is not political. Its founda-
tion is a certain faith in God, which the apologists felt
to be closely related to the philosophy of the day, so
that, in their defence of Christianity, it is the statement
of this point of view which is their first care, though the
question of how it works itself out in organised human
society is of no less importance. To the philosophers
they mainly address themselves ; and among these we
must count not only Epictetus or Marcus Aurelius, but
the Emperors Hadrian and Antoninus. We must
remember that it is with the practical philosophy of the
Empire, and not with the speculative philosophy of
Hellas, that they are dealing. Among the philosophers
were found those who, to-day, would be called the
religious men, the artists in conduct, experts in man's
relation to the universe.
The relation between the Christian ideal and the
philosophic ideal of the second century has been well
depicted by Dr. E. A. Abbott in Silanus the Christian.
The Stoicism of Epictetus, tinged as it was a very little
with adventure or romance, becomes almost warm and
attractive. Rex sapiens : the wise man is a king ; he
looks at everything with fearless eyes, and sees it as it
is ; life holds no illusions or terrors for him ; he remains
totally master of himself; no passion or emotion can
stir his soul. He is like God, the divine Logos, impas-
sible, eternal, who pervades and upholds the universe,
18
CHRISTIANITY AND STOICISM
from whom comes his spark of soul, to whom it returns.
In contrast with this ideal, the zeal of St. Paul must
have appeared hysterical and unmanly. To rejoice
with them that do rejoice, and weep with them that
weep, was no part of the Stoic discipline. " You have
lost your son," said a friend to a philosopher of old.
" I did not think I had begotten an immortal," was the
reply. When the ideal man loses his humanity like
this, we can understand how a warmer heart would
turn for comfort to the spirit of the Gospel. And this
is exactly what happened, for instance, in the case of
St. Justin. But it had to be a complete turn round ;
no Stoic philosopher could expect his stony deity to
assume such warm and human flesh as did the Logos of
St. John. The One Eternal would never become a
village carpenter, suffer, be insulted, and die. And his
ideal man would never weep, sigh, and be weary, or
pass through the agony of the garden. For such a God,
the philosopher would have nothing but scorn ; to him,
the supreme virtue was not humility, but dignity.
Humiliation did not mature, it marred the perfect
stature of a man.
Marcus Aurelius, the emperor-philosopher, must have
known something of Christianity ; yet he could calmly
approve, if he did not order, the horrible martyrdoms of
Lyons and Vienne. And it was his philosophy that
nerved him to do without a tremor that from which
the vicious but easy-going Commodus shrank ; he
would probably have suffered the same torments as
calmly as he ordered them. His only reference to the
Christians is a comparison of their indecent glee in
martyrdom with the seemly composure of the dying
Stoic.
Again, to the philosopher, the ignoble origin of Chris-
tianity would be sufficient to discredit it. Not only
was it current among slaves and women, who, rightly
19
THE RISE OF CHRISTIANITY
speaking, were not human souls at all ; but it had risen
among these pestilent Jews, a superstitious and un-
reasonable people, quite devoid of philosophy. It is
true there is a humaner spirit in the philosophy of the
second century than in any that went before (despite
isolated pronouncements on slavery, for instance, by
men like Agatho) ; but its conscious connection with
Christian writings or teaching must be left an open
question : the spirit of Marcus or Epictetus is not such
as to suggest that they would have read barbarous
works like those of Paul. The resemblance must not
be put down to direct cause and effect.
Yet the apologists felt, and rightly too, that they had
more in common with philosophy than with any other
movement in the Empire ; they not only joined them
in the province of conduct, the province to which
philosophy had been more or less limiting itself, but also
explored the length and breadth of those unknown lands
through which the earlier speculators and physicists
had driven a few roads. But, in spite of this undoubted
affinity, the Christian Church found herself in deadly
opposition to the philosopher when Plato's words came
true, and the philosopher was king. The divine titles
were given by the Church, not to him, but to the cruci-
fied Galilean ; He was Lord, Master, God and Saviour.
And in her efforts to explain this opposition, the Church
was driven to explain her existence, her history, her
philosophy, her belief, her politic ; and, what she could
not explain, the new faith in Christ Jesus.
20
CHAPTER II
THE CHA]\IPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
" It is clear to us, O King, that there are three orders of mankind
in this world ; these are, the worshippers of your alleged gods, the
Jews, and the Christians." — Abistides : Apology II.
" To the Emperor Titus -^Elius Adrianus Antoninus, Pius Augustus
Caesar and to his son Verissimus the philosopher, and to Lucius the
philosopher, the natural son of Caesar, but the adopted of Pius the lover
of learning ; and to the sacred Senate, and to all the people of Rome, in
behalf of men of all ranks and nations unjustly loaded with public
odium and oppression, I, Justin the son of Priscus and grandson of
Bacchius, natives of Flavia Neapolis and Palestine, Syria, I who am
one of the suffering multitude, humbly offer this apology." — Su Justin :
Apology /, i.
"Romans, the things which have recently happened in your city
under Urbicus, and the things which are also being everywhere un-
reasonably done by our governors, have compelled me to frame this
composition for your sakes, who are men of like passions, and brethren,
though ye know it not, and though you be unwilling to acknowledge
it on account of your glorying in what you esteem dignities." — St.
Justin ; Apology II, i.
" To the Emperors, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus and Lucius Aurelius
Commodus, conquerors of Armenia and Sarmatia, and, more than all,
philosophers." — Athenaqoras : Embassy, i.
'• A fluent tongue and an elegant style afford pleasure, and such
praise as vain glory delights in, to wretched men who have been cor-
rupted in mind ; the lover of truth does not give heed to ornamented
speeches, but examines the real matter of speech, what it is, and what
kind it is." — Theophilus : To Autolyciis, i.
" Be not, O Greeks, so very hostilely disposed towards the bar-
barians, nor look with ill-will on their opinions ; for which of your
institutions has not been derived from the barbarians ? " — Tatian : To
the Greeks, i.
" When I consider, and call to mind my remembrance of Octavius,
my excellent and most faithful companion, the sweetness and charm
21
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
of the man so clings to me that I appear to myself in some sort as if I
were returning to times past, and not only recalling to memory things
which happened long ago and are now gone." — Minucius Felix :
Octavius, i.
" If you, the guardians of the Roman Empire, presiding in the eye
of the city, for the administration of public justice ; if you must not
examine the Christian cause and give it a fair hearing in open court ;
if the Christian cause is the only cause which your lordships either fear
or blush to be concerned for in public ; or, lastly, if your odium to this
sect has been too much fermented by your late severities at home upon
your Christian servants and you bring this domestic ferment into the
courts of judicature; if these, I say, are the bars in the way to justice, be
pleased at least to tolerate thus far, to let truth wait upon you in private,
and to read the apology we are not suffered to speak." — Teetulltan :
Apology, i.
" Since I see, most excellent Diognetus, that thou hast shown an
eager desire to understand the religion of the Christian, ... I welcome
thy zeal, and I pray God, who bestows upon us the power both to speak
and to hear, that it may be given to me to speak in such a way that
thou mayest be most helped by what thou hearest, and to thee to hear
in such a way that he who speaks may have no cause for regret." — To
Diognetus, i.
II. The Champions of Christianity
With the Emperor Trajan and his successors a new era
opened for the Roman Empire. The reign of tyranny
and suspicion had passed away ; Nero and Domitian
were now only evil memories. Not only the Christians,
but the whole world, rejoiced. The philosophers had
suffered under the house of Csesar much as the Chris-
tians had done ; now they found the reward of their
sufferings, and mounted the throne of the Empire.
Some have claimed Hadrian as the greatest of the
Caesars : it is true he surrendered the conquests Trajan
had made in the East ; but in this he showed himself
a wise administrator. Within the limits of the Empire,
so consolidated, he was able to develop a truer peace
than Augustus had done, not only by efficient adminis-
tration and adequate military defence, but by the
development of sound principles in law and devotion
22
EARLIEST APOLOGIES
to an enlightened philosophy. Roman jurisprudence
dates from this period, but it owed its being to the
philosophical conception of an equal and universal law
applying to all nations. As an example of what was
done we may instance Trajan's Rescript to the Chris-
tians ; popular outbursts and anonymous accusations
were declared *' unworthy of our age " ; all proceedings
against Christians were to take place through the legiti-
mate channels of the public courts.
There is considerable doubt as to the dates of the
first apologies. It seems likely that Aristides of Athens
addressed himself, not to Hadrian, but to Antoninus
Pius, perhaps in Rome about the year 140. A lost
apology by Quadratus (perhaps Bishop of Athens) must
have been earlier. An extract preserved by Eusebius
dates it very early indeed.
" But the works of our Saviour were lasting : for
they were real. Those who were healed, those who
rose from the dead, were seen not only while being cured
or while rising, but continued present; not only while
the Saviour was with us, but when He had gone, they
lived a long time, so that some of them survived even
to our own times."
The first apologies were addressed to philosophers, re-
commending Christianity as the only religion worthy
of their consideration. Hadrian is addressed by Aris-
tides as a philosopher rather than a king.
His first chapter deals with the nature of God, the
Mover of the World, who has made all for the sake of
man. He describes Him as unbegotten, unmade,
without beginning or end, without name, likeness, parts
or passions . . . perfect, complete, sufficient. " He
asks no sacrifice and no libation, nor any of the things
that are visible ; He asks not anything from anyone ;
23
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
but all ask from Him." This is non-controversial ; the
Stoie will agree with him.
The second chapter describes the " four races of men
in this world : Barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Chris-
tians.'* The Barbarians come from Kronos and Rhea,
the Greeks from Helenus and Zeus, the Jews from
Abraham, and the Christians " from Jesus Christ, who
is named the Son of God most High." An early bap-
tismal creed is here incorporated, to define Christianity ;
but, for further particulars, the reader is referred to a
written Gospel, which tells how Jesus took flesh of a
Hebrew virgin, chose twelve disciples, was pierced by
the Jews, died and was buried, rose and ascended into
heaven, and how the twelve disciples went out and
taught in the known parts of the world. This, except
for a reference to the coming judgment, is all he tells
about the doctrine of Christianity.
In chapters iii-vii he attacks the "Barbarians,"
showing how they worship idols, the elements, the sun,
and deified men, putting the creation before the Creator.
In chapters viii-xi he attacks the " Greeks," who, in
spite of their intellectual achievements, worship gods
who are both immoral and ridiculous. From these in
chapters xii and xiii he turns to the mysteries of Isis,
and the other superstitions of Egypt, especially animal-
worship. In chapter xiv he commends the Jews
because they worship God and not His works, and
observe a kindly morality, but they too have gone
astray by the service of angels, the observation of
sabbaths, new moons, and other such ordinances,
" which things not even thus have they perfectly ob-
served."
In these attacks on the non-Christian religions Aris-
tides has much in common with the philosophers, and
it is this that forms the main argumentative part of
his work. When he comes to recommend Christianity
24
ARISTIDES
he does not employ argument, but contents himself
with describing the moral life of the " brethren," leav-
ing that picture of love incarnate to exercise its con-
verting influence. Chapter xv begins with an account
of how they keep the commandments of God, the Maker
of heaven and earth ; it begins with the Ten Command-
ments, but describes them loosely and expands them
into the new commandment of love. He describes
their philanthropy, their honest and sober life, their
care for each other. Chapter xvi describes how they
know God and ask from Him petitions which are proper
for Him to give and them to receive. He has no doubt
that the world stands by reason of the intercession of
the Christians. All is coloured by the hope and expec-
tation of the world to come. For "their sayings and
their ordinances, and the glory of the service, and the
expectation of their reward," the reader is again re-
ferred to their writings. Finally, in chapter xvii, he
says " their teaching is the gate of light. Let all those
then approach thereunto who do not know God . . .
let them anticipate the dread judgment which is
to come by Jesus Christ upon the whole race of
man."
In this primitive apology we see doctrinal and gospel
Christianity ; but it is not made the subject of argu-
ment. There is no reference to the sacraments or
ministry of the Church — the whole emphasis is laid on
the Christian morality and the worship of God the
Creator, and the religions of the day are unmercifully
attacked. In this it conforms to the normal type ;
but it has a tolerant and philosophic calm which is soon
lost. The theory that the heathen gods are devils has
yet to be developed by St. Justin, and a philosophic
argument laid down to support the Christian doctrine
of the Incarnation. This is the second stage of the
argument with the philosophers, and it is made more
25
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
bitter by the fact that the Christians were persecuted
by the philosophers just as they had been by the Caesars.
Even Marcus Aurelius, who surrounded himself with
philosophers and professors of renunciation, was a
persecutor of the Church.
St. Justin's Apologies ring with real indignation against
the persecution of the innocent.
(Chapters i-xv.) The First Apology of St. Justin
is addressed to Antoninus Pius, " and to his son, Veris-
simus the philosopher, and to Lucius the philosopher."
Philosophers, he says, ought to be lovers of truth, and
not condemn the innocent. Christians do not fear
investigation ; they demand it. For the persecution
of Christians, like the persecution of Socrates, comes of
the devils. They are called atheists because they
refuse to worship these devils ; but they worship God,
who is Father, Son, and Spirit. They are not evil-
doers ; for, like Plato, they look forward to a judgment.
They cannot worship idols ; but turn to the living and
true God, who made the world for men. Again, they
do expect a kingdom, as their enemies allege ; but not
an earthly one. They are the best of citizens, because
they always act as if in God's presence. And yet
their Master prophesied these very sufferings as a result
of their goodness.
(Chapter xvi-xxvi.) After this general plea St.
Justin passes to a description and justification of the
Christian religion, which he reveals far more fully than
any other writer — chapters xvi-xxiii deal with the
moral teaching of Jesus, based mainly on St. Matthew's
Gospel, xxiv and xxvi emphasise the bodily nature of
the Resurrection.
(Chapters xxvii-xxxvii.) A comparison is then in-
stituted with the religions and customs of the pagan
world, showing how much more fantastic beliefs go
unpunished, and how the immoralities attributed to the
26
JUSTIN MARTYR
Christians are small compared with those actually found
among the pagans.
(Chapters xxxviii-lxxviii.) St. Justin then develops
his main line of argument for the truth of the Christian
religion, the argument from prophecy. The birth, suffer-
ing, death and resurrection of Christ had been foretold
by the Spirit through the prophets, and references are
given for every detail. He also says that Greek mytho-
logy and philosophy were based on these prophecies :
the former at least through the agency of devils. " But
here the devils were mistaken in not having one of
Jupiter's sons crucified in imitation of Christ."
The last section (Ixxix. to end) deals with the Church
and the Christian way of life, revealing more than any
other apologist. After fasting and penitence, the con-
verts are regenerated by baptism in the name of the
Trinity ; for Christ has said, " Unless you are born
again, you cannot enter the kingdom of heaven." By
this they obtain remission of their sins, and it is also
called illumination. There are traces of a baptismal
creed. This sacrament also has been copied by the
devils. Then follows a digression on the doctrine of
the Logos in the Old Testament.
In chapter Ixxxv follows an account of the prayers
and the Eucharist. Bread, with a cup of wine and
water, is brought to the president, who takes it and
offers up praise and glory to the Father of all things,
through the name of His Son and the Holy Spirit :
" and this prayer to God ... is a prayer of no ordinary
length. When the bishop has finished the prayers and
the thanksgiving, all the people present conclude with an
audible voice, saying Amen. . . . Those we call deacons
distribute to everyone present to share in this eucharis-
tic bread and wine and water, and they carry it to
the absent. . . . We do not take this as common bread
and wine ; but as Jesus Christ our Saviour was made
27
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
flesh ... so are we taught that this food is turned
into the nourishment and substance of our flesh and
blood, and is in some sense the flesh and blood of the
incarnate Jesus." An account is then given of the
reading of the apostolic and prophetic writings at
Sunday worship, and of the practice of almsgiving.
St. Justin is not an orderly writer ; but such is the
main structure of his work. The Logos Doctrine which
he uses to explain the Incarnation is often alluded to
in it, but is nowhere treated in an orderly manner.
Another side of this doctrine is developed in the Second
Apology, a shorter, less formal, more vigorous work,
written on the occasion of the condemnation of two
Christians, Ptolemaeus and Lucius, by Urbicus the
praetor : it is written also partly in answer to the at-
tacks of Crescens, a cynic philosopher. So far chap-
ters i-iii.
(Chapters iv-viii.) God has a purpose for the
human race which is being carried out through Chris-
tians. But the world has fallen away from that pur-
pose since the time when the angels fell victims to the
charms of the daughters of men, from which union were
born the demons whom the world worships as gods
(cf. Enoch, passim). God and Jesus, His Son, have
powers over these demons. And God has His chosen
people, the Christians, for whose sake the world is pre-
served from inevitable punishment. This is why Chris-
tians who are inspired by the Word are persecuted by
the world, even as were Heraclitus and other philosophers
who were similarly inspired.
(Chapters ix-xiii.) God, since He is just, must in
the end punish vice. As the divine Word He was par-
tially known to the writers of old, like Socrates, though
not fully revealed till the incarnation of Jesus Christ.
The Christian contempt of death is bound up with their
choice of an innocent life. And this innocence is tri-
28
ATHENAGORAS
umphantly proved by their fearlessness. Not that we
differ in all respects from all men, for all writers spoke
the truth in proportion as they were inspired by the
" Seed of the Word " in them : " Whatever things were
rightly said among all men are the property of us
Christians."
St. Justin ends by beseeching the Romans — to whom
he addresses himself — to make his book public, and so
spread the truth about Christianity (chapters xiv-xv).
We now come to Athenagoras, also a philosopher, but
resident at Athens. We shall find in him also the
Enochic myth of the origin of evil, and it is worth
noting that this conception was imported into Chris-
tianity from the learning — even the science — of the day.
He also emphasises the importance of the resurrection
of the body. He is more learned, cultured and philo-
sophical than Justin ; and seems absolutely at ease
when dealing with the poets and philosophers.
His Apology is addressed to the Emperors Marcus
Aurelius and Commodus, " conquerors of Armenia and
Sarmatia, and, more than all, philosophers." He begins
by complaining that Christians are singled out for un-
just treatment. They have a right to common justice.
And it is the duty of the state to inquire into the truth
of the three charges brought against them : atheism,
Thyestean feasts, and QEdipodean intercourse (chap-
ters i-iii).
(Chapters iv-xii.) As to the charge of atheism, we
believe in one God, who made all things by the Logos.
Poets like Euripides believe in one God. So also philo-
sophers like Plato and Aristotle. Yet they are not
persecuted, while we, who have the inspiration of His
Spirit, are. This faith has reason on its side, and, in
addition, the witness of God Himself speaking through
His prophets, Moses, Isaiah, or Jeremiah. We believe,
therefore, in one God and one co-eternal Logos, and in
29
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
the Holy Spirit flowing from Him and returning back,
like the rays from the sun. In accordance with this
faith is our moral teaching, " Love your enemies " ;
and in accordance with our faith is our practice. And
therefore it is impossible to regard us as atheists.
(Chapters xiii-xvi.) We now come to the " atheist"
charges in detail. We do not sacrifice to God, because
He has no need of blood and burnt-offerings ; but we
do offer the bloodless sacrifice, which is our reasonable
service. We do not honour all the gods of all the cities :
their multitude and variance makes it impossible. We
do not confuse God with matter, and worship idols.
We admire the heavens and the elements as works of
art, but do not worship them, knowing they are subject
to a law of dissolution.
(Chapter xvii-xxx.). The heathen gods were made
by men ; by such poets as Homer and Hesiod, and such
artists as Saurias and Cleanthes. The poets themselves
affirm that these gods had a beginning, like men ; and
the philosophers agree with them. They give these
gods the forms of monsters, and attribute to them im-
pure loves, myths for which symbolism supplies no
explanation.
If this is so, what power produces the miracles that
are done in the name of the idols ? Thales divides
" superior beings " into " God, demons, and heroes " ;
and Plato agrees with him. We, too, recognise under
God the existence of demons, the product of an unlaw-
ful love between angels and women. These beings
exercise an evil control over matter, and are responsible
for the apparent moral chaos which has led poets and
philosophers to deny the existence of Providence.
They entice men to the impure worship of idols, and
are always about men trying to get the mastery. In
their origin the heathen gods were only men, as the
poets admit ; and, though they may have been good
80
THEOPHILUS
or strong, we are not atheists because we refuse to
worship them.
(Chapters xxxi-xxxvi.) The charges of immorahty
are hardly hkely to be true, considering our belief in
the judgment to come, and the future life. Compare
the morality of Zeus with ours : " He that looketh on
a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery
already in his heart." And our morality, celibate or
married, is equally pure. How, then, can you heathens
accuse us ? Similarly, how can you, who delight in the
gladiatorial shows, accuse us of cruelty ? Finally, our
belief in the resurrection of the body — which is fully in
accordance with your physics — is the most powerful
guardian of morality.
Athenagoras attaches such importance to the argu-
ment from the resurrection of the body that he devotes
a separate tract to this subject. It will be noted that
less stress than ever is laid on the worship and doctrine
of Christianity, and more emphasis laid on the main
topics of controversy like the origin of evil, the existence
of Providence. This is still more remarkable in Theo-
philus, To Autolycus, It is worth noting that both
Athenagoras and Theophilus ascribe their conversion to
the Old Testament.
Book I, First Principles. God is a Spirit, and can
only be discerned by the eyes of the soul if the heart is
pure. No words can describe Him in His perfection
, and justice. He is without beginning and without end,
the Creator of all things, and can in a limited way be
discerned from His works, the seasons and winds and
the stars, and the order of them. But we cannot see
Him till we put on immortality. You think this faith
of ours is unreasonable ; but is your worship of im-
moral gods, of idols, or of kings any more reasonable ?
We Christians are called so because we are anointed
with the Spirit of God. Our faith in the resurrection is
31
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
reasonable, because it is in accordance with the observed
course of nature. This I learned because I found in
the Scriptures the Holy Spirit, and this God which you
have asked me to show you.
Book II, The Origin of the World. This book be-
gins by satirising heathen conceptions of deity, not
merely the popular beliefs in images and local deities,
but the errors of the philosophers in thinking matter
co-eternal with God, and of the poets in the making
and genealogies of their gods and the divine ruling of
the world.
In chapter ix he proceeds to the Christian belief,
beginning from the prophets who were inspired by the
Holy Spirit. These tell us how God, through His Word,
made all things out of nothing. He then gives the his-
tory of the world from the Creation to the Flood, and
the division of the world among the sons of Noah. All
is given in detail, and no occasion is lost of pointing out
where these older books correct Homer and Hesiod.
Secular history gives no account of these matters ; but
we find them in the prophets, who also give us the laws
of a holy life. He finally shows that the Sibyl, the
poets, and the philosophers confirm the account given
by the prophets.
Book III. Greek and Hebrew literature contrasted.
The Greek writers were later than the Hebrew ; and
are consequently not reliable. They are self-contra-
dictory, and also inculcate the very crimes of which
Christians are falsely accused. They do not agree in
their descriptions of the gods, and represent them as
immoral. To us God has revealed His nature in the
divine law of the Ten Commandments. We also find in
the Old Law humanity towards strangers, repentance from
evil works, social justice, chastity, and love of enemies.
It will be noticed that Theophilus ignores the ceremonial
law : to him the Old Testament is a prophetic book.
32
TATIAN
Greek history is wrong in its chronology, while
Hebrew history is accurate because it is inspired by
God. He contrasts the myths of Noah and Deucalion,
and the truth about Moses with Manetho's inaccuracy.
He then goes on to show that the Temple is more ancient
than classic civilisation, and that the prophets wrote
before the Greek philosophers. The remainder of the
book deals with the details of comparative chronology,
and ends up by explaining that Greek writers do not
deal with Hebrew history, in the first place, because it
is of superior antiquity, and in the second because of
their frivolous view of moral values.
Theophilus is still sympathetic with philosophy,
though not in the whole-hearted manner of St. Justin.
In St. Justin's disciple, Tatian, we find the pendulum
has swung to the other extreme. Tatian is an " As-
syrian," and has none of the reverence for Greek thought
so natural to a member of the civilised world. His
work, To the Greeks, is a satire in the manner of Swift :
and though it is just as unpardonably savage as The
Tale of a Tub, it also makes just as good reading.
(Chapters i-x.) Why so proud of your culture, O
Greeks ? for you learned it all — magic, astronomy, writing,
music, everything — from the barbarians; your philo-
sophers are examples of vice and monuments of ridicule.
Why, therefore, do you enter into conflict with us who
worship God, the invisible Creator ? from Him comes
forth the Logos. The creation of matter by God is the
basis of our belief in the resurrection of the body. Then
comes the story of the fall of the angels through the
pride of one who thought himself equal to God ; this is
the origin of demons, the heathen gods who sin like men
and give rise to superstition. How ridiculous they all
are !
(Chapters xi-xx.) We are not under fate : our
sin is the result of our own free will. The spirit in
3 33
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
US is superior to matter ; it is immortal, like God,
and responsible. It will be punished, though not so
severely as the demons. At present, it is necessary for
the spirit, while still in her dwelling of flesh, to be united
with the Spirit of God. Thus, repudiating matter, the
Christian will be unharmed by the demons and their
illusive terrors. They pretend to bestow blessing and
health ; but this is not in their power, but in God's.
And to God we must render thanks.
(Chapters xx-xxviii.) Are not the heathen gods
ridiculous beside the Christian God ? Could anything
be more wicked and laughable than the Greek religious
rites ? Is anything more demoralising than their
gladiatorial shows and theatrical performances ? Their
philosophers are a laughable rabble ; their learning is
petty pride ; and men who believe as they do have no
right to condemn the opinions of Christians. Their
legislation allows the most unnatural immorality.
(Chapters xxix-xlii.) I had seen all this myself,
and was converted from it by reading the simple but
great words of the prophets. I was initiated, therefore,
and resolved to resist the devil. The doctrine I em-
braced was far more ancient than that of Greece, and
it was a doctrine fitted not only for philosophers, but
for young and old, rich and poor, among whom are
examples of virtue very different from the heroines of
Greek story, to whom statues were erected in every
city. I have not learned these things at second-hand ;
I have visited many lands and seen them myself ; and
I have chosen the best.
The remaining seven chapters deal with the com-
parative chronology of Greek and Hebrew history along
the same lines as Theophilus, to whom perhaps Tatian,
the pupil of Justin, owes part of this extremely original
apology. It will be noted that, in Tatian, we have still
less about Christian faith and worship. It has still
34
M I N U C I U S
further narrowed itself down to the main points of
controversy.
There are several points of connection between the
two Latin apologies ; but whether Minucius borrowed
from Tertullian, or vice versa, remains doubtful. In
the former case, Minucius cannot belong to the second
century, or only just falls within it. There is very little
evidence on which to decide this question, and, for
completeness' sake it should be included here.
The writer is a disciple of Cicero as well as of Christ.
The Octavius is written in dialogue form like the De
Amicitia or the De Oratore ; and the persons in the
dialogue move in an atmosphere of Roman calm and
dignity. They do not become excited or angry :
strong things are said, but no tempers are lost. In
this Minucius contrasts strongly with Tertullian, who
was far more African than Latin. In Minucius we see
Roman aristocracy accepting the new religion ; it is the
beginning of that movement which saw the noble and
ancient families of Rome become monks.
(Chapters i, ii, iii, iv.) Octavius, the dear friend of
Minucius, arrives in Rome, and the two, with Caecilius,
are walking by the sea-shore : Caecilius kisses his hand
to an image of Serapis, and the action provokes a de-
bate with Octavius, in which Minucius is arbiter. It
is interesting to note that it arises from an action in
which Caecilius has philosophy against him as well as
Christianity.
(Chapters v-xiii.) Caecilius opens his attack on
Christianity with the rationalist argument, the base-
lessness of their religion in a universe governed by
necessity. Pagan religion, on the other hand, recognises
this necessity, or fate ; and the Romans have always
met success by adoring what gods they found, and by
their observance of auguries and auspices. The atheist
philosophers who tried to destroy this religion were
35
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
deservedly punished. How much more a low and
illiterate conspiracy of slaves who despise the temples
while their own ceremonies will not bear the light of
day ! Chapter ix develops the slanderous charges against
the Christians. He then goes on to ridicule the idea
of an omnipresent God, whom he regards as a sort of
spy ; he also satirises the destruction of the world by
fire, the bodily resurrection, and the present want and
poverty of Christians. " Where is that God who is
able to help you when you come to life again if he
cannot help you while you are in this life ? " True
philosophy is sceptical, and the best advice to Christians
is to give up their audacious religion, " lest either a
childish religion should be introduced, or all religion
should be overthrown."
(Chapters xvi-xxi.) Octavius, in reply, points out
that the truth of an argument does not depend on the
poverty or riches of the man who advances it. He then
goes on to the proof from design of the existence of a
Creator ; a God greater than all definitions, recognised
by common people in their ordinary speech, and praised
by the poets and the philosophers, especially Plato in
the TimcEUS. This being so, we must not be carried
away by the old fables and belief in gods who, after
all, were only deified men. Then follows (xxi-xxiv)
the usual satire on the gods, their obscene myths, and
their helpless images. The Roman Empire, he says,
was obtained, not by favour of their gods, but by
violence and crime ; " for to adore what you have taken
by force is to consecrate sacrilege, not divinities." Nor
were the auspices able to foretell the failure of Regulus
and other great commanders. It is the devils, not
God, who are worshipped in the pagan religion. But
the devils fear the Christians and fly from them, and it
is they who set going the slanders against them, which
he repudiates. Christians do not worship the cross,
86
M I N U C I U S
nor drink the blood of infants ; though pagans do just
as cruel things with their children. And Christian
feasts are modest and temperate.
(Chapters xxxii-xxxviii.) Then comes the vindi-
cation of the pure religion of Christianity. The Christian
God has no temples, because He is too great. " Is it not
better He should be dedicated in our mind, consecrated
in our inmost heart ? " He is omnipresent, and the
whole world is His family ; and He was able to protect
the Jews as long as they followed Him. The philo-
sophers have not found the destruction of the world
by fire an absurdity ; and the resurrection of the body
is equally possible. It does not follow that what is
withdrawn from our eyes perishes before God ; and
punishment is impossible without the bodily resurrection.
Christians do not fear comparison with pagans in
morality, now or at the last day. As for fate, fate is
God. Chapter xxxvii points out how Christian boys
and young women daily suffer death with a courage
comparable with that shown by Mucins Scaevola or
Regulus ; while the heathens find pleasure in their
deaths and like spectacles. Christians, therefore, absent
themselves from sacrifices and shows not because
God's creation is corrupted, but lest any should think
they were submitting to the devils in whose honour
they were held. They are the true philosophers — " We
who bear wisdom, not in our dress, but in our mind;
we do not speak great things, but do them.'*
(Chapters xxxix-xlii.) Ceecilius declares himself con-
quered, and asks for further instruction — which, indeed,
is necessary, the apology, as usual, dealing only with
the first step towards the Christian faith. So ends the
work, of which Milman said : " Perhaps no late work,
either pagan or Christian, reminds us of the golden days of
Latin prose so much as the Octavius of Minucius Felix."
When we come to the consideration of Tertullian, we
37
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
find that, if he borrowed from Cicero at all, it was from
Philippics. His is the spirit of the lawyer, not of the
philosopher : he pushes home his case with every art
of which he is master — epigram, force, fury, vivid denun-
ciation. His fault is his ferocity and lack of sympathy ;
on the other hand, he is the most arresting thinker of
the century. And it is a remarkable achievement that
he should also be the father of Latin theology. It is
also quite possible that, as a jurist, he had a finger in
the codifying of Roman law in this century : certainly
a lawyer of his name was prominent in this great work.
In his Apology he collects and weaves together in a
masterly manner the arguments of all who had gone
before him.
The first sixteen chapters of his Apology answer the
charges against the Christians, and retort others against
the pagans (chapters i-iv). He begins by alleging
that the persecution of Christians is the persecution of
the truth by ignorance and wickedness, as is natural
in a world where truth is a stranger. The judges
condemn Christians mainly out of fear of the mob ;
and, as no crime is ever alleged against them, this is a
sure sign that they mxust be innocent. It seems, therefore,
that they are persecuted merely for their name, and the
pagans do not understand the meaning even of that.
If the law orders this persecution, then the law should
be amended, as so many laws are now being amended.
Chapter v contains the debateable statement that
the wisest of Emperors have protected the Christians.
Tiberius wished to enrol Christ among the received
gods ; Nero and Domitian were the first persecutors ;
Marcus Aurelius, Trajan, Hadrian, Vespasian, and
Antoninus Pius all were favourable to Christianity.
This is scarcely true of Marcus Aurelius ; and Tertullian
is clearly carried away by the legend of the Thundering
Legion.
38
TERTULLIAN
(Chapters vi-viii.) In spite of the Roman talk of the
antiquity of their rehgion, they are themselves intro-
ducing scandalous novelties every day, so that civilisation
is now corrupt and degenerate. And yet it is common
talk that Christians behave in this fashion, which is
pure rumour with no shred of evidence. The crimes
charged on the Christians are incredible : human na-
ture is incapable of them. Could you do them ?
(Chapters ix-xvi.) And yet of all these practices
the pagans themselves are guilty : the sacrifice of chil-
dren to Saturn, the exposition of children, the blood-
lust at the gladiatorial games, and the immoralities of
the tragedies. You call us atheists, who worship God ;
you yourselves worship men ; and the men you have
deified are not half so moral as Socrates or Aristides.
You worship images ; and, when these images are done
with, put the materials to any shameful use. You in-
sult your gods by sacrificing to them the worthless parts
of animals. Your poets represent the gods as full of all
manner of evil passions. You, and not the Christians,
are the profaners of temples. You, not the Christians,
worship the ass's head, the Cross, or the sun.
(Chapters xvii-xxi.) What is Christianity ? We
believe in one God, the Creator, omnipresent, pure
Spirit, the giver of all good things ; to Him the soul of
man turns naturally in gratitude and worship. He is
revealed to us by the prophets, whose works were trans-
lated in Egypt under Ptolemy Philadelphus. They are
the oldest writings in the world — Moses lived a thou-
sand years before the Trojan War ; and their divinity
is proved by the fact that everything they wrote came
to pass. For among the Jews the Word of God became
incarnate in Jesus Christ, Spirit of Spirit, God of God,
coming like a ray from the sun : and He wrought such
miracles, and so died and rose again, as the prophets
had foretold. He is the true God ; others are false.
39
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
(Chapters xxii-xxvii.). Heathen rehgion, on the
other hand, is inspired by devils. These devils are the
fallen angels ; they abound everywhere, and are respon-
sible for the miracles of paganism. But they fly from
Christians, who are able to cure every man who is pos-
sessed by them. It is these devils who form the array
of gods worshipped throughout the Roman Empire.
It is not to these that Rome owes her grandeur, but to
war and desolation. Kingdoms are held only under
the one supreme God. These devils are the origin of
the persecution of Christians ; because they see their
time is short.
(Chapters xxviii-xxxviii.) The second charge against
Roman religion is that the Emperor is put above all the
gods, and is their patron. Our God is the eternal God,
the Maker of Kings, to whom we pray for the prosperity
of the Emperor. For we are ordered to love our enemies ;
besides, we believe that the prosperity of the Empire
stands between us and the dissolution of the world.
Therefore we are loyal to the Emperor, though we do
not call him God, " for I am Caesar's free-born subject,
and we have but one Lord, the Almighty and Eternal
God, who is his Lord as well as mine." This is why
we take no part in the festivals of Csesar. But we, who
love even our enemies, should not be persecuted as ill-
doers. We are numerous enough to destroy the Empire
in a single night ; yet we defend it with our prayers.
Therefore, we whose interests lie in another world,
cannot be suspected of having designs against the king-
dom of this world.
(Chapters xxxix-1.) Who are we, then ? A cor-
poration of men, bound together to pray ; we meet
together to read the Holy Scriptures, and to improve
our lives ; we pay our money into a common fund for
charitable purposes ; our brotherhood lasts unto death,
and our whole lives are consecrated with prayer. It is
40
TERTULLIAN
quite unreasonable that we should be held to be the
cause of every calamity. All the evils which God
sends on the world are sent as a warning to us, and as
a punishment to you. We are, as a matter of fact, your
best citizens, not Brahmins or hermits, but good people
living in the world. Yet you condemn us and hate
us merely for our name ; whereas we are likely to be
better than other people because we believe God is
always about us and will punish us if we go wrong. The
philosophers are not treated as we are, and yet we are
more inoffensive than they. And they stole many of
their teachings from the Holy Scriptures. They differ
from us on the question of the resurrection of the body ;
but how can men be punished for their sins — as the
poets say they will — unless this is so ? You ought not,
then, to persecute us ; yet what is more glorious than
the triumph of Christian martyrdom ? The more mar-
tyrdoms the more Christians ; the blood of the martyrs
is the seed of the Church. And there is such blessed
emulation and discord between the divine and human
judgment, that, when you condemn us upon earth, God
absolves us in heaven.
Even in a short summary it can be seen how closely
parallel are the two Latin apologies, in spite of their
difference of tone. The same arguments follow in the
same order, and both conform generally to the norm
observable as early as the Apology of Aristides. Ter-
tullian differs from Minucius in giving an account of
Christian theology and worship, the latter distressingly
meagre, doubtless from reasons of secrecy. Both
apologies contain the idea afterwards developed by
Tertullian in the Testimonium Animce,
The conception of the Church as a sojourner upon
earth we find also in the fragmentary Epistle to
Diognetus, which, though written in Greek, is there-
fore noticed here. If Diognetus were the philosopher
41
CHAMPIONS OF CHRISTIANITY
of that name mentioned by Marcus Aurelius, it might
help us to understand this connection. It is possible
he may belong to the aristocratic society of Rome,
and have circulated his pamphlet in philosophic circles
where Greek was spoken, just as we find the Medita-
tions of Marcus Aurelius written in Greek. It is much
more tolerant than either of the two Latin apologies ;
for it is addressed to a sympathetic inquirer : and
this may explain many of the notable differences.
(Chapter i.). The apology is addressed to an official
of high rank, who desires to understand the Christians'
faith in God, their scorn of death, their rejection of
paganism and Judaism, and their late appearance in the
world.
(Chapters ii-iv.) The author first satirises the wor-
ship of idols in the spirit of Isaiah or of the Psalms. He
commends the Jewish faith in God, but condemns their
sacrifices and their observance of seasons.
(Chapters v-x.) After this short introduction fol-
lows the famous panegyric on Christianity. Christians
live in the world ; but their citizenship is in heaven.
They love all men, and are persecuted by all. What
the soul is to the body, the Christians are to the world.
Chapter vii contains the classic description of the In-
carnation ; how God, the Creator, sent His Son in love
and not in judgment : for force is not an attribute of
God. In His power it is that Christians face death.
This is a better theory than the fancies of the phi-
losophers. God bore with the world's sin, until the
time came that He sent His Son in mercy to take away
that sin. Faith in this message is found through love
and service.
Chapters xi and xii form an appendix, perhaps by a
later hand. First comes a little summary of apostolic
teaching and practice ; then a little homily showing,
from the story of the Garden of Eden, that life is neces-
42
AD DIOGNETUM
sary as well as knowledge ; and that it is found in the
Church, where " salvation is set forth plainly, and the
apostles are interpreted, and the Lord's passover is
carried on, and the seasons follow each other in order,
and the Word is glad to teach the saints, the Word
through whom the Father is glorified, to whom be glory
for ever. Amen."
If this little apology shows points of resemblance
with Tertullian, the points of difference are no less
striking. There is no reference to the argument from
prophecy ; there is no theory of devils. In this it goes
back to the period before St. Justin, and allies itself
with the Apology of Aristides, from which we began.
All goes to show that it is earlier than Tertullian, and
that the late date suggested by some critics cannot be
upheld. It should, however, be grouped here : the
mystical conception of the Church in chapters v and vi
owes nothing to any earlier apologist, w^hile it links the
work w^ith the work of Tertullian, who actually quotes
the statement that " force is not an attribute of God."
43
CHAPTER III
CHRISTIANITY AND THE OLD TESTAMENT
" But when you hear the prophets speaking, as it were, under the
names of different persons, you must not look upon the men who
speak so much as upon the divine Logos who inspires them." — St.
Justin : Apology I, xlvi, 46.
" It would be irrational for us to cease to believe in the Spirit from
God, who moved the mouths of the prophets like musical instruments,
and to give heed to mere human opinions." — Athenagoeas : Embassy,
vii.
" From these very old records it is proved that the writings of the
rest are more recent than the writings given to us through Moses —
yes, and than the subsequent prophets. For the last of the prophets,
who was called Zechariah, was contemporary with the reign of Darius.
But even the lawgivers themselves are all found to have legislated
subsequently to that period. For if one were to mention Solon the
Athenian, he lived in the days of the Kings Cyrus and Darius, in the
time of the prophet Zechariah first mentioned, who was by many
years the last of the prophets." — Theophilus : To Autolycus, iii, 23.
" And while I was giving my most earnest attention to the matter,
I chanced to meet with certain barbarian writings, too old to be com-
pared with the opinions of the Greeks, and too divine to be compared
with their errors ; and I was led to put faith in these by the unpre-
tending cast of the language, the inartificial character of the writers,
the foreknowledge which they displayed of future events, the excellent
quality of their precepts, and the declaration of the government of the
universe by one Being." — Tatian : To the Greeks, xxix.
" For there is nothing of moment now done, but what has been
foretold ; and what we prophets see, our forefathers have heard from
the prophets. . . . Hence it is we come to be so infallibly certain of
many things not yet come to pass from the experience we have of those
that are ; because those were presignified by the same Spirit as these
we see fulfilling every day . . . and this prophetic Spirit sees every-
thing always and at once, though men see only by pieces and successions
of time, and are forced to distinguish between the beginning of a pro-
phecy and the fulfilling it, to separate present from future, and past
from present." — Tertullian : Apology, xx.
44
CONVERSION OF ST. JUSTIN
III. Christianity and History
When our first apology, the Acts of the Apostles, was
written, Christianity was still a sect within the Jewish
Church, differentiated mainly by its belief that the
Christ was Jesus, and that Gentiles could be admitted
into it by baptism. When St. Justin wrote, Christianity
was an independent and supra-national society, which
claimed to be the true heir of the old covenant of
Judaism, while non-Christian Judaism was crystallising
into the Rabbinic legalism we now know. The histori-
cal order, therefore, as well as the logical order, is to
deal first with the defence Christianity made to the
Jews.
Although St. Justin wrote about the middle of the
second century, his conversion goes back to the days
before the disastrous war of 135. A pagan of Samaritan
birth, he had studied one philosophy after another until
he was finally brought to Christianity as the crown of
all philosophies ; from that day he assumed the phi-
losopher's cloak and I taught the new discipline at Rome,
where he ultimately suffered martyrdom. He is able
to feel a righteous indignation, as the Second Apology
shows, but the great charm of his character is its mild-
ness and tolerance, and his sympathy for those who do
not agree with him. A certain simplicity and grace
makes him one of the most pleasing writers of the cen-
tury.
The immediate cause of his conversion was the study
of the Jewish Scriptures, and especially of the prophets ;
he was deeply impressed, not only by the truth of their
prophecies of Jesus Christ, but also by the authority
with which they spoke. They were as yet the only
inspired writings of the Church, and they were read, of
course, in the Greek version called Septuagint. Indeed,
45
THE OLD TESTAMENT
this version had become so exclusively Christian that,
by the time of St. Justin, the Jews had been forced to
make new translations in which he accused them of
making alterations and omissions with an anti-Christian
bias. The original Septuagint had been translated in
Egypt by order of Ptolemy II, as we learn from Josephus
and the Letter of Aristeas, But the latter is a forgery,
and, though St. Justin has been blamed for placing the
" authorised version " in the reigns of Herod and Ptolemy
XII, there is something to be said for the theory that it
was only then that the work (begun perhaps under
Ptolemy II) was finished and received its official im-
primatur.
The Septuagint, then, was firmly established as the
Bible of the new Church, and the unquestioned ground
of controversy with the Jews ; how firmly, we may
judge by the fact that, in spite of the existence of Gospels,
it is the main influence in leading the philosopher to
Christ. The New Testament, as such, was unknown ;
and the use of the Septuagint is so important and so
fundamental that we must begin by an examination
of the Dialogue with Trypho,
The speeches in the earlier chapters of the Acts give
us some account of the first Christian use of Scripture.
Our Lord had very definitely regarded Himself as ful-
filling the words of the prophets, and the early theology
carried on this line of argument. The apostolic Church
saw in Him the Suffering Servant, and the Messianic
King, whose soul God would not leave in hell ; and they
applied to Him the words of the law, " Cursed is whoso-
ever hangeth on a tree." To us, staled with custom and
repetition, these words seem commonplace and colourless
enough ; if we put ourselves back into the place of those
who discovered them, the weird affinities between the
two dispensations will seem extraordinarily illuminating
and suggestive. Another and peculiar use of the
46
METHOD OF INTERPRETATION
Septuagint is that of St. Paul ; he endeavours to show
that the blessings of Jehovah have never been given
in exchange for obedience to a material law, but in
living response to God, the moral attitude which he
calls faith. He employs the allegorical method of
interpretation, which is a perfectly legitimate one, so
long as there is a real moral affinity between the things
compared. He has the spirit of Scripture on his side,
though he finds it difficult to do himself justice by
quoting isolated verses. A third stage is that which
we find in St. Matthew's Gospel. Here we have a
selection of proof-texts introduced at intervals wherever
there seems to be what we might imagine the faintest
or most fanciful verbal likeness. Sometimes the text
is plainly misapplied, as in " Out of Egypt have I
called my son," which refers not to the Messiah, but to
the Jewish race.
The truth is that the Christians had now got to the
point at which the whole Old Testament was claimed
for Jesus, and a meaning had to be found for every
verse. Collections of such verses, with their interpre-
tations, were in circulation, and part of one is found in
the Epistle of Barnabas, To make the explanation
cover the whole facts, the method of allegory is chosen.
The details of the law have mystical Christian meanings
hidden in them, and Abraham had three hundred and
eighteen servants because, when expressed in Greek
numerals, that number signifies the name of Jesus and
the sign of the cross (IHT). The hare and the hyena
are unclean beasts because they typify certain sins.
It is obvious that it is not easy to interpret the whole
Old Testament along these lines, and it is no wonder
that there was a strong reaction in favour of giving up
the Old Testament altogether. A large body of Chris-
tians, under Marcion, rejected it, denying that the good
God can ever have given the law, and regarding the
47
THE OLD TESTAMENT
prophets alone as His witnesses. This heroic remedy,
however, was not destined to be adopted ; the Church
rightly held that the Septuagint contained a revelation
of God too valuable to throw away, and yet it had no
satisfactory method of interpreting it.
St. Justin found his point of contact in the prophets.
They were the men who brought him to the truth, not
arguing about it like philosophers, but testifying as
witnesses worthy to be believed. Their credentials
were that the facts that they prophesied came to pass.
This was always the main line of Christian evidence :
the arguments which had been found so effective with
the Jews could easily be put in a form that would appeal
to the Gentiles. Prophets long ago foretold the coming
of Jesus as the Messiah, describing accurately the
story of His life : the Messiah comes, and their words
are fulfilled to the letter. This was obviously a powerful
argument in the second century, when a high value was
placed on the Old Testament, even by the heathen, in
virtue of its undisputed antiquity.
In the Dialogue with Trypho we find almost the last
attempt of Christianity to convert the sons of Abraham
to their true Messiah. Trypho is a thinker, a philosopher,
a student of the heathen theologies. He has read the
Gospel as well as the books of Moses, and is ready to
discuss the question openly and without prejudice.
Such Jews were hard to find a generation later : for all
Philo's spiritual sons were Christians. How, then, do
the broad-minded Jew and the broad-minded Christian
regard their Bible ?
Both refer to it as their standard and basis of argu-
ment. To the Christian it is as authoritative as to the
Jew ; Trypho commends Justin on this point. But,
while he acknowledges the high level of Christian
morality (too high he thinks it), he points out two
inconsistencies, the rejection of the Law of God, and the
48
ST. JUSTIN AND THE SCRIPTURES
faith in a mere man, Christ Jesus. To a devout Jew,
both these seem incompatible with the behef in the
inspiration of the Old Testament. In the course of a
platonic dialogue of two days, St. Justin explains the
Christian way of looking at these points, using a wealth
of illustration and detail that is invaluable. We shall
not deal with the abrogation of the law, as it is really
answered by the view of the Person of Christ, and it has
very little bearing on modern thought. Let it suffice
to say that the conflict between the Law and Grace
exists in the Scriptures itself, and that the Christians
had nearer affinities to the prophets who opposed
legalism.
St. Justin and Christians generally claimed that in
them the prophetic age had begun again ; to St. Justin
the Holy Ghost is the prophetic Spirit ; God, who made
earth and heaven, was as near to him as to Isaiah. And
this God, whose sons they were, who was at once
transcendent and intimate, was revealed to them in
the pages of the Bible as the God of history. Jew and
Christian were at one on this point ; but the Christian
believed that he had actual possession of the Spirit,
" who spake by the prophets," and that he had seen
and touched the Word of God who came to them.
He saw the universe as a single process leading up to
Jesus of Nazareth.
Thus, it was no mere metaphor to say that the Chris-
tian Church is the true Israel. The Scripture belongs
to them, and to them alone the promises have come ;
they have entered into the land of milk and honey,
which was prepared for the children of Abraham. The
actual Jews after the flesh misinterpret the Scriptures ;
the Christians only can understand them, because they
read them in the spirit in which they were written.
And, though this is only, beginning to work itself out
completely to-day as a result of historical study, he
.4 49
THE OLD TESTAMENT
was quite right ; along the lines of narrow legal in-
terpretation, verse by verse, it is impossible to under-
stand them.
What, then, is the story told by the Scriptures of the
Jews ? It is the story of how God Almighty revealed
Himself to one savage tribe in Arabia, how He brought
them into the land of Palestine, how He set up in Jeru-
salem a house where all nations might come and worship
Him, and hear His law ... it is the revelation of the
one everlasting God. His first law is, " Thou shalt have
none other gods but Me." He admits no equal, no
rival, no inferior even. Yet the Christians who accept
this revelation worship also the man, Jesus Christ, and
whom they give the blasphemous title " Son of God."
In reply to this criticism, St. Justin goes to the Old
Testament, and points out how, even there, the one
God is represented as having more than one mode of
personality. When God chose to make known His
Name and Nature to His chosen people, the Being who
spoke to Moses from the burning bush is described as
" the Angel of the Lord " ; and it is this " Angel " who
utters the great revelation, " I am what I am." This
Angel is not to be confused with the Seraphim and
Cherubim, and with the winged messengers of Christian
art : He is a divine figure who comes as a messenger
from God, and yet speaks as God Himself, receiving
the prayer and sacrifice of the faithful. It is He who
marches with the Hebrews into the promised land,
sometimes as the Angel, sometimes as the " presence "
(or face) of Jehovah.
Again, the Word of the Lord, an expression which, in
its technical use, is said to be a sign of late authorship,
implies a great deal more than a mere verbal message ;
it was certainly a divine and creative afflatus passing
from Jehovah to the prophet, an actual power going
forth from God and abiding in man. By the Word of
50
ST. JUSTIN AND THE LOGOS
the Lord the prophets spoke ; but, before this, " by
the Word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all
the host of them by the spirit of His mouth." Even in
creation it is the same power which actually brings
about the w^ork done. " He spake the Word, and they
were created." This power emitted from God is
identified by Justin with the Angel of the Lord, and it
is the story of His action in the world which Hebrew
literature relates. It is He w^io perfectly carries out
the will of His Father ; it was He who created the world,
separated out the Jews from all races, taught them by
the prophets, and finally became incarnate and suffered
under Pontius Pilate.
Now let us stop here for a moment and consider what
on earth this all means to us in the twentieth century,
when the words " Logos," " Angelos," and " Kurios," and
all the developments of later Judaism mean so little. If
we grant that St. Justin is right, that the Old Testament
shows distinct traces of a belief in a second centre of
personality in the Godhead, what follows ? We are
told by scholars that the definite conception of the Logos
is late ; we have found the idea of the " angel " of Bel
in Babylonian folk-lore ; and we imagine that these
words can never again mean to us what they once meant.
Even with Jews, we might suppose, this line of argument
would not prove very fruitful.
But, on the other hand, let us be honest. This Jesus
of Nazareth, who was born imperante Augusto, and suf-
fered under Tiberius, obstinately refuses to stay buried
in the rock-sepulchre of Joseph of Arimathea. He is
alive and walking the world to-day, after many incredible
deaths and resurrections. A hundred years ago, for
instance. His Church was on its death-bed : to-day,
though reft of the lip-worship of thousands, it has
assimilated itself to modern thought, and moves with a
vigour and power that is astonishing. Mathematically
51
THE OLD TESTAMENT
considered, it has dwindled. As a living organism it
grows daily, with a new yet ancient vitality. And the
person of Jesus of Nazareth is still the crowning and
final problem which the scientific world has to explain
and every honest man has to face.
Now, generally speaking, the world has recognised
this fact, and students of all nationalities are devoting
their energies to the investigation of His life, message
and person. Those who have done so along frankly
anti-Christian lines have strangely failed to produce any
satisfactory or coherent description or explanation of
what happened. Those who have tried to restate
ancient beliefs in the terms of modern thought have
not succeeded in winning over either party. There re-
mains only the third possibility that St. Justin's faith
is true, and that He who made the w^orld, and inspired
the prophets, Himself entered the sphere of His own
creation. As things stand at present, we must either
accept this belief or declare that the problem has never
been solved.
The real objection of the modern world to the Chris-
tian view of the personality of our Lord is that it implies
views about creation which are repugnant to prevailing
conceptions. To the modern man, God no longer has
the full richness and power of personality ; he is a
stream of tendencies making for something, perhaps
for righteousness. A certain conception of evolution
(not necessarily scientific) shuts up the first cause within
the limits and laws of His own universe ; and, if there is
anything we can call will or personality, it is will or
personality only struggling into consciousness under
the same limitations and with less success than our-
selves.
With this, the crucial point of our whole study, we
shall deal later ; what concerns this chapter is the fact
that in the modern world we can no longer draw infer-
52
THE RISE OF THE PROPHETS
ences from the Old Testament in the manner of St.
Justin. The book which triumphantly imposed itself
on the world of Greek philosophy and Roman law
stands suspect in the eyes of modern science. And in
a certain degree we are sure modern science is right.
We do not now believe that the Holy Spirit chose to lay
down beforehand material details in the life of our
Lord, that He should ride into Jerusalem on an ass,
or that the ass should be tied to a vine. We look on
it from another point of view. We see Him as the
ultimate result of a long line of evolution, where law-
giver, prophet, and apocalyptist combine to produce
the perfect Son of Man. As modern historical analysis
lays it bare to us, we see a complete historical progress
from Mount Sinai to Mount Calvary.
When Israel first appears clearly on the stage of his-
tory it is as a superstitious people using the degraded
rites of the Arab and the Canaanite ; vet even then we
know of no time when the name of their God was not
a symbol of a supernatural Being, higher and more
powerful than the gods of the Hittite and Amorite, who
fled before Him when He came marching from Sinai.
As long as they served Him, He was bound to fight for
them, and win them the victory.
We then see one of the most amazing developments
in all earth's history, the rise of the prophets. There
had been seers of the ecstatic and clairvoyant type
before, but it is Elijah, as far as we know, who found
that God was not whirlwind or fire, but a whispering
Word. This also was Jehovah. There was no logic
at work, no learning, no study ; it was plain prayer.
Prophet after prophet, poet after poet, arose, who
claimed to have heard this Word in the silence and
secrecy of their hearts. In two centuries there was a
new religion. There was only one God, holy and
righteous, immortal, invisible, transcending all space,
53
THE OLD TESTAMENT
and He was to be worshipped in a pure heart and with
a holy hfe ; finally came the unique conception of the
true Servant of Jehovah, who was destined by pain
and suffering and shame to win redemption for His
people.
This was the supreme gift which the Jews gave the
world ; and the success of Christianity is proof that the
world realised the value of the gift. But alongside went
the evolution of a law, ceremonial and moral, that
localised the worship of God in Jerusalem and preserved
there the writings and psalms of the prophets. In the
writers of the last two centuries B.C. we find a more
material note. The old conception is reasserted and
emphasised : Jehovah will send His anointed to de-
stroy all the kingdoms of the world, and set up His own
Kingdom in Mount Zion. In the Day of the Lord the
Jews will be rewarded for their suffering and service.
Finally, this picture expanded and became greater and
greater : the messenger of Jehovah is the Son of Man
chosen before all time ; heaven and earth pass away,
and in a new heaven and a new earth the sons of Abra-
ham enter the Kingdom prepared for them before the
foundation of the world.
Finally came Jesus of Nazareth, who claimed, not
to teach about the Son of Man, but to be the Son of
Man. His true descent was from the prophets, and
He claimed to be the Suffering Servant whose death was
to win the redemption of His people.
Now the centuries of history summed up here in a few
lines are to be regarded only in one way by the student
of religion. They are a history of the evolution of
religion from its lowest to its highest ; they are a per-
fect anthology of religious experience from Baalism to
Jesus Christ. And it is all purely natural ; there is no
conscious logic or philosophy. From the crudest faith
in Jehovah we are driven along the path of experience
54
ST. JUSTIN AND HISTORY
until we come to the cross. One path leads into an-
other ; one belief implies another ; one experience be-
gets another ; and by action, faith, and experience
Judaism evolves into Christianity.
To return, then, to the theory of St. Justin, we must
now ask how this evolution is to be explained. Was
there a divine moral Being, the Word, with whom the
prophets had come in contact, or was it a purely natural
result of evolution and environment ? St. Justin saw
it in a light different from us. By unmistakable signs
God had brought His people into Palestine ; He had
given them a law by an infallible mediator ; He had
blessed their obedience with victory, and punished their
rebellion with captivity; He had given them infallible
guidance by the mouth of His prophets ; He had
pointed forward to a great Day, and a great Deliverer,
and these prophecies had all been fulfilled in Jesus
Christ. Such a scheme left little room for faith, and
we may well wonder, with Gibbon, that " the contem-
poraries of Moses and Joshua had beheld with careless
indifference the most amazing miracles ; and, as the
protection of Heaven was deservedly withdrawn from
the ungrateful race, their faith acquired a proportionate
degree of vigour and purity." But it is St. Justin's
theology, not his science, that interests us : he shared
these historical views with the Jew Trypho, and the
whole cultivated world of his day ; with our advance
in historical method, we pass beyond his history : it is
very much to be doubted whether we pass beyond his
philosophy of history.
It was impossible for Christians of that era to have
any rational theory of Old Testament interpretation.
They accepted the Septuagint in face of amazing diffi-
culties. They acknowledged it to be the revelation of
God, and yet they denied the law He seemed to have
laid down so explicitly. On the one hand, Ebionites
55
THE OLD TESTAMENT
and Nazarenes urged them to be logical, accept the
whole book, and not break the decrees of God. On the
other hand, Marcionites and Gnostics, with equal logic,
declared that Jehovah was a tyrant and a bungler, and
that the whole Jewish Scriptures were to be discarded
by the " spiritual." In the midst of this clamour the
Church saw two things ; circumcision, sabbaths, and
the law must go, and yet the book was to be kept as
the divine revelation. The difficulties in interpreta-
tion were obvious enough, educated heathens like
Porphyry were quite alive to them ; but it speaks
volumes for the divine common sense of the Church that
she faced the difficulties and retained the Bible.
But, though we have an immense advantage over
St. Justin in our interpretation of Old Testament his-
tory, we must remember that, for purposes of religion,
it is the same history we are rendering. Both versions
end at Calvary, both begin from God, and both deal
with the same phenomena. We both have the same
results to account for ; and it makes it no easier to do
so even if there were no theophanies ; it makes it
harder. To the lover of miracles there are no miracles.
If we believe that the five books of the law were written
before ever Palestine was entered, then the rise of the
prophets is no more supernatural than the sunrise.
If we believe the Hebrews were a superstitious, semi-
Canaanite tribe of savages, the rise of the prophets is a
miracle of miracles.
It was to a crowd of fetish-worshippers, dancing
madly about the altars of Baal or the hangings of the
maypole, dedicating their children by fire to Moloch,
building houses in the sacrifice of their first-born,
credulous of taboo, trustful in their war-god Jehovah,
whom they carried into battle in a wooden box, that
Elijah came. Civilisation, such as it was, was against
him ; yet to Elijah, child of the desert, and cousin to
56
FACTS OF EXPERIENCE
the wandering Arabs, the great secret was given that
Jehovah was not in the earthquake, but in the whis-
pering of a small voice. And this conviction and
unshakable faith grew till the whole nation was
impregnated with it ; nowhere else is found this
belief in a transcendent deity who is at once intimate
and tender, nowhere else is a localised worship, like
that of Zion, addressed to an infinite and eternal
Being —
Who hath His dwelling so high.
And yet humbleth Himself to behold the things
which are in heaven and earth.
Finally, it was this faith that led up to Him who said,
" God is spirit," and it is this faith in the universal and
intimate God which Christianity, alone of all religions,
has been able to spread and perpetuate.
Whether our history and chronology be that of Ussher
or Wellhausen, it is still these facts which we have to
explain, and these facts are the basis of St. Justin's
logic. We have here, undenied and undeniable, a con-
tinuous body of experience, we have an actual force
whose influence can be measured in history : it brought
the Jewish nation through disaster after disaster to the
Crowning failure of Calvary ; it grew stronger and
stronger until its widening influence touched every
nation of the world ; it became the Christianity of to-
day, and is growing still. How are these hard facts
to be explained ?
The evolutionist of the old school is always able to
convince himself that the growth of such a religion can
be explained on purely " natural " grounds. To him
it is only a record of the national faith in Jehovah,
modifying itself to meet successive changes of environ-
ment. When circumstances change, the faith must
either adapt itself to new conditions or go under. At
57
THE OLD TESTAMENT
each crisis a prophet is found who makes the required
adaptation, the message is given, and the faith goes on.
It is no more than the natural result of forces already
in the world, it can no other. It is natural selection
over again, and the survival of the organism best
adapted to its environment.
One answer would be that while a cow or other
animal may be said to adapt itself to its environment,
a man does not. He adapts his environment to him-
self. But we must go deeper than that. We must
fight out here the battle which M. Bergson is fighting
in the sphere of physical evolution. The old view is
now condemned on purely scientific grounds : natural
selection can never be a cause of evolution, but only a
method along which it functions. Even as a method
it is inadequate, and does not cover the whole ground :
Darwin's own book on Orchids raises problems it can
never solve. Logically, too, it is dishonest ; it is try-
ing somehow to juggle an effect without a cause. As
M. Bergson points out, the development of a little spot
of pigment into an eye cannot be due solely to the
influence of light or other external conditions ; there
must be a potentiality in the matter itself, there must
be a cause somewhere, a force capable under necessity
of producing eyes, what he calls the elan vital ; to which
we Christians might append the text, " He who made
the eye, shall He not see ? "
Still more in history must there be an efficient force
behind evolutionary development, a cause of like nature
to the effect. There must be behind Hebrew religion
an elan vital which carried it over the mountains of
difficulty ; and, if this is so, we are immediately brought
back to a reconsideration of the idea that there was a
divine Person who bore to the prophets exactly the
relation which they said He did, St. Justin's theory of
the Angel or Logos, which, as we have seen above, is a
58
GOD AND THE WORD
perfectly legitimate deduction from the data he had at
his command. We would prefer to say that Jewish
faith demanded this conception, rather than that it is
proved by their experience. Where modern thought
would find its difficulty would be in the conception of
this power as a person.
The prophets, as they rose to their conception of a
supramundane and eternal God, nevertheless clung to
their belief in His revelation in history and experience.
This, as we have seen, is their unique achievement.
But reflection suggested that it was not the eternal
God who appeared to Manoah about the time of the
evening sacrifice, or to Moses in the burning bush ; it
was His Second Self, or Angel. God inhabits eternity ;
His angel appears in space. No man hath seen God at
any time : He whom the world sees is His messenger,
who yet is Himself. Philosophy would have denied
any connection between Jewish history and the high
and holy God ; faith, at once mystical and practical,
insisted on both. And the psychology of religious ex-
perience demands that we should think differently of
God in history and creation, and God in His holiness
and eternity.
Similarly, the Word which is heard in the heart of
the prophet, that Being with whom interior communion
is held in the spirit, the inspiration of every sage and
lawgiver, is subtly different from the Eternal. Inas-
much as the Word issues forth from God, and enters the
soul of the prophet, it is again God in action rather than
God in eternity. And if we look into our own hearts
we see how just this distinction is, and how different
is the God we conceive as eternal and self -existing from
the God to Whom we pray for help and guidance.
We can none of us, surely, worship our conception of
the Absolute. An undue insistence on the first leads
to a barren philosophy like Stoicism or scepticism ;
59
THE OLD TESTAMENT
concentration on the second soon degrades religion to
the level of a mere cult.
This distinction in religious psychology, while it
obviously proves nothing, is a useful one ; and it is
interesting to note how widespread we find some such
idea. It is almost universal for a primitive people to
have a sky-god to whom they do not pray except, per-
haps, in moments of despair, and a lesser god or hero
who will hear them. According to Christian theology,
this distinction is not without its basis in fact. The
God of history or experience is the Angelos or Logos of
St. Justin, the " Prophet " of Theophilus, who inspired
the prophets, thus preparing the way for His own
incarnation as the supreme Prophet, Jesus Christ. An
interesting point is our Lord's own understanding of
the prophets.
He regarded Himself as their successor and the ful-
filment of their words ; but we never find in His mouth
those fanciful and merely verbal applications of their
words in which so many of His followers delighted. A
central part of His teaching is that the prophets all
spoke in protest against the religion of their day. They
were unpopular ; the people refused to hear them,
they were stoned, beaten, killed, precisely because they
really came from God and gave His message. They
were honoured anywhere but in their own country, and
the most appropriate place for a prophet to die was
Jerusalem. He Himself, as the fulfilment of all their
hopes, was doomed to the same fate, and His followers
could only expect a similar persecution, which would, at
least, show that thev were in the direct line of descent
from the prophets their fathers.
With regard to actual prediction, we must discard
the majority of references which St. Justin believed to
be prophecies of the Messiah. Enough remains to show
that they all looked forward to one who would fulfil
60
JESUS AND THE PROPHETS
their hopes and restore the kingdom to Israel. The
apocalyptic writers of the time expected a celestial
Caesar ; but Jesus Christ was a prophet, not an apocalyp-
tist. He is saturated with the language of the pro-
phets, and it is doubtful whether one verbal quotation
from an extra-canonical apocalyptist can be clearly
proved. He may be using language from the Book of
Enoch ; but the difficulty of proving that He knew it
is sufficient to show how its influence compares with
that of the prophets. On the mountain of transfigura-
tion He is seen between Moses and Elijah, the Law and
the Prophets, but where is Enoch, the apocalyptist, the
third of the Old Testament worthies who was taken
straight to God without dying ?
The highest conception of the prophets was that of
the Servant of Jehovah. Some inspired poet of the
Exile drew that picture of the prophetic nation, or the
prophetic hero, bruised, smitten, wounded to death,
making no complaint to God, but by his death bringing
illumination to his guilty nation. This is the fate of
many a prophet, and Jesus of Nazareth saw how clearly
it was to be His. Like the Suffering Servant, He was
despised and rejected of men, falsely accused and con-
demned ; His followers tried to resist by force, thus
making it true that He was numbered among the law-
breakers ; He gave His life a ransom for many ; and
He made no resistance. He turned His cheek to the
smiter. " For the prophecies concerning Me are
valid."
This is only an instance to show how completely Jesus
. regarded Himself as the fulfilment or completion of
Old Testament prophecy : just indeed as He also " ful-
filled " the law, and as the Paschal Sacrifice was to be
drunk " new " (" fulfilled " — Luke) in the kingdom. And
the seal of God was set on His work by the Resurrec-
tion, the final piece of evidence in the long chain of
Gl
THE OLD TESTAMENT
cause and effect with which the Christian confronted
his Jewish brother.
Very tremendous this must have appeared to the
Jew, and irresistible almost the belief that He was at
last the Angelos of God in human form. And to the
serious thinker of to-day, who does not hesitate to
apply the principles of evolution to the history of
world-religion, there must be much which is attractive
in the evolutionary teaching of early Christianity.
And to anyone who believes in the struggle of a life-
principle to express itself, there should be great attrac-
tion in the doctrine that the messenger has been, and
the Word has spoken. The Jew of to-day, also, turn-
ing to a more liberal and spiritual conception of the
faith of his fathers, must find in Jesus of Nazareth
much w^hich corresponds to the hope of Israel. Now
that Jews have been so long the victims of Christian
persecution, it ill becomes us to echo the fiery argu-
ments of St. Paul ; but at least in some Platonic dia-
logue, such as St. Justin used with Trypho, we might
try to show how, when that which is perfect is come,
that which is in part is done away. For in Jesus
Christ the law is fulfilled, not destroyed. We have the
promises by a more excellent way.
62
CHAPTER IV
CHRISTIANITY AND THE PHILOSOPHERS
" I proclaim that I both boast and strive with all my strength to
be found a Christian, not because the teachings of Plato differ from those
of Christ, but because they are not in all points the same ; neither are
those of the others, Stoics, and poets, and historians. For each man
spoke well in proportion to his own share of the seed of the Word, seeing
only what was connected with it. . . . Whatever things were rightly
said among all men are the property of us Christians ; for, next to God,
we worship and love the Word, who is from the Unbegotten and
Ineffable God, since He also became Man for our sakes, that, becoming
a partner of our suSerings, He might also bring us healing. For all
writers were able to see realities darkly because of the sowing in their
hearts of the seed of the Word ; but the seed and imitation given
according to individual capacity is one thing, but the Word itself (of
which they have a share and an imitation) is another." — St. Justin :
Apology II, xiii.
*' Man ia to be honoured as an equal : God alone is to be feared,
who is invisible to mortal eyes and transcends the circle of himian
art. It is only when I am commanded to deny Him that I disobey
men, and will rather die than prove a traitor or an ingrate. Our God
had no beginning in time. He alone is without beginning, and He
Himself is the beginning of all things. God is Spirit — not pervading
matter, but the Maker of the spirit and the form that is in matter ;
He cannot be seen or touched, though He is Himself the Father of all
things, visible and invisible. We know Him from His creation, and
apprehend His invisible power by His works. I refuse to worship the
work of art which He made for us. The sun and moon were made for
us ; how can I adore my own servants ? " — Tatian : To the Greeks, iv.
" If we dispute Humility, I must tell you that Aristotle could not
sit easy till he proudly made his friend Hermias sit below him. . . .
The same Aristotle was as gross a flatterer of Alexander to keep that
great pupil in order as Plato was of Dionysius for the benefit of his
belly. Aristippua in his purple and imder the greatest show of gravity,
63
THE PHILOSOPHERS
was a debauchee ; and Hippiag was killed while actually in ambush
against his city . . . and where is now the similitude between a philo-
sopher and a Christian ? between a disciple of Greece and of Heaven ?
A trader in gossip and a saver of souls ? Between a man of words and
a man of deeds ? Between a builder-up of virtue and a destroyer of
it ? Between a dresser-up of lies and a restorer of truth ? Between a
thief and a guardian of this sacred depositum ? " — Teetullian, Apology,
xlvi.
IV. Christianity and Philosophy
We have roughly sketched St. Justin's use of Old
Testament history, and indicated lines along which his
argument might be restated in the light of present-day
research. We have seen how there emerges from the
pages of Jewish revelation the grand figure of the
Word of God as the inspiring force behind all prophecy
and history ; behind Him is God Himself, the unchang-
ing Spectator of a transitory world. And both these
conceptions are the result of a practical process of
psychological experience, not the result of speculation.
There is no intellectual research into the being and
attributes of God, and no attempt at a co-ordination
of the two aspects, or divisions (whichever they are to
be) of His Personality.
Indeed this speculation was impossible for the Jew ;
he wanted to say much the same sort of thing as the
Greek, but he had not the language to say it in. It is
almost true to say that he had not an abstract word
in his language. Words like " righteousness " or
" mercy " refer to concrete acts or states of being ; to
the state of being acquitted at a trial, to the act of
showing mercy at a trial. Such a word as " holiness "
never in ordinary speech quite shook itself free from
the idea of " tabu." But though this forbade a system-
atic logic or metaphysic, it gave to the writings of the
Jews that poetic permanency for which they are so
64
JEWISH AND GREEK THOUGHT
remarkable. Philosophical phrases change their mean-
ing in a generation ; expressions like —
" The Lord is my shepherd,"
" The Lord high and lifted up,"
" They shall wax old, but Thou shalt endure,"
never lose their meaning, because they are expressed
in the universal and intuitive language of the heart.
And, as national language is a sure sign of national
character, we may deduce from this concrete and poetic
use of words that the Jews were wanting in philosophy.
Besides, words are the tools of thought, and philosophy
is impossible without accurate tools.
This accurate apparatus of speech was provided by
the Greeks. The first elements of Greek religion were
similar to those of Judaism, a number of scattered
tribes united by their belief in a universal father-god
in the sky, Zeus Panhellenios. There, however, the
likeness ceases. From very early times the Greeks
brought to the consideration of the problems of life
the pure intellect. Philosophy was not original among
them : science came to them from Babylon (Thales),
philosophy from Persia (Heracleitus), some of their
greatest thinkers came from Syria and Egypt, or had
travelled in those countries. This is not to deny the
originality of Greek genius ; but, like all true originality,
it consisted in admitting whatever was good from outside.
Their unique contribution to world-thought was the
use of pure reason in ordering the material and drawing
true deductions from it ; so that, while the intellectual
method of the Greeks was totallv different from the
moral method of the Hebrews, we must not be surprised
if we find affinities between them, seeing that Greek
philosophy received an impetus (and that more than
once) from the oriental faiths from which we cannot
dissociate Judaism.
5 65
THE PHILOSOPHERS
Now Greek philosophy practically begins with Hera-
cleitus of Ephesus in the sixth century, and, for our
purposes, ends with the Stoics, who accepted his physics.
Heracleitus took much from the Persians, but he reso-
lutely rejected dualism, or the idea of two opposing
forces in the universe ; the origin and nature of things
was one. This creating, sustaining, and proceeding
force was fire ; and to the system along which he saw
evolution proceeding, he gave the name Logos. Sub-
sequent thinkers were never quite able to banish all
appearance of dualism from the universe ; but, what-
ever the opinion on this subject, Greek philosophy was
henceforth stamped with the belief that the universe
could be explained along one consistent and logical plan,
the plan that we call Evolution.
The most abstract words, of course, had once a con-
crete meaning, and the word Logos retains both. When
a person desires to say anything, he first conceives in
his own mind the word he wishes to say, and then utters
it. That which he conceives and that which he utters
are the same. It would exist in his mind, did he never
utter it. (" You have taken the word out of my mouth "
we say ourselves.) The Hebrew thinks only of the
word as it issues from the lips ; he even visualises it.
The Greek treats it as a conception in the mind of the
speaker ; there it exists, whether he utters it or not.
The conception or thought thrown off in his mind is
still the Logos or word. Conversely, the Hebrew has
no conception of pure thought ; he has not even a word
for " I think," he has to say " I said in my heart."
Hence Logos comes to mean thought and reason. Like
the Latin ratio, it means a scientific system, and hence
is applied to the principle of law, which the Greek so
clearly perceived to be ruling the world. Law and
reason, however, cannot (as far as we have experience)
exist apart from a mind, so that the word Logos, with
66
THE LOGOS
its personal associations, is not an inappropriate word
to use. It just hints enough.
The monistic theory of Heracleitus did not long
satisfy a race with the acute intellectual powers of the
Greeks. While pure dualism is to be rejected as a
complete system, there is too great a difference between
the world of reason and the world of experience for us
to reject the idea altogether. Having observed the
world of phenomena, with its obedience to law, they
went on to consider the problems of infinity and absolute
being, an infinity which our intellect demands, and yet
which it seems impossible to co-ordinate with the world
we know through the senses. The result is to discredit
the senses, and we arrive either at scepticism or at the
conception of the absolute, infinity being most easily
defined by universal negatives, incapable of decay or
change or motion or evolution or passion ; and incapable
therefore of any commerce with the changing, moving,
decaying world, or with human nature so moved by
passion, weakness, or caprice.
" The One remains ; the Many fade and pass.
Heaven's lights for ever shine ; earth's shadows fly.
Life, like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains the white radiance of eternity."
The relations of this absolute God with our world form
a problem the Greeks were never able to solve. Not only
is it difficult to conceive how He could have created it,
but His very existence (in isolated self-sufficiency) is
unthinkable ; for existence, as we know it, is conditioned
by things external.
This little sketch is not meant to be anything more
than an explanation of certain current philosophical
terms. The philosophy of the Roman Empire was
neither academic nor speculative. Stoicism was prac-
tically universal, but it was a Stoicism wider even than
67
THE PHILOSOPHERS
that of the porch. Zeno, the father of the Stoics, had
followed Heracleitus in insisting on one principle (fire)
as explaining the universe ; but he had allowed a
practical dualism, and has flung a religious glamour
over his school by adopting, to a limited extent, the
oriental renunciation of the Cynics. Under the Rhodian
School difficult points in philosophy receded into the
background, and the ethic was accommodated more
and more to the sober virtues of Rome. But the various
terms to which we have alluded were current in educated
circles in Ephesus, Alexandria, and Rome, and perhaps
used as loosely as we find terms such as "evolution" used
to-day. In the Roman world " philosophy " meant
this reduced form of Stoicism ; " reduced " from the
point of view of intellectual speculation, but with the
emphasis thrown on conduct. It aimed at mastering
the universe rather than understanding it ; it solved
problems rather than theorems. It set out to bring
matter under the control of mind, body under the control
of spirit. The spirit of man was a spark of the divine
Logos, unhappily imprisoned in the flesh, and it must
be as calm, unmoved, impassive, impersonal as God
Himself. Stoicism never for one moment dreamed
that this God took the slightest interest in what was
going on in this poor world below ; and yet, in a confused
way, it regarded Him as the Soul of the world, and to
the order in the world sometimes gave the name of
His Logos.
It is easy to see how a Jew would be attracted by
this use of the word Logos ; it was simplicity itself to
equate it with the Word of God, and the absolute with
Jehovah. It was to this extent legitimate, that each
conception had been evolved in answer to the same
problem, though one was in the sphere of morality and
human history, the other in that of logic and physical
evolution. As far as we know, the equation was first
68
PHILO AND THE LOGOS
made by the philosopher Philo. The colony of Jews
at Alexandria had long been the most learned and
perhaps the largest in the world ; and the very trans-
lation of the Old Testament " Word " as Logos must
have suggested the idea. The conception of Wisdom
is coloured with Greek thought, but the fact that we
often find " Word " translated by p^/xa, shows that the
identification can have been at best partial. It is not
unreasonable to suppose that, in the personification of
Word and Wisdom, Persian influences may have been
at work.
Philo is the first and only Jewish philosopher of anti-
quity. To him Plato was only Moses talking Greek ;
but, in spite of his Judaism and Platonism, he shows
only too many traces of that Gnostic error which is so
fatal to sound thinking. It was fatally easy to make
the Logos a link between God and the world, thus
apparently solving the problem of how the two were
connected. The same problem was puzzling devout
Jews on the moral side : how could the all-holy God
have any dealings with a sinful earth ? The idea of
putting a link in between seemed so simple, and yet,
in the light of subsequent events, we realise that no
number of links between God and the world in any way
lessens His responsibility for its creation, or His con-
nection with its evolution. It suffices to say here that
Philo inserted the Logos as a barrier between God and
the world, St. John caught up the phrase, but made
the Logos a channel between God and the world. St.
John's conception is Scriptural. Philo's is hardly even
Stoic; it is Gnostic.
It is inevitable, therefore, that the Logos conception
should have been used to present to the philosophic
world the theology of the Incarnation. There seem
hints of its use before we come to the Gospel of St. John ;
and, after the publication of this book, it is the normal
69
THE PHILOSOPHERS
apologetic line of argument. We miss it in the Athenian
Apology of the philosopher Aristides ; but it is difficult
to imagine that there was not considerable development
before we come to St. Justin, who has an elaborate Logos
theology. Alexandria, no doubt, as well as Ephesus
was connected with its evolution, though we possess
practically no information as to this centre of Christian
propaganda.
St. Justin was not a man of clear scholarship or
relentless logic ; but he was well-informed, an original
thinker, and as good a philosopher as the heterogeneous
age was likely to produce. Epictetus and Marcus were
moralists ; it fell to the lot of Christian philosophy to
carry on something of the work of the great Hellenic
schools of speculation, which had practically come to
an end with the death of Aristotle. St. Justin's main
point was that the same Word of God who had inspired
the Hebrew prophets had also inspired the Greek
philosophers. Everything which was truly said any-
where he claimed as the revelation of the Logos, and
in this statement he had, to guide him, the teaching of
St. John that the Logos was eternally with God, had
created the world, was the only source of illumination
to the world, and was incarnate in Jesus of Nazareth.
The inspiration of the Greek philosophers was not on
the whole the prevailing doctrine of the apologists.
Tatian, of course, utterly condemns them ; Tertullian
finds evil influences at work even in the " daemon "
of Socrates ; but, even so, the philosophers were too
valuable to neglect. Theophilus quotes philosopher
and poet as witnesses to the Christian message of
morality and judgment, and on the whole Greek
philosophy passed into the fabric of Christian theology.
Let us now stop here, as we did in the case of Hebrew
history, and consider what this means to us of to-day.
It seems wild and unfamiliar, owing to the strangeness
70
PHILOSOPHIC AIMS
of the language ; but the great philosophic conceptions
do not change their identity from age to age. The
nature of the universe and of the mind remain the
same ; and we shall gain by looking at things for a
moment through the eyes of the philosophers of long
ago, especially when they saw as clearly as the Greeks
did, and when their intellectual monotheism was com-
bined with the moral monotheism of the Jews to give
us Christianity.
What makes the study so difficult to-day is the
gigantic field of modern thought. In a hundred years
scientific knowledge has outgrown the grasp of a single
man, and no simple generalisations have yet been
produced which the ordinary man can grasp. Each
special branch of knowledge is still in the melting-pot ;
and, even were the task attempted, it would be a her-
culean labour to synthesise, say, the god of the mathe-
matician and the god of the biologist.
This, perhaps, is the weak point in the concluding
essay of the book called Foundations ; whether or not
modern idealism is the most satisfactory theory of its
kind yet produced, it is not the kind of thing with
which the Christians of the early centuries had to deal.
Roman Stoicism certainly, and the whole of Greek
philosophy probably, was concerned with something
very different from the building up of theories which
would be logically unassailable. It dealt with the
whole attitude of man towards the universe, and was
not mainly concerned with the production of an accu-
rate and logical metaphysic. If this had been so, I
doubt whether Christianity would ever have taken the
trouble to deal with it at all. But the object of Stoicism
was not to think, but to live in accordance with nature,
and the word "philosophy" came eventually to mean
an ascetic or religious manner of life.
The two things which the Greek saw in the universe
71
THE PHILOSOPHERS
were Law and Progress, to which we give the one
name of Evolution. We ourselves, with all our mechani-
cal bias, can hardly refrain from talking of it in personal
terms ; w^e very definitely apply to it the idea of pur-
pose, if not of will ; we personify it under the name of
Nature, and give it feminine pronouns. In our doubts
and difficulties we ask what it can all mean, and what
is its purpose, and to what in the end it will come.
Thus we view the universe as a progress according to
rational principles, solely because our own mind is
constructed along those lines. Further, as a rule, we
do not go, because speculative thought has lately been
at a discount.
But the Greek scientist posed himself with the ques-
tion, "Why does the universe answer to the laws which
I formulate in my brain ? What is the rational force
in the universe which corresponds to my human way
of thinking ? " And he had come to the conclusion that
this energising law of the universe was of the same
nature as human intellect, or rather, that human intel-
lect was derived from the Logos, and had a spark or
seed of the same fire. The legitimacy of this conclusion
receives powerful testimony from the natural personi-
fication we have noted above.
Again, the age was like ours in that the earlier specu-
lations into the manner and being of God were tacitly
dropped. Endless discussion had produced nothing,
and in the age that followed there was danger of even
the necessity of a First Cause being overlooked. Men
were tired of the profitless wrangles, and devoted them-
selves to ethics, a sphere in which there appeared some
chance of attaining certainty. The Epicureans earned
the name of atheists among the Christians ; to the
Stoics God was a breath mingled up in the world,
though true orthodoxy seems to have known of a mys-
terious external existence (to op) ; to the Platonist He
72
ST. JUSTIN AND PHILOSOPHY
was an abstraction. Similarly, to-day there is no clear
recognition of the necessity of a changeless and eternal
Being, without whom progress, moral or physical, is
meaningless.
It has been necessary to say at least this much in
order to make clear exactly what attitude St. Justin,
the most tolerant of the apologists, took towards phil-
osophy. His toleration may be easily overstated ; for,
while he did commend the philosophic conceptions and
phrases, he certainly did not give his imprimatur to
philosophic theory. He refines and philosophises the
Jewish conception of God ; but He does not accept
the Absolute. He believes that the Word of God in-
spired Socrates and Heracleitus ; but he does not
accept Heracleitus's view of the Logos. His attitude
is : " Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship. Him
declare I unto you." He does not believe that by
searching they found out God, he does not praise their
speculative investigations ; he believes that the Word
revealed Himself to them.
Here again we seem a long way from modern ter-
minology. What do we mean by " reveal " ? To-day,
we look on revelation, intuition, or faith, as something
weak and unreliable. Yet, as we look back over history,
can we feel so sure that reason is likely to give us the
truth ? Have we any guarantee that this time we are
right, and that the theories will not all have to be
melted down again ? Of course we have no such
guarantee ; reason has never proved itself a firmer
guide than faith. It is the intuitions of the soul which
have remained the same for centuries, while kingdoms
rose and fell. The God of the Jews was found by faith ;
relying on Him, they lived adventurous lives ; and
their faith has survived Babylonia, Assyria, and all the
sciences and imperialisms of the past. Similarly, to
St. Justin faith in Christ was the one reality, and, rely-
73
THE PHILOSOPHERS
ing on Him, he set out, unlike the apologist of to-day,
to restate modern thought in the terms of Christian
faith. The essence of faith we shall consider later ;
meanwhile we must study the audacious claim to set
Hellenic philosophy right, and see whether we cannot
make the same claim to-day.
St. Justin's position was something like this : " We
Christians also believe in your Logos, this purpose run-
ning right through the ages. You are right in suppos-
ing that it is akin to human reason ; for the Logos is
a Person. He revealed Himself to the Jewish prophets
just as He revealed Himself to Socrates and Heracleitus.
He is the light that lighteth every man who cometh
into the world. But if you would know more about
Him, you must study the Jewish Scriptures ; for these
are they which prophesied of Him, not as philosophers
who speculate, but as messengers worthy to be believed.
Finally, after many generations of revelation. He
became personally incarnate on this earth as Jesus of
Nazareth, who, as you know, was crucified in the reign
of Tiberius when Pontius Pilate was Procurator of
Judaea."
We have already discussed St. Justin's philosophy
of history, the progressive spiritual education of the
race by contact with the Word of God. But it would
have been not only a philosophical, but a tactical mis-
take of the highest order to confine this experience to
the Jews, a race which the Greeks regarded as bar-
barians. The function of the Logos, therefore, is made
to include all mankind. That this was easy enough at
that time is obvious from the histories of Greece and
the Jews. Both had been subjected to the same Baby-
lonian and Persian influences, and these, with perhaps
others from even farther east, formed an integral part
of Stoicism. The doctrine of the Word itself may have
been borrowed by the Greeks from Persian sources.
74
ST. JUSTIN AND THE LOGOS
In any case, St. Justin does not accept the Greek con-
ception of the Word ; it is modified in the Philonic
direction ; but there is still a huge gap between the
two ideas. It was mainly the Stoic phraseology that
St. Justin used ; but nothing could have been more
distasteful to the Stoic mind than the new view of the
Logos. It was now made a superhuman being with a
distinct personality, an archetypal man who had pre-
sided over the fortunes of the race from the beginning :
this is very different from the immanent soul of the
universe, which was something less than human, and
in whom personality would have been a weakness.
We must notice, again, how close this almost Buddh-
ist shrinking from personality is to modern thought.
The main difficulty is the admission of personality and
humanity as real as that of Jesus Christ into the being
of God. The objections of Celsus read as if they were
penned yesterday for the Rationalist Press Associa-
tion : God will no more leave His state of blessedness
for us and become human than He will listen to the
croaking of frogs ; the world and all it contains is be-
neath His notice, and He will not deign even to de-
stroy it. He views the hopes, despairs, aspirations, and
sins of mortality with a Stoic heedlessness. For if,
says Celsus, He desired to help mankind why does He
not do so, as He promised through Moses ? Christ is
crucified, and no one is a penny the better — nay, rather
worse. But God, if He willed, could exercise His
power, and sweep away all our sin and misery ; there-
fore He does not will. Here is really the crux of the
whole matter. The philosopher is unwilling to attribute
personality to God ; but, if he did so, his ideal of deity
was summed up in strength. He looked to see, in
the Divine Ruler of the heavens, a more splendid
Caesar. If God cared for the world He would rule it
well ; but God does not rule it well, and therefore
75
THE PHILOSOPHERS
does not care for it. Therefore the Incarnation is
ridiculous.
This, of course, is very superficial ; for if God is
infinite, He must also be infinitesimal. An infinite God
Who takes no interest in frogs is not infinite ; besides,
it shirks the question of how the frogs got there. How-
ever much it strove to be monist, the Stoic position
failed, for it made a moral divorce between creation and
God ; God was not responsible for the world. It was
a mark of the age, and even many Christians, when
posed with the question of who made the frogs, were
tempted to answer, " At any rate, not the good God."
But it was the special virtue of orthodox Christianity
that, in the face of science and philosophy, it fought
alone for the belief that a good and infinite God had
created the universe. This is the fundamental concep-
tion of Jewish faith, and a necessary foundation of a
true moral and personal religion. What sort of gods
were they to whom their Roman votaries breathed
prayers they did not wish their neighbours to hear ?
The main message of Christianity to the heathen world
was this view of the person of God, and the apologists
spend as much time insisting on it as they do on the
Incarnation. With the philosophical advance in the
conception of God the belief in the possibility of per-
sonal relationship with Him had died out. The age
was sick because it was without God, and so is ours.
The idea came back to them with the belief in the In-
carnation, and so it will to us.
The Incarnation was a pledge of two things, God's
love for the world and the existence of love within His
own being. The absolute God of the philosophers was
so absolute as to be unable even to act. He was incap-
able of passion, so love was not to be dreamed of. The
Christian idea of Father and Son was repellent to them ;
but it set Him free from the fetters of philosophy, by
76
CHRISTIANS AND PHILOSOPHY
interpreting Him, not in terms of physics, but in terms
of personality. The essence of personahty was declared
to be love, not force, and all the materials for the solu-
tion of the puzzle were present. But it can scarcely be
maintained that philosophy supplied them. The difference
between Christianity and philosophy is that philosophy
began by searching for God, and Christianity began by
having found Him. Faith had brought the Christian
to his knowledge of God, and when he had found Him
he discovered Him to be the same God after whom the
philosophers were feeling. The intuitions of the phi-
losophers were all right ; it was only their philosophy
that was astray. It is typical that the Christians
especially praised Socrates, whose bias was against
speculation.
The Christians then proceeded to claim the philo-
sophers as inspired witnesses to Christianity. Their
Logos was the Son ; their God was the Father. They
had already the theology of Philo to guide them. But
to these philosophers the Logos was necessary for the
existence of the world only ; to the Christian he was
necessary for the existence of God. His system was
theocentric, not anthropocentric. A Mind conceiving
an idea is a very different thing from a Person begetting
a Son. And, for the Christian, the Son was necessary
to the Father as an object of His love. " The same
was in the beginning face to face with God," and He
too " was God." He was another in number, not in
consciousness. We thus get the conception of one
infinite God active in love from all eternity owing to
the multiplicity of His personality. It is very curious
that the second-century theologians do not seem to be
aware of the problem they have solved.
It is necessary to note here that " Son " and " Father "
are just as much metaphors as "Mind" and "Word";
but Sonship is a better metaphor because it implies
77
THE PHILOSOPHERS
the real distinction in personality without which inter-
change of relations would be impossible. The Christian
view of life is love — that is to say, a continual giving out
of oneself, a pouring out of personality ; this highest
life can only be possible for God if there is in Him a
fountain or source of this self-sacrificing energy, a
recipient of equal power and importance, and the actual
energy itself. But, as this occurs on the plane of moral
personality rather than on that of physics, the best
metaphor must be taken from the family and the love
of a good father for a good son. The metaphor of Word
or Wisdom is less good ; for while, on the one hand,
it kept up the intellectual level of Christian thought,
so that it never degenerated to the level of such family
gods as Attis and Osiris, and, on the other, it opened a
great door into the Church for the philosophers, it let
in far too many who took a lower view of the Word as
an inferior being who was called into existence to
mediate between God and the world. The extreme
Arians were simply heathen philosophers, who never
had the true conception of the Trinity at all. St. Justin
Himself is led away by the use of the words Logos and
Angelos, to represent the Second Person as a subordinate
being, though, where he is not philosophising, his language
is clear enough.
It is unnecessary for our purpose to go into the long
chains of theological argument by which the relationship
between the Father and the Son was established. There
was as yet no adequate armoury of terms ; Tertullian
settled the terminology of the West, and it is in Theo-
philus that we first find the word Trinity (quite casually).
But this is only of interest to theologians ; it was not
as a solution of the philosophical puzzle that this doctrine
of the Trinity conquered the world, but as a worthy
co-ordination of faith in God the Father and Creator of
men, in Jesus of Nazareth whom we serve, and in the
78
CONTRASTING IDEAS OF GOD
comforting Spirit whose help we know in our lives.
As Donne says, it is —
" Bones to philosophy, but milk to faith."
The locus classicus is the beautiful passage in the apology
To Diognetus, " Did He send Him, as a man might
think, on a mission of domination and fear and terror ?
Indeed He did not ; but in gentleness and meekness
He sent Him, as a king sending his own son who is
himself a king ; He sent Him as God, He sent Him as
Man to men, He sent Him with the idea of saving, of
persuading, not of forcing ; for force is not an attribute
of God."
Now see how different this moral conception is .from
that of Celsus, who would have an Emperor-God, either
indifferent or ruling firmly. Like men to-day, he
demanded a strong administrator as his ideal ; he
could see that the world of physics and astronomy was
a world of law rigorously working itself out, while the
moral world, the world of men, was pure anarchy.
This could only mean to him indifference. Faith
carried the Jew to a higher point ; however adverse the
circumstances might be, God was still to be trusted.
From the Incarnation the Christian learned the truth
that God loved the world, but that love did not consist
in forcing men to be good. They were to go their own
way, live their own lives, work out their own salvation
(or damnation), and follow their own light, which is
enough to walk by, if not to see by. A single coercive
touch from the hand of God, and they would lose the
dignity of man, and become automata. God desires
with an infinite desire to see the world go right ; He
does not desire to push it right.
As a result of this neutrality on the part of God the
world is full of pain, sorrow, and injustice, the vast
majority of which is owing to the greed, carelessness, and
79
THE PHILOSOPHERS
pride of men ; and it always seems that the good have
to suffer most. Christianity neither denies nor explains
the presence of pain ; it explains nothing in the world,
it only accepts it. But it said that the art of suffering
was the most arduous and godlike task in the world.
The early writers nowhere, as far as I know, deny nobility
to him who returns blow for blow ; they merely asserted
that the more godlike part was to accept it ; and no
one will deny it is harder. In addition, they pointed
to the Crucifixion, where they had their pledge that
God suffered with them, and identified Himself, not
with force and strength, but with the broken and weak
of the world.
Further they did not go. They boldly stated that
God had created the world as it stands ; and what
corruption there was came from sin, human or daemonic.
Over this sin the Holy Spirit gave them power. In
spite of their dark and puritanic outlook, they furiously
denounced those who made the material world evil or
illusory. They had a perspective ; they saw the world
as a sane and reasonable process with an end in view,
the Good Time Coming, as Professor Burkitt paraphrases
it. And when this day came (and all the arts of
metaphor and picture-language were exhausted in
describing its lurid glories) the probation would be over,
God would be justified, and all put right. They devoutly
hoped and believed it was coming in their own lifetime.
This was the point of view that found in the doctrine
of the Son of God its logical centre. Everything began
from " I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God."
But to the Roman officials, educated perhaps in Greece,
it was ridiculous. Trained to regard Rome and her
Kultur as the greatest fruit of whatever divinity might
be working through humanity, they could only see
goodness in justice, law, force, and uniformity. Those
who were the passive objects of justice, force, law, and
80
CONVERSION
uniformity saw things with different eyes. They
rejoiced to learn that the heavens were governed by a
different Emperor, who was on the side of the " bottom
dog " ; and that of Him force was no attribute.
Such a God was a real personality, flesh and blood as
one might say, a real father, a real hope ; He was no
abstraction, or absolute, or idea. After all the philoso-
phy of St. Justin, He remains a gracious and kingly
figure, no stream of tendencies making for righteousness,
but a good Samaritan, ready to die for man. He has
personally watched over the world He made, and at
every mistake or blunder of man has felt the sorrow of
disappointed love. By His Son He spake through the
prophets and philosophers ; His Son was made one
with us, and died with us on Calvary ; and when we
pray, He gives us the company of His Spirit. Such a
God, they believed, answered the philosophic questions
of the age, and solved the puzzle of the universe. But
no one is converted by having his metaphysical diffi-
culties solved ; usually he does not want them solved.
The Jew was reluctant to see his prophecies fulfilled
in Christ, because it deprived him of his promises : he
loved the prophecies more than what they promised
him. So the Hellene was unwilling to give up his
philosophy ; he prized his doubts far more than the
answer. Besides, each stood in a definite moral attitude
to the world, and, whatever logic might prove, he did
not want to go to the trouble of changing it. Such a
change is a moral act, and must have a moral cause ;
faith must come into it.
When you are teaching a boy to swim, and have got
him down to the water, and have taught him how it is
done, and proved that it is possible, there only remains
one thing : that is, for the boy to summon up faith and
courage from I know not where, and jump in, and swim
too. And the best thing you can do is to get in and
6 81
THE PHILOSOPHERS
swim with him, for the strongest argument will be the
sight of others swimming ; nay, the more he talks about
it and looks at it, the less he likes it, so that there is
only one thing for him to do, which is to jump in quickly.
This applies to all businesses in life, and not least to
religion. The most powerful argument is the sight of
others living Christian lives ; and, when all the philo-
sophical objections to Christianity are shown to be
baseless, there is only one thing to do, not to change
one's mind, but to change one's life ; for more discussion
tends to less action. This business is like swimming,
for there is a definite leap to be taken from one position
to another, and it is a matter of moral attitude towards
the universe. The religious man is a gambler, an
adventurer — that is, a man of action ; he treads on, and
finds his path surrounded with practical evidences,
which at every moment support his faith.
We cannot prove that the Christian view of God is
true ; we can prove that if a man wants to believe in a
good God, Christianity is the only way it has ever been
done. " For there is no other Name given among men
whereby they may be saved, but only the Name of our
Lord Jesus Christ."
82
CHAPTER V
CHRISTIANITY AND SUPERSTITION
" If the absurdity of their theology were confined to saying that the
gods were created, and owed their constitution to water ... I might
proceed to the remaining charges.
" But, on the other hand, they have described their bodily forms :
speaking of Hercules as a dragon, of others as hundred-handed, of the
daughter of Zeus, whom he begat of his mother Rhea, or of Demeter
having two eyes in the natural order and two in her forehead, and the
face of an animal on the back part of her neck. . . .
" And on the other hand, they have described their admirable
achievements ; how Kronos, for instance, mutilated his father and hurled
him down from his chariot, and how he murdered his children and
swallowed the males of them. . . ." — Athenagobas : Embassy y xx.
" And if you speak of the mother of those who are called gods, far
be it from me to utter with my lips her deeds, or the deeds of those by
whom she is worshipped (for it is unlawful for us so much as to name
such things), and what vast taxes and revenues she and her sons furnish
to the King. For these are not gods, but idols, as we have already said,
the work of men's hands and unclean demons." — Theophilus : To
Autolycus, i, x.
"So by a contagion that walketh in the like darkness do demons
and evil angels blast the minds of men, and agitate them with furies
and extravagant uncleannesses, and dart in outrageous lusts with a
mixture of various errors ; the most capital of which is that, having
taken possession of a soul, they recommend to it the worship of false
gods, that by the fiimes of those sacrifices they may procure a banquet
for themselves, the stench of the flesh, and the fumes of the blood
being the proper repast of those unclean spirits." — Tertullian :
Apology, xxii.
" But gods they are, say you ; for the truth of this we appeal from
your words to your conscience ; let that be our judge, and let that
condemn us if you can deny all those you now worship for gods once
to have been men. If you can be strenuous in denying this, you shall
be convinced of the mistake from your own antiquities testifying against
83
SUPERSTITION
them to this very day, from the cities where they were born, and the
countries where they lefb the impressions of their frailty ; and, alas,
where the very tombs of the immortals are shown." — Tertullian :
Apology, x.
" The devils no sooner heard this baptism spoken of by the prophet
(Ezek. xxxvi. 25) but they too set up their baptisms, and made such
as go to their temples, and officiate in their libations and meat offerings,
first sprinkle themselves with water by way of lustration." — St.
Justin : Apology, Ixxxi.
*' In our coming in and our going out, when we put on our shoes,
when we wash, when we eat, when we kindle the lights, when we
sleep, when we sit down, whatever business occupies us, we sign our
forehead with the sign of the cross." — Teetullian : On the Crown, iii.
V. Christianity and Superstition
The attitude adopted towards the many religions of the
Empire was one of uncompromising hostility. St.
Justin bitterly complains that the devils have stolen
and parodied the Christian mysteries ; Tertullian is
full of fiery invective against their filthiness, absurdity,
and immorality. We found sympathy shown towards
the philosophers ; but there is no hint that the devotees
of Isis or Cybele are also feeling after God if haply they
may find Him.
One practical aspect of this contrast is that Chris-
tianity could only be established on the ruins of these
religions ; the philosopher might retain his cloak,
philosophy might be captured for Christianity, but the
false religions were to be definitely abjured. A Christian
could no longer eat at the table of Lord Serapis ; and,
even if he had regarded the deity as an aspect of the
truth, that would be little consolation for the wholesale
desertion of his altars. As organisations, the heathen
systems were bound to be the Church's most determined
enemies.
Just, too, as Christianity found enemies in the popular
superstitions, so it found a possible ally in philosophy.
84>
PAGAN SOCIETY
With all their great differences, Christianity and philo-
sophy stood in some things together and alone ;
chiefly in their reverence for the supreme Being, the
life of self-sacrifice, and their hostility to the common
religions. From the pages of Christian apologist and
Roman satirist alike, we construct a picture of them so
dark and sinister that we are tempted to write it down
at once as incredible. If we are to trust Juvenal or St.
Paul, as later on Ammianus or St. Jerome, society was
so deeply corrupted that reformation must have seemed
impossible. And on the human side Christians were
pessimists, really regarding reform as impossible ; on
the divine side they looked to a fiery judgment, and
the sure and certain hope of the Kingdom.
In historical investigations, however, we must be
careful not to take satiric and prophetic diatribes too
literally. It is only in one mood that the religious
mind sees that " all the world lies in the evil one."
It w^as the same Christianity that maintained, in
the face of all its opponents, that creation was good,
and it was Tertullian himself who called the soul
into the witness-box to proclaim itself Christian-born.
To-day we are a little apt to decry the virulence
of Christian opposition to heathenism on the grounds
that it was not far from the kingdom of heaven, that
Christianity borrowed from heathen systems as it did
from philosophy, and that, after all, they were already
discredited.
On the last score it is easy enough for a modern pro-
fessor to see that heathen cults were bound to disappear
before Christianity ; he has the advantage over Ter-
tullian in knowing how it happened : and it is always
easier to understand a century when you have the
history of the succeeding ones by way of commentary.
But, in the second century itself, heathenism showed
no lack of vitality. The philosopher hated and de-
85
SUPERSTITION
spised it, but he was afraid to say so. The Roman
official revered, if he did not believe in, the gods that
had made his country great. Any strolling priest or
quack doctor could drive a roaring trade. Apollonius
of Tyana and Alexander of Abonoteichus found pagan-
ism a paying business. The explanation of this success
is what concerns us here ; and I fancy the clue will lie
rather in the unchanging facts of psychology than in
the precise details of the mysteries of Mithras, or the
Magna Mater.
Mithraism is, on the face of it, the best of the cults ;
its language is pure and elevated, and its ritual is evi-
dence of a striving for strength and goodness. But,
for all that, we cannot place it as a religion alongside
the great religions of the world. If pure and elevated
language were sufficient test of a religion, then Free-
masonry would be perhaps the most powerful and
spiritual religion of to-day. But Freemasonry is not a
religion at all ; it is a society for mutual benefit. But,
by its claims to antiquity, and by its real world-wide
character, it answers many of the religious needs of
the human heart, the desire for brotherhood, law,
ritual, and the possession of a secret ; for many people
it takes the place of religion, and it is recognised by at
least one branch of the Church as a definite antagonist
of Christianity.
Despite our small knowledge of Mithraism we can be
quite certain that it was of this character. We know
that it existed in Rome in the first century, and that
St. Justin condemns it in the second as pseudo-Chris-
tian ; but our real knowledge of it comes rather from
the third, when we find its remains widespread. It has
gone hand in hand with the deification of the Emperor,
and has thus become the soldiers' religion ; the army
is knit by it into a great brotherhood with baptismal
and other rites like those of Christianity. Its pre-
86
MITHRAISM
eminence at this time as the only serious rival to Chris-
tianity is midoubtedly due to its ideals of purity and
truth ; yet, as far as we know, it never produces a
hero, a saint, a prophet, a doctor, or a martyr. It is
a formless cult, a centreless secret society, without
object or distinguishable cause, that sprang up solely
to satisfy certain vague human aspirations. It makes
no protest on being absorbed into Christianity. The
army is heathen under Diocletian, monotheist under
Constantius, Christian under Constantine, Arian under
his son, and pagan again under Julian. There is
obviously a vast body of men who are quite indifferent
to what particular secret society they happen to belong,
and Christianity itself, as its bonds of discipline weaken,
is ready to come to terms with them.
What we know of armies would not lead us to sup-
pose that the popular freemasonry of their heterogeneous
sons would really prove to be a spiritual bond of the
highest order. The savage prays his god to make
him " good " or " glad " or " strong." The baptisms,
the initiation tortures, the tauroctony of Mithraism
show that the same idea was at work here ; but, in
addition to this, we see truth, justice, and purity, to-
gether with a desire for spiritual illumination, and,
possibly, to be at one with God. This the religion
owed to its Persian origin, and in this excelled the Isis
mysteries ; though we may doubt, perhaps, how far
the barbarian legionary sometimes understood this
part of his religion. In other words, it contained some-
thing which satisfied, or tried to satisfy, the religious
cravings of the soul.
The second century, in which this religion developed,
was a most religious epoch. The Augustan revival of
ancestral piety had failed ; but the death of the homely
and sober Latin religion had given place to the world-
worship of Rome and the Emperor. Under his broad-
87
SUPERSTITION
minded patronage the cults of Egypt, Greece, and the
East established themselves throughout the world, and
no artificial separation is to be made between the
nationalities of these various deities. In the year
100 B.C. the process of blending had already begun
in the commercial area of the Eastern Mediterranean.
The third century saw Rome's admission into this
federation ; in 205 B.C. the process culminated in the
transference to Rome of the fetish stone of the Magna
Mater of Central Asia Minor. The Orontes had long
flowed into the Tiber ; under the Empire it overflowed
its banks.
These religions were just such as to flourish among
the quick and excitable Italians. They had a luxurious
and exhilarating ritual, a mysterious system of sacra-
mental dramas, through which was accomplished a
salvation or redemption which set one right with the
unseen powers. One felt better ; there was satisfac-
tion of the senses ; sight and scent and sound combined
often with something cruder. It is a common illusion
to suppose that some purely physical sensation is of a
religious nature ; we see it to-day in the ecstatic hymn-
singing of the revivalist, the artist's devotion to beauty,
or the nature-worship of the simple life. All these
and many more mistake the satisfaction of purely
physical desire for the attainment of religious beati-
tude ; they often have the illusion that this ecstasy is
spiritual. Nevertheless, to use the epigram of Oscar
Wilde, they are curing the senses by means of the soul
and the soul by means of the senses. The devotee of
Isis saw something done, and underwent a definite
experience which really satisfied him. A good play or
a football match has the same result.
This sense of physical desire and satisfaction, for
which we seem to have no word in the English language
(let us call it rapture), was the method of salvation,
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PAGAN CULTS
Rapture was something mysterious, and a gift of the
gods ; for instance, it was inconceivable that any
Hquor should give the rapturous sensation of semi-
drunkenness : it must be a god. Worse methods than
these were resorted to ; frenzy at the sight of blood
was a common incident in the orgies, and Mithraism
never shook this off. In some cults the worshipper was
worked up to a condition of madness by methods we
can scarcely think of to-day. Catullus laments the
prevalence of the cult of Cybele, and draws a portrait
of the young Roman who has committed a rash act,
and cut himself off for ever from the sane enjoyments
of the city.
Egone a mea remota haec ferar in nemora domo ?
Patria, bonis, amicis, genitoribus, abero ?
Abero foro palaestra, stadio et gymnasiis ?
The contrast between the plain severity of Roman dis-
cipline and enjoyment and the licentiousness of the
Phrygian worship is very well done. If the majority
of Eastern cults had been like this, no Juvenal could
have painted things too black ; as a matter of fact, they
were not, though in a terrible number the sexual element
predominated.
The cults had to answer so many cravings that they
could not be all of one kind, and that, after all, repulsive
to a great majority of respectable citizens. They had
to cater for every one and find a way out of all the dark
enigmas of life. There were other elements that came
in. In an age, for instance, when the principles of
medicine were little understood, both illness and
remedy were looked on as supernatural ; and ^Escu-
lapius or Apollo, his father, had their priests on earth
to dispense these mysteries. Every kind of success,
too, was looked on as a gift from some capricious deity
who needed to be propitiated and flattered ; it was
89
SUPERSTITION
even believed that the god might deign to announce
beforehand what the success of any particular venture
might be, and oracular answers were eagerly sought.
It was felt that there must be ways of averting the
dangers and pains of life, if only one got on the right
side of the spiritual powers.
There were found then, as there are to-day, men and
women with mediumistic powers, who were ready at a
price to foretell the future or summon up spirits. Many
of the mysteries brought one face to face with the
supernatural ; and witchcraft was a fact of common
experience. Modern science is puzzled by these phe-
nomena ; and far the easiest and most natural solu-
tion is to suppose that there is indeed contact with the
unseen world of some kind. In those days no one had
any doubt on the subject ; and even Christians were
forced to admit the truth of heathen prophecy.
The religion of the average citizen was eclectic. He
seldom rose to the conception of one supreme deity of
whom Isis and Serapis were but aspects ; but he very
seldom differentiated his gods. They all worked, and
he chose the one that worked best. One cult was very
like another. He was initiated into the mysteries of
Mithras or Attis ; he inquired the future of any local
prophet or wise woman ; he sat at table with any god
to whom his friends might invite him ; he experimented
with any new and curious w^orship ; and he applied
to iEsculapius or the Dea Tussis if he was ill. Human
nature demands a kind of ritual at the grand climaxes
of life — birth, maturity, marriage, or death ; and, in
the face of all these new cults, the old religion became
powerless to supply it.
The mysteries of birth are far the most inexplicable
phenomena of ordinary life, at once the most holy and
horrible of human secrets. It is no wonder that they
should inspire the greatest awe, and form the darkest
90
CHRISTIANITY AND THE CULTS
centre of the most powerful religions. It is equally
natural that this should lead to the most appalling and
ruinous moral catastrophe. But it lies at the root of
so much that we call Rapture, the development of life,
and the yearning for the supernatural, that it is not
hard to see it as the thread which runs through the
most diverse cults of that day and this. We even find
it (inverted) in the fierce dualism and asceticism of the
Gnostic and Manichean cults and heresies.
To the Christian, as to the heathen, all these cults
were equally valid ; not knowing that in the sixth
century they would all be (more or less) antiquated, he
could only regard them as the darkest and most dan-
gerous phenomena of social life. He himself had been
converted from them ; and he could not commit the
absurdity of denying his own previous experience.
He compared their fruits with those of Christianity, and
unhesitatingly denounced his previous religion as
devil-worship. It was the only course open to him, as
he was not yet sophisticated enough to invent a " sub-
liminal self" with which to explain these perplexing
phenomena.
Whatever theory does explain them, it will readily
be granted by the most materialistic investigator that
the belief in the actual existence of these spirits is a very
natural deduction to have drawn ; and, in the second
century it was the only one to draw. The belief that
the spirits were evil was only a further deduction from
the facts. The suggestions often made at modern
seances, and the lives and deaths of some mediums
to-day, show that the moral standard either of the
spirits or the subliminal self is very low. There is, in
fact, sufficient warrant for connecting, at any rate, a
great deal of this business with the (potentially) im-
moral desires which underlie so many of these religions.
To the pagan devotee, the supernatural authority
91
SUPERSTITION
was sufficient to legitimise the practices concerned ;
to the Christians, it was the evil nature of the practices
that discredited the supernatural authority. Neither
side disbelieved in the supernatural element. To
Celsus, as much as to the apologists, witchcraft and
miracles were among the accepted phenomena of life ;
but to the philosopher, as to the Christian, they were
no evidence of the divine. It was possible in the nine-
teenth century to believe that there was nothing super-
natural behind them ; to have done this under the
conditions of the second century would have been to
shut one's eyes to fact.
Exactly how far these bad elements predominated in
the religions of the Empire it is quite impossible to
say. Apart from the element of fraud, much spiri-
tualism, fortune-telling, and cultus is comparatively
innocent ; yet a proverb about playing with edged
tools suggests itself. Most people's religion must have
been a very mild playing indeed ; and there was plenty
of prophylactic religion in the shape of Semitic or
Persian sects which sought an absolute escape from the
perils of the flesh. Yet this scorn of the material often
leads up to excesses quite comparable with those of
the fleshly cults, and at times has an odd way of being
almost indistinguishable from them. It is much the
same in the end to be entirely spiritual as to be entirely
fleshly ; physical ecstasy is often mistaken for absorption
into God.
Again, much religion insisted on a morality. Nothing
is to be more regretted than our loss of the moral
teaching of Mithraism. The main points are summed
up as follows by Cumont : "lis prechaient de meme une
morale imperative, tenaient I'asceticisme pour meritoire,
et mettaient au nombre des vertus principales I'absti-
nence, la continence, le renoncement, et I'empire sur
lui-meme." This was combined with rites so like the
92
SATANIC NATURE OF CULTS
Christian ones that St. Justin declares that they are
copied from Christianity. Indeed, the Empire was full
of gorgeous and decadent cults that all recall Christianity
with their legends of dying gods and risen saviours.
Modern criticism sometimes suggests that Christianity
borrowed from them ; but this is impossible to prove,
and there is little real relation between the humiliation
of the Son of Man and the pageant of the dying year.
The roaring success of religion in the second century
is the most important of all the signs of the times ;
any quack doctor, prophet, or enthusiast could easily
establish himself and drive a roaring trade, from the
papal Alexander of Abonoteichos to the lowest of the —
Ambubaiarum collegia, pliarmacopolse ,
Mendici, mimae, balatrones, hoc genus omne.
All ranks of society found themselves trying to satisfy
the soul in much the same way ; and the century comes
to a close under Mammaea and the Syrian Emperors,
Philip and the unspeakable Elagabalus. But by this
time the long Vanity Fair was coming to an end ; the
w^orld was weary, and Christianity alone remained for
the heroic, with Mithraism for the faint-hearts.
When the Christian said, therefore, that the whole
world w^as in the power of devils, he was not indulging
in a mere luxury of puritanic pessimism, but stating
what seemed an obvious fact. All human society was
worshipping powers which were evil ; not only were
they evil in practice, but the very myths on which they
nourished their souls were full of the most horrible
murders and adulteries. Socrates and Diogenes were
better men than Zeus and Apollo ; and even the Roman
Emperors must have raised the tone of the pantheon
on their elevation to Olympus. And against this
universal domination of the powers of evil, Christianity,
93
SUPERSTITION
and Christianity only, stood firm — for the philosophers
were afraid.
The great point is that, whatever virtues we may
now be able to see in the cults, and however innocent
Mithraism, for instance, may actually be, they were
all tarred with the same brush. They were none of
them even neutral. What was the good of preaching
an imperative morality, if you failed to condemn the
rites of Cybele or the temple of Antinous ? All these
gods of the pantheon were discredited by each other's
company ; it must be an awful truth of which Serapis
was one aspect, and Antinous another. And, in addition
to this, they all, Mithraism especially, acquiesced in
Emperor- worship. There was no room for sympathy
in the Christian's dealing with this company of gods,
who, as a matter of fact, by this time were all being
identified with one another ; the cults could only be
regarded as a whole, and, as they had the worst influence
on the life of the Empire, it was necessary to clear them
away. This task the Emperor was unable to perform ;
he definitely ranged himself as divine patron of the
deities. Christianity swept them all into oblivion.
It was this intolerant attitude of Christianity that
saved the Empire ; it is a mistaken idea of Christian
charity which strains it to include tolerance of wrong
opinion or religion. Christianity is the strait and narrow
way which leads to eternal life, and it is no charity to
desert it for the broad highway, or even to allow others
to tread the " primrose path to the everlasting bonfire "
without that warning which the age-long experience of
Christianity is so well able to give. Christianity saved
the Empire because it witnessed, even with its blood,
to the truth ; but it was not trying to save the Empire,
its business was to bear witness to the truth.
To-day we should no doubt call the Church of that
age puritan ; it is a matter of reproach that the Chris-
94
CHRISTIANITY AND THE CULTS
tians are cold and dead to all the glories of art. They
have little but scorn, satire, and hatred for the glories
of Greece ; their antagonism to " idols " surpasses in
activity and virulence even that of the Jews. They
appear on the scene as dark, dour people who hate all
the pleasures of life, even the baths. They spend their
time in praying and psalm-singing, awaiting the Day
of terrible vengeance in which they will at last be
justified. Into some such position their terror of the
sensuous and the idolatrous led them ; they distrusted
bodily pleasures, and fled every occasion of sin. St.
Augustine is doubtful even of the severe Ambrosian
hymns ; and St. Jerome forswore Vergil. All this is
true ; but we must beware of trusting too implicitly
men like Tertullian or St. Jerome, whose ascetic zeal
went almost beyond what Christianity allows. The
average Christian w^as no fakir.
It is not its negative side which explains the policy
and success of Christianity. If we compare the spread
of Christianity (or Mohammedanism) with the spread
of Isis-worship, we find the two monotheistic religions
have something which Isis-worship has not. They
have (or claim to have) the truth ; a man becomes a
Christian because he believes Christianity to be true,
but a man becomes an enthusiast for Isis because he
thinks it is nice. Christianity brings one into a new,
absolute, and final relation with the truth.
What is religion ? To the Christian (as to the Jew
and the Mohammedan) it is a personal relation with a
moral Being. Prayer and sacrament make up the daily
round of intercourse with Him ; and religion itself
consists in a reliance on Him and a constant self-
adjustment to His will. This deliberate alteration of
will affects not only the moments of prayer, but decides
the most momentous issues of life, so that all one's
actions are accommodated to the will of God. The
95
SUPERSTITION
Christian is warned that this will certainly lead to a
life of crucifixion, self-sacrifice, and perhaps death ;
but the same God who raised up Jesus Christ will give
the strength to go through.
The heathen went to church to feel better after it ;
he wanted to be satisfied. He prayed to God for health
and strength and success ; he tried to find out his future,
and, if possible, to influence it. But, if he had bad luck,
he changed his god ; his religion was like a large in-
surance society which he joined for the benefits. He
also found his religious and moral aspirations satisfied.
The best that can be said for this religion is that it
might be harmless ; it was certainly not going to stand
against Christianity,
Christianity felt that its nearest relationship was not
with the cults, but with the philosophers. Yet the
philosophers were too far removed on the other side.
They had no sympathy for the ordinary doubts and
weaknesses of human nature. The wise man was to
be totally unmoved by any accident, good or evil,
that might occur to him or his friends. He was not,
therefore, to go running about from god to god, or to
bemoan his fate like a stage-player. He was to practise
self-sufficiency {avrapKeia) and impassibility {aTrdOeia)
and depend on no man or god for happiness.
This ideal was barely possible, and, if carried out,
would have produced an inhuman type, as it did in the
Christian hermits of a later generation. It failed by
its very strength ; it was utterly impossible for a good
man to maintain a Buddhist indifference with regard
to the human tragedy of the world around him, and
his idea of independence violated the fundamental
conceptions of mundane existence. It was not possible
to be independent ; it was only possible to produce an
exclusive caste. To do the philosophers justice, they
were better than their creed. No one can help realising
96
MARCUS AURELIUS
the sad nobility of the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius ;
and the picture he draws of his adoptive father is the
picture of the most beautiful and tender type of monas-
ticism. We are able to see in it the anima naturaliier
Christiana.
Again, whatever page of Marcus one opens, the eye
is almost sure to fall on a reference to death ; he dwells
on the fact that it is natural, that it is a transition, a
door, a mere change, and that there is no need to be
frightened of it. He does this so often that it impresses
one at last with the fact that death is not natural, that
it is very violent, and that there is every reason to be
afraid of it. If he had really regarded it as the natural
and dignified exit he describes, he would have insisted
on it a little less ; but, as a fact, he must have been as
apprehensive of it as Dr. Johnson. Dignity is incom-
patible with sublunary existence, even for an Emperor.
He strained nobly, however, to regard it like a phi-
losopher, and his one allusion to the Christians (whom
he allowed or ordered to be unmercifully persecuted)
is a reference to the indecent glee with which they
embraced martyrdom.
The aristocratic system, at this time, was producing
a very good type indeed. We English ought especially
to recognise this, as we choose to educate our own
aristocracy on just those classical authors which Marcus
Aurelius read, rather than on the Old and New Testa-
ments of Tertullian. The result is that we produce
very much the type of the Roman gentleman. It is
ridiculous to suppose that Roman society is summed
up in some such epigram as —
** On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell :
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell."
The long descriptions of voluptuous banquets and
7 97
SUPERSTITION
self-indulgence, the immoral habits, the licentiousness
and delirium of the mystery religions, the general mise-
en-scene of love, liquor, and luxury, is all legitimate
" atmosphere " of its kind. It is far more important
to realise that in the second century Rome reached its
zenith. We should recall the scientific spirit of Julius
Caesar, Pliny, or Lucian, the noble philosophy with
which Marcus found himself surrounded, the settlement
of the bounds of the Empire under Hadrian, one of
the world's greatest rulers, and the high level of civi-
lisation throughout the known world. It is worth
while recalling Trajan's little note to Pliny : " Secret
informers," he says, " are evil, and unworthy of our
age." Here he lays claim to an advance on the pre-
vious age, the age of Domitian, and the claim was
justified. It is true that there was no constructive
thought or art, but it is questionable how far this is a
sign of vigour or decadence.
But an aristocracy, even when it is as cosmopolitan
as that of Rome, contains the seeds of its own ruin. By
isolating the goodness and enlightenment of the nation,
it makes it impossible for the goodness and enlighten-
ment to save the nation. The enlightened caste dies
out, having scattered no seed. So it was in the Empire ;
the rulers saw clearly the errors of the idol-worshipping
multitude, but had no gospel, or hope for them. They
could only legitimise all the superstitions, and bind
them in one by the worship of the genius of Rome and
the Empire. The one true religion, which alone had
a message to the democracy, and could have saved the
Empire, they proscribed.
There were, of course, many who retained their belief
in the old gods ; and all conformed. A sympathetic
picture of the latter is given in the Octavius of Minucius
Felix. The Roman aristocrat continued to pay his
vows to the gods who had made his city and family
98
CHRISTIANITY AND DEMONS
great. Just as many Englishmen used to adhere to
the Anglican Church simply because it was the religion
of England so, to the Roman, religion and patriotism
were one. It was the gods who had made Rome
great ; and their temples were not to be forsaken. Not
all Romans were philosophers ; and to them the antiqua
pietas was as dear as their city or Imperium.
Yet, strive as they would, it was not the old-fashioned
piety of their ancestors that survived. Greek religion
had long displaced it, and the second century saw
oriental religion triumph through and over that. The
new cults were irresistible ; the chief supporter of
Alexander of Abonoteichus was a Roman senator,
Publius Mummius; Sisenna and Marcus himself con-
sulted him before going to war ; what is more, his faith
survived the falsification of his predictions. It seems
probable that the most conservative of officials must
have believed in the new superstitions. The deified
Emperor was identified with Sol Invictus, or Mithras ;
and, in the pagan revival of 361, it is the new gods that
Julian introduces.
All this goes to show how widespread was the " demon-
worship " of the Empire ; in face of its power and
universality neither Christian nor philosopher could
deny it. One of the most interesting passages in Ter-
tullian is the challenge to produce a man suffering from
devil-possession whom the Christians would undertake
to cure. From the very beginning this had been one
of the powers and signs of the Spirit. When our Lord
first appeared in Galilee He won fame by His authority
over spirits ; this authority He solemnly handed on to
the Twelve on the mountain, and in apostolic days it
was counted a gift of the Spirit. An interesting case
in the Acts is the cure of a girl possessed by the pro-
phesying spirit of Apollo. According to Tertulhan,
Christians still possessed this power, and he was ready
99
SUPERSTITION
to come out before a magistrate and put the demons
to flight in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth.
The usual answer of the heathen was that Christians
were not the only people who had this power ; this
statement must also be accepted, but at the same time
it is obvious that some power out of the ordinary must
have belonged to the Christians. In the same way
we learn that the sons of the Pharisees cast out demons,
but that our Lord had an especial and unique power.
What was this power, so pre-eminently the possession
of Christians, and admitted by magistrate and phi-
losopher ? It is plain that, whatever it is, it is no
mechanical argument in favour of Christianity ; but
even if the pathological condition is purely " natural,"
and the curative power acts along the same lines as
" telepathy " and " suggestion " (whatever they are)
it is still worth while inquiring into its nature.
The same phenomena meet us on the mission field
to-day ; tribes who live under the fear of devils are
absolutely delivered from them by Christianity. Not
only are individual cases cured, but lives are delivered
from their domination and terror. Nothing is more
certain than that, before the advance of Christianity,
these real or imaginary demonic forces are clean swept
away, so much so that for a brief space in modern
educated circles men ceased to believe in them; now
they are creeping back as the subject of " psychical
research."
It is not altogether beside the mark here to point
out how Christianity itself, by its secrecy, not only
incurred the accusation of being a mystery religion, but
did a little assimilate itself to them. We have seen
how all the apologists but one shrink from describing
the Christian mysteries and ministry. Every other
apologist conceals them as if they really were the hor-
rible thing people believed them to be ; St. Justin alone
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MYSTERY CULTS
reveals that there is no magic, no optical illusion, no
cruel or cannibalistic sacrifice, but plain bread and
wine and water, with the soberest of prayer and
ritual.
It is not part of this essay to deal with the causes of
the affinities between Christianity and the heathen
rituals. In the poverty of our information we can only
say that their extent is doubtful, their origin manifold,
and that the influence of one on the other — for it seems
to have acted both ways — is impossible to prove or dis-
prove. But we can improve on St. Justin's theory that
the demons parodied Christianity beforehand. It may
well be that the originators of the mysteries had got
hold of the right idea ; like Socrates or Abraham, they
may have been Christians before Christ. The faith of
man may have been groping in the dark for the re-
demption and salvation which God has given through
the Man Christ Jesus. At any rate, it is a very acute
comment of St. Justin that here the devils failed in not
having one of the sons of Zeus crucified in imitation of
Christ.
Here lies the centre of Christianity, so that, in com-
parison, the cults are only gorgeous frames to enclose
a picture which was yet to come ; and the apologists
were right to insist on what sprang out of this faith in
Christ crucified, namely, the harvest of repentance and
good works, its prayers for persecuting Emperor and
hostile populace. If Christianity was a mystery re-
ligion like the rest, what made this difference ? What
made the martyrs ? Why did Mithraism die out under
the Christian Emperor ? Why did Christianity stand
out against Emperor-worship, in which all the rest
acquiesced ? It had something which the mysteries
never had, and to which they were antagonistic. As
historians, we can now look back and see the part the
mysteries played in preparing the world for Christ ; as
101
SUPERSTITION
Christians, it would have been our duty to oppose them
to the death.
NOTE TO CHAPTERS IV AND V
THE PAGAN CONCEPTION OF MATTER
The Persians held that matter was alien from spirit, and was under
the control of an evil being who was totally opposed to the spirit of
good. Hinduism in the main regards matter as an illusion to which
ppirit must rise superior. It was rather this latter conception that was
introduced into the Roman Empire through both philosophy and
religion, though Mithraism must have been nominally pledged to the
Persian point of view.
In philosophy it takes the form of a rejection of creationism ; matter
is always regarded as existing somehow independently of God. Plato
has a creation myth, but he does not represent God as creating matter
by direct influence. The Stoics regard matter as a thing quite in-
different, and in consequence their morality suffers. In oiu" own
period Marcus Aurelius quotes with approbation the saying of Epic-
tetus, that man is a living soul dragging about a corpse. As a result,
even Epictetus has no very high teaching on the subject of sexual
purity. The body does not matter.
In religion the effect was even worse. The great mother goddesses
were regarded as personifications of the spirit which moves the world ;
the continuous flux and recreation of nature was represented by sexual
relations between the goddess and other figures, who were regarded
now as her son, husband, or brother, now as but another form of her-
self. On the consequences of this it is unnecessary to dwell.
For the initiate there was a different interpretation. He was led
to look on life as an attempt to escape from the domination of matter ;
the end of his being was to be the reabsorption of his soul into the
divine being from whom it was separated as long as it was imprisoned
in the body. This view of the body was also held by the Christian
Gnostic sects, which saw in Jesus Christ the Redeemer who was going
to liberate their souls from the world and restore them to their rightful
union with the infinite God. As far as this side of the mystery religions
stirred a sense of sin and a desire for reconciliation they were good ;
as far as the mysteries satisfied this sense, they were bad. On the
other hand, they despaired absolutely of the world, the cardinal sin also
of eschatology.
Our Lord held a view quite the reverse of this, as we see from the
famous discourse, only too fatally clear, in the eighth chapter of St.
Mark. It is summed up at its shortest in the epigrammatic phrase,
" The spirit, indeed, is willing, but the flesh is weak." Any other
religious teacher of the age would have said, " The spirit, indeed, is
willing, but the flesh is strong." Heathenism regarded the flesh as
102
PAGAN CONCEPTION OFMATTER
an obstacle to being good ; Christianity regarded it as material for
being good with.
The reaction from philosophy on the part of Tatian and Tertullian
is also to be explained by this. And they both point out that the
superior morality of Christianity is due to this view of the body ; this
also explains why the apologists are so explicit on the resurrection of
the body and on the creation of matter by God. But, in their theory
of the origin of evil by the temptation of evil demons, we may doubt
whether they have really explained this mystery, except to insist on
the fact that it is due to a perversion of will somewhere, and is inherent
neither in God nor in His universe. The universe is only bad where it
is under the domination of an evil will.
Life is to be looked at like one of those Chinese puzzles in which
little pieces of wood have to be put together to form a pattern. The
pieces may be awkward in shape, the table-cloth may be uneven, the
player may not have much capacity, there may be disturbing influences
in the room ; but there is nothing evil about the materials. We may
not all be able to make the perfect pattern of the cross out of them ;
but we can all do the best we can.
For it is again the cross that is the key to the situation. The Incar-
nation and Resurrection of our Lord prove that there is nothing
unholy about the flesh ; His cross and passion show that, whatever
pain may be, it is not in itself incompatible with holiness. Nay, it
shows that the mission of the saint may be, not to escape from the flesh,
but to bear, more than other people, the evils it is able to inflict. " If
any man would come after Me, let him take up his cross and follow Me."
Matter is the material of morality, not its main obstacle.
103
CHAPTER VI
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
*' I do not wish to be a king ; I am not anxious to be rich ; I decline
military command ; I detest sin ; I am not compelled by an insatiable
love of gain to go to sea ; 1 do not contend for crowns ; I am free from
a mad thirst for fame ; I despise death ; I am superior to every kind
of disease ; grief does not consume my soul. Am I a slave, I endure
my servitude. Am I free, I do not make a vaunt of my good birth. I
see that the same sun is for all, and one death for all, whether they live
in pleasure or poverty. The rich man sows, and the poor man partakes
in the same sowing. The wealthiest die, and the beggars have the
same limit to their lives." — Tatian : To the Greeks, ii.
" Happiness consists not in exercising lordship over a neighbour,
nor in wishing to have advantage of weaker men, nor in possessing
wealth and using force against inferiors. Not in ways like these can
a man imitate God ; such ways are far removed frona His Majesty."
— To Diognetus, x.
" I must tell you, likewise, that of all men living we are the greatest
promoters of peace, and bring you in the most powerful auxiliaries to
establish it in your dominions, by teaching that it is impossible for
any worker of iniquity, any covetous or insidious person, anyone
either vicious or virtuous, to hide himself from God." — St. Justin :
Apology I, xii.
" Therefore I prefer to honour the king, not indeed worshipping him,
but praying for him. ... As he will not have those called ' kings '
whom he has appointed luider himself (for ' king ' is his title, and it is
not lawful for another to use it), so neither is it lawful for anyone to
receive worship but God only. . . . Accordingly, honour the king, be
subject to him, and pray for him with a loyal mind ; for, if you do this,
you will do the will of God." — Theophilus : To Autolycus, i, 11.
" Furthermore, we beseech Thee, O Lord, for the king and those
that are in authority, and for the whole army, that they may be
peaceably disposed towards us, in order that, leading all the rest of our
life in peace and quietness, we may glorify Thee through Jesus Christ
our hope." — Liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions.
" But for us, who are stark cold and dead to all the glories upon earth,
what occasion can we have for caballings ? And in good truth nothing
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EMPEROR WORSHIP
is further from our soul than the thoughts of mixing up in state affairs
or in any private designs ; for we look upon ourselves as citizens of the
world." — Tertullian : Apology, xxxviii.
VI. Christianity and the State.
We have now considered the exalted claims of Chris-
tianity, its ancient ancestry, its authority in philosophy,
and its unique place among the cults of the day. It
remains to deal with the relations between Church and
State, which were the immediate cause of at least the
two main Apologies. There is no maxim more admirable '
than that religion and politics should confine themselves
each to its separate sphere ; but, unfortunately, Chris-
tianity has always maintained that their sphere is the
same. It was as a political phenomenon that Chris-
tianitv first attracted the attention of the world. Re-
ligion and politics affect the same persons and the same
activities, and it is inevitable that they should clash.
The deification of the Emperor seems to us now an
intolerable intrusion of the State into the religious
sphere ; we are so accustomed to regard the two spheres
as independent. In fact, however, we have exactly
the same problem to-day ; the State makes a claim
which is just as uncompromising, even if it is not
expressed in language so amazing. It is only the
language of the imperial claim that shocks us ; it seems
incredible that anyone can ever have consented to
address that sinister beast Domitian as " Dominus et
Deus Noster." But our horror is entirely due to the
modern Christian associations of the words. Let us
remember how the whole Anglican Church prayed for
George IV as " our most religious and gracious king."
It was only by a few philosophers that the word
Deus was applied to the supreme Mind of the uni-
verse ; the mysteries, it is true, had a pantheistic view
of God ; but in neither case did it affect the common
105
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
use of the word Deus, To the average person, it im-
pHed little more than a condition of beatification ;
strength and honour and glory and blessing were the
endowment of the immortals on Mount Olympus.
But they were only glorified men, and their company
could be attained by men like Hercules and Romulus.
A good man, even on earth, might be known as jpcene
deus, Julius Caesar claimed the title of divus or
divine, and Augustus, though he never assumed the
title Deus, made ample preparation for its application
to him after his death.
We must remember that no moral attributes were
attached to the deities ; it was merely a question of
strength or wisdom. Power and force were the attri-
butes, yar excellence, of godhead. Power and force
were the obvious privileges of the City of Rome ; she
was the undisputed mistress of the world. But, as
time went on, the imperial city became more and more
levelled to the rank of the other cities of the Empire,
and the power passed into the hands of the Emperor.
The stable government of the world depended more
and more on his absolute power.
Thus the later government of the Empire shows the
deliberate slighting of the Senate and People of Rome ;
she becomes more and more a great name, a holy city
containing —
"The ashes of our fathers
And the temples of our gods."
Every god and goddess of the known world had his
palace and sacred pomp somewhere in the stately streets ;
countless barbarian shrines were grouped about the
ancient temple of Capitoline Jupiter. There were
temples sacred to Victory, Faith, and Wealth. But
there was one august being in whose hands the whole
of this world-wide power was concentrated ; there
was one whom the gods permitted to exercise their
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MEANING OF DEIFICATION
world-empire for them. He could be seen there, with
his palace, and trains of attendants and incense ; and
he was the Emperor (Augustus, Sebastos, Worshipful),
Autocrat of the World. And it is little wonder that, as
well as being the supreme representative of heaven
(Pontifex Maximus) he himself became Deus with a
seat on Olympus.
At any rate, it was absolutely essential for the peace
of the world that the Emperor's power should be abso-
lute ; nothing must interfere between him and the
direct control of the taxes, the provinces, and, above all,
the armies. There was no power on earth greater than
his ; he was formally enrolled as Deus, one of the strong
powers of the world. There was no religion except
that of the Jews which would raise any objection ;
they existed to flatter their gods, not to wield their
powers. Even then, however, it was rather the genius
(guardian spirit) of the Emperor who was worshipped
so long as he was alive ; when dead, he became a god
by apotheosis.
To the philosopher or thinker all this business was
ridiculous enough ; the Apocolocontosis of Petronius
Arbiter was a stinging satire on the apotheosis of the
feeble and pedantic Claudius. But, as time went on,
people acquiesced in an idea which had so much patriotic
and religious sentiment behind it, and was so practical
and useful. The alacrity with which it was taken up,
especially in Egypt and the East, where the idea was
familiar, is sufficient proof of that. The ritual of
allegiance was simple ; no one could object to burning
a pinch of incense before the Emperor's statue. It
was purely a civil and patriotic ceremony, which
expressed the allegiance of the loyal subject to his
Emperor as the supreme world-power. It was this
one ceremony which bound together all the peoples
of the Empire.
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CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
Now, in plain English, what does this mean ? We
have seen that it implied no theological dogmas as to
the person of the Emperor, and nothing we can call
worship ; it simply used the ritual of religion to express
that loyalty and obedience which law demands. It
did not mean that the Emperor was infallible ; it meant
that he was always to be obeyed. Naturally no Chris-
tian could take this oath ; to him, the Emperor was
not the supreme power : the supreme power was the
voice of God.
In reality it does not differ from the modern doctrine
of the Sovereign State, the form in which we uphold
to-day the doctrine of the divine right of kings. It
does not state that the law is always right ; it states
that it is always to be obeyed. It allows of no superior
authority, and recognises no excuse for disobedience.
The business of the civil magistrate is not to decide
right and wrong, but to administer the law. No con-
ceivable circumstance can alter or modify its universal
validity or authority. From the point of view of the
State, it is easy to see how necessary this is ; if any
extraneous conceptions of right and wrong could
modify the law in the slightest particular, there would
be the end of its authority. It either is or is not to be
obeyed ; it is inconceivable that an oath should be
extracted that the law is to be obeyed, except when the
subject shall deem otherwise.
It is scarcely necessary to say that any such obedience
or any such oath is quite impossible to the Christian.
But it is necessary to insist that in the case of thousands
this blind obedience to the State is the highest conception
of duty ; the State is the biggest thing they ever come
across, and they deify it as an allegorical figure, or as
an animal, or in the person of its ruler. They believe
that the authority of the Church is derived from its
Establishment ; and they are quite certain that the
108
CHRISTIANS AND THE EMPEROR
powers and privileges of their country are gifts from an
imperial god to his favourite, and that members of their
race are personally superior to those of any other.
These perilous and Pharisaic superstitions are as
dangerous now as ever they were in the pagan days of
Rome ; and it is our duty to combat them as men com-
bated them then. As a matter of law, Christians were
in the wrong in absenting themselves from imperial
festivals, or refusing to take the oath of allegiance.
Tertullian, a lawyer, admitted this, but pleaded that
the laws should be changed ; bad laws had been changed
before, and could be changed again. But such a change
would have meant a complete capitulation on the part
of the Emperors. It was one thing to exempt an in-
significant nation like the Jews ; it was another to
give in to a vast international federation, embracing
all classes and nationalities.
Before considering the attitude of the apologists to
the State, it is worth noting that it is far more pacific
than that of most Christians in the dock. The apolo-
gist was justifying his position as a respectable citizen,
though the rhetoric of Tertullian must have been more
irritating than mollifying. In the dock, however, as is
natural, restraint was often cast aside ; to all questions
("What is your name ? Are you a slave ? Are you a
Roman citizen ? ") the answer would be, " I am a Chris-
tian." The martyr would then go on to say that he
was not a malefactor, that he could not offer incense to
the Emperor, that he had another Emperor called
Christ, and that in a matter so simple there was no
room for further consideration. In view of the number
of fanatics who courted martyrdom, we may say that
they must often have been bolder than this ; and we
gather from Celsus that they indulged in lurid denun-
ciations and prophecies of the end of the world.
But Tertullian is reflecting the official mind of the
109
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
Church when he says that the Christians are the most
loyal subjects of the Emperor ; they pray for him, and
for his officers, and for the success of his armies. They
are a vast throng who fill the cities and villages and
camps of the Empire ; only the temples are left. What
could not such an army do if it appealed to force ? It
could destroy the Empire merely by deserting it; for
it would take most of the respectable citizens with it.
Yes, the hated Christians who refused to worship the
Emperor obeyed him better than the jingoistic mob.
This doctrine obviously goes back to New Testament
times. Our Lord, when consulted on the question of
paying the imperial taxes, practically answered that
every one had to decide for himself. " Pay back to
Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the
things that are God's." And the main drift of our
Lord's life and teaching was undoubtedly in favour of
obedience to law, however despicable the actual rulers
might be. He recognises Pilate's power as given him
from above, and perhaps St. Paul is echoing this state-
ment when he say that the powers that be are ordained
of God. Human law-courts are thus looked upon as
having divine authority ; the sword of justice is not
borne in vain. But, though the king is to be honoured,
he is not to be feared ; for fear belongs to God ; and
honour belongs also to all men. Above all, they are
not to be ashamed of the name Christian ; they are to
suffer anything for that.
So far, then, the Gospel allows and orders a Christian
to yield obedience to the powers that be ; but his obedi-
ence is not to be such as will dominate or affect the
obedience he owes to the higher law within, " knowing
that no man judgeth you." The Christian attitude
to the law was plain and easy ; it was the attitude of
the law towards the Christian that was difficult. There
seemed to be only two alternatives, that the Emperors
110
CHURCH AND STATE TO-DAY
should believe in Christ, which, as Tertullian points out,
is not compatible with their remaining Emperors, and
the suppression of Christianity by force. The modern
idea of toleration is a compromise, and it is extremely
doubtful whether in a crisis it would be practical ; it
is only as long as no serious difference arises between
them that the State and the Church can each retain
its full authority. But, as it stands even to-day,
the Church is a society which recognises that each
individual is answerable to God before he is answer-
able to the State ; and it is ready to defend him in
that right.
As long as there exists a religion like Christianity,
which claims to make a real revelation of the will of
God, this conflict must arise. We see it in the case of
the persecutions, and in the long conflict between Pope
and Emperor in the Middle Ages ; it was vital in the
Reformation ; it was an outstanding mark of English
ecclesiastical history in the seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries ; and in the nineteenth we find it at the
root of such struggles as the Colenso controversy. Dr.
Figgis has dealt with this subject in The Divine Right of
Kings, and The Churches in the Modern State, and,
though he has said much which is gratifying from the
church point of view, he leaves us rather in the dark
as to what is to happen to the authority of the State.
It will probably always remain one of the insoluble pro-
blems of politics.
The Roman Empire, finding itself up against this one
rebellious member among the Churches, set itself to
crush it. It had behind it all the terrors of popular
opinion. Not only were the priests and the religious
scandalised by those who flouted their gods and their
country, but the patriot was always ready to maltreat
one to whom patriotism meant so little. In addition,
the most horrible libels about the Christians were in
111
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
common circulation. All these served to aggravate
the hatred.
In the first place, the secrecy of their meetings was
against them. They were secret of necessity ; it was
the very condition of their existence. Clubs or societies
of any kind were unlawful ; and where, under special
favour and patronage of the Emperor, they were allowed
to exist, meetings were limited to one a month, and
business severely curtailed To exist at all, then, Chris-
tians had to exist unknown ; and to this secrecy we
may attribute the scantiness of our information on the
most essential details of organisation. Pliny, for in-
stance, after torturing Christians and examining apos-
tates, seems to know nothing of baptism, the Lord's
Supper, the episcopal ministry, or the sacred books.
This secrecy, first imposed as a necessity, soon became
normal, and has given a distinctive character to the
Christian cult. Deep mystery shrouded the baptismal
confession of faith ; no one, not an initiate, knew pre-
cisely what lay on the board at the Christian Mass ;
darkest of all was kept the nature and personnel of the
Christian ministry. St. Justin, alone, of the apolo-
gists, was wise enough to rend the veil and lay bare
the innocence and simplicity of the Christian worship.
What Christians seemed never to have revealed was
that to the eye, ear, and touch, it was only bread and
wine that lay on the table of Christ ; all that reached
the outside world was the terrible language of the Body
broken and the Blood shed, and confused stories of a
child slain sacrificially, as Jews are fabled to kill a
Christian child on Good Friday. Their love-feast was
thought to be a promiscuous orgy of the most un-
natural passion ; there was a tale of dogs who were
tied to the lamp-stands ; at the right moment crusts
of bread were thrown to them, the lights went out, and
the dark practices began. Christians heightened the
112
PAGAN FEAR OF CHRISTIANITY
religious awe by this dreadful secrecy ; but they paid
for it. Tertullian would have done better by a frank
statement than by his clever lawyerisms. As it was,
no accusations were too terrible to be hurled at the
heads of the Christians, their prophecies, their uncanny
seances, and their power over devils.
Not only the silence, but the magnitude of the new
conspiracy was appalling ; it was impossible to com-
pute the numbers, but it was known to have its repre-
sentatives in all lands. It had allies among the enemies
of Rome ; perhaps Armenia was already a Christian
country. Men of the highest rank might turn out to
be Christians, and people whose lives were outwardly
virtuous and respectable, even one's own friends and
most trusted advisers. Any actual calculation being
impossible, men were ready, in their fear, to accept the
wildest and most incredible statistics. Persecution
only seemed to reveal the conspiracy as still wider and
more dangerous. No wonder the people of the Empire
were afraid. " Enemies of the human race," " pesti-
lent superstition " were among the common epithets
hurled at them ; and they did more to warrant these
charges than the apologists admit. They believed that
the Empire was under the dominion of devils, that
society was utterly wicked, and that it was only a
question of a few years before the whole w^orld would
perish in the fire of divine anger. It had had its chance
of finding salvation through Christ ; but, as that had
failed, it was tacitly self-condemned. Christians had
no sympathy with the glory and beauty of the Empire ;
it was simply so much fuel for burning.
Again, Christian social ideals were clean contrary to
those of Rome, and this must have been profoundly
disturbing to the authorities. It is true that Christians
never dreamed of a revolution, or of the reformation of
society ; the end of all things was at hand, and the only
8 113
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
possible social gospel was, " Come out of her, My people."
Nevertheless, they had their ideal of a city of God,
" Jerusalem, which is above, is free, which is the mother
of us all." And this ideal they honestly tried to put
into practice in their own communal life, a course
which did more to convert society to their views than
any political propaganda. Again, it must be noted
that such good as was done was done unconsciously,
purely by working out the principles which they believed
to be right.
Jerusalem had long been swept away ; but they
looked back to the primitive Jerusalem Church as the
very reign of the Lord on earth. This beautiful com-
munity of the relations and friends of Jesus Himself
was loved and revered by every Church on earth, Hebrew
or Gentile. There was zeal and faith and love, there
there was perfect hospitality ; they met daily in each
other's houses for the prayers, the sacraments, and the
communal meals. Poverty was blessed there ; the
rich brought their superfluous wealth and laid it at the
apostles' feet for the benefit of the poor brethren, so
that nobody lacked. The very apostles Peter, John,
and James, the Lord's brother, were to be seen ; they
impressed St. Paul as the pillars of the temple of God ;
their teaching could be heard in the synagogues and
the courts of the temple. The poor of Jerusalem heard
them gladly, and it was one of the proud privileges of
the Gentile churches to send up their offerings to Jeru-
salem so that the church there should not fail in her
charity.
This, of course, looks only on the ideal side of the
mother Church ; but, in spite of shadows and dissensions
in it, is a true picture. When the light of the world was
extinguished, and the city set on a hill destroyed, alle-
giance was transferred to the heavenly Jerusalem, and
the new temple not built with hands. Christians began
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SOCIAL IDEALS OF THE CHURCH
to pray more fervently for the swift coming of a new
heaven and a new earth. The prayer, " Thy Kingdom
come," looked forward to the return of Christ and the
new Jerusalem descending from heaven like a bride.
But, though the final kingdom of Christ was not yet
established on this earth, the Church of those who be-
lieved on His Name and His Coming was a royal nation,
a peculiar people, set apart for Him ; they had a fore-
taste of the Spirit, they were the body and the Bride
of Christ ; in a true sense, they were the kingdom.
It was impossible for any other congregation to re-
produce the ideal life of the Jerusalem Church ; but
it was possible to govern them according to the same
principle. There was no nationalism or colour-line in
the Church ; Roman and Greek and barbarian and
Scythian and Jew were all equal. There were no sex
distinctions ; man and woman were equal. If there
was any distinction of property, it was in favour of the
poor. The rich man was no longer blessed ; salvation
was a very difficult matter for him. Such riches as he
had were to be used entirely for the benefit of the
poor ; poverty was the ideal state ; work was a duty
and a right. It was the business of the bishop to find
hospitality and work for strange brethren. They lived
together as a family, " having everything in common
except their wives."
In later days, when the gospel precepts were no
longer so universally applied, great teachers like St.
Chrysostom or St. Ambrose endeavoured to recall the
Church to her first love, the lady Poverty. The root of
all social sins was avarice, or love of property ; but
property only existed as a legal fiction. Nature had
lavished all her gifts as common property ; robbery
had made them private. If men were content with
the necessities of life, social evils would disappear. For
a rich man to give alms was not charity, but justice.
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CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
The amassing of huge fortunes was not praised as a vir-
tue with such names as " enterprise " or " success " ; it was
regarded as a species of robbery, and came under the
deadly sin of avarice. The desire to " get on," to get
money, or to get power w^as the sin of sins. The love
of monev was a root of all evils.
The distinguishing and attractive mark of Chris-
tianity was the new ethic ; the most frequently quoted
of the words of our Lord are the commands to treat
your neighbour with love. Professor von Harnack, in
the Mission and Expansion of Christianity, has described
the wonderful attractive power of the Spirit of Christ ;
and its attractive power to some can only be equalled
by the hate and fear it inspired in others. It must
have appeared to the average pagan like a huge Labour
Union in which the most dangerous and subversive
doctrines of liberty and equality w^ere preached ; and
it was knit together by the most perfect ties of mutual
love. Strange as it may seem, the latter is far the more
terrifying. When a trade union to-day strikes for
higher wages it is likely to receive some sympathy
among the governing classes ; when it strikes out of
sympathy to secure higher wages or better conditions
for a weaker union, no words are too bad for it. " So
long as thou doest well unto thyself men will speak
well of thee." However good and noble they may be,
society has no sympathy for those who deny the cur-
rent morality of the day. To the Christians worldly
success meant nothing; they had no desire for wealth,
honour, or office, and, as a result, society turned on
them and rent them, not only because they thought
society evil, but because they held that the happiness
conferred by wealth and power was illusory. True
treasure was of a spiritual nature, laid up in heaven,
uncorruptible by moth or rust. They were not the
only people to say this; there were those who went
116
CHRISTIANS AND CIVIC LIFE
further, and said that all matter was evil. But they
were the only people to act on it. The State — that is,
society organised to defend its own interests — found
Christianity its foe, as it always will.
I have dwelt on this side of the question because it
is vital, and because the apologists naturally tend to
pass it over ; but we can see, even from them, that if the
Christians made good subjects they made bad citizens.
We cannot, of course, say how far abstention from
public service was general, for there are three con-
siderations that make our conclusions uncertain. In
the first place, " ethic " is not a good name to apply to
Christian morality, for it has no code of rules. Jesus
Christ invariably laid down general principles from
which the disciple was to draw his own deductions in
particular cases. Entire responsibility was thrust on
the individual, and, on the whole, the Church has never
taken away this freedom by legislating for particular
cases. Conduct is thus essentiallv a matter between
a man's soul and the Spirit of God that is in him.
Secondly, the case is not purely civil. There were
religious barriers between a Christian and the magis-
tracy of the army. If a magistrate, it was his duty to
administer the rites of the gods, and especially of the
Emperor-worship ; if a soldier, he had to take a pagan
oath of allegiance. And, though we do find Christians
in the army, we naturally rather wonder what kind of
a Christian it was who took the pagan oath. We are
therefore unable to say how far the objection was to
the service of the Empire as such.
Thirdly, we have to remember the fact that many
were converted to Christianity when already in official
positions. It was the usual custom for a Christian to
remain in whatever condition he occupied before his
conversion. St. Paul lays down this rule in the case
of marriage and slavery. Marriage is a relationship he
117
CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
himself dislikes, but married converts are to remain
married. Slavery is an institution quite repugnant to
Christianity, yet Christian slaves and masters are to
remain in their original status. Onesimus is to be re-
ceived back by Philemon as a slave still, but he is to
be loved as a brother.
But we wonder what sort of Christians they can have
been who remained in a position in which every day
might bring them a pagan duty to perform. It is quite
clear, however, that we have, even in the earliest times,
the two conceptions of Christianity, or rather, a variety
of grades ranging from the fanatic and revolutionist
who obeys no laws and has no connection with the
State, to the converted official who is anxious to retain
his position and emoluments. But, in spite of the
uncertainty and differences of opinion, we are bound
to accept as true in the main the heathen charge that
the Christians took no interest in the affairs of the
Empire.
An interesting example is found in Tertullian's pamph-
let, De Corona. A Christian soldier, after doing well in
the wars, has been awarded a laurel crown, which he
repudiates because of its heathen associations. The
result is martyrdom. Christian opinion seems to have
been divided on the merits of his act. Tertullian praises
it. But what troubles one, as one reads it, is the initial
question of how he ever took the first sacr amentum that
made him a soldier. How could a man who had taken
the sacramentum of Christ take the sacramentum of
Caesar ? The average Christian would die sooner than
do so, and yet this man had taken it, and then hesitated
to accept the military crown. So difficult are the
workings of the human mind to follow.
The view taken by Christians of military service is
another difficult point. In the first place, there is the
plain injunction of the Master to resist not evil, to turn
118
CHURCH AND EMPIRE
the other cheek, and to love one's enemies ; but as
usual, these are general principles, and it is the indi-
vidual's duty to apply them in particular cases. In
addition we must remember the oath of allegiance, and
the fact that, by serving as a legionary, he delivered
himself into the hands of the military authorities for
any devil's business they chose to take in hand. It
is, therefore, only natural that Christians should be
unsatisfactory from the military point of view.
We see, therefore, that Christianity must have been
more hostile to the Emperor than the apologists admit.
There were two parties, the stricter and the laxer.
During the third century, with its periods of toleration,
the lax party grew to such an extent that Constantine
was able at last to make peace with the Church ; out
of the stricter party the monastic movement was de-
veloped, with its continued antipathy to the world. In
the days of Tertullian, however, the parties were not
so separate ; more rigid views prevailed, and he is
right in saying that it would be impossible for the
Emperor to be a Christian.
By this saying he gives away his case ; he is asking
too much in his petition for the repeal of the laws
which condemn Christianity. We have seen how it
would imply a recantation of the Emperor's claim to
supremacy, and acquiescence in principles opposed to
those on which the Empire stood. The conflict is an
inevitable one, and there seems no solution ; for neither
State nor Church can relinquish its claim to absolute
authority. And, when it comes to open war, the Church
is bound to win easily, so long as it does not adopt the
weapons of the State.
The State, by its very constitution, has nothing to
rely on but force ; Christianity, by its very name, has
only one weapon, to suffer. Now force is no remedy ;
it does not make things one whit better ; and there is a
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CHRISTIANITY AND THE STATE
point beyond which the most determined persecutor
will not go. The Christian believed that the only way
to meet this force was by suffering, and that by suffer-
ing he would really win the crown of victory and life.
In this way, too, he will convert his enemy; and his
enemy's good is to be his main object.
Jesus Christ was the pattern martyr. He had been
hailed as Messiah, and was expected to raise an army
and win His kingdom by force ; but His principal care
was to avoid any such appearance. On the night when
He was betrayed, Peter, His right-hand man, brought
two swords ; he had often enough been told to depend
on God alone ; and, after ironically suggesting that
some change was now necessary, our Lord told him that
in using force, he would at least fulfil the prophecy,
that enrolled Him " among the breakers of the law."
When Peter actually did resist he was told to put up
his sword into the sheath, on the grounds that the
sword gave no security it would not also take away.
Our Lord was thus able to claim that His kingdom
was not of this world ; otherwise His servants would
have fought. Had they fought, He would have been
rightly counted as a Theudas, or a Judas, a Messiah in
arms. A plucky resistance in the garden of Geth-
semane w^ould undoubtedly have brought His character
nearer to the pagan ideal of a god or a man ; it could
easily have led to a successful rebellion, and a new
Maccabasan kingdom ; but a choice had now to be
made between Christ and the Maccabees, and the new
weapon was the cross, not the sword. Christ came to
bring a sword, but it was a sword of suffering.
Christians believed that by this suffering not only
was the crown of personal salvation won, but the
redemption of the world was effected. Christianity
was founded on the willing death of Christ ; and that
death was a natural culmination of a life of devotion
120
WEAPONS OF CHRISTIANITY
and self-sacrifice. Christians believed that they would
be redeemed and saved by the same death, they received
the baptism of His death, and drank the cup of His
death ; but, above all, they assimilated their lives to
His, finding life through devotion, self-sacrifice, and
death. And through their death they not only received
the crown of life, but achieved the redemption of the
world, and even of their very persecutors for whom they
prayed. They filled up in their lives what was lacking
of the sufferings of Christ.
Such was the Christian faith, the centre and secret of
the new religion. Believing in this, they went with
joy and thanksgiving to bear the atrocities committed
in the name of an enlightened Emperor. It only added
one more reason for the hatred of the world ; the
Christians had despised their glories, and now they
equally despised their terrors. Nothing shifted them
from their faith, their hope, their love. To the end
they believed it was they who redeemed the world.
And they were right. What could not be done by the
Emperor of the world, the philosophy of Greece, and the
gorgeous pantheisms of the East, was accomplished by
the blood of the martyrs. And not till the kingdoms
of the world become the kingdom of God and of His
Christ can this strange Warfare of Martyrdom cease.
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CHAPTER VII
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
" Stand forth, O soul, in the midst, whether thou art divine and eternal
as many philosophers assert, and therefore less likely to lie, or whether
thou art the opposite of divine, because mortal, as Epicurus is alone
in thinking, and therefore oughtest the less to lie ; whether thou art
received from heaven or conceived on earth ; whether thou art
produced from numbers or atoms ; whether thou hast thy beginning
from the body or art subsequently introduced into the body ; whence-
soever and howsoever thou makest man to be a rational being, the
most capable of sense and knowledge — stand forth and utter thy
testimony." — Tertullian : On the Testimony of the Soul, i.
" Nothing evil has been created by God ; we ourselves have manifested
wickedness, but we, who have manifested it, are able again to reject it."
— Tatian : To the Greeks, ii.
" If thou, too, desire this faith, first obtain the knowledge of the
Father. . . , And when thou hast obtained this knowledge, with what
joy, thinkest thou, wilt thou be filled ? Or how wilt thou love Him
Who first loved thee ? Loving Him, thou wilt be an imitator of His
goodness. . . . Whosoever takes up his neighbour's burden, whosoever
is willing to use his superiority to benefit another who is in this respect
his inferior, whosoever bestows upon the needy what he himself holds
as a recipient of God's bounty ... he is an imitator of God. Then,
though thou art yet upon earth, thou shalt behold that God rvileth in
heaven; then shalt thou begin to speak the mysteries of God." — To
Diognetus, x.
" And why do you not believe ? Do you not know that faith is the
leading principle in all matters ? For what farmer can reap unless he
first trust his seed to the earth ? Or who can cross the sea unless he first
entrust himself to the boat and the pilot ? And what sick person can
be healed unless he first entrust himself to the physician ? If, then,
the husbandman trusts the earth, and the sailor the boat, and the
sick the physician, will you not place confidence in God, even when
you hold so many pledges at His hands ? " — Theophilus : To Auto-
lycuSf i. 8.
" What image of God shall I make, since, if you think rightly, man
122
FAITH AND THE FAITH
himself is the image of God ? What temple shall I build to Him, when
the whole world fashioned by His work cannot receive Him ? And
when I, a man, dwell far and wide, shall I shut up the might of so great
majesty in one little building ? Were it not better that He should be
dedicated in our mind, consecrated in our inmost heart ? " — Minucius
Felix : OctaviuSf xxxii.
VII. The Faith of Christianity
The Apologies we have were written for two main
purposes : on the one hand, they were addressed to the
philosopher, and justified the Christian view of the
universe ; on the other hand, they were addressed to
the magistrate, and justified the existence of the Christian
society. But neither Christian philosophy nor Christian
organisation was Christianity ; it was only that on
these sides his faith brought a Christian into conflict
with the world. But the faith itself was something
interior and independent ; and it was in the strength
of this faith that he was ready to correct philosophies
and conquer empires. He was doing far more than he
knew when he confessed that Jesus was " Lord," or
that Jesus was the "Son of God." For, among the
many results of this faith, was a new view of the uni-
verse, and the formation of a new brotherhood.
Tertullian's Testimony of the Soul, and a passage in
the Octavius of Minucius Felix, treat of faith from the
psychological point of view, and Theophilus, in his
Apology, has a section dealing with its nature. But, on
the whole, it is of the deductions from this faith that
they write. Yet they were slow to realise the range
of these deductions. They were beginners in philosophy,
to political history they were blind ; the one thing they
knew for certain was that they had found salvation in
Christ. No one could be certain of Stoicism or Platon-
ism ; no one could be certain of the stability of Rome ;
but, in the certitude of his faith, the Christian could
123
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
say with the blind man in St. John, " One thing I know :
whereas I was bhnd, now I see."
We Christians know what we mean by faith ; but it
seems almost impossible to explain it to an outsider.
In its highest form, it is something peculiarly Christian
(or Jewish), for no other religion demands it; yet it is
by virtue of the same quality, on a lower plane, that all
the businesses of the world are carried on. The merely
contemptuous opponent of Christianity generally dis-
misses it as credulity, a blind belief in the impossible.
We all know Gibbon's famous sentence ; but we do
not fear such enemies ; they are attacking a chimaera,
they fight as one beating the air. We know, and all
sympathetic people know, that faith is nothing like
this, though many good Christian people give the world
the excuse for thinking so.
Others attack the faith as sentimentalism. It is
alleged to be grounded in emotion, and to be purely
subjective. Again, many Christians have given an
excuse for this charge. Not only do they regard Chris-
tianity as dependent on certain feelings, and sometimes
refuse the name of Christian to those who do not ex-
perience them, but they warp the true conception of
faith into a view that is magical rather than religious.
They believe that God is ever about them to reward
their piety and protect them from danger because they
are Christians. There is no warrant for such an opinion
in the pages of the New Testament.
If there is any meaning in words, it is precisely because
God will not reward their piety or protect them from
dangers that Christian faith has its own unique and
peculiar power. The whole point is that God does not
promise success, victory, miracles or religious sensations
to those who trust in Him ; He only promises difficulties
and persecutions. It is only under such circumstances
that faith has any meaning at all. To the Christian,
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THE MEANING OF FAITH
the world is thoroughly murderous and dangerous ;
he has no illusion on that score ; but he nevertheless
has faith.
In the case of our Lord we see perfect and untroubled
dependence on God. He is certain He is the Son of
God ; He constantly prays to Him ; and in His most
anxious moments it is this faith that carries Him through.
" Not My will, but Thine be done." When the boat
is near sinking on the lake. He reproaches His disciples
for their lack of faith ; He does not mean that they
should have trusted blindly in a magical deliverance.
He means that, even in the danger of death, there is no
need for panic or distrust of God. This perfect attitude
of trust is the essence of Sonship.
The virtue of faith was preached in the Old Testament,
especially in the prophetic law-book of Deuteronomy,
a favourite book of our Lord. It was taught and
practised in its perfection by Him ; nothing in life was
worth worrying about, food or clothes or illness or
death ; they must trust God. Why hate an enemy ?
Trust in God. Why revenge a wrong ? Trust in God.
God, " your Father in the heavens," is the one reality
to be trusted and loved. Faith is not different from
love ; they are only two ways of looking at the same
perfect Sonship. He alone truly trusted in God ; and
His faith, casting out fear, carried Him triumphant
and untroubled through the whole tragedy of Passion
Week.
Christianity saw in Him the supreme demonstration
of the meaning of the universe. In His love, faith, and
self-sacrifice they saw something that was more admir-
able than all else the world had to show ; more, this
love and faith had been stronger than fear, pain, and
death; and, as a pledge of this victory, had come the
Resurrection. But the actual victory was not the
Resurrection, but the Passion, the suffering ; death,
125
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
fear, force, and pain had done their worst without
being able to weaken the love and faith of the Sufferer.
Love was the one thing before which hate, force, and
death were powerless. The philosophers had seen the
origin of the universe in Fire, Force, or Mind ; Christians
found something greater than all these in the courage
and love of a great man.
Moved by these considerations, and by His Resur-
rection and miraculous powers, they regarded Him as
perfect man ; He represented the highest point of the
evolution of humanity, and the strongest power in the
universe. He Himself had made this claim to be the
Saviour of the world. He is the pre-existent heavenly
figure, the Son of Man, who is at present on earth in
humiliation but is to come and hold the Last Assize as
King and Judge. Even in the present age His relations
with God are unique ; He forgives the sins of others
(though showing no need of forgiveness Himself), heals
diseases, " fulfils " the law of God, speaks with authority,
and comes to men not as a servant or prophet, but as a
Son from God.
No Christian dreamed of imitating this natural faith
of Jesus ; their faith was something on a lower plane
altogether, so that Jesus came in between as a Mediator.
If we contrast His faith with that of St. Paul, we find
the latter conscious of all kinds of fleshly dangers and
spiritual pitfalls ; his very nature is streaked and shot
with sin. It is only in Jesus we find the serene confidence
and purity of heart which is able to see God, or, in so
far as a Christian has it, he is sharing the faith of Jesus.
By himself he cannot please God.
Faith is the energetic confidence which carries on
the world ; it is an attitude of active reliance on the
unseen. No man knows that he will be alive this time
to-morrow, or that his circumstances will be the same ;
he may be a ruined and desolate man, everything which
126
FAITH IN ORDINARY LIFE
makes life worth living may have disappeared. He
has no security of tenure in this world, yet by faith he
acts as if he has. Similarly, the whole race of men may
to-morrow be blotted out by famine or volcanic disaster,
or by some stupendous catastrophe involving the whole
universe ; but, in spite of this possibility, human progress
continues as if the eternity of the planet were assured.
Indeed the prospect of death, even when it is very near
and certain, notoriously exercises little effect on this
faith of man. It is this fact which -^schylus has so
clearly brought out in the myth of Prometheus ; the
power of foresight and forethought would have been
intolerable agony without the gift of " blind hope,'*
as he calls it.
So, also, the farmer sows in faith. He not only has
no guarantee that the circle of the seasons will be the
same, or that Nature will act in the same way ; he has
very vivid knowledge of the possibility of long droughts
or undue rains, or paralysing frosts ; nevertheless, he
sows in faith. Similarly, every human business is
grounded on faith ; the sailor crosses the sea by faith,
the grocer sets up his shop by faith ; and one cannot
even get into an omnibus except by faith. We do not
know that it is really going to Kew, merely because it
says so ; we do not know the conductor will really tell
us where to get off, but we believe it.
Our commercial system is founded on faith, and even
says so ; for credit means faith. If I go into a shop
and buy an article, I have no guarantee that the salesman
will not snatch the coin I place on the counter, and refuse
to give me the article, but I believe he will not. Faith is
of still greater importance in high finance, and without it
all great projects, like the humblest buying and selling
and bartering, would be impossible. In other words,
the only real bond between men is trust ; the horror
of war is really that it breaks down this bond of faith,
127
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
though faith in some form must continue or peace
would be for ever impossible.
The whole business of civilisation, then (quite apart
from any dogmas with regard to the supernatural),
depends on a certain moral attitude which Christian
theology calls faith. Reason alone might occasionally
convince us that the chances were in favour of the success
of a project; but, however overwhelming the probabilities,
it could never provide the spring of action. For, in
the case of dull men who do not reason, we find the
same faith acting instinctively and perhaps uncon-
sciously ; for it is a prime mistake to suppose that a
man is fully conscious of the motives which make him
adopt a given course of action. Underneath all his
reasoning lies the ultimate assumption of faith in
the consistence of the universe and the honour of his
fellow -men.
From this faith springs action ; men of action are men
in whom this confidence is most fully developed. We
have compared it above to a boy's first dive, where
faith alone gives the courage to act, while reason suggests
such modifications as will enable him to act wisely.
Action is to faith as the fruit to the tree. In the world,
this quality is generally called self-confidence; the
description is in error, for the confidence is not so much
in oneself as in the conviction of one's success. This
conviction is quite mystical and irrational, though one
is apt to draw the innocent and apparently justifiable
conclusion that the success is based on one's personal
qualities.
But it is only the very vulgar who repose this faith in
themselves; most men of action are conscious enough
of facts to place it in something vague and supernatural
outside them. The lowest conception is too vague to
be put into language at all ; it is merely the sort of
something in which the adventurer trusts to carry him
128
LUCK AND DESTINY
through. Next perhaps comes the conception of Luck,
a superhuman force, capricious, whimsical, and yet
acting in accordance with certain (arbitrary) rules, if
only they could be found out. The luck of the gambler
depends on the position of his chair, or the wearing of a
mascot ; the sailor will not go to sea on a Friday ; and
the Maori would not carry ambulance stretchers into
battle. It is exactly the way in which a savage regards
his god. But though the intellectual and moral con-
ception is low, it is the same faith in Something
as that by which all business, religious or secular, is
carried on.
Stronger than this, and opposed to it, is the idea of
destiny. This is seldom worked out to its logical
results ; for human intuition and common sense reject
it as obviously false to facts. Yet it is an idea which
many great men have played with ; indeed it may be
true that no man had been truly great without a touch
of it. Napoleon believed in his star ; Julius Caesar was
certain of his destiny. " Quid times ? Caesarem vehis,"
he said to the trembling oarsman in the storm at Dyr-
rhachium. And whatever we may believe about
destiny, it is plain that, without this confidence, the one
would not have bequeathed his name and law to France,
nor the other to Rome.
While these conceptions are at least superhuman, if
they are not supernatural, they are differentiated from
religious faith by the fact that they are intimately
connected with worldly ideals. The self-confidence
of the worldly man is mere worship of success ; luck
is of the earth earthy ; the destiny of Caesar brings
him power. The religious man dispenses with wealth,
pleasure, and power ; he is the artist in faith, he wants
faith for faith's sake. His faith is absolute ; the faith
of worldly men is partial. With them it is a means to
success, and becomes unnecessary as success becomes
9 129
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
complete ; with him faith has no Hmits. His faith in man
is absolute ; his faith in God is absolute. It is warmed
and inspired by love ; it is tinged and coloured by hope.
The worldly man, if his faith is disappointed, prefers
success to faith ; the religious man prefers faith even
to life. " Though He kill me, yet will I trust Him,"
is his attitude to God and man. He is the only perfect
adventurer.
The whole point of religious faith is that it is founded,
not upon an illusion or an abstraction, but on a very
firm rock indeed — the sense of right and wrong. There
is no man who is not constantly being brought to a
division in the ways of life, where duty tells him to
follow one path and self-interest the other. The
perplexity is a fact, and it is common to all, as is also
the voice of conscience which comes with authority,
telling him what he ought to do. It is a reliance on
this alone which constitutes the religious attitude of
faith ; for it is none other than the voice of the supreme
goodness. That it is there, and that it has authority,
is not to be denied.
Religion is not alone in saying that it ought to be
followed, for everyone follows it. But religion gives
it a supremacy before which all other interests, art,
science, and government, are secondary. The fact
that men follow opposed paths at the call of conscience
(e.g. one to war, and the other not) is a reflection of
their education ; the same call operates on the minds
stored with different concepts ; but the call is the same,
for both desire peace. The Christian Church, as Sir
John Seeley has pointed out, is a tutor of conscience ;
right conduct is dependent on the proper education
of the mind as well as on faith.
" Faith is the soul's right hand ; reason her left."
And by prayer, sacrament, and Christian discipline,
the soul is instructed more and more in the way of the
130
ACHIEVEMENTS OF FAITH
Lord. The religious creed logically involved is that of
Judaism.
" I believe in God.
God is good,
God wants me to be good.
I must be good."
And further, there is revealed to us — from moment to
moment, if we have ears to hear — what we ought to
do, just such good works as God has prepared for us
to walk in. Faith consists in following, and is justified
by following. It is justified by being able to look back
on a life of obedience and say, " Now I can see the
meaning and purpose of all this, though it was hid from
me at the time. It is a logical sequence. We bring
our years to an end as a tale that is told."
By faith Abraham, when he was called, crossed the
dead sands of the desert looking for a city with eternal
foundations, but died a stranger on the earth ; by faith
Moses led the children of Israel across the howling
wilderness to inhabit the land they had been promised,
but died without entering it ; by faith Elijah witnessed
to the true God when all Israel was going after the
Canaanite abominations and died almost alone : bv
faith Jeremiah spoke the truth of God when the Baby-
lonian was at the gate and corruption was within, but
was carried away to Egypt, and never saw his words
come true ; by faith Jerusalem was built again, and
defended by the steadfast Maccabaean martyrs ; by faith
Jesus foretold the destruction of Jerusalem and the
coming of a new temple not made with hands, and
gave up His body to the death of the cross, trusting to
God thus to bring it in ; by faith the apostles preached
the Resurrection, and by faith St. Paul carried the
gospel to the farthest bounds of the West, and died
for it in Rome ; by faith St. Justin and all the noble
131
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
armies of martyrs washed their robes in blood, and
entered the heavenly city ; by faith the good news
was handed down, and by faith, and faith alone, we
follow Him to-day, an incredible nmnber throughout
the whole world.
Surely also, we may add, by faith Marconi invented
the wireless telegraph ; by faith Keats gave his poetry
to the critics to mangle ; by faith Robert Owen laboured
to improve his factories ; by faith Tom Paine urged
on the American and French Revolutions ; by faith
General Joffre rolled back the armies on the Marne.
Yet all these were labouring for a visible success on
earth ; the result seemed to them so fair that it justified
the faith. To the religious man the faith is so fair that
it justifies the risk. Love of God and man, faith in
God and man, hope in God and man, are so beautiful
that, for their sake, he will risk the hate and persecu-
tion of the world, and hope in them for the good time
coming.
This moral attitude is the attitude Christianity calls
faith ; but it is pinned to a confession of the Lordship
of Christ. The situation is that all these died in faith,
not having received the promises, but having seen them
and greeted them from afar . . . but God has provided
some better thing concerning us. All nations of men
" seek after God if haply they may feel after Him and
find Him, though He is not far from every one of us."
But we Christians know what we believe. In the clear
words of our Lord, " Many prophets and righteous men
have desired to see the things which ye see and have
not seen them."
In other words, Christianity accepts the Jewish belief
that God is the real ground of all confidence and faith.
" Some put their trust in horses, and some in chariots,"
and some, we might add, in riches, and some in organisa-
tion, " but we will remember the Name of the Lord
132
FAITH AND INTELLECT
our God." It regards the life of Jesus Christ on earth
as the fullest revelation of His personality, Who also
created the world and Who speaks in secret to the soul.
They no longer trusted in wealth or power ; and their
faith in God and man was summed up in faith in Jesus
Christ, Who is both God and man.
Jesus Christ was a full, absolute, and final revelation
of the person and character of God. His life does not
provide complete and convincing evidence of the mean-
ing of the universe, the purpose of pain, the origin of
sin, the survival of personality beyond the grave, or
any similar problem, though the Christian will find
they cease to worry him as they did before. All are to
be solved, not by an intellectual theory, but by trust
in Jesus Christ, trust, not in the poor body that was
nailed to the cross, but in the glorious and heavenly
Spirit Who animated it.
Faith in Jesus is not intellectual ; it is an act of the
whole man, and intellect plays only its proper and
subordinate part. The manner, for instance, in which
a man chooses and trusts his wife is not intellectual,
though the intellect plays its part. He believes in her,
he trusts her ; but he cannot really prove her reliability
to one who does not want to believe it. In every
sphere of life, we find personal relation built on the
same faith, whether it be that of friend and friend,
master and man, or man and wife. The reasons for
this faith are incommunicable ; they rest on personal
relations deeper than intellect, and deeper than words ;
but as time goes on, experience makes the faith and
trust still stronger. And, in exactly the same way.
Christian faith, though it bring hate, persecution, and
worldly disaster, justifies itself, as it goes on, in a way
which one finds hard to describe.
This does not mean that we are to neglect the intel-
lectual side of the Christian faith ; intellect may be an
133
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
important obstacle or help in bringing a man to Christ.
The arguments are mainly on the side of Christianity.
Only the Christian hypothesis can satisfactorily ex-
plain the life of our Lord, the belief of the early Church,
the Christology of St. Paul, the faith of the martj^rs,
and the triumph of Christianity. Only the Christian
hypothesis can explain the fact that it is flourishing
vigorously to-day. The newspapers largely ignore it ;
the histories largely omit it ; the psychologist, the
materialist, the student gather round to explain it ; but
it goes on. Each of the critics produces a theory which
is perfectly satisfactory to himself, if not to the others ;
the expurgation of fact necessary to make the theory
fit the documents is always due to " critical investiga-
tions," not to the presuppositions of the investigator.
Schweitzer's Von Reimarus zu Wrede, is a melancholy
procession of ghosts : " The five are fallen, the one is,
the other is not yet come."
I have dwelt at length on the meaning of faith,
because it is the living centre of the religion which the
apologists were trying to justify to the world. They
do not deal with the faith itself so much as with its
immediate implications. In defending these corollaries
of the faith they were, of course, defending the faith
itself; but the defence of these corollaries is not in
itself likely to convince men of the truth of Chris-
tianity. It can only clear the way. The central work
of the Church on earth is the guardianship of the good
confession of this faith, always expressed in the form
of words used at baptism.
The number of corollaries which follow from this
central belief is very important. In the first place, this
Jesus appeared at a certain time and place ; He has
a position in the orderly progress of history. Further,
He was expected ; the Jews had long been looking
for a day when a great man would arise from their
134
COROLLARIES OF THE FAITH
race and show the world what God meant. They
beheved that God had revealed the nature of this
" Messiah " to their prophets. Jesus accepted this
view, though, on investigation. He is found to have
interpreted their writings in a different way from His
predecessors, or even His followers. It was necessary,
therefore, to preach Jesus as Christ — that is, as the
culminating point of Hebrew history ; nothing could be
more welcome to the modern evolutionary mind, and
further investigation promises to place Jesus in His
true relation to the world-crisis of that age.
Secondly, the science of the day had a reasonable
and philosophical view of the universe. Men were
deeply conscious of an order and law which obviously
upheld it ; and they had no mean knowledge of astro-
nomy and mathematics. Among educated men an
evolutionary hypothesis was held as to the origin of
the world ; to this reasonable order of evolution the
Stoics gave the name Logos. The Christian method
of insisting on Jesus Christ as the revelation of the
creating God was to identify Him with this Logos.
Thirdly, the philosophers had seen no such order in
humanity : everything was astray there, and difficult
to explain. The general theory was that only the
educated were really worth considering men at all ;
women, slaves, and artisans were soulless beings, neces-
sary to keep the educated alive. Christianity could
not despise the condition of subjection which Jesus
had assumed ; all humanity was, to them, a part of
this divine order, but it had been wrecked by sin, the
failure of human free-will. The only remedy was faith
in Christ and reincorporation in that ideal humanity to
which we all belong.
Fourthly, it naturally involved obedience to His
words. Even in His lifetime His words were regarded
as having authority ; He ventured to improve on
135
THE FAITH OF CHRISTIANITY
words then regarded as having divine authority ; and
Christians gave His words an authority equal to that
of God. Chief among these was the new moraUty, the
attitude of unfaiHng love and trust in all men. The
logical ground of this was the undoubted fact that God
gives equal benefits of sun and rain to all ; for men
this is a council of perfection, but perfection is required
of them. They are not to judge or discriminate in
their love.
Fifthly, it involved joining a brotherhood which He
had founded, and observing the two sacraments of
Washing and Eating on which He had laid such great
stress ; thus Christianity became a definite force in
history, not a mere idea. Jesus had appointed Twelve
to be with Him, and to wield all those powers over the
spirits of evil which He Himself had wielded in the
Spirit of God. After the Resurrection the Christian
brotherhood found its centre in them, and the Holy
Spirit was given by them with the imposition of hands ;
connection with an apostle was a guarantee of the
genuineness of a teacher or minister. The Christian
Brotherhood met for worship and sacrament ; but of
equal importance was the business of hospitality and
poor relief. For, in obedience to gospel commands,
they lived as a family, and each man's property was
only his to administer to others. In this community
the risen and invisible Christ reigned as Emperor.
Sixthly, there was speculation, and hence a begin-
ning of theology ; Christian theology seems to have
been mainly a result of the existence of heresy. It is a
common remark of non-Christian historians that ortho-
doxy is a later development than heresy, e.g. that the
first three centuries were Arian. It is true that hereti-
cal teaching nearly always comes first, and that the
Church is bound in self-defence to formulate something
in the nature of a test. By heresy is meant any teach-
136
COROLLARIES OF THE FAITH
ing which strikes at the eternal and cosmic Lordship of
Christ. The confession of the Lordship is enough to
make a Christian ; but, if he is going to publish a phi-
losophy of his faith, he must not hold ideas which the
long experience of the Church has shown to be dan-
gerous.
Seventhly, since personality, and therefore morality,
is the key to the universe, there must inevitably be a
division between the good and the bad. Man is incap-
able of deciding and judging which is good and which
is bad, and furthermore there is, to the last, hope of
repentance. But deeply engraved on the Christian
imagination is the picture of the Last Judgment ; the
exact meaning of the terrible words used by our Lord
is not clear, and I do not think they were meant to be
clear : for Christianity gives us faith, not knowledge,
as to the unseen. Every picture is lit up with the red
flames of a ruined world ; there is a thunder of angel
wings and of saints coming to judgment. Jesus Him-
self is the strict Judge whose love is never weakened
into sentiment ; there is a company of saints in glory ;
there is the long line of failures departing from the
Presence.
" Lacrymosa dies ilia
Qua resurgat e favilla
ludicandus homo reus ;
Huic ergo parce deus
Pie Jesu Domine
Dona eis requie."
137
CHAPTER VIII
CHRISTIANITY AND MODERN THOUGHT
"It is no strange message that I preach, no unreasonable argument
that I pursue ; but, having learned from the apostles, I am now become
a teacher of all nations, and what was once delivered to me I now
minister to those who become worthy disciples of the truth. . . . This
is He who was from the beginning, who appeared afresh and was
found to be ancient, and is ever being born new in the hearts of the
saints." — To Diognetiis, xi.
" When the soul comes to herself as from a debauch or after sleep or
a fit of sickness and recovers her health and reflection, she has recourse
to the name of God and invokes Him by the single name of ' God.' "
— Tertullian : Apology^ xvii.
" That which you reproach in us as stubbornness has been the most
instructing mistress in proselytising the world, for who has not been
struck at the sight of that you call stubbornness, and from thence
pushed on to look into the reality and reason of it ? And who ever
looked well into our religion, but came over to it ? And who ever
came over to it, but was ready to suHer for it ? " — Teetullian :
Apology, i.
" We enter on our defence not in the popular way, by begging your
favour, and moving your compassion, because we know the state of
our religion too well to wonder at our usage. The truth we profess
we know to be a stranger upon earth, and she expects not friends in a
strange land ; but she came from heaven, and her abode is there, and
there are all owe hopes, all our friends, and all our preferments." — Ter-
tullian : Apology, i.
" These things, O Greeks, I, Tatian, a disciple of the barbarian
philosophy, have composed for you. I was born in the land of the
Assyrians, having been first instructed in your doctrines, and afterwards
in those which I now undertake to proclaim. Henceforward, knowing
who God is and what is His work, I present myself to you prepared
for an examination concerning my doctrines, while I adhere immov-
ably to that mode of life which is according to God." — Tatian : To
the Greeks, xlii.
" When Octavius had brought his speech to a close, for some time
138
ATTITUDE TO CURRENT IDEAS
we were struck into silence, and our countenances fixed in attention ;
and, as for me, I was lost in the greatness of my admiration that he had
so adorned those things which it is easier to feel than to say, both by
arguments and by examples, and by authorities derived from reading ;
and that he had repelled the malevolent objectors with the very weapons
of the philosophers with which they are armed, and had moreover
shown the truth, not only as easy, but also as agreeable." — Minucius
Felix : Octavius, xxxix.
VIII. Christianity and Modern Thought
In gathering up the strings of what we have been say-
ing, and making what few suggestions may strike us in
the hght of modern thought, it is necessary to deal
rather with the common conceptions in normally
educated circles than with the theoretica of the profes-
sional scholar. This is not said in any kind of dispar-
agement of the work of scholars ; but we have seen
that the apologists were not really concerned with any-
thing of this kind, but with the broad conceptions
which were the common property of normally educated
circles in the Empire. We do not find that they ever
dealt seriously with the Stoic theology ; what we find
is, that they realised and appreciated some of the main
Stoic conceptions. They were well read in pagan litera-
ture, but they were content to use their learning only
as an auxiliary to their main purpose.
On looking at the world to-day, we are astonished to
find how like secular thought is to that of the second
century, but how much Christianity has developed. It
was then in a fluid, or, at any rate, plastic, condition ;
as an intellectual system it scarcely existed. Since
then there have been many contests with heresies, and
the faith has slowly broadened into the intellectual con-
fession we know to-day. It is next to impossible for a
Christian to disentangle the content of his living faith
from the creed in which it is contained. In his heart
139
MODERN THOUGHT
he holds the faith of the first century ; with his mouth
he speaks the creed-formulas which subsequent ages
have evolved for him to defend it ; with his intellect he
cannot disentangle the two.
These formulas have been evolved in many centuries
by a kind of natural selection. Such words were added
to the creed as best defended it from the assaults of the
heretics ; and each one is an ancient weapon, a battle-
sword tested in the war with paganism. Believing as
we do that the Church was guided by the Holy Spirit,
we can only treat these formulas with the greatest
reverence; but, as we believe that the Holy Spirit is
still with us, we cannot deny ourselves the right or duty
of phrase-making or phrase-altering. But the only
possible reason for discarding a phrase is that it does
not accurately defend a point vital to the Christian
faith ; the object of a creed is to keep off attacks on the
supreme and cosmic Lordship of Christ. And in her age-
long experience the Church has found that many innocent-
looking positions strike at the root of that Lordship.
It is obviously no part of the average Christian's
business to question the creeds which have come down
to him with the sanction of twenty centuries of Chris-
tianity behind them ; while it plainly is the part of the
Christian scholar to appreciate the fundamental truth
which lies behind each phrase, and, in his apologetic, to
defend the truth rather than the phrase. It is also
his duty to evolve such phraseology as will make the
truth readily acceptable to the modern mind. He has
before him the same task as the apologists, with the
advantage of Christian history as an object lesson, and,
if he follows their example, he will be extremely bold
in capturing every true modern thought as a new pro-
vince for the empire of Christ.
It was through lack of this spirit that the Church let
the world break loose at the Reformation ; and a return
140
DEVELOPMENT OF THOUGHT
to Latin and Greek models has produced in the end
an age not so unhke that of the Antonines. The out-
standing difference lies in the accomplishments of
physical science. The eighteenth century had accepted,
as a law, the idea of the cast-iron uniformity of nature ;
but, as the nineteenth century dawned, many observers
and speculators came to the startling conclusion that
the world was moving, that by itself it was slowly
progressing from past to future, from species to species,
from good to good. The work of Lyall, Darwin, and
Wallace proved, as far as proof was possible, that this
was a fact.
The magnitude of the discovery is already obscured
to us of the twentieth century by our utter unfamiliarity
with any other theory than that of Evolution ; but its
novelty at the time is proved by the fierce opposition
it met, not only from old-fashioned ecclesiastics but
from old-fashioned scientists. On the other hand.
Materialism saw in it a new and powerful ally, and
desperate efforts were made to explain all moral and
biological progress as a result of material causes. This
materialism went further than Darwin, and was directly
contrary to Wallace. Samuel Butler was the pioneer of
the distinguished band who have since opposed it. It
is now giving way to the new theory that the universe
is not merely moving, but living. There is life in the
universe, feeling out now this way, now that, to ex-
press itself, and moulding matter to its purpose. More
than this, matter is no longer dead inert " stuff," but
self-manifesting vibration of a strong and subtle ele-
ment.
Nevertheless, one conception has sunk deep into our
consciousness ; we believe in the consistent evolution
of the universe according to immutable law. We
scarcely even allow nature any freaks or sports ; in one
way or another, everything is to be explained by evolu-
141
MODERN THOUGHT
tion. In a little while we shall be able to explain this
or that ; we stand tip-toe upon the edge of countless
discoveries. There is no need for a miracle ; now,
more than ever, we believe that miracles do not happen :
they would break the law of nature.
It is unfortunate for scientists that, just as they
stand with new gates opening before them, they should
suffer from precisely the same misfortune as the Church.
Men cling to such words as " evolution " and " law "
as Christians often cling to the creeds or the gospel,
without any apprehension of the real meaning of the
fact which lies behind each, or of the elucidations of
science as they slowly grow to perfection ; and as
science moves forward the world is left behind. It has
grown bored with trains and motor-cars ; it will soon
grow bored with aeroplanes. It is certain that the
word "evolution" has explained everything, and one
naturally feels no further interest. And the conception
of the automatic universe bites deeper and deeper year
by year into the subconsciousness of the race.
This view of the universe is accepted by a whole
school of Christian critics. The universe is a machine,
and God is somehow locked into it, or locked out,
according to one's philosophy. He cannot alter it ;
He is like us, chained to the wheel. Science cannot
change water into wine ; therefore it follows that He
who made water cannot. He cannot raise a body
from the dead ; He cannot spiritualise that body ; He
cannot raise it in the air, or make it walk on the
water. Now, all these things are impossible to flesh
and blood, but science has no way of finding out
whether they are impossible with God. We cannot
make any a priori statements as to what God cannot
or will not do.
If, then, the Christian interpretation of the gospel
story is under consideration, we must protest against
142
METHOD OF APOLOGISTS
an appeal to the authority of scholars whose whole
work is conditioned by a denial of miracle. Their work
possesses value for those who agree with them, but none
for the Christian, and none for the impartial investiga-
tor ; and this is true whether the scholar in question
is a " rationalist " outside the Church, or a Christian
theologian, anxious to preserve the " true humanity of
our Lord." Great care is also to be taken with those
scholars whose conception of law is partially modified
by Christianity, and whose conception of Christianity
is partially modified by their conception of law ; who,
to effect a rapprochement ^ are ready to bind the Deity
in lighter chains, and are willing to accept miracle
where it can be found to fit in with the peculiar ways
of thinking of the modern mind.
The apologists began from the beginning, and set
their opponents right about the nature of God and the
universe. God is not bound by the material laws
that bind us; He can do what He likes. They began
neither with the gospel nor with Abraham ; they went
right back into eternity and taught a new doctrine of
the nature of God. They insisted on His personality,
His goodness. His impartial love. His coming day of
judgment, on the fact that the universe was made to
please Him.
This is our main duty to-day. Our system of psy-
chology or metaphysic is not of equal importance and
it is not part of our duty or even our right to call in
question the generalisations which science has laid
down with regard to the observed uniformity of nature.
It is our duty to insist in season and out of season on
the sovereignty of the moral Person who rules the
universe, of whose freedom, goodness, and love we are
assured in the Holy Passion of His Son our Lord, and,
following the lead of the apologists, we must claim as
His the whole order and beauty of evolution as far as
143
MODERN THOUGHT
science has been able to unroll it. It is our duty, of
course, very carefully to scrutinise what is put before
us, and separate real knowledge from questionable
deduction. And we must picture the progress of the
universe as the making of a theatre in which the drama
of will has worked itself out, so as to culminate in the
tragedy of the cross. Our apologetic must lead up, as
before, to a newer and more satisfactory Origenistic
scheme in which morality is the clue to faith, and faith
the clue to the unseen.
When we look at the latest development of modern
thought we see much that seems to run parallel to this ;
there is a reaction against the established order of
materialism. Modern thought, art and poetry, science
and music, is renouncing the old ideas of law, and using
terms like "life," "force," "will," "God," or even
"Christ." But though each in its own department is
for life against mechanism, it is still nevertheless true
that the background of their thought remains material-
istic. But the prophets are, as so often happens, the
forerunners of the thinkers.
Undoubtedly the most commanding intellectual figure
in England to-day is that of George Bernard Shaw ; no
other English writer has obtained the same European
importance. He is distinguished as the last of the
great Victorians by his conscientious and honest exa-
mination of all the great problems, an examination he
carries on with the crusading thoroughness of a Ruskin ;
such an honourable facing of the whole universe is all
too rare now. At the same time, Mr. Shaw faces it
from quite a modern (rather than a Victorian) point of
view, but with the idea of getting results that are not
so much modern as true ; and the outstanding feature
of his philosophy is his explanation of the universe as
a manifestation of will. Now we Christians also be-
lieve that the universe is the manifestation of a will,
144
THE WORK OF G. B. SHAW
and that it culminated in the Incarnation of our Super-
man, Jesus Christ.
After all, rationalist evolution had always been a
pedantic theory of the universe, and it came as a
breath of fresh air when Mr. Shaw animated it with
Nietzsche's conception of Will, when the universe was
permitted to have not only force behind it, but life and
personality. It is true that Mr. Shaw's conception of
personality is defective, and that his pathetic picture
of a helpless baby-god growing into consciousness and
power does not satisfy either logic or common sense.
Development or growth without some unchanging
standard, background, or medium is inconceivable.
No motion is possible unless something is fixed ; no pro-
gress is possible unless something is changeless ; time
is not possible without eternity. But the point is that
a great man of the modern world has realised that the
universe can only be explained by will.
Men must advance to the next degree of truth as
soon as it is presented to them, and men must there-
fore follow Mr. Shaw. After that, it is only a question
of time before the Will of the World is identified with
the eternal and the infinite, and men will believe again
in God. Perhaps a hundred years will be spent in
searching blind alleys, before modern thought has
quite found out the insufficiency of Gnostic gods who
are of this world worldly. Mr. Wells's God the Invisible
King is so rashly and hastily sketched in — perhaps
because of its very genuineness — that its insufficiency
is obvious. Other attempts may be more plausible and
more successful, but such success cannot last. Nothing
but the infinite God can satisfy the soul ; we will not be
put off with one who is only the prince of this world.
The soul must have, and will get, the Everlasting God ;
and when it comes to Him, it will come to Him through
Jesus Christ, difficult though the surrender will be.
10 145
MODERN THOUGHT
I have chosen Mr. Shaw, not because he was the first
person to think of the theory, but because he is a
representative man, and in him we find exactly the
position of the modern world : it is honest enough to
avow the attraction of Jesus, but on no account will
it bow its proud neck to the yoke of humility and the
Incarnation. Whether it be the scientist believing in
evolution or the elan vital, or whether it be the new
religionist, with his enthusiasm for life, spirit, nature,
or art, the narrow way of Jesus is too narrow, and sub-
mission is too hateful a loss of freedom. Yet now, if
ever, it is only the Christian belief which will explain
the facts ; there is no other way of accounting for the
sequence, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Paul, Justin. It simply
has not been done ; Christianity has been left out.
It is not a very daring forecast to make, that the
new spirit will eventually break up the old mechanical
theory ; the intellect by itself is bankrupt, and we are
beginning to realise that it cannot solve all the mysteries
of life. Not only will art and conduct be given a more
important place, but there will be a revival of belief
in the supernatural. As the containing hold of law
and reason is withdrawn from the mind, we are likely
to see it burst out in a thousand fantastic shapes, the
nature of which our studies in second- century religion
will help us to understand. Theosophy and Spiritualism
will give us glimpses of this coming age of superstition.
But, like the strange growths of that century, they must
inevitably die away ; for they have no moral or intel-
lectual stabilising power. Christianity is the one rock
to stand firm.
Our task will be the eternal task of defending the
cosmic Lordship of Christ ; for this belief alone remains
while empires and philosophies rise and pass. Marcus
Aurelius believed in a regulated world of law and order ;
but his cold and reasoned philosophy was powerless
146
CONDITION OF THE CHURCH
in face of the real needs and nature of man. No dynasty
succeeded his, till the dynasty of Constantine arose.
Fifty years after his death the Syrian Emperors were
rendering fashionable what was at the best a super-
stitious and sentimental religiosity ; but this, having
no root, withered away. By the end of the third cen-
tury Christianity was obviously the victor, because it
witnessed even unto death to its Master.
It is for this reason I have not dealt with the contro-
versies as to miracle, the Resurrection, or the Virgin
Birth, as they do not seem, in the face of the great
moral issues, to be of vital importance. They have long
lost their freshness, and the modern mind is singularly
little accustomed to be worried by them ; if Jesus is
God, we are not going to object to miracles.
We come now to the condition of the Church; and
here, we must feel, is a tremendous change from the
age of the apologists. We see that the beautiful ethic
of equality and love is scarcely even reflected in the
Church of to-day ; the deep and catastrophic divisions
of modern society have driven great chasms through
it, dividing it into sects, castes, classes, and nations.
Were it not for the beginning of repentance and the
dawn of hope, there would be ground, humanly speak-
ing, to despair of the Church. But, while there are still
some who believe we have nothing to repent of, the
many are sure there is something wrong somewhere,
and some find it a stumbling-block.
The last century has seen a revival in religion at least
as amazing as the great progress in science ; for in the
year 1800 a man might have predicted the scientific,
but scarcely the religious movements of the century.
Christianity was morally, socially, and intellectually
discredited ; the Church of England was folding her
robes to die with what decency she could, and it was
already being suggested in Parliament that these foolish
147
MODERN THOUGHT
ordinations should cease. Under the blows of her
antagonists Christianity visibly tottered. Nevertheless,
there was a real renascence of Christianity, the old
faith began to burn again with a strange certitude, and
the two English Universities became homes of spiritual
activity. It was also an age of missionary activity,
rivalling the age of St. Peter and St. Paul ; and all
along the line it w^as the traditional religion that was
gaining ground.
One hundred years ago the Church of England
counted almost the whole nation among her adherents,
and she was their pastor, by virtue of her " establish-
ment." To-day establishment remains as a legal link
between Church and State, but the congregations of
nominal and conventional Christians have largely
melted away. The great body of the people stands
outside the Church, and is probably not less religious
for it. The gain to the Church is immense, and as
the sifting continues she will grow in spiritual vigour.
Accepting only the Lordship of Christ, she will exist
for the purpose of guarding that faith. And every-
where are to be found small bodies of men and women,
united in their loyalty to Him and ready to follow.
We cannot see where He will lead us, but we are certain
of our faith, and can follow.
The practice of the gospel ethic will naturally flow
from this allegiance. After all the valuable work of
the critics we may hope for a good and popular account
of the life and teaching of Jesus. Such a work, by
strengthening the Church, and satisfying the inquirer,
would perhaps be the most valuable contribution to a
present-day apologetic. The apparent contrast be-
tween the life of Jesus and that of His followers is, and
always will be, the great obstacle to the faith. With
deeper faith and a purer Church we may expect a re-
vival of greater intensity even than that of the last
148
THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
century ; and of this we have a foretaste in many a
congregation.
History knows no other method of being a Christian
than that of joining the fellowship ; individual Chris-
tianity is an impossibility. And, if the past is any guide
to the future, we must expect that an invigorated
Church will come into collision with the State. In as
far as the latter represents the community as organised
to defend its own interests, it is bound on some occasions
to be opposed to Christianity ; and in as far as it re-
flects current moral, social, or religious ideas, it is likely
to be at variance with the highest revelation. The
gospel prohibition of divorce, and the compulsory state-
education of children are among the burning questions.
War and pacifism will continue to provoke contro-
versy ; and questions like Socialism and Syndicalism
will be of importance owing to their close connection
and resemblance with Christian social morality.
Among all these it will be difficult to steer a safe
course, and the best guide will still be the Catholic
principle that, while a Christian must be a good subject
and obey the law, he must also remember his allegiance
to a celestial and infallible Emperor, and to the prin-
ciples which he must never desert. Christianity has
no message of salvation for a state other than that
men should love one another ; but she cannot be in-
different to social reform. What was impossible in
the Roman Empire is in the air now, and no one sup-
poses that it is the duty of the Church to pass by on
the other side. The Church itself, however, can best
serve the nation by preaching and practising the idea
of a kingdom in heaven, leaving to individuals the
right to practise the prophetic gift of suggesting or
determining policy.
The Church has been far too hesitative in her apolo-
getic. She has been dominated by the idea of making
149
MODERN THOUGHT
her message acceptable to modern thought, a method
which never succeeds in practice. Christianity is
something quite different from any kind of thought,
ancient or modern ; the leap of faith is as difficult for
one age as it is for the next, but the leap is the only
thing. Clean self-abandonment to Christ is the one
thing needful ; and nothing can be done to make
this less a casting away of one's soul, a rebirth
into life.
Very sympathetically and carefully must the Church
deal with her estranged children, whether they be duti-
ful, careless, or rebellious ; she must appreciate all they
have done by themselves and sanctify it by the know-
ledge of her faith. All the broken and opposite faiths
of to-day have a rightness in them as far as they go ;
each is struggling towards the light of the Logos, the
Way of Truth and Life. They are wandering children,
losing themselves in the dark, and fighting among
themselves sometimes ; and they must be shown that
they will find all they want if they do but trust to Christ
— and jump ! It is only in His faith that we shall find
the peace that quite passes understanding, eternal
peace and light perpetual.
Nothing can explain the peace of the Christian faith
but to have experienced it. Christ stands in the midst
of the world with a hand stretched out to all ; in Him
is the supreme Truth, the supreme Wisdom, the supreme
Goodness, the supreme Adventure — He is Life, Power,
Grace, Evolution, the Superman — Son of God and Son
of Man. It is to us Christians that all the gates of the
earth stand open ; it is we who welcome all new know-
ledge and beauty and conduct ; our heart is fuller of
words than ever we can speak. It is to us alone that
each new phase of thought or life means something;
for each is a street in the city of God. It is we who
unite into one heavenly order all the experiences and
150
THE FUTURE OF THE CHURCH
aesthetics of the world. To us alone they are not frag-
mentary, abrupt, discordant, enigmatic. Surely the
champions of modern thought ought to make peace in
their own camp before they come to offer terms to
Christianity. Perhaps, after all, we shall have to do it
for them.
THE END
151
INDEX
Absolute, the, 59, 67, 76
Accusations, 15
Atheism, 17, 26, 29, 30
disloyalty, 15, 17
immorality, 15, 29, 31, 39, 112
misanthropy, 37
Acts, 14, 45
Allegorical interpretation, 47
Angelos, 50, 58, 59
Apologies, 23
Apologists {see also under per-
sonal names) ^ 18, 20, 41, 70,
134
Aristides, 17, 23
Argument from —
attitude to death, 28, 37, 41,
42, 97, 121
history, 32-33, 34, 49-59
morality, 25, 31
philosophy, 70
prophecy, 27, 29, 48, 60
science, 29, 31, 135
Scripture, 32
Athenagoras, 29
Atonement, 42, 54
Attack on —
heathen gods, 24-25, 30, 32, 33,
36, 39, 40, 94
morality, 26, 34, 39
religion, 84, 92-94, 96
Barnabas, Epistle of, 47
Bergson, 58
Brotherhood of Christians, 40, 136
C
Celsus, 75, 79, 92
Christ, the, 11, 12-14, 135
Christianity, 18, 95, 101, 113, 139
and Judaism, 14, 48
Cliristianity and Rome, 15, 18,
HI, 119
revolutionary element, 15
Christians as citizens, 26, 41, 110,
117
Christians preserve the world, 25,
28, 40, 42
Church and State, 108, 110, 119,
148-149
Communism in Early Church, 15,
114-115
Creeds, 24, 139-140
Cybele, 89
D
Demons, 30, 34
Devils in pagan religion, 27, 28,
40, 91, 93
cast out by Christians, 40, 99-
100
Dialogue with Trypho, 46-49
DiOGNETus, Epistle to, 41-43, 79
Dualism, 66, 67
E
Ebionites, 55
Elijah, 53, 56
Emperors and Christianity, 17, 19,
38
Emperor- worship, 16, 40, 86, 87,
93, 98, 105-108
Eschatology —
Christian, 15, 24, 25-26, 40, 80,
113, 126, 137
Jewish, 11, 54, 134
Eucharist, 15, 27, 30, 100, 112
Evolution, 52, 54, 56, 57-58, 62,
72, 141
F
Faith, 47, 73, 77, 124-125, 126-
129
Faith, the, 123, 124, 133, 136
Fourth Gospel, 13
153
INDEX
G
Gallic, 12
Gnosticism, 56, 69
God, doctrine of —
Creator, 25, 29, 33, 36, 51, 76, 80
in history, 49, 59
nature of, 23, 31, 37, 39, 57, 72,
76, 142, 143
personality, 52-53, 59, 75, 77-
82
Trinity, 26, 27, 29, 50, 77-82
Greek science, 72
H
Hadrian, 22
Heracleitus, 66
Holy Spirit, 30, 49, 80, 140
in the Church, 31, 49, 99
Incarnation, 24, 25, 39, 42, 52, 60,
74 76 79 103
Inspiration, 29, 50, 53, 59, 70, 73
Jerusalem, 16
Jesus Christ, 13, 46, 51, 60-62, 102,
110, 126, 150
His faith, 125, 126
His passion, 101, 120, 125-126
Jews —
and Christianity, 12, 14, 24, 42,
46, 62
and language, 64
and Rome, 10-13, 109
religion, 10, 58-59
John the Baptist, 13
John, St., Gospel of, 69, 70
Justin Mabtye, 26, 45, 70, 73-
75, 100
Law, 32, 47, 48, 54, 55
Logos, see also Word —
Christian, 19, 27, 29, 33, 51, 60,
69, 70, 73-74
Greek, 18, 66, 68, 72, 77, 135
Jewish, 68-69
Love, 40, 42, 77, 78, 116
M
Marcion, 47, 56
Marcus Aurelius, 19, 29, 70, 97
154
Matter, 31, 32, 33, 102, 141
Messiah, see Christ
Military service, 117-119
MiNucius Felix, 35-37
Mithraism, 86-87, 92
Moral law, 33
Mystery cults, 88-89, 92-93, 101,
102
O
Old Testament —
Early Christian use, 31, 47, 48-
49, 55-56
modern use, 50-59
Origin of evil, 29, 31, 80, 103
of world, 32
Paul, St., 47, 110
Persecution, 14, 15, 26, 38
Philo, 69
Philosophers, 18, 37, 41, 96, 135
Philosophy, 71, 85, 102
and Christianity, 18, 20, 33, 70,
77
Greek, 18, 65, 72
in Empire, 67-68
Proof-texts, 47
Prophecy, O.T., 53-59, 61
Prophets, 29, 39, 45, 49, 59
Q
QUADBATUS, 23
R
Rapture, pagan, 89, 91
Religious psychology, 59-60, 64
Resurrection, 26, 29, 31, 33, 37, 41
Roman Empire, 13, 36
aristocracy, 97-99
S
Sacraments, 112, 136
Scripture {see also Old Testament),
32, 40, 45, 48-50, 74
Septuagint, 45-46
Shaw, G. B., 144-145
Sin, 80
Social morality, 15, 40, 113-116
Son of Man, 11, 54, 126
Spirit of Man, 33-34, 68
State and Christians, 38
INDEX
stoics, 18, 19, 67-C8, 71, 75-76
Suetonius, 13
Suffering, 80, 119-120
Suffering Servant, 46, 54, 61
Tatian, 33-34, 103
Tertullian, 12, 37-41, 99, 103,
109, 118, 119
Theophilus, 31, 70
Tiberius, 12
Trajan, 22
W
Word, the {see also Logos), 28,
39, 43, 49, 50-51, 55, 59, 70,
73, 78
Printed by Hazell, Watson d: Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
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Carrington, Philip, b. 1892.
Christian apologetics of the
second century in their
