§ 40. The Positive Apology.
§ 40. The Positive Apology.
The Christian apology completed itself in the positive demonstration of the divinity of the new religion; which was at the same time the best refutation of both the old ones. As early as this period the strongest historical and philosophical arguments for Christianity were brought forward, or at least indicated, though in connection with many untenable adjunct.
1. The great argument, not only with Jews, but with heathens also, was the prophecies; since the knowledge of future events can come only from God. The first appeal of the apologists was, of course, to the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, in which they found, by a very liberal interpretation, every event of the gospel history and every lineament of our Saviour’s character and work. In addition to the Scriptures, even such fathers as Clement of Alexandria, and, with more caution, Origen, Eusebius, St. Jerome, and St. Augustin, employed also, without hesitation, apocryphal prophecies, especially the Sibylline oracles, a medley of ancient heathen, Jewish, and in part Christian fictions, about a golden age, the coining of Christ, the fortunes of Rome, and the end of the world.108 And indeed, this was not all error and pious fraud. Through all heathenism there runs, in truth, a dim, unconscious presenti-ment and longing hope of Christianity. Think of the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, with its predictions of the "virgo" and "nova progenies" from heaven, and the "puer," with whom, after the blotting out of sin and the killing of the serpent, a golden age of peace was to begin. For this reason Virgil was the favorite poet of the Latin church during the middle ages, and figures prominently in Dante’s Divina Comedia as his guide through the dreary regions of the Inferno and Purgatorio to the very gates of Paradise. Another pseudo-prophetic book used by the fathers (Tertullian, Origen, and apparently Jerome) is "The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, "written by a Jewish Christian between a.d. 100 and 120. It puts into the mouth of the twelve sons of Jacob farewell addresses and predictions of the coming of Christ, his death and resurrection, of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the rejection of the gospel by the Jews, and the preaching of Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the world.109
2. The types. These, too, were found not only in the Old Testament, but in the whole range of nature. Justin saw everywhere, in the tree of life in Eden, in Jacob’s ladder, in the rods of Moses and Aaron, nay, in every sailing ship, in the wave-cutting oar, in the plough, in the human countenance, in the human form with outstretched arms, in banners and trophies—the sacred form of the cross, and thus a prefiguration of the mystery of redemption through the crucifixion of the Lord.110
3. The miracles of Jesus and the apostles, with those which continued to be wrought in the name of Jesus, according to the express testimony of the fathers, by their contemporaries. But as the heathens also appealed to miraculous deeds and appearances in favor of their religion, Justin, Arnobius, and particularly Origen, fixed certain criteria, such as the moral purity of the worker, and his intention to glorify God and benefit man, for distinguishing the true miracles from Satanic juggleries. "There might have been some ground," says Origen, "for the comparison which Celsus makes between Jesus and certain wandering magicians, if there had appeared in the latter the slightest tendency to beget in persons a true fear of God, and so to regulate their actions in prospect of the day of judgment. But they attempt nothing of the sort. Yea, they themselves are guilty of the most grievous crimes; whereas the Saviour would have his hearers to be convinced by the native beauty of religion and the holy lives of its teachers, rather than by even the miracles they wrought."
The subject of post-apostolic miracles is surrounded by much greater difficulties in the absence of inspired testimony, and in most cases even of ordinary immediate witnesses. There is an antecedent probability that the power of working miracles was not suddenly and abruptly, but gradually withdrawn, as the necessity of such outward and extraordinary attestation of the divine origin of Christianity diminished and gave way to the natural operation of truth and moral suasion. Hence St. Augustin, in the fourth century, says: "Since the establishment of the church God does not wish to perpetuate miracles even to our day, lest the mind should put its trust in visible signs, or grow cold at the sight of common marvels."111 But it is impossible to fix the precise termination, either at the death of the apostles, or their immediate disciples, or the conversion of the Roman empire, or the extinction of the Arian heresy, or any subsequent era, and to sift carefully in each particular case the truth from legendary fiction.
It is remarkable that the genuine writings of the ante-Nicene church are more free from miraculous and superstitious elements than the annals of the Nicene age and the middle ages. The history of monasticism teems with miracles even greater than those of the New Testament. Most of the statements of the apologists are couched in general terms, and refer to extraordinary cures from demoniacal possession (which probably includes, in the language of that age, cases of madness, deep melancholy, and epilepsy) and other diseases, by the invocation of the name of Jesus.112 Justin Martyr speaks of such cures as a frequent occurrence in Rome and all over the world, and Origen appeals to his own personal observation, but speaks in another place of the growing scarcity of miracles, so as to suggest the gradual cessation theory as held by Dr. Neander, Bishop Kaye, and others. Tertullian attributes many if not most of the conversions of his day to supernatural dreams and visions, as does also Origen, although with more caution. But in such psychological phenomena it is exceedingly difficult to draw the line of demarcation between natural and supernatural causes, and between providential interpositions and miracles proper. The strongest passage on this subject is found in Irenaeus, who, in contending against the heretics, mentions, besides prophecies and miraculous cures of demoniacs, even the raising of the dead among contemporary events taking place in the Catholic church;113 but he specifies no particular case or name; and it should be remembered also, that his youth still bordered almost on the Johannean age.
4. The moral effect of Christianity upon the heart and life of its professors. The Christian religion has not only taught the purest and sublimest code of morals ever known among men, but actually exhibited it in the life sufferings, and death of its founder and true followers. All the apologists, from the author of the Epistle to Diognetus down to Origen, Cyprian, and Augustin, bring out in strong colors the infinite superiority of Christian ethics over the heathen, and their testimony is fully corroborated by the practical fruits of the church, as we shall have occasion more fully to show in another chapter. "They think us senseless," says Justin, "because we worship this Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, as God next to the Father. But they would not say so, if they knew the mystery of the cross. By its fruits they may know it. We, who once lived in debauchery, now study chastity; we, who dealt in sorceries, have consecrated ourselves to the good, the increate God; we, who loved money and possessions above all things else, now devote our property freely to the general good, and give to every needy one; we, who fought and killed each other, now pray for our enemies; those who persecute us in hatred, we kindly try to appease, in the hope that they may share the same blessings which we enjoy."114
5. The rapid spread of Christianity by purely moral means, and in spite of the greatest external obstacles, yea, the bitter persecution of Jews and Gentiles. The anonymous apologetic Epistle to Diognetus which belongs to the literature of the Apostolic Fathers, already thus urges this point: "Do you not see the Christians exposed to wild beasts, that they may be persuaded to deny the Lord, and yet not overcome? Do you not see that the more of them are punished, the greater becomes the number of the rest? This does not seem to be the work of man: this is the power of God; these are the evidences of his manifestation."115 Justin Martyr and Tertullian frequently go on in a similar strain. Origen makes good use of this argument against Celsus, and thinks that so great a success as Christianity met among Greeks and barbarians, learned and unlearned persons in so short a time, without any force or other worldly means, and in view of the united opposition of emperors, senate, governors, generals, priests, and people, can only be rationally accounted for on the ground of an extraordinary providence of God and the divine nature of Christ.
6. The reasonableness of Christianity, and its agreement with all the true and the beautiful in the Greek philosophy and poesy. All who had lived rationally before Christ were really, though unconsciously, already Christians. Thus all that is Christian is rational, and all that is truly rational is Christian. Yet, on the other hand, of course, Christianity is supra-rational (not irrational).
7. The adaptation of Christianity to the deepest needs of human nature, which it alone can meet. Here belongs Tertullian’s appeal to the "testimonia animae naturaliter Christianae;" his profound thought, that the human soul is, in its inmost essence and instinct, predestined for Christianity, and can find rest and peace in that alone. "The soul," says he, "though confined in the prison of the body, though perverted by bad training, though weakened by lusts and passions, though given to the service of false gods, still no sooner awakes from its intoxication and its dreams, and recovers its health, than it calls upon God by the one name due to him: ’Great God! good God!’—and then looks, not to the capitol, but to heaven; for it knows the abode of the living God, from whom it proceeds."116
This deep longing of the human soul for the living God in Christ, Augustin, in whom Tertullian’s spirit returned purified and enriched, afterwards expressed in the grand sentence: "Thou, O God, hast made us for thee, and our heart is restless, till it rests in thee."117
Joseph. Antiqu. l. XVIII.c. 3, sect. 3. Comp. on this much disputed passage, vol. I., p. 92.
It is the special merit of Keim to have thoroughly utilized Josephus for the biography of Jesus.
These coincidences have been traced out in full by Lardner, Works, ed. Kippis, vol. VI. p. 406 ff.
JIavsono" kai; Papivskou a[ntilogiva peri; Cristou'. D. Origenes Contra Cels. IV. 51. Celsus says, that he read the book which defends the allegorical interpretation, with pity and hatred. Comp. Harnack, Altchristl. Literatur, vol. 1. (1882). p. 115 sqq.
Oijdipovdeioi mivxei", incesti concubitus; and questei'a dei'pna, Thyesteae epulae
Origen (I. 8) indefinitely assigns him to the reign of Hadrian and the Antonines; most historians (Mosheim, Gieseler, Baur, Friedländer) to a.d. 150 or later; others (Tillemont, Neander, Zeller) to about 160 or 170; Keim (1. c. p. 267) to a.d. 178. As the place of composition Keim (p. 274) suggests Rome, others Alexandria. He ably defends his identity with the friend of Lucian (p. 291), but makes him out a Platonist rather than an Epicurean (p. 203 sqq.).
See the restoration of Celsus from these fragments by Dr. Keim, quoted above.
Pavnqhr, panthera, here, and in the Talmud, where Jesus is likewise called y<vY ben �'nÒdiyr;a
is used, like the Latin lupa, as a type of ravenous lust hence as a symbolical name for moiceivr. So Nitzsch and Baur. But Keim (p. 12) takes it as a designation of the wild rapacious (pa'n qhrw'n) Roman soldier. The mother of Jesus was, according to the Jewish informant of Celsus, a poor seamstress, and engaged to a carpenter, who plunged her into disgrace and misery when he found out her infidelity.
Keim (Geschichte Jesu von Nazara, I. 22) says of Celsus: "Von der Jungfraugeburt bis zum Jammer des Todes bei Essig und Galle, bis zu den Wundern des Todes und der Auferstehung hat er unsere Evangelien verfolgt, und anderen Quellen,welche zum Theil heute noch fliessen, hat er den Glauben an die Hasslichkeit Jesu und an die Sündhaftigkeit seiner Jünger abgewonnen." Comp. Keim’s monograph on Celsus, pp. 219-231. On the bearing of his testimony on the genuineness of the Gospel of John, see vol. 1. p. 708.
Judges xiv. 14. Comp. Lardner’s Works, vol. VII. pp. 210-270. Dr. Doddridge and Dr. Leland made good use of Celsus against the Deists of the last century. He may with still greater effect be turned against the more radical theories of Strauss and Renan. For Keim’s estimate, see his Celsus, 253-261.
Harnack, l.c. denies a reference to Polycarp.
Berneys (l.c. p. 43) characterizes Lucian very unfavorably: "ein anscheinend nicht sehr glücklicher Advocat, ist er ohne ernste Studien ins Literatenthum übergegangen; unwissend und leichtfertig trägt er lediglich eine nihilistische Oede in Bezuq auf alle religiösen und metaphysischen Fraqen zur Schau und reisst alle als verkehrt und lächerlich herunter." Berneys thinks that the Peregrinus Proteus is not directed against the Christians, but against the Cynic philosophers and more particularly against the then still living Theagenes.
The oldest apostle of this strange medley of Hellenic, Persian, Chaldean and Egyptian mysteries in Rome was Nigidius Figulus, who belonged to the strictest section of the aristocracy, and filled the praetorship in 696 a.u.c. (58 b.c.) He foretold the father of the subsequent emperor Augustus on the very day of his birth his future greatness. The system was consecrated by the name of Pythagoras, the primeval sage of Italian birth, the miracleworker and necromancer. The new and old wisdom made a profound impression on men of the highest rank and greatest learning, who took part in the citation of spirits, as in the nineteenth century, spirit-rapping and tablemoving exercised for a while a similar charm. "These last attempts to save the Roman theology, like the similar efforts of Cato in the field of politics, produce at once a comical and a melancholy impression. We may smile at the creed and its propagators, but still it is a grave matter when all men begin to addict themselves to absurdity." Th. Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. IV. p. 563 (Dickson’s translation. Lond. 1867.)
Philostratus himself gives no intimation of such design on his part, and simply states that he was requested by the empress Julia Domna (a.d. 217), to draw up a biography of Apollonius from certain memoranda of Damis, one of his friends and followers. The name of Christ is never mentioned by him; nor does he allude to the Gospels, except in one instance, where he uses the same phrase as the daemon in St. Luke (viii. 28): "I beseech thee, torment me not (mhv me basanivsh/" .). Vita Apoll. IV. 25. Bishop Samuel Parker, in a work on the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion (1681), Lardner, Neander (K G. I. 298), and J. S. Watson (in a review of Re’ville’s Apoll. of T., in the "Contemporary Review" for 1867, p. 199 ff.), deny the commonly received opinion, first maintained by Bishop Daniel Hust, and defended by Baur, Newman, and Re’ville, that Philostratus intended to draw a parallel between his hero and Christ. The resemblance is studied and fictitious, and it is certain that at a later date Hierocles vainly endeavored to lower the dignity of Christ by raising this Pythagorean adventurer as portrayed by Philostratus, to a level with the eternal Son of God.
Comp. the account of the resemblance by Baur, l.c. pp. 138 sqq.
Peri; th'" ejk logivwn filosofiva". Fabricius, Mosheim, Neander, and others, treat the work as genuine, but Lardner denies it to Porphyry.
De Civit. Dei, l. XIX. c. 22, 23; Comp. also Eusebius,Demonstr. Evang. III. 6.
To this may be added the extracts from an unnamed heathen philosopher (probably Hierocles or Porphyrius) in the apologetic work of Macarius Magnes (about 400), which was discovered at Athens in 1867, and published by Blondel;, Paris 1876. See L. Duchesne, De Marcario Magnete et scriptis ejus, Par. 1877, and Zöckler in Herzog, ed. II. vol. IX. 160.
Apol.c. 16:"Somniastis caput asininun esse deum nostrum. Hanc Cornelius Tacitus suspicionem ejusmodi dei inseruit,"etc.
See on the works of these Apologists, lost and partly recovered, Harnack, l.c. pp. 100 sqq.; 240 sqq.; and Renan, L’egl. chrét. p. 40 sqq. We shall refer to them in the chapter on Christian literature.
Orosius, however, relates in big Hist. vii. 14, that Justin M., by his Apology, made the emperor Antoninus Pius "benignum erqa Christianos."
Diavlogo" pro;" Truvfwna jIoudai'on. .
Adverus Judaeos. Also Cyprian’s Testimoni adv. Judaeos.
jIavsono" kai; Papivskou ajntilogiva peri; C ristou'. Comp. the discussion of Harnack, l.c. pp. 115-130. He assigns the book to a.d. 135 or soon after. It disappeared in the seventh century.
Is. 51:4 sqq.; 55r> sqq.; Jer. 31:31 sqq.
Gen. 1:26; Comp. 3:21
Gen. 18:1 sqq.
Gen. 21:12.
Gen. 19:24.
Ps. 110:1 sqq.; 45:7 sqq.; 72:2-19, and others
Ps. 19:4; Comp. Rom. 10:18..
Adv.Jud. c. 13
Apolog. c. 43. Comp. his special tract De resurrectione Carnis, c. 12, where he defends the doctrine more fully against the Gnostics and their radical misconception of the nature and import of the body.
Pavnte" oiJ qeoi; tw'n eqnw'n daimovnia. Comp. 1 Cor. 10:20.
Also the Stoics and some of the poets as far as their moral teaching went, Comp. Just. Apol. II.c. 8, and 13.
See the introduction of E. Spiess to his Logos spermatikos, Leipz. 1871.
De Vera Religione IV. 7: "Proxime Platonici a veritate Christiana absunt vel veri Christiani sunt paucis mutatis verbis atque sententiis." Retract. I. 13: "Res ipsa quae nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani., quousque Christus veniret in carnem, unde vera religio, quae jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana." Comp. Lactantius, De Falsa Religione, I. 5; De Vita Beata, VII. 7; Minucius Fel., Octav. 20
108 Comp. Dr. Friedlieb:Die Sibyllinischen Weissagungen vollständig gesammelt, mitkritischem Commentare und metrischer Übersetzung. Leipz. 1852. Another edition with a Latin version by C. Alexandre, Paris 1841, second ed. 1869, 2 tom. We have at present twelve books of crhsmoiv sibulliakoivin Greek hexameter, and some fragments. They have been critically discussed by Blondel (1649), Bleek (1819), Volkmann (1853), Ewald (1858), Tübigen (1875), Reuss, and Schürer (see Lit. in his N. T. Zeitgesch. p. 513). The Sibyl figures in the Dies Irae alongside with King David (teste David cum Sibylla), as prophesying the day of judgment.
109 Best edition by Robert Sinker from the Cambridge MS., Cambridge, 1869, and an Appendix, 1879; an English translation by Sinker, in the "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. XXII. ( Edinb. 1871). Discussions by Nitzsch (1810), Ritschl (1850 and 1857), Vorstmann (1857), Kayser (1851), Lücke (1852), Dillmann (in Herzog, first ed. XII. 315), Lightfoot (1875), and Warfield (in "Presbyt. Review," York, January, 1880, on the apologetical value of the work for its allusions to various books of the N. T.).
110 Apol. l.c, 55; Dial. c. Tryph. c. 91.
111 On the other hand, however, St. Augustin lent the authority of his name to some of the most incredible miracles of his age, wrought by the bones of St. Stephen, and even of Gervasius and Protasius. Comp. the treatise of Fr. Nitzsch (jun.) on Augustin’s Doctrine of Miracles, Berlin 1865; and on the general subject J. H. Newman’s Two Essays on Biblical and Ecclesiastical Miracles, third ed. London 1873; and J. B. Mozley’s Bampton Lectures On Miracles. Oxford and Lond. (1865), fifth ed. 1880, Lect. VIII. which treats of false miracles.
112 They are analogous to the "faith-cures, " real or pretended, of our own age.
113 Adv. Haer. II. 31, (S) 4: ]Hdh de; kai; nekroi; hjgevrqjsan kai; parevmeinon su;n hJmi'n iJkanoi'" e{tesi. These two passages can hardly be explained, with Heumann and Neander, as referring merely to cases of apparent death.
114 Apol. l.c. 13 and 14.
115 Ad Diogn. c. 7.
116 Tert. Apolog. c. 17. Comp. the beautiful passage in De Testim Animae, c. 2: "Si enim anima aut divina aut a Deo data est, sine dubio datorem num novit, et si novit, utique et timet .... O testimonium veritatis, quae apud ipsa daemonia testem efficit Christianorum."
117 Aug. Confess. I. 1: "Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in Te."