IV. The Apologists and the Beginnings of the Church's Theology
How do you account for its asceticism, and for its emphasis on special charisms? How should we judge of its claim to a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit and to prophetic gifts? Was its strict discipline justified?
Literature: Consult the books on Gnosticism mentioned in the previous chapter for Marcionism; Faulkner, Crises in the Early
Church, pp. 52–75; McGiffert, A History of Christian Thought I, pp.
149–174; Harnack, History of Dogma I, pp. 266–286; II, pp. 94–104; Seeberg, History of Doctrine I, pp. 102–108; Fisher, History of Doctrine, pp. 59, 60, 81–83.
IV. The Apologists and the Beginnings of the Church's Theology 1. THE TASK OF THE APOLOGISTS. Pressure from without and from within called for a clear statement and for defense of the truth, and thus gave birth to theology. The earliest Fathers who took up the defense of the truth are for that very reason called Apologists. The most important of these were Justin, Tatian, Athenagoras, and Theophilus of Antioch. They addressed their apologies partly to the rulers and partly to the intelligent public. Their immediate object was to mollify the temper of the authorities and of the people in general towards Christianity; and they sought to do this by setting forth its, true character and by refuting the charges proffered against the Christians. They were particularly solicitous to make the Christian religion acceptable to the educated classes by stressing its rationality. With that in view they represented it as the highest and surest philosophy, gave special emphasis to the great truths of natural religion: God, virtue, and immortality, and spoke of it as the fulfilment of all the truth found in both Judaism and Hellenism.
Their task assumed a threefold character, defensive, offensive, and constructive. They defended Christianity by showing that there was
no evidence for the charges brought against its adherents, that the offensive conduct ascribed to them was altogether inconsistent with the spirit and precepts of the Gospel, and that the character and lives of those who professed the Christian faith were marked by moral purity.
Not satisfied with a mere defense, they also attacked their opponents. They charged the Jews with a legalism that lost sight of the shadowy and typical character of much that was found in the law and represented its temporal elements as permanent, and with a blindness that prevented them from seeing that Jesus was the Messiah, promised by the prophets, and as such the fulfilment of the law. Moreover, in their assault on paganism, they exposed the unworthy, absurd, and immoral character of the heathen religion, and particularly of the doctrine of the gods, as compared with the doctrines of the unity of God, His universal providence, His moral government, and the future life. Tatian saw little or no good in Greek philosophy, while Justin recognized a true element in it, which he ascribed to the Logos. A common feature in their writings is a blending of general and special revelation.
Finally, they also felt it incumbent on them to establish the character of Christianity as a positive revelation of God. In demonstrating the reality of this revelation, they relied mainly on the argument from prophecy, but also, though in a lesser degree, on that from miracles.
They appealed repeatedly to the remarkable spread of the Christian religion in spite of all resistance, and to the changed character and lives of its professors.
2. THEIR POSITIVE CONSTRUCTION OF THE TRUTH. In
stating the doctrinal contents of the divine revelation the Apologetes did not always clearly distinguish between general and special revelation, and often failed to discriminate carefully between that which is the product of the human mind and that which is supernaturally revealed. This is due to the fact that they conceived of Christianity too much as a philosophy, albeit the only true
philosophy, superior to all other philosophies in that it was based on revelation. Says Harnack: "Christianity is philosophy and revelation.
This is the thesis of every Apologist from Aristides to Minucius Felix." They regarded it as a philosophy, because it contains a rational element and satisfactorily answers the questions that have engaged all true philosophers; but also as the direct antithesis of philosophy, since it is free from all mere notions and opinions, and originates from a supernatural revelation.
They represented God as the Self-existent, Unchangeable, and Eternal One, who is the primal cause, of the world, but because of His uniqueness and perfection can best be described in terms of negation. They hardly got beyond the idea of the divine Being as to on or absolute attributeless existence. In speaking of the Son they preferred the use of the term "Logos", undoubtedly because it was a common philosophical term and therefore appealed to the cultured classes. At the same time its use shows that the Church's attention was focused on the divine and exalted Christ rather than on the man
Jesus. The Apologists did not have the biblical conception of the Logos, but one somewhat resembling that of Philo. To them the Logos, as He existed eternally in God, was simply the divine reason, without personal existence. With a view to the creation of the world, however, God generated the Logos out of His own Being and thus gave Him personal existence. Essentially the Logos remains identical with God, but in view of His origin as a person He may be called a creature. Briefly stated, Christ is the divine reason, immanent in God, to which God gave a separate existence, and through which He revealed Himself. "As the divine reason," says Seeberg, "he was not only operative at the creation of the world and in the Old Testament, but also in the wise men of the heathen world." It should be noted particularly that the Logos of the Apologists, in distinction from the philosophical Logos, has an independent personality.
The Logos became man by assuming a real human nature, consisting of body and soul. Yet He was not an ordinary man, but God and man, though His divinity was concealed. Hence it was not a mere man, but
the very Son of God that hung on the cross. All emphasis is placed on the fact that He became the teacher of the race, as He had already shown Himself before the incarnation. The main content of His teaching is found in the ideas of the one God, the new law requiring a virtuous life, and immortality, particularly the resurrection, carrying with it rewards and punishments. Because God created man free, the latter has the ability to keep the commandments of God. Grace consists only in the revelation of doctrine and of the law. The sufferings of Christ hardly appear to be necessary, except as a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. Yet the Apologists do insist on the reality and the great significance of these sufferings as obtaining for men the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from sin and the devil.
The origin of the new life is represented somewhat dualistically by the Apologetes. Sometimes it appears to be wholly dependent on the free choice of man, and then again it seems to be entirely contingent on the free grace of God. Baptism stands in the closest relationship to the new birth, and marks the beginning of the new life. The Church consists of the people of God, the true Israel, and the high-priestly generation of God, and is characterized by strict morality, holy love, and readiness to suffer with rejoicing. The Apologists firmly believed in the resurrection of the dead, but there was some difference of opinion among them about the essential immortality of the soul.
Tatian and Theophilus regarded immortality as a reward for the righteous and a punishment for the wicked, and Justin seems to have shared this view. In their description of the blessedness of the future the millennial kingdom sometimes plays a part, (Justin).
3. THEIR SIGNIFICANCE FOR THE HISTORY OF DOGMA.
Harnack and Loofs are of the opinion that the Apologists completely fell away from the right apprehension of the Christian Gospel. They claim that these early Fathers sought the substance of Christianity solely in its rational contents, valued the objective facts of revelation, such as the incarnation and the resurrection, merely as certifying the truths of natural revelation, and Hellenized the Gospel by turning
faith into doctrine and by giving Christianity, especially through their Logos doctrine, an intellectual character. But while there may be some semblance of truth in their representation, it is clearly the result of a onesided contemplation of some of the teachings of the Apologists and fails to take all the facts into consideration.
It must be admitted that these early Fathers gave great prominence to the truths of reason and sought to demonstrate their rationality.
But it should be borne in mind, (a) that they were writing Apologies and not doctrinal treatises, and that the nature of Apologies is always determined more or less by the opposition; (b) that the truths which they stressed also constitute a very essential part of the system of Christian doctrine; and (c) that their writings also contain many positive Christian elements, which do not merely serve as props for the fundamental truths of reason.
Again, it must be admitted that they represented Christianity largely in terms of philosophy, that they did not clearly discriminate between philosophy and theology, and that their representation of the truths of revelation, and particularly of the Logos doctrine, suffered from an admixture of Greek philosophical thought. But they evidently meant to give a correct interpretation of the truths of revelation, though they did not always succeed. The fact that they sought to give a rational interpretation of Christianity cannot be held against them, for this does not consist exclusively in religious experiences, as Ritschlians sometimes seem to think, but also has an intellectual content and is a reasonable religion. It is quite evident from the writings of the Apologists that their conception of Christianity still suffered from the same defects and limitations as that of the Apostolic Fathers. This is seen especially in the doctrine of the Logos and in that of the way of salvation (moralism). At the same time their work marked the beginnings of Christian theology, though this was forced into a philosophical framework.
Questions for Further Study: How do you account for it that the early Apologetes placed so much emphasis on natural theology; on Christ