Footnote 159:[ (return) ]
Heinrici, in his commentary on the epistles to the Corinthians, has dealt very clearly with this matter; see especially (Bd. II. p. 557 ff.) the description of the Christianity of the Corinthians: On what did the community base its Christian character? It believed in one God who had revealed himself to it through Christ, without denying the reality of the hosts of gods in the heathen world (1 VIII. 6). It hoped in immortality without being clear as to the nature of the Christian belief in the resurrection (1 XV.) It had no doubt as to the requital of good and evil (1 IV. 5; 2 V. 10; XI. 15: Rom. II. 4), without understanding the value of self-denial, claiming no merit, for the sake of important ends. It was striving to make use of the Gospel as a new doctrine of wisdom about earthly and super-earthly things, which led to the perfect and best established knowledge (1 I. 21: VIII. 1). It boasted of special operations of the Divine Spirit, which in themselves remained obscure and non-transparent, and therefore unfruitful (1 XIV.), while it was prompt to put aside as obscure, the word of the Cross as preached by Paul (2. IV. 1 f). The hope of the near Parousia, however, and the completion of all things, evinced no power to effect a moral transformation of society We herewith obtain the outline of a conviction that was spread over the widest circles of the Roman Empire "Naturam si expellas furca, tamen usque recurret."
Footnote 160:[ (return) ]
Nearly all Gentile Christian groups that we know, are at one in the detachment of Christianity from empiric Judaism; the "Gnostics," however, included the Old Testament in Judaism, while the greater part of Christians did not. That detachment seemed to be demanded by the claims of Christianity to be the one, true, absolute and therefore oldest religion, foreseen from the beginning. The different estimates of the Old Testament in Gnostic circles have their exact parallels in the different estimates of Judaism among the other Christians; cf. for example, in this respect, the conception stated in the Epistle of Barnabas with the views of Marcion, and Justin with Valentinus. The particulars about the detachment of the Gentile Christians from the Synagogue, which was prepared for by the inner development of Judaism itself, and was required by the fundamental fact that the Messiah, crucified and rejected by his own people, was recognised as Saviour by those who were not Jews, cannot be given in the frame-work of a history of dogma; though, see Chaps. III. IV. VI. On the other hand, the turning away from Judaism is also the result of the mass of things which were held in common with it, even in Gnostic circles. Christianity made its appearance in the Empire in the Jewish propaganda. By the preaching of Jesus Christ who brought the gift of eternal life, mediated the full knowledge of God, and assembled round him in these last days a community, the imperfect and hybrid creations of the Jewish propaganda in the empire were converted into independent formations. These formations were far superior to the synagogue in power of attraction, and from the nature of the case would very soon be directed with the utmost vigour against the synagogue.
CHAPTER III
THE COMMON FAITH AND THE BEGINNINGS OF KNOWLEDGE IN GENTILE CHRISTIANITY AS IT WAS BEING DEVELOPED INTO CATHOLICISM[162]
§ 1. The Communities and the Church.
The confessors of the Gospels, belonging to organised communities who recognised the Old Testament as the Divine record of revelation, and prized the Evangelic tradition as a public message for all, to which, in its undiluted form, they wished to adhere truly and sincerely, formed the stem of Christendom both as to extent and importance.[163] The communities stood to each other in an outwardly loose, but inwardly firm connection, and every community by the vigour of its faith, the certainty of its hope, the holy character of its life, as well as by unfeigned love, unity and peace, was to be an image of the holy Church of God which is in heaven, and whose members are scattered over the earth. They were further, by the purity of their walk and an active brotherly disposition, to prove to those without, that is to the world, the excellence and truth of the Christian faith.[164] The hope that the Lord would speedily appear to gather into his Kingdom the believers who were scattered abroad, punishing the evil and rewarding the good, guided these communities in faith and life. In the recently discovered "Teaching of the Apostles" we are confronted very distinctly with ideas and aspirations of communities that are not influenced by Philosophy.
The Church, that is the totality of all believers destined to be received into the kingdom of God (Didache, 9. 10), is the holy Church, (Hermas) because it is brought together and preserved by the Holy Spirit. It is the one Church, not because it presents this unity outwardly, on earth the members of the Church are rather scattered abroad, but because it will be brought to unity in the kingdom of Christ, because it is ruled by the same spirit and inwardly united in a common relation to a common hope and ideal. The Church, considered in its origin, is the number of those chosen by God,[165] the true Israel,[166] nay, still more, the final purpose of God, for the world was created for its sake.[167] There were in connection with these doctrines in the earliest period, various speculations about the Church: it is a heavenly Æon, is older than the world, was created by God at the beginning of things as a companion of the heavenly Christ;[168] its members form the new nation which is really the oldest nation,[169] it is the λαος 'ο του αγαπημενου 'ο φιλουμενος και φιλον αυτον,[170] the people whom God has prepared "in the Beloved,"[171] etc. The creation of God, the Church, as it is of an antemundane and heavenly nature, will also attain its true existence only in the Æon of the future, the Æon of the kingdom of Christ. The idea of a heavenly origin, and of a heavenly goal of the Church, was therefore an essential one, various and fluctuating as these speculations were. Accordingly, the exhortations, so far as they have in view the Church, are always dominated by the idea of the contrast of the kingdom of Christ with the kingdom of the world. On the other hand, he who communicated knowledge for the present time, prescribed rules of life, endeavoured to remove conflicts, did not appeal to the peculiar character of the Church. The mere fact, however, that from nearly the beginning of Christendom, there were reflections and speculations not only about God and Christ, but also about the Church, teaches us how profoundly the Christian consciousness was impressed with being a new people, viz., the people of God.[172] These speculations of the earliest Gentile Christian time about Christ and the Church, as inseparable correlative ideas, are of the greatest importance, for they have absolutely nothing Hellenic in them, but rather have their origin in the Apostolic tradition. But for that very reason the combination very soon, comparatively speaking, became obsolete or lost its power to influence. Even the Apologists made no use of it, though Clement of Alexandria and other Greeks held it fast, and the Gnostics by their Æon "Church" brought it into discredit. Augustine was the first to return to it.
The importance attached to morality is shewn in Didache cc. 1-6, with parallels[173]. But this section and the statements so closely related to it in the pseudo phocylidean poem, which is probably of Christian origin, as well as in Sibyl, II. v. 56, 148, which is likewise to be regarded as Christian, and in many other Gnomic paragraphs, shews at the same time, that in the memorable expression and summary statement of higher moral commandments, the Christian propaganda had been preceded by the Judaism of the Diaspora, and had entered into its labours. These statements are throughout dependent on the Old Testament wisdom, and have the closest relationship with the genuine Greek parts of the Alexandrian Canon, as well as with Philonic exhortations. Consequently, these moral rules, the two ways, so aptly compiled and filled with such an elevated spirit, represent the ripest fruit of Jewish as well as of Greek development. The Christian spirit found here a disposition which it could recognise as its own. It was of the utmost importance, however, that this disposition was already expressed in fixed forms suitable for didactic purposes. The young Christianity therewith received a gift of first importance. It was spared a labour in a legion, the moral, which experience shews, can only be performed in generations, viz, the creation of simple fixed impressive rules, the labour of the Catechist. The sayings of the Sermon on the Mount were not of themselves sufficient here. Those who in the second century attempted to rest in these alone and turned aside from the Judaeo-Greek inheritance, landed in Marcionite or Encratite doctrines.[174] We can see, especially from the Apologies of Aristides (c. 15), Justin and Tatian (see also Lucian), that the earnest men of the Græco-Roman world were won by the morality and active love of the Christians.