B. The Idea and its Development in Christian Theology.
(1) The Transcendence of God.—All the conceptions which we have seen to exist in the sphere of philosophy were reproduced in the sphere of Christianity. They are sometimes relative to God, in contrast to the world of sensible phenomena: phenomena come into being, God is unbegotten and without beginning: phenomena are visible and tangible, God is unseen and untouched. They are sometimes relative to the idea of perfection: God is unchangeable, indivisible, unending. He has no name: for a name implies the existence of something prior to that to which a name is given, whereas He is prior to all things. These conceptions are all negative: the positive conceptions are that He is the infinite depth (βύθος) which contains and embosoms all things, that He is self-existent, and that He is light. “The Father of all,” said one school of philosophers,[492] “is a primal light, blessed, incorruptible, and infinite.” “The essence of the unbegotten Father of the universe is incorruptibility and self-existing light, simple and uniform.”[493]
From the earliest Christian teaching, indeed, the conception of the transcendence of God is absent. God is near to men and speaks to them: He is angry with them and punishes them: He is merciful to them and pardons them. He does all this through His angels and prophets, and last of all through His Son. But he needs such mediators rather because a heavenly Being is invisible, than because He is transcendent. The conception which underlies the earliest expression of the belief of a Christian community is the simple conception of children.
“We give Thee thanks, Holy Father, for Thy holy name which Thou hast caused to dwell in our hearts, and for the knowledge and faith and immortality which Thou hast made known to us through Jesus Christ, Thy servant. To Thee be glory for ever. Thou, Almighty Master, hast created all things for Thy name’s sake, hast given food and drink to men for their enjoyment, that they may give thanks to Thee: and upon us hast Thou bestowed spiritual food and drink and eternal life through Thy servant. Before all things we give Thee thanks for that Thou art mighty: to Thee be glory for ever.”[494]
In the original sphere of Christianity there does not appear to have been any great advance upon these simple conceptions. The doctrine upon which stress was laid was, that God is, that He is one, that He is almighty and everlasting, that He made the world, that His mercy is over all His works.[495] There was no taste for metaphysical discussion: there was possibly no appreciation of metaphysical conceptions. It is quite possible that some Christians laid themselves open to the accusation which Celsus brings, of believing that God is only cognizable through the senses.[496] They were influenced by Stoicism, which denied all intellectual existences, and regarded spirit itself as material.[497] This tendency resulted in Adoptian Christology.[498]
But most of the philosophical conceptions above described were adopted by the Apologists, and through such adoption found acceptance in the associated Christian communities. They are for the most part stated, not as in a dogmatic system, but incidentally. For example, Justin thus protests against a literal interpretation of the anthropomorphic expressions of the Old Testament:
“You are not to think that the unbegotten God ‘came down’ from anywhere or ‘went up.’ For the unutterable Father and Lord of all things neither comes to any place nor walks nor sleeps nor rises, but abides in His own place wherever that place may be, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, not with eyes or ears, but with His unspeakable power, so that He sees all things and knows all things, nor is any one of us hid from Him: nor does He move, He who is uncontained by space and by the whole world, seeing that He was before the world was born.”[499]
And Athenagoras thus sums up his defence of Christianity against the charge of atheism:
“I have sufficiently demonstrated that they are not atheists who believe in One who is unbegotten, eternal, unseen, impassible, incomprehensible and uncontained: comprehended by mind and reason only, invested with ineffable light and beauty and spirit and power, by whom the universe is brought into being and set in order and held firm, through the agency of his own Logos.”[500]
Theophilus replies thus to his heathen interlocutor who asked him to describe the form of the Christian God: