A Beginner's History of Philosophy, Vol. 1: Ancient and Mediæval Philosophy

by Herbert Ernest Cushman

The Apologists thus identified reason and revelation. The Logos is the same in revelation, nature, or history. The Stoic conception of the Logos, which Philo had stripped of its materialistic character, was identified with Christ and revelation. Justin could regard as inspired what the Greeks had looked upon as natural in their own doctrines. Christ is the world-reason, in whom the divine has been incarnated, and the Apologists had the enormous advantage over the neo-Platonists of being able to point to Jesus as the definite and historical incarnation of God. The Apologists could summon the prevailing Platonic dualism of God and matter to their aid in showing the need of such a revelation; for matter is altogether without reason and goodness. Thus a summary of their doctrine is as follows: the world is bad and needs a revelation; the Logos of God has always been present in history, but has especially appeared in Jesus Christ, the man, in order to redeem men from their sin and establish the kingdom of God.

The Gnostics. Gnosticism is the name applied to a movement of hostile reconstruction of Old Testament tradition instead of a spiritual interpretation of it. It was a great syncretic movement in the second and third centuries, which sought to form a world religion in which men should be rated on the basis of what they intellectually and morally knew. The Gnostics tried to transform the Christian faith in a large way into knowledge that would still be Christian; and their efforts show how strong the philosophical interest among the Christians was beginning to be. The conditions for the development of such a doctrine as Gnosticism were everywhere present in the empire, yet two principal centres are pointed out: one at Alexandria and the other in Syria. Gnosticism was a most fanciful mixture of Oriental and Occidental cults and mythologies, very much more fantastic than either neo-Pythagoreanism or neo-Platonism. It was a philosophy in which the essential Christian principles were lost under the weight of esoteric knowledge. The Gnostics themselves were steeped in Hellenic culture, and in many localities formed only bands of Mysteries. They finally lost all sympathy with the Christians, and were classed as heretics by the church. The leading Gnostics were Saturninus, Carpocrates (about 130), Basilides, Valentinus (about 160), and Bardesanes (155–225). Only a few fragments of their many writings remain, and about all that we know of their doctrines is what their opponents say of them. Valentinus, the most notable, was born at Rome and died at Cyprus. Bardesanes was born in Mesopotamia. Carpocrates lived at Alexandria and was a contemporary of Basilides, who was a Syrian. The records of their careers are very meagre.

The Gnostics were the first philosophers of history.[46] They undertook to make Christianity a world religion by conquering Hellenic culture for Christianity and Christianity for Hellenic culture. The only way they could do this was by dislodging Christianity from its historical anchorage in the Old Testament. The Gnostics were in open hostility to Judaism. They transformed every ethical problem into a cosmological problem, they regarded human history as the continuation of natural history, they viewed the Redemption as the last act in the cosmic drama. This shows how closely related their teaching was to that of Philo and Plotinus and how consistent with the theoretic spirit of the time. Since the salvation of the world by Christ stands as the central point of their philosophy of history, their philosophy of history amounted to a philosophy of Christian history.

The victory of Christianity over paganism and Judaism was conceived allegorically by the Gnostics as the battle of the gods of these religions. The Redeemer was then conceived to appear at the psychological moment and to win the victory; and this appearance of Christ as Redeemer is not only the highest point in the development of the human race, but it is the dénouement in the drama of the universe. Nature was therefore conceived by them to be a battle-ground of the gods and the strife to be waged between the forces of good and evil. The good gets the victory by means of Christ. The battle was conceived in the neo-Pythagorean form of the dualism of matter and spirit, but was expressed in mythical terms. The heathen gods and the god of the Old Testament, who took theform of the Platonic demiurge, were the powers in the world which the highest God had to overcome.

The dualism of good and evil was conceived to be the same as between spirit and matter, and was elaborated in a fashion true to the Alexandrian school. The space between God and matter was conceived to be filled in by a whole race of dæmons and angels, arranged according to the Pythagorean numbers. The lowest was so far from the divine perfectness as to be in touch with matter, and he is the demiurge who formed the world. The battle then was between good and evil, light and darkness, until the Logos, the Nous, Christ, the most perfect of the intermediary beings, came down and by incarnation released from matter the imprisoned spirits of men and even of the fallen angels, like the demiurge. This is, in brief, the Gnostic explanation of history.

This dualism was quite consistent with contemporary Christian ethics, which had then become Stoic. But this dualism was not consistent with monotheism, the fundamental Christian principle. The internal danger in Patristics—of swamping the fundamentals of Christianity through Hellenizing them—appears thus early. The early Christian found at the beginning an antagonism between his fundamental monotheistic metaphysics and Greek dualistic ethics.

The Reaction against Gnosticism.—The Old Catholic Theologians. We have seen that the original position of the Christians was one of indifference to both politics and philosophy; that then came the employment of Hellenism in the defense of the Gospel. This resulted in the extreme attempt of the Gnostics to transform Christianity into a factor in a cosmic theosophy.Gnosticism had tried to capture the new religion by force and make it subserve the interests of Hellenic and Oriental philosophy. This danger was averted only after years of controversy. Gnosticism was the gravest danger that the early church had to meet, and the Gnostics left their mark upon the church, although they were expelled; for the church never returned to its original simplicity of doctrine. Gnosticism, however, produced an extreme reaction, for a time, against the use of philosophy, and was represented by the “Old Catholic Theologians,”—Irenæus (140–200), Tertullian (160–220), and Hippolytus. These theologians stood against turning faith into a science and tried to limit dogma to the articles of the baptismal confession interpreted as a rule of faith. Tatian (170) saw in Hellenism the work of the devil. Irenæus conceived a unity in the process of creation and redemption,—creation as a divine method of bringing humanity up into the church by way of redemption. Tertullian went so far as to affirm that the Gospel is confirmed by its being in a certain sense contradictory to reason. Credo quia absurdum. By this he means, not that faith rests in things absurd, but that faith rests in things so far above reason as to make reason absurd. This reaction was against Gnosticism and not against rationalism, for these men used both philosophy and tradition to support their arguments.

The reaction against a systematic theology failed to establish itself, for the need of Greek philosophy was found to be necessary. The result was that a median position was taken by the help of Greek philosophy in the formulation of the dogma of the church. This was scientifically stated by the Alexandrian School ofCatechists, of which Clement and Origen were the leaders.

Origen (185–254) and the School of Catechists. Origen, whose surname was Adamantine, was an early teacher in the School of Catechists, which had been under the direction of Clement. Like Plotinus, Origen had been a pupil of Ammonius Saccas. Origen endured much persecution on account of his teaching, and had to flee from Alexandria to Cæsarea and Tyre, where he spent his old age. He was the most influential theologian of the Eastern church, and he was the father of Christian theological science.

In manner of life Origen was a Christian; in his thought he was a Greek. He was the Christian Philo, although he was a rival to the neo-Platonic philosophers. His Christian theology competed with the philosophical systems of his time. It was founded on both Testaments, and it also united in a peculiar way toward a practical end the theology of both the Apologists and the Gnostics. He was convinced that Christianity could be expressed only as a science, and that any form of Christianity without scientific expression is not clear to itself. Although the church was offended at some of his doctrines, it made his philosophical principle and his theory of development its own. In trying to state Christianity in terms of intellectual knowledge, Origen did not make the mistake of burying its principles under philosophy or mythology, as was the case with the Gnostics. The Gnostics had created a new Christianity; Origen developed Christianity from within itself. He was an orthodox traditionalist, a strong Biblical theologian and idealistic philosopher. He maintained that there were several ways of interpreting the Scriptures(allegorical interpretation). The masses see only the somatic or outward meaning as it has been developed in history. A deeper or moral interpretation gives a psychical meaning to the Gospel truth. More profound still is the spiritual interpretation, which gives to the Gospels a pneumatic or spiritually esoteric meaning. Christianity is superior to all other religions because it is a religion for all classes, even for the common man. Christianity is the only religion which, without being polytheistic, can have its truth in mythical dress.