§ 30.7. The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.—The celebrated little treatise bearing the title Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῖς ἔθνεσιν was discovered by Bryennius (then metropolitan of Serrä, now of Nicomedia) in the Jerusalem Codex, to which we also owe the perfect text of the two so-called Epistles of Clement, and it was edited by this scholar with prolegomena and notes in Greek, at Constantinople in 1883. It at once set in motion many learned pens in Germany, France, Holland, England, and North America.—Eusebius, who first expressly names it in his list of New Testament writings as τῶν ἀποστόλων αἱ λεγόμεναι διδαχαί, which Rufinus renders by Doctrina quæ dicitur App., places it in the closest connection with the Epistle of Barnabas among the ἀντιλεγόμενα νόθα (§ [36, 8]). Four years later Athanasius ranks it as διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν ἀπ. along with the Shepherd of Hermas, giving it the first place, as a New Testament supplement corresponding to the Old Testament ἀναγινωσκόμενα (§ [59, 1]). Clement of Alexandria quoting a passage from it uses the formula, ὑπὸ τῆς γραφῆς εἴρηται, and thus treats it as holy scripture. In Origen again no sort of reference to it has as yet been found. From the 39th Festival Epistle of Athanasius, A.D. 367, which ranks it, as we have just seen, as a New Testament supplement like the Old Testament Anaginoskomena, we know that it like these were used at Alexandria παρὰ τῶν πατέρων in the instruction of catechumens. In the East, according to Rufinus, when enumerating in his Expos. Symb. Ap. the Athanasian Anaginoskomena, we find alongside of Hermas, instead of the Didache, the “Two Ways,” Duæ viæ vel Judicium secundum Petrum. Jerome, too, in his De vir. ill., mentions among the pseudo-Petrine writings a Judicium Petri. We have here no doubt a Latin translation or recension of the first six chapters of the Didache beginning with the words: Ὅδοι δύο εἰσι, these two ways being the way of life and the way of death. The second title instead of the twelve Apostles names their spokesman Peter as the reputed author of the treatise. Soon after the time of Athanasius our tract passed out of the view of the Church Fathers, but it reappears in the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the 4th century (§ [43, 4], [5]), of which it formed the root and stem. The Didache itself, however, should not be ranked among the pseudepigraphs, for it never claims to have been written by the twelve Apostles or by their spokesman Peter.—Bryennius and others, from the intentional prominence given to the twelve Apostles in the title and from the legalistic moralizing spirit that pervades the book, felt themselves justified in seeking its origin in Jewish-Christian circles. But this moralizing character it shares with the other Gentile-Christian writings of the Post-Apostolic Age (§ [30, 2]), and the restriction of the term “Apostles” by the word “twelve” was occasioned by this, that the itinerant preachers of the gospel of that time, who in the New Testament are called Evangelists (§ [17, 5]) were now called Apostles as continuators of the Apostles’ missionary labours, and also the exclusion of the Apostle Paul is to be explained by the consideration that the book is founded upon the sayings of the Lord, the tradition of which has come to us only through the twelve. It has been rightly maintained on the other hand by Harnack, that the author must rather have belonged to Gentile-Christian circles which repudiated all communion with the Jews even in matters of mere form; for in chap. viii. 1, 2, resting upon Matt. vi. 5, 16, he forbids fasting with the hypocrites, “the Jews,” or perhaps in the sense of Gal. ii. 13, the Jewish-Christians, on Monday and Thursday, instead of Wednesday and Friday according to the Christian custom (§ [37, 3]), and using Jewish prayers instead of the Lord’s Prayer. The address of the title: τοῖς ἔθνεσιν is to be understood according to the analogy of Rom. xi. 13; Gal. ii. 12-14; and Eph. iii. 1. The author wishes in as brief, lucid, easily comprehended, and easily remembered form as possible, to gather together for Christians converted from heathenism the most important rules for their moral, religious and congregational life in accordance with the precepts of the Lord as communicated by the twelve Apostles, and in doing so furnishes us with a valuable “commentary on the earliest witnesses for the life, type of doctrine, interests and ordinances of the Gentile-Christian churches in the pre-Catholic age.” As to the date of its composition, its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas indicates the period within which it must fall, for the connection is so close that it must have employed them or they must have employed it. However, not only is the age of the Epistle of Barnabas, as well as that of the Shepherd of Hermas, still undetermined, but it is also disputed whether one or other of these two or the Didache has priority and originality. On the other hand, the Didache itself in almost all its data and presuppositions bears so distinct an impress of an archaic character that one feels obliged to assign its date as near the Apostolic Age as possible. Harnack who feels compelled to ascribe priority not only to the Pseudo-Barnabas, but also to the Shepherd of Hermas, fixes its date between A.D. 140-165, after Hermas and before Marcion. On the other hand, Zahn and Funk, Lechler, Taylor, etc., give the Didache priority even over the Epistle of Barnabas. The place as well as the time of the composition of this work is matter of dispute. Those who maintain its Jewish-Christian origin think of the southern lands to the east or west of the Jordan; others think of Syria. On account of its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole treatise.”That the book, however, does not bear in itself any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, e.g., is undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted by Harnack.[64]
§ 30.8. The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists[65] are lost. At the head of this band stood Quadratus of Athens, who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary, Aristides the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise, which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century, was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation. This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,—barbarians who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus, Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christians from Christ,—and of Jesus Christ as the Son of God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a later interpolation (comp. § [52, 3]). The genuineness of the second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,—an anti-docetic homily, De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi responsione (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ and those crucified with Him proves His divinity—is both on external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the name Aristides, but recently another Catholic scholar, Dr. Vetter, on close examination found that the name was really that of Aristides.—To a period not much later must be assigned the apologetic dialogue between the Jewish Christian Jason and the Alexandrian Jew Papiscus, in which the proof from prophecy was specially emphasized, and the in principio of Gen. i. 1 was interpreted as meaning in filio. The pagan controversialist Celsus is the first to mention this treatise. He considers it, on account of its allegorical fancies, not so much fitted to cause laughter as pity and contempt, and so regards it as unworthy of any serious reply. Origen, too, esteemed it of little consequence. Subsequently, however, in the 5th century, it obtained high repute and was deemed worthy of a Latin translation by the African bishop Celsus. The controversialist Celsus, and also Origen, Jerome, and the Latin translator, do not name the writer. His name is first given by Maximus Confessor as Ariston of Pella. Harnack has rendered it extremely probable that in the “Altercatio Simonis Judæi et Theophili Christiani” discovered in the 18th century, reported on by Gennadius (§ [47, 16]), and ascribed by him to a certain Evagrius, we have a substantially correct Latin reproduction of the old Greek dialogue, in which everything that is told us about the earlier document is met with, and which, though written in the 5th century, in its ways of looking at things and its methods of proof moves within the circle of the Apologists of the 2nd century. In it, just as in those early treatises the method of proof is wholly in accordance with the Old Testament; by it every answer of the Christian to the Jew is supported; at last the Jew is converted and asks for baptism, while he regards the Christians as lator salutis and ægrotorum bone medice with a play probably upon the word Ἰάσων=ἰατρός and from this it is conceivable how Clement of Alexandria supposed Luke, the physician, to be the author of the treatise. Harnack’s conclusion is significant inasmuch as it lends a new confirmation to the fact that the non-heretical Jewish Christianity of the middle of the second century had already completely adopted the dogmatic views of Gentile Christianity. Claudius Apollinaris, bishop of Hierapolis, and the rhetorician Miltiades of Athens addressed very famous apologies to the emperor Marcus Aurelius.Melito of Sardis was also a highly esteemed apologist, and a voluminous writer in many other departments of theological literature.[66] The elaborate introduction to the mystical interpretation of scripture by investigating the mystical meaning of biblical names and words published in Pitra’s “Spicileg. Solesm.” II. III., as “Clavis Melitonis,” belongs to the later period of the middle ages.Melito’s six books of Eclogues deal with the Old Testament as a witness for Christ and Christianity, where he takes as his basis not the LXX. but the Hebrew canon (§ [36, 1]).[67]
§ 30.9. Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.
- The earliest and most celebrated of these is Justin Martyr.[68] Born at Shechem (Flavia Neapolis) of Greek parents, he was drawn to the Platonic doctrine of God and to the Stoical theory of ethics, more than to any of the other philosophical systems to which, as a pagan, he turned in the search after truth. But full satisfaction he first found in the prophets and apostles, to whom he was directed by an unknown venerable old man, whom he once met by the sea-side. He now in his thirtieth year cast off his philosopher’s cloak and adopted Christianity, of which he became a zealous defender, but thereby called down upon himself the passionate hatred of the pagan sages. His bitterest enemy was the Cynic Crescens in Rome, who after a public disputation with him, did all he could to compass his destruction. In A.D. 165, under Marcus Aurelius, Justin was condemned at Rome to be scourged and beheaded.—His two Apologies, addressed to Antoninus Pius and his son Marcus Aurelius are certainly genuine. Of these, however, the shorter one, the so-called second Apology is probably only a sort of appendix to the first. His Dialogus cum Tryphone Judæo is probably a free rendering of a disputation which actually occurred. Except a few fragments, his Σύνταγμα κατὰ Μαρκίωνος have been lost. It is disputed whether that was an integral part of the Σύνταγμα κατὰ πασῶν αἱρέσεων of which he himself makes mention, or a later independent work. The following are of more than doubtful authenticity: the Λόγος παραινετικὸς πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Cohortatio ad Græcos), which seeks to prove that not by the poets nor by the philosophers, but only by Moses and the prophets can the true knowledge of God be found, and that whatever truth is spoken by the former, they had borrowed from the latter; also, the shorter Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας (Oratio ad Græcos), on the irrationality and immorality of the pagan mythology; further, the short treatise Περὶ μοναρχίας, which proves the vanity of polytheism from the admissions of heathen poets and philosophers; and a fragment Περὶ ἀναστάσεως.—Justin’s theology is of the Gentile Christian type, quite free from any Ebionitic taint, inclining rather to the speculation and ethics of Greek philosophy and to an Alexandrian-Hellenistic conception and exposition of scripture. To these sources everything may be traced in which he unconsciously departs from biblical Paulinism and Catholic orthodoxy. Then in his idea of God and creation, he has not quite overcome the partly pantheistic, partly dualistic, principles derived from the Platonic philosophy. He shows traces of Alexandrian influences in his conception of the person and work of Christ, to whom he assigns merely the role of a divine teacher, who has made known the true idea of God the Creator, of righteousness, and of eternal life, and has won power by death, resurrection and ascension, and will give evidence of it by His coming again to reward the righteousness of the saints with immortal blessedness. He was also led into doctrinal aberrations in the anthropological domain, because his idea of freedom and virtue borrowed from Greek philosophy prevented him from fully grasping the Pauline doctrine of sin. His theory of morals, with its legalistic tendency and its righteousness of works, was grounded not in Judaism but in Stoicism. His chiliasm, too, is not Ebionitic but is immediately derived from scripture, and has less significance for his speculation than the other eschatological principles of Resurrection, Judgment, and Recompence. His Christianity consists essentially of only three elements: Worship of the true God, a virtuous life according to the commandments of Christ, and belief in rewards and punishments hereafter. Over against the pagan philosophy it represents itself as the true philosophy, and over against the Mosaic law as the new law freed from the fetters of ceremonialism. Even in the natural man, in consequence of the divine reason that is innate in him, there dwells the power of living as a Christian: Abraham and Elias, Socrates and Heraclitus, etc., have to such a degree lived according to reason that they must be called Christians. But even they possessed only σπέρματα Λόγου, only a μέρος Λόγου; for the divine reason dwells in men only as Λόγος σπερματικός; in Christ alone as the incarnate Logos it dwells as ὁ πᾶς Λόγος or τὸ Λογικὸν τὸ ὅλον. He is the only true Son of God, pre-mundane but not eternal, the πρῶτον γέννημα τοῦ θεοῦ, or the πρωτότοκος τοῦ θεοῦ, by whom God in the beginning created all things. The Father alone is ὄντως θεός, and the Logos only a divine being of the second rank, a ἕτερος θεὸς παρὰ τὸν ποιητὴν τῶν ὅλων, to whom, however, as such, worship should be rendered. In Justin’s theological speculation the Holy Spirit stands quite in the background, though the baptismal and congregational Trinitarian confession obliged him to assign to the Spirit the rank of an independent divine being, whom the Logos had used for the enlightening of His prophets. Justin too knows nothing of a particular election of Israel as the people of God; with him the Christians as such are the true Israel, the people of God, the children of the faith of Abraham. From the Old Testament he proves the divinity of the person and doctrine of Christ, and from the Ἀπομνημονεύματα τῶν ἀποστόλων (§ [36, 7]) he derives his information about the historical life, teaching, and works of Jesus. The Gospel of John, although never mentioned, was not unknown to him, but it appeared to him more as a doctrinal and hortatory treatise than as a historical document, and undoubtedly his Logos doctrine is connected with that of John. He shows himself familiar with the Epistles of Paul, although he never expressly quotes from them.
§ 30.10.
- Tatian, a Greek born in Assyria (according to Zahn, a Semite) while engaged as a rhetorician at Rome, was won to Christianity by Justin Martyr, according to Harnack about A.D. 150. As the fruit of youthful zeal, he published an Apologetical Λόγος πρὸς Ἕλληνας, in which he treats the Greek paganism and its culture with withering scorn for even its noblest manifestations, and shared with his teacher the hatred and persecution of the philosopher Crescens. His later written Εὐαγγέλιον διὰ τεσσάρων (§ [36, 7]) was a Gospel harmony, in which the removal of all reference to the descent of Jesus from the seed of David, according to the flesh, objected to by Theodoret, was occasioned perhaps more by antipathy to Ebionism than by any sympathy with Gnosticism. Zahn affirms, while Harnack decidedly denies, that this work was originally composed in Syriac. The exclusive use by the Syrians of the Greek name Diatessaron seems to afford a strong argument for a Greek original. Its general agreement with the readings of the so-called Itala (§ [36, 8]) witnesses to the West as the place of its composition.The introduction of a Syriac translation of it into church use in the East is to be explained by a longer residence of the author in his eastern home; and its neglect on the part of many of the Greek and Latin Church Fathers, and even their complete ignorance of it, may be accounted for by the fact that, while in the far East it was unsuspected, elsewhere it came to be branded as heretical (§ [27, 10]).[69]
- Athenagoras, about whose life we have no authentic information, in A.D. 177 addressed his Πρεσβεία (Intercessio) περὶ Χριστιανῶν to Marcus Aurelius, in which he clearly and convincingly disproves the hideous calumnies of Atheism, Ædipodean atrocities, Thyestean feasts (§ [22]), and extols the excellence of Christianity in life and doctrine. In the treatise Περὶ ἀναστάσεως νέκρων he proves, from the general philosophical rather than distinctively Christian standpoint, the necessity of resurrection from the vocation of man in connection with the wisdom, omnipotence and righteousness of God.
- Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch († after A.D. 180), was by birth a pagan. His writing Πρὸς Αὐτόλυκον περὶ τῆς τῶν Χριστιανῶν πίστεως is one of the most excellent apologetical treatises of this period. Autolycus was one of his heathen acquaintances. His commentaries and controversial works have been lost. Zahn, indeed, has sought to prove that an extant Latin Commentary on selected passages from the four Gospels in the allegorical style belonging to the first half of the 3rd century, and bearing the name of Theophilus of Antioch, is a substantially faithful translation of the authentic Greek original of A.D. 170. He has also called attention to the great importance of this commentary, not only for the oldest history of the Canon, Text and Exposition, but also for that of the church life, the development of doctrine and the ecclesiastical constitution, especially of the monasticism already appearing in those early times. But while Zahn reached those wonderful results from a conviction that the verbal coincidences of the Latin Church Fathers of the 3rd to the 5th centuries with the supposed Theophilus commentary were examples of their borrowing from it, Harnack has convincingly proved that this so-called commentary is rather to be regarded as a compilation from these same Latin Church Fathers made at the earliest during the second half of the 5th century.
- Finally, an otherwise unknown author Hermias wrote under the title Διασυρμὸς τῶν ἔξω φιλοσόφων (Irrisio gentilium philos.) a short abusive treatise, in a witty but superficial style, of which the fundamental principle is to be found in 1 Cor. iii. 19.
§ 31. The Theological Literature of the Old Catholic Age, A.D. 170-323.
From about A.D. 170, during the Old Catholic Age, scientific theology in conflict with Judaizing, paganizing and monarchianistic heretics progressed in a more vigorous and comprehensive manner than in the apologetical and polemical attempt at self-defence of Post-Apostolic Times. Throughout this period, however, the zeal for apologetics continued unabated, but also in other directions, especially in the department of dogmatics, important contributions were made to theological science. While these developments were in progress, there arose within the Catholic church three different theological schools, each with some special characteristic of its own, the Asiatic, the Alexandrian, and the North African.
§ 31.1. The Theological Schools and Tendencies.—The School of Asia Minor was the outcome of John’s ministry there, and was distinguished by firm grasp of scripture, solid faith, conciliatory treatment of those within and energetic polemic against heretics. Its numerous teachers, highly esteemed in the ancient church, are known to us only by name, and in many cases even the name has perished. Only two of their disciples resident in the West—Irenæus and Hippolytus—are more fully known.A yet greater influence, more widely felt and more enduring, was that of the Alexandrian School.[70] Most of its teachers were distinguished by classical culture, a philosophical spirit, daring speculativeness and creative power. Their special task was the construction of a true ecclesiastical gnosis over against the false heretical gnosis, and so the most celebrated teachers of this school have not escaped the charge of unevangelical speculative tendencies. The nursery of this theological tendency was especially this Catechetical School of Alexandria which from an institution for the training of educated Catechumens had grown up into a theological seminary. The North African School by its realism, a thoroughly practical tendency, formed the direct antithesis of the idealism and speculative endeavours of the Alexandrian. It repudiated classical science and philosophy as fitted to lead into error, but laid special stress upon the purity of Apostolic tradition, and insisted with all emphasis upon holiness of life and strict asceticism.—Finally, our period also embraces the first beginnings of the Antiochean School, whose founders were the two presbyters Dorotheus and Lucian.The latter especially gave to the school in its earlier days the tendency to critical and grammatico-historical examination of scripture. At Edessa, too, as early as the end of the 2nd century, we find a Christian school existing.