Pagan writers in their published works passed spiteful and contemptuous judgments upon Christians and Christianity (Tacitus, Pliny, Marcus Aurelius, and the physician Galen), or, like the rhetorician Fronto, argued against them with violent invective; while popular wit ran riot in representing Christianity by word and picture as the devout worship of an ass. But even the talented satirist Lucian of Samosata was satisfied with ridiculing the Christians as senseless fools. The first and also the most important of all really pagan advocates was Celsus, who in the second century, with brilliant subtlety and scathing sarcasm sought to prove that the religion of the Christians was the very climax of unreason. In respect of ability, keenness and bitterness of polemic he is closely followed by the Neo-platonist Porphyry. Far beneath both stands Hierocles, governor of Bithynia. Against such attacks the most famous Christian teachers took the field as Apologists. They disproved the calumnies and charges of the pagans, demanded fair play for the Christians, vindicated Christianity by the demonstration of its inner truth, the witness borne to it by the life and walk of Christians, its establishment by miracles and prophecies, its agreement with the utterances and longings of the most profound philosophers, whose wisdom they traced mediately or immediately from the Old Testament, and on the other hand, they sought to show the nothingness of the heathen gods, and the religious as well as moral perversity of paganism.
§ 23.1. Lucian’s Satire De Morte Peregrini takes the form of an account given by Lucian to his friend Cronius of the Cynic Peregrinus Proteus’ burning of himself during the Olympic games of A.D. 165, of which he himself was a witness. Peregrinus is described as a low, contemptible man, a parricide and guilty of adultery, unnatural vice and drunkenness, who having fled from his home in Palestine joined the Christians, learnt their θαυμαστὴ σοφία, became their prophet (§ [34, 1]), Thiasarch (§ [17, 3]) and Synagogeus, and as such expounded their sacred writings, even himself composed and addressed to the most celebrated Greek cities many epistles containing new ordinances and laws. When cast into prison he was the subject of the most extravagant attentions on the part of the Christians. Their γραΐδια and χῆραι (deaconesses) nursed him most carefully, δεῖπνα ποικίλα and λόγοι ἱεροί (Agapæ) were celebrated in his prison, they loaded him with presents, etc. Nevertheless on leaving prison, on account of his having eaten a forbidden kind of meat (flesh offered to idols) he was expelled by them. He now cast himself into the arms of the Cynics, travelled as the apostle of their views through the whole world, and ended his life in his mad thirst for fame by voluntarily casting himself upon the funeral pile. Lucian tells with scornful sneer how the superstitious people supposed that there had been an earthquake and that an eagle flew up from his ashes crying out: The earth I have lost, to Olympus I fly. This fable was believed, and even yet it is said that sometimes Peregrinus will be seen in a white garment as a spirit.—It is undoubtedly recorded by Aulus Gellius that a Cynic Peregrinus lived at this time whom he describes as vir gravis et constans. This too is told by the Apologist Tatian, who in him mocks at the pretension on the part of heathen philosophers to emancipation from all wants. But neither of them knows anything about his Christianity or his death by fire. It is nevertheless conceivable that Peregrinus had for some time connection with Christianity; but without this assumption it seems likely that Lucian in a satire which, under the combined influence of personal and class antipathies, aimed first and chiefly at stigmatizing Cynicism in the person of Peregrinus, should place Christianity alongside of it as what seemed to him with its contempt of the world and self-denial to be a new, perhaps a nobler, but still nothing more than a species of Cynicism.Many features in the caricature which he gives of the life, doings and death of Peregrinus seem to have been derived by him from the life of the Apostle Paul as well as from the account of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and especially from that of Polycarp (§ [22, 3]).[28]
§ 23.2. Worshippers of an Ass (Asinarii) was a term of reproach that was originally and from early times applied to the Jews. They now sought to have it transferred to the Christians. Tertullian tells of a picture publicly exhibited in Carthage which represented a man clothed in a toga, with the ears and hoof of an ass, holding a book in his hand, and had this inscription: Deus Christianorum Onochoetes. This name is variously read. If read as ὄνου χοητής it means asini sacerdos. Alongside of this we may place the picture, belonging probably to the third century, discovered in A.D. 1858 scratched on a wall among the ruins of a school for the imperial slaves, that were then excavated. It represents a man with an ass’s head hanging on a cross, and beneath it the caricature of a worshipper with the words written in a schoolboy’s hand; Alexamenos worships God (A. σεβετε θεον); evidently the derision of a Christian youth by a pagan companion. The scratching on another wall gives us probably the answer of the Christian: Alexamenos fidelis.
§ 23.3. Polemic properly so-called.—
- The Λόγος ἀληθής of Celsus is in great part preserved in the answer of Origen (§ [31, 5]). He identifies the author with that Celsus to whom Lucian dedicated the little work Alexander or Pseudomantis in which he so extols the philosophy of Epicurus that it seems he must be regarded as an Epicurean. Since, however, the philosophical standpoint of our Celsus is that of a Platonist the assumption of the identity of the two has been regarded as untenable. But even our Celsus does not seem to have been a pure Platonist but an Eclectic, and as such might also show a certain measure of favour to the philosophy of Epicurus. Their age is at least the same. Lucian wrote that treatise soon after A.D. 180, and according to Keim, the Λόγος ἀληθής was probably composed about A.D. 178. Almost everything that modern opponents down to our own day have advanced against the gospel history and doctrine is found here wrought out with original force and subtlety, inspired with burning hatred and bitter irony, and highly spiced with invective, mockery, and wit. First of all the author introduces a Jew who repeats the slanders current among the Jews, representing Jesus as a vagabond impostor, His mother as an adulteress, His miracles and resurrection as lying fables; then enters a heathen philosopher who proves that both Judaism and Christianity are absurd; and finally,the conditions are set forth under which alone the Christians might claim indulgence: the abandonment of their exclusive attitude toward the national religion and the recognition of it by their taking part in the sacrifices appointed by the state.[29]
- The Neo-platonist Porphyry, about A.D. 270, as reported by Jerome, in the XV. Book of his Κατὰ Χριστιανῶν points to a number of supposed contradictions in holy scripture, calls attention to the conflict between Paul and Peter (Gal. ii.), explains Daniel’s prophecies as Vaticinia post eventum, and censures the allegorical interpretation of the Christians. Although even among the Christians themselves Porphyry as a philosopher was highly esteemed, and notwithstanding contact at certain points between his ethical and religious view of the world and that of the Christians, perhaps just because of this, he is the worst and most dangerous of all their pagan assailants. Against his controversial writings, therefore, the edict of Theodosius II. ordering them to be burnt was directed in A.D. 448 (§ [42, 4]), and owing to the zeal with which his works were destroyed the greater part of the treatises which quoted from it for purposes of controversy also perished with it—the writings of Methodius of Tyre (§ [31, 9]), Eusebius of Cæsarea (§ [47, 2]), Philostorgius (§ [5, 1]) and Apollinaris the younger (§ [47, 5]). Of these according to Jerome those of the last named were the most important. In the recently discovered controversial treatise of Macarius Magnes (§ [47, 6]) an unnamed pagan philosopher is combated whose attacks, chiefly directed against the Gospels, to all appearance verbally agree with the treatise of Porphyry, or rather, perhaps, with that of his plagiarist Hierocles.
- Hierocles who as governor of Bithynia took an active part in the persecution of Galerius, wrote two books Λόγοι φιλαλήθεις against the Christians, about A.D. 305, which have also perished. Eusebius’ reply refers only to his repudiation of the equality assigned to Christ and Apollonius of Tyana (§ [24, 1]). While the title of his treatise is borrowed from that of Celsus, he has also according to the testimony of Eusebius in great part copied the very words of both of his predecessors.
§ 24. Attempted Reconstruction of Paganism.
All its own more thoughtful adherents had long acknowledged that paganism must undergo a thorough reform and reconstruction if it were to continue any longer in existence. In the Augustan Age an effort was made to bolster up Neopythagoreanism by means of theurgy and magic. The chief representative of this movement was Apollonius of Tyana. In the second century an attempt was made to revivify the secret rites of the ancient mysteries, of Dea Syra, and Mithras. Yet all this was not enough. What was needed was the setting up of a pagan system which would meet the religious cravings of men in the same measure as Christianity with its supernaturalism, monotheism and universalism had done, and would have the absurdities and impurities that had disfigured the popular religion stripped off. Such a regeneration of paganism was undertaken in the beginning of the third century by Neoplatonism. But even this was no more able than pagan polemics had been to check the victorious career of Christianity.
§ 24.1. Apollonius of Tyana in Cappadocia, a contemporary of Christ and the Apostles, was a philosopher, ascetic and magician esteemed among the people as a worker of miracles. As an earnest adherent of the doctrine of Pythagoras, whom he also imitated in his dress and manner of life, claiming the possession of the gifts of prophecy and miracle working, he assumed the role of a moral and religious reformer of the pagan religion of his fathers. Accompanied by numerous scholars, teaching and working miracles, he travelled through the whole of the then known world until he reached the wonderland of India. He settled down at last in Ephesus where he died at an advanced age, having at least passed his ninety-sixth year.At the wish of the Empress Julia, wife of Septimius Severus, in the third century, Philostratus the elder composed in the form of a romance in eight books based upon written and oral sources, a biography of Apollonius, in which he is represented as a heathen counterpart of Christ, who is otherwise completely ignored, excelling Him in completeness of life, doctrine and miraculous powers.[30]
§ 24.2. In Neo-platonism, by the combination of all that was noblest and best in the exoteric and esoteric religion, in the philosophy, theosophy and theurgy of earlier and later times in East and West, we are presented with a universal religion in which faith and knowledge, philosophy and theology, theory and practice, were so perfectly united and reconciled, and all religious needs so fully met, that in comparison with its wealth and fulness, the gnosis as well as the faith, the worship and the mysteries of the Christians must have seemed one-sided, commonplace and incomplete. The first to introduce and commend this tendency, which was carried out in three successive schools of philosophy, the Alexandrian-Roman, the Syrian and the Athenian, was the Alexandrian Ammonius Saccas,—this surname being derived from his occupation as a porter. He lived and taught in Alexandria till about A.D. 250. He sought to combine in a higher unity the Platonic and the Aristotelian philosophies, giving to the former a normative authority, and he did not hesitate to enrich his system by the incorporation of Christian ideas. His knowledge of Christianity came from Clement of Alexandria and from Origen, whose teacher in philosophy he had been. Porphyry indeed affirms that he had previously been himself a Christian, but had at a later period of life returned to paganism.—The most distinguished of his scholars, and also the most talented and profound of all the Neo-platonists, was Plotinus, who was in A.D. 254 a teacher of philosophy at Rome, and died in A.D. 270. His philosophico-theological system in its characteristic features is a combination of the Platonic antithesis of the finite world of sense and the eternal world of ideas with the stoical doctrine of the world soul. The eternal ground of all being is the one supramundane, unintelligible and indescribable good (τὸ ἕν, τὸ ἀγαθόν), from which all stages of being are radiated forth; first; spirit or the world of ideas (νοῦς, κόσμος νοητός), the eternal type of all being; and then, from this the world soul (ψυχή); and from this, finally, the world of phenomena. The outermost fringe of this evolution, the forms of which the further they are removed from the original ground become more and more imperfect, is matter, just as the shadow is the outermost fringe of the light. It is conceived of as the finite, the fleeting, even as evil in itself. But imperfect as the world of sense is, it is nevertheless the vehicle of the ideal world and in many ways penetrated by the ideas, and the lighting up imparted by the ideas affords it its beauty. In consequence of those rays shining in from the realm of ideas, a whole vast hierarchy of divine forms has arisen, with countless dæmons good and bad, which give room for the incorporation of all the divine beings of the Greek and oriental mythologies. In this way myths that were partly immoral and partly fantastic can be rehabilitated as symbolical coverings of speculative ideas. The souls of men, too, originate from the eternal world soul. By their transition, however, into the world of sense they are hampered and fettered by corporeity. They themselves complete their redemption through emancipation from the bonds of sense by means of asceticism and the practice of virtue.In this way they secure a return into the ideal world and the vision of the highest good, sometimes as moments of ecstatic mystical union with that world, even during this earthly life, but an eternally unbroken continuance thereof is only attained unto after complete emancipation from all the bonds of matter.[31]—Plotinus’ most celebrated scholar, who also wrote his life, and collected and arranged his literary remains, was Porphyry. He also taught in Rome and died there in A.D. 304. His ἐκ τῶν λογίων φιλοσοφία, a collection of oracular utterances, was a positive supplement to his polemic against Christianity (§ [23, 3]), and afforded to paganism a book of revelation, a heathen bible, as Philostratus had before sought to portray a heathen saviour. Of greater importance for the development of mediæval scholasticism was his Commentary on the logical works of Aristotle, published in several editions of the Aristotelian Organon.—His scholar Iamblichus of Chalcis in Cœle-Syria, who died A.D. 333, was the founder of the Syrian school. The development which he gave to the Neo-platonic doctrine consisted chiefly in the incorporation of a fantastic oriental mythology and theurgy. This also brought him the reputation of being a magician.—Finally, the Athenian school had in Proclus, who died in A.D. 485, its most distinguished representative. While on the one hand, he proceeded along the path opened by Iamblichus to develop vagaries about dæmons and theurgical fancies, on the other hand, he gave to his school an impulse in the direction of scholarly and encyclopædic culture.—The Neo-platonic speculation exercised no small influence on the development of Christian philosophy. The philosophizing church fathers, whose darling was Plato, got acquaintance with his philosophical views from its relatively pure reproduction met with in the works of the older Neo-platonists.The influence of their mystico-theosophic doctrine, especially as conveyed in the writings of the Pseudo-Dionysius (§ [47, 11]), is particularly discernible in the Christian mysticism of the middle ages, and has been thence transmitted to modern times.[32]