I JUN 17 1966 Qphiuu. 86*$^ BT 21 . H27 1893 Harnack, Adolf von, 1851- 1930. Outlines of the history of doama » / » I / Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2019 with funding from Princeton Theological Seminary Library https://archive.org/details/outlinesofhistor00harn_0 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA OUTLINES HISTORY OF DOGMA BY Dr. ADOLF HARNACK Professor of Church History in the University of Berlin TRANSLATED BY EDWIN KNOX MITCHELL, M.A. Professor of Grceco-Roman and Eastern Church History in Hartford Theological Seminary H ODDER AND STOUGHTON 27, PATERNOSTER ROW MDCCCXCIII Printed in the United States PREFACE. HE English translation of my “Grundriss -L der Dogmengeschichte” has been made, in accordance with my expressed wish, by my former pupil and esteemed friend, Mr. Edwin Knox Mitchell. It is my pleasant duty to ex¬ press to him here my heartiest thanks. English and American theological literature possess excellent works, hut they are not rich in products within the realm of the History of Dogma. I may therefore perhaps hope that my “Grundriss” will supply a want. I shall he most happy, if I can with this book do my English and American friends and fellow-work¬ ers some service — a small return for the rich benefit which I have reaped from their labors. In reality, however, there no longer exists any distinction between German and English theo¬ logical science. The exchange is now so brisk that scientific theologians of all evangelical lands form already one Concilium. Adolf Harnack. WlLMERSDORF NEAR BERLIN, March 17th, 1892. t4 CONTENTS. PAGE Prolegomena to the Discipline . 1 I. Idea and Aim of the History of Dogma . . 1 II. Narrative of the History of Dogma ... 8 Presuppositions of the History of Dogma . . . .10 III. Introductory . 10 IV. The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to His Own Testimony . Iff V. The General Proclamation concerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation of His Adherents . 18 VI. The Current Exposition of the Old Testament and the Jewish Future Hope, in their Bearing on the Earliest Formulation of the Christian Message . 23 VII. The Religious Conceptions and the Religious Philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews in their Bear¬ ing on the Transformation of the Gospel Message . 28 VIII. The Religious Disposition of the Greeks and Ro¬ mans in the First Two Centuries and the Contem¬ porary Graeco-Roman Philosophy of Religion . . 32 PART I. THE RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA. Book I. THE PREPARATION. Chapter I. — Historical Survey . 39 Chapter II. — Ground Common to Christians and Attitude Taken toward Judaism . 40 Chapter III. — The Common Faith and the Beginnings of Self-Recognition in that Gentile Christianity which was to Develop into Catholicism . . 43 CONTENTS. • • • Vlll PAGE Chapter IV. — Attempt of the Gnostics to Construct an Apostolic Doctrine of Faith and to Produce a Christian Theology ; or, the Acute Secularization of Christianity . 58 Chapter V. — Marcion’s Attempt to Set Aside the Old Tes¬ tament as the Foundation of the Gospel, to Purify Tradition, and to Reform Christianity on the Basis of the Pauline Gospel . 70 Chapter VI. — Supplement : The Christianity of the Jewish Christians . 74 Book II. THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. Chapter I. — Historical Survey . 81 Section I. Establishment of Christianity as a Church and its Gradual Secularization. Chapter II. — The Setting Forth of the Apostolic Rules (Norms) for Ecclesiastical Christianity. The Catholic Church . 84 A. The Recasting of the Baptismal Confession into the Apostolic Rule of Faith . 85 B. The Recognition of a Selection of Well-known Scriptures as Virtually Belonging to the Old Testament; i. e., as a Compilation of Apostolic Scriptures . 88 C. The Transformation of the Episcopal Office in the Church into the Apostolic Office. History of the Transformation of the Idea of the Church . . 95 Chapter III. — Continuation: The Old Christianity and the New Church . 100 Section II. Establishment of Christianity as Doctrine and its Gradual Secidarization. Chapter IV. — Ecclesiastical Christianity and Philosophy. The Apologists . 117 Chapter V.— Beginnings of an Ecclesiastico-Theological Exposition and Revision of the Rule of Faith in Opposition to Gnosticism on the Presupposition of the New Testament and the Christian Philosophy of the Apologists : Irenasus, Tertullian, Hippoly- tus, Cyprian, Novatian . 130 CONTENTS. IX PAGE Chapter VI. — Transformation of Ecclesiastical Tradition into a Philosophy of Religion, or the Origin of Scientific Ecclesiastical Theology and Dogmatics : Clement and Origen . 149 Chapter VII. — Decisive Result of Theological Speculation within the Realm of the Rule of Faith, or the Defin¬ ing of the Ecclesiastical Doctrinal Norm through the Acceptance of the Logos- Christology . . 166 PART II. | THE DEVELOPMENT OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA. Book I. HISTORY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF DOGMA AS DOCTRINE OF THE GOD-MAN UPON THE BASIS OF NATURAL THEOLOGY. Chapter I. — Historical Survey . 193 Chapter II.— The Fundamental Conception of Salvation and a General Sketch of the Doctrine of Faith . 206 Chapter III. — The Sources of Knowledge and the Authori¬ ties, or Scripture, Tradition, and the Church . 212 A. The Presuppositions of the Doctrine of Salvation, or Nat¬ ural Theology. Chapter IV. — The Presuppositions and Conceptions of God, the Creator, as the Dispenser of Salvation . 225 Chapter V. — The Presuppositions and Conceptions of Man as the Recipient of Salvation .... 229 B. The Doctrine of Redemption through the Person of the God-Man in its Historical Development. Chapter VI. — The Doctrine of the Necessity and Reality of Redemption through the Incarnation of the Son of God Chapter VII. — The Doctrine of the Homousion of the Son of God with God Himself . I. Until Council of Niceea .... II. Until Death of Constantius .... III. Until Councils of Constantinople, 381, 383 . 235 242 242 253 259 Supplement: The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and of the Trinity . 266 X CONTENTS. t PAGE Chapter VIII. — The Doctrine of the Perfect Equality as to Nature of the Incarnate Son of God and Humanity . 274 Chapter IX. — Continuation : The Doctrine of the Personal Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Incarnate Son of God ...... 280 I. The Nestorian Controversy . 280 II. The Eutychian Controversy ..... 287 III. The Monophysite Controversies and the 5th Council ......... 294 IV. The Monergistic and Monothelitic Controversies, the 0th Council and John of Damascus . . 300 C. The Temporal Enjoyment of Redemption. Chapter X. — The Mysteries, and Matters Akin to Them . 305 Chapter XI. — Conclusion: Sketch of the Historic Begin¬ nings of the Orthodox System .... 318 Book II. EXPANSION AND RECASTING OF THE DOGMA INTO A DOCTRINE CONCERNING SIN, GRACE AND THE MEANS OF GRACE UPON THE BASIS OF THE CHURCH. Chapter I. — Historical Survey . 326 '■*' Chapter II. — Occidental Christianity and Occidental The¬ ologians before Augustine . 329 Chapter III. — The World-Historical Position of Augustine as Reformer of Christian Piety . . ' . . 335 - Chapter IV. — The World-Historical Position of Augus¬ tine as Teacher of the Church .... 342 I. Augustine’s Doctrine of tire First and Last Things 345 II. The Donatist Contest. The Work “ De Civitate Dei.” The Doctrine of the Church and of the Means of Grace . 354 III. The Pelagian Contest. Doctrine of Grace and of Sin . 363 IV. Augustine’s Exposition of the Symbol. The New Doctrine of Religion . 376 ~ Chapter V. — History of Dogma in the Occident till the Beginning of the Middle Ages (430-604) . . 382 - / I / / CONTENTS. XI PAGE 383 387 392 394 395 I. Contest between Semi-Pelagianism and Augustini- anisra . . . II. Gregory the Great (590-604) . Chapter VI. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Carlo- vingian Renaissance . I. A. The Adoption Controversy .... I. B. The Predestination Controversy II. Controversy about the Filioque and about Images 397 III. The Development, in Practice and in Theory, of the Mass (Dogma of the Eucharist) and of Penance 399 Chapter VII. — History of Dogma in the Time of Clugny, Anselm and Bernard to the End of the 12th Century . I. The Revival of Piety II. On the History of Ecclesiastical Law III. The Revival of Science . IV. Work upon the Dogma . A. The Berengar Controversy . B. Anselm’s Doctrine of Satisfaction and the Doc¬ trines of the Atonement of the Theologians of the 12th Century . Chapter VIII. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Men¬ dicant Orders till the Beginning of the 16th Century . 433 I. On the History of Piety . 434 II. On the History of Ecclesiastical Law. The Doc¬ trine of the Church . 442 III. On the History of Ecclesiastical Science . . 452 IV. The Reminting of Dogmatics into Scholastics . 461 A. The Working Over of the Traditional Articuli Fidei . 462 B. The Scholastic Doctrine of the Sacraments . . 468 C. The Revising of Augustinianism in the Direction of the Doctrine of Meritorious Works . . . 488 406 407 412 414 422 423 427 Book III. THE THREE- FOLD ISSUING OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Chapter I. — Historical Survey . 501 Chapter II. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Roman Ca¬ tholicism . 510 CONTENTS. • • XI 1 PAGK — I. Codification of the Mediaeval Doctrines in Opposi¬ tion to Protestantism (Tridentine Decrees) . . 510 II. Post -Tri dentine Development as a Preparation for the Vatican Council . 518 III. The Vatican Council . . . . . 527 ' Chapter III. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Anti-Trinita- rianism and Socinianism < 529 I. Historical Introduction . 529 II. The Socinian Doctrine . 535 Chapter IV. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Protestantism 541 I. Introduction . 541 II. Luther’s Christianity . 545 III. Luther’s Strictures on the Dominating Ecclesi¬ astical Tradition and on the Dogma . . . 551 - IV. The Catholic Elements Retained with and within Luther’s Christianity . 557 i OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE. I. — Idea and Aim of the History of Dogma. 1. Religion is a practical affair with mankind, Religion, since it has to do with our highest happiness and with those faculties which pertain to a holy life. But in every religion these faculties are closely con¬ nected with some definite faith or with some defi¬ nite cult) which are referred back to Divine Reve¬ lation. Christianity is that religion in which the impulse and power to a blessed and holy life is bound up with faith in God as the Father of Jesus Christ. So far as this God is believed to be the omnipotent Lord of heaven and earth, the Christian religion includes a particular knowledge of God, of the world and of the purpose of created things ; so far, how¬ ever, as this religion teaches that God can be truly known only in Jesus Christ, it is inseparable from historical knowledge. 2. The inclination to formulate the content of of religion in Articles of Faith is as natural to Chris¬ tianity as the effort to verify these articles with reference to science and to history. On the other 1 2 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. hand the universal and supernatural character of the Christian religion imposes upon its adherents the duty of finding a statement of it which will not be impaired by our wavering knowledge of nature and history ; and, indeed, which will be able to maintain itself before every possible theory of nature or of Problem history. The problem which thus arises permits, Insoluble. indeed, of no absolute solution, since all knowledge is relative ; and yet religion essays to bring her ab¬ solute truth into the sphere of relative knowledge and to reduce it to statement there. But history teaches, and every thinking Christian testifies, that the problem does not come to its solution ; even on that account the progressive efforts which have been made to solve it are of value. v attte?oiu- 3. The most thorough-going attempt at solution tlon' hitherto is that which the Catholic Church made, and which the churches of the Reformation (with more or less restrictions) have continued to make, ^ viz. : Accepting a collection of Christian and Pre- Christian writings and oral traditions as of Divine origin, to deduce from them a system of doctrine, arranged in scientific form for apologetic purposes, which should have as its content the knowledge of God and of the world and of the means of salvation ; then to proclaim this complex system (of dogma) as the compendium of Christianity, to demand of every mature member of the Church a faithful ac¬ ceptance of it, and at the same time to maintain that the same is a necessary preparation for the blessed- PROLEGOMENA. 3 ness promised by the religion. With this augmen¬ tation the Christian brotherhood, whose character as “ Catholic Church ” is essentially indicated under this conception of Christianity, took a definite and, as was supposed, incontestable attitude toward the science of nature and of history, expressed its relig¬ ious faith in God and Christ, and yet gave (inas¬ much as it required of all its members an acceptance of these articles of faith) to the thinking part of the community a system which is capable of a wider and indeed boundless development. Thus arose dog¬ matic Christianity. 4. The aim of the history of dogma is, (1) To ex¬ plain the origin of this dogmatic Christianity, and, (2) To describe its development . 5. The history of the rise of dogmatic Christian¬ ity would seem to close when a well-formulated sys¬ tem of belief had been established by scientific means, and had been made the “ articulus constitu- tivus ecclesice ,” and as such had been imposed upon the entire Church. This took place in the transition from the 3d to the 4tli century when the Logos- Christology was established. The development of dogma is in abstracto without limit, but in con- creto it has come to an end. For, (a) the Greek Church maintains that its system of dogma has been complete since the end of the “ Image Controversy ” ; (b) the Roman Catholic Church leaves the possibil¬ ity of the formulating of new dogmas open, but in the Tridentine Council and still more in the Vatican Aim of History of Dogma Rise of Dogma. Develop¬ ment of Dogma. Greek Church. Roman Church. 4 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. \ Evangel¬ ical Churches. History of Protestant Doctrine Excluded. has it in fact on political grounds rounded out its dogma as a legal system which above all demands obedience and only secondarily conscious faith ; the Roman Catholic Church has consequently abandoned the original motive of dogmatic Christianity and has placed a wholly new motive in its stead, retain¬ ing the mere semblance of the old ; (c) The Evan¬ gelical churches have, on the one hand, accepted a greater part of the formulated doctrines of dogmatic Christianity and seek to ground them, like the Cath¬ olic Church, in the Holy Scriptures. But, on the other hand, they took a different view of the author¬ ity of the Holy Scriptures, they put aside tradition as a source in matters of belief, they questioned the significance of the empirical Church as regards the dogma, and above all they tried to put forward a formulation of the Christian religion, which goes directly back to the “ true understanding of the Word of God.” Thus in principle the ancient dog¬ matic conception of Christianity was set aside, while however in certain matters no fixed attitude was taken toward the same and reactions began at once and still continue. Therefore is it announced that the history of Protestant doctrine will be excluded from the history of dogma, and within the former will be indicated only the position of the Reformers and of the churches of the Reformation, out of which the later complicated development grew. Hence the history of dogma can be treated as relatively a com¬ pleted discipline. PROLEGOMENA. 5 6. The claim of the Church that the dogmas are simply the exposition of the Christian revelation, because deduced from the Holy Scriptures, is not confirmed by historical investigation. On the con¬ trary, it becomes clear that dogmatic Christianity (the dogmas) in its conception and in its construc¬ tion was the work of the Hellenic spirit upon the Gospel soil. The intellectual medium by which in early times men sought to make the Gospel compre¬ hensible and to establish it securely, became insep¬ arably blended with the content of the same. Thus arose the dogma, in whose formation, to be sure, other factors (the words of Sacred Scripture, require¬ ments of the cult, and of the organization, political and social environment, the impulse to push things to their logical consequences, blind custom, etc.) played a part, yet so that the desire and effort to formulate the main principles of the Christian re¬ demption, and to explain and develop them, secured the upper hand, at least in the earlier times. 7. Just as the formulating of the dogma proved to be an illusion, so far as the same was to be the pure exposition of the Gospel, so also does historical inves¬ tigation destroy the other illusion of the Church, viz. : that the dogma, always having been the same therein, have simply been explained, and that eccle¬ siastical theology has never had any other aim than to explain the unchanging dogma and to refute the heretical teaching pressing in from without. The formulating of the dogma indicates rather that the- Dogmas not Expo' sition of Christian Revela¬ tion. Theology- Construct¬ ed the Dogma. 6 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. ology constructed the dogma, but that the Church must ever conceal the labor of the theologians, which thus places them in an unfortunate plight. In each favorable case the result of their labor has been declared to be a reproduction and they them¬ selves have been robbed of their best service; as a rule in the progress of history they fell under the condemnation of the dogmatic scheme, whose foun¬ dation they themselves had laid, and so entire gener¬ ations of theologians, as well as the chief leaders thereof, have, in the further development of dogma, been afterwards marked and declared to be heretics or held in suspicion. Dogma has ever in the prog¬ ress of history devoured its own progenitors. ^Luther16’ Although dogmatic Christianity has never, in the process of its development, lost its original style and character as a work of the spirit of perishing antiquity upon Gospel soil (style of the Greek apologists and of Origin) , yet it experienced first through Augustine and later through Luther a deeper and more thorough transformation. Both of these men, the latter more than the former, cham¬ pioned a new and more evangelical conception of Christianity, guided chiefly by Paulinism; Augus¬ tine however hardly attempted a revision of the tra¬ ditional dogma, rather did he co-ordinate the old and the new; Luther, indeed, attempted it, but did not carry it through. The Christian quality of the dogma gained through the influence of each, and the old traditional system of dogma was relaxed some- PROLEGOMENA. 7 what — this was so much the case in Protestantism that one does well, as remarked above, no longer to consider the symbolical teaching of the Protestant churches as wholly a recasting of the old dogma. 9. An understanding of the dogmatico-historic process cannot be secured by isolating the special doctrines and considering them separately (Special History of Dogma) after that the epochs have been previously characterized (General History of Dogma) . It is much better to consider the “ general ” and the “ special ” in each period and to treat the periods sep¬ arately, and as much as possible to prove the special doctrines to be the outcome of the fundamental ideas and motives. It is not possible, however, to make more than four principal divisions, viz. : I. The Ori¬ gin of Dogma. II. a. The Development of Dogma in accordance with the principles of its original con¬ ception (Oriental Development from Arianism to the Image- Controversy) . II. b. The Occidental Devel¬ opment of Dogma under the influence of Augustine’s Christianity and the Roman papal politics. II. c. The Three-fold Issuing of Dogma (in the churches of the Reformation — in Tridentine Catholicism — and in the criticism of the rationalistic age, i.e., of So- cinianism) . 10. The history of dogma, in that it sets forth the process of the origin and development of the dogma, offers the very best means and methods of freeing the Church from dogmatic Christianity, and of hast¬ ening the inevitable process of emancipation, which Periods in History of Dogma. Value of Study. 8 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Mosheira, etc. Baronius, etc. Luther, etc. Erasmus, etc. Benedic¬ tine, etc. Gottfried Arnold. began with Augustine. But the history of dogma testifies also to the unity and continuity of the Christian faith in the progress of its history, in so far as it proves that certain fundamental ideas of the Gospel have never been lost and have defied all attacks. II.— History of the History of Dogma. The narrative of the History of Dogma begins first in the 18th century with Mosheim, Walch, Ernesti, Lessing, and Semler, since Catholicism in general is not fitted for a critical handling of the subject, al¬ though learned works have been written by individ¬ ual Catholic theologians (Baronius Bellarmin, Peta- vius, Thomassin, Kuhn, Schwane, Bach, etc.), and since the Protestant churches remained until the 18th century under the ban of confessionalism, al¬ though important contributions were made in the • • time of the Reformation (Luther, Okolampad, Mel- anchthon, Flacius, Hyperius, Chemnitz) to the criti¬ cal treatment of the History of Dogma, based in part upon the labors of the critically disposed humanists (L. Yalla; Erasmus, etc.). But without the learned material, which, on the one hand, the Benedictine and other Orders had gathered together, and, on the other, the Protestant Casaubonus, Vossius, Pearson, Dallaus, Spanheim, Grabe, Basnage, etc., and with¬ out the grand impulse which pietism gave (Gott¬ fried Arnold), the work of the 18th century would PROLEGOMENA. 9 have been inconsiderable. Rationalism robbed the history of dogma of its ecclesiastical interest and gave it over to a critical treatment in which its darkness was lighted up in part by the lamp of common understanding and in part by the torch of general historical contemplation (first History of Dogma by Lange, 1796, previous works by Sender, Rossler, Loffler, etc., then the History of Dogma by Munscher, Handb. 4 Bdd. 1797 f., an excellent Lehrbuch, 1. Aufl. 1811, 3. Aufl. 1832, M tin ter 2 Bdd. 1802 f, Staudlin 1800 and 1822, Augusti 1805 and 1835, Gieseler, edited by Redepenning 2 Bdd. 1855). The valuable handbooks of Baumgar- ten-Crusius 1832, i.e. 1840 and 1846, and of Meier 1840, i.e. 1854, mark the transition to a class of works in which an inner understanding of the pro¬ cess of the History of Dogma has been won, for which Lessing had already striven, and for which Herder, Schleiermacher and the Romanticists on the one side, and Hegel and Schelling on the other, had prepared the way. Epoch-making were the writings of F. Chr. Baur (Lehrb. 1847, i.e. 1867, Yorles. 3. Thl. 1865 f.), in which the dogmatico-historic process, conceived to be sure in a one-sided way, was, so to speak, lived over again (cf. also Strauss, Glaubenslehre 2 Bdd. 1840 f. Marheineke 1849). Prom the Schleiermacher point of view, is Neander (2. Thl. 1857) and Hagenbach (1840, i.e. 1867). Dorner (History of the Doctrine of the Person of Christ, 1839 i.e. 1845-53) attempted to unite Hegel Lange. Munscher. Baumgar- ten-Cru- sius. Lessing, Herder, Schleier- inaeher, Hegel, Schelling. Baur. Neander. Dorner. 10 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. and Schleiermacher. From the Lutheran Confes¬ sional standpoint Kliefoth (Einl. in d. D. G. 1839), Thomasius (2 Bdd. 1874 f. and 1887 edited by Bon- wetsch 1 Bd.), Schmid (1859 i.e. 1887 ed. by Hauck) and, with reservations, Kahnis (The Faith of the Church, 1864). A marked advance is indicated in Nitzsch. the History of Dogma by Nitzsch (1 Bd. 1870). For a correct understanding especially of the origin of dogma the labors of Rothe, Ritschl, Renan, Over¬ beck, v. Engelliardt, Weizsacker and Reville are valuable. PRESUPPOSITIONS ■ OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. III. — Introductory. Gospel is l. The gospel appeared in the “fulness of time.” cimst. And the Gospel is Jesus Christ. In these sentences the announcement is made that the Gospel is the climax of an universal development and yet that it has its power in a personal Life. Jesus Christ “de¬ stroyed not,” but “fulfilled.” He witnessed a new life before God and in God, but within the confines of Judaism, and upon the soil of the Old Testament whose hidden treasures he uncovered. It can be shown, that everything that is “ lofty and spiritual ” in the Psalms and Prophets, and everything that had been gained through the development of Grecian ethics, is reaffirmed in the plain and simple Gospel ; but it obtained its nower there, because it became PROLEGOMENA. 11 life and deed in a Person , whose greatness consists also in this, that he did not remould his earthly en¬ vironment, nor encounter any subsequent rebuff, — in other words, that he did not become entangled in his times. 2. Two generations later there existed, to be sure, atedfecon- no united and homogeneous Church , but there s1-^10118- were scattered throughout the wide Roman empire confederated congregations of Christian believers (churches) who, for the most part, were Gentile- born and condemned the Jewish nation and religion as apostate ; they appropriated the Old Testament as theirs by right and considered themselves a “new nation”, and yet as the “ancient creation of God”, while in all departments of life and thought certain sacred forms were gradually being put forward. The existence of these confederated Gentile Christian communities is the preliminary condition to the rise of dogmatic Christianity. The organization of these churches began, indeed, Freeing of Gospel in the apostolic times and their peculiar constitution fronJshJew' is negatively indicated by the freeing of the Gospel Clmrch- from the Jewish church. While in Islamism the Arabic nation remained for centuries the main trunk of the new religion, it is an astonishing fact in the history of the Gospel, that it soon left its native soil and went forth into the wide world and realized its universal character, not through the transformation of the Jewish religion, but by. developing into a world-religion upon Graeco- Roman soil. The Gos- - 12 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Gospel World-Re¬ ligion. Classical Epoch of Gospel History. Paul’s Mis¬ sion. No Chasm Between Earlier Epoch and Succeeding Period. pel became a world-religion in that , having a message for all mankind , it preached it to Greek and barbarian , and accordingly attached itself to the spiritual and political life of the world¬ wide Roman empire. 3. Since the Gospel in its original form was Jew¬ ish and was preached only to the Jews, there lay in this transition, which was brought about, in part gradually and without disturbance, and in part through a severe crisis, consequences of the most stringent kind. From the standpoint of the history of the Church and of dogma, the brief history of the Gospel within the bounds of Palestinian Judaism is accordingly a paleontological epoch. And yet this remains the classical epoch , not only on account of the Founder and of the original testimony, but quite as much because a Jeivish Christian (Paul) recog¬ nized the Gospel as the power of God, which was able to save both Jew and Greek, and because he designedly severed the Gospel from the Jewish na¬ tional religion and proclaimed the Christ as the end of the Law. Then other Jewish Christians, personal disciples of Jesus, indeed, followed him in all this (see also the 4th Gospel and the Epistle to the Hebrews) . Yet there is in reality no chasm between the older brief epoch and the succeeding period, so far as the Gospel is in itself universalistic, and this character very soon became manifest. But the means by which Paul and his sjunpatliizers set forth the uni- PROLEGOMENA. 13 versal character of the Gospel (proving that the Old Testament religion had been fulfilled and done away with) was little understood, and, vice versa , the manner and means by which the Gentile Christians came to an acceptance of the Gospel, can only in part be attributed to the preaching of Paul. So far as we now possess in the New Testament substan¬ tial writings in which the Gospel is so thoroughly thought out that it is prized as the supplanter of the Old Testament religion, and writings which at the same time are not deeply touched with the Greek spirit, does this literature differ radically from all that follows. 4. The growing Gentile Church, notwithstanding Paul’s significant relation toward it, did not com¬ prehend, nor really experience the crisis, out of which the Pauline conception of the Gospel arose. In the Jewish propaganda, within which the Old Testament had long since become liberalized and spiritualized, the Gentile Church, entering and grad¬ ually subjecting the same to itself, seldom felt the problem of the reconciliation of the Old Testament with the Gospel, since by means of the allegorical method the propaganda had freed themselves from the letter of the law, but had not entirely overcome its spirit; indeed they had simply cast off their national character. Moved by the hostile power of the Jews and later also of the Gentiles and by the consciousness of inherent strength to organize a “ people ” for itself, the Church as a matter of course Gentile Church did not Com¬ prehend Paul’s Problem, 14 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Gentile Churches Retained Many Palestinian Character¬ istics. History of Dogma has to do with Gentile Church Only. V took on the form of the thought and life of the world in which it lived, casting aside everything polythe¬ istic, immoral and vulgar. Thus arose the new or¬ ganizations, which with all their newness bore testi¬ mony to their kinship with the original Palestinian churches, in so far as, (1) the Old Testament was likewise recognized as a primitive revelation, and in so far as, (2) the strong spiritual monotheism, (3) the outlines of the proclamation concerning Jesus Christ, (4) the consciousness of a direct and living fellowship with God through the gift of the Spirit, (5) the expectation of the approaching end of the world, and the earnest conviction of the personal responsibility and accountability of each individual soul were all likewise maintained. To these is to be added finally, that the earliest Jewish-Christian proclamation, yes, the Gospel itself, bears the stamp of the spiritual epochs, out of which it arose, — of the Hellenic age, in which the nations exchanged their wares and religions were transformed, and the idea of the worth and accountability of every soul became widespread ; so that the Hellenism which soon pressed so mightily into the Church was not abso¬ lutely strange and new. 5. The history of dogma has to do with the Gen¬ tile Church only — the history of theology begins, it is true, with Paul — , but in order to understand his¬ torically the basis of the formation of doctrine in the Gentile Church, it must take into consideration, as already stated, the following as antecedent condi- PROLEGOMENA. 15 tions: (1) The Gospel of Jesus Christ , (2) The ph^ppo- general and simultaneous proclamation of Jesus Christ in the first generation of believers , (3) The current understanding and exposition of the Old Testament and the Jewish anticipations of the fu¬ ture and their speculations , (4) The religious con¬ ceptions and the religious philosophy of the Hel¬ lenistic Jews , (5) The religious attitude of the Greeks and Romans during the first two centu¬ ries , and the current Graeco-Roman philosophy of religion. TV. — The Gospel of Jesus Christ according to His Own Testimony. The Gospel is the good news of the reign of the JJospe^js Almighty and Holy God, the Father and Judge of °domo?" the world and of each individual soul. In this reign, which makes men citizens of the heavenly kingdom and gives them to realize their citizenship in the ap¬ proaching eon, the lif e of every man who gives him¬ self to God is secure, even if he should immediately lose the world and his earthly life; while those who seek to win the world and to keep their life fall into the hands of the Judge, who condemns them to hell. This reign of God, in that it rises above all ceremonies and statutes, places men under a law , which is old and yet new, viz. : Whole-hearted love Love to to God and to one’s neighbor. In this love, wher- Man- ever it controls the thoughts in their deepest springs, that better justice is exemplified which corresponds 16 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. God’s Sov¬ ereignty, Law of Love, For¬ giveness of Sin. Gospel Word and Deed in Jesus. to the perfection of God. The way to secure this righteousness is by a change of hearty i.e. by self- denial and humility before God and a heart-felt trust in him. In such humility and trust in God the soul realizes its own unworthiness. The Gospel, however, calls even sinners, who are so disposed, unto the kingdom of God, in that it assures them satisfaction with his justice, i.e ., guarantees them the forgiveness of the sins which have hitherto separated them from God. In the three-fold form, however, in which the Gospel is set forth, (God’s sovereignty, higher justice [law of love] and for¬ giveness of sin) it is inseparably connected with Jesus Christ. For in the proclamation of the Gos¬ pel, Jesus Christ everywhere called men unto him¬ self. In him is the Gospel word and deed; it is his meat and drink and, therefore, is it become his personal life, and into this life he would draw all men. He is the Son , who knows the Father. Men should see in him how kind the Lord is; in him they may experience the power and sovereignty of God over the world and be comforted in this trust ; him, the meek and gentle-hearted One, should they follow ; and inasmuch as he, the holy and pure One, calls sinners unto himself, they should be fully as¬ sured that God through him forgives sin. This close connection of his Gospel with his per¬ son , Jesus by no means made prominent in words , but left his disciples to experience it. He called himself the Son of Man and led them on to the con- PROLEGOMENA. 17 fession that he was their Master and Messiah. Thereby he gave to his lasting significance for them and for his people a comprehensible expression, and at the close of his life, in an hour of great solemnity, he said to them that his death also like his life was an imperishable service which he rendered to the “many” for the forgiveness of sins. By this he raised himself above the plane of all others, although they may already be his brethren; he claimed for himself an unique significance as the Redeemer and as the Judge ; for he interpreted his death, like all his suffering, as a triumph, as the transition to his glory , and he proved his power by actually awaken¬ ing in his disciples the conviction that he still lives and is Lord over the dead and the living. The re¬ ligion of the Gospel rests upon this faith in Jesus Christ, i.e. looking upon him, that historical Per¬ son, the believer is convinced that God rules heaven and earth, and that God, the Judge, is also Father and Redeemer. The religion of the Gospel is the re¬ ligion which frees men from all legality, which, how¬ ever, at the same time lays upon them the highest moral obligations — the simplest and the severest — and lays bare the contradiction in which every man finds himself as regards them. But it brings re¬ demption out of such necessities, in that it leads men to the gracious God, leaves them in his hands, and draws their life into union with the inexhaustible and blessed life of Jesus Christ, who has overcome the world and called sinners to himself. 2 Jesus Mes¬ siah. Redeemer, Judge. Gospel Frees from all Legal¬ ity. 18 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. V.— The General Proclamation concerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation of His Adherents. Jesus Ris¬ en Lord. Way, Truth, Life. King. Content of Disciples’ Belief. New Church, True Is¬ rael. 1. Men had learned to know Jesus Christ and had found him to he the Messiah. In the first two gen¬ erations following him everything was said about him which men were in any way able to say. Inas¬ much as they knew him to be the Risen One, they exalted him as the Lord of the world and of history, sitting at the right hand of God, as the Way, the Truth and the Life, as the Prince of Life and the living Power of a new existence, as the Conqueror of death and the King of a coming new kingdom. Although strong individual feeling, special experi¬ ence, Scriptural learning and a fantastic tendency gave from the beginning a form to the confession of him, yet common characteristics of the proclamation can be definitely pointed out. 2. The content of the disciples’ belief and the gen¬ eral proclamation of it on the ground of the certainty of the resurrection of Jesus, can be set forth as fol¬ lows: Jesus is the Messiah promised by the prophets — he will come again and establish a visible king¬ dom, — they who believe on him and surrender them¬ selves entirely to this belief, may feel assured of the grace of God and of a share in his future glory. A new community of Christian believers thus organized itself within the Jewish nation. And this new com¬ munity believed itself to be the true Israel of the PROLEGOMENA. 19 Messianic times and lived, accordingly, in all their thoughts and feelings in the future. Thus could all the Jewish apocalyptic expectations retain their pow¬ er for the time of the second coming of Christ. For the fulfilment of these hopes the new community pos¬ sessed a guarantee in the sacrificial death of Christ, as also in the manifold manifestations of the Spirit, which were visible upon the members upon their entrance into the brother-hood (from the beginning this introduction seems to have been accompanied by Possession baptism) and in their gathering together. The pos- session of the Spirit was an assurance to each indi- pleship‘ vidual that he was not only a “ disciple ” but also a “called saint,” and, as such, a priest and king of God. Faith in the God of Israel became faith in God the Father ; added to this was faith in Jesus, the Christ and Son of God, and the witness of the gift of the Holy Spirit, i.e. of the Spirit of God and Christ. In the strength of this faith men lived in the fear of the Judge and in trust in God, who had already begun the redemption of his own people. The proclamation concerning Jesus, the Christ, Preachiug * ]jHiS6(1 Fill'" rested first of all entirely upon the Old Testament, o^Testa- yet it had its starting-point in the exaltation of Jesus through his resurrection from the dead. To prove that the entire Old Testament pointed toward him, and that his person, his work, his fate were the actual and verbal fulfilment of the Old Testament prophecies, was the chief interest of believers, in so far as they did not give themselves entirely to ex- 20 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. pectations of the future. This reference did not serve at once to make clear the meaning and worth of the Messianic work — this it did not seem to need — but rather to establish the Messiah-sliip of Jesus. However, the Old Testament, as it was then under¬ stood, gave occasion, through the fixing of the per¬ son and dignity of Christ, for widening the scope of the thought of Israel’s perfected theocracy. And, in addition, faith in the exaltation of Jesus to the right hand of God caused men to think of the begin¬ ning of his existence in harmony therewith. Then the fact of the successful Gentile conversion threw a new light upon the scope of his work, i.e. upon its significance for all mankind. And finally the per¬ sonal claims of Jesus led men to reflect on his pecu¬ liar relation to God, the Father. On these four tion6 Began P°^n^s speculation began already in the apostolic age micAAges01’ an(^ ^ wenI on 1° formulate new statements concern¬ ing the person and dignity of Christ. In proclaim¬ ing Jesus to be the Christ men ceased thereby to proclaim the Gospel, because the rrjpetv Ttdvra dvras xai vexpous * xai E£9 Tzvebpa aytov, dyiav lxx\r\aiav^ acpeaiv dpapriwv^ aapxo 9 dvdaraaiv. Everything that had been prophesied con¬ cerning the Christ in the Old Testament, and that had been testified concerning him in the primitive Gospel, was referred back to the concurrent teach¬ ing and testimony of the twelve apostles (dida/p xupioo Sea rwv ip dTroaroXajv) . The rise of this court of appeal, which was the beginning of the idea of Catholic tradition, is historically obscure and rests upon an a priori. Of like authority, though not identified with it, is Paul with his Epistles, which were, moreover, diligently read. 3. The Principal Elements of Christianity were faith in God, the ^(nror^, and in his Son, on the ground of the fulfilment of prophecy and of the apos¬ tolic attested teaching of the Lord, the discipline in accordance with the standard laid down by the Mas¬ ter, baptism culminating in a common sacrificial prayer, the communion meal, and the certain hope of the near coming of Christ’s glorious kingdom. The confessions of faith were very manifold ; there was not as yet any definite doctrine of faith ; imagi¬ nation, speculation and the exclusively spiritual interpretation of the Old Testament had the widest range ; for man must not quench the Spirit. In the exercise of prayer the congregations expressed that Rise of Court of Appeal. Main Ele¬ ments in Christian¬ ity. 46 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Concep¬ tions of Salvation. Ckiliasm. Knowledge of Gocl. Moral View. which they possessed in God and in Christ ; and the duty of sacrificing this world for the hoped-for future appeared as the practical side of faith itself. The varying conceptions of salvation grouped themselves about two centres, which were only loosely con¬ nected ; the one was fixed chiefly by the disposition and the imagination, the other by the intellect. On the one side, accordingly, salvation was believed to consist in the approaching glorious kingdom of Christ, which should bring joy upon the earth to the righteous (this realistic Jewish conception was de¬ rived directly from the apocalypses : Chiliasm, and hence the interest in the resurrection of the physical body). On the other side, salvation was held to con¬ sist in a definite and full knowledge of God (and the world) , as against the errors of heathenism ; and this knowledge disclosed to faith (n forts) and hope the gift of life and all imaginable blessings (less em¬ phasis was accoidingly placed on the resurrection of the physical body). Of these blessings the brother¬ hood was already in possession of the forgiveness of sin and of righteousness, in so far as theirs was a brotherhood of saints. But these two blessings ap¬ peared to be endangered as to their worth by empha¬ sizing the moral point of view, in accordance with which eternal life is looked upon, for the most part, as the wages and the reward of a perfect moral life lived in one’s own strength. It is true that the thought was still present, that sinlessness rests upon a new moral creation (the new birth) which is real- THE PREPARATION. 47 ized in baptism ; but it was ever in danger of being crowded out by the other thought, that there are no blessings in salvation save revealed knowledge and the eternal life, but rather only a catalogue of duties, in which the Gospel is set forth as the New Law (as cetic holiness and love) . The “ Christianizing ” of the Old Testament served to promote this Greek concep¬ tion. The idea, it is true, was already present that the Gospel, in so far as it is law (vo/xo?) , includes the gift of salvation (v6[±o$ dvto c vyoo dvdyxr)$ — vo/io$ T7}<$ kkew&epta$ — Christ himself is the Law) ; but this rep¬ resentation was always doubtful and was gradually abandoned. The setting forth of the Gospel under the conceptions: yvdxn? (God and world), ZxayyeMa (eternal life), vopo? (moral duty), appeared as plain as it was exhaustive, and in every relation the xians was held to be confirmed, since it exhibits itself in knowl¬ edge as well as in hope and in obedience; but in reality it is only mens xh yo-ew?, a preparation, be¬ cause the blessings of salvation (the fiacdda rod fteou as well as the dcpftapcta) are conferred in the future. In this hope of the future, salvation is set forth as realizing itself in a brotherhood , while in the moral-gnostic view it is considered as an individ¬ ual possession, and reward and punishment are represented as co-ordinated with it, which results in emptying the conception of God of its content. The moral view of sin, forgiveness and righteousness in Clement, Barnabas and Polycarp is overlaid by Pau¬ line phrases and formulas ; but the uncertainty with Gospel as New Law. Transition to Moral - ism. 48 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Influence of Old Testament. which these are quoted indicates that they were not really understood. In Hernias and II. Clement the ground of the forgiveness of sin is the spontaneous energizing / lerdvoia . The wide-spread idea that griev¬ ous sins could not be forgiven those who had been baptized, but that light sins might be condoned, indicates the complete transition to a barren, theo¬ retical moralism, which was, however, still overlaid by an apocalyptic enthusiasm. 4. The Old Testament as the Source of the Knoivl- edge of Faith contributed, (1) to the development of the monotheistic cosmology, (2) to the setting forth of the proofs of prophecy and of the antiquity of Chris¬ tianity (“older than the world ”), (3) to the establish¬ ing of all the ecclesiastical ideas, rights and cere¬ monies, which were considered necessary, (4) to the deepening of the life of faith (Psalms and prophetical fragments), (5) to the refuting of Judaism as a nation, i.e . to the proving that this people had been cast off by God, and that they had either never had any covenant with him (Barnabas), or had had a covenant of wrath, or had forfeited their covenant; that they had never understood the Old Testament and were therefore now deprived of it, if, indeed, they had ever been in possession of it (the attitude of the Church as a whole toward the Jewish people and their history appears to have been originally as in¬ definite as the attitude of the gnostics toward the Old Testament) . Attempts to correct the Old Testa¬ ment and to give it a Christian sense were not want- THE PREPARATION. 49 ing; in the formation of the New Testament there were rudimentary efforts toward this end. 5. Faith Knowledge was above all a knowledge of God as the only supernatural, spiritual and al¬ mighty Being: God is the Creator and Ruler of the world and is therefore the Lord. But inas¬ much as he created the world as a beautiful, well- ordered whole (monotheistic theory of nature) for the sake of man, he is at the same time the God of goodness and of redemption (#£o? and only through the knowledge of the identity of the Creator and Redeemer God does faith in God as the Father reach its perfection. Redemption, how¬ ever, was necessary, because mankind and the world in the very beginning fell under the dominion of demons. A general and acceptable theory in re¬ gard to the origin of this dominion did by no means exist; but the conviction was fixed and universal, that the present condition and course of the world is not of God, but of the devil. Still, faith in the al¬ mighty Creator, and hope in the restoration of the earth did not allow theoretical dualism to make any headway and practical dualism dominated. The world is good and belongs to God, but the present course of it is of the devil. Thus men’s thoughts os¬ cillated between the conception of the world as a beautiful and orderly whole, and the impression of the present evil course of things, of the baseness of the sensuous and of the dominion of demons in the world. God is Creator, Ruler, and Redeemer. Dominion of Demons. Practical Dualism. 50 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Jesus is Lord and Saviour like God. Titles Given to Jesus. Son of God.' 6. Faith in Jesus Christ as the Bedeerner was closely identified with faith in Cod as the Redeemer. Jesus is and (uozvjp like God, and the same words were often used without indicating whether the reference was to him or to God ; for in the Re- vealer and Mediator of salvation ( J esus) , the Author (God) is represented (the purpose of salvation and the revelation of it coincide) ; prayer, however, was made to God through Christ. This title given to Jesus (“ Christ ”) became indeed a mere name, since there was no real knowledge of the meaning of “ Messiah.” Therefore the Gentile Christians were obliged through other means to find expressions for the dig¬ nity of Jesus; but they possessed in the full eschato¬ logical traditions valuable reminiscences of the orig¬ inal apprehension of the Person of Jesus. In the confession that God has chosen and specially pre¬ pared Jesus, that he is the “Angel” and “Servant” of God, and that he shall judge mankind, and simi¬ lar expressions, other utterances were made concern¬ ing Jesus, which sprang from the fundamental idea that he was the “Christ” called of God and en¬ trusted with an office. In addition there was a traditional, though not common, reference to him as “The Teacher.” The title “ Son of God ” (not “ Son of Man ”) was traditional, and was maintained without any waver¬ ing. Out of this grew directly the conception that Jesus belongs to the sphere of God and that one must think of him “ w? xep) od ” (ii. Clem. 1). In THE PREPARATION. 51 this phrasing of it the indirect tlieologici Christi , in regard to which there was no wavering , found ex¬ pression in classical forms. It is necessary to think of Jesus as one thinks of God, (1) because he is the God-exalted Lord and Judge, (2) because he brought true knowledge and life and has delivered mankind from the dominion of demons, from error and sin, or will deliver them. Therefore he is ffojrrjpj xupio$, tied? rj'jMv, dei filius ac deus , dominus ac dens , but not 6 tteo?. He is “our Hope,” “our Faith,” the High- Priest of our prayers, and “ our Life. ” Starting from this basis there were divers theories in regard to the Person of Jesus, which however all bore a certain analogy to the naive and the philo¬ sophical Greek “theologies”, but there were no uni¬ versally accepted “ doctrines ” . W e may di stinguish here two principal types: Jesus was looked upon as the man whom God had chosen and in whom the Spirit of God (the Godhead itself) dwelt; he was, in accordance with his own testimony, adopted by God and clothed with authority (Adoption Chris - tology) ; or Jesus was looked upon as a heavenly spiritual Being (the highest heavenly spiritual Being next to God), who became incarnate and after the completion of his work upon the earth returned to the heavens (Pneumatic Christology ; the transition here to the Logos Christology was easy). These two different Christologies (the Dei¬ fied man and the Divine Being appearing in the form of a man) were however brought closely to- Theories of Person of Jesus. Two Chris¬ tologies. 52 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Naive Do- cetism. Naive Mo¬ dal ism. Pneumatic Christol¬ ogy. gether so soon as the implanted Spirit of God in the man Jesus was looked upon as the pre-existent Son of God (Hernias) , and so soon as the title “ Son of God,” as applied to that spiritual Being, was derived from his (miraculous) incarnation — both, however, were maintained. Notwithstanding these transition forms the two Christologies may be clearly distinguished : In the one case the election (emphasis upon the miraculous occurrence at the baptism) and the exaltation to God are characteristic ; in the other, a naive docetism; for as yet there was no two- nature theory (Jesus’ divinity was looked upon as a gift, or else his human form as a temporary taber¬ nacle). The declaration: Jesus was a mere man (^09). CHAPTER IV. THE ATTEMPT OF THE GNOSTICS TO CONSTRUCT AN APOSTOLIC DOCTRINE OF FAITH AND TO PRO¬ DUCE A CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY ; OR, THE ACUTE SECULARIZATION OF CHRISTIANITY. Sources : The writings of Justin and the early Catholic Fathers, together with Epiphanius and Tlieodoret. Frag¬ ments collected by Hilgenfeld, Ketzergesch, 1884. Descrip¬ tions by Neander, Gnostische System, 1818, Baur, Gnosis, 1835, Lipsius, Gnosticismus, I860, Moeller, Kosmologie in der griecli. Kirche, 1860 ; vide also Renan, Hist. des. Orig. du Christianisme ”, T. V.-VII. 1. Gnosticism is a manifestation of the great syn¬ cretic movement of the 2d and 3d centuries, which was occasioned by the interchange of national relig¬ ions, by the contact of Orient and Occident, and by the influence of Greek philosophy upon religion in general. It aimed at the winning of a world-relig¬ ion , in which men should be rated, not on the basis of citizenship, but according to the standard of their intellectual and moral aptitude. The Gospel was rec¬ ognized as a world-religion only in so far as it could be severed from the Old Testament religion and the Old Testament, and be moulded by the religious philosophy of the Greeks and grafted upon the existing cultus-wisdom and practice of occult mys- THE PREPARATION. 59 teries. The means by which this artificial union was to be brought about was the allegorical method as used long since by the Greek religious philoso¬ phers. The possibility of the rise of a Christian gnosticism lay in this, that the Christian commu¬ nities had everywhere fallen heir to the heritage of the Jewish propaganda, where there was already an exuberant tendency to spiritualize the Old Testament religion, and where the intellectual interest in relig¬ ion had long been unbridled. Besides, the Gospel of Christ, and especially Christ himself, had made such an overwhelming impression that men were pos¬ sessed by the strongest impulse to subordinate their highest conceptions to him, whence, as so often, the “ victus viciori legem dal ” attained its right. Fi¬ nally the Christian preaching from the beginning promised a gnosis of the wisdom of God, espe cially that of Paul an antinomian gnosis, and the churches in the empire conceived the Christian wisdom as Xoyurj Xarpeta^ in accordance with their Greek conceptions; they combined the mysterious with a marvellous openness, the spiritual with the most significant rites, and sought in this way, through their organization and through their “phil¬ osophical life”, to realize that ideal for which the Hellenic religious spirit was then striving, — namely, a communion, or fellowship, which, upon the basis of a Divine revelation, comes into the possession of the highest knowledge and therefore realizes the holiest life, and which communicates this knowledge, Allegorical Method. Jewish Propagan¬ da. Christian Gnosis. Mysterious Rites. 60 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Acute Stage of Process. Attempt to Fuse Christian¬ ity and Hellenism. Christian¬ ity Be¬ comes Oc¬ cult Theos¬ ophy. not through rational discussion, but through mys¬ terious, efficacious consecrations and revealed doc¬ trines. 2. We are now prepared to assert, that in gnos¬ ticism the acute stage of a process was reached, which began early in the Church and which under¬ went a slow and distinct evolution under the Catho¬ lic system. The gnostics were the theologians of the 1st century; they were the first to transform Christianity into a system of doctrines (dogmas); they were the first to treat tradition and the primitive Christian Scriptures systematically ; they undertook to set forth Christianity as the absolute religion, and they therefore placed it in opposition to the other re¬ ligions, to that of the Old Testament as well (not alone to Judaism); but the absolute religion, which they coupled with Christ, was to them essentially identical with the results of the philosophy of religion, for which they had now found the basis in a revelation : They were accordingly a class of Christians who essayed through a sharp onset to conquer Christianity for Hellenic culture, and Hellenic culture for Christian¬ ity, and they thereby abandoned the Old Testament in order to fitly close up the breach between the two opposing forces. Christianity became an occult the¬ osophy (revealed metaphysics and apparition philos¬ ophy, permeated with the Platonic spirit and with Pauline ideas, constructed out of the material of an old cultus-wisdom which was acquired through mysteries and the illumined understanding, defined THE PREPARATION. 61 by a keen and, in part, true criticism of the Old Testament religion and the scant faith of the Church. Consequently one is obliged to verify in the promi¬ nent gnostic schools the Semitic cosmological prin¬ ciples, the Hellenic philosophical ideas and the knowledge of the redemption of the world through Christ. And one must also take account of these three factors: The speculative philosophical, the Three cultish-mystical and the dualistic-ascetic. The con¬ junction of these elements, the entire transformation of every ethical problem into a cosmological prob¬ lem and, finally, the view that human history is but a continuation of natural history, especially that redemption is but the last act in the drama which had its origin in the Godhead itself and its develop¬ ment in the world — all these are not peculiar to gnosticism, but a stage in the general development which was in many ways related to Pliilonism and which anticipated Neo-Platonism and Catholicism. Out of the crass mythology of an Oriental religion, by the transformation of the concrete forms into speculative and ethical ideas, such as “ Abyss”, “ Si¬ lence”, “Logos”, “Wisdom”, “Life” (the Semitic names were often retained), there was formed a my¬ thology of notions in which the juxtaposition and the number of these ideas were determined by the pro¬ pounding of a scheme. Thus was produced a philo- philosoph¬ ic Dramat- sophical, dramatico-poetic representation similar to igyft^ic the Platonic, but far more complicated and therefore more fantastical, in which those mighty powers, the 62 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Gospel History Allegori¬ cal. Absti¬ nence the Watch-Cry. spiritual and the good, appeared to have been brought into an unholy alliance with the material and the base, from which however finally the spiritual, as¬ sisted by kindred powers which are too exalted ever to be abased, is after all rendered free. The good and the heavenly which is degraded to the material is the human spirit; and the sublime Power which sets it free is the Christ. The Gospel history is not the history of Christ, but a collection of allegorical representations of the great Divine world-history. Christ has in truth no history; his appearance in this world of confusion and delusion is his own act and the enlightenment of the Spirit, as regards itself, is the effect of this act. This illumination itself is life, but it is dependent upon asceticism and upon a surrender to the mysteries ordained by Christ, in which one comes into communion with a praesens namen , and which in a my sterious way gradually free the spirit from the world of sense. This spiritualiz¬ ing process should also be actively cultivated. Absti¬ nence is therefore the watcli-cry. Christianity is accordingly a speculative philosophy which redeems the spirit (yvuxrcs (rwrrjpias), inasmuch as it enlight¬ ens and consecrates it and directs it unto the true way of life. The gnosis is free from the rational¬ istic interest of the stoa. The powers which give vigor and life to the spirit rule in the supersensible world. The only guide to this world is a ixddr^^ (not exact philosophy) resting upon a revelation and allied with / xuaTayioyia . The fundamental principles THE PREPARATION. 63 are accordingly the following: (1) The supersensi¬ ble, indefinite and eternal nature of the divine pri¬ mordial Being, (2) the evil (not real) matter opposed to the divine Being, (3) the plenitude of the divine powers (eons) which, viewed partly as powers, partly as real ideas, partly as relatively independent beings, represent in stages the development and revelation of the Divinity, but which at the same time are intended to make possible the transition from the higher to the lower, (4) the cosmos as a mixture of matter with sparks of the divine Being, and which originated from the descent of the latter into the former, i.e. from a reprehensible undertaking of a subordinate spirit, merely through the Divine suf¬ ferance, (5) the freeing of the spiritual elements from their union with matter, or the separation of the good from the sensuous world through the Clirist- Spirit, which is active in holy consecrations, knowl¬ edge and asceticism — thus arises the complete gnos¬ tic, the independent world-free spirit, who lives in God and prepares himself for eternity. The rest of mankind are earth-born (hylikers). Yet leading teachers (School of Valentinus) distinguish also be¬ tween hylikers and psyehikers ; the latter were the doers of the law, who lived by law and faith, for whom the common faith is good enough, that is, necessary. The centre of gravity of the gnostic system did not rest in its changing details, which are so imperfectly known to us, but in its aim and in its postulates. Funda¬ mental Principles. Hylikers and Psy~ chikers. 64 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Phases of Gnosti¬ cism. Basilid- ians, Val- entinians. The First Theolo¬ gians. 3. The phases of gnosticism were as variegated as possible (brotherhoods, ascetic orders, cultus of mys¬ teries, secret schools, free devotional associations, performances by Christian swindlers and betrayed betrayers, attempts to establish new religions after the pattern and under the influence of the Christian religion). Accordingly the relation of gnosticism to that which was common to all Christians and to the individual Christian communities was exceed¬ ingly varied. On the one hand, gnosticism pene¬ trated to the very heart of those Christian churches in which docetic and dualistic-ascetic influences were largely at work and where there was a strong tendency to vary the original form of the kerygma ; on the other hand, there were gnostic communities that remained apart and indeed abhorred all alliances with others. For the history of dogma the right wing of gnosticism and the real stem, the great gnostic school sects (Basilidians, Valentinians) come especially under consideration. The latter wished to establish a higher order of Christians above the common psychikers, who were barely endured. The contest was mainly with these and they were the theologians from whom later generations learned and were the first to write elementary works on dogmatics, ethics, and scientific and exegetical trea¬ tises; in short, they laid the foundations of Chris¬ tian theological literature and began the elaboration of Christian tradition. The expulsion of these gnos¬ tics and of the right wing (Encratites, “Docetse,” THE PREPARATION. 65 Tatian) could be accomplished only slowly and it was a result of the consolidating of the Christian communities into the Catholic Church which was called forth by this gnostic movement. The rise of gnosticism is fully explained from the general conditions under which Christian preaching flourished on Roman soil and from its own attraction as a sure announcement of knowledge, life and dis¬ cipline, attributed directly to a Divine Person who had appeared upon the earth. The Church fathers hold distracted Judaism, together with the demons, responsible for its rise ; later they attribute it to the Samaritan messiah, Simon, then to the Greek phi¬ losophers, and finally to those who show themselves disobedient to ecclesiastical discipline. In all this there was a particula veri as may be easily shown ; the syncretism which led to this Christian gnos¬ ticism undoubtedly had one of its principal centres in Samaritan-Syrian territory and the other in Alex¬ andria ; but it must not be overlooked that the con¬ ditions were everywhere present in the empire for a spontaneous development. On that account it is im¬ possible to write a history of the development of gnosticism, and it would be so, even if we knew more than we do about the particular systems. We can distinguish only between Jewish-Christian and Gentile- Christian gnostics, and can group the latter only according to their greater or less departure from the common Christian faith as exemplified in their varying attitude toward the Old Testament and the 5 Encratites, Docetse, Tatian. Explana¬ tions of Rise of Gnosti¬ cism. Simon Ma¬ gus. Samaria and Alex¬ andria. Jewish- Christian and Gen- tile-Chris- tian Gnos¬ tics. 66 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Hellenism. Difference between Gnostic Christian¬ ity and Common Faith. demiurge, and then seek out of this to form from an unbiased reading of the Christian writings an idea of “gnostic.” That the entire many-sided move¬ ment, in which Hellenism, with ail its good and bad qualities, sought to adapt the Gospel, should gradu¬ ally become a Christian, or, rather, an ecclesiastical movement, lay in the nature of the case. But it is not therefore possible to group the systems in the 2d century chronologically according to a Christian standard, since attempts like that of Carpocrates be¬ long to the earlier and not to the later times. 4. Although the differences between gnostic Chris¬ tianity and the common ecclesiastical faith, as well as the later ecclesiastical theology, appear in part fleeting, in so far as in the latter also the question of knowledge was especially emphasized and the Gospel was being transformed into a system of com¬ plete knowledge in order to subdue the world, and in so far as the it {(rug was made subordinate to the yv&aig and Greek philosophy was more and more employed, and in so far as eschatology was restricted, docetic views allowed free play and a rigid ascetism prized; yet it is true, (1) that at the time when gnosticism was most flourishing all these were found in the Church at large only in germinal, or frag¬ mentary form, (2) that the Church at large held fast to the settled facts contained in the baptismal con¬ fession and to the eschatological expectations, retain¬ ing its belief also in the Creator as the Supreme God, in the oneness of Jesus Christ and in the Old THE PREPARATION. 67 Testament, thus rejecting dualism, (3) that the Church maintained the unity and the parity of hu¬ man kind and therefore the simplicity and universal tendency of the Christian salvation, and (4) that it opposed everjT attempt to introduce new, Oriental mythologies, guided in this by the early Christian consciousness and a certain independent judgment. However, the Church in its contest with gnosticism learned a great deal from it. The principal points which were under discussion may be briefly sum¬ marized as follows (the word “ positive ” appended to a gnostic proposition indicates that the doctrine had a positive influence in the development of the Church view and doctrine) : (1) Christianity, which is the only true and absolute religion, contains a re¬ vealed system of doctrine (pos.), (2) the Revealer is Christ (pos.), but Christ alone , and Cliristy only so far as he was made manifest (no O. T. Christ). This manifestation is itself the redemption, — the teaching is the proclamation of this and of the nec¬ essary presuppositions (pos.), (3) the Christian teach¬ ing is to be deduced from the apostolic tradition critically treated ; the same is found in the apostolic writings and in an esoteric doctrine transmitted by the apostles (pos.); as an open doctrine it is con¬ densed in the regula fidei (pos.), as an esoteric doc¬ trine it is transmitted by appointed teachers, (4) the primitive revelation (apostolic Scriptures) , even be¬ cause it is such, must be expounded by means of the allegory, in order to draw out its deeper meaning Principal Points un¬ der Discus¬ sion. 68 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Disparity between Supreme God and Creator. Distin¬ guishing Supreme God fx*om God of O. T. Eternity of Matter. World Product of Intermedi¬ ate or Evil Being. Evil Inher¬ ent in Matter and a Physical A gency. Eons. Christ Re¬ veal er of Unknown God. Jesus, Heavenly Eon. (pos.), (5) as to the separate portions of the regula as the gnostics understood them, the following are to be especially noted : (a) The disparity between the supreme God and the Creator of the world, and the consequent contrast of redemption and creation, i.e ., the separation of the mediator of revelation and the mediator of crea¬ tion, (b) the distinguishing of the Supreme God from the God of the Old Testament, and the consequent rejection of the 0. T. ; i.e. the declaration that the O. T. does not contain a revelation of the Supreme God, unless it be in certain parts, (c) the doctrine of the absoluteness and eternity of matter, (d) the affirmation that the present world came into existence through a fall into sin, i.e. through an undertaking antagonistic to God, and that it is therefore the product of an evil, or intermediate being, (e) the doctrine that evil is inherent in matter and is a physical agency, (f) the acceptance of eons, i.e. of real powers and heavenly persons, in whom the absoluteness of the Divinity unfolds itself, (g) the affirmation that Christ proclaimed a hith¬ erto unknown Divinity, (h) the doctrine that in Jesus Christ, the heavenly Eon — the gnostics rightly saw redemption in his Person , but they reduced his Person to a mere self- THE PREPARATION. 69 existent Being — Christ and the human manifestation of him are to be clearly distinguished and to each nature a ie distincte agere” was to be given (not docetism, but the two-nature doctrine is character¬ istic). Accordingly some, as Basilides, recognized no real union whatever between Christ and the man Jesus, whom they otherwise accepted as a real man. Others, as a portion of the Valentinians — their Chris- tology was exceedingly complicated and varied — taught that the body of Jesus was a heavenly-psychi¬ cal form, and that it only apparently came forth from the womb of Mary. Others finally, like Sator- nil, explained that the entire visible manifestation of Christ was only a phantasma, and hence they ques¬ tioned the reality of his birth, (i) the transformation of the < lxxXrjv %pi were first introduced into ai Truths, philosophic language by the apologists — are those rational truths which are revealed by the prophets in the Holy Scriptures, and which are all summed up in Christ (Xpta to? X6yo^ xai vop.os) and have as their consequent true virtue and eternal life (God, liberty and virtue, eternal reward and eternal punishment, i.e. Christianity as a monotheistic cosmology, as a doctrine of liberty and morals, as a doctrine of re¬ demption ; the latter however is not clearly set forth). The instruction is referred back to God, the estab¬ lishment of a virtuous life (of righteousness) God must needs have left to men. The prophets and Christ are therefore fountains of righteousness, in so far as they are Divine teachers. Christianity may be defined as the God-transmitted knowledge of God, and as virtuous conformity to rational law, in the longing and striving after eternal life and in the certainty of reward. Through the knowledge of the truth and through the doing of good, men become righteous and partake of the highest blessedness. Knowledge rests upon faith in the Divine revela¬ tion. This revelation has also the genius and the power of redemption, in so far as the fact is unques¬ tionable that mankind cannot without it triumph over the dominion of the demons. All this is con¬ ceived from the Greek standpoint, s^t Forth (a) The dogmas which set forth the knowledge of Kof Godge God and of the world are dominated by the funda¬ mental thought, that over against the world as a THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 125 created, conditioned and transient existence stands the Self-Existent, Unchangeable and Eternal, who is the primal Cause of the world. He has no attri¬ butes, which are attributable to the world ; therefore he is exalted above every name and has in himself no distinctions (the Platonic expressions concerning God were held as incomparably good). He is ac¬ cordingly one and alone , spiritual and faultless and therefore perfect ; in purely negative predicates he is best characterized ; and yet he is Origin (Cause) and the Fulness of all existences; he is Will and Life , therefore also the kind Giver. The following theses remain fixed with the apologists as regards the relation of God to the world : (1) that God is to be thought of primarily as the final Cause , (2) that the principle of the ethically good is the Principle of the world, (3) that the Principle of the world, i.e. the Godhead, as immortal and eternal, forms the contrast to the world as the perishable. The dogmas concerning God are not set forth from the stand¬ point of the redeemed Church, but on the basis of a certain conception of the world on the one hand, and of the moral nature of man on the other; which latter however is a manifestation within the cosmos. The cosmos is everywhere permeated with reason and order (opposition to gnosticism) ; it bears the stamp of the Logos (as a reflection of a higher world and as a product of a rational Will). The material also which lies at the basis of its composition is not evil, but was created by God. Still the apologists Summary. Cosmos Permeated with Rea¬ son. 126 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. did not make God tlie immediate creator of the world, but the personified Divine Reason perceptible in the world and inserted between God and the world. This was done with no reference to Christ and with no thought (in the gnostic sense) of sepa¬ rating God and the world; the conception of the Logos was already at hand in the religious philos¬ ophy of the day, and the lofty idea of God required a being, which should represent the actuality and the many-sided activity of God, without doing vio¬ lence to his unchangeableness (a finer dualism : The The Logos. Logos is the hypostasis of the active energizing Reason, which makes it possible to think of the God¬ head itself as resting bizepouaiov, he is both the re¬ vealing Word of God, the Divine manifesting him¬ self audibly and visibly upon the earth, and the creating Reason which expresses himself in the work of his own hands; he is the Principle of the world and, of revelation at the same time. All this is not new ; yet the Logos was not proclaimed by the apologists as a voobpevov, but as the surest reality). Beyond the carrying out of the thought that the principle of the cosmos is also the principle of reve¬ lation the majority did not go; their dependence upon the faith of the Church is evidenced, how¬ ever, l)}7 their failure to clearly distinguish between History of the Logos and the Holy Spirit. The history of the Logos is as follows : God was never aXoyo<$ ; he ever had the Logos within himself as his reason and as the potentiality (idea, energy) of the world (notwitli- THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 127 standing all negative assertions, God and the world were somehow bound together) . For the sake of the creation God put the Logos forth from himself (sent him forth, permitted him to go forth), i.e. through a free simple act of his will generated him out of his own Being. He is now an independent hypostasis (#£09 h #£oo) whose real essence ( obala ) is identical with that of God ; he is not separated from God hut only severed, and is also not a mere mode or attribute of God; but is the independent result of the self- l unfolding of God, and, although being the compen¬ dium of the Divine Reason, he did not rob the Father of his reason ; he is God and Lord, possesses the es¬ sence of the Divine Hat ure, although he is a second being by the side of God ( apiOpd T erepov rc, #£09 deure- 1 009) ; but his personality had a beginning (“ fuit tempus , cum patri films non fuit” Tertull.). Since Beg^ten then he had a beginning, and the Father did not, he is, as compared with the Father, a Creature , the begotten, created, manifested God. The subordina¬ tion lies, not in his essence (for monotheism would then have been destroyed) , but in the manner of his origin ( sp/ov Ttpcororoxov too Tcarpo?) . This made it possible for him to go forth into the finite as rea¬ son, revelation, and activity, while the Father re¬ mains in the obscurity of his unchangeableness. With the going forth of the Logos begins the reali¬ zation of the world-idea. He is the Creator and to a creator and Proto - degree the Prototype of the world (the one and spir- type* itual Being among the many sentiment creatures), V 128 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Doctrines of Free¬ dom. Virtue. Righteous¬ ness. which had its origin from nothing. Man is the true aim in the creation of the world, and the true aim of man is to attain unto the Divine essence through the reason (image of God) and freedom created with¬ in him. As spirit-embodied beings men are neither mortal nor immortal, but capable of death and of eternal life. In the doctrines, that God is the abso¬ lute Lord of the material world, that evil is not in¬ herent in matter but originated in time and through the free decision of the spirit (angel), finally that the world advances toward the light, dualism ap¬ peared to be fundamentally overcome in the cos¬ mology. Yet it was not overcome in so far as the sentient was actually looked upon as evil. The apologists held this teaching in regard to God, the Logos, the world and mankind as the essential con¬ tent of Christianity (of the Old Testament and of the preaching of Christ) . (b) The doctrines concerning freedom, virtue, righteousness and their reward were so held that God was looked upon simply as Creator and Judge, and not as the principle of a new life (reminiscences in Justin). The a (Tertull. Apolog. 21) ; but they give it a more par¬ ticular reference to Jesus Christ (Tertull. de came Christi and adv. Prax.). Accordingly Tertullian fashioned the formulas of the later orthodoxy, in that he introduced the conceptions substance and person , and notwithstanding his very elaborate sub¬ ordination! sm and his merely economical construction ~ of the trinity, he still hit upon ideas concerning the relations of the three Persons which could be fully 136 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Una Sub¬ stantia, Tres Per¬ sonae. Logos Der- ivatio et Portio Dei. recognized upon the soil of the Nicene Creed (“unci substantia , tres personae ”) . The unity of the God¬ head was set forth in the una substantia ; the dis¬ position of the one substance among the three Per¬ sons ( trinitas , rpid<$ first by Theophilus) did not destroy the unity (the gnostic eons-speculation is here confined to three in number). Already it was considered a heresy to maintain that God is a numer¬ ical unity. But the self-unfolding (not partitioning) of the Godhead had made a beginning (the realiza¬ tion of the world-idea is still ever the main-spring of the inner Divine dispositio) ; the Logos became a distinct being (“ secundus a deo constitutus , per se¬ ver ans in sua forma”) ; since he is derivation so is he portio of the Deity (“pater tota substantia”). Therefore notwithstanding his unity of substance (unius substantive — dpLoou7Tous iTTidrjpias^ prjds p.ev THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. 173 ftsdzTjza idcav s/ew, alT £p.7roXizeoo/j.£vr]v aura j pLOvyv zrjv Ttazpwrjv) . Those Egyptian chiliasts, whom Diony¬ sius of Alexandria opposed, and whose teaching tt ep\ zrjs ivdo^ou xdi dXrjftajs t vd-ioo zoo xupcou r^pwv k-jzKpaveias he acknowledged as necessary, may have favored dynam¬ ical representations. But no great adoption move¬ ment was undertaken in the Orient, save by Paul of Samosata, metropolitan of Antioch (Euseb. VII, 27-30; other material in Routh, Rel. Sacr. III.), the national Syrian bishop, who opposed the Greeks and their science as well as the Romans and their church. / That two great Oriental general councils at Antioch proved ineffective against him, and only the third condemned and deposed him (very probably 268) is an evidence of how little even yet the Alexandrian dogmatics had found acceptance in the Orient. Paul was a learned theologian (unspiritual, vain, shrewd, sophistical ; a “ man of the world ” his opponents called him), who wished to break the power of the Hellenic (Platonic) philosophy in the Church and to maintain the old teaching. In later times he ap¬ pears to the Church as a heretic of the first order, like a Judas, ebionite, Nestorian, monothelite, etc. His conception was this : God is to be thought of sim¬ ply as individually personal (A Tipotrumov). It is true that in God a Logos (Son), i.e. a Sophia (Spirit), can be distinguished — both are otherwise also to be iden¬ tified — but these are attributes. God from eternity sent forth the Logos from himself, so that one can call him Son, but he remains an impersonal power. Paul of Samosata, Paul’s Doctrine. 174 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. He worked in Moses and the prophets, iiaXXov xai dia(pep6vTiosy in the wholly uncertain content of which they even included dogmatic teaching — how¬ ever, very rarely trinitarian and Christological watch¬ words— the understanding of which was not every¬ body’s concern (thus especially the Cappadocians). But this gnostic conception of tradition (secret tradi¬ tion), although it became more and more settled, was yet felt to be dangerous ; use was made of it in dog¬ matic discussions only in extreme cases (e. (/., in the doctrine of the Holy Spirit), and it was otherwise applied to the mysteries and their ritual expositions. Since it was understood that the decisive authority was vested in the Church itself by virtue of its union with the Holy Spirit (Augustine: “ ego evangelio non crederem , nisi me catholicae ecclesiae commo- veret cmctoritas ”), the questions must arise: (1) Through whom and when does the Church speak? Polity and Cultus Apostolic. Through Whom Does Church Speak ? 218 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Innova¬ tions. Episco- * pacy Represents Cnurch. Ecumeni¬ cal Councils. (2) How are the innovations in the Church, espe¬ cially within the realm of doctrine, to be interpreted if the authority of the Church is lodged entirely in its apostolicity, i.e. in its permanence? Both ques¬ tions, however, were never distinctly put, and there¬ fore only very vaguely answered. Fixed was it that the representation of the Church was vested in the episcopate (see Euseb. H. E.), although the strict theory of Cyprian had not at all become common property and the idea had never cropped out that the individual bishop is infallible. But already there was attributed a certain inspiration to the provincial synods. Constantine first called an ecumenical synod and declared its decisions to be without error. Slowly the thought of the infallible authority of the Nicene council crept in during the 4th century and was later on transferred to the following councils, in such a way, however, that one synod (3d) was stamped post factum as ecumenical, and the dif¬ ference between them and the provincial synods re¬ mained for a long time unsettled (Was the synod of Arles ecumenic?). Through Justinian the four councils were placed upon an unapproachable height, and after the 7th council the principle established itself firmly in the Orient, that the sources of knowl¬ edge of Christian truth are the Scriptures and the decrees of the seven ecumenical councils. Even to¬ day men assume frequently in the Orient an air as if the Church did not possess or need any other, s But this apparently simple and consistent develop- DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 219 ment solved by no means all the difficulties, because councils were not always at hand and other author- % ities also had still to be taken into account. How should one act if the Church has not yet spoken? Does not an especial authority belong to the occu¬ pants of the great apostolic episcopal chairs, or to the bishops of the capitals? Ans. 1. The Church also speaks through unan¬ imous ancient testimonies. The citing of the “ fathers ” is important, even decisive. Whatever has universality and antiquity is true. Besides, the conception of “ antiquity ” grew ever more elastic. Originally the disciples of the apostles were the “ ancients”, then they counted also the 3d and 4tli generations among the “ ancients”, then Origen and his disciples were the “ancient” expounders; finally the whole ante- Constantine epoch was considered classic antiquity. But since one could make use of rather little from this period, appeal was taken to Athanasius and the fathers of the 4th century, just as to the “ancients”, and at the same time to numer¬ ous falsifications under the name of the fathers of the 2d and 3d centuries. At the councils one counted more and more only the voices of the “ ancients ” and employed very general explanations to confirm the new formulas and watchwords. Things came thus to be decided more and more according to authori¬ ties, which one indeed frequently first created. The council was therefore infallible, only and in so far as it did not teach anything else but the “fathers”. How Act when Church has not Spoken? 220 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Does Special Authority Belong to Apostolic Chairs? Chairs of Capitals. The infallibility was therefore primarily not a direct one. Ans. 2. Augustine recalled to mind the especial authority of the apostolic chairs (also the Oriental) on the question concerning the extent of the Holy Scriptures. But in the Orient this authority was merged in that of the chairs of the capitals and therefore Constantinople moved to the front, being strongly attacked by the Roman bishop. The Roman chair alone was able not only to preserve its ancient authority in the Occident, but also to heighten it (only apostolic chair in the Occident, Peter and Paul, fall of the West-Roman empire, the centre for the remnant of Romanism in the West) and (thanks to the favorable circumstances of political and ecclesi¬ astical history) to fortify the same also in the Orient, under great fluctuation to be sure. To the Roman bishop was always attached an authority peculiar in kind, without its being possible to define the same more closely. It only ceased in the Orient, when Orient and Occident possessed nothing more what¬ ever in common. But before the same became ex¬ tinct the Roman bishop, in league with the eastern Roman emperor, had gained the point that in the Orient attempts at a primacy of any bishop, espe¬ cially the Alexandrian, should be suppressed, to which suppression the Christological contests contrib¬ uted. The great chairs of the patriarchs in the Orient, weakened through schisms, partially deprived of their real importance, stood in theory in equal DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 221 positions toward one another. Their occupants also represented in their co-operations a kind of dogmatic authority, which however was defined neither in itself, nor in its relation to the ecumenical councils. They form simply a relique of antiquity. From statements made it follows, that the ability to transmit new revelations to the Church did not belong to the councils ; rather are the same rendered legitimate through the preservation of the apostolic legacy. Therefore did the declaration and adoption of new formulas (of the tijiooLXTtos, of the oneness of the trinity, of the two natures, and so on) cause such great difficulties. When at last the ISTicene doctrine gained the victoiy, it was accomplished only because the FTicene creed itself had become a piece of antiquity and because one endeavored, poorly enough, to deduce from the Nicene all later formulas by giving out (as Irenseus had once done) asj^re- scribed , together with the text, also a definite expo¬ sition of the same. The ability of the councils even to explain the doctrines authentically had not been clearly declared in the Orient; therefore the excuse has only seldom been made for the earlier eastern fathers, that at their time the dogma had not been explained and definitely formulated. Whereas a western man (Vincent of Lerinum) in his Com- monitorium, after having asserted the criteria of the true tradition (that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all), and after having warned men against the heresies of otherwise ortho- Councils Not Au¬ thorita¬ tive. Apostolic Legacy. Vincent of Lerinum ; Organic Progress in Doctrine. 222 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Idea of Tradition Vague. dox fathers, admitted an “ organic ” progress in doc¬ trine (from the more uncertain to the more certain) and proclaimed the councils as agents in this progress (“ excitata hoereticorum novitatibus ”) . Augustine expressly taught, that so long as unequiv¬ ocal decisions on a question had not been given, the bond of union between dissenting bishops should be maintained. The Roman bishop has always acted according to this rule, but has reserved for himself the decisions and the time for the same. The conception of tradition is therefore entirely vague. The hierarchical element does not play in theory the first part. The apostolic succession has even in the Occident not been in theory of such great importance for the confirming of tradition. At the councils, since the time they were called, the author¬ ity of the bishops as bearers of tradition was ex¬ hausted. Still, perhaps that is saying too much. Everything was very obscure. But in so far as the Greek Church has not changed since John of Damas¬ cus, the Greek even at the present time has a per¬ fectly definite consciousness of the foundation of religion. By the side of the Holy Scriptures, the foundation of religion is the Church itself, not as liv¬ ing power, but in its immovable doctrines and time- honored orders. The Scriptures also are to be ex¬ plained according to tradition. But the tradition is primarily always two-fold, — the public one of the councils and fathers, and the secret one which con¬ firms the mysteries, their ritual and its interpretation. DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 223 3. The Church. As guarantee of the true faith, and administrator of the mysteries, the Church above all came into consideration. Furthermore, men re¬ flected about it when they thought of the Old Testa¬ ment and false church of the Jews, of heresy and the organization of Christianity, as also of the presump¬ tion of the Roman bishop (Christ alone is the head of the Church) . Again, the Church was represented in catechetical instruction as the communion of the true faith and virtue, outside of which there could not easily he a wise and pious person, and the Bibli¬ cal declaration regarding it was that it was the only and holy one, guided by the Holy Spirit, Catholic in opposition to the numerous impious unions of the heretics. Very evidently men identified thereby the empirical church with the Church of the faith and virtue, without, however, coming to a closer reflec¬ tion on corpus verum et permixtum and without drawing all the consequences which the identification demanded. In spite of all this the Church was not primarily a dogmatic conception, belonging to the department of the doctrine of salvation itself ; or it became so only when men thought of it as the insti¬ tution of mysteries, from which, moreover, the monk was permitted to emancipate himself. Through the restrictions under which the Greeks viewed the duties of the Church and through the natural theology, is this disregard to be explained. The Church is the human race as the totality of all individuals who accept salvation. The doctrine of salvation exhausted Church Guarantee of True Faith. Empirical Church and Church of Faith Identified. 224 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Dogmatic Idea of Church Not Fixed. Western Church Idea De¬ veloping. Natural Theology. itself in the conceptions : God, humanity, Christ, the mysteries, the individual. The conception of the Church as the mother of believers, as a divine crea¬ tion, as the body of Christ was not worked out dog¬ matically. The mystical doctrine of redemption also and the doctrine of the eucharist did not assist the Church to a dogmatic position (it is wanting, for ex¬ ample, in John of Damascus). Its organization, thorough as it is, was not perfected beyond the grade of bishops and was seldom treated dogmatically. The Church is not the bequest of the apostles, but of Christ; therefore its importance as an institution of worship takes the first rank. All this has reference to the Oriental Church. In the Occident, through the Donatist contest, the foundation was laid by the Church for new and rich conceptions. The Church itself was at the end of the early period divided into three great parts : The western Church, the Byzantine, the Semitic eastern ; and the latter was cleft into manifold parts. Each part considered itself the one Catholic Church and extolled its particular palladia. A. THE PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE DOCTRINE OF SALVATION, OR NATURAL THEOLOGY. Natural theology with all the fathers was essen¬ tially the same thing; but it shows shades according as Platonism or Aristotelianism predominated and ac- DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 225 cording to the measure in which the letter of the Bible exerted an influence. CHAPTER IV. THE PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CONCEPTIONS OF GOD, THE CREATOR, AS DISPENSER OP SALVATION. The main principles of the doctrine of God, as the Doc^r(jjJe of apologists and anti-gnostic fathers had established them, remained firm and were directed particularly against Manichseism, but were hardly touched by the development of the doctrine of the trinity, since the Father as fiCy r rj<$ fteoTTjTos alone came into considera¬ tion here. Yet with the growing Biblicism and the monkish barbarism, anthropomorphic conceptions forced themselves more and more into theology. Concerning the question of man’s ability to know God, Aristotelians (Eunomius, Diodorus of Tarsus, especially since the beginning of the 6th century) and Platonists contended with each other, and yet were fundamentally agreed. That man knows God only K“°"a0bfle' through revelation, more exactly through Christ, was God‘ generally allowed, but to this declaration as a rule no further consequences were given and men as¬ cended from the world to God, making use of the old proofs and supplementing them with the ontolog¬ ical argument (Augustine). Neo-Platonic theolo- 1 gians assumed an immediate, intuitive perception of God of the highest order, but they nevertheless per- 15 226 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Negative Attributes Empha¬ sized. Moral At¬ tributes. Cosmology of Fathers. fected very precisely the scholastic form of this knowledge (the Areopagite: Negation, exaltation, causality). The loftiest expression for the being of God was as yet that he is “not- the- world”, the spiritual, immortal, apathetic Substance (the V0v), to which alone real being belongs (Aristotelians thought of cause and purpose, without correcting radically the Platonic scheme). His goodness is perfection, unenviousness and creating will (additions leading to a better conception by Augustine: God as love, which frees men from self-seeking). The attributes of God were treated accordingly as expressions of causality and power, in which the purpose of salva¬ tion was not taken into account (Origen’s conception became tempered, i.e. corrected). By the side of the naturalistic conception of God as the ”0v stood the moralistic one of Re warder and Judge; upon this also the idea of redemption had hardly any notice¬ able influence (less than with Origen), since “re¬ ward” and “punishment” were treated as one. Yet Augustine recognized the worthlessness of a theol¬ ogy which places God only at the beginning and the end and makes men independent of him, instead of acknowledging God as the Power for good and the Source of the personal, blessed life. The cosmology of the fathers may be thus stated : God, who has carried in himself the world-idea from eternity, has through the Logos, which embraces all ideas, in free self-determination created in six days DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 227 out of nothing this world, which has had a beginning and will have an end ; it was created after the pat¬ tern of an upper world, which was brought forth by him, and has its culmination in man in order to prove his own kindness and to permit creatures to participate in his bliss. In this thesis the heresies of Origen were set aside (especially his pessimism). Still men did not succeed in entirely justifying the verbal meaning of Gen. 1-3, and in the representa- Gen- Mo¬ tion of an upper world (z6