X CHRISTIANITY AND PAGANISM

In the last lecture we traced the growth of Christianity through the three stages that are represented in the New Testament, and we saw that when the new religion passed beyond the bounds of Palestine and entered on a campaign for converts among the Gentiles, it came into contact with Greek philosophic thought and perforce began to state its doctrines in terms which should be intelligible to educated men. For in spite of the fact that the majority of its adherents—like those of every other contemporary religion—were naturally of humble birth and station, it is certain that from the first it appealed also to men of position and education, and that such were among its followers. Therefore when it put forth its claims to be the universal religion, it had to meet and satisfy the demands of the intellectual classes.

Not only were the various forms of Greek philosophy rivals of Christianity, but the oriental mysteries also proved serious opponents. In our discussion of the most important of these mystery religions in an earlier lecture we tried to show the reasons for the wide appeal which they made during the first two centuries and a half of our era. Christianity therefore had to offer a greater assurance and satisfaction than these religions if it was to make headway against them. Thus Christianity was forced to meet two classes of opponents.

But it was inevitable that while the new religion was seeking to influence the environment into which it had come, it should itself be influenced by the world it had entered. No living belief or institution can exist without being affected by the life of which it is a part. Christianity accordingly ran many dangers, received many accretions, and was in some ways transformed during the first few centuries of its history. In this final lecture we shall consider briefly, by means of significant illustrations, first, the way in which Christianity during the second and third centuries accommodated itself to the intellectual world; secondly, the influence which the pagan environment had on Christian thought; and finally, the causes of its triumph.

By the beginning of the second century it was evident that in its conflict with pagan polytheism and philosophy Christianity could hope to win the victory only by taking into itself the fundamental elements of that intellectual life and civilization which the Greco-Roman world had been establishing through centuries. Its claim that the gospel was universal, that it solved the deepest mysteries and satisfied the highest human aspirations, inevitably brought it into the arena of contemporaneous life. It not only was obliged to defend itself in terms current in Greek thought, and to carry on a successful polemic against polytheism, but it had to prove that it offered the fullest, indeed the only true satisfaction of that longing for salvation which men felt. From these necessities of attack and defense came the Greek Apologists of the second century, the most important of whom were Aristides, Justin, Tatian, and Athenagoras.

Moreover as the Christian communities multiplied, their members were exposed to many influences which tended to injure or destroy the unity and purity of their belief, so that for self-protection Christianity was forced to develop a formal statement of its faith, that is, to create a dogmatic theology. By formal dogma the common doctrine of the church could be maintained comparatively unimpaired and at the same time the faith could be made intelligible and attractive to the learned of the pagan world. But to give philosophic expression to Christianity’s beliefs meant the Hellenization of this religion.

The Gnostics—to whom we shall presently return—were perhaps the first to undertake the construction of a Christian theology, but their aberrations were so extreme and violent that the growing church had to rid itself of them so far as possible. The work of building up a dogmatic system was carried on more slowly in the great catechetical school of Alexandria.

We have already seen the beginning of both the apologetic and the theological movements in the Pauline and Johannine writings of the New Testament. Let us now consider the work of the Apologists of the second century.

These defenders were all educated converts; indeed some of them, like Aristides and Athenagoras, called themselves philosophers. Naturally they did not give up their philosophic custom when they went over to Christianity, but rather applied their intellectual habit to their new faith. We should be wrong, however, in thinking that they wished to reconcile Greek philosophy and Christianity; on the contrary they wished to show that Christianity was the only true philosophy. Still all, with the exception of Tatian, treated Greek philosophy and civilization with respect and were ready to recognize God’s revelations among the Greeks as well as the Jews. They labored, however, with the fundamental antagonism between revelation and reason, and were often obliged somewhat illogically to blame Greek thinkers while praising them. Yet the sway of Hellenic philosophy was so complete and the means of defense which it furnished so powerful, that the Christians readily disregarded logical difficulties and gladly used the weapons which pagan thought had forged.

It is impossible here to distinguish in full detail the contributions of the several Apologists; we must therefore be content with a summarized statement of their positions.

First of all they accepted the historic tradition of the person, work, and teachings of Christ as authentic, and made no attempt to enlarge or diminish that tradition. They endeavored rather to present Christianity as a rational religion in such a way as to win the approval of the intellectual world. As Harnack says: “These Christian philosophers formulated the content of the Gospel in a manner which appealed to the common sense of all the serious thinkers and intelligent men of the age. Moreover, they contrived to use the positive material of tradition, including the life and worship of Christ, in such a way as to furnish this reasonable religion with a confirmation and proof that had hitherto been eagerly sought, but sought in vain.”[336]

They all set forth Christianity as a revelation from God, given in the Old Testament through the inspired prophets, who had foretold the supreme revelation in Jesus Christ. Christianity therefore was something which had existed from the beginning of the world; it was a thing which revelation had continuously attested, and which consequently was ultimate truth.[337] According to Justin not only the prophets of the Old Testament but also the Greek philosophers had borne witness to the truth and had been in a measure Christians. This power of insight and of prophecy he would ascribe in the latter case as in the former to the operation of the reason of God, a seed of which was granted to every man by nature; all therefore that was reasonable in Greek thought was due to divine inspiration. He found the cause of the Greeks’ failure to expound the whole truth in the view that man’s natural endowment was insufficient to enable him to resist the evil demons which beset him.[338] Although Athenagoras did not say that every man had within him a germ of the divine wisdom, he no less than Justin granted that the pagan poets and philosophers had known the truth in part;[339] their errors had been due to their dependence on themselves. The full truth then was to be found in revelation, which gave the Apologists the sole and sufficient warrant of their faith and the complete rule of life.

But, as I have said, the Apologists represented Christianity as the one valid philosophy. We must now examine briefly its principles.

First as to the nature of God. In dealing with this subject the Apologists used a method of thought and of expression very much like that employed by Philo and the later Platonists. They contrasted God and the world: the latter they said was created, temporal, and conditioned; the former, unconditioned, eternal, and self-existent; the material world was apprehended by the senses, God by the mind and reason alone.[340] God, therefore, to them was the One, pure spirit, unchanging, requiring nothing. It followed from this idea of God that he must be regarded as supramundane, if not transcendent. As a matter of fact, these writers were perhaps unconsciously trying to reconcile the personal attributes of God the Father, which the common Christian faith ascribed to the Godhead, and the current concept of God as a transcendent and ineffable being. A variety of expressions, too numerous to be quoted here, was employed to suggest God’s exalted and perfect nature. Furthermore God was not regarded as a passive, but as a living and active spirit, who must express himself in creations; he was therefore the First Cause, the Lord, Father, and Creator of all. The perfection of his nature made him also the source of moral good.

The complete contrast between the perfect, supramundane God and the imperfect, transient world required the Apologists, like the later pagan philosophers, to postulate some agent connecting the two, and they, like Philo and others, found this in the Logos, which to them was the operative reason of God, regarded as a person. But there is this significant fact to be noted, that the Apologists reached their views with regard to God and the Logos from a contemplation of the world itself in which they saw reason and order, and detected spiritual forces working toward good ends. Therefore they believed that the world was created and directed by God’s reason. Reflection on the chain of rational causation had led them to their conclusions. But Philo and the later Platonists we might say conceived of the Logos as a remedial being, for through his mediation they saved the perfection of God from contamination with evil matter. To the Apologists, however, matter was only an indifferent finite substance.

The Logos, as the reason of God, was identical with God in essence; but as a projection by God from himself, made for the purpose of creation and revelation, the Logos had a being distinct from God, not in essence but in number, so that he was a second God; yet at the same time the Logos, being a mode of God, God’s operative reason, was included in God; therefore no polytheistic ideas were admitted here.[341]

The Logos then was regarded as a creature and a servant of God, but he was held to be above all other creatures, being one in essence with the Divine. Moreover being created and therefore finite from the point of view of time, the Logos could enter into the finite and thus do the work of creation and revelation; by the Logos the world was made out of finite matter, and man was endowed with reason and freedom of the will. It is a striking fact, however, that with the exception of Justin, the Apologists betray comparatively little interest in the incarnation of the Logos in Jesus Christ. Their efforts were directed rather to establishing against the pagan world their claim that God is One and that the Logos is the operative reason of God which exercises his powers. Furthermore they had little or nothing to say about the Holy Spirit as a separate person, but for the most part they identified the Logos and the Spirit.[342]

The problem of evil the Apologists solved by connecting it with a belief in the freedom of choice given spirits or angels who chose to depart from righteousness, and, thus becoming evil demons, have from the first beset man and still do beset him with temptations which cause him to sin. They regarded man, by virtue of his endowments of reason and of freedom of the will, as capable of immortal life or of complete death. The conditions of immortality were first, the maintenance of the knowledge of God and of his relation through the Logos to the created world, and secondly, persistence in a life aimed at moral perfection, a life which followed after the Spirit and did not yield to the bodily passions. In Tatian especially there is a distinct ascetic strain.[343]

The best exposition of man’s moral obligations the Apologists believed to be found in the words of Jesus, but at the same time they agreed in holding that the essential element in a life of virtue was a clear knowledge of divine things through which man was at once raised above the things of this world into a pure and noble existence. Thus man was assured now of salvation, and in the future life was destined to enjoy immortality and the perfection of knowledge which would come with the direct vision of God.[344]

But such a doctrine presupposes a revelation of God. This, as I have already pointed out, the Apologists said had been made in the beginning by the Logos who disclosed himself in the created universe and in man as a part thereof. Man, however, by yielding to sin, had lost that divine knowledge which had been his through the original revelation, with the result that repeated revelations had been necessary. The agents of these had been the inspired prophets of the Old Testament and to a slight degree the philosophers of Greece. The revelation of the Logos in Jesus Christ was simply an attestation and guarantee of the truths and predictions of the prophets, the highest stage in the history of revelation, confirming that revelation without changing its content in any way.

But all this is something very different from the teachings of Jesus, or of Paul, or of the Fourth Gospel; indeed the relations of the Apologists to Stoicism, to Philo and the later Platonists, seem fully as close as to the New Testament. Of the writers in question Justin alone—and he somewhat unsuccessfully—tried to set forth Jesus as the redeemer in the strict sense of the word and to see in him a unique revelation of the Logos.[345] Side by side with the tendency to seek religious satisfaction in mysticism there existed even more strongly in intellectual circles a desire to find the principles of right conduct in a correct theory of the world. Such was, for example, the aim of the Stoic. In attempting to satisfy this desire the Apologists probably represented the views of the majority of educated Christians of their day who felt that the noble morality of Christianity was its most edifying characteristic; at any rate they knew that it was the strongest argument for the validity of their religion.

We have already seen many times that the idea that supreme knowledge was conferred by direct revelation and that such knowledge led to perfection was widespread not only among later Greek thinkers and Hellenized Jews like Philo, but also among the devotees of the oriental mysteries. Lucius, the hero of Apuleius’ Metamorphoses, believed that through the rites of initiation into the mysteries of Isis he had been allowed to see the gods face to face and to acquire a knowledge which only such revelation could convey.[346] Magical papyri describe their contents as knowledge (γνῶσις), meaning thereby the supernatural knowledge which they impart. From the other extreme we can cite the case of the Apostle Paul, who claimed that his knowledge and the gospel which he preached had come to him not from man, but “by the revelation of Jesus Christ.”[347] It was then a common belief of the day that through direct revelation one might obtain a secret knowledge (γνῶσις) of divine things which no teaching could give. Such a revelation, however gained, was recognized as an act of grace toward men, whereby they attained salvation.

It was this idea of a secret revealed knowledge which gave the name of Gnostic to a series of movements in the early Christian centuries to which we must now turn.

The Gnostics never formed any single community or school, but they comprised groups which exhibited the greatest diversity and range of beliefs and of morals; the most famous and influential individuals were Basilides, who taught at Alexandria in the time of Hadrian, and Valentinus, who was active at Rome in the middle of the second century (c. 140-c. 165). Gnosticism did not originate within Christianity, but rather antedated it. All its forms arose from some combination of oriental religions and mythologies with Greek modes of philosophic thought, which in many ways remind one of later Neoplatonism. When Christianity was taken into the Gnostic systems, it was inevitable that it should be modified, reshaped, and stated in forms which might contain gross error. Yet it would be a mistake to regard the Gnostics as fundamentally foes of Christianity. Even if we cannot go so far as Harnack and call them “the theologians of the first century,” and attribute to them the first place in the early formation of a Christian theology,[348] we must recognize that they did a great, and in some ways a permanent, service to the new faith. They were seekers after a philosophy of history; they interpreted Christianity as the religion which replaced both paganism and Judaism, and they held that the appearance of the redeemer had completed the development of the human race and had consummated the history of the universe. Such a view, which in itself was quite in accord with the views of Christians generally, led the Gnostics to reject the Old Testament because it was supplanted by the new revelation; the Apostolic writings they believed to contain first of all the rule of faith when taken at their face value, and secondly to hold a secret and deeper meaning, which could be obtained only by allegorical, that is, by esoteric interpretation. But thus far the Gnostics and the mass of Christians were still in essential agreement, although the latter held to faith (πίστις) as the basic element in their religion, while the former exalted knowledge (γνῶσις) above it.

The Christians, however, commonly believed the world to be the creation of God and wholly subject to him, as we just now saw when examining the position of the Apologists. The Gnostics on the other hand almost universally adopted some form of dualism which set off God and matter against each other as more or less independent entities. In matter they saw the basis of evil; at the other pole was the perfect supreme Being who was wholly transcendent, above all thought; from this Being, according to Basilides, proceeded a series of emanations, no less than three hundred and sixty-five in number, the lowest of which were the angels who occupy the visible heaven; they were the creators and rulers of all things on earth. The chief of these angels was the God of the Jews, as he was made known in the Old Testament.[349] Valentinus, too, described a series of thirty Eons, descended from the perfect, pre-existent Eon and his feminine counterpart, Ennoea, in which appear fantastic combinations of abstract ideas, mathematical concepts, and conjugal relations, betraying the manifold origin of this bizarre system.[350] Yet such doctrines represent only extravagant efforts to bridge the gap between a transcendent God and the world, a task which Philo and the later Platonists accomplished in a more restrained manner.

The common Gnostic explanation of the origin of the universe was that the cosmos arose from the descent into matter of some sparks of the divine. The Creator of the cosmos, the Demiurge, was regarded as an intermediate creature, sometimes as an evil one; but he is never identical with the supreme Being.[351]

Man, also, in their views, was a dual creature, made up of corruptible flesh and divine spirit. Some Gnostics also divided mankind into two classes: the spiritual who were capable of salvation, and the material who were doomed to perish. The Valentinians, however, conceived of three kinds, corresponding to the three forms of existence found throughout the world: the spiritual, the animal, and the material. Of these the material men were predestined to destruction; the animal by right choice might find rest in an “intermediate space”; but the spiritual were to attain perfection and become “as brides to the angels of the Saviour.”[352] The Gnostics of course were spiritual and destined for the supreme bliss.

As regards their views concerning the person of Christ we may not now go into detail. We can simply state the views of the two chief Gnostics. Basilides identified Christ with the first-born of the Father, the emanation Mind (Νοῦς), who came to destroy the God of the Jews and all evil men, but to save those who believed on him.[353] Valentinus made Christ one of the Eons, forming a conjugal pair of Christ and the Holy Spirit; but Jesus who appeared on earth was another, the perfect product of the whole pleroma of Eons.[354] We may say that generally Christ was regarded by the Gnostics as one of the emanations of the supreme Being, by which the divine principle entered the visible world and made God known, whereas he had been hidden hitherto. Christ, therefore, was a power, a heavenly Eon, which was to be distinguished from his earthly appearance as the man Jesus. This view was in accord with other beliefs that Christ had not actually appeared and suffered in the flesh, to which is given the name docetism.

The Gnostic ethics were based on the dual concept of man, with the natural result that in many groups a marked asceticism was practised. On the other hand the belief that the revelation brought by Christ had freed men from law—an exaggeration of Paul’s position, unchecked by Paul’s good-sense—led to the extremes of libertinism.

The Gnostics laid much stress also on the magic value of the sacraments of baptism, the Lord’s supper, and anointing with oil. They treated them as the means of initiation into the holy mysteries of Christianity, whereby the initiate obtained, as in pagan mysteries, the higher knowledge (γνῶσις), which was salvation. Beyond this they resorted to the crassest magic, playing with names and numbers, employing images, incantations, invocations, and many kinds of curious arts.[355] But in this respect they were hardly in disaccord with their contemporaries.

From the foregoing it will appear that the Gnostic movement represented in general exaggerations of the normal Christian tenets, produced by an attempt to combine Christianity with many Greek and oriental elements. The results varied from a doctrine which differed from that, for example, of the Johannine writings chiefly in denying the actual human existence of Christ, to the most extravagant perversions of Christian belief. Many Gnostics remained within the Church undisturbed, others were bitterly attacked.

The entire movement which we have been considering is instructive, for it illustrates in a striking way the danger which the growing Church ran of being swamped in the confused floods of Hellenic and oriental thought and mysticism. The conflict with such foes as the Gnostics was one of the chief causes which led to the formation of a body of accepted catholic doctrine, for in dogma lay in part the protection of Christianity. Although the Church was able to free itself of most Gnostic heresies, she could not wholly escape their influence, as we shall presently see.

The heir of both the Gnostics and the Apologists was the catechetical school at Alexandria under the leadership of Clement and Origen (c. 200-231). The early history of this school is unknown, but it became important at the close of the second century. In it both the Greek sciences and the holy Scriptures were studied, so that it was a natural place for the fusion of secular learning and Christian theology.

Clement, who was first a pupil, then a teacher in this school, and at last its head for three years (200-203), was the first to attempt an exposition of Christianity with all the aid that heretical speculation and Greek learning alike could give. We possess from his hand three works of systematic edification. The Protrepticus is addressed to converts, and in it he employs arguments similar to those of the Apologists, Justin and Athenagoras; the Paedagogus gives practical directions for the Christian life; and the Stromateis, “Miscellanies,” is intended to present and establish Christianity as the true philosophy, and so to lead the reader to supreme knowledge (γνῶσις), as its full title announces.[356] From this it is at once evident that the Gnostic movements had had their influence on Clement; and indeed, after combatting Gnostic errors frequently, especially in the third book, he devotes a considerable part of his sixth book and the whole of his seventh to a presentation of the true Gnostic.[357] His view as to the service done mankind by the Greek intellect is summed up in the often-quoted words: “Philosophy was a tutor to bring the Greeks, as the law was to bring the Hebrews, to Christ.”[358]

But since it was Clement’s great pupil and successor, Origen, who actually founded Christian theology as a philosophy, and who established his views so firmly that although the Church has rejected much in detail, its dogmas still bear the stamp of his system, we shall pass at once to him and endeavor to set forth in summary the most important elements of his doctrine.

Origen held fast to the traditional teaching of the Apostles and to the Old Testament which he felt contained the sum of Christian truth,[359] and at the same time he worked freely as a speculative thinker. For the greater part of the period during which he was the head of the Alexandrian School, (c. 203-231) he was undisturbed by persecution and could work in the clear atmosphere of scientific study. His theology was built on the secular theology of his day.[360]

God he regarded as wholly transcendent, but potentially everywhere present, incomprehensible to man save in so far as man could behold the revelation of him in nature and in Christ. He predicated justice, goodness, and omnipotence of God, not simply as potentialities, but as attributes exercised fully and eternally in the universe. Still to leave man a free agent, Origen was obliged to hold that God limited his own omnipotence. The belief in the eternal exercise of God’s attributes required him to regard creation as eternal, so that he held that God and his creatures had eternally existed; God therefore, he said, had never existed apart from his creation, but the two were coëternal. This does not mean that Origen regarded the present world as existing in visible form from eternity, for he taught quite the contrary: this present world did begin and will end in time, but it is only one in an infinite series of worlds, a single expression of the eternal creative activity of God.[361]

The Logos in Origen’s system stands midway between God and the world. In opposition to those who claimed that the Logos had been begotten in time and was therefore a temporal creature, he insisted that the Logos was without beginning, but was eternally generated by God. In attempting to make his view clear he employed familiar figures, saying that the Logos, the eternal Son, was related to the Father, as the gleam to the source of light, or the will to the mind of man. He was the wisdom, the consciousness, and the activity of God; and he likewise was God’s perfect image, a second God. Yet in essence he was not independent, but rather one with the Father by whose will he was eternally created. Being created, however, he was one stage removed from God toward the multiple creation; being the medium of the Divine, he was the Creator of the world.[362]

It will be observed that in this philosophical system there is no necessity for the redeemer, and indeed Origen made somewhat less use of this concept of Christ than most other writers. On Christ’s incarnation he insisted, but the essential work of the human Christ was revelation.[363]

Nor did Origen’s system require the Holy Spirit, but to comply with the Christian belief he gave the Spirit a place with God the Father, and Christ the Son, and made him the inspirer of the prophets and apostles. The functions of the three persons in one, so far as man is concerned, he defined by saying that God gave man existence, the Son supplied reason, and the Spirit holiness. Although he held the Spirit to be of the eternal essence of God, he made him subordinate to the Son, being the first creation through the Logos. Thus Origen in reality established two stages of creation: the Logos and the Holy Spirit.[364]

Below these he placed an infinite number of lesser spirits, endowed with freedom and bound for a time with matter: angels, men, and demons. By the exercise of their freedom certain spirits have fallen from perfect holiness and, entering into bodies, have become the souls of men, aided by those spirits which have held fast to purity and are God’s angels, and hindered by the demons who have fallen lower than men and who prefer evil and find pleasure in it.[365] The chief of the fallen angels is the devil.[366] Yet the world is ruled by divine providence toward ultimate good; evil therefore will not finally conquer: men who now choose the good become the sons of God and rise to the rank of angels. Ultimately, by a process which will go on imperceptibly through countless ages, even the evil spirits will be brought back to God and so all wickedness shall be purged away.[367] Then this course will begin again.

Origen’s human psychology was probably taken from his teacher Clement; but the views of both, like those of the Gnostics, go back ultimately to Plato.[368] Accordingly Origen held that the human body has two souls, the first the animal or the passionate, the second the reasonable soul or the spirit. The latter is man’s divine essence which enters him from above; the former becomes his at the time of his conception.[369] To human spirits, as to all others, God granted freedom, and through their evil choice they fell, so that all men are born in a condition of sin. The duty of man is to endeavor to give his divine soul the mastery in him that he may thereby become like God and attain eternal happiness; his inherent sin must be overcome by his own will and determined aspiration. Not that Origen believed that man could fully accomplish his own salvation; on the contrary he held most firmly that divine grace was needed; but he maintained that the first step, an act of faith, did depend on the individual’s free choice.[370] The historical revelation of the Logos and the redemptive work of Christ, who by his death dealt the first blow in the struggle to overthrow the devil, were both made a part of the plan of salvation by Origen, although, as I have said, redemption is not logically an indispensable element in his system.[371]

There are three stages of Christian progress, according to Origen. In the first and lowest man may advance through faith and by a belief in the redemptive death of the historic Christ to a state of sinlessness and to fellowship with God. Here the Logos incarnate in Jesus acts through revelation and redemption as a physician to cure men of their sins. But beyond is a higher stage in which through love and knowledge the soul may mount from its view of the phenomenal world to the “invisible things of God,” that is, to an understanding of the whole creation; and still further soar from these upward to “the eternal power of God, in short, to God’s own divinity.” In these higher stages the Logos is the teacher of the divine mysteries; they make the contemplative life in which the Christian may obtain perfect knowledge. To such a Gnostic as the Christian becomes who has been granted the vision, the historic Christ is no longer significant; the Logos in his manifold revelations teaches him the supreme truth.[372]

Thus we see that Origen assumed that there were two forms of Christianity, an exoteric for the mass, who were capable only of faith and who could not grasp the deeper truths, and an esoteric, reserved for the few who could understand the mysteries of God and whose souls could rise to the knowledge of God himself. This double view depended in part on his Gnostic tendencies, in part on his interpretation of Scripture, to which we shall presently turn.

We have now followed the development of Christianity from the simple teachings of Jesus into a Greek philosophy, as illustrated by the later writings of the New Testament, the Apologists, the Gnostics, and Origen. The last of these completed the process which began in Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, for he united successfully and fully, the religious principles of the Christian religion with the content of Hellenic philosophy. It must be evident furthermore that Origen and those who prepared the way for him, were no less debtors to the Greeks than they were to the Hebrews, to Jesus, and to Paul, since the form and in no small degree the very matter of their philosophy had been provided by secular thought. Indeed Porphyry with some reason charged Origen with being more Greek than Christian.[373]

It will be observed that Origen, and his predecessors also in large measure, made man’s salvation a part of a philosophy of the entire universe, each portion of which was to be fully understood only through a comprehension of the whole. That is to say, the scheme of salvation was an element in cosmological speculation. The earliest Greek philosophers had been concerned with a solution of the physical cosmos; soon thinkers began to search for the causes of change, without, however, troubling themselves with ethics or religion; but from the end of the fifth century b.c., the position of man, his obligations and his happiness, the nature of the Divine and the relation between God and the world, became dominant themes. In Plato we see first fully developed a religious philosophy of the cosmos of which man’s salvation is an inseparable part. The line from Plato to Origen, and we may add to the present day, is unbroken. Thus we find that Greek philosophy furnished the general plan for a statement of Christianity which should not only be intelligible, attractive, and convincing to the learned and the simple alike, but which should also prove triumphant over the Gnostics and other aberrant thinkers.

This transformation of the rule of faith into an Hellenic philosophy was contemporaneous with the growth of the separate churches into one body politic with an organization fitted for present defense and for future aggression.

If space allowed, numerous illustrations might be adduced to show how pagan philosophy and mysticism had influenced Christian theologians in details. Many examples we have already seen in passing, such as the view held by both Clement and Origen, as well as by the Gnostics and perhaps by Paul, that the supreme Christian truth was to be obtained by direct revelation, by a vision of the Divine. This was a current belief not only in the later mystic philosophies, like Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism, but also in the mystic religions, and in the Greek mysteries likewise. Again it would be possible to show that Origen’s ethical system owed much more to Stoicism and to later Platonism than to the teachings of Christ, which, however, were easily brought into accord with the philosophers’ doctrines. Or once more we might enlarge on the development of the triune nature of God, whereby the transcendent God and the Logos of pagan theology were united with a varying concept of the spirit of God, also familiar in Hellenic thought, to produce the Trinity of Christian dogma.

Thus in examining the ways in which Christianity accommodated itself to the intellectual world for purposes of defense and conquest, we have been seeing many examples of the influence which the pagan environment had on Christianity. Let us now examine a few further illustrations.

The first of these shall be the method of interpretation which was applied to the sacred writings. As early as the sixth century b.c., the Homeric mythology had aroused a protest from Xenophanes and others;[374] and in defense a new form of interpretation was adopted by the supporters of Homer who declared that there was a deeper meaning to the myths than appeared on the surface. Theagenes of Rhegium (c. 525 b.c.) suggested that the Homeric gods expressed either human faculties or natural elements, and thus he began the long history of allegorical exegesis.[375] From this time such interpretation of myths became a common practice; it was adopted by the Stoics; at Alexandria Jewish scholars took it over and applied it to the writings of the Old Testament, so that before the beginning of our era the sacred writings were regularly so explained. Philo shows how universal the procedure was. By it of course the historical character of the Old Testament was thrust into the background, and thus many difficulties of interpretation were avoided which otherwise would vex a man who regarded every part of the sacred books as perfect. Naturally the early Christians followed their predecessors, and in fact allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament has lasted down to our own time. Origen helped to fix the standard system, so to speak; there were, according to him, three senses in which the Scriptures were to be understood, corresponding to the triple nature of man: first, the literal sense which was for the “flesh,” the simple man; secondly, the psychic which fitted the moral man; and finally the pneumatic sense, for the spiritual man.[376]

The development of Christian asceticism will serve as another illustration of our present theme. It will be remembered that the Orphics and the Pythagoreans imposed on their followers a mode of life in which certain things were forbidden. These two sects were the first to grasp the meaning of the dualism of the flesh and spirit which we have found significant throughout the course of our investigation. Plato and the later philosophic schools developed the higher significance of man’s dual nature until asceticism in greater or less degree became the normal regimen for the philosopher of almost every school. In the oriental religions also certain abstentions were required as preparation for initiation into their mysteries.

On the whole asceticism was foreign to both Judaism and early Christianity.[377] In the Pauline epistles it is true that we find passages in which the flesh and the spirit are contrasted; virginity is moderately approved in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, but the Epistle to the Colossians contains a direct argument against the errors of ascetic teachers in Asia Minor, and the non-Pauline First Epistle to Timothy combats celibacy and vegetarianism.[378] It was indeed somewhat difficult to find a satisfactory warrant for an ascetic life in the New Testament. Christianity, however, could not escape its environment. Presently in the second century certain sects like the Gnostics, Montanists, and Encratites appeared which laid great stress on ascetic practice; at the same time the habit of fasting generally increased; many bound themselves to perpetual virginity; and riches were regarded as incompatible with the highest Christian character. In the third century numbers began to withdraw from the world, and by the fifth century monasticism was established in both the East and the West. But it was paganism which had given men the ideal of the ascetic saint, and the Church writers who furnished the warrant for the Christian practice, drew their arguments from Greek philosophers, and sometimes found it difficult to meet the criticisms of the Jewish defenders of a normal human life.

The almost universal rite of baptism as a means of ritual purification was employed by the early Christians. Jesus had been baptized by John, but he never made baptism a condition of discipleship. The Apostles baptized with water immediately after conversion. Confession of sins, repentance, and the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ were the antecedent requirements; the act itself was believed to mark the remission of sins and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. But by the early second century we find that the convert went through a period of instruction and was obliged to fast before he could be baptized.[379] From the middle of this century a new group of ideas drawn from the mysteries was associated with the rite. It became a mystery (μυστήριον), the one who conferred it was a mystagogue (μυσταγωγός); many forms of speech used in pagan initiations were employed; and the pagan expression “enlightenment” (φωτισμός, φωτίζεσθαι) became a Christian term. Likewise those who had been initiated into the Christian mysteries were said to bear a seal (σφραγίς) on their foreheads.[380] In general it was commonly thought that baptism—the Christian initiation—had a magic power to secure salvation similar to that which the pagan initiatory ritual was believed to possess. Moreover a long period of preparation was required, a sharp distinction was made between those who had received this Christian initiation and those who had not; and the Church became a secret association.[381] Later the Lord’s Prayer and the formula of baptism became a pass word (σύμβολον), which was kept from the catechumens until shortly before baptism.

Likewise the Lord’s Supper in time assumed the character of a mystery. Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus, all natives of the East and familiar with pagan mysteries, ascribe an extraordinary efficacy to its celebration. The elements were believed to become the flesh and blood of Christ,[382] or to take on a heavenly nature in addition to the earthly, whereby the partaker gained the hope of eternal resurrection.[383] Ignatius early in the century had called the bread “the medicine of immortality and antidote against death.”[384] As such it had a magic value.

If time and subject allowed, we might draw further illustrations of the influence of paganism from the calendar of the Church, which would show how pagan festivals were supplanted by Christian; or we might examine the list of accepted saints, some of whom have heathen origins—others are composites, so to speak; or again we might turn to Christian art and see how pagan types were adapted to Christian uses. But although such studies might prove interesting, we may not enter on them now, for we have already departed somewhat from our proper theme.

Yet great as the influence of the pagan environment was on Christianity, there is always a possibility that in such a study as the present we may get a wrong point of view. We should remember that Christianity was a positive religion, which in being transformed into a Greek philosophy did not lose its own character; indeed it was not obscured by the Greek intellectual habit, but it appropriated that habit and in the end made it its own. Pagan thought and practice affected Christianity in countless ways, but they did not overwhelm it. Nor must we underestimate the service which paganism rendered the faith which was to overthrow it. The philosopher’s long search for a rule of life, the Greek and oriental mysteries, and the mystic theosophies, all provided an environment ready and favorable to Christianity. The rapid spread of this new religion, at first in Syria and Asia Minor, was not due simply to the propinquity of these countries to Palestine. They had been for centuries familiar with mystic religions which in a crude way aimed to give what Christianity promised in nobler fashion. The same thing was true in a measure of the great centers of the West. Without an environment already prepared for it Christianity would have had a very different history from the one we know. Moreover we have now abundantly seen how Greek rhetoric and philosophy furnished the forms by which Christianity made itself understood, and how they gave the intellectual weapons by which in part it gained its victory over paganism.

Now we may ask what were some of the chief reasons for Christianity’s triumph. Sometimes it is lightly said that its victory was due to the fact that it “promised immortality to a hopeless world.” But we know that there were many contemporaneous religions which promised immortality and that the world was not without hope. We must try to look somewhat more deeply, and we cannot limit ourselves wholly to intellectual causes.

The first, although not the most significant, reason may be found in the positive and noble monotheism of Christianity. Other religions by syncretistic processes arrived at a doctrine of the unity of the Divine, of one God who embraced in himself a multitude of divinities; but the new faith, supported by its Jewish inheritance, taught that God was but One and that there was no other.

Yet the most important causes are to be found in the person and mission of Jesus. He brought a new revelation of God to men; and it was a revelation which men believed the Old Testament had foretold. The Jewish Scriptures were the one body of sacred writings known to the Greco-Roman world, and their authority was enormous wherever anti-Jewish prejudices were overcome, or when, as in Christian thought, Jesus was related to its prophecies. This influence had extended to Greeks, especially in such places as Alexandria, long before Jesus began his ministry. Therefore it was natural that the Gentiles’ desire for revelation as well as the Jews’ Messianic hopes should be attached to the Old Testament, so that Christianity had the support of its weighty authority.

Again Christianity knew its saviour and redeemer not as some god whose history was contained in a myth filled with rude, primitive, and even offensive elements, as were the stories of Attis, of Osiris, and to a degree of Dionysus. Such myths required violent interpretation to make them acceptable to enlightened minds. On the contrary the Christian saviour had lived and associated with men, whose minds and senses had apprehended his person, acts, and character. These witnesses had transmitted their knowledge directly, and they had testified that the life of Jesus corresponded to his teachings. Jesus was then an historical, not a mythical being. No remote or foul myth obtruded itself on the Christian believer; his faith was founded on positive, historical, and acceptable facts.

Christianity showed a superior power of adaptation to every class; it was a practical guide of life for all, a guide which was soon recognized by its opponents to be of the highest ethical value. In spite of the human weaknesses of Christians, their superior morality was generally recognized from the time of Pliny.[385] Their motives for righteous living sprang from love and faith rather than from any social or rational sanctions; and the fruits were “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance.” These virtues and the belief that Christ’s revelation and the mystic union of man with the Divine brought salvation, could be understood by the most unlettered. The intellectual classes found Christianity fulfilling the aim of both Greek thought and of Old Testament prophecy; in it they saw the ultimate philosophy. Christianity therefore proved itself a religion which satisfied men’s desires and hopes as well as their philosophic aims in a more complete and spiritual way than oriental mysticism or Greek rationalism; and it gave a nobler assurance of salvation.

Finally, experience taught the value of Christianity; already in the second century the Apologists could make the appeal to common knowledge of the Christians to show the superiority of their faith.

Yet by the close of the second century Christianity had not won many adherents outside of Syria and Asia Minor, save in the greater cities. The third century was the period in which paganism rapidly decayed and Christianity swiftly advanced toward its triumph; by the year 300 it had filled the Mediterranean world, and the proud claim which Tertullian had made a century before, began to be justified: “We are of yesterday, and yet we have filled all your holdings, cities, houses, castles, towns, councils, your very camps, tribes, wards, the palace, the senate, the forum—we have left you only your temples.”[386] The victory over pagan religions and philosophies was indeed certain; but this success had been secured on the intellectual side by the transformation of the teachings of Jesus and of the apostles into a Greek philosophy. It is as such that Christianity has the final place in a history of Greek religious thought.