i>i>iiifli:iu:i , .i:(i sii< i ..itiikliioiaiu^i>A>,i. J.i.iii 'iiili^fiiU^iliiuiihfitiit/itii YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY OUTLII^ES HISTORY OF DOGMA OUTLINES OF THE 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 Groeco-Eoman and Eastern Church History in Hartford Theological Seminary NEW YORK FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY LONDON AND TORONTO 1893 Printed in the United States Copyright, 1893, by the FUNK & WAGNALLS COMPANY [Begistered at Stationers' Hcdl, London, Eng.] PREFACE THE English translation of my "Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte" has been made, in accordance with my expressed wish, hj 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^ but 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 be 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, WiLMEESDOEP NEAR BERLIN, March 17th, 1893. OOJSTTElSrTS. PAGE Prolegomena to the Discipline 1 I. Idea ajid Aim of the History of Dogma . . 1 n. 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 .IS' 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 . 33 VII. The Religious Conceptions and the Religious Philosophy of the Hellenistic Jews in their Bear ing on the Transformation of the Gospel Message . 38 VHI. 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 58 70 YJii CONTENTS. 1 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 . ¦ • . / • 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 Chapter VI. -Supplement : The Christianity of the Jewish Christians ^ Book II. THE LAYING OF THE FOUNDATION. Chapter I.— Historical Survey 81 Section I. Establishment of Christianity as a Chureh 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 WeU-known Scriptures as Virtually Belonging to the Old Testament ; i. e. , as a Compilation of Apostolic Scriptm-es 88 C. The Transformation of the Episcopal Offlce in the Church into the Apostolic Office. History of the Transformation of the Idea of the Chm-ch . . 95 Chapter III.— Continuation: The Old Christianity and the New Church . . . . . . .100 Section II. Establishment of Cliristianity as Doctrine and its Gradual Secularization. Chapter IV. — Eoclesiastical 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 : Irenseus, TertuUian, 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 OP THE DEVELOPMENT OP DOGMA AS DOCTRINE OP 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 IH. — 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 . 325 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 ofthe Necessity and Reality of Redemption through the Incarnation of the Son of God ... . .... 235 Chapter VTI.- The Doctrine of the Homousion of the Son of God with Gqd Himself . . . . 243 I. Until Council of Nicsea 343 II. Until Death of Constantius 353 III. Until Councils of Constantinople, 381, 383 . . 359 Supplement : The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit and of the Ti-inity 366 X CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter VIII. —The Doctrine of the Perfect Equality as to Nature of the Incarnate Son of God and Humanity 374 Chapter IX.— Continuation : The Doctrine of the Personal Union of the Divine and Human Natures in the Incarnate Son of God 380 I. The Nestorian Controversy 380 II. The Eutychian Controversy .... 387 ylll. The Monophysite Controversies and the 5th Council ... 394 rV. The Monergistic and Monothelitic Controversies, the 6th 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 OP THE DOGMA INTO A DOCTRINE CONCERNING SIN, GRACE AND THE MEANS OP GRACE UPON THE BASIS OP THE CHURCH. Chapter I. — Historical Survey 326 Chapter II. —Occidental Christianity and Occidental The ologians before Augustine 339 Chapter III.— The World-Historical Position of Augustine as Reformer of Christian Piety .... 335 Chapter TV.— The World-Historical Position of Augus tine as Teacher of the Church .... 342 I. Augustine's Doctrine of the 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 HI. The Pelagian Contest. Doctrine of Grace and o* 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 CONTENTS. XI PAGE I. Contest between Semi-Pelagianism and Augustini- anism 383 H. Gregory the Great (590-604) 387 Chapter VI. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Caiio- vingian Renaissance 393 I. A. The Adoption Controversy .... 394 I. B. The Predestination Controversy . . . 395 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 406 I. The Revival of Piety 407 II. On the History of Ecclesiastical Law . . . 412 in. The Revival of Science '414 IV. Work upon the Dogma 433 A. The Berengar Controversy 433 B. Anselm's Doctrine of Satisfaction and the Doc trines of the Atonement of the Theologians of the 13th Century 437 Chapter VIII. — History of Dogma in the Time of the Men dicant Orders till the Beginning of the il6th 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 . . 453 IV. The Reminting of Dogmatics into Scholastics . 461 A. The Working Over of the Traditional Articuli Fidei 463 B. The Scholastic Doctrine of the Sacraments . . 468 C. The Revising of Augustinianism in the Direction of the Doctrine of Meritorious Works . . . 488 Book III. THE THRBB-POLD ISSUING OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Chapter I.— Historical Survey 501 Chapter II. —The Issuing of the Dogma in Roman Ca tholicism 510 xii CONTENTS. PAGE I. Codification of the Medissval Doctrines in Opposi tion to Protestantism (Tridentine Decrees) . . 510 II. Post-Tridentine Development as a Preparation for the Vatican Council 518 III. The Vatican Council 537 Chapter IH. — The Issuing of the Dogma in Anti-Trinita- rianism and Socinianism 539 I. Historical Introduction 539 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 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. PROLEGOMENA TO THE DISCIPLINE. I. — Idea and Aim op 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. 3. The inclination to formulate the content of '^aith. °* 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 2 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP 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 ppssible 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. af^^Jiu- ^- "^^^ most thorough-going attempt at solution 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- tion. 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- 4'" of plain the origin of this dogmatic Christianity, and, Dogma (2) To describe its development. 5. The history of the rise of dogmatic Christian- E'se of 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 4th century when the Logos- Christology was established. The development of ^^nf°5' dogma is in abstracto without limit, but in con- ^°e.r^- creto it has come to an end. For, (a) the Greek Greek Church. Church maintains that its system of dogma has been complete since the end of the " Image Controversy " ; (b) the Eoman Catholic Church leaves the possibil- ^"y^h ity of the formulating of new dogmas open, but in the Tridentine Council and still more in the Vatican 4 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. 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 j the Roman Catholic Church has consequently abandoned the original motive of dogmatic Christianity and has placed a wholly new motive in its stead, retain- Evaneei- ing the mere semblance of the old ; (c) The Evan- churches. gelical churchcs 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 Prote^taiS' the history of Protestant doctrine wiU be excluded Exduded. 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 Dogmas not Expo- simply the exposition of the Christian revelation, chi^stian because deduced from the Holy Scriptures, is not ^on.*' 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, ahd 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 constnfc^- be an illusion, so far as the same was to be the pure Dogma. 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- 6 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP 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- rations 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. ¦*'iSther°*' ^' 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. what — this was so much the case in Protestantism that one does well, as remarked above, no lenger to consider the symbolical teaching of the Protestant churches as wholly a recasting of the old dogma. 9. An imderstanding of the dogmatico-historic Periods in ° History of process cannot be secured by isolating the special Dogma. 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 th^ 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 Value of Study. 8 OUTLINES OP THE HISTOEY OF DOGMA. 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 op the History op Dogma. Mosheim, etc. Baronius, etc. Luther, etc. Erasmus, etc. Benedic tine, etc. Gottfried Arnold. The narrative of the History of Dogma begins first in the 18th century with Mosheim, Walch, Emesti, 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. Valla; 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 Semler, Lange. Rossler, Lofiier, etc., then the History of Dogma by Miinscher, Handb. 4 Bdd. 1797 f., an excellent Miinscher. Lehrbuch, 1. Aufi. 1811, 3. Aufl. 1832, Miinter 2 Bdd. 1802 f, Staudlin 1800 and 1823, Augusti 1805 and 1835, Gieseler, edited by Redepenning 2 Bdd. 1855). The valuable handbooks of Baumgar- Baumgar- ° ten-Cra- ten-Crusius 1832, i.e. 1840 and 1846, and of Meier ^i"^- 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 Leasing, Herder, Schleiermacher and the Romanticists on the ^^gj' one side, and Hegel and Schelling on the other, had schefimg. prepared the way. Epoch-making were the writings of F. Chr. Baur (Lehrb. 1847, i.e. 1867, Vorles. Baur. 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 Neanaer. (2. Thl. 1857) and Hagenbach (1840, i.e. 1867). Dorner (History of the Doctrine of the Person of Domer. Christ, 1839 i.e. 1845-53) attempted to unite Hegel 10 outlines op THE HISTORY OP 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. Engelhardt, Weizsacker and ReviUe are" valuable. PRESUPPOSITIONS OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. Ill . — Introductory. ^Sl'^ 1. The gospel appeared in the "fulness of time." Christ, ^jj^ ^]^g 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 Hfe 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 thai; 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 power 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, confeder- £1(60. OOD" no united and homogeneous Church, but there «^^sations. were scattered throughout the wide Roman empire confederated congregations of Christian believers (churches) who, for the most part, were Gentile- born and condemned the Jewishu 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 *''°™gjf®'^" is negatively indicated by the freeing of the Gospel '^^"''''^• 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 Grceco-Roman soil. The Gos- 12 outlines op the history op dogma. Gospel World-Ee- liglon. 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 Jewish 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 sympathizers 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 (.^^Jj^^j^ Paul's significant relation toward it, did not com- "preSeS prehend, nor really experience the crisis, out of Problem, 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 14 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. 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- Gentiie gauizatious, which with all their newness bore testi- Churclies Eetained niony to their kinship with the original Palestinian chl'Sr-" churches, in so far as, (1) the Old Testament was istics. jj]j.g.^^jge 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 finaUy, 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. Do^maVa's ^- '^^® history of dogma has to do with the Gen- '"cxeStiTe* tile Church only — the history of theology begins, it Only. 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 Presuppo- . sitions. 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) Tlie 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 Grceco-Roman philosophy of religion. IV.— The Gospel op Jesus Christ according TO His Own Testimony. The Gospel is the good news of the reign of the ^°^P^ '^ Ahnighty and Holy God, the Father and Judge of °|oS of 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 life 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 ^ •' God and to God and to one's neighbor. In this love, wher- '"'"'• ever it controls the thoughts in their deepest sj^rings, that better justice is exemplified which corresponds 16 outlines of the history op dogma. to the perfection of God. The way to secure this righteousness is by a change of heart, 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 ^°4?en1.y'' Sovereignty, higher justice [law of love] and for- Love, For- givcuess of sin) it is inseparably connected with giveuess of _ ^ . _, , Sin. Jesus Christ. For m the proclamation of the Gos pel, Jesus Christ everywhere called men unto him- WOTd^'aid ^®'^- I^ ^i"^ ^s *^^ Gospel word and deedj it is j^us° 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 co— prolegomena. 17 fession that he was their Master and Messiah. Jesus Mes siah. 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 Eedeemer, 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- jY^^rJ^ ligion which frees men from all legality, which, how- *"i^f*'" 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 18 outlines of the history op dogma. v.— The General Proclamation concerning Jesus Christ in the First Generation op His Adherents. Jesus Eis- 1. Men had learned to know Jesus Christ and had en Lord. found him to be 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, Way, sitting at the right hand of God, as the Way, the Truth, & o Life. Truth and the Life, as the Prince bf Life and the living Power of a new existence, as the Conqueror King. 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. *§°o!pies°^ 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 tho 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 chul^h, itself within the Jewish nation. And this new com- ''^^t' 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- -^f d™cP-^ session of the Spirit was an assurance to each indi- ^ ® ''^' 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, |^''^'js rested first of all entirely upon the Old Testament, ow TestS- 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- ment. 20 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP 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-ship 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 tion^Be^an P^^^^^ Speculation began already in the apostolic age '"ic^igl^^" ^^^ i* went on to 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 rripeTv Tzdwa oaa ivereaaro 6 'Irjiroug was to be included as a matter of course and so did not especially engage the thoughts. That this must be for the future a questionable digression is plain enough; for since everything depends upon the appropriation of the Person of Jesus, it is not possible for a personal life to be appropriated through opinions about the Person, but only through the record of the concrete Per sonality. PROLEGOMENA. 21 3. Upon the basis of the plain words of Jesus and o^for^^g. in the consciousness of the possession of the Spirit men E?|hte'oul were already assured of a present possession of the God. forgiveness of sin, of righteousness before God, of the full knowledge of the Divine Will and of the call into the future kingdom. In the acquiring of these blessings, surely not a few realized the consequences of the iirst coming of the Messiah, i.e. his work, and they referred especially the forgiveness of sin to the death of Christ, and eternal life to his resurrec tion. But no theories touching the relation of the blessings of the Gospel to the history of Christ were propounded ; Paul was the first to develop a theology upon the basis of the death and resurrection of Christ and to bring it into relations with the Old Testa ment religion. 4. This theology was constructed in opposition to ^^^^ "^ the legalistic righteousness of the pharisees, i.e., to iSiIsHc the official religion of the Old Testament. While its ness. form was thereby somewhat conditioned, its power rested in the certainty of the new life of the Spirit, which the Risen One offered, who through his death overcame the world of the flesh and of sin. With the thought that righteousness comes through faith in God who raised Jesus from the dead and fulfilled the Law by the legal way of the crucifixion of the Christ upon the cross, Paul wrenched the Gospel from its native soil and gave it at the same time through his Christological speculation and his carry ing out of the contrast of flesh and spirit, a charac- 22 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. teristic stamp which was comprehensible to the Greeks, although they were illy prepared to accept his special manner of reconciling it with the Law. Through Paul, who was the first theologian, the question of the Law (in theory and practice) and the principles of missionary activity accordingly be came the absorbing themes in the Christian commu nities. While he proclaimed freedom from the Law and baptized the heathen, forbidding them to become Jews, others now for the first time consciously made the righteousness of Christian believers dependent upon the punctilious observance of the Law and re- Heathen jected Paul as an apostle and as a Christian. Yet °Befome'° ^^^ chief disciplcs of Jesus were convinced, perhaps ^""^ not a little infiuenced by the success of Paul, and conceded to the heathen the right to become Chris tians without first becoming Jews. This well at tested fact is the strongest evidence that Christ had awakened among his personal disciples a faith in himself, which was dearer to them than all the tra ditions of the fathers. Yet there were among those who accepted the Pauline mission various opinions as to the attitude which one should take toward heathen Christians in ordinary life and intercourse. These opinions held out for a long time. .Sofof -^s surely as Paul had fought his fight for the ity^oc"' whole of Christendom, so sure also is it that the curred ^art transformation of the original form of Christianity ^^^- into its universal form took place outside of his activity (proof,- the Church at Rome). The Juda- Missing Page Missing Page Missing Page Missing Page PROLEGOMENA. 27 Only the Fourth Evangelist — he hardly belongs to the 1st century — saw with perfect clearness that the pre-earthly Christ must be established as '?£«? &v ^v ^PXV ^P°'^ '^^'¦' '^^""i in order not to endanger the content and significance of the revelation of God in Christ. In addition there prevailed in wide circles such con ceptions also as recognized in a spiritual communi cation at his baptism the equipment of the man Jesus (see the genealogies, the beginning of tbe Gospel of Mark) for his office, or found upon the basis of Isa. vii. in his miraculous birth (from a virgin) the germ of his unique being. (The rise and spread of this representation is wholly indistinct to us ; Paul seems not to have known it ; in the be ginning of the 2d century it is almost universal.) On the other hand, it is of great significance that every teacher who recognized the new in Christian ity as religion ascribed pre-existence to Christ. Supplement. — A reference to the witness of proph ecy, to the current exposition of the Old Testament, to apocalyptic writings and valid methods of specu lation was not sufficient to clear up every new point which cropped out in the statement of the Christian message, '^he earliest brother-hoods were enthusias tic, had prophets in the midst of them, etc. Under such conditions facts were produced outright contin ually in the history {e.g., as particularly weighty, the ascension of Christ and his descent into hell). It is farther not possible to point out the motive to such productions, which first only by the creation of Bise and Spread Indistinct. Earliest Brother hoods En thusiastic. Facts Pro duced. ^ OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. the New Testament Canon reached a by no means complete end, i.e., now became enriched by compre hensible mythologumena. VII.— The Religious Conceptions and the Re ligious Philosophy op the Hellenistic Jews in Their Bearing on the Transfor mation OF THE Gospel Message. fieiigionof 1. From the remnants of Jewish- Alexandrian lit- Dlaspora, aSd^cos- erature (reference is also made to the Sibylline mo ogy. Q],j^Qjes as well as to Josephus) and from the great propaganda of Judaism in the Grseco-Roman world, it may be inferred that there was a Judaism in the diaspora to whose consciousness the cultus and the ceremonial law disappeared entirely behind the mono theistic worship of God without images, behind the moral instruction and the faith in a future reward beyond. Circumcision itself was no longer abso lutely required of those converted to Judaism ; one was also satisfied with the cleansing bath. The Jewish religion seemed here transformed into a com mon human morality and into a monotheistic cos mology. Accordingly the thought of the theocracy as well as the Messianic hope grew dim. The latter did not entirely fail, however, but the prophecies were valued chiefly for the proof of the antiquity of the Jewish monotheism, and the thought of the future spent itself in the expectation of the destruction of the Roman empire, of the burning of the world and — prolegomena. 29 what is weightiest — the general judgment. That which is specifically Jewish preserved itself under a high regard for the Old Testament, which was con sidered as the fountain of all wisdom (also for the Greek philosophy and the elements of truth in the non- Jewish religions). Many intelligent men also observed punctiliously the Law for the sake of its symbolical significance. Such Jews, together with Preparar tion for their converts from the Greeks, formed a new Juda- '^'^^jn^"" ism upon the foundation of the old. And these pre- '*'^^'^^- pared the soil for the Christianizing of the Greeks, as well as for the establishment within the empire of a great Gentile Church free from the Law ; under the influence of Greek culture it developed into a kind of universal society with a monotheistic back ground. As religion it laid aside the national forms, put itself forward as the most perfect form of that "natural" religion, which the Stoa had discovered. But in that way it became more m,oralistic and lost a part of the religious energy, which the prophets and psalmists possessed. The inner union of Juda ism and the Hellenistic philosophy of religion indi cates a great advance in the history of religion and culture, but the same did not lead to strong religious creations. Its productions passed over into " Chris tianity." 2. The Jewish- Alexandrian philosophy of religion Jewish- had its most noted defender in Philo, — the perfect fosophy'Sf Greek and the sincere Jew, who turned the religious ph§a°' philosophy of his time in the direction of Neo- 30 outlines of the HISTORY OP DOGMA. Ascetic Virtue. Influence of Alexan drian Phi losophy of Religion Upon Christian ity. Platonism and prepared the way for a Christian theology, which was able to rival the philosophy. Philo was a Platonist and a Stoic, but at the same time a revelation-philosopher;- he placed the final end in that which is above reason and therefore the highest power in the Divine communication. On the other hand, he saw in the human spirit some thing Divine and bridged over the contrast between God and cveaA,\ivQ- spirit, between nature and history, by means of the personal-impersonal Logos, out of which he explained religion and the world whose material, it is true, remained to him whoUy perish able and evil. His ethical tendencies had, therefore, in principle a strong ascetic .character, however much he might guard the earthly virtues as relative. Vir tue is freedom from the sensuous and it is made per fect through the touch of Divinity. This touch sur passes all knowledge; the latter, however, is to be highly prized as the way. ' Meditation upon the world is by Philo dependent upon the need of hap piness and freedom, which is higher than all reason. One may say that Philo is therefore the first who, as a philosopher, gave to this need a clear expression, because he was not only a Greek, but also a Jew imbued with the Old Testament within whose view, it is true, the synthesis of the Messiah and of the Logos did not lay. 3. The practical fundamental conceptions of the Alexandrian philosophy of religion must, in different degrees, have found an entrance very early into PROLEGOMENA. 81 the Jewish-Christian circles of the diaspora, and through the same also into the Gentile-Christian ; or rather the soil was already prepared wherever these thoughts became widespread. After the beginning of the 2d century the philosophy of Philo also be came influential through Christian teachers, espe cially his Logos-doctrine, as the expression of the unity of religion, nature and history; and above all his fundamental hermeneutic principles. Thesys- vaientinus c -vT 1 • 1 /-v • ^""^ Origen tems of Valentine and Origen presuppose the svstem Presup- "^^ ^ -^^ •' pose Philo. of Philo. His fine dualism and allegorical art ("the Biblical alchemy") became acceptable also to the learned men of the Church; to find the spiritual meaning of the sacred text, in part alongside the letter and in part outside, was the watchword of scientific Christian theology, which in general was possible only upon such a basis, since it strove, with out recognizing a relative standard, to unify the monstrous and discordant material of the Old Testa^ ment and the Gospel, and to reconcile both with the religion and scientific culture of the Greeks. Here Philo was a master, for he first in the largest sense poured the new wine into the old wine-skins — a pro cedure -in its ultimate intention justified, since his tory is a unit; but in its pedantic and scholastic execution the same was a source of illusions, of un reality and finally of stultification. ries. 32 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. VIII. — The Religious Disposition op the Greeks and Romans in the First Two Centuries and the Contemporary Gr^co- RoMAN Philosophy op Religion. man'wS-'id 1- ^^ *^6 ^S® o^ Ciccro and Augustus the people's ^lugi^us^ religion and the religious sense in general was ahnost sdcentu- entirely wanting in cultured circles, but after the end ofthe 1st century of our era a revival ofthe relig ious sense is noticeable in the Graeco-Roman world, which affected all grades of society and seemed after the middle of the 2d century to grow stronger from decennium to decennium. Parallel with it went the not fruitless attempt to restore the old national cults, religious usages, oracles, et cetera. Meanwhile the new religious needs of the time did not reach a vig orous or untroubled expression through this effort, which was made in part from above and in part by artificial means. The same sought, far more in ac cordance with the wholly changed conditions of the times, to find new forms of gratification (intermin gling and intercourseof nations— downfall of the old republican constitutions, institutions and classes — monarchy and absolutism — social crises and pauper ism — influence of philosophy, religion, morality and law — cosmopolitanism and human rights — influx of Oriental cults — knowledge of the world and sa tiety). Under the influence of philosophy a dispo sition toward monotheism was developed' out of the downfall of the political cults and the syncretism. PROLEGOMENA. 33 Religion and individual morality became more Eeii|ion closely united: Spiritualization of the cults, en- unifed^ nobling of man, idea of ethical personality, of con science and of purity. Repentance and pardon became of importance, also inner union with the Divinity, longing for revelation {asceticism and mysterious rites as a means of appropriating the Divine), yearning after a painless, eternal life be yond the grave (apotheosis); the earthly life as a phantom life {tjrxpdreta and ^s-affraffi?) . Just as in the 2d century the moral swing was the stronger, so in the 3d century the religious increased more and more — thirst for life. Polytheism was not thereby over come, but only shoved aside upon a lower plane, where it was as active as ever. The numen supre- mum revealed its fulness in a thousand forms (demi gods), going upward (apotheosis, emperor cult, " dominus ac deus noster ") and downward (mani festations in nature and in history) . The soul itself is a super-earthly being ; the ideal 6f the perfect man and of the Leader (Redeemer) was developed and sought after. The new remained in part concealed by the old cultus forms, which the state and piety protected or restored; there was a feeling-around after forms of expression, and yet the wise, the skeptic, the pious and the patriot capitulated to the cultish traditions. Social Or- 2. The formation of social organizations, on the tf^^^Q. one hand, and the founding of the monarchical ^J'" gcb- world-wide Roman empire, on the other, had the ism. 34 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. greatest significance as regards the development of something new. Everywhere there sprang up that cosmopolitan feeling, which points beyond itself, there toward the practice of charity, here toward the uniting of mankind under one head and the wip ing out of national lines. The Church appropriated, piece for piece, the great apparatus of the earthly Roman empire; in its constitution, perhaps, it also saw the portrayal of the Divine economy. stoicism, 3. Perhaps the most decisive factor in the change Platonism. '- of the, religious-ethical attitude was the philosophy, which in almost all its schools had more and more brought ethics forward and deepened the same. Upon the soil of Stoicism, Posidonius, Seneca, Epic- tetus and Marcus Aurelius, and upon the soil of Platonism, men like Plutarch had achieved an ethi cal-outlook, which in its principles (knowledge, res ignation, trust in God) was obscure, yet in some particulars scarcely admits of improvement. Com mon to them all is the great value put upon the soul. Neo;Piat- A religious bent, the desire for Divine assistance, for redemption and for a life beyond, comes out dis tinctly in some of them ; most clearly in the Neo- Platonists and those who anticipated them in the 2d century (preparation by Philo). Characteristics of this mode of thought are the dualistic contrasting of the Divine and the earthly, the abstract idea of God, the assertion of the unknowableness of God, skepti cism in regard to sense-experience and distrust of the powers of reason ; at the same time great readi- omsm. PROLEGOMENA. 35 ness to investigate and to utilize the results of the previous scientific labors; and farther, the demand for freedom from the sensuous through asceticism, the want of an authority, belief in a higher revda- tion and the fusing of religion, science and mythol ogy. Already men began to legitimize the relig- Religious ious fantasie within the realm of philosophy, by Legiti- reaching back and seizing the myths as the vehicle of the deepest wisdom (romanticism). The theo- sophical philosophy which had thus equipped itself was from the standpoint of natural science and clear thinking in many ways a retrogression (yet not in all particulars, e.g. the Neo-Platonic psychology is far] better than the Stoic) ; but it was an expression for the deeper religious needs and the ibetter self- knowledge. The inner life with its desires was now altogether the starting-point for all thought concern ing the world. Thoughts of the divine, gracious Providence, of the kinship of all men, of the common fraternal love, of the ready and willing forgiveness of wrong, of the indulgent patience, of the insight into their own weaknesses were no less the product of the practical philosophy of the Greeks for wide circles, than the conviction of the inherent sinful ness, of the need of redemption and of the value of a human soul which finds its rest only in God. But Reveiatipn •' and Relig men possessed no sure revelation, no comprehensive 'bunion " and satisfactory religious communion, no vigorous °'° '"^' and religious genius and no conception of history, which could take the place of the no longer valuable 36 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. political history; men possessed no certitude and they did not get beyond the wavering between the fear of God and the deification of nature. Yet with this philosophy, the highest the age had to offer, the Gospel allied itself, and the stages of the Ecclesiastical History of Dogma during the first five centuries correspond to the stages of the Hellenistic Philosophy of Religion within the same period. Introduc- As an introduction to the study of the history of t(?History dogma the following works are to be especially com mended: Schiirer, Geschichte des jiidischen Volks im Zeitalter Jesu Christi, 2. Bd. 1885 (English translation published by T. & T. Clark). Weber, System der altsynagogalen palastinensischen The- ologie, 1880. Kuenen, Volksreligion und Weltre- ligion, 1883. Wellhausen, Abriss der Geschichte Israel's und Juda's (Skizzen und Vorarbeiten, 1. Heft, 1884). Weiss, Lehrbuch der bibl. Theolo- gie, 4. Aufl., 1884. Baldensperger, Das Selbstbe- wustsein Jesu im Licht der messianischen Hoff- nungen seiner Zeit, 1888. Leben Jesu von Keim, Weiss and others and the Einleitungen in das N. T. von Reuss, Hilgenfeld, Mangold, Holtzmann und Weiss. Weizsacker, Apostolisches Zeitalter, 1886. Renan, Hist, des Orig. du Christianisme, T. II.- IV. Pfleiderer, Das- Urchristendum, 1887, Dies- tel, Geschichte des A. T. i. der christi. Kirche, PROLEGOMENA. 37 1869, Siegfried, Philo v. Alex. 1875. Bigg, The Christian Platonists of Alexandria, 1886. Die Untersuchungen von Freudenthal (' Hellenistische Studien') and Bernays. Boissier, La Religion Romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins, 2 vols., 1874. ReviUe, La Religion a Rome sous les Severes, 1886 (German by Kriiger 1888). Friedlander, Dar- stellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms in der Zeit von August bis zu Ausgang der Antonine, 3. Bdd. 5. Aufl. Marquardt, Romische Staatsverwaltung, 3. Bdd. 1878. Leopold Schmidt, Die Ethik der alten Griechen, 2 Bdd. 1882. Heinze, Die Lehre vom Logos, 1872. Hirzel, Untersuchungen zu Cicero's philos. Schriften, 3 Thle. 1877. Die Lehrbiicher der Geschichte der Philosophic von Zeller, Ueber- weg, Strumpell and others. part I. THE RISE OF ECCLESIASTICAL DOGMA. BOOK I. THE PREPARATION. CHAPTER I. HISTORICAL SURVEY. THE first century of the existence of Gentile- Oentiie- '' Christian Christian communities is characterized, (1) by "^"SS™'' the rapid retirement of Jewish Christianity, (2) by religious enthusiasm and the strength of the future hope, (3) by a severe morality deduced from the Masters' teaching, (4) by ^ the manifold form and freedom of expression of belief, on the basis of plain formulas and ever increasing tradition, (5) by the lack of a definite authority, in the transition to a recognized outward authority among the churches, (6) by the lack of a political connection among the various communities, and by an organization which . was firm and yet permitted individual liberty, (7) by the development of a peculiar literary activity, claiming assent to its newly produced facts, (8) by the reproduction of detached phrases and individual 39 40 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. inferences from the apostolical teaching, without a clear understanding of the same, (9) by the crop ping out of those tendencies which served in every way to hasten the process already begun of fusing the Gospel with the spiritual and religious interests of the time, — with Hellenism, — as well as by numer ous attempts to wrench the Gospel^ free from its native setting and to introduce elements foreign to it. And finally, above all, it belonged to the (Hel lenic) representation to consider knowledge, not as a (charismatic) supplement to faith, but as of like essence with it. CHAPTER II. GROUND COMMON TO CHRISTIANS AND ATTITUDE TAKEN TOWARD JUDAISM. Beliefs That the great majority of Christians had com- Common *°tiaM'^' ™°^ beliefs is indicated by this fact, among others, that gnosticism was gradually expelled from the churches. Assurance of the knowledge of the true God, consciousness of responsibility to him, faith in Christ, hope in eternal life, exaltation above the pres ent world, — these were fundamental thoughts. If we enter into details the following points may be noted : Gospel. 1. The Gospel, being founded upon a revelation, is the reliable message of the true God, the faithful acceptance of which guarantees salvation; THE PREPARATION. 41 2. The real content of this message is spiritual content of Message. monotheism, the announcement of the resurrection and eternal life, as well as the proclamation of moral purity and abstinence on the ground of repentance toward God and of attested cleansing through bap tism in remembrance of the reward of good and evil; 3. This message comes to us through Jesus Christ, through who " in these last days " is the commissioned Sa- '^*' viour and stands in a peculiar relationship with God. He is the Redeemer {<^t»r7jp) because he has brought full knowledge of God and the gift of eternal life (jrvSiiTts and Cc"j, and especially yvaiins t^? Cc^?, the ex pression for the summa of the Gospel). He is also the highest Prototype of every ethical virtue, the Law-Giver and the Law of the perfect life, and accordingly the Conqueror of demons and the Judge of the world ; 4. Virtue is abstinence (a renunciation of the good virtue is Abstinence things of this world, in which the Christian is a and Love. stranger, and whose destruction is awaited) and brotherly love ; 5. The message of the Christ is, entrusted to ^f^g^ chosen men, to apostles, and more especially to one *°ties°^ apostle; their preaching is the preaching of the Christ. Moreover, the Spirit of God reproduces his gifts and graces in the "saints," and thus equips special "prophets and teachers," who receive com munications for the edification of others ; 6. Christian worship is the offering of spiritual worship. 42 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. sacrifice without regard to statutory rites and cere monies; the holy offices and anointings, which are connected with the Christian cult, have their virtue in this, that spiritual blessings are therewith im parted ; Basis of 7. The barriers of sex, age, position and nation- \l'^i^' ality vanish entirely for Christians, as Christians; the Christian brotherhood rests upon the Divine election and is organized through the gifts of the Spirit; in regard to the ground of election there were divers views ; Christian- 8. Siuce Christianity is the only true religion and ity and » Judaism, jg jjQ^ g^ national religion, but belongs to all mankind and pertains to our inmost life, it follows that it can have no special alliance with the Jewish people, or with their peculiar cult. The Jewish people of to day, at least, stand in no favored relationship with the God whom Jesus has revealed; whether they formerly did is doubtful; this, however, is certain, that God has cast them off, and that the whole Divine revelation, so far as there was any revela tion prior to Christ (the majority believed in one and looked upon the Old Testament as Holy Scripture) had as its end the calling of a " new nation " and the spreading of the revelation of God through his Son. THE PREPARATION. 48 CHAPTER III. THE COMMON PAITH AND THE BEGINNINGS OP SELF- RECOGNITION IN THAT GENTILE CHRISTIANITY WHICH WAS TO DEVELOP INTO CATHOLICISM. Sources : The writings of the so-called Apostolic Fathers, inferences drawn from the Works of the Apologists of the 2d . century ; Ritschl, Entstehung der alt-kath. Kirche, 2. Ed. 1857; Engelhardt, Das Christenthum Justins, 1878; Pflei derer, Das Urchristenthum, 1887. 1. The Christian Communities and the Church. Fixing of Outlines — Both the outlines and the character of the f ounda- ^^cteJ^t tions of Christianity were fixed by those disciples of "ty!*" the faith, who were members of weU-ordered Chris tian communities, and who accepted the Old Testa ment as an original Divine revelation and prized the Gospel tradition as a free message for all, which should be kept faithfully pure. Each little brother hood should, through the strength of its faith, the certainty of its hope and the holy ordering of its life, as well as through love and peace, be an image of the holy Church of God, which is in heaven and whose members are scattered over the earth; it should, also, in the purity of its daily life and in the genuineness of its brotherly kindness be an ensample to those who are "without," i.e. to the alien world. In the recently discovered " Teaching of the Apos tles " we come upon the sphere of interest in those communities who had not yet been influenced by philosophical speculation. They awaited the return 44 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. of the Christ, and urged a holy life ("Two Ways," dependence of its ethical rules upon the Jewish- Alex andrian gnomic and the Sermon on the Mount) and, without outward union and a common polity, they recognized themselves as belonging to the new and yet original creation of God, to the Church, which is the true Eve, the Bride of the heavenly Christ (TertuU. Apolog. 39 : corpus sumus de conscientia religionis et disciplinae unitate et spei foedere ; II. Clem. 14 : Ttotnuvreg rd d'iXrjp.a too Tzarpo? t]IxS>v iao/iei^a ix T^? ixxXT]ffla? T^9 Ttpwrrji t^? TrvsufiaTixrj?, r^s Trpo ijXiou xa\ ffsX-^'./yj'S iy-TtaiJ.i'jri'; . . . ixxXrjaia l^ajaa amp-o. loTi Xpi- arou • Xiyst yap ^ ypacpij • kizoirjtrs'./ 6 S-edg rdv ai/dptarrov apaev xai &rjXu • rd apffsv iffrlv 6 Xptarog, rd ¦d-fjXo ij ixxXTjoia). 2. The Foundations of the Faith, i.e. of the confessions respecting the One God and Jesus and also the Holy Spirit, were laid by the " Christian- oid Testa- jzed " Old Testament Scriptures, together with the apocalypses and the ever increasing traditions con cerning the Christ (his ethical and eschatological dis courses, on the one side,- and the proclamation of the history of Jesus on the other). Prophecy was proven by theology. Already at an early date short ^am °* ^'i^ticles of faith had been formulated {jj r^apaSoai?, 6 Trapado^s)? Xoyo^, 6 xavwv t^? itapaSdasu)^, to xrjpoyiia, ij diSa^ij, ij TTiVri?, 6 xa'.'iov t^? ¦kiistsuxs, etc.). The church at Rome had formulated before A.D. 150 the foUow- ^reiS]'* ing creed, which was the basis for all future creeds : TttSTSuu) sli dsdv Tcaripa navToxpazopa • xaX d as well as the dcd?. He is "our Hope," "our Faith," the High- Priest of our prayers, and "our Life." Starting from this basis there were divers theories Theories of Person ot m regard to the Person of Jesus, which however all Jesus. bore a certain analogy to the naive and the philo sophical Greek "theologies", but there were no uni versally accepted " doctrines" . We 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 ; two chris- 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- 52 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. gether so soon as the implanted Spirit of God in the man Jesus was looked upon as the pre-existent Son of God (Hermas), and so, soon as the title "Son of God," as applied to that spiritual Being, was derived from his (miraculous) incai^iation — 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. Naive Do- a ndivc docetism ; for as vet there was no two- cetism. ' •' 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 {ipiXdi avepioTzois) was Undoubtedly from the beginning and always highly objectionable ; likewise was the denial of the " iv aapxC" ; but the theories which iden- N|2fgj^°- tified the Person of Jesus with the Godhead {naive modalism) were not cast aside with the same assur ance. A formal theory of the identity of God and Jesus does not seem to have been wide-spread in the Church at large. The acceptance of the existence at least of one heavenly, eternal, spiritual Being close to God was demanded outright by the Old Testa ment Scriptures, as men understood them, so that all were constrained to recognize this, whether or not they had any basis for reconciling their Christology with that heavenly Being. ^cSoi-" "^^^ pneumatic Christology was always found °sy wherever men gave themselves to the study of the THE PREPARATION. 53 Old Testament and wherever faith in Christ as the complete revelation of God was the foremost thought, i.e. it is found in all the important and educated Christian writers (not in Hermas, but in Clement, Barnabas, Ignatius, etc. ). Because this Christol ogy seemed to be directly demanded by the Old Tes tament as then expounded, because it alone united and reconciled creation and redemption, because it furnished the proof that the world and religion have the same Divine Source, because the most esteemed primitive Scriptures championed it, and, finally, be cause it gave room for the introduction of the Logos- speculation, it was the Christology of the future. The adoption Christology, however, proved itself Adoption insufficient over against the consideration of the re- °^- lation of religion to the cosmos, to humanity and its history, as well as over against the Old Testa ment. And the advocates of the pneumatic Chris tology did not set it forth as a doubtful theologu- menon; their expositions of it (Clement, Ignatius, Barnabas, Justin), on the contrary, indicate that they could not conceive of a Christianity without faith in the divine spiritual Being, Christ. On the other hand, in the liturgical fragments and prayers that have come down to us, we find little reference to the pre-existence; it sufficed that Jesus is now the xupioi; to whom prayer may be addressed. The representations of the work of Christ (Christ rairistas as teacher: Giving of knowledge, proclaiming of """"f^^J- the new law; Christ as Saviour: Giving of life, con 54 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. quering of demons, forgiving of past sins in the time of error) were connected by some (following current tradition, using the Pauline Epistles) with his death and resurrection, by others they were affirmed with out direct reference to these facts. Independent re flections upon the close union of the saving work of Christ with the facts set forth in his preaching are nowhere found; and yet the representation of the free endurance of suffering, of the cross, and of the blood of Christ, was accepted in many communities as a holy mysterium, in which the deepest wisdom and power of the Gospel is concealed' (Ignajius), although the death on the cross and the forgiveness of sin were by no means everywhere (as in Clement, Polycarp and Barnabas) inseparably joined together (Hermas knows nothing whatever about such a union). The peculiarity and the individuality of the work of the historical Christ were moreover menaced by the idea that Christ had been the revealer of God in the Old Testament. ^^fm- -^^^ *^® ^^c*^ pertaining to the history of Jesus, ^Iven to the real and the imagined, received an exaggerated significance when reiterated in the work of instruc tion and when attacked by heretics. To the mirac ulous birth, death, resurrection, exaltation and return, was added definitely now the ascension on the 40th day and, less definitely, the descent into hell, while the history of the baptism was more and more ig nored. The reality of these occurrences was strongly emphasized ; but they had not j-et become " dogmas" ; Facts. THE PREPARATION. 55 for they were neither inseparably connected with the idea of salvation, nor were they definitely outlined, nor was the fantasie restricted in its artistic exuber ance. 7. That the Worship of God should be a pure, worship. spiritual exercise, without ceremonies, was taken for granted. Every divine service was looked upon as a spiritual offering (of thanks) accompanied with fasting and deeds of compassionate love. The Lord's Supper (eucharist) was held to be an offering ^p^Jr. in the strictest sense of the word, and everything which was associated with it {e.g. assistance of the poor) became imbued with the idea of sacrifice. Thenceforward the institutional idea found a wide range, notwithstanding the essential spirituality of worship. Starting with the idea of the symbolical, " mysteries " which were so necessary to the Greeks were soon established. Baptism in the name of the Baptism. Father, Son and Spirit was esteemed as the mystery through which the sins of blindness are wholly set ' aside, and which only thenceforward, however, imposes obligations (mortal sins, committed after baptism, were considered unpardonable, and yet pardoning power was reserved for God who here and there exercises it upon the earth through in spired men. The idea and practice of a "sec ond repentance" were born through the stress of necessity, became however wide-spread, and were then established by the prophetical book of Hermas). Baptism was called a(ppayk and fionaptxi (no infant 56 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. baptism); the uniting of baptism with the gift of the Holy Spirit became somewhat uncertain. The Lord's Supper was viewed as v — 6 xuptms iv rip ehayyeXiih ; alongside of these stood the testimony of pneumatic scribblings, ever however having decreasing dignity (Montanist controversy) . But wherever the contest with heresy was most Paul's — ' Epistles vehemently carried on and the consolidation of the |:o^qo°. churches upon stable principles was most intelli- ^-®'^' gently undertaken — in (Asia Minor and) Rome, a > new Catholic-apostolic collection of scriptures was opposed to the new gnostic collection, more in defence than in attack. The Epistles of Paul were added to the four Gospels (not without some scruples in transforming scriptures which were written for special occasions into Divine oracles and conceal ing the process even of transformation) and conse quently included under the argument from tradition. 92 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. so that through the medium of a very recent book, the Acts of the Apostles, they were associated with the supposed preaching of the twelve apostles, ».e. subordinated to it. The Paul sanctioned by the twelve apostles in the Acts, and made hardly recog nizable by the Pastoral Epistles, thus became a wit ness of the 8i8ayii Sid raiv il? d-naroXiuv, i.e. one WaS under obligation and had the right to understand him in accordance with the Acts of the Apostles, which surely came into the coUection only faute de mieux and was obliged to support a tradition far New Testa- beyoud its own words. The two-, more properly Placed on threc-fold ncw apostolic collection (Gospels, Acts, Same ^ oid^Te'^to^ Pauline Epistles), now placed as the New Testa- "'^°'' ment on the same plane with the Old Testament and presently raised above the latter, already recognized by Irenseus and TertuUian (in practice, not in theory, the Gospels and the Pauline Epistles seemed to be of equal worth), gradually came into use in the churches, beginning in the Occident, and when this was once accomplished the result could hardly be disturbed. Whereas a fourth and fifth ingredient could never really win a perfectly firm form. First, men sought- to strengthen the history of the apostles by means of scriptures written by the twelve apos tles. It was natural that they should wish to have such scriptures, and then there were highly esteemed scriptures from Christian prophets and teachers enough to suggest their acceptance (they could not be ignored) , but without any apostolic authority (in THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 93 the strict sense) . Thus arose the group of Catholic Epistles, for the most part denominated apostolic, originaUy anonymous writings (most scholars held them to be pseudonymous) , whose ancient authority could be rescued only by ascribing them to the twelve apostles. This group, however, with the exception of two epistles, did not become fixed as regards its extent or its dignity until the 4th century and even later, and this without thereby really en dangering — strange to say — the respect given to the entire collection. Second, the apocalypses presented themselves for admission to the new collection. But the time which produced them was whoUy gone by and indeed combated them, and the nature of the new collection required apostolic, not prophetic sanction ; the latter rather excluded it. The apoca lypses of Peter and John could, therefore, alone come under consideration. The former was quickly re jected for some unknown reason and the latter was finaUy Suo Seoh? Ttaripa xai uU'iv, dXX' iva. '0 yap iv auruj ysvi'ipevo? Ttaryjp TtpoffXa^upevo? ri/V adpxa iSeoTtoiTjaev ivioira? iaurui^ xai iTtoiTjaev fV, oi? xaXeirrSai Ttaripa xai uldv iva Sei'jVy xai rodro Iv ov Ttpi'iamTzov pij SuvanSai elvai Sua, xai ourux; rdv Ttaripa aupTteitovSivai rui ulm ¦ ou yap SiXei Xiyeiv rdv Ttaripa TteTtovd-ivai) . Certain is it that the learned and influential Nova- c^?s^-" tology tian {de trinit.) did much toward bringing about Abandoned the final abandonment of the Logos-Christology in Occident. the Occident. About the year 260 the Roman bis hop Dionysius wrote : Sa^iXXio? ^Xaaip-qpel, aurdv rdv uldv 182 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. elvai Xiywv rdv Ttaripa^ Cyprian marked patripassian- ism as a pestilential heresy like Marcionitism, and he himself shoved into a second recension of the Roman symbol (Aquileja) the phrase : " Credo in deo patre omnipotente, invisibiliet impassibili" . However, the Logos-Christology had never found a congenial soil in the Occident ; men let it pass, but they held much more firmly — in this there was a real interest — to the article of faith : Christ is true, complete God, and there is only one God. This attitude of the Oc cident became of most decisive significance in the Arian controversy : The Nicene doctrine is, not as a philosophical speculation, but as the direct, symboli cal faith, as much the property of the Occidental church of the third century, as the Chalcedon doctrine. Accordingly many Occidental teachers, who were not influenced by Plato' and the Orient, used in the third and fourth centuries modalistic formulas OcMtoitai without hesitation, above all Commodian. The the- Au^stine. ology of the Occident until Augustine shows in gen eral a mingling of Ciceronian morality, massive, primitive Christian eschatology, and unreflecting Christology with more or less latent modalism {one God in the strictest sense; Christ God and man) and practical Church politics (penitential institute), which is whoUy foreign to the Orient (Arnobius, Lactantius, Commodian). They were no mystics, in part opponents of Neo-Platonism. How hard it would have been for them to make themselves at home in the speculations of the Orient is indicated THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 183 by the energetic, but abortive attempt of Hilarius and the theological barbarism of Lucifer. It is well understood that modalism did not continue in the Occident as a sect, so long as in the Orient ; it found in the latter, even in the prevailing form of teaching especially where the Logos was accepted, a shelter. (6) The accounts of the old modalism in the oid Modai- \ ism in Orient are very turbid ; for subsequently everything orient. is called " Sabellianism", which pertains to the eter nal and enduring hypostasis of the Son {e.g. Marcel- lus' doctrine ). Already in the third century in the Orient speculation concerning the modalistic theses increased greatly and was carried out into manifold forms, and the historians of the movement (Epipha nius, Athanasius, etc. ) add thereto still other discov ered forms. Just as one can Write no history of the impossible •' to Write Logos-Christology in the- Orient from Origen to ™^^sm* Athanasius — the sources have been destroyed — so ™ "*" ' also one can write no history of modalism. It is certain that the contest began later in the Orient, but it was more passionate and enduring and led to the development of the Origenistic Christology in the direction of Arianism (also antithetic) . The first great agitation took, place in the Pentapolis, after that Origen combated the " singular " medalists as Christian brethren and sharply criticised bishops (Roman), who made the distinction between Father and Son merely nominal (the condemnation of Origen at Rome under Pontianus may also have had reference to his Christology). Perhaps Sabellius himself near 184 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. Doctrine ^^^ ^^^ of his life Went (again?) from Rome into the Pentapolis. He was already dead when Diony sius of Alexandria combated Sabellianism there. He is to be distinguished from Noetus by his more careful theological deductions and by his regard for the Holy Spirit: To one Being are attached three names (Father, Son, and Spirit), other-wise polythe ism would be established ; the three names are at the same time three energies. The one Being is to be called uloTtdrwp — a designation for the being of God himself. However this Being is not at the same moment Father and Son, but in three consecutive, in terchanging energies (prosopons) he acts as Creator and Law-giver, as Redeemer, as Quickener (through this teaching the conception "Prosopon", "Person" became discredited in the Orient). Whether it was possible for Sabellius to carry through the thought of strict succession, we do not know. Perhaps he still permitted the Prosopon of the Father to continue ^Addlior active (the SabeUians feU back upon the Old Testa- O. T., Gos- , n, . , , , , , „ ^ peito ment Scriptures, but also upon the Gospel to the Egyptians, x- x- ete. Egyptians and other apocrypha— a proof that the Catholic canon had not yet established itself in the Pentapolis). This distinguished itself from the ear lier modaUsm, not by a stronger pantheistic tendency, nor by a new doctrine of the trinity (both came thereto first later in the fourth century, if the modi fications were not introduced by the historians), but by the attempt to explain the succession bf the Pro sopons, by the attention given to the Holy Spirit (see THE LAYING OP THE FOUNDATION. 185 above) and by the drawing of a formal parallel be tween the Prosopon of the Father and the two other Prosopons, which indeed tended toward the accept ance of a povdis-X6yoigenism epigonoi, however, occurred changes everywhere: (1) The pupils as well as the opponents of Origen en deavored to place pistis and gnosis again upon the same plane, to add some philosophy to the formulas of faith and to subtract something from the gnosis. Precisely thereby a stagnation and confusion was threatening, which Origen had carefully warded off. The faith itself became obscure and unintelligible to the laity; (2) The cosmologic and purely philosophic interests obtained in theology a preponderance over the soteriologic. In accordance therewith Christol ogy became again in a higher degree a philosophic Logos-doctrine (as with the apologists) and the idea of the cosmic God as the lower, subordinate God alongside the highest God, threatened monotheism outright. Already here and there — in opposition to ^°f "ej ^f' "Sabellianism" — articles of faith were being com- ^i?Itorio°^ C^ist. posed, in which there was no mention of Christ, but in which the Logos alone was glorified in a profu sion of^ philosophic predicates as the manifested, but subordinate God ; already the incarnation was cele- 198 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. brated as the rising of the sun which illumines aU men ; already men seemed desirous of adapting phe nomena and vice-regents to the Neo-Platonic idea of the one unnamable Being and his graded and more or less numerous powers, while they encircled all with a chaplet of philosophic artificial expressions; (3) Even the Holy Scriptures gave way somewhat in these endeavors; yet only in a formal manner and without forfeiting their value. The theology which Eusebius ^g^g fQpHfiejj Qut of thcsc elements (e. g. Eusebius of Csesarea is its representative) let everything pass that kept within the bounds of Origenism. Its rep resentatives considered themselves as conservatives, since they rejected every more precise definition of the doctrine of God (doctrine of the trinity) and of Christ as an innovation (antipathy toward precise definition of hitherto not precisely defined dogmas has always animated the majority of the Church, since ' precise definition is innovation) , and since they exert ed themselves solely for the sake of science and the " faith " to give form to the Logos-doctrine in a cos mologic sense and to subordinate everything inward and moral to the thought of the freedom of choice. '^'Sne^"" Neither thoughts of an heroic asceticism, nor real- nasius". istic mysticism in the sense of Methodius, nor deduc tions from the heterodoxies of Origen could aid here. Theology, and with it the Church, seemed to be irre trievably swallowed up in the current of the times. But in the beginning of the fourth century there ap peared a man who saved the Church seriously threat- DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 199 ened by inward strife and outward persecution — Constantine — so at the same time there appeared an other man who preserved the Church from the com plete secularization of its most fundamental faith — Athanasius. True, reactions against the Logos-doc trine in the direction of the complete alienation of the Son of God from the Eather were probably at no time lacking in the Orient ; but Athanasius (assisted Eedemp- by the West, the bishops of which however did G^d.^an not at first recognize the pith of the question) first mental". secured to the Christian religion its own territory upon the preoccupied soil of Greek speculation and brought everything back to the thought of redemp tion through God himself, i.e. through the God-man, who is of the same essence with God. He was not concerned about a formula, but about a decisive basis for faith, about redemption unto a divine life by the God-man. Upon this surety alone, that the Divine which appeared in Christ has the nature of the God head itself, and only on that account is able to ele vate us to a divine life, can faith receive its power, life its law and theology its direction. But while Athanasius placed faith in the God-man, which alone frees us from death and sin, above everything else, he at the same time gave tp practical piety, which then well-nigh exclusively lived in monkish asceti cism, the highest motive. He united the 'Opoouaio?, which guarantees the deification * of human nat- Highest Motive Given to Piety.. * Vergottung: The causing to partake of the Divine nature, restoration to the Divine likeness. 200 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. ure, in the closest relations with the monkish as ceticism and lifted the latter out of its still subterra nean, or insecure sphere into the public life of the Church. While he combated the formula of the X6yo oj Ancyra. the common foundation of the teaching, the philo- sophical-Origenistic Logos-doctrine, but declared the Logos to be the Power of God, which only at the in carnation had become divine Person and "Son", in order to return to the Father when once he had fin ished his work (the Orientals saw in this doctrine "Sabellianism"). Julius of Rome and Athanasius declared MarceUus to be orthodox, and proved there by that they were concerned alone about redemptive faith and laid aside the formulas set up by the Orientals at Antioch (341) , although the latter now formally renounced Arianism and established a doc trine which could be taken for Nicene. Political reasons compelled Constantius to be oblig- *^|'™j'iga°* ing to his orthodox brother, Constans, the ruler of the West. The great council of Sardica (343) was intended to restore unity of faith in the empire. But the Occidentals refused the preliminary demand of the Orientals to acknowledge the deposition of Athanasius and MarceUus, and proclaimed after the 256 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. exodus of the Orientals (to Philippopolis) the deposi tion of the leaders, taking their position rigidly upon the basis of the Nicene creed. The opponents reit erated the 4th Antiochian formula. Constantius himself seems to have mistrusted them for a time; he certainly feared to irritate his brother who was en deavoring to gain the supremacy. The Orientals re iterated once more in a long formula their orthodoxy (Antioch, 344) and the minimum of their demands. ^MUan."'* Although the West at the MUan synods (345-347) rejected the doctrine of Photinus of Sirmium, who from the doctrine of his master, MarceUus, had de veloped a strictly adoptian conception (the Logos never became a person), it yet remained otherwise firm, while in the East political bishops aheady meditated peace with Athanasius. The latter was restored by Constantius, who was hard pressed by the Persians, and he was greeted with great rejoic ings in Alexandria (346). About 348 it appeared as if orthodoxy had conquered ; only MarceUus and the word dpoouaio? seemed stiU to give offence. Constan- ^ut the death of Constans (350) and the defeat of Euier. .j.j^g usurper Magnentius (353) changed everything. If Constantius during the last years was obliged to bow before a few bishops, his own subjects, who had ruled his brother, he now as sole ruler was de termined to govern the Church and pay back the humiliations. Already in 351 (2d Sirmian synod) Synods of *^^ Oriental bishops had returned to action. At the "^Mffan"^ synods of Aries (353) and MUan (355) the Western DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 257 episcopate was obliged to come to terms. At first nothing further was demanded of it than the con demnation of Athanasius, but this meant a diver- . gence on the question of faith, and the bishops al lowed it to be forced upon them (a few exceptions : Paulinus of Trier, Lucifer of Cagliari, Eusebius of VerceUi; also Hosius, Liberius, Hilarius had to go into exile) . Athanasius anticipated his deposition by flight into the desert (356). Union seemed restored, but it was as state ecclesiasticism, against which orthodox Western bishops fiercely inveighed, now only remembering that emperor and state should not meddle with religion. The union of the victors was onlv a seeming one, Aetius and *7 o 7 Eunomius. for it became apparent that it did not go beyond negations. Strict aggressive Arianism again came forward in Aetius and Eunomius and wanted to carry through the "anomoian" doctrine (dv-o/ioio? xai xard ndvra za5 xar obaiav) . In Opposition to this, semi- Arianism placed itself in sharp contrast (the "un changeable likeness", opotog xard Ttdvra xai xard rryv ob aiav). These homoiusians (Georgius of Laodicea, sians: Homoiu- sians: Georgius Eustathius of Sebaste, Eusebius of Emesa, Basilius Laodicea, of Ancyra) had learned that the Son must be, as to J"|,^™|^ being, of like essence with the Father ; as scientific JSc^a.° men (cosmologians) they did not wish to abandon the cosmic potentiality of the Logos and the descend ing trinity. They understood how, with the Scrip tures as a basis and in connection with Christology, to so formulate their doctrine that it made an im- ~" 17 258 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. From 367-361 Constan tius OpenlyFavors Arianism. Semi- Arians, Synods at Seieucia and Rimini. pression even upon Nicene Occidentals, who, to be sure, were still half idiots in scientific theology. The third party was that of the politicians, who applauded that formula which had the best prospect of settling the contest (Ursacius and Valens: Sp-oiog xard rd? ypa^dg). The period from 357-361 is the time during which the emperor, openly dropping the Nicene creed, sought for a Christological imperial formula, and proposed with aU energy to carry it through at the synods. Here, finally, only the " Spowg xard r«? ypawdi " could be presented ; for with this unmeaning formula, the Arians, semi- Arians and even the ortho dox could make friends, since it directly contra dicted no doctrine. The Sirmian synods had not as yet accomplished what they ought, and they even showed a passing tendency to strict Arianism. At Ancyra (358) the semi-Ariahs raUied powerfully. Two great contemporaneous synods in the East and West (at Seieucia and Rimini) were expected to pro claim the 4th Sirmian formula, a dogmatico-political masterpiece of the emperor. But when the one as sumed a homoiusian, the other an orthodox attitude, they were terrorized, kept in suspense, and the ho moiusian imperial creed was forced upon them in exchange for concurrence in the expulsion of strict Arianism (synods at Nice and Constantinople 360). Afterward all homoiusians were nevertheless ban ished from the influential positions, so that, in spite of the expulsion of Aetius, an Arianism, moderated DEVELOPMENT OF DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 259 through want of principle, actually established itself in the Church as the state religion. peror. 3. — Until the Councils at Constantinople, 381, 383. In the year 361 Constantius died. Julian sue- ^^o^'^taS- ceeded him, and accordingly, instead of the artiflcial juiiLn^m- union, the real parties succeeded again to their rights. But the homoiusians were no longer the "middle party", no longer the "conservatives" in the old sense ; for in opposition to Arianism, they had deep ened and strengthened their doctrine (conservatives possess elasticity). Conservative and conciliatory were the homoians who inclined toward Arian ism. Here the change in the Orient — at first, in deed, only in the minds of the most prominent theo logians — is shown. The homoiusians, disciples of Origen, distinguished alike for ecclesiastical feeUng, asceticism and piire science, capitulated to the homousios, an aUiance which Hilarius zealously urged forward. Julian permitted the banished bishops, therefore also Athanasius, to return. The synod of Alexandria (362) marks the turning-point in so far as Atha nasius there admitted that the Nicene creed sans phrase should be valid; that is, he expressly re nounced the phrase "one being" {one hypostasis) and thus allowed such an interpretation of the dpooijaiog as made it " one essence " (instead of " one Orthodox Bishops Beturn from Exile. 260 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. Lucifer. Apollina- ris of Laodicea and the Three Cap padocians. being"), which constituted therefore three hyposta ses. But this concession and the great leniency toward those who once had signed the 4th Sirmian formula provoked the displeasure of some of the prominent Occidentals (Lucifer) and martyrs of the faith. In the West one felt that the old doctrine (the substantial unity of the Deity is the rock and the plurality is the mystery) had been inverted (the trinity of the divine Persons is the rock and the unity is the problem) , and Athanasius himself was not able to add real friends to his new scientific friends in Asia Minor, Cappadocia and Antioch; for now the science of Origen had been rescued for ortho doxy. The great theologians, ApolUnaris of Laodicea and the three Cappadocians, started from Origen and the dpoiouaiog ; but they recognized the dpoouaiog now and were able to carry on their philosophical specu lations with it and by the side of it ; for one could say that there are three hypostases, and still be ortho dox. By creating a firm terminology, they suc ceeded at the same time in producing apparently clear formulas. Obaia now received the middle sense between the abstract idea of " being " and the con crete idea of " individual being " ; so, however, that it very strongly inclined to the former. 'TTtdaraaig re ceived the middle sense between person and attri bute (accident, i.e. modality), in such a way, how ever, that the conception of person was the stronger. llpdawTtov, since it sounded Sabellian-like, was avoided, but not rejected. The unity of the Deity, DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 261 which the Cappadocians were concerned about, was not the same as Athanasius and the Occidentals had in mind. Mia obaia iv rpialv bitoardaeaiv became the formula. In order to render clear the real difference in the Persons within the unity of the Deity, Greg ory of Nyssa added to them rpoTtot OTtdpSewg {IScdrrireg XapaxrripiZouaai, i^aipera iSiaipara), and indeed to the Father the dyewrjaia (not as being, but as mode of . being ['rx^aio<;, and, in union with the Cappadocians, they succeeded. It is true that still in the year 381 the Macedonians (pneumatomachoi) were invited to the synod, but only to hear their condemnation and to be expelled. The anathemas of Damascus strengthened the situa- development of doctrine of incarnation. 269 tion. Henceforth one was no longer permitted to teach that the Holy Spirit is subordinate to the Son ; indeed, since to the Greek the .Father remained the root of the Deity, the homousios of the Spirit seemed safely secured only when he is traced back to the Father alone, the Son thereby not being taken at all into account. 2. The Cappadocians, and before them their great c?ans^*Doc- teacher ApoUinaris, established the orthodox doctrine TrSSty. of the trinity (vid. page 260) : One Divine essence in three Subjects, the equal nature of which contained in their consubstantiality is distinctly stamped in their qualities and activities ; their differences in the characteristics of their mode of being ; but the Father alone is aYnov, the two others alnard, yet not as the world is (really TertuUian had already used the for mulas " nature " and " person " ; to him, however, the trinity was stiU entirely a trinity of revelation, not of immanence). By means of the trinity, so they now said, Christianity is distinguished from the pagan polytheism and the "stark" Jewish mono theism. Ever since the appearance of the homoiusians, re- Doctrta^of gard for Christology exerted in the Orient an influ- Has subor- dination ence upon the establishment of the doctrine of the Element. trinity (there also nature and person ; 6poiiapa origi nated there, and also the turning to account of the analogy of the conceptions " humanity " and " Adam " in their relation to the individual man.) A subor dination and Aristotelian element remained in the 270 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. trinity-doctrine of Oriental orthodoxy, and in the later Christological contest the latter was drawn into sympathy with it (however not strongly ; for it had grown already too stubborn) . A few ApoUinarian monophysites worked after 530 upon the conceptions " nature " and " person " in Christology in an Aristo telian way, and thus also arrived in the doctrine of the trinity at tritheism or at modalism {yuais = bTtoaraai?;' Askusnages, Johannes Philoponus, Peter of Kallinico ; against these Leontius of Byzantium and John of Damascus). The latter, in opposition to tri theism, gave to the dogma of the trinity a turn ap proaching the Occidental conception (the dye'vvijaia is formally declared equivalent to the yewrjaia^ the iv dXXrjXoi? of the three Persons is strongly emphasized, thereby the Ttepixpr)aiis, but not awvaXoiarj and aup^upai? ; the difference existing only for the l-ivoia) ; this con ception, however, remained without effect, since in the most decisive point it aUowed the fine subordina tionism to continue : John also taught that the Spirit proceedeth alone from the Father {i.e. through ^e Son). The Father, therefore, remains the apx-q of the Deity. Consequently it is one spiritual picture which a?d™cei- the Orient, and again another which the Occident, ceptions formed of the trinity ; in the former the Father re- Dissimilar. mained the root of the two alnard ; the full reciproc ity of all three Persons appeared to the Orientals to jeopardize the monarchy, and especially the deduc tion of the Spirit from the Son to jeopardize the homousion. Here Photius (867) struck in, search- DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OF INCARNATION. 271 ing for a dogmatic point of dispute, and reproached ^^°^"!' the Occidentals, who taught the immanente pro- prScessio. cessio of the Spirit from the Father and Son, with innovations, even with Manichsean dualism, and heightened this reproach with the still severer charge of falsifying the holy symbol of Constantinople by the addition of "filioque ". This word was really an innovation therein that had originated in Spain. A contest broke out which has never been settled, and tween^Ealt and West: in which to the Greek even the " Sia rod ulod " became Fiiioque. suspicious. The Occidentals, however, were obliged to cling to their doctrine, because, according to their spiritual picture of the trinity, they found the true faith expressed only in the full unity, therefore also only in the full reciprocity of the Persons. The Greeks did not understand this, because secretly they always remained cosmologically 'interested, just as the doctrine of the trinity, under incessant scientific treatment, has remained the vehicle which the phi losophy of antiquity has handed down to the Slavic and Germanic nations: It contains the Christian idea of the revelation of God in Jesus and the testa ment of the ancient philosophy in a most peculiar mixture. In the Occident the doctrine of the trinity had not Do"cf?tae°of as a rule been treated as an object of speculation. The unity was the safest thing, discrimination between substance and person was understood more in the sense of a (through the jurisprudence) current /ormaZ distinction. Augustine in his great work, " de trin- 272 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OF DOGMA. itate ", intended to give expression to this conception of the trinity by means of (Neo-Platonic) science, but he was guided also by his religious consciousness which knew only one God.* The consequence was a complete obliteration of every remnant of subordina tionism, the changing of the Persons into relations (the old Occidental modalism merely veiled) ; but at the same time there arose such a mass of contra dictory and absurd formulas as to cause a shudder even to the author himself, now exulting in the in comprehensible and now skeptical (the three together are equal to one ; the absolute simple must be under stood as triple ; the Son takes an active part in his generation ; sunt semper invicem, neuter solus; the economical functions, also, are never to be thought of as separate^theref ore : dictum est "tres per- sonae", non ut illud diceretur, sed ne taceretur). This confession and the analogies which Augustine makes use of regarding the trinity (they are alto gether modalistic) show that he himself never could have hit upon the trinity, if he had not been bound to tradition. His great work, in which naturaUy also the procession of the Spirit from the Father and Son is emphasized — for in every act all three are concerned — became the high school for the technico- logical cultivation of the intellect and the mine of scholastic divinity in the Middle Ages. Through Augustine, first the Spanish church, then others also, * In regard to Augustine's relation to the establisliment of the Oriental doctrine of the trinity, see Reuter, Zeitschrif t f . Kirchengesch. V. 375 seq. and VI. 155 seq. DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 273 permitted themselves to be induced to proclaini the filioque. The paradoxical formulas of the Augustinian doc- Par^o^ti- trine of the trinity, which deny every connection ^°''™'^^- with the history of revelation and with reason, but possess their truth in the endeavor to sustain com plete monotheism, became wide-spread in the Occi dent and were comprised in the so-called Symbolum ^^ai™ Athanasianum, which arose graduaUy during the ®'^'"™- early part of the Middle Ages, and was on its recep tion (8th to 9th century) proclaimed as holy Church doctrine.* "He who wiU be saved must beUeve them", i.e. must submit to them. In the Athanasian creed as a symbol stands foremost the transforma tion of the trinity doctrine, as an inwardly-to-be- adopted thought of faith, into an ecclesiastical law, upon the observance of which salvation de pends. With Athanasius the opoouaio? was the de cisive thought of faith ; with the Cappadocians the inteUectually over-subtle theological dogma; with the later Greeks the hallowed relic ; with the later Occidentals the ecclesiastical law which demands obedience. * On the "Athanasianum " see KoUner, Symbolik I. 63 seq. and the works of Foulkes (1871), Swainson (1875), Ommaney (1875), Lumby (1887). 18 274 OUTLINES OP THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. CHAPTER VIII. THE DOCTRINE OP THE PERFECT EQUALITY AS TO NATURE OP THE INCARNATE SON OP GOD AND HUMANITY. Sources : The fragments of ApoUinaris, the writings of Athanasius, of the Cappadocians and of the Antiochians. HumanUy. Xhe qucstiou of the Diviuity of Christ was only preparatory to the question of the union of the Divine ' and human in Christ. Into this problem the whole of dogmatics fiowed. Irenseus, and afterward Atha nasius, had established the Divinity of the Redeem er with respect to redemption, i.e. upon that assump tion. But the question of the union presupposed not only a precise conception of the Divinity, but also of the humanity of the Redeemer. True, in the gnostic contest the reality of the adp? of Christ had been secured (TertuU., de came Christi) ; yet a fine docetism had in spite of it continued to exist, and that not only with the Alexandrians but also with all teachers. Scarcely one of them thought of a per fect human self-consciousness, and not a single one attributed to the human nature of Christ all the limi tations which surround our nature. Origen cer tainly — and not as the first — attributed to Christ a human soul and a free will ; but he needed a connec tion between the God-Logos and matter, and he has shown definitely in his Christology — in so far as he DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 2^5 did not separate the Jesus and the Christ — that the most evident docetism remains active when one conceives the ffdp^, because wholly material, as with out quality and capable of every attribute. With the Origenistic theologians, and among the Theories Christian people generally, existed at the beginning carnation. of the 4th century the" most varied conceptions re garding the incarnation and humanity of Christ. Only a few thought of a human soul and many ' thought of the flesh of Christ as heavenly, or as a transformation of the Logos, or as a vesture. Crass docetic conceptions were softened by Neo-Platonic speculative ideas (the finiteness a moment within the unfolding Deity itself). No one in the Orient reaUy thought of two natures; one eternal God- incarnate nature, one nature having become God- incarnate, a Divine nature having been changed for a time into human nature, a Divine nature dwelling in the human, i.e. clothed in the covering of human ity—these were the prevailing conceptions, and the answers were just as confused to single questions (Was the flesh born of Mary, or the Logos with the ouestk>ns flesh? Was the Christ made man, or did he assume human nature? How much can be wanting to this nature and it still be considered human?) and to the Biblical considerations (Who suffered? Who hun gered? Who died? ,Who acknowledged his igno rance? The God or the man, or the God-man? Or in reaUty are not all these TtdiSnj only apparent, i.e. economic?) . A more or less flue docetism was also 276 OUTLINES OF THE HISTORY OP DOGMA. in concreto taught in the Occident. But by the side of it, after TertulUan and Novatians, stood upon the basis of the symbol the juristic formula: Two substances, one person. This formula, as though it were a protection and boundary thought, was never further investigated ; but it was destined to become some day the saving phrase in the conflicts of the Orient. Person- The uhity of the supernatural personality of Christ ality Funda- was here the common starting-point. How to pro- mental. vide a place for humanity in it was the problem, which in its sharpness and gravity ApoUinaris of Laodicea first discerned. The Brians had given the impulse, since they conceived the humanity of Christ merely as ffdp^ in order to express the full unity of the personality of the Redeemer and at the same time to be able to attribute to their half -divine Logos the limited knowledge and capability of suffering found in the Christ. They threw it up to the ortho dox, that their doctrine leads to two Sons of God, or to two natures (which were stiU considered iden- Apoiima- tical) . ApolUnaris now recognized that this reproach was justified ; he made the problem of his theology : (1) To express just as strict a unity in the person of Christ as Arianism did in its Logos clothed merely with the adp?, (2) To unite with it the full humanity of Christ. Here is the problem which occupied the Church of the 3d century, and indeed ApoUinaris sur veyed it in its whole range as the chief problem of Christian theology, as the nucleus of all expressions of ns. DEVELOPMENT OP DOCTRINE OP INCARNATION. 277 faith, and he treated it accordingly with the greatest ingenuity and with a dialectics that anticipated all terminologies of the future. With the orthodox orthodox (Athanasius) he found fault, because they, in order to escape the objections of the Arians, and in spite of their better intentions, constantly discriminated in Christ between what the man and what the God did ; thereby is the duality established and redemp tion is made dependent thereon ; for Christ must so have been made man, that everything which is valid of humanity is also valid of the Deity and vice versa (true, Athanasius never used the expression Suo