History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene Christianity. A. D. 100-325

philosophy and Christianity, as an argument in favor of the new religion, was afterwards further

developed by the Alexandrian fathers, Clement and Origen.

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The Latin fathers speak less favorably of the Greek philosophy; yet even Augustin

acknowledges that the Platonists approach so nearly to Christian truth that with a change of some

expressions and sentences they would be true Christians (in theory).

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§ 40. The Positive Apology.

The Christian apology completed itself in the positive demonstration of the divinity of the new

religion; which was at the same time the best refutation of both the old ones. As early as this period

the strongest historical and philosophical arguments for Christianity were brought forward, or at

least indicated, though in connection with many untenable adjunct.

1. The great argument, not only with Jews, but with heathens also, was the prophecies; since

the knowledge of future events can come only from God. The first appeal of the apologists was, of

course, to the prophetic writings of the Old Testament, in which they found, by a very liberal

interpretation, every event of the gospel history and every lineament of our Saviour’s character and

work. In addition to the Scriptures, even such fathers as Clement of Alexandria, and, with more

caution, Origen, Eusebius, St. Jerome, and St. Augustin, employed also, without hesitation,

apocryphal prophecies, especially the Sibylline oracles, a medley of ancient heathen, Jewish, and

in part Christian fictions, about a golden age, the coining of Christ, the fortunes of Rome, and the

end of the world.

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 And indeed, this was not all error and pious fraud. Through all heathenism

there runs, in truth, a dim, unconscious presenti-ment and longing hope of Christianity. Think of

the fourth Eclogue of Virgil, with its predictions of the "virgo" and "nova progenies" from heaven,

and the "puer," with whom, after the blotting out of sin and the killing of the serpent, a golden age

of peace was to begin. For this reason Virgil was the favorite poet of the Latin church during the

middle ages, and figures prominently in Dante’s Divina Comedia as his guide through the dreary

regions of the Inferno and Purgatorio to the very gates of Paradise. Another pseudo-prophetic book

used by the fathers (Tertullian, Origen, and apparently Jerome) is "The Testaments of the Twelve

Patriarchs, "written by a Jewish Christian between a.d. 100 and 120. It puts into the mouth of the

twelve sons of Jacob farewell addresses and predictions of the coming of Christ, his death and

resurrection, of baptism and the Lord’s Supper, the rejection of the gospel by the Jews, and the

107

See the introduction of E. Spiess to his Logos spermatikos, Leipz. 1871.

108

De Vera Religione IV. 7: "Proxime Platonici a veritate Christiana absunt vel veri Christiani sunt paucis mutatis verbis atque

sententiis." Retract. I. 13: "Res ipsa quae nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis

humani., quousque Christus veniret in carnem, unde vera religio, quae jam erat, coepit appellari Christiana." Comp. Lactantius,

De Falsa Religione, I. 5; De Vita Beata, VII. 7; Minucius Fel., Octav. 20

109

Comp. Dr. Friedlieb:Die Sibyllinischen Weissagungen vollständig gesammelt, mitkritischem Commentare und metrischer

Übersetzung. Leipz. 1852. Another edition with a Latin version by C. Alexandre, Paris 1841, second ed. 1869, 2 tom. We have

at present twelve books of 

χρησμοί σιβυλλιακοίin Greek hexameter, and some fragments. They have been critically discussed

by Blondel (1649), Bleek (1819), Volkmann (1853), Ewald (1858), Tübigen (1875), Reuss, and Schürer (see Lit. in his N. T.

Zeitgesch. p. 513). The Sibyl figures in the Dies Irae alongside with King David (teste David cum Sibylla), as prophesying the

day of judgment.

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History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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preaching of Paul, the great apostle of the Gentiles, the destruction of Jerusalem and the end of the

world.

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2. The types. These, too, were found not only in the Old Testament, but in the whole range

of nature. Justin saw everywhere, in the tree of life in Eden, in Jacob’s ladder, in the rods of Moses

and Aaron, nay, in every sailing ship, in the wave-cutting oar, in the plough, in the human

countenance, in the human form with outstretched arms, in banners and trophies—the sacred form

of the cross, and thus a prefiguration of the mystery of redemption through the crucifixion of the

Lord.

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3. The miracles of Jesus and the apostles, with those which continued to be wrought in the

name of Jesus, according to the express testimony of the fathers, by their contemporaries. But as

the heathens also appealed to miraculous deeds and appearances in favor of their religion, Justin,

Arnobius, and particularly Origen, fixed certain criteria, such as the moral purity of the worker,

and his intention to glorify God and benefit man, for distinguishing the true miracles from Satanic

juggleries. "There might have been some ground," says Origen, "for the comparison which Celsus

makes between Jesus and certain wandering magicians, if there had appeared in the latter the

slightest tendency to beget in persons a true fear of God, and so to regulate their actions in prospect

of the day of judgment. But they attempt nothing of the sort. Yea, they themselves are guilty of the

most grievous crimes; whereas the Saviour would have his hearers to be convinced by the native

beauty of religion and the holy lives of its teachers, rather than by even the miracles they wrought."

The subject of post-apostolic miracles is surrounded by much greater difficulties in the

absence of inspired testimony, and in most cases even of ordinary immediate witnesses. There is

an antecedent probability that the power of working miracles was not suddenly and abruptly, but

gradually withdrawn, as the necessity of such outward and extraordinary attestation of the divine

origin of Christianity diminished and gave way to the natural operation of truth and moral suasion.

Hence St. Augustin, in the fourth century, says: "Since the establishment of the church God does

not wish to perpetuate miracles even to our day, lest the mind should put its trust in visible signs,

or grow cold at the sight of common marvels."

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 But it is impossible to fix the precise termination,

either at the death of the apostles, or their immediate disciples, or the conversion of the Roman

empire, or the extinction of the Arian heresy, or any subsequent era, and to sift carefully in each

particular case the truth from legendary fiction.

It is remarkable that the genuine writings of the ante-Nicene church are more free from

miraculous and superstitious elements than the annals of the Nicene age and the middle ages. The

history of monasticism teems with miracles even greater than those of the New Testament. Most

of the statements of the apologists are couched in general terms, and refer to extraordinary cures

110

Best edition by Robert Sinker from the Cambridge MS., Cambridge, 1869, and an Appendix, 1879; an English translation

by Sinker, in the "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. XXII. ( Edinb. 1871). Discussions by Nitzsch (1810), Ritschl (1850 and 1857),

Vorstmann (1857), Kayser (1851), Lücke (1852), Dillmann (in Herzog, first ed. XII. 315), Lightfoot (1875), and Warfield (in

"Presbyt. Review," York, January, 1880, on the apologetical value of the work for its allusions to various books of the N. T.).

111

Apol. l.c, 55; Dial. c. Tryph. c. 91.

112

On the other hand, however, St. Augustin lent the authority of his name to some of the most incredible miracles of his age,

wrought by the bones of St. Stephen, and even of Gervasius and Protasius. Comp. the treatise of Fr. Nitzsch (jun.) on Augustin’s

Doctrine of Miracles, Berlin 1865; and on the general subject J. H. Newman’s Two Essays on Biblical and Ecclesiastical Miracles,

third ed. London 1873; and J. B. Mozley’s Bampton Lectures On Miracles. Oxford and Lond. (1865), fifth ed. 1880, Lect. VIII.

which treats of false miracles.

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Philip Schaff

History of the Christian Church, Volume II: Ante-Nicene

Christianity. A.D. 100-325.

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