But the ascetic ideal did not succeed in establishing itself, especially in the West, without severe conflicts, and it concealed within it dangers to the Church. Asceticism threatened to become an end in itself, and to depart from the historical foundation of the Christian religion. When the Church authorised the Christianity of ‘the perfect’, it really declared the great mass of its divine and apostolic institutions to be mere apparatus, meaningless to him who had resolved to renounce the world, and to prepare for eternity. Those settlers in Egypt, who sought to obtain redemption by torturing themselves, in the end imperilled religion not less than the great crowds who simply submitted to certain sacramental observances, and with the approval of the priests dragged into Christianity whatever pleased them. It was possible, and in fact the danger was imminent, for the ascetic ideal to lose any assured connection with Jesus Christ. Asceticism had also been proclaimed indeed by Greek science. But in that case the common character of religion disappeared; for a merely negative ideal of life, which at the same time was without a close dependence on history, could not form a lasting bond of connection among men.

Our information is exceptionally bad, and not from accident, as to the internal state of the Church, at the time when Constantine chose it to be the support of the Empire. But what we know is enough to establish the fact that the internal solidity by no means corresponded to the external. We may with greater propriety affirm that the Churches of the East were in danger of relapsing into worldliness, and that not only in the form of worldly modes of action.Church history has at this point in its investigations to collect the numerous data which prove how deeply members of the Church had become involved in heathen polytheistic morals, usages, customs, and conceptions, how strong reliance on sacred witchcraft, amulets, and sacramental vehicles had grown, and how far stability and peace of heart and mind had been lost. For the latter we can especially compare Eusebius (H. E. VIII. 1), (further the epitaph of Damasus on Euseb. the Roman Bishop, in Duchesne, Le liber Pontificalis, Tom. I., 1885, p. 167); of a later date, Cyril, Catech. 15, ch. 7. As regards syncretism, see the work on the Egyptian mysteries (ed. Parthey). The peril went deeper. Theology, the power which, as matters then were, could alone give an energetic protection to the distinctive character of religion, was at the point of dissolving it and abandoning it to the world.

We have already described in this volume the state of Eastern theology at the beginning of the fourth century. Conceptions of the faith which began and ended with the historical personality of Jesus Christ were equally condemned with the attempts, whether unstudied or philosophical, to identify the Person of Jesus with the Deity.See the short disclaimers in the fourth Catechism of Cyril of Jerusalem, (ch. 7. 8): Οὐχ, ὥς τινες ἐνόμισαν, ὁ υἱὸς μετὰ τὸ πάθος στεφανωθεὶς ὥσπερ ὑπὸ τοῦ Θεοῦ διὰ τὴν ὑπομονὴν ἔλαβε τὸν ἐν δεξιᾷ θρόνον, ἀλλ᾽ ἀφ᾽ οὗπέρ ἐστιν ἔχει τὸ βασιλικὸν ἀξίωμα . . . Μήτε ἀπαλλοτριώσης τοῦ πατρὸς τὸν υἱόν, μήτε συναλοιφὴν ἐργασάμενος υἱοπατρίαν πιστεύσῃς.. Further, the 11th Catechism. So also Athanasius steadily disavows the heresy of the Adoptians as well as of the Sabellians. The realistic and eclectic theology of Irenaæus had probably very few defenders in the West. The theology of the Apologists had triumphed, and all thinkers stood under the influence of Origen. But the genius of this great man was too powerful for the Epigoni. The importance of his system lay in a threefold direction: first, in the sharp distinction between Pistis and Gnosis, which he kept apart, and connected only by unity of aim; secondly, in the abundant material in his speculations, the conservatism that he showed in inweaving all that was valuable, and the balance which he knew how to preserve between the different factors of his system, relating them all to one’ uniform aim; thirdly, in the Biblical impress which he gave his theology by strict adherence to the text of Holy Scripture. In all these respects the Epigoni introduced changes. The most important in its consequences was the mingling of Pistis and Gnosis, of faith and theology. Origen had not published his system, in which the faith of the Church was reconciled with science, as Church doctrine. To him the distinction between the faith of the Church and the science of faith remained fixed. But in the next period  — following the precedent of MethodiusSee Vol. III, p. 103. and opposing Basil’s principle  —   it was thought necessary to identify them. Reactionary and progressive tendencies met in these efforts. The Pistis (faith) was supplied with the formulas of Origen’s theology, and Gnosis was to stop short at certain tenets of tradition, and to receive them without revision. The point was to find a new medium which should be at once tradition and speculation, Pistis and Gnosis. This endeavour was undoubtedly justified by an actual change accomplished before this and promoted by Origen himself, viz., the incorporation of the doctrine of the Logos in the faith of “the simple.” These simple Christians already possessed a dogma which was shaped by exegesis and speculation, and confronted them as an external authority, a law of faith. This creation had forced its way from the circumference of the ecclesiastical system into its centre. Besides, the sharp distinction between a traditional doctrine of the Church and a science of religion contradicted the whole ecclesiastical tradition as established in the fight with Gnosticism. But the intermingling at first produced a kind of stagnation. It threat. ened to make faith lose its certainty, speculation its reasoning power, and the Church the unity of its confession. If we review the new religious formulas, which were brought into circulation about the year 300, and if we compare the theologies of the period — which unfortunately we only know in part — the theologies, namely, of the Alexandrian teachers, Gregory Thaumaturgus, Lucian, Methodius, Hieracas etc., we see a wealth of forms which, if blood-relations, are extremely different. How could the unity of the Church continue under their sway? and if it continued, was it Christianity after all that furnished the common element?

And this has brought us to the second point Origen had recognised the full significance of the historical Christ for the stage of Pistis; while he directed the Gnostic to the eternal Logos. Now uncertainties arose here also. The historical Christ threatened to fall entirely into the background. We can observe this in the works of two of the Epigoni, which have no affinity to each other. Gregory Thaumaturgus has in his famous Symbol dealt only with the Logos “apart from the flesh” (λόγος ἄσαρκος),See Vol. III., p. 1157 the words run: εἷς κύριος, μόνος ἐκ μόνου, Θεὸς ἐκ Θεοῦ, χαρακτὴρ καὶ εἰκὼν τῆς θεότητος, λόγος ἐνεργός, σοφία τῆς τῶν ὅλων συστάσεως περιεκτικὴ καὶ δύναμις τῆς ὅλης κτίσεως ποιητική, υἱὸς ἀληθινὸς ἀληθινοῦ πατρός, ἀόρατος ἀοράτου καὶ ἄφθαρτος ἀφθάρτου καὶ ἀθάνατος ἀθανάτου καὶ ἀΐδιος ἀϊδίου.. and Methodius intended to declare the loftiest truth when he demanded that Christ should be born in every man ‘consciously’ (νοητῶς), and that each must become a Christ by participation in Christ.See Vol. III., p. 110. Further, in Origen the cosmological and soteriological interests balanced each other. We recognise this in his formulas which relate to the Logos. But here also a displacement was introduced, one that favoured cosmology. The word Ὁμοούσιος (consubstantial) was, indeed, retained by some, perhaps by many theologians; but as it was in itself ambiguous, so also it was no evidence of an interest in soteriology. The crowd of rhetorical and philosophical predicates heaped upon the Logos, did not serve to illustrate and establish the significance of the Logos as the principal factor in redemption; it was rather a term for the reason and order reigning in the universe, and for the spiritual forces with which humanity had been gifted. Men indeed held firmly, on all hands, to the incarnation; nay, it was regarded, as is proved by the great work of Theognostus, as being, next to the doctrine of the creation of matter, the feature that distinguished the speculation of the Church from that of the Neo-platonists. But the whole stress was laid on the question, what idea was to be formed of the constitution of the subject of which incarnation was predicated. A great school, that of Lucian of Antioch, distinguished, in the manner of Paul of Samosata, between wisdom proper, eternal, existent in God, and a created wisdom or Logos; and identified the latter alone with the incarnate Son — ‘wisdom arose through wisdom according to the will of the wise God’. But in drawing this line, not only was the incarnation of the Deity rendered impossible, but every form of His personal activity on earth. The theological interest in Christ threatened to resolve itself entirely into cosmology and morality, or, as in Methodius, to be deprived of its meaning by a mystical alloy.

The liberty which theology enjoyed in the East up to the beginning of the fourth century, and the influence which it exerted on the Church in the same period, could not but produce complete confusion and loss of meaning. All the elements united by Origen in his vast system sought to establish them. selves independently. Even tritheistic tendencies were not wanting; but, above all, the idea of a subordinate God and semidivine beings began to be familiar. The idea of the subordinate God is indeed as old as the theology of the Christian Church; even the Apologists shared it, and Origen, with all caution, adopted and justified it in working out his doctrine of the Son. But in the earlier period the simplices et rudes (the simple and uncultured) were still startled at the suggestion; theologians provided the idea with strong safe-guards, and Origen himself, who in many points bordered on Polytheism, on the other hand restored the Logos to the being of God, and united Father and Son as closely as possible. But opposition to ‘Sabellianism’ evidently rendered a later age much more careless. And it is indubitable that the idea of the created God, the God who came into being, coalesced with ancient polytheistic inclinations. The claims of Monotheism were considered to be satisfied by the effort to protect the supreme Deity, as against Modalism,. from change and plurality; and the Logos and other beings entitled to worship were suffered calmly to spring up side by side with God; they could not, it was presumed, endanger Monotheism, because they belonged to the domain of the created. Add that theologians dealt in their speculations with a plethora of philosophical categories destitute of a fixed impress, or fixed value;See Vol. III, p. 102. further, that this terminology, unsifted and uncontrolled, everywhere forced its way into the faith of the community, and we can form a conception of the danger which hovered over the Church. We find a Monotheism which did not exclude polytheism, a Logos-Christ, who, as a cosmological quantity, was of shifting nature and origin, ideas of the incarnation and redemption as designed to “enlighten” the human race, and to effect an incarnation of God in every individual soul. All this, too, was clothed in a rank growth of artificial philosophical expressions, identical with that used in contemporary science. And we may well ask whether such a theology was in a condition to protect even the scanty remains of the evangelic tradition, above all, at the moment when the partition between State and Church was torn down and the Church was brought face to face with its greatest task. A deism — if the term may be allowed — was at hand, surrounded by the shifting forms of a speculation which had neither a settled boundary nor an assured object. It almost seemed as if the special characteristics of the Christian religion were to be reduced to the evidence of antiquity and prophecy, what Porphyry called ‘foreign fables’. Yet even Scriptural proof was no longer everywhere called for and given with the zeal so noticeable in Origen; although it was just the school of Lucian which neglected it least. But what could Scripture avail against the method? If a Bishop so capable and learned, and so well versed in tradition as Eusebius of Caesarea was satisfied in his Christology with the formulas we read there, if he could praise the religious edicts and manifestoes of his Emperor, though they substantially celebrated “God in nature”, as brilliant specimens of his Christian conviction, we must conclude that the Logos doctrine settled in the Church was the strongest means of completely effacing the figure of the historical Christ, and of resolving everything into mist.On Eusebius’ Christology see Dorner, Lehre v. d. Person Christi, I. (1845) p. 792 ff. Lee, on the Theophan. 1843, Preliminary Dissert. The Christology of Euseb. is that of the ancient apologists, approximating in its terms to Neoplatonic speculations and richer in its phases on account of the many antitheses. In spite of his dependence on Origen, Euseb. was chary of receiving all the ideas and predicates which the former applied to the Son and to which orthodoxy afterwards appealed. That is of consequence. Euseb. was more convinced than Origen that the idea of deity was completely exhausted in that of the strictly one and unchangeable ὄν the πρώτη οὐσία; he separated the δεύτερος Θεός much further from God than the Apologists; see Zahn, Marcell., p. 37 f. Even the rationalist, who in his study of the history of religions always follows with sympathy the progress to ‘natural’ religion, would require to restrain his sympathy here. For the pure religion of humanity could not have resulted from this development, but one that was wholly indefinite, and therefore capable of being influenced from any quarter, one in whose centre was throned that hollow and helpless figment of thought, the ὄν, the πρώτη οὐσία (being-primal being). And men would have gone on proclaiming this religion to be Christianity, simply because they possessed in Holy Scripture the means of proving it, and of dating it back to the beginning of the world as the universal religion. And they would have adopted sacred media, charms, and intermediary powers more and more boldly, because they were incapable of understanding and applying either to God or to Jesus Christ the tradition that God redeemed men through Jesus Christ.

The Bishops and theologians in the East about A.D. 320, whose views were similar to those of Eusebius, had on their side the strongest power to be found in an ecclesiastical communion — tradition: they were the conservatives. Conservative theology, the theology that took its stand on Origen, limited the idea of Deity to the primal being (πρώτη οὐσία), inoperative and really incapable of being revealed, i.e., to the Father. It accordingly ignored the Logos and Christ in determining the conception of God. Further, it deduced, like the Neoplatonists, a second or third Ousia (being) from the first, and adorned the Logos created by the will of the Father with the loftiest, yet vacillating, predicates. It taught the incarnation of the Logos, and celebrated its result, yet once more in indefinite, in high-sounding and meaningless, Biblical phrases. Finally, it subordinated everything spiritual and moral to the thought of free-will and human independence. Any attempt at precision could not fail, on this domain, to be regarded as an innovation. Anything might establish itself as long as it did not claim to be exclusive.Gwatkin says very justly in Studies of Arianism (1882), p. 52: “In fact Christendom as a whole was neither Arian nor Nicene. If the East was not Nicene, neither was it Arian, but conservative: and if the West was not Arian, neither was it Nicene, but conservative also. Conservatism, however, had different meanings in East and West.” In the East it was considered conservative to uphold the formulas of Origen strengthened against Sabellianism. On the doctrine of the Logos and Christ in Origen Bigg says very truly (The Christian Platonists of Alex., p. 182): “What struck later ages as the novelty and audacity of Origen’s doctrine was in truth its archaism and conservatism.” There never did exist in the Church a general tendency to form new dogmas — the terms ‘new’ and ‘dogma’ are mutually exclusive; least of all did it exist in the East; there was either indifference to philosophical speculation, or a desire that it should have liberty, or it was regarded with suspicion. For the rest, men reverenced in the cultus the mystery, i.e., the complex of formulas whose origin had already become obscure.

When theology is engaged in forming dogmas, it has never, as is really self-evident, enjoyed the sympathy of any large section in the Church. There is nothing to support the contention that the Christian Church passed through a period — from Origen up to the Synod of Chalcedon or A.D. 431 — during which there prevailed universally, or even to a great extent, a supreme interest in the abstract form of the contents of Religion, and an effort, with all the means at hand, to expound it as exactly as possible. The great mass of Bishops, monks, and laity, were then wholly occupied in satisfying themselves with what had been given. This was the highest demand of the Catholic religion itself, which presupposed the “Apostolic” as its foundation, which called everything else “heresy” (νεωτερισμός), and as an institution for worship) did not permit changes. Undoubtedly, the period from Origen, or say, from Athanasius up to the Ephesian Council, appears unique in the history of the Church. But that was an episode enacted in opposition to the great body of Christians, and the theological leaders themselves, in proportion to their piety, conceived their task to be compulsory, dangerous, and ensnaring them in guilt. To prove the former read Socrates’ Church History (see my discussion in Herzog R. E., Vol. XIV. p. 408 ff.). This man was, on the one hand, orthodox at every point, on the other, an enthusiastic partisan of Ἑλληνικὴ παιδεία, full of veneration for the great Origen and his science, which he held was to be fostered continually. But the production of dogma by scientific theology was repugnant to him in every sense, i.e., he accused and execrated dogmatic controversies as much in the interest of a dogma fixed once for all as in that of science. The Nicene Symbol belonged sufficiently to the past to be accepted by him as holy and apostolical; but beyond this every new formula seemed to Socrates, pernicious, the controversies sometimes fights in the dark (nyktomachies), sometimes an outflow of deceptive sophistry and ambitious rivalry: σιωπῇ προσκυνείσθω τὸ ἄρρητον, i.e., the mystery of the trinity. Had Socrates lived 100 years earlier, he would not have been a Nicene, but a Eusebian Christian. He therefore passes very liberal judgments on, and can make excuses for, the latest “heretics”, i.e., theologians who have been recently refuted by the Church. In this he stood by no means alone. Others, even at a later date, went still further. Compare Evagrius (H. E. I. 11) whose argument recalls Orig. c. Cels. III. 12.

Dogma has been created by the small number of theologians who sought for precise notions, in the endeavour to make clear the characteristic meaning of the Christian religion (Athanasius, Apollinaris, Cyril). That these notions, separated from their underlying thought, fell into the hands of ambitious ecclesiastical politicians, that the latter excited the fanaticism of the ignorant in their support, and that the final decision was often due to motives which had nothing to do with the case, is admittedly undeniable. But the theologians are not therefore to blame, who opposed in the Church a lazy contentment with mystery, or an unlimited pursuit of scientific speculation. Their effort to make clear the essence of Christianity, as they understood it, and at the same time to provide a λογικὴ λατρεία, was rather, next to the zealous order of monks with whom they were intimately connected, the sole great feature in the epoch. They set themselves to stem the vis inertiæ of the pious, and with the highest success. When indolence in the end held the field, an important result had at any rate been attained. The period from Athanasius till about the middle of the fifth century was in many respects the brilliant epoch of theology in the Church. Not even the age of Scholasticism can compare with it. That the work of the theologians became faith according to the Church — a thing Origen never thought of — involved its strength and weakness alike. The fanaticism of the masses for dogmatic and philosophical catch-words — see the amusing narrative of Gregory of Nyssa, Opp. ed. Paris, 1638, T. III. p. 466 — affords no information as to the measure of their comprehension; for the dogmatic catch-word is merely a fetish in wide circles.

Nevertheless, there probably never was a time in the East when a reaction did not exist against the development of the Logos doctrine towards complete separation of the Son from the Father.Origen’s doctrine of subordination was felt in the West simply to constitute ditheism; see Vol. III., p. 89 ff. It sprang not only from Modalists, but also from disciples of Origen, and it celebrated at Nicæa an amazingly rapid triumph. In opposition to a school which had ventured too far forward, and had embroidered the doctrines of Paul of Samosata with questionable tenets of Origen, the term Ὁμοούσιος, once banned at Antioch, was successfully elevated to the dignity of the watchword of faith.

The importance of this rapid triumph for the history of dogma cannot be rated too highly. But procured as it was by the Emperor, the victory would have been resultless, had it not been for the man whose biography coincides with the history of dogma of the fourth century — Athanasius.

The second division of the history of dogma, the account of its development, opens with Athanasius, but his conception of the faith also dominated following centuries. Augustine alone surpassed him in importance; for Augustine was an Origen and Athanasius in one  —   and he was still more.See Ranke, Weltgeschichte Vol. IV. 1, p. 307: “Augustine’s system is, if I mistake not, the second that arose in the Church; it set aside the peculiar characteristics of the first, that of Origen, and then made good its position.” We can only admit that it held its ground in a modified sense. In fact we see here a parallel of the highest significance in the history of the world. The Church has produced two fundamental systems, Origen’s and Augustine’s. But the history of theology in the East is the history of the setting aside of Origen’s system, and the same is to be said of the Augustinian in the Catholic West. Only the procedure in the East was more thorough-going and open than in the West. In the former Origen was condemned, in the latter Augustine was constantly celebrated as the greatest Doctor ecclesiæ. In both cases, however, the rejection of the theological system caused the loss of a coherent and uniform Christian conception of the world. However, the future course of history has yet to decide whether Athanasius’ thought will not in the end live longer than the conceptions of Augustine. At the present day at least Augustine is given up sooner than Athanasius in the Churches.

But it is really not permissible to compare these great men. Augustine was a loftier genius, a man of inexhaustible wealth of ideas and sentiment; Athanasius’ greatness consisted in reduction, in the energy with which, from a multitude of divergent speculations claiming to rest on tradition, he gave exclusive validity to those in which the strength of religion then lay. Augustine opened up a new view of the highest blessings and of human nature in the Church, he scattered a thousand germs for the future; Athanasius, like every reformer, reduced, he first secured a sphere of its own to the Christian religion on the soil, already won, of Greek speculation, and he referred everything to the thought of redemption. Augustine invented a new speculation, and the fascinating language of the deepest religious feeling, beyond which changed times and manners seem unable to go; Athanasius was unable to put forward either gifts of speculation or of eloquence on behalf of the thought in which he lived. His strength arose out of his conviction and his office.

Athanasius was a reformer, though not in the highest sense of the word. Behind and beside him existed a speculation which led on a shoreless sea, and the ship was in danger of losing its helm.It might seem as if we ought to grant the same credit to Arius of having reduced and given fixity to vacillating and divergent speculations. But apart from the contents and value of his doctrine, Arius was always disposed to make concessions, and as semi-opponents defended him, so he unhesitatingly accepted half friends for complete allies. This very fact proves, however, that he would never have succeeded in clearing up the position. He grasped the rudder. We may compare the situation with that in which Luther found himself when confronting the mediæval Church and Scholasticism. It was not for a word, or a formula,Athanasius always made a sparing use of the catch-word Ὁμοούσιος in his works. The formula was not sacred to him, but only the cause which he apprehended and established under cover of the formula. His conduct at the Synod of Alexandria shows that he laid no stress on words. For his theology he needed no Creed. The existence of one in the Nicene was valuable to him, but he was far from worshipping Symbols. While many of his friends sought support in the authority of the formula, he sought and found it solely in the cause. that he was concerned, but a crucial thought of his faith, the redemption and raising of humanity to divine life through the God-man. It was only from the certainty that the divinity manifest in Jesus Christ possessed the nature of the Deity (unity of being) and was for this reason alone in a position to raise us to divine life, that faith was to receive its strength, life its law, and theology its direction. But Athanasius in thus giving the chief place to faith in the God-man who alone delivers from death and sin, furnished practical piety, then almost exclusively to be found in monkish asceticism, with its loftiest motive. To speak briefly, this combined as closely as possible the Ὁμοούσιος (consubstantial), which guaranteed the deification of human nature, with monkish asceticism, and raised the latter from its still under-ground or, at least, insecure realm to the public life of the Church. While fighting against the phrase the created Logos (λόγος-κτίσμα) as heathen and as a denial of the power of the Christian religion, he at the same time as strenuously opposed worldly pursuits. He subordinated Scripture, tradition, and theology to the thought that the Redeemer was God by nature, but he also strove to work out the Christian life which received its motive from close communion with the God-Christ,Bigg (l. c., p. 188) has very rightly called attention to the high value attached by orthodox Fathers after Athanasius’ triumph to the Song of Songs in Origen’s exposition. and the prospect of being invested both the divine nature. If we would do justice to Athanasius, both these facts must be kept in mind. He became the father of Catholic orthodoxy and the patron of ecclesiastical monachism, and that he never would have been, had he not also set the practical ideal of the piety of the time ‘on the candlestick’.See the Vita Anton. of Athanasius and Gregory of Naz., Orat. 21. It is noteworthy that Paul of Samosata and the Eusebians were worldly Christians. On the other hand, the puritanism of Arius is, of course, famous.

There is here nothing new in the common sense of the word; Athanasius had really on his side, the best part of the tradition of the Church, to which he also appealed. Irenæus had already given the central place to the object, nature, and accomplishment of redemption in the categories: Logos, incarnation, Godman, deification, and sons of God. Athanasius could refer to a series of ideas in Origen and other Alexandrian catechists in support of his distinctive treatment of the Logos doctrine. New alone was the fact, the energy and exclusiveness of his view and action at a time when everything threatened to undergo dissolution.

Athanasius was no scientific theologian in the strict sense of the term; from theology he descended to piety, and found the exact word required. A man of authority, and attached to the tradition of his school, he was not in a position to disentangle the problem from the context in which the Apologists and Origen had set it. He was a disciple of Origen, but his attitude first to Marcellus, and then to the recent defenders of Ὁμοούσιος, the Cappadocians, proves that he was as destitute of scientific interest in a philosophical theory of life, as of the obstinacy of theologians. He had to deal with that which transcended theology. He was the first to raise to honour in the Church in all its force the old maxim that we must think of Christ as God (ὡς περὶ θεοῦ), and therefore he paved the way for the new principle, that we must think of God as in Christ (ὡς ἐν Χριστῷ).

In this he stood aloof from the rational thought of his time. While admitting its premises, he added an element, which neutral speculation was incapable of assimilating completely. Nothing certainly was more unintelligible to it, than the assumption of an essential unity of the quiescent and the active Deity. Athanasius fixed a gulf between the Logos of the philosophers, and the Logos whose redeeming work he proclaimed. What he said of the latter, declaring the mystery strongly and simply, and by no means committing himself to new distinctions, could not but appear to the Greeks ‘an offence and folly’. But he did not shrink from reproach; with firm hand, though in awkward lines, he marked off a sphere of its own for the Christian faith.The Cappadocians, theologians who reconciled the faith of Athanasius with the current philosophy, and apprehended it abstractly, did not retain his teaching pure and simple. This is especially shown by their doubtful contention that the Christian idea of God was the true mean between the Jewish and Greek. They boldly characterised the plurality of Hypostases, e.g., as a phase of truth preserved in Greek polytheism. Athanasius, therefore, did not take unmixed pleasure in their work. Cf. the λόγος κατηχητικός of Gregory of Nyssa (ch. 4, ed. Oehler): “Jewish dogma is refuted by adoption of the Word, and by faith in the Spirit, but the illusion of the Greeks (Ελληνίζοντες) in worshipping a multiplicity of Gods is dispelled by the (doctrine of the) unity of nature which destroys the extravagant opinion of a (divine) plurality. We must, in turn, retain the unity of being from the Jewish type of faith, and only the distinction of personal (divine) existences. from the Greek; and by this means godless conceptions are met on the left and right in correspondingly salutary ways. For the trinity is a corrective for those who err as to unity, just as the doctrine of the unity (of God) is for those who have made shipwreck by belief in plurality.”

CHAPTER II.

THE FUNDAMENTAL CONCEPTION OF SALVATION AND GENERAL OUTLINE OF THE DOCTRINAL SYSTEM.

CHAPTER III.

SOURCES OF KNOWLEDGE AND AUTHORITIES; OR, SCRIPTURE, TRADITION, AND THE CHURCH.

A.—PRESUPPOSITION OF DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION OR NATURAL THEOLOGY.

CHAPTER IV.

PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CONCEPTIONS REGARDING GOD, THE CREATOR, AS DISPENSER OF SALVATION.

§ 1. The Doctrine of God. Its Method.

The main features of the doctrine of God were those familiar from the theology of the Apologists, as they were partly fixed and partly supplemented by the fight with Gnosticism. Speculations on the Deity as a Trinity (τριάς) modified but little the general doctrine of God (yet see attempts in Augustine, De trinitate); for the unity, simplicity, indivisibility, and unchangeableness of God were at the same time maintained most definitely: in other words, the Father alone was almost always. regarded as ‘root of the Deity” (ῥίζα τῆς θεότητος), where the Deity, in its essential being, was described in comparison with the world. The ultimate reason of this was that theology counted on a general intelligence for its general doctrine of God, and therefore had recourse to natural religion and theology, i.e., to the results of Greek philosophy. It was, indeed admitted by many Fathers (see esp. Athanasius, De incarn.) that men could know the Deity from creation only dimly, if at all; and that therefore the manifestation of God in Christ alone made it possible to recognise the nature of God as the undivided, spiritual and good Lord of the World. But, in fact, it was only a question of more or less as regards the natural knowledge of the spiritual and good God, the Creator. Other Fathers, especially those influenced by Aristotle, declared the knowledge of God in its whole extent to be innate (see Arnobius), or, a knowledge to be constantly tested by the observation of nature. No difference is here caused by the fact that some Fathers have described the existence of God and his distinctive nature as capable of proof, others, as incapable; for the latter only rejected the proof in so far as God could not be discovered by means of deduction from a prius. The psychological, cosmological,The influence of Aristotle is first conspicuous in Diodore of Tarsus, who reproduced independently the cosmological proof of Aristotle (see Photius, Biblioth. 223). From the sixth century it is evident in the majority of the Fathers, and especially John of Damascus. See De fide orthod. I. 3 (12): Everything perceptible by the senses, as also the higher world of spirits, is subject to change; therefore it must have had a beginning, and been created. There must accordingly exist a being who created it, and that is God. Two other proofs are found in John of Dam. and natural theological proofs were not despised by them in meeting Atheism, Polytheism, Manichæism, etc. We already find in Augustine suggestions of an ontological proof.Augustine’s line of argument was first to demonstrate rules of human thought, which accordingly transcended it. These rules—logical and ethical—he stated to be truths, their sum being the truth. This truth was a living power, accordingly it existed. Thus the way to the existence of God was given; see esp. De lib. arbitr. II. 3-15, but the thought is also suggested elsewhere in his writings, e.g., the Confessions. All these evidences were, indeed, given subject to the proviso, that all knowledge of God must be traced back to God himself, that it became indistinct in proportion to man’s alienation from God, and that the revelation of Scripture first rendered everything clear and certain.

Further, it was expressly contended that God, as the infinite one, was, strictly speaking, incapable of being known, because his nature could not be described by any predicate. But this inscrutability, so far as represented in the avowal “whatever the creature is, that God is not,” was held—and with this the Neoplatonists were agreed—to be the valuable and true knowledge (Athan. ad monach. 2: “even if it is not possible to comprehend what God is, it is possible to say what he is not:” καὶ εἰ μὴ δυνατὸν καταλαβέσθαι τί ἐστι Θεός, ἀλλὰ δυνατὸν εἰπεῖν, τί οὔκ ἐστιν.In this the great majority of the Fathers were agreed. Augustine describes (De doctr. I. 6) the impossibility of declaring God, in a way that coincides word for word with the tenets of the Basilidians (Hippol., Philos. VII. 20). Augustine writes: “Diximusne aliquid et sonuimus aliquid dignum deo? Immo vero nihil me aliud quam dicere voluisse sentio; si autem dixi, non hoc est quod dicere volui. Hoc unde scio, pisi quia deus ineffabilis est, quod autem a me dictum est, si ineffabile esset, dictum non esset? Ac per hoc ne ineffabilis quidem dicendus est deus, quia et hoc cum dicitur, aliquid dicitur. Et fit nescio quæ pugna verborum, quoniam si illud est ineffabile, quod dici non potest, non est ineffabile, quod vel ineffabile dici potest.” Basilides: Ἔστι γὰρ, φησίν, ἐκεῖνο οὐχ ἁπλῶς ἄρρητον, ὃ ὀνομάζεται· ἄρρητον γοῦν αὐτὸ καλοῦμεν, ἐκεῖνο δὲ οὐδὲ ἄρρητον· καὶ γὰρ τὸ οὐδ᾽ ἄρρητον οὐκ ἄρρητον ὀνομάζεται, ἀλλὰ ἔστι, φησίν, ὐπεράνω παντὸς ὀνόματος ὀνομαζομένου.. Men were therefore at the point already reached by Basilides’ followers in the second century. Even Catechumens were taught this; see Cyril, Cat. VI., ch. 2: οὐ τὸ τί ἐστι Θεὸς ἐξηγούμεθα . . . ἐν τοῖς περὶ Θεοῦ μεγάλη γνῶσις το τὴν ἀγνωσίαν ὁμολογεῖν. Similar teaching is very frequent in Plotinus. In the Vita Plot. of Porphyry, ch. 23, the supreme God is thus defined: ὁ Θεὸς ὁ μήτε μορφὴν μήτε τινὰ ἰδέαν ἔχων, ὑπὲρ δὲ νοῦν καὶ πᾶν τὸ νοητὸν ἱδρύμενος. The revelation through the Logos only went beyond this in that it established this knowledge regarding the infinite Spirit and his inexpressible nature, and made it possible to perceive him in his likeness.The Dogmatics of John of Damascus begin with John I. 18, Matt. XI. 17, and 1 Cor. II. 11. The Fathers influenced by Neoplatonism, however, assumed further that the contemplative ascetic, who was on the way to deification, could gain a direct vision of God in all his splendour, a conception which the Areopagite has combined with a scholastic theory of the knowableness of God by negation, eminence, causality.The striking contention of some disciples of Lucian (according to Philostorgius), and the most extreme Arians, Eunomius and Aëtius, but not Arius himself, that men could know the nature of God as well as God himself did, and as well as they knew themselves, is most closely connected with their Christology and their Aristotelianism. When the orthodox Fathers argued that the indescribable God could only be perceived in the Logos and through his work, and that God therefore would have been unknowable had not the Logos been his image, possessed of a like nature, those Arians had to meet the objection by emphasising even in the course of the christological controversy, the possibility of knowing God directly. In taking up this position they had of course to leave the nature of God out of the question, and to confine themselves to his will, as it had been clearly manifested in creation, and the preaching of the truth by the Logos. But this to them was no limitation; for they only attached importance in the first place to the knowledge of the divine will, and secondly to the renewed submission of men to the sovereignty of the divine will: (not to participation in the divine nature. unless in so far as that was already involved in the original equipment of man; see Socrates IV. 7; Epiph. H. LXXVI. 4, and the counter-observations of the Cappadocians). Their expositions are exceded by the Areopagite’s completely Neoplatonic theology, from which, meanwhile, Augustine in one of his lines of thought was not far removed. The Areopagite already adopted the position that ruled for more than a thousand years, in which the contention that God—by reason of his splendour—was absolutely unknowable, was balanced by the mystical assumption of a sensuous, suprasensuous knowableness in virtue of the fusion of the mind of God with the mind of man. To him also we trace back the theology of affirmation and negation (kataphatic and apophatic)—the thing had, indeed, been very long in existence—i.e., the method of making statements about God via eminentiæ and via negationis; see his Letters, the work, De divinis nominibus, and the beginning of the tractate, De mystica theologia. The importance of John of Damascus consists for posterity in his having united the Neoplatonic and Aristotelian elements in his doctrine of God; see De fide orthod. I. 1-4.

CHAPTER V.

PRESUPPOSITIONS AND CONCEPTIONS REGARDING MAN AS THE RECIPIENT OF SALVATION.

§ 1. Introductory.

According to the ideas of the Fathers, the doctrines of the condition and destiny of man belonged to Natural Theology. This appears from the fact that, starting from their Cosmology, they all strove to ascertain, from the original state of man, the nature of Christian redemption, in other words, the state of perfection. At the same time the reservation held good, that we should receive more than we could think or expect, and, in fact, that which was expected, and was deduced from the religious and ethical value which man had come to put upon himself in the course of history, was only carried back into his original state. The following propositions contain everything that can be stated as embodying a common conviction and common presupposition of all further conceptions, which in this matter turned out very different, in accordance with the speculative and empirical studies of the Fathers, and the object of their investigations for the time. Man made in the image of God is a free self-determining being. He was endowed with reason by God, that he might decide for the good, and enjoy immortality. He has fallen short of this destiny by having voluntarily yielded and continuing to yield himself—under temptation, but not under compulsion—to sin, yet without having lost the possibility and power of a virtuous life, or the capacity for immortality. The possibility was strengthened and immortality restored and offered by the Christian revelation which came to the aid of the darkened reason with complete knowledge of God. Accordingly, knowledge decides between good and evil. Strictly taken, the will is morally nothing. On this basis very different views were possible. It was asked, first, what was original endowment, and what destiny, in the case of man; secondly, in connection with this, how much was to be claimed as human nature, and how much as a gift of grace originally bestowed; and thirdly, in keeping with the above, how far and how deep the consequences of sin extended. The question was put, in the fourth place, whether bare freedom constituted man’s character, or whether it did not correspond to his nature to be good. Fifthly, the philosophical question as to the constitution of man was here introduced and answered in various ways [dichotomically, trichotomically, the extent and scope of the flesh (σάρξ) in human nature, in its relation to the spirit (πνεῦμα) and to sin]. Sixthly, the relation of the creaturely spirit (πνεῦμα) to the divine, in other words, the origin of the human spirit, was discussed. Seventhly, lastly, and above all, men possessed two sources of knowledge: the account in Genesis with a realistic exposition, which seemed to pour scorn on all “spiritual” conceptions, but had nevertheless to be respected; and the relative section from Origen’s theology, which was felt to an increasing extent to be intolerable to the Church, and which yet expressed the scientific, religious conviction of the Fathers, in so far as their thought was scientific. Under such circumstances different conceptions, compromises of all sorts, necessarily arose; but hardly anywhere was an advance made in the end on the views already presented by Irenæus. In the latest results, as they are to be found in the Dogmatics of John of Damascus, there is much that is more realistic than in Irenæus, but on the whole a type of doctrine is obtained which is more inadequate and confused, and less valuable. In what follows we intend to enter in detail only into the most important points.

§ 2. The Anthropology.

Since the end of the creation of the world was held to consist in the creation of rational beings, who could exhibit the image of God and share in his blessedness, it followed that the power of free self-determination and the capacity for immortality belonged to the notion of man, and that they were therefore regarded as inalienable. All the doctors of the Church, however, comprehended, in the idea of innate freedom, the conceptions of the rational and moral plan of man’s nature as a whole, and they defined this natural disposition to be the power to know God’s will accurately, to follow it, and thus to rise above nature. While it was left in doubt whether this whole natural plan implied that man possessed bare freedom or freedom directed to the good, it certainly characterised man as a spiritual being, and for that very reason as an image of God. Being such, man was independent as regards God. In other words, the fact that he was an “image” did not directly establish a lasting dependence on God, nor did it find expression in such a dependence. On the contrary, it established his freedom in relation to God, so that man, being independent, was now only subject to the law of God, i.e., to that dispensation in virtue of which he was either rewarded or punished according as he behaved. The connection with God was thus exhausted in the noble constitution of man fixed once for all, but was supremely valued and acutely felt as a gift of divine grace, in the comparison with irrational animals. Meanwhile, the Fathers differed from one another. Some—like Athanasius, see even Tatian—assigned to human nature, in the strictest sense of the term, only the creaturely and sensuous state of being, in respect of which man is perishable, and they described everything else as a gift of divine grace inherent in human nature. Others embraced in this nature the moral capacity, endowment of reason, and knowledge of God;—so the majority; and very strenuously John of Damascus who repeatedly characterises the good as the natural: see De fide orthod. II. 30, III. 14. The third class, finally, included even immortality, as a possession and not merely as a destiny, among the natural attributes of the human soul. These distinctions, which, however, are not particularly important for dogmatics, since all ultimately held nature to be a gift of grace, and the gift of grace to be a natural provision, were due partly to the different psychological conceptions of the Fathers, partly to the standpoint from which they investigated the problems; they might—as e.g., Athanasius—start from the doctrine of redemption or depend on moral, or empirical philosophical considerations. In psychology, the only point settled was that the fundamental form of human nature was twofold, spiritual and corporeal. This conception existed even where the soul itself was represented as something corporeal, or as only “as nearly as possible incorporeal” (ἐγγύτατα τοῦ ἀσωμάτου). Very many Greek Fathers, however, followed the view of Plato and Origen, according to which man consists of spirit, body, and soul—the soul uniting the other two. Consistently carried out, this opinion constantly led them back to the conception of Origen (Philo) that the spirit in man alone constituted his true nature, that it had its own, even a pretemporal, history, that in itself it belonged to the supernatural and divine sphere, and that the body was only a prison which had to be stripped off before the spirit could present itself in its true being. In order to escape these consequences, which were already discredited in the controversy with Neoplatonism and Manichæism, different methods were adopted. Among these occurred that already alluded to above, the conception of the spirit solely as a “superadded gift” (donum superadditum), a religious principle, to be found exclusively in the pious. But this expedient was seldom chosen; the whole question, so important and crucial, was rather stifled in a hundred questions of detail, tortured out of, or read into, the account in Genesis. The ever increasing restriction of the allegorical and spiritualising method of interpreting Gen. I. ff., led the Fathers nolens-volens to opinions remote from their scientific thought on religion The only passage in that account, moreover, which seemed to support the spiritualistic conception—“God breathed his own breath into man”—proved too much, and had therefore to be let alone.Augustine’s exposition in Ep. CCV. 19, was ultimately the opinion of most of the Greek Fathers, so far as they were not completely devoted to Neoplatonism. “Vis etiam per me scire, utrum dei flatus ille in Adam idem ipse sit anima. Breviter respondeo, aut ipse est aut ipso anima facta est. Sed si ipse est, factus est . . . In hac enim quaestione maxime cavendum est, ne anima non a deo facta natura, sed ipsius dei substantia tamquam unigenitus filius, quod est verbum eius, aut aliqua eius particula esse credatur, tamquam illa natura atque substantia, qua deus est quidquid est, commutabilis esse possit: quod esse animam nemo non sentit, qui se animam habere sentit.” But the thought which underlay the last saying of the dying Plotinus (Porphyr., Vita Plot., ch. 2): πειρῶμαι τὸ ἐν ἡμῖν θεῖον ἀνάγειν πρὸς τὸ ἐν τῷ παντὶ θεῖον was not entirely surmounted by many Greek Fathers. Origen’s idea, that the body was a prison of the soul, was contrasted with the other, also ancient, that man was rather a microcosm, having received parts from the two created worlds, the upper and under.Therefore the great controversy lasting for centuries, whether the skins with which God clothed Adam and Eve were real skins, or bodies. He who agreed with Origen taught the latter; he who looked on man as a microcosm, the former. Yet here also there were composite forms: e.g., the skin meant only the fleshly body. But this conception, the only one which contained a coherent theory of equal value formally with the doctrine of Origen, could not fail to remain a mere theory, for the ethics corresponding to it, or its ethical ideal, were not supported by the final aims of the dominant theology. When anthropological questions or the Biblical narrative were not directly taken into account, it becomes everywhere obvious, that the old Platonic antithesis of spirit and body was regarded by the Fathers as the antithesis between that which was precious and that which was to be mortified, and that the earthly and creaturely in man was felt to be a hampering barrier which was to be surmounted. Monachism and the eschatological prospect of deification are examples which show how thoroughly practical ideas and hopes were determined by the dualistic view, though its point had been blunted by the tenet of the resurrection of the body. Meanwhile the theoretical doctrines as to the nature of man continued to be beset by a profound inconsistency, and ultimately, in consequence of Biblicism, became aimless and barren.Scriptural proofs in support of the pre-existence of souls were not wanting: see John IX. 2. Jerome held to the doctrine for a time. Even Augustine was uncertain, and up to the time of Gregory the Great its flat rejection had not been determined on in the West (see Ep. VII. 53).

Supplement.—The different psychological views of the Fathers are reflected in the various theories as to the origin of individual souls. The oldest of these was the traducian theory of Tertullian, which was also represented by a few Greeks—Gregory of Nyssa, Anastasius Sinaita. According to it the soul was begotten along with the body. Its extreme opposite was Origen’s idea of pre-existence which had still many adherents in the fourth century, but fell more and more into discredit, until, finally, it was expressly condemned at the Synod of Constantinople, A. D. 553. According to this doctrine, all souls were created at once by God along with the upper world, and fell successively into the lower world, and into their bodies. The middle view—an expedient of perplexity—was the creatian which gradually gained ground all through the fourth century, and can be characterised as the most wide-spread, at least in the West, from the beginning of the fifth. It taught that God was ever creating souls and planting them in the embryos. The East contented itself with disowning Origen’s theory. Augustine, the greatest theologian of the West, was unable to come to any fixed view regarding the origin of the soul.

The different views of the Fathers are further reflected in the different conceptions of the image of God in man. Religious and moral speculation were to be harmonised at this point; for the former was, indeed, never wholly wanting. Apart from such theologians as saw the image of God, somehow or other, even in the human figure, almost all were convinced that it consisted in reason and freedom. But with this it was impossible to remain perfectly satisfied, since man was still able to break away from God, so as in fact to become unlike him, and to die. On the other hand, theologians were certain that goodness and moral purity never could be innate. In order to solve the problem, different methods were adopted. Some abandoned the premise that the possession of the divine image was inalienable, and maintained that as it resided in the spirit that had been bestowed it could be completely lost through sinful sensuousness. The spirit returned to God, and the man relapsed to the level of the beasts. But this solution seemed unsatisfactory, because it was necessary, in spite of it, to retain the freedom that still, under all circumstances, existed to choose the good. Accordingly, it was impossible to treat this theory with any real seriousness. Others saw the possession of the Divine image, resting on reason and freedom, in the destiny of man to virtue and immortality, yet without stating what change in that case was actually made by falling short of this destiny. The third section, finally, distinguished, after the example of Origen, between “image” (εἰκών) and “likeness” (ὁμοίωσις) and saw the former in the inalienable spiritual plan of man, the latter in moral similarity to God, which was, indeed, one always to be gained on the basis of natural endowments. The Fathers were unwilling, as this review shows, to rest content with the thought that the inalienable spiritual natural endowment of man constituted the divine image, but they found no means of getting beyond it. Their conception of moral goodness as the product of human freedom hindered them. All the more strongly did they emphasise and praise, as a kind of set-off, the goodness of God as Creator revealed in the natural constitution of man.

The different views of the Fathers are finally reflected in their conception of the primitive state. Christianity restores man to his state of ideal perfection. This state must, however, have already existed in some form at the beginning, since God’s creation is perfect, and Genesis teaches, that man when created was good, and in a condition of blessedness (Paradise). On the other hand, it could not have been perfect, since man’s perfection could not be attained except through freedom. The problem resolves itself into a complete contradiction, which, indeed, was already clearly to be found in Irenæus: the original condition of man must coincide with the state of perfection, and yet it must only have been preliminary. The Fathers tried various ways of solving this crucial and insoluble difficulty, in which again the empirical and moral philosophical conception combined with a religious one. An attempt was made by very many Fathers to limit somewhat the blessedness of the Paradisaical state, or to give a form to their conceptions of it different in quality—fanciful and material—from that of their ideas of the final perfection; accordingly, it was explained—by Gregory of Nyssa—that God himself, looking to the Fall, had not ordained the Paradisaical state to be perfect. By some, again, the inconsistencies were glossed over, while others determined, following Origen, wholly to abandon the historical interpretation of the state in Paradise, and to construct independently a primitive state for themselves. The last method had the advantage, in combination with the assumption of the preexistence of souls, that it could transfer all men mystically into the original state. However, this radical solution conflicted too strongly with the letter of revelation, and the spirit of the Church tradition. It was rejected, and thus the problem remained in its obscurity. Therefore men contented themselves more and more with disregarding the main question: they set down incongruities side by side, and extracted separate points from the account in Genesis. To the latter belonged especially those which were believed to recommend virginity and asceticism, and to prove that these formed the mode of life (habitus) which corresponded to the true nature of man. Nor were opinions wanting that characterised asceticism as a salutary means of correcting the deterioration of the human state. “Asceticism and its toils were not invented to procure the virtue that comes from without, but to remove superinduced and unnatural vileness, just as we restore the natural brightness of iron by carefully removing the rust, which is not natural, but has come to it through negligence” (John of Damascus, De fide orth. III. 14).

The principles of ethics were, as a rule, discussed in connection with the original state of man. But even in reference to the blessedness enjoyed in that state no clear conception was reached; for if man’s distinctive nature was based on bare freedom, what sort of blessedness could there be for him? What could be bestowed on him which he did not possess already, or which, if bestowed, did not once more call in question the original possession? What could fall to his lot except an arbitrarily chosen reward? Again, as regards ethics, nothing certain could be established. While negative morality, asceticism, was conceived, as a rule, to be the natural and destined condition of man, yet an effort was made to construct an ideal of positive morality, in which the virtues of philosophy appeared in a rather superficial connection with those of religion.See here even the Latins. Ambrosius learned the combination, as carried out by him in his De officiis, from the Cappadocians; see also the remarkable opening of his work De pœnit. I. 1: “If the final and supreme aim of all virtue is to minister as far as possible to the spiritual benefit of our fellow-man, we may characterise benevolent moderation as one of the finest virtues.” For the popular conceptions of Greek Christians, see Socr. H. E. III. 16, in connection with Rom. I. On the other hand, Augustine attempted to derive the philosophic virtues from man’s dependence on God, from love; see, above all, the splendid exposition, Ep. CLV., ch. 12. Negative and positive morality each looked up, after all, to a different supreme good, in the one case immortality, in the other the loftiest virtue. Therefore they could not be combined. The assumption of works of supererogation, which the Christian could accomplish while remaining in the world, formed the bridge between the two ethical ideals, but one which it must be admitted, contributed to flight from the one sphere to the other, rather than their connection. All attacks on the theory that ascetic achievements were especially valuable and meritorious were regarded as the outcome of moral laxity, and it is certain that in many cases they actually were.

§ 3. Ethics. Sin.

It was recognised by all the Fathers that the human race had turned from the good and thus degenerated from its origin, i.e.,—according to the view of the majority—from Adam. This universality of sin was throughout explained, not from an innate wicked power in man impelling him necessarily to sin, nor from matter in itself, still less from complicity on the part of the Deity.Even the subtle way in which Origen justified evil as an element in the best possible world (see Vol. II., p. 343 f.) was seldom repeated. Yet see Augustine, De ordine II. 11 sq. (one of his oldest writings): “mala in ordinem redacta faciunt decorem universi.” Nor, on the other hand, was it as a rule ascribed to a direct inheritance of Adam’s sin, for inherited sin is a contradiction in itself; Adam was the type, but not the ancestor, of sinners. The true explanation was found in the misuse of freedom, caused by the seductions of wicked demons, and the transmission of wicked customs. Along with this, the majority undoubtedly cherished the secret idea, which was not surmounted, that the incentive to revolt from GodSin was described as something negative not only by Augustine, but by all thinking Greeks before him. Their conception was undoubtedly based on a philosophical view that God was not only the originator of being, but really the sole being. On the other hand, a distinction was made between the eternal being and the creaturely, which came from God. came to a certain extent necessarily from the sensuous nature and creaturely infirmity of man, and resulted from his composite constitution, and his liability to death, whether that was acquired naturally or by transgression, or inherited. Decay and death were especially held to constitute an inducement to and cause of continuance in sin. With natural sensuousness the fate of death was conjoined. Both drove man from God. But in spite of this view the assumption was retained of unaltered freedom. If on the one hand stress was laid on sensuousness being a natural endowment of man, the unnaturalness of wickedness was emphasised on the other, and thus bare freedom received a closer relation to goodness, which, of course, was conceived as repressed by sin. The good was the natural, but, again, in view of man’s sensuousness, unnatural evil was also natural to him. The essence of sin, since wickedness was held to be something purely negative, was universally seen in alienation from God, being and goodness; but all that this meant positively was that man had subordinated his will to his sensuousness, and thereby lost the feeling, desire, and knowledge of the divine. The consequences of sin were held to be the following: First, by the majority, the universal mortality which had prevailed from Adam, or the loss of the true life;The Antiochenes thought differently (see under), and so did the author of the App. Const., who is exceedingly lax in his views; see, e.g., V. 7, p. 132 (Ed. Lagarde). The latter regards death as an original divine institution, which makes it possible for God to punish or reward. The resurrection was due to the rational soul from God. secondly, the obscuration of the knowledge of God, and with it of religion in general. This darkening made it possible for the demons to seduce man from the true God, to gain him to their own service, and the idolatry of the creature, in the form of polytheism, and so even to exercise an almost complete dominion over him, and the earth associated with humanity. A third consequence of sin was found in a certain weakening of freedom, which, though still existing, yet only in rare cases succeeded, without new divine influences, in reaching a morally good, perfect life.

B.—THE DOCTRINE OF REDEMPTION IN THE PERSON OF THE GOD-MAN IN ITS HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT.

CHAPTER VI.

THE DOCTRINE OF THE NECESSITY AND REALITY OF REDEMPTION THROUGH THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD.

Natural theology was so wide in its scope as understood by the Greek Church, that, as indications in the preceding chapter will have already shown, only a historical fact absolutely unparallelled could make headway against it. The Greek Fathers knew of such a fact—“the newest of the new, yea, the only new thing under the sun”; it was the Incarnation of the Son of God. It alone balanced the whole system of natural theology, so far as it was balanced, and exerted a decisive influence upon it. But the incarnation could only be attached with complete perspicuity to that point in the natural system which seemed the more irrational, the more highly the value of human nature was rated—this point of contact being death. The dreadful paradox of death was destroyed by the most paradoxical fact conceivable the incarnation of the Deity.

This at once implied that the fact could not but be capable of a subsequent explanation, nay, even of a kind of a priori deduction. But its glory, as an expression of the unfathomable goodness of God, was not thereby to be diminished. The necessity of redemption, whether that consisted in the restoration or the perfection of the human race, was based by the Fathers, as a rule, on the actual state of wretchedness of mankind under the dominion of death and sin. So far, however, as this condition was compared with the original state or destiny of man, redemption was already thought of as intrinsically necessary, and was no longer merely regarded as a postulate of man’s need of salvation. In this connection the Fathers often lost sight of the capacity left to man of being and doing good. In innumerable passages they speak of the helplessness and irredeemableness of mankind, using expressions which could without difficulty be inserted in Augustine’s doctrine of sin. But just as often a phrase occurs which betrays the fact that the whole view is nevertheless quite different; in other words, that the outward condition characterised by feebleness and death, and the sensuousness of corruptible human nature are thought of as the source of all evil and all sin. This state is accompanied by a darkening of knowledge which could not fail to subject man to the influence of the demons and lead him into idolatry.

The divine act of grace in Christ applied to death, the demonic rule, sin, and error. In Homilies, Biblical commentaries, and devotional writings, these points of view interchange, or are apparently regarded as equivalent.Perhaps the most comprehensive passage is Eusebius, Demonstr. ev. IV. 12. But it also shows how far Eusebius still was from the thorough-going view of Athanasius: Τῆς οἰκονομίας οὐ μίαν αἰτίαν ἀλλὰ καὶ πλείους εὕροι ἄν τις ἐθελήσας ζητεῖν, πρώτην μὲν γὰρ ὁ λόγος διδάσκει, ἵνα καὶ νεκρῶν καὶ ζώντων κυριεύσῃ· δευτέραν δέ ὅπως τὰς ἡμετέρας ἀπομάξοιτο ἁμαρτίας, ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τρωθεὶς καὶ γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα· τρίτην ὡς ἂν ἱερεῖον Θεοῦ καὶ μεγάλη θυσία ὑρὲρ σύμπαντος κόσμον προσαχθείη τῷ ἐπὶ πάντων Θεῷ· τετάρτην ὡς ἂν αὐτὸς τῆς πολυπλανοῦς καὶ δαιμονικῆς ἐνεργείας ἀπορρήτοις λόγοις καθαίρεσιν ἀπεργάσαιτο· πέμπτην ἐπὶ ταυτῇ, ὡς ἂν τοῖς αὐτοῦ γνωρίμοις καὶ μαθηταῖς τῆς κατὰ τὸν θάνατον παρὰ Θεῷ ζωῆς τὴν ἐλπίδα μὴ λόγοις μηδὲ ῥήμασιν καὶ φωναῖς ἀλλὰ αὐτοῖς ἔργοις παραστήσας, ὀφθαλμοῖς δὲ παραδοὺς τὴν διὰ τῶν λόγων ἐπαγγελίαν, εὐθαρσεῖς αὐτοὺς καὶ προθυμοτέρους ἀπεργάσαιτο καὶ πᾶσιν Ἕλλησιν ὁμοῦ καὶ βαρβάροις τὴν πρὸς αὐτοῦ καταβληθεῖσαν εὐσεβῆ πολιτείαν κηρύξαι. But since natural theology formed the background of their conceptions, the absolute necessity of the form assumed by the act of grace in the incarnation could be demonstrated neither in relation to sin nor to error. The whole question turned here on support, example, and illumination, or, if this line was crossed, theology ceased to be systematic and consistent. The importance of Athanasius and the Cappadocians consisted in the strenuous emphasis laid by them on the impressive connection existing between the incarnation and the restoration of the human race to the divine life, and in their consequent escape to some extent from the rationalistic scheme of doctrine; for the reference of the incarnation to sin did not carry the Greeks beyond it. The above combination had been made in the Church long before this (see Irenæus), but in the theology of Origen it had been subordinated to, and obscured by, complicated presuppositions.

Athanasius wrote a treatise “Concerning the incarnation of the Logos” (περὶ ἐνανθρωπήσεως τοῦ λόγου), an early writing whose value is so great because it dates before the outbreak of the Arian controversy.Draescke has attempted to show in a full discussion (Athanasiana i. d. Stud. u. Krit., 1893, pp. 251-315 that the writings “Against the Greeks” and the “Incarnation of the Logos” belong, not to Athanasius, but to Eusebius of Emesa, and were written A.D. 350. But after a close examination of his numerous arguments I find none of them convincing, and I am rather confirmed in my belief that no important objection can be raised against the authenticity of the two tractates. An accurate analysis of “De incarn.” is given by Kattenbusch, l. c. I., p. 297 ff. In this work he went a step further: for he strove to prove that the redemption was a necessity on the part of God. He based this necessity on the goodness (ἀγαθότης) of God. This goodness, i.e., God’s consistency and honour, involved as they were in his goodness, were necessarily expressed in the maintenance and execution of decrees once formed by him. His decrees, however, consisted, on the one hand, in his appointment of rational creatures to share in the divine life, and, on the other, in the sentence of death on transgressions. Both of these had to be established. God’s intention could not be allowed to suffer shipwreck through the wickedness of the devil and the sad choice of humanity. If it were, God would seem weak, and it would have been better if he had never created man at all. Then the transgression occurred. “What was God now to do? Ought he to have demanded penitence on the part of man? For one could have deemed that worthy of God and said, that as men had become mortal through the transgression, they should in like manner recover immortality through repentance (change of mind). But repentance (in itself) did not retain the true knowledge as regards God; God accordingly would in his turn have shown himself untruthful, if death had not compelled men;This sentence does not seem to me quite clear; the meaning is probably: since repentance does not convey the true knowledge of God, but death resulted from loss of the latter, God would have broken his word if he had abolished death in consequence of mere repentance. nor did repentance deliver from the physical, but only put an end to sins. Therefore, if the transgression had alone existed, and not its consequence, mortality, repentance would have been all very well. But when, the transgression having occurred, men were fettered to the mortality that had become natural to them, and were robbed of the grace which corresponded to their creation in the divine image, what else should have happened? Or what was needed for this grace and renewal except (the coming of) him who also in the beginning made all things of nothing, the Logos of God? For it was his part once more to restore the corruptible to incorruption.”De incarn. 7: Τί οὖν ἔδει καὶ περὶ τούτου γενέσθαι ἢ ποιῆσαι τὸν Θεόν; μετάνοιαν ἐπὶ τῇ παραβάσει τοὺς ἀνθρώπους ἀπαιτῆσαι; τοῦτο γὰρ ἄν τις ἄξιον φήσειεν Θεοῦ, λέγων, ὅτι ὥσπερ ἐκ τῆς παραβάσεως εἰς φθορὰν γεγόνασιν, οὕτως ἐκ τῆς μετανοίας γένοιντο πάλιν ἂν εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν. Ἀλλ᾽ ἡ μετάνοια οὔτε τὸ εὔλογον τὸ πρὸς τὸν Θεὸν ἐφύλαττεν· ἔμενε γὰρ πάλιν οὐκ ἀληθής, μὴ κρατουμένων ἐν τῷ θανάτῳ τῶν ἀνθρώπων· οὔτε δέ ἡ μετάνοια ἀπὸ τῶν κατὰ φύσιν ἀποκαλεῖται, ἀλλὰ μόνον παύει τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων. Εἰ μὲν οὖν μόνον ἦν πλημμέλημα καὶ μὴ φθορᾶς ἐπακολούθησις, καλῶς ἂν ἦν ἡ μετάνοια· εἰ δὲ ἅπαξ προλαβούσης τῆς παραβάσεως, εἰς την κατὰ φύσιν φθορὰν ἐκρατοῦντο οἱ ἄνθρωποι, καὶ τὴν τοῦ κατ᾽ εἰκόνα χάριν ἀφαιρεθέντες ἦσαν, τί ἄλλο ἔδει γενέσθαι; ἢ τίνος ἦν χρεία πρὸς τὴν τοιαύτην χάριν καὶ ἀνάκλησιν, ἢ τοῦ καὶ κατὰ τὴν ἀρχὴν ἐκ τοῦ μὴ ὄντος πεποιηκότος τὰ ὅλα τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγου; αὐτοῦ γὰρ ἦν πάλιν καὶ τὸ φθαρτὸν εἰς ἀφθαρσίαν ἐνεγκεῖν καὶ τὸ ὑπὲρ πάντων εὔλογον ἀποσῶσαι πρὸς τὸν πατέρα. Compare Orat. c. Arian. II. 68.

Athanasius shows that the Logos who originally created all things from nothing required to assume a body and thus to secure the restoration of man from corruptibility to incorruption (ἀφθαρσία). How this happened Athanasius discusses in various, to some extent inconsistent, lines of thought, in which he speaks especially of a removal of men’s guilt through the death of Christ, as well as of an exhaustion of the sentence of death in the sacrifice of his body presented by the Logos. From these premises it follows that Athanasius had the death of Christ in view, whenever he thought of the incarnation of the Logos. “The Logos could not suffer τὴν τοῦ θανάτου κράτησιν (‘the power of death’ in mankind), and therefore took up the fight with death. He assumed a body and so became mortal. This body he surrendered to death on behalf of all. His body could not be really overcome, ‘kept’, by death. In it all died, and for this very reason the law of death (νόμος τοῦ Θανάτου) is now abrogated; its power was exhausted on the body of the Lord (κυριακὸν σῶμα); it had no further claim on his fellow-men (κατὰ τῶν ὁμοίων ἀνθρώπων) . . . The body assumed by the Logos came to share in the universal meaning of the Logos. The resurrection of the body and of the Logos guaranteed the general resurrection and incorruption (ἀφθαρσία).”Kattenbusch, p. 298. Here follows the place assigned to the sacrifice. It presented that which was due (ὀφειλόμενον) to God in place of death. But the pervading and prominent thought of Athanasius is that the incarnation itself involved the Christian’s passage from the fate of death to incorruption (ἀφθαρσία), since the physical union of the human with the divine nature in the midst of mankind raised the latter to the region of divine rest and blessedness.L. c., ch. IX.: Ὥσπερ μεγάλου βασιλέως εἰσελθόντος εἴς τινα πόλιν μεγάλην, καὶ οἰκήσαντος εἰς μίαν τῶν ἐν αὐτῇ οἰκιῶν, πάντως ἡ τοιαύτη πόλις τιμῆς πολλῆς καταξιοῦται, καὶ οὐκέτι τις ἐχθρὸς αὐτὴν οὔτε λῃστὴς ἐπιβαίνων καταστρέφει, πάσης δὲ μᾶλλον ἐπιμελείας ἀξιοῦται διὰ τὸν εἰς μίαν αὐτῆς οἰκίαν οἰκήσαντα βασιλέα· σὕτως καὶ ἐπὶ τοῦ πάντων βασιλέως γέγονεν. Ελθόντος γὰρ αὐτοῦ ἐπί τὴν ἡμετέραν χώραν καὶ οἰκήσαντος εἰς ἓν τῶν ὁμοίων σῶμα, λοιπὸν πᾶσα ἡ κατὰ τῶν ἀνθρώπων παρὰ τῶν ἐχθρῶν ἐπιβουλὴ πέπαυται, καὶ ἡ τοῦ θανάτου ἡφάνισται φθορὰ ἡ πάλαι κατ᾽ αὐτῶν ἰσχύουσα. Kattenbusch is right in considering Ritschl (l. c., I., p. 10, 11) to have gone too far in his assertion that “Athanasius’ interpretation of the death and resurrection of Christ is a particular instance of the main thought that the Logos of God guarantees all redemptive work, using the human body in which he dwells as the means.” Athanasius certainly did not regard the death and resurrection as merely particular instances. They formed the object of the incarnation; not that they were added or supplementary to it; they were bound up with it. The result of the incarnation consisted accordingly, first, in the eradication of corruption (φθορά)—by the existence of the divine in its midst, but, finally, by the death of Christ, in which the truthfulness of God was justified—and in the corresponding transformation into incorruptibility—renewal, or completion of the divine image by participation in the nature, free from all suffering, of the Deity.Yet the view of Athanasius was not simply naturalistic; incorruptibleness rather included the elements of goodness, love, and wisdom; a renewal affecting the inner nature of man was also involved. But it was not possible for Athanasius to expound this systematically; therefore Schultz seems to me to have asserted too much (Gottheit Christi, p. 80). But, secondly, the incarnation also resulted, as indeed had been long before held by the Apologists, in the restoration of the correct knowledge of God, which embraced the power of living rightly, through the incarnate Logos. But while Athanasius kept firmly in view this restoration of the knowledge of God through the Logos, he was not thinking merely of the new law, i.e., the preaching of Christ; he held it to have been given in the contemplation of the Person of Christ. In his work, that of a man, God came down to us. The dullest eye was now in a position to perceive the one true God—viz., in Christ—and to escape from the error of demon-worship. This thought is very significant; it had already been expressed by Clement and Origen, having received a deeper meaning from the latter, though he had not yet given it so central a place in his system. Athanasius expressly notes that creation was not sufficient to let us perceive the Creator and Father; we needed a man to live and work among us before we could see clearly and certainly the God and Father of all.The chief passages occur l. c., XIV-XVI., chap. XIV. fin: One might suppose that the fitting way to know God was to recover our knowledge of him from the works of creation. It is not so, for men are no longer capable of directing their gaze upward; they look down. “Therefore, when he seeks to benefit men, he takes up his dwelling among us as man, and assumes a body like the human one, and instructs men within their own lower sphere, i.e., through the works of the body, that those who would not perceive him from his care for all and his rule might at least from the works of the body itself know the Logos of God in the body, and through him the Father.” C. 15: Ἐπειδὴ οἱ ἄνθρωποι ἀποστραφέντες τὴν πρὸς τὸν Θαεὸν θεωρίαν. καὶ ὡς ἐν βύθῳ βυθισθέντες κάτω τοὺς ὀφθαλμοὺς ἔχοντες, ἐν γενέσει καὶ τοῖς αἰσθητοῖς τὸν Θεὸν ἀνεζήτουν, ἀνθρώπους θνητοὺς καὶ δαίμονας ἑαυτοῖς θεοὺς ἀνατυπούμενοι· τούτου ἕνεκα ὁ φιλάνθρωπος καὶ κοινὸς πάντων σωτήρ, ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ λόγος, λαμβάνει ἑαυτῷ σῶμα καὶ ὡς ἄνθρωπος ἐν ἀνθρώποις ἀναστέφεται καὶ τὰς αἰσθήσεις πάντων ἀνθρώπων προσλαμβάνει, ἵνα οἱ ἐν σωματικοῖς νοοῦντες εἶναι τὸν Θεόν, αφ᾽ ὧν ὁ κύριος ἐργάζεται διά τῶν τοῦ σώματος ἔργων, ἀπ᾽ αὐτῶν νοήσωσι τὴν ἀλήθειαν, καὶ δι᾽ αὐτοῦ τὸν πατέρα λογίσωνται. The sequel shows, indeed, that Athanasius thought above all of Jesus’ miraculous works. He has summarised his whole conception of the result of redemption in the pregnant sentence (ch. XVI.): Ἀμφότερα γὰρ ἐφιλανθρωπεύετο ὁ σωτὴρ διὰ τῆς ἐνανθρωπήσεως, ὅτι καὶ τὸν θάνατον ἐξ ἡμῶν ἡφάνιζε καὶ ἀνεκαίνιζεν ἡμᾶς· καὶ ὅτι ἀφανὴς ὢν καὶ ἀόρατος διὰ τῶν ἔργων ἐνέφαινε καὶ ἐγνώριζεν ἑαυτὸν εἶναι τὸν λόγον τοῦ πατρός, τὸν τοῦ παντὸς ἡγεμόνα καὶ βασιλέα. Origen had already laid stress on the perception of God in Christ, and set it above philosophical knowledge (analytic, synthetic, and analogical, against Alcinous, Maximus of Tyre, and Celsus): see c. Cels. VII. 42, 44; De princip. I. 1. For Clement see Protrept. I. 8: ὁ λόγος ὁ τοῦ Θεοῦ ἄνθρωπος γενόμενος, ἵνα δὴ καὶ σὺ παρὰ ἀνθρώπου μάθῃς, πῆ ποτὲ ἄρα ἄνθρωπος γένηται Θεός.

APPENDIX TO CHAPTER VI.

THE IDEAS OF REDEMPTION FROM THE DEVIL, AND OF ATONEMENT THROUGH THE WORK OF THE GOD-MAN.

§ 1. Christ’s Death as Ransom and Sacrifice.

The Greek Fathers did not go beyond, nor could they give a more consistent form to, the views on this subject already expounded by Irenæus and Origen.See Vol. II., pp. 286 ff., 365 ff. The fact of the incarnation was so closely and exclusively connected, at least in the East, with the conception of the result of redemption, that everything else had to yield in importance to the latter. Of course at all times and in all directions the attempt was made, after the example of Irenæus and the indications of Holy Scripture, to insert the facts of Jesus’ history in the work of redemption. This can be seen especially in Athanasius and the two Cyrils—“Whatever happened to his humanity has happened to us.” Again, the death of Christ was frequently recalled when the forgiveness of sins was taken into account; but it is difficult here to draw the line between exegesis, rhetoric, and dogmatics. As a rule, we obtain the impression that theology could have dispensed with all the facts of Christ’s life.The two Cappadocians doubted, not without reserve, the necessity of Christ’s death. G. of Nazianzus says that the divine Logos could also have redeemed us θελήματι μόνον, and G. of Nyssa (Orat. cat. 17) thought that the method of redemption was to be considered as arbitrary as the remedies of physicians. In other places, indeed, they expressed themselves differently, and Athanasius connected the death of Christ closely with the incarnation (see above). On the other hand, the death of Christ always appeared so tragic and wonderful an event, that men were compelled to attribute a special saving value to it. But just as it was not represented in art up to the fifth century, so the majority of the Greeks really regarded it, along with Christ’s whole passion, as a sacred mystery, and that not only in the intellectual sense. Here thought yielded to emotion, and imposed silence on itself. Goethe said towards the close of his life, “We draw a veil over the sufferings of Christ simply because we revere them so deeply; we hold it to be reprehensible presumption to play and trifle with and embellish those profound mysteries in which the divine depths of suffering lie hidden, never to rest until even the noblest seems mean and tasteless.” That exactly represents the Greek feeling. It also gives the key to the saying of Gregory of Nazianzus (Orat. XXVII. 10) that the appreciation of the sufferings of Christ was one of those points on which it was possible to make a mistake with impunity (cf. Iren. I. 10). By this he meant, not only that the specific result of the passion was uncertain, but also that it was inexpressible.See the great importance laid already by Justin on the Cross, an importance which it still has for the piety of the Greek Church. It was reserved for the Middle Ages and our modern times to cast off all modesty and reverence here.

Yet a few theologians and exegetes could not refrain from speculating about the death of Christ, though they did not yet use frivolous arithmetical sums. The death of Christ was, in the first place, connected, following Rom. VIII. 3, with the condemnation of sin—death—in the flesh (κατακρίνειν τὴν ἁμαρτίαν (τὸν θάνατον) ἐν τῇ σαρκί). That constituted the strongest connection of Ensarkosis (embodiment in the flesh), death, resurrection, and redemption, reached within the Greek Church. In Christ’s final agony the Ensarkosis first came to some extent to its end, for by death the flesh was purified from sin and mortality, and was presented in Christ’s resurrection pure, holy, and incorruptible. This thought was worked out in various ways by Athanasius, Gregory of Nyssa, and Cyril of Jerusalem, as well as, especially, by Apollinaris.Apollinaris who was the strictest dogmatist of the fourth century, substantially limited the significance of Christ’s death, so far as I know, to this effect. But in later times the conception of the complete hypostatic union forbade the vanquishing of corruption (ϕθρά) and death being dated a moment later than the assumption of human nature. Therefore it was held that Christ had even at the incarnation destroyed corruption and death (the penalty of sin) from the flesh; but his death was wholly voluntary and economic.

In the second place Irenæus had already, in a connected argument, emphasised the necessity of tracing the incarnation of the Logos and his passion to the goodness and righteousness of God, and he further insisted that Christ had delivered us not from a state of infirmity, but from the power of the devil, redeeming those estranged from God, and unnaturally imprisoned, not by force, but with due regard to justice. Origen, however, was the first to explain the passion and death of Christ with logical precision under the points of view of ransom and sacrifice. With regard to the former he was the first to set up the theory that the devil had acquired a legal claim on men, and therefore to regard the death of Christ (or his soul) as a ransom paid to the devil. This Marcionite doctrine of price and barter was already supplemented by Origen with the assumption of an act of deceit on the part of God. It was, in spite of an energetic protest, taken up by his disciples, and afterwards carried out still more offensively. It occurs in Gregory of Nyssa who (Catech. 15-27), in dealing with the notion of God, treats it broadly and repulsively. We find it in Ambrose, who speaks of the pia fraus, in Augustine and Leo I. It assumes its worst form in Gregory I.: the humanity of Christ was the bait; the fish, the devil, snapped at it, and was left hanging on the invisible hook, Christ’s divinity. It proves that the Fathers had gradually lost any fixed conception of the holiness and righteousness of God; but on the other hand, it expresses the belief that the devil’s power will not first be broken by the future appearing of Christ, but has been already shattered by his death. In this sense it is the epitaph of the old dogmatics which turned on eschatology.Irenæus held that men were God’s debtors, but in the power (unjustly) of the devil. Origen held a different view. The devil had a claim on men, and Christ paid him his soul as the price, but the devil could not keep it. The devil acted unjustly to Christ, he was not entitled to take possession of one who was sinless; see passages given in Münscher, p. 428 ff. Leo I, following Ambrose, gives the deception theory in a crude form. For the rest, Gregory of NazianusSee Ullman, Gregor, p. 318 f. and John of Damascus felt scruples about admitting God and the devil to have been partners in a legal transaction.

With reference to the sacrifice of Christ, Origen was of epoch-making importance. On the one hand, he started from Rom. III. 25 and similar texts, on the other, he was strongly influenced by the Græco-oriental expiatory mysteries, and was the first to introduce into the Church, following the precedent set by the Gnostics, a theology of sacrifice or propitiation based on the death of Christ. He thereby enriched, but at the same time confused, Greek theology. He taught that all sins required a holy and pure sacrifice in order to be atoned for, in other words, to be forgiven by God; this sacrifice was the body of Christ, presented to the Father. This thought which, as expounded, approximates to the idea of a vicarious suffering of punishment, was adopted by Athanasius who combined it with the other ideas that God’s veracity required the threat of death to be carried out, and that death accordingly was accepted by Christ on behalf of all, and by him was destroyed.De incarnat. 9: Συωιδὼν γὰρ ὁ λόγος, ὅτι ἄλλως οὐκ ἂν λυθείη τῶν ἀνθρώπων ἡ φθορά, εἰ μὴ διὰ τοῦ πάντως ἀποθανεῖν, οὐχ οἷόν τε δὲ ἦν τὸν λόγον ἀποθανεῖν, ἀθάνατον ὄντα καὶ τοῦ πατρὸς υἱόν, τούτου ἕνεκεν τό δυνάμενον ἀποθανεῖν ἑαυτῷ λαμβάνει σῶμα, ἵνα τοῦτο τοῦ ἐπὶ πάντων λόγου μεταλαβόν, ἀντὶ πάντων ἱκανὸν γένηται τῷ θανάτῳ καὶ διὰ τὸν ἐνοικήσαντα λόγον ἄφθαρτον διαμείνῃ, καὶ λοιπὸν ἀπὸ πάντων ἡ φθορὰ παύσηται τῇ τῆς ἀναστάσεως χάριτι· ὅθεν ὡς ἱερεῖον καὶ θῦμα παντός ἐλεύθερον σπίλου, ὃ αὐτὸς ἑαυτῷ ἔλαβε σῶμα προσάγων εἰς θάνατον, ἀπὸ πάντων εὐθὺς τῶν ὁμοίων ἡφάνιζε τὸν θάνατον τᾕ προσφορᾷ τοῦ καταλλήλου. We see how the conceptions of the vicarious endurance of punishment, and of a sacrifice, meet here; indeed, generally speaking, it was difficult to keep them apart. Athanasius throughout lays greater stress on the former; Origen, as a Hellenist, on the latter; see Athan., l. c., 6-10, but esp. Ch. XX: ὡφείλετο πάντας ἀποθανεῖν . . . ὑπὲρ πάντων τὴν θυσίαν ἀνέφερεν, ἀντὶ πάντων τὸν ἑαυτοῦ ναὸν εἰς θάνατον παραδιδούς, ἵνα τοὺς μὲν πάντας ἀνυπευθύνους καὶ ἐλευθέρους τῆς ἀρχαίας παραβάσεως ποιήσῃ . . . ὁ πάντων θάνατος ἐν τῷ κυριακῷ σώματι ἐπληροῦτο καὶ ὁ θάνατος καὶ ἡ φθορὰ διὰ τὸν συνόντα λόγον ἐξηφανίζετο. θανάτου γὰρ ἦν χρεία, καὶ θάνατον ὑπὲρ πάντων ἔδει γενέσθαι, ἵνα τὸ παρὰ πάντων ὀφειλόμενον γένηται, c. Arian. I. 60, II. 7, 66 sq. The idea that only the sacrificial death of God could vanquish death which was decreed by him, and thus conciliate God, occurs also in other Greek Fathers of the fourth century.See esp. Cyril, Catech. XIII. 33, but also the Cappadocians; cf. Ullmann, l. c., p. 316 ff. Following the estimate formed of the infinite value of the final passion of the God-man,Even Cyril of Jerusalem says, l. c.: οὐ τοσαύτη ἦν τῶν ἁμαρτωλῶν ἡ ἀνομία, ὅση τοῦ ὑπεραποθνήσκοντος ἡ δικαιοσύνη. οὐ τοσοῦτον ἡμάρτομεν, ὅσον ἐδικαιοπράγνσεν ὁ τὴν ψυχὴν ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν τεθεικώς. Similarly Chrysostom in the Ep. ad Rom., Hom. 10, T. X., p. 121. But the idea is emotional, and not the starting-point of a philosophical theory. It is different with the Westerns. we constantly find in them also traces, sometimes more, sometimes less, distinct, of the thought of substitution in connection with satisfaction; but it remains obscure,The expiation of our guilt is more infrequently thought of than the taking over of sin’s punishment; that is guilt is only indirectly referred to. nay, it is frequently again withdrawn. In other words, it was sometimes twisted, as already in Irenæus, into the idea of example pure and simple. Thus the Antiochene school especially, who held his death to have been a natural event, considered that Christ’s final passion influenced our freely-formed resolutions, but this version is not entirely wanting in any Greek Father. Others, e.g., Gregory of Nazianzus, explained that God did not demand the sacrifice—or ransom—but received it δι᾽ οἰκονομίαν.See Ullmann, l. c., p. 319. In this case, as much as in earlier times, δι᾽ οἰκονομίαν meant “that the Scriptures might be fulfilled”; that is, it was tantamount to abandoning a direct explanation of the fact itself. In any case Cyril of Alexandria shows most clearly the vicarious idea of the passion and death of the God-man in connection with the whole Christological conception.The idea of sacrifice falls into the background, which was only to be expected in the case of this energetic spokesman of genuine Greek Christian theology. Substitution passed naturally into, or rather grew out of, the idea of mystical mediation. Because all human nature was purified and transfigured really and physically in Christ, he could, regarded as an individual, be conceived as substitute or ἀντίλυτρον; see Cyril on John I. 29 and Gal. III. 13. Meanwhile Cyril also says that Christ outweighed all in merit. For the rest, he does not venture to affirm that Christ became a curse, but explains that he endured what one burdened with a curse must suffer. Compare also the exposition in the Orat. de recta fide ad reginas (Mansi IV., p. 809). The points of voluntariness and substitution were emphasised more strongly by orthodox theologians after Cyril, in order not to compromise the perfectly hypostatic deification—from the moment of the incarnation—of Christ’s human nature. Eusebius’ method of formulating the idea comes nearest Paul’s, but it is only a paraphrase;Demonstr. X. 1: ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κολασθεὶς καὶ τιμωρίαν ὑποσχών, ἣν αὐτὸς μὲν οὐκ ὤφειλεν, ἀλλ᾽ ἡμεῖς τοῦ πλήθους ἕνεκεν τῶν πεπλημμελημένων, ἡμῖν αἴτιος τῆς τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων ἀφέσεως κατέστη . . . τὴν ἡμῖν προστετιμημένην κατάραν ἐφ᾽ ἑαυτὸν ἑλκύσας, γενόμενος ὑπὲρ ἡμῶν κατάρα. and the inability of theologians to recognise, expose and dispute the differences in their divergent conceptions is the strongest proof that they were not clearly aware of the bearing and weight of their own propositions.

§ 2. Christ as man the Mediator.

The West, which had a scheme of its own in Christology, (see below) also possessed characteristic features in its conception of the work of Christ.See fuller details in next book. Here we only give a sketch. Comp. Wirth, Der verdienstbegriff bei Tertullian, 1892. Here, as in almost all departments of activity in the Latin Church, it was of the highest moment that Tertullian, the jurist, and Cyprian, the ecclesiastical ruler, were the first Latin theologians. Disinclined for philosophical and strictly religious speculation, and dominated by a prosaic but powerful moralism, the Latins were possessed from the first of an impulse to carry religion into the legal sphere. The sacred authorities, or the Symbol, were regarded as the “law” (lex) of God; divine service was the place where the censure of God was pronounced; the deity was thought of as judge. Father, Son, and Spirit were held to be “personæ” who possessed a common property (“substantia” not “natura”). Christ as the “persona” who controlled a two-fold “property,” one inherited from his Father (his divinity) and one from his mother (his humanity). Christ required to be obedient to God, and—as Tertullian first saidSee Vol. II., p. 294. and Cyprian repeated—had to satisfy God (deo satisfacere).This notion was afterwards one of the most common in the West. In this phrase everything was comprised: man—the Christian—was to give God that which he owed him, i.e., he was to satisfy God’s legal claims. After this came the “promereri deum”, i.e., rendering services to God, gaining God’s favour by our merits. But in Tertullian and Cyprian “satisfacere deo” meant more precisely to atone for wrongs inflicted on God by acts of penitence, and to appease him (placare deum, satisfacere deo per hostias: Arnobius). Further “promereri” was applied above all to bona opera, works (fasting) and alms-giving (Cypr., De oper. et eleemos.). Even from the middle of the third century an ecclesiastical system was drawn out in the Latin West of works to be rendered to God (order of penance);It occurs already in Tertullian; but we do not yet perceive its full extent in the Church in his time; it has not even the full significance that it possesses in Cyprian. and this system gradually took in, like a net, all man’s relations to God. It was throughout governed by the idea that the magnitude of transgressions and that of the works rendered to God, the penitential offerings, were to have a strictly legal relation, and, similarly, that what a man’s merits entitled him to from God had a fixed and regulated value. It is not the case, as has been supposed, that this idea first arose in the Church in the Romano-German period, and is therefore to be described as a result of German criminal law. On the contrary, the idea of satisfactiones and merita already belonged in its entirety to the Roman age, and during it was strictly worked out. From the days of Tertullian and Cyprian the Latins were familiar with the notion that the Christian had to propitiate God, that cries of pain, sufferings, and deprivations were means, sacrificial means, of expiation, that God took strict account of the quantity of the atonement, and that, where there was no guilt to be blotted out, those very means were represented as merits. All those trivial definitions, which betray a low state of legal and moral views, and which one would gladly attribute to barbarous nations, had become the property of the Church before the incursion of the Germans; and Anselm’s principle, “Every sin must be followed either by satisfaction or punishment”,Necesse est ut omne peccatum satisfactio aut pœna sequatur. can be already shown in Sulpicius Severus,See Sulp. Sev., Dial. II. 10: Fornicatio deputetur ad pœnam, nisi satisfactione purgetur. and corresponds to the thought of Cyprian and his successors.For fuller details see a later Vol.

APPENDIX ON MANICHÆISM.

Three great religious systems confronted each other in Western Asia and Southern Europe from the close of the third century: Neoplatonism, Catholicism and Manichæism. All three may be characterised as the final results of a history, lasting for more than a thousand years, of the religious development of the civilised peoples from Persia to Italy. In all three the old national and particular character of religions was laid aside; they were world-religions of the most universal tendency, and making demands which in their consequences transformed the whole of human life, public and private. For the national cultus they substituted a system which aspired to be theology, theory of the universe and science of history, and at the same time embraced a definite ethics, and a ritual of divine service. Formally, therefore, the three religions were alike, and they were also similar in that each had appropriated the elements of different older religions. Further, they showed their similarity in bringing to the front the ideas of revelation, redemption, ascetic virtue, and immortality. But Neoplatonism was natural religion spiritualised, the polytheism of Greece transfigured by Oriental influences and developed into pantheism. Catholicism was the monotheistic world-religion based on the O. T. and the Gospel, but constructed by the aid of Hellenic speculation and ethics. Manichæism was the dualistic world-religion resting on Chaldæism,See Brandt, Die mandäische Religion, 1889 (further, Wellhausen in the deutsch. Litt.-Ztg., 1890, No. 41). but interspersed with Christian, Parsi, and perhaps Buddhist thoughts. To Manichæism the Hellenic element was wanting, to Catholicism the Chaldee and Persian. These three world-religions developed in the course of two centuries (c. A.D. 50-250), Catholicism coming first and Manichæism last. Catholicism and Manichæism were superior to Neoplatonism for the very reason that the latter possessed no founder; it, therefore, developed no elemental force, and never lost the character of being an artificial creation. Attempts which were made to invent a founder for it naturally failed. But, even apart from the contents of its religion, Catholicism was superior to Manichæism, because its founder was venerated not merely as the bearer of revelation, but as the Redeemer in person and the Son of God. The fight waged by Catholicism with Neoplatonism had been already decided about the middle of the fourth century, although the latter continued to hold its ground in the Greek Empire for almost two centuries longer. As against Manichæism the Catholic Church was certain of victory from the beginning; for at the moment when Manichæism disputed its supremacy, it became the privileged State Church. But its opponent did not suffer itself to be annihilated; it lasted till far into the Middle Ages in East and West, though in various modifications and forms.

Authorities—(a) Oriental.

1. Mohammedan.—Among our sources for the history of Manichæism the Oriental are the most important; of these the Mohammedan, though comparatively late, are distinguished by the excellence of the tradition and their impartiality, and must be given the first place, since in them old Manichæan writings are employed, and we possess no other originals of this sort belonging to the third century, except a few short and rather unimportant fragments. At the head stands Abulfaragius, Fihrist (c. 980), see the edition by Flügel and the work of the latter: “Mani, seine Lehre und seine Schriften,” 1862; further, Shahrastâni , Kitâb al-milal wan-nuhal (12th century), see edition by Cureton and German translation by Haarbrücker, 1851; some notes and extracts in Tabari (10th century), al-Birunî (11th century), Ibn al-Murtada (see Kessler, Mani, I., p. 346 ff.), and other Arabian and Persian historians.

2. Christian.—Of Eastern Christians we learn most from Ephraem Syrus (+373) in various writings, and in a tractate on the subject edited by Overbeck; from Esnîk, the Armenian (see Zeitschr. f. d. hist. Theol., 1840, II.; Langlois, Collection, etc., II., p. 395 sq.), who wrote in the fifth century against Marcion and Mani; and from the Alexandrian Patriarch Eutychius (+916) who composed a chronicle (ed. by Pococke, 1628). Besides this, separate pieces of information occur in Aphraates (4th century), Barhebraeus (Arab. and Syr. 13th century) and others.

(b) Greek and Latin.

The earliest mention of the Manichæans in the Roman or Greek empire occurs in an edict of Diocletian (see Hänel, Cod. Gregor. tit. XV.), which is held by some not to be genuine, and by others is dated A.D. 287, 290, 296, or 308 (so Mason, The Persec. of Dioclet., p. 275 sq.). Eusebius gives a brief account (H. E. VII. 31). The main authority, however, for Greek and Roman writers was the Acta Archelai, which though not what they pretended to be, namely, an account of a disputation between Mani and Bishop Archelaus of Cascar in Mesopotamia, yet contain much that is reliable, esp as to the doctrine of Mani, and also embrace Manichæan fragments. The Acts, which for the rest consist of various documents, originated at the beginning of the fourth century (in Edessa?). Jerome maintains (De vir. inl.72) that they were originally composed in Syria (so also Kessler); but Nöldeke (Ztschr. d. deutsch. morgenl. Gesellsch. vol. 43, p. 537 ff.) and Rahlfs have disproved Kessler’s arguments (Gött. Gel. Anz., 1889, No. 23). They have made it very probable that the Acts, while they may have been based on Syrian sources, were originally written in Greek. They were soon afterwards translated into Latin. We only possess this version (Edited by Zacagni, 1698; Routh, Reliq. S. Vol. V., 1848); of the Greek version small fragments have been preserved (see on the Acta Archelai the discussions by Zittwitz in the Zeitschr. f. die histor. Theol., 1873, and the Dissertation by Oblasinski. Acta disp. Arch. et Manetis, 1874. In the form in which we now have them, they are a compilation largely edited on the pattern of the Clementine Homilies). The Acta were made use of by Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech. VI.), Epiphanius (Hær. 66) and very many others. All Greek and Latin students of heresy have put the Manichæans in their catalogues; but they only rarely give any original information about them (see Theodoret Haer. fab. I. 26).

Important matter occurs in the decrees of Councils from the fourth century (see Mansi, Acta Concil., and Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, Vols. I.—III.), and in the controversial writings of Titus of Bostra (4th century, in Syriac after a MS. of A.D. 411) πρὸς Μανιχαίους (edit. by de Lagarde, 1859), and Alexander of Lycopolis, Λόγος πρὸς τὰς Μανιχαίου δόξας (edit. by Combefis.). Of Byzantines, John of Damascus (De hæres and Dial.) and Photius (cod. 179 Biblioth.) deserve special mention; see also the Manichæan form of oath in Tollii insignia itiner. ital. p. 126 sq., and in Cotelier, P. P. App. Opp. I. p. 543; further, Rahlfs, 1.c. The controversy with the Paulicians and Bogomilians, who were frequently identified with the Manichæans, renewed the interest in the latter. In the West the works of Augustine are the great repository for our knowledge of the Manichæans:—“Contra epistolam Manichæi, quam vocant fundamenti”, “Contra Faustum Manichæum”, “Contra Fortunatum”, “Contra Adimantum”, “Contra Secundinum”, “De actis cum Felice Manichæo”, “De genesi c. Manichæos”, “De natura boni”, “De duabus animabus”, “De utilitate credendi”, “De moribus eccl. Cathol. et de moribus Manichæorum”, “De vera religione”, “De hæres.” But the more complete the view of Manichæism to be obtained from these writings, the more cautious we must be in our generalisations; for the Manichæism of the West undoubtedly received Christian elements which were wanting in its original and oriental form.

Mani’s Life.

Mani (Μάνης; Manes, Μανιχαῖος, Manichæus—the name has not yet been explained; it is not even known whether it is of Persian or Semitic origin) is said, as the Acta Archelai inform us, to have been originally called “Cubricus”. Nothing reliable was ever known as to his life in the Romano-Greek empire; for the account in the Acta Archelai is wholly biassed and untrustworthy. Even if criticism succeeded in pointing out the sources from which it was derived, in discovering the tendencies that were at work, and in thus sifting out portions that were tenable, yet it could only do so by depending on the comparatively trustworthy Oriental Mohammedan tradition. We must therefore examine the latter alone. According to it, Mani was a Persian of distinguished birth belonging to Mardin. The date of his birth is uncertain; Kessler holds the statement in Bîrunî to be reliable, that he was born in anno 527 of the era of the Babylonian astronomers, i.e., A.D. 215-216. He received a careful education from his father Fâtàk (Πατέκιος) at Ctesiphon. Since the father afterwards adhered to the confession of the “Moghtasilah”, the Baptists, in southern Babylonia, the son was also brought up in their religious doctrines and practices. The Baptists (see the Fihrist) were probably not unconnected with the Elkesaites and Hemerobaptists, and were in any case allied to the Mandæans. It is not improbable that this Babylonian sect had adopted Christian elements. The boy accordingly became early acquainted with very different forms of religion. If even a small proportion of the narratives about his father rest on truth—the greater number being certainly only Manichæan legends—he had already introduced his son into the religious medley, out of which the Manichæan system arose. Manichæan tradition tells us that Mani received revelations, and took up a critical attitude towards religious instruction, even when a boy. But it is all the less trustworthy, as it also relates that he was forbidden to ventilate publicly his new religious knowledge. It was only when he was from 25 to 30 years of age that he began to preach his new religion at the court of the Persian king, Sapores I.—on the day, it is stated, of the king’s coronation, A.D. 241-242. A Persian tradition says that he was previously a Christian presbyter, but this, in any case, is wrong. Mani did not remain long in Persia, but undertook long journeys for the purpose of spreading his religion, and he also sent out disciples. According to the Acta Archelai, his missionary activity extended into the West, into the territory of the Christian Church; but it is certain from Oriental sources that his work was rather carried on in Transoxania, Western China, and southwards into India. His labours met with success there as well as in Persia. Like Mohammed after him, and the founder of the Elkesaites before him, he proclaimed himself the last and greatest of the prophets, whose revelation of God surpassed all that had been given till then, the latter being allowed only a relative value. He instituted the absolute religion. In the last years of the reign of Sapores I. (c. A.D. 270) Mani returned to the Persian capital, and gained adherents even at the court. Naturally, however, the ruling priestly caste of the Magi, on whom the king was compelled to lean, were hostile to him, and after a few successes Mani was taken prisoner and driven into exile. The successor of Sapores, Hormuz (272-273), seems to have been favourable to him, but Bahrâm I. abandoned him to the fanaticism of the Magi, and had him crucified at the capital, A.D. 276-277. His dead body was skinned; and his adherents were dreadfully persecuted by Bahrâm.

Mani’s Writings.

Mani himself composed very many writings and epistles, of which a large proportion were still known to the Mohammedan historians, but which are now all lost. The later heads of the Manichæan Churches also wrote religious tractates, so that the ancient Manichæan literature must have been very extensive. According to the Fihrist, Mani made use of the Persian and Syriac languages; he invented, however, like the Oriental Marcionites before him, an alphabet of his own which the Fihrist has transmitted to us. In this alphabet the sacred works of the Manichæans were afterwards written. The Fihrist enumerates seven principal works by Mani, six in Syriac and one in Persian; as to some of them we possess statements also in Titus of Bostra, Epiphanius, Augustine, and Photius, as well as in the oath-formula and the Acta Archelai. We have (1) The Book of mysteries: see Acta Archelai; it contained discussions with the Christian sects which were spreading in the East, especially the Marcionites and Bardesanians, as well as with their conception of the Old and New Testaments. (2) The Book of Giants (demons? probably in connection with Gen. VI.). (3) The Book of Regulations for the hearers,—apparently identical with the “epistula fundamenti” of Augustine and the “Book of the Chapters” of Epiphanius and the Acta Archelai. It was the most extensively circulated and popular of Manichæan works, and was also translated into Greek and Latin-being a brief summary of the whole fundamentally authoritative doctrine. (4) The Book Schâhpûrakân. Flügel was unable to explain this title; according to Kessler, it means “Epistle to King Sapores”. This tractate contained eschatological teaching. (5) The Book of quickening. It is identified by Kessler with the “Thesaurus (vitæ)” of the Acta Archelai, Epiphanius, Photius, and Augustine; in that case it was also in use among the Latin Manichæans. (6) The Book πραγματεία—contents unknown. (7)—In the Persian language; a book whose title is not stated in the Fihrist, as we have it, but which is probably identical with the “Holy Gospel” of the Manichæans; see the Acta Archelai and many witnesses. This was the work set up by the Manichæans in opposition to the Gospels of the Church. Besides these main works, Mani wrote a great number of shorter tractates and letters. The epistolography was then established by his successors. These Manichæan treatises were also familiar in the Græco-Roman empire and existed in collections—see the βιβλίον ἐπιστολῶν in the oath-formula; and an “epistula ad virginem Menoch” in Augustine. Fabricius has collected the Greek fragments of Manichæan epistles in the Bibliotheca Græca VII. 2, p. 311 sq. There also existed a Manichæan Book of “memoirs” and one of “prayers” in the Greek language, as well as many others (e.g., the “Canticum Amatorium” cited by Augustine), all of which, however, were destroyed by Christian Bishops in alliance with the magistracy. A Manichæan Epistle to one Marcellus has been preserved to us in the Acta Archelai. Zittwitz supposes that this letter was much fuller in its original form, and that the author of the Acts has borrowed from it the material for the speeches which he makes Mani deliver in the discussion. The same scholar refers the account of Turbo in the Acts and their historical statements (in section 4) to the writing of a Turbo of Mesopotamia, a Manichæan renegade and Christian. But on this point it is at least possible to hold a different opinion.

Mani’s Doctrine. The Manichæan System.

Clearly as the main features of the Manichæan doctrine can be presented even at the present day, and certain as it is that Mani himself published a complete system, yet many details are uncertain, being differently described in different places, and it often remains doubtful what the original doctrinal view of the founder was.

The Manichæan system of religion was a consistent and uncompromising dualism, in the form of a fanciful view of nature. No distinction was drawn between the physical and ethical: in this respect the character of the system was thoroughly materialistic; for Mani’s identification of the good with light, and the bad with darkness, was not merely figurative. The light was really the only good, and darkness the only bad. Hence it followed, that religious knowledge could be nothing but the knowledge of nature and its elements, and that redemption consisted exclusively in a physical deliverance of the fractions of light from darkness. But under such circumstances, ethics became a doctrine of abstinence from all elements arising from the realm of darkness.

The self-contradictory character of the present world formed for Mani the starting-point of his speculation. But the inconsistency appeared to him to be primarily elemental, and only secondarily ethical, in so far as he regarded the material side of man as an emanation from the bad parts of nature. From the self-contradictory character of the world he inferred two beings, originally wholly separate from each other,—light and darkness. Both were, however, to be thought of after the analogy of a kingdom. The light appeared as the good Primeval Spirit-God, shining in the ten (twelve) virtues of love, faith, fidelity, magnanimity, wisdom, gentleness, knowledge, intelligence, mystery, and insight. It also manifested itself in the heaven and earth of light with their guardians, the glorious Æons. The darkness, similarly, was a spiritual realm: more correctly, it was represented in a spiritual, or feminine, personification; but it had no “God” at its head. It embraced an “earth of darkness”. As the earth of light had five distinguishing features—the gentle breeze, cooling wind, bright light, cheering fire, and clear water—so also the earth of darkness had five—fog, fiery heat, burning wind, darkness, and damp. Satan with his demons was born from the realm of darkness. From eternity the two realms stood opposed. They came into contact on one side, but they did not mingle. Then Satan began to storm, and made an attack on the realm, the earth, of light. The God of light, with his Syzygos (mate) “the spirit of his right hand”, now generated the Primeval man, and sent him, equipped with the five pure elements, to fight against Satan. But Satan proved himself the stronger. Primeval man was defeated for a moment. Now indeed the God of light himself marched forth, utterly defeated Satan by the help of new Æons—the spirit of life, etc.—and delivered the Primeval man. But a part of the light of the latter had already been robbed by darkness, the five dark elements had already mingled with the generations of light. The Primeval man could only descend into the abyss and hinder the increase of the dark “generations” by cutting off their roots; but the elements once mixed he could never again separate. The mixed elements were the elements of the present visible world. This was fashioned out of them at the command of the God of light; the formation of the world was itself the first step in the redemption of the imprisoned portions of light. The world itself was represented as an ordered chain of different heavens and different earths, which was borne and supported by the Æons, the angels of light. In sun and moon, which from their nature were almost wholly pure, it possessed great reservoirs, in which the rescued portions of light were stored. In the sun Primeval man himself dwelt along with the holy spirits, who pursued the work of redemption; in the moon the Mother of life was throned. The twelve signs of the zodiac constituted an artificial machine, a great wheel with buckets which poured the portions of light delivered from the world into the moon and sun, the illuminating vessels swimming in space. There they were purified anew, and finally reached God himself in the realm of pure light. The later Manichæans of the West designated the portions of light scattered in the world—in elements and organisms—and waiting for redemption, “Jesus patibilis.”

Now it is characteristic of the materialistic and unhuman character of the system, that while the construction of the world is regarded as the work of the good spirits, the creation of man is referred to the princes of darkness. The first man, Adam, was begotten by Satan in conjunction with “sin,” “greed” and “lust.” But the spirit of darkness conjured into him all the portions of light which he had robbed, in order to make more certain of his power to rule over them. Adam was accordingly a divided being, created in the image of Satan, but bearing the stronger spark of light within him. Eve was associated with him by Satan. She was seductive sensuousness, although even she had a tiny spark of light in her. If the first human beings thus stood under the rule of Satan, yet from the very first the glorious spirits took an interest in them. These sent Æons—e.g., Jesus—down to them, who instructed them as to their nature, and warned Adam especially against the senses. But the first man fell a victim to sexual lust. Cain and Abel, indeed, were not sons of Adam, but of Satan and Eve; but Seth was the lightpossessed offspring of Adam and Eve. Thus arose mankind, among whose individual members light was very variously distributed. It was always stronger, however, in men than women. Now the demons sought in the course of history to bind men to themselves through sensuality, error, and false religions, which included above all the religion of Moses and the prophets, while the spirits of light continued their process of distillation, in order to obtain the pure light in the world. But they could only deliver men by giving the true Gnosis as to nature and its powers, and by recalling them from the service of darkness and sensuousness. For this purpose prophets, preachers of the true knowledge, were sent into the world. Mani himself appears, in accordance with the example set by Gnostic Jewish Christians, to have held Adam, Noah, and Abraham, and perhaps Zoroaster and Buddha to have been such prophets. Probably Jesus was also considered by him to have been a prophet come down from the world of light; not, however, the historical Jesus, but a contemporary, seemingly human, Jesus who neither suffered nor died (Jesus impatibilis). Some Manichæans taught that Primeval man himself, as Christ, spread the true Gnosis. But in any case Mani was held, as he claimed, to be the last and greatest prophet, having taken up the work of “Jesus impatibilis,” and of Paul, who is also recognised, and having been the first to bring complete knowledge. He was the “guide,” the “ambassador of the light,” the “Paraclete.” Only by his labours and those of his “imitators, the Elect,” was the separation of light from darkness accomplished. The process by which the unfettered parts of light finally ascend to the God of light himself are very fancifully elaborated. He who has not succeeded in becoming elect in his life-time, has not completely redeemed himself, has to pass through severe purifications in the future state, until he also is gathered to the blessedness of the light. A doctrine of transmigration of souls has, however, been erroneously imputed to the Manichæans. Bodies fall naturally, like the souls of unredeemed men, to the powers of darkness. But those souls, according at least to the oldest conception, contain no light at all; a later view, adapted to the Christian, taught that the parts of light existing in them were really lost. Finally, when the elements of light are delivered—completely, or as far as possible—the end of the world takes place. All glorious spirits assemble, the God of light himself appears, accompanied by the Æons and the perfectly righteous. The angels who uphold the world withdraw from their burden, and everything collapses. An enormous conflagration destroys the world: once more the two powers are completely severed: high above is the realm of light restored to its perfect state, low down is the darkness (now powerless?).

Ethics, Social Constitution and Cultus of the Manichæans.

The only possible ethics based on this doctrine of the world were dualistic and ascetic. But as it was not only considered necessary to escape from darkness, but also to cherish, strengthen, and purify the parts of light, the ethics were not merely negative. They aimed not at suicide, but at preservation. Yet in practice they assumed a thoroughly ascetic form. The Manichæan had to abstain above all from sensuous enjoyment. He was to deny himself to it by means of three seals: the signaculum oris, manus, and sinus (the seal of the mouth, hand, and breast). The signaculum oris forbade any use of unclean food, as well as impure talk; unclean were all animal flesh, wine etc.; vegetable food was permitted, because plants contained more light; but the destruction of plants, even the plucking of fruits or breaking of twigs, was not allowed. The sign. manus prevented any occupation with things, in so far as they contained elements of darkness. Finally, the sign. sinus forbade especially any satisfaction of sexual desire, and therefore prohibited marriage. Besides, life was regulated by an extremely rigorous list of fasts. Fast-days were selected in obedience to certain astronomical conjunctures. Moreover, men fasted, i.e., held holiday, regularly on Sunday, and generally also on Monday. The number of fast-days amounted almost to a quarter of the year. Times of prayer were appointed just as exactly. Four times a day had the Manichæan to utter prayers; and these were preceded by ablutions. He who prayed turned to the sun or moon, or to the North as the seat of light. Yet the inference that the Manichæans worshipped the sun and moon themselves is wrong. The Fihrist has preserved some Manichæan forms of prayer. They were directed to the God of light, the whole realm of light, the glorious angels and Mani himself, who is addressed in them as “the great tree in whom is all healing.” According to Kessler, these prayers are closely allied to the Mandæan and ancient Babylonian hymns.

An asceticism so minute and strict as that demanded by Manichæism,It also professed imitation of the apostolic life; see Raumer’s note on Confess. Aug. VI. 7 (12). could only be practised thoroughly by a few. The religion would, therefore, have been compelled to forego an extensive propaganda, had it not conceded a morality of two kinds. A distinction was accordingly drawn within the community between the “Electi” (perfecti), the perfect Mani­chaeans, and the Catechumeni (auditores), the secular Manichæans. Only the former submitted to all the demands imposed by the religion; for the latter the regulations were relaxed. They required to avoid idolatry, witchcraft, greed, lying, fornication, etc.; above all, they must kill no living creature—keeping Mani’s ten commandments. They were to renounce the world as far as possible; but they lived in fact very much like their fellow-citizens of other faiths. We have here, accordingly, substantially the same state of matters as in the Catholic Church, where a twofold morality also prevailed, viz., that of the religious orders and of the secular Christians. The only difference was that the position of the Electi was still more distinguished than that of the monks. For the Christian monks never wholly forgot that redemption was a gift of God through Christ, while the Manichean Electi were really themselves redeemers; therefore it was the duty of the Auditores to pay the deepest veneration and render the greatest services to the Electi. These perfect beings, as they languished away in their asceticism, were admired and cherished most devotedly. Analogous is the reverence paid by Catholics to the saints, and by Neoplatonists to the “philosophers,” but the prestige of the Manichæan Electi surpassed that of both. Foods were brought to them in abundance; by using them the Electi delivered the parts of light from the plants. They prayed for the Auditores, they blessed and interceded for them, thereby abbreviating the purgatory through which the latter had to pass after death. And the Electi alone possessed complete knowledge of religious truths—it was otherwise in Catholicism.

The distinction between Electi and Auditores did not, however, constitute the whole idea of the Manichæan Church; it possessed a hierarchy also. This fell into three grades, so that altogether there were five in the religious constitution. In its fivefold division the social order was conceived to be a copy of the numbers of the realm of light. At the head stood the Teachers (“the sons of gentleness” = Mani and his successors); these were followed by the Administrators (“sons of knowledge” = the Bishops); then the Elders (“sons of understanding” = the presbyters); the Electi (“sons of mystery”); and finally the Auditores (“sons of insight”). The number of Electi was at all times small. According to Augustine, there were twelve Teachers and seventy-two Bishops. One of the Teachers appears to have stood as president at the head of the whole Manichæan Church. At least Augustine speaks of such an one, and the Fihrist also knows of a supreme head over all Manichæans. The constitution accordingly had here also a monarchical head.

The cultus of the Manichæans must have been very simple, and have consisted essentially of prayers, hymns, and ceremonies of adoration. This simple divine service promoted the secret spread of the doctrine. Besides, the Manichæans seem, at least in the West, to have adhered to the Church’s order of festivals. The Electi celebrated special festivals; but the chief one common to all was the “Bema” (Βῆμα), the festival of the “doctoral chair,” in memory of the death of Mani, in the month of March. Believers prostrated themselves before a decorated, but vacant chair, erected on a pedestal with five steps. Long fasts accompanied the festival. Christian and Mohammedan writers were able to learn little concerning the mysteries and “sacraments” of the Manichæans; the Christians therefore raised the charge that obscene rites and repulsive practices were observed. But it may be held certain that the later Manichæan mysteries were solemnised after the style of Christian Baptism and the Lord’s Supper. They may have been based on old rites and ceremonies instituted by Mani himself, and descended from natural religion.

The Historical Position of Manichæism.

In the present state of the inquiry it is made out, and the account given above will also have shown, that Manichæism did not rise on the soil of Christianity. We would even be better justified if we were to call Mohammedanism a Christian sect; for Mohammed approaches the Jewish and Christian religions incomparably more closely than Mani. Kessler has the credit of having shown that the ancient Babylonian religion, the original source of all the Gnosis of Western Asia, was the foundation of the Manichæan system. The opinion formerly held is accordingly wrong, viz., that Manichæism was a reformation on the ground of Parsiism, a modification of Zoroastrianism under the influence of Christianity. It was rather a religious creation belonging to the circle of Semitic religions: it was the Semitic nature-religion lifted out of national limitations, modified by Christian and Persian elements, raised to the level of Gnosis, and transforming human life by strict rules. But when we have perceived this, we have only obtained a very general explanation of the origin of Manichæism. The question rises, through what means and to what extent Mani adopted Persian and Christian elements, and further, in which form the nature-religion of ancient Babylonia was made use of by him.

Now as regards the latter point, it is well known that the Semitic nature-religions had been taken up, centuries before Mani, by isolated enthusiastic or speculative heads, had been philosophically deepened and remodelled into “systems”, in support of which missions were conducted by means of mysteri­ous cults. Mani’s enterprise was accordingly nothing new, but was rather the last in a long series of similar attempts. Even the earlier ones, from Simon Magus the Samaritan down, had adopted Christian elements to a greater or less extent, and the Christian Gnostic scholastic sects of Syria and Western Asia all pointed back to ancient Semitic nature-religions, which were transformed by them into a philosophy of the world and of life. But in particular the doctrines of the Babylonian sect of Moghtasilah, which were indeed influenced also by Christianity, seem to have afforded Mani material for his religio-philosophical specu­lation. The religion of this sect was not, however, purely Semitic (see the treatise by Kessler on the Mandæans in the Real-Encyklopaedia für prot. Theol. u. Kirche, 2 Ed., Vol. IX., p. 205 ff.; the Mandæans were allied to the Moghtasilah, Brandt, 1. c.). From this source sprang the rigid dualism on which Mani’s system was based; for the ancient Persian religion was not in principle dualistic, but in its ultimate foundation Monistic, since Ahriman was created by Ormuzd. However, ancient Persian theologoumena were employed by Mani. Even the designation of the antitheses as “light” and “darkness” was hardly independent of Parsiism, and elsewhere in Manichæism there occur technical terms taken from the Persian religion. Whether Mani’s idea of redemption goes back to the ancient Babylonian religion or to Zoroastrianism, I do not venture to decide; the idea of the “Prophet” and the “Primeval man” is at all events Semitic.

It is very difficult to determine how far Mani’s acquaintance with Christianity went, and how much he borrowed from it; further, through what agencies Christian knowledge reached him. In any case, in those regions where Manichæism was settled and where it came more closely into contact with Christianity, it was at a later stage influenced by the latter. Western Manichæans of the fourth and fifth centuries were much more “Christian” than those of the East. In this respect the system passed through the same development as Neoplatonism. As regards Mani himself, it is safest to suppose that he held Judaism as well as Christianity to be entirely false religions. But if he not only characterised himself as the Paraclete—and it is probable that he originated this use of the title—but also admitted “Jesus” to so high a role in his system, we can hardly explain this otherwise than by supposing that he distinguished between Christianity and Christianity. The religion which emanated from the historical Christ was to him as objectionable as that Christ himself and as Judaism; i.e., Catholicism was to him a diabolical religion. But he distinguished the Jesus of darkness from the Jesus of light, who wrought contemporaneously with the other, This distinction agrees as strikingly with that of the Gnostic Basilides, as the criticism of the O. T. conducted by Manichæism with that of the Marcionites; (see even the Acta Archelai in which Marcion’s antitheses are placed in Mani’s lips). Finally, Manichæan doctrines show agreement with those of the Christian Elkesaites; yet it is possible, nay, probable, that the latter are to be derived from the common ancient Semitic source, and therefore they do not come further into consideration. Mani’s historical relation to Christianity will therefore be as follows: from Catholicism, with which in all probability he was not very accurately acquainted, Mani borrowed nothing, rejecting it rather as a devilish error. On the other hand, he regarded Christianity in the form which it had assumed in the Basilidian and Marcionite sects (also among the Bardesanians ?) as a relatively valuable and correct religion. But from them, as also from the Persians, he took hardly anything but names, and perhaps, besides, what criticism he had of the O. T. and Judaism. His lofty estimate of Paul (and his epistles?), as well as his express rejection of the Acts of the Apostles, also point to influences due to Marcionitism. He seems to have recognised and to have interpreted in accordance with his own teaching a part of the historical matter of the Gospel.

Finally, the question further rises whether Buddhistic elements are not to be observed in Manichaeism. The majority of later scholars since F. Chr. Baur have answered this question in the affirmative. According to Kessler, Mani used Buddha’s teaching, at least for his ethics. There is no doubt that he took long journeys to India, and was familiar with Buddhism. The occurrence of the name of Buddha (Budda) in the legend about Mani and perhaps in his own writings points to the fact that the founder of this religion concerned himself with Buddhism. But what he borrowed from it for his own doctrine must have been very unimportant On a closer comparison we find that the difference between the two faiths is in all their main doctrines very great, and that the resemblances are almost always merely accidental. This is true even as regards morality and asceticism. There is no point in Manichæism for whose explanation we need have recourse to Buddhism. Under such circumstances any relationship between the two religions remains a bare possibility; nor has the investigation of Geyler raised this possibility to a probability (Das System des Manichäismus und sein Verhältniss zum Buddhismus, Jena 1875).

How are we to explain the fact that Manichaeism spread so rapidly and really became a world-religion? The answer has been given that it was because it was the complete Gnosis, the fullest, most consistent, and most artistic system based on the ancient Babylonian religion (so Kessler). This explanation is not sufficient, for no religion makes an impression mainly by its doctrinal system, however complete that may be. But it is also incorrect, for the older Gnostic systems were not more meagre than the Manichaean. What rather gave Manichæism its strength was, above all, the combination of ancient mythology and a rigid materialistic dualism with an extremely simple, spiritual cultus, and a strict morality; this was supplemented by the personality of the founder (of which indeed we know little enough). If we compare it with the Semitic nature-religions, it is obvious that it retained their mythologies, transformed into “doctrines,” but did away with the whole sensuous cultus, substituting a spiritual worship as well as a strict morality. Thus it was capable of satisfying the new wants of an old world. It offered revelation, redemption, moral virtue, and immortality, spiritual blessings, on the ground of nature-religion. Further, the simple and yet firm constitution calls for attention which Mani himself gave to his institution. The learned and the ignorant, the enthusiast and the man of the world, could here find a welcome, no one had more laid upon him than he could and would bear; moreover, each was attracted and secured by the prospect of reaching a higher stage, while those who were gifted were besides promised that they would require to submit to no authority, but would be led by pure reason to God. As this religion was thus adapted, perhaps beforehand, to individual needs, it was also capable of continuously appropriating what was foreign. Furnished from the first with fragments of different religions, it could increase or diminish its store, without breaking its own elastic structure. But a great capacity for adaptation was quite as necessary to a world-religion, as a divine founder in whom men could see and venerate the supreme revelation of God himself. While Manichæism in fact knew of no redeemer, although it gave Mani this title; while it only recognised a physical and Gnostic process of redemption; yet in Mani it possessed the chief prophet of God.

If we notice, finally, that Manichæism presented a simple, apparently profound, and yet easy, solution of the problem of good and evil, which had become especially burdensome in the second and third centuries, we have named the most important phenomena which explain its rapid extension.

Sketch of the History of Manichceism.

Manichaeism first got a firm footing in the East, in Persia, Mesopotamia, and Transoxania. The persecutions which it had to endure did not hinder its extension. The seat of the Manichæan Pope was for centuries in Babylon, and afterwards in Samarcand. Even after Islam had conquered the East, Manichæism held its ground; it even seems to have spread still further owing to the Mohammedan conquest, and it gained secret adherents among the Mohammedans themselves. The doctrine and discipline of the Manichæan Church underwent little change in the East, it especially did not there approach much nearer the Christian religion. But it experienced attempts at reform several times; for, as was natural, its “Auditores” readily became secularised. These attempts also led temporarily to schisms and the formation of sects. At the close of the tenth century, the time when the Fihrist was written, the Manichæans had been already expelled from the cities in Mesopotamia and Persia, and had withdrawn into the villages. But in Turkestan and up to the borders of China, there existed numerous Manichæan communities, nay, even whole tribes which had adopted the religion of Mani. Probably the great Mongolian migrations first put an end to Manichæism in Central Asia. But in India, on the coasts of Malabar, there were Manichæans even in the fifteenth century, side by side with Thomist Christians (see Germann, Die Thomaschristen, 1875). Manichaeism first penetrated into the Græco-Roman Empire about A.D. 280, in the time of the Emperor Probus (see Eusebius. Chronicon). If we may hold Diocletian’s edict against the Manichæans to be genuine, they already had a firm footing in the West at the beginning of the fourth century; but Eusebius did not know the sect accurately as late as about A.D. 325. It was only after about A.D. 330 that the religion spread rapidly in the Roman Empire. Its adherents were recruited, on the one hand, from the ancient Gnostic sects, especially the Marcionites, Manichaeism having, besides, strongly influenced the development of the Marcionite Churches in the fourth century. On the other hand, it gained followers from the great number of the “cultured”, who sought for a “rational” and yet to some extent Christian, religion, and who had exalted “free inquiry”—esp. as regards the O. T.—into a battle-flag. Criticism on Catholicism, and polemics, were now the strong point of Manichaeism, esp. in the West. It admitted the stumbling-blocks which the O. T. presented to every thinker, and gave itself out as a Christianity without the O. T. Instead of the subtle Catholic theories about divine predestination and human freedom, and the difficult Theodicy, it offered an extremely simple conception of sin and goodness. It did not preach the doctrine of the incarnation, which was particularly repugnant to those who were passing from the ancient cults to the Universal Religion. In its rejection of this doctrine, it coincided with Neoplatonism. But while the latter, with all its attempts to accommodate itself at various points to Christianity, found no formula that would introduce into its midst the special veneration of Christ, the Western Manichæans succeeded in giving their doctrine a Christian colouring. Of the Manichæan mythology all that became popular was the rigid physical dualism; its barbarous portions were prudently disguised as “mysteries”; nay, they were even frankly disavowed here and there by the adepts. The farther Manichæism pushed into the West, the more Christian and philosophical it became; in Syria it kept itself comparatively pure. It found its most numerous adherents in North Africa, where it had secret followers even among the clergy; this may perhaps be explained by the Semitic origin of a part of the population. Augustine was an “Auditor” for nine years, while Faustus was at the time the most distinguished Manichæan teacher in the West. In his later writings against Manichæism Augustine chiefly discusses the following problems: (1) the relations of knowledge and faith, reason and authority; (2) the nature of good and evil, and the origin of the latter; (3) the existence of free-will, and its relation to divine omnipotence; (4) the relation of evil in the world to the divine government.

The Christian Byzantine and Roman Emperors from Valens onwards issued strict laws against the Manichæans. But at first these bore little fruit. The “Auditores” were difficult to detect, and really gave slight occasion for a persecution. In Rome itself the doctrine had a large following, especially among the scholars and professors, between A.D. 370 and 440, and it made its way among the mass of the people by means of a popular literature, in which even the Apostles played a prominent part (“Apocryphal Acts of the Apostles”). Manichæism also experienced attempts at reform in the West; but we know little about them. Leo the Great, in alliance with the civil power, was the first to adopt active measures against Manichæism. Valentinian III. sentenced its adherents to banishment, Justinian made the penalty death. It seems to have been extinguished in North Africa by the persecution of the Vandals. It really died out nowhere else, either in the Byzantine Empire, or in the West; for it gave an impulse to the formation of new sects which were allied to it in the early part of the Middle Ages. If it has not been proved that the Spanish Priscillians had been already influenced by Manichæism in the fourth century, still it is undoubted that the Paulicians and Bogomilians, as well as the Cathari, are to be traced back to it (and Marcionitism). Thus, if not the system of Mani the Persian, yet Manichæism modified by Christianity accompanied the Catholic Church of the West on into the thirteenth century.

Literature.—Beausobre, Hist. critique de Manichιe et du Manichéisme, 2 vols. 1734 sq. Too great prominence is given in this work to the Christian elements in Manichæism. Baur, Das manichäische Religionssystem, 1831. Manichæan speculation is here presented speculatively. Flügel, Mani, 1862; an investigation based on the Fihrist. Kessler, Unters. z. Genesis des manich. Religionssystems, 1876; by the same author, “Mani, Manichäer” in the R.-Encykl. f. protest Theol. u. Kirche, 2 Ed., Vol. IX., p. 223-259 ; the account given above is based in several of its expositions on this article. Kessler has since published a work, “Mani, Forschungen über die manich. Relig. Ein Beitrag z. vergleichenden Religionsgeschichte des Orients. I. Bd. Voruntersuchungen und Quellen, 1889;” see on this the acute reviews of Rahlfs (Gött Gel. Anz. 1889, No. 23), Nöldeke (Zeitschrift d. deutschen morgenl. Gesellsch. Vol. XLIII., p. 535 ff.) and August Müller (Theol. Lit.-Ztg., 1890, No. 4). The older accounts may be mentioned of Mosheim, Lardner, Walch, and Schröckh, as also the monograph of Trechsel, Ueber Kanon, Kritik und Exegese der Manichäer, 1832, and A. Newmann’s Introductory Essay on the Manichæan heresy, 1887.