History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion Part 31

The next group of Apologists, which comprises the writers of the African church, Tertullian and Minucius Felix, differs from the last in spirit, though resembling them in purpose. It is the defence made by rhetoricians instead of philosophers. The purpose too, like that of the preceding Apologists, is partly to effect conviction, partly to obtain toleration; but there is a consciousness of the presence of danger, hardly perceivable in the former writers. We feel, as we read these early African writers, that they write like men who felt themselves in the presence of persecution, and who were brought more nearly than the former writers into the face of their foe.

Tertullian's Tract, which is a.n.a.lysed both by Mr. Woodham in his edition of it, and by Mr. T. Chevallier in his translation of it, is chiefly defensive. He claims toleration, ch. i-vii; refutes the miscellaneous charges against Christianity, ch. x-xxvii; and the charge of treason (xxviii-x.x.xvii); explains the nature of Christianity (xvii-xxiii); and compares it with philosophy, ch. xlv-xlvii.

The work of Minucius Felix is a dialogue between a heathen, Caecilius, and a Christian, Octavius. The heathen opens by denying a Providence; next inveighs against the Christians, by a series of charges such as were named in Note 15; and then attacks the Christian doctrines and condition. The Christian Octavius is made to answer each point successively.

In pa.s.sing now from the African school of Apologists to the Alexandrian, we leave the rhetoricians, and meet with the philosophers, Clement and Origen. Clement precedes Tertullian by a few years; Origen succeeds Minucius Felix.

Clement, in part of his _Stromata_, and in his _Cohortatio_, has expressed the spirit of his apologetic; which resembles those of the first group, in admitting the value of heathen philosophy as a preparation for Christianity, and claims that the Hebrews are the source of philosophy, and that Christianity is the full satisfaction for those who sought knowledge.

The spirit and details of Origen's defence have been so fully given in Lecture II. and Note 14, that it is unnecessary to enlarge upon the subject. His apology marks a further step. Tertullian replied to the prejudices of the vulgar, and M. Felix to the scepticism of the educated, which formed two elements in the heathen reaction of the second century.

Origen furnished the reply to the attack made by the heathen philosophy.

It is in reply to Celsus, who possessed a competent knowledge of Christianity; and who, though writing earlier than the time when the charges which Tertullian afterwards refuted were common, was too well informed to have believed them, and opposed Christianity on deeper grounds. Celsus stands later logically, though not chronologically, than the authors of those frivolous charges, and midway between them and the educated a.s.sailants of Christianity of the third century, such as Porphyry. Origen's defence too marks a similar advance, and, by exhibiting sympathy with the very philosophy which Porphyry and others adopted, shows the kind of defence which was thought likely to attract philosophic minds.

The chronology compels us to return to the African church, and introduces us to two Apologists;-Arn.o.bius and Lactantius; one of whom seems to have written a little before Christianity had become a tolerated religion; the latter a little afterwards.

The work of Arn.o.bius is taken up, partly in repelling charges made against the Christians, such as that the Christians do not wors.h.i.+p, which are no longer charges of the absurd kind made a century before, partly in comparing Christianity and heathenism; and partly in offering the evidence for Christianity. It is in this point that we find the peculiarity which belongs to Arn.o.bius. He is the first writer who lays firm stress on the demonstrative character of the evidence of fact. In previous writers Christianity had been proved by probability: he makes it to rest on the evidence of certainty; and considers the fact of the revelation to guarantee the contents of it.

The large work of Lactantius, the _Inst.i.tutiones Divinae_, is a work of ethics as well as of defence. Christians have obtained protection, and defence is becoming didactic: apology is expiring in instruction: all that is now needed for the spread of Christianity is, that its nature should be understood. The work is partly a work of religion, partly of philosophy, partly of ethics; the object in each case being to show that Christianity supplies the only true form in each department of thought.

The remaining Apologists may be grouped together, though they have no point of union, except that their arguments are directed to the special condition of heathenism; when, being no longer triumphant, it was standing on the defensive, and, at the time of the two latter of the group, was fast declining. They are, Eusebius, Cyril of Alexandria, and Augustin.

If Origen is the metaphysical philosopher of the early Apologists; if Augustin is the political; Eusebius is the man of erudition. He has left, besides the small work against Hierocles (see Note 17), two works of defence; the first the _Evangelica Praeparatio_, against the Gentiles; the second the _Evangelica Demonstratio_, more suited for the Jews. The former work is to show that Christianity has not been accepted without just cause; which he attempts to prove by a very elaborate discussion (valuable to us in a literary point of view, on account of the quotations which he has preserved) of the various religions, Egyptian, Phnician, Greek, and of the various types of Greek thought and belief; and, by a comparison of them with the Hebrew, he shows the superiority of the last. The other work, the _Evangelica Demonstratio_, is designed to prove that Christ and Christianity fulfil the ancient prophecies. His apology marks the transitionary time when Christianity was becoming the religion of the Roman world, and men hesitated as to its truth, looking back with regret to the past, with uneasiness to the future.

The other two Apologists are nearly a century later; when Christianity had been long established.

Cyril has already come before us as the respondent to Julian. It is enough to refer to Lecture II. and Note 19, in relation to him. It is worthy of observation, that the circ.u.mstance that he should consider it necessary to reply to Julian's work, at so long a period after the death of the author, and the frustration of his schemes, seems to show the continued existence of a wavering in the faith of Christians, of which we seldom have the opportunity of finding the traces at so late a period.

If Cyril marks the apology of the Alexandrian church at the commencement of the fifth century, Augustin similarly exhibits that of the African in presence of the new woes which were bursting upon the world. Christianity had long lived down the charges made against it by prejudice, and shown itself to be the philosophy which the educated craved. The charges of treason too had ceased, for it had become the established religion; but one prejudice still remained. Victorious with man; triumphant over the prejudices of the vulgar, the opinions of the philosophers, and the power of the state; it still was not, it seemed, victorious in heaven; and at last the heathen G.o.ds were arousing themselves to take vengeance on the earth for the overthrow of their wors.h.i.+p, by a series of terrible calamities. Apprehensions like these haunted the imagination; and it was the object of Augustin, in his work, _De Civitate Dei_, to remove them.

That work was a philosophy of society; it was the history of the church and of the world, viewed in presence of the dissolution, social and political, which seemed impending.

These brief remarks will suffice to give a faint idea of the line of argument adopted by the early Apologists. Further information in regard to them may be found in the following sources:-

In a history of this period written by Tzchirner, _Geschichte der Apologetik_, 1805; also another by Van Senden, 1831, translated into German from the Dutch, 1841; Clausen, _Apologetae Ecc. Chr.

ante-Theodosiani_, 1817; and a brief account in Stein, _Die Apologetik des Christenthum_, -- 6. p. 13. Other references may be found in Hase's _Church History_, E. T. -- 52; Hagenbach's _Dogmengeschichte_, -- 29, 117; and in J.

A. Fabricius, _Delectus Argument_, ch. i. In the same work (ch. ii-v.) is an account of the chief Apologists, and of the fragments of their lost writings. In reference to the character of the apologetic works of the early fathers, information may also be obtained in Walch's _Biblioth.

Patristic._ (ed. Danz. 1834.) -- 97-100. ch. x; and concerning some of them in P. G. Lumper's _Hist. Theol.-Crit. de Sanct. Patr._ 1785; Moehler's _Patrologie_, 1840; Ritter's _Chr. Phil._ i and ii; Neander's _Kirchengeschichte_, i. 242 seq.; ii. 411 seq.; Kaye'a works on Justin, Clement, and Tertullian; and Dr. A. Clarke's _Succession of Ecclesiastical Literature_, 1832.

On a review of these early apologies, some peculiarities are observable.

First, with the exception of Origen's treatise, and some parts of Eusebius, they are inferior as works of mind to many of modern times.(1076) This was to be expected from the character of the age; the literature of that period being poor in tone, compared with the earlier and with the modern. In works of encyclopaedic history and geography, and in a reconsideration of philosophy by the light of the past, it had indeed some excellences; but the literature as a whole, not only the Latin, but even the Greek, was debased by the subst.i.tution of rhetoric for the healthy freshness of thought and poetry of older times: and the apologetic literature partakes of the tone of its age. The Christian writers, when looked at in a literary point of view, must be compared with authors of their own times. The Alexandrian apologies rise sometimes to philosophy; but those of the Greek nation sink to rhetoric. In later times, men who were giants in mind and learning have written on behalf of Christianity; and it would be unfair to the apologetic fathers to compare them with these.

Secondly, we cannot fail to remark the abundant use of what is now called the philosophical argument for Christianity, the conviction that prejudice must be removed, and antecedent probabilities be suggested, before the hearer could be expected to submit to Christianity. The just inference from this is not that which some would draw, the depreciation of the argument from external evidence, but rather a corroboration of the importance of the emotional element, as an ingredient in the judgment formed on religion. The only practical inference that can be drawn in reference to ourselves is, that if it be true that our age resembles theirs, as has been suggested by Pressense (see Lecture VIII. p. 356), we must adopt the same plan; not because we admit that the external evidence is uncertain or unreal, but because the other kind of evidence is best adapted, from philosophical reasons, to such a state of society as ours.

Several centuries pa.s.s before we again meet with works of evidence. In the dark ages, the public mind and thought were nominally Christian; and at least were not sufficiently educated to admit of the generation of doubts which might create a demand for apologetic works. Accordingly we pa.s.s over this interval, and proceed at once to the middle ages.

II. The scepticism of the second period of free thought possessed so largely the character of a tendency rather than an att.i.tude of fixed antagonism, that it gave no opportunity for direct works of refutation.

But the spirit of apologetic is seen in two respects; in the special refutation of particular points of teaching, as in Bernard's controversy with Abelard, and more especially in the works of the scholastic theology.

This theology, especially as seen in the works of the great realist Aquinas, and of others who took their method from him, was essentially, as has been before said (pp. 11 and 92), a work of defence. In the two centuries before his time we already find the spirit of reverent inquiry working. Anselm's two celebrated works, the _Monologium_ and _Proslogium_, a kind of soliloquy on the Trinity, and the _Cur Deus h.o.m.o_, or theory of the Atonement, are the work of a mind that was reconsidering its own beliefs, and restating the grounds of the immemorial doctrines of the church. (See J. A. Ha.s.se, _Anselm_, 1843, 52.) In the following century (viz. the twelfth), the work of Peter Lombard, called the _Sententiae_, marks an age when inquiry was active; and the material was supplied for its satisfaction by means of searching amid the opinions of the past for the witness of authority. But in the thirteenth century, the grand advance made by Aquinas in his _Summa_, is no less than the result of the conviction that religion admitted of a philosophy; that theological truth was a science; and so, commencing with the plan of first discussing G.o.d; then man; then redemption; then ethics; he created a method, which had been indeed suggested by his predecessors, but was more fully displayed by him, for arranging the truths of theology in a systematic form, in which their reasonableness might appear, and through which they might commend themselves to the judgment of a philosophical age.

The most successful mode of replying to objections is not to refute the error contained in them, but to grasp the truth and build it into a system, where the doubter finds his mind and heart satisfied with the possession of that for which he was craving. If the twelfth century had not had its Abelards, its spirit of inquiry, of a.n.a.lysis, and of doubt; the church would never have had its champion philosopher Aquinas: but if it had not had its Aquinas, the succeeding ages would probably have produced many more Abelards. The scholastic theology accordingly must be regarded as the true rationalism, the true use of reason in defence. Like as the mind goes through the process of perceiving facts, then of cla.s.sifying and generalizing, next of defining and tracing principles to practical results; so the church, in forming its theology, receives its facts as they were once for all apprehended by inspired men of old, and are corroborated by the experience of the Christian consciousness from age to age: but, after so receiving them, it exercises its office in creating a theology, by cla.s.sifying and arranging them, and generalizing from them; and when new doubts or objections arise, it recompares its teaching with the faith once delivered to the saints; defines and prescribes the limits of truth and error; and thus absorbs into its own system whatever is true in the newly-presented doubts or objections. This is really the action of the church in moments of peril; and is that which was effected by the scholastic theologians,-Anselm, the two Victors, Aquinas, Bonaventura, and others. It is sufficient to refer to Ritter's _Christliche Philosophie_, iii. 502 seq.; iv. 257 seq.; Neander's _Kirchengeschichte_, vol. viii; Stein's _Die Apologetic_, -- 7 and 8; Hagenbach's _Dogmengesch._ -- 150; and Hase's _Church History_, -- 218, 277, 278; for information concerning these writers and their position.

III. At the time of the Renaissance, in the fifteenth century, which was the third period at which the Christian faith was in peril from doubt, we begin to meet with works of evidence of a more directly controversial kind. Defence is no longer a spirit, but a fact. Apologetic theology is severed from Dogmatic.

One work remains, written in the fourteenth century by Petrarch (_Opp. de Otio Religiosor_), which defends the truth of Christianity against Philosophers, Mahometans, and Jews: partly on the evidence of miracles, but mainly on the internal evidence of the purity and G.o.dliness of Christianity. In the early part of the fifteenth century, Raimond de Sebonde, professor of medicine at Barcelona, wrote his _Theologia Naturalis_, which was afterwards translated into French by Montaigne. It was charged with deism, but really was in spirit, as previously observed (p. 104), only like Locke's _Reasonableness of Christianity_. See Hallam's _History of Literature_, i. 138; Ritter's _Christliche Philosophie_, iv.

658 seq. Another exists by aeneas Sylvius; another by Ficinus, 1450, _De Relig. Christiana_, in which the evidence of prophecy and miracles is adduced; the arguments from the moral character of the apostles and martyrs, the wonderful spread of Christianity, and the wisdom of the Bible, are used; and a comparison is drawn between Christianity and other creeds.

In the close of the same century, as soon as printing became common, several similar treatises occur. One exists by Alphonso de Spina, _Fortalitium Fidei contra Judaeos, &c._ 1487; also by Savonarola, _Triumphus Crucis, sive de Vera Fide_, 1497; also by Pico di Mirandola; and by Ludovicus Vives, _De Veritate Christiana_, 1551. A carefully written account of all these is given by Staudlin, in Eichhorn's _Geschichte der Literatur_, vol. vi. p. 24 seq. See also Fabricius, _Delect. Argument_, ch. x.x.x.

The preceding works were mostly directed against the first of the two species of unbelief which belonged to this period, viz. the literary tendency (see Lecture III. p. 93, 94). A few however exist which were directed against the second species, which was connected with the philosophy of Padua. They are not so much general treatises, as works written against particular opinions, of Pomponatius, Bruno, or Vanini. An account of them may be found in the memoirs respectively published concerning these writers; the references to which are given in the notes to Lecture III. (See pp. 101-103.) The work of Mornaeus, _De Veritate Religionis Christianae adv. Atheistas, Epicureos, &c._ 1580, was probably suggested by this species of philosophy.

IV. The fourth great period, marked by the unbelief connected with the activity of modern speculation and the influence of modern discovery, commenced in the sixteenth century. The works of defence are so numerous that we can only give a brief notice of the princ.i.p.al writers and writings. A list may be collected, down to the respective dates of their publication, from J. A. Fabricius's _De Veritate Rel. Christ._ c. 30; Pfaff's _Hist. Litt. Theol._ ii. -- 2; Buddeus's _Isagoge_, pp. 856-1237; Walch's _Biblioth. Theol. Select._ vol. i. ch. v. -- 5-7: and the princ.i.p.al arguments are summed up in Stapfer's _Inst.i.t. Theol. Polem._ 1744, vol. i.

ch. iii. and vol. ii. Tholuck also has written a history of modern apologetic, _Ueber Apologetik und ihre Litteratur_ (Vermischte Schriften, i. pp. 150-376), and the Abbe Migne has published a most important collection of the princ.i.p.al treatises on apologetic in all ages, arranged in chronological order. It is contained in twenty vols. 4to. 1843. The t.i.tle of the work is given below.(1077)

The work of Grotius, _De Veritate Religionis Christianae_, is the one which opens the period of evidences which we are now considering; of which a notice may be found in Hallam's _History of Literature_, ii. 364, and in Tholuck, _Verm. Schr._ i. 158; but no very definite cause can be pointed out why it was written. It was merely indeed one of the cla.s.s of treatises already described (Notes 4 and 5), which devoted a portion of s.p.a.ce to the controversy with the Jews and Mahometans. It is when a new standpoint had been a.s.sumed by scepticism, and the causes, intellectual or moral, which have been pointed out in these lectures, had begun to create a real peril, that writings on the evidences begin to derive a new value and a.s.sume a new form.

We shall give an account of them according to countries. THE ENGLISH WORKS OF EVIDENCE.-Those which were called forth in England by Deism were of several kinds. Perhaps they may be arranged under four heads.

The first cla.s.s consists of specific answers to certain books, published from time to time; of which kind are most of those which are named in the foot-notes to Lecture IV. Waterland's reply to Tindal is a type of this cla.s.s. Occupied with tracking the opponent from point to point of his work, such replies, though important while the sceptical book is operating for evil, become obsolete along with the war of which they are a part, and henceforth are only valuable in literary history, unless, as in the special instance of Bentley's _Phileleutherus Lipsiensis_ in reply to Collins, they are such marvellous instances of dialectical ability and literary acuteness that they possess a philosophical value as works of power, when their instructiveness has ceased.

A second kind consisted of homilies rather than arguments; sermons to Christian people, warning them against forms of unbelief, and regarding unbelief from a practical point of view rather than a speculative; and discussing, as would appropriately belong to such an object, the moral to the exclusion of the intellectual causes of doubt. Some of Tillotson's sermons are an example of the highest of this kind of works. The value of this cla.s.s is twofold: in a purely pastoral point of view, the suggestions which they contain concerning the moral causes of doubt being founded on the real facts of the human heart, and on the declarations of scripture, have a lasting value; and in a literary point of view, these works contribute to the knowledge of the state of public feeling of the time.

This is seen in this instance. Until about the end of the seventeenth century, there is no clear perception, except among the very highest of this cla.s.s of writers, of the particular character of the forms of doubt against which their remarks are directed. The general name, _Atheism_, is used vaguely, to describe every form of unbelief. This fact tells its tale. It witnesses to the consciousness that they lived in an age of restlessness, when change of creed was going on, and doubt was prevalent; but when unbelief had not shaped itself into form, and found as yet few organs of expression. We are reminded of the works before named of the fifteenth century (p. 93 seq. 104.) At that time doubt and restlessness prevailed, as we learn from the frequent references to it; yet the works which transmit the knowledge of it to us are few, and the allusions to it vague: while the works of evidence then written are directed against antiquated forms of it,-Mahometan, Jewish, or philosophical. In like manner, in the seventeenth age, we see, as we look back, that the Christian sermons were mostly directed against older forms of unbelief,-the atheism of the ancients, or of the Paduan school; and that the contemporary unbelief had not become definite enough to enable the Christian writers to apprehend its nature. This fact too explains another circ.u.mstance. The preachers evince a bitterness, which is not merely the rudeness common in that age on all subjects, nor the indignation which arises from solicitude for souls, common in all ages on a subject so momentous as salvation; but it is the bitterness of alarm. There is a margin in their expression of vituperation, which is only to be explained by the fact, that the absence of a clear statement of the grounds of doubt, such as was subsequently given in the eighteenth century, deprived the preachers of the means of understanding the alleged excuse for the prevailing doubt. They appear not to be conscious of the causes which could create in the minds of others a restlessness which they did not feel themselves. They seem like persons living in a state of political society, who are conscious of a vast amount of general dissatisfaction, and a suspicion of a plot against society, the authors of which are unknown, as well as the causes of their supposed grievances; and where the danger is necessarily heightened from the very absence of knowledge as to its precise amount.

A third cla.s.s of the English apologies consists of works which have neither the speciality of the first cla.s.s, nor the vagueness of the second. They were directed against special writers and particular books; but instead of being adapted as a detailed reply, chapter by chapter, to the special work, the authors of them seized hold of the central errors of the unbeliever, or the central truths by which he was to be refuted. The works of the two Chandlers against Collins, and Leland's work on the deists, rise into this tone at times. Bishop Gibson's later Pastorals against Woolston are a good type of it; and still better, many of the courses of Boyle Lectures; and above all, Warburton's _Divine Legation of Moses_.

There is a fourth cla.s.s of works, of a grander type, which resemble the one just named, in discussing subjects rather than books: but differ in that they are not directed against particular books or men, but take the largest and loftiest view of the evidences of Christianity. The first of this cla.s.s, though a small one, is Locke's _Reasonableness of Christianity_. The best examples are, _Things Divine and Human conceived of by a.n.a.logy_, by Dr. Peter Browne, 1733; and the _a.n.a.logy_ of Bishop Butler, in reference to the Philosophical Evidence of Christianity; with the works of Lardner and Paley in reference to the Historical. Books of this cla.s.s are elevated above what is local or national, and are in some sense a ?t?a ?? ?e?.

After this description of the different cla.s.ses of works of evidence, it remains to give a brief notice of a few of the more important writers, especially of the two latter cla.s.ses, in chronological order.

Omitting the repet.i.tion of those books named in the foot-notes of Lect.

IV. which were directed against Herbert, Hobbes, and Blount, and which, as already remarked, belonged to the first of the four cla.s.ses just named, and also the enumeration of the various sermons which belong to the second, we meet with the following writers:-Robert Boyle (1626-1691), an intelligent philosopher and devout Christian, who wrote works to reconcile reason and religion, suggested by the growth of new sciences; and with Ray, who first supplied materials for the argument for natural religion, drawn from final causes, 1691; and Stillingfleet, who investigated religion from the literary side, as the two just named from the scientific. Boyle not only wrote himself on the Evidences, but founded the Boyle Lectures,(1078) a series which was mainly composed of works written by men of real ability, and contains several treatises of value, as works of mind, as well as instruction. Among the series may be named those of Bentley (1692); Kidder, 1694; Bp. Williams, 1695; Gastrell, 1697; Dean Stanhope, 1701; Dr. Clarke, 1704, 5; Derham, 1711; Ibbot, 1713; Gurdon, 1721; Berriman, 1730; Worthington, 1766; Owen, 1769: all of which belong to the third of the cla.s.ses named above, while one or two approach to the grandeur of the fourth.

Among separate treatises, the popular ones by the Non-juror Charles Leslie ([+]1722), _Short Method with the Deists_; Jenkins's _Reasonableness of Christianity_, 1721; Foster's _Usefulness and Truth of Christianity_, against Tindal; and Bp. Sherlock's _Trial of the Witnesses_, against Woolston; Lyttelton on _St. Paul's Conversion_; Conybeare's _Defence of Revelation_, 1732; Warburton's _Divine Legation of Moses_; are the best known. A complete list of the respective replies to deist writers may be found under the criticism of each writer, in Leland's _Deists_, and Lechler's _Gesch. des Engl. Deismus_. The great work of Bishop Butler, which appeared in 1736, has been sufficiently discussed in Lect. IV. p.

157 seq. It was the recapitulation and condensation of all the arguments that had been previously used; but possessed the largeness of treatment and originality of combination of a mind which had not so much borrowed the thoughts of others as been educated by them. Balguy's works also, though brief, are scarcely inferior. (See his _Discourse on Reason and Faith_, vol. i. serm. i-vii; vol. ii. serm. ii, iii, iv; vol. iv. serm.

ii. and iii.)

We have already pointed out (p. 207), that in the latter half of the century, the historical rather than the moral evidences were developed.

The philosophical argument preceded in time, as in logic. First, the religion of nature was proved: at this point the deist halted; the Christian advanced farther. The chasm between it and revealed religion was bridged at first by probability; next by Butler's argument from a.n.a.logy, put as a dilemma to silence those who objected to revelation, but capable, as shown in Lect. IV. of being used as a direct argument to lead the mind to revelation; thirdly, by the historic method, which a.s.serted that miracles attested a revelation, even without other evidence. The argument in all cases however, whether philosophical or historical, was an appeal to reason; either evidence of probability or of fact; and was in no case an appeal to the authority of the church.

Accordingly, the probability of revelation having been shown, and the attacks on its moral character parried, the question became in a great degree historical, and resolved itself into an examination either of the external evidence arising from early testimonies, which could be gathered, to corroborate the facts, and to vindicate the honesty of the writers, or of the internal critical evidence of undesigned coincidences in their writings. (See Note 48.) The first of these occupied the attention of Lardner (1684-1768). His _Credibility_ was published 1727-57. The _Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies_ (1764-7.) The second and third branches occupied the attention of Paley; the one in the Evidences, the other in the Horae Paulinae.(1079)

Before the close of the century the real danger from deism had pa.s.sed, and the natural demand for evidences had therefore in a great degree ceased.