On the other hand the so-called Barnabas maintains that the Jews never had understood their law at all. Fasts, feasts and sacrifices were prescribed, not literally, but in a spiritual sense which the Jews had missed. The taboos on meats were not prohibitions of the flesh of weasels, hares and hyænas and so forth, but were allegoric warnings against fleshly lusts, to which ancient zoologists and modern Arabs have supposed these animals to be prone.[36] Circumcision was meant, as the prophets showed, to be that of the heart; evil dæmons had misled the Jews into practising it upon the flesh.[37] The whole Jewish dispensation was a riddle, and of no value, unless it is understood as signifying Christianity.
This line of attack was open to the criticism that it robbed the religious history of Israel of all value whatever, and the stronger Apologists do not take it. They will allow the Jews to have been so far right in observing their law, but they insist that it had a higher sense also, which had been overlooked except by the great prophets. The law was a series of types and shadows, precious till the substance came, which the shadows foretold. That they were mere shadows is shown by the fact that Enoch walked with God and Abraham was the friend of God. For this could not have been, if the Jewish contention were true that without Sabbath and circumcision man cannot please God. Otherwise, either the God of Enoch was not the God of Moses—which was absurd; or else God had changed his mind as to right and wrong—which was equally absurd.[38] No, the legislation of Moses was for a people and for a time; it was not for mankind and eternity. It was a prophecy of a new legislator, who should repeal the carnal code and enact one that should be spiritual, final and eternal.[39] Here, following the writer to the Hebrews, the Apologists quote a great passage of Jeremiah, with the advantage (not always possible) of using it in the true sense in which it was written. "Behold! the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah; not that which I made with their fathers in the day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the Lord. But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel: After those days, saith the Lord, I will put my law in their inward parts and write it in their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be my people."[40]
With the law, the privilege of Israel passes away and the day of the Gentiles comes. It was foretold that Israel would not accept Christ—"their ears they have closed";[41] "they have not known nor understood";[42] "who is blind but my servants?"[43] "all these words shall be unto you as words of a book that is sealed."[44] "By Isaiah the prophet, God, knowing beforehand what you would do, cursed you thus";[45] and Justin cites Isaiah 3, 9-15, and 5, 18-25. Leah is the type of the synagogue and of the Jewish people and Rachel of "our church"; the eyes of Leah were weak, and so are the eyes of your soul—very weak.[46] No less was it prophesied that the Gentiles should believe on Christ—"in thee shall all tribes of the earth be blest"; "Behold! I have manifested him as a witness to the nations, a prince and a ruler to the races. Races which knew thee not shall call upon thee and peoples who were ignorant of thee shall take refuge with thee."[47]
"By David He said 'A people I knew not has served me, and hearkened to me with the hearing of the ear.' Let us, the Gentiles gathered together, glorify God," says Justin, "because he has visited us ... for he is well pleased with the Gentiles, and receives our sacrifices with more pleasure than yours. What have I to do with circumcision, who have the testimony of God? What need of that baptism to me, baptized with the holy spirit? These things, I think, will persuade even the slow of understanding. For these are not arguments devised by me, nor tricked out by human skill,—nay! this was the theme of David's lyre, this the glad news Isaiah brought, that Zechariah proclaimed and Moses wrote. Do you recognize them, Trypho? They are in your books—no! not yours, but ours—for we believe them—and you, when you read, do not understand the mind that is in them."[48] And with that Justin passes on to discuss whether Jesus is the Messiah. Such a passage raises the question as to how far he is reporting an actual conversation. In his 80th chapter he says to Trypho that he will make a book (syntaxis) of their conversation—of the whole of it—to the best of his ability, faithfully recording all that he concedes to Trypho. Probably he takes Plato's liberty to develop what was said—unless indeed the dialogue is from beginning to end merely a literary form imposed upon a thesis. In that case, it must be owned that Justin manages to give a considerable suggestion of life to Trypho's words.
Jesus the Messiah
But, even if the law be temporary, and the Sabbath spiritual, if Israel is to be rejected and the Gentiles chosen, we are still far from being assured on the warrant of the Old Testament that Jesus is the Messiah, who shall accomplish this great change. Why he rather than any of the "ten thousand others" who might much more plausibly be called the Messiah?[49]
To prove the Messiahship of Jesus, a great system of Old Testament citations was developed, the origins of which are lost to us. Paul certainly applied Scripture to Jesus in a free way of his own, though he is not more fanciful in quotation than his contemporaries. But he never sought to base the Christian faith on a scheme of texts. Lactantius, writing about 300 A.D., implies that Jesus is the author of the system. "He abode forty days with them and interpreted the Scriptures, which up to that time had been obscure and involved."[50] Something of the kind is suggested by Luke (24, 27). But it is obvious that the whole method is quite alien to the mind and style of Jesus, in spite of quotations in the vein of the apologists which the evangelists here and there have attributed to him.
We may discover two great canons in the operations of the Apologists. In the first place, they seek to show that all things prophesied of the Messiah were fulfilled in Jesus of Nazareth; and, secondly, that everything which befel Jesus was prophesied of the Messiah. These canons need only to be stated to show the sheer impossibility of the enterprise to anyone who attaches meaning to words. But in the early centuries of our era there was little disposition with Jew or Greek to do this where those books were concerned, whose age and beauty gave them a peculiar hold upon the mind. In each case the preconception had grown up, as about the myths of Isis, for example, that such books were in some way sacred and inspired. The theory gave men an external authority, but it presented some difficulties; for, both in Homer and in Genesis as in the Egyptian myths, there were stories repugnant to every idea of the divine nature which a philosophic mind could entertain. They were explained away by the allegoric method. Plutarch shows how the grossest features of the Isis legend have subtle and spiritual meanings and were never meant to be taken literally—that the myths are logoi in fact; and Philo vindicates the Old Testament in the same way.[51] The whole procedure was haphazard and unscientific; it closely resembled the principles used by Artemidorus for the interpretation of dreams—a painful analogy. But, in the absence of any kind of historic sense, it was perhaps the only way in which the continuity of religious thought could then be maintained. It is not surprising in view of the prevalence of allegory that the Christians used it—they could hardly do anything else. Thus with the fatal aid of allegory, the double thesis of the Apologists became easier and easier to maintain.
The most accessible illustration of this line of apology is to be found in the second chapter of Matthew. We may set out in parallel columns the events in the life of Jesus and the prophecies which they fulfil.
It is hardly unfair to say that the man who cited these passages in these connexions had no idea whatever of their original meaning, even where he quotes them correctly.
Here is a fuller scheme taken from the Apology which Justin addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius. (The numbers on the left refer to the chapter in the first Apology.)
The God beside the Creator
What in the Apology is a bare outline, is developed at great length and with amazing ingenuity in the dialogue with Trypho. We may begin with the question of a "God beside the Creator."
When Moses wrote in Genesis (1, 26) "And God said, 'Let us make man in our image after our likeness,'" and again (3, 22) "And the Lord God said, 'Behold the man is become as one of us,'"[52] why did he use the plural, unless there is a God beside God? Again, when Sodom is destroyed why does the holy text say "The Lord rained upon Sodom and Gomorrha sulphur and fire from the Lord from heaven"?[53] And again in the Psalms (110) what is meant by "The Lord said unto my Lord"?[54] and by "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever ... therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows?"[55]
The Old Testament abounds in theophanies, which are brought up in turn. Justin cites the three men who appeared to Abraham—"they were angels," says Trypho, and a long argument follows to show from the passage that one of them is not to be explained as an angel,[56] nor of course as the Creator of all things. Trypho owns this. Justin pauses at his suggestion to discuss the meal which Abraham had served, but is soon caught up with the words: "Now, come, show us that this God who appeared to Abraham and is the servant of God, the Maker of all, was born of a virgin, and became, as you said, a man of like passions with all men." But Justin has more evidence to unfold before he reaches that stage. Without following the discussion as it sways from point to point, we may take the passage in which he recapitulates this line of argument. "I think I have said enough, so that, when my God says 'God went up from Abraham,' or 'The Lord spoke to Moses,' or 'The Lord descended to see the tower which the sons of men had built,' or 'The Lord shut the ark of Noah from without,' you will not suppose the unbegotten God Himself went down or went up. For the ineffable Father and Lord of all neither comes anywhere, nor 'walks' [as in the garden of Eden], nor sleeps, nor rises, but abides in his own region wherever it is, seeing keenly and hearing keenly, but not with eyes or ears, but by power unspeakable; and he surveys all things and knows all things, and none of us escapes his notice; nor does he move, nor can space contain him, no, nor the whole universe, him, who was before the universe was made."[57]
The virgin-birth
Who then was it who walked in the garden, who wrestled with Jacob, who appeared in arms to Joshua, who spoke with Moses and with Abraham, who shut Noah into the ark, who was the fourth figure in the fiery furnace? Scripture gives us a key. Can the Jew say, who it is whom Ezekiel calls the "angel of great counsel;" and the "man"; whom Daniel describes "as the Son of man"; whom Isaiah called "child," and David "Christ" and "God adored"; whom Moses called "Joseph" and "Jacob" and "the star"; whom Zechariah called "the daystar"; whom Isaiah again called the "sufferer" (pathêtós), "Jacob" and "Israel"; whom others have named "the Rod," "the Flower," "the Chief Corner-stone" and "the Son of God"?[58] The answer is more clearly given by Solomon in the eighth chapter of Proverbs—it is the Divine Wisdom, to whom all these names apply. When it is said "Let us make man," it is to be understood that the Ineffable communicated his design to his Wisdom, his Logos or Son, and the Son made man. The Son rained upon Sodom the fire and brimstone from the Father. It was the Son who appeared to men in all the many passages cited—the Son, Christ the Lord, God and Son of God—inseparable and unseverable from the Father, His Wisdom and His Word and His Might (dynamis).[59]
But, while all this might be accepted by a Jew, it still seemed to Trypho that it was "paradoxical, and foolish, too," to say that Christ could be God before all the ages, and then tolerate to be born a man, and yet "not a man of men." The offence of the Cross also remained. The Apologist began by explaining the mysteries of the two comings of Christ, first in humiliation, and afterwards in glory, as Jacob prophesied in his last words.[60] For the First Coming Tertullian quotes Isaiah—"he is led as a sheep to the slaughter"; and the Psalms—"made a little lower than the angels," "a worm and not a man"; while the Second Coming is to be read of in Daniel and the forty-fifth Psalm, and in the more awful passage of Zechariah "and then they shall know him whom they pierced."[61] The paschal lamb is a type of the First Coming—especially as it was to be roasted whole and trussed like a cross; and the two goats of Leviticus (16) are types of the two Comings.[62]
"And now," says Justin, "I took up the argument again to show that he was born of a virgin, and that it had been prophesied by Isaiah that he should be born of a virgin; and I again recited the prophecy itself. This is it: 'And the Lord said moreover unto Ahaz, saying: 'Ask for thyself a sign from the Lord thy God in the depth or in the height. And Ahaz said: I will not ask nor tempt the Lord. And Isaiah said: Hear ye then, O house of David! Is it a little thing with you to strive with men? and how will ye strive with the Lord? Therefore shall the Lord himself give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. Butter and honey shall he eat. Before he shall either have knowledge or choose evil, he shall choose good; because, before the child knows evil or good, he refuses evil to choose good. Because, before the child knows to call father or mother, he shall take the power of Damascus and the spoils of Samaria before the King of the Assyrians. And the land shall be taken, which thou shalt bear hardly from before the face of two kings. But God will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon the house of thy father, days which have never come, from the day when Ephraim removed from Judah the King of the Assyrians.' And I added, 'That, in the family of Abraham according to the flesh, none has ever yet been born of a virgin, or spoken of as so born, except our Christ, is manifest to all.'" It may be noted that the passage is not only misquoted, but is a combination of clauses from two distinct chapters.[63] The explanation is perhaps that Justin found it so in a manual of proof-texts and did not consult the original. Similar misquotations in other authors have suggested the same explanation.
"Trypho rejoined: 'The scripture has not: Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son; but: Behold the young woman shall conceive and bear a son: and the rest as you said. The whole prophecy was spoken of Hezekiah and was fulfilled of him. In the myths of the Greeks it is said that Perseus was born of Danae, when she was a virgin—after their so-called Zeus had come upon her in the form of gold. You ought to be ashamed to tell the same story as they do. You would do better to say this Jesus was born a man of men, and—if you show from the Scriptures that he is the Christ—say that it was by his lawful and perfect life that he was counted worthy of being chosen as Christ. Don't talk miracles of that kind, or you will be proved to talk folly beyond even that of the Greeks."'[64]
Trypho has the Hebrew text behind him, which says nothing about a virgin, though the Septuagint has the word. The sign given to Ahaz has a close parallel in a prophecy of Muhammad. Before he became known, an old man foretold that a great prophet should come, and on being challenged for a sign he pointed to a boy lying in rugs by the camp-fire—"That boy should see the prophet"; and he did. Isaiah's sign is much the same; a young woman shall conceive and have a son, and before that son is two or three years old, Damascus and Syria will fall before the King of Assyria.
But Justin and the Apologists are not to be diverted. As for Danae, the Devil (diábolos) has there anticipated the fulfilment of God's prophecy, as in many other instances, e.g.:—Dionysus rode an ass, he rose from the dead and ascended to heaven; Herakles is a parody of the verse in Psalm xix—the strong man rejoicing to run a race, a Messianic text; Æsculapius raised the dead; and the cave of Mithras is Daniel's "stone cut without hands from the great mountains." "I do not believe your teachers; they will not admit that the seventy elders of Ptolemy, King of Egypt, translated well, but they try to translate for themselves. And I should like you to know that they have cut many passages out of the versions made by Ptolemy's elders which prove expressly that this man, who was crucified, was prophesied of as God and man, crucified and slain. I know that all your race deny this; so, in discussions of this kind I do not quote those passages, but I have recourse to such as come from what you still acknowledge."[65] The objection to the rendering "young woman" is that it completely nullifies the sign given to Ahaz, for children are born of young women every day—"what would really be a sign and would give confidence to mankind,—to wit, that the firstborn of all creations should take flesh and really be born a child of a virgin womb—that was what he proclaimed beforehand by the prophetic spirit."[66]
The whole story is parable. It would be absurd to suppose that an infant could be a warrior and reduce great states. The spoils are really the gifts of the Magi, as is indicated by passages in Zechariah ("he shall gather all the strength of the peoples round about, gold and silver," 14, 14) and the seventy second Psalm ("Kings of the Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts to him; and to him shall be given gold from the East"). Samaria again is a common synonym with the prophets for idolatry. Damascus means the revolt of the Magi from the evil dæmon who misdirected their arts to evil. The King of Assyria stands, says Justin, for King Herod, and so says Tertullian, writing against Marcion, though in the tract Against the Jews (if it is Tertullian's) he says the devil is intended.[67] The usual passages from Micah and Jeremiah are cited to add Bethlehem and the Murder of the infants to the prophetic story.
"At this Trypho, with some hint of annoyance, but overawed by the Scriptures, as his face showed, said to me: 'God's words are holy, but your expositions [or translations] are artificial—or blasphemous, I should say.'"[68]
To complete the proof, it is shown that the very name of Jesus was foretold. When Moses changed the name of his successor from Auses to Jesus, it was a prophecy, as Scripture shows. "The Lord said unto Moses: Say to this people, Behold I send my angel before thy face that he may guard thee in the way, that he may lead thee into the land that I have prepared for thee. Give heed unto him ... for he will not let thee go, for my name is in him."[69] This is confirmed by Zechariah's account of the High Priest Joshua. Furthermore, the chronology of the book of Daniel, when carefully worked out, proves to have contained the prediction of the precise date at which Christ should come, and at that precise date Christ came.
Barnabas discovers another prophecy of Jesus in an unlikely place. "Learn, children of love," he says," that Abraham, who first gave circumcision, looked forward in spirit unto Jesus, when he circumcised, for he received dogmata in three letters. For it saith: And Abraham circumcised of his house men 18 and 300. What then was the knowledge given unto him? Mark that it says 18 first, and then after a pause 300. 18 [IH in Greek notation] there thou hast Jesus. And because the cross in T [= 300 in Greek notation] was to have grace, it saith 300 as well. It shows Jesus in the two letters, and in the one the cross."[70]
We now reach the prophecies of the cross, and, as the method is plain, a few references may suffice, taken this time from Tertullian (c. 10):—
Genesis 22, 6: Isaac carrying the wood for the sacrifice of himself.
Genesis 37, 28: Joseph sold by his brethren.
Deuteronomy 33,17: Moses' blessing of Joseph. (The unicorn's horns, with some arrangement, form a cross: cf. Psalm 22).
Exodus 17, 11: Moses with his arms spread wide.
Numbers 21, 9: The brazen serpent.
Psalm 96, 10: The Lord hath reigned from the tree, e ligno (though the Jews have cut out the last words).
Isaiah 9, 6: The government upon his shoulder.
Jeremiah 11, 19: Let us cast wood (lignum) into his bread.
Isaiah 53, 8, 9: For the transgression of my people is he stricken ... and his sepulture is taken from the midst (i.e. the resurrection).
Amos 8, 9: I will cause the sun to go down at noon.
For a long time before Justin was done with his exposition, Trypho was silent—the better part, perhaps, in all controversy. At last, writes Justin, "I finished. Trypho said nothing for a while, and then he said, 'You see, we came to the controversy unprepared. Still, I own, I am greatly pleased to have met you, and I think my friends have the same feeling. For we have found more than we expected,—or anyone could have expected. If we could do it at more length, we might be better profited by looking into the passages themselves. But, since you are on the point of sailing and expect to embark every day now,—be sure you think of us as friends, if you go.'"[71] So, with kindly feelings, Trypho went away unconvinced. And there were others, as clear of mind, who were as little convinced,—Marcion, for instance, and Celsus. "The more reasonable among Jews and Christians," says Celsus, "try to allegorize them [the Scriptures], but they are beyond being allegorized and are nothing but sheer mythology of the silliest type. The supposed allegories that have been made are more disgraceful than the myths and more absurd, in their endeavour to string together what never can in any way be harmonized—it is folly positively wonderful for its utter want of perception."[72] The modern reader may not be so ready as Origen was to suggest that Celsus probably had Philo in mind.[73]
Results
It is clear that, in the endeavour to give Christianity a historical background and a prophetic warrant, the Apologists lost all perspective.[74] The compelling personality of Jesus receded behind the vague figure of the Christ of prophecy; and, in their pre-occupation with what they themselves called "types and shadows," men stepped out of the sunlight into the shade and hardly noticed the change. Yet there is still among the best of them the note of love of Jesus—"do not speak evil of the crucified," pleads Justin, "nor mock at his stripes, whereby all may be healed, as we have been healed."[75] And after all it was an instinct for the truth and universal significance of Jesus that carried them away. He must be eternal; and they, like the men of their day, thought much of the beginning and the end of creation, and perhaps found it easier than we do,—certainly more natural,—to frame schemes under which the Eternal Mind might manifest itself. Eschatology, purpose, foreknowledge, pervade their religious thought, and they speak with a confidence which the centuries since the Renaissance have made more and more impossible for us, who find it hard enough to be sure of the fact without adventuring ourselves in the possibilities that lie around it. None the less the centre of interest was the same for them as for us—what is the significance of Jesus of Nazareth? For them the facts of his life and of his mind had often less value than the fancy that they fulfilled prophecy; Celsus said outright that the Christians altered them, and there is some evidence that, in the accommodation of prophecy and history, the latter was sometimes over-developed. For us, the danger is the opposite; we risk losing sight of the eternal significance in our need of seeing clearly the historic lineaments.
In the conflict of religions, Christianity had first to face Judaism, and, though the encounter left its record upon the conquering faith, it secured its freedom from the yoke of the past. It gained background and the broadening of the historic imagination. It made the prophets and psalmists of Israel a permanent and integral part of Christian literature—and in all these ways it became more fit to be the faith of mankind, as it deepened its hold upon the universal religious experience. Yet it did so at the cost of a false method which has hampered it for centuries, and of a departure (for too long a time) from the simplicity and candour of the mind of Jesus. In seeking to recover that mind to-day we commit ourselves to the belief that it is sufficient, and that, when we have rid ourselves of all that in the course of ages has obscured the great personality, in proportion as we regain his point of view, we shall find once more (in the words of a far distant age) that his spirit will guide us into all truth.
Chapter VI Footnotes:
[1] Justin, Trypho, c. 17; Tert. adv. Jud. 13.
[2] Psalm. Solom. xvii, 27-35. Ed. Ryle and James.
[3] Assumption of Moses, x, 8-10, tr. R. H. Charles. "Gehenna" is a restoration which seems probable, the Latin in terram representing what was left of the word in Greek. See Dr Charles' note.
[4] Justin, Trypho, 46, 47. The question is still asked; I have heard it asked.
[5] Justin, Trypho, 50.
[6] Justin, Trypho, 32; the quotations are from Daniel.
[7] Justin, Trypho, 48.
[8] Justin, Trypho, 68.
[9] Justin, Trypho, 17, 108.
[10] Cf. Tert. de Spect. 30, fabri aut quæstuariæ filius.
[11] Origen, c. Cels. i, 28, 32, 39. The beauty of the woman is an element in the stories of Greek demi-gods.
[12] c. Cels. ii, 55.
[13] ii, 27.
[14] ii, 29.
[15] ii, 28.
[16] i, 50.
[17] 2 Tim. 8, 15.
[18] Trypho, 39.
[19] Ign. Philad. 8, 2.
[20] Ign. Magn. 10, 3; 8, 1.
[21] So says Eusebius, E.H. iv, 18. Justin does not name the city.
[22] Trypho, 8.
[23] Justin, Trypho, 8.
[24] ad Diogn. 3, 4.
[25] Trypho, 22.
[26] Ibid. 12.
[27] Deut. 10, 16, 17; Trypho, 16.
[28] Jerem. 4, 4; 9, 25; Trypho, 28.
[29] Tert. adv. Jud. 4.
[30] Justin, Trypho, 19; Tert. adv. Jud. 2; Cyprian, Testim. 1, 8. Tertullian had to face a similar criticism of Christian life—was Abraham baptized? de Bapt. 13.
[31] Tert. adv. Jud. 3.
[32] Trypho, 23; Cyprian, Testim. 1, 8.
[33] Trypho, 16 (slightly compressed).
[34] Trypho, 19, 20; cf. Tert. adv. Jud.
[35] Trypho, 22.
[36] Barnabas, 10; cf. Pliny, N.H. 8, 218, on the hare; and Plutarch, de Iside et Osiride, 353 F, 363 F, 376 E, 381 A (weasel), for similar zoology and symbolism. Clem. Alex. Str. ii, 67; v, 51; refers to this teaching of Barnabas (cf. ib. ii, 105).
[37] Barnabas, 9.
[38] Trypho, 23.
[39] Ibid. 11.
[40] Jerem. 31, 31; Trypho, 11; Tert. adv. Jud. 3.
[41] Is. 6, 10; Trypho, 12; Cyprian, Testim. i, 3.
[42] Ps. 82, 5; Trypho, 124; Cyprian, Testim. i, 3.
[43] Is. 42, 19; Trypho, 123, where the plural is used.
[44] Is. 29, 11; Cyprian, Testim. i, 4.
[45] Trypho, 133.
[46] Trypho, 134.
[47] Cyprian, Testim. i, 21; Justin, Trypho, 12; Tert. adv. Marc. iii, 20.
[48] Trypho, 29.
[49] c. Cels. ii, 28,
[50] Lactantius, de mort. persec. 2.
[51] Tertullian lays down the canon (adv. Marc. iii, 5) pleraque figurate portenduntur per ænigmata et allegorias et parabolas, aliter intelligenda quam scripta sunt; but (de resurr. carnis, 20) non omnia imagines sed et veritates, nec omnia umbræ sed et corpora, e.g. the Virgin-birth is not foretold in figure.
[52] Trypho, 62, 129; Barnabas, 5, 5; Tert. adv. Prax. 12.
[53] Trypho, 56.
[54] Ibid. 56.
[55] Ibid. 56.
[56] Trypho, 56, 57.
[57] Trypho, 127. Tert. adv. Marc. ii, 27. Quæcunque exigitis deodigna, habebuntur in patre invisibili incongressibilique et placido et, ut ita dixerim, philosophorum deo. Quæcunque autem ut indigna reprehenditis, deputabuntur in filio, etc. Cf. on the distinction Tert. adv. Prax. 14 ff. Cf. the language of Celsus on God "descending," see p. 248.
[58] Trypho, 126. Other titles are quoted by Justin, Trypho, 61.
[59] Trypho, 128. Cf. Tertullian, adv. Marc. ii, 27, Ille est qui descendit, ille qui interrogat, ille qui postulat, ille qui jurat; adv. Prax. 15, Filius itaque est qui....
[60] Gen. 49, 8-12; Trypho, 52, 53; Apol. i, 32; Cyprian, Testim. i, 21.
[61] Tert. adv. Jud. 14.
[62] Trypho, 40; Tert. adv. Jud. 14; Barnabas, 7.
[63] Trypho, 66. Isaiah vii and viii.
[64] Trypho, 67.
[65] Trypho, 71.
[66] Trypho, 84. Cf. Tert. adv. Jud. 9 = adv. Marc. iii, 13.
[67] Trypho, 77: Tert. adv. Jud. 9 = adv. Marc. iii, 13; both referring to Psalm 71.
[68] Trypho, 79.
[69] Trypho, 75; Exodus 23, 20.
[70] Barnabas, 9, 8 (the subject of 'saith' may in each case be 'he'). Clement of Alexandria cites this and adds a mystic and mathematical account of this suggestive figure 318. Strom. vi. 84.
[71] Trypho, 142.
[72] Celsus ap. Orig. c. Cels. iv, 50, 51.
[73] Especially when he finds Celsus referring to the dialogue of Jason and Papiscus as "more worthy of pity and hatred than of laughter"; c. Cels. iv, 52.
[74] Porphyry (cited by Euseb. E.H. vi, 19), says they made riddles of what was perfectly plain in Moses, their expositions would not hang together, and they cheated their own critical faculty, tò kritikòn tês psychês katagoeteúsantes.
[75] Trypho, 137.
In the first two centuries of our era a great change came over the ancient world. A despised and traditional religion, under the stimulus of new cults coming from the East, revived and re-asserted its power over the minds of men. Philosophy, grown practical in its old age, forsook its youthful enthusiasm for the quest of truth, and turned aside to the regulation of conduct, by means of maxims now instead of inspiration, and finally, as we have seen, to apology for the ancient faith of the fathers. Its business now was to reconcile its own monotheistic dogma with popular polytheistic practice. It was perhaps this very reconciliation that threw open the door for the glowing monotheism of the disciples of Jesus; but, whatever the cause, Christianity quickly spread over the whole Roman Empire. We are apt to wonder to-day at the great political and national developments that have altered the whole aspect of Europe since the French Revolution, and to reflect rather idly on their rapidity. Yet the past has its own stories of rapid change, and not the least striking of them is the disappearance of that world of thought which we call Classical. By 180 A.D. nearly every distinctive mark of classical antiquity is gone—the old political ideas, the old philosophies, the old literatures, and much else with them. Old forms and names remain—there are still consuls and archons, poets and philosophers, but the atmosphere is another, and the names have a new meaning, if they have any at all. But the mere survival of the names hid for many the fact that they were living in a new era.
Marcus Aurelius
In the reign of Marcus Aurelius, however, the signs of change became more evident, and men grew conscious that some transformation of the world was in progress. A great plague, the scanty records of which only allow us to speak in vague terms of an immense reduction in population[1]—barbarism active upon the frontier of an Empire not so well able as it had fancied to defend itself—superstitions, Egyptian and Jewish, diverting men from the ordinary ways of civic duty—such were some of the symptoms that men marked. Under the weight of absurdity, quietism and individualism, the state seemed to be sinking, and all that freedom of mind which was the distinctive boast of Hellenism was rapidly being lost.
It happens that, while the historical literature of the period has largely perished, a number of authors survive, who from their various points of view deal with what is our most immediate subject—the conflict of religions. Faith, doubt, irritation and fatalism are all represented. The most conspicuous men of letters of the age are undoubtedly the Emperor Marcus Aurelius himself and his two brilliant contemporaries, Lucian of Samosata, and Apuleius of Madaura.[2] Celsus, a man of mind as powerful as any of the three, survives in fragments, but fragments ample enough to permit of re-construction. Among the Christians too there was increased literary activity, but Tertullian and Clement will suffice for our purpose.
Though not in his day regarded as a man of letters, it is yet in virtue of his writing that Marcus Aurelius survives. His journal, with the title that tells its nature—"To Himself," is to-day perhaps the most popular book of antiquity with those whose first concern is not literature. It is translated again and again, and it is studied. The peculiar mind of the solitary Emperor has made him, as Mr F. W. H. Myers put it, "the saint and exemplar of Agnosticism." Meditative, tender and candid, yet hesitant and so far ineffectual, he is sensitive to so much that is positive and to so much that is negative, that the diary, in which his character is most intimately revealed, gives him a place of his own in the hearts of men perplext in the extreme. He is a man who neither believes, nor disbelieves,—"either gods or atoms"[3] seems to be the necessary antithesis, and there is so much to be said both for and against each of the alternatives that decision is impossible. He is attracted by the conception of Providence, but he hesitates to commit himself. There are arguments—at least of the kind that rest on probability—in favour of immortality, but they are insufficient to determine the matter. In his public capacity he became famous for the number and magnificence of his sacrifices to the gods of the state; he owns in his journal his debt to the gods for warnings given in dreams, but he suspects at times that they may not exist. Meanwhile he persecutes the Christians for their disloyalty to the state. Their stubborn convictions were so markedly in contrast with his own wavering mind that he could not understand them—perhaps their motive was bravado, he thought; they were too theatrical altogether; their pose recalled the tragedies composed by the pupils of the rhetoricians—large language with nothing behind it.[4]
In the absence of any possibility of intellectual certainty, Marcus fell back upon conduct. Here his want of originality and of spiritual force was less felt, for conduct has tolerably well-established rules of neighbourliness, purity, good temper, public duty and the like. His Stoic guides, too, might in this region help him to follow with more confidence the voice of his own pure and delicate conscience—the conscience of a saint and a quietist rather than that of a man of action. Yet even in the realm of conduct he is on the whole ineffectual. Pure, truthful, kind, and brave he is, but he does not believe enough to be great. He is called to be a statesman and an administrator; he does not expect much outcome from all his energies, and he preaches to himself the necessity of patience with his prospective failure to achieve anything beyond the infinitesimal. "Ever the same are the cycles of the universe, up and down, for ever and for ever. Either the intelligence of the Whole puts itself in motion for each separate effect—in which case accept the result it gives; or else it did so once for all, and everything is sequence, one thing in another ... [The text is doubtful for a line] ... In a word, either God, and all goes well; or all at random—live not thou at random.
"A moment, and earth will cover us all; then it too in its turn will change; and what it changes to, will change again and again for ever; and again change after change to infinity. The waves of change and transformation—if a man think of them and of their speed, he will despise everything mortal.
"The universal cause is like a winter torrent; it carries all before it. How cheap then these poor statesmen, these who carry philosophy into practical affairs, as they fancy—poor diminutive creatures. Drivellers. Man, what then? Do what now Nature demands. Start, if it be given thee, and look not round to see if any will know. Hope not for Plato's Republic;[5] but be content if the smallest thing advance; to compass that one issue count no little feat.
"Who shall change one of their dogmata [the regular word of Epictetus]? And without a change of dogmata, what is there but the slavery of men groaning and pretending to obey? Go now, and talk of Alexander, and Philip and Demetrius of Phalerum; whether they saw the will of Nature and schooled themselves, is their affair; if they played the tragic actor, no one has condemned me to copy them. Simplicity and modesty are the work of philosophy; do not lead me astray into vanity.
"Look down from above on the countless swarms of men, their countless initiations, and their varied voyage in storm and calm, their changing combinations, as they come into being, meet, and pass out of being. Think too of the life lived by others of old, of the life that shall be lived by others after thee, of the life now lived among the barbarian nations; and, of how many have never heard thy name, and how many will at once forget it, and how many may praise thee now perhaps but will very soon blame thee; and how neither memory is of any account, nor glory, nor anything else at all....
"The rottenness of the material substance of every individual thing—water, dust, bones, stench.... And this breathing element is another of the same, changing from this to that....
"Either the gods have no power, or they have power. If they have not, why pray? If they have, why not pray for deliverance from the fear, or the desire, or the pain, which the thing causes, rather than for the withholding or the giving of the particular thing? For certainly, if they can co-operate with men, it is for these purposes they can co-operate. But perhaps thou wilt say, The gods have put all these in my own power. Then is it not better to use what is in thine own power and be free, than to be set on what is not in thy power—a slave and contemptible? And who told thee that the gods do not help us even to what is in our own power?"[6]
This handful of short passages all from the same place, with a few omitted, may be taken as representing very fairly the mind of Marcus Aurelius. The world was his to rule, and he felt it a duty to remember how slight a thing it was. This was not the temper of Alexander or of Cæsar,—of men who make mankind, and who, by their belief in men and in the power of their own ideas to lift men to higher planes of life, actually do secure that advance is made,—and that advance not the smallest. Yet he speaks of Alexander as a "tragic actor."[7] For a statesman, the attitude of Marcus is little short of betrayal. He worked, he ruled, he endowed, he fought—he was pure, he was conscientious, he was unselfish—but he did not believe, and he was ineffectual. The Germans it might have been beyond any man's power to repel at that day, but even at home Marcus was ineffectual. His wife and his son were by-words. He had almost a morbid horror of defilement from men and women of coarse minds,—a craving too for peace and sympathy; he shrank into himself, condoned, ignored. Among his benefactors he does not mention Hadrian, who really gave him the Empire—and it is easy to see why. In everything the two are a contrast. Hadrian's personal vices and his greatness as a ruler, as a man handling men and moving among ideas[8]—these were impossible for Marcus.
Nor was the personal religion of this pure and candid spirit a possible one for mankind. "A genuine eternal Gospel," wrote Renan of this diary of Marcus, "the book of the Thoughts will never grow old, for it affirms no dogma. The Gospel has grown old in certain parts; Science no longer allows us to admit the naïve conception of the supernatural which is its base.... Yet Science might destroy God and the soul, and the book of the Thoughts would remain young in its life and truth." Renan is right; when Science, or anything else, "destroys God and the soul," there is no Gospel but that of Marcus; and yet for men it is impossible; and it is not young—it is senile. Duty without enthusiasm, hope or belief—belief in man, of course, for "God and the soul" are by hypothesis "destroyed"—duty, that is, without object, reason or result, it is a magnificent fancy, and yet one recurs to the criticism that Marcus passed upon the Christians. Is there not a hint of the school about this? Is it not possible that the simpler instincts of men,—instincts with a history as ludicrous as Anthropologists sometimes sketch for us,—may after all come nearer the truth of things than semi-Stoic reflexion? At all events the instincts have ruled the world so far with the co-operation of Reason, and are as yet little inclined to yield their rights to their colleague. They have never done so without disaster.
The world did not accept Marcus as a teacher. Men readily recognized his high character, but for a thousand years and more nobody dreamed of taking him as a guide—nobody, that is, outside the schools. For the world it was faith or unbelief, and the two contemporaries already mentioned represent the two poles to which the thoughts of men gravitated, who were not yet ready for a cleavage with the past.
Lucian
"I am a Syrian from the Euphrates,"[9] wrote Lucian of himself; and elsewhere he has a playful protest against a historian of his day, magnificently ignorant of Eastern geography, who "has taken up my native Samosata, and shifted it, citadel, walls and all, into Mesopotamia," and by this new feat of colonization has apparently turned him into a Parthian or Mesopotamian.[10] Samosata lay actually in Commagene, and there Lucian spent his boyhood talking Syriac, his native language.[11] He was born about 125 A.D. His family were poor, and as soon as he left school, the question of a trade was at once raised, for even a boy's earnings would be welcome. At school he had had a trick of scraping the wax from his tablets and making little figures of animals and men, so his father handed him over to his mother's brother, who was one of a family of statuaries. But a blunder and a breakage resulted in his uncle thrashing him, and he ran home to his mother. It was his first and last day in the sculptor's shop, and he went to bed with tears upon his face. In later life he told the story of a dream which he had that night—a long and somewhat literary dream modelled on Prodicus' fable of the Choice of Herakles. He dreamed that two women appeared to him, one dusty and workmanlike, the other neat, charming and noble. They were Sculpture and Culture, and he chose the latter. He tells the dream, he says, that the young may be helped by his example to pursue the best and devote themselves to Culture, regardless of immediate poverty.[12] He was launched somehow on the career of his choice and became a rhetorician. It may be noted however that an instinctive interest in art remained with him, and he is reckoned one of the best art-critics of antiquity.