1 Mt. xxii, 39; Mk. xii, 31. ↑
2 Talmud, tract. Sabbath, 306. ↑
5 See the impressive argument of Dr. Moncure Conway in his Solomon and Solomonic Literature, 1899, ch. xviii. ↑
6 See Dr. Nicholson’s The Gospel According to the Hebrews, 1879, p. 77. Cp. Conway, p. 222. Dr. Nicholson insists that at least the word “sacrificing” must be spurious, because “it is surely impossible that Jesus ever uttered this threat”! ↑
7 Cp. the author’s Christianity and Mythology, pt. iii. div. ii, § 6. ↑
8 The Book of the Secrets of Enoch, known as the “Slavonic Enoch,” ch. xliv, 1 (Eng. tr. 1896, pp. 60, 67). ↑
9 See the author’s Pagan Christs, pt. ii. ↑
11 Hosea, vi, 6; Psalms, xl, 6, 7; Ecclesiastes, v, 1. ↑
12 Talmud, Yoma-Derech Eretz; Midrash, Vayikra-Rabba, xxvii, 11 and 12. ↑
15 Cp. Conway, Solomon and Solomonic Literature, 1899, pp. 57, 201, 219. ↑
17 E.g., Plato, Crito, Jowett’s tr. 3rd ed. ii, 150; Seneca, De Ira, ii, 32. Valerius Maximus (iv, 2, 4) even urges the returning of benefits for injuries. ↑
18 It is impossible to find in the whole patristic literature a single display of the “love” in question. In all early Christian history there is nothing to represent it save the attitude of martyrs towards their executioners—an attitude seen often in pagan literature. (E.g., Ælian, Var. Hist. xii, 49.) ↑
21 Cp. Rom. ix, 14–21. ↑
22 2 Cor. x, 5. Needless to say, such an expression savours strongly of late invention; but in any case it tells of the attitude of the Christian teachers of the second century. ↑
23 1 Cor. vii, 20–24 (where the phrase translated in English “use it rather” unquestionably means “rather continue” = remain a slave. Cp. Eph. vi, 5, and Variorum Teacher’s Bible in loc.). ↑
24 Rom. xiii, 1. Cp. 1 Peter ii, 13–14; Tit. iii, 1. The anti-Roman spirit in the Apocalypse is Judaic, not Gentile-Christian; the book being of Jewish origin. ↑
27 The Apology of Athenagoras (2nd c.) is rather a defence of monotheism than a Christian document; hence, no doubt, its speedy neglect by the Church. ↑
28 Justin Martyr, 1 Apol. c. 5; Min. Felix, Octavius, c. 10. ↑
29 “The inhabitants of Cœlesyria, Idumea, and Judea are principally influenced by Aries and Ares, and are generally audacious, atheistical, and treacherous” (Ptolemy, Tetrabiblos, ii, 3—Paraphrase of Proclus). ↑
30 Cp. Tertullian, De Idolatria, passim, and Ad Scapulam, c. 5. ↑
31 For the refusal to worship men as Gods they had, of course, abundant pagan precedent. See above, p. 186, note. ↑
32 E.g., Tertullian, De Testimonio Animæ, c. 1; Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, i, 41, etc.; Lactantius, Divine Institutes, c. xv; Epit. c. vii. ↑
33 Cp. J. A. Farrer, Paganism and Christianity, ch. vii. ↑
34 Irenæus, Against Heresies, i, 26. Cp. Hagenbach, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3te Aufl. § 23, 4 (p. 37), as to Cerinthus. ↑
35 1 Tim. vi, 20. The word persistently translated “oppositions” is a specific term in Gnostic lore. Cp. R. W. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, 1854, p. 115, note. ↑
36 Cp. Harnack, Outlines of the History of Dogma, Mitchell’s trans. p. 77 (ch. vi), p. 149 (bk. ii, ch. vi); Gieseler, Comp. of Eccles. Hist. i, § 63, Eng. tr. i, 234, as to the attitude of Origen. ↑
37 The term “Gnostic,” often treated as if applicable only to heretical sects, was adopted by Clemens of Alexandria as an honourable title. Cp. Gieseler, p. 241, as cited. ↑
38 Mosheim, Eccles. Hist. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 4–12. Cp., however, Abbé Cognat, Clément d’Alexandrie, 1859, pp. 421–23, and Ueberweg, i, 239, as to the obscurity resting on the original teaching of Ammonios. ↑
39 Cp. Gieseler, Compendium, i, § 52 (tr. vol. i, p. 162). ↑
40 Id. §§ 54, 55, pp. 186–90. ↑
41 E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. i, §§ 2–4. ↑
42 As to the earlier latitudinarianism, cp. Gieseler, as cited, p. 166. ↑
44 Mosheim, E. H. 3 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 1–7; Gieseler, as cited, § 53, pp. 162–65; Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. vi, 19; B. Saint-Hilaire, De l’école d’Alexandrie, 1845, p. 7; Baur, Ch. Hist. Eng. tr. ii, 3–8. But cp. Cognat, Clément d’Alexandrie, l. v, ch. v. ↑
45 Cp. Mosheim on Origen, Comm. de rebus Christ. ante Const. §§ 27, 28, summarized in Schlegel’s note to Ec. Hist. Reid’s ed. pp. 100–101; Gieseler, § 63; Renan, Marc-Aurèle, pp. 114, 140. Dr. Hatch (Influence of Greek Ideas on the Christian Church, pp. 82–83) notes that the allegorical method, which began in a tendency towards rationalism, came later to be typically orthodox. ↑
46 “Gnosis was an attempt to convert Christianity into philosophy; to place it in its widest relation to the universe, and to incorporate with it the ideas and feelings approved by the best intelligence of the times.” Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, p. 109. But cp. the per contra on p. 110: “it was but a philosophy in fetters, an effort of the mind to form for itself a more systematic belief in its own prejudices.” Again (p. 115): “a reaction towards freethought was the essence of Gnosis.” So also Robins, A Defence of the Faith, 1862, pt. i, pp. 4–5, 153. ↑
47 This view could be supported by the Platonists from Plato, Laws, bk. x. Cp. Chaignet, La vie et les écrits de Platon, 1871, p. 422; and Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v, ed. Paris, 1840, i, 288. It is explicitly set forth by Plutarch, I. and O., cc. 45–49. ↑
48 On the subject in general cp. Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v; also his Commentaries on the Affairs of the Christians before Constantine, Eng. tr. vol. ii; Harnack, Outlines of the Hist. of Dogma, ch. iv; King, The Gnostics and their Remains; Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pt. iii, §§ 10, 11, 12; Renan, L’Église Chrétienne, chs. ix, x; Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. v; Lardner, Hist. of Heretics, in Works, ed. 1835, vol. viii; Baur, Church History, pt. iii; Jeremie, Hist. of the Chr. Church in 2nd and 3rd Cent., ch. v (in Encyc. Metropolitana). ↑
49 “Mysticism itself is but an insane rationalism” (Hampden, Bampton Lect. on Scholastic Philosophy, 3rd ed. intr. p. liii). It may be described as freethought without regard to evidence—that “lawless thought” which Christian polemists are wont to ascribe to rationalists. ↑
50 Gieseler, §§ 61, 86 (pp. 228, 368, 370). ↑
51 In the fourth century and later, however, the gospel of asceticism won great orthodox vogue through the writings of the so-called Dionysius the Areopagite. Cp. Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, c. iii, § 12; Westcott, Religious Thought in the West, 1891, pp. 190–91. ↑
52 Compare the process by which the Talmudic system unified Judaism. Wellhausen, Israel, as cited, pp. 541–42; Milman, History of Christianity, bk. ii, ch. 4, ed. Paris, 1840, i, 276. ↑
53 “There is good reason to suppose that the Christian bishops multiplied sacred rites for the sake of rendering the Jews and the pagans more friendly to them” (Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iv. Cp. ch. iii, § 17; ch. iv, §§ 3–7; 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 1–3; ch. iv, §§ 1–2; 5 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 2). This generalization is borne out by nearly every other Church historian. Cp. Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. i, ch. i; Milman, bk. iv, ch. 5, pp. 367–74; Gieseler. §§ 98, 99, 101, 104; Renan, Marc-Aurèle, 3e edit. p. 630. Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. ii, 285–89. ↑
54 Gieseler, § 87, p. 373; Hagenbach, Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, 3te Aufl. § 108. ↑
55 Eusebius, v, 28; Gieseler, § 60, p. 218. ↑
56 Cp. Gieseler, §§ 80–83, pp. 328–53; Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. i, esp. pp. 201–202. ↑
57 One being another Theodotos, a money-changer. ↑
58 Eusebius, as last cited. The sect was accused of altering the gospels to suit its purposes. The charge could probably be made with truth against every sect in turn, as against the Church in general. ↑
59 In the end the doctrine declared orthodox was the opposite of what had been declared orthodox in the Sabellian and other controversies (Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 9); and all the while “the Arians and the orthodox embraced the same theology in substance” (Murdock, note on Mosheim, Reid’s ed. p. 161). An eminent modern Catholic, however, has described Arianism as “a deistic doctrine which had not the courage to bury itself in the fecund obscurities of dogma” (Ozanam, La Civilisation chrétienne chez les Francs, 1849, p. 35). ↑
61 Cp. the author’s Short History of Christianity, 2nd ed. pp. 176–81. ↑
62 “Pelagianism is Christian rationalism” (Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. iv, § 3, p.364). ↑
63 He was first a Manichean; later an anti-Manichean, denying predestination; later, as an opponent of the Pelagians, an assertor of predestination. Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pt. v, § 15. As to his final Manicheanism, see Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, 3rd ed. i, 152. ↑
64 Cp. Harnack, Outlines, pt. ii, bk. ii, ch. v, § 1 (p. 386). ↑
65 Cp. Hampden, Bampton Lectures on The Scholastic Philosophy, 1848, pp. xxxv–xxxvi, and refs. ↑
66 Sokrates, Eccles. Hist. bk. vii, ch. 15. ↑
67 Epist. 93. Cp. Schlegel’s notes on Mosheim, in Reid’s ed. pp. 159, 198; Rev. W. R. Clarke, Saint Augustine, pp. 86–87 (a defence); Milman, History of Latin Christianity, bk. ii, ch. ii, 3rd. ed. i, 163; Boissier, La fin du paganisme, 2e édit. i, 69–79. Harnack’s confused and contradictory estimate of Augustine (Outlines, pt. ii, bk ii, chs. iii, iv) ignores this issue. He notes, however (pp. 362–63), some of Augustine’s countless self-contradictions. ↑
68 Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, ii, 182, 188, and note. For the views of Ambrose see p. 184. In Gaul, St. Martin put down the old shrines by brute force. Id. p. 179. ↑
69 Cp. Beugnot, Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en Occident, 1835, i, 430. ↑
70 De errore profanarum religionum, end. ↑
71 See it translated in full by Lardner in his Testimonies of Ancient Heathens, ch. xlix. Works, ed. 1835, vol. viii. ↑
72 Lardner, as cited, pp. 25–27. ↑
73 As to the high character of Libanius, who used his influence to succour his Christian friends in the reign of Julian, see Lardner, pp. 15–17. ↑
74 Milman, Hist. of Christianity, bk. iii, ch. vi; vol. ii, p. 131. See the passage there cited from the Funeral Oration of Libanius On Julian, as to Christians building houses with temple stones; also the further passages, pp. 129, 161, 212, of Mr. King’s tr. of the Oration in his Julian the Emperor (Bohn Lib.). ↑
76 Gibbon, ch. xlvii. Bohn ed. v, 211–52, 264, 268, 272. Mosheim, passim. ↑
77 Milman, as cited, p. 178. ↑
78 De Testimonio Animæ, c. 2; De Ira Dei. ↑
79 Tertullian, as cited, c. 3. ↑
81 On the Mysteries, bk. x, ch. 2. ↑
82 Cp. Minucius Felix (2nd c.), Octavius, c. 5. ↑
83 De consensu evangelistarum, i, 10. ↑
84 De civ. Dei, xxi, 2, 5–7. ↑
87 See the citations in Abailard’s Sic et non, § 1. Quod fides humanis rationibus sit adstruenda, et contra. ↑
88 De Gubernatione Dei, l. 4. ↑
89 See Renan, L’Église Chrétienne, p. 493. As to Crescens, the enemy of Justin Martyr (2 Apol. c. 3), see id. p. 492. Cp. Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, passim, as to pagan objections. What remains of Porphyry will be found in Lardner’s Testimonies of the Heathen, ch. xxxvii. Cp. Baur, Church History, Eng. tr. ii, 179–87. ↑
90 The Controversy between Jason and Papiscus regarding Christ, mentioned by Origen (Ag. Celsus, bk. iv, ch. 4), seems to have been of the same nature. ↑
91 Origen repeatedly calls him an Epicurean; but this is obviously false. The Platonizing Christian would not admit that a Platonist was anti-Christian. ↑
92 Origen places him in the reign of Hadrian; but the internal evidence is all against that opinion. Kain dates the treatise 177–78. ↑
93 Cp. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, 3e édit. pp. 346–71. ↑
103 B. iv, cc. 23–30, 54–60, 74. ↑
104 Cp. A. Kind, Teleologie und Naturalismus in der altchristlichen Zeit, 1875; Soury, Bréviaire de l’histoire du Matérialisme, pp. 331–40. ↑
105 B. i, chs. 9–11; iii, 44. ↑
106 Cp. Renan, Marc-Aurèle, pp. 373–77. ↑
107 Christian excisions have been suspected in the Peregrinus, § 11 (Bernays, Lucian und die Kyniker, 1879, p. 107). But see Mr. J. M. Cotterill’s Peregrinus Proteus, Edinburgh, 1879, for a theory of the spuriousness of the treatise, which is surmised to be a fabrication of Henri Etienne. ↑
108 Logoi Philaletheis, known only from the reply of Eusebius, Contra Hiroclem. Hierocles made much of Apollonius of Tyana, as having greatly outdone Jesus in miracles, while ranking simply as a God-beloved man. ↑
109 Methodius, Eusebius, Apollinaris, and Philostorgius. ↑
110 Cod. Justin. De Summa Trinitate. l. I, tit. i, c. 3. ↑
111 Citations are given by Baur, Ch. Hist. ii, 180 sq. ↑
112 Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, p. 160. Chrysostom (De Mundi Creatione, vi, 3) testifies that Porphyry “led many away from the faith.” He ably anticipated the “higher criticism” of the Book of Daniel. See Baur, as cited. Porphyry, like Celsus, powerfully retorted on the Old Testament the attacks made by Christians on the immorality of pagan myths, and contemned the allegorical explanations of the Christian writers as mere evasions. The pagan explanations of pagan myths, however, were of the same order. ↑
113 Gieseler, § 106, ii, 75. Cp. Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 22. ↑
114 Gieseler, § 106, vol. ii, p. 74; Mosheim, 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 2; and Schlegel’s note in Reid’s ed. p. 152. ↑
115 Milman, Hist. of Chr. bk. iii, ch. xi (ii, 268–70); Mosheim, 5 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 14; Gilly, Vigilantius and his Times, 1844, pp. 8, 389 sq., 470 sq. As to Jerome’s persecuting ferocity see also Gieseler, ii, 65 note. For a Catholic polemic on Jerome’s side see Amedée Thierry, Saint Jérome, 2e édit. pp. 141, 363–66. ↑
116 See a good account of the works of Macrobius in Prof. Dill’s Roman Society in the last Century of the Western Empire, bk. i, ch. iv. ↑
117 Philostorgius, Eccles. Hist. Epit. bk. viii, ch. x. ↑
118 By Justinian in 529. The banished thinkers were protected by Chosroes in Persia, who secured them permission to return (Gibbon, Bohn ed. iv. 355–56; Finlay, Hist. of Greece, ed. Tozer, i, 277, 287). Theodosius II had already forbidden all public lectures by independent teachers (id. pp. 282–83). ↑
119 Theodosius I, Arcadius, and Theodosius II (379–450) successively passed laws forbidding and persecuting paganism (Finlay. i, 286; Beugnot. Hist. de la destr. du paganisme en occident, i, 350 sq.). Mithraism was suppressed in the same period (Jerome, Epist. cvii, ad Laetam, Sokrates, Eccles. Hist. bk. v, ch. xvi). It is to be remembered that Constans and Constantius, the sons of Constantine, had commenced, at least on paper, to persecute paganism as soon as their father’s new creed was sufficiently established (Cod. Theod. xvi, 10, 2, 4), and this with the entire approval of the whole Church. It was not their fault that it subsisted till the time of Theodosius II (cp. Gieseler, § 75, pp. 306–308; and Beugnot, i, 138–48). On the edict of Theodosius I see Milman, bk. iii, ch. viii; ed. cited, p. 186. ↑
120 In S. Babylam, contra Julianum, c. ii. Cp. his Hom. iv on 1st Cor. Eng. tr. 1839, p. 42. ↑
121 There is also a suggestion in one passage of Chrysostom (Hom. in 1 Cor. vi, 2, 3) that some Christians tended to doubt the actuality of apostolic miracles, seeing that no miracles took place in their own day. ↑
122 Præparatio Evangelica, xv, 61. ↑
125 Topographia, lib. v, cited by Murdock in note on Mosheim. 5 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 5, Reid’s ed. p. 192. Cp. same ed. p. 219, note; and Gibbon, Bohn ed. iv, 259; v, 319. ↑
126 Acta concilia Constantinop. apud Harduin, ii, 65, 71. ↑
127 See Schlegel’s note on Mosheim. 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. v, § 19. ↑
128 The first name came from Ανόμοιος, “unlike-natured (to the Father),” that being their primary doctrinal heresy concerning Jesus. The second seems to have been a euphemism of their own making, with the sense of “holding the good law.” ↑
129 Jerome, Adv. Vigilantium, cc. 9, 11. ↑
130 Epiphanius, Adv. Hæres. lxx, § 6. ↑
131 Cp. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, viii, 15–19; xxi, 6; De Trinitate, iii, 12, 13 (7, 8); Epist. cxxxviii, 18–20; Sermo cc, in Epiph. Dom. ii; Jerome, Vita S. Hilarion, cc. 6, 37. ↑
132 Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 8, 15; 3 Cent. pt. i, ch. i, § 5; pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 10, 11; 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, §§ 3, 16; Gieseler, § 63, p. 235; Waddington, Hist. of the Church, 1833, pp. 38–39; Milman, Hist. of Chr. bk. iv, ch. iii, ed. cited, ii, 337. Cp. Mackay, Rise and Progress of Christianity, pp. 11–12. ↑
133 Cp. the explicit admissions of Mosheim, E. H. 2 Cent. pt. ii, ch. iii, § 16; 3 Cont. pt. ii, ch. ii, §§ 4, 6; 4 Cent. pt. ii, ch. ii, § 8; ch. iii, § 17; Gieseler, § 103, vol. ii, p. 56. It is to be noted, however, that even the martyrs were at times bad characters who sought in martyrdom remission for their sins (Gieseler, § 74, p. 206; De Wette, as there cited). ↑
134 Cp. Gieseler, ii, 67–68. ↑
135 Epist. vii, 5; xcv, 33. Cp. Cicero, Tusculans, ii, 17. ↑
136 Cp. the Bohn ed. of Gibbon, note by clerical editor, iii, 359. ↑
137 The express declaration of Salvian, De Gubernatione Dei, l. 6. On the general question compare Mr. Farrer’s Paganism and Christianity, ch. x; Milman, as last cited, p. 331; and Gieseler, ii, 71, note 6. The traditional view that the games were suppressed by Honorius, though accepted by Gibbon and by Professor Dill (Roman Society in the Last Century of the Western Empire, 2nd ed. p. 56), appears to be an error. Cp. Beugnot, Destr. du Paganisme, ii, 25; Finlay, Hist. of Greece, i, 236. ↑
138 As to the specially cruel use of judicial torture by the later Inquisition, see H. C. Lea, Superstition and Force, 3rd ed. p. 452. ↑
139 Lavollée, as cited, p. 92. Cp. St. Chrysostom’s Picture of his Age, p. 112, and the admissions of Milman, bk. iv, ch. i. ↑
140 As to the spirit of hatred roused by controversy among believers, see Gieseler, § 104, vol. ii, pp. 64–67; and Ullmann’s Gregory of Nazianzum, Eng. tr. 1851, pp. 177–80. ↑
141 H. Fraser Stewart, Boethius: An Essay, 1891, pp. 100–101. ↑
142 Cp. Beugnot, Destruction du Paganisme, ii, 282–83. ↑
143 Id. p. 159. Mr. Stewart in another passage (p. 106) argues that “The Consolation is intensely artificial”—this by way of explaining that it was a deliberate exercise, not representing the real or normal state of its author’s mind. Yet he has finally to avow (p. 107) that “it remains a very noble book”—a character surely incompatible with intense artificiality. ↑
144 This is the view of Maurice (Medieval Philosophy, 2nd ed. 1859, pp. 14–16), who decides that Boethius was neither a Christian nor a “pagan”—i.e., a believer in the pagan Gods. This is simply to say that he was a rationalist—a “pagan philosopher,” like Aristotle. But, as is noted by Prof. Bury (ed. of Gibbon, iv. 199), Boethius’s authorship of a book, De sancta trinitate, et capita quædam dogmatica, et librum contra Nestorium, is positively asserted in the Anecdoton Holderi (ed. by Usener, Leipzig, 1877, p. 4), a fragment found in a 10th century MS. ↑