Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
Acta Pauli et Thecla, according to Tertullian and Jerome, were composed by a presbyter of Asia Minor who, carried away by the mania for literary forging, excused himself by saying that he had written Pauli amore, but was for this nevertheless deprived of his office. According to these Acts Thecla, the betrothed bride of a young man of importance at Iconium, was won to Christianity by a sermon of Paul on continence as a condition of a future glorious resurrection, forsook her bridegroom, devoted herself to perpetual virginity, and attached herself forthwith to the Apostle whose bodily presence is described as contemptible—little, bald-headed, large nose, and bandy legs—but lighted up with heavenly grace. Led twice to martyrdom she was saved by miraculous divine interposition, first from the flames of the pile, then, after having baptized herself in the name of Christ by plunging into a pit full of water, from the rage of devouring animals; whereupon Paul, recognising that sort of baptism in an emergency as valid, sent her forth with the commission: Go hence and teach the word of God! After converting and instructing many, she died in peace in Seleucia. Although Jerome treats our book as apocryphal, the legends of Thecla as given in it were regarded in the West as genuine, and St. Thecla was honoured throughout the whole of the Latin middle ages next to the mother of Jesus as the most perfect pattern of virginity. In the Greek church where we meet with the name first in the Symposium of Methodius, the book remained unsuspected and its heroine, as ἡ ἀπόστολος and ἡ πρωτομάρτυς, was honoured still more enthusiastically than in the West.
6 The Syriac Doctrina Addæi Apost. was according to its own statement deposited in the library of Edessa, but allusions to later persons and circumstances show that it could not have been written before A.D. 280 (according to Zahn about A.D. 270–290; acc. to Lipsius not before A.D. 360). It assigns the founding of the church of Edessa, which is proved to have been not earlier than A.D. 170, according to local tradition to the Apostle Addai [Addæi] (in Euseb. and elsewhere, Thaddeus: comp. Matt. x. 3; Mark iii. 18), whom it represents as one of the seventy disciples and as having been sent by Thomas to Abgar Uchomo in accordance with Christ’s promise (§ 13, 2).88
§ 32.7.
1 Apostolic Epistles. The apocryphal Epistle of Paul to the Laodiceans (Col. iv. 16), and that to the Corinthians suggested by the statement in 1 Cor. v. 9, are spiritless compilations from the canonical Epistles. From the Correspondence of Paul with Seneca, quotations are made by Jerome and Augustine. It embraces fourteen short epistles. The idea of friendly relations between these two men suggested by Acts xviii. 12, Gallio being Seneca’s brother, forms the motive for the fiction.
2 The apocryphal Apocalypses that have been preserved are of little value. An Apocalypsis Petri was known to Clement of Alexandria. The Apoc. Pauli is based on 2 Cor. xii. 2.
3 Apostolical Constitutions, comp. § 43, 4, 5.89
§ 32.8. The Acts of the Martyrs.—Of the numerous professedly contemporary accounts of celebrated martyrs of the 2nd and 3rd cents., those adopted by Eusebius in his Church History may be accepted as genuine; especially the Epistle of the Church of Smyrna to the Church at Philomelium about the persecution which it suffered (§ 22, 3); also the Report of the Church at Lyons and Vienne to the Christians in Asia and Phrygia about the persecution under Marcus Aurelius in A.D. 177 (§ 22, 3); and an Epistle of Dionysius Bishop of Alexandria to Fabian of Antioch about the Alexandrian martyrs and confessors during the Decian persecution. The Acts of the Martyrs of Scillita are also genuine (§ 22, 3); so too the Montanistic History of the sufferings of Perpetua, Felicitas, and their companions (§§ 22, 4; 40, 3); as well as the Acta s. Cypriani. The main part of the Martyrdom of Justin Martyr by Simeon Metaphr. (§ 68, 4) belongs probably to the 2nd cent. The Martyrdom of Ignatius (§ 30, 5) professedly by his companions in his last journey to Rome, and the Martyrdom of Sympherosa in the Tiber, who was put to death with her seven sons under Hadrian, as well as all other Acts of the Martyrs professedly belonging to the first four centuries, are of more than doubtful authenticity.
§ 33. The Doctrinal Controversies of the Old Catholic Age.90
The development of the system of Christian doctrine must become a necessity when Christianity meeting with pagan culture in the form of science is called upon to defend her claim to be the universal religion. In the first three centuries, however, there was as yet no official construction and establishment of ecclesiastical doctrine. There must first be a certain measure of free subjective development and wrestling with antagonistic views. A universally acknowledged organ is wanting, such as that subsequently found in the Œcumenical Councils. The persecutions allowed no time and peace for this; and the church had enough to do in maintaining what is specifically Christian in opposition to the intrusion of such anti-Christian, Jewish and Pagan elements as sought to gain a footing in Ebionism and Gnosticism. On the other hand, friction and controversy within the church had already begun as a preparation for the construction of the ecclesiastical system of doctrine. The Trinitarian controversy was by far the most important, while the Chiliastic discussions were of significance for Eschatology.
§ 33.1. The Trinitarian Questions.—The discussion was mainly about the relation of the divine μοναρχία (the unity of God) to the οἰκονομία (the Trinitarian being and movement of God). Then the relation of the Son or Logos to the Father came decidedly to the front. From the time when the more exact determination of this relationship came to be discussed, toward the end of the 2nd cent., the most eminent teachers of the Catholic church maintained stoutly the personal independence of the Logos—Hypostasianism. But the necessity for keeping this view in harmony with the monotheistic doctrine of Christianity led to many errors and vacillations. Adopting Philo’s distinction of λόγος ἐνδιάθετος and λόγος προφορικός (§ 10, 1), they for the most part regarded the hypostasizing as conditioned first by the creating of the world and as coming forth not as a necessary and eternal element in the very life of God but as a free and temporal act of the divine will. The proper essence of the Godhead was identified rather with the Father, and all attributes of the Godhead were ascribed to the Son not in a wholly equal measure as to the Father, for the word of Christ: “the Father is greater than I” (John xiv. 28), was applied even to the pre-existent state of Christ. Still greater was the uncertainty regarding the Holy Spirit. The idea of His personality and independence was far less securely established; He was much more decidedly subordinated, and the functions of inspiration and sanctification proper to Him were ascribed to Christ, or He was simply identified with the Son of God. The result, however, of such subordinationist hypostasianism was that, on the one hand, many church teachers laid undue stress on the fundamental anti-pagan doctrine of the unity of God, just as on the other hand, many had indulged in exaggerated statements about the divinity of Christ. It seemed therefore desirable to set aside altogether the question of the personal distinction of the Son and Spirit from the Father. This happened either in the way clearly favoured by the Ebionites who regarded Christ as a mere man, who, like the prophets, though in a much higher measure, had been endued with divine wisdom and power (dynamic Monarchianism), or in a way more accordant with the Christian mode of thought, admitting that the fulness of the Godhead dwelt in Christ, and either identifying the Logos with the Father (Patripassianism), or seeing in Him only a mode of the activity of the Father (modal Monarchianism). Monarchianism in all these forms was pronounced heretical by all the most illustrious fathers of the 3rd cent., and hypostasianism was declared orthodox. But even under hypostasianism an element of error crept in at a later period in the form of subordinationism, and modal Monarchianism approached nearer to the church doctrine by adopting the doctrine of sameness of essence (ὁμοουσία) in Son and Father. The orthodox combination of the two opposites was reached in the 3rd cent, in homoousian hypostasianism, but only in the 4th cent. attained universal acceptance (§ 50).
§ 33.2. The Alogians.—Soon after A.D. 170 in Asia Minor we meet with the Alogians as the first decided opponents from within the church of Logos doctrine laid down in the Gospel by John and the writings of the Apologists. They started in diametrical opposition to the chiliasm of the Montanists and their claims to prophetic gifts, and were thus led not only to repudiate the Apocalypse but also the Gospel of John; the former on