Church History (Vol.1-3). J. H. Kurtz
its North-African precursor (§ 31, 10, 11), energetically insisted upon the application of Christianity to the life, the development of the doctrines affecting this matter and the maintenance of the church system of doctrine as a strong protection against all wilfulness in doctrine. In it therefore the traditional theology finds its chief home. Still the points of contact with the East were so many and so vital that however much inclined to stability the West might be, it could not altogether remain unmoved and without enrichment from the theological movements of the age. Thus we distinguish in the West four different but variously inter-connected tendencies. First of all there is the genuinely Western, which is separated on the one hand in Tertullian and Cyprian, but on the other hand is variously influenced by the talented teachers of the New Alexandrian School, which continued to mould and dominate the cultured theology of the West. Its chief representatives are Hilary of Poitiers, Ambrose, and above all, Augustine, who completely freed the Latin theology from its hitherto prevailing dependence on the Greek, placing it now upon its own feet. The representatives of this tendency were at first in complete accord with the members of the New Alexandrian school in their opposition to the semi-Arian Origenists and the Nestorianizing Antiocheans, but then as that school itself drifted into the position of a heretical sect, they also decidedly contended for the other side of the truth which the Antiochean school maintained. A second group of Western theologians were inspired by the writings of Origen, without, however, abandoning the characteristics of the Western spirit. To this class belongs Jerome, who afterwards repudiated his master and joined the previously named school, and Rufinus. The third group of Pelagians represent the practical but cool rationalistic tendency of the West. The fourth is that of the semi-Pelagians who in the Western theology intermingle synergistic elements of an Antiochean complexion.
2 Of the 6th and 7th Centuries.—The brilliant period of theological literature had now closed. There still were scholars who wrought laboriously upon the original contributions of the fathers, and reproduced the thoughts of their predecessors in a new shape suited to the needs of the time, but spirit and life, creative power and original productivity had well nigh disappeared. After the monophysite Johannes Philoponus of Alexandria had commented on the works of Aristotle and applied their categories to theology, the Platonic philosophy, hitherto on account of its ideal contents the favourite of all philosophizing church fathers, was more and more set aside by the philosophy of the Stagirite so richly developed on the formal side. The theology of the Greeks even at so early a date assumed to some extent the character of Scholasticism. Alongside of it, however, we have a theosophic mysticism which reverting from the tendency that had lately come into vogue to Neoplatonic ideas, drew its chief inspiration from the Pseudo-Dionysian writings. In the West, in addition to the general causes of decay, we have also the sufferings of the times amid the tumult of the migration of the nations. In Italy Boëthius and Cassiodorus won for themselves imperishable renown as the fosterers of classical and patristic studies in an age when these were in danger of being utterly forgotten. The series of Latin church fathers in the strict sense ends with Gregory the Great; that of Greek church fathers with Johannes Damascenus.
1. THE MOST IMPORTANT TEACHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH.
§ 47.2. The Most Celebrated Representative of the Old Alexandrian School is the father of Church History Eusebius Pamphili, i.e., the friend of Pamphilus (§ 31, 6), bishop of Cæsarea from A.D. 314 to A.D. 340. The favour of the emperor Constantine laid the imperial archives open to him for his historical studies. By his unwearied diligence as an investigator and collector he far excels all the church teachers of his age in comprehensive learning, to which we owe a great multitude of precious extracts from long lost writings of pagan and Christian antiquity. His style is jejune, dry and clumsy, sometimes bombastic. His Historical Writings supported on all sides by diligent research, want system and regularity, and suffer from disproportionate treatment and distribution of the material. To his Ἐκκλησιαστικὴ ἱστορία in 10 bks., reaching down to A.D. 324, he adds a highly-coloured biography of Constantine in 4 bks., which is in some respects a continuation of his history; and to it, again, he adds a fawning panegyric on the emperor.—At a later date he wrote an account of the Martyrs of Palestine during the Diocletian persecution which was afterwards added as an appendix to the 8th bk. of the History. A collection of old martyrologies, three bks. on the life of Pamphilus, and a treatise on the origin, celebration and history of the Easter festival, have all been lost. Of great value, especially for the synchronizing of biblical and profane history, was his diligently compiled Chronicle, Παντοδαπὴ ἱστορία, similar to that of Julius Africanus (§ 31, 3), an abstract of universal history reaching down to A.D. 352, to which chronological and synchronistic tables were added as a second part. The Greek original has been lost, but Jerome translated it into Latin, with arbitrary alterations, and carried it down to A.D. 378.—The Apologetical Writings take the second place in importance. Still extant are the two closely-connected works: Præparatio Evangelica, Εὐαγγελικὴ προπαρασκευή, in 15 bks., and the Demonstratio Evangelica, Εὐαγγελικὴ ἀπόδειξις, in 8 out of an original of 20 bks. The former proves the absurdity of heathenism; the latter, the truth and excellence of Christianity. A condensed reproduction of the contents and text of the Θεοφανεία in 5 bks. is found only in a Syriac translation. The Ἐκλογαὶ προφητικαί in 4 bks., of which only a portion is extant, expounds the Old Testament in an allegorizing fashion for apologetic purposes; and the treatise against Hierocles (§ 23, 3) contests his comparison of Christ with Apollonius of Tyana. A treatise in 30 bks. against Porphyry, and some other apologetical works are lost.—His Dogmatic Writings are of far less value. These treatises—Κατὰ Μαρκέλλου, in 2 bks., the one already named against Hierocles, and Περὶ τῆς ἐκκλησιαστικῆς θεολογίας, also against Marcellus (§ 50, 2)—are given as an Appendix in the editions of the Demonstratio Evangelica. On his share in Pamphilus’ Apology for Origen, see § 31, 6; and on his Ep. to the Princess Constantia, see § 57, 4. The weakness of his dogmatic productions was caused by his vacillating and mediating position in the Arian controversy, where he was the mouthpiece of the moderate semi-Arians (§ 50, 1, 3), and this again was due to his want of speculative capacity and dogmatic culture.—Of his Exegetical Writings the Commentaries on Isaiah and the Psalms are the most complete, but of the others we have only fragments. We have, however, his Τοπικά in the Latin translation of Jerome: De Situ et Nominibus Locorum Hebraeorum.133
§ 47.3. Church Fathers of the New Alexandrian School.—
1 The most conspicuous figure in the church history of the 4th century is Athanasius, styled by an admiring posterity Pater orthodoxiæ. He was indeed every inch of him a church father, and the history of his life is the history of the church of his times. His life was full of heroic conflict. Unswervingly faithful, he was powerful and wise in building up the church; great in defeat, great in victory. His was a life in which insight, will and action, earnestness, force and gentleness, science and faith, blended in most perfect harmony. In A.D. 319 he was a deacon in Alexandria. His bishop Alexander soon discovered the eminent gifts of the young man and took him with him to the Council of Nicæa in A.D. 325, where he began the battle of his life. Soon thereafter, in A.D. 328, Alexander died and Athanasius became his successor. He was bishop for forty-five years, but was five times driven into exile. He spent about twenty years in banishment, mostly in the West, and died in A.D. 373. His writings are for the most part devoted to controversy against the Arians (§ 50, 6); but he also contested Apollinarianism (§ 52, 1), and vindicated Christianity against the attacks of the heathens in the pre-Arian treatise in two bks. Contra Gentes, Κατὰ Ἑλλήνων, the first bk. of which argues against heathenism, while the second expounds the necessity of the incarnation of God in Christ. For a knowledge of his life and pastoral activity the Librî paschales, Festal letters (§ 56, 3), are of great value.134 Of less importance are his exegetical, allegorical writings on the Psalms. His dogmatic, apologetical and polemical