Part 25

Nor did Origen’s system require the Holy Spirit, but to comply with the Christian belief he gave the Spirit a place with God the Father, and Christ the Son, and made him the inspirer of the prophets and apostles. The functions of the three persons in one, so far as man is concerned, he defined by saying that God gave man existence, the Son supplied reason, and the Spirit holiness. Although he held the Spirit to be of the eternal essence of God, he made him subordinate to the Son, being the first creation through the Logos. Thus Origen in reality established two stages of creation: the Logos and the Holy Spirit.[364]

Below these he placed an infinite number of lesser spirits, endowed with freedom and bound for a time with matter: angels, men, and demons. By the exercise of their freedom certain spirits have fallen from perfect holiness and, entering into bodies, have become the souls of men, aided by those spirits which have held fast to purity and are God’s angels, and hindered by the demons who have fallen lower than men and who prefer evil and find pleasure in it.[365] The chief of the fallen angels is the devil.[366] Yet the world is ruled by divine providence toward ultimate good; evil therefore will not finally conquer: men who now choose the good become the sons of God and rise to the rank of angels. Ultimately, by a process which will go on imperceptibly through countless ages, even the evil spirits will be brought back to God and so all wickedness shall be purged away.[367] Then this course will begin again.

Origen’s human psychology was probably taken from his teacher Clement; but the views of both, like those of the Gnostics, go back ultimately to Plato.[368] Accordingly Origen held that the human body has two souls, the first the animal or the passionate, the second the reasonable soul or the spirit. The latter is man’s divine essence which enters him from above; the former becomes his at the time of his conception.[369] To human spirits, as to all others, God granted freedom, and through their evil choice they fell, so that all men are born in a condition of sin. The duty of man is to endeavor to give his divine soul the mastery in him that he may thereby become like God and attain eternal happiness; his inherent sin must be overcome by his own will and determined aspiration. Not that Origen believed that man could fully accomplish his own salvation; on the contrary he held most firmly that divine grace was needed; but he maintained that the first step, an act of faith, did depend on the individual’s free choice.[370] The historical revelation of the Logos and the redemptive work of Christ, who by his death dealt the first blow in the struggle to overthrow the devil, were both made a part of the plan of salvation by Origen, although, as I have said, redemption is not logically an indispensable element in his system.[371]

There are three stages of Christian progress, according to Origen. In the first and lowest man may advance through faith and by a belief in the redemptive death of the historic Christ to a state of sinlessness and to fellowship with God. Here the Logos incarnate in Jesus acts through revelation and redemption as a physician to cure men of their sins. But beyond is a higher stage in which through love and knowledge the soul may mount from its view of the phenomenal world to the “invisible things of God,” that is, to an understanding of the whole creation; and still further soar from these upward to “the eternal power of God, in short, to God’s own divinity.” In these higher stages the Logos is the teacher of the divine mysteries; they make the contemplative life in which the Christian may obtain perfect knowledge. To such a Gnostic as the Christian becomes who has been granted the vision, the historic Christ is no longer significant; the Logos in his manifold revelations teaches him the supreme truth.[372]

Thus we see that Origen assumed that there were two forms of Christianity, an exoteric for the mass, who were capable only of faith and who could not grasp the deeper truths, and an esoteric, reserved for the few who could understand the mysteries of God and whose souls could rise to the knowledge of God himself. This double view depended in part on his Gnostic tendencies, in part on his interpretation of Scripture, to which we shall presently turn.

We have now followed the development of Christianity from the simple teachings of Jesus into a Greek philosophy, as illustrated by the later writings of the New Testament, the Apologists, the Gnostics, and Origen. The last of these completed the process which began in Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, for he united successfully and fully, the religious principles of the Christian religion with the content of Hellenic philosophy. It must be evident furthermore that Origen and those who prepared the way for him, were no less debtors to the Greeks than they were to the Hebrews, to Jesus, and to Paul, since the form and in no small degree the very matter of their philosophy had been provided by secular thought. Indeed Porphyry with some reason charged Origen with being more Greek than Christian.[373]

It will be observed that Origen, and his predecessors also in large measure, made man’s salvation a part of a philosophy of the entire universe, each portion of which was to be fully understood only through a comprehension of the whole. That is to say, the scheme of salvation was an element in cosmological speculation. The earliest Greek philosophers had been concerned with a solution of the physical cosmos; soon thinkers began to search for the causes of change, without, however, troubling themselves with ethics or religion; but from the end of the fifth century B.C., the position of man, his obligations and his happiness, the nature of the Divine and the relation between God and the world, became dominant themes. In Plato we see first fully developed a religious philosophy of the cosmos of which man’s salvation is an inseparable part. The line from Plato to Origen, and we may add to the present day, is unbroken. Thus we find that Greek philosophy furnished the general plan for a statement of Christianity which should not only be intelligible, attractive, and convincing to the learned and the simple alike, but which should also prove triumphant over the Gnostics and other aberrant thinkers.

This transformation of the rule of faith into an Hellenic philosophy was contemporaneous with the growth of the separate churches into one body politic with an organization fitted for present defense and for future aggression.

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If space allowed, numerous illustrations might be adduced to show how pagan philosophy and mysticism had influenced Christian theologians in details. Many examples we have already seen in passing, such as the view held by both Clement and Origen, as well as by the Gnostics and perhaps by Paul, that the supreme Christian truth was to be obtained by direct revelation, by a vision of the Divine. This was a current belief not only in the later mystic philosophies, like Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism, but also in the mystic religions, and in the Greek mysteries likewise. Again it would be possible to show that Origen’s ethical system owed much more to Stoicism and to later Platonism than to the teachings of Christ, which, however, were easily brought into accord with the philosophers’ doctrines. Or once more we might enlarge on the development of the triune nature of God, whereby the transcendent God and the Logos of pagan theology were united with a varying concept of the spirit of God, also familiar in Hellenic thought, to produce the Trinity of Christian dogma.

Thus in examining the ways in which Christianity accommodated itself to the intellectual world for purposes of defense and conquest, we have been seeing many examples of the influence which the pagan environment had on Christianity. Let us now examine a few further illustrations.

The first of these shall be the method of interpretation which was applied to the sacred writings. As early as the sixth century B.C., the Homeric mythology had aroused a protest from Xenophanes and others;[374] and in defense a new form of interpretation was adopted by the supporters of Homer who declared that there was a deeper meaning to the myths than appeared on the surface. Theagenes of Rhegium (c. 525 B.C.) suggested that the Homeric gods expressed either human faculties or natural elements, and thus he began the long history of allegorical exegesis.[375] From this time such interpretation of myths became a common practice; it was adopted by the Stoics; at Alexandria Jewish scholars took it over and applied it to the writings of the Old Testament, so that before the beginning of our era the sacred writings were regularly so explained. Philo shows how universal the procedure was. By it of course the historical character of the Old Testament was thrust into the background, and thus many difficulties of interpretation were avoided which otherwise would vex a man who regarded every part of the sacred books as perfect. Naturally the early Christians followed their predecessors, and in fact allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament has lasted down to our own time. Origen helped to fix the standard system, so to speak; there were, according to him, three senses in which the Scriptures were to be understood, corresponding to the triple nature of man: first, the literal sense which was for the “flesh,” the simple man; secondly, the psychic which fitted the moral man; and finally the pneumatic sense, for the spiritual man.[376]

The development of Christian asceticism will serve as another illustration of our present theme. It will be remembered that the Orphics and the Pythagoreans imposed on their followers a mode of life in which certain things were forbidden. These two sects were the first to grasp the meaning of the dualism of the flesh and spirit which we have found significant throughout the course of our investigation. Plato and the later philosophic schools developed the higher significance of man’s dual nature until asceticism in greater or less degree became the normal regimen for the philosopher of almost every school. In the oriental religions also certain abstentions were required as preparation for initiation into their mysteries.

On the whole asceticism was foreign to both Judaism and early Christianity.[377] In the Pauline epistles it is true that we find passages in which the flesh and the spirit are contrasted; virginity is moderately approved in the First Epistle to the Corinthians, but the Epistle to the Colossians contains a direct argument against the errors of ascetic teachers in Asia Minor, and the non-Pauline First Epistle to Timothy combats celibacy and vegetarianism.[378] It was indeed somewhat difficult to find a satisfactory warrant for an ascetic life in the New Testament. Christianity, however, could not escape its environment. Presently in the second century certain sects like the Gnostics, Montanists, and Encratites appeared which laid great stress on ascetic practice; at the same time the habit of fasting generally increased; many bound themselves to perpetual virginity; and riches were regarded as incompatible with the highest Christian character. In the third century numbers began to withdraw from the world, and by the fifth century monasticism was established in both the East and the West. But it was paganism which had given men the ideal of the ascetic saint, and the Church writers who furnished the warrant for the Christian practice, drew their arguments from Greek philosophers, and sometimes found it difficult to meet the criticisms of the Jewish defenders of a normal human life.

The almost universal rite of baptism as a means of ritual purification was employed by the early Christians. Jesus had been baptized by John, but he never made baptism a condition of discipleship. The Apostles baptized with water immediately after conversion. Confession of sins, repentance, and the acknowledgment of Jesus as the Christ were the antecedent requirements; the act itself was believed to mark the remission of sins and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit. But by the early second century we find that the convert went through a period of instruction and was obliged to fast before he could be baptized.[379] From the middle of this century a new group of ideas drawn from the mysteries was associated with the rite. It became a mystery (μυστήριον), the one who conferred it was a mystagogue (μυσταγωγός); many forms of speech used in pagan initiations were employed; and the pagan expression “enlightenment” (φωτισμός, φωτίζεσθαι) became a Christian term. Likewise those who had been initiated into the Christian mysteries were said to bear a seal (σφραγίς) on their foreheads.[380] In general it was commonly thought that baptism—the Christian initiation—had a magic power to secure salvation similar to that which the pagan initiatory ritual was believed to possess. Moreover a long period of preparation was required, a sharp distinction was made between those who had received this Christian initiation and those who had not; and the Church became a secret association.[381] Later the Lord’s Prayer and the formula of baptism became a pass word (σύμβολον), which was kept from the catechumens until shortly before baptism.

Likewise the Lord’s Supper in time assumed the character of a mystery. Ignatius, Justin, and Irenaeus, all natives of the East and familiar with pagan mysteries, ascribe an extraordinary efficacy to its celebration. The elements were believed to become the flesh and blood of Christ,[382] or to take on a heavenly nature in addition to the earthly, whereby the partaker gained the hope of eternal resurrection.[383] Ignatius early in the century had called the bread “the medicine of immortality and antidote against death.”[384] As such it had a magic value.

If time and subject allowed, we might draw further illustrations of the influence of paganism from the calendar of the Church, which would show how pagan festivals were supplanted by Christian; or we might examine the list of accepted saints, some of whom have heathen origins—others are composites, so to speak; or again we might turn to Christian art and see how pagan types were adapted to Christian uses. But although such studies might prove interesting, we may not enter on them now, for we have already departed somewhat from our proper theme.

Yet great as the influence of the pagan environment was on Christianity, there is always a possibility that in such a study as the present we may get a wrong point of view. We should remember that Christianity was a positive religion, which in being transformed into a Greek philosophy did not lose its own character; indeed it was not obscured by the Greek intellectual habit, but it appropriated that habit and in the end made it its own. Pagan thought and practice affected Christianity in countless ways, but they did not overwhelm it. Nor must we underestimate the service which paganism rendered the faith which was to overthrow it. The philosopher’s long search for a rule of life, the Greek and oriental mysteries, and the mystic theosophies, all provided an environment ready and favorable to Christianity. The rapid spread of this new religion, at first in Syria and Asia Minor, was not due simply to the propinquity of these countries to Palestine. They had been for centuries familiar with mystic religions which in a crude way aimed to give what Christianity promised in nobler fashion. The same thing was true in a measure of the great centers of the West. Without an environment already prepared for it Christianity would have had a very different history from the one we know. Moreover we have now abundantly seen how Greek rhetoric and philosophy furnished the forms by which Christianity made itself understood, and how they gave the intellectual weapons by which in part it gained its victory over paganism.

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Now we may ask what were some of the chief reasons for Christianity’s triumph. Sometimes it is lightly said that its victory was due to the fact that it “promised immortality to a hopeless world.” But we know that there were many contemporaneous religions which promised immortality and that the world was not without hope. We must try to look somewhat more deeply, and we cannot limit ourselves wholly to intellectual causes.

The first, although not the most significant, reason may be found in the positive and noble monotheism of Christianity. Other religions by syncretistic processes arrived at a doctrine of the unity of the Divine, of one God who embraced in himself a multitude of divinities; but the new faith, supported by its Jewish inheritance, taught that God was but One and that there was no other.

Yet the most important causes are to be found in the person and mission of Jesus. He brought a new revelation of God to men; and it was a revelation which men believed the Old Testament had foretold. The Jewish Scriptures were the one body of sacred writings known to the Greco-Roman world, and their authority was enormous wherever anti-Jewish prejudices were overcome, or when, as in Christian thought, Jesus was related to its prophecies. This influence had extended to Greeks, especially in such places as Alexandria, long before Jesus began his ministry. Therefore it was natural that the Gentiles’ desire for revelation as well as the Jews’ Messianic hopes should be attached to the Old Testament, so that Christianity had the support of its weighty authority.

Again Christianity knew its saviour and redeemer not as some god whose history was contained in a myth filled with rude, primitive, and even offensive elements, as were the stories of Attis, of Osiris, and to a degree of Dionysus. Such myths required violent interpretation to make them acceptable to enlightened minds. On the contrary the Christian saviour had lived and associated with men, whose minds and senses had apprehended his person, acts, and character. These witnesses had transmitted their knowledge directly, and they had testified that the life of Jesus corresponded to his teachings. Jesus was then an historical, not a mythical being. No remote or foul myth obtruded itself on the Christian believer; his faith was founded on positive, historical, and acceptable facts.

Christianity showed a superior power of adaptation to every class; it was a practical guide of life for all, a guide which was soon recognized by its opponents to be of the highest ethical value. In spite of the human weaknesses of Christians, their superior morality was generally recognized from the time of Pliny.[385] Their motives for righteous living sprang from love and faith rather than from any social or rational sanctions; and the fruits were “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance.” These virtues and the belief that Christ’s revelation and the mystic union of man with the Divine brought salvation, could be understood by the most unlettered. The intellectual classes found Christianity fulfilling the aim of both Greek thought and of Old Testament prophecy; in it they saw the ultimate philosophy. Christianity therefore proved itself a religion which satisfied men’s desires and hopes as well as their philosophic aims in a more complete and spiritual way than oriental mysticism or Greek rationalism; and it gave a nobler assurance of salvation.

Finally, experience taught the value of Christianity; already in the second century the Apologists could make the appeal to common knowledge of the Christians to show the superiority of their faith.

Yet by the close of the second century Christianity had not won many adherents outside of Syria and Asia Minor, save in the greater cities. The third century was the period in which paganism rapidly decayed and Christianity swiftly advanced toward its triumph; by the year 300 it had filled the Mediterranean world, and the proud claim which Tertullian had made a century before, began to be justified: “We are of yesterday, and yet we have filled all your holdings, cities, houses, castles, towns, councils, your very camps, tribes, wards, the palace, the senate, the forum—we have left you only your temples.”[386] The victory over pagan religions and philosophies was indeed certain; but this success had been secured on the intellectual side by the transformation of the teachings of Jesus and of the apostles into a Greek philosophy. It is as such that Christianity has the final place in a history of Greek religious thought.

FOOTNOTES:

[336] _History of Dogma_, II, 170.

[337] Vid. Justin’s arguments, _Apol._ I, 31-53. Athenagoras, _Legat._ 9, limits himself to the testimonies of the prophets as to the nature of God. Cf. also Tatian, 20, at the end.

[338] Justin, _Apol._ II, 8 ff.; cf. I, 46. In two passages (_Apol._ I, 44 and 59) Justin illogically declares that the Greeks owed all their true knowledge to their borrowings from Moses. Herein he was simply following the Alexandrian Jews.

[339] _Legat._ 7.

[340] Tatian, _Orat._ 5; cf. Athen., _Legat._ 4. The ideas recur frequently in nearly all the Apologists.

[341] (Justin) _Dial. cum Tryphone_ 61, 62, 105, 128; Tatian, _Orat._ 5-7; Athen., _Legat._ 10, 16, 24.

[342] Cf. Justin, _Apol._ I, 5, 13, 61, 65, 67; _Dial._ 7, 29, 116; Tatian, _Orat._ 13; Athen., _Legat._ 10.

[343] Justin, _Apol._ I, 5, 15, 21, 56; II, 5-7; Tatian, _Orat._ 7 f., 11; Athen., _Legat._ 24 ff.

[344] Justin, _Apol._ I, 15 ff., and often in the apologetic writings.

[345] Cf. _Apol._ I, 23, 63; II, 6.

[346] Cf. p. 274.

[347] _Gal._ I, 11-12; _Eph._ III, 3-4.

[348] _History of Dogma_, I, 222 ff.

[349] Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ I, 24, 3-4.

[350] Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ I, 1-3.

[351] Cf. Ptolemaeus, apud Epiphan., _Haer._ XXXIII, 3-7, _Epist. ad Floram_, at the beginning.

[352] Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ I, 5-8. The Valentinian idea of the triple nature of man is as old as Plato.

[353] Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ I, 24, 2-4.

[354] Ibid., I, 2, 5-6.

[355] Cf. Irenaeus, _Adv. Haer._ I, 23, 4; 24, 5.

[356] Τῶν κατὰ τὴν ἀληθῆ φιλοσοφἰαν γνωστικῶν ὑπομνημἀτων στρωματεῖς.

[357] Cf. also _Strom._ II, 19-20.

[358] _Strom._ I, 5, 28, 3; cf. I, 20, 97; VI, 7, 59.

[359] Cf. _De prin._ Praef. 1.

[360] Tradition says that Origen heard the discourses of Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neoplatonic School. Porphyr. apud Euseb. _H. E._ VI, 19, 6.

[361] _De prin._ I, 1; III, 5.

[362] _De prin._ I, 1 and 2 deal with God and Christ respectively in a systematic way; cf. also II, 5 and 6. Besides there are many passages in Origen’s extant works, too numerous for reference here, which show his views.

[363] _De prin._ II, 6.

[364] _De prin._ I, 3; II, 7.

[365] Origen adopted the popular belief in the existence of angels and demons and made great use of it in explaining the present state of the world. The passages in his works are too numerous to be all named here; but _De prin._ I, 8, entire is devoted to the topic.

[366] _C. Cels._ IV, 65; _De prin._ I, 5.

[367] _De prin._ III, 6; cf. I, 5, 3.

[368] Clement, _Paed._ III, 1, 1. _Strom._ V, 14, 94; VI, 16, 134 f. Cf. Plato, _Rep._ IV, 436 A-441 C; _Tim._ 42 A.

[369] _De prin._ III, 4; cf. II, 8.

[370] _De prin._ III, 1; _In Matt._, ser. 69; _in Rom._ IV, 5; IX, 3.

[371] _C. Cels._ VII, 17; cf. I, 31; _Exhort. ad Mart._ entire.

[372] _C. Cel._ III, 59-62; VII, 46. Cf. _in Joh._ I, 20-22; _C. Cel._ II, 66-69; IV, 15-18; VI, 68.

[373] Apud Euseb. _H. E._ VI, 19, 7 f.

[374] Cf. pp. 119 ff.

[375] Schol. Venet. ad _Il._ XX, 67.

[376] _De prin._ IV, 11ff.