Part 18

b. The Epistle known by the name of Paul’s travelling companion =Barnabas= (Acts iv. 36) was first recovered in the 17th century. The first 4½ chapters were added from an old Latin translation, till in the 19th century the _Codex Sinaiticus_ of the New Testament, and recently also the Jerusalem Codex of Bryennius above referred to, supplied the complete Greek text.[58] The date of the epistle has been variously assigned to the age of Domitian, to that of Nerva, to that of Hadrian; and is placed by Harnack between A.D. 96 and A.D. 125. Its extravagant allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament betrays its Alexandrian origin, and in Gentile-Christian depreciation of the ceremonial law of the Old Testament it goes so far as to attribute the conception and actual composition of its books to diabolical inspiration. It admits indeed a covenant engagement between God and Israel, but maintains that this was immediately terminated by Moses’ breaking of the tables of the law. All things considered the composition of this Epistle by Barnabas is scarcely conceivable. This was acknowledged by Eusebius who counted it among the νόθοι, and by Jerome, who placed it among the Apocrypha. For the rest, however, its type of doctrine is in essential agreement with that of Paul, though it fails to penetrate the depths of apostolic truth. It is at least decidedly free from any taint of that legalistic-moral conception of Christianity which is so strongly masked in the discourse of Clement. The divine sonship, pre-existence, and world-creating activity of Christ is expressly acknowledged and taught, though there is yet no reference to the doctrine of the Logos.

c. The prophetical writing known to us as =Pastor Hermæ [Hermas]=,[59] which was first erroneously attributed by Origen to Hermas the scholar of Paul at Rome (Rom. xvi. 14), was so highly esteemed in the ancient church that it was used in public like the canonical books of the New Testament. Irenæus quotes it as holy scripture; Clement and Origen regarded it as inspired, and the African church of the 3rd century included it in the New Testament canon. On the other hand, the Muratorian canon (§ 36, 8) had already ranked it among the Apocrypha that might be used in private but not in public worship. The book owes its title to the circumstance that in it an angel appears in the form of a shepherd instructing Hermas. It contains four visions, in which the church, which πάντων πρώτη ἐκτίσθη, appears to the author as an old woman giving instruction (πρεσβυτέρα); it contains also twelve _Mandata_ of the angel, and finally, ten _Similitudines_ or parables. The Gentile-Christian origin of the author is shown by the position which he assigns to the church as coeval with the creation of the world and as at first embracing all mankind. The sending of the Son of God into the world has for its end not the founding but only the renewing and perfecting of the church, and the twelve tribes to which the Apostles were to preach the gospel are “the twelve peoples who dwell on the whole earth” (comp. Deut. xxxii. 8). In all the three parts the book takes the form of a continuous earnest call to repentance in view of the early coming again of Christ, dominated throughout by that same legalistic conception of the Gospel that we meet with in the discourse of Clement. Indeed this is more fully carried out, for it teaches that the true penitent is able not only to live a perfectly righteous life, but also in good works, such as fasts, alms, etc., to do more than fulfil the commands of God, and in this way to win for himself a higher measure of the divine favour and eternal blessedness. In Hermas we find no trace of any application of the doctrine of the Logos to the person of Christ, and the ideas of the Son of God and the Holy Spirit are confused with one another. The Son of God as the Holy Spirit is προγενέστερος πάσης τῆς κτίσεως; at His suggestion and by His means God created the world; through Him He bears, sustains, and upholds it; and by Him He redeems it by means of His incarnation, for the Son of God as the Holy Spirit descends upon the man Jesus in His baptism. From its prophetical utterances, its eager expectation of the early return of the Lord, and its promises of a new outpouring of the Spirit for the quickening of the church already become too worldly, the

## book may be characterized as a precursor of the Montanist

movement (§ 40), although on questions of practical morality, such as second marriages, martyrdom, fasting, etc., it exhibits a milder tendency than that of Montanistic rigorism, and in reference to penitential discipline (§ 39, 2), while acknowledging the inadmissibility of absolution for a mortal sin committed after baptism, it nevertheless, owing to the nearness of the second coming, allows to be proclaimed by the angel a repeated, though only short, space for repentance. The date of the composition of this book is still matter of controversy. Since Hermas is commanded in the second vision to send a copy of his book to “Clement” in order to secure its further circulation, most of the earlier scholars, and among the moderns specially Zahn, identifying this Clement with the celebrated Roman Presbyter-Bishop of that name, fix its date at somewhere about A.D. 100. Recently, however, Harnack, v. Gebhardt, and others have rightly assigned much greater importance to the testimony of the Muratorian canon, according to which it was written somewhere between A.D. 130-160, “_nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma_,” by Hermas, the brother of the Roman bishop Pius (A.D. 139-154).

§ 30.5.

d. =Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch=, is said to have been a pupil of the Apostle John, though no evidence of this can be produced from the Epistles ascribed to him. The _Acta martyrii sancti Ignatii_, extant in five parts, are purely legendary and full of contradictory statements. According to a later document, that of the Byzantine chronographer Joh. Malalas, at the time of the Parthian war during the visit of Trajan to Antioch in A.D. 115, soon after an earthquake had been experienced there, he was torn asunder by lions in the circus as a despiser of the gods. According to the martyrologies he was transported to Rome and suffered this fate there, as usually supposed in A.D. 115, in the opinion of Wieseler and others in A.D. 107 (Lightfoot says between A.D. 100-118), according to Harnack soon after A.D. 130.[60] The epistles to various churches and one to Polycarp ascribed to him have come down to us in three recensions differing from one another in extent, number and character. There is a shorter Greek recension containing seven, a larger Greek form, with expansions introduced for a purpose, containing thirteen epistles, twelve by and one to Ignatius, and the shortest of all in a Syriac translation containing three epistles, those to the Romans, to the Ephesians, and to Polycarp.[61] According to the first-named recension, Ignatius is represented as writing all his epistles during his martyr journey to Rome, but no reference to this is made in the Syrian recension. Vigorous polemic against Judaistic and Docetic heresy, undaunted confession of the divinity of Christ, and unwearied exhortation to recognise the bishop as the representative of Christ, while the presbyters are described as the successors of the Apostles, distinguish these epistles from all other writings of this age, especially in the two Greek recensions, and have led many critics to question their genuineness. Bunsen, Lipsius, Ritschl, etc., regarded the Syrian recension, in which the hierarchical tendency was more in the background, as the original and authentic form. Uhlhorn, Düsterdieck, Zahn, Funk, Lightfoot, Harnack, etc., prefer the shorter Greek recension, and view the Syrian form as abbreviated perhaps for liturgical purposes, Baur, Hilgenfeld, Volkmar, etc., deny the genuineness of all three. But even on this assumption, in determining the date of the composition of the two shorter recensions, to whichever of them we may ascribe priority and originality, we cannot on internal grounds put them later than the middle of the second century, whereas the larger Greek recension paraphrased and expanded into thirteen epistles belongs certainly to a much later date (§ 43, 4).[62]

§ 30.6.

e. =Polycarp, Bishop of Smyrna=, had also been according to Irenæus ordained to this office by the Apostle John. He died at the stake under Marcus Aurelius (Antoninus Pius?) in A.D. 166 (or A.D. 155) at an extreme old age (§ 22, 3). We possess an epistle of his to the Philippians of practical contents important on account of its New Testament quotations. Its genuineness, however, has been contested by modern criticism. It stands and falls with the seven Ignatian epistles, as it occupies common ground with them. We have a legendary biography of Polycarp by Pionius dating from the 4th century, which is reproduced in Lightfoot’s work.

f. =Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis= in Galatia, was also, according to Irenæus, a pupil of the Apostle John. This statement, however, in the opinion of Eusebius and many moderns, rests upon a confusion between the Apostle and another John, whom Papias himself distinguishes by the title πρεσβύτερος (§ 16, 2). He is said to have suffered death as a martyr under Marcus Aurelius, about A.D. 163. With great diligence he collected mediately and immediately from the mouths of the πρεσβύτεροι, that is, from such as had intercourse with the Apostles, or had been, like the above-mentioned John the Presbyter, μαθηταὶ τοῦ κυρίου, oral traditions about the discourses of the Lord, and set down the results of his inquiries in a writing entitled Λογίων κυριακῶν ἐξήγησις. A passage quoted by Eusebius in his _Ch. Hist._, iii. 29, from the preface of this treatise has given rise to a lively controversy as to whether Papias was a pupil of the Apostle John and was acquainted with the fourth Gospel. Another fragment on the history of the origin of the Gospels of Matthew and Mark has occasioned a dispute as to whether only these two Gospels were known to him. Finally, there is preserved in Irenæus a passage giving a reputed saying of Christ regarding the fantastically rich fruitfulness of the earth during the thousand years’ reign (§ 33, 9). He so revels in fantastic and sensuous chiliastic dreams that Eusebius, who had previously spoken of him as a learned and well-read man, is driven to pass upon him the harsh judgment: σφόδρα γάρ τοι σμικρὸς ὢν τὸν νοῦν.[63]

g. Finally, we must here include an epistle to a certain =Diognetus= by an unknown writer, who has described himself as μαθητὴς τῶν ἀποστόλων. Justin Martyr, among whose writings this epistle got inserted, cannot possibly have been the author, as both his style and his point of view are different. The epistle controverts in a spirited manner the objections of Diognetus to Christianity, views the pagan deities not, like the other Church Fathers, as demons, but as unsubstantial phantoms, explains the Old Testament institutions as human, and so in part foolish enactments, and maintains keenly and determinedly the opinion that God for the first time revealed Himself to man in Christ. He thus, as Dräseke thinks, to some extent favours the Marcionite view of the Old Testament, so that he regards it as not improbable that our epistle was composed by a disciple of Marcion, one perhaps like Apelles, who in the course of the later development of the school had rejected many of his master’s crudities (§ 27, 12). He addresses his discourse to Diognetus, the stoical philosopher who boasts of Marcus Aurelius as his master. On the other hand, Overbeck assigns its composition to the Post-Constantine Age, and the French scholar Doulcet, setting it down to the age of Hadrian, thinks he has discovered the author to be the Athenian philosopher Aristides. This idea has been more fully carried out by Kihn, who endeavours to make out not only the identity of the author, but that of him to whom the epistle is addressed: Κράτιστε Διόγνητε, “Almighty son of Zeus,” that is, Hadrian.

§ 30.7. =The Didache or Teaching of the Twelve Apostles.=--The celebrated little treatise bearing the title Διδαχὴ κυρίου διὰ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων τοῖς ἔθνεσιν was discovered by Bryennius (then metropolitan of Serrä, now of Nicomedia) in the Jerusalem Codex, to which we also owe the perfect text of the two so-called Epistles of Clement, and it was edited by this scholar with prolegomena and notes in Greek, at Constantinople in 1883. It at once set in motion many learned pens in Germany, France, Holland, England, and North America.--Eusebius, who first expressly names it in his list of New Testament writings as τῶν ἀποστόλων αἱ λεγόμεναι διδαχαί, which Rufinus renders by _Doctrina quæ dicitur App._, places it in the closest connection with the Epistle of Barnabas among the ἀντιλεγόμενα νόθα (§ 36, 8). Four years later Athanasius ranks it as διδαχὴ καλουμένη τῶν ἀπ. along with the Shepherd of Hermas, giving it the first place, as a New Testament supplement corresponding to the Old Testament ἀναγινωσκόμενα (§ 59, 1). Clement of Alexandria quoting a passage from it uses the formula, ὑπὸ τῆς γραφῆς εἴρηται, and thus treats it as holy scripture. In Origen again no sort of reference to it has as yet been found. From the 39th Festival Epistle of Athanasius, A.D. 367, which ranks it, as we have just seen, as a New Testament supplement like the Old Testament Anaginoskomena, we know that it like these were used at Alexandria παρὰ τῶν πατέρων in the instruction of catechumens. In the East, according to Rufinus, when enumerating in his _Expos. Symb. Ap._ the Athanasian Anaginoskomena, we find alongside of Hermas, instead of the Didache, the “Two Ways,” _Duæ viæ vel Judicium secundum Petrum_. Jerome, too, in his _De vir. ill._, mentions among the pseudo-Petrine writings a _Judicium Petri_. We have here no doubt a Latin translation or recension of the first six chapters of the Didache beginning with the words: Ὅδοι δύο εἰσι, these two ways being the way of life and the way of death. The second title instead of the twelve Apostles names their spokesman Peter as the reputed author of the treatise. Soon after the time of Athanasius our tract passed out of the view of the Church Fathers, but it reappears in the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of the 4th century (§ 43, 4, 5), of which it formed the root and stem. The Didache itself, however, should not be ranked among the pseudepigraphs, for it never claims to have been written by the twelve Apostles or by their spokesman Peter.--Bryennius and others, from the intentional prominence given to the twelve Apostles in the title and from the legalistic moralizing spirit that pervades the book, felt themselves justified in seeking its origin in Jewish-Christian circles. But this moralizing character it shares with the other Gentile-Christian writings of the Post-Apostolic Age (§ 30, 2), and the restriction of the term “Apostles” by the word “twelve” was occasioned by this, that the itinerant preachers of the gospel of that time, who in the New Testament are called Evangelists (§ 17, 5) were now called Apostles as continuators of the Apostles’ missionary labours, and also the exclusion of the Apostle Paul is to be explained by the consideration that the

## book is founded upon the sayings of the Lord, the tradition

of which has come to us only through the twelve. It has been rightly maintained on the other hand by Harnack, that the author must rather have belonged to Gentile-Christian circles which repudiated all communion with the Jews even in matters of mere form; for in chap. viii. 1, 2, resting upon Matt. vi. 5, 16, he forbids fasting with the hypocrites, “the Jews,” or perhaps in the sense of Gal. ii. 13, the Jewish-Christians, on Monday and Thursday, instead of Wednesday and Friday according to the Christian custom (§ 37, 3), and using Jewish prayers instead of the Lord’s Prayer. The address of the title: τοῖς ἔθνεσιν is to be understood according to the analogy of Rom. xi. 13; Gal. ii. 12-14; and Eph. iii. 1. The author wishes in as brief, lucid, easily comprehended, and easily remembered form as possible, to gather together for Christians converted from heathenism the most important rules for their moral, religious and congregational life in accordance with the precepts of the Lord as communicated by the twelve Apostles, and in doing so furnishes us with a valuable “commentary on the earliest witnesses for the life, type of doctrine, interests and ordinances of the Gentile-Christian churches in the pre-Catholic age.” As to the date of its composition, its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas and the Shepherd of Hermas indicates the period within which it must fall, for the connection is so close that it must have employed them or they must have employed it. However, not only is the age of the Epistle of Barnabas, as well as that of the Shepherd of Hermas, still undetermined, but it is also disputed whether one or other of these two or the Didache has priority and originality. On the other hand, the Didache itself in almost all its data and presuppositions bears so distinct an impress of an archaic character that one feels obliged to assign its date as near the Apostolic Age as possible. Harnack who feels compelled to ascribe priority not only to the Pseudo-Barnabas, but also to the Shepherd of Hermas, fixes its date between A.D. 140-165, after Hermas and before Marcion. On the other hand, Zahn and Funk, Lechler, Taylor, etc., give the Didache priority even over the Epistle of Barnabas. The place as well as the time of the composition of this work is matter of dispute. Those who maintain its Jewish-Christian origin think of the southern lands to the east or west of the Jordan; others think of Syria. On account of its connection with the Epistle of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole treatise.” That the book, however, does not bear in itself any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, _e.g._, is undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted by Harnack.[64]

§ 30.8. =The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists=[65] are lost. At the head of this band stood =Quadratus= of Athens, who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary, =Aristides= the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise, which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century, was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation. This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,--barbarians who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus, Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and Christians from Christ,--and of Jesus Christ as the Son of God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a later interpolation (comp. § 52, 3). The genuineness of the second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,--an anti-docetic homily, _De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi responsione_ (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ and those crucified with Him proves His divinity--is both on external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the name Aristides, but recently another Catholic scholar, Dr. Vetter, on close examination found that the name was really that of Aristides.--To a period not much later must be assigned the apologetic dialogue between the Jewish Christian Jason and the Alexandrian Jew Papiscus, in which the proof from prophecy was specially emphasized, and the _in principio_ of Gen. i. 1 was interpreted as meaning _in filio_. The pagan controversialist Celsus is the first to mention this treatise. He considers it, on account of its allegorical fancies, not so much fitted to cause laughter as pity and contempt, and so regards it as unworthy of any serious reply. Origen, too, esteemed it of little consequence. Subsequently, however, in the 5th century, it obtained high repute and was deemed worthy of a Latin translation by the African bishop Celsus. The controversialist Celsus, and also Origen, Jerome, and the Latin translator, do not name the writer. His name is first given by Maximus Confessor as =Ariston of Pella=. Harnack has rendered it extremely probable that in the “_Altercatio Simonis Judæi et Theophili Christiani_” discovered in the 18th century, reported on by Gennadius (§ 47, 16), and ascribed by him to a certain Evagrius, we have a substantially correct Latin reproduction of the old Greek dialogue, in which everything that is told us about the earlier document is met with, and which, though written in the 5th century, in its ways of looking at things and its methods of proof moves within the circle of the Apologists of the 2nd century. In it, just as in those early treatises the method of proof is wholly in accordance with the Old Testament; by it every answer of the Christian to the Jew is supported; at last the Jew is converted and asks for baptism, while he regards the Christians as _lator salutis_ and _ægrotorum bone medice_ with a play probably upon the word Ἰάσων=ἰατρός and from this it is conceivable how Clement of Alexandria supposed Luke, the physician, to be the author of the treatise. Harnack’s conclusion is significant inasmuch as it lends a new confirmation to the fact that the non-heretical Jewish Christianity of the middle of the second century had already completely adopted the dogmatic views of Gentile Christianity. =Claudius Apollinaris=, bishop of Hierapolis, and the rhetorician =Miltiades of Athens= addressed very famous apologies to the emperor Marcus Aurelius. =Melito of Sardis= was also a highly esteemed apologist, and a voluminous writer in many other departments of theological literature.[66] The elaborate introduction to the mystical interpretation of scripture by investigating the mystical meaning of biblical names and words published in Pitra’s “Spicileg. Solesm.” II. III., as “_Clavis Melitonis_,” belongs to the later period of the middle ages. Melito’s six books of Eclogues deal with the Old Testament as a witness for Christ and Christianity, where he takes as his basis not the LXX. but the Hebrew canon (§ 36, 1).[67]

§ 30.9. =Extant Writings of Apologists of the Post-Apostolic Age.=