THE SOUL OF THE WORLD.
MJ. RIVIERE, Professor at the Ecole Superieure de
• Theologie of Albi, has just published a second edition of his admirably arranged and instructive book, "Saint Justin et les Apologistes du Second Siecle " (Paris : Librairie Blond et Cie.) The work bears the imprimatur of Rome, and we are not therefore surprised to find ourselves warned in the introduction (by Mgr. Batiffol) against drawing heretical conclusions from the words of these early champions of Christianity. They wrote for the heathen, and assumed very often, we are told, " une tactique d'avocat." It is hard to see the characters of such men as Justin and Clement sacrificed in defence of their supposed orthodoxy, but it is better to warn than to mutilate, and M. Riviere puts before his readers copious quotations from which they can draw at will conclusions quite other than those of Mgr. Batiffol. The chapters are arranged according to subjects, and not according to authors. The attitude of the apologists towards paganism, towards Greek philosophy, towards Judaism, and towards Christian dogma is illustrated for us from their writings. Not the least interesting chapter deals with Christian life in the second century, with the life of those men and women whose grandfathers might have spoken to the Apostles.
" What the soul is in the body, so are Christians in the world," wrote a Christian of the early Church, whose name history does not preserve, to a Roman of rank and influence,—perhaps to one of the tutors of Marcus Aurelius. The apologists of the second century were chiefly concerned with faith and morals, and for the most part they gave to their persecutors in their defences of the faith but scant pictures of the inner life of the Church. Such accounts as they did give are so beautiful and perfect as to lead the reader to suspect that the actual and the ideal were sometimes confused in the minds of these enthusiasts. Yet they all made a bold appeal to those in high places for the strictest investigation. They opened the doors of their sanctuaries to the eyes of-the world and frankly and in the fullest faith demanded the world's admiration.
Aristides, writing between 130 and 160 A.D., gives a description of their way of life. The Christians, he says, before all things "do good to their neighbours." They lead a pure life. They bear no false witness. They judge according to justice. They do good also to their enemies, "welcome their persecutors and make friends with them." If they have slaves, " they endeavour to make them Christians out of love; if they succeed, they accept them as brethren without hesitation." Lying " is not found among them. They relieve the poor, and succour those who suffer perse- cution, though they may be obliged to fast in order to save the means of help." " They observe strictly the precepts of Christ, praying and praising God at all hours." " If a just man among them die, they accompany his body to the grave, as though he were only going on a journey. When children are born to them they rejoice; if they die as children they rejoice, because they have left the world in innocence. Only when they see one of their own number die in his sins they weep bitterly over him as over one who goes to judgment."
Another picture comes from the Epistle to Diognetns by the unknown pen quoted above. Christians, he says, " are indistinguishable outwardly from other men. They have no special language or special manners. They do not lead a life apart, but remain in Greek or barbarian cities according to where they were born, following all harmless local customs. Yet in very truth their inward life is apart. They are in their own country as sojourners. They enjoy everything as citizens, they suffer everything as strangers. Every strange country is their country, and in their own country they are not at home. They obey the laws, yet they surpass the laws by their lives. They love their fellow- creatures, who condemn them because they do not under- stand." Truly such men might be called the soul of • the world.
On the other hand, it may be argued that they had, in truth, nothing to do with the world. They were, it is often said, a set of men and women apart, whose ideal was esoteric, their religion a narrow path trodden by a few fanatics in hope of heaven and in fear of hell. These ideas can be refuted out of the mouths of these early apologists, whose works are now mere names to the majority of Christians.
To Clement and Justin Christianity itself, not merely its professors, was the soul of the world. " We are taught," says St. ,Tustin, " that Christ was the first-born of God, and we have shown above that He is the Word of whom the whole human race are partakers." Not only Hebrew but Greek literature, he maintains, prepared men for Christ. Socrates, he reminds his fellow-Christians, was persecuted and called an atheist as they are because he would not acknowledge those whom the city considered as gods. Socrates worshipped the true God, but did not declare Him to all, saying it was neither easy nor safe to do so. " This, however, our Christ did through His own power. For no one trusted in Socrates so as to die for this doctrine. But in Christ, who was known even to Socrates in part (for He was and is the Word who is in every one), not only philosophers and grammarians put their faith, but even handicraftsmen and such as were wholly uneducated, despising reputation and fear and death. For it is the power of the ineffable Father which does this, not the power of human reason." " All writers," he continues, "through the engrafted seed of the Word which was planted in them were able to see the truth darkly." Whatever all men have uttered aright, he maintains, " belongs to us Christians, for we worship and love next to God the Word which is from the unbegotten and ineffable God, for it was even for us that He was made man, that He might be a partaker of our very sufferings and bring us healing."
As to heaven and hell, without doubt the early Fathers were greatly influenced by these two ideas, and many men were strengthened for martyrdom by them ; but it is out of the mouth of one of themselves that we can refute the notion that such a motive appealed to the most high-minded among them. Clement himself, writing in the latter half of the second century, says :—" Those who endure from love of glory or from fear of some severer punishment after death are but children in the faith, blessed indeed, but not having yet attained to manhood in their love of God, for the Church too has its crowns, both for men and for boys, just as the gymnasium has." " Christ," he says, "is the Saviour not of one here and another there, but to the extent of each man's fitness. He distributed His own bounty both to Greeks and to barbarians," for He is " the Saviour of those who have believed because they were determined to know, and the Lord of those who have been disobedient until they have been able to confess their sins, and receive the grace which comes from Him in the way adapted to their state." These words of Clement find no place in the French book before us, but enough is there set down from the writings of the early apologists to prove that ideas and doctrines which the unlearned regard as specially new, and the orthodox as specially dangerous, existed in the Church from the first. Any book which makes them easier of access should be welcomed. We would call our readers' attention to what the great scholar Hort says of Clement in his translation of the apologist's works :—" In Clement Christian theology in some important respects reaches its highest. With all his manifest defects, there was no one whose version of what the faith of Jesus Christ was intended to do for mankind was so full and true." To accuse Clement of unduly Hellenising the Gospel is to bring St. John under the same condemnation. What, Hort continues, " he humbly and bravely attempted under great disadvan- tages will have to be attempted afresh, with the added experience of more than seventeen centuries, if the Christian faith is still to hold its ground among men, and when the attempt is made not a few of his thoughts and words will probably shine out with new Rme, full of light for dealing with new problems."
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