divine Logos; Plato, Homer, Pythagoras, and Solon received partial revelations of it, and indeed it reveals itself somewhat to every man, though the one perfect and complete revelation is Christ, who is the Logos incarnate. For our present purpose we need observe in detail only that phase of Justin's philosophy which is concerned with classical literature. Greek philosophy and poetry are to be esteemed highly, because, to an unusual degree, they express the divine revelation. Not only did such men as Homer and Plato experience revelations of the truth, but they were also familiar with the teachings of Moses, and indeed with all of the Old Testament. Such doctrines in Plato as eternal punishment, the immortality of the soul, and the freedom of the will, were borrowed from the early Jewish books.1 Of the other four prominent apologists of the second century, Tatian, Hermas, and Theophilus condemn and ridicule Greek philosophy, and Athenagoras assumes an attitude similar to that of Justin. Tatian, who was an Assyrian, abused all things Greek with barbaric severity,2 Hermas wrote an Abuse of the Pagan Philosophers, and Theophilus called the doctrines of the Greek philosophers foolishness.3 Athenagoras, on the other hand, esteemed the Greek philosophers, and quoted them in support of the unity of God, a truth which he believed the Spirit had revealed to them despite the prevailing polytheism of their country.* The closing years of the second century and the first half of the third were engrossed in the controversy which the Gnostics had aroused. Anti-Gnosticism found its most spirited champion in Tertullian, the foremost Latin ecclesiastical writer of the early centuries. Tertullian believed that Christianity alone possessed the truth, that philosophy was the source of all heresies, and that Plato and other Greek philosophers, though they had stolen certain isolated truths 1 See Apology i. 44; Cohortatio ad Graecos 14. 2 See Oratio ad Graecos 2. + See Supplicatio v. 3 See Ad Autolycus i. ii. iii. from Moses, which they arrogated to themselves, were exponents of falsehood. So extreme was his antipathy. to philosophy that he eventually declared: Credo quia absurdum est. On the other hand Clement of Alexandria and his pupil, Origen, the founder of the school to which Basil, Gregory Nyssen, and Gregory Nazianzen adhered, endeavored to separate the true from the false in Gnosticism. Both of them laid much stress upon the value of Greek philosophy. Ueberweg gives the following comprehensive digest of Clement's views concerning the relation of the pagan writings to the Scriptures: 'Clement adopts the view of Justin, that to Christianity, as the whole truth, the conceptions of ante-Christian times are opposed, not as mere errors, but as partial truths. The divine Logòs, which is everywhere poured out, like the light of the sun (Stromata v. 3), enlightened the souls of men from the beginning. It instructed the Jews through Moses and the prophets (Paedagogus i. 7). Among the Greeks, on the contrary, it called forth wise men, and gave them, through the mediation of the lower angels, whom the Logos had appointed to be shepherds of the nations (Strom. vii. 2), philosophy as a guide to righteousness (Strom. i. 5; vi. 5). Like Justin, Clement maintains that the philosophers took much of their doctrine secretly from the Orientals, and, in particular, from the religious books of the Jews, which doctrine they then, from desire of renown, falsely proclaimed as the result of their own independent investigations, besides falsifying and corrupting it (Strom. i. I. 17; Paed. ii. 1). Yet some things pertaining to true doctrine were really discovered by the Greek philosophers, by the aid of the seed of the divine Logos implanted in them (Cohortatio vi. 59). Plato was the best of the Greek philosophers (ὁ πάντα ἄριστος Πλάτων, . . οἷον Oeopopoúμevos, Paed. iii. 11; Strom. v. 8). The Christian must choose out that which is true in the writings of the different philosophers, i. e., whatever agrees with Christianity (Strom. i. 7; vi. 17). We need the aid of philoso phy in order to advance from faith (míσris) to knowledge (γνῶσις). The Gnostic is to him who merely believes without knowing as the grown-up man to the child; having outgrown the fear of the Old Testament, he has arrived at a higher stage of the divine plan of man's education. Whoever will attain to Gnosis without philosophy, dialectic, and the study of nature, is like him who expects to gather grapes without cultivating the grapevine (Strom. i. 9). But the criterion of true science must always be the harmony of the latter with faith (Strom. ii. 4).” Of Origen, who was the last ecclesiastical philosopher of influence in the Eastern church prior to the fourth century, it is enough to say that he assumed the same attitude toward the Greek writers as did his master. One who has read Basil's essay will readily appreciate the similarity between the views of Basil and those of Justin, Athenagoras, Clement, and Origen. The chapters in the essay might almost be arranged as expositions of the various elements in the above digest from Clement's writings. There is the same belief in the partial inspiration of the Greek poets and philosophers, the same advocacy of the study of Hellenic literature as an introduction to the study of Christianity, the common credence in the indebtedness of Plato and other philosophers to Moses and the Prophets, and the like insistence upon life as a growth, and upon knowledge as the complement of faith. To summarize this brief review: For at least two centuries before Basil wrote his Address to Young Men on the Right Use of Greek Literature efforts had been made to determine the true relation between Greek learning and Christianity. Some writers bitterly opposed Hellenic philosophy and poetry, others recognized that it contained a partial revelation of the truth. To the latter view Justin and his followers inclined, and among these followers one of the most pronounced is Basil. 1 Hist. of Philosophy i. 314. |