2

divergence between those who insisted on the bald doctrine of a simultaneous resurrection of the flesh or bodies of all as an essential of Christian belief, and those who were dissatisfied with it. Irenæus, Tertullianus, Hippolytus, and Minucius Felix, all lay stress on the resurrection of the body or of the flesh.1 There were those who denied the resurrection as commonly understood; but these were generally regarded as heretics, and their title to the name of Christian challenged. We find Tertullianus contesting the theory that the resurrection took place not at the end of the world, but either on conversion, or immediately after death.3 As for Origenes, he repeatedly affirms on the one hand the resurrection of the body, which Celsus had attacked,5 and dissociates himself from those who set it aside; on the other hand he never speaks of the resurrection of the flesh he denies that Christians assert that God will raise (men) from the dead with the same flesh and blood," and urges that 'going to God' and 'seeing God' are not bodily actions, but are to be understood figuratively, and suggests that the desired union of all races under one law may be impossible while men are "still in bodies," but may become possible when they have been "released from them." "9 He believes that the soul after death must and will have a body of some sort, but it will not be the earthly body of flesh and blood, but a glorious spiritual body.10

8

Similarly in regard to rewards and punishments, while other authors retain the materialistic language and with it, presumably, the materialistic thoughts of future punishment as eternal or endless,11 Origenes regards both rewards and punishments as

1 Iren. v. ii.-xvi. (ii. 317–369), fr. 12 (ii. 481f); Tert. Apol. 48 (i. 290ff), Marc. v. 9-15, 18-20, Res. passim; Hipp. pòs "EXλnvas 2, Dan. II. xxviii. 4, IV. lvi. If (Hippolytus also wrote a treatise on the resurrection, the title of which is variously given, Harnack C ii. 215f); Minuc. xxxiv. 6, 10.

2 Hipp. Dan. II. xxviii. 4; the apocryphal letter of the Corinthians to Paul (12) and the apostle's reply (23ff; Pick 38, 41); DCB i. 251b, 254a, 259 (Bardesanes); Orig. Cels. v. 22.

Tert. Res. 22 init. For the development of the doctrine of the intermediate state between bodily death and final resurrection, see Iren. II. xxxiv. 1 (i. 381); Tert. Anim. 54-58; Hipp. #pòs "EXλŋvas 1; Eus. HE vi. xxxvii. 4 Orig. Princ. Pref. 5, 11. ii. 2, x. I.

Orig. Cels. ii. 77, v. 14, vii. 32.

"Orig. Cels. vi. 29.

Orig. Cels. viii. 72 fin.

Orig. Cels. v. 22.
8 Orig. Cels. vii. 34.

10 Orig. Princ. 1. vi. 4, II. ii. 2, x. 1–3, 8, III. vi. 4–8, Cels. v. 17–24, vi. 29, vii. 32, viii. 49, and cf. the frags. of Origenes' treatise #epi ȧvaσráσews in Migne PG xi. 91-100 and Lommatzsch xvii. 55-64.

11 Theoph. i. 14; Iren. IV. xxx. 4 (ii. 251), V. xxix. 2 (ii. 405), etc. etc.; Cl. Protr. ix. 83; Tert. Apol. 48 (i. 295), Spect. 30, Paen. 12; Hipp. Dan. IV. x. 3, κίν. 3, πρὸς Ἕλληνας 1, 3 ; Ps-Mel. 12 (1231) ; Minuc. xxxiv.

spiritual,1 and looks upon the latter as remedial and therefore temporary.2 Further, it continues to be regarded as one of the most cogent means of urging pagans to adopt Christianity, to set before them the awful alternative of everlasting bliss or everlasting fire. The two were constantly dangled before the eyes of unbelievers, and they were invited to take their choice between them.3

CHILIASM.—Several writers of this period supported the doctrine of a reign of Christ on earth and other ideas frequently associated with this view. The six days of Creation were taken as a sort of type-scheme of human history: each day represented a thousand years on the strength of Psalm xc. 4: the last of these was now running its course, and its termination would be followed by the seventh day, a thousand years of Sabbath rest. After the overthrow of Antichrist and the nations subject to him,5 the fashion of this world would pass away; there would be a new heaven and a new earth and a resurrection; Christ would inaugurate his earthly Kingdom; Jerusalem would be rebuilt after the likeness of the heavenly Jerusalem, its walls and foundations being made of gold and precious stones; and the saints would inherit the earth and reign with Christ. They would lead a happy life, enjoying their bodily powers of eating and drinking, marrying and begetting children. They would be possessed of great wealth; the land would be exuberantly fertile, the animals docile and peaceable. When the thousand years were over, the whole human race would 1 Orig. Princ. II. x. 4, xi. 3–7, III. vi., Cels. iv. 13, v. 16 (but cf. Princ. II. x. 8, Cels. vi. 26).

2 Orig. Princ. II. x. 5f, Cels. v. 15f, vi. 58.

Theoph. i. 14, ii. 36; Cl. Protr. ix. 83, 85, x. 90, 93-95; Tert. Apol. 48 (i. 294f); Hipp. Ref. x. 34 (30); Ps-Mel. 9 fin. (120), 12 fin., 13 (124); Orig. Cels. i. 9, iii. 78-80, iv. 10, viii. 52. The same plea was of course used as a means of discipline within the Church (Tert. Paen. 10-12; Hipp. Dan. I. xxii. 3). 4 Iren. v. xxviii. 3 (ii. 402f), xxx. 4 (ii. 410), xxxvi. ïf (ii. 427–429) (he adopts the scheme of 6000 years, but does not, so far as I have noticed, speak of a future Kingdom limited to 1000 years: there will be a new heaven and a new earth, embracing various stages of advancement, the blessed rising from one to another); Tert. Marc. iii. 24 (ii. 156-158), Apol. 48 (i. 294) (Tertullianus wrote a special treatise, De Spe Fidelium, in which he put forth chiliastic views: Bardenhewer 189); Hipp. Dan. Iv. xxiii. cf. Ps-Cypr. Pasch. 17. There is a reference to the millennial period (ή διαβόητος χιλιονταετηρίς) in Orig. Orat. xxvii. 13.

As the beliefs about the Antichrist are intimately bound up with the Christian attitude to the Empire, I have reserved all discussion of them until the latter subject is being dealt with; see below, pp. 347f.

Iren. v. ix. 4, XXX. 4, xxxii. 1-xxxv. 2 (ii. 344, 410, 413-426), Demonstr. 61 init.; Tert. Marc. iii. 24 (ii. 156f); Orig. Princ. II. xi. 2. Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, wrote a book maintaining that there would be a certain millennium of bodily luxury upon this earth"; his work seems to have been fairly widely read (Eus. HE VII. xxiv.). Gaius of Rome, we know, criticized the materialistic views of the future held by Cerinthus (Eus. HE 111. xxviii. 1f);

be raised for judgment, the world would be destroyed, Satan would be loosed, and cast with his followers into the eternal fire, while the righteous would enjoy eternal bliss.1 The details of the picture were drawn from various Hebrew and Christian prophecies, which, it was urged, could not be interpreted allegorically, or applied to a purely celestial state."

Origenes criticizes the Chiliasts somewhat severely, saying that they are people who refuse the labour of thinking, yield to their pleasures and lusts, and are disciples only of the letter of Scripture: they understand the Scriptures in a Jewish sense, and draw from them nothing worthy of the Divine promises. He takes occasion several times to intimate that the promised rewards will be enjoyed, not on earth, but in heaven. The earth which the gentle are to inherit is, according to him, not this earth, which was cursed as a result of Adam's sin, but a heavenly region.5 Origenes was certainly justified in criticizing the crude detail with which the Chiliasts often drew their picture; but on the single point of the hope of the establishment of the Divine Kingdom on earth, his view compares unfavourably with theirs. It appears further that the charge of lustfulness which he brought against them was not altogether merited. He seems here to have fallen into the very error with which he so often charges Celsus, namely, of selecting for criticism crude representations put forward by ignorant and simple-minded Christians without taking into consideration the light in which the stronger Christian intellects viewed the matter. That Irenæus, for instance, did not confine his expectation of rewards to bodily pleasures is clear. "The just shall reign on earth," he says, "growing (stronger) by the vision of the Lord, and through Him they shall become accustomed to receiving the glory of God the Father, and shall have in the Kingdom intercourse and communion with the holy angels and a unity with spiritual beings." 6 "We say," says Tertullianus, "that this (city) has he appears to have rejected the Johannine Apocalypse on account both of its materialism and of its apparent departures from the teaching of Jesus and Paul, and to have referred certain eschatological passages in Scripture to the fall of Jerusalem in 70 A.D. (Hipp. Gaius 408; also the addl. extracts given by Achelis 243–246). Hippolytus controverted the views of Gaius, and in doing so speaks of the one glorious day lasting a thousand years, when Christ will reign see (Hipp. Gaius, esp. 403f): in pòs "EXλnvas 3 his view of the Kingdom rather resembles that of Irenæus (see p. 308 n 4).

1 Tert. Apol. 48 (i. 294f), Marc. iii. 24 (ii. 156–158); Hipp. Gaius 404. 2 Iren. v. xxxiii. 1 (ii. 416), xxxv. if (ii. 423, 425f). Nepos entitled his eschatological work Ἔλεγχος ἀλληγοριστῶν (Eus. HE VII. xxiv. 2).

3 Orig. Princ. II. xi. 2.

Orig. Princ. II. iii. 7, IV. i. 22, Cels. vi. 20, vii. 28–31.

"Orig. Cels. vii. 28f.

• Iren. v. xxxv. 1 (ii. 424).

been provided by God for receiving the saints on (their) resurrection, and refreshing them with abundance of all good things, certainly (utique) spiritual things, as compensation for those which in this life we have either despised or lost." 1

CHAPTER III

GENERAL ATTITUDE TO HEATHEN SOCIETY

3

OTHERWORLDLINESS. The whole setting of the Christian's worldview drew his longings and interests away from the present life to the life beyond. His citizenship was in heaven; 2 and his main concern was to hasten forward to its enjoyment. He regards himself as a pilgrim, with no desire to cling to the things he meets with or uses on his journey. Hence not only has worldly glory no attractions for the genuine Christian, but he must hold earthly pleasures and pains in contempt, and beware lest the devil enmesh him with worldly attractions.?

5

ALOOFNESS FROM HEATHEN SOCIETY.-These otherworldly sentiments would almost have sufficed of themselves to make the Christian man somewhat of a recluse; but there was another factor tending in the same direction, viz. the Christian's disapproval of many of the ordinary customs of heathen social life, and his consequent inability to take part in them. The principle of avoiding 1 Tert. Marc. iii. 24 (ii. 156).

2 Tert. Cor. 13 (i. 451) (Sed tu

civis supernae Hierusalem.

inquit, municipatus in caelis); Orig. Cels. viii. 5.

Noster,

3 * Iren. fr. 1 (ii. 480) (τὸ ἔργον τοῦ Χριστιανοῦ οὐδὲν ἄλλο ἐστὶν, ἢ μελετάν άπоovýσкe); Tert. Apol. 41 (i. 272) (nihil nostra refert in hoc aevo, nisi de eo quam celeriter excedere), Spect. 15 (i. 46: see next page, n 6), 28 (i. 60) (quod est aliud votum nostrum, quam quod et apostoli, exire de saeculo et recipi apud Dominum ? Hic voluptas, ubi et votum), 29.

4 Cl. Strom. IV. xxvi. 166, VI. ix. 79, VII. xii. 78; Tert. Cor. 13 (i. 451) (tu peregrinus mundi hujus).

5 Tert. Idol. 9 (i. 78) (... gloriae saecularis, quam Christus erat adempturus), Cor. 13 (i. 450); Orig. Cels. vii. 24 (forbidden both in O.T. and in teaching of Jesus τὸ δόξης ἀντιποιεῖσθαι τῆς παρ' ἀνθρώποις).

Cl. Strom. VII. xi. 63, xii. 78; Tert. Spect. 29 (i. 60) (quae major voluptas quam fastidium ipsius voluptatis, quam saeculi totius contemptus ?), Cor. 13 (i. 451); Orig. Mart. 49; Cypr. Donat. 14, Hab. Virg. 7.

7 Tert. Paen. 7 (i. 657) (.. animum illecebris saecularibus irretire), Res. 46 fin. (Paul addressed the words of C ii. 20 'ad eos qui desinere deberent mundialiter vivere ').

8 Ps-Just. Orat. I init.; Cl. Strom. 1. viii. 41; Hipp. Ant. 40 fin. (quotation of Ap xviii. 4f), Dan. 1. xv. 5; Cypr. Test. iii. 34 (fidelem gentiliter vivere non

association with evil-doers, which had now come to have a recognized application within the Church itself,1 had a still more obvious bearing on the Christian's relations with the pagan world. "We 1 ought never," says Clemens, "to aim at pleasing the many for the things that please them we do not practise, whereas the things that we know are remote from their disposition." He warns the Christian against going with the crowd, "for wisdom shows itself among few, but disorder in a multitude": 3 he must not invite all and sundry to his house, for fear of the devil's snares; he must associate with the righteous, not with the lewd, for Scripture says, Let righteous men be thy guests." 4 The Gnostic, he says, never

surrenders himself to the rabble that rules in the theatres.5

Tertullianus, as might be expected, is emphatic on the point. After alluding to the pleasures of the public shows, he continues : "It is not enough for us that we do no such thing ourselves, unless we break all connection with those that do such things. .. Would that we were not even detained in the world with them: anyhow we are separated from them in worldly things, for the world is God's, but worldly things are the devil's." He quotes the separatist sayings of the Old Testament,' and says that the Prophets taught men to flee from contact with the wicked.8 That Tertullianus

was stricter than many of his fellow-Christians on the point of separation from the world, we may well believe; but that a very wide gulf of separation actually existed between Christians and pagans it is scarcely possible to doubt. Thus Origenes, while repudiating the charge that Christians were seditious, admitted that they do sever and break themselves away from those who are aliens to the commonwealth of God, and strangers to His covenants, in order that they may carry out their heavenly citizenship." 10 oportere), 95 (bonis convivendum, malos autem vitandos). On the refusal to swear an oath, see below, p. 457 n 4.

1 Clemens (Paed. II. i. 10) and Tertullianus (Pudic. 18) (i. 833) quote the warnings of 1 C v. II. The former says that jesters ought to be ejected Tŷs ἡμεδαπῆς πολιτείας (Paed. II. ν. 45).

Cl. Strom. I. viii. 41. Tertullianus in Idol. 14 (i. 91f) discusses the meaning of the Pauline teaching about pleasing men.

Cl. Paed. III. iv. 27, cf. Strom. v. v. 31; Ps-Mel. 1 (113).

4 Cl. Paed. III. iv. 29 (Sirach ix. 16); cf. xi. 75f.

5 Cl. Strom. VII. vii. 36.

Tert. Spect. 15 (i. 45f).

? Tert. Pudic. 18 (i. 832), quoting Isa lii. 11, Ps i. 1, etc.

• Tert. Marc. ii. 19 (ii. 107). His threat of a general secession of Christians from society (Apol. 37 (i. 251)) is rhetorical, and not meant to be taken seriously.

Neumann SK 119. On Tertullianus' hostility to worldly institutions, cf. Boissier FP i. 221–239.

10 Orig. Cels. viii. 5.