It appears that in this period certain Christians began on principle to cultivate a lonely life as hermits. Clemens speaks in terms of high praise of "those who haul themselves out of the surf of the world and ascend to safety, not wishing to seem holy, and ashamed if anyone call them so." 1

MIXING WITH THE WORLD.-We have noticed in previous periods that the tendency towards a narrow separatism was continually checked, partly by the growing worldliness of many Christians, and partly also by a genuine sense of the duty of christianizing the rest of the world. It is in the period at which we have now arrived that the operation of these tendencies becomes a prominent feature in the life of the Church. On every hand we see signs of an increased willingness on the part of Christians to fraternize with their pagan fellow-men, and to enter into the general life of society. Christian separatism served the useful purpose of retarding, if it did not altogether avert, an undue assimilation of the Church to the heathen society around her; but it did not in practice prevent a large measure of association between them. The same authors give their testimony both to the exclusiveness and to the sociability of the Christians. Clemens says that the Christian has to walk in wisdom toward them that are without, that it is allowable to be a listener to Divine wisdom, and at the same time a citizen, decorously and in a godly way conducting worldly affairs. The evidence of Tertullianus is the

"

1 Cl. Quis Dives 36: he calls them more elect than the elect," "the light of the world," the salt of the earth," the seed, image, and likeness of God." On the beginnings of Christian monasticism, cf. Robertson RD 162-165; Harnack Monasticism: its Ideals and History (E.T. from German), 24ff.

On this rapprochement between the world and the Church, cf. Uhlhorn Ch. 206f; Ramsay in The Expositor, III. viii. 418f (commenting on Phrygian inscriptions of about 200 A.D. in which distinctively Christian features appear to have been purposely reduced to a minimum); Neumann SK 112ff, 200f; Harnack ME i. 311 n, KS 139f; Gwatkin ECH ii. 180. Uhlhorn says: "That the Church should after its conquest of Montanism turn into this path, was a thoroughly necessary and right development. Nor is it to be accounted a fault, that it became milder in discipline, and made reconciliation possible to the fallen, that the whole idea of Christian life was somewhat lowered; for what the first enthusiasm had effected in the Church's youth, could no longer be required in the subsequent centuries." One may agree with Uhlhorn that the Montanization of the Church would have been a disaster: but it is very difficult to distinguish between the process of compromise of which he so warmly approves, and that large surrender of moral requirements which in the immediate sequel (207) he deplores. It need not be taken for granted that a Church with a strict standard of morals could not have permeated national and social life. The Christianization of the world might have taken longer, but it would have been deeper and more thorough than it actually was. Cl. Paed. III. xii. 95, quoting C iv. 5.

4 Cl. Paed. III. xi. 78: for the Greek, see below, p. 395 n 4. On Clemens' view of the Christian attitude to the world, see Neumann SK 113-116,

more interesting-as he represents the extreme of Christian aloofness from the world. "We call each other brethren, . . .” he says to the pagans concerning himself and his fellow-Christians, "but we are your brothers as well, by the law of the one mother Nature." 1 "We are said to be useless in the business affairs (of life. But) how can men who live with you, (men) with the same food, clothing, habits, and necessitie(s) of life (as yourselves, be so)? For we are not Brahmans or Indian Gymnosophists, forestdwellers and exiles from (social) life. We remember that we owe thanks to God (our) Lord (and) Creator: we reject no fruit of His works; though we exercise restraint, lest we use (them) excessively or wrongly. And so we dwell with (you) in this world, not without a forum, not without a provision-market, not without your baths, shops, workrooms, inns, weekly markets, and other places of business. With you we go on voyages, and serve as soldiers, and till the soil, and trade; we mingle (our) crafts (with yours); we make our work public for your use. I know not how we (can) seem useless for your affairs, living with you and by your help (cum quibus et de quibus) as we do." 2 In his treatise on Idolatry,' he discusses the meaning of the Pauline phrase "all things to all men," and distinguishes between permissible intercourse with pagans and illicit association with them in superstition and sin.3 He speaks without

1 Tert. Apol. 39 (i. 260f); cf. Marc. iv. 16 (ii. 195) (Haec Creator una pronuntiatione clusit per Esaiam: Dicite, Fratres nostri estis, eis qui vos oderunt. Isa lxvi. 5).

2 Tert. A pol. 42 (i. 273f) (infructuosi in negotiis dicimur. Quo pacto homines vobiscum degentes, ejusdem victus, habitus, instructus, ejusdem ad vitam necessitatis? Neque enim Brachmanae aut Indorum gymnosophistae sumus, sylvicolae et exules vitae. Meminimus gratiam nos debere Deo Domino Creatori; nullum fructum operum ejus repudiamus; plane temperamus, ne ultra modum aut perperam utamur. Itaque non sine foro, non sine macello, non sine balneis, tabernis, officinis, stabulis, nundinis vestris, caeterisque commerciis cohabitamus in hoc saeculo. Navigamus et nos vobiscum et militamus et rusticamur et mercamur; [Oehler reads 'mercatus' and transfers stop to after 'miscemus'] proinde miscemus artes, operas nostras publicamus usui vestro. Quomodo infructuosi videamur negotiis vestris, cum quibus et de quibus vivimus, non scio). If CIL xiv. 251 (ll. 25f) and 1900 both refer to the same man, they show us a Christian, Marcus Curtius Victorinus, who was quinquennalis lenunculariorum,' i.e. president of the guild of sailors, at Ostia in 192 A.D. He would be a person of some little importance, some of his colleagues in office being equites Romani.'

3 Tert. Idol. 14 (i. 91f): Proinde cum dicit, Omnibus omnia factus sum, ut omnes lucrifaciam (1 C ix. 22), numquid idololatris idololatres, numquid ethnicis ethnicus, numquid saecularibus saecularis? Sed etsi non prohibet nos conversari cum idololatris et adulteris et ceteris criminosis, dicens, Ceterum de mundo exiretis, non utique eas habenas conversationis immittit, ut, quoniam necesse est et convivere nos et commisceri cum peccatoribus, idem et compeccare possimus. Ubi est commercium vitae quod apostolus concedit, ibi peccare, quod nemo permittit. Licet convivere cum ethnicis, commori non licet. Convivamus cum omnibus; conlaetemur ex communione naturae, non superstitionis, Etc.

reproach of Christian women having to fulfil the claims of their friendships with gentiles and other duties owed to them.1 Origenes speaks of the debts owed to citizens and to men as those which are due both from and to Christians." He says that Christians see no good reason why they should leave the world, except when virtue and piety require it,3 i.e. under certain conditions of persecution. Minucius in his dialogue represents himself and Octavius as associating in a free and friendly way with their pagan acquaintance Cæcilius. Gregorius tells us that at one time he thought he ought never more to associate with heathen philosophers, but he admits that this decision was probably a wrong one.4

PAGAN HATRED AND CHRISTIAN LOVE.-The hatred with which

the Christians were so generally regarded by their heathen associates 5 was such as to render friendly intercourse between the two sometimes impossible, often difficult, and generally precarious. The Christians did what they could to overcome the difficulty by conciliatory and loving behaviour and by appeals to reason. The duty of love lay at the basis of their whole ethic," and the important scriptural corollaries enjoining love for enemies, and forbidding retaliation, vengeance, and anger, were constantly before their minds. Tertullianus, indeed, somewhat smirches the

7

1 Tert. Cul. ii. 11 (i. 731) (Ac si necessitas amicitiarum officiorumque gentilium vos vocat, cur non vestris armis indutae procedatis?); Bigelmair 229f.

* Orig. Orat. xxviii. 2 (ἔστι τις καὶ πρὸς πολίτας ὀφειλὴ καὶ ἄλλη κοινὴ πρὸς πάντας ἀνθρώπους), 6 init. (οἱ μὲν γὰρ ὀφείλουσιν ἡμῖν ὡς ἀνθρώποις οἱ δὲ ὡς πολίταις). Orig. Cels. viii. 55.

Greg. Thaum. Paneg. x. 128: . . . ols dià Tòv Xoiπòv ßíov ovdè πpoσiévai ἄξιον εἶναι ἐδόκουν, ἴσως οὐκ ὀρθῶς τοῦτο φρονῶν.

Tert. Apol. 7 (i. 137); Hipp. Dan. III. xvi. 1-3, xix. 4, IV. x. 3; Orig. Mart. 39, 41, Cels. vi. 27f, viii. 70; Cypr. Test. iii. 29.

6 • Theoph. iii. 14; Iren. Demonstr. 87 (141), 95 fin. (147); Cl. Strom. VII. xi. 68, xii. 69); Tert. Apol. 36 (i. 249) (male enim velle, male facere, male dicere, male cogitare de quoquam ex aequo vetamur); Bardesanic Book of the Laws of the Countries (ÂNCL xxiib. 90f).

P. Scill. 2 (nunquam malediximus, sed male accepti gratias egimus, propter quod imperatorem nostrum obseruamus); Theoph. iii. 14; Iren. II. xxxii. 1 (i. 372), III. xviii. 5f (ii. 99f), IV. xiii. 3, xxxiv. 4 (ii. 182, 271f), Demonstr. 96 (147); Act. Apoll. 37 (édidažev yàp Oνμòν таveш, . . . φιλίαν αὔξειν, πρὸς ἄμυναν ἀδικούντων μὴ τρέπεσθαι, κτλ.); Cl. Strom. II. i. 2, xviii. 88, Iv. xiv. 95, VII. xi. 62 (the Gnostic "never bears a grudge or is vexed with any one, even though he be worthy of hatred for what he does"), fr. (iii. 221) (Clemens' advice to the newly baptized, μηδὲν ὀξυχολίας ἀνάπλεος ἔσο περὶ ὀργάς, σοι πρὸς τοὺς ἀπαντῶντας ἔστω τὰ ῥήματα καὶ προσηγορίαι γλυκείαι); Tert. Apol. 37 init., 39 fin., 46 (i. 284) (Christianus nec inimicum suum laedit), Pat. 10; Bardesanes' School in ANCL xxiib. 94 (vengeance lion-like and leopard-like); Orig. Cels. ii. 10, 30, v. 63, vii. 25f, viii. 35; Cypr. Test. iii. 22 (accepta iniuria remittendum et ignoscendum), 23 (uicem malis non reddendam), 49 (inimicos quoque diligendos), 106 (iniuria accepta patientiam tenandam et ultionem Deo relinquendam).

ἤπιά

beauty of the Christian principle of the endurance of wrongs, by inviting the injured one to take pleasure in the disappointment which his patience inflicts upon the wrong-doer. The spirit of retaliation is kept, and coals of fire' selected as the most poignant means of giving effect to it. But his failure to catch the real spirit of Christian love renders his testimony to what was the normal Christian policy all the more unimpeachable. Both he and Clemens take it for granted that Christian principles would forbid a man to sue an enemy, whether Christian or heathen, in a court of law.2 But this did not mean that the Christians did not concern themselves with checking the wrong-doing of others. They appealed by Christian love to the evil-doer's free will.3

THE APOLOGIES.-Nor were Christians in any way disposed to let the calumnies and criticisms of pagans go unanswered. Tertullianus insists on the duty of rebuking an erring brother; 4 and we know that with him the word 'brother' included pagan and enemy.5 Christians, says Origenes, have learnt to be always ready to give an answer to every one who asks them a reason for the hope that is in them. The apologetic literature of the period is very abundant ; and we may safely conclude that the verbal discussions between Christians and pagans, of which we obtain glimpses in the written sources,8 were also of very frequent occurrence. The replies made by martyrs when before the magistrates come properly under the heading of oral apologies. Of written apologies addressed or dedicated to rulers we have examples in

1 Tert. Pat. 8. Mercy is a word he understood no better than the Stoics" (Gwatkin ECH ii. 238). There is an interesting study of Tertullianus' views on non-resistance in The Expositor, VIII. ix. 437-445 (May 1915) by Dr. Moffatt.

2 For the evidence on this point, see below, pp. 364ff.

3 Among the fragments attributed to Clemens is the following (ap. Maximus Confessor, Serm., 55 (Migne PG xci. 965)): Máλσта яáνтwν Xрiσтiavoîs οὐκ ἐφίεται τὸ πρὸς βίαν ἐπανορθοῦν τὰ τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων πταίσματα. Οὐ γὰρ τοὺς ἀνάγκῃ τῆς κακίας ἀπεχομένους, ἀλλὰ τοὺς προαιρέσει, στεφανοῖ ὁ Θεός. Οὐ δυνατόν τινα ἀγαθὸν εἶναι βεβαίως, εἰ μὴ κατὰ προαίρεσιν οἰκείαν, κτλ. Stählin (Clem. Alex. iii. lxxiii f) includes the sentences among the ungenuine fragments, the first part (down to Oeós) being found in the works of Johannes Chrysostomus, the rest in Clem. Hom. xi. 8. The sentiments are certainly those of our period, and indeed of Clemens himself, and I am not sure that it is proved that Chrysostomus might not have been borrowing from him: but in deference to Stählin's authority, I have thought it best not to include the quotation in the text.

Tert. Marc. iv. 35 init. (ii. 252): cf. Cypr. Test. iii. 77.

5 See above, p. 313 n 1.

Orig. Cels. vii. 12.

7 On the Apologists of the third century, cf. Uhlhorn C 391-393.

8 Theoph. ii. 1, 38 fin.; Minuc. passim; see above, p. 303.

Tertullianus' 'Apologeticus,' which opens with an appeal to the provincial governors of the Empire,1 and the Pseudo-Melitonian 'Apology' addressed to Caracalla (or Elagabalus) and preserved to us in Syriac.2 Then there is the apologetic discourse written to the individual heathen friend, as exemplified in the three books inscribed by Theophilus of Antioch to Autolycus. Akin to this type are the explanatory discourses sent to Christian friends in order that the latter may use them in discussion with unbelievers,3 or perhaps secure for them access to a wide circle of readers. Thus Origenes undertook his great reply to the True Word' of Celsus at the request of his friend Ambrosius, a man of wealth and rank: he dedicated his work to Ambrosius, but intended it also for the perusal of gentiles and Christians whose faith was weak. Still more frequent, apparently, were the treatises addressed direct to the heathen public, e.g. the Pseudo-Justinian Address to the Hellenes,' a criticism of the Hellenic idea of God and religious customs; Clemens' 'Hortatory Address to the Hellenes,' a persuasive appeal to pagans to embrace Christianity; 5 Tertullianus' address to the Nations,' which is at once a protest against persecution, a reply (generally on 'tu quoque' lines) to the current charges of immorality, and a violent attack on the Roman religion; Hippolytus' book 'Against the Hellenes and against Plato, or, concerning the Cause of the Universe,' dealing with questions concerning the soul, matter, the future life, etc.; and Minucius Felix's dialogue 'Octavius,' describing the conversion of a pagan

1 Neumann SK 111f, 119–154; Gwatkin ECH i. 206–210.

2 That this was a written, not a spoken, address appears from 5 fin. (117) ("of which matter I will not write further "). It is a coolly reasoned statement on the nature of God, appealing to the Emperor and his sons to adopt the Christian belief in view of the approaching judgment. Eusebius (HE IV. XXX. 2) tells us that among the works of Bardesanes "there is his very able dialogue on Fate (addressed) to Antoninus, and the other things they say he wrote by reason of the persecution of that time." Eusebius wrongly puts Bardesanes in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, whom he means by Antoninus. The Book of the Laws of the Countries, which is identical with the Dialogue on Fate, was not written by Bardesanes himself, but by one of his school, and does not appear to have been addressed to any Emperor.

3 Hipp. Ant. I : . . . ὅπως . . . δυσωπήσῃς . δι' αὐτῶν τοὺς ἀντιδιατε θεμένους καὶ ἀντιλέγοντας τῷ σωτηρίῳ λόγῳ: but he is anxious that his friend should not divulge these doctrines to the unworthy.

Orig. Cels. Pref. I, 3f, 6f, i. 37 (ἔτι δὲ πρὸς Ἕλληνας λεκτέον), ii. 16 (ὡς πρὸς ἀπίστους, κτλ.), ν. 18, viii. 76.

The Paedagogus and the Stromata were primarily intended for Christian readers, but the apologetic interest appears in Strom. II. i. 2 (where he proposes to present an eλeyxos dуаπηTIкós of the better philosophers, not by way of retaliation, but with a view to their conversion; ds d' éλéyxei μetà #appnoías eipηvoroicî) and VI. i. 1 (Hellenes will learn from his pages the impiety of persecution he will answer difficulties raised by Hellenes and barbarians over the Lord's Parousia).