Оценка литературного и богословского значения апологетических произведений II века

Recently, apologists have found far from the same assessment from various researchers, both in literary and theological terms. According to the usual, long-established view, apologists were strong in spirit, strong in faith, philosophically educated representatives of ancient Christian theology, who not only applied the name of philosophers to themselves, but also proved it by their actions. Fearlessly, they turn to the emperor and bring to his attention the cause of Christians, “boldly throw the flame of truth into the soul of the despot,” show him and modern society the madness of Greek worship and worship, give him the opportunity to look into the life of Christians, cult, the world of concepts, the doctrine of salvation, point to the judgment at the end of the world. But an opposite view is sharply opposed to this, denying apologists, first of all, broad and serious education and literary abilities: apologists, they say, can be counted among the lowest philosophical clergy, and often even only among the lowest. High morality, occupation with the doctrine of God and Divine objects accidentally gave them the title of philosophers, which at that time was treated quite freely; but, in essence, they were unworthy of him, and the apologists belong to the so-called sophists, who inserted philosophical passages into their pompous speeches; but Christian apologists, of course, did not stand at the educational heights of even their pagan colleagues. Thus, apologists are deprived, first of all, of the glory of scientists. From Aristides to Theophilus of Antioch, these were spiritually insignificant people, had poor knowledge of the Greek literary language, and could not arrange their thoughts into a harmonious, harmoniously ordered whole; they extract all their wisdom from several manuals. This, first of all, according to researchers of this persuasion, explains the fact that the apologists did not make any impression on the educated pagans of their time: their works were greeted with a smile of regret. But this is not enough: the apologists are denied the theological significance that they previously enjoyed. They find only vague traces of evangelical Christianity and prove that in their works the source of living piety is buried by modern moralistic philosophy. If we do not take into account Justin, who, according to the consensus of scientists even of a negative direction, is an exception and deserves separate study, then the dogma of the apologists turns out to be too simple. It has long been noticed that not only in the short and too general exhortations to the Hellenes, but even in the more extensive apologies of Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Minucius Felix, the name of Jesus Christ is not mentioned. Further, they say, no results are obtained that are favorable to the Christian theological significance of the apologists, if we pay attention to the entire content of their theology, which can be reduced to the following provisions. God is one, spiritual, omnipotent, Creator and Almighty. Apologists defend this idea against its childish and gross perversions in pagan mythology, but in such a form that it is as if they were writing an essay on secular philosophy. But this main thesis of apologetic works was not exclusively Christian - it was the main position of Jewish and even Platonic apologies. The God of the apologists is transcendental and cannot enter into direct relations with the world. He needs a mediator, and such a mediator is the Logos. Logos created the world; He cares about the order and preservation of what has been created; He enlightens the mind of man and guides his forces, directing them to virtue. God created angels - free and higher creatures, to whom the Logos entrusted supervision over His work. Some of these angels deviated from their mission: through negligence or as a result of lust, they became unfaithful. And people, left to themselves or deceived by these unfaithful spirits, fell into ignorance, into moral depravity, and hence into general idolatry. However, the Logos, after repeatedly proclaiming the truth through His prophets, instructed Christians in it, who owe Him the knowledge of the true God and corresponding service to Him. He also showed the way of salvation for man. God created man free and master of his destiny: if man obeys the voice of the Logos, if he keeps His commandments, then he will achieve immortal and incorruptible life; if not, then eternal death and endless torment will befall him. Such is, in its main outlines, the system of dogmatic teaching of the apologists, extracted from their works. Its characteristic feature, which the apologists themselves often insist on, is that Christianity in their eyes is a philosophy. But who, they say, does not see that all specifically Christian truths have been eliminated from this philosophy? The Trinity, even the Incarnation, original sin, atonement, grace, and the sacraments have no place in it. Even the doctrine of the Logos is absent from the apology of Minucius Felix; in general, it represents a reworking of philosophical or Judeo-philosophical (Philonian) teaching. Apologists wanted to make Christianity acceptable to reason, but was it Christianity? Here wisdom is said to have replaced the Gospel. All this provides a visible basis for the currently favorite theory, which asserts that the Hellenization of Christianity and the secularization of the Gospel begin with the apologists. There is no doubt that the apologists of the 2nd century. were not outstanding scientists and brilliant writers; There is also no doubt that they cannot be called philosophers in the strict sense of the word. It is also true that in Christian circles there was some predilection for the title of “philosopher.” If Christianity was regarded as “Christian philosophy,” then an educated Christian who believed that in Christianity he had found a worldview superior to pagan philosophy, and testified openly to this by following the pagan philosophers in lifestyle and dress, was already called a Christian philosopher. However, this does not give the right to put apologists on the same line as the usual type of “sophist” in the somewhat humiliating and offensive meaning that is usually associated with this term. And in the era of the Antonines, between those representatives of eloquence who are usually designated by the name of sophists, individual differences were often very great: sophists are called both rhetoricians who are committed solely to words and the external structure of speech, and more serious writers who are sincerely devoted to philosophy or morality. And the apologists had different talents and different training, why can’t a general verdict be pronounced about them in this regard; and they should be prevented from excessive humiliation by the very fact that, being philosophers and sophists, say, of the ordinary type, they, despite all the negative sides of people in their profession, were able to break with their past, with their careers, were able to understand the difference between the systems of teachings known to them and the true philosophy that they learned in Christianity, had the courage to come out in defense of the new religion to the point of being ready to lay down their lives for it. This very devotion of the apologists to Christianity and the great service they rendered to Christianity, if not in directly achieving the set goal, then in the edification and confirmation of believers, was the main reason, perhaps, for the somewhat exaggerated judgment of Christian contemporaries about the degree of their education and literary abilities. We must not forget that the apologists presented in their works the first experiments in scientific and philosophical substantiation of Christian teaching, in which they had to look for appropriate expressions to denote new ideas, and, moreover, in such a form as to be understandable to intelligent pagans. Finally, the circumstances of the origin of the apologies unknown to us could have influenced the nature of the literary presentation. Undoubtedly, it must be significant that the Conversation with Tryphon is literary far superior to the apologies of Justin. In view of the above, the question of the degree of education of apologists and the literary merits of their works is not of significant importance. In our speech about individual apologists and their works, we will also touch on these aspects. It is more important to dwell on the question of the literary sources of apologetic works. And in this regard, there is a noticeable tendency to draw decisive conclusions for which there is no sufficient basis in the data previously obtained by science. It is considered indisputable that the most ancient Christian apologists are dependent on the pre-Christian Jewish apology that arose in the Hellenistic period; in this regard, even obvious exaggerations are allowed 313. But Jewish apology is not original either: it developed under the strong influence of Hellenistic literature. The Jews of the Diaspora, when confronted with Greco-Roman culture, inevitably felt the need to defend the foundations of their theocratic culture - monotheism and the dignity of the Old Testament religion, and for missionary purposes - its superiority over all other religions. Both to repel the attacks and bullying of the pagans of the Greco-Roman Empire, and to go on the offensive, Jewish writers did not have their own solid ground. 314 But since, as a result of the extraordinary spread of Hellenism, they themselves became almost perfect Greeks, then in the fight against Hellenism they used the weapons of Hellenic philosophy, which long before had revealed the weak sides of the people's pagan faith and highlighted the insignificance of the gods. With arguments borrowed from here, the Jews polemicize against polytheism and prove that only the Jewish people are right, worshiping a single, unoriginating God. But when they begin to depict the properties of this God, they use the ideas of modern Greek philosophy, from which they draw ordinary proofs of the existence of God. From the Greeks, the Jews also borrowed the very method of protecting their sacred books: just as the Greeks wanted to eliminate the temptation of the criminal acts of the gods through allegorical explanation, so the Jewish apologists in a similar way explained those biblical narratives that might seem dubious. The desire to bring moral legislation, which was also criticized by the pagans, into harmony with reason, resulted in a complete contradiction in the combination of Revealed Religion with Hellenic philosophy. Jewish Hellenists valued Greek philosophers very highly and accepted many of the positions developed by ancient philosophy. But, on the other hand, they needed to reconcile this attitude towards philosophy with the basic position of their own religious consciousness that the truth is given only in the Revealed religion they profess. They found a way out of the difficulty in the peculiar theory that the Greeks drew their wisdom from the Bible - this explained the agreement in many views of ancient philosophy with the teachings of the Jewish religion. This view for a long time became a kind of dogma even for many Christians. Comparing Jewish apologetics with Christian, they find that Jewish apologetics provided a kind of scheme for Christian polemics against paganism: they first refuted the worship of the Greeks, as far as it concerned the gods of Homer, the veneration of the elements, the worship of luminaries, then idolatry, and finally moved on to expounding the doctrine of the true God. When Christian apologists talk about the superiority of biblical books over pagan works, expound the religious and moral teaching of the prophets, insist on the antiquity of the Bible, in which they strive to show the source of all wisdom, all truth, teach about the partial Revelation of the Logos, then Christian apologetics does not differ from the apologetics of the Alexandrian Jews. In addition to this influence of Judeo-philosophical apologetics, they also note the direct use on the part of Christian apologists of the material provided by Greek scientific and popular philosophy, which, two centuries before Christ, had already undertaken a struggle against anthropomorphic concepts of the Divine and idolatry and developed the concept of a spiritual Deity and spiritual service to him. The apologists took upon themselves a task similar to that which lay before the defenders of philosophy against popular prejudices. Therefore, their speeches to the Hellenes or to the peoples are, as it were, a Christian adaptation of those “Protreptics” or “Admonitions,” the type of which could be Cicero’s Hortensius. Just as the authors of the Protreptics, intending to praise philosophy, considered it necessary to first attack the vices and prejudices of the people in order to clear the ground, so did the apologists in order to prepare victory for the faith. Polemics always occupy a significant place in their works; but in the very essence of their arguments, whether they attack mythology and cult, whether they object to the teachings of philosophical schools, whether they condemn public morality and current opinions, whether they refute astrology and magic, they can be said to invent nothing new: they take weapons from the well-equipped arsenal of pagan literature. These are the currently common judgments regarding the literary originality and sources of Christian apology of the 2nd century. There is no doubt that they are based on observations and comparisons, and the connection of the Christian apology with Jewish and with the works of pagan philosophy cannot be completely denied; But still, the above categorical statements cannot be considered completely indisputable. It must be borne in mind, first, that this similarity with Jewish apologetics and popular pagan preaching was not the result of deliberate imitation, but flowed from the coincidence in the needs which their position in the empire created for Christians. Secondly, one cannot get too carried away in searching for specific sources from which apologists drew their material. According to the fair remark of Alb. Ehrhard, “the passion to look for relations of dependence everywhere and to point out individual works as a conglomerate of quotations and prey to literary predation represents one of the bad sides of our modern comparative method of study, for which often any originality is a speck in the eye” 315. With all the evidence of this kind, which is not distinguished by the convincingness of an obvious fact, which is why completely opposite judgments are possible in resolving issues, they overlook the important fact that the contacts in thoughts can be explained quite naturally by the fact that the apologetic material was not anyone’s literary property, but belonged, so to speak, to the apologetic spirit of the time, the general religious and philosophical consciousness. In this field, more than in any other, it is impossible not only to trace individual motives, but also to grasp the whole composition of ideas and observe their development and change over time. These ideas spread throughout society, are easily imprinted in the minds, especially if expressed in a brief form, and then find literary expression somewhere in one or another combination, in accordance with the objectives of the whole work and the needs of the time; Moreover, it is natural that they receive the stamp of originality only in the works of outstanding writers who are able to either delay their course or give them a new direction. Therefore, we can talk about the borrowing of apologetic ideas only in a general sense, noting their Jewish-philosophical or Hellenic-philosophical source; The most particular application of this general proposition can only be made through a careful study of each apologetic work. But solid ground for such research has not yet been found here. Finally, it always remains the property of apologists to apply modern apologetic material and apologetic forms to specifically Christian goals and the content of Christian teaching. The content of the theological teaching of apologists can only be presented by studying individual monuments of apologetic literature; after this it will be possible to evaluate the validity of the conclusions about the Hellenization of Christianity in it. Here it is enough to confine ourselves to general remarks. Indeed, the apologists strive to present Christianity as “a single, reliable and useful philosophy” [(Justin., Dial. 8.1)], the oldest and best of the Hellenic ones. But it is important to note that these apologists do not at all deny the Revealed character of the Christian religion: Christianity is the only true philosophy, but it has Revelation as its assumption, since it is definitely proclaimed that true knowledge of God and the Divine cannot be given by human reason; it can only be communicated through the special Revelation of God Himself. Its name “philosophy” indicates that in Christianity everything is reasonable, everything is in accordance with the sound tenets of philosophy, and that it alone has the truth, which is essentially one. It cannot be denied that both in the content of concepts and in their literary formulation when presented by apologists of Christian teaching, there was a strong influence of Greek philosophy; to a certain extent it is true that the Christianity of the apologists is reduced to a philosophical essence [of it]. But the reason for this should not be sought in the perversion of their faith, not in the rationalism of their theology, as if, according to their idea, the content of Christian teaching should be limited to the limits of what is comprehensible to reason. The nature of the work and the form of presentation are determined by its purpose - it should also be the scale by which it should be judged. Recent criticism ignores this point. Meanwhile, it is enough to place the apologists in the environment in which their activities took place, and to imagine the tasks that they set for themselves, and the content of their apologies will be understandable without the assumption that they distorted Christianity in favor of modern philosophy. The goal of the apologists naturally and primarily boiled down to clearing Christianity of accusations, presenting it as a harmless teaching, respectful of the established order, in agreement with reason, the data of which it affirms and complements. The gospel to the pagans had to have a different starting point than the preaching of the apostles to the Jews about Jesus as the true Messiah, which would have been incomprehensible to the pagans. In relation to the pagan faith in gods, the sermon about the one true God should have preceded the Gospel about His incarnate Son, as shown by the sermon of St. Paul in Athens. With the first penetration of this Gospel into the Hellenistic-Roman world, a spiritual process began in individuals who were able to grasp its content, the subject of which was reconciliation between the new Gospel and old religious views. In view of this, the apologists had to expound primarily natural dogmas, a doctrine that was consistent with the provisions of the great spiritualistic schools - the unity of God, future immortality, the moral law and its sanction in another life. If they spoke about specifically Christian exalted teachings and institutions, then only to such an extent as to show that Christians do not commit anything shameful. Under such conditions, their Christianity takes on the form of human wisdom, a very high, or purified religion, which in some ways comes into contact with known religions. This sufficiently explains why, on issues of dogmatic teaching, apologies contain only general provisions. And there is nothing more unfounded than to conclude from their silence that they are unaware of certain provisions of Christian teaching. Finally, the mistake of the newest historians of the negative trend lies in the desire to find all theology in such works that, by their very task, cannot claim to be an exhaustive presentation of the subject, and to consider random defensive speeches as the “sum” of the theological views of the authors. After all, not one of the apologists gave a systematic presentation of their theological views. It is easy to notice that St. Justin's dogmatic statement in the Conversation with Tryphon is so different from its presentation in the apologies that there were even attempts on this basis to deny that the Conversation belonged to the author of the apologies. But the point is that the apologies were addressed to non-Christians, while the “Conversation”, under the guise of an appeal to the Jews, was intended primarily for the use of believers. Therefore, the Hellenization of faith among apologists matters only to the method, pedagogical art, and tactics of the defender; and St. Justin, with his exceptional position, confirms the general rule: among all the apologists, his apologetic works are the most extensive and most distinguished by their philosophical character, and at the same time, his dogmatic positions are set out so clearly that they do not allow his exceptional testimony to be neglected. It should not be overlooked that many of the apologists, in addition to apologies, wrote other works in which they had much more reason to speak out on issues of internal church life. The loss of these works does not give the right to characterize their theology as if the apologies that have come down to us were the only expression of their Christian thoughts. This loss forces us to admit that we have far from perfect knowledge about the theology of apologists. Thus, we come to the conclusion that the influence of philosophy on the Christian views of apologists was a natural and direct consequence of their previous spiritual development and the influence of national culture and the relations of time on their spiritual life. But the assumption of a conscious tendency of apologists to Hellenize Christianity is excluded by the psychological-religious course of their development. This course of development is shown to us by St. Justin at the beginning of his "Dialogue with Tryphon"; the same can be assumed among other apologists. This course of development also corresponds to the basic point of view on philosophy, that it contains, along with many errors, also elements of truth. Given this situation, it was impossible to get by in the theological speculations of apologists without unconsciously using philosophical thoughts alien to the Gospel. But these thoughts did not penetrate into the essential content of the Christian faith, which existed before the apologists, and were not accepted into the later ancient Christian dogma, since we do not find the characteristic provisions of their theology in it. Therefore, if it is necessary to briefly outline the result of the spiritual work of apologists, then one should say: not “Hellenization of Christianity,” but rather the opposite: “Christianization of Hellenism.” Harnack Ad. Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte. 3 Aufl. Bd. 1. Leipzig, 1894. S. 455 ff.; Loofs Fr. Leitfaden [zum Studium] der Dogmengeschichte. 4 Aufl. Halle, 1906. S. 114–129. Friedländer [M.] Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik. 1905. [The beginning of this paragraph according to the manuscript (original version):] It is considered indisputable that Christian apology is the daughter of the Jewish one, although this position is not substantiated in detail; at the same time, the roots of Jewish apologetics have not been sufficiently studied; but they are undoubtedly found in the literature of the second or first century BC. The conditions for the emergence of Jewish apologetics were as follows. The importunity of the Jewish missionaries alienated Hellenism and caused ridicule of the arrogant and yet so pitiful Jewish people with their deplorable external history, of their theocratic culture, which averts all science, of the biblical narratives. Against this, the Jewish writers did not have their own solid ground. Ehrhard. Altchristliche Literatur. S. 210.