Второй период. Возникновение научной христианской письменности

General notes on the conditions of origin of literature of this period and its types The ancient church writing of the first period - the time of the apostolic men - was caused by the internal needs of the young Christian Churches in Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor and Rome and, distinguished by literary simplicity, focused on the interests of exclusively internal Christian life; its characteristic feature is the complete absence of any contact with the influence of Hellenic and Greco-Roman culture; only in the message of Clement of Rome does this contact find some subtle echoes. But just as the Church could not remain for long in a state of original immediate simplicity and almost complete isolation from the surrounding cultural world, so ancient church literature, reflecting the life of the Church, could not limit itself to those questions and those forms of presentation that could be content with at the end of the 1st and at the very beginning of the 2nd century. The most important factor in changing the nature of church life and church writing was the gradual acquaintance with Christianity in the cultural circles of society and the mutual influence resulting from this contact. This was the result of intensive missionary activity, which was carried out almost exclusively on pagan soil. Living contact with the pagan world had three important consequences for Christianity: a) the hostile position taken by the Roman state power, educated society and the masses towards Christianity forced adherents of Christianity to self-affirmation and self-defense; b) this first opponent was soon joined by a second, more powerful one, from those circles that were attracted by the content of Christian teaching and who sought to use it in the interests of the dominant religious philosophy - thus Gnosticism appeared, and with it the first great oppositions in the revelation of Christianity appeared; c) the third enemy was Montanism (in the half of the 2nd century) - an internal reaction against the communication of Christianity with the world and an attempt to preserve the religious mood (enthusiasm) and eschatological aspirations of the apostolic age. Various contacts with the world and the need to determine the position of Christianity gave rise to church literature, which not only served the purpose of edification, but also had a scientific character. This literature arose from the internal necessity of the historical situation, and not from purely literary motives, and responded to the urgent needs of church life in different directions. The self-defense of Christianity against the Roman state and pagan society found its earliest literary expression in the apologetic writing of the 2nd century. Here it was necessary to clarify for pagan society the essence and truth of Christianity, not to convert it to Christianity, but to ensure fair treatment of Christians. For the internal development of Christianity, the second enemy was much more dangerous - Gnosticism. This danger, like the first, was essentially overcome by the living opposition of Christianity through the historical implementation of catholic thought, which in idea from the very beginning was inherent in the Christian Church as the bearer of the Christian world religion and was only especially clearly carried out in the fight against Gnosticism. In parallel with this church struggle, a literary struggle also developed, which in this regard was all the more appropriate since it was about ideas and the spiritual understanding of Christianity. Anti-Gnostic literature aimed to establish the correctness of church teaching against the reformist tendencies of the Gnostics. Finally, Montanism gave rise to a similar literary opposition in Montanist and anti-Montanist literature. The three noted literary areas characterize the second period of ancient church writing, in which the formation of church and anti-church literature is an outstanding moment. The variety of trends in this literature makes it possible to reveal in it various currents in the internal life of the Church: Christianity opposes itself to the pagan state and society as a reasonable religion and morality, to the philosophy and culture of that time - as wisdom that is above all wisdom; Gnosticism and Montanism - as church traditionalism. In addition, Eusebius knew that the apologists Justin, Apollinaris, Theophilus and especially Melito of Sardis wrote works that, with the few remains that have come down to us, form a special group of literary monuments of this period - internal ecclesiastical literature, which has as its subject internal ecclesiastical and theological issues. In these works we must see the beginning of a whole series of ramifications of theological literature, which in later stages of development formed the formal disciplines of theology in the broad sense of the word. All literature of this kind is either completely lost or has reached us only in fragments; but it is enough to pay attention to the titles of these works to see in them a vast area of ​​theological writing, which touched on many important problems of internal theological and internal church life. Therefore, it must be recognized that church literature of the 2nd century. was not only extensive, but also multifaceted: it simultaneously satisfied the diverse needs of the time - the defense of Christianity against the pagan state and society, and the fight against Gnosticism and Montanism, and the emerging issues of internal theological and internal church life. On the other hand, there is no doubt that, despite this diversity in the nature and themes of the works of the 2nd century, the literature of this time is still more outlined from its apologetic side, because the very position of the Church was such that it called for energetic defense: it was subjected to intensified attacks from different sides - from the population of the Roman Empire, imbued with false views of Christianity and hatred of it, from the government, from Greek philosophy and from the Jews; moreover, there was visible superiority on the side of the attackers, while the representatives of the Christian idea outwardly seemed weaker and, of necessity, had to concentrate all their strength on defense; being the fruit and means of repelling repeated hostile attacks, literature itself takes on a predominantly apologetic character. In addition, monuments of apologetic literature begin to appear earlier than the works of other literary groups, although they subsequently develop in parallel with them, and have survived to this day in incomparably greater numbers. Therefore, apologetic literature is considered as the first branch that characterizes the second period of ancient church writing.