in what are called the Fathers, something to favour their own systems and opinions. § 7. The controversial writers who distinguished themselves in this century, encountered either the Jews, or the worshippers of idol gods, or the corrupters of the Christian doctrine and founders of new sects, that is, the heretics. With the Jews, contended in particular Justin Martyr, in his Dialogue with Trypho, and likewise Tertullian; but neither of them in the best manner, because they were not acquainted with the language and history of the Hebrews, and did not duly consider the subject. The pagans were assailed especially, by those who wrote Apologies for the Christians; as Athenagoras, Melito, Quadratus, Miltiades, Aristides, Tatian, and Justin Martyr;: or who composed Exhortations to the Gentiles; as Justin, Tertullian, Clement, and Theophilus of Antioch. All these beat down superstition solidly and dexterously, besides exposing the calumnies cast upon Christ's disciples; but they were not equally able and successful, either in explaining the nature of the Christian religion, or in demonstrating its truth and divine origin. At least, we think much wanting in the explanations that they give of Christian doctrines, and in the arguments that they use in confirmation of religious truth. Those who chastised the heretics make a numerous body; but we have few of their writings left. The whole host of heretics were attacked by Irenæus in a work expressly against them; by Clement in his Stromata; and by Tertullian, de Præscriptionibus adversus hæreticos; not to mention Justin Martyr, whose confutation of them has been lost. Those who wrote against particular sects, it would be tedious to enumerate; besides, most of their works are not preserved. § 8. In these disputants there was something more of ingenuousness and good faith, than in those who undertook the support of truth in the following centuries. For the convenient wiles of sophistry, and the dishonourable artifices of debate, had not yet gained admittance among Christians. Yet a man of sound judgment, who has due regard for truth, cannot extol them highly. Most of them lack discernment, knowledge, good arrangement, application, and force. They often advance very flimsy arguments, and such as were suited rather to embarrass the mind than convince it. One, laying aside the divine Scriptures, from which all the weapons of religious con troversy should be drawn, bids us consult the bishops of those churches which were founded by apostles. Another, as if contending about the title or boundaries of lands in a court of law, with an ill grace pleads prescription against his adversaries. A third imitates the silly disputants among the Jews, who offered as arguments the mystic powers of numbers and words. Nor are those wholly in error, who think that the vicious mode of disputing which afterwards obtained the name of œconomical, was sometimes used even in this century.5 § 9. The principal points of moral discipline are treated of by Justin Martyr, or whoever it was that composed the Epistle to Zenas and Serenus, found among the works of Justin. Others took up particular duties in set treatises. Thus Clemens, who gained a distinctive name from Alexandria, wrote tracts on Calumny, Patience, Continence, and other virtues, which have not escaped the ravages of time. But the small pieces which Tertullian left in this line of writing, on Chastity, on Flight from persecution, on Fasting, on Theatrical exhibitions, on the Dress of females, on Prayer, and other things, have come safely to our hands. They would be perused with greater profit, were it not for the gloomy and morose spirit which they every where breathe, and the excessively artificial and difficult style in which they are written." § 10. On the degree of estimation due to these, and other ancient writers on the duties of a Christian life, learned men are not agreed. Some hold them to be the very best guides to real piety; others, on the contrary, think their precepts the worst possible, and that moral discipline could not be committed to parties less worthy of reliance. 7 Competent 4 Examples may be seen in Ja. Basnage, Histoire des Juifs, tome iii. p. 660. 694. 5 R. Simon, Histoire critique des principaux Commentateurs du N. T. cap. ii. p. 21. [To do or to say any thing, kar' οἰκονομίαν, οι οἰκονομικῶς, is to use deception or good policy, rather than fair honest dealing; yet with good intentions, or for a good end. See Suicer, Thesaur. Ecclesiast. tom. ii. p. 459. Tr.] 6 ["We cannot, among the merits of Tertullian, reckon that of a natural, flowing, and perspicuous style. He frequently hurries his readers along by his vehemence, and surprises them by the vigour, as well as inexhaustible fertility He of his imagination; but his copiousness On this subject in our day the learned and ingenious Jo. Barbeyrac held a controversy with Remigius Cellier, a Benedictine monk. A history of the controversy, with his own opinion of it, is given by J. F. Buddeus, Isagoge ad Theologiam, lib. ii. cap. iv. § iv. p. 553, &c. Afterwards, Barbeyrac published a judges must decide the question for themselves. To us it appears that their writings contain many things excellent, well considered, and well calculated to enkindle piety; but also many things unduly rigorous, and derived from the Stoics and Academics; many things vague and indeterminate; many things besides, positively false and inconsistent with the precepts of Christ. If one deserve the title of a bad master in morals, who neither sees the proper limitations of Christian duties nor has clear and distinct conceptions of the different virtues and vices, nor discerns correctly those general principles which should keep in check every discussion upon Christian goodness, being, therefore, very liable to talk at random, and blunder in expounding the divine laws; though he may say many excellent things, and make an impression on the mind; then I can readily grant, that in strict truth this title belongs to many of the Fathers. § 11. In this century there was admitted, with good intentions no doubt, yet most inconsiderately, a principle in morals L radically false, and most injurious to the Christian cause, but one that has through every age, even to our own, been infinitely prolific in errors and ills of various kinds. Jesus our Saviour prescribed one standard and rule of living to all his disciples. But the Christian doctors, either by too great a desire of imitating the nations among whom they lived, or from a natural propensity to austerity and gloom, (which is a disease that many labour under in Syria, Egypt, and other provinces of the East,) were induced to maintain that Christ had prescribed a twofold rule of holiness and virtue; the one ordinary, the other extraordinary; the one lower, the other higher; the one for men of business, the other for persons of leisure, and more full defence of the severe judgment which he had passed upon the Fathers, under the title of Traité de la Morale des Peres, Amsterdam, 1728, 4to, which is well worth reading by those who wish to investigate the subject; yet I think he charges the Fathers with some faults which may easily be excused. [Liberatus Fassonius, a Catholic, published an answer to Barbeyrac in a Latin work, de Morali Patrum Doctrina, adv. librum Jo. Barbeyraci, Liburncis, 1767, 4to. Fassonius excuses the Fathers for the following opinions, charged upon them as errors by Barbeyrac; namely, that they condemned taking interest for money loaned; placed too high a value on virginity, and accounted celibacy a more holy state than matrimony; forbade husbands sleeping with their wives while pregnant; deemed it unsuitable for clergymen to marry, and excluded from the ministry such as married a second time; commended a monastic life; made two systems of duty, one for the more perfect, and another for common Christians; and held it lawful to persecute heretics with fire and sword. Most of the other faults charged on the Fathers by Barbeyrac, Fassonius maintains, should be charged solely on the heretics. Tr.] such as sought to attain higher glory in the future world. They therefore early divided all that had been taught, whether in books or by tradition, respecting human life and morals, into Precepts and Counsels. They applied the name of Precepts to those laws which were universally obligatory, being meant for men of all descriptions; but the Counsels concerned only those who deemed it glorious to aim at higher things, and a closer union with God. 8 § 12. On a sudden there arose accordingly a class of persons, who professed to strive after that higher and more eminent holiness than common Christians can attain; and who resolved to obey the counsels of Christ, in order to enjoy intimate communion with God in this life, and on leaving the body to rise without impediment or difficulty to the celestial world. They thought many things forbidden to them, which were allowed to other Christians; such as wine, flesh, matrimony, and worldly business. They supposed that they must emaciate their bodies with watching, fasting, toil, and hunger. They considered it a happiness to retire into desert places, and by close meditation to abstract their minds from external objects and sensual delights. Both men and women imposed these hard conditions on themselves with good intentions, I believe, but the example was bad, and did great harm to the Christian cause. They thus obtained the names of Ascetics, Σrovdaîoi, 'EKλEKTOì, philosophers, and even she-philosophers; nor were they distinguished from other Christians only by a different appellation, but also by peculiarities of dress and demeanour.9 Those of this century, who embraced this austere mode of life, lived indeed entirely upon a system of their own, but they did not withdraw themselves altogether from the society and converse of men. In process of time, however, such persons retired into deserts; afterwards they formed themselves into associations, taking pattern from the Essenes and Therapeuta. § 13. The causes of this institution are obvious. First, the Christians did not like an appearance of inferiority to the Greeks, Romans, and other nations; among whom there were 8 Athenagoras, Apologia pro Christianis, cap. 28, p. 129, ed. Oxon, and others. 9 See C. Salmasius, Comment. in Ter tullian. de Pallio, p. 7, 8. [Sam. Deyling, Exercit. de Ascetis Vet. in Observ. Sacr. 1. iii. and Jos. Bingham, Antiq. Eccles. vol. iii. p. 3, &c. Tr.] : 1 many philosophers and sages, who were distinguished from the vulgar by their dress and their whole mode of life, and who were held in high honour. Now among these philosophers, (as is well known,) none better pleased the Christians than the Platonists and Pythagoreans; who, it appears, recommended two modes of living; one, for philosophers, wishing to excel the rest of men in virtue, the other, for people engaged in the common affairs of life. The Platonists prescribed the following rule for philosophers: the mind of a wise man must be withdrawn, as far as possible, from the contagious influence of the body and as the oppressive load of the body, and intercourse with men, are most adverse to this design, therefore all sensual gratifications are to be avoided; the body is to be sustained, or rather mortified, with coarse and slender fare; solitude is to be sought for; and the mind is to be self-collected, and absorbed in contemplation, so as to be detached as much as possible from the body. Whoever lives in this manner, shall in the present life have converse with God; and, when freed from the burthen of the body, shall ascend without delay to the celestial mansions, and not need purgation, like the souls of other men. The grounds of this system lay in the peculiar sentiments entertained by this sect of philosophers and by their friends respecting the soul, demons, matter, and the universe. And when these sentiments were embraced by the more learned Christians, the necessary consequences of them followed as a matter of course. § 14. What has been stated will excite less surprise, if it be remembered, that Egypt was the land in which this mode of life had its origin. For this country, from some law of nature, has always produced a greater number of gloomy and hypochondriac or melancholy persons than any other 3; and it still does so. Here it was, that long before the Saviour's birth, not only the Essenes and Therapeuta,- those Jewish sects composed of They made a distinction between living according to nature, (v Kaтà púow,) and living above nature (v inèp puow). See Eneas Gazæus, in Theophrasto, p. 29, ed. Barthii. The former was the rule of all men; the latter only for philosophers who aimed at perfect virtue. 2 Consult here, by all means, that VOL. I. N most distinguished Platonist, Porphyry, пEрì άπоxns, or, on Abstinence from flesh, lib. i. § 27 and 41, p. 22. 34, where he formally lays down rules for these duties of a philosopher. 3 See Bened. Maillet, Description de l'Egypte, tome ii. p. 57, &c. Paris, 1735, 4to. |