525 THE HISTORY OF THEOLOGY. PART I. 1. THE Word Theology was applied by heathens, to designate narrative or philosophical writings respecting the divinities, their actions and works (as the creation of the world), and the myths connected with them. In this sense, Homer and Hesiod were termed Theologi. Philo Judæus, who seems to occupy a position midway between Judaism and Paganism, applies the title of Theological Writer to Moses, in reference to his account of the creation of the world. The Fathers extended the use of the word Theology, from the doctrine of God, to that of the Divine nature of Christ, as distinguished from the Economy or the doctrine of his Human nature. In the twelfth century it was used by Peter Abelard to denote a learned and scientific statement of religious doctrines. He gave the title of Theologia to a system of Christian faith, published by him; in which acceptation the phrase has since been ordinarily used. 2. The subject matter of the science of Theology is the knowledge of God, in the highest perfection attainable by man. Natural Theology, and the beautiful field laid open by the study of it, do not come within our present design. This relates to Theology, emphatically so called, or the knowledge of God, taken up at the point where it has been left by the revelations afforded to man in the Old and New Testaments. It can neither add to these great truths, nor go beyond them; but it can state them in a form more systematic than that in which they have been left in their inspired depositaries. This is the province of Theology: the truths on which it is based are eternal and complete, but their enucleation has been regulated by external circumstances. The whole course of the history of Theology strikingly illustrates the remark of Augustine, that " many matters lay hid in Scripture, until heretics began to agitate the Church of God by questions and disputes." 3. The history of Theology is the subject of the present sketch. It may be divided into the following sections: 1. Theology of the Apostolic Period. 2. Theology of the Apostolic Fathers. 4. Early Heresies. 5. The Schools of Alexandria and Antioch. 6. The School of North Africa. 7. The three ages of the Scholastic Theology. 8. The crisis of the Theology of the Middle Ages in the 9. Theology of the Church of Rome. 10. Protestant Theology, generally. 11. Theology of the Church of England. 4. Apostolic Period.-It is as the purifier of the heart that Christianity works its standing miracles. But the changes thus produced are not more wonderful for their intensity, than for their variety. Christianity was not intended to annihilate, or reduce to uniformity, the moral and intellectual powers of man, but rather to increase their vigour. This distinctive feature of Christianity-the consistency of individual peculiarities with the presence of the Spirit-is strikingly visible at the commencement of its history. If we examine the four recognised accounts of our Lord's life and actions, handed down to us, the differences between the three earliest Evangelists and St. John, and, still farther, between each of these inspired writers separately, are perfectly obvious. Although attuned by one and the same Spirit, the individuality of each is preserved. Their object is the samee-their principal facts agree-their doctrine and lessons are perfectly accordant and yet, nothing short of the dullest inattention can fail to remark the differences between the several historians of Christ. The first is a man familiar with business and details; the second, a quick, fiery spirit, whose words are brief, but full of life; the third, a person who, from birth and position, had formed for himself those views which rendered him peculiarly fit to be the companion of St. Paul; while the fourth, from his gentle, contemplative turn of mind, became most suitably the principal authority on the divinity of Christ, and on vital union with Him, as the necessary foundation of Christian life. The genuineness of the Gospels is strengthened by the fact, which cannot escape our notice in an attentive perusal of them-the accordance, namely, in a religion sent from Heaven to become that of all men-between its declared object, and its effects on its earliest hearers. 5. Each of the authors of the Epistles possesses some distinctive peculiarities. St. Paul is active, eloquent, logical, and labouring throughout to overthrow, by arguments drawn from their own Scriptures, the self-righteous prejudices of the Jews. St. Paul is the rushing river, like Kishon of old, sweeping before it the power and force of unbelief: but St. John (as in his Gospel) is like the calm, deep lake, whose bed is in the everlasting hills, reflecting on its bosom the light and the purity of Heaven. St. James is didactic, practical, struggling on his side to overthrow the Antinomian errors which deformed his time. St. Peter shows the same zeal and promptitude, as in those passages of his life recorded in the Gospels, but tempered and purified by the influences of the Holy Spirit. 6. Apostolic Fathers.-Next in order to the body of authors, consisting of Apostles and Evangelists, comes that known by the designation of Apostolic Fathers. The transition to the second is marked by an obvious falling off in real elevation of tone. Without in any way assenting to the foolish spirit of detraction, which seeks to degrade the writings of the Fathers in general, as much below their due standard of merit, as, in some instances, they have been unduly exalted above it, we would only observe that this inferiority is perfectly natural and consistent. Or, to speak more clearly, the inferiority with which the writings of the Apostolic Fathers are fairly chargeable, is not so much absolute as relative: the natural consequence of bringing merely human writings into comparison with those of the immediate and inspired followers of our Lord. Five writers have usually been ranked as Apostolic Fathers. The works of two of these, Barnabas and Hermas, are now tacitly omitted from the collection. The "Shepherd" of Hermas is an apocalyptical rhapsody; the Epistle of Barnabas, (in the opinion of Cave and Horsley) marked by an ignorant and fantastical spirit of allegory. Of the remainder, Clement, Bishop of Rome (100), has left two Epistles-the first addressed to the Corinthians, then, as before, troubled by internal dissensions; the second is a fragment of a practical, hortatory cast. The celebrated Epistles of Ignatius (d. 108) relate to the dignity of the Episcopal office (on which point they have been repeatedly appealed to by the various contending parties), a warning against visionary views with regard to the person of Christ and legalising opinions, and a summary of Christianity, as comprised in the teaching of the Church. In a brief sketch like the present it is utterly impossible to review the opposite opinions, which would respectively represent Ignatius as an ordinary writer, whose style was affected by his oriental origin and habits, or maintain that the whole system of the Church Catholic may be found in the writings of this author. The best claim of Clement, of Ignatius, and of Polycarp (d. 168), to be generally studied, and their most indefeasible right to be regarded by the high title of Fathers of the Christian Church, arose from the piety and purity by which their remains are marked throughout. The maxims of holiness and devotion found in these writers none will dispute or deny; but opinions will always be divided respecting their dogmas of ecclesiastical authority and discipline. 7. Apologists.-The Apostolic Fathers are followed by a class of writers who united, in some instances, the martyr-courage of those recently mentioned, with an equal measure of the literary pretensions of the Fathers of subsequent ages. The Apologists (by which name they are best described) advanced from obscurity to lay their writings at the feet of princes, and endeavoured, by refuting the charges of insubordination and gross immorality, with which they were assailed, to secure themselves against magisterial tyranny or popular fury; to show that the best and purest portions of Grecian philosophy were derived from the God of the Christians; and to demonstrate the divine origin and truth of the religion they professed, as displayed in its social and individual workings. Our knowledge of the first two authors of this class, the Athenian philosophers Aristides and Quadratus (126), is principally confined to the reports of Eusebius, who represents them as having presented treatises in defence of Christianity to the imperial patron of science, Hadrian, when on a visit to Greece. Their writings, as also those of Melito (170), Claudius Apollinaris, and Miltiades, have either perished, or survive only in scanty fragments. The writings of the principal Apologists were composed during the sway of the Antonines. Justin Martyr (d. 163) divides his labours between defence and positive attack, as occasion requires; his scholar, Tatian (d. 172), is throughout polemical: Athenagoras is more gentle, and displays a considerable acquaintance with the works of heathen philosophers. Of the three remaining Greek works, occupied with the defence of Christianity, the Epistle addressed (by an unknown author, of considerable learning) to Diognetus is characterised by a spirit of philanthropy: but the treatise on the Christian Faith, by Theophilus (d. 181), is ungentle; and the Derision of Heathen Philosophy, by Hermias, unduly caustic and satirical. A Dialogue, by Minucius Felix (220), is, perhaps, the earliest work in which the Latin language is employed in defence of Christianity. Some of the writings of the most eminent Fathers, under various titles, were devoted to this object. To this class belong portions of the miscellaneous works of Clement of Alexandria (d. 217), the treatise of Origen (d. 254) against Celsus, the Apologeticus of Tertullian (d. 220), the work of the African Arnobius, and the Christian Institutes of Lactantius (d. 330). The writings of Eusebius (d. 340) partook of this object; and the treatise of Augustine (d. 430), "De civitate Dei,” is expressly apologetic. The age of Augustine was strongly marked by a distrust of a superintending Providence, against which this Father, and Orosius, and Salvian, vigorously contended. Salvian may be considered as the last of the Apologists, anterior to the Middle Ages. 8. Early Sects and Heresies.-The earliest Christian sects arose from a falsification of the doctrines of the Gospel, by the admixture of Jewish doctrines and precepts. It is doubtful whether the Nicolaitans, mentioned in the Apocalypse, ever constituted a separate sect. They were lost, after a short period, among the earliest Gnostics, who had grown up since the commencement of the second century. The favourite course of the Gnostics was to intermingle with the tenets of Christianity notions drawn from the ancient oriental systems of religious philosophy. They have been divided into two classesthe Judaising and the Anti-Judaising Gnostics. The first contains the names of Cerinthus (81), Basilides (125), and Valentinus (120), with their adherents; the second, the sect of the Ophitæ (160), Saturninus (125), Tatian (170), and the Encratites, various Eclectic and Antinomian leaders such as Carpocrates (170), and the celebrated Marcion (140) and his followers. 9. These sects, whether ramifications of Gnosticism or Manichean, may be considered as all characterised by tenets of oriental Theosophy. But the second heresy contains fewer elements of Christianity than any other nominally Christian sect. Save its symbolical dress, which is Christian, the rest of the Manichean system borders very close only Heathenism. Like the Gnostics, its professors attempted to amalgamate an oriental Theosophy (derived by them from Persia) with the doctrines of Christianity-whence their theory of emanations, and their well-known principles of dualism. But the reckless and unfounded innovations by which the Manicheans endeavoured to reconcile their speculations with the recorded truths of Christianity, far exceeded the wildest dreams of Gnosticism. 10. The heresy of Montanus (160) was of a character totally different to Manicheism, being fanatical and ascetic. It has been described as orthodox in essentials, but running into wild excesses, from mistaken notions respecting spiritual illumination and Christian devotedness. 11. One of the first leaders of an overt Anti-Trinitarian cast was Praxeas (203), an Asiatic Christian. His views, that the persons of the Godhead were only different relations, procured him the name of Patripassian, from the inference, attributed to him, that the Father must have suffered with the Son. In the same spirit, Noetus of Smyrna (230) asserted that the Father and Christ were only one Person. Against this heretical opinion was directed the reply of Hippolytus. To the two heresiarchs above named, may be added Beryl of Bostra (240), whose speculative opinions coincided, in the main, with theirs. Another class of Anti-Trinitarians regarded Christ as a simple human being. These were Theodotus and Artemon (200), with their followers, and the Alogi (260), whose history is involved in obscurity. A third class is to be found in the adherents of the vain and profligate Paul of Samosata (260). According to Epiphanius, he differed from Noetus, in his denial that the Father suffered, and in asserting that the Logos alone acted, and returned to the Father. Sabellius (250) appears to have held a middle place between Praxeas and Arius. His Monarchianism is stated with a greater degree of precision and force, than that of any earlier writer. The aim of Sabellius was to establish the unity of the Divine Being, the Father and Son being called so under different considerations, not really or personally distinguished. But no positive expressions of his can be quoted, with regard to the relation held by the historical Christ to this Divine Being. The doctrine of the Incarnation, with what is comprehended under the word Christology, was neglected by the early Monarchians, but taken up both by the orthodox and heretical parties during the ensuing Arian disputes. 12. Schools of Alexandria and Antioch.-Before we turn our attention to the school of Alexandria (180), we must briefly revert to the age of the martyr Irenæus (d. 202). The ecclesiastical literature of the second century was partly of a practical cast, but principally characterised by its opposition to Gnosticism. So rife were the errors of this many-coloured heresy, that it had become of the last importance to uphold the teaching and truths of Christianity, in opposition to its attacks. To this may be traced the realist tendency discernible in the |