Encyclopedia of sacred theology - pagina 666

642

§ 101.

THE PERIOD OF NAIVETY

[Div. Ill

though there had not been given in the Revelation of the New Testament itself the clear and entirely conscious tendency of this antithesis also in the full sense of principles involved but it was reserved for later ages to bring out in all its deductions what was potentially revealed in the Even now this task is by no means ended, and Scripture. our own age has been the first to grasp the antithesis in the hio'her intellectual world between science within and science

Not

as

;

outside the sphere of palingenesis.

Hence in this period of naivety there was no question whatever of a theology as an organic science, in the sense What the aposin which our age especiall}^ understands it. tolic fathers offer is little more than exhortation, pious and serious, but as to principles very imperfectly thought out. From Quadratus to Hegesippus the apologists enter an accidental and fragmentary plea to parry assailants from the side of philosophy or invectives from the lips of public opinion, rather than place over against their world of thought a clearly conscious world of thought of their own. The education at most of prospective ministers of the Word, as well as of the youth of higher rank, was the leading motive at the schools And in the of Asia Minor, Alexandria and North Africa. and tradition the effort of divergpseudepigraphical literature ing tendencies are both active to create for themselves an If then, without doubt the authority to which to appeal. attack was made from the side of the Christians in the religious domain, this was not the case in the intellectual domain. Here the pagans themselves took the initiative, either by combating the Christian faith directly, such as was done by Celsus, Porphyry and Hierocles, or, which was far worse,

by introducing the Christian

religion as a

own

world-view.

into

their

pantheistic

Gnostics, and shortly

new phenomenon First

with

after with the Manicheans, the

of Christ suffered the severest strain,

and

it is

the

Church

certainly not

because of her intellectual superiority that she came out The strife indeed triumphantly from this mortal combat.

compelled severe processes of thought, and the deepest principles of life were freely laid bare, but the real character

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