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Rh 192 APOLOGETICS truth, and Cyril s defence is interesting, inasmuch as it is the first answer of the Christian apologist to the objections of the pure Theist. Augustine s great work, the J)e Civitate Dei, is apologetic in so far as it endeavours to show that Christianity and the church are the_only ark of safety in presence of the dissolution of the empire and human society which then seemed imminent. In this second division of the first period, Christianity has become triumphant, and the duty of Apologetics has not been to defend it from the coarse attacks of passion and prejudice, but to give a philosophical answer to philosophical objec tions, and then to show how Christianity adapts itself to the intellectual, moral, and political requirements of men and nations. The second period dates from the Gth to the middle of the 15th century. It is that period in the history of the ology in which the church attempted to rule thoroughly the intellectual life of mankind ; when the ecclesia salvans had become an ecclesia doceiis, and the ecclesice patres had given place to the ecclesice scholastici. It embraces the growth, life, and decline of scholasticism. In this period there are no direct attacks upon Christianity, and so no direct defences of it; but still Apologetics, although for the most part absorbed into the sum of Christian doc trine, and recognisable only in the attempt to assimilate philosophy and theology, is to some extent visible in the jealous defence of particular doctrines against the attacks of Nominalism, and reveals itself more prominently in the attacks made by Christian theologians upon the Jewish and the Mahometan religions. Such works as Abelard s Dialogus inter Pkilosophum Judceum et Christiamim, and Thomas of Aquin s De Veritate Catholicce Fidei contra Gen tiles, are the best examples of the Apologetics of this second period. The third period extends from the middle of the 15th to the middle of the 17th century. This was the age of the Renaissance and of the Reformation, an age of inquiry, doubt, and change. Along with the Reformation, keeping with it as long as it was merely destructive, and abandon ing it as soon as it became constructive, was a spirit or tendency, best described by the term Humanism. The Humanists were men who were thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the old classical poets of Greece and Rome, and had imbibed many of the old pagan ideas with reference to Christianity. Humanism, which was at first learning revived, contained within it two tendencies which after wards showed themselves hostile to Christianity: the first was embodied in literary criticism, and mainly displayed the antagonism between literature and dogma, while the other took the form of a pantheist philosophy founded on the divinity of Nature. The most notable of the apologe- tical works of this period are those of Marcilius Ficinus (De Religione Christiana), Eugubinus Steuchus (De Perenni Philosophia, from which Bishop Berkeley has borrowed largely in his Siris), and Johannes Ludovicus Vives (De Veritate Religionis Christiana^). The fourth period extends from the middle of the 17th to the end of the 18th century. During this period, anti- christian speculation assumes distinct forms, and Apologe tics undergoes corresponding changes. The period has three divisions, which are to some extent successive, but are best distinguished by the form of unbelief then prevalent the English deism, the French scepticism, and the German rationalism. The English deism, which began with Lord Herbert of Cherbury and Hobbes, and ended with Hume, called forth an innumerable number of replies from Christian theologians, and the special nature of the attack then made upon Christianity still gives their special form to English works upon Apologetics. The general tone of English Deists was that there was no warrant for the mysteries in Christianity, for its superior morality, for its historical position and influence, and so English Apologetics has been mainly concerned with the doctrine of the evidences of Christianity ; and the general line of argument commonly taken has been, that there is as much evidence for Christianity as for some ordinary set of opinions generally admitted. Thus Bishop Berkeley s Alciphron, or the Minute Philosopher, among other things, aims at establishing the existence of God by showing that the evidence is as strong as the evidence for the existence of our fellow-men ; Locke s Reasonableness of Christianity shows that the Christian theology attacked is in all points able to be satisfactorily explained in accord ance with human reason, if the same methods of investiga tion and adjustment be allowed, which are usually permitted when testing the reasonableness of any common statement or opinion ; and in the Analogy of Bishop Butler the whole argument rests upon the basis: the Deists make certain statements about religion ; if these be true they contain as many difficulties as are to be found in Christianity, and difficulties of the same kind, therefore Christianity is as reasonable, at least, as deism or any system of mere natural theology. In the French scepticism, the principal charge made against Christianity was that it rested on imposture and was maintained by trickery. An attack of this kind is answered, not so much by special defence, as by a silent appeal to historical testimony and to the character of man, and it is not to be wondered at if the French Church has not produced any very valuable apologetic writings defending Christianity from the special attacks of this school. The German rationalism began with Lessing s publication of the Wolfenoiittel fragments, (extracts from a work by Reimarus, a schoolmaster at Hamburg), and ended with Kant. In its earlier form it was little else than an importation of the ideas of the English Deists, but latterly it assumed a special form by upholding the authority of the individual reason. The replies to the ordinary arguments of the English Deists were very numerous (cf. Lechler s Gcschichte des Engl. Deismus], but do not deserve further notice. The authority of the individual reason may be vindicated, either in the province of criticism or in that of dogma; the one effort gave rise to the critical rationalism of Eichhorn and Paulus, and the other to the dogmatic rationalism of Wegscheider. The critical rationalism of Eichhorn and his school has been gradually answered by the advance of criticism itself, which shows a progressive tendency towards higher and more spiritual ideas, if not to a recognition of the inspired authority of Scripture. The dogmatic rationalism of Wegscheider has fallen before the new impulse given to dogmatic theology by Schleiermacher and Neander. At the present time Apologetics seems to be in a transi tion state. Since the time of Kant the historical method of investigation has become all powerful in almost every department of human knowledge, and at the present the chief attacks made upon the supernatural and unique character of the Christian religion and theology are based upon the comparative science of religions. It is held that the Christian religion is the highest and most perfect development to which the religious spirit of man has yet reached, but that it simply differs in degree of development from any other religion. It is said that the Christian theology contains, like all other theologies, a great many elements of truth, but that it is simply a natural religion like any other. This mode of attack has not yet been thoroughly faced by Christian apologists, but it must be the work of the Apologetics of the future to vindicate the supernatural character of Christianity by arguments which are based upon historical investigation and comparison of the different religions of mankind. For the general out-