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Athenagoras
Introductory Note to the Writings of Athenagoras
[694] But Lardner tells the whole story much better. Credibility, vol. ii. p. 193.
[695] The dogmatic value of a patristic quotation depends on the support it finds in other Fathers, under the supremacy of Scripture: hence the utility of Kaye’s collocations.
[696] The fragment in which the notice occurs was extracted from the works of Philip by some unknown writer. It is published as an appendix to Dodwell’s Dissertationes in Irenæum.
[697] [Here a picture suggests itself. We go back to the times of Hadrian. A persecution is raging against the “Nazarenes.” A boyish, but well-cultured Athenian saunters into the market-place to hear some new thing. They are talking of those enemies of the human race, the Christians. Curiosity leads him to their assemblies. He finds them keeping the feast of the resurrection. Quadratus is preaching. He mocks, but is persuaded to open one of St. Paul’s Epistles. “What will this babbler say?” He reads the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians, and resents it with all the objections still preserved in his pages. One can see him inquiring more about this Paul, and reading the seventeenth chapter of the Acts. What an animated description of his own Athens, and in what a new light it reflects the familiar scenes! He must refute this Paul. But, when he undertakes it, he falls in love when the intrepid assailant of the gods of Greece. Scales fall from his own eyes. How he sees it all at last, we find in the two works here presented, corresponding as they do, first and last, with the two parts of the apostle’s speech to the men of Athens.]
[698] Literally, “embassy.” [By this name best known to scholars.]
Chapter I.—Injustice Shown Towards the Christians.
[699] There are here many varieties of reading: we have followed the text suggested by Gesner.
[700] We here follow the text of Otto; others read ἡμῖν.
[701] [Kaye, 153.]
[702] [For three centuries the faithful were made witnesses for Jesus and the resurrection, even unto death; with “spoiling of their goods,” not only, but dying daily, and “counted as sheep for the slaughter.” What can refuse such testimony? They conquered through suffering.
The reader will be pleased with this citation from an author, the neglect of whose heavenly writings is a sad token of spiritual decline in the spirit of our religion:—
“The Lord is sure of His designed advantages out of the sufferings of His Church and of His saints for His name. He loses nothing, and they lose nothing; but their enemies, when they rage most and prevail most, are ever the greatest losers. His own glory grows, the graces of His people grow; yea, their very number grows, and that, sometimes, most by their greatest sufferings. This was evident in the first ages of the Christian Church. Where were the glory of so much invincible love and patience, if they had not been so put to it?” Leighton, Comm. on St. Peter, Works, vol. iv. p. 478. West’s admirable edition, London, Longmans, 1870.]
Chapter II.—Claim to Be Treated as Others are When Accused.
[703] [Kaye, 154.]
[704] [Tatian, cap. xxvii., supra, p. 76.]
[705] [Tatian, cap. xxvii., supra, p. 76.]
Chapter III.—Charges Brought Against the Christians.
[706] [See cap. xxxi. Our Lord was “perfect man,” yet our author resents the idea of eating the flesh of one’s own kind as worse than brutal. As to the Eucharist the inference is plain.]
[707] Thus Otto; others read, “if any one of men.”
Chapter IV.—The Christians are Not Atheists, But Acknowledge One Only God.
[708] [Kaye, p. 7.]
Chapter V.—Testimony of the Poets to the Unity of God.
[709] [De Maistre, who talks nothing but sophistry when he rides his hobby, and who shocked the pope himself by his fanatical effort to demonstrate the papal system, is, nevertheless, very suggestive and interesting when he condescends to talk simply as a Christian. See his citations showing the heathen consciousness of one Supreme Being. Soirées de St. Pétersbourg, vol. i. pp. 225, 280; vol. ii. pp. 379, 380.]
[710] From an unknown play.
[711] From an unknown play; the original is ambiguous; comp. Cic. De Nat Deorum, ii. c. 25, where the words are translated—“Seest thou this boundless ether on high which embraces the earth in its moist arms? Reckon this Zeus.” Athenagoras cannot so have understood Euripides.
[712] Not found in his extant works.
Chapter VI.—Opinions of the Philosophers as to the One God.
[713] Common text has ὂψει; we follow the text of Otto. [Gesner notes this corruption, and conjectures that it should be the name of some philosopher.]
[714] One, two, three, and four together forming ten.
[715] Timæus, p. 28, C.
[716] Timæus, p. 41, A.
[717] [We must not wonder at the scant praise accorded by the Apologists to the truths embedded everywhere in Plato and other heathen writers. They felt intensely, that “the world, by wisdom, knew not God; and that it was their own mission to lead men to the only source of true philosophy.]
Chapter VII.—Superiority of the Christian Doctrine Respecting God.
[718] [See cap. xxx., infra. Important, as showing the degree of value attributed by the Fathers to the Sibylline and Orphic sayings. Comp. Kaye, p. 177.]
Chapter VIII.—Absurdities of Polytheism.
[719] i.e., Do several gods make up one God?—Otto. Others read affirmatively, “God is one.”
[720] i.e., the world.
[721] i.e., the Creator, or first God.
Chapter IX.—The Testimony of the Prophets.
[722] [Kaye, 179. An important comment; comp. cap. vii., supra.]
[723] Isa. xli. 4; Ex. xx. 2, 3 (as to sense).
Chapter X.—The Christians Worship the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
[727] “Or, by Him and through Him.” [Kaye, pp. 155, 175.]
[728] [Kaye, p. 166.]
[730] [Compare Theophilus, supra, p. 101, and Kaye’s note, p. 156.]
[731] [Heb. i. 14, the express doctrine of St. Paul. They are ministers to men, not objects of any sort of worship. “Let no man beguile you,” etc. Col. ii. 4, 18.]
Chapter XI.—The Moral Teaching of the Christians Repels the Charge Brought Against Them.
[732] Luke vi. 27, 28;Matt. v. 44, 45.
[733] [Kaye, pp. 212–217.]
[734] The meaning is here doubtful; but the probably reference is to the practices of the Sophists.
Chapter XII.—Consequent Absurdity of the Charge of Atheism.
[735] Hom., Il., xvi. 672.
[736] Luke vi. 32, 34; Matt. v. 46.
Chapter XIII.—Why the Christians Do Not Offer Sacrifices.
[737] [Harmless as flowers and incense may be, the Fathers disown them in this way continually.]
[738] [This brilliant condensation of the Benedicite (Song of the Three Children) affords Kaye occasion to observe that our author is silent as to the sacraments. p. 195.]
[739] Hom., Il., ix. 499 sq., Lord Derby’s translation, which version the translator has for the most part used.
[740] Comp. Rom. xii. 1. [Mal. i.. “A pure Mincha” (Lev. ii. 1) was the unbloody sacrifice of the Jews. This was to be the Christian oblation: hence to offering of Christ’s natural blood, as the Latins now teach, was unknown to Athenagoras.]
Chapter XV.—The Christians Distinguish God from Matter.
[741] [Kaye, p. 172.]
Chapter XVI.—The Christians Do Not Worship the Universe.
[742] Thus Otto; others render “comprising.”
[743] [The Ptolemaic universe is conceived of as a sort of hollow ball, or bubble, within which are the spheres moving about the earth. Milton adopts from Homer the idea of such a globe, or bubble, hanging by a chain from heaven (Paradise Lost, ii. 10, 51). The oblique circle is the zodiac. The Septentriones are referred to also. See Paradise Lost, viii. 65–168.]
[744] Some refer this to the human spirit.
[745] Polit., p. 269, D.
Chapter XVII.—The Names of the Gods and Their Images are But of Recent Date.
[746] We here follow the text of Otto; others place the clause in the following sentence.
[747] ii. 53.
[748] Or, Koré. It is doubtful whether or not this should be regarded as a proper name.
[749] Or, Koré. It is doubtful whether or not this should be regarded as a proper name.
[750] The reading is here doubtful.
[751] [There were no images or pictures, therefore, in the earliest Christian places of prayer.]
Chapter XVIII.—The Gods Themselves Have Been Created, as the Poets Confess.
[752] [This was a heathen justification of image-worship, and entirely foreign to the Christian mind. Leighton, Works, vol. v. p. 323.]
[753] Hom., Il., xx. 131.
[754] [See Kaye’s very important note, refuting Gibbon’s cavil, and illustrating the purpose of Bishop Bull, in his quotation. On the περιχώρησις, see Bull, Fid. Nicænæ, iv. cap. 4.]
[756] Hom., Il., xiv. 201, 302.
[757] Hom., Il., xiv. 246.
[758] τισάσθην.
[759] Orpheus, Fragments.
Chapter XIX.—The Philosophers Agree with the Poets Respecting the Gods.
[760] Plat., Tim., p. 27, D.
[761] Literally, “by nature.”
Chapter XX.—Absurd Representations of the Gods.
[762] i.e., Minerva.
[763] Or, “have accurately described.”
[764] Fragments.
Chapter XXI.—Impure Loves Ascribed to the Gods.
[765] Hom., Il., iv. 23.
[766] Ibid., iv. 24.
[767] Ibid., xxii. 168 sq.
[768] Ibid., xvi. 433 sq.
[769] Ibid., xvi. 522.
[770] Ibid., v. 376.
[771] Hom., Od., viii. 308 sq., Pope’s transl.
[772] Hom., Il., v. 858.
[773] Hom., Il., xv. 605.
[774] Hom., Il., v. 31, 455.
[775] Hom., Od., viii. 296–298, Pope’s transl.
[776] Hom., Il., ii. 820.
[777] [οἰκονομίαν. Kaye, p. 174. And see Paris ed., 1615.]
[778] Hom., Il., xiv. 315 sqq.
[779] Eurip., Alcest., 1 sq.
[780] Ibid., 8 sq.
[781] From an unknown play of Æschylus.
Chapter XXII.—Pretended Symbolical Explanations.
[782] Perhaps ἡρ (αηρ) α.
Chapter XXIII.—Opinions of Thales and Plato.
[783] Tim., p. 40, D.E.
[784] Pseudo-Plat., Epist., ii. p. 312, D.E. The meaning is very obscure.
[785] Plat., Phœdr., p. 246, E.
Chapter XXIV.—Concerning the Angels and Giants.
[786] [Comp. cap. xxvii., infra.]
[787] [Kaye, 192. And see cap. x., supra, p. 133. Divine Providence does not exclude the ministry of angels by divine appointment. Resurrection, cap. xviii., infra.]
[788] [The Paris editors caution us against yielding to this interpretation of Gen. vi. 1-4. It was the Rabbinical interpretation. See Josephus, book i. cap. 3.]
[789] Hesiod, Theog., 27. [Traces of the Nephilim are found in all mythologies.]
Chapter XXV.—The Poets and Philosophers Have Denied a Divine Providence.
[790] Eurip.; from an unknown play.
[791] Ibid.
[792] Eurip., Cycl., 332 sq.
[793] [Kaye, p. 190.]
[794] Or, “powers of reasoning” (λογισμός).
Chapter XXVI.—The Demons Allure Men to the Worship of Images.
[795] From an unknown tragedian. [A passage which I cannot but apply to the lapse of Tatian.]
[796] Hom., Il., iii. 39.
[797] [see note to Theophilus, cap. x., supra, p. 92.]
Chapter XXVII.—Artifices of the Demons.
[798] [Kaye, p. 191; and comp. cap. xxiv., supra, p. 142.]
[799] [Comp. On the Resurrection, cap. xiii., infra., p. 439 of ed. Edinburgh. Also Kaye, p. 199.]
[800] [Kaye, p. 190.]
Chapter XXVIII.—The Heathen Gods Were Simply Men.
[801] ii. 144. Mr. Rawlinson’s translation is used in the extracts from Herodotus.
[802] ii. 50.
[803] ii. 156.
[804] ii. 41.
[805] ii. 3. The text is here uncertain, and differs from that of Herodotus. [Herodotus, initiated in Egyptian mysteries, was doubtless sworn to maintain certain secrets of the priests of Osiris.]
[806] ii. 61. [The name of Osiris.]
[807] ii. 170.
[808] ii. 86.
Chapter XXIX.—Proof of the Same from the Poets.
[809] Hom., Od., xxi. 28. sq.
[810] Hesiod, Frag.
[811] i.e., Æsculapius.
[812] Pyth., iii. 96 sq.
[813] Ascribed by Seneca to the Bellerophon of Eurip.
[814] From the Ino, a lost play of Eurip.
Chapter XXX.—Reasons Why Divinity Has Been Ascribed to Men.
[815] i.e., after Gaïa and Ouranos, Earth and Heaven.
[816] Oracc., Sibyll., iii. 108–113. [Kaye, p. 220, and compare cap. vii., supra. The inspiration of Balaam, and likewise that of the ass, must, in my opinion, illustrate that of the Sibyls.]
[817] Callim., Hym. Jov., 8 sq. [Tit. i. 12. But St. Paul’s quotation is from Epimenides.]
Chapter XXXI.—Confutation of the Other Charges Brought Against the Christians.
[818] [“Thyestian feasts” (p. 130, supra); a charge which the Christian Fathers perpetually repel. Of course the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper lent colour to this charge; but it could not have been repelled, had they believed the material body and blood of the “man Christ Jesus,” present in this sacrament. See cap. iii., note.]
[819] [1 Cor. xv. 44. A very clear representation of the apostle’s doctrine. See Kaye, 199; and compare On the Resurrection, cap. xiii.]
Chapter XXXII.—Elevated Morality of the Christians.
[821] Otto translates: “which has made us and our neighbours attain the highest degree of rectitude.” The text is obscure, but the above seems the probably meaning; comp. Matt. xxii. 39, etc.
[822] [Hermas, p. 47, note, and p. 57, this volume; Elucidation, ii.]
[823] [The Logos never said, “it excludes us from eternal life:” that is sure; and the passage, though ambiguous, is not so interpreted in the Latin of Gesner. Jones remarks that Athenagoras never introduces a saying of our Lord in this way. Compare Clem. Alexandrin. (Pædagogue, b. iii. cap. v. p. 297, Edinburgh Series), where he quotes Matt. v. 28, with variation. Lardner (cap. xviii. sec. 20) gives a probable explanation. Jones on The Canon (vol. i. p. 436) is noteworthy. Kaye (p. 221) does not solve the puzzle.]
[824] Probably from some apocryphal writing. [Come from what source it may, it suggests a caution of the utmost importance to Americans. In the newer parts of the country, the practice, here corrected, as cropped out among “brothers and sisters” of divers religious names, and consequent scandals have arisen. To all Christians comes, the apostolic appeal, “Let it not be once named among you.”]
Chapter XXXIII.—Chastity of the Christians with Respect to Marriage.
[825] [This our Lord commends (Matt. xix. 12) as a voluntary act of private self-devotion.]
[826] [There is perhaps a touch of the rising Phrygian influence in this passage; yet the language of St. Paul (1 Tim. v. 9) favoured this view, no doubt, in primitive opinion. See Speaker’s Comm. on 1 Tim. iii. 2. Ed. Scribners, New York.]
[828] [But Callistus, heretical Bishop of Rome (a.d. 218.), authorized even third marriages in the clergy. Hippolytus, vol. vi. p. 343, Ante-Nicene Fathers, Edinburgh Series.]
Chapter XXXIV.—The Vast Difference in Morals Between the Christians and Their Accusers.
[829] [An allusion to the fable of the Sargus; and see Burton’s Anat. Mel., p. 445.]
Chapter XXXV.—The Christians Condemn and Detest All Cruelty.
[830] [See Tatian, cap xxiii., supra, p. 75. But here the language of Gibbon is worthy to be quoted: though the icy-hearted infidel failed to understand that just such philosophers as he enjoyed these spectacles, till Christianity taught even such to profess a refined abhorrence of what the Gospel abolished, with no help from them. He says, “the first Christian emperor may claim the honour of the first edict which condemned the art and amusement of shedding human blood; but this benevolent law expressed the wishes of the prince, without reforming an inveterate abuse which degraded a civilized (?) nation below the condition of savage cannibals. Several hundred, perhaps several thousand, victims were annually slaughtered in the great cities of the empire.” He tells the story of the heroic Telemachus, without eulogy; how his death, while struggling to separate the combatants abolished forever the inhuman sports and sacrifices of the amphitheatre. This happened under Honorius. Milman’s Gibbon, iii. 210.]
[831] [Let Americans read this, and ask whether a relapse into heathenism is not threatening our civilization, in this respect. May I venture to refer to Moral Reforms (ed. 1869, Lippincotts, Philadelphia), a little book of my own, rebuking this inquity, and tracing the earliest violation of this law of Christian morals, and of nature itself, to an unhappy Bishop of Rome, rebuked by Hippolytus. See vol. vi. p. 345, Edinburgh Series of Ante-Nicene Fathers.]
Chapter XXXVI.—Bearing of the Doctrine of the Resurrection on the Practices of the Christians.
[832] [Comp. cap. xxxi., supra, p. 146. The science of their times lent itself to the notions of the Fathers necessarily; but neither Holy Scripture nor theology binds us to any theory of the how, in this great mystery; hence Plato and Pythagoras are only useful, as showing that even they saw nothing impossible in the resurrection of the dead. As to “the same elements,” identity does not consist in the same particles of material, but in the continuity of material, by which every seed reproduces “its own body.” 1 Cor. xv. 38.]
[833] [It is a fair inference that The Discourse was written after the Embassy. “In it,” says Kaye, “may be found nearly all the arguments which human reason has been able to advance in support of the resurrection.” p. 200.]
Chapter XXXVII.—Entreaty to Be Fairly Judged.
[834] [1 Tim. ii. 1, 2. Kaye, p. 154. They refused worship, however, to imperial images; and for this they suffered. “Bend your royal head” is an amusing reference to the nod of the Thunderer.]
Chapter I.—Defence of the Truth Should Precede Discussions Regarding It.
[835] [This argument was adapted to the times, and to those to whom it was addressed, with great rhetorical art and concealment of art. Its faults arise from the defective science of the age, and from the habits of thought and of public instruction then in fashion. He does not address himself to believers, but to sceptics, and meets them on their highest levels of speech and of reason.]
Chapter V.—Reference to the Processes of Digestion and Nutrition.
[836] The common reading is “excessive.”
Chapter XIII.—Continuation of the Argument.
[837] [The calm sublimity of this paragraph excels all that ever came from an Athenian before. In the Phœdon we have conjectures: here is certain hope and patient submission as our reasonable service.]
[838] [Kaye, p. 199. Compare Embassy, cap. xxvii., supra, p. 143.]
Chapter XIV.—The Resurrection Does Not Rest Solely on the Fact of a Future Judgment.
[839] [This chapter of itself establishes the fact that Christians have a right to demand the evidence for what they are required to believe. It refutes the idea that what any single bishop or saint has said or thought is doctrine, for that reason only; but it leaves the fact that concurrent testimony is evidence, on certain conditions, in all its force.]
[840] [Not strong enough for the force of the original: ουδ᾽ ἐκ τῶν τισί δοκοὐντων ῆ δεδογμένων.]
[841] [From the natural common sense of the thing.]
[842] [A beautiful and cogent argument for his proposition, and a precious testimony to the innocence of babes falling asleep in Christ. See Kaye, 190.]
Chapter XVI—Analogy of Death and Sleep, and Consequent Argument for the Resurrection.
[843] [Job xix. 25. On which see St. Jerome, Ad Paulinum, cap. 10, tom. iv. 569, ed. Bened. And, on the text itself, see Pusey on Daniel, p. 504, London, 1864. A fine passage in Calvin, ad locum: “En igitur qualis debate esse nostra Fides,” etc. Opp., tom. ii. p. 260, ed. Amsterdam, 1676.]
[844] [Homer, Iliad, b. xiv. 231, and Virgil, Æn., vi. 278.]
[845] [Noble testimony to a minute and particular Providence. Kaye, p. 191.]
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