Читать книгу A Source Book for Ancient Church History - Joseph Cullen Ayer - Страница 130

Christianity was regarded as a revealed philosophy by the apologists. This they considered under three principal aspects: knowledge, or a revelation of the divine nature; a new law, or a code of morals given by Christ; and life, or future rewards for the observance of the new law that had been given. The foundation of all was laid in the doctrine of the Logos (A), which involved, as a consequence, some theory of the relation of the resulting distinctions in the divine nature to the primary conviction of the unity of God, or some doctrine of the Trinity (B). As a result of the new law given, moralism was inevitable, whereby a man by his efforts earned everlasting life (C). The proof that Jesus was the incarnate Logos was drawn from the fulfilment of Hebrew prophecy (D). It should be remembered that the apologists influenced later theology by their actual writings, [pg 131] and not by unexpressed and undeveloped opinions which they held as a part of the common tradition and the Christianity of the Gentile Church. Whatever they might have held in addition to their primary contentions had little or no effect, however valuable it may be for modern students, and the conviction that Christianity was essentially a revealed philosophy became current, especially in the East, finding its most powerful expression in the Alexandrian school. (V. infra, § 43.)