Chapter XL.--Moses More Ancient and Credible Than the Heathen Heroes.
Therefore, from what has been said it is evident that Moses was older than the ancient heroes, wars, and demons. And we ought rather to believe him, who stands before them in point of age, than the Greeks, who, without being aware of it, [513] drew his doctrines [as] from a fountain. For many of the sophists among them, stimulated by curiosity, endeavoured to adulterate whatever they learned from Moses, [514] and from those who have philosophized like him, first that they might be considered as having something of their own, and secondly, that covering up by a certain rhetorical artifice whatever things they did not understand, they might misrepresent the truth as if it were a fable. But what the learned among the Greeks have said concerning our polity and the history of our laws, and how many and what kind of men have written of these things, will be shown in the treatise against those who have discoursed of divine things. [515]
[513] This expression admits of several meanings: "Without properly understanding them,"--Worth; "not with a proper sense of gratitude."--Maranus.
[514] [There is increasing evidence of the obligations of the Greek sages to that "light shining in a dark place," i.e., amid an idolatrous world.]
[515] [Let it be noted as the moral of our author's review, that there is no self-degradation of which man is not capable when he rejects the true God. Rom. i. 28.]
Chapter XLI.
But the matter of principal importance is to endeavour with all accuracy to make it clear that Moses is not only older than Homer, but than all the writers that were before him--older than Linus, Philammon, Thamyris, Amphion, Musæus, Orpheus, Demodocus, Phemius, Sibylla, Epimenides of Crete, who came to Sparta, Aristæus of Proconnesus, who wrote the Arimaspia, Asbolus the Centaur, Isatis, Drymon, Euclus the Cyprian, Horus the Samian, and Pronapis the Athenian. Now, Linus was the teacher of Hercules, but Hercules preceded the Trojan war by one generation; and this is manifest from his son Tlepolemus, who served in the army against Troy. And Orpheus lived at the same time as Hercules; moreover, it is said that all the works attributed to him were composed by Onomacritus the Athenian, who lived during the reign of the Pisistratids, about the fiftieth Olympiad. Musæus was a disciple of Orpheus. Amphion, since he preceded the siege of Troy by two generations, forbids our collecting further particulars about him for those who are desirous of information. Demodocus and Phemius lived at the very time of the Trojan war; for the one resided with the suitors, and the other with the Phoeacians. Thamyris and Philammon were not much earlier than these. Thus, concerning their several performances in each kind, and their times and the record of them, we have written very fully, and, as I think, with all exactness. But, that we may complete what is still wanting, I will give my explanation respecting the men who are esteemed wise. Minos, who has been thought to excel in every kind of wisdom, and mental acuteness, and legislative capacity, lived in the time of Lynceus, who reigned after Danaus in the eleventh generation after Inachus. Lycurgus, who was born long after the taking of Troy, gave laws to the Lacedemonians. Draco is found to have lived about the thirty-ninth Olympiad, Solon about the forty-sixth, and Pythagoras about the sixty-second. We have shown that the Olympiads commenced 407 years after the taking of Troy. These facts being demonstrated, we shall briefly remark concerning the age of the seven wise men. The oldest of these, Thales, lived about the fiftieth Olympiad; and I have already spoken briefly of those who came after him.
Chapter XLII.--Concluding Statement as to the Author.
These things, O Greeks, I Tatian, a disciple of the barbarian philosophy, [516] have composed for you. I was born in the land of the Assyrians, having been first instructed in your doctrines, and afterwards in those which I now undertake to proclaim. Henceforward, knowing who God is and what is His work, I present myself to you prepared for an examination [517] concerning my doctrines, while I adhere immoveably to that mode of life which is according to God. [518]
[516] [Comp. cap. xxix. p. 77, supra.]
[517] [Compare the boastful Rousseau: "Que la trompette du jugement sonne quand elle voudra, je viendrai ce livra a la main, me presenter devant le souverain Juge." Confessions, livre i. p. 2.]
[518] ["Adhere immoveably." Alas! "let him that thinketh he standeth", etc. But I cannot part with Tatian nor think of Tertullian without recalling David's threnode: "There the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away ... . I am distressed for thee, my brother: ... very pleasant hast thou been unto me ... How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!" Our own sad times have taught us similar lamentations for some who seemed for a time to be "burning and shining lights." God be merciful to poor frail men.]
Fragments. [519]
I.
In his treatise, Concerning Perfection according to the Saviour, he writes, "Consent indeed fits for prayer, but fellowship in corruption weakens supplication. At any rate, by the permission he certainly, though delicately, forbids; for while he permits them to return to the same on account of Satan and incontinence, he exhibits a man who will attempt to serve two masters--God by the consent' (1 Cor. 7:5), but by want of consent, incontinence, fornication, and the devil."--Clem. Alex.: Strom., iii. c. 12.
II.
A certain person inveighs against generation, calling it corruptible and destructive; and some one does violence [to Scripture], applying to pro-creation the Saviour's words, "Lay not up treasure on earth, where moth and rust corrupt;" and he is not ashamed to add to these the words of the prophet: "You all shall grow old as a garment, and the moth shall devour you."
And, in like manner, they adduce the saying concerning the resurrection of the dead, "The sons of that world neither marry nor are given in marriage."--Clem. Alex.: iii. c. 12, § 86.
III.
Tatian, who maintaining the imaginary flesh of Christ, pronounces all sexual connection impure, who was also the very violent heresiarch of the Encratites, employs an argument of this sort: "If any one sows to the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption;" but he sows to the flesh who is joined to a woman; therefore he who takes a wife and sows in the flesh, of the flesh he shall reap corruption.--Hieron.: Com. in Ep. ad Gal.
IV.
Seceding from the Church, and being elated and puffed up by a conceit of his teacher, [520] as if he were superior to the rest, he formed his own peculiar type of doctrine. Imagining certain invisible Æons like those of Valentinus, and denouncing marriage as defilement and fornication in the same way as Marcion and Saturninus, and denying the salvation of Adam as an opinion of his own.--Irenæus: Adv. Hoer., i. 28.
V.
Tatian attempting from time to time to make use of Paul's language, that in Adam all die, but ignoring that "where sin abounded, grace has much more abounded."--Irenæus: Adv. Heres., iii. 37.
VI.
Against Tatian, who says that the words, "Let there be light," are to be taken as a prayer. If He who uttered it knew a superior God, how is it that He says, "I am God, and there is none beside me"?
He said that there are punishments for blasphemies, foolish talking, and licentious words, which are punished and chastised by the Logos. And he said that women were punished on account of their hair and ornaments by a power placed over those things, which also gave strength to Samson by his hair, and punishes those who by the ornament of their hair are urged on to fornication.--Clem. Alex.: Frag.
VII.
But Tatian, not understanding that the expression "Let there be" is not always precative but sometimes imperative, most impiously imagined concerning God, who said "Let there be light," that He prayed rather than commanded light to be, as if, as he impiously thought, God was in darkness.--Origen: De Orat.
VIII.
Tatian separates the old man and the new, but not, as we say, understanding the old man to be the law, and the new man to be the Gospel. We agree with him in saying the same thing, but not in the sense he wishes, abrogating the law as if it belonged to another God.--Clem. Alex.: Strom., iii. 12.
IX.
Tatian condemns and rejects not only marriage, but also meats which God has created for use.--Hieron.: Adv. Jovin., i. 3.
X.
"But ye gave the Nazarites wine to drink, and commanded the prophets, saying, Prophesy not." On this, perhaps, Tatian the chief of the Encratites endeavours to build his heresy, asserting that wine is not to be drunk, since it was commanded in the law that the Nazarites were not to drink wine, and now those who give the Nazarites wine are accused by the prophet.--Hieron.: Com. in Amos.
XI.
Tatian, the patriarch of the Encratites, who himself rejected some of Paul's Epistles, believed this especially, that is [addressed] to Titus, ought to be declared to be the apostle's, thinking little of the assertion of Marcion and others, who agree with him on this point.--Hieron.: Præf. in Com. ad Tit.
XII.
[Archelaus (a.d. 280), Bishop of Carrha in Mesopotamia, classes his countryman Tatian with "Marcion, Sabellius, and others who have made up for themselves a peculiar science," i.e., a theology of their own.--Routh: Reliquiæ, tom. v. p. 137. But see Edinburgh Series of this work, vol. xx. p. 267.]
[519] From the lost works of Tatian. Ed. Otto.
[520] i.e., Justin Martyr.
Theophilus of Antioch
Introductory Note
to
Theophilus of Antioch.
[Translated by the Rev. Marcus Dods, A.M.]
[a.d. 115-168-181.] Eusebius praises the pastoral fidelity of the primitive pastors, in their unwearied labours to protect their flocks from the heresies with which Satan contrived to endanger the souls of believers. By exhortations and admonitions, and then again by oral discussions and refutations, contending with the heretics themselves, they were prompt to ward off the devouring beasts from the fold of Christ. Such is the praise due to Theophilus, in his opinion; and he cites especially his lost work against Marcion as "of no mean character." [521] He was one of the earliest commentators upon the Gospels, if not the first; and he seems to have been the earliest Christian historian of the Church of the Old Testament. His only remaining work, here presented, seems to have originated in an "oral discussion," such as Eusebius instances. But nobody seems to accord him due praise as the founder of the science of Biblical Chronology among Christians, save that his great successor in modern times, Abp. Usher, has not forgotten to pay him this tribute in the Prolegomena of his Annals. (Ed. Paris, 1673.)
Theophilus occupies an interesting position, after Ignatius, in the succession of faithful men who represented Barnabas and other prophets and teachers of Antioch, [522] in that ancient seat, from which comes our name as Christians. I cannot forbear another reference to those recent authors who have so brilliantly illustrated and depicted the Antioch of the early Christians; [523] because, if we wish to understand Autolycus, we must feel the state of society which at once fascinated him, and disgusted Theophilus. The Fathers are dry to those only who lack imagination to reproduce their age, or who fail to study them geographically and chronologically. Besides this, one should bring to the study of their works, that sympathy springing from a burning love to Christ, which borrows its motto, in slightly altered words, from the noble saying of the African poet: "I am a Christian, and nothing which concerns Christianity do I consider foreign to myself."
Theophilus comes down to us only as an apologist intimately allied in spirit to Justin and Irenæus; and he should have been placed with Tatian between these two, in our series, had not the inexorable laws of our compilation brought them into this volume. I need add no more to what follows from the translator, save only the expression of a hope that others will enjoy this author as I do, rating him very highly, even at the side of Athenagoras. He is severe, yet gentle too, in dealing with his antagonist; and he cannot be charged with a more sublime contempt for heathenism than St. Paul betrays in all his writings, abjuring even Plato and Socrates, and accentuating his maxim, "The world by wisdom knew not God." For him it was Christ to live; and I love Theophilus for this very fault, if it be such. He was of Antioch; and was content to be, simply and altogether, nothing but a Christian.
The following is the original Introductory Notice--:
Little is known of the personal history of Theophilus of Antioch. We gather from the following treatise that he was born a pagan (i. 14), and owed his conversion to Christianity to the careful study of the Holy Scriptures. Eusebius (Hist. Eccl., iv. 20) declares that he was the sixth bishop of Antioch in Syria from the apostles, the names of his supposed predecessors being Eros, Cornelius, Hero, Ignatius, and Euodius. We also learn from the same writer, that Theophilus succeeded to the bishopric of Antioch in the eighth year of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, that is, in a.d. 168. He is related to have died either in a.d. 181, or in a.d. 188; some assigning him an episcopate of thirteen, and others of twenty-one, years.