H4 THIRD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590.
[)08itivelj, the communication of rigliteousness and life and the deiUcation of man.' The miracles of Christ are the proof of his original dominion over nature, and lead men from natureworship to the worship of God. The death of Jesus wae necessary to the blotting out of sin and to the demonstration of his life-power in the resurrection, whereby also the death of believers is now no longer punishment, but a transition to resurrection and glory. — This speculative analysis of the incarnation Athanasius supports by referring to the continuous moral efiects of Christianity, which is doing great things every day, calling man from idolatry, magic, and sorceries to the worship of the true God, obliterating sinful and irrational lusts, taming the wild manners of barbarians, inciting to a holy "vvalk, turning the natural fear of death into rejoicing, and lifting the eye of man from earth to heaven, from mortality to resurrection and eternal glory. The benefits of the incarnation are incalculable, like the waves of the sea pursuing one another in c/jnstant succession.
(2) Under the sons of Constantino, between the years 343 and 350, Julius Firmicus Maternus, an author otherwise unknown to us," wrote against heathenism with large knowledge of antiquity, but with fanatical zeal, regarding it, now on the principle of Euhemerua, as a deification of mortal men and natural elements, now as a distortion of the biblical history.' At the close, quite mistaking the gentle spirit of the New Testament, he urges the sons of Constantino to exterminate heathenism by force, as God commanded the children of Israel to proceed against the Canaanites ; and openly counsels them boldly to pillage the tempks and to enrich themselves and the church with the stolen goods. Tliis sort of apology fully cor-
* 'O Aiyoi ^farSf)wrrr)(T«c, 'iya rjfi(7s ,&60Troir)daJ(Uff.
' It 19 uncertain wliether lie wa3 the author of a mathe.natieal and astrological work written some years earlier and published at Basel in 1551, which treats of the intiuence of the stars upon men, Lut conjures its readers not to divulge these Egyptian and Babylonian mysteries, as astrology was forljidden at the time. If he were the author, he must have not only wholly changed his religion, but considerably im proved his style.
* The Egyptian Serapis, for instance, was no other than Joseph, who, being th« grand-Bou of Sara, waa named Sopai air6.
§ 12. Augustine's city of god. 85
responds witli the despotic conduct of Constantius, wliich ui- 4uced the reaction of heathenism under Juhan.
(3) The attack of Julian upon Christianity brought out nc reply on the spot/ but subsecjuently several refutations, the chief one by Cykil of Alexandria (f 444), in ten books " against the impious Julian," still extant and belonging among his most valuable works. About the same time Theodoeet wrote an apologetic and polemic work : " The Healing of the Heathen Aflfections," in twelve treatises, in which he endeavors to refute the errors of the false religion by comparison of the prophecies and miracles of the Bible with the heathen oracles, of the apostles with the heroes and lawgivers of antiquity, of the Christian morality with the immorality of the heathen worlds
§ 12. Augustine's City of God. Salvianus.
(4) Among the Latin apologists we must mention Atjgus- TENE, Obosius, and Salvianus, of the fifth century. They struck a different path from the Greeks, and devoted themselves chiefly to the objection of the heathens, that the overthrow of idolatry and the ascendency of Christianity were chargeable with the misfortunes and the decline of the Roman empire. This objection had already been touched by Tertullian, but now, since the repeated incursions of the barbarians, and especially the capture and sacking of the city of Rome under the Gothic king Alaric in 410, it recurred with peculiar force. By way of historical refutation the Spanish presbyter Orosius, at the suggestion of Augustine, wrote an outline of universal history in the year 417.
AuG-usTiNE himself answered the charge in his immortal work " Oji the city of God," that is, the church of Christ, in
* Though Apollinaris wrote a book " Of the Trath" against the emperor and the oeathen philosophers, of which Julian is reported to have said sneeringly: 'hvi-y /(Df, tyvuiv^ Kareyvwv: "I have read it, understood it, and condemned it." To which the Christian bishops rejoined in like tone : 'Aveyvws, dXA' ovk eyvws, el yap eyuwi ovk hv Kurfyvws : " You have read, but not understoo<I, for, liad you understood you would not liave condemned." So says Sozomon : v. 1 8. Comp fichrockh: vi. 366.