The History of the Origins of Christianity. Book VII. Marcus-Aurelius.
Ernest Renan
CHAPTER XXII. NEW APOLOGIES—ATHENAGORAS, THEOPHILUS OF ANTIOCH, MINUCIUS FELIX.
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NEVER was the struggle more ardent than in those last years of Marcus-Aurelius. Persecution was at its highest period. The attacks and replies crossed each other. The parties borrowed one after the other the weapons of dialectic and irony. Christianity had its Lucian in a certain Hermias, who calls himself “philosopher,” and who seems to set himself to the task of adding to all the exaggerations of Tatian on the mistakes of philosophy. His writing, probably composed in Syria, is not only an apology: it is a sermon addressed to the assembled believers. The author has published it under the title of Diasyrmos, or “Tales of the Philosophers outside.” The pleasantry was heavy and weak enough. It recalls the attempts which have been produced in our age, in the bosom of Catholicism, to employing the irony of Voltaire to the profit of the good cause, and to make the apology for religion in the style of a Tertullian in good humour. The sarcasms of Hermias do not only strike at the exaggerated claims of philosophy; they reach to the most legitimate attempts of science, the desire to know the things which are now perfectly discovered and known. According to the author, science has for its origin the apostasy of the angels. These are the unhappy perverse beings who have taught men philosophy, with all its contradictions. The knowledge of the old schools which the author possesses is wide, but not very profound; as to the philosophical spirit, never was a man so completely without it. The clemency of the emperor, his known love of truth, called forth, year after year, new petitions, where the generous advocates of the persecuted religion tried to show what was monstrous in those persecutions. Commodus, associated with the empire from the end of the year 176, had his part in these entreaties, to which—strange thing!—he later on gave better heed than his father. “To the emperors, Marcus-Aurelius Antoninus and Marcus-Aurelius Commodus of Armenia, Sarmatia (and whatever was their greatest title) philosophers.” . . . Thus began an apology, written in a very good antique style by Athenagoras, an Athenian philosopher, who appears to have been converted to Christianity by his own efforts. The exceptional position allowed to Christians, under a reign full of mildness and happiness, and which had given peace and liberty to the whole world, was scandalous. All the cities enjoyed a perfect self-government. All people were permitted to live according to their laws and their religion. The Christians, although very loyal towards the empire, were the only men who were persecuted for their creed. And even if the authorities had contented themselves by taking away their property and life! But what was still more insupportable was the official calumnies with which they were loaded—atheism, the eating of human flesh, and incest. If the Christians were guilty of atheism, philosophers were guilty of the same crime. The Christians admitted that supreme intelligence, invisible, impassable, incomprehensible, which is the “last word” of philosophy. Why make that a reproach to them which was praised in others? What the Christians said of the Son and the Spirit complements philosophy—does not contradict it. The Son of God is the Word of God, the eternal reason of the Eternal Spirit. The Christians rejected the sacrifices, the idols and the fables of Paganism. Who can blame them? The gods were often only men deified. The miracles of healing in the temples are the work of demons. 119