1846.]

Revival of the Christian Fathers.

3

Forward as our march is, we tend now strongly to the study of the past. We love to stop in our course, to visit the tombs of our fathers and build monuments to the saints of our own and former ages. Not to speak of the number of historical works printed and read among us, it is surprising that so many treatises upon sacred antiquity have been sent from our presses, and that the Christian Fathers are winning so much attention at our hands. Whatever may be the cause of this, whether intellectual curiosity or sectarian strife, we cannot say, it is evident that great questions now before our people must lead us to study anew the history of the Church, and come to a satisfactory conclusion concerning the men and the doctrines of the primitive ages.

Taking Christendom at large, it is obvious that within the last ten or fifteen years the study of the Christian Fathers has been revived in a remarkable manner. Without quite accepting the pseudo-prophet Miller's doctrine of a speedy end of the world, to be accompanied by a bodily resurrection of the saints, we may say that in one sense in our time the saints have already been raised; "the souls of them that suffered for the witness of Jesus and the word of God" have been seen and appreciated anew. Their spirit has been studied, while their works have been faithfully exhibited. No longer in their original voluminous manuscripts, nor in their former cumbrous folios, their thoughts now appear with all the aids of modern art, the more attractive garb of modern print and editing. Chrysostom and Augustine, subdued as was their pride, could not but have rejoiced, had they foreseen the honors paid them in this nineteenth century; and in view of the elegant octavos in which Paris and Oxford have enshrined their works, they would have bestowed no small benediction upon the memory of Dr. Faustus, and have broken the spell that has coupled his name with the prince of darkness.

Of course we are far from thinking that the mass of readers among us will soon care much for patristic lore. Its results, however, are interesting all persons of Christian faith and common intellectual curiosity, whilst an earnest band of thinkers and scholars, both in the Old World and the New, are turning to the pages of the Fathers for oracles of wisdom that can, as it seems to them, cure the chief of

prevalent follies. One reason of the revival of the study is, doubtless, to be found in that love for all historical investigation which so strongly marks recent literature. Somewhat suspicious of mere theories of society and philosophies of religion, we wish to know what has actually been done in former times to carry men forward, and are more disposed to value ideas and institutions that have worked well than ambitious schemes that only promise well. The historic schools of Germany, England, and even France show a strong conservative tendency, and prove that our nineteenth century with all its bustling progress is far more reverently retrospective than the eighteenth, far more disposed to unite memory with hope as guides of the world. As a result of this historical movement, of course the Christian Fathers must come in for their share of attention; and merely philosophical fidelity, to say nothing of Christian faith, has moved writers of the stamp of Guizot and Michelet to try to appreciate fairly the men, whose works best illustrate that great period in which the world passed from Paganism to Christianity, and the foundations of our Christendom were laid upon the ruins of ancient empires.

Moreover, the religious aspect of our age favors the study of the Fathers. There is in some quarters a strong suspicion, that Protestantism has gone too far in encouraging freedom of thought and disparaging the authority of creeds, traditions and priesthoods. Considerable numbers of thinking persons, who are reluctant to cast themselves at the feet of the Pope and surrender their freedom to the council of Trent, are seeking or advocating some middle ground between Papal despotism and what they call Protestant self-will. The Christian Fathers are held up as standing on such middle ground, and we are asked to read them if we would be saved from both the perilous extremes in the theology of our day, and learn to harmonise just liberty of thought with due recognition of the Church and its traditions. There is not a little of this tendency among the Protestants of Germany, although it has been exhibited to us more directly in the Oxford Tractarians and the various works which they have written and edited. At the time when liberal principles in religion and government were at their height in England, these men conceived the plan and undertook the work of leading their country back to

1846.]

Taylor's Ancient Christianity.

5

ancient authority both in Church and State. In the midst of the enthusiasm of the Reform Bill and the emancipation of Dissenters and Romanists, these scholars looked with sadness upon the innovation, sought some remedy in the lessons of the past, and not stopping with the principles of the Reformation, in Germany or England, nor willing to countenance the usurpations of Rome, they appealed boldly to the Christian Fathers, and thus brought on a reaction against modern liberalism, that has produced already great effect in their own country, and has gained not a few followers among us, some among mature and cautious minds, many among the young and romantic. It is evident, that the chief part of the recent theological literature of England is strongly tinged with the Oxford doctrines. The result has been very bitter to the Evangelical party in the English Church, as we may surely infer, when so wise and good a man as Isaac Taylor, the author of the work on Ancient Christianity, the title of which is given at the head of this article, interrupts his previous course of authorship, gives himself so entirely to this one topic, and seems sometimes in danger of losing his temper at the asperity with which he, and all kindred champions of what he calls Evangelical Christianity, are treated by those who give tradition so important a place by the side of the Bible. His work, in connection with the Oxford Library of the Fathers, the title of which we have also given, will enable our readers, who are not ambitious of a more laborious study of the Greek and Latin originals, to form a good idea of the questions at issue between the two parties in the English Church. As Mr. Taylor is an earnest member of the Establishment, we are not, by referring to him with favor, quoting any writer hostile to that Church.

His book is probably the ablest treatise on Ancient Christianity, or rather the Christianity of the Nicene age, that has appeared in our time. Indeed so far as it deals with the Nicene Fathers in the claims set up for them as Catholic authority, the work is unsurpassed by any that can be named. It is superior to the famous work of Daillê, by concentrating its light upon the most important point of the subject and breaking the authority of the Fathers by assaulting the centre of their position. It differs from the more celebrated treatise of Chillingworth, on the religion of

Protestants, which was suggested by the work of Daillê, in dealing more with facts than abstractions, by exhibiting tradition as it was in the age of its boasted purity, and showing conclusively what was the actual doctrine of the Nicene Fathers, and what folly and absurdity must follow from leaving the sure rule of Scripture and accepting their authority. Mr. Taylor deals almost solely with the doctrine of celibacy as held by the Fathers and with the development of its consequences. He regards this doctrine as the parent of all superstition and fanaticism, morbid feeling, false doctrine and pernicious formalism. He finds such fruits of its influence in the third and fourth centuries of the Christian era, as lead him to regard the mighty hierarchy which was subsequently built up by Gregory I., and completed by Gregory VII., as a great reform, a salutary check upon the error and wickedness already brought into being. He makes ample quotations from the Nicene Fathers to prove his position, that they generally held the doctrine of celibacy as the highest virtue, and that their works show that the state of religion around them was very low. To us his work is conclusive upon one point, that if the Christian Fathers are to be taken as authoritative guides, we must at once quit our common Protestant principles, believe in the sanctity of celibacy, the worth of relics, the magical power of the sacraments, and all of Popery except the doctrine of a supremacy of the Pope otherwise than as the primacy of honor. Mr. Taylor's book is interesting from its unity of purpose. He allows the champions of tradition to take their strongest ground among their strongest authorities, and then bears down upon the centre of their position with the force of a Nelson's attack or a Napoleon's charge. Undoubtedly by dwelling so much upon one point and with a purpose so hostile to the opposite party, he is in great danger of overlooking the true worth of the Fathers.

It is therefore well for those who read his somewhat disheartening pages, to take a glance at the brighter side of the subject, and learn from the series of Translations before us, the Library of the Fathers, how much wisdom and piety they contain. Whatever may be thought of the Nicene theology, we must find much to respect in all these volumes. Of the authors here given, Augustine, Cyril of Jerusalem, Cyprian, Chrysostom, Athanasius,

1846.] Previous History of the Church.

7

Tertullian, Gregory, Pacian, four or five stand out prominently as writers. No reader can deny that Tertullian is full of fire, or that Athanasius is mighty in argument, or that Chrysostom is eloquent, or Augustine profound. We could have wished that Clement and Origen had been included in these volumes, and have hope that their noble spirit and deep wisdom will give them a place ere long in the series. Yet we must remember that the chief favorites of the translators have not yet been represented; that of the choice three, Ambrose, Basil and Chrysostom, only the last has appeared in these volumes. Perhaps it is not wholly wrong, to desire that with specimens of the best works of the Nicene Fathers some of the worst had been also given, that we might judge of the age in its folly as well as its wisdom, and see what idle legends and degrading superstitions the wisest of them cherished, what monkish fanaticism Athanasius could eulogise and what priestly miracles Augustine could credit.

We propose to speak especially of one among the Christian Fathers in connection with his times, the one who has exercised a more permanent influence than any of them. Aurelius Augustinus, commonly called St. Augustine, is of course the man. We will try to give some idea of the age, the man, and his works.

He was born in the middle of the fourth century, a century more momentous to Christendom than any other except that in which Jesus lived, and that in which Luther wrote. During this century Christianity had become the established religion of the Roman Empire. Constantine had laid his sceptre upon the Christian altar; Julian had striven in vain to supplant the faith of the cross by his splendid eclecticism of philosophical deism, natural symbolism and vulgar Paganism; and by the labors of a brilliant company of orators, prelates, scholars and theologians, the Christian doctrines were settled for ages, and ecclesiastical institutions were consolidated. We shall be better able to estimate the leading men of this period by a glance at the previous history of the Church. The first writers after the death of the Apostles are the Apostolical Fathers, whose writings are chiefly pastoral and practical, such as the Epistles of Polycarp and Ignatius. Next come the defenders of Christianity against Heathen assaults, the Apologists,