n answer to all the
pressing questions which then occupied men's minds.

The beginning of a development which a century later reached its
provisional completion in the theology of Origen, that is, in the
transformation of the Gospel into a scientific system of ecclesiastical
doctrine, appears in the Christian Apologetic, as we already find it
before the middle of the second century. As regards its content, this
system of doctrine meant the legitimising of Greek philosophy within the
sphere of the rule of faith. The theology of Origen bears the same
relation to the New Testament as that of Philo does to the Old. What is
here presented as Christianity is in fact the idealistic religious
philosophy of the age, attested by divine revelation, made accessible to
all by the incarnation of the Logos, and purified from any connection
with Greek mythology and gross polytheism.[4] A motley multitude of
primitive Christian ideas and hopes, derived from both Testaments, and
too brittle to be completely recast, as yet enclosed the kernel. But the
majority of these were successfully manipulated by theological art, and
the traditional rule of faith was transformed into a system of doctrine,
in which, to some extent, the old articles found only a nominal
place.[5]

This hellenising of ecclesiastical Christianity, by which we do not mean
the Gospel, was not a gradual process; for the truth rather is that it
was already accomplished the moment that the reflective Greek confronted
the new religion which he had accepted. The Christianity of men like
Justin, Athenagoras, and Minucius is not a whit less Hellenistic than
that of Origen. But yet an important distinction obtains here. It is
twofold. In the first place, those Apologists did not yet find
themselves face to face with a fixed collection of writings having a
title to be reverenced as Christian; they have to do with the Old
Testament and the "Teachings of Christ" ([Greek: didagmata Christou]).
In the second place, they do not yet regard the scientific presentation
of Christianity as the main task and as one which this religion itself
demands. As they really never enquired what was meant by "Christian," or
at least never put the question clearly to themselves, they never
claimed that their scientific presentation of Christianity was the first
proper expression of it that had been given. Justin and his
contemporaries make it perfectly clear that they consider the
traditional faith exi