ides was a most significant opening to the second
century, whilst we find Origen at its close. Marcianus Aristides
expressly designates himself in his pamphlet as a _philosopher of the
Athenians_. Since the days when the words were written: "Beware lest any
man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit" (Col. II. 8), it had
constantly been repeated (see, as evidence, Celsus, passim) that
Christian preaching and philosophy were things entirely different, that
God had chosen the fools, and that man's duty was not to investigate and
seek, but to believe and hope. Now a philosopher, as such, pleaded the
cause of Christianity. In the summary he gave of the content of
Christianity at the beginning of his address, he really spoke as a
philosopher and represented this faith as a philosophy. By expounding
pure monotheism and giving it the main place in his argument, Aristides
gave supreme prominence to the very doctrine which simple Christians
also prized as the most important.[350] Moreover, in emphasing not only
the supernatural character of the Christian doctrine revealed by the Son
of the Most High God, but also the continuous inspiration of
believers--the new _race_ (not a new _school_)--he confessed in the most
express way the peculiar nature of this philosophy as a divine truth.
According to him Christianity is philosophy because its content is in
accordance with reason, and because it gives a satisfactory and
universally intelligible answer to the questions with which all real
philosophers have concerned themselves. But it is no philosophy, in fact
it is really the complete opposite of this, in so far as it proceeds
from revelation and is propagated by the agency of God, i.e., has a
supernatural and divine origin, on which alone the truth and certainty
of its doctrines finally depend. This contrast to philosophy is chiefly
shown in the unphilosophical form in which Christianity was first
preached to the world. That is the thesis maintained by all the
Apologists from Justin to Tertullian,[351] and which Jewish philosophers
before them propounded and defended. This proposition may certainly be
expressed in a great variety of ways. In the first place, it is
important whether the first or second half is emphasised, and secondly,
whether that which is "universally intelligible" is to be reckoned as
philosophy at all, or is to be separated from it as that which comes by
"nature." Finally, the attitude to be taken up towards t