al life. Moreover, so far as
they discovered the truth, they owed it to the prophets from whom they
borrowed it; at least it is uncertain whether they even attained a
knowledge of fragments of the truth by their own independent
efforts.[415] But it is certain that many seeming truths in the writings
of the philosophers were imitations of the truth by evil demons. This is
the origin of all polytheism, which is, moreover, to some extent an
imitation of Christian institutions. (5) The confession of Christ is
simply included in the acknowledgment of the wisdom of the prophets; the
doctrine of the truth did not receive a new content through Christ; he
only made it accessible to the world and strengthened it (victory over
the demons; special features acknowledged by Justin and Tertullian). (6)
The practical test of Christianity is first contained in the fact that
all persons are able to grasp it, for women and uneducated men here
become veritable sages; secondly in the fact that it has the power of
producing a holy life, and of overthrowing the tyranny of the demons. In
the Apologists, therefore, Christianity served itself heir to antiquity,
i.e., to the result of the monotheistic knowledge and ethics of the
Greeks: "[Greek: Osa oun para pasikalos eiretai, hemon ton Christianon
esti]" (Justin, Apol. II. 13). It traced its origin back to the
beginning of the world. Everything true and good which elevates mankind
springs from divine revelation, and is at the same time genuinely human,
because it is a clear expression of what man finds within him and of his
destination (Justin, Apol. I. 46: [Greek: hoi meta logou biosantes
Christianoi eisi, kan atheoi enomisthesan, oion en Hellesi men Sokrates
kai Erakleitos kai oi omoioi autois, en barbarois de Abraam k.t.l.],
"those that have lived with reason are Christians, even though they were
accounted atheists, such as Socrates and Heraclitus and those similar to
them among the Greeks, and Abraham etc. among the barbarians"). But
everything true and good is Christian, for Christianity is nothing else
than the teaching of revelation. No second formula can be imagined in
which the claim of Christianity to be the religion of the world is so
powerfully expressed (hence also the endeavour of the Apologists to
reconcile Christianity and the Empire), nor, on the other hand, can we
conceive of one where the specific content of traditional Christianity
is so thoroughly neutralised as it is here. Bu