nown truth_, a league the members of which possess definite
laws, viz., the eternal laws of nature for everything moral, and unite
in common veneration for the Divine Master. In the "dogmas" of the
Apologists, however, we find nothing more than traces of the fusion of
the philosophical and historical elements; in the main both exist
separately side by side. It was not till long after this that
intellectualism gained the victory in a Christianity represented by the
clergy. What we here chiefly understand by "intellectualism" is the
placing of the scientific conception of the world behind the
commandments of Christian morality and behind the hopes and faith of the
Christian religion, and the connecting of the two things in such a way
that this conception appeared as the foundation of these commandments
and hopes. Thus was created the future dogmatic in the form which still
prevails in the Churches and which presupposes the Platonic and Stoic
conception of the world long ago overthrown by science. The attempt made
at the beginning of the Reformation to free the Christian faith from
this amalgamation remained at first without success.

Footnotes:

[Footnote 340: Edition by Otto, 9 Vols., 1876 f. New edition of the
Apologists (unfinished; only Tatian and Athenagoras by Schwarz have yet
appeared) in the Texte und Untersuchungen zur altchristlichen
Litteratur-Geschichte, Vol. IV. Tzschirner, Geschichte der Apologetik,
1st part, 1805; id., Der Fall des Heidenthums, 1829. Ehlers, Vis atque
potestas, quam philosophia antiqua, imprimis Platonica et Stoica in
doctrina apologetarum habuerit, 1859.]

[Footnote 341: It is intrinsically probable that their works directly
addressed to the Christian Church gave a more full exposition of their
Christianity than we find in the Apologies. This can moreover be proved
with certainty from the fragments of Justin's, Tatian's and Melito's
esoteric writings. But, whilst recognising this fact, we must not make
the erroneous assumption that the fundamental conceptions and interests
of Justin and the rest were in reality other than may be inferred from
their Apologies.]

[Footnote 342: That is, so far as these were clearly connected with
polytheism. Where this was not the case or seemed not to be so, national
traditions, both the true and the spurious, were readily and joyfully
admitted into the _catalogus testimoniorum_ of revealed truth.]

[Footnote 343: Though these words were already foun