ary
in the N.T.) Similarly, the immortality of the soul may be maintained on
Platonic or quasi-Platonic lines, as by St Athanasius (_Contra Gentes_,
S 33)--a writer who repeatedly quotes the Alexandrian Book of Wisdom, in
which Platonism and the Old Testament had already joined partnership.
This phase of Platonism, however, was much more slowly adopted. The
earlier apologists dispute the natural immortality of the soul;
Athanasius himself, in _De Incarnatione Dei_, SS 4, 5, tones down the
teaching of _Wisdom_; and the somewhat eccentric writer Arnobius, a
layman--from Justin Martyr downwards apologetics has always been largely
in the hands of laymen--stands for what has recently been called
"conditional immortality"--eternal life for the righteous, the children
of God, alone.

Allied with this more empiricist stand-point is the assertion that Greek
philosophy borrowed from Moses; but in studying the Fathers we
constantly find that groundless assertion uttered in the same breath
with the dominant Idealist view, according to which Greek philosophy was
due to incomplete revelation from the divine Logos.

On purely defensive lines, early apologists rebut charges of cannibalism
and sexual promiscuity; the Christians had to meet in secret, and the
gossip of a rotten age drew malignant conclusions. They make counter
attacks on polytheism as a folly and on the shamefulness of obscene
myths. Here they are in line with non-Christian writers or
culture-mockers like Lucian of Samosata; or graver spirits like
Porphyry, who champions Neo-Platonism as a rival to Christianity, and
does pioneer work in criticism by attacks on some of the Old Testament
books. Turning to Christian evidence proper, we are struck with the
continued prominence of the argument from prophecy. The Old Testament
was an immense religious asset to the early church. Their enemies had
nothing like it; and--the N.T. canon being as yet but half formed--the
Old Testament was pushed into notice by dwelling on this imperfect
"argument," which grew more extravagant as the partial control exercised
by Jewish learning disappeared. An argument from miracles is also urged,
though with more reserve. Formally, every one in that age admitted the
supernatural. The question was, whose supernatural? And how far did it
carry you? Miracle could not be to a 3rd century writer what it was to
W. Paley--a conclusive and well-nigh solitary proof. Other apologies are
by Aristides (recent