ly recovered in translation), Athenagoras
("elegant"), Eusebius of Caesarea, Cyril of Alexandria; in Latin by
Minucius Felix, Tertullian (a masculine spirit and phrase-coiner like T.
Carlyle, if bitterer still), Lactantius Firmianus, &c., &c.[1]

As Christianity wins the day, a new objection is raised to it. The age
is full of troubles; Christianity is ruining the empire! Besides notices
elsewhere, we find the charge specially dealt with by St Augustine and
his friends. Paulus Orosius argues that the world has always been a vale
of tears. Salvian contends that not the acceptance of Christianity, but
the sins of the people are bringing trouble upon them; and he gives ugly
evidence of the continued prevalence of vice. Most impressive of all was
Augustine's own contribution in _The City of God_. Powers created by
worldliness and sin are crumbling, as they well may; "the city of God
remaineth!" Whether he meant it so or not, the saint's argument became a
programme and an apologia for the imperializing of the Western Church
under the leadership of Rome during the middle ages.

IV. _Middle Ages._--From the point of view of apologetics, we may mass
together the long stretch of history which covers the period between the
disappearance and the re-appearance of free discussion. When emperors
became converts, the church, so lately a victim and a pleader for
liberty, readily learned to persecute. Under such conditions there is
little scope for apologetics. Force kills argument and drives doubt
below the smooth surface of a nominal conformity. But there were two
influences beyond the bounds or beyond the power of the christianized
empire. The Jew remained, as always, stubbornly unconvinced, and, as
often, fond of slanders. Many of the principal medieval attempts in
apologetics are directed chiefly against him, e.g. the _Pugio Fidei_ of
Raymond Martini (c. 1280), which became one of Pascal's sources (see V.
below), or Peter Abelard's _Dialogus inter Judaeum Philosophum et
Christianum_. And the Moslem came on the scenes bringing, as a gift for
Christendom, fuller knowledge of classical, especially Aristotelian,
texts. The Jews, less bitterly opposed to Mahommedanism than the
Christians were, caught fire more rapidly, and in some cases served as
an intermediate link or channel of communication. These two religions
anticipated the discussion of the problem of faith and reason in the
Christian church. According to the great Avicenna and