for a True Doctrine.--The central problem for the living
Church has always been: Who was Jesus? and how to worship Him? The
restless spirit of humanity endeavoured to define the details both in
His relation to God and to the world. The Church did not define her
doctrine in advance, but bit by bit, pragmatically, according to the
questions and doubts raised in the Christian communities. The refused
solutions of a raised question were called heresy, the adopted solution
by the Church was called orthodoxy. No heresy came merely as an abstract
theory, but every one was a dramatic movement, an organisation, a camp,
a deed--and not merely a word. That made the struggle against it more
difficult. Docetism, Nicolaism, Gnosticism, Chiliasm, Manichaism,
Monatism, Monarchism, Monophysitism, Monotheletism, Arianism,
Nestorianism--every one of these terms means both a theory and a drama.
The Church had to correct the opinion of the heretics for herself, and
to fight against them for themselves.
The doctrine of the Church was regarded by the heretics as incorrect or
insufficient, and by outsiders as wicked. Celsus, an Epicurean writer,
despised the Christian doctrine as of "barbarous origin." The people of
Smyrna being aroused against the Christians and their bishop, Polycarp,
cried: "Away with the Atheists!" the heathen misunderstood the Church
doctrine and called the Christians atheists, as Montanus, a Christian
heretic, misunderstood the Church doctrine and regarded Jesus only as
his own Percursor and himself as an incarnation of the Holy Spirit. But
the Church did not care either for the pressure from without or from
within, she went on her way cheerfully, struggling and believing,
showing to the world her saints and martyrs as her argument and Christ
as the guarantee of her ultimate victory.
The Church had also a dramatic struggle with the philosophers. She
rather was inclusive concerning the different opposed systems. John of
Damascus based his theology upon Aristotle, like Thomas Aquinas, and
Gregory of Nyssa based his own upon Plato, as the Scottish School did in
the nineteenth century. Pantheism and Deism were both against the
Church. Pantheism thought God immanent, Deism thought God transcendent.
The Church had already in its creeds the true parts of both of these
systems. She taught that God is by His essence transcendent to this
world, which is His image, but immanent in the world pragmatically, or
dramatically, i.e.
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