ministry of the gospel, were zealous lecturers on polemical subjects and prompt and earnest disputants on the side of Christian truth as against the sophistry of the Greeks and the captious bitterness of the Jews. The learning of the Gentile world had been transferred into the Church of God. The "spoils of Egypt" had come in by masses. Men who in Paganism had learned everything that could be learned, and whose minds were stored with the science of Rome, and the literature of Greece, and the legendary lore of the East-men who were the ornaments of their epoch had become converts to Christianity; and thenceforth their active minds and great acquirements were devoted to the defence of the principles they had embraced and the refutation of the errors they had abandoned. Several reasons can be assigned for the ever-increasing number and importance of controversial treatises and discourses during the age succeeding the apostolic. 1st. Though miraculous effects were still produced in favour of truth, they were less frequent and, on the whole, less startling than the miracles wrought by the twelve. Miracles are the greatest argument in favour of the gospel. Whilst the Apostles were living, arguments for Christianity were almost unnecessary, for miracles were being wrought constantly. The Apostles being now dead, and miracles having become of less frequent occurrence than in their day, the necessity for availing of the natural and ordinary means of impressing, defending, and enforcing truth, namely, by appeals to reason, history, and experience, was much increased. To be sure, the primitive miracles could be always adduced, as affording irrefragable proof of the divine origin of Christianity; yet as, from its nature, a miracle is not so moving when attested as when operated, we are perhaps justified in attributing, partly to the comparative decadence of actual miracles, the sober earnestness with which the Christian disputants of the second century sat down to examine the foundations of Pagan mythology and the grounds of Jewish prejudice. 2nd. Another cause of the controversy of the second century was the close contact of Christianity with Paganism and Judaism, arising from the

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actual diffusion of the Christian religion. The priests and bishops of the Church were confronted with Jewish rabbis and Pagan sacrificers in every town and village. They met in conversation; they were fellow-citizens; civil, if not social intercourse united them in the same community; living house by house, and walking side by side. Religion, and its changes, the abandonment of the worship of the gods, and the adoption of the worship of the "Crucified," were the topics of the day. They were discussed in every society. The discussion of them enkindled the fire of party feeling. Jews and Pagans attacked the Christians, and the latter were forced to defend themselves: they did so with effect, and even carried the fire into the camp of the enemy. Treatises against Christianity were composed and circulated on the side of Paganism; and then the great converts and bishops of the Church arose up in the might of their powerful intellects and intimate acquaintance with both sides of the question, and poured out upon their opponents a torrent of raillery and invective, accompanied with the most brilliant demonstrations of truth and the most telling confutations of error. It was absolutely necessary that more frequent controversies about religion should be the result of the wider diffusion of the faith. It was consonant to the zeal and piety of the Christian controversialists to labour assiduously by the composition of learned works to put before the multitudes a strong protest against fables, sophistry, and pretence, that were leading them to spiritual ruin. 3rd. Calumnies of a most gross and grievous character had been put in circulation against the practices and doctrines of Christians: it was necessary to meet them, and to prove their falsehood by a full and candid exposition of Christian truths; and in expounding the pure morality of the gospel to all classes of opponents, it was not to be expected that ecclesiastical writers would overlook the opportunity of contrasting creeds and principles. Calumny had become the foundation of State prosecution; while subverting the grounds of calumny, it was natural that the maligned and injured Christians should endeavour to show that absurdities and

crimes of the most glaring kind were not only tolerated in the Pagan systems, but positively countenanced and approved. To stop the mouth of calumny it would have been absolutely sufficient to say we are not guilty; but it was a much more telling and forcible reply to affirm, while proving the fact, "You are yourselves guilty of the very crimes you impute to us."

Such causes as these, and many others to which it is now unnecessary to refer, contributed to foster and enlarge the controversial spirit of Christianity in early times; and it is to their conjoint operation that we are to trace the origin of the powerful and subtle polemical writings that issued from the bosom of the Church in the form of "orations" and "apologies" in the second century.

To these treatises, and, the arguments they embody, we must briefly direct our attention before entering upon the third and last part of our historical researches.

§ 1. The Jews again. The members of the Jewish race were quite content with their knowledge of God; and they rested in the belief that all perfection consisted in the faithful discharge of the duties imposed by their moral and ceremonial laws. Here was their strong fortress. Had not their prophets been inspired? Had not the Lord selected them as His peculiar people from all the nations of the earth? Had not He promised to multiply the seed of their patriarchs "as the stars of heaven, or as the sands on the sea-shore?" On such assumptions as these, the Jews might have rejected or

even refused to hear the arguments of the Christian writers and preachers, only that the question of the Messias, the great question dilated and insisted upon by Christianity, was raised again and again, and largely discussed in their own prophetical books. The Messias, then, they must prepare for: the Messias they must receive. Yes! but they had made up their minds not to receive any claimant to that dignity, who came not in the form of a temporal king, and surrounded by the glory of a conqueror.

Now, if it could be demonstrated to the Jews, that the prophecies touching the Messias had all been fulfilled in Christ, that the circumstances that attended the birth and preaching of Christ accorded with the vivid pictures of Isaias and Jeremias, that his career upon earth, his sufferings and death had been in all their leading circumstances foreseen and foretold; they had no rational grounds for refusing to acknowledge him as their Messias, and it would be both impious and unpardonable to hesitate about receiving his doctrine. All these points were demonstrated clearly and with flashing evidence; and as it had been the constant effort of the Apostles to establish them in the first century-Peter in Jerusalem, Paul in Asia-Minor, the others in the synagogues of more remote lands—so now it became a labour of love for strong Christian minds deeply imbued with Scriptural learning, to evolve them before an obstinate and deluded race in language clear and copious, in argument the force of which it was difficult to withstand.

"The dialogue of. St. Justin with the Jew Tryphon," which appeared about the middle of the second century, contains the Christian-Jewish disputation in all its details, and it may be taken as a fair illustration of the manner in which the Church brought conviction to the minds of one class of her opponents, answered their objections, and cleared up their doubts. The object of the Christian controversialist in this work, is, as he says-“to_demonstrate that we have not believed fables, nor stories destitute of proof, but full of the Holy Ghost, overflowing with

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virtue, and blooming with grace;" or, in other words, to demonstrate the solid grounds of Christianity against the Jews receiving the Scriptures. He begins by laying down the proposition, that Jews and Christians agree in believing in the same God. "Nor, Tryphon, shall there ever be another God, nor has there been from eternity, but He, who has made and ordered the universe. Nor do we believe that there is one God for us, another for you; but the same who led forth your fathers from the land of Egypt in a powerful hand, and an outstretched arm." They agree too, he subjoins, in hoping in Him, but not after the same manner. "But we hope, not through Moyses or the law; for so we would act in the same manner as you. We are of the race of those who are led to God, through this crucified one, Christ, as will be shown by me in the sequel of this discourse." 4 Having touched upon the grounds of the Christian's hope, he proceeds to demonstrate the Scriptural foundation of them by long extracts from the prophecy of Isaias, after which he winds up as follows:"Of these, and other sayings of the same prophet, Tryphon, some are spoken in reference to the first coming of Christ, in which he is foreshown as about to have an inglorious, and ill-favoured, and mortal appearance: the others, in reference to his second coming, when he shall present himself in glory from the clouds, and your race shall see and recognize him, whom they have pierced, as Osee, one of the twelve prophets, and Daniel, have foretold." 5

St. Justin associates with his proof from Isaias of the identity of Christ with the promised Messias, an explanation of the necessity of penance and baptism. The latter rite, he says, has been now substituted for circumcision. But his adversary will naturally inquire, why has God instituted circumcision if if be not necessary to justification?

1 St. Just. Mart. "Dialogus cum Tryp. Jud." No. 9, p. 33, tom. ii. “SS. Patrum Opera Polemica," Wirceburg, 1777.

2 Ibid. No. 11, p. 35.

Ibid. No. 11, p. 39.

3 Ibid. No. 11, p. 37.

5 Ibid. No. 14, p. 47.