Apologie im fruhen Christentum: Die Kontroverse um den christlichen Wahrheitsanspruch in den ersten Jahrhunderten (review)

This helpful volume traces the ways in which practical exigency and evangelical ambition fueled the rise of Christian apologetics. First, the early Church's apologetic writings arose out of the need to secure basic human rights for Christians within the Roman Empire. Addressed to no one less than the Emperor himself, the apologies of Quadratus, Aristides, and Justin aimed to explain how followers of Jesus were not enemies of the State but, rather, could be Rome's most upstanding and supportive citizens. In pursuing such diplomacy, these theologians also hoped to demonstrate the inherent brilliance of Christianity. That is, they aimed to present the tenets of the Christian faith not only as the best of all possible philosophies but the fulfillment of every human longing: "daß die tiefsten religiös-philosophischen Aspirationen von Juden und Heiden hier ihre Erfüllung finden konnten" (16). To explain how these goals were accomplished, Fiedrowicz divides his work into two main sections. The first provides an historical overview (27-144) while the second treats various themes central to early apologetic thought (147-315).

The first section includes thirty-four brief biographies, beginning with Quadratus (d. mid-2nd cent.), continuing on to cloudier figures such as Firmicus Maternus (d. after 360), Pacatus, and Macarius Magnes (4th/5th cent.), and including Augustine and Paulinus of Nola. Especially insightful here are the many pages devoted to Julian the Apostate's attempted restoration of paganism as well as to the various reasons offered for the high number of Christian conversions among the fourth-century Roman aristocracy. Fiedrowicz presents Julian as posing a double threat against institutional Christianity. Unlike other Roman officials, Julian knew the Faith from the inside, having been raised a Christian but secretly rejecting ("innerlich distanziert") Christianity in favor of pagan myths and theurgic practices. Moreover, Julian also knew where to strike, i.e., the Senatorial classes. His laws aimed to break the ongoing consolidation between the Gospel and classical culture. Julian knew that if a Christian could no longer be trained in the ways of romanitas, he forfeited all opportunity to advance in society. Fiedrowicz provides helpful texts and biographies of those learned Christians who reacted to Julian's short-lived attempt to restore paganism: Apollinaris of Laodicea, Ephraem the Syrian, Gregory of Nazianzus, Diodorus of Tarsus, Theodore of Mopsuestia, and others.

The particular themes which arose in the encounter between Rome and Jerusalem are considered next. The second half of Fiedrowicz's study begins by exploring Christian morality as an apologetic argument (182-207), by examining the Christian understanding of history (208-26), and by arguing for Christian belief as rational assent (227-300). Against such accusations as those of atheism, impiety, child sacrifice, and Thyestean feasts, the integrity of individual believers was held up as Christianity's best argument: "Christ makes his defense in the lives of his genuine disciples, for their lives cry out the real facts and defeat all false charges, refuting and overthrowing the slanders and accusations" (Origen, Contra Cels., Pref., 2).

Apologetic literature also made great use of antiquity to show how Christianity, the verus Israel, is, in fact, older in its roots than Greece and Rome and, accordingly, is the source of all truth and culture. To explain how this could be, two tendencies arose. Some Apologists, such as Justin, stressed a universal revelation, the logos spermatikos, which provided all seekers of wisdom a common well from which to drink. Those Christians who lacked such Weltfreund-lichkeit, however, accused pagan authors of stealing from Moses, and Fiedrowicz explains the different levels of accusation therein (216-17).

Finally, the earliest attempts to explain how and why Christianity is the most reasoned world view (vernunftgemäßer Glaube) are taken up. Much of apologetic literature first aimed to show how ludicrous the pagan...