DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.4593#0227
204 THE ISLES AND SHRINES OF GREECE
Christian pantheon. The retinue of demons, saints,
angels and superhuman beings was partly a develop-
ment, partly a degeneration from Greek and Hebrew
forms of the divine agency and manifestation. The
struggle between the Hebrew idea of unity and the
Greek conception of multiplicity is still continued
within the arena of Christianity. At times the pure
ethical theism of Jesus bursts forth with new inspira-
tion, and the Trinitarian formula becomes a thin, in-
definable theistic mist; at times Jesus of Nazareth is
lost in the deific splendor of the Messianic Christ.
Christianity is not yet at unity with itself.
It was an immense advantage to the new religion
to find already woven such a perfect elastic vesture as
the Greek language; but it could not wholly wash out
of its texture traces of the early ideas it had served
to clothe. Even to this day there remain words
and conceptions in common use which were part of
the warp and woof of pagan mythology. But if
Christianity had to take the dross, it took also the
gold. The early glow of the Greek conception of
immortality faintly tingeing a dark background of
clouds burst into daybreak with Plato, and came into
high noon in Christianity. Above all, the moral
fervor of the Nazarene caught by his disciples made
itself felt like a purifying flame.
One can read scarcely any of the early Christian
apologists without feeling the insufficiency of their
intellectual defence of Christianity and the magnifi-
cence of their moral argument in its favor. Whether
we take the anonymous Mathetes, Aristides writing
at Athens his apology to the Emperor Hadrian, the
apologies of Justin Martyr, or Origen's reply to Celsus,
Christian pantheon. The retinue of demons, saints,
angels and superhuman beings was partly a develop-
ment, partly a degeneration from Greek and Hebrew
forms of the divine agency and manifestation. The
struggle between the Hebrew idea of unity and the
Greek conception of multiplicity is still continued
within the arena of Christianity. At times the pure
ethical theism of Jesus bursts forth with new inspira-
tion, and the Trinitarian formula becomes a thin, in-
definable theistic mist; at times Jesus of Nazareth is
lost in the deific splendor of the Messianic Christ.
Christianity is not yet at unity with itself.
It was an immense advantage to the new religion
to find already woven such a perfect elastic vesture as
the Greek language; but it could not wholly wash out
of its texture traces of the early ideas it had served
to clothe. Even to this day there remain words
and conceptions in common use which were part of
the warp and woof of pagan mythology. But if
Christianity had to take the dross, it took also the
gold. The early glow of the Greek conception of
immortality faintly tingeing a dark background of
clouds burst into daybreak with Plato, and came into
high noon in Christianity. Above all, the moral
fervor of the Nazarene caught by his disciples made
itself felt like a purifying flame.
One can read scarcely any of the early Christian
apologists without feeling the insufficiency of their
intellectual defence of Christianity and the magnifi-
cence of their moral argument in its favor. Whether
we take the anonymous Mathetes, Aristides writing
at Athens his apology to the Emperor Hadrian, the
apologies of Justin Martyr, or Origen's reply to Celsus,