Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Religion
Church History, Volume 1 (of 3)
Kurtz, J. H. (Johann Heinrich)
Church history
On account of its connection with the Epistle
of Barnabas, and with reference to Clement and Athanasius (see
above), Harnack has decided for Egypt, and, on account of its
agreement with the Sahidic translation of the New Testament in
omitting the doxology from Matt. v. 13, he fixes more exactly upon
Upper Egypt. The objection that the designation of the grain of
which the bread for the Lord’s Supper is made in the eucharistic
prayer given in chap. ix. 4 as ἐπάνω τῶν ὀρέων, does not
correspond with that grown there, is sought to be set aside
with the scarcely satisfactory remark that “the origin of the
eucharistic prayer does not decide the origin of the whole
treatise.” That the book, however, does not bear in itself
any specifically Alexandrian impress, such as, _e.g._, is
undeniably met with in the Epistle of Barnabas, has been admitted
by Harnack.[64]
§ 30.8. =The Writings of the Earliest Christian Apologists=[65]
are lost. At the head of this band stood =Quadratus= of Athens,
who addressed a treatise in defence of the faith to Hadrian, in
which among other things he shows that he himself was acquainted
with some whom Jesus had cured or raised from the dead. No trace
of this work can be found after the 7th century. His contemporary,
=Aristides= the philosopher, in Athens after his conversion
addressed to the same emperor an Apology that has been praised by
Jerome. A fragment of an Armenian translation of this treatise,
which according to its superscription belongs to the 5th century,
was found in a codex of the 10th century by the Mechitarists at
S. Lazzaro, and was edited by them along with a Latin translation.
This fragment treats of the nature of God as the eternal creator
and ruler of all things, of the four classes of men,--barbarians
who are sprung from Belos, Chronos, etc., Greeks from Zeus,
Danaus, Hellenos, etc., Jews from Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,
and Christians from Christ,--and of Jesus Christ as the Son of
God born of a Jewish virgin, who sent His twelve Apostles into
all the world to teach the nations wisdom. This probably formed
the beginning of the Apology. The antique character of its point
of view and the complete absence of any reference to the Logos
doctrine or to any heretical teaching, lends great probability
to the authenticity of this fragment, although the designation
of the mother of Jesus as the “bearer of God” must be a
later interpolation (comp. § 52, 3). The genuineness of the
second piece, however, taken from another Armenian Codex,--an
anti-docetic homily, _De Latronis clamore et Crucifixi
responsione_ (Luke xxiii. 42), which from the words of Christ
and those crucified with Him proves His divinity--is both on
external and on internal grounds extremely doubtful. According
to the Armenian editor this Codex has the title: By the Athenian
philosopher Aristeas. This is explained as a corruption of the
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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