[Footnote 7: It was only after the apostolic tradition, fixed in the form of a comprehensive collection, seemed to guarantee the admissibility of every form of Christianity that reverenced that collection, that the hellenising of Christianity within the Church began in serious fashion. The fixing of tradition had had a twofold result. On the one hand, it opened the way more than ever before for a free and unhesitating introduction of foreign ideas into Christianity, and, on the other hand, so far as it really also included the documents and convictions of primitive Christianity, it preserved this religion to the future and led to a return to it, either from scientific or religious considerations. That we know anything at all of original Christianity is entirely due to the fixing of the tradition, as found at the basis of Catholicism. On the supposition--which is indeed an academic consideration--that this fixing had not taken place because of the non-appearance of the Gnosticism which occasioned it, and on the further supposition that the original enthusiasm had continued, we would in all probability know next to nothing of original Christianity today. How much we would have known may be seen from the Shepherd of Hermas.] [Footnote 8: So far as the Catholic Church is concerned, the idea of dogmas, as individual theorems characteristic of Christianity, and capable of being scholastically proved, originated with the Apologists. Even as early as Justin we find tendencies to amalgamate historical material and natural theology.] [Footnote 9: It is almost completely wanting in Tertullian. That is explained by the fact that this remarkable man was in his inmost soul an old-fashioned Christian, to whom the Gospel was _conscientia religionis, disciplina vitae_ and _spes fidei_, and who found no sort of edification in Neoplatonic notions, but rather dwelt on the ideas "command," "performance," "error," "forgiveness." In Irenaeus also, moreover, the ancient idea of salvation, supplemented by elements derived from the Pauline theology, is united with the primitive Christian eschatology.] [Footnote 10: On the significance of Clement and Origen see Overbeck, "Ueber die Anfaenge der patristischen Litteratur" in d. Hist. Ztschr, N. F., Vol, XII. p. 417 ff.] [Footnote 11: Information on this point may be got not only from the writings of Origen (see especially his work against Celsus), but also and above all from his history. The controversy between Dionysius of Alexandria and the Chiliasts is also instructive on the matter.] [Footnote 12: The three or (reckoning Methodius) four steps of the development of church doctrine (Apologists, Old Catholic Fathers, Alexandrians) correspond to the progressive religious and philosophical development of heathendom at that period: philosophic moralism, ideas of salvation (theology and practice of mysteries), Neoplatonic philosophy, and complete syncretism.]