The Martyrs and Apologists

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1871 Excerpt: ... CHAPTER II. THE FATHERS OF THE EASTERN CHURCH, FROM THE END OF THE SECOND CENTURY TO THE TIME OF CONSTANTINE. I. The Ecclesiastical Writers in Asia Minor, Greece, and Egypt, until Origen. The period of great outward sufferings was also to the Church a time of much inward struggle. This era in her history is characterised by a wide extension of thought in all directions, a large development of doctrinal and ecclesiastical life. Persecutions raged without, heresy grew within; perils of all kinds seemed to threaten at once, and problems of gravest moment sought, or rather demanded, solution. The Church, in the midst of conflict and suffering, was constrained to give attention to the momentous questions of doctrine and discipline which arose, and to organise the religious community, while the axe was all the time suspended over its head. It will be our task to follow through all its phases The books of reference are: the writings of the Fathers, and Routh's Reliq. Sacrae, III. IV., for those whose works are lost; Eusebius, VI. and VII. of his history; St. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus; Anastasius, Liber Pontificalis. We may cite also the following: Memoires of Lenain de Tillemont, IV.; Bcehringer, Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, I.; Hergog's Encyclopaedia; and various monographs which will be given as they occur. this process of development, from which resulted a Church admirable in many respects, but very different from the Church as we have seen it in the apostolic age. For the present we shall endeavour, not so much to enter into the conflicts of dogma, as to sketch the figures of the combatants engaged, and to make them move and speak before us in their true characters. We shall defer any methodical exposition of systems, while we tr...