consists not so much in its impress of particular doctrines upon the Church, as in its transformation of Christianity into Knowledge, a doctrine, an absolute philosophy of religion.

not faith, was the chief condition of entrance into salvation. That the Orthodox Church at length conquered Gnosticism is true indeed, but for the theology of the Church of minor moment. For both Gnosticism and Orthodoxy were resultant from the infiltration of Greek ideas and forms of thought into Christianity; in the one case the process was rapid and catastrophic, in the other gradual. The one sought to degrade Christianity to the level of Greek thought at the expense of belief in a God at once Creator and Saviour; the other descended indeed into the same plane, but carried with it the Old Testament, and no unimportant part of the primitive belief. The early Catholic Church, forming during the second century in opposition to Gnosticism, wrought important changes in the inner life of Christianity. The baptismal formula was transformed into an apostolic rule of faith under the influence of Irenæus. The same necessity of opposing apostolic authority to Gnostic speculation, caused, during the second half of the century, the collection of supposed apostolic writings and the predication of their inspiration and sufficiency. The writings of apostles, and sometimes unknown Christians, were lifted to the level of the words of Jesus.

The Episcopal office is heightened in dignity; at length bishops are declared inheritors of apostolic truth and office, as their successors. The Church, originally an assembly of believers, unified by a common presence of the Holy Spirit, comprising those and those only who have the Christian faith and life, becomes at length a hierarchy, a great world-state, ruled over by bishops as vicars of God, with the rule of faith as the oath of citizenship. Obedience to ecclesiastical authority, rather than holiness of life, became the chief test. Alongside this secularization of the Church, with the consequent influence upon dogmas, went a gradual Hellenization of its doctrine. The apologetes of the second century attempted to present Christianity to the learned and mighty of the em

pire as a philosophy which was at once the highest wisdom and the absolute truth. The Gospel is to them in substance largely identical with the results of Platonic and Stoic thinking, but what there appears as wise opinion, in Christianity is given as divine revelation. Not in substance, but in certification is the advantage of the latter. In the hands of these Grecian apologists the doctrine received a treatment similar to that which Judaism received earlier at Alexandria; a similar abbreviation and spiritualizing. The doctrines of Christianity are reasonable truths. To the Monotheism, common to the Jew and the Greek philosopher, they add a Logos doctrine which is in essence Greek. The Logos is the personification of the active reason of God, through which the world. is produced and revelation made. This philosophical conception, given by Greek thought, is announced previous to, and apart from, any consideration of the historic testimony concerning Jesus.

Irenæus, Tertullian and Hippolytus add new elements. We find traces of the doctrine of the dual nature of Christ, personification of the Holy Spirit. Yet to an immanent, mathematical Trinity they did not come. The Trinity is rather a process, an emanation, with a beginning and an end. The elements of this conception came also from Greek thought, which furnished as well material for the current conceptions. of the nature of man, the fall, the freedom of the will, the current ethics.

The founding of a Christian theology culminated at Alexandria in the persons of Clemens and Origen. Nowhere were Greek ideas more regnant. Gnosticism, as formulated heresy, is suppressed; as tendency, triumphs. Gnosis, is to Clemens, the only means of reaching what is highest and most central in Christianity. Apostolic tradition he can only understand by translating it into the terms, and infusing into it the spirit, of philosophy. His doctrine of the Logos is at once centre and starting-point for his whole system. Origen completes the work of uniting Greek culture and philosophy with the faith of the Church, and gives to Christianity a scientific the

ology. His system resembles in a remarkable degree that of Valentinus, the Gnostic. Neo-Platonic influences are traceable. His Logos doctrine, nearly that of Philo, advances beyond it in the clear affirmation of personality. He uses the metaphysics of his time, and the chief features of his doctrine of man and of salvation are determined by his doctrine of the Logos," the second God." The period between the death of Origen and the Nicene Council is that of the legitimization of this Hellenized theology in Christian faith. Plato conquers Aristotle, the Christ of the Synoptics more entirely disappears behind the Christ of speculation, the adoptionist Christology is suppressed, the Alogi condemned, Sabellians refuted, the still liquid material of theology prepared for crystallization into dogma at the hands of the theologians and hierarchs of Nicæa.

Such is an all too meagre outline of a work remarkable alike for its purpose and the richness and fullness of critical apparatus and discussion. To many its conclusions will come as confirmation and relief. An able critic of Dr. Allen's recent volume justly remarks that since it shows how Greek Christianity was distorted and displaced by the Latin, it were much more fitly named "The Dis-Continuity of Christian Thought." Dr. Harnack's volume comes in to affirm that a distortion and displacement preceded that of which Dr. Allen complains. Irenæus, Origen, Methodius are separated from James, Peter and Paul by a deeper and wider gulf than that which parts Origen and Augustine. The dogmatist may deny the existence of these changes in the Christian system, the philosophic student may regard them as the heavy price Christianity must pay for its conquest of the ancient world, the believing Christian will pass, with a new sense of freedom, back of the legal conceptions of Augustine, back of the Christological speculations of Origen and the Alexandrian school, to the simple affirmations of the Gospels.

Prof. H. P. Forbes.

ARTICLE VI.

Natural Law in the Spiritual World.

PROF. HENRY DRUMMOND's book, bearing the above title, has been before the public about two years and a half. It was received with much favor, both at home in England, and in this country; and it has continued to be quoted and its dicta to be adopted to an extent that entitles it to be considered a work of more than ordinary importance. Whether or not its merits are solid and permanent, or only such as give it a conspicuous place among books of transient interest, the stir it has created in religious circles warrants an attempt to understand and estimate its doctrine. Careful observers must have noticed that this book is the inspiration of many sermons; that a large number of editorials get their cue from it; and that it is having some influence in modifying theological terminology. The only sentiments calculated to arrest attention in a recent address of Dr. Phillips Brooks before the students of Harvard College, were those adopted from Prof. Drummond.

The title of the work" Natural Law in the Spiritual World" conveys a pretty broad hint of the thesis which Prof. Drummond supports. He believes that he has discovered that the laws of the natural world are also laws of the spiritual world. He holds that one of the great contributions of Science to Religion "is to vindicate the naturalness of the supernatural;" and on the other hand, "the gift of Religion to Science is the demonstration of the supernaturalness of the natural." The practical benefit expected from this reciprocity is, that" as the supernatural becomes slowly natural, so will the natural become slowly supernatural, until in the impersonal authority of law men everywhere recognize the authority of God." Law is the one sure, immovable, immutable thing: if we can trace that as clearly in the realm of religion as in the department of science; and in particular if we can satisfy ourselves that it is the same law in both places, we have at last a solid ground of spiritual knowledge.

No definitions are given of any term used, and we are left to gather from the author's examples in what sense he employs "the natural," "the supernatural," and " the spiritual." The 66 apparently hopeless vagueness which surrounds spiritual things is a distinct subject of complaint by Mr. Drummond, and he holds out the hope, that by the adoption of his view we shall escape perplexity if not mystery. Under his guidance the aspiration of Mr. Frederick Harrison is to be realized, and our religion is to be "construed in terms of the rest of our knowledge." Note some of his statements:

"The argument may be summed up in a sentence. As the natural laws are continuous through the universe of matter and of space, so will they be (are they) continuous through the universe of spirit." (pp. 41-2).

"At the beginning of the natural life we find the law, that natural life can come only from preëxisting natural life; and at the beginning of the spiritual life we find that spiritural life can come only from preëxisting spiritual life. But there are not two laws: there is one biogenesis." (p. 46).

"The conclusion finally is, that from the nature of law in general and from the scope of the principle of continuity in particular, the laws of the natural life must be those of the spiritual life." (p. 46).

The author does, indeed, raise the question, "Whether there are not other and new laws in the spiritual world except those which are projections or extensions of natural laws;" and while conceding that "there may be such new laws," he argues against the probability of their existence and contends that they are of no practical moment to us any way; since, if such new laws exist we can form no notion of them, can only carry to them the conceptions we have derived from natural laws. In short, although Prof. Drummond does not always hold consistently to his proposition, it is plain that he is captivated with "the splendid task of the theology of the future," which will be "to take off the mask and disclose to a waning skepticism the naturalness of the supernatural."

We have all felt the perplexity which Mr. Drummond would relieve us from, and are more than willing to accept his guid