Christological controversies were not the only matter dealt with by the aforementioned Ecumenical Synods. They touched on other subjects, too, concerning either the faith or the conduct and discipline of the Church. Noteworthy among the former was Pelagianism, a heresy which mainly concerned the West, but which was condemned by the Third Ecumenical Synod at Ephesus as inconsistent with existing facts. Pelagius, a monk from Britain who found his way to Africa, denied the innate sinful-ness of mankind and held that human nature had enough capacity for good to practice virtue by its own unaided powers, thus assigning to Divine Grace a role of secondary importance in the work of salvation, and to our Lord's death on the Cross a merely instructive value as a model of self-sacrifice for the imitation of humanity. The false psychology of this doctrine was exposed by Augustine, Bishop of Hippo in Africa, the most eminent teacher of the Western Church, who took up arms against Pelagius, but himself went astray at the other extreme. While Pelagius taught that the human soul is wholly free from sinfulness, Augustine maintained that it was wholly corrupt, that man contributed nothing towards his own righteousness, and that his salvation was the work of God alone, Who arbitrarily predestines one to salvation, another to perdition. The Church rejected this extreme view, as she had done the other. Man is spiritually neither wholly sound nor wholly dead, — he is sick; and while his salvation is mainly the product of God's grace and of the redemptive death of the Savior, his own will and effort also operate in a secondary way.

The Most Eminent Fathers.

The Apostolic Fathers.

   The title of “Fathers” is given to those distinguished men of the first eight centuries of the Christian era who combined profound learning with a saintly life and perfect purity of faith, and who strengthened others in the Christian life by their written and spoken word. Those who had every kind of knowledge, but whose faith was in some way imperfect, are called “teachers,” and are not entitled to equal honor with the Fathers, although they, too, contributed all that was humanly possible. The earliest Fathers were the Apostolic Fathers, so named because they were the disciples and fellow-workers or contemporaries of the Apostles. These are Clement, Bishop of Rome (d. 100), who worked with the Apostle Paul; Barnabas the Cypriot, who also preached the Gospel with Paul, and who, tradition says, was stoned to death by the Jews at Salamis in Cyprus; Ignatius of Antioch, whose martyrdom under Trajan in 115 has already been mentioned; Polycarp of Smyrna, whose martyrdom under Marcus Aurelius in 166 has also been mentioned; and two or three others. Written memorials of all these men have survived, chiefly in the form of occasional epistles to various Christian communities. They form a slender but precious volume; for the works of the Apostolic Fathers were written immediately after the holy books of the New Testament, and are inspired by a supreme love of and devotion to the Savior.

Apologists.

   The writers who succeeded the Apostolic Fathers represent, as it were, the adolescence of Church Literature. As their common characteristic is a bold defense of the faith, they have been called the Apologists. We have already met two such apologists: Quadratus, Bishop of Athens, and the Athenian philosopher, Aristides, both of whom presented apologies to the Emperor Hadrian on behalf of their unjustly persecuted fellow-Christians. To them must be added the philosopher, Justin, who addressed two apologies to Marcus Aurelius, under whom he was martyred in 166; the Athenian, Athenagoras, who flourished between the years 170-180, and addressed an “Intercession on behalf of the Christians” to the Emperors Marcus Aurelius and Commodus; and Theophilus of Antioch (d. 182), who submitted an exposition of the Christian faith to his pagan friend Autolycus. All three present a sincere and detailed account of the beliefs of the Christians and of their manner of life, thus giving the lie to the false and unfounded accusations of their enemies that they met by night to indulge in orgies and to slaughter and eat new-born babes. Justin especially was an excellent apologist, and defended Christianity not only against the pagans, but also, in another work entitled “A dialogue with Trypho,” against the Jews. His life was a tireless search for truth; one after another, he went through every system of philosophy, and sat under every learned man of his age, without finding satisfaction for his spiritual craving, until finally he attained peace in Christianity. To the end of his days he continued to wear the philosopher's gown, convinced that Christianity was the only infallible philosophy of life.