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Monasticism, by its constant insistence upon poverty and obedience, fostered a spirit of loyalty to Christ and the cross, which served as a protest, not only against the general laxity of morals, but also against the faithlessness of corrupt monks. Harnack says: "It was always monasticism that rescued the church when sinking, freed her when secularized, defended her when attacked.
This same Harnack, a Protestant rationalist, tells us that Arianism or Unitarianism would have been the death of Christianity, reducing it to cosmology and ethics, and that it served only as a bridge whereby the learned might pass over to Catholicism that is to say, from reason to faith.
In the second volume Harnack treats of the development primarily of the Christological and trinitarian dogma, from the fourth to the seventh centuries. The dramatic interest of the narrative exceeds anything which has been written on this theme.
Professor Haeckel's contribution to biology, in this case, was exactly like Professor Harnack's contribution to ethnology. Professor Harnack knows what a German is like. When he wants to imagine what an Englishman is like, he simply photographs the same German over again. In both cases there is probably sincerity as well as simplicity.
Harnack claims that Christianity is not one religion amongst others, but The Religion, the only one fulfilling all the conditions of its highest ideal. The Being in whom that fulness of light was revealed, was he not a Semite of the Semites? Did he ever deny his origin?
They should belong, especially those who feel the needs and all must to some extent of the religious life of the school, also to a learning profession; and their learning should go beyond the experience of boyish failings, and boyish tragedies, and boyish virtues with which they are almost daily brought into contact; beyond the dictionaries and handbooks that enable the Bible lesson to be well prepared; it should go out into the books that deal with the philosophy and the history of religion the books of Harnack and Illingworth, Hort and Inge, Bevan and Glover, and of others who make us feel how narrow our outlook on our religion is.
It shows how much more distant things may influence certain people than those nearer home how the hills are green far away. Harnack confesses that the best book ever written on the subject of Luke as a physician, the one that has proved of most value to him, and that he still recommends everyone to read, was originally written in English. It is Hobart's "Medical Language of St.
This she gave to the friends ever to eat as food, Having good Wine, and offering it watered together with Bread. Aberkios had this engraved when 72 years of age in truth. Whoever can understand this let him pray for Aberkios." While Harnack, admitting that the Christian character of the text is indisputable, adds significantly: "aber das Christentum der Grosskirche ist es nicht."
Their efforts were not very successful, though they unearthed a great many interesting phenomena. Later on, in the 'nineties, another series of efforts were made with, on the whole, even less success than before. Finally, in our own time there have been some interesting suggestions by Harnack, Schwartz, and Torrey.
It is not surprising to find, then, that Harnack has found among the texts that illustrate the history of early Christian literature this one: "In every community there shall be at least one widow appointed to assist women who are stricken with illness, and this widow shall be trained in her duties, neat and careful in her ways, shall not be self-seeking, must not indulge too freely in wine in order that she may be able to take up her duties at night as well as by day, and shall consider it her duty to keep the Church officials informed of all that seems necessary."
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