Christian Apologetics in the Early Church: Key Figures

Introduction

The intent of this essay is to examine the different apologists the Church produced and to understand how apologetics was used to persuade individuals of the truth and saving power of God's kingdom. Thomas Schirrmacher states that "the classical justification for apologetics can be found in 1 Peter 3:15b–16, which provides the basis for the name given to this activity: 'Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason (Greek apologia) for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.'"¹ The early Church had many challenges after the day of Pentecost. As Paul and others proclaimed the Gospel, they understood the message of Christ and were effective in spreading it. It took the help of the apologists to keep that fire burning so that, after Paul and the early apostles were gone, the faith could continue to grow "with gentleness and respect."

Early Church History and Heresies

The early Church faced persecution, heresy, and the challenge of unbelieving Jews. Indeed, Saul was one of those unbelieving Jews before his conversion made him Paul the Apostle. Yet there were other problems as the faith spread: some interpreted the teachings differently from the way the Church Fathers had taught them. Heresy spread, particularly regarding the person of Christ. Sabellianism, for instance, was the belief that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were three characterizations of one God rather than three distinct persons in one God. The main argument used by apologists to refute this heresy was found in John 16:7, where Christ explains that unless He returns to the Father, the Holy Spirit cannot come to His followers. The Holy Spirit is moved by faith in the hearts and minds of men, and each Person is unique—they are not mere manifestations of God.

Yet some swung in the opposite direction and fell into the heresy of Tritheism, which held that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three independent and distinct divine beings, as opposed to three persons of one being and one essence. To counter this heresy, apologists turned to Matthew 3:13–17, which shows that at the Baptism of Christ the Three Persons Who are One are in alignment.

Still, disagreement about the Trinity persisted, and the heresy of Modalism arose—the belief that the Trinity represents different modes of God. Other heresies included Arianism, the Macedonian heresy, and the heresies of Nestorius and Pelagius. Many of these were addressed at Church Councils such as the Council of Nicaea, but it remained the work of the apologists to explain the councils' teaching to the people and to prevent the further spread of heresy. There were also unbelieving Gentiles and Jews who still needed to be reached. All of this required enormous effort on the part of the early Christian apologists.

Early Apologists

Augustine is one of the greatest apologists of the early Church. He had a Christian upbringing but fell away from the Church as a young man and became a Manichean, embracing that heresy and living a sensual life as a result. He fathered an illegitimate child, yet he never stopped learning. He studied widely before finally being converted back to Christianity through the preaching of St. Ambrose and the reading of Scripture. Augustine's Confessions tell his story. He states that it was his introduction to good philosophy that turned him away from sensual living, referring specifically to Cicero's writings: "that book of his… Hortensius… it altered my prayers."²

Augustine wrote many great works, including City of God against the Pagans and his Confessions. In City of God, for instance, he argues against the so-called duty of Roman pagans to offer propitiation to false gods, as the pagan Cicero had insisted they should. Augustine wrote: "this propitiation of such deities was so wholly wanton, impure, immodest, wicked and unclean that the actors who performed it were, by the praiseworthy native virtue of the Romans, excluded from public office, expelled from their tribes, recognized as base and declared infamous… This shameful propitiation of such deities was, I say, inimical and detestable to true religion."³

Origen helped to establish the canon of the New Testament in order to counter heresies among Christians. He traveled to various churches and gained a thorough understanding of their customs and practices. From this experience he identified three categories of sacred texts: first, texts embraced by all the churches without question as coming from the Apostles; second, texts about which some doubt existed as to their apostolic origin; and third, the apocrypha—texts invented to fill out a more complete narrative. Origen thus developed a system for evaluating the sacred texts and determining which should be regarded as the inspired Word of God, based on the common practices of the churches. As Kruger notes, Origen helped to establish the idea of "a closed canon" that existed "a century before Athanasius' famous Festal Letter."⁴

Tertullian was another early Church apologist and philosopher who argued against pagan practices in hopes of winning converts to Christianity. For example, he wrote against the barbaric spectacles of the coliseum, where crowds gathered to watch people die. Tertullian wrote: "The ancients thought that in this solemnity they rendered offices to the dead… for formerly, in the belief that the souls of the departed were appeased by human blood, they were in the habit of buying captives or slaves of wicked disposition, and immolating them in their funeral obsequies."⁵ Tertullian argued that the gladiatorial games were an abomination, and he used reason and logic to persuade his audience of this.

John Chrysostom wrote apologetics to support belief in the resurrection of the body and to argue that suffering, when united to the Blood of Christ, is beneficial to one's salvation. His homilies urged people to reflect on the humility of Christ and to emulate that humility in their own lives. He was also engaged in preaching against the heresies of those Jews and Christians who were Judaizing. He wrote eight homilies denouncing the Jews and the Judaizing Christians who were observing Jewish festivities while he was at Antioch. These homilies, known today as Against the Jews, helped lead communities to maintain a clearer separation and to prevent Christians from drifting toward the Jewish faith.

Apologetic Evidence and Methods

Augustine offered a direct defense of the Faith in both City of God and the Confessions. In his autobiography he showed how the grace of God works in the life of the soul, and he demonstrated that the City of God is the greater path compared to the City of Man—the former destined for heavenly glory, the latter for death. In his work On Christian Doctrine, Augustine contrasted love of God with the lust of the flesh, showing that sex without the purpose of procreation was debauchery.⁶

Origen's last work was the apologetic Against Celsus (Contra Celsum), a direct defense of the Christian faith against the pagan philosopher Celsus, who had written a text mocking Christianity. Origen initially wanted to ignore it, but Celsus's attacks were so pointed that Origen felt compelled to respond. He goes through Celsus's claims point by point and refutes them all. Contra Celsum became one of the most influential early Christian works. Before it, the Christian faith was often perceived as a backward religion; afterward, it had a rigorous intellectual defense from a philosopher and thinker capable of meeting paganism on its own terms. Eusebius admired the work so highly that he argued it contained every argument for the Faith the Church would ever need against a heretic.

Augustine and Origen both drew on the philosophy of Plato to undergird their arguments. Their philosophical polemics were particularly effective in demonstrating that their positions were grounded in intelligent and logical reasoning. Tertullian and John Chrysostom were capable of philosophical flourishes as well. The apologetic writers used questions to frame their arguments—posing a statement and then offering a rebuttal. This method anticipates what C. S. Lewis would do in modern times in The Problem of Pain, when he asked why people had to suffer: "All civilisations pass away and, even while they remain, inflict peculiar sufferings of their own probably sufficient to outweigh what alleviations they may have brought to the normal pains of man."⁷

All of the apologists used reason to support their positions. Augustine, for instance, used reason rather than condemnation when he described sin as misplaced love. He did not set out to deride the sinner—for he knew full well that he had been a great one. Instead, he used reason to understand why people sinned: how they directed toward lesser things the affections that should be aimed at God, whether toward the flesh, as he himself had done, or toward festivities and rituals, as some early Christians did when they attended the Jewish temple out of affection for its customs—an error condemned by Chrysostom. Reason and philosophy were employed by the apologetic writers to persuade rather than to condemn their readers.

Conclusion

God gave the gift of reason to humankind, and St. Peter urges us to use that reason to spread the hope of salvation to others.

As Christians we possess a great birthright, but others may not understand its significance or value. It is the work of the apologist to explain it with gentleness, faith, and respect—so as not to offend, but rather to draw the reader into the light of God. That light should come across as warm and rational, joyous and inviting. The apologist must also be firm, as Chrysostom was firm in denouncing the false religion of his day in order to save Christians from straying off the straight and narrow path. The lesson to be learned from the apologists is that it is thanks to their patient and tireless work that the Faith continued to spread even after the original disciples and apostles had gone to their reward.