Secondly, although the acute phase of Hellenisation was avoided, Christendom became more and more penetrated by the Greek and philosophical idea that true religion is first and foremost “doctrine,” and doctrine, too, that is coextensive with the whole range of knowledge. That this faith of “slaves and old women” attracted to itself the entire philosophy of God and the world which the Greeks had formed, and undertook to recast that philosophy as though teaching it were part of its own substance, and unite it with the teaching of Jesus Christ, was certainly a proof of the inner power of the Christian religion; but the process involved, as a necessary consequence, a displacement of the fundamental religious interest, and the addition of an enormous burden. The question “What must I do to be saved?” which in Jesus Christ’s and the Apostles’ day could still receive a very brief answer, now evoked a most diffuse one; and even though in view of the laymen shorter replies might still be provided, the laymen were in so far regarded as imperfect, and expected to observe a submissive attitude towards the learned. The Christian religion had already received that tendency to Intellectualism which has clung to it ever since. But when thus presented as a huge and complex fabric, as a vast and difficult system of doctrine, not only is it encumbered, but its earnest character threatens to disappear. This character depends upon the emotional and gladdening element in it being kept directly accessible. The Christian religion is assuredly informed with the desire to come to terms with all knowledge and with intellectual life as a whole; but when achievements in this field—even presuming that they always accord with truth and reality—are held to be equally binding with the evangelical message, or even to be a necessary preliminary to it, mischief is done to the cause of religion. This mischief is already unmistakeably present at the beginning of the third century.
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