Harnack presents the teaching and activity of Jesus Christ in the following terms: "Jesus did not give any new teaching, but He in His person presented a holy life in union with God and before God, and by virtue of this life He gave Himself to the service of His brethren, in order to win them for the Kingdom of God, that is, from selfishness and the world to lead them to God, from natural ties and opposites to a union in love and prepare them for eternal life. With this Kingdom of God in mind, He Himself did not leave the religious and political society of His people and did not give the disciples a command to leave this society; much more for the sake of this Kingdom of God than for the fulfillment of the messianic promises given to the people, He recognized Himself as the promised Messiah. This gave rise to the new gospel brought by Jesus, and with it His own Person, to be woven into the fabric of belief and expectation which, on the basis of the Old Testament, had such significance among the Jewish people, taking on a very varied color. The emergence of the messianic teaching, according to which the Messiah is no longer something unknown, since he is found in Jesus of Nazareth, and with it the appearance of new dispositions and moods among those who believe in Him, is a direct result of the impression of the person of Jesus. A new understanding of the Old Testament arose in accordance with the conviction that this Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ (Messiah)." "In the proclamation and dispensation of the kingdom of God, Jesus demanded of men that they should join Him, because He had declared Himself to be sent from God as a helper (Heifer) of men, and therefore as the promised Messiah. As such, He proclaimed Himself to the people, appropriating to Himself certain or other names, for the names Anointed, King, Lord, Son of David, Son of Man, Son of God, which He used in relation to Himself, together signify the Messianic ministry, and were understood and known to the majority of the people. But if through these names He most closely indicated His calling, ministry, and power as the Messiah, then through them, especially by the name of the Son of God, He indicated His special relationship to God the Father, as the basis of the ministry He had taken upon Himself. He did not reveal the mystery of this relationship in detail, but contented himself with declaring that only the Son knows the Father, and that through the sending down of the Son, this knowledge of God and this adoption by God became the property of all other people. At the same time, He proclaimed that with His death His messianic activity would not end, for the Kingdom of God would come only when He came again in glory on a cloud of heaven. Jesus announced this second coming shortly before His death, it seems, shortly before His death, and His disciples, in separation from Him, found consolation in the fact that immediately after His death He would take a place next to God in the higher world. In Jesus' conversations with His disciples, the first place was occupied by the idea that the end (of the world) would soon come, the day and hour of which, however, no one knows. As a consequence of this, the exhortation to renounce all the blessings of this world was of great importance. However, Jesus did not preach asceticism — He Himself was not an ascetic — but taught perfect simplicity and purity of disposition and good humor, which remains unchanged both in the midst of shortcomings and sorrows, as well as in the midst of earthly well-being" (S. 36, 49-51).

As simple as the teaching of Jesus Christ was, so was the faith of His disciples and followers – in the first generation (until 60 A.D.). "The content of the faith of Jesus' disciples and the gospel that bound them together," says Harnack, "can be reduced to the following statements: Jesus of Nazareth is the Messiah promised by the prophets; He, Jesus, after death through the divine resurrection, ascended to heaven and took a place at the right hand of God, then He will come again and establish the visible kingdom (chiliasm?); whoever believes in Jesus, that is, belongs to the community of His disciples, who calls on God as Father and lives according to the commandments of Jesus, is holy and has confidence in the grace of God, in participation in the glory to come, and therefore is sure of salvation" (S. 55). The disciples and followers of Jesus did not stay in the company of the Jews, but separated from it. Under what circumstances this took place, the author does not explain, and is content to remark that it happened during the first two generations of believers in Jesus. The event of the separation of Christians from the community of Jews, according to Harnack, was of great importance in the life of the first Christians. The early Christians began to think that the Old Testament had ceased to be the property of the Jews, but had become their property, and at the same time they had the idea that in place of the Jews they themselves should become the people of God; rejecting the Jewish understanding of the Old Testament and the Jewish Church, Christians thereby became a society capable of fulfilling a "world mission." "The place which this independent religious society has taken in relation to the Jewish tradition, rejecting the national isolation and ceremonial laws which the Jewish Church placed so highly, constitutes a firmly established starting point for all further development. From that time on, the Christian Church laid claim to the Old Testament as her inheritance and began to draw from it the content of her beliefs and hopes. Moreover, it became anti-national and, above all, anti-Judaizer, it condemned the Jewish religious community to hell. Now the basis was given for the further development of Christianity as a Church, it was this Church, as soon as it wanted to give an account of its faith, that tried more and more to interpret the Old Testament in its own sense, and it condemned the Jewish Church with its particularism and national forms" (S. 37-39).

Whence did such a poor in content early Christianity borrow all the richness of ideas which distinguishes the Christian Church? Harnack answers this question by enumerating the factors that contributed to the enrichment of Christian thought and ideals, although he does not indicate exactly to what time the beginning and the particular intensity of the action of these factors should be attributed. Harnack assigns the most prominent place among these factors to the elements of the Greco-Roman world. Here is his reasoning: "Christianity, after it had broken away from its Jewish roots and had been rejected by the Jewish people, received an indication of whence it had to borrow material in order to create a body for itself and become both the Church and theology. These forms could not be national and particularistic, in the ordinary sense of the word, and besides, the content contained in the Gospel teaching was rich (?). Therefore, having separated from Judaism, and even before this separation, the Christian religion entered the soil of the Roman world and the soil of Greek culture, which already ruled over humanity. It was on the soil of the Roman state and Greek culture, in contrast to the Jewish Church, that both the Christian Church and its teaching developed. This fact is extremely important for the history of dogmas. The consequence of the complete break with the Jewish Church for Christianity was that it was forced to take stones for the building of the Church from the Greco-Roman world; At the same time, it has been revealed to Christianity that it itself is in a more positive relationship to this world than to the synagogue." This is the main factor that served to the development of the Church and its teachings – according to Harnack. The second factor was Hellenized Judaism, the Judaism that merged the views of the Greek (philosophical) world with Jewish religious ideas. "On the basis of the world state (least of all in Palestine itself) there has already taken place an internal fusion of the Greek spirit with the Old Testament religion. This connection between the Jewish and Greek spirits, and with it the spiritualization of religion, had a tremendous influence, first on the success of Christian propaganda, then on the development of Christianity into catholicism, and on the emergence of a catholic system of doctrine. The understanding of the Old Testament scriptures, which we find among the most ancient representatives of Christianity among the pagans, the methods of spiritualistic interpretation of it, are strikingly similar to the methods that were already known among the Alexandrian Jews" (S. 40, 45-46). Other factors in the development of Christianity, according to Harnack, were the Old Testament, devoid of its national characteristics, and the early Christian enthusiasm, which believed in the possibility "through the spirit" to enter into "direct connection with the Divine, and directly from the hand of God to receive gifts, powers, and knowledge in order to serve the benefit of the Christian community" (pp. 44-45).

It should not be thought, however, that all these factors quickly changed the original character of Christianity and enriched Christians with a sum of new ideas and concepts. No. According to Harnack's reasoning, for a long time Christianity remains poor in development and in the number of its religious ideas. The second stage of the development of the Christian Church is the century from 60 to 160 A.D., according to the German scholar. But how poor was the Christian Church of this century in its beliefs is evident from Harnack's list of the religious ideas with which the Christians of this epoch lived. The code of their beliefs, according to Harnack, was reduced to the following: 1) "The Gospel is the faithful (for it is based on Revelation) proclamation of the Supreme God, the acceptance with faith of Whom (the Gospel) determines salvation; 2) the essential content of this gospel is, first of all, the proclamation of the resurrection and eternal life, then the sermon on moral purity and abstinence on the basis of repentance before God and on the basis of the received reconciliation with God (in baptism); (3) This is proclaimed by the gospel through Jesus Christ, who is the Saviour sent from God "in the last days," and who stood in a special relationship with God. He brought the true and complete knowledge of God and the gift of immortality, and therefore He is the Redeemer who must be treated with complete trust. In His words and deeds He was the supreme model of every moral virtue, and in His person we are given the law for a perfect life; 4) abstinence is expressed in the renunciation of the goods of this world and in the renunciation of communion with the world; this is the supreme task of abstinence, for the Christian is not a citizen, but a stranger on earth, and awaits the near end of the world; 5) the gospel that Christ received from God, He passed on to the chosen men for distribution; in their preaching, therefore, lies the preaching of Jesus Christ Himself; moreover, He bestows upon Christians ("saints") the Spirit of God, He provides them with special gifts (1 Cor. 12:28-30), and above all He raises up in their midst, constantly, prophets and spiritual teachers who receive revelation for the edification of others; 6) Christian worship of God is service to God in spirit and truth, and therefore has no legal rites and established rules; 7) for Christians, as Christians, there are no differences between people that are determined by sex, age, status, nationality and secular education; according to their conception, the Christian community is a society conditioned by divine election, but opinions about this election itself were different; (8) Since Christianity is the only true religion and is not a national religion, it follows that there is nothing to do with the Jewish people and their transitory cult. The Jewish people are rejected by God, and all the divine Revelations, insofar as they took place before Christ, were aimed at the "new" (Christian) people and served as a preparation for the revelation of God through His Son" (S. 100-101). Such was the sphere of the more definite religious ideas of Christians from 60 to 160 A.D. To this, according to Harnack, we can add a few more features that characterize the position of the Church among pagan Christians, i.e., the better and more enlightened part of Christian society. These features should further indicate the poverty of religious concepts and the ecclesiastical structure of Christian society of a given epoch. Harnack says that the societies of Gentile Christians are characterized, among other things, by the following "points": "1) the lack of a definite form of doctrine in relation to the study of faith, and accordingly the diversity and freedom of Christian doctrine; 2) the lack of a precisely defined external authority in the communities, and in accordance with this, the independence and freedom of individual Christians; 3) a special kind of writing, which created (?) facts for the past and the future and which did not obey the accepted literary rules and forms, but which made great claims (the authors pretended to be divinely inspired); 4) the desire to reproduce individual sayings and explanations of the Apostolic teachers, and these sayings and explanations were misunderstood (the author in a footnote points to the fate of the sayings of the Apostolic Fathers, "who were usually misunderstood." — L. L.); 5) the emergence of trends that accelerated the inevitable (?) process of mixing the Gospel teaching with the religious and spiritual interests of the time, with Hellenism" (S. 97-98).

From the sketch of the religious conceptions of Christians from 60 to 160 A.D., which was made above on the basis of Harnack, it should not be supposed, however, that at that time Christian dogmatics was in fact too poor. Harnack gives a lot of information concerning the dogmatics of the Christians of this epoch, but only this information is given by him to characterize the diversity and instability of the Christian concepts of the time he describes. Dogmatics was poor in firm and generally accepted formulas, but rich in contradictions and disagreements. In what an apparently unstable situation the Christian dogmatics of this epoch found itself, in proof of this it will not be superfluous to cite some particular examples from the book of the German scientist. Here, for example, is the position of the teaching about the Founder of the Christian religion himself. "In the Gentile Christian communities," Harnack writes, "they could not understand what it meant that Jesus was the Christ (the Anointed One? — A.L.), and therefore the name of Jesus Christ was either not used, or was a simple name (empty sounds? — A.L.). About the person of Christ, about His essence," says Harnack, "there were very different ideas. There was no church teaching on this in the strict sense of the word. There were only more or less unstable concepts, which were often created ad hoc. In general, this kind of concept can be brought into two categories: either Jesus was considered a man whom God had chosen for Himself, in Whom the Divinity or the Spirit of God dwelt (temporarily), but who, after His sufferings, was received from God and made "Lord" (Adoptian Christology); or Jesus was considered to be a (separate) heavenly spirit (the supreme heavenly spirit after God himself) who took on flesh and returned to heaven again after completing His work on earth (pneumatic Christology). At that time, no one thought to assert that there were two natures in Jesus. Rather, either the divine dignity was conceived as a gift, or His human nature was considered a temporary shell for the Spirit. The formula that Jesus is a mere man has undoubtedly not been accepted from the very beginning and has always been accepted, but it seems that the formulas that identified the person of Christ in His essence with the Divinity Himself were not rejected so decisively (S. 129, 134-140). Or let us present another example, in which Harnack also tries to show how little stability and definiteness the dogmatic beliefs of the Christians of that century were, and how far they seemed to be from completeness and completeness. Here are his opinions on the views of Christians in the second stage of the development of the Church regarding the sacrament of the Eucharist. The Eucharist was seen as a social sacrifice, a sacrifice of thanksgiving, as it was called. At the same time, the mysterious words that the bread and wine are the refracted Body and the Blood shed for the remission of sins did not yet attract attention. The idea of a special relation of communion by the elements of the Eucharist to the forgiveness of sins would have been sought in vain; and this was hardly possible given the existence of the then ideas about sin and its forgiveness (i.e., Harnack thinks that, in the view of the Church of that time, only baptism removed the burden of sin from a person). Whether in the Eucharist the material elements become the Body and Blood of Christ, opinions differed. There were only Christians. are far from this kind of understanding of the Eucharist, understanding in the Eucharistic prayer faith under the Body of Christ, and love under the Blood; others admitted the identity of the Eucharistic bread with the body assumed by the Logos, attributing such a miraculous act to the action of the Logos. But both were equally far from the later ideas regarding this subject (S. 151-154).

Such was the Christian Church from the point of view of its beliefs and partly of its structure from 60 to 160, according to Harnack. But if the Church at that time had so little greatness and power, then this state of affairs was soon to come to an end. In history, a phenomenon developed and intensified which was to have an extremely beneficial effect on the dogmatic ideas of the Church: for Christianity, an opportunity opened up to be especially enriched with new religious ideas, to define more precisely and fully the range of its theological views – in a word, to stand on a higher stage in its development! [8] Harnack recognizes as such a beneficent phenomenon... Gnosticism of the second century. In Christianity of the second century, there was an awakening desire to get out of the state of immediacy and enter the realm of educated thought and enlightenment. His first steps were indecisive. But intellectual interest attracted Christianity more and more, and the new religion, through a philosophical delving into the Old Testament, began to draw closer to the Hellenic spirit; And there was nothing to prevent the new religion from taking possession of this spirit more fully and completely: for there was no force (regulator) that could indicate that this knowledge could be combined with Christianity, or not. Christianity could not remain in isolation from the Hellenic broad spirit. Christianity openly considered itself to be the only true religion, but at the same time it seemed – Christians could not but know this – simply a falling away from Judaism. Christianity, in order to be a truly world religion, had to enrich itself in all respects, to give its teaching the appearance of a system, to work out an ecclesiastical organization, etc. But all this could only be achieved through a complete rapprochement with the cultural world of Hellenism. Gnosticism rendered an invaluable service to such a cause.

Now the author comes to an assessment of Gnosticism from his own point of view. Historical observation, the author declares, recognizes in Gnosticism a number of phenomena in terms of teaching, morals, and worship, analogous to those that we later find in Catholicism. If Gnosticism arose under the influence of Hellenism, then Catholicism followed up in the same sphere; Here one can find a difference, and even a great one, but it is mainly expressed in the fact that the Hellenization of Christianity in Gnosticism took place rapidly, while in Catholicism, in its system, the Hellenization of Christianity, on the contrary, took place gradually. These observations make it necessary to assign to the Gnostics a place in the history of dogmas that has not yet been indicated for them. "The Gnostics," says Harnack, emphasizing his words, "were the only theologians of their time; they were the first to raise Christianity to a system of dogmas; they were the first to systematically process Tradition; they took upon themselves the task of presenting Christianity as an absolute religion and accordingly definitely opposing Christianity to other religions, not excluding Judaism, but this absolute religion, being considered in its content, was identified for the Gnostics with the results of religious philosophy, for which it was only necessary to find Revelation as a support." How immeasurably the Gnostics of the second century surpassed the Christian theologians of the same time, Harnack expresses this in the following unexpected words: "If we compare the writers known with the name of Barnabas and Ignatius the God-bearer (for Harnack, Barnabas and Ignatius are not the real writers of the works that have come down to us with these names. —A. L.), with the Gnostics, the latter appear to be the possessors of a complete theory (system), and the first two possess only fragments of this theory, although it is necessary to recognize the striking affinity of these fragments with the whole to which they belong" (S. 161-164).

Why, in particular, did the Gnostics become so famous that Christians had nothing to do for their own success but to imitate these famous people, assimilating their principles and ideas? Harnack answers this question at length, and develops it with obvious enthusiasm. And above all, the literary and scientific activity of the Gnostics, which had a theological character, in Harnack's view, deserves every surprise. He writes: "In Gnosticism, the early Christian writing (?) Gospels and Apocalypses, to this kind of works was added the compilation of a certain kind of Acts of the Apostles; In both cases, they, the Gnostics, assigned a large place to the didactic, biographical, and fictional elements. In this kind of literature, as in its other kinds, the Gnostics adapted to secular literature, bringing theological works closer to secular ones in character and properties. But even more important is the fact that scientific and theological Christian literature undoubtedly traces its origin to Gnostic literature. Here, in Gnosticism, the Old Testament found a systematic and partly historical criticism: the Gnostics were the first critics of the Old Testament in Christendom; here treatises on dogmatic-philosophical problems (on the soul, justice, abstinence, etc.) were compiled, and dogmatic systems were worked out; here a selection of the best of ancient Christian literature took place; here were written scholarly commentaries on the holy books (so did Basilides, the followers of Valentinus, Heracleon; there were commentaries on the Gospel of John, on the Epistles of Paul, the latter skillfully interpreted); it was here that the original form of the Gospel was transformed into the Greek form of the sacred novel (?) and biography (meaning the Gospel of Thomas, which was used by the followers of Mark and contained an account of miraculous stories from the time of Jesus' childhood. — A. L.); Psalms, odes and hymns were created here (the psalms of Valentinus, the psalms of Alexander, the disciple of Valentinov, the poems of Bardesan). All these theological-critical studies, historical researches, and scholarly commentaries on the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures were first composed in the Christian world by the Gnostics. Moreover, it is also necessary to pay attention to the fact that these works were very similar, were close to scientific works that came out of the philosophical schools of that time. Various Gnostic hymns, odes, liturgical songs, didactic poems, magic books, in their turn, stood in connection with works of the same kind in the secular literature of that time. "If we recall," Harnack concludes his curious arguments, "that later, little by little, all this was sanctioned in the Catholic Church, i.e., philosophy, the science of sacred books (criticism and exegesis), theological schools, sacred formulas, superstitions, all kinds of secular literature, etc., then the thesis that the unsuccessful (?) experiments of rapid Hellenization (in Gnosticism) were followed by a victorious epoch of the slow Hellenization of Christianity" (S. 175-176, p. 191).

In addition to the scientific and theological activity manifested in literature, the Gnostics, in Harnack's opinion, are further remarkable for the fact that they were the first to come to the idea of determining the number of books of the Holy Scriptures. The Scriptures of the New Testament, to the idea of creating a canon of these books, and realized this idea. Such an undertaking had incalculable and most important consequences for the development of the Church. Here are Harnack's original views on this interesting subject. The Gnostics "wanted to draw Christian teaching precisely from the apostolic tradition, and this tradition could be found only in the apostolic works. Since the Gnostics wanted to stand on the basis of the apostolic tradition, Gnosticism was the first to raise the question of what Christianity was, and had to determine by criticism those sources that would give an answer to the question now indicated. The Gnostics' rejection of the Old Testament made this question necessary and prompted the definition of the New Testament canon. With a high probability, it can be argued that the idea of a canonical collection of Christian scriptures first arose with the Gnostics. The Gnostics considered such a collection really necessary, while all other Christians (i.e., adherents of the Church itself) who recognized the Old Testament as Revelation and interpreted these monuments in the Christian spirit, did not feel any special need for another, new canon of the Scriptures. From the numerous Gnostic commentaries on the New Testament books that have come down to us in fragments, we know that these books enjoyed canonical authority in Gnosticism, whereas in great Christianity (i.e., in the Christian world. — A.L.), nothing is heard about such canonical authority or commentaries on the New Testament around this time. The principle that guided the Gnostics in determining the canon of the sacred books of the New Testament was undoubtedly the principle of the apostolic origin of the books. (This is proved by the fact that the Epistles of the Apostle Paul were accepted into the canon; as apostolic writings, these Epistles had significance in Marcion, Tatian, the followers of Valentinus, and the Perates.) Who was the first to come up with the idea of creating a canon of the New Testament books – whether Basilides, Valentinus, Marcion, or several Gnostics at the same time – this question will remain forever obscure (however, history says little in favor of Marcion). If it is proved that Basilides and Valentinus recognized the Gospel writings as a standard, then this already expresses the full idea of the canon. Subsequently, the question of the scope of the canon became the most important subject of dispute between the Catholic Church and the Gnostics: the representatives of Catholicism emphatically asserted that their canon was the most ancient and that the Gnostic collections of sacred books were corrupted revisions of the canon of the Catholic Church. (But they could not have adduced proof of this, says Harnack, as Tertullian's De praescr. — A. L.) Thus, the Gnostics deliberately became supporters of tradition, they were the first to determine in the Christian world the scope, content and method of preserving the (Christian) tradition, in a word, they were the first Christian theologians" (S. 187-188).

In other respects, too, Harnack points to the great theological progress in the Gnostic societies. He finds that the Christian dogmatic teaching of the Gnostics was very advanced in comparison with the catholic Christians of their time and served as a model for the dogmatics of the latter. Let us present a few examples of this kind. Harnack asserts that the doctrine of Christ as the Son of God entered a new stage of development among the Gnostics. He writes: "Gnosis, although he considered a distinction between the supreme God and Christ, from his point of view there was no reason to overemphasize this distinction. For most Gnostics, Christ was in some way a manifestation of the supreme God himself, and consequently popular Gnostic writings (e.g., the Acta Iohannis) speak of Christ in terms that seem to identify Him with God. It is not hesitant to assert that for the majority of Gnostics Christ was πνεϋμα, όμούσιον τφ πατρί. The Gnostics, for example, said of their so-called Sophia that she was "consubstantial" with the supreme God. Undoubtedly, Harnack observes, the Gnostic lofty conception of Christ had a powerful influence on the later development of Christology." The same scholar finds in the Gnostics a developed doctrine of the dual nature in Christ and docetical concepts of the Body of Christ; this teaching, according to Harnack, became the property of the subsequent Church and was reflected partly in the system of Origen (Docetism), partly in the views of Tertullian (the doctrine of the dual nature of Christ). And all this is not enough: Harnack points out other merits of the Gnostics in the revelation of the teaching about Christ. He says: "The absolute significance of the person of Christ in Gnosticism has come to a very clear expression (Christ is not only the Teacher of truth, but the Truth itself), in any case, it has become much clearer than there (meaning: in the Church. — A.L.), where Christ was considered as the subject of the Old Testament Revelation. On the other hand, it is impossible not to recognize, the German scholar argues, that the Gnostics associated salvation with the historical person of Christ: Christ personally accomplished this salvation" (obviously, Harnack does not find such a teaching in the Church of that time). The Gnostics created by their teaching another new dogma regarding Christ. Namely, Harnack believes that "since the Gnostics taught that Christ passed through Mary (i.e., the Mother of God) as through a channel, the later idea of Christ's birth from Mary "without incorruption" of the latter arose from this; in any case, the transition from that doctrine to this one," in Harnack's view, "was very easy." The doctrine of original sin was first clearly revealed, in the opinion of the same scientist, only in Gnosticism. "It is interesting that Basilides," he declares, "depicts original sin as if one were hearing Augustine himself. In general, it is necessary to note how even the most specialized later church terminology, dogmas, etc., are to a certain extent borrowed from the Gnostics." In the sphere of the Christian sacraments, in Harnack's opinion, the Gnostics developed great activity, multiplying their number and changing their original Christian meaning. Chrismation, anointing of the sick — the Gnostics were the first to introduce it; in them, as in no one else, we find a direct teaching about the transubstantiation of wine into Blood, in the Eucharist, and so on (S. 186, 191-193, 196). The concept of the Church as such, i.e., as a single principle in Christianity, according to the German researcher, was clarified by the Gnostics and entered into their very life to such an extent that Catholic Christians could only follow the example of the Gnostics. Harnack declares to the reader: "The Catholic Church remained for a long time in an uncertain position (im Werden), and this lasted until it had attained the firmness (stability) which the Marcionite Church (?) thanks to the activity of one person, who was animated by such a strong faith (?) that he had the strength to oppose his concept of Christianity to all others, as the only correct one. Around the year 160 the Marcionite communities possessed the same firm but free organization, possessed the same canon, the same understanding of the essence of Christianity" (S. 211).

This is the brilliant image of Gnosticism that Harnack draws. There was much in Gnosticism, according to the latter, which cannot be found in the position of the Church before 160, much that placed the Church below Gnosticism.

Gnosticism has appeared, and the face of the Church is being renewed, rapid, striking and promising reforms are taking place in the Church, Harnack assures. What transformations took place in the Catholic Church under the influence of Gnosticism – the researcher speaks about this in great detail, and it seems to us that this aspect of the matter constitutes the very essence of Harnack's work; this, it must be assumed, is what the author had in mind to reveal with particular clarity. The transformation of the Church under the influence of Gnosticism constitutes the last stage of the development of Christianity in the era of the first three centuries. The encounter with Gnosticism prompted the Church to revise all her beliefs, to reorganize her structure, to establish theological science in her midst, etc. But let us give the floor to Harnack himself, who, beginning to describe the last stage of the development of the Church in the epoch of the initial three centuries, counts first of all all the benefits that the Church has gained in the struggle against Gnosticism, in a struggle in which she had not so many victories, How many defeats... The second century of existence (this second century, according to Harnack, begins in 160, but is not a century in the strict sense of the word, since it embraces the time up to 300 A.D.) of the societies of Gentile Christians (it must be said that he considers the so-called Judeo-Christians to be persons without any future in the Church) is marked by a victorious (?) struggle against Gnosticism and the Marcionite Church, by the gradual creation of Church teaching. the ousting of the early Christian enthusiasm, in short: the establishment of a great ecclesiastical union, which, being at one and the same time a political society (of course, in resemblance to a solid state structure), a school and a religious institution, rested on the firm foundation of "apostolic" doctrine, the "apostolic" canon, and, consequently, the apostolic "organization" (the expression "apostolic" with quotation marks in Harnack in this case denotes "supposedly apostolic", considered apostolic); From all this arose and was created a catholic Church, since, according to the judgment of a learned historian, such a Church had not yet existed. We agree that it is somewhat unclear what the historian wants to say with the above high-sounding phrase. But reading this phrase, everyone instinctively feels that some surprises await the reader from the wise scientist. And this is absolutely true. The author's explanation of the above phrase constitutes a series of surprises that no imagination can foresee.

Let us follow Harnack and see what he has to say and show us. What changes took place in the Church in the next phase of its development (from 160 to 300 A.D.), the German historian speaks of this as follows: "Ancient Catholicism (i.e., the Church of the specified time. — A. L.) He never raised the question of what should be considered Christian, since instead of answering this question, he only defined the norms that would guarantee the recognition of the Christian as opposed to the alien to it. This solution to the problem seems, on the one hand, too narrow, and on the other, too broad. It is too narrow, because Christianity, tied to norms, had to endure internal constraints; it was too broad, because it did not at all protect against the invasion of new and alien elements. Catholicism also closed the Gospel, because it clothed it with a protective shell. He preserved the Christian religion from rapid Hellenization, but in doing so, little by little, he sanctioned more and more worldly elements as if they were Christian elements. In the interests of world mission, he did not directly sacrifice the strictness of religion, but greatly softened this strictness by allowing to adhere to a less strict life ideal, and it became possible to be considered Christians and be content with this ideal. Under the influence of catholicism, the Church arose, which was no longer a society of faith, hope and strict discipline, but a political society, which, among other things, had in its midst the Gospel. All the forms used by this worldly society were strongly invested by Catholicism with an apostolic, almost divine, authority, and with this it perverted (entstellt) Christianity, and obscured and hindered the purpose of what is considered Christian. On the other hand, in Catholicism, religion for the first time received systematic dogmatics. In catholic Christianity itself, a formula was found that reconciled faith and knowledge. For centuries mankind has been content with this formula, and the happiness which it created is still in effect to this day, after the formula itself has become a bond. Two kinds of phenomena contributed to the emergence of catholic Christianity.

First, firm external standards for determining what is to be recognized as Christian have been pointed out and established, and these standards have been declared to be the apostolic heritage. The simple baptismal Creed was converted into an "apostolic" rule of faith (regula fidei) and acquired the meaning of an apostolic law of faith; from the church writings read during divine services, the "apostolic" collection of writings (i.e., the canon) was formed and equated with the Old Testament; the episcopal-monarchical structure of the Church (i.e., the primacy of one plenipotentiary bishop in the communities) began to be presented as "apostolic," and the bishops were given the quality of successors to the apostles; Finally, the cult became a mystery service, the origin of which was also attributed to the apostles. As a result of what needs did they come up with the idea of compiling a new (New Testament) canon; To indicate the relationship between the apostolic canon of faith, the apostolic canon of the New Testament, and the apostolic (episcopal) ministry is one of the most important tasks of dogmatic-historical research, which, unfortunately, cannot be fully resolved. Considering the process of this development, we see that Christianity in this case merged more and more with worldly elements. This change in Christianity is most noticeable in the fact that Christian hopes were obscured, that the secularization of Christian life was not only tolerated, but also sanctioned, that the preaching of unconditional devotion to heavenly interests met with distrust or was confined to very narrow limits.