The Date of the Apocriticus
Upon the date of Macarius depends the question as to whether a real dialogue underlies his work or not. If such is the case, we must place him at the beginning of the fourth century, though he may have written his book years after the dialogue had taken place. Critics have been so unanimous in declaring that the book was written long afterwards, and that its form is a mere literary device, that I do not like to make an assertion to the contrary. But at least I would plead that, unless other considerations make such a date impossible, there is a strong suggestion of reality about the dialogue described as in process. For the questions as well as the answers sometimes contain indications of a dispute;1 and a study of the author's remarks, made from time to time in the dialogue, shows him to have been either an unusually skilful simulator of doubts and fears which were not his, or a man giving a record of what had actually happened, though doubtless using the book into which Hierocles had already put the questions that he had raised in the debate. But, in any case, if Macarius is writing long after Christianity had ceased to be an unlawful religion, why should he adopt such a trembling attitude before his opponent, and need to brace himself continually against a nameless dread which nearly overwhelmed him ? All is explained if it is reminiscent of a contest with a man who shortly afterwards became "prime mover in causing the persecution."2 But this is not in the least like the language of Christians who faced opponents in later years. If the battle is only a literary one, and the Christian is showing, before a world in which the stigma of Christianity has been removed, how he got the upper hand, why should he cringe so before the heathen, as though he were making a desperate effort to uphold a humble and popular cause?3 This was not the way to represent the relation of Christian and heathen a century later for the edification of fellow-Christians. If this be all literary padding, why is itof this kind?
A few suggested indications of date may now be added.
1. Twice it is stated that 300 years have passed since Christianity began. But this is in the words of the heathen, not of Macarius, and in any case a round number does not count for much, especially in days before time was reckoned by the Christian era.
2. In the other direction the date is limited by the statement that "many rule the world," and the taking of Hadrian as an example of a "monarch," for the Empire was divided among two Augusti and two Caesars in the year A.D. 292.
3. Macarius gives a short list of some of the peoples of the earth who had not yet heard the preaching of the Gospel. They not only include some of the Ethiopians, but also Mauretania, which had certainly heard the Gospel long before the end of the fourth century.
4. He also has a list of heretics, which does not extend further than the Manichaeans, and makes no mention of the Arians. It is true that some have thought that the latter are meant by Christomachi (iii. 14, p. 91), but they are further defined as "sharers in judaistic folly," and seem to refer to the Monarchians.
5. But in the eyes of all German critics other considerations have been considered enough to brush these aside. The Trinitarian doctrine of the book has been considered as belonging to a period some time after A.D. 325. It is true that there is a passage on the baptismal formula which contains the words "that the name of three Persons in one substance may be recognised."4 But two points should be considered;<5---this is not the ordinary use of the words ὑπόστασις> and οὐσία in the book; and the whole passage is contained in twenty-three lines which are extraordinarily inappropriate to an argument with a pagan, with whom the argument has just been about the Monarchy of the one God. Brief theological phrases replace the usual diffuse style of Macarius, and the possibility is suggested that the words are a later interpolation, inserted for the instruction of Christians, not for the defence of the faith.
The other consideration is suggested by the likeness of some of the words and arguments of the Apocriticus to some of the fathers of the fourth century, notably Gregory of Nyssa. But an examination reveals the fact that the passages are mostly of a character which express ideas common in the fourth century, so that the theory that Macarius borrowed in each case cannot be substantiated. For instance, the language of Macarius about our Lord enticing the devil to attack Him in the Passion, and Satan, like a fish, gulping down the bait of His humanity, and so being caught by the hook of His divinity, is much like that of Gregory. But a close parallel is found in a passage of Rufinus,6 and another in Amphilochius.7 And indeed the latter, in introducing it, uses the unusual title Monogenes in speaking of Christ; but this is the alternative title of the Apocriticus itself, and probably was originally the chief one. So that he may have used the title because he was borrowing from a book of that name. But as a matter of fact the simile dates back to Origen (Comm. in Psalm xxii.), and the idea is present in germ in Ignatius, Ad. Eph. xix.
For a further discussion of the date, I must refer to what I have written elsewhere.8 If German conclusions are to be accepted, it is about A.D. 410. But sufficient has been said to show that there are many objections to this, and that it is quite possibly a century earlier. Of course this makes a great deal of difference to the importance of the answers.
Footnotes:
1e.g. Apocr. iii. 30, p. 125, 1. 6, and iii. 36, p. 131, 1. 9. It is argued that such remarks are merely interpolations, but sometimes (as in iv. 19) the personal introduction gradually shades off into the words of the objection.
2Lactantius, De Mortibus Persecutorum, xvi.
3See e.g. Apocr. ii. 12, and the Preface to iii. for the heathen's attitude, and iii. 10 for his own.
4Apocr. iv. 25: ἵνα τριῶν ὑποστάσεων ἐν οὐσίᾳ μιᾷ γνωρισθῇ τὸ ὒνομα; but this is not identical with the later stereotyped phrase μία οὐσία ἐν τρισὶν ὑποστάσεσιν.
5For a discussion of the whole subject, see J.T.S. of July 1907, p. 553 et seq. See also below, pp. xxviii, 141, 142, and 155.
6Rufinus, Comment, in Symb. Apost. § 14.
7Holl., Amphil. p. 91 et seq.
8J.T.S. April and July 1907.