he various combinations and adaptations made by
Eclectics and Syncretists; the use of such material in the exercises of
the rhetorical instruction then so prominent in education; it would seem
that a weapon so ready to their hand must have been seized upon by the
Fathers, and made full use of for the advancement of the cause in which
they were enlisted. And this silence on their part cannot be due to
ignorance of what had been written on the subject, or of what was going
on in the world about them. The patristic writings show the keenest
interest in, and fullest knowledge of what men were thinking about in
the outside world as well as within the Church. Many of the Fathers, as
we have had occasion to notice, had been trained in the philosophical
schools,[83] and show themselves fully conversant not only with such
subjects, but with poetry and general literature as well.[84] In the
course of their education, as well as in their reading, they must have
become fully acquainted with all the forms of the theistic argument. And
this knowledge they had every opportunity to use. Many of their works
that have come down to us are either apologies or else answers to
critics of Christianity, who attacked its doctrines from the stand-point
of either polytheism or atheism. In maintaining the Christian doctrine
of God against these opponents, the theistic argument would seem to be a
most natural weapon for one who was confident of its validity. But the
fact is, that in most of these apologies no such reasoning is employed,
and even when it is to be found in their pages, is only incidental and
by way of illustration, to explain the rational character of the
Christian doctrine of God by a sort of _argumentum ad hominem_.

One reason for this neglect of the theistic argument may be readily
found in the subject-matter of the treatises themselves. Almost
exclusively with the earlier Fathers, as we have seen, and very largely
with their successors, the emphasis was laid on life, rather than on
thought, and the appeal was to authority rather than to reason. Men were
asked to judge of Christianity by its fruits, and to receive the faith
which it professed, not because of its rational demonstration, but
because of the authority of Him who promulgated it. The persons to whom
the arguments were addressed, too, explain much of the silence of the
Fathers. To the Jew or religious Gentile it would be superfluous to
address elaborate arguments to prov