is clear. It is given in the
fact that the Gospel, rejected by the majority of the Jews, was very
soon proclaimed to those who were not Jews, that after a few decades the
greater number of its professors were found among the Greeks, and that,
consequently, the development leading to the Catholic dogma took place
within Graeco-Roman culture. But within this culture there was lacking
the power of understanding either the idea of the completed Old
Testament theocracy, or the idea of the Messiah. Both of these essential
elements of the original proclamation, therefore, must either be
neglected or remodelled.[51] But it is hardly allowable to mention
details however important, where the whole aggregate of ideas, of
religious historical perceptions and presuppositions, which were based
on the old Testament, understood in a Christian sense, presented itself
as something new and strange. One can easily appropriate words, but not
practical ideas. Side by side with the Old Testament religion as the
presupposition of the Gospel, and using its forms of thought, the moral
and religious views and ideals dominant in the world of Greek culture
could not but insinuate themselves into the communities consisting of
Gentiles. From the enormous material that was brought home to the hearts
of the Greeks, whether formulated by Paul or by any other, only a few
rudimentary ideas could at first be appropriated. For that very reason,
the Apostolic Catholic doctrine of faith in its preparation and
establishment, is no mere continuation of that which, by uniting things
that are certainly very dissimilar, is wont to be described as "Biblical
Theology of the New Testament." Biblical Theology, even when kept within
reasonable limits, is not the presupposition of the history of dogma.
The Gentile Christians were little able to comprehend the controversies
which stirred the Apostolic age within Jewish Christianity. The
presuppositions of the history of dogma are given in certain fundamental
ideas, or rather motives of the Gospel, (in the preaching concerning
Jesus Christ, in the teaching of Evangelic ethics and the future life,
in the Old Testament capable of any interpretation, but to be
interpreted with reference to Christ and the Evangelic history), and in
the Greek spirit.[52]

8. The foregoing statements involve that the difference between the
development which led to the Catholic doctrine of religion and the
original condition, was by no means a t