Introduction.

[...persons whose] souls were receptive to truth, who lacked neither the insight to feel this truth, nor the courage to declare themselves for it, however great the sacrifice one had to make for it, and however great the danger might be that one ran in taking this step. On the other hand, there was among them the multitude who looked upon everything relating to religion with an indifferent eye, and in their conduct took the path marked out for them by a purely human policy original: menschliche Politik — in this context, it refers to worldly pragmatism or self-interest rather than government administration., which limits itself entirely to present goods and advantages: people who cared little for the duties of man toward God and for his relationship with the Supreme Being. Among these were many who did nothing but revel, piling vice upon vice, surrendering to the most shameful excesses, and were simply incapable of hearing the voice of reason, wisdom, and decency; excesses to which they surrendered without fear and without remorse, because the general tone—indeed, religion and the examples of the gods themselves—advocated for them. Finally, there was also a numerous class of people who called themselves philosophers and made it their duty to rationalize original: vernünfteln — a pejorative term for over-analyzing or using faulty logic to justify anything. about everything and to dispute everything; who put presumption and pride in the place of reason and sound judgment, and in all their hatched-up systems of religion, ethics original: Sittenlehren — the study or teaching of moral conduct., politics, and government, brought nothing but absurd nonsense to the market. The description of this philosophical brood is found to be wonderfully and strikingly drawn in Lucian’s Lucian of Samosata (c. 125 – 180 AD) was a Syrian-Greek satirist known for poking fun at traditional mythology and the hypocrisy of philosophical schools. dialogues and in most of the works of our Christian apologists original: Schutzredner — "defense-speakers"; early Christian writers who wrote formal defenses of their faith against Roman and Greek critics..