APOLOGY. The term is now commonly understood as synonymous with an excuse for breach of an engagement, etc., but was originally used as the title of any work written in defense of certain doctrines, as in the A. of Socrates, ascribed to Plato and Xenophon; the A. for the ChriVians, by Tertullian, and in many other defenses of the Christians, written by Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Theophilus, Origen, Eusebins, Minuchis Felix, Arnobius, Lactantius, Augustine, Orosius, and others. The attacks parried or retorted in these apologetical works are such as charges of atheism, want of philosophical knowledge, anti-social tenets, etc. Both the charges and the refutations brought forward serve to give us an insight into the the times when these works were written. Thus, in the A. by Tertullian, it is curious to find a formal argu ment employed to refute the assertion that the spread of Christianity was the cause of "earthquakes" and other natural phenomena which had occurred in some parts of the Roman empire. After the 4th c., when the church was made dominant under the Roman emperors, apologetical writings were less called for; but Bartholus Edessenus and Raynnindus Martinus wrote against the Jews and the Mohammedans. In the 15th c.. when the revival of learning placed Christianity iu apparent opposition to the Platonic philosophy, Marsilius Ficinus wrote in defense of revelation; and, some time after the reformation, the spread of freethinking and skepticism in England was opposed by a variety of apologetical works, chiefly maintaining the points that Christianity is a divine revelation, Christ a divine messenger, and his church a divine institution. The defense
of Christianity on grounds of reason came now to be treated as a distinct branch of theology', under the name of Apologetics. Among the numerous apologetic works by Protestants, may be mentioned those by Grotius (De Veritate, etc.), Butler (Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed), Lardner (Credibility of time Gospel History), Leland, Addison, Soame Jenyns (Internal Evidences of the Christian Religion), Hugh Farmer, Bishop Watson (A. for Christianity), Paley (Evidences of Chrivtianity, and Horte Molina), etc. Among Roman Catholic apologetic writers, the most eminent are Pascal, Route ville, Guenee, Bergier, Mayr, and Chateaubriand.
Recently, a great number of apologetic works by Neander, Tholuck, and others have appeared, in reply to Strauss's Life of Jesus, and the Vie de Jesus by Joseph Ernest Renan.