APOLOGY (Gk. drovy(a, apologia, a speech in defense. defense). A term now commonly un derstood as synonymous with an excuse for breach of an engagement, etc.. but originally used :ts the title of any work written in defense of certain doctrines, as in the Apology of Socrates, ascribed to Plato and Xenophon; the Apology for the Christians, by Tertullian, and in many other defenses of the Christians. written by Justin Martyr, Aristides, Athenagoras. Tatian, Theophilus, Origen. Eusebins. :Minucius Arnobius. Laetantius. Augustine. ()rosins. and others. The attacks parried or retorted in these apologetical works are such as charges of athe ism, want of philosophical knowledge. anti social tenets, etc. Both the charges and the refu tations brought forward serve to give us an insight into the character of the times when these works were written. Thus, in the Apology by Tertullian, it is eurious to find a formal argu ment employed to refute the assertion that the spread of Christianity was the cause of "earth quakes" and other natural phenomena which had occurred in some parts of the Roman Empire. After the Fourth Century, when the Church was made dominant under the Roman Emperors. apologetical writings were less called for: but Barth°has alessenus and Raymundus Martinus wrote against the Jews and the Mohammedans. In the Fifteenth Century, when the revival of learning placed Christianity in apparent oppo sition to the Platonic philosophy, Marsilius Ficinus wrote in defense of revelation; and, some time after the Reformation, the spread of free thinking and skepticism in England was opposed by a variety of apologetical works, chiefly main taining 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 theohigy, under the name of Apologetics. Among the numerous apologetic works by Protestants may be men tioned those by Grotius (De Veritatc. etc.), But ler (Analogy of Religion, Natural and Revealed), Lardner (Credibility of the Gospel History), Leland, Addison Soame Jenyns (Internal Evi dences of the Christian Religion), Hugh Farmer, Bishop Watson (Apology for Christianity), Paley (Evidences of Christianity, and Hone Panlime). Among Roman Catholic apologetic writers the most eminent are Pascal. Houteville, Guenee, Bergier, Mayr, and Chateaubriand.
in the Nineteenth Century a great number of apologetic works by Neander. Tholuck. and others were called forth in reply to Strauss's Das Lcbcn Jcsu and the de Jesus by Joseph Ernest Renan. Later came the attacks from ag nostic, materialistic, and other philosophi-scien title sources, and these have been replied tb by Christian scholars, as A. Ebra id. Apologetics, second edit ion ( Gfitersloh. 187S-80 ) : English translations, three volumes (Edinburgh, 1886 87) ; P. Schanz (II. C.) (Freiburg. 1895-9S) English translations, three volumes ( Dublin. 1897) ; A. B. Bruce, Apologetics (New York. 1892). Manifestly these works are written to meet a passing need, and few of them retain much value after a few years.