__________________________________________________________________ Title: The Mission and Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries Creator(s): Harnack, Adolf (1851-1930) CCEL Subjects: All; History LC Call no: BR165.H4 1908 LC Subjects: Christianity History By period Early and medieval __________________________________________________________________ THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES BY ADOLF HARNACK Translated and edited by JAMES MOFFATT, B.D., D.D. (St. Andrews) GLOUCESTER, MASS. PETER SMITH 1972 THE MISSION AND EXPANSION OF CHRISTIANITY IN THE FIRST THREE CENTURIES Introduction and Bibliography to the Torchbook edition Copyright ©1961 by Jaroslav Pelikan Printed in the United States of America This book was originally published by Williams & Norgate, London. This is Volume I of the 1908 edition, translated and edited by James Moffatt. First HARPER TORCHBOOK edition published 1962 Reprinted, 1972, by arrangement with Harper & Row, Publishers __________________________________________________________________ Prefatory Material __________________________________________________________________ TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE Dr Harnack opened the course of lectures which have been translated in this library under the title What is Christianity? with a reference to John Stuart Mill. The present work might also be introduced by a sentence from the same English thinker. In the second chapter of his essay upon "Liberty," he has occasion to speak with admiration and regret of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, confessing that his persecution of the Christians seems "one of the most tragical facts in all history." "It is a bitter thought," he adds, "how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine." Aurelius represents the apex of paganism during the first three centuries of our era. Chronologically, too, he stands almost equidistant between Christ and Constantine. But there were reasons why the adjustment of the empire to Christianity could not come earlier than the first quarter of the fourth century, and it is Dr Harnack's task in the present work to outline these reasons in so far as they are connected with the extension and expansion of Christianity itself. How did the new religion come to win official recognition from the state in A.D. 325? Why then? Why not till then? Such is the problem set to the historian of the Christian propaganda by the ante-Nicene period. He has to explain how and why and where, within less than three centuries, an Oriental religious movement which was originally a mere ripple on a single wave of dissent in the wide sea of paganism, rose into a breaker which swept before it the vested interests, prejudices, traditions, and authority of the most powerful social and political organization that the world hitherto had known. The main causes and courses of this transition, with all that it involves of the inner life and worship of the religion, form Dr Harnack's topic in these pages. In editing the book for an English audience I have slightly enlarged the index and added a list of New Testament passages referred to. Wherever a German or French book cited by the author has appeared in an English dress, the corresponding reference has been subjoined. Also, in deference to certain suggestions received by the publishers, I have added, wherever it has been advisable to do so, English versions of the Greek and Latin passages which form so valuable and characteristic a feature of Dr Harnack's historical discussions. It is hoped that the work may be thus rendered more intelligible and inviting than ever to that wider audience whose interest in early Christianity is allied to little or no Greek and Latin. The first edition of this translation was issued in 1904-1905, and the first volume is now out of print. Meanwhile, Dr Harnack published, in 1906, a new edition of the original in two volumes, which has been so thoroughly revised and enlarged that, with its additions and omissions, it forms practically a new work. His own preface to the second edition gives no adequate idea of the care and skill with which nearly every page has been gone over in order to fill up any gaps and bring the work up to date. The present version has been made directly from this edition. I have taken the opportunity of correcting some misprints which crept into the first edition of my translation, and it is hoped that English readers will now be able to find easy access to this standard history in its final form. __________________________________________________________________ PREFACE TO THE FIRST GERMAN EDITION No monograph has yet been devoted to the mission and spread of the Christian religion during the first three centuries of our era. For the earliest period of church history we have sketches of the historical development of dogma and of the relation of the church to the state--the latter including Neumann's excellent volume. But the missionary history has always been neglected, possibly because writers have been discouraged by the difficulty of bringing the material to the surface and getting it arranged, or by the still more formidable difficulties of collecting and sifting the geographical data and statistics. The following pages are a first attempt, and for it I bespeak a kindly judgment. My successors, of whom there will be no lack, will be able to improve upon it. I have one or two preliminary remarks to make, by way of explanation. The primitive history of the church's missions lies buried in legend; or rather, it has been replaced by a history (which is strongly marked by tendency) of what is alleged to have happened in the course of a few decades throughout every country on the face of the earth. The composition of this history has gone on for more than a thousand years. The formation of legends in connection with the apostolic mission, which commenced as early as the first century, was still thriving in the Middle Ages; it thrives, in fact, down to the present day. But the worthless character of this history is now recognised on all sides, and in the present work I have hardly touched upon it, since I have steadily presupposed the results gained by the critical investigation of the sources. Whatever item from the apocryphal Acts, the local and provincial legends of the church, the episcopal lists, and the Acts of the martyrs, has not been inserted or noticed in these pages, has been deliberately omitted as useless. On the other hand, I have aimed at exhaustiveness in the treatment of reliable material. It is only the Acts and traditions of the martyrs that present any real difficulty, and from such sources this or that city may probably fall to be added to my lists. Still, the number of such addenda must be very small. Inscriptions, unfortunately, almost entirely fail us. Dated Christian inscriptions from the pre-Constantine age are rare, and only in the case of a few groups can we be sure that an undated inscription belongs to the third and not to the fourth century. Besides, the Christian origin of a very numerous class is merely a matter of conjecture, which cannot at present be established. As the apostolic age of the church, in its entire sweep, falls within the purview of the history of Christian missions, some detailed account of this period might be looked for in these pages. No such account, however, will be found. For such a discussion one may turn to numerous works upon the subject, notably to that of Weizsacker. After his labours, I had no intention of once more depicting Paul the missionary; I have simply confined myself to the general characteristics of the period. What is set down here must serve as its own justification. It appeared to me not unsuitable, under the circumstances, to attempt to do some justice to the problems in a series of longitudinal sections; thereby I hoped to avoid repetitions, and, above all, to bring out the main currents and forces of the Christian religion coherently and clearly. The separate chapters have been compiled in such a way that each may be read by itself; but this has not impaired the unity of the whole work, I hope. The basis chosen for this account of the early history of Christian missions is no broader than my own general knowledge of history and of religion--which is quite slender. My book contains no information upon the history of Greek or Roman religion; it has no light to throw on primitive myths and later cults, or on matters of law and of administration. On such topics other scholars are better informed than I am. For many years it has been my sole endeavour to remove the barriers between us, to learn from my colleagues whatever is indispensable to a correct appreciation of such phenomena as they appear inside the province of church history, and to avoid presenting derived material as the product of original research. With regard to ancient geography and statistics, I have noticed in detail, as the pages of my book will indicate, all relevant investigations. Unfortunately, works on the statistics of ancient population present results which are so contradictory as to be useless; and at the last I almost omitted the whole of these materials in despair. All that I have actually retained is a scanty residue of reliable statistics in the opening chapter of Book I. and in the concluding paragraphs. In identifying towns and localities I have followed the maps in the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum, the small maps in the fifth volume of Mommsen's Roman History, Kiepert's Formae orbis antiqui (so far as these have appeared), and some other geographical guides; no place which I have failed to find in these authorities has been inserted in my pages without some note or comment, the only exception being a few suburban villages. I had originally intended to furnish the book with maps, but as I went on I had reluctantly to abandon this idea. Maps, I was obliged to admit, would give a misleading impression of the actual situation. For one thing, the materials at our disposal for the various provinces up to 325 A.D. are too unequal, and little would be gained by merely marking the towns in which Christians can be shown to have existed previous to Constantine; nor could I venture to indicate the density of the Christian population by means of colours. Maps cannot be drawn for any period earlier than the fourth century, and it is only by aid of these fourth-century maps that the previous course of the history can be viewed in retrospect.--The demarcation of the provinces, and the alterations which took place in their boundaries, formed a subject into which I had hardly any occasion to enter. Some account of the history of church-organization could not be entirely omitted, but questions of organization have only been introduced where they were unavoidable. My aim, as a rule, has been to be as brief as possible, to keep strictly within the limits of my subject, and never to repeat answers to any settled questions, either for the sake of completeness or of convenience to my readers. The history of the expansion of Christianity within the separate provinces has merely been sketched in outline. Anyone who desires further details must, of course, excavate with Ramsay in Phrygia and the French savants in Africa, or plunge with Duchesne into the ancient episcopal lists, although for the first three hundred years the results all over this field are naturally meagre. The literary sources available for the history of primitive Christian missions are fragmentary. But how extensive they are, compared to the extant sources at our disposal for investigating the history of any other religion within the Roman empire! They not only render it feasible for us to attempt a sketch of the mission and expansion of Christianity which shall be coherent and complete in all its essential features, but also permit us to understand the reasons why this religion triumphed in the Roman empire, and how the triumph was achieved. At the same time, a whole series of queries remains unanswered, including those very questions that immediately occur to the mind of anyone who looks attentively into the history of Christian missions. Several of my earlier studies in the history of Christian missions have been incorporated in the present volume, in an expanded and improved form. These I have noted as they occur. I must cordially thank my honoured friend Professor Imelmann for the keen interest he has taken in these pages as they passed through the press. A. HARNACK. BERLIN, Sept. 4, 1902. __________________________________________________________________ PREFACE TO THE SECOND GERMAN EDITION The second edition is about ten sheets larger than the first, six of these extra sheets falling within Book IV. The number of fresh places where I have been able to verify the existence of Christianity prior to Constantine is infinitesimally small; my critics have not been able to increase the list. But I have tried to put more colour into the description of the spread of the religion throughout the various provinces, and also to incorporate several out-of-the-way passages. Several new sections have been added; the excursus on the "Alleged Council of Antioch," at the close of the first book, has been omitted as superfluous, however, though not as erroneous. After my disclaimer in the preface to the first edition, some may be surprised to find that maps are now added. What determined me to take this step was the number of requests for them, based invariably on the opinion that the majority of readers cannot form any idea of the diffusion of Christianity unless they have maps, while the ordinary maps of the ancient world require detailed study in order to be of any use for this special purpose. Consequently, I have overcome my scruples and drawn the eleven maps which are appended to the second volume. I attach most importance to the attempt which I have made in the second map. It was a venture, but it sums up all the results of my work, and without it the following maps would be misleading, since they all depend more or less upon incidental information about the period. The index I have worked over again myself. A. H. BERLIN, Dec. 1, 1905. __________________________________________________________________ TABLE OF CONTENTS Translator's Preface ix Preface to the First German Edition ix Preface to the Second German Edition xv BOOK I INTRODUCTORY Chapter I. Judaism: Its Diffusion and Limits 1-18 Chapter II. The External Conditions of the World-wide Expansion of the Christian Religion 19-23 Chapter III. The Internal Conditions Determining the World-wide Expansion of the Christian Religion--Religious Syncretism 24-35 Chapter IV. Jesus Christ and the Universal Mission 36-43 Chapter V. The Transition from the Jewish to the Gentile Mission 44-72 Chapter VI. Results of the Mission of Paul and of the First Missionaries 73-83 BOOK II MISSION-PREACHING IN WORD AND DEED Introduction 84-85 Chapter I. The Religious Characteristics of the Mission-Preaching 86-100 Chapter II. The Gospel of the Saviour and of Salvation 101-124 Chapter III. The Conflict with Demons 125-146 Chapter IV. The Gospel of Love and Charity 147-198 Chapter V. The Religion of the Spirit and of Power, of Moral Earnestness and Holiness 199-218 Chapter VI. The Religion of Authority and of Reason, of the Mysteries and of Transcendentalism 219-239 Chapter VII. The Tidings of the New People and of the Third Race: The Historical and Political Consciousness of Christendom 240-265 Excursus. Christians as a Third Race, in the Judgment of Their Opponents 266-278 Chapter VIII. The Religion of a Book and a Historical Realization 279-289 Chapter IX. The Conflict with Polytheism and Idolatry 290-311 Epilogue. Christianity in its Completed Form as Syncretistic Religion 312-318 BOOK III THE MISSIONARIES: THE METHODS OF THE MISSION AND THE COUNTER-MOVEMENTS Chapter I. The Christian Missionaries (Apostles, Evangelists, and Prophets or Teachers: The Informal Missionaries) 319-368 Excursus. Travelling: The Exchange of Letters and Literature. 369-380 Chapter II. Methods of the Mission: Catechizing and Baptism, the Invasion of Domestic Life 381-398 Chapter III. The Names of Christian Believers 399-418 Excursus I. Friends (hoi philoi) 419-421 Excursus II. Christian Names 422-430 Chapter IV. The Organisation of the Christian Community, as Bearing upon the Christian Mission 431-444 Excursus I. Ecclesiastical Organisation and the Episcopate (in the Provinces, the Cities, and the Villages), from Pius to Constantine 445-482 Excursus II. The Catholic Confederation and the Mission 483-484 Excursus III. The Primacy of Rome in Relation to the Mission 485-486 Chapter V. Counter-Movements 487-513 Addenda 514 Mission Map 1. Only those towns are marked on the map in which it can be proved that Christian communities existed prior to 180 A.D. 2. Places where Christian communities are demonstrable or certain prior to Trajan are underlined. 3. Places which are not quite certain as towns with a Christian community prior to 180 A.D. are put within brackets. 4. The shading indicates that while Christians certainly existed in the district in question, the names of the cities where they stayed have not been preserved. Except in the case of Egypt, the shading is omitted whenever even one town in the province in question can be shown to have had a Christian church. 5. The principal Roman roads are marked by double lines. __________________________________________________________________ BOOK I INTRODUCTORY __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 1 JUDAISM: ITS DIFFUSION AND LIMITS To nascent Christianity the synagogues in the Diaspora meant more than the fontes persecutionum of Tertullian's complaint; they also formed the most important presupposition for the rise and growth of Christian communities throughout the empire. The network of the synagogues furnished the Christian propaganda with centres and courses for its development, and in this way the mission of the new religion, which was undertaken in the name of the God of Abraham and Moses, found a sphere already prepared for itself. Surveys of the spread of Judaism at the opening of our period have been often made, most recently and with especial care by Schürer (Geschichte des jüdischen Volkes, Bd. III.^(3) pp. 1-38; Eng. trans., II. ii. 220 f.). Here we are concerned with the following points: (1) There were Jews in most of the Roman provinces, at any rate in all those which touched or adjoined the Mediterranean, to say nothing of the Black Sea; eastward also, beyond Syria, they were thickly massed in Mesopotamia, Babylonia, and Media. [1] (2) Their numbers were greatest in Syria, [2] next to that in Egypt (in all the nomes as far as Upper Egypt), [3] Rome, and the provinces of Asia Minor [4] . The extent to which they had made their way into all the local conditions is made particularly clear by the evidence bearing on the sphere last named, where, as on the north coast of the Black Sea, Judaism also played some part in the blending of religions (e.g., the cult of "The most high God," and of the God called "Sabbatistes"). The same holds true of Syria, though the evidence here is not taken so plainly from direct testimony, but drawn indirectly from the historical presuppositions of Christian gnosticism. [5] In Africa, along the coast-line, from the proconsular province to Mauretania, Jews were numerous. [6] At Lyons, in the time of Irenæus, [7] they do not seem to have abounded; but in southern Gaul, as later sources indicate, their numbers cannot have been small, whilst in Spain, as is obvious from the resolutions of the synod of Elvira (c. 300 A.D.), they were both populous and powerful. Finally, we may assume that in Italy--apart from Rome and Southern Italy, where they were widely spread--they were not exactly numerous under the early empire, although even in Upper Italy at that period individual synagogues were in existence. This feature was due to the history of Italian civilization, and it is corroborated by the fact that, beyond Rome and Southern Italy, early Jewish inscriptions are scanty and uncertain. "The Jews were the first to exemplify that kind of patriotism which the Parsees, the Armenians, and to some extent the modern Greeks were to display in later ages, viz. a patriotism of extraordinary warmth, but not attached to any one locality, a patriotism of traders who wandered up and down the world and everywhere hailed each other as brethren, a patriotism which aimed at forming not great, compact states but small, autonomous communities under the ægis of other states." [8] (3) The exact number of Jews in the Diaspora can only be calculated roughly. Our information with regard to figures is as follows. Speaking of the Jews in Babylonia, Josephus declares there were "not a few myriads," or "innumerable myriads'" in that region. [9] At Damascus, during the great war, he narrates (Bell. Jud., ii. 20. 2) how ten thousand Jews were massacred; elsewhere in the same book (vii. 8. 7) he writes "eighteen thousand.'" Of the five civic quarters of Alexandria, two were called "the Jewish" (according to Philo, In Flacc. 8), since they were mainly inhabited by Jews; in the other quarters Jews were also to be met with, and Philo (In Flacc. 6) reckons their total number in Egypt (as far as the borders of Ethiopia) to have been at least 100 myriads (= a million). In the time of Sulla the Jews of Cyrene, according to Strabo (cited by Josephus, Antiq., xiv. 7. 2), formed one of the four classes into which the population was divided, the others being citizens, peasants, and resident aliens. During the great rebellion in Trajan's reign they are said to have slaughtered 220,000 unbelievers in Cyrene (Dio Cassius, lxviii. 32), in revenge for which "many myriads" of their own number were put to death by Marcus Turbo (Euseb., H.E., iv. 2). The Jewish revolt spread also to Cyprus, where 240,000 Gentiles are said to have been murdered by them. [10] As for the number of Jews in Rome, we have these two statements: first, that in B.C. 4 a Jewish embassy from Palestine to the metropolis was joined by 8000 local Jews (Joseph., Antiq., xvii. 2. 1; Bell., ii. 6. 1); and secondly, that in 19 A.D., when Tiberius banished the whole Jewish community from Rome, 4000 able-bodied Jews were deported to Sardinia. The latter statement merits especial attention, as it is handed down by Tacitus as well as Josephus. [11] After the fall of Sejanus, when Tiberius revoked the edict (Philo, Legat. 24), the Jews at once made up their former numbers in Rome (Dio Cassius, lx. 6, pleonasantes authis); the movement for their expulsion reappeared under Claudius in 49 A.D., but the enforcement of the order looked to be so risky that it was presently withdrawn and limited to a prohibition of religious gatherings. [12] In Rome the Jews dwelt chiefly in Trastevere; but as Jewish churchyards have been discovered in various parts of the city, they were also to be met with in other quarters as well. A glance at these numerical statements shows [13] that only two possess any significance. The first is Philo's, that the Egyptian Jews amounted to quite a million. Philo's comparatively precise mode of expression (ouk apodeousi muriadon hekaton hoi ten Alexandreian kai ten choran Ioudaioi katoikountes apo tou pros Libuen katabathmou mechri ton horion Aithiopias: "The Jews resident in Alexandria and in the country from the descent to Libya back to the bounds of Ethiopia, do not fall short of a million"), taken together with the fact that registers for the purpose of taxation were accurately kept in Egypt, renders it probable that we have here to do with no fanciful number. Nor does the figure itself appear too high, when we consider that it includes the whole Jewish population of Alexandria. As the entire population of Egypt (under Vespasian) amounted to seven or eight millions, the Jews thus turn out to have formed a seventh or an eighth of the whole (somewhere about thirteen per cent.). [14] Syria is the only province of the empire where we must assume a higher percentage of Jews among the population; [15] in all the other provinces their numbers were smaller. The second passage of importance is the statement that Tiberius deported four thousand able-bodied Jews to Sardinia--Jews, be it noted, not (as Tacitus declares) Egyptians and Jews, for the distinct evidence of Josephus on this point is corroborated by that of Suetonius (see above), who, after speaking at first of Jews and Egyptians, adds, by way of closer definition, "Judaeorum juventatem per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit.'" Four thousand able-bodied men answers to a total of at least ten thousand human beings, [16] and something like this represented the size of the contemporary Jewish community at Rome. Now, of course, this reckoning agrees but poorly with the other piece of information, viz., that twenty-three years earlier a Palestinian deputation had its ranks swelled by 8000 Roman Jews. Either Josephus has inserted the total number of Jews in this passage, or he is guilty of serious exaggeration. The most reliable estimate of the Roman population under Augustus (in B.C. 5) gives 320,000 male plebeians over ten years of age. As women were notoriously in a minority at Rome, this number represents about 600,000 inhabitants (excluding slaves), [17] so that about 10,000 Jews [18] would be equivalent to about one-sixtieth of the population. [19] Tiberius could still risk the strong measure of expelling them; but when Claudius tried to repeat the experiment thirty years later, he was unable to carry it out. We can hardly suppose that the Jewish community at Rome continued to show any considerable increase after the great rebellions and wars under Vespasian, Titus, Trajan, and Hadrian, since the decimation of the Jews in many provinces of the empire must have re-acted upon the Jewish community in the capital. Details on this point, however, are wanting. If the Jews in Egypt amounted to about a million, those in Syria were still more numerous. Allowing about 700,000 Jews to Palestine--and at this moment between 600,000 and 650,000 people live there; see Baedeker's Palestine, 1900, p. lvii.--we are within the mark at all events when we reckon the Jews in the remaining districts of the empire (i.e., in Asia Minor, Greece, Cyrene, Rome, Italy, Gaul, Spain, etc.) at about one million and a half. In this way a grand total of about four or four and a half million Jews is reached. Now, it is an extremely surprising thing, a thing that seems at first to throw doubt upon any estimate whatsoever of the population, to say that while (according to Beloch) the population of the whole Roman empire under Augustus is reported to have amounted to nearly fifty-four millions, the Jews in the empire at that period must be reckoned at not less than four or four and a half millions. Even if one raises Beloch's figure to sixty millions, how can the Jews have represented seven per cent. of the total population? Either our calculation is wrong--and mistakes are almost inevitable in a matter like this--or the propaganda of Judaism was extremely successful in the provinces; for it is utterly impossible to explain the large total of Jews in the Diaspora by the mere fact of the fertility of Jewish families. We must assume, I imagine, that a very large number of pagans, and in particular of kindred Semites of the lower class, trooped over to the religion of Yahweh [20] --for the Jews of the Diaspora were genuine Jews only to a certain extent. Now if Judaism was actually so vigorous throughout the empire as to embrace about seven percent. of the total population under Augustus, [21] one begins to realize its great influence and social importance. And in order to comprehend the propaganda and diffusion of Christianity, it is quite essential to understand that the religion under whose "shadow" it made its way out into the world, not merely contained elements of vital significance but had expanded till it embraced a considerable proportion of the world's population. Our survey would not be complete if we did not glance, however briefly, at the nature of the Jewish propaganda in the empire, [22] for some part, at least, of her missionary zeal was inherited by Christianity from Judaism. As I shall have to refer to this Jewish mission wherever any means employed in the Christian propaganda are taken over from Judaism, I shall confine myself in the meantime to some general observations. It is surprising that a religion which raised so stout a wall of partition between itself and all other religions, and which in practice and prospects alike was bound up so closely with its nation, should have possessed a missionary impulse [23] of such vigour and attained so large a measure of success. This is not ultimately to be explained by any craving for power or ambition; it is a proof [24] that Judaism, as a religion, was already blossoming out by some inward transformation and becoming across between a national religion and a world-religion (confession of faith and a church). Proudly the Jew felt that he had something to say and bring to the world, which concerned all men, viz., The one and only spiritual God, creator of heaven and earth, with his holy moral law. It was owing to the consciousness of this (Rom. ii. 19 f.) that he felt missions to be a duty. The Jewish propaganda throughout the empire was primarily the proclamation of the one and only God, of his moral law, and of his judgment; to this everything else became secondary. The object in many cases might be pure proselytism (Matt. xxiii. 15), but Judaism was quite in earnest in overthrowing dumb idols and inducing pagans to recognize their creator and judge, for in this the honour of the God of Israel was concerned. It is in this light that one must judge a phenomenon which is misunderstood so long as we explain it by means of specious analogies--I mean, the different degrees and phases of proselytism. In other religions, variations of this kind usually proceed from an endeavour to render the moral precepts imposed by the religion somewhat easier for the proselyte. In Judaism this tendency never prevailed, at least never outright. On the contrary, the moral demand remained unlowered. As the recognition of God was considered the cardinal point, Judaism was in a position to depreciate the claims of the cultus and of ceremonies, and the different kinds of Jewish proselytism were almost entirely due to the different degrees in which the ceremonial precepts of the Law were observed. The fine generosity of such an attitude was, of course, facilitated by the fact that a man who let even his little finger be grasped by this religion, thereby became a Jew. [25] Again, strictly speaking, even a born Jew was only a proselyte so soon as he left the soil of Palestine, since thereby he parted with the sacrificial system; besides, he was unable in a foreign country to fulfil, or at least to fulfil satisfactorily, many other precepts of the Law. [26] For generations there had been a gradual neutralising of the sacrificial system proceeding apace within the inner life of Judaism--even among the Pharisees; and this coincided with an historical situation which obliged by far the greater number of the adherents of the religion to live amid conditions which had made them strangers for a long period to the sacrificial system. In this way they were also rendered accessible on every side of their spiritual nature to foreign cults and philosophies, and thus there originated Persian and Græco-Jewish religious alloys, several of whose phenomena threatened even the monotheistic belief. The destruction of the temple by the Romans really destroyed nothing; it may be viewed as an incident organic to the history of Jewish religion. When pious people held God's ways at that crisis were incomprehensible, they were but deluding themselves. For a long while the popular opinion throughout the empire was that the Jews worshipped God without images, and that they had no temple. Now, although both of these "atheistic" features might appear to the rude populace even more offensive and despicable than circumcision, Sabbath observance, the prohibition of swine's flesh, etc., nevertheless they made a deep impression upon wide circles of educated people. [27] Thanks to these traits, together with its monotheism--for which the age was beginning to be ripe [28] --Judaism seemed as if it were elevated to the rank of philosophy, and inasmuch as it still continued to be a religion, it exhibited a type of mental and spiritual life which was superior to anything of the kind. [29] At bottom, there was nothing artificial in a Philo or in a Josephus exhibiting Judaism as the philosophic religion, for this kind of apologetic corresponded to the actual situation in which they found themselves [30] ; it was as the revealed and also the philosophic religion, equipped with "the oldest book in the world,"that Judaism developed her great propaganda. [31] The account given by Josephus (Bell., vii. 3. 3) of the situation at Antioch, viz., that "the Jews continued to attract a large number of the Greeks to their services, making them in a sense part of themselves"--this holds true of the Jewish mission in general. [32] The adhesion of Greeks and Romans to Judaism ranged over the entire gamut of possible degrees, from the superstitious adoption of certain rites up to complete identification. "God-fearing" pagans constituted the majority; proselytes (i.e., people who were actually Jews, obliged to keep the whole Law), there is no doubt, were comparatively few in number. [33] Immersion was more indispensable than even circumcision as a condition of entrance. [34] While all this was of the utmost importance for the Christian mission which came afterwards, at least equal moment attaches to one vital omission in the Jewish missionary preaching: viz., that no Gentile, in the first generation at least, could become a real son of Abraham. His rank before God remained inferior. Thus it also remained very doubtful how far any proselyte--to say nothing of the "God-fearing"--had a share in the glorious promises of the future. The religion which repairs this omission will drive Judaism from the field. [35] When it proclaims this message in its fulness, that the last will be first, that freedom from the Law is the normal and higher life, and that the observance of the Law, even at its best, is a thing to be tolerated and no more, it will win thousands where the previous missionary preaching won but hundreds. [36] Yet the propaganda of Judaism did not succeed simply by its high inward worth; the profession of Judaism also conferred great social and political advantages upon its adherents. Compare Schürer's sketch (op. cit., III^(3) pp. 56-90; Eng. trans., II ii. 243 f.) of the internal organization of Jewish communities in the Diaspora, of their civil position, and of their civic "isopolity," [37] and it will be seen how advantageous it was to belong to a Jewish community within the Roman empire. No doubt there were circumstances under which a Jew had to endure ridicule and disdain, but this injustice was compensated by the ample privileges enjoyed by those who adhered to this religio licita. If in addition one possessed the freedom of a city (which it was not difficult to procure) or even Roman citizenship, one occupied a more secure and favourable position than the majority of one's fellow-citizens. No wonder, then, that Christians threatened to apostatize to Judaism during a persecution, [38] or that separation from the synagogues had also serious economic consequences for Jews who had become Christians. [39] One thing further. All religions which made their way into the empire along the channels of intercourse and trade were primarily religions of the city, and remained such for a considerable period. It cannot be said that Judaism in the Diaspora was entirely a city-religion; indeed the reverse holds true of one or two large provinces. Yet in the main it continued to be a city-religion, and we hear little about Jews who were settled on the land. So long as the temple stood, and contributions were paid in to it, this formed a link between the Jews of the Diaspora and Palestine. [40] Afterwards, a rabbinical board took the place of the priestly college at Jerusalem, which understood how still to raise and use these contributions. The board was presided over by the patriarch, and the contributions were gathered by "apostles'" whom he sent out. [41] They appear also to have had additional duties to perform (on which see below). To the Jewish mission which preceded it, the Christian mission was indebted, in the first place, for a field tilled all over the empire; in the second place, for religious communities already formed everywhere in the towns; thirdly, for what Axenfeld calls "the help of materials'" furnished by the preliminary knowledge of the Old Testament, in addition to catechetical and liturgical materials which could be employed without much alteration; fourthly, for the habit of regular worship and a control of private life; fifthly, for an impressive apologetic on behalf of monotheism, historical teleology, and ethics; and finally, for the feeling that self-diffusion was a duty. The amount of this debt is so large, that one might venture to claim the Christian mission as a continuation of the Jewish propaganda. "Judaism,'' said Renan, "was robbed of its due reward by a generation of fanatics, and it was prevented from gathering in the harvest which it had prepared." The extent to which Judaism was prepared for the gospel may also be judged by means of the syncretism into which it had developed. The development was along no mere side-issues. The transformation of a national into a universal religion may take place in two ways: either by the national religion being reduced to great central principles, or by its assimilation of a wealth of new elements from other religions. Both processes developed simultaneously in Judaism. [42] But the former is the more important of the two, as a preparation for Christianity. This is to be deduced especially from that great scene preserved for us by Mark xii. 28-34--in its simplicity of spirit, the greatest memorial we possess of the history of religion at the epoch of its vital change. [43] "A scribe asked Jesus, What is the first of all the commandments? Jesus replied, The first is: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one God, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength. The second is: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is no commandment greater than these. And the scribe said to him. True, O teacher; thou hast rightly said that he is one, and that beside him there is none else, and that to love him with all the heart, and all the understanding and all the strength, and to love one's neighbour as oneself, is far above all holocausts and sacrifices. And when Jesus saw that he answered intelligently, he said: Thou art not far from the kingdom of God." With regard to the attitude of Palestinian Judaism towards the mission-idea (i.e., universalism and the duty of systematic propaganda), the state of matters during the age of Christ and the apostles is such as to permit pleadings upon both sides of the question. [44] Previous to that age, there had been two periods which were essentially opposite in tendency. The older, resting upon the second Isaiah, gave vivid expression, even within Palestine itself, to the universalism of the Jewish religion as well as to a religious ethic which rose almost to the pitch of humanitarianism. This is represented in a number of the psalms, in the book of Jonah, and in the Wisdom-literature. The pious are fully conscious that Yahweh rules over the nation and over all mankind, that he is the God of each individual, and that he requires nothing but reverence. Hence their hope for the ultimate conversion of all the heathen. They will have kings and people alike to bow before Yahweh and to praise him. Their desire is that Yahweh's name be known everywhere among the heathen, and his glory (in the sense of conversion to him) spread far and wide. With the age of the Maccabees, however, an opposite tendency set in. Apocalyptic was keener upon the downfall of the heathen than upon their conversion, and the exclusive tendencies of Judaism again assert themselves, in the struggle to preserve the distinctive characteristics of the nation. "One of the most important results which flowed from the outrageous policy of Antiochus was that it discredited for all time to come the idea of a Judaism free from any limitation whatsoever, and that it either made pro-Hellenism, in the sense of Jason and Alcimus, impossible for Palestine and the Diaspora alike, or else exposed it to sharp correction whenever it should raise its head" (Axenfeld, p. 28). Now, in the age of Christ and the apostles, these two waves, the progressive and the nationalist, are beating each other back. Pharisaism itself appears to be torn in twain. In some psalms and manuals, as well as in the 13th Blessing of the Schmone Esre, universalism still breaks out. "Hillel, the most famous representative of Jewish Biblical learning, was accustomed, with his pupils, to pay special attention to the propaganda of religion. Love men and draw them to the Law' is one of his traditional maxims" (Pirke Aboth, 1. 12). Gamaliel, Paul's teacher, is also to be ranked among the propagandists. It was not impossible, however, to be both exclusive and in favour of the propaganda, for the conditions of the mission were sharpened into the demand that the entire Law should be kept. If I mistake not, Jesus was primarily at issue with this kind of Pharisaism in Jerusalem. Now the keener became the opposition within Palestine to the foreign dominion, and the nearer the great catastrophe came, the more strenuous grew the reaction against all that was foreign, as well as the idea that whatever was un-Jewish would perish in the judgment. Not long before the destruction of Jerusalem, in all probability, the controversy between the schools of Hillel and Shammai ended in a complete victory for the latter. Shammai was not indeed an opponent of the mission in principle, but he subjected it to the most rigorous conditions. The eighteen rules which were laid down included, among other things, the prohibition against learning Greek, and that against accepting presents from pagans for the temple. Intercourse with pagans was confined within the strictest of regulations, and had to be given up as a whole. This opened the way for the Judaism of the Talmud and the Mishna. The Judaism of the Diaspora followed the same course of development, though not till some time afterwards. [45] __________________________________________________________________ [1] The conversion of the royal family of Adiabene (on the Tigris, at the frontier of the Roman Empire and of Parthia) to Judaism, during the reign of Claudius, is a fact of special moment in the history of the spread of Judaism, and Josephus gives it due prominence. A striking parallel, a century and a half later, is afforded by the conversion of the royal house of Edessa to Christianity. Renan (Les Apôtres, ch. xiv.) is not wrong when he remarks, in his own way, that "the royal family of Adiabene belongs to the history of Christianity." He does not mean to say, with Orosius (vii. 6) and Moses of Chorene (ii. 35), that they actually became Christians, but simply that "in embracing Judaism, they obeyed a sentiment which was destined to bring over the entire pagan world to Christianity." A further and striking parallel to the efforts of Queen Helena of Adiabene (cp. Jos., Antiq., xx. 2 f.; B.J., v. 2-4, v. 6. 1, vi. 6. 3) is to be found in the charitable activity of Constantine's mother, Queen Helena, in Jerusalem. Possibly the latter took the Jewish queen as her model, for Helena of Adiabene's philanthropy was still remembered in Jerusalem and by Jews in general (cp. Eus., H.E., ii. 12, and the Talmudic tradition).--Comprehensive evidence for the spread of Judaism throughout the empire lies in Philo (Legat. 36 and Flacc. 7), Acts (ii. 9 f.), and Josephus (Bell., ii. 16. 4, vii. 3. 3; Apion, ii. 39). The statement of Josephus (ouk estin epi tes oikoumenes demos ho me moiran hemeteran echon: "there is no people in the world which does not contain some part of us") had been anticipated more than two centuries earlier by a Jewish Sibylline oracle (Sib. orac., iii. 271; pasa de gaia sethen pleres kai pasa thalassa: "every land and sea is filled with thee"). By 139-138 B.C. a decree for the protection of Jews had been issued by the Roman Senate to the kings of Egypt, Syria, Pergamum, Cappadocia and Parthia, as well as to Sampsamê (Amisus?), Sparta, Sicyon (in the Peloponnese), Delos, Samos, the town of Gortyna, Caria and Myndus, Halicarnassus and Cnidus, Cos and Rhodes, the province of Lycia together with Phaselis, Pamphilia with Sidê, the Phoenician town Aradus, Cyrene and Cyprus. By the time of Sulla, Strabo had written thus (according to Josephus, Antiq., xiv. 7. 2): eis pasan polin ede pareleluthei, kai topon ouk esti rhadios heurein tes oikoumenes hos ou paradedektai touto to phulon med' epikrateitai hup' autou ("They have now got into every city, and it is hard to find a spot on earth which has not admitted this tribe and come under their control"). For the intensive spread of Judaism Seneca's testimony (cited by Augustine, De Civit. Dei, vi. 11) is particularly instructive: cum interim usque eo sceleratissimae gentis consuetudo valuit, ut per omnes iam terras recepta sit; victi victoribus leges dederunt ("Meantime the customs of this most accursed race have prevailed to such an extent that they are everywhere received. The conquered have imposed their laws on the conquerors"). Justin declares that "there are nations in which not one of your race [i.e. of the Jews] can be found" (esti ta ethne en hois oudepo oudeis humon tou genous okesen, Dial. 117), but the following claim that there were Christians in every nation shows that his statement is due to tendency. [2] The large number of Jews in Antioch is particularly striking. [3] For the diffusion of Jews in S. Arabia, cp. Philostorgius's important evidence (H.E., iii. 4). The local population, he avers, ouk oligon plethos Ioudaion anapephurtai. [4] Philo, Legat. 33: Ioudaioi kath' hekasten polin eisi pampletheis Asias te kai Surias ("The Jews abound in every city of Asia and Syria"). The word "every" (hekasten) is confirmed by a number of special testimonies, e.g. for Cilicia by Epiphanius (Hær., xxx. 11), who says of the "apostle" sent by the Jewish patriarch to collect the Jewish taxes in Cilicia: hos anelthon ekeise apo hekastes poleos tes Kilikias ta epidekata ktl eisepratten ("On his arrival there he proceeded to lift the tithes, etc., from every city in Cilicia"). On the spread of Judaism in Phrygia and the adjoining provinces (even into the districts of the interior), see Ramsay's two great works, The Cities and Bishoprics of Phrygia, and The Historical Geography of Asia Minor, along with his essay in the Expositor (January 1902) on "The Jews in the Græco-Asiatic Cities." Wherever any considerable number of inscriptions are found in these regions, some of them are always Jewish. The rô1e played by the Jewish element in Pisidian Antioch is shown by Acts xiii.; see especially verses 44 and 50 oi Ioudaioi paro'trunan tas sebomenas gunaikas tas euschemonas kai tous protous tes poleos). And the significance of the Jewish element in Smyrna comes out conspicuously in the martyrdom of Polycarp and of Pionius; on the day of a Jewish festival the appearance of the streets was quite changed. ''The diffusion and importance of the Jews in Asia Minor are attested among other things by the attempt made during the reign of Augustus, by the Ionian cities, apparently after joint counsel, to compel their Jewish fellow-townsmen to abandon their faith or else to assume the full burdens of citizenship" (Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. pp. 489 f., Eng. trans. Provinces, ii. 163). [5] Cp. also the remarks of Epiphanius (Hær., lxxx. l) upon the cult of Pantokrator. [6] See Monceaux, "les colonies juives dans l'Afrique romaine" (Rev. des Études juives, 1902); and Leclerq, L'Afrique chrétienne (1904), I. pp. 36 f. We have evidence for Jewish communities at Carthage, Naro, Hadrumetum, Utica, Hippo, Simittu, Volubilis, Cirta, Auzia, Sitifis, Cæsarea, Tipasa, and Oea, etc. [7] To all appearance, therefore, he knew no Jewish Christians at first hand. [8] Renan, Les Apôtres (ch. xvi.). [9] Antiq., xv. 3. 1, xi. 5. 2. According to Antiq., xii. 3. 4, Antiochus the Great deported 2000 families of Babylonian Jews to Phrygia and Lydia. [10] Dio Cassius (loc. cit.). The same author declares (lxix. 14) that 580,000 Jews perished in Palestine during the rebellion of Barcochba. [11] There is a discrepancy between them. Whilst Josephus (Antiq., xviii. 3. 5) mentions only Jews, Tacitus (Annal., ii. 85) writes: "Actum et de sacris Aegyptiis Judaicisque pellendis factumque patrum consultum, ut quattuor milia libertini generis ea superstitione infecta, quis idonea aetas, in insulam Sardiniam veherentur, coercendis illic latrociniis et, si ob gravitatem caeli interissent, vile damnum; ceteri cederent Italia, nisi certam ante diem profanes ritus exuissent" ("Measures were also adopted for the extermination of Egyptian and Jewish rites, and the Senate passed a decree that four thousand freedmen, able-bodied, who were tainted with that superstition, should be deported to the island of Sardinia to put a check upon the local brigands. Should the climate kill them 'twould be no great loss! As for the rest, they were to leave Italy unless they abjured their profane rites by a given day"). The expulsion is also described by Suetonius (Tiber. 36); "Externas caeremonias, Aegyptios Judaicosque ritus compescuit, coactis qui superstitione ea tenebantur religiosas vestes cum instrumento omni comburere. Judaeorum juventutem per speciem sacramenti in provincias gravioris caeli distribuit, reliquos gentis eiusdem vel similia sectantes urbe summovit, sub poena perpetuae servitutis nisi obtemperassent" ("Foreign religions, including the rites of Egyptians and Jews, he suppressed, forcing those who practised that superstition to burn their sacred vestments and all their utensils. He scattered the Jewish youth in provinces of an unhealthy climate, on the pretext of military service, whilst the rest of that race or of those who shared their practices were expelled from Rome, the penalty for disobedience being penal servitude for life"). [12] The sources here are contradictory. Acts (xviii. 2), Suetonius (Claud. 25), and Orosius (vii. 6. 15)--the last named appealing by mistake to Josephus, who says nothing about the incident--all speak of a formal (and enforced) edict of expulsion, but Dio Cassius (lx. 6) writes: tous te Ioudaious pleonasantas authis, hoste chalepos an aneu taraches hupo tou ochlou sphon tes poleos eirchthenai, ouk exelase; men, to de de patrio bio chromenous ekeleuse me sunathroizesthai ("As the Jews had once more multiplied, so that it would have been difficult to remove them without a popular riot, he did not expel them, but simply prohibited any gatherings of those who held to their ancestral customs"). We have no business, in my opinion, to use Dio Cassius in order to set aside two such excellent witnesses as Luke and Suetonius. Nor is it a satisfactory expedient to suppose, with Schürer (III. p. 32; cp. Eng. trans., II. ii. 237), that the government simply intended to expel the Jews. The edict must have been actually issued, although it was presently replaced by a prohibition of meetings, after the Jews had given a guarantee of good behaviour. [13] I omit a series of figures given elsewhere by Josephus; they are not of the slightest use. [14] See Mommsen, Röm. Gesch., v. p. 578 [Eng. trans., "Provinces of the Roman Empire," ii. p. 258], and Pietschmann in Pauly-Wissowa's Encyklop., i., col. 990 f. Beloch (Die Bevölkerung der griechisch-römischen Welt, pp. 258 f.) questions the reckoning of Josephus (Bell., ii. 16. 4) that the population of Egypt under Nero amounted to seven and a half millions. He will not allow more than about five, though he adduces no conclusive argument against Josephus, Still, as he also holds it an exaggeration to say, with Philo, that the Jews in Egypt were a million strong, he is not opposed to the hypothesis that Judaism in Egypt amounted to about 13 per cent. of the total population. Beloch reckons the population of Alexandria (including slaves) at about half a million. Of these, 200,000 would be Jews, as the Alexandrian Jews numbered about two-fifths of the whole. [15] Josephus, Bell., vii. 3. 3; (To Ioudaion genos polu men kata pasan ten oikoumenen parespartai tois epichoriois, pleiston de te Suria: "The Jewish race is thickly spread over the world among its inhabitants, but specially in Syria"). Beloch (pp. 242 f., 507) estimates the population of Syria under Augustus at about six millions, under Nero at about seven, whilst the free inhabitants of Antioch under Augustus numbered close on 300,000. As the percentage of Jews in Syria (and especially in Antioch) was larger than in Egypt (about 13 per cent.), certainly over a million Jews must be assumed for Syria under Nero. [16] Taking for granted, as in the case of any immigrant population, that the number of men is very considerably larger than that of women, I allow 2000 boys and old men to 4000 able-bodied men, and assume about 4000 females. [17] See Beloch, pp. 292 f. His figure, 500,000, seems to me rather low. [18] Renan (L'Antéchrist, ch. i.) is inclined to estimate the number of the Roman Jews, including women and children, at from twenty to thirty thousand. [19] The total number, including foreigners and slaves, would amount to something between 800,000 and 900,000 (according to Beloch, 800,000 at the outside). [20] After the edict of Pius, which forbade in the most stringent terms the circumcision of any who had not been born in Judaism (cp. also the previous edict of Hadrian), regular secessions must have either ceased altogether or occurred extremely seldom; cp. Orig., c. Cels., II. xiii. [21] In modern Germany the Jews number a little over one per cent of the population; in Austro-Hungary, four and two-thirds per cent. [22] Compare, on this point, Schürer's description, op, cit., III.(3) pp. 102 f. [Eng. trans., II. ii. 126 f.]. [23] The duty and the hopefulness of missions are brought out in the earliest Jewish Sibylline books. Almost the whole of the literature of Alexandrian Judaism has an apologetic bent and the instinct of propaganda. [24] Cp. Bousset's Die Religion des Judentums im neutest, Zeitalter 1903), especially the sections on "The Theologians, the Church and the Laity, Women, Confession (Faith and Dogma), the Synagogue as an Institute of Salvation" (pp. 139-184), and the large section devoted to "The Faith of the Individual and Theology." If a popular religion passes into a confession of faith and a church, individual faith with all its reach and strain also comes into view together with the church. For the propaganda of Judaism in the pagan world, cp. pp. 77 f. [25] If he did not, his son did. [26] Circumcision, of course, was always a troublesome wall of partition. Born Jews, as a rule, laid the greatest stress upon it, while pagans submitted to the operation with extreme reluctance. [27] This rigid exclusiveness in a religion naturally repelled the majority and excited frank resentment; it was somewhat of a paradox, and cannot fail to have been felt as obdurately inhuman as well as insolent. Anti-Semitism can be plainly traced within the Roman empire from 100 B.C. onwards; in the first century A.D. it steadily increased, discharging itself in outbursts of fearful persecution. [28] It was ripe also for the idea of an individual recompense in the future life, as an outcome of the heightened valuation of individual morality in this life, and for the idea of a judgment passed on the individual thereafter. [29] E.g., especially to the idealistic schools of popular philosophy. Cp. Wendland, Philo und die stoisch-kynische Diatribe (1895). [30] Cp. Friedlander's Geschichte der jüdischen Apologetik als Vorgeschichte des Christentums, 1903. On the heights of its apologetic, the Jewish religion represented itself as the idealist philosophy based on revelation (the sacred book), i.e., materially as ideological rationalism, and formally as supra-rationalism; it was the "most satisfying" form of religion, retaining a vitality, a precision, and a certainty in its conception of God such as no cognate form of religious philosophy could preserve, while at the same time the overwhelming number and the definite character of its ''prophecies" quelled every doubt. [31] "As a philosophical religion Judaism may have attracted one or two cultured individuals, but it was as a religious and social community with a life of its own that it won the masses." So Axenfeld, on p. 15 of his study (mentioned below on p. 16). Yet even as a religious fellowship with a life of its own, Judaism made a philosophic impression--and that upon the uneducated as well as upon the educated. I agree with Axenfeld, however, that the Jewish propaganda owed its success not to the literary activity of individual Hellenistic Jews, but to the assimilating power of the communities with their religious life, their strict maintenance of convictions, their recognition of their own interests and their satisfaction of a national pride, as evidenced in their demand for proselytes to glorify Jehovah. [32] The keenness of Jewish propaganda throughout the empire during the first century--"the age in which the Christian preaching began its course is the age in which the Jewish propaganda reached the acme of its efforts"--is also clear from the introduction of the Jewish week and Sabbath throughout the empire; cp. Schürer, "Die siebentägige Woche im Gebrauch der christlichen Kirche der ersten Jahrhunderte " (Zeits. f. die neut. Wiss., 1905, 40 f.). Many pagans celebrated the Sabbath, just as Jews to-day observe Sunday. [33] See Eus., H.E., i. 7, for the extent to which proselytes became fused among those who were Jews by birth. [34] It must not be forgotten that even in the Diaspora there was exclusiveness and fanaticism. The first persecution of Christians was set afoot by synagogues of the Diaspora in Jerusalem; Saul was a fanatic Jew of the Diaspora. [35] I know of no reliable inquiries into the decline and fall of Jewish missions in the empire after the second destruction of the temple. It seems to me unquestionable that Judaism henceforth slackened her tie with Hellenism, in order to drop it altogether as time went on, and that the literature of Hellenistic Judaism suddenly became very slender, destined ere long to disappear entirely. But whether we are to see in all this merely the inner stiffening of Judaism, or other causes to boot (e.g., the growing rivalry of Christianity), is a question which I do not venture to decide. On the repudiation of Hellenism by Palestinian Judaism even prior to the first destruction of the temple, see below (p. 16). [36] A notable parallel from history to the preaching of Paul in its relation to Jewish preaching, is to be found in Luther's declaration, that the truly perfect man was not a monk, but a Christian living in his daily calling. Luther also explained that the last (those engaged in daily business) were the first.--The above sketch has been contradicted by Friedländer (in Dr. Bloch's Oesterr. Wochenschrift, Zentralorgan f. d. ges. Interessen des Judentums, 1902, Nos. 49 f.), who asserts that proselytes ranked entirely the same as full-blooded Jews. But Friedländer himself confines this liberal attitude towards proselytes to the Judaism of the Greek Diaspora; he refers it to the influence of Hellenism, and supports it simply by Philo (and John the Baptist). Note also that Philo usually holds Jewish pride of birth to be vain, if a man is wicked; in that case, a Jew is far inferior to a man of pagan birth. With this limitation of Friedländer's, no objection can be taken to the thesis in question. I myself go still further; for there is no doubt that even before the rise of Christianity the Jews of the Diaspora allegorised the ceremonial Law, and that this paved the way for the Gentile church's freedom from the Law. Only, the question is (i.) whether the strict Judaism of Palestine, in its obscure origins, was really affected by these softening tendencies, (ii.) whether it did not exercise an increasingly strong influence upon Judaism even in the Diaspora, and (iii.) whether the Judaism of the Diaspora actually renounced all the privileges of its birth. On the two latter points, I should answer in the negative (even with regard to Philo); on the first, however, my reply would be in the affirmative. [37] The Jewish communities in the Diaspora also formed small states inside the state or city; one has only to recollect the civil jurisdiction which they exercised, even to the extent of criminal procedure. As late as the third century we possess, with reference to Palestine, Origen's account (Ep. ad Afric., xiv.) of the power of the Ethnarch (or patriarch), which was so great "that he differed in no whit from royalty"; "legal proceedings also took place privately as enjoined by the Law, and several people were condemned to death, not in open court and yet with the cognizance of the authorities." Similar occurrences would take place in the Diaspora. The age of Hadrian and Pius did bring about a terrible retrograde movement; but afterwards, part of the lost ground was again recovered. [38] Proofs of this are not forthcoming, however, in any number. [39] Owing to their religious and national characteristics, as well as to the fact that they enjoyed legal recognition throughout the empire, the Jews stood out conspicuously from amongst all the other nations included in the Roman state. This comes out most forcibly in the fact that they were even entitled "The Second race." We shall afterwards show that Christians were called the Third race, since Jews already ranked thus as the Second. [40] Messengers and letters also passed, which kept the tie between Jerusalem and the Jewish church of the Gentiles fresh and close. A good example occurs at the close of Acts. [41] On the patriarch, see Schürer, III.(3), pp. 77 f. [Eng. trans., II. ii. 270]. From Vopisc. Saturn. 8 we know that the patriarch himself went also in person to the Diaspora, so far as Egypt is concerned. On the "apostles," see Book III. ch. i. (2). [42] For "syncretism," see especially the last chapter in Bousset's volume (pp. 448-493). Syncretism melted each of the older elements within the religion of Judaism, and introduced a wealth of entirely new elements. But nothing decomposed the claim that Judaism was the true religion, or the conviction that in "Moses" all truth lay. [43] The nearest approach to it is to be found in the missionary speech put into Paul's mouth on the hill of Mars. [44] Cp. Bertholet, Die Stellung der Israeliten und Juden zu den Fremden (1890); Schürer, III.(3), pp. 125 f.); Bousset, op. cit., 82 f.; Axenfeld, "Die judische Propaganda als Vorläuferin der urchristlichen Mission," in the Missionswiss. Studien (Festschrift für Warneck), 1904, pp. l-80. [45] Axenfeld remarks very truly (pp. 8 f.) that "the history of the Jewish propaganda is to be explained by the constant strain between the demand that the heathen should be included and the dread which this excited. The Judaism which felt the impulse of propaganda resembled an invading host, whose offensive movements are continually being hampered by considerations arising from the need of keeping in close touch with their basis of operations." But it seems to me an artificial and theological reflection, when the same scholar lays supreme weight on the fact that the Jewish propaganda had no "consciousness of a vocation," and that, in contrast to the Christian mission, it simply proclaimed its God zealously from the consciousness of an innate religious pre-eminence, devoid of humility and obedience. I have tried in vain to find an atom of truth in this thesis, with its resultant defence of the historicity of Matthew xxviii. 19. It is of course admitted on all hands that Christian missionary zeal was bound subsequently to be intensified by the belief that Jesus had directly enjoined it. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 2 THE EXTERNAL CONDITIONS OF THE WORLD-WIDE EXPANSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION It is only in a series of headings, as it were, that I would summarize the external conditions which either made it possible for Christianity to spread rapidly and widely during the imperial age, or actually promoted its advance. One of the most important has been mentioned in the previous chapter, viz., the spread of Judaism, which anticipated and prepared the way for that of Christianity. Besides this, the following considerations [46] are especially to be noted:-- (1) The Hellenizing of the East and (in part also) of the West, which had gone on steadily since Alexander the Great: or, the comparative unity of language and ideas which this Hellenizing had produced. Not until the close of the second century A.D. does this Hellenizing process appear to have exhausted itself, [47] while in the fourth century, when the seat of empire was shifted to the East, the movement acquired a still further impetus in several important directions. As Christianity allied itself very quickly though incompletely to the speech and spirit of Hellenism, it was in a position to avail itself of a great deal in the success of the latter. In return it furthered the advance of Hellenism and put a check to its retreat. (2) The world-empire of Rome and the political unity which it secured for the nations bordering on the Mediterranean; the comparative unity secured by this world-state for the methods and conditions of outward existence, and also the comparative stability of social life. Throughout many provinces of the East, people felt the emperor really stood for peace, after all the dreadful storms and wars; they hailed his law as a shelter and a safeguard. [48] Furthermore, the earthly monarchy of the world; was a fact which at once favoured the conception of the heavenly monarchy and conditioned the origin of a catholic or universal church. (3) The exceptional facilities, growth, and security of international traffic: [49] the admirable roads; the blending of different nationalities; [50] the interchange of wares and of ideas; the personal intercourse; the ubiquitous merchant and soldier--one may add, the ubiquitous professor, who was to be encountered from Antioch to Cadiz, from Alexandria to Bordeaux. The church thus found the way paved for expansion: the means were prepared; and the population of the large towns was as heterogeneous and devoid of a past as could be desired. (4) The practical and theoretical conviction of the essential unity of mankind, and of human rights and duties, which was produced, or at any rate intensfied, by the fact of the "orbis Romanus" [Roman world] on the one side and the development of philosophy upon the other, and confirmed by the truly enlightened system of Roman jurisprudence, particularly between Nerva and Alexander Severus. On all essential questions the church had no reason to oppose, but rather to assent to, Roman law, that grandest and most durable product of the empire. [51] (5) The decomposition of ancient society into a democracy: the gradual equalizing of the "cives Romani" [Roman citizens] and the provincials, of the Greeks and the barbarians; the comparative equalizing of classes in society; the elevation of the slave-class--in short, a soil prepared for the growth of new formations by the decomposition of the old. (6) The religious policy of Rome, which furthered the interchange of religions by its toleration, hardly presenting any obstacles to their natural increase or transformation or decay, although it would not stand any practical expression of contempt for the ceremonial of the State-religion. The liberty guaranteed by Rome's religious policy on all other points was an ample compensation for the rough check imposed on the spread of Christianity by her vindication of the State-religion. (7) The existence of associations, as well as of municipal and provincial organizations. In several respects the former had prepared the soil for the reception of Christianity, whilst in some cases they probably served as a shelter for it. The latter actually suggested the most important forms of organization in the church, and thus saved her the onerous task of first devising such forms and then requiring to commend them. (8) The irruption of the Syrian and Persian religions into the empire, dating especially from the reign of Antoninus Pius. These had certain traits in common with Christianity, and although the spread of the church was at first handicapped by them, any such loss was amply made up for by the new religious cravings which they stirred within the minds of men--cravings which could not finally be satisfied apart from Christianity. (9) The decline of the exact sciences, a phenomenon due to the democratic tendency of society and the simultaneous popularizing of knowledge, as well as to other unknown causes: also the rising vogue of a mystical philosophy of religion with a craving for some form of revelation and a thirst for miracle. All these outward conditions (of which the two latter might have been previously included among the inward) brought about a great revolution in the whole of human existence under the empire, a revolution which must have been highly conducive to the spread of the Christian religion. The narrow world had become a wide world; the rent world had become a unity; the barbarian world had become Greek and Roman: one empire, one universal language, one civilization, a common development towards monotheism, and a common yearning for saviors! [52] __________________________________________________________________ [46] The number of works at our disposal for such a survey is legion. One of the most recent is Gruppe's Kulturgeschichte der römischen Kaiserzeit (2 vols., 1903, 1904). [47] I know no investigations as to the precise period when the advance of Hellenism, more particularly of the Greek language, subsided and ceased at Rome and throughout the West. From my limited knowledge of the subject, I should incline to make the close of the second century the limit. Marcus Aurelius still wrote his confessions in Greek, but no indication of a similar kind can be discovered later. In the West, Greek was checked by the deterioration of culture as well as by the circumstances of the situation; the tidal wave grows shallower as it spreads. During the third century Rome began to shed off Greek, and in the course of the fourth century she became once more a purely Latin city. So too with the Western provinces as far as they had assimilated the Greek element; so with Southern Italy and Gaul even, though the process took longer in these regions. During the second century people could still make themselves understood apparently by means of Greek, in any of the larger Western cities; by the third century, a stranger who did not know Latin was sometimes in difficulties, though not often; by the fourth, no traveller in the West could dispense with Latin any longer, and it was only in Southern Gaul and Lower Italy that Greek sufficed. [48] After Melito, Origen (c. Celsum II. xxx.) correctly estimated the significance of this for the Christian propaganda. "In the days of Jesus, righteousness arose and fulness of peace; it began with his birth. God prepared the nations for his teaching, by causing the Roman emperor to rule over all the world; there was no longer to be a plurality of kingdoms, else would the nations have been strangers to one another, and so the apostles would have found it harder to carry out the task laid on them by Jesus, when he said, Go and teach all nations.' It is well known that the birth of Jesus took place in the reign of Augustus, who fused and federated the numerous peoples upon earth into a single empire. A plurality of kingdoms would have been an obstacle to the spread of the doctrine of Jesus throughout all the world, not merely for the reasons already mentioned, but also because the nations would in that event have been obliged to go to war in defence of their native lands. . . . . How, then, could this doctrine of peace, which does not even permit vengeance upon an enemy, have prevailed throughout the world, had not the circumstances of the world passed everywhere into a milder phase at the advent of Jesus?" [49] Cp. Stephan in Raumer's Histor. Taschenbuch (1868), pp. 1 f., and Zahn's Weltverkehr und Kirche während der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (1877). That one Phrygian merchant voyaged to Rome (according to the inscription on a tomb) no fewer than seventy-two times in the course of his life, is itself a fact which must never be lost sight of. [50] It is surprising to notice this blending of nationalities, whenever any inscription bears a considerable number of names (soldiers, pages, martyrs, etc.), and at the same time mentions their origin. [51] At this point (in order to illustrate these four paragraphs) Renan's well-known summary may be cited (Les Apôtres, ch. xvi.): "The unity of the empire was the essential presupposition of any comprehensive proselytizing movement which should transcend the limits of nationality. In the fourth century the empire realised this: it became Christian; it perceived that Christianity was the religion which it had matured involuntarily; it recognized in Christianity the religion whose limits were the same as its own, the religion which was identified with itself and capable of infusing new life into its being. The church, for her part, became thoroughly Roman, and to this day has remained a survival of the old Roman empire. Had anyone told Paul that Claudius was his main coadjutor, had anyone told Claudius that this Jew, starting from Antioch, was preparing the ground for the most enduring part of the imperial system, both Paul and Claudius would have been mightily astonished. Nevertheless both sayings would have been true." [52] As Uhlhorn remarks very truly (Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit in der alten Kirche, 1882, p. 37; Eng. trans. pp. 40-42): "From the time of the emperors onwards a new influence made itself felt, and unless we notice this influence, we cannot understand the first centuries of the early Christian church, we cannot understand its rapid extension and its relatively rapid triumph. . . . . Had the stream of new life issuing from Christ encountered ancient life when the latter was still unbroken, it would have recoiled impotent from the shock. But ancient life had by this time begun to break up; its solid foundations had begun to weaken; and, besides, the Christian stream fell in with a previous and cognate current of Jewish opinion. In the Roman empire there had already appeared a universalism foreign to the ancient world. Nationalities had been effaced. The idea of universal humanity had disengaged itself from that of nationality. The Stoics had passed the word that all men were equal, and had spoken of brotherhood as well as of the duties of man towards man. Hitherto despised, the lower classes had asserted their position. The treatment of slaves became milder. If Cato had compared them to cattle, Pliny sees in them his serving friends.' The position of the artizan improved, and freedmen worked their way up, for the guilds provided them not simply with a centre of social life, but also with the means of bettering their social position. Women, hitherto without any legal rights, received such in increasing numbers. Children were looked after. The distribution of grain, originally a political institution and nothing more, became a sort of poor-relief system, and we meet with a growing number of generous deeds, gifts, and endowments, which already exhibit a more humane spirit," etc. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER III. THE INTERNAL CONDITIONS DETERMINING THE WORLD-WIDE EXPANSION OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION--RELIGIOUS SYNCRETISM In subsequent sections of this book we shall notice a series of the more important inner conditions which determined the universal spread of the Christian religion. It was by preaching to the poor, the burdened, and the outcast, by the preaching and practice of love, that Christianity turned the stony, sterile world into a fruitful field for the church. Where no other religion could sow and reap, this religion was enabled to scatter its seed and to secure a harvest. The condition, however, which determined more than anything else the propaganda of the religion, lay in the general religious situation during the imperial age. It is impossible to attempt here to depict that situation, and unluckily we cannot refer to any standard work which does justice to such a colossal undertaking, despite the admirable studies and sketches (such as those of Tzschirner, Friedländer, Boissier, Réville, and Wissowa) [53] which we possess. This being so, we must content ourselves with throwing out a few hints along two main lines. (1) In spite of the inner evolution of polytheism towards monotheism, the relations between Christianity and paganism simply meant the opposition of monotheism and polytheism--of polytheism, too, in the first instance, as political religion (the imperial cultus). Here Christianity and paganism were absolutely opposed. The former burned what the latter adored, and the latter burned Christians as guilty of high treason. Christian apologists and martyrs were perfectly right in often ignoring every other topic when they opened their lips, and in reducing everything to this simple alternative. Judaism shared with Christianity this attitude towards polytheism. But then, Judaism was a national religion; hence its monotheism was widely tolerated simply because it was largely unintelligible. Furthermore, it usually evaded any conflict with the State-authorities, and it did not make martyrdom obligatory. That a man had to become a Jew in order to be a monotheist, was utterly absurd: it degraded the creator of heaven and earth to the level of a national god. Besides, if he was a national god, he was not the only one. No doubt, up and down the empire there were whispers about the atheism of the Jews, thanks to their lack of images; but the charge was never levelled in real earnest--or rather, opinion was in such a state of oscillation that the usual political result obtained: in dubio pro reo. It was otherwise with Christianity. Here the polytheists could have no hesitation: deprived of any basis in a nation or a State, destitute alike of images and temples, Christianity was simple atheism. The contrast between polytheism and monotheism was in this field clear and keen. From the second century onwards, the conflict between these two forms of religion was waged by Christianity and not by Judaism. The former was aggressive, while as a rule the latter had really ceased to fight at all--it devoted itself to capturing proselytes. From the very outset it was no hopeless struggle. When Christianity came upon the scene, the polytheism of the State-religion was not yet eradicated, indeed, nor was it eradicated for some time to come; [54] but there were ample forces at hand which were already compassing its ruin. It had survived the critical epoch during which the republic had changed into a dual control and a monarchy; but as for the fresh swarm of religions which were invading and displacing it, polytheism could no more exorcise them with the magic wand of the imperial cultus than it could dissolve them under the rays of a protean cultus of the sun, which sought to bring everything within its sweep. Nevertheless polytheism would still have been destined to a long career, had it not been attacked secretly or openly by the forces of general knowledge, philosophy, and ethics; had it not also been saddled with arrears of mythology which excited ridicule and resentment. Statesmen, poets, and philosophers might disregard all this, since each of these groups devised some method of preserving their continuity with the past. But once the common people realized it, or were made to realize it, the conclusion they drew in such cases was ruthless. The onset against deities feathered and scaly, deities adulterous and infested with vice, and on the other hand against idols of wood and stone, formed the most impressive and effective factor in Christian preaching for wide circles, circles which in all ranks of society down to the lowest classes (where indeed they were most numerous) had, owing to experience and circumstances, reached a point at which the burning denunciations of the abomination of idolatry could not fail to arrest them and bring them over to monotheism. The very position of polytheism as the State-religion was in favour of the Christian propaganda. Religion faced religion; but whilst the one was new and living, the other was old--that is, with the exception of the imperial cultus, in which once more it gathered up its forces. No one could tell exactly what had come over it. Was it merely equivalent to what was lawful in politics? Or did it represent the vast, complicated mass of religiones licitae throughout the empire? Who could say? (2) This, however, is to touch on merely one side of the matter. The religious situation in the imperial age, with the tendencies it cherished and the formations it produced--all this was complicated in the extreme. Weighty as were the simple antitheses of "monotheism versus polytheism" and "strict morality versus laxity and vice'' these cannot be taken as a complete summary of the whole position. The posture of affairs throughout the empire is no more adequately described by the term "polytheism'' than is Christianity, as it was then preached, by the bare term "monotheism." It was not a case of vice and virtue simply facing one another. Here, in fact, we must enter into some detail and definition. Anyone who considers that the domination of the inner life over external empiricism and politics is an illusion and perversion, must date the disintegration of the ancient world from Socrates and Plato. Here the two tempers stand apart! On the other hand, anyone who regards this domination as the supreme advance of man, is not obliged to accompany its development down as far as Neo-Platonism. He will not, indeed, be unaware that, even to the last, in the time of Augustine, genuine advances were made along this line, but he will allow that they were gained at great expense--too great expense. This erroneous development began when introspection commenced to despise and neglect its correlative in natural science, and to woo mysticism, theurgy, astrology, or magic. For more than a century previous to the Christian era, this had been going on. At the threshold of the transition stands Posidonius, like a second Janus. Looking in one direction, he favours a rational idealism; but, in another, he combines this with irrational and mystic elements. The sad thing is that these elements had to be devised and employed in order to express new emotional values which his rational idealism could not manage to guarantee, because it lay spell-bound and impotent in intellectualism. Language itself declined to fix the value of anything which was not intellectual by nature. Hence the Upernoeton emerged, a conception which continued to attract and appropriate what ever was mythical and preposterous, allowing it to pass in unchallenged. Myth now ceased to be a mere symbol. It became the organic means of expression for those higher needs of sentiment and religion whose real nature was a closed book to thinkers of the day. On this line of development, Posidonius was followed by Philo. The inevitable result of all this was a relapse to lower levels; but it was a relapse which, as usual, bore all the signs of an innovation. The signs pointed to life, but the innovation was ominous. For, while the older mythology had been either naïve or political, dwelling in the world of ceremony, the new mythology became a confession: it was philosophical, or pseudo-philosophical, and to this it owed its sway over the mind, beguiling the human spirit until it gradually succeeded in destroying the sense of reality and in crippling the proper functions of all the senses within man. His eyes grew dim, his ears could hear no longer. At the same time, these untoward effects were accompanied by a revival and resuscitation of the religious feeling--as a result of the philosophical development. This took place about the close of the first century. Ere long it permeated all classes in society, and it appears to have increased with every decade subsequently to the middle of the second century. This came out in two ways, on the principle of that dual development in which a religious upheaval always manifests itself. The first was a series of not unsuccessful attempts to revivify and inculcate the old religions, by carefully observing traditional customs, and by restoring the sites of the oracles and the places of worship. Such attempts, however, were partly superficial and artificial. They offered no strong or clear expression for the new religious cravings of the age. And Christianity held entirely aloof from all this restoration of religion. They came into contact merely to collide--this pair of alien magnitudes; neither understood the other, and each was driven to compass the extermination of its rival (see above). The second way in which the resuscitation of religion came about, however, was far more potent. Ever since Alexander the Great and his successors, ever since Augustus in a later age, the nations upon whose development the advance of humanity depended had been living under new auspices. The great revolution in the external conditions of their existence has been already emphasized; but corresponding to this, and partly in consequence of it, a revolution took place in the inner world of religion, which was due in some degree to the blending of religions, but pre-eminently to the progress of culture and to man's experience inward and outward. No period can be specified at which this blending process commenced among the nations lying between Egypt and the Euphrates, the Tigris, or Persia; [55] for, so far as we are in a position to trace back their history, their religions were, like themselves, exposed to constant interchange, whilst their religious theories were a matter of give and take. But now the Greek world fell to be added, with all the store of knowledge and ideas which it had gained by dint of ardent, willing toil, a world lying open to any contribution from the East, and in its turn subjecting every element of Eastern origin to the test of its own lore and speculation. The results already produced by the interchange of Oriental religions, including that of Israel, were technically termed, a century ago, "the Oriental philosophy of religion," a term which denoted the broad complex of ritual and theory connected with the respective cults, their religious ideas, and also scientific speculations such as those of astronomy or of any other branch of knowledge which was elevated into the province of religion. All this was as indefinite as the title which was meant to comprehend it, nor even at present have we made any great progress in this field of research. [56] Still, we have a more definite grasp of the complex itself; and--although it seems paradoxical to say so--this is a result which we owe chiefly to Christian gnosticism. Nowhere else are these vague and various conceptions worked out for us so clearly and coherently. In what follows I shall attempt to bring out the salient features of this "Orientalism." Naturally it was no rigid entity. At every facet it presented elements and ideas of the most varied hue. The general characteristic was this that people still retained or renewed their belief in sections of the traditional mythology presented in realistic form. To these they did attach ideas. It is not possible, as a rule, to ascertain in every case at what point and to what extent such ideas overflowed and overpowered the realistic element in any given symbol--a fact which makes our knowledge of "Orientalism" look extremely defective; for what is the use of fixing down a piece of mythology to some definite period and circle, if we cannot be sure of its exact value? Was it held literally? Was it transformed into an idea? Was it taken metaphorically? Was it the creed of unenlightened piety? Was it merely ornamental? And what was its meaning? Theological or cosmological? Ethical or historical? Did it embody some event in the remote past, or something still in existence, or something only to be realized in the future? Or did these various meanings and values flow in and out of one another? And was the myth in question felt to be some sacred, undefined magnitude, something that could unite with every conceivable coefficient, serving as the starting-point for any interpretation whatsoever that one chose to put before the world? This last question is to be answered, I think, in the affirmative, nor must we forget that in one and the same circle the most diverse coefficients were simultaneously attached to any piece of mythology. Further, we must not lose sight of the varied origin of the myths. The earliest spring from the primitive view of nature, in which the clouds were in conflict with the light and the night devoured the sun, whilst thunderstorms were the most awful revelation of the deity. Or they arose from the dream-world of the soul, from that separation of soul and body suggested by the dream, and from the cult of the human soul. The next stratum may have arisen out of ancient historical reminiscences, fantastically exaggerated and elevated into something supernatural. Then came the precipitate of primitive attempts at "science" which had gone no further, viz., observations of heaven and earth, leading to the knowledge of certain regular sequences, which were bound up with religious conceptions. All this the soul of man informed with life, endowing it with the powers of human consciousness. It was upon this stratum that the great Oriental religions rose, as we know them in history, with their special mythologies and ritual theories. Then came another stratum, namely, religion in its abstract development and alliance with a robust philosophic culture. One half of it was apologetic, and the other critical. Yet even there myths still took shape. Finally, the last stratum was laid down, viz., the glaciation of ancient imaginative fancies and religions produced by a new conception of the universe, which the circumstances and experience of mankind had set in motion. Under the pressure of this, all existing materials were fused together, elements that lay far apart were solidified into a unity, and all previous constructions were shattered, while the surface of the movement was covered by broken fragments thrown out in a broad moraine, in which the débris of all earlier strata were to be found. This is the meaning of "syncretism". Viewed from a distance, it looks like a unity, though the unity seems heterogeneous. The forces which have shaped it do not meet the eye. What one really sees is the ancient element in its composition; the new lies buried under all that catches the eye upon the surface. This new element consisted in the political and social experience, and in speculations of the inner life. It would appear that even before the period of its contact with the Greek spirit, "Orientalism" had reached this stage; but one of the most unfortunate gaps in our knowledge of the history of religion is our inability to determine to what extent "Orientalism" had developed on its own lines, independent of this Greek spirit. We must be content to ascertain what actually took place, viz., the rise of new ideas and emotions which meet us on the soil of Hellenism--that Hellenism which, with its philosophy of a matured Platonism and its development of the ancient mysteries, coalesced with Orientalism. [57] These new features [58] are somewhat as follows:-- (1) There is the sharp division between the soul (or spirit) and the body: the more or less exclusive importance attached to the spirit, and the notion that the spirit comes from some other, upper world and is either possessed or capable of life eternal: also the individualism involved in all this. (2) There is the sharp division between God and the world, with the subversion of the naïve idea that they formed a homogeneous unity. (3) In consequence of these distinctions we have the sublimation of the Godhead, "via negationis et eminentiæ." The Godhead now becomes for the first time incomprehensible and indescribable; yet it is also great and good. Furthermore, it is the basis of all things; but the ultimate basis, which is simply posited yet cannot be actually grasped. (4) As a further result of these distinctions and of the exclusive importance attached to the spirit, we have the depreciation of the world, the contention that it were better never to have existed, that it was the result of a blunder, and that it was a prison or at best a penitentiary for the spirit. (5) There is the conviction that the connection with the flesh ("that soiled robe") depreciated and stained the spirit; in fact, that the latter would inevitably be ruined unless the connection were broken or its influence counteracted. (6) There is the yearning for redemption, as a redemption from the world, the flesh, mortality, and death. (7) There is the conviction that all redemption is redemption to life eternal, and that it is dependent on knowledge and expiation: that only the soul that knows (knows itself, the Godhead, and the nature and value of being) and is pure (i.e., purged from sin) can be saved. (8) There is the certainty that the redemption of the soul as a return to God is effected through a series of stages, just as the soul once upon a time departed from God by stages, till it ended in the present vale of tears. All instruction upon redemption is therefore instruction upon "the return and road'" to God. The consummation of redemption is simply a graduated ascent. (9) There is the belief (naturally a wavering belief) that the anticipated redemption or redeemer was already present, needing only to be sought out: present, that is, either in some ancient creed which simply required to be placed in a proper light, or in one of the mysteries which had only to be made more generally accessible, or in some personality whose power and commands had to be followed, or even in the spirit, if only it would turn inward on itself. (10) There is the conviction that whilst knowledge is indispensable to all the media of redemption, it cannot be adequate; on the contrary, they must ultimately furnish and transmit an actual power divine. It is the "initiation" (the mystery or sacrament) which is combined with the impartation of knowledge, by which alone the spirit is subdued, by which it is actually redeemed and delivered from the bondage of mortality and sin by means of mystic rapture. (11) There is the prevalent, indeed the fundamental opinion that knowledge of the universe, religion, and the strict management of the individual's conduct, must form a compact unity; they must constitute an independent unity, which has nothing whatever to do with the State, society, the family, or one's daily calling, and must therefore maintain an attitude of negation (i.e. in the sense of asceticism) towards all these spheres. The soul, God, knowledge, expiation, asceticism, redemption, eternal life, with individualism and with humanity substituted for nationality--these were the sublime thoughts which were living and operative, partly as the precipitate of deep inward and outward movements, partly as the outcome of great souls and their toil, partly as one result of the sublimation of all cults which took place during the imperial age. Wherever vital religion existed, it was in this circle of thought and experience that it drew breath. The actual number of those who lived within the circle is a matter of no moment. "All men have not faith." And the history of religion, so far as it is really a history of vital religion, runs always in a very narrow groove. The remarkable thing is the number of different guises in which such thoughts were circulating. Like all religious accounts of the universe which aim at reconciling monistic and dualistic theories, they required a large apparatus for their intrinsic needs; but the tendency was to elaborate this still further, partly in order to provide accommodation for whatever might be time-honoured or of any service, partly because isolated details had an appearance of weakness which made people hope to achieve their end by dint of accumulation. Owing to the heterogeneous character of their apparatus, these syncretistic formations seem often to be totally incongruous. But this is a superficial estimate. A glance at their motives and aims reveals the presence of a unity, and indeed of simplicity, which is truly remarkable. The final motives, in fact, are simple and powerful, inasmuch as they have sprung from simple but powerful experiences of the inner life, and it was due to them that the development of religion advanced, so far as any such advance took place apart from Christianity. Christianity had to settle with this "syncretism'" or final form of Hellenism. But we can see at once how inadequate it would be to describe the contrast between Christianity and "paganism" simply as the contrast between monotheism and polytheism. No doubt, any form of syncretism was perfectly capable of blending with polytheism; the one even demanded and could not but intensify the other. To explain the origin of the world and also to describe the soul's "return," the "apparatus" of the system required æons, intermediate beings, semi-gods, and deliverers; the highest deity was not the highest or most perfect, if it stood by itself. Yet all this way of thinking was monotheistic at bottom; it elevated the highest God to the position of primal God, high above all gods, linking the soul to this primal God and to him alone (not to any subordinate deities). [59] Polytheism was relegated to a lower level from the supremacy which once it had enjoyed. Further, as soon as Christianity itself began to be reflective, it took an interest in this "syncretism," borrowing ideas from it, and using them, in fact, to promote its own development. Christianity was not originally syncretistic itself, for Jesus Christ did not belong to this circle of ideas, and it was his disciples who were responsible for the primitive shaping of Christianity. But whenever Christianity came to formulate ideas of God, Jesus, sin, redemption, and life, it drew upon the materials acquired in the general process of religious evolution, availing itself of all the forms which these had taken. Christian preaching thus found itself confronted with the old polytheism at its height in the imperial cultus, and with this syncretism which represented the final stage of Hellenism. These constituted the inner conditions under which the young religion carried on its mission. From its opposition to polytheism it drew that power of antithesis and exclusiveness which is a force at once needed and intensified by any independent religion. In syncretism, again, i.e., in all that as a rule deserved the title of "religion" in contemporary life, it possessed unconsciously a secret ally. All it had to do with syncretism was to cleanse and simplify--and complicate --it. __________________________________________________________________ [53] Add the sketch of the history of Greek religion by Wilamowitz-Moellendorff (Jahrb. des Freien deutschen Hochstifts, 1904). [54] Successful attempts to revive it were not awanting; see under (2) in this section. [55] It is still a moot point of controversy whether India had any share in this, and if so to what extent; some connection with India, however, does seem probable. [56] The origin of the separate elements, in particular, is frequently obscure--whether Indian, Persian, Babylonian, Egyptian, Asiatic, etc. [57] The convergence of these lines of development in the various nations of antiquity during the age of Hellenism is among the best-established facts of history. Contemporary ideas of a cognate or similar nature were not simply the result of mutual interaction, but also of an independent development along parallel lines. This makes it difficult, and indeed impossible in many cases, to decide on which branch any given growth sprang up. The similarity of the development on parallel lines embraced not only the ideas, but frequently their very method of expression and the form under which they were conceived. The bounds of human fancy in this province are narrower than is commonly supposed. [58] Cp. further the essay of Loofs on "The Crisis of Christianity in the Second Century" (Deutsch-evang. Blätter, 1904, Heft 7), which depicts the problem occasioned by the meeting of Christianity and syncretism. Also, the penetrating remarks of Wernle in his Anfängen unserer Religion (2nd ed., 1904; Eng. trans., The Beginnings of Christianity, in this library). [59] The difference between the Christian God and the God of syncretistic Hellenism is put by the pagan (Porphyry) in Macarius Magnes, iv. 20, with admirable lucidity: to mentoi peri tes monarchias tou monou theou kai tes poluarchias ton sebomenon theon diarreden zetesomen, hon ouk oidas oude tes monarchias ton logon aphegesasthai. Monarches gar estin ouch ho monos on all' ho monos archon; archei d' homophulon delade kai homoion, hoion Hadrianos ho basileus monarches gegonen, ouch hoti monos eo oud' hoti boon kai probaton erchen, hon archousi poimenes e boukoloi, all' hoti anthropon ebasileuse ton homogenon ten auten phusin echonton; hosautos theos ouk an monarches kurios eklethe, ei me theon erche. touto gar eprepe to theio megethei kai to ouranio kai pollo axiomati ("Let us, however, proceed to inquire explicitly about the monarchy of the one God alone and the joint-rule of those deities who are worshipped, but of whom, as of divine monarchy, you cannot give any account. A monarch is not one who is alone but one who rules alone, ruling subjects of kindred nature like himself--such as the emperor Hadrian, for example, who was a monarch not because he stood alone or because he ruled sheep and cattle, which are commanded by shepherds and herdsmen, but because he was king over human beings whose nature was like his own. Even so, it would not have been accurate to term God a monarch, if he did not rule over gods. For such a position befitted the dignity of God and the high honour of heaven"). Here the contrast between the Christian and the Greek monarchianism is clearly defined. Only, it should be added that many philosophic Christians (even in the second century) did not share this severely monotheistic idea of God; in fact, as early as the first century we come across modifications of it. Tertullian (in adv. Prax. iii.), even in recapitulating the view of God which passed for orthodox at that period, comes dangerously near to Porphyry in the remark: "Nullam dico dominationem ita unius esse, ita singularem, ita monarchiam, ut non etiam per alias proximas personas administretur, quas ipsa prospexerit officiales sibi" ("No dominion, I hold, belongs to any one person in such a way, or is in such a sense singular, or in such a sense a monarchy, as not also to be administered through other persons who are closely related to it, and with whom it has provided itself as its officials"). The school of Origen went still further in their reception of syncretistic monotheism, and the movement was not checked until the Nicene creed came with its irrational doctrine of the Trinity, causing the Logos and the Spirit to be conceived as persons within the Godhead. But although the pagan monarchical idea was routed on this field, it had already entrenched itself in the doctrine of angels. The latter, as indeed Porphyry (iv. 20) observed, is thoroughly Hellenic, since it let in polytheism through a back-door. In iv. 23 Porphyry tries to show Christians that as their scriptures taught a plurality of gods, they consequently contained the conception of God's monarchy which the Greeks taught. He refers to Exod. xxii. 28, Jerem. vii. 6, Deut. xii. 30, Josh. xxiv. 14, 1 Cor. viii. 5. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER IV. JESUS CHRIST AND THE UNIVERSAL MISSION It is impossible to answer the question of Jesus' relation to the universal mission, without a critical study of the evangelic records. The gospels were written in an age when the mission was already in full swing, and they consequently refer it to direct injunction of Jesus. But they enable us, for all that, to recognise the actual state of matters. Jesus addressed his gospel--his message of God's imminent kingdom and of judgment, of God's fatherly providence, of repentance, holiness, and love--to his fellow-countrymen. He preached only to Jews. Not a syllable shows that he detached this message from its national soil, or set aside the traditional religion as of no value. Upon the contrary, his preaching could be taken as the most powerful corroboration of that religion. He did not attach himself to any of the numerous "liberal" or syncretistic Jewish conventicles or schools. He did not accept their ideas. Rather he took his stand upon the soil of Jewish rights, i.e., of the piety maintained by Pharisaism. But he showed that while the Pharisees preserved what was good in religion, they were perverting it none the less, and that the perversion amounted to the most heinous of sins. Jesus waged war against the selfish, self-righteous temper in which many of the Pharisees fulfilled and practised their piety--a temper, at bottom, both loveless and godless. This protest already involved a break with the national religion, for the Pharisaic position passed for that of the nation; indeed, it represented the national religion. But Jesus went further. He traversed the claim that the descendants of Abraham, in virtue of their descent, were sure of salvation, and based the idea of divine sonship exclusively upon repentance, humility, faith, and love. In so doing, he disentangled religion from its national setting. Men, not Jews, were to be its adherents. Then, as it became plainer than ever that the Jewish people as a whole, and through their representatives, were spurning his message, he announced with increasing emphasis that a judgment was coming upon "the children of the kingdom" and prophesied, as his forerunner had done already, that the table of his Father would not lack for guests, but that a crowd would pour in, morning, noon, and night, from the highways and the hedges. Finally, he predicted the rejection of the nation and the overthrow of the temple, but these were not to involve the downfall of his work; on the contrary, he saw in them, as in his own passion, the condition of his work's completion. Such is the "universalism" of the preaching of Jesus. No other kind of universalism can be proved for him, and consequently he cannot have given any command upon the mission to the wide world. The gospels contain such a command, but it is easy to show that it is neither genuine nor a part of the primitive tradition. It would introduce an entirely strange feature into the preaching of Jesus, and at the same time render many of his genuine sayings unintelligible or empty. One might even argue that the universal mission was an inevitable issue of the religion and spirit of Jesus, and that its origin, not only apart from any direct word of Jesus, but in verbal contradiction to several of his sayings, is really a stronger testimony to the method, the strength, and the spirit of his preaching than if it were the outcome of a deliberate command. By the fruit we know the tree; but we must not look for the fruit in the root. With regard to the way in which he worked and gathered disciples, the distinctiveness of his person and his preaching comes out very clearly. He sought to found no sect or school. He laid down no rules for outward adhesion to himself. His aim was to bring men to God and to prepare them for God's kingdom. He chose disciples, indeed, giving them special instruction and a share in his work; but even here there were no regulations. There were an inner circle of three, an outer circle of twelve, and beyond that a few dozen men and women who accompanied him. In addition to that, he had intimate friends who remained in their homes and at their work. Wherever he went, he wakened or found children of God throughout the country. No rule or regulation bound them together. They simply sought and shared the supreme boon which came home to each and all, viz., the kingdom of their Father and of the individual soul. In the practice of this kind of mission Jesus has had but one follower, and he did not arise till a thousand years afterwards. He was St Francis of Assisi. If we leave out of account the words put by our first evangelist into the lips of the risen Jesus (Matt. xxviii. 19 f.), with the similar expressions which occur in the unauthentic appendix to the second gospel (Mark xvi. 15, 20), and if we further set aside the story of the wise men from the East, as well as one or two Old Testament quotations which our first evangelist has woven into his tale (cp. Matt. iv. 13 f., xii. 18), we must admit that Mark and Matthew have almost consistently withstood the temptation to introduce the Gentile mission into the words and deeds of Jesus. Jesus called sinners to himself, ate with tax-gatherers, attacked the Pharisees and their legal observance, made everything turn upon mercy and justice, and predicted the downfall of the temple--such is the universalism of Mark and Matthew. The very choice and commission of the twelve is described without any mention of a mission to the world (Mark iii. 13 f., vi. 7 f., and Matt. x. 1 f.). In fact, Matthew expressly limits their mission to Palestine. "Go not on the road of the Gentiles, and enter no city of the Samaritans; rather go to the lost sheep of the house of Israel " (Matt. x. 5, 6). And so in x. 23: "Ye shall not have covered the cities of Israel, before the Son of man comes." [60] The story of the Syro-Phoenician woman is almost of greater significance. Neither evangelist leaves it open to question that this incident represented an exceptional case for Jesus; [61] and the exception proves the rule. In Mark this section on the Syro-Phoenician woman is the only passage where the missionary efforts of Jesus appear positively restricted to the Jewish people in Palestine. Matthew, however, contains not merely the address on the disciples' mission, but a further saying (xix. 28), to the effect that the twelve are one day to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. No word here of the Gentile mission. [62] Only twice does Mark make Jesus allude to the gospel being preached in future throughout the world: in the eschatological address (xiii. 10, "The gospel must first be preached to all the nations," i.e., before the end arrives), and in the story of the anointing at Bethany (xiv. 9), where we read: "Wherever this gospel shall be preached throughout the whole world, what this woman hath done shall be also told, in memory of her." The former passage puts into the life of Jesus an historical theologoumenon, which is hardly original. The latter excites strong suspicion, not with regard to what precedes it, but in connection with the saying of Jesus in verses 8-9. It is a hysteron proteron, and moreover the solemn assurance is striking. Some obscure controversy must underlie the words--a controversy which turned upon the preceding scene not only when it happened, but at a still later date. Was it ever suspected? [63] These two sayings are also given in Matthew [64] (xxiv. 14, xxvi. 13), who preserves a further saying which has the Gentile world in view, yet whose prophetic manner arouses no suspicion of its authenticity. In viii. 11 we read: "I tell you, many shall come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham and Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out." Why should not Jesus have said this? Even among the words of John the Baptist (iii. 9) do we not read: "Think not to say to yourselves, we have Abraham as our father; for I tell you, God is able to raise up children for Abraham out of these stones"? We conclude, then, that both evangelists refrain from inserting any allusion to the Gentile mission into the framework of the public preaching of Jesus, apart from the eschatological address and the somewhat venturesome expression which occurs in the story of the anointing at Bethany. But while Matthew delimits the activity of Jesus positively and precisely, Mark adopts what we may term a neutral position, though for all that he does not suppress the story of the Syro-Phoenician woman. All this throws into more brilliant relief than ever the words of the risen Jesus in Matt. xxviii. 19 f. Matthew must have been fully conscious of the disparity between these words and the earlier words of Jesus; nay, more, he must have deliberately chosen to give expression to that disparity. [65] At the time when our gospels were written, a Lord and Saviour who had confined his preaching to the Jewish people without even issuing a single command to prosecute the universal mission, was an utter impossibility. If no such command had been issued before his death, it must have been imparted by him as the glorified One. The conclusion, therefore, must be that Jesus never issued such a command at all, but that this version of his life was due to the historical developments of a later age, the words being appropriately put into the mouth of the risen Lord. Paul, too, knew nothing of such a general command. [66] Luke's standpoint, as a reporter of the words of Jesus, does not differ from that of the two previous evangelists, a fact which is perhaps most significant of all. He has delicately coloured the introductory history with universalism, [67] while at the close, like Matthew, he makes the risen Jesus issue the command to preach the gospel to all nations. [68] But in his treatment of the intervening material he follows Mark; that is, he preserves no sayings which expressly confine the activity of Jesus to the Jewish nation, [69] but, on the other hand, he gives neither word nor incident which describes that activity as universal, [70] and at no point does he deliberately correct the existing tradition. [71] In this connection the fourth gospel need not be considered at all. After the Gentile mission, which had been undertaken with such ample results during the first two Christian generations, the fourth gospel expands the horizon of Christ's preaching and even of John the Baptist's; corresponding to this, it makes the Jews a reprobate people from the very outset, despite the historical remark in iv. 22. Even setting aside the prologue, we at once come upon (i. 29) the words put into the mouth of the Baptist, "Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world." And, as a whole, the gospel is saturated with statements of a directly universalistic character. Jesus is the Saviour of the world, and God so loved the world that he sent him. We may add passages like those upon the "other sheep" and the one flock (x. l6). But the most significant thing of all is that this gospel makes Greeks ask after Jesus (xii. 20 f.), the latter furnishing a formal explanation of the reasons why he could not satisfy the Greeks as yet. He must first of all die. It is as the exalted One that he will first succeed in drawing all men to himself. We can feel here the pressure of a serious problem. It would be misleading to introduce here any sketch of the preaching of Jesus, or even of its essential principles, [72] for it never became the missionary preaching of the later period even to the Jews. It was the basis of that preaching, for the gospels were written down in order to serve as a means of evangelization; but the mission preaching was occupied with the messiahship of Jesus, his speedy return, and his establishment of God's kingdom (if Jews were to be met), or with the unity of God, creation, the Son of God, and judgment (if Gentiles were to be reached). Alongside of this the words of Jesus of course exercised a silent and effective mission of their own, whilst the historical picture furnished by the gospels, together with faith in the exalted Christ, exerted a powerful influence over catechumens and believers. Rightly and wisely, people no longer noticed the local and temporal traits either in this historical sketch or in these sayings. They found there a vital love of God and men, which may be described as implicit universalism; a discounting of everything external (position, personality, sex, outward worship, etc.), which made irresistibly for inwardness of character; and a protest against the entire doctrines of "the ancients," which gradually rendered antiquity valueless. [73] One of the greatest revolutions in the history of religion was initiated in this way--initiated and effected, moreover, without any revolution! All that Jesus Christ promulgated was the overthrow of the temple, and the judgment impending upon the nation and its leaders. He shattered Judaism, and brought out the kernel of the religion of Israel. Thereby--i.e., by his preaching of God as the Father, and by his own death--he founded the universal religion, which at the same time was the religion of the Son. __________________________________________________________________ [60] This verse precludes the hypothesis that the speech of Jesus referred merely to a provisional mission. If the saying is genuine, the Gentile mission cannot have lain within the horizon of Jesus.--There is no need to take the hegemones and basileisof Matt. x. 18, Mark xiii. 9 as pagans, and Matthew's addition (omitted by Mark) of kai tois ethnesin to the words eis marturion autois can hardly be understood except as a supplement in the sense of xxviii. 19 f. Though Mark (vi. 7 f.; cp. Luke ix. 1 f.) omits the limitation of the mission to Palestine and the Jewish people, he does not venture to assign the mission any universal scope. "Mark never says it in so many words, nor does he lay any stress upon it; but it is self-evident that he regards the mission of Jesus as confined to the Jews" (Wellhausen on Mark vii. 29). [61] According to Matthew (xv. 24), Jesus distinctly says, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel." The proton of Mark vii. 27 is not to be pressed, as it is by many editors. [62] Here we may also include the saying; "Pray that your flight occur not on the Sabbath" (Matt. xxiv. 20). Note further that the parable of the two sons (Matt. xxi. 28 f.) does not refer to Jews and Gentiles. The labourers in the vineyard (Matt. xx. 1 f.) are not to be taken as Gentiles--not, at any rate, as the evangelist tells the story. Nor are Gentiles to be thought of even in xxii. 9. [63] I leave out of account the section on the wicked husbandmen, as it says nothing about the Gentile mission either in Mark's version (xii. 1 f.), or in Matthew's (xxi. 33 f.). The words of Matt. xxi. 43 ("God's kingdom shall be given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof") do not refer to the Gentiles; it is the "nation" as opposed to the official Israel, Mark on purpose speaks merely of "others," to whom the vineyard is to be given. "On purpose," I say, for we may see from this very allegory, which can hardly have been spoken by Jesus himself (see Jülicher's Gleichnissreden ii. pp. 405 f., though I would not commit myself on the point), how determined Mark was to keep the Gentile mission apart from the gospel, and how consistently Matthew retains the setting of the latter within the Jewish nation. The parable invited the evangelists to represent Jesus making some allusion to the Gentile mission, but both of them resisted the invitation (see further, Luke xx. 9 f.). Wellhausen (on Matt. xxi. 43) also observes: "By the phrase another nation' we may understand that Jewish, not simply Gentile, Christians were so meant; for ethnos is characterised ethically, not nationally." [64] We may disregard the sayings in v. 13-14 ("Ye are the salt of the earth," "Ye are the light of the world "), as well as the fact that in Mark alone (xi. 17) pasi tois ethnesin (a citation from Isa. lvi. 7) is added to the words: "My house shall be a house of prayer." The addition "emphasizes not the universality of the house of prayer, but simply the idea of the house of prayer" (Wellhausen). [65] Unless xxviii. 19 f. is a later addition to the gospel. It is impossible to be certain on this point. There is a certain subtlety, of which one would fain believe the evangelist was incapable, in keeping his Gentile Christian readers, as it were, upon the rack with sayings which confined the gospel to Israel, just in order to let them off in the closing paragraph. Nor are the former sayings presented in such a way as to suggest that they were afterwards to be taken back. On the other hand, we must observe that the first evangelist opens with the story of the wise men from the East (though even this section admits of a strictly Jewish Christian interpretation), that he includes viii. 11, that he shows his interest in the people who sat in darkness (iv. 13 f.), that he describes Jesus (xii. 21) as One in whose name the Gentiles trust, that he contemplates the preaching of the gospel to all the Gentiles in the eschatological speech and in the story of the anointing at Bethany, and that no positive proofs can be adduced for regarding xxviii. 19 f. as an interpolation. It is advisable, then, to credit the writer with a remarkable historical sense, which made him adhere almost invariably to the traditional framework of Christ's preaching, in order to break it open at the very close of his work. Mark's method of procedure was more simple: he excluded the missionary question altogether; at least that is the only explanation of his attitude. [66] It is impossible and quite useless to argue with those who see nothing but an inadmissible bias in the refusal to accept traditions about Jesus eating and drinking and instructing his disciples after death. [67] Cp. i. 32 ("Son of the Highest"), ii. 10, 11 ("joy to all people," "Saviour"), ii. 14 ("gloria in excelsis"), ii. 32 ("a light to lighten the Gentiles "), and also (iii. 23 f.) the genealogy of Jesus traced back to Adam. [68] xxiv. 47, also Acts i. 8: "Ye shall be my witnesses both in Jerusalem and in all Judæa and in Samaria, and to the uttermost part of the earth." [69] An indirect allusion to the limitation of his mission might be found in xxii. 30 = Matt. xix. 28 (cp. p. 41), but this meaning need not be read into it. [70] All sorts of unconvincing attempts have been made to drag this in; e.g., at Peter's take of fish (v. 1 f.), at the Samaritan stories (x. 33 f., xvii. 16), and at the parable of the prodigal son (xv. 11 f.; cp. Jülicher's Gleichn., ii. pp. 333 f.). Even the stories of the despatch of the apostles (vi. 13 f.) and the remarkable commission of the seventy (x. 1 f.) do not by any means represent the Gentile mission. It is by a harmless hysteron proteron that the twelve are now and then described by Luke as "the apostles." The programme of the speech at Nazareth (iv. 26-27) is here of primary importance, but even in it the universalism of Jesus does not seem to rise above that of the prophets. With regard to xxi. 24 = Mark xiii. 10 = Matt. xxiv. 14, we may say that Luke was quite the most careful of all those who attempted with fine feeling to reproduce the prophet's style. He never mentions the necessity of the gospel being preached throughout all the world before the end arrives, but writes: achri hou plerothosin kairoi ethnon ("till the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled"). As for the Samaritan stories, it does not seem as if Luke here had any ulterior tendency of an historical and religious character in his mind, such as is evident in John iv. [71] The story of the Syro-Phoenician woman, which stands between the two stories of miraculous feeding in Mark and Matthew, was probably quite unknown to Luke. Its omission was not deliberate. If he knew it, his omission would have to be regarded as a conscious correction of the earlier tradition. [72] Cp. my lectures on What is Christianity? [73] On "The Attitude of Jesus towards the Old Testament," see the conclusive tractate by E. Klostermann (1904) under this title. No one who grasps this attitude upon the part of Jesus will make unhistorical assertions upon the "world-mission." __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER V. THE TRANSITION FROM THE JEWISH TO THE GENTILE MISSION "Christi mors potentior erat quam vita." The death of Christ was more effective than his life; it failed to shatter faith in him as one sent by God, and hence the conviction of his resurrection arose. He was still the Messiah, his disciples held--for there was no alternative now between this and the rejection of his claims. As Messiah, he could not be held of death. He must be alive; he must soon return in glory. The disciples became chosen members of his kingdom, witnesses and apostles. They testified not only to his preaching and his death, but to his resurrection, for they had seen him and received his spirit. They became new men. A current of divine life seized them, and a new fire was burning in their hearts. Fear, doubt, cowardice--all this was swept away. The duty and the right of preaching this Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ pressed upon them with irresistible power. How could they keep silence when they knew that the new age of the world was come, and that God had already begun the redemption of his people? An old tradition (Acts i.-ii.) relates that the preaching of the disciples began in Jerusalem on the fifty-first day after the crucifixion. We have no reason to doubt so definite a statement. They must have returned from Galilee to Jerusalem and gathered together there--a change which suggests that they wished to work openly, in the very midst of the Jewish community. They remained there for some years [74] --for a period of twelve years indeed, according to one early account [75] ignored by the book of Acts (cp., however, xii. 17)--they would undertake mission tours in the vicinity; the choice of James, who did not belong to the twelve, as president of the church at Jerusalem, [76] tells in favour of this conclusion, whilst the evidence for it lies in Acts, and above all in 1 Cor. ix. 5. The gospel was at first preached to the Jews exclusively. The church of Jerusalem was founded; presently churches in Judæa (1 Thess. ii. 14, hai ekklesiai tou theou hai ousai en te Ioudaia: Gal. i. 22, e'men agnoou'menos to proso'po tais ekklesi'ais tes Ioudaias tais en Christo), Galilee, Samaria (Acts i. 8, viii. 1 f., ix. 31, xv. 3), and on the sea-coast (Acts ix. 32 f.) followed. [77] The initial relationship of these churches to Judaism is not quite clear. As a matter of fact, so far from being clear, it is full of inconsistencies. On the one hand, the narrative of Acts (see iii. f.), which describes the Jerusalem church as exposed to spasmodic persecutions almost from the start, is corroborated by the evidence of Paul (1 Thess. ii. 14, hoti ta auta epa'thete kai umei?s hupo ton idion sumphuleton, kathos kai autoi [i.e. the churches in Judæa] hupo ton Ioudaion), so that it seems untenable to hold with some Jewish scholars that originally, and indeed for whole decades, peace reigned between the Christians and the Jews. [78] On the other hand, it is certain that peace and toleration also prevailed, that the churches remained unmolested for a considerable length of time (Acts ix. 31, he ekklesia kath' holes tes Ioudaias kai Galilaias kai Samarias eichen eirenen), and that several Christians were highly thought of by their Jewish brethren. [79] By their strict observance of the law and their devoted attachment to the temple, [80] they fulfilled a Jew's principal duty, and since it was in the future that they expected Jesus as their Messiah--his first advent having been no more than a preliminary step--this feature might be overlooked, as an idiosyncrasy, by those who were inclined to think well of them for their strict observance of the law. [81] At least this is the only way in which we can picture to ourselves the state of matters. The more zealous of their Jewish compatriots can have had really nothing but praise for the general Christian hope of the Messiah's sure and speedy advent. Doubtless it was in their view a grievous error for Christians to believe that they already knew the person of the future Messiah. But the crucifixion seemed to have torn up this belief by the roots, so that every zealous Jew could anticipate the speedy collapse of "the offence," while the Messianic ardour would survive. As for the Jewish authorities, they could afford to watch the progress of events, contenting themselves with a general surveillance. Meantime, however, the whole movement was confined to the lower classes. [82] But no sooner did the Gentile mission, with its lack of restrictions (from the Jewish point of view) or laxity of restrictions, become an open fact, than this period of toleration, or of spasmodic and not very violent reactions on the part of Judaism, had to cease. Severe reprisals followed. Yet the Gentile mission at first drove a wedge into the little company of Christians themselves; it prompted those who disapproved of it to retire closer to their non-Christian brethren. The apostle Paul had to complain of and to contend with a double opposition. He was persecuted by Jewish Christians who were zealous for the law, no less than by the Jews (so 1 Thess. ii. 15 f., ekdioxantes hemas . . . . koluontes hemas tois ethnesin lalesai, hina sothosin); the latter had really nothing whatever to do with the Gentile mission, but evidently they did not by any means look on with folded arms. It is not quite clear how the Gentile mission arose. Certainly Paul was not the first missionary to the Gentiles. [83] But a priori considerations and the details of the evidence alike may justify us in concluding that while the transition to the Gentile mission was gradual, it was carried out with irresistible energy. Here, too, the whole ground had been prepared already, by the inner condition of Judaism, i.e., by the process of decomposition within Judaism which made for universalism, as well as by the graduated system of the proselytes. To this we have already alluded in the first chapter. According to Acts vi. 7 f., [84] the primitive Christian community in Jerusalem was composed of two elements, one consisting of Palestinian Hebrews, and the other of Jews from the dispersion (Hellenistai). [85] A cleavage occurred between both at an early stage, which led to the appointment of seven guardians of the poor, belonging to the second of these groups and bearing Greek names. Within this group of men, whom we may consider on the whole to have been fairly enlightened, i.e., less strict than others in literal observance of the law, [86] Stephen rose to special prominence. The charge brought against him before the Sanhedrim was to the effect that he went on uttering blasphemous language against "the holy place" and the law, by affirming that Jesus was to destroy the temple and alter the customs enjoined by Moses. This charge Acts describes as false; but, as the speech of Stephen proves, it was well founded so far as it went, the falsehood consisting merely in the conscious purpose attributed to the words in question. Stephen did not attack the temple and the law in order to dispute their divine origin, but he did affirm the limited period of these institutions. In this way he did set himself in opposition to the popular Judaism of his time, but hardly in opposition to all that was Jewish. It is beyond doubt that within Judaism itself, especially throughout the Diaspora, tendencies were already abroad by which the temple-cultus, [87] and primarily its element of bloody sacrifices, was regarded as unessential and even of doubtful validity. Besides, it is equally certain that in many a Jewish circle, for external and internal reasons, the outward observance of the law was not considered of any great value; it was more or less eclipsed by the moral law. Consequently it is quite conceivable, historically and psychologically, that a Jew of the Diaspora who had been won over to Christianity should associate the supreme and exclusive moral considerations urged by the new faith [88] with the feelings he had already learned to cherish, viz., that the temple and the ceremonial law were relatively useless; it is also conceivable that he should draw the natural inference--Jesus the Messiah will abolish the temple-cultus and alter the ceremonial law. Observe the future tense. Acts seems here to give an extremely literal report. Stephen did not urge any changes--these were to be effected by Jesus, when he returned as Messiah. All Stephen did was to announce them by way of prophecy, thus implying that the existing arrangements wore valueless. He did not urge the Gentile mission; but by his words and death he helped to set it up. When Stephen was stoned, he died, like Huss, for a cause whose issues he probably did not foresee. It is not surprising that he was stoned, for orthodox Judaism could least afford to tolerate this kind of believer in Jesus. His adherents were also persecuted--the grave peril of the little company of Christians being thus revealed in a flash. All except the apostles (Acts viii. 1) had to leave Jerusalem. Evidently the latter had not yet declared themselves as a body on the side of Stephen in the matter of his indictment. [89] The scattered Christians went abroad throughout Judæa and Samaria; nolens volens they acted as missionaries, i.e., as apostles (Acts viii. 4). The most important of them was Philip, the guardian of the poor, who preached in Samaria and along the sea-board; there is a long account of how he convinced and baptized an Ethiopian officer, a eunuch (Acts viii. 26 f.). This is perfectly intelligible. The man was not a Jew. He belonged to the "God-fearing class'" (phoboumenos ton theon). Besides, even if he had been circumcised, he could not have become a Jew. Thus, when this semi-proselyte, this eunuch, was brought into the Christian church, it meant that one stout barrier had fallen. Still, a single case is not decisive, and even the second case of this kind, that of Peter baptizing the "God-fearing" ((fsofSov/Jievos) Cornelius at Caesarea, cannot have had at that early period the palmary importance which the author of Acts attaches to it. [90] So long as it was a question of proselytes, even of proselytes in the widest sense of the term, there was always one standpoint from which the strictest Jewish Christian himself could reconcile his mind to their admission: he could regard the proselytes thus admitted as adherents of the Christian community in the wider sense of the term, i.e., as proselytes still. The next step, a much more decisive one, was taken at Antioch, again upon the initiative of the scattered adherents of Stephen (Acts xi. 19 f.), who had reached Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch on their missionary wanderings. The majority of them confined themselves strictly to the Jewish mission. But some, who were natives of Cyprus and Crete, [91] preached also to the Greeks [92] in Antioch with excellent results. They were the first missionaries to the heathen; they founded the first Gentile church, that of Antioch. In this work they were joined by Barnabas and Paul (Acts xi. 28 f.), who soon became the real leading spirits in the movement. [93] The converted Greeks in Antioch, Syria, and Cilicia (to which Barnabas and Paul presently extended their mission), during this initial period were by no means drawn wholly from those who had been "God-fearing'' (phoboumenoi) already, although this may have been the origin of a large number. [94] At any rate a church was founded at Antioch which consisted for the most part of uncircumcised persons, and which now undertook the mission to the Gentiles (Acts xiii. 1 f.). For this church the designation of Christianoi ("Christians," Acts xi. 26) came into vogue, a name coined by their heathen opponents. This title is itself a proof that the new community in Antioch stood out in bold relief from Judaism. [95] The Gentile Christian churches of Syria and Cilicia did not observe the law, yet they were conscious of being the people of God in the fullest sense of the term, and were mindful to keep in touch with the mother church of Jerusalem, as well as to be recognized by her. [96] The majority of these cosmopolitan converts were quite content with the assurance that God had already moved the prophets to proclaim the uselessness of sacrifice, [97] so that all the ceremonial part of the law was to be allegorically interpreted and understood in some moral sense. [98] This was also the view originally held by the other Gentile Christian communities which, like that of Rome, were founded by unknown missionaries. The apostle Paul, however, could not settle his position towards the law with such simplicity. For him no part of the law had been depreciated in value by any noiseless, disintegrating influence of time or circumstances; on the contrary, the law remained valid and operative in all its provisions. It could not be abrogated save by him who had ordained it--i.e., by God himself. Nor could even God abolish it save by affirming at the same time its rights--i.e., he must abolish it just by providing for its fulfilment. And this was what actually took place. By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, God's Son, upon the cross, the law was at once fulfilled and abolished. Whether all this reflection and speculation was secondary and derivative (resulting from the possession of the Spirit and the new life which the apostle felt within himself), or primary (resulting from the assurance that his sins were forgiven), or whether these two sources coalesced, is a question which need not occupy us here. The point is, that Paul was convinced that the death and resurrection of Christ had inaugurated the new age. "The future is already present, the Spirit reigns." Hereby he firmly and unhesitatingly recognized the gospel to be the new level of religion, just as he also felt himself to be a new creature. The new religious level was the level of the Spirit and regeneration, of grace and faith, of peace and liberty; below and behind it lay everything old, including all the earlier revelations of God, since these were religions pertaining to the state of sin. This it was which enabled Paul, Jew and Pharisee as he was, to venture upon the great conception with which he laid the basis of any sound philosophy of religion and of the whole science of comparative religion, viz., the collocation of the "natural" knowledge of God possessed by man (i.e., all that had developed in man under the sway of conscience) with the law of the chosen people (Rom. 1 f.). Both, Paul held, were revelations of God, though in different ways and of different values; both represented what had been hitherto the supreme possession of mankind. Yet both had proved inadequate; they had aggravated sin, and had ended in death. Now a new religion was in force. This meant that the Gentile mission was not a possibility but a duty, whilst freedom from the law was not a concession but the distinctive and blissful form which the gospel assumed for men. Its essence consisted in the fact that it was not law in any sense of the term, but grace and a free gift. The Christian who had been born a Jew might have himself circumcised and keep the law--which would imply that he considered the Jewish nation had still some valid part to play [99] in the world-wide plan of God. But even so, there was nothing in the law to secure the bliss of the Jewish Christian; and as for the Gentile Christian, he was not allowed either to practice circumcision or to keep the law. In his case, such conduct would have meant that Christ had died in vain. Thus it was that Paul preached the crucified Christ to the Gentiles, and not only established the principle of the Gentile mission, but made it a reality. The work of his predecessors, when measured by his convictions, was loose and questionable; it seemed to reach the same end as he did, but it was not entirely just to the law or to the gospel. Paul wrecked the religion of Israel on the cross of Christ, in the very endeavour to comprehend it with a greater reverence and stricter obedience than his predecessors. The day of Israel, he declared, had now expired. He honoured the Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem, the source of so much antagonism to himself, with a respect which is almost inconceivable; but he made it perfectly clear that "the times of the Gentiles" had arrived, and that if any Jewish Christian churches did not unite with the Gentile Christian churches to form the one "church of God," they forfeited by this exclusiveness their very right to existence. Paul's conception of religion and of religious history was extremely simple, if one looks at its kernel, for it was based upon one fact. It cannot be reduced to a brief formula without being distorted into a platitude. It is never vital except in the shape of a paradox. In place of the particular forms of expression which Paul introduced, and by means of which he made the conception valid and secure for himself, it was possible that others might arise, as was the case in the very next generation with the author of Hebrews and with the anonymous genius who composed the Johannine writings. From that time onwards many other teachers came forward to find fresh bases for the Pauline gospel (e.g., Marcion and Clement of Alexandria, to name a couple of very different writers from the second century). But what they transformed was not the fruit and kernel of Paulinism. Essentially they were quite at one with the apostle. For it is the great prerogative of the historian in a later age to be able to recognize an essential unity where argument and proofs are widely different. Historically, Paul the Pharisee dethroned the people and the religion of Israel; [100] he tore the gospel from its Jewish soil and rooted it in the soil of humanity. [101] No wonder that the full reaction of Judaism against the gospel now commenced--a reaction on the part of Jews and Jewish Christians alike. The hostility of the Jews appears on every page of Acts, from chap. xii. onwards, and it can be traced by the aid even of the evangelic narratives, [102] whose sources go back to the period preceding A.D. 65. The Jews now sought to extirpate the Palestinian churches and to silence the Christian missionaries. They hampered every step of Paul's work among the Gentiles; they cursed Christians and Christ in their synagogues; they stirred up the masses and the authorities in every country against him; systematically and officially they scattered broadcast horrible charges against the Christians, which played an important part (humeis tes kata tou dikaiou kai hemon ton ap' ekeinou kakes prolepseos aitioi) in the persecutions as early as the reign of Trajan; they started calumnies against Jesus; [103] they provided heathen opponents of Christianity with literary ammunition; unless the evidence is misleading, they instigated the Neronic outburst against the Christians; and as a rule, whenever bloody persecutions are afoot in later days, the Jews are either in the background or the foreground (the synagogues being dubbed by Tertullian "fontes persecutionum"). By a sort of instinct they felt that Gentile Christianity, though apparently it was no concern of theirs, was their peculiar foe. This course of action on the part of the Jews was inevitable. They merely accelerated a process which implied the complete liberation of the new religion from the old, and which prevented Judaism from solving the problem which she had already faced, the problem of her metamorphosis into a religion for the world. In this sense there was something satisfactory about the Jewish opposition. It helped both religions to make the mutual breach complete, whilst it also deepened in the minds of Gentile Christians--at a time when this still needed to be deepened--the assurance that their religion did represent a new creation, and that they were no mere class of people admitted into some lower rank, but were themselves the new People of God, who had succeeded to the old. [104] But the Jewish Christians also entered the arena. They issued from Jerusalem a demand that the church at Antioch should be circumcised, and the result of this demand was the so-called apostolic council. We possess two accounts of this (Gal. ii. and Acts xv.). Each leaves much to be desired, and it is hardly possible to harmonize them both. Paul's account is not so much written down as flung down pell-mell; such is the vigour with which it seeks to emphasize the final result, that its abrupt sentences render the various intermediate stages either invisible or indistinct. The other account, unless we are deceived, has thrown the ultimate issue of the council into utter confusion by the irrelevant introduction of what transpired at a later period. Even for other reasons, this account excites suspicion. Still we can see plainly that Peter, John, and James recognized the work of Paul, that they gave him no injunctions as to his missionary labours, and that they chose still to confine themselves to the Jewish mission. Paul did not at once succeed in uniting Jewish and Gentile Christians in a single fellowship of life and worship; it was merely the principle of this fellowship that gained the day, and even this principle --an agreement which in itself was naturally unstable and shortlived--could be ignored by wide circles of Jewish Christians. Nevertheless much ground had been won. The stipulation itself ensured that, as did even more the developments to which it led. The Jewish Christians split up. How they could still continue to hold together (in Jerusalem and elsewhere) for years to come, is an insoluble riddle. One section persisted in doing everything they could to persecute Paul and his work with ardent enmity: to crush him was their aim. In this they certainly were actuated by some honest convictions, which Paul was naturally incapable of understanding. To the very last, indeed, he made concessions to these "zealots for the law" within the boundaries of Palestine; but outside Palestine he repudiated them so soon as they tried to win over Gentiles to their own form of Christianity. The other section, including Peter and probably the rest of the primitive apostles, commenced before long to advance beyond the agreement, though in a somewhat hesitating and tentative fashion: outside Palestine they began to hold intercourse with the Gentile Christians, and to lead the Jewish Christians also in this direction. These tentative endeavours culminated in a new agreement, which now made a real fellowship possible for both parties. The condition was that the Gentile Christians were to abstain from flesh offered to idols, from tasting blood and things strangled, and from fornication. Henceforth Peter, probably with one or two others of the primitive apostles, took part in the Gentile mission. The last barrier had collapsed. [105] If we marvel at the greatness of Paul, we should not marvel less at the primitive apostles, who for the gospel's sake entered on a career which the Lord and Master, with whom they had eaten. and drunk, had never taught them. By adopting an intercourse with Gentile Christians, this Jewish Christianity did away with itself, and in the second period of his labours Peter ceased to be a "Jewish Christian." [106] He became a Greek. Still, two Jewish Christian parties continued to exist. One of these held by the agreement of the apostolic council; it gave the Gentile Christians its blessing, but held aloof from them in actual life. The other persisted in fighting the Gentile Church as a false church. Neither party counts in the subsequent history of the church, owing to their numerical weakness. According to Justin (Apol., I. liii.), who must have known the facts, Jesus was rejected by the Jewish nation "with few exceptions" (plen oligon tinon). In the Diaspora, apart from Syria and Egypt, Jewish Christians were hardly to be met with; [107] there the Gentile Christians felt themselves supreme, in fact they were almost masters of the field. [108] This did not last, however, beyond 180 A.D., when the Catholic church put Jewish Christians upon her roll of heretics. They were thus paid back in their own coin by Gentile Christianity; the heretics turned their former judges into heretics. Before long the relations of Jewish Christians to their kinsmen the Jews also took a turn for the worse--that is, so far as actual relations existed between them at all. It was the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple which seems to have provoked the final crisis, and led to a complete breach between the two parties. [109] No Christian, even supposing he were a simple Jewish Christian, could view the catastrophe which befell the Jewish state, with its capital and sanctuary, as anything else than the just punishment of the nation for having crucified the Messiah. Strictly speaking, he ceased from that moment to be a Jew; for a Jew who accepted the downfall of his state and temple as a divine dispensation, thereby committed national suicide. Undoubtedly the catastrophe decimated the exclusive Jewish Christianity of Palestine and drove a considerable number either back into Judaism or forward into the Catholic church. Yet how illogical human feelings can be, when they are linked to a powerful tradition! There were Jewish Christians still, who remained after the fall of Jerusalem just where they had stood before; evidently they bewailed the fall of the temple, and yet they saw in its fall a merited punishment. Did they, we ask, or did they not, venture to desire the rebuilding of the temple? We can easily understand how such people proved a double offence to their fellow-countrymen, the genuine Jews. Indeed they were always falling between two fires, for the Jews persecuted them with bitter hatred, [110] while the Gentile church censured them as heretics--i.e., as non-Christians. They are dubbed indifferently by Jerome, who knew them personally, [111] "semi-Judaei" and "semi-Christiani.'" And Jerome was right. They were really "semis"; they were "half" this or that, although they followed the course of life which Jesus had himself observed. Crushed by the letter of Jesus, they died a lingering death. There is hardly any fact which deserves to be turned over and thought over so much as this, that the religion of Jesus has never been able to root itself in Jewish or even Semitic soil [112] . Certainly there must have been, and certainly there must be still, some element in this religion which is allied to the greater freedom of the Greek spirit. In one sense Christianity has really remained Greek down to the present day. The forms it acquired on Greek soil have been modified, but they have never been laid aside within the church at large, not even within Protestantism itself. And what an ordeal this religion underwent in the tender days of its childhood! "Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred unto a land that I will show thee, and I will make of thee a great nation." Islam rose in Arabia and has remained upon the whole an Arabic religion; the strength of its youth was also the strength of its manhood. Christianity, almost immediately after it arose, was dislodged from the nation to which it belonged; and thus from the very outset it was forced to learn how to distinguish between the kernel and the husk. [113] Paul is only responsible in part for the sharp anti-Judaism which developed within the very earliest phases of Gentile Christianity. Though he held that the day of the Jews (pasin anthropois enantion, 1 Thess. ii. 15) was past and gone, yet he neither could nor would believe in a final repudiation of God's people; on that point his last word is said in Rom. xi. 25, 29:--ou thelo humas agnoein to musterion touto, hoti porosis apo merous to Israel gegonen achris hou to pleroma ton ethnon eiselthe, kai houtos pas Israel sothesetai . . . ametameleta gar ta charismata kai he klesis tou theou. In this sense Paul remained a Jewish Christian to the end. The duality of mankind (Jews and "nations''') remained, in a way, intact, despite the one church of God which embraced them both. This church did not abrogate the special promises made to the Jews. But this standpoint remained a Pauline idiosyncrasy. When people had recourse, as the large majority of Christians had, simply to the allegorical method in order to emancipate themselves from the letter, and even from the contents, of Old Testament religion, the Pauline view had no attraction for them; in fact it was quite inadmissible, since the legitimacy of the allegorical conception, and inferentially the legitimacy of the Gentile church in general, was called in question, if the Pauline view held good at any single point. [114] If the people of Israel retained a single privilege, if a single special promise still had any meaning whatsoever, if even one letter had still to remain in force--how could the whole of the Old Testament be spiritualized? How could it all be transferred to another people? The result of this mental attitude was the conviction that the Jewish people was now rejected: it was Ishmael, not Isaac; Esau, not Jacob. Yet even this verdict did not go far enough. If the spiritual meaning of the Old Testament is the correct one, and the literal false, then (it was argued) the former was correct from the very first, since what was false yesterday cannot be true today. Now the Jewish people from the first persisted in adhering to the literal interpretation, practicing circumcision, offering bloody sacrifices, and observing the regulations concerning food; consequently they were always in error, an error which shows that they never were the chosen people. The chosen people throughout was the Christian people, which always existed in a sort of latent condition (the younger brother being really the elder), though it only came to light at first with Christ. From the outset the Jewish people had lost the promise; indeed it was a question whether it had ever been meant for them at all. In any case the literal interpretation of God's revealed will proved that the people had been forsaken by God and had fallen under the sway of the devil. As this was quite clear, the final step had now to be taken, the final sentence had now to be pronounced: the Old Testament, from cover to cover, has nothing whatever to do with the Jews. Illegally and insolently the Jews had seized upon it; they had confiscated it, and tried to claim it as their own property. They had falsified it by their expositions and even by corrections and omissions. Every Christian must therefore deny them the possession of the Old Testament. It would be a sin for Christians to say, "This book belongs to us and to the Jews.'' No; the book belonged from the outset, as it belongs now and evermore, to none but Christians, [115] whilst Jews are the worst, the most godless and God-forsaken, of all nations upon earth, [116] the devil's own people, Satan's synagogue, a fellowship of hypocrites. [117] They are stamped by their crucifixion of the Lord. [118] God has now brought them to an open ruin, before the eyes of all the world; their temple is burnt, their city destroyed, their commonwealth shattered, their people scattered--never again is Jerusalem to be frequented. [119] It may be questioned, therefore, whether God still desires this people to be converted at all, and whether he who essays to win a single Jew is not thereby interfering unlawfully with his punishment. But the fact is, this people will not move; so that by their obstinacy and hostility to Christ, they relieve Christians from having to answer such a question. This was the attitude consistently adopted by the Gentile church towards Judaism. Their instinct of self-preservation and their method of justifying their own appropriation of the Old Testament, chimed in with the ancient antipathy felt by the Greeks and Romans to the Jews. Still, [120] it was not everyone who ventured to draw the final conclusions of the epistle of Barnabas (iv. 6. f., xiv. 1 f.). Most people admitted vaguely that in earlier days a special relation existed between God and his people, though at the same time all the Old Testament promises were referred even by them to Christian people. While Barnabas held the literal observance of the law to prove a seduction of the devil to which the Jewish people had succumbed, [121] the majority regarded circumcision as a sign appointed by God; [122] they recognized that the literal observance of the law was designed and enjoined by God for the time being, although they held that no righteousness ever emanated from it. Still even they held that the spiritual sense was the one true meaning, which by a fault of their own the Jews had misunderstood; they considered that the burden of the ceremonial law was an educational necessity, to meet the stubbornness and idolatrous tendencies of the nation (being, in fact, a safeguard of monotheism); and, finally, they interpreted the sign of circumcision in such a way that it appeared no longer as a favour, but rather as a mark of the judgment to be executed on Israel. [123] Israel thus became literally a church which had been at all times the inferior or the Satanic church. Even in point of time the "older" people really did not precede the "younger," for the latter was more ancient, and the "new" law was the original law. Nor had the patriarchs, prophets, and men of God, who had been counted worthy to receive God's word, anything in common inwardly with the Jewish people; they were God's elect who distinguished themselves by a holy conduct corresponding to their election, and they must be regarded as the fathers and forerunners of the latent Christian people. [124] No satisfactory answer is given by any of these early Christian writings to the question, How is it that, if these men must not on any account be regarded as Jews, they nevertheless appeared entirely or almost entirely within the Jewish nation? Possibly the idea was that God in his mercy meant to bring this wickedest of the nations to the knowledge of the truth by employing the most effective agencies at his command; but even this suggestion comes to nothing. Such an injustice as that done by the Gentile church to Judaism is almost unprecedented in the annals of history. The Gentile church stripped it of everything; she took away its sacred book; herself but a transformation of Judaism, she cut off all connection with the parent religion. The daughter first robbed her mother, and then repudiated her! But, one may ask, is this view really correct? Undoubtedly it is, to some extent, and it is perhaps impossible to force anyone to give it up. But viewed from a higher standpoint, the facts acquire a different complexion. By their rejection of Jesus, the Jewish people disowned their calling and dealt the death-blow to their own existence; their place was taken by Christians as the new People, who appropriated the whole tradition of Judaism, giving a fresh interpretation to any unserviceable materials in it, or else allowing them to drop. As a matter of fact, the settlement was not even sudden or unexpected; what was unexpected was simply the particular form which the settlement assumed. All that Gentile Christianity did was to complete a process which had in fact commenced long ago within Judaism itself, viz., the process by which the Jewish religion was being inwardly emancipated and transformed into a religion for the world. About 140 A.D. the transition of Christianity to the "Gentiles," with its emancipation from Judaism, was complete. [125] It was only learned opponents among the Greeks and the Jews themselves, who still reminded Christians that, strictly speaking, they must be Jews. After the fall of Jerusalem there was no longer any Jewish counter-mission, apart from a few local efforts; [126] on the contrary, Christians established themselves in the strongholds hitherto held by Jewish propaganda and Jewish proselytes. Japhet occupied the tents of Shem, [127] and Shem had to retire. One thing, however, remained an enigma. Why had Jesus appeared among the Jews, instead of among the "nations"? [128] This was a vexing problem. The Fourth Gospel (see above, p. 42), it is important to observe, describes certain Greeks as longing to see Jesus (xii. 20 f.), and the words put into the mouth of Jesus on that occasion [129] are intended to explain why the Saviour did not undertake the Gentile mission. The same evangelist makes Jesus say with the utmost explicitness (x. 16), "And other sheep I have which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice." He himself is to bring them. The mission which his disciples carry out, is thus his mission; it is just as if he drew them himself. [130] Indeed his own power is still to work in them, as he is to send them the Holy Spirit to lead them into all the truth, communicating to them a wisdom which had hitherto lain unrevealed. One consequence of this attitude of mind was that the twelve were regarded as a sort of personal multiplication of Christ himself, while the Kerugma (or outline and essence of Christian preaching) came to include the dispatch of the twelve into all the world--i.e., to include the Gentile mission as a command of Jesus himself. Compare the Apology of Aristides (ii.); Just., Apol., I. xxxix.; Ascens. Isaiae, iii. 13 f. (where the coming of the twelve disciples belongs to the fundamental facts of the gospel); Iren., Fragm. 29; [131] Tertull., Apol. xxi., adv. Marc. III. xxii. (habes et apostolorum opus praedicatum); Hippol., de Antichr. 61; Orig., c. Cels., III. xxviii.; Acta Joh. (ed. Zahn, p. 246: "the God who chose us to be apostles of the heathen, who sent us out into the world, who showed himself by the apostles"); Serapion in Eus., H.E., vi. 12. [132] Details on this conception of the primitive apostles will be found in Book III. __________________________________________________________________ [74] We may perhaps assume that they wished to be on the very spot when the Lord returned and the heavenly Jerusalem descended. It is remarkable how Galilee falls into the background: we hear nothing about it. [75] This early account (in the preaching of Peter, cited by Clem., Strom., vi. 5. 43) is of course untrustworthy; it pretends to know a word spoken by the Lord to his disciples, which ran thus: "After twelve years, go out into the world, lest any should say, we have not heard" meta ib ete exelthete eis ton kosmon, me tis eipe; ouk ekousamen). But although the basis of the statement is apologetic and untrue, it may be right about the twelve years, for in the Acta Petri cum Simone, 5, and in Apollonius (in Eus., H.E., v. 18. 14), the word (here also a word of the Lord) runs that the apostles were to remain for twelve years at Jerusalem, without any mention of the exodus eis ton kosmon. Here, too, the "word of the Lord" lacks all support, but surely the fact of the disciples remaining for twelve years in Jerusalem can hardly have been invented. Twelve (or eleven) years after the resurrection is a period which is also fixed by other sources (see von Dobschütz in Texte u. Unters., XI. i. p. 53 f.); indeed it underlies the later calculation of the year when Peter died (30+12+25 = 67 A.D.).The statement of the pseudo-Clementine Recognitions (i. 43, ix. 29), that the apostles remained seven years in Jerusalem, stands by itself. [76] Acts assumes that during the opening years the apostles superintended the church in Jerusalem; all of a sudden (xii. 17) James appears as the president. [77] The parallel mission of Simon Magus in Samaria maybe mentioned here in passing. It had important results locally, but it failed in its attempt to turn the Christian movement to account. The details are for the most part obscure; it is clear, however, that Simon held himself to be a religious founder (copying Jesus in this?), and that subsequently a Hellenistic theosophy or gnosis was associated with his religion. Christians treated the movement from the very outset with unabated abhorrence. There must have been, at some early period, a time when the movement proved a real temptation for the early church: to what extent, however, we cannot tell. Did Simon contemplate any fusion? (Acts viii. and later sources). [78] Cp. Joël's Blicke in die Religionsgeschichte (Part II., 1883). The course of events in the Palestinian mission may be made out from Matt. x. 17 f.: paradosousin humas eis sunedria kai en tais sunagogais auton mastigosousin humas . . . . paradosei de adelphos adelphon eis thanaton kai pater teknon kai epanastesontai tekna epi goneis kai thanatosousin autous . . . . hotan de diokosin humas en te polei taute, pheugete eis ten heteran. [79] Hegesippus (in Eus., H.E., ii. 22) relates this of James. No doubt his account is far from lucid, but the repute of James among the Jews may be safely inferred from it. [80] Cp. Acts xxi. 20, where the Christians of Jerusalem address Paul thus: theoreis, adelphe, posai muriades eisin en tois Ioudaiois ton pepisteukoton, kai pantes zelotai tou nomou huparchousin. This passage at once elucidates and confirms the main point of Hegesippus' account of James. From one very ancient tradition (in a prologue to Mark's gospel, c. 200 A.D.), that when Mark became a Christian he cut off his thumbs in order to escape serving as a priest, we may infer that many a Christian Jew of the priestly class in Jerusalem still continued to discharge priestly functions in those primitive days. [81] As Weizsäcker justly remarks (Apost. Zeitalter(2), p. 38; Eng. trans., i. 46 f.): "The primitive Christians held fast to the faith and polity of their nation. They had no desire to be renegades, nor was it possible to regard them as such. Even if they did not maintain the whole cultus, this did not endanger their allegiance, for Judaism tolerated not merely great latitude in doctrinal views, but also a partial observance of the cultus--as is sufficiently proved by the contemporary case of the Essenes. The Christians did not lay themselves open to the charge of violating the law. They assumed no aggressive attitude. That they appeared before the local courts as well as before the Sanhedrim, the supreme national council, tallies with the fact that, on the whole, they remained Jews. It is in itself quite conceivable (cp. Matt. x. 17) that . . . . individual Christians should have been prosecuted, but discharged on the score of insufficient evidence, or that this discharge was accompanied by some punishment. . . . The whole position of Jewish Christians within the Jewish commonwealth precludes the idea that they made a practice of establishing a special synagogue for themselves on Jewish soil, or avowedly formed congregations beside the existing synagogues. As the synagogue was a regular institution of the Jewish community, such a course of action would have been equivalent to a complete desertion of all national associations and obligations whatsoever, and would therefore have resembled a revolt. The only question is, whether the existence of synagogues for foreigners in Jerusalem gave them a pretext for setting up an independent one there. It is our Acts that mentions this in a passage which is beyond suspicion; it speaks (vi. 9) about the synagogue of the Libertini, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from Cilicia and Asia who disputed with Stephen. It is not quite clear whether we are to think here of a single synagogue embracing all these people, or of several--and if so, how many. The second alternative is favoured by this consideration, that the foreigners who, according to this account, assembled in meeting-places of their own throughout Jerusalem, proceeded on the basis of their nationality. In that case one might conjecture that the Christians, as natives of Galilee (Acts i. 11, ii. 7), took up a similar position. Yet it cannot be proved that the name was applied to them. From Acts xxiv. 5 we must assume that they were known rather by the name of Nazarenes,' and as this title probably described the origin, not of the body, but of its founder, its character was different. . . . . But even if the Christians had, like the Libertini, formed a synagogue of Galileans in Jerusalem, this would not throw much light upon the organization of their society, for we know nothing at all about the aims or regulations under which the various nationalities organized themselves into separate synagogues. And in regard to the question as a whole, we must not overlook the fact that in our sources the term synagogue is never applied to Christians." [82] Cp. what is said of Gamaliel, Acts v. 34 f. For the lower classes, see John vii. 48, 49: me tis ek ton archonton episteusen eis auton e ek ton Pharisaion; alla ho ochlos houtos ho me ginoskon ton nomon eparatoi eisin. Yet Acts vi. 7) brings out the fact that priests (a great crowd of them--polus ochlos--it is alleged), no less than Pharisees (xv. 5), also joined the movement. [83] Paul never claims in his letters to have been absolutely the pioneer of the Gentile mission. Had it been so, he certainly would not have failed to mention it. Gal. i. 16 merely says that the apostle understood already that his conversion meant a commission to the Gentiles; it does not say that this commission was something entirely new. Nor need it be concluded that Paul started on this Gentile mission immediately; the object of the revelation of God's Son (hina euangelizomai auton en tois ethnesin) may have been only disclosed to him by degrees. All we are to understand is that after his conversion he needed no further conflict of the inner man in order to undertake the Gentile mission. Nevertheless, it is certain that Paul remains the Gentile missionary. It was he who really established the duty and the right of Gentile missions; it was he who raised the movement out of its tentative beginnings into a mission that embraced all the world. [84] To the author of Acts, the transition from the Jewish to the Gentile mission, with the consequent rejection of Judaism, was a fact of the utmost importance; indeed one may say that he made the description of this transition the main object of his book. This is proved by the framework of the first fifteen chapters, and by the conclusion of the work in xxviii. 23-28 (verses 30-31 being a postscript). After quoting from Isa. vi. 9, 10--a prophecy which cancels Judaism, and which the author sees to be now fulfilled--he proceeds to make Paul address the Jews as follows: gnoston oun esto humin hoti tois ethnesin apestale touto to soterion tou theou; autoi kai akousontai. This is to affirm, as explicitly as possible, that the gospel has been given, not to Jews, but to the nations at large. The above account of the work of the Gentile mission rests upon Acts, in so far as I consider its statements trustworthy. The author was a Paulinist, but he found much simpler grounds for Christian universalism than did Paul; or rather, he needed no grounds for it at all--the gospel being in itself universal--although he does not ignore the fact that at the outset it was preached to none but Jews, and that the Gentile mission was long in developing. The internal divisions of Christianity, moreover, are scarcely noticed. [85] Acts vi. 5 (Nikolaon proseluton) shows that there were also Christians in Jerusalem who had been previously proselytes. The addition of Antiochea betrays the author's special interest in this city. [86] See Weizsäcker, Apost. Zeitalter(2), pp. 51 f.; Eng. trans., i. 62 f. Naturally they were "good" Jews, otherwise they would never have settled at Jerusalem; but we may assume that these synagogues of the Libertini (Romans), the Cyrenians, the Alexandrians, the Ciliciana and Asiatics (Acts vi. 9), embraced Hellenistic Jews as well, who had mitigated the Jewish religion with their Hellenistic culture. Upon the other hand, they also included exclusive fanatics, who were responsible for the first outburst against Christianity. Palestinian Judaism (i.e., the Sanhedrim) sided with them. The earliest Christian persecution thus appears as a quarrel and cleavage among the Diaspora Jews at Jerusalem. [87] Particularly when it had been profaned over and over again by a secularized priesthood. [88] At this point it may be also recalled that Jesus himself foretold the overthrow of the temple. With Weizsäcker (op. cit., p. 53; Eng. trans., i. 65) I consider that saying of our Lord is genuine. It became the starting-point of an inner development in his disciples which finally led up to the Gentile mission. Cp. Wellhausen's commentary on the synoptic gospels for a discussion of the saying's significance. [89] This seems to me an extremely important fact, which at the same time corroborates the historical accuracy of Acts at this point. Evidently the Christians at this period were persecuted with certain exceptions; none were disturbed whose devotion to the temple and the law was unimpeachable, and these still included Peter and the rest of the apostles. Acts makes it perfectly plain that it was only at a later, though not much later, period that Peter took his first step outside strict Judaism. Weizsäcker's reading of the incident is different (op. cit., pp. 60 f.; Eng. trans., i. 75). He holds that the first step was taken at this period; but otherwise he is right in saying that "it is obvious that nothing was so likely to create and strengthen this conviction (viz., that the future, the salvation to be obtained in the kingdom itself, could no longer rest upon the obligations of the law) as Pharisaic attacks prompted by the view that faith in Jesus and his kingdom was prejudicial to the inviolable duration of the law, and to belief in its power of securing salvation. The persecution, therefore, liberated the Christian faith; it was the means by which it came to know itself. And in this sense it was not without its fruits in the primitive church." [90] At least the importance did not lie in the direction in which the author of Acts looked to find it. Still, the case was one of great moment in this sense, that it forced Peter to side at last with that theory and practice which had hitherto (see the note above) been followed by none save the friends of Stephen (excluding the primitive apostles). The conversion of the Cæsarean officer led Peter, and with Peter a section of the church at Jerusalem, considerably further. It must be admitted, however, that the whole passage makes one suspect its historical character. Luke has treated it with a circumstantial detail which we miss elsewhere in his work; he was persuaded that it marked the great turning-point of the mission. [91] No names are given in the second passage, but afterwards (xiii. l) Barnabas the Cypriote, Simeon Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen, and Saul are mentioned as prophets and teachers at Antioch. As Barnabas and Saul did not reach Antioch until after the founding of the church (cp. xi. 22 f.), we may probably recognize in the other three persons the founders of the church, and consequently the first missionaries to the heathen. But Barnabas must be mentioned first of all among the originators of the Gentile mission. He must have reached the broader outlook independently, as indeed is plain from Paul's relations with him. A Cypriote Levite, he belonged from the very beginning to the church of Jerusalem (perhaps he was a follower of Jesus; cp. Clem., Strom., II. 20; Eus., H.E., i. 12; Clem. Rom. Hom., i. 9), in which an act of voluntary sacrifice won for him a high position (Acts iv. 36 f.). He certainly acted as an intermediary between Paul and the primitive apostles, so long as such services were necessary (Acts ix. 27), just as he went between Jerusalem and Antioch (Acts xi. 22 f.). On what is called the "first mission-tour" of Paul, he was almost the leading figure (Acts xiii.-xiv.). But his devotion to the Gentile mission seems to have affected his early prestige at Jerusalem; he was suspected, and, like Paul, he had to justify his conduct (Acts xv., Gal. ii.). In the trying situation which ensued at Antioch, he fell under Peter's influence and failed to stand the test (so Paul says, at least, in Gal. ii. 13, but what would have been "hypocrisy" to Paul need not have been so in the case of Barnabas). His co-operation with Paul in mission-work now ceases (Acts also makes them separate owing to a misunderstanding; but, on this view, xv. 36 f., they disagreed upon the question of Mark as a coadjutor). Barnabas goes with Mark to Cyprus. When Paul wrote 1 Corinthians and Galatians, Barnabas was still active as a missionary, and his name was familiar to the Corinthians (cp. 1 Cor. ix. 6). That Paul narrates to the Galatians with such exact chronology the "hypocrisy" of Barnabas, shows how the apostle could not forget the crisis when the Gentile mission was at stake, but it does not imply that Paul still felt himself at variance with Barnabas. The narrative simply mentions him in order to bring out sharply the magnitude of the disaster occasioned by Peter's pusillanimous conduct. The carefully chosen expression (kai Barnabas sunapechthe) shows that he was carried away half irresolutely. 1 Cor. i. 9 proves that Paul still recognized him as an apostle of Christ, and spoke of him as such in the churches (cp. also Col. iv. 10, which indicates clearly that Barnabas was also known to the Asiatic Christians as an important figure). But a hearty relationship between the two cannot have been ever restored, in spite of the great experiences they had shared for so long. Paul's silence in his epistles and the silence of Acts (after ch. xv.) are eloquent on this point. In the matter of the Gentile mission, however, Barnabas must be ranked next to Paul; in fact we may suspect, as the very sources permit us to do, that the services of Barnabas as a peace-maker amid the troubles and suspicions of the mother-church at Jerusalem were much more important than even the extant narratives disclose. Perhaps we have a writing of Barnabas--not the so-called "Epistle of Barnabas," but the Epistle to the Hebrews. The external evidence for his authorship is not weak, but it is not adequate, and the internal evidence tells against him. Did he go from Cyprus to work at Alexandria, as the pseudo-Clementine Homilies make out (i.-ii.)? [92] So Acts x. 20, reading "Hellenes, not Hellenistai. It is not surprising that the Gentile Christian mission began in Antioch. It was only in the international, levelling society of a great city that such a movement could originate, or rather propagate itself, so far as it was not hampered by any new restriction in the sphere of principle. Most probably those early missionaries were not so hampered. It is very remarkable that there is no word of any opposition between Jewish and Gentile Christians at Antioch. The local Jewish Christians, scattered and cosmopolitan as they were, must have joined the new community of Christians, who were free from the law, without more ado. It was the Jerusalem church which first introduced dissension at Antioch (cp. Acts xv. 1, Gal. ii. 11-13). [93] All allusions to Antioch, direct or indirect, in the book of Acts are specially noticeable, for the tradition that Luke was a physician of Antioch deserves credence. In ch. vi., and in what immediately follows, there is a distinct line of reference to Antioch. [94] Cp. Havet, Le Christianisme, vol. iv. p. 102: "Je ne sais s'il y est entré, du vivant de Paul, un seul païen, je veux dire un homme qui ne connût pas déjà, avant d'y entrer, le judaïsme et la Bible." This is no doubt an exaggeration, but substantially it is accurate. [95] Details on the name of "Christian" in Book III. The theological vocabulary of Gentile Christianity, so far as it needed one, must also have arisen in Antioch. [96] Cp. the narrative of Acts xi. 29 f., xii. 25, regarding a collection which the recently founded church at Antioch sent to Jerusalem during the famine under Claudius. This was the famine in which Queen Helena of Adiabene gave much generous aid to the poor Jews of Jerusalem. [97] With regard to the sacrificial system, the right of abandoning the literal meaning had been clearly made out, as that system had already become antiquated and depreciated in the eyes of large sections of people. The rest of the law followed as a matter of course. [98] The post-apostolic literature shows with particular clearness that this was the popular view taken by the Gentile Christians; so that it must have maintained its vogue, despite the wide and powerful divergences of Paul's own teaching. [99] However, as Christians of Jewish birth had, in Paul's view, to live and eat side by side with Gentile Christians, the observance of the law was broken down at one very vital point. It was only Paul's belief in the nearness of the advent that may have prevented him from reflecting further on this problem. [100] Little wonder that Jews of a later day declared he was a pagan in disguise: cp. Epiph. Hær., xxx. 16: kai tou Paulou kategorountes ouk aischunontai epiplastois tisi tes ton pseudapostolon auton kakourgias kai planes logois pepoiemenois. Tarsea men auton, hos autos homologei kai ouk arneitai, legontes ex Hellenon de auton upotithentai, labontes ten prophasin ek tou popou dia to philalethes hup' autou rhethen, hoti, Tarseus eimi, ouk asemou poleos polites. eita phaskousin auton einai Hellena kai Hellenidos metros kai Hellenos patros paida, anabebekenai de eis Hierosoluma kai chronon ekei memenekenai epitethumekenai de thugatera tou hiereos pros gamon agagesthai kai toutou heneka proseluton geuesthai kai peritmethenai, eita me labonta ten koren orgisthai kai kata peritomes gegraphenai kai kata sabbatou kai nomothesias ("Nor are they ashamed to accuse Paul with false charges concocted by the villainy and fraud of these false apostles. While a native of Tarsus (as he himself frankly admits) they avow that he was born of Greek parentage, taking as their pretext for this assertion the passage in which Paul's love of truth leads him to declare, I am of Tarsus, a citizen of no mean city.' Whereupon they allege that he was the son of a Greek father and a Greek mother; that he went up to Jerusalem, where he resided for some time; that he resolved to marry the daughter of the high priest, and consequently became a proselyte and got circumcised; and that on failing to win the girl, he vented his anger in writing against circumcision and the sabbath and the Mosaic legislation "). [101] No one has stated the issues of this transplanting more sublimely than Luke in his narrative of the birth of Jesus (Luke ii.), especially in the words which he puts into the mouth of the angel and the angels. [102] Cp. the speeches of Jesus when he sent out the disciples on their missions, and also the great eschatological discourse in the synoptic gospels. [103] Justin (Dial. xvii.; cp. cviii., cxvii.), after making out that the Jews were responsible for the calumnies against the Christians, observes that the Jewish authorities in Jerusalem despatched andras eklektous apo Ierousalem eis pasan ten gen, legontas hairesin atheon Christianon pephenenai, katalegontas tauta, haper kath' hemon hoi agnoountes hemas pantes legousin, hoste ou monon heantois adikias aitioi huparchete, alla kai tois allois hapasin haplos anthropois ("Chosen men from Jerusalem into every land, declaring that a godless sect of Christians had appeared, and uttering everything that those who are ignorant of us say unanimously against us. So that you are the cause not only of your own unrighteousness, but also of that of all other men"). Cp. cxvii.: tou huiou tou theou onoma bebelothenai kata pasan ten gen kai blasphemeisthai hoi archiereis tou laou humon kai didaskaloi eirgasanto ("The name of the Son of God have the chief priests of your nation and your teachers caused to be profaned throughout all the earth and to be blasphemed"). Also cviii.: andras cheirontonesantes eklektous eis pasan ten oikoumenen epempsate, kerussontas hoti airesis tis atheos kai anomos egegertai apo Iesou tinos Galilaiou planou, hon staurosanton hemon hoi mathetai autou apo tou mnematos nuktos . . . . planosi tous anthropous legontes egegerthai auton ek nekron kai eis ouranon aneleluthenai, kateipontes dedidachenai kai tauta haper kata ton homologounton Christon kai didaskalon kai huion theou einai panti genei anthropon athea kai anoma kai anosia legete ("You have sent chosen and appointed men into all the world to proclaim that a godless and lawless sect has arisen from a certain Jesus, a Galilean impostor, whom we crucified; his disciples, however, stole him by night from the tomb . . . . and now deceive people by asserting that he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven.' You accuse him of having taught the godless, lawless, and unholy doctrines which you bring forward against those who acknowledge him to be Christ, a teacher from God, and the Son of God"). For the cursing of Christians in the synagogues, cp. Dial. xvi. (also the words ouk exousias echete autocheires genesthai hemon dia tous nun epikratountas, hosakis de an edunete, kai touto epraxate = You have no power of yourselves to lay hands on us, thanks to your overlords [i.e., the Romans], but you have done so whenever you could"), xlvii., xciii., xcv.-xcvi., cviii., cxvii., cxxxvii., where Justin declares that the rulers of the synagogue arranged for the cursing of Christians meta ten proseuchen (after prayers) during the course of public worship (the pagan proselytes of Judaism being even more hostile to Christians than the Jews themselves, cxxii.); Jerome on Isa. lii. 2; Epiph., Har., xxix. 9; Apol., I. x., xxxi. (Jewish Christians fearfully persecuted by Jews during the Barcochba war); Tert., ad Nat., I. xiv.: et credidit vulgus Judaeo; quod enim aliud genus seminarium est infamiae nostrae? ("The crowd believed the Jew. In what other set of people lies the seedplot of calumny against us?"); adv. Marc., iii. 23; adv. Jud., xiii.: ab illis enim incepit infamia ("They started the calumny"); Scorp. x.: synagogae Judaeorum fontes persecutionum; Iren. IV. xxi. 3: ecclesia insidias et persecutiones a Judaeis patitur; IV. xxviii. 3: Judaei interfectores domini . . . . apostolos interficientes et persequentes ecclesiam. Origen repeatedly testifies to the fact that the Jews were the originators of the calumnies against Christians; cp. passages like Hom. I. on Ps. xxxvi. (t. 12, p. 54, ed. Lomm.): etiam nunc Judaei non moventur adversus gentiles, adversus eos, qui idola colunt et deum blasphemant, et illos non oderunt nec indignantur adversus eos; adversus Christiano vero insatiabili odio feruntur ("The Jews even now are not angry at the heathen who worship idols and blaspheme God; they do not hate them, but they attack Christians with insatiable hatred"; cp. also p. 155). By far the most important notice is that preserved by Eusebius (on Isa. xviii. 1 f.), although its source is unfortunately unknown --at any rate it did not come from Justin. It runs as follows: heuromen en tois ton palaion sungrammasin, hos hoi ten Hierousalem oikountes tou ton Ioudaion ethnous hiereis kai presbuteroi grammata diacharaxantes eis panta diepempsanto ta ethne tois hapantachou Ioudaiois diaballontes ten Christou didaskalian hos hairesin kainen kai allotrian tou theou, parengellon te di' epistolon me paradexasthai auten . . . . hoi te apostoloi auton epistolas biblinas komizomenoi . . . . apantachou ges dietrechon, ton peri tou soteros hemon endiaballontes logon. apostolous de eiseti kai nun ethos estin Ioudaiois onomazein tous enkuklia grammata para ton archonton auton epikomizomenons ("In the writings of the ancients we find that the priests and elders of the Jewish people resident at Jerusalem drew up and dispatched written instructions for the Jews throughout every country, slandering the doctrine of Christ as a newfangled heresy which was alien to God, and charging them by means of letters not to accept it. . . . . Their apostles also, conveying formal letters . . . . swarmed everywhere on earth, calumniating the gospel of our Savior. And even at the present day it is still the custom of the Jews to give the name of apostle' to those who convey encyclical epistles from their rulers"). According to this passage Paul would be an "apostle" before he became an apostle, and the question might be raised whether the former capacity did not contribute in some way to the feeling he had, on becoming a Christian, that he was thereby called immediately to be an apostle of Christ. [104] In this connection one must also note the Christian use of ethne ("gentes," "Gentiles"). In the Old Testament the ethne are opposed to the people of Israel (which was also reckoned, as was natural under the circumstances, among the "peoples"), so that it was quite easy for a Jew to describe other religions by simply saying that they were religions of the ethne. Consequently ethne had acquired among the Jews, long before the Christian era, a sense which roughly coincided with that of our word "pagans" or "heathen." Paul was therefore unable to allow any Christian of non-Jewish extraction to be still ranked among the ethne, nor would it seem that Paul was alone in this contention. Such a convert once belonged to the ethne, but not now (cp., e.g., 1 Cor. xii. 2: oidate hoti hote ethne ete pros ta eidola . . . . egesthe, "ye know that when ye were Gentiles, ye were led away to idols"); now he belongs to the true Israel, or to the new People. It is plain that while this did not originally imply an actual change of nationality, it must have stimulated the cosmopolitan feeling among Christians, as well as the consciousness that even politically they occupied a distinctive position, when they were thus contrasted with all the ethne on the one hand, and on the other were thought of as the new People of the world, who repudiated all connection with the Jews. We need hardly add that Christians were still described as members of the ethne, in cases where the relationship caused no misunderstanding, and where it was purely a question of non-Jewish descent. [105] We may conjecture that originally there were also Jewish Christian communities in the Diaspora (not simply a Jewish Christian set inside Gentile Christian communities), and that they were not confined even to the provinces bordering on Palestine. But in Asia Minor, or wherever else such Jewish Christian communities existed, they must have been absorbed at a relatively early period by the Gentile Christian or Pauline communities. The communities of Smyrna and Philadelphia about 93 A.D. (cp. Rev. ii.-iii.) seem to have been composed mainly of converted Jews, but they are leagued with an association of the other communities, just as if they were Gentile Christians. [106] Cp. Pseudo-Clem., Hom., XI. xvi.: ean ho allophulos ton nomos praxe, Ioudaios estin, me praxas de Ioudaios Hellen ("If one of other nation observe the law, he is a Jew; the Jew who does not observe it is a Greek"). His labours in the mission-field must have brought him to the side of Paul (cp. Clem. Rom., v.), else his repute in the Gentile Christian church would be inexplicable; but we have no detailed information on this point. Incidentally we hear of him being at Antioch (Gal. ii.). It is also likely, to judge from First Corinthians, that on his travels he reached Corinth shortly after the local church had been founded, but it is by a mere chance that we learn this. After Acts xii. Luke loses all interest in Peter's missionary efforts; why, we cannot quite make out. But if he laboured among Jewish Christians in a broad spirit, and yet did not emancipate them outright from the customs of Judaism, we can understand how the Gentile Christian tradition took no particular interest in his movements. Still, there must have been one epoch in his life when he consented heart and soul to the principles of Gentile Christianity; and it may be conjectured that this took place as early as the time of his residence at Corinth, not at the subsequent period of his sojourn in Rome. (He stayed for some months at Rome, before he was crucified. This we learn from an ancient piece of evidence which has been strangely overlooked. Porphyry, in Macarius Magnes (iii. 22), writes: "Peter is narrated to have been crucified, after pasturing the lambs for several months" (historeitai med' oligous menas boskesas ta probatia ho Petros estaurosthai). This passage must refer to his residence at Rome, and its testimony is all the more weighty, as Porphyry himself lived for a long while in Rome and had close dealings with the local Christianity. If the pagan cited in Macarius was not Porphyry himself, then he has reproduced him.) At the same time it must be understood that we are not in a position to explain how Peter came to be ranked first of all alongside of Paul (as in Clement and Ignatius) and then above him. The fact that our First Peter in the New Testament was attributed to him involves difficulties which are scarcely fewer than those occasioned by the hypothesis that he actually wrote the epistle. [107] Individual efforts of propaganda were not, however, awanting. Such include the origins of the pseudo-Clementine literature, Symmachus and his literary efforts towards the close of the second century, and also that Elkesaite Alcibiades of Apamea in Syria, who went to Rome and is mentioned by Hippolytus in the Philosophumena. The syncretism of gnostic Jewish Christianity, to which all these phenomena belong, entitled it to expect a better hearing in the pagan world than the stricter form of the Christian faith. But it would lead us too far afield from our present purpose to go into details. [108] The turn of affairs is seen in Justin's Dial. xlvii. Gentile Christians for a long while ceased to lay down any fresh conditions, but they deliberated whether they could recognize Jewish Christians as Christian brethren, and if so, to what extent. They acted in this matter with considerable rigour. [109] We do not know when Jewish Christians broke off, or were forced to break off, from all connection with the synagogues; we can only conjecture that if such connections lasted till about 70 A.D., they ceased then. [110] Epiphanius (xxix. 9): ou monon hoi ton Ioudaion paides pros toutous kektentai misos, alla anistamenoi heothen kai meses hemeras kai peri ten hesperan, tris tes hemeras, hote euchas epitelousin en tais auton sunagogais eparontai autois kai anathematizousi phaskontes hoti; Epikatarasai ho theos tous Nazoraious. kai gar toutois perissoteron enechousi, dia to apo Ioudaion autous ontas Iesoun kerussein einai Christon, hoper estin enantion pros pous eti Ioudaious tous Christon me dexamenous ("Not merely are they visited with hatred at the hands of Jewish children, but rising at dawn, at noon, and eventide, when they perform their orisons in their synagogues, the Jews curse them and anathematize them, crying God curse the Nazarenes!' For, indeed, they are assailed all the more bitterly because, being themselves of Jewish origin, they proclaim Jesus to be the Messiah--in opposition to the other Jews who reject Christ"). [111] Epiphanius (loc. cit.) says of them: Ioudaioi mallon kai ouden heteron; panu de houtoi echthroi tois Ioudaiois huparchousin ("They are Jews more than anything else, and yet they are detested by the Jews"). [112] The Syrians are a certain exception to this rule; yet how markedly was the Syrian church Grecized, even although it retained its native language! [113] The gospel allied itself, in a specially intimate way, to Hellenism, but not exclusively, during the period of which we are speaking; on the contrary, the greatest stress was laid still, as by Paul of old, upon the fact that all peoples were called, and the gospel accepted by members of all nations. Certainly the Greeks ranked as primi inter pares, and the esteem in which they were held was bound to increase just as tradition came to be emphasized, since it was neither possible nor permissible as yet to trace back the latter to the Jews (from the middle of the second century onwards, the appeal of tradition to the church of Jerusalem was not to a Jewish, but to a Greek church). In this sense, even the Latins felt themselves secondary as compared with the Greeks, but it was not long before the Roman church understood how to make up for this disadvantage. In the Easter controversy, about the year 190 A.D., certain rivalries between the Greeks and Latins emerged for the first time; but such differences were provincial, not national, for the Roman church at that period was still predominantly Greek. [114] As the post-apostolic literature shows, there were wide circles in which Paul's doctrine of the law and the old covenant was never understood, and consequently was never accepted. [115] It was an inconvenient fact that the book had not been taken from the Jews, who still kept and used it; but pseudo-Justin (Cohort. xiii.) gets over this by explaining that the Jews' retention of the Old Testament was providential. They preserved the Old Testament, so that it might afford a refutation of the pagan opponents who objected to Christianity on account of its forgeries {i.e., the prophecies). In his Dialogue, Justin, however, charges the Jews with falsifying the Old Testament in an anti-Christian sense. His proofs are quite flimsy. [116] Justin, for example, looks on the Jews not more but less favourably than on the heathen (cp. Apol., I. xxxvii., xxxix., xliii.-xliv., xlvii., liii., lx.). The more friendly attitude of Aristides (Apol. xiv.) is exceptional. [117] Cp. Rev. ii. 9, iii. 9, Did. viii., and the treatment of the Jews in the Fourth Gospel and the Gospel of Peter. Barnabas (ix. 4) declares that a wicked angel had seduced them from the very first. In 2 Clem. ii. 3, the Jews are called hoi dokountes echein theon ("they that seem to have God"); similarly in the Preaching of Peter (Clem., Strom., vi. 5. 41): ekeinoi monoi oiomenoi ton theon gignoskein ouk epistantai ("They suppose they alone know God, but they do not understand him"). [118] Pilate was more and more exonerated. [119] Cp. Tertull., Apol. xxi.: dispersi, palabundi et soli et caeli sui extorres vagantur per orbem sine homine, sine deo rege, quibus nec advenarum iure terram patriam saltim vestigio salutare conceditur ("Scattered, wanderers, exiles from their own land and clime, they roam through the world without a human or a divine king, without so much as a stranger's right to set foot even in their native land"). [120] For what follows see my Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, I.(3), pp. 168 f. [Eng. trans., i. 291 f.]. [121] Cp. Barn. ix. f. The attitude of Barnabas to the Old Testament is radically misunderstood if one imagines that his expositions in vi.-x. can be passed over as the result of oddity and caprice, or set aside as destitute of any moment or method. Not a sentence in this section lacks method, and consequently there is no caprice at all. The strictly spiritual conception of God in Barnabas, and the conviction that all (Jewish) ceremonies are of the devil, made his expositions of Scripture a matter of course; so far from being mere ingenious fancies to this author's mind, they were essential to him, unless the Old Testament was to be utterly abandoned. For example, the whole authority of the Old Testament would have collapsed for Barnabas, unless he had succeeded in finding some fresh interpretation of the statement that Abraham circumcised his servants. This he manages to do by combining it with another passage from Genesis; he then discovers in the narrative, not circumcision at all, but a prophecy of the crucified Christ (ix.). [122] Barn. ix. 6: all' ereis; kai men peritetmetai ho laos eis sphragida. ("But thou wilt say, this people hath been certainly circumcised for a seal"). This remark is put into the mouth of an ordinary Gentile Christian; the author himself does not agree with it. [123] Cp. Justin's Dial. xvi., xviii., xx., xxx., xl.-xlvi. He lays down these three findings side by side: (l) that the ceremonial laws were an educational measure on the part of God to counteract the stubbornness of the people, who were prone to apostatize; (2) that, as in the case of circumcision, they were meant to differentiate the people in view of the future judgment which was to be executed according to divine appointment; and (3) finally, that the Jewish worship enacted by the ceremonial law exhibited the peculiar depravity and iniquity of the people. Justin, however, viewed the decalogue as the natural law of reason, and therefore as definitely distinct from the ceremonial law. [124] This is the prevailing view of all the sub-apostolic writers. Christians are the true Israel; hence theirs are all the honourable titles of the people of Israel. They are the twelve tribes (cp. Jas. i. l), and thus Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are the fathers of Christians (a conception on which no doubt whatever existed in the Gentile church, and which is not to be traced back simply to Paul); the men of God in the Old Testament were Christians (cp. Ignat., ad Magn., viii. 2, hoi prophetai kata Christon Iesoun ezesan, "the prophets lived according to Christ Jesus"). But it is to be noted that a considerable section of Christians, viz., them majority of the so-called gnostics and the Marcionites, repudiated the Old Testament along with Judaism (a repudiation to which the epistle of Barnabas approximates very closely, but which it avoids by means of its resolute re-interpretation of the literal sense). These people appear to be the consistent party, yet they were really nothing of the kind; to cut off the Old Testament meant that another historical basis must be sought afresh for Christianity, and such a basis could not be found except in some other religion or in another system of worship. Marcion made the significant attempt to abandon the Old Testament and work exclusively with the doctrine and mythology of Paulinism; but the attempt was isolated, and it proved a failure. [125] Forty years later Irenæus was therefore in a position to treat the Old Testament and its real religion with much greater freedom, for by that time Christians had almost ceased to feel that their possession of the Old Testament was seriously disturbed by Judaism. Thus Irenæus was able even to repeat the admission that the literal observance of the Old Testament in earlier days was right and holy. The Fathers of the ancient Catholic church, who followed him, went still further: on one side they approximated again to Paulinism; but at the same time, on every possible point, they moved still further away from the apostle than the earlier generations had done, since they understood his anti-legalism even less, and had also to defend the Old Testament against the gnostics. Their candid recognition of a literal sense in the Old Testament was due to the secure consciousness of their own position over against Judaism, but it was the result even more of their growing passion for the laws and institutions of the Old Testament cultus. [126] Attempts of the Jews to seduce Christians into apostasy are mentioned in literature, but not very often; cp. Serapion's account quoted by Eusebius (H.E. vi. 12), and Acta Pionii (xiii., with a Jewish criticism of Christ as a suicide and a sorcerer). [127] The half-finished, hybrid products of Jewish propaganda throughout the empire were transmuted into independent and attractive forms of religion, far surpassing the synagogues. It was only natural that the former had at once to enter into the keenest conflict with the latter. [128] That Jesus himself converted many people en tou Ellenikou is asserted only by a comparatively late and unauthentic remark in Josephus. [129] "The hour has come for the Son of man to be glorified. Verily, verily, I say to you, unless the grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it abides by itself alone; but if it die it bears much fruit. . . . . A voice then came from heaven, I have glorified, and I will glorify it again.' . . . . Jesus said, This voice has come, not for my sake but for yours; now is the judgment of this world, now shall the prince of this world be cast out. Yet when 1 am lifted up from the earth, I will draw all men to myself.'" [130] Naturally, there was not entire and universal satisfaction with this explanation. Even legend did not venture in those early days to change the locale of Jesus to the midst of paganism, but already Magi from the East were made to come to the child Jesus and worship him, after a star had announced his birth to all the world (Matt. ii.); angels at the birth of Jesus announced tidings of great joy to "all peoples" (Luke ii.); and when that star appeared, says Ignatius (ad Eph., xix.), its appearance certified that ''All sorcery was dissolved and every wicked spell vanished, ignorance was overthrown and the old kingdom was destroyed, when God appeared in human guise unto newness of eternal life. Then that which had been prepared within God's counsels began to take effect. Thence were all things perturbed, because the abolition of death was being undertaken" (elueto pasa mageia, kai pas desmos hephanizeto kakias, agnoia kathereito, palaia basileia diephtheireto, theou anthropinos phaneroumenou eis kainoteta aidiou zoes; archen de elambanen to para theo apertismenon. enthen ta panta sunekineito dia to meletasthai thanatou katalusin). The Christians of Edessa were still more venturesome. They declared in the third century that Jesus had corresponded with their king Abgar, and cured him. Eusebius (H.E., i. ad fin.) thought this tale of great importance; it seemed to him a sort of substitute for any direct work of Jesus among pagans. [131] Harvey II. p. 494: houtos [ho christos] en te kardia tes ges, en chomati krubeis kai triemero megiston dendron gennetheis exeteine tous heautou kladous eis ta perata tes ges. ek toutou prokupsantes hoi ib' apostoloi, kladoi horaioi, kai euthaleis genethentes skepe engenethesan tois ethnesin, hos peteinois ouranou, huph' hon kladon skepasthentes hoi pantes, hos ornea hupo kalian sunelthonta metelabon tes ex auton proerchomenes edodimou kai epouranion trophes = "Within the heart of the earth, hidden in the tomb, he became in three days the greatest of all trees [Iren. had previously compared Christ to the seed of corn in Luke xiii. 19], and stretched out his branches to the ends of the earth. His outstretched branches, waxing ripe and fresh, even the twelve apostles, became a shelter for the birds of heaven, even for the nations. By these branches all were shadowed, like birds gathered in a nest, and partook of the food and heavenly nourishment which came forth from them." [132] This idea suggests one of the motives which prompted people to devise tales of apostolic missions. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER VI. RESULTS OF THE MISSION OF PAUL AND OF THE FIRST MISSIONARIES 1. Before his last journey to Jerusalem Paul wrote from Corinth to Rome (Rom. xv. 19 f.): "From Jerusalem and round about even unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ; yea, making it my aim so to preach the gospel not where Christ was already named, that I might not build upon another man's foundation. Wherefore also I was hindered these many times from coming to you; but now, having no more any place in these regions, and having these many years a longing to come unto you, I will come whenever I go to Spain. For I hope to see you on my journey and to be brought on my way thitherward by you, if first in some measure I shall have been satisfied with your company." The preaching of the gospel within the Greek world is now complete (for this is what the words "even unto Illyria" imply); the Latin world now begins. [133] Paul thus identifies his own missionary preaching along a narrow line from Jerusalem to Illyria with the preaching of the gospel to the entire Eastern hemisphere--a conception which is only intelligible upon the supposition that the certainty of the world's near end made no other kind of mission possible than one which thus hastily covered the world's area. The fundamental idea is that the gospel has to be preached everywhere during the short remaining space of the present world-age, [134] while at the same time this is only feasible by means of mission-tours across the world. The fire it is assumed, will spread right and left spontaneously from the line of flame. [135] This idea, that the world must be traversed, was apparently conceived by the apostle on his so-called "second'" missionary tour. [136] Naturally he viewed it as a divine injunction, for it is in this sense that we must interpret the difficult passage in Acts xvi. 6-8. If Paul had undertaken this second tour with the aim of reaching the Hellenistic districts on the coast of Asia Minor, and if he had become conscious in the course of his work that he was also called to be an apostle to the Greeks, then on the western border of Phrygia this consciousness passed into the sense of a still higher duty. He is not merely the apostle of the barbarians (Syrians, Cilicians, Lycaonians), not merely the apostle even of barbarians and Greeks, but the apostle of the world. He is commissioned to bear the gospel right to the western limits of the Roman empire; that is, he must fill up the gaps left by the missionaries in their efforts to cover the whole ground. Hence he turns aside on the frontier of Phrygia, neither westwards (to Asia) nor northward (to Bithynia), as one might expect and as he originally planned to do, but northwest. Even Mysia he only hurries through. The decision to pass by Asia and Bithynia meant that he was undertaking a mission to Macedonia, Achaia, and beyond that to the West. Philippi, Thessalonica, Beroea, Athens, Corinth--or, to put it more accurately, from Paul's standpoint, Macedonia and Achaia--heard the gospel. But why did he remain for eighteen months in Corinth? Why did he not travel on at once to Rome, and thence to the far West? Why did he interpolate a fresh tour, at this point, to Asia Minor, residing no less than three years at Ephesus? The answer is obvious. While he had Rome and the West in his mind, the first time he reached Corinth (Rom. i. 13), circumstances fortunately proved too strong for any attempt to realize this ambitious scheme. If I understand the situation aright, there were three considerations which had to be borne in mind. First of all, Paul neither would nor could lose touch with the two mother-churches in Jerusalem and Antioch. This made him return upon his tracks on two occasions. In the second place, he felt irresistibly bound to build up the churches which he had founded, instead of leaving them in the lurch after a few weeks. The duty of organizing and of working on a small scale prevailed over the visionary and alleged duty of hurrying over the world with the gospel; the latter duty might well have lurking in it a grain of personal ambition. Finally, it was plain that no one had raised the standard of the gospel in the great province which he had been obliged to pass by, i.e., in Western Asia Minor, the kernel of the Hellenic world. Paul had certainly assumed that other agents would preach the word of God here. But his hope was disappointed. On his first return journey (from Corinth to Jerusalem) he was content to leave behind him at Ephesus the distinguished missionary Prisca with her husband Aquila; but when he came back on his so-called "third'" journey, he found not only the small beginnings of a Christian community, but disciples of John, whose mission he could not afford to ignore. The local sphere proved so rich and fertile that he felt obliged to take up residence at Ephesus. Here it was that he pursued the task of that spiritual settlement between Hellenism and Christianity which he had begun at Corinth. The first epistle to the Corinthians is evidence of this relationship. At Antioch no such adjustment was possible, for Antioch was simply a large Greek colony; it was Greek only in the sense in which Calcutta is English. Paul, however, had not abandoned his scheme for covering the world with the gospel. The realization of it was only deferred in the sense in which the return of Christ was deferred. Probably he would have remained still longer at Ephesus (in the neighborhood of which, as well as throughout the district, new churches had sprung up) and come into closer touch with Hellenism, had he not been disturbed by news from Corinth and finally driven out of the city by a small riot. Paul's labours made Ephesus the third capital of Christianity, its distinctively Greek capital. For a while it looked as if Ephesus was actually destined to be the final headquarters of the faith. But already a rival was emerging in the far West, which was to eclipse the Asiatic metropolis. This was Rome, the fourth city of Christianity, destined ere long to be the first. When he left Ephesus to journey through Macedonia and Achaia, he again became the itinerant apostle, and once more the unforgotten idea of traversing the wide world got possession of his mind. From Corinth he wrote to Rome the words with which this chapter opened--words which lose something of their hyperbolic air when we think of the extraordinary success already won by the apostle in Macedonia and Achaia, in Asia and Phrygia. He had the feeling that, despite the poor results in Athens, he had conquered the Hellenic world. Conscious of this religious and intellectual triumph, he deemed his task within that sphere already done. Nor did God need him now in Rome or throughout Italy. There the gospel had been already preached, and a great church had been organized by unknown missionaries. The faith of this church was "heard of through the whole world." Spain alone remained, for the adjacent Gaul and Africa could be reached along this line of work. Spain is selected, instead of Gaul or Africa, because the apostle's idea was to run a transversal line right across the empire. So Clement of Rome rightly understood him (i. 5), in words which almost sound like those of the apostle himself: "Seven times imprisoned, exiled, stoned, having preached in the east and in the west, a teacher of righteousness to the whole world even to the furthest limit of the west." Did he manage this? Not in the first instance, at any rate. He had again to return to the far East, and the gloomy forebodings with which he travelled to Jerusalem were realized. When he did reach Rome, a year or two later, it was as a prisoner. But if he could no longer work as he desired to do, his activities were undiminished, in the shape of preaching at Rome, writing letters to churches far away, and holding intercourse with friends from the East. When he was beheaded in the summer of 64 A.D., he had fully discharged his obligations to the peoples of the world. He was the apostle kat' exochen. To barbarians, Greeks, and Latins he had brought the gospel. But his greatness does not lie in the mere fact that he penetrated as a missionary to Illyria, Rome, and probably Spain as well; it "lies in the manner in which he trained his fellow-workers and organized, as well as created, his churches. Though all that was profoundly Hellenic remained obscure to him, yet he rooted Christianity permanently in Hellenic soil. He was not the only one to do so, but it was his ideas alone which proved anew ferment within Hellenism, as the gnostics, Irenæus, Origen, and Augustine especially show. So far as there ever was an original Christian Hellenism, it was under Pauline influences. Paul lived on in his epistles. They are not merely records of his personality and work--though even in this light few writings in the world are to be compared to them--but, as the profound outcome of a vital personal religion and an unheard-of inner conflict, they are also perennial springs of religious power. Every age has understood them in its own way. None has yet exhausted them. Even in their periods of depreciation they have been singularly influential. Of the four centres of Christianity during the first century--Jerusalem, Antioch, Ephesus, and Rome--one alone was the work of Paul, and even Ephesus did not remain as loyal to its founder as might have been expected. As the "father'" of his churches he fell into the background everywhere; in fact he was displaced, and displaced by the development of mediocrity, of that "natural" piety which gets on quite well by itself. Neither his strength nor his weakness was transmitted to his churches. In this sense Paul remained an isolated personality, but he always was the teacher of Christendom, and this he became more than ever as the years went by. 2. His legacy, apart from his epistles, was his churches. He designated them indeed as his "epistles." Neither his vocation (as a restless, pioneering missionary), nor his temperament, nor his religious genius (as an ecstatic enthusiast and a somewhat exclusive theologian) seemed to fit him for the work of organization; nevertheless he knew better than anyone else how to found and build up churches (cp. Weinel, Paulus als kirchlicher Organisator, 1899). Recognizing the supreme fruits of the Spirit in faith, love, hope, and all the allied virtues, bringing the outbursts of enthusiasm into the service of edification, subordinating the individual to the larger organism, claiming the natural conditions of social life, for all their defects and worldliness, as divine arrangements, he overcame the dangers of fanaticism and created churches which could live in the world without being of the world. But organization never became for Paul an end in itself or a means to worldly aggrandizement. Such was by no means his intention. "The aims of his ecclesiastical labours were unity in brotherly love and the reign of God in the heart of man, not the rule of savants or priests over the laity." In his theology and in his controversy with the Judaists he seems often to be like an inquisitor or a fanatical scribe, and he has been accused of inoculating the church with the virus of theological narrowness and heresy-mongering. But in reality the only confession he recognised, besides that of the living God, was the confession of "Christ the Lord," and towards the close of his life he testified that he would tolerate any doctrine which occupied that ground. The spirit of Christ, liberty, love--to these supreme levels, in spite of his temperament and education, he won his own way, and it was on these high levels that he sought to place his churches. 3. There was a great disparity between him and his coadjutors. Among the more independent, Barnabas, Silas (Silvanus), Prisca and Aquila, and Apollos deserve mention. Of Barnabas we have already spoken (pp. 52 f.). Silas, the prophet of the Jerusalemite church, took his place beside Paul, and held a position during the so-called "second" missionary tour like that of Barnabas during the "first." Perhaps the fact that Paul took him as a companion was a fresh assurance for the church of Jerusalem. But, so far as we can see (cp. 2 Cor. i. 19), no discord marred their intercourse. Silas shared with him the work of founding the churches in Macedonia and Achaia. There after he disappears entirely from the life of Paul and the Acts of the Apostles, to reappear, we are surprised to find, as an author at the conclusion of the epistle to Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia, which was inspired by Peter (for such is in all probability the meaning of v. 12: dia Silouanou umin tou pistou adelphou, hos logizomai, di' oligon egrapsa. This abrupt reference to him, which stands quite by itself, must remain an enigma. Prisca and Aquila, the wife and husband (or rather, Prisca the missionary, with her husband Aquila), who were exiled from Rome to Corinth during the reign of Claudius, had the closest relation to Paul of all the independent workers in the mission. They co-operated with him at Corinth; they prepared the way for him at Ephesus, where Prisca showed her Christian intelligence by winning over Apollos, the Alexandrian disciple of John, to Christ; they once saved the apostle's life; and, on returning to Rome, they carried on the work upon Paul's lines (cp. my study in the Sitzungsberichte der Berliner Akademie, Jan. 11, 1900). There is much to be said for the hypothesis that Hebrews was their composition, whether from the pen of Prisca or of Aquila (cp. my essay in the Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft, vol. i. pp. 1 f., 1900). Apollos, the Alexandrian, worked independently in the field which Paul had planted at Corinth. Paul only refers to him in First Corinthians, but invariably with respect and affection; he was well aware that the Corinthians attributed a certain rivalry and coolness to himself and Apollos. At the same time it may be questioned whether the work of this able colleague, whom he had not personally chosen, was thoroughly congenial to him. The abrupt reference in Tit. iii. 18 unfortunately does not tell us anything beyond the fact that their subsequent intercourse was unimpaired. Among the missionaries whom Paul himself secured or trained, Timothy occupies the foremost place. We learn a good deal about him, and his personality was so important even to the author of Acts that his origin and selection for this office are described (xvi. 1). Still, we cannot form any clear idea of this, the most loyal of Paul's younger coadjutors, probably because he leant so heavily on the apostle. After Paul's death at Rome he carried on his work there, having been with him in the capital, and thus came into touch with the local church. He was for a time in prison, and survived to the reign of Domitian (Heb. xiii. 23).--Mark, who belonged to the primitive church of Jerusalem, Titus, and Luke the physician, are to be singled out among the other missionaries of the second class. With regard to Mark, whom Paul did not take with him on his so-called "second'" tour, but who later on is found in his company (Philemon 24, Col. iv. 10, 2 Tim. iv. 11), it is just possible (though, in my judgment, it is not likely) that tradition has made one figure out of two. He it is who, according to the presbyter John, made notes of the gospel story. Titus, of whom little is known, was a full-blooded pagan (Gal. ii. 1 f.), and laboured for some time in Crete. Luke, who came across Paul at Troas on the latter's second tour, belonged to the church of Antioch. Like Titus, he was a Gentile Christian. He furnished primitive Christianity with its most intelligent, though not its greatest, author. Paul does not appear, however, to have fully recognised the importance of this "beloved physician" (Col. iv. 15), his "fellow-worker" (Philemon 24). The last reference to his fellow-workers indeed is not enthusiastic. The epistle to the Philippians breathes an air of isolation, and in 2 Tim. iv. 9 f. we read: "Do thy diligence to come shortly unto me; for Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is gone to Thessalonica, Crescens to Galatia, Titus to Dalmatia. Luke alone is with me [rather a mediocre consolation, it would seem!]. Take Mark and bring him with thee; for he is useful to me for ministering. Tychicus I sent to Ephesus. Alexander the coppersmith did me much evil. At my first defence no one took my part, but all forsook me." It would be unfair, however, to judge Paul's coadjutors by these expressions of dissatisfaction. Evidently they had not done as Paul wished, but we are quite in the dark upon the reasons for their action. 4. The first epistle of Peter is a very dubious piece of evidence for the idea that Peter, either with or after Paul, took part in the mission to Asia Minor; but there is no doubt that some prominent Palestinian Christians came to Asia and Phrygia, perhaps after the destruction of Jerusalem, and that they displayed remarkable activity in the district. At their head was a man who came to Ephesus and died there, at a ripe age, during the first year of the reign of Trajan. This was John "the Presbyter," as he called himself, and as he was called by his own circle. He worked in the Pauline churches of Asia, both in person and by means of letters; he added to their number, organized them internally, and maintained an extraordinarily sharp opposition to heretics. He retained the oversight of the churches, and exercised it by means of itinerant emissaries. His influence was apostolic or equivalent to that of an apostolic authority, but towards the end of his life several churches, conscious of their independence, endeavoured, in conjunction with their bishops, to throw off his supervision. When he died, there was an end of the mission organisation, which had latterly survived in his own person: the independent, local authority came to the front on all hands. When Ignatius reached Asia, twelve or fifteen years afterwards, the former had entirely disappeared, and even the memory of this John had given place to that of Paul. The Johannine circle must therefore have been rather limited during its latter phase. Even John must have been pretty isolated. [137] The second and third epistles of John certainly belong to him, and we may therefore ascribe to him, with much probability, the Fourth gospel and the first epistle of John also--in fact, we may go a step further and claim for him the Apocalypse with its seven letters and its Christian revision of one or more Jewish apocalypses. This hypothesis is the simplest which can be framed: it meets the data of tradition better than any other, and it encounters no fatal objections. All that can be said of the personality of this John within the limits of reasonable probability, is that he was not the son of Zebedee, but a Jerusalemite of priestly origin, otherwise unknown to us, and a disciple of the Lord; [138] furthermore, as the gospel indicates, he must at one time have been specially connected with John the son of Zebedee. [139] If his authority collapsed towards the end of his life, or was confined to a small circle, that circle ("of presbyters") certainly succeeded in restoring and extending his authority by editing his writings and disseminating them throughout the churches. In all likelihood, too, they purposely identified the "apostle,'" presbyter, and disciple of the Lord with the son of Zebedee; or, at least, they did not oppose this erroneous tendency. Apart from this John we can name the evangelist Philip and his four prophetic daughters, Aristion the disciple of the Lord, and probably the apostle Andrew as among those who came to Asia Minor. As for Philip (already confused in the second century with his namesake the apostle) and his daughters, we have clear evidence for his activity in Phrygian Hierapolis. Papias mentions Aristion together with John as primitive witnesses, and an Armenian manuscript ascribes the unauthentic ending of Mark's gospel to him--an ending which is connected with Luke and the Fourth gospel, and perhaps originated in Asia Minor. We may conjecture, from the old legends preserved in the Muratorian fragment, that Andrew came to Asia Minor, and this is confirmed by the tradition (late, but not entirely worthless) that he died in Greece. [140] At the close of the first century Asia and Phrygia were the only two provinces in which Palestinian traditions survived in the person of individual representatives. At the same time, probably, in no other part of the empire were there so many closely allied churches as here and in Pontus and Bithynia. This must have lent them, and especially the church at Ephesus, a high repute. When Clement of Alexandria was in search of early traditions, he turned to Asia; and even in Rome people were well aware of the significance with which the Asiatic churches were invested owing to their traditions, though Rome was never willing to take the second place. About 50 A.D. Christianity was an ellipse whose foci were Jerusalem and Antioch; fifty years later these foci were Ephesus and Rome. The change implied in this proves the greatness of Paul's work and of the work done by the first Christian missionaries. __________________________________________________________________ [133] Egypt could not be passed over, for the Greek world without Egypt would have been incomplete. But Paul never alludes to Egypt either here or elsewhere. He must have known that other missionaries were labouring there; or, did he regard Egypt, like John (Apoc. xi. 8), as a land which was so hateful to God that nothing could be hoped from it? [134] The idea recurs in the gospels (Mark xiii. 10). Was Paul the first to conceive it and to give it currency? [135] Cp. 1 Thess. i. 8; Rom. i. 8; Col. i. 6. [136] Not earlier. The whole of the so-called "first" mission-tour is inexplicable if Paul already had this idea in his mind. Wendt is quite right in saying (on Acts xiii. 13) that Paul at this period was merely conscious of being an apostle to the barbarians; not to the Greeks. Otherwise, the choice of a mission-field in S.W. Asia Minor is unintelligible. [137] The same fate apparently overtook him which he had prepared for Paul. Of course we are all in a mist here, but the entire silence of the seven letters in the Apocalypse with regard to Paul is a problem which is not to be waved aside as insignificant. Even the same silence in the gospel of John, where so many other indications of recent history are to be heard, is extremely surprising. Those who wanted to refer the mission of the Paraclete to Paul (Origen mentions them; cp. addenda) were certainly wrong, but they were right in looking out for some allusion to Paul in the gospel, and they could not find any other. [138] This title suggests, but does not prove, that he was a personal disciple of Jesus, since it occurs not in Jerusalem but in Asia. [139] The most likely conjecture is that the beloved disciple was the son of Zebedee. Everything follows naturally from this view. The Presbyter need not have gained his special relationship to John in Asia Minor: it may go back quite well to Jerusalem. The formal difficulty of the two Johns has to be faced, but after all "John" was a common name. If it would at all simplify the critical problem to assume that the son of Zebedee was also in Asia Minor, one might credit this tradition, which is vouched for as early as Justin Martyr. But this would not affect the problem of the authorship of the Johannine writings, though it might explain how the author of those writings came to be identified, at a comparatively early time, with the apostle John. [140] We may refer here to Ignat., ad Ephes., xi.: hina eni klero Ephesion heuretho ton Christianon, ohi kai tois apostolois pantote sunenesan (v. 1, sunesan) en dunamei Iesou christou ("That I may be found in the company of those Ephesian Christians who moreover were ever of one mind with the apostles in the power of Jesus Christ"). The reading sunenesan does not necessarily prove the personal residence of the apostle in Ephesus, however. __________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________ BOOK II THE MISSION--PREACHING IN WORD AND DEED The unity and the variety which characterized the preaching of Christianity from the very first constituted the secret of its fascination and a vital condition of its success. On the one hand, it was so "simple that it could be summed up in a few brief sentences and understood in a single crisis of the inner life; on the other hand, it was so versatile and rich, that it vivified all thought and stimulated every emotion. It was capable, almost from the outset, of vying with every noble and worthy enterprise, with any speculation, or with any cult of the mysteries. It was both new and old; it was alike present and future. Clear and transparent, it was also profound and full of mystery. It had statutes, and yet rose superior to any law. It was a doctrine and yet no doctrine, a philosophy and yet something different from philosophy. Western Catholicism, when surveyed as a whole, has been described as a complexio oppositorum, but this was also true of the Christian propaganda in its earliest stages. Consequently, to exhibit the preaching and labors of the Christian mission with the object of explaining the amazing success of Christianity, we must try to get a uniform grasp of all its component factors. We shall proceed then to describe:-- 1. The religious characteristics of the mission-preaching. 2. The gospel of salvation and of the Saviour. 3. The gospel of love and charity. 4. The religion of the Spirit and power, of moral earnestness and holiness. 5. The religion of authority and of reason, of mysteries and transcendentalism. 6. The message of a new People and of a Third race (or the historical and political consciousness of Christendom). 7. The religion of a Book, and of a historical realization. 8. The conflict with polytheism and idolatry. In the course of these chapters we hope to do justice to the wealth of the religion, without impairing or obscuring the power of its simplicity. [141] One point must be left out, of course: that is, the task of following the development of Christian doctrine into the dogmas of the church's catechism, as well as into the Christian philosophy of religion propounded by Origen and his school. Doctrine, in both of these forms, was unquestionably of great moment to the mission of Christianity, particularly after the date of its earliest definition (relatively speaking) about the middle of the third century. But such a subject would require a book to itself. I have endeavored, in the first volume of my History of Dogma (third edition) to deal with it, and to that work I must refer any who may desire to see how the unavoidable gaps of the present volume are to be filled up. [142] __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 1 RELIGIOUS CHARACTERISTICS OF THE MISSION-PREACHING "Missionary Preaching" is a term which may be taken in a double sense. Its broader meaning covers all the forces of influence, attraction, and persuasion which the gospel had at its command, all the materials that it collected and endowed with life and power as it developed into a syncretistic religion during the first three centuries. The narrower sense of the term embraces simply the crucial message of faith and the ethical requirements of the gospel. Taking it in the latter sense, we shall devote the present chapter to a description of the fundamental principles of the missionary preaching. The broader conception has a wide range. The Old Testament and the new literature of Christianity, healing and redemption, gnosis and apologetic, myth and sacrament, the conquest of demons, forms of social organization and charity--all these played their part in the mission-preaching and helped to render it impressive and convincing. Even in the narrower sense of the term, our description of the mission-preaching must be kept within bounds, for the conception of the crucial message of faith and its ethical requirements is bound up naturally with the development of dogma, and the latter (as I have already remarked) cannot be exhibited without over-stepping the precincts of the present volume. At the same time, these limitations are not very serious, since, to the best of our knowledge, mission-preaching (in the narrower sense of the term) was fairly extinct after the close of the second century. Its place was taken by the instruction of catechumens, by the training of the household in and for the Christian faith, and by the worship of the church. Finally, we must eschew the error of imagining that everyone who came over to Christianity was won by a missionary propaganda of dogmatic completeness. So far as our sources throw light on this point, they reveal a very different state of things, and this applies even to the entire period preceding Constantine. In countless instances, it was but one ray of light that wrought the change. One person would be brought over by means of the Old Testament, another by the exorcising of demons, a third by the purity of Christian life; others, again, by the monotheism of Christianity, above all by the prospect of complete expiation, or by the prospect which it held out of immortality, or by the profundity of its speculations, or by the social standing which it conferred. In the great majority of cases, so long as Christianity did not yet propagate itself naturally, one believer may well have produced another, just as one prophet anointed his successor; example (not confined to the case of the martyrs) and the personal manifestation of the Christian life led to imitation. A complete knowledge of Christian doctrine, which was still a plant of very tender growth in the second century, was certainly the attainment of a small minority. "Idiotae, quorum semper maior pars est," says Tertullian ("The uneducated are always in a majority with us"). Hippolytus bewails the ignorance even of a Roman bishop. Even the knowledge of the Scriptures, though they were read in private, remained of necessity the privilege of an individual here and there, owing to their extensiveness and the difficulty of understanding them. [143] The earliest mission-preaching to Jews ran thus: "The kingdom of God is at hand; repent." [144] The Jews thought they knew what was the meaning of the kingdom of heaven and of its advent; but they had to be told the meaning of the repentance that secured the higher righteousness, so that "God's kingdom" also acquired a new meaning. The second stage in the mission-preaching to Jews was determined by this tenet: "The risen [145] Jesus is the Messiah [cp. Matt. x. 32], and will return from heaven to establish his kingdom." The third stage was marked by the interpretation of the Old Testament as a whole (i.e., the law and the prophets) from the standpoint of its fulfillment in Jesus Christ, along with the accompanying need of securing and formulating that inwardness of disposition and moral principle which members of the Messianic church, who were called and kept by the Holy Spirit, knew to be their duty. [146] This must have made them realize that the observance of the law, which had hitherto prevailed, was inadequate either to cancel sin or to gain righteousness; also that Jesus the Messiah had died that sins might be forgiven (gnoston esto humin, hoti dia toutou humin aphesis hamartion katangelletai apo panton hon ouk edunethete en nomo Mouseos dikaiothenai). [147] "You know that when you were pagans you were led away to dumb idols" (1 Cor. xii. 2). "You turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers us from the wrath to come" (1 Thess. i. 9-10). Here we have the mission-preaching to pagans in a nutshell. The "living and true God" is the first and final thing; the second is Jesus, the Son of God, the judge, who secures us against the wrath to come, and who is therefore "Jesus the Lord." To the living God, now preached to all men, we owe faith and devoted service; to God's Son as Lord, our due is faith and hope. [148] The contents of this brief message--objective and subjective, positive and negative--are inexhaustible. Yet the message itself is thoroughly compact and complete. It is objective and positive as the message which tells of the only God, who is spiritual, omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent, the creator of heaven and earth, the Lord and Father of men, and the great disposer of human history; [149] furthermore, it is the message which tells of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who came from heaven, made known the Father, died for sins, rose, sent the Spirit hither, and from his seat at God's right hand will return for the judgment; [150] finally, it is the message of salvation brought by Jesus the Saviour, that is, freedom from the tyranny of demons, sin, and death, together with the gift of life eternal. Then it is objective and negative, since it announces the vanity of all other gods, and forms a protest against idols of gold and silver and wood, as well as against blind fate and atheism. Finally, it is subjective, as it declares the uselessness of all sacrifice, all temples, and all worship of man's devising, and opposes to these the worship of God in spirit and in truth, assurance of faith, holiness and self-control, love and brotherliness, and lastly the solid certainty of the resurrection and of life eternal, implying the futility of the present life, which lies exposed to future judgment. This new kind of preaching excited extraordinary fears and hopes: fears of the imminent end of the world and of the great reckoning, at which even the just could hardly pass muster; hopes of a glorious reign on earth, after the dénouement, and of a paradise which was to be filled with precious delights and overflowing with comfort and bliss. Probably no religion had ever proclaimed openly to men such terrors and such happiness. To wide circles this message of the one and almighty God no longer came as a surprise. It was the reverse of a surprise. What they had vaguely divined, seemed now to be firmly and gloriously realized. At the same time, as "Jesus and the Resurrection" were taken for new dæmons in Athens (according to Acts xvii. 18), and considered to be utterly strange, this doctrine must have been regarded at first as paradoxical wherever it was preached. This, however, is not a question into which we have here to enter. What is certain is, that "the one living God, as creator," "Jesus the Saviour," [151] "the Resurrection" (he anastasis), and ascetic "self-control" (he enkrateia) formed the most conspicuous articles of the new propaganda. Along with this the story of Jesus must have been briefly communicated (in the statements of Christology), the resurrection was generally defined as the resurrection of the flesh, and self-control primarily identified with sexual purity, and then extended to include renunciation of the world and mortification of the flesh. [152] The most overwhelming element in the new preaching was the resurrection of the flesh, the complete "restitutio in integrum," and the kingdom of glory. Creation and resurrection were the beginning and the end of the new doctrine. The hope of resurrection which it aroused gave rise to a fresh estimate of the individual value, and at the same time to quite inferior and sensuous desires. Faith in the resurrection of the body and in the millennium soon appeared to pagans to be the distinguishing feature of this silly religion. And the pagans were right. It was the distinguishing feature of Christianity at this period. Justin explains that all orthodox Christians held this doctrine and this hope. "Fiducia christianorum resurrectio mortuorum, illa credentes sumus," Tertullian writes (de Resurr. i.), adding (in ch. xxi.) that this must not be taken allegorically, as the heretics allege, since "verisimile non est, ut ea species sacramenti, in quam fides tota committitur, in quam disciplina tota conititur, ambigue annuntiata et obscura proposita videatur" (the gospel is too important to be stated ambiguously; see further what follows). The earliest essays of a technical character by the teachers of the Catholic church were upon the resurrection of the flesh. It was a hope, too, which gave vent to the ardent desires of the oppressed, the poor, the slaves, and the disappointed upon earth: "We want to serve no longer, our wish is to reign soon" (Tert., de Orat. 5). "Though the times of this hope have been determined by the sacred pen, lest it should be fixed previous, I think, to the return of Christ, yet our prayers pant for the close of this age, for the passing of this world to the great day of the Lord, for the day of wrath and retribution" (Cum et tempora totius spei fida sunt sacrosancto stilo, ne liceat eam ante constitui quam in adventum, opinor, Christi, vota nostra suspirant in saeculi huius occasum, in transitum mundi quoque ad diem domini magnum, diem irae et retributionis.--Tert., de Resurr. xxii.). "May grace come and this world pass away! The Lord comes!" is the prayer of Christians at the Lord's Supper (Did. x.). In many circles this mood lasted even after the beginning of the third century, but it reached its height during the reign of Marcus Aurelius. [153] From the outset "wisdom," "intelligence," "understanding," and "intellect" had a very wide scope. Indeed, there was hardly mission propaganda of any volume which did not overflow into the "gnostic" spirit, i.e., the spirit of Greek philosophy. The play of imagination was at once unfettered and urged to its highest flights by the settled conviction (for we need not notice here the circles where a different view prevailed) that Jesus, the Saviour, had come down from heaven. It was, after all, jejune to be informed, "We are the offspring of God" (Acts xvii. 28); but to be told that God became man and was incarnate in order that men might be divine--this was the apex and climax of all knowledge. It was bound up with the speculative idea (i) that, as the incarnation was a cosmic and divine event, it must therefore involve a reviving and heightened significance for the whole creation; and (ii) that the soul of man, hitherto divided from its primal source in God by forces and barriers of various degrees, now found the way open for its return to God, while every one of those very forces which had formerly barred the path was also liberated and transformed into a step and intermediate stage on the way back. Speculations upon God, the world, and the soul were inevitable, and they extended to the nature of the church. Here, too, the earthly and historical was raised to the level of the cosmic and transcendental. At first the contrast between a "sound" gnosis and a heretical only emerged by degrees in the propaganda, although from the very outset it was felt that certain speculations seemed to imperil the preaching of the gospel itself. [154] The extravagances of the "gnosis" which penetrated all the syncretistic religion of the age, and issued in dualism and docetism, were corrected primarily by a "sound" gnosis, then by the doctrine of Christian freedom, by a sober, rational theology and ethics, by the realism of the saving facts in the history of Jesus, by the doctrine of the resurrection of the body, but ultimately and most effectively by the church prohibiting all "innovations" and fixing her tradition. From this standpoint Origen's definition of gospel preaching (Hom. in Joh. xxxii. 9) is extremely instructive. After quoting Hermas, Mand. i. (the one God, the Creator), he adds: "It is also necessary to believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, and to believe all the truth concerning his deity and humanity, also to believe in the Holy Spirit, and that as free agents we are punished for our sins and rewarded for our good actions." By the second century Christianity was being preached in very different ways. The evangelists of the Catholic church preached in one way throughout the East, and in another throughout the West, though their fundamental position was identical; the Gnostics and Marcionites, again, preached in yet another way. Still Tertullian was probably not altogether wrong in saying that missions to the heathen were not actively promoted by the latter; the Gnostics and the Marcionites, as a rule, confined their operations to those who were already Christians. After the gnostic controversy, the anti-gnostic rule of faith gradually became the one basis of the church's preaching. The ethical and impetuous element retreated behind the dogmatic, although the emphasis upon self-control and asceticism never lost its vogue. At the transition from the second to the third century, theology had extended widely, but the mission-preaching had then as ever to remain comparatively limited. For the "idiotæ" it was enough, and more than enough, to hold the four points which we have already mentioned. Scenes like those described in Acts (viii. 26-38) were constantly being repeated, mutatis mutandis, especially during the days of persecution, when individual Christians suffered martyrdom joyfully; and this, although an orthodox doctrine of considerable range was in existence, which (in theory, at any rate) was essential. For many the sum of knowledge amounted to nothing more than the confession of the one God, who created the world, of Jesus the Lord, of the judgment, and of the resurrection; on the other hand, some of the chief arguments in the proof from prophecy, which played so prominent a part in all preaching to Jews and pagans (see Chapter VIII.), were disseminated far and wide; and as the apologists are always pointing in triumph to the fact that "among us," "tradesmen, slaves, and old women know how to give some account of God, and do not believe without evidence," [155] the principles of the Christian conception of God must have been familiar to a very large number of people. These four points, then--the one living God, Jesus our Saviour and Judge, the resurrection of the flesh, and self-control--combined to form the new religion. It stood out in bold relief from the old religions, and above all from the Jewish; yet in spite of its hard struggle with polytheism, it was organically related to the process of evolution which was at work throughout all religion, upon the eastern and the central coasts of the Mediterranean. The atmosphere from which those four principles drew their vitality was the conception of recompense--i.e., the absolute supremacy of the moral element in life on the one hand, and the redeeming cross of Christ upon the other. No account of the principles underlying the mission-preaching of Christianity is accurate, if it does not view everything from the standpoint of this conception: the sovereignty of morality, and the assurance of redemption by the forgiveness of sins, based on the cross of Christ. [156] "Grace," i.e., forgiveness, did play a leading role, but grace never displaced recompense. From the very first, morality was inculcated within the Christian churches in two ways: by the Spirit of Christ and by the conception of judgment and of recompense. Yet both were marked by a decided bent to the future, for the Christ of both was "he who was to return." To the mind of primitive Christianity the "present" and the "future" were sharply opposed to each other, [157] and it was this opposition which furnished the principle of self-control with its most powerful motive. It became, indeed, with many people a sort of glowing passion. The church which prayed at every service, "May grace come and this world pass away: maranatha," was the church which gave directions like those which we read in the opening parable of Hermas. [158] "From the lips of all Christians this word is to be heard: The world is crucified to me, and I to the world" (Celsus, cited by Origen, V. lxiv.). [159] This resolute renunciation of the world was really the first thing which made the church competent and strong to tell upon the world. Then, if ever, was the saying true: "He who would do anything for the world must have nothing to do with it." Primitive Christianity has been upbraided for being too un-worldly and ascetic. But revolutions are not effected with rosewater, and it was a veritable revolution to overthrow polytheism and establish the majesty of God and goodness in the world--for those who believed in them, and also for those who did not. This could never have happened, in the first instance, had not men asserted the vanity of the present world, and practically severed themselves from it. The rigor of this attitude, however, hardly checked the mission-preaching; on the contrary, it intensified it, since instead of being isolated it was set side by side with the message of the Saviour and of salvation, of love and charity. And we must add, that for all its trenchant forms and the strong bias it imparted to the minds of men towards the future, the idea of recompense was saved from harshness and inertia by its juxtaposition with a feeling of perfect confidence that God was present, and a conviction of his care and of his providence. No mode of thought was more alien to early Christianity than what we call deism. The early Christians knew the Father in heaven; they knew that God was near them and guiding them; the more thoughtful were conscious that he reigned in their life with a might of his own. This was the God they proclaimed. And thus, in their preaching, the future became already present; hard and fast recompense seemed to disappear entirely, for what further "recompense" was needed by people who were living in God's presence, conscious in every faculty of the soul, aye, and in every sense of the wisdom, power, and goodness of their God? Moods of assured possession and of yearning, experiences of grace and phases of impassioned hope, came and went in many a man besides the apostle Paul. He yearned for the prospect of release from the body, and thus felt a touching sympathy for everything in bondage, for the whole creation in its groans. But it was no harassing or uncertain hope that engrossed all his heart and being; it was hope fixed upon a strong and secure basis in his filial relationship to God and his possession of God's Spirit. [160] It is hardly necessary to point out that, by proclaiming repentance and strict morals on the one hand, and offering the removal of sins and redemption on the other hand, the Christian propaganda involved an inner cleavage which individual Christians must have realized in very different ways. If this removal of sins and redemption was bound up with the sacrament or specifically with the sacrament of baptism, then it came to this, that thousands were eager for this sacrament and nothing more, satisfied with belief in its immediate and magical efficacy, and devoid of any serious attention to the moral law. Upon the other hand, the moral demand could weigh so heavily on the conscience that redemption came to be no more than the reward and prize of a holy life. Between these two extremes a variety of standpoints was possible. The propaganda of the church made a sincere effort to assign equal weight to both elements of its message; but sacraments are generally more welcome than moral counsels, and that age was particularly afflicted with the sacramental mania. It added to the mysteries the requisite quality of naïvete, and at the same time the equally requisite note of subtlety. __________________________________________________________________ [143] Bishops and theologians, in the West especially, are always bewailing the defective knowledge of the Bible among the laity, and even among the clergy. Cp. also Clement of Alexandrinus. [144] The earliest mission-preaching (Matt. x. 7 f.) with which the disciples of Jesus were charged, ran: kerussete legontes hoti engiken he basileia ton ouranon. Although repentance is not actually mentioned, it is to be supplied from other passages. The prospect of power to do works of healing is also held out to them (asthenountas therapeuete, nekrous egeirete, leprous katharizete, daimonia ekballete). [145] Cp. the confession of the resurrection common to primitive Christianity, in 1 Cor. xv. 4 f. [146] To "imitate" or "be like" Christ did not occupy the place one would expect among the ethical counsels of the age. Jesus had spoken of imitating God and bidden men follow himself, whilst the relationship of pupil and teacher readily suggested the formula of imitation. But whenever he was recognized as Messiah, as the Son of God, as Saviour, and as Judge, the ideas of imitation and likeness had to give way, although the apostles still continued to urge both in their epistles, and to hold up the mind, the labors, and the sufferings of Jesus as an example. In the early church the imitation of Christ never became a formal principle of ethics (to use a modern phrase) except for the virtuoso in religion, the ecclesiastic, the teacher, the ascetic, or the martyr; it played quite a subordinate role in the ethical teaching of the church. Even the injunction to be like Christ, in the strict sense of the term, occurs comparatively seldom. Still, it is interesting to collect and examine the passages relative to this point; they show that whilst a parallel was fully drawn between the life of Christ and the career and conduct of distinguished Christians such as the confessors, the early church did not go the length of drawing up general injunctions with regard to the imitation of Christ. For one thing, the Christology stood in the way, involving not imitation but obedience; for another thing, the literal details of imitation seemed too severe. Those who made the attempt were always classed as Christians of a higher order (though even at this early period they were warned against presumption), so that the Catholic theory of "evangelic counsels" has quite a primitive root. [147] Acts xiii. 38; up to this point, I think, the Jewish Christian view is clearly stated in the address of Paul at Antioch, but the further development of the idea (en touto pas ho pisteuon dikaioutai ("by whom everyone who believes is justified") is specifically Pauline. Taken as a whole, however, the speech affords a fine example of missionary preaching to the Jews. From 1 Cor. xv. 3 it follows that the tenet, "Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures," was not simply Pauline, but common to Christianity in general. Weizsäcker (op. cit., pp. 60 f.; Eng. trans., i. 74 f.) rightly lays great stress on the fact that previous to Paul and alongside of him, even within Jewish Christian circles (as in the case of Peter), the view must have prevailed that the law and its observance were not perfectly adequate to justification before God, and that a sotereological significance attached to Jesus the Messiah or to his death. [148] When questioned upon the "dogma" of Christians, Justin answered: hoper euseboumen eis ton ton Christianon theon, hon hegoumetha hena touton ex arches poieten kai demiourgon tes pases ktiseos, horates te kai aoratou, kai kurion Iesoun Christon paida theou, hos kai prokekeruktai hupo ton propheton mellon paraginesthai to genei ton anthropon soterias kerux kai didaskalos kalon matheton (Acta Just. i.) ("It is that whereby we worship the God of the Christians, whom we consider to be One from the beginning, the maker and fashioner of the whole creation, visible and invisible, and also the Lord Jesus Christ the Son of God, whom the prophets foretold would come to the race of men, a herald of salvation and a teacher of good disciples"). [149] In this respect the speech put by Luke (Acts xvii. 22-30) into the mouth of Paul at the Areopagus is typical and particularly instructive. It exhibits, at the same time, an alliance with the purest conceptions of Hellenism. We must combine this speech with First Thessalonians, in order to understand how the fundamentals of mission-preaching were laid before pagans, and also in order to get rid of the notion that Galatians and Romans are a model of Paul's preaching to pagan audiences.--The characteristic principles of the mission-preaching (both negative and positive) are also preserved, with particular lucidity, in the fragmentary Kerugma Petri, an early composition which, as the very title indicates, was plainly meant to be a compendium of doctrine for missionary purposes. [150] Thaddaeus announces to Abgar a missionary address for the next day, and gives the following preliminary outline of its contents (Eus. H.E. i. 13): keruxo kai spero ton logon tes zoes, peri te tes eleuseos tou Iesou kathos egeneto, kai peri tes apostoles autou, kai heneka tinos apestale hupo tou patros, kai peri tes dunameos kai ton ergon autou kai musterion hon elalesen en kosmo, kai poia dunamei tauta epoiei, kai peri tes kaines autou keruxeos, kai peri tes mikrotetos kai peri tes tapeinoseos, kai pos etapeinosen heauton kai apetheto kai esmikrunen autou ten theoteta, kai estaurothe, kai katebe eis ton Aiden, kai dieschise phragmon ton ex aionos me schisthenta, kai anegeiren nekrous kai katebe monos, anebe de meta pollou ochlou pros ton patera autou ("I will preach and sow the word of God, concerning the advent of Jesus, even the manner of his birth: concerning his mission, even the purpose for which the Father sent him: concerning the power of his works and the mysteries he uttered in the world, even the nature of this power: concerning his new preaching and his abasement and humiliation, even how he humbled himself and died and debased his divinity and was crucified and went down to Hades and burst asunder the bars which had not been severed from all eternity, and raised the dead, descending alone but rising with many to his Father"). [151] One of the distinctive ideas in Christianity was the paradox that the Saviour was also the Judge, an idea which gave it a special pre-eminence over other religions.--"Father and Son," or "Father, Son, and Holy Spirit": the dual and the triple formula interchange, but the former is rather older, though both can be traced as far back as Paul. Personally I should doubt if it was he who stamped the latter formula. Like the "Church," "the new People," "the true Israel," "apostles, prophets, and teachers," "regeneration," etc., it was probably created by the primitive circle of disciples.--The preaching of Jesus was combined with the confession of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with the church, the forgiveness of sins, and the resurrection of the body. The Roman symbol is our earliest witness to this combination, and it was probably the earliest actual witness; it hardly arose out of the work of missions, in the narrower sense of the term, but out of the earlier catechetical method. [152] Hermas, Mand. i: proton panton pisteuson, hoti heis estin ho theos ho ta panta ktisas kai katartisas, k.t.l. ("First of all, believe that God is one, even he who created and ordered all things," etc.), is a particularly decisive passage as regards the first point (viz., the one living God); see Praedic. Petri in Clem., Strom. v. 6. 48, vi. 5. 39, vi. 6. 48 (the twelve disciples dispatched by Jesus with the charge to preach to all the inhabitants of the world, that they may know God is one; euangelisasthai tous kata ten oikoumenen anthropous, ginoskein, hoti heis theos estin). In Chap. II. of his Apology, Aristides sets forth the preaching of Jesus Christ; but when he has to summarize Christianity, he is contented to say that "Christians are those who have found the one true God." Cp., e.g., Chap. XV.: "Christians . . . . have found the truth. . . . . They know and trust in God, the creator of heaven and earth, through whom and from whom are all things, beside whom there is none other, and from whom they have received commandments which are written on their hearts and kept in the faith and expectation of the world to come." (Cp. also the Apology of pseudo-Melito.) The other three points are laid down with especial clearness in the Acta Theclae, where Paul is said (i. 5) to have handed down panta ta logia kuriou kai tes genneseos kai tes anastaseos tou egapemenou ("all the sayings of the Lord and of the birth and resurrection of the Beloved"), and where the contents of his preaching are described as logos theou peri enkrateias kai anastaseos ("the word of God upon self-control and the resurrection"). The last-named pair of ideas are to be taken as mutually supplementary; the resurrection or eternal life is certain, but it is conditioned by enkrateia, which is therefore put first. Cp., for example, Vita Polycarpi 14: elegen ten hagneian prodromon einai tes mellouses aphthartou basileias ("he said that purity was the precursor of the incorruptible kingdom to come"). [153] Origen (de Princ. II. xi. 2) has described in great detail the views of the chiliasts, whom he opposed as, even in his day, a retrograde party. His description proves that we cannot attribute too sensuous opinions to them. They actually reckoned upon "nuptiarum conventiones et filiorum procreationes." Compare the words of Irenæus in the fifth book of his large work upon the millennium, where he follows "apostolic tradition" and attaches himself to Papias. [154] One of the most remarkable and suggestive phenomena of the time is the fact that wherever a "dangerous" speculation sprang up, it was combated in such a way that part of it was taken over. For example, contrast Ephesians and Colossians with the "heresies" which had emerged in Phrygia (at Colosse); think of the "heresies" opposed by the Johannine writings, and then consider the Gnostic contents of the latter; compare the theology of Ignatius with the "heresies attacked in the Ignatian epistles"; think of the great gnostic systems of the second century, and then read their opponent Irenæus. "Vincendi vincentibus legem dederunt"! Such was the power of these Hellenistic, syncretistic ideas! It looks almost as if there had been a sort of disinfectant process, the "sound" doctrine being inoculated with a strong dilution of heresy, and thus made proof against virulent infection. [155] Together with the main articles in the proof from prophecy (i.e., a dozen passages or so from the Old Testament), the corresponding parts of the history of Jesus were best known and most familiar. An inevitable result of being viewed in this light and along this line was that the history of Jesus (apart from the crucifixion) represents almost entirely legendary materials (or ideal history) to a severely historical judgment. Probably no passage made so deep an impression as the birth-narratives in Matthew and especially in Luke. The fact that the story of the resurrection did not in its details prove a similar success, was due to a diversity of the narratives in the authoritative scriptures, which was so serious that the very exegetes of the period (and they were capable of almost anything!) failed to give any coherent or impressive account of what transpired. Hence the separate narratives in the gospels relating to the resurrection did not possess the same importance as the birth-narratives. "Raised on the third day from the dead, according to the scripture": this brief confession was all that rivaled the popularity of Luke i.-ii. and the story of the wise men from the East.--The notion that the apostles themselves compiled a quintessence of Christian doctrine was widely current; but the greatest difference of opinion prevailed as to what the quintessence consisted of. The Didachê marks the beginning of a series of compositions which were supposed to have been written by the apostles collectively, or to contain an authoritative summary of their regulations. [156] Redemption by the forgiveness of sins was, strictly speaking, considered to take place once and for all. The effects of Christ's death were conferred on the individual at baptism, and all his previous sins were blotted out. Many teachers, like Paul, presented the cross of Christ as the content of Christianity. Thus Tertullian (de Carne v.), protesting against the docetism of Marcion, which impaired the death of Christ upon the cross, calls out, "O spare the one hope of the whole world" (parce unicæ spei totius orbis). The cross exerts a protective and defensive influence over the baptized (against demons), but it does not bestow any redeeming deliverance from sin. Speculations on the latter point do not arise till later. As a mystery, of course, it is inexhaustible, and therefore it is impossible to state its influence. Pseudo-Barnabas and Justin are already mystagogues of the cross; cp. Ep. Barn. xi.-xii., and Justin's Apol. I. lv., where he triumphantly claims that "the wicked demons never imitated the crucifixion, not even in the case of any of the so-called sons of Zeus" (oudamou oud' epi tinos ton legomenon huion tou Dios to staurothenai emimesanto). Cp. further Minucius, Octav. xxix.; Tert., ad. Nat. I. xii., etc. [157] Cp. 2 Clem., ad Cor. vi.: estin houtos ho aion kai ho mellon duo echthroi. houtos legei moicheian kai phthoran kai philargurian kai apaten, ekeinos de toutois apotassetai. ou dunametha oun ton duo philoi einai. dei de hemas touto apotaxamenous ekeino chrasthai. oiometha, hoti beltion estin ta enthade misesai, hoti mikra kai oligochronia kai phtharta; ekeina de agapesai, ta agatha ta aphtharta ("This age and the future age are two enemies. The one speaks of adultery, corruption, avarice, and deceit; the other bids farewell to these. We cannot, therefore, be friends of both; we must part with the one and embrace the other. We judge it better to hate the things which are here, because they are small and transient and corruptible, and to love the things that are yonder, for they are good and incorruptible"). [158] Here is the passage; it will serve to represent a large class. "You know that you servants of God dwell in a foreign land, for your city is far from this city. If, then, you know the city where you are to dwell, why provide yourselves here with fields and expensive luxuries and buildings and chambers to no purpose? He who makes such provision for this city has no mind to return to his own city. Foolish, double-minded, wretched man! Seest thou not that all these things are foreign to thee and controlled by another? For the lord of this city shall say, I will not have thee in my city; leave this city, for thou keepest not my laws.' Then, possessor of fields and dwellings and much property besides, what wilt thou do with field, and house, and all thine other gains, when thou art expelled by him? For the lord of this land has a right to tell thee, Keep my laws, or leave my land.' What then shalt thou do, thou who hast already a law over thee in thine own city? For the sake of thy fields and other possessions wilt thou utterly repudiate thy law and follow the law of this city? Beware! It may be unwise for thee to repudiate thy law. For shouldst thou wish to return once more to thy city, thou shalt not be allowed in: thou shalt be shut out, because thou didst repudiate its law. So beware. Dwelling in a foreign land, provide thyself with nothing more than a suitable competency; and whenever the master of this city expels thee for opposing his law, be ready to leave his city and seek thine own, keeping thine own law cheerfully and unmolested. So beware, you that serve God and have him in your heart; perform his works, mindful of his commandments and of the promises he has made, in the faith that he will perform the latter if the former be observed. Instead of fields, then, buy souls in trouble, as each of you is able; visit widows and orphans, and neglect them not; expend on such fields and houses, which God has given to you [i.e., on the poor], your wealth and all your pains. The Master endowed you with riches that you might perform such ministries for him. Far better is it to buy fields, possessions, houses of this kind; thou wilt find them in thine own city when thou dost visit it. Such expenditure is noble and cheerful; it brings joy, not fear and sorrow. Practise not the expenditure of pagans, then: that ill becomes you, as God's servants. Practise your proper expenditure, in which you may rejoice. Do not stamp things falsely; never touch other people's property, nor lust after it, for it is evil to lust after what belongs to other people. Do thine own task and thou shalt be saved." For all the rigor of his counsel, however, it never occurs to Hermas that the distinction of rich and poor should actually cease within the church. This is plain, if further proof be needed, from the next parable. The progress of thought upon this question in the church is indicated by the tractate of Clement of Alexandria entitled "Quis dives salvetur?" Moreover, the saying already put into the lips of Jesus in John xii. 8 ("the poor ye have always with you"), a saying which was hardly inserted without some purpose, shows that the abolition of the distinction between rich and poor was never contemplated in the church. [159] The pessimistic attitude of the primitive Christians towards the world cannot be too strongly emphasised. (Marcion called his fellow-confessors suntalaiporoi kai summisoumenoi, "partners in the suffering of wretchedness and of hatred."--Tert., adv. Marc. iv. 9). This is confirmed by the evidence even of Tertullian, and of Origen himself. Let one instance suffice. In Hom. 8 ad. Levit., t. ix. pp. 316 f., Origen remarks that in the Scriptures only worldly men, like Pharaoh and Herod, celebrate their birthdays, whereas "the saints not only abstain from holding a feast on their birthdays, but, being filled with the Holy Spirit, curse that day" (Sancti non solum non agunt festivitatem in die natali suo, sed a spiritu sancto repleti exsecrantur hunc diem). The true birthday of Christians is the day of their death. Origen recalls Job, in this connection; but the form which his pessimism assumes is bound up, of course, with special speculative ideas of his own. [160] It was only in rare cases that the image of Christ's person as a whole produced what may be termed a "Christ-emotion," which moved people to give articulate expression to their experiences. Ignatius is really the only man we can name alongside of Paul and John. Yet in how many cases of which we know nothing, this image of Christ must have been the dominating power of human life! In some of the dying confessions of the martyrs, and in the learned homilies of Origen, it emerges in a very affecting way. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 2 THE GOSPEL OF THE SAVIOR AND OF SALVATION [161] The gospel, as preached by Jesus; is a religion of redemption, but it is a religion of redemption in a secret sense. Jesus proclaimed a new message (the near approach of God's kingdom, God as the Father, as his Father), and also a new law, but he did his work as a Saviour or healer, and it was amid work of this kind that he was crucified. Paul, too, preached the gospel as a religion of redemption. Jesus appeared among his people as a physician. "The healthy need not a physician, but the sick" (Mark ii. 17, Luke v. 31). The first three gospels depict him as the physician of soul and body, as the Saviour or healer of men. Jesus says very little about sickness; he cures it. He does not explain that sickness is health; he calls it by its proper name, and is sorry for the sick person. There is nothing sentimental or subtle about Jesus; he draws no fine distinctions, he utters no sophistries about healthy people being really sick and sick people really healthy. He sees himself surrounded by crowds of sick folk; he attracts them, and his one impulse is to help them. Jesus does not distinguish rigidly between sicknesses of the body and of the soul; he takes them both as different expressions of the one supreme ailment in humanity. But he knows their sources. He knows it is easier to say, "Rise up and walk," than to say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee" (Mark ii. 9). [162] And he acts accordingly. No sickness of the soul repels him--he is constantly surrounded by sinful women and tax-gatherers. Nor is any bodily disease too loathsome for Jesus. In this world of wailing, misery, filth, and profligacy, which pressed upon him every day, he kept himself invariably vital, pure, and busy. In this way he won men and women to be his disciples. The circle by which he was surrounded was a circle of people who had been healed. [163] They were healed because they had believed on him, i.e., because they had gained health from his character and words. To know God meant a sound soul. This was the rock on which Jesus had rescued them from the shipwreck of their life. They knew they were healed, just because they had recognized God as the Father in his Son. Henceforth they drew health and real life as from a never-failing stream. "Ye will say unto me this parable: Physician, heal thyself" (Luke iv. 23). He who helped so many people, seemed himself to be always helpless. Harassed, calumniated, threatened with death by the authorities of his nation, and persecuted in the name of the very God whom he proclaimed, Jesus went to his cross. But even the cross only displayed for the first time the full depth and energy of his saving power. It put the copestone on his mission, by showing men that the sufferings of the just are the saving force in human history. "Surely he hath borne our sickness and carried our sorrows; by his stripes we are healed." [164] This was the new truth that issued from the cross of Jesus. It flowed out, like a stream of fresh water, on the arid souls of men and on their dry morality. The morality of outward acts and regulations gave way to the conception of a life which was personal, pure, and divine, which spent itself in the service of the brethren, and gave itself up ungrudgingly to death. This conception was the new principle of life. It uprooted the old life swaying to and fro between sin and virtue; it also planted a new life whose aim was nothing short of being a disciple of Christ, and whose strength was drawn from the life of Christ himself. The disciples went forth to preach the tidings of "God the Saviour," [165] of that Saviour and physician whose person, deeds, and sufferings were man's salvation. Paul was giving vent to no sudden or extravagant emotion, but expressing with quiet confidence what he was fully conscious of at every moment, when he wrote to the Galatians (ii. 20), "I live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. For the life I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave up himself for me." Conscious of this, the primitive Christian missionaries were ready to die daily. And that was just the reason why their cause did not collapse. In the world to which the apostles preached their new message, religion had not been intended originally for the sick, but for the sound. The Deity sought the pure and sound to be his worshippers. The sick and sinful, it was held, are a prey to the powers of darkness; let them see to the recovery of health by some means or another, health for soul and body--for until then they are not pleasing to the gods. It is interesting to observe how this conception is still dominant at the close of the second century, in Celsus, the enemy of Christendom (Orig., c. Cels. III. lix. f.). "Those who invite people to participate in other solemnities, make the following proclamation: He who hath clean hands and sensible speech (is to draw near)'; or again, He who is pure from all stain, conscious of no sin in his soul, and living an honorable and just life (may approach).' Such is the cry of those who promise purification from sins. [166] But let us now hear what sort of people these Christians invite. Anyone who is a sinner,' they say, or foolish, or simple-minded--in short, any unfortunate will be accepted by the kingdom of God.' By sinner' is meant an unjust person, a thief, a burglar, a poisoner, a sacrilegious man, or a robber of corpses. Why, if you wanted an assembly of robbers, these are just the sort of people you would summon!" [167] Here Celsus has stated, as lucidly as one could desire, the cardinal difference between Christianity and ancient religion. [168] But, as we have already seen (Book I, Chapter III.), the religious temper which Christianity encountered, and which developed and diffused itself very rapidly in the second and third centuries, was no longer what we should term "ancient." Here again we see that the new religion made its appearance "when the time was fulfilled." The cheerful, naïve spirit of the old religion, so far as it still survived, lay a-dying, and its place was occupied by fresh religious needs. Philosophy had set the individual free, and had discovered a human being in the common citizen. By the blending of states and nations, which coalesced to form a universal empire, cosmopolitanism had now become a reality. But there was always a reverse side to cosmopolitanism, viz., individualism. The refinements of material civilization and mental culture made people more sensitive to the element of pain in life, and this increase of sensitiveness showed itself also in the sphere of morals, where more than one Oriental religion came forward to satisfy its demand. The Socratic philosophy, with its fine ethical ideas, issued from the heights of the thinker to spread across the lowlands of the common people. The Stoics, in particular, paid unwearied attention to the "health and diseases of the soul," moulding their practical philosophy upon this type of thought. There was a real demand for purity, consolation, expiation, and healing, and as these could not be found elsewhere, they began to be sought in religion. In order to secure them, people were on the look-out for new sacred rites. The evidence for this change which passed over the religious temper lies in the writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and many others; but a further testimony of much greater weight is afforded by the revival which attended the cult of Æsculapius during the Imperial age. [169] As far back as 290 B.C., Æsculapius of Epidaurus had been summoned to Rome on the advice of the Sibylline books. He had his sanctuary on the island in the Tiber, and close to it, just as at the numerous shrines of Asclepius in Greece, there stood a sanatorium in which sick persons waited for the injunctions which the god imparted during sleep. Greek physicians followed the god to Rome, but it took a long time for either the god or the Greek doctors to become popular. The latter do riot seem at first to have recommended themselves by their skill. "In 219 B.C. the first Greek surgeon became domiciled in Rome. He actually received the franchise, and was presented by the State with a shop in compito Acilio.' But this doctor made such unmerciful havoc among his patients by cutting and cauterizing, that the name of surgeon became a synonym for that of a butcher." [170] Things were different under the Cæsars. Though the Romans themselves still eschewed the art of medicine, considering it a kind of divination, skilled Greek doctors were in demand at Rome itself, and the cult of that "deus clinicus," Æsculapius, was in full vogue. From Rome his cult spread over all the West, fusing itself here and there with the cult of Serapis or some other deity, and accompanied by the subordinate cult of Hygeia and Salus, Telesphorus and Somnus. Furthermore, the sphere of influence belonging to this god of healing widened steadily; he became "saviour" pure and simple, the god who aids in all distress, the "friend of man" (philanthropotatos). [171] The more men sought deliverance and healing in religion, the greater grew this god's repute. He belonged to the old gods who held out longest against Christianity, and therefore he is often to be met with in the course of early Christian literature. The cult of Æsculapius was one of those which were most widely diffused throughout the second half of the second century, and also during the third century. People traveled to the famous sanatoria of the god, as they travel today to baths. He was appealed to in diseases of the body and of the soul; people slept in his temples, to be cured; the costliest gifts were brought him as the ThEOS SOTER ("God the Saviour"); and people consecrated their lives to him, as innumerable inscriptions and statues testify. In the case of other gods as well, healing virtue now became a central feature. Zeus himself and Apollo (cp., e.g., Tatian, Orat. 8) appeared in a new light. They, too, became "saviours." No one could be a god any longer, unless he was also a saviour. [172] Glance over Origen's great reply to Celsus, and you soon discover that one point hotly disputed by these two remarkable men was the question whether Jesus or Æsculapius was the true Saviour. Celsus champions the one with as much energy and credulity as Origen the other. The combination of crass superstition and sensible criticism presented by both men is an enigma to us at this time of day. We moderns can hardly form any clear idea of their mental bearings. In III. iii Origen observes: "Miracles occurred in all lands, or at least in many places. Celsus himself admits in his book that, Æsculapius healed diseases and revealed the future in all cities that were devoted to him, such as Tricca, Epidaurus, Cos, and Pergamum." According to III. xxii. Celsus charged the Christians with being unable to make up their minds to call Æsculapius a god, simply because he had been first a man. Origen's retort is that the Greek tradition made Zeus slay Æsculapius with a thunderbolt. Celsus (III. xxiv.) declared it to be an authentic fact that a great number of Greeks and barbarians had seen, and still saw, no mere wraith of Æsculapius, but the god himself engaged in healing and helping man, whereas the disciples of Jesus had merely seen a phantom. Origen is very indignant at this, but his counter-assertions are weak. Does Celsus also appeal to the great number of Greeks and barbarians who believe in Æsculapius? Origen, too, can point to the great number of Christians, to the truth of their scriptures, and to their successful cures in the name of Jesus. But then he suddenly alters his defense, and proceeds (III. xxv.) to make the following extremely shrewd observation: "Even were I going to admit that a demon named Æsculapius had the power of healing bodily diseases, I might still remark to those who are amazed at such cures or at the prophecies of Apollo, that such curative power is of itself neither good nor bad, but within reach of godless as well as of honest folk; while in the same way it does not follow that he who can foretell the future is on that account an honest and upright man. One is not in a position to prove the virtuous character of those who heal diseases and foretell the future. Many instances may be adduced of people being healed who did not deserve to live, people who were so corrupt and led a life of such wickedness that no sensible physician would have troubled to cure them. . . . . The power of healing diseases is no evidence of anything specially divine." From all these remarks of Origen, we can see how high the cult of Æsculapius was ranked, and how keenly the men of that age were on the lookout for "salvation." Into this world of craving for salvation the preaching of Christianity made its way. Long before it had achieved its final triumph by dint of an impressive philosophy of religion, its success was already assured by the fact that it promised and offered salvation--a feature in which it surpassed all other religions and cults. It did more than set up the actual Jesus against the imaginary Æsculapius of dreamland. Deliberately and consciously it assumed the form of "the religion of salvation or healing," [173] or "the medicine of soul and body," and at the same time it recognized that one of its chief duties was to care assiduously for the sick in body. We shall now select one or two examples out of the immense wealth of material, to throw light upon both of these points. Take, first of all, the theory. Christianity never lost hold of its innate principle; it was, and it remained, a religion for the sick. Accordingly it assumed that no one, or at least hardly any one, was in normal health, but that men were always in a state of disability. This reading of human nature was not confined to Paul, who looked on all men outside of Christ as dying, dying in their sins; a similar, though simpler, view was taught by the numerous unknown missionaries of primitive Christianity. The soul of man is sick, they said, a prey to death from the moment of his birth. The whole race lies a-dying. But now "the goodness and the human kindness of God the Saviour" have appeared to restore the sick soul. [174] Baptism was therefore conceived as a bath for regaining the soul's health, or for "the recovery of life"; [175] the Lord's Supper was valued as "the potion of immortality," [176] and penitence was termed "vera de satisfactione medicina" (the true medicine derived from the atonement, Cypr., de Lapsis xv.). At the celebration of the sacrament, thanks were offered for the "life" therein bestowed (Did. ix.-x.). The conception of "life" acquired a new and deeper meaning. Jesus had already spoken of a "life" beyond the reach of death, to be obtained by the sacrifice of a man's earthly life. The idea and the term were taken up by Paul and by the fourth evangelist, who summed up in them the entire blessings of religion. With the tidings of immortality, the new religion confronted sorrow, misery, sin, and death. So much, at least, the world of paganism could understand. It could understand the promise of bliss and immortality resembling that of the blessed gods. And not a few pagans understood the justice of the accompanying condition that one had to submit to the regime of the religion, that the soul had to be pure and holy before it could become immortal. Thus they grasped the message of a great Physician who preaches "abstinence" and bestows the gift of "life." [177] Anyone who had felt a single ray of the power and glory of the new life reckoned his previous life to have been blindness, disease, and death [178] --a view attested by both the apostolic fathers and the apologists. "He bestowed on us the light, he spoke to us as a father to his sons, he saved us in our lost estate. . . . . Blind were we in our understanding, worshipping stones and wood and gold and silver and brass, nor was our whole life aught but death." [179] The mortal will put on, nay, has already put on, immortality, the perishable will be robed in the imperishable: such was the glad cry of the early Christians, who took up arms against a sea of troubles, and turned the terror of life's last moment into a triumph. "Those miserable people," says Lucian in the Proteus Peregrinus, "have got it into their heads that they are perfectly immortal." He would certainly have made a jest upon it had any occurred to his mind; but whenever this nimble scoffer is depicting the faith of Christians, there is a remarkable absence of anything like jesting. While the soul's health or the new life is a gift, however, it is a gift which must be appropriated from within. There was a great risk of this truth being overlooked by those who were accustomed to leave any one of the mysteries with the sense of being consecrated and of bearing with them super mundane blessings as if they were so many articles. It would be easy also to show how rapidly the sacramental system of the church lapsed into the spirit of the pagan mysteries. But once the moral demand, i.e., the purity of the soul, was driven home, it proved such a powerful factor that it held its own within the Catholic church, even alongside of the inferior sacramental system. The salvation of the soul and the lore of that salvation never died away; in fact, the ancient church arranged all the details of her worship and her dogma with this end in view. She consistently presented herself as the great infirmary or the hospital of humanity: pagans, sinners, and heretics are her patients, ecclesiastical doctrines and observances are her medicines, while the bishops and pastors are the physicians, but only as servants of Christ, who is himself the physician of all souls. [180] Let me give one or two instances of this. "As the good of the body is health, so the good of the soul is the knowledge of God," says Justin. [181] "While we have time to be healed, let us put ourselves into the hands of God the healer, paying him recompense. And what recompense? What but repentance from a sincere heart" (2 Clem., ad Cor. ix.). "Like some excellent physician, in order to cure the sick, Jesus examines what is repulsive, handles sores, and reaps pain himself from the sufferings of others; he has himself saved us from the very jaws of death--us who were not merely diseased and suffering from terrible ulcers and wounds already mortified, but were also lying already among the dead . . . .; he who is the giver of life and of light, our great physician, [182] king and lord, the Christ of God." [183] "The physician cannot introduce any salutary medicines into the body that needs to be cured, without having previously eradicated the trouble seated in the body or averted the approaching trouble. Even so the teacher of the truth cannot convince anyone by an address on truth, so long as some error still lurks in the soul of the hearer, which forms an obstacle to his arguments" (Athenagoras, de resurr. i.). "Were we to draw from the axiom that disease is diagnosed by means of medical knowledge,' the inference that medical knowledge is the cause of disease, we should be making a preposterous statement. And as it is beyond doubt that the knowledge of salvation is a good thing, because it teaches men to know their sickness, so also is the law a good thing, inasmuch as sin is discovered thereby." [184] As early as 2 Tim. ii. 17, the word of heretics is said to eat "like a gangrene." This expression recurs very frequently, and is elaborated in detail. "Their talk is infectious as a plague" (Cyprian, de Lapsis, xxxiv.). "Heretics are hard to cure," says Ignatius (ad Ephes., vii., dustherapeutos); ". . . . there is but one physician, Jesus Christ our Lord." In the pastoral epistles the orthodox doctrine is already called "sound teaching" as opposed to the errors of the heretics. Most frequently, however, bodily recovery is compared to penitence. It is Ignatius again who declares that "not every wound is cured by the same salve. Allay sharp pains by soothing fomentations." [185] "The cure of evil passions," says Clement at the opening of his Paedagogus, "is effected by the Logos through admonitions; he strengthens the soul with benign precepts like soothing medicines, [186] and directs the sick to the full knowledge of the truth." "Let us follow the practice of physicians (in the exercise of moral discipline), says Origen, [187] "and only use the knife when all other means have failed, when application of oil and salves and soothing poultices leave the swelling still hard." An objection was raised by Christians who disliked repentance, to the effect that the public confession of sin which accompanied the penitential discipline was at once an injury to their self-respect and a misery. To which Tertullian replies (de Poen., x.): "Nay, it is evil that ends in misery. Where repentance is undertaken, misery ceases, because it is turned into what is salutary. It is indeed a misery to be cut, and cauterized, and racked by some pungent powder; but the excuse for the offensiveness of means of healing that may be unpleasant, is the cure they work." This is exactly Cyprian's point, when he writes [188] that "the priest of the Lord must employ salutary remedies. [189] He is an unskilled physician who handles tenderly the swollen edges of a wound and allows the poison lodged in the inward part to be aggraved by simply leaving it alone. The wound must be opened and lanced; recourse must be had to the strong remedy of cutting out the corrupting parts. Though the patient scream out in pain, and wail or weep, because he cannot bear it--afterwards he will be grateful, when he feels that he is cured." But the most elaborate comparison of a bishop to a surgeon occurs in the Apostolic Constitutions (ii. 41). "Heal thou, O bishop, like a pitiful physician, all who have sinned, and employ methods that promote saving health. Confine not thyself to cutting or cauterizing or the use of corrosives, but employ bandages and lint, use mild and healing drugs, and sprinkle words of comfort as a soothing balm. If the wound be deep and gashed, lay a plaster on it that it may fill up and be once more like the rest of the sound flesh. If it be dirty, cleanse it with corrosive powder, i.e., with words of censure. If it has proud flesh, reduce it with sharp plasters, i.e., with threats of punishment. If it spreads further, sear it, and cut off the putrid flesh--mortify the man with fastings. And if after all this treatment thou findest that no soothing poultice, neither oil nor bandage, can be applied from head to foot of the patient, but that the disease is spreading and defying all cures, like some gangrene that corrupts the entire member; then, after great consideration and consultation with other skilled physicians, cut off the putrified member, lest the whole body of the church be corrupted. So be not hasty to cut it off, nor rashly resort to the saw of many a tooth, but first use the lancet to lay open the abscess, that the body may be kept free from pain by the removal of the deep-seated cause of the disease. But if thou seest anyone past repentance and (inwardly) past feeling, then cut him off as an incurable with sorrow and lamentation." [190] It must be frankly admitted that this constant preoccupation with the "diseases" of sin had results which were less favorable. The ordinary moral sense, no less than the aesthetic, [191] was deadened. If people are ever to be made better, they must be directed to that honorable activity which means moral health; whereas endless talk about sin and forgiveness exercises, on the contrary, a narcotic influence. To say the least of it, ethical education must move to and fro between reflection on the past (with its faults and moral bondage) and the prospect of a future (with its goal of aspiration and the exertion of all one's powers). The theologians of the Alexandrian school had some sense of the latter, but in depicting the perfect Christian or true gnostic they assigned a disproportionate space to knowledge and correct opinions. They were not entirely emancipated from the Socratic fallacy that the man of knowledge will be invariably a good man. They certainly did surmount the "educated" man's intellectual pride on the field of religion and morality. [192] In Origen's treatise against Celsus, whole sections of great excellence are devoted to the duty and possibility of even the uneducated person acquiring health of soul, and to the supreme necessity of salvation from sin and weakness. [193] Origen hits the nail upon the head when he remarks (VII. lx.) that "Plato and the other wise men of Greece, with their fine sayings, are like the physicians who confine their attention to the better classes and despise the common man, whilst the disciples of Jesus carefully study to make provision for the great mass of men." [194] Still, Origen's idea is that, as a means of salvation, religion merely forms a stage for those who aspire to higher levels. His conviction is that when the development of religion has reached its highest level, anything historical or positive becomes of as little value as the ideal of redemption and salvation itself. On this level the spirit, filled by God, no longer needs a Saviour or any Christ of history at all. "Happy," he exclaims (Comm. in Joh., i. 22; Lomm., i. p. 43), "happy are they who need no longer now God's Son as the physician of the sick or as the shepherd, people who now need not any redemption, but wisdom, reason, and righteousness alone." In his treatise against Celsus (III. lxi. f.) he draws a sharp distinction between two aims and boons in the Christian religion, one higher and the other lower. "To no mystery, to no participation in wisdom hidden in a mystery,' do we call the wicked man, the thief, the burglar, etc., but to healing or salvation. For our doctrine has a twofold appeal. It provides means of healing for the sick, as is meant by the text, The whole need not a physician, but the sick.' But it also unveils to those who are pure in soul and body that mystery which was kept secret since the world began, but is now made manifest by the Scriptures of the prophets and the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ.' . . . . God the Word was indeed sent as a physician for the sick, but also as a teacher of divine mysteries to those who are already pure and sin no more." [195] Origen unites the early Christian and the philosophic conceptions of religion. He is thus superior to the pessimistic fancies which seriously threatened the latter view. But only among the cultured could he gain any following. The Christian people held fast to Jesus as the Saviour. No one has yet been able to show that the figure of Christ which emerges in the fifth century, probably as early as the fourth, and which subsequently became the prevailing type in all pictorial representations, was modeled upon the figure of Æsculapius. The two types are certainly similar; the qualities predicated of both are identical in part; and no one has hitherto explained satisfactorily why the original image of the youthful Christ was displaced by the later. Nevertheless, we have no means of deriving the origin of the Callixtine Christ from Æsculapius as a prototype, so that in the meantime we must regard such a derivation as a hypothesis, which, however interesting, is based upon inadequate evidence. There would be one piece of positive evidence forthcoming, if the statue which passed for a likeness of Jesus in the city of Paneas (Cæsarea Philippi) during the fourth century was a statue of Æsculapius. Eusebius (H.E., vi. 18) tells how he had seen there, in the house of the woman whom Jesus had cured of an issue of blood, a work of art which she had caused to be erected out of gratitude to Jesus. "On a high pedestal beside the gates of her house there stands the brazen image of a woman kneeling down with her hands outstretched as if in prayer. Opposite this stands another brazen image of a man standing up, modestly attired in a cloak wrapped twice round his body, and stretching out his hand to the woman. At his feet, upon the pedestal itself, a strange plant is growing up as high as the hem of his brazen cloak, which is a remedy for all sorts of disease. This statue is said to be an image of Jesus. Nor is it strange that the Gentiles of that age, who had received benefit from the Lord, should express their gratitude in this fashion." For various reasons it is unlikely that this piece of art was intended to represent Jesus, or that it was erected by the woman with an issue of blood; [196] on the contrary, the probability is that the statuary was thus interpreted by the Christian population of Paneas, probably at an early period. If the statue originally represented Æsculapius, as the curative plant would suggest, we should have here at least one step between "Æsculapius the Saviour" and "Christ the Saviour." But this interpretation of a pagan saviour or healer is insecure; and even were it quite secure, it would not justify any general conclusion being drawn as yet upon the matter. At any rate we are undervaluing the repugnance felt even by Christians of the fourth century for the gods of paganism, if we consider ourselves entitled to think of any conscious transformation of the figure of Æsculapius into that of Christ. [197] Hitherto we have been considering the development of Christianity as the religion of "healing," as expressed in parables, ideas, doctrine, and penitential discipline. It now remains for us to show that this character was also stamped upon its arrangements for the care of bodily sickness. "I was sick and ye visited me. . . . . As ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." In these words the founder of Christianity set the love that tends the sick in the center of his religion, laying it on the hearts of all his disciples. Primitive Christianity carried it in her heart; she also carried it out in practice. [198] Even from the fragments of our extant literature, although that literature was not written with any such intention, we can still recognize the careful attention paid to works of mercy. At the outset we meet with directions everywhere to care for sick people. "Encourage the faint-hearted, support the weak," writes the apostle Paul to the church of Thessalonica (1 Thess. v. 14), which in its excitement was overlooking the duties lying close at hand. In the prayer of the church, preserved in the first epistle of Clement, supplications are expressly offered for those who are sick in soul and body. [199] "Is any man sick? Let him call for the elders of the church," says Jas. v. 14--a clear proof that all aid in cases of sickness was looked upon as a concern of the church. [200] This comes out very plainly also in the epistle of Polycarp (vi. 1), where the obligations of the elders are displayed as follows: "They must reclaim the erring, care for all the infirm, and neglect no widow, orphan, or poor person." Particulars of this duty are given by Justin, who, in his Apology (ch. lxvii.), informs us that every Sunday the Christians brought free-will offerings to their worship; these were deposited with the president (or bishop), "who dispenses them to orphans and widows, and to any who, from sickness or some other cause, are in want." A similar account is given by Tertullian in his Apology (ch. xxxix.), where special stress is laid on the church's care for old people who are no longer fit for work. Justin is also our authority for the existence of deacons whose business it was to attend the sick. Not later than the close of the third century, the veneration of the saints and the rise of chapels in honor of martyrs and saints led to a full-blown imitation of the Æsculapius-cult within the church. Cures of sickness and infirmities were sought. Even the practice of incubation must have begun by this time, if not earlier; otherwise it could not not have been so widely diffused in the fourth century. The teachers of the church had previously repudiated it as heathenish; but, as often happens in similar circumstances, it crept in, though with some alteration of its ceremonies. In its early days the church formed a permanent establishment for the relief of sickness and poverty, a function which it continued to discharge for several generations. It was based on the broad foundation of the Christian congregation; it acquired a sanctity from the worship of the congregation; and its operations were strictly centralized. The bishop was the superintendent (Apost. Constit., iii. 4), and in many cases, especially in Syria and Palestine, he may have actually been a physician himself. [201] His executive or agents were the deacons and the order of "widows." The latter were at the same time to be secured against want, by being taken into the service of the church (cp. 1 Tim. v. 16). Thus, in one instruction dating from the second century, [202] we read that, "In every congregation at least one widow is to be appointed to take care of sick women; [203] she is to be obliging and sober, she is to report cases of need to the elders, she is not to be greedy or addicted to drink, in order that she may be able to keep sober for calls to service during the night." She is to "report cases of need to the elders," i.e., she is to remain an assistant (cp. Syr. Didasc. xv. 79 f.). Tertullian happens to remark (de Præscr. 41) in a censure of women belonging to the heretical associations, that "they venture to teach, to debate, to exorcise, to promise cures, probably even to baptize." In the Eastern Church the order of widows seems to have passed on into that of "deaconesses" at a pretty early date, but unfortunately we know nothing about this transition or about the origin of these "deaconesses." [204] In the primitive church female assistants were quite thrown into the shadow by the men. The deacons were the real agents of charity. Their office was onerous; it was exposed to grave peril, especially in a time of persecution, and deacons furnished no inconsiderable proportion of the martyrs. "Doers of good works, looking after all by day and night"--such is their description (Texte u. Unters. ii. 5, p. 24), one of their main duties being to look after the poor and sick. [205] How much they had to do and how much they did, may be ascertained from Cyprian's epistles [206] and the genuine Acts of the Martyrs. Nor were the laity to be exempted from the duty of tending the sick, merely because special officials existed for that purpose. "The sick are not to be overlooked, nor is anyone to say that he has not been trained to this mode of service. No one is to plead a comfortable life, or the unwonted character of the duty, as a pretext for not being helpful to other people"--so runs a letter of pseudo-Justin (c. xvii.) to Zenas and Serenus. The author of the pseudo-Clementine epistle "de virginitate" brings out with special clearness the fact that to imitate Christ is to minister to the sick, a duty frequently conjoined with that of "visiting orphans and widows" (visitare pupillos et viduas). Eusebius (de mart. Pal. xi. 22) bears this testimony to the character of Seleucus, that like a father and guardian he had shown himself a bishop and patron of orphans and destitute widows, of the poor and of the sick. Many similar cases are on record. In a time of pestilence especially, the passion of tender mercy was kindled in the heart of many a Christian. Often had Tertullian (Apolog. xxxix.) heard on pagan lips the remark, corroborated by Lucian, "Look how they love one another!" [207] As regards therapeutic methods, the case stood as it stands today. The more Christians renounced and hated the world, the more skeptical and severe they were against ordinary means of healing (cp.,e.g., Tatian's Oratio xvii.-xviii.). There was a therapeutic "Christian science," compounded of old and new superstitions, and directed against more than the "dæmonic" cures (see the following section). Compare, by way of proof, Tertullian's Scorp. i: "We Christians make the sign of the cross at once over a bitten foot, say a word of exorcism, and rub it with the blood of the crushed animal." Evidently the sign of the cross and the formula of exorcism were not sufficient by themselves. __________________________________________________________________ [161] This chapter is based on a fresh revision of Section VI. in my study on "Medicinisches aus der ältesten Kirchengeschichte" (Texte und Unters. VIII., 1892). [162] Or are we to interpret the passage in another way? Is it easier to say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee"? In that case, "easier" evidently must be taken in a different sense. [163] An old legend of Edessa regarding Jesus is connected with his activity as a healer of men. At the close of the third century the people of Edessa, who had become Christians during the second half of the second century, traced back their faith to the apostolic age, and treasured up an alleged correspondence between Jesus and their King Abgar. This correspondence is still extant (cp. Euseb., H.E. i. 13). It is a naïve romance. The king, who is severely ill, writes thus "Abgar, toparch of Edessa, to Jesus the excellent Saviour, who has appeared in the country of Jerusalem; greeting. I have heard of thee and of thy cures, performed without medicine or herb. For, it is said, thou makest the blind to see, and the lame to walk; thou cleansest lepers, thou expellest unclean spirits and demons, thou healest those afflicted with lingering diseases, and thou raisest the dead. Now, as I have heard all this about thee, I have concluded that one of two things must be true: either thou art God, and, having descended from heaven, doest these things, or else thou art a son of God by what thou doest. I write to thee, therefore, to ask thee to come and cure the disease from which I am suffering. For I have heard that the Jews murmur against thee, and devise evil against thee. Now, I have a very small, yet excellent city, which is large enough for both of us." To which Jesus answered: "Blessed art thou for having believed in me without seeing me. For it is written concerning me that those who have seen me will not believe in me, while they who have not seen me will believe and be saved. But as to thy request that I should come to thee, I must fulfill here all things for which I have been sent, and, after fulfilling them, be taken up again to him who sent me. Yet after I am taken up, I will send thee one of my disciples to cure thy disease and give life to thee and thine." The narrative then goes on to describe how Thaddaeus came to Edessa and cured the king by the laying on of hands, without medicine or herbs, after he had confessed his faith. "And Abdus, the son of Abdus, was also cured by him of gout." [164] 1 Pet. ii. 24, hou to molopi autoi iathete. [165] Luke ii. 11, etechthe humin soter, hos estin Christos kurios; John iv. 42, oidamen hoti houtos estin ho soter tou kosmou; Tit. ii. 11, epephane he charis tou theou soterios pasin anthropois; Tit. iii. 4, he chrestotes kai he philanthropia epephane tou soteros hemon theou. By several Christian circles, indeed, the title "Saviour" was reserved for Jesus and for Jesus only. Irenæus (I. i. 3) reproaches the Valentinian Ptolemæus for never calling Jesus kurios but only soter, and, as a matter of fact, in the epistle of Ptolemæus to Flora, Jesus is termed soter exclusively. [166] The meaning is that even to mysteries connected with purification those only were bidden who had led upon the whole a good and a just life. [167] Porphyry's position is rather different. He cannot flatly set aside the saying of Christ about the sick, for whose sake he came into the world. But as a Greek he is convinced that religion is meant for intelligent, just, and inquiring people. Hence his statement on the point (in Mac. Magnes, iv. 10) is rather confused. [168] Origen makes a skillful defense of Christianity at this point. "If a Christian does extend his appeal to the same people as those addressed by a robber-chief, his aim is very different. He does so in order to bind up their wounds with his doctrine, in order to allay the festering sores of the soul with those remedies of faith which correspond to the wine and oil and other applications employed to give the body relief from pain" (III. lx.). "Celsus misrepresents facts when he declares that we hold God was sent to sinners only. It is just as if he found fault with some people for saying that some kind and gracious [philanthropotatos, an epithet of Æsculapius] monarch had sent his physician to a city for the benefit of the sick people in that city. God the Word was thus sent as a physician for sinners, but also as a teacher of divine mysteries for those who are already pure and sin no more" (III. lxi.). [169] For the cult of Æsculapius, see von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf's Isyllos von Epidauros (1886), pp. 36 f., 44 f., 116 f., and Usener's Götternamen (1896), pp. 147 f., 350, besides Ilberg's study of Æsculapius in Teubner's Neuen Jahrbüchern, II., 1901, and the cautious article by Thrämer in Pauly-Wissowa's Real. Encykl. (II. 1642 f.). [170] Preller-Jordan, Röm. Mythologie, ii. p. 243. Pliny observes: "Mox a saevitia secandi urendique transisse nomen in carnificem et in tædium artem omnesque medicos" ("Owing to cruelty in cutting and cauterizing, the name of surgeon soon passed into that of butcher, and a disgust was felt for the profession and for all doctors"). [171] The cult was really humane, and it led the physicians also to be humane. In a passage from the Parangeliai of pseudo-Hippocrates we read: "I charge you not to show yourselves inhuman, but to take the wealth or poverty (of the patient) into account, in certain cases even to treat them gratis"--the repute of the iatroi anarguroi is well known--"and to consider future gratitude more than present fame. If, therefore, the summons for aid happens to be the case of an unknown or impecunious man, he is most of all to be assisted; for wherever there is love to one's neighbor, it means readiness to act" (ix. 258 Littré, iii. 321 Erm.; a passage which Ilberg brought under my notice, cp. also the Berl. Philol. Wochenschrift for March 25, 1893). How strongly the Christians themselves felt their affinity to humane physicians is proved by a striking instance which Ilberg quotes (loc. cit., from vi. 90 Littré, ii.123 Erm.). Eusebius writes (H. E. x. 4. 11) that Jesus, "like some excellent physician, in order to cure the sick, examines what is repulsive, handles sores, and reaps pain himself from the sufferings of others." This passage is literally taken from the treatise of pseudo-Hippocrates peri phuson: o men gar ietros horei te deina, thinganei te aedeon ep' allotriesi de xumphoresin idias karpoutai lupas. [172] Corresponding to this, we have Porphyry's definition of the object of philosophy as he tes psuches soteria (the salvation of the soul). [173] The New Testament itself is so saturated with medicinal expressions, employed metaphorically, that a collection of them would fill several pages. [174] Tit. iii. 4: he chrestotes kai he philanthropia epephane tou soteros hemon theou . . . . esosen hemas. See the New Testament allusions to soter. [175] Tert., de Baptism., i., etc., etc.; Clement (Paedag. i. 6. 29) calls baptism paionion pharmakon. Tertullian describes it as "aqua medicinalis." [176] Ignatius, Justin, and Irenæus. [177] Clement of Alexandria opens his Paedagogus by describing his Logos as the physician who heals suffering (I. i. 1., ta pathe ho paramuthetikos logos iatai). He distinguishes the logos protreptikos, hupothetikos, and paramuthikos, to which is added further ho didaktikos. And the Logos is Christ. Gregory Thaumaturgus also calls the Logos a physician, in his panegyric on Origen (xvi.). In the pseudo-Clementine homilies, Jesus, who is the true prophet, is always the physician; similarly Peter's work everywhere is that of the great physician who, by the sole means of prayer and speech, heals troops of sick folk (see especially Bk. VII.). Simon Magus, again, is represented as the wicked magician, who evokes disease wherever he goes. Origen has depicted Jesus the physician more frequently and fully than anyone else. One at least of his numerous passages on the subject may be cited (from Hom. viii., in Levit., ch. i. vol. ix. pp. 312 f): "Medicum dici in scripturis divinis dominum nostrum Jesum Christum, etiam ipsius domini sententia perdocemur, sicut dicit in evangeliis [here follows Matt. ix. 12 f.]. Omnis autem medicus ex herbarum succis vet arborum vel etiam metallorum venis vel animantium naturis profectura corporibus medicamenta componit. Sed herbas istas si quis forte, antequam pro ratione artis componantur, adspiciat, si quidem in agris aut montibus, velut foenum vile conculcat et praeterit. Si vero eas intra medici scholam dispositas per ordinem viderit, licet odorem tristem, fortem et austerum reddant, tamen suspicabitur eas curae vel remedii aliquid continere, etiamsi nondum quae vel qualis sit sanitatis ac remedii virtus agnoverit. Haec de communibus medicis diximus. Veni nunc ad Jesum coelestem medicum, intra ad hanc stationem medicinae eius ecclesiam, vide ibi languentium iacere multitudinem. Venit mulier, quae et partu immunda effecta est, venit leprosus, qui extra castra separatus est pro immunditia leprae, quaerunt a medico remedium, quomodo sanentur, quomodo mundentur, et quia Jesus hic, qui medicus est, ipse est et verbum dei, aegris suis non herbarum succis, sed verborum sacramentis medicamenta conquirit. Quae verborum medicamenta si quis incultius per libros tamquam per agros videat esse dispersa, ignorans singulorum dictorum virtutem, ut vilia haec et nullum sermonis cultum habentia praeteribit. Qui sero ex aliqua parte didicerit animarum apud Christum esse medicinam, intelliget profecto ex hic libris, qui in ecclesiis recitantur, tamquam ex agris et montibus, salutares herbas adsumere unumquemque debere, sermonum dumtaxat vim, ut si quis illi est in anima languor, non tam exterioris frondis et corticis, quam succi interioris hausta virtute sanetur" ("The Lord himself teaches us, in the gospels, that our Lord Jesus Christ is called a physician in the Holy Scriptures. Every physician compounds his medicines for the good of the body from the juices of herbs or trees, or even from the veins of metals or living creatures. Now, supposing that anyone sees these herbs in their natural state, ere they are prepared by skill of art, he treads on them like common straw and passes by them, on mountain or field. But if he chances to see them arranged in the laboratory of a herbalist or physician, he will suspect that, for all their bitter and heavy and unpleasant odors, they have some healing and healthful virtue, though as yet he does not know the nature or the quality of this curative element. So much for our ordinary physicians. Now look at Jesus the heavenly physician. Come inside his room of healing, the church. Look at the multitude of impotent folk lying there. Here comes a woman unclean from childbirth, a leper expelled from the camp owing to his unclean disease; they ask the physician for aid, for a cure, for cleansing; and because this Jesus the Physician is also the Word of God, he applies, not the juices of herbs, but the sacraments of the Word to their diseases. Anyone who looked at these remedies casually as they lay in books, like herbs in the field, ignorant of the power of single words, would pass them by as common things without any grace of style. But he who ultimately discovers that Christ has a medicine for souls, will find from these books which are read in the churches, as he finds from mountains and fields, that each yields healing herbs, at least strength won from words, so that any weakness of soul is healed not so much by leaf and bark as by an inward virtue and juice"). [178] That the vices were diseases was a theme treated by Christian teachers as often as by the Stoics. Cp., e.g., Origen, in Ep. ad Rom., Bk. II. (Lommatzsch, vi. 91 f.): "Languores quidem animae ab apostolo in his (Rom. ii. 8) designantur, quorum medelam nullus inveniet nisi prius morborum cognoverit causas et ideo in divinis scripturis aegritudines animae numerantur et remedia describuntur, ut hi, qui se apostolicis subdiderint disciplinis, ex his, quae scripta sunt, agnitis languoribus suis curati possint dicere: Lauda anima mea dominum, qui sanat omnes languores tuos'" (The apostle here describes the diseases of the soul; their cure cannot be discovered till one diagnoses first of all the causes of such troubles, and consequently Holy Scripture enumerates the ailments of the soul, and describes their remedies, in order that those who submit to the apostolic discipline may be able to say, after they have been cured of diseases diagnosed by aid of what is written: Bless the Lord, O my soul, who healeth all thy diseases'"). [179] 2 Clem., Ep. ad Cor. i. Similar expressions are particularly common in Tatian, but indeed no apology is wholly devoid of them. [180] Celsus, who knew this kind of Christian preaching intimately, pronounced the Christians to be quacks. "The teacher of Christianity," he declares, "acts like a person who promises to restore a sick man to health and yet hinders him from consulting skilled physicians, so as to prevent his own ignorance from being exposed." To which Origen retorts, "And who are the physicians from whom we deter simple folk?" He then proceeds to show that they cannot be the philosophers, and still less those who are not yet emancipated from the coarse superstition of polytheism (III. lxxiv.). [181] Fragm. ix. (Otto, Corp. Apol. iii., p. 258). Cp. also the beautiful wish expressed at the beginning of 3 John: peri panton euchomai se euodousthai kai hugiainein, kathos euodoutai sou he psuche (ver. 2). [182] Cp. Ep. ad Diogn. ix. 6, pseudo-Justin, de Resurr. x.: "Our physician, Jesus Christ"; Clem., Paedag. i. 2. 6: "The Logos of the Father is the only Paeonian physician for human infirmities, and the holy charmer (hagios epodos) for the sick soul" (whereupon he quotes Ps. lxxxii. 2-3): "The physician's art cures the diseases of the body, according to Democritus, but wisdom frees the soul from its passions. Yet the good instructor, the Wisdom, the Logos of the Father, the creator of man, cares for all our nature, healing it in body and in soul alike--he ho panakes tes anthropotetos iatros ho soter (the all-sufficient physician of humanity, the Saviour)," whereupon he quotes Mark ii. 2. See also ibid., i. 6. 36, and i. 12. 100. "Hence the Logos also is called Saviour, since he has devised rational medicines for men; he preserves their health, lays bare their defects, exposes the causes of their evil affections, strikes at the root of irrational lusts, prescribes their diet, and arranges every antidote to heal the sick. For this is the greatest and most royal work of God, the saving of mankind. Patients are irritated at a physician who has no advice to give on the question of their health. But how should we not render thanks to the divine instructor," etc. (Paedag. i. 8. 64-65). [183] Eus., H.E., v. 4. 11 (already referred to on p. 106). Cp. also the description of the Bible in Aphraates as "the books of the wise Physician," and Cypr., de Op., i.: "Christ was wounded to cure us of our wounds. . . . . When the Lord at his coming had healed that wound which Adam caused," etc. Metaphors from disease are on the whole very numerous in Cyprian; cp., e.g., de Habitu, ii.; de Unitate, iii.; de Lapsis, xiv., xxxiv. [184] Origen, opposing the Antinomians in Comm. in Rom., iii. 6 (Lommatzsch, vi. p. 195), Hom. in Jerem., xix. 3. Similarly Clem., Paedag., i. 9. 88: "As the physician who tells a patient that he has fever is not an enemy to him--since the physician is not the cause of the fever but merely detects it (ouk aitios, all' elenchos) neither is one who blames a diseased soul ill-disposed to that person." Cp. Methodius (Opp. I. p. 52, Bonwetsch): "As we do not blame a physician who explains how a man may become strong and well," etc.; see also I. 65: "For even those who undergo medical treatment for their bodily pains do not at once regain health, but gladly bear pain in the hope of their coming recovery." [185] Ad Polyc., ii. The passage is to be taken allegorically. It is addressed to Bishop Polycarp, who has been already (i) counselled to "bear the maladies of all"; wisely and gently is the bishop to treat the erring and the spiritually diseased. In the garb given it by Ignatius, this counsel recurs very frequently throughout the subsequent literature; see Lightfoot's learned note. Also Clem. Alex., Fragm. (Dindorf, iii. 499): "With one salve shalt thou heal thyself and thy neighbor (who slanders thee), if thou acceptest the slander with meekness"; Clem. Hom., x. 18: "The salve must not be applied to the sound member of the body, but to the suffering"; and Hermes Trismeg., peri bot. chul., p. 331: "Do not always use this salve." [186] i. 1. 3, epia pharmaka (see Homer). [187] In l. Jesu Nave, viii. 6 (Lomm. xi. 71). Cp. Hom. in Jerem., xvi. 1. [188] De Lapsis, xiv. Penitence and bodily cures form a regular parallel in Cyprian's writings; cp. Epist. xxxi. 6-7, lv. 16, lix. 13, and his Roman epistle xxx. 3. 5. 7. Novatian, who is responsible for the latter, declares (in de Trinit., v.) that God's wrath acts like a medicine. [189] Cp. pseudo-Clem., Ep. ad Jac., ii.: "The president (the bishop) must hold the place of a physician (in the church), instead of behaving with the violence of an irrational brute." [190] Cp. Clem. Alex., Paedag., i. 8. 64 f.: "Many evil passions are cured by punishment or by the inculcation of sterner commands. . . . . Censure is like a surgical operation on the passions of the soul. The latter are abscesses on the body of the truth, and they must be cut open by the lancet of censure. Censure is like the application of a medicine which breaks up the callosities of the passions, and cleanses the impurities of a lewd life, reducing the swollen flesh of pride, and restoring the man to health and truth once more." Cp. i. 9. 83; also Methodius, Opp., I. i. p. 115 (ed. Bonwetsch). [191] It was at this that the Emperor Julian especially took umbrage, and not without reason. As a protest against the sensuousness of paganism, there grew up in the church an æsthetic of ugliness. Disease, death, and death's relics--bones and putrefaction--were preferred to health and beauty, whilst Christianity sought to express her immaterial spirit in terms drawn from the unsightly remnants of material decay. How remote was all this artificial subtlety of an exalted piety from the piety which had pointed men to the beauty of the lilies in the field! The Christians of the third and fourth centuries actually begin to call sickness health, and to regard death as life. [192] Clem. Alex., Strom., vii. 48. 4: hos ho iatros hugieian parechetai tois sunergousi pros hugieian, houtos kai ho theos ten audion soterian tois sunergousi pros gnosin te kai eupragian ("Even as the physician secures health for those who cooperate with him to that end, so does God secure eternal salvation for those who cooperate with him for knowledge and good conduct"). [193] C. Cels., III. 54: "We cure every rational being with the medicine of our doctrine." [194] In VII. lix. there is an extremely fine statement of the true prophet's duty of speaking in such a way as to be intelligible and encouraging to the multitude, and not merely to the cultured. "Suppose that some food which is wholesome and fit for human nourishment, is prepared and seasoned so delicately as to suit the palate of the rich and luxurious alone, and not the taste of simple folk, peasants, laborers, poor people, and the like, who are not accustomed to such dainties. Suppose again that this very food is prepared, not as epicures would have it, but to suit poor folk, laborers, and the vast majority of mankind. Well, if on this supposition the food prepared in one way is palatable to none but epicures, and left untasted by the rest, while, prepared in the other way, it ministers to the health and strength of a vast number, what persons shall we believe are promoting the general welfare most successfully--those who cater simply for the better classes, or those who prepare food for the multitude? If we assume that the food in both cases is equally wholesome and nourishing, it is surely obvious that the good of men and the public welfare are better served by the physician who attends to the health of the multitude than by him who will merely attend to a few." And Origen was far removed from anything like the narrow-mindedness of orthodoxy, as is plain from this excellent remark in III. xiii.: "As only he is qualified in medicine who has studied in various schools and attached himself to the best system after a careful examination of them all . . . . so, in my judgment, the most thorough knowledge of Christianity is his who has carefully investigated the various sects of Judaism and of Christianity." [195] So Clem. Alex., Paed., i. 1. 3: isai ouk estin hugieia kai gnosis, all' he men mathesei, he de iasei periginetai; ouk an oun tis noson eti proteron ti ton didaskalikon ekmathoi prin e teleon hugianai; oude gar osautos pros tous manthanontas e kamnontas aei ton parangelmaton hekaston legetai, alla pros ohus men eis gnosin, pros ohus de eis iasin. kathaper oun tois nosousi to soma iatrou chrezei, taute kai tois asthenousi ten psuchen paidagogou dei, hin' hemon iasetai ta pathe, eita de kai didaskalou, hos kathegesetai pros katharan gnoseos epitedeioteta eutrepizon ten psuchen, dunamenen choresai ten apokalupsin tou logou ("Health and knowledge are not alike; the one is produced by learning, the other by healing. Before a sick person, then, could learn any further branch of knowledge, he must get quite well. Nor is each injunction addressed to learners and to patients alike; the object in one case is knowledge, and in the other a cure. Thus, as patients need the physician for their body, so do those who are sick in soul need, first of all, an instructor, to heal our pains, and then a teacher who shall conduct the soul to all requisite knowledge, disposing it to admit the revelation of the Word"). [196] Cp. Hauck, Die Entstehung des Christus-typus (1880), p. 8 f. [197] In the eyes of Christians, Æsculapius was both a demon and an idol; no Christian could take him as a model or have any dealings with him. Some Roman Christians, who were devotees of learning, are certainly reported in one passage (written by a fanatical opponent, it is true) to have worshipped Galen (Eus., H.E., v. 28); but no mention is made of them worshipping Æsculapius. In addition to the passages cited above, in which early Christian writers deal with Æsculapius (who is probably alluded to also as far back as Apoc. ii. 23), the following are to be noted: Justin, Apol., I, xxi., xxii., xxv., liv. (passages which are radically misunderstood when it is inferred from them that Justin is in favor of the god); Tatian, Orat., xxi.; Theoph., ad Autol., i. 9; Tertull., de Anima, i. (a passage which is specially characteristic of the aversion felt for this god); Cyprian's Quod Idola, i.; Orig., c. Cels., iii., xxii.-xxv., xxviii., xlii. Clement explains him in Protr., ii. 26, after the manner of Euhemerus: ton gar euergetounta me sunientes theon aneplasan tinas soteras Dioskourous . . . . kai Asklepion iatron ("Through not understanding the God who was their benefactor, they fashioned certain saviours, the Dioscuri . . . . and Æsculapius the physician"). A number of passages (e.g., Protr. ii. 20, iatros philarguros en, "he was an avaricious physician," and iv. 52) show how little Clement cared for him. [198] Cp. the beautiful sentences of Lactantius, Div. Inst., vi. 12 (especially p. 529, Brandt): Aegros quoque quibus defuerit qui adsistat, curandos fovendosque suscipere summae humanitatis et magnae operationis est ("It is also the greatest kindness possible and a great charity to undertake the care and maintenance of the sick, who need some one to assist them"). [199] 1 Clem. lix.: tous astheneis (such is the most probable reading) iasai . . . . exanasteson tous asthenountas, parakaleson tous oligopsuchountas ("Heal the sick, . . . . raise up the weak, encourage the faint-hearted"). Cp. the later formulas of prayer for the sick in App. Constit., viii. 10 and onwards; cp. Binterim, Denkwürdigkeiten, vi. 3, pp. 17 f. [200] Cp. 1 Cor. xii. 26: "If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it." [201] Achelis (Texte u. Unters. xxv. 2 1904, p. 381) attempts to prove that the author of the Syriac Didascalia was at once a bishop and a physician; he shows (p. 383) that similar combinations were not entirely unknown (cp. de Rossi's Roma Sotter., tav. XXI. 9, epitaph from San Callisto, Dionusiou iatrou presbuterou; Zenobius, physician and martyr in Sidon in the reign of Diocletian, Eus., H.E. viii. 13; a physician and bishop in Tiberias, Epiph., Hær. xxx. 4; Theodotus, physician and bishop in Laodicea Syr.; Basilius, episcopus artis medicinæ gnarus, at Ancyra, Jerome, de Vir. Ill. 89; in Can. Hipp. iii. § 18, the gift of healing is asked for the bishop and presbyter at ordination, while viii. § 53 presupposes that anyone who possessed this gift moved straightway to be enrolled among the clergy). Cp. Texte u. Unters. viii. 4. pp. 1-14 ("Christian doctors"). [202] Cp. Texte u. Unters. ii. 5. p. 23. [203] "But thou, O widow, who art shameless, seest the widows, thy comrades, or thy brethren lying sick, yet troublest not to fast or pray for them, to lay hands on them or to visit them, as if thou wert not in health thyself or free" (Syr. Didasc. xv. 80). [204] They are first mentioned in Pliny's letter to Trajan. [205] Cp. Ep. pseudo-Clem. ad Jacob. 12: hoi tes ekklesias diakonoi tou episkopou sunetos rhembomenoi estosan ophthalmoi, hekastou tes ekklesias polupragmonountes tas praxeis . . . . tous de kata sarka nosountas manthanetosan kai to agnounti plethei prosantiballetosan, hin' epiphainontai, kai ta deonta epi te tou prokathezomenou gnome parechetosan ("Let the deacons of the church move about intelligently and act as eyes for the bishop, carefully inquiring into the actions of every church member . . . let them find out those who are sick in the flesh, and bring such to the notice of the main body who know nothing of them, that they may visit them and supply their wants, as the president may judge fit"). [206] In the epistles which he wrote to the church from his hiding-place, he is always reminding them not to neglect the sick. [207] I merely note in passing the conflict waged by the church against medical sins like abortion (Did. ii. 2; Barn. xix. 5; Tert., Apol. ix.; Minuc. Felix., xxx. 2; Athenag., Suppl. xxxv.; Clem., Paed. ii. 10, 96, etc.), and the unnatural morbid vices of paganism. It was a conflict in which the interests of the church were truly human; she maintained the value and dignity of human life, refusing to allow it to be destroyed or dishonored at any stage of its development. With regard to these offences, she also exerted some influence upon the State legislation, in and after the fourth century, although even in the third century the latter had already approximated to her teaching on such points. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 3 THE CONFLICT WITH DEMONS [208] During the early centuries a belief in demons, and in the power they exercised throughout the world, was current far and wide. There was also a corresponding belief in demon possession, in consequence of which insanity frequently took the form of a conviction, on the part of the patients, that they were possessed by one or more evil spirits. Though this form of insanity still occurs at the present day, cases of it are rare, owing to the fact that wide circles of people have lost all belief in the existence and activity of demons. But the forms and phases in which insanity manifests itself always depend upon the general state of culture and the ideas current in the social environment, so that whenever the religious life is in a state of agitation, and a firm belief prevails in the sinister activity of evil spirits, "demon possession" still breaks out sporadically. Recent instances have even shown that a convinced exorcist, especially if he is a religious man, is able to produce the phenomena of "possession" in a company of people against their will, in order subsequently to cure them. "Possession" is also infectious. Supposing that one case of this kind occurs in a church, and that it is connected by the sufferer himself, or even by the priest, with sin in general or with some special form of sin; supposing that he preaches upon it, addressing the church in stirring language, and declaring that this is really devil's play, then the first case will soon be followed by a second and by a third. [209] The most astounding phenomena occur, many of whose details are still inexplicable. Everything is doubled--the consciousness of the sufferer, his will, his sphere of action. With perfect sincerity on his own part (although it is always easy for frauds to creep in here), the man is at once conscious of himself and also of another being who constrains and controls him from within. He thinks and feels and acts, now as the one, now as the other; and under the conviction that he is a double being, he confirms himself and his neighbors in this belief by means of actions which are at once the product of reflection and of an inward compulsion. Inevitable self-deception, cunning actions, and the most abject passivity form a sinister combination. But they complete our idea of a psychical disease which usually betrays extreme susceptibility to "suggestion," and, therefore, for the time being often defies any scientific analysis, leaving it open to anyone to think of special and mysterious forces in operation. In this region there are facts which we cannot deny, but which we are unable to explain. [210] Furthermore, there are "diseases" in this region which only attack superhuman individuals, who draw from this "disease" a new life hitherto undreamt of, an energy which triumphs over every obstacle, and a prophetic or apostolic zeal. We do not speak here of this kind of "possession"; it exists merely for faith-- or unbelief. In the case of ordinary people, when disease emerges in connection with religion, no unfavorable issue need be anticipated. As a general rule, the religion which brings the disease to a head has also the power of curing it, and this power resides in Christianity above all other religions. Wherever an empty or a sinful life, which has almost parted with its vitality, is suddenly aroused by the preaching of the Christian religion, so that dread of evil and its bondage passes into the idea of actual "possession," the soul again is freed from the latter bondage by the message of the grace of God which has appeared in Jesus Christ. Evidence of this lies on the pages of church history, from the very beginning down to the present day. During the first three centuries the description of such cases flowed over into the margin of the page, whereas nowadays they are dismissed in a line or two. But the reason for this change is to be found in the less frequent occurrence, not of the cure, but of the disease. The mere message or preaching of Christianity was not of course enough to cure the sick. It had to be backed by a convinced belief or by some person who was sustained by this belief. The cure was wrought by the praying man and not by prayer, by the Spirit and not by the formula, by the exorcist and not by exorcism. Conventional means were of no use except in cases where the disease became an epidemic and almost general, or in fact a conventional thing itself, as we must assume it often to have been during the second century. The exorcist then became a mesmerist, probably also a deluded impostor. But wherever a strong individuality was victimized by the demon of fear, wherever the soul was literally convulsed by the grip of that power of darkness from which it was now fain to flee, the will could only be freed from its bondage by some strong, holy, outside will. Here and there cases occur of what modern observers, in their perplexity, term "suggestion." But "suggestion" was one thing to a prophet, and another thing to a professional exorcist. In the form in which we meet it throughout the later books of the Septuagint, or in the New Testament, or in the Jewish literature of the Imperial age, belief in the activity of demons was a comparatively late development in Judaism. But during that period it was in full bloom. [211] And it was about this time that it also began to spread apace among the Greeks and Romans. How the latter came by it, is a question to which no answer has yet been given. It is impossible to refer the form of belief in demons which was current throughout the empire, in and after the second century, solely to Jewish or even to Christian sources. But the naturalizing of this belief, or, more correctly, the development along quite definite lines of that early Greek belief in spirits, which even the subsequent philosophers (e.g., Plato) had supported -- all this was a process to which Judaism and Christianity may have contributed, no less than other Oriental religions, including especially the Egyptian, [212] whose priests had been at all times famous for exorcism. In the second century a regular class of exorcists existed, just as at the present day in Germany there are "Naturärzte," or Nature physicians, side by side with skilled doctors. Still, sensible people remained skeptical, while the great jurist Ulpian refused (at a time when, as now, this was a burning question) to recognize such practitioners as members of the order of physicians. He was even doubtful, of course, whether "specialists" were physicians in the legal sense of the term. [213] The characteristic features of belief in demons [214] during the second century were as follows. In the first place, the belief made its way upwards from the obscurity of the lower classes into the upper classes of society, and became far more important than it had hitherto been; in the second place, it was no longer accompanied by a vigorous, naïve, and open religion which kept it within bounds; furthermore, the power of the demons, which had hitherto been regarded as morally indifferent, now came to represent their wickedness; and finally, when the new belief was applied to the life of individuals, its consequences embraced psychical diseases as well as physical. In view of all these considerations, the extraordinary spread of belief in demons, and the numerous outbursts of demonic disease, are to be referred to the combined influence of such well-known factors as the dwindling of faith in the old religions, which characterized the Imperial age, together with the rise of a feeling on the part of the individual that he was free and independent, and therefore flung upon his inmost nature and his own responsibility. Free now from any control or restraint of tradition, the individual wandered here and there amid the lifeless, fragmentary, and chaotic debris of traditions belonging to a world in process of dissolution; now he would pick up this, now that, only to discover, himself at last driven, often by fear and hope, to find a deceptive support or a new disease in the absurdest of them all. [215] Such was the situation of affairs encountered by the gospel. It has been scoffingly remarked that the gospel produced the very diseases which it professed itself able to cure. The scoff is justified in certain cases, but in the main it recoils upon the scoffer. The gospel did bring to a head the diseases which it proceeded to cure. It found them already in existence, and intensified them in the course of its mission. But it also cured them, and no flight of the imagination can form any idea of what would have come over the ancient world or the Roman empire during the third century, had it not been for the church. Professors like Libanius or his colleagues in the academy at Athens, are of course among the immortals; people like that could maintain themselves without any serious change from century to century. But no nation thrives upon the food of rhetoricians and philosophers. At the close of the fourth century Rome had only one Symmachus, and the East had only one Synesius. But then, Synesius was a Christian. In what follows I propose to set down, without note or comment, one or two important notices of demon-possession and its cure from the early history of the church. In the case of one passage I shall sketch the spread and shape of belief in demons. This Tertullian has described, and it is a mistake to pass Tertullian by.--In order to estimate the significance of exorcism for primitive Christianity, one must remember that according to the belief of Christians the Son of God came into the world to combat Satan and his kingdom. The evangelists, especially Luke, have depicted the life of Jesus from the temptation onwards as an uninterrupted conflict with the devil; what he came for was to destroy the works of the devil. In Mark (i. 32) we read how many that were possessed were brought to Jesus, and healed by him, as he cast out the demons (i. 34). "He suffered not the demons to speak, for they knew him" (see also Luke iv. 34, 41). In i. 39 there is the general statement: "He preached throughout all Galilee in the synagogues and cast out the demons." When he sent forth the twelve disciples, he conferred on them the power of exorcising (iii. 15), a power which they forthwith proceeded to exercise (vi. 13; for the Seventy, see Luke x. 17); whilst the scribes at Jerusalem declared he had Beelzebub, [216] and that he cast out demons with the aid of their prince. [217] The tale of the "unclean spirits" who entered a herd of swine is quite familiar (v. 2), forming, as it does, one of the most curious fragments of the sacred story, which has vainly taxed the powers of believing and of rationalistic criticism. Another story which more immediately concerns our present purpose is that of the Canaanite woman and her possessed daughter (vii. 25 f.). Matt. vii. 15 f. (Luke ix. 38) shows that epileptic fits, as well as other nervous disorders (e.g., dumbness, Matt. xii. 22, Luke xi. 14), were also included under demon-possession. It is further remarkable that even during the lifetime of Jesus exorcists who were not authorized by him exorcised devils in his name. This gave rise to a significant conversation between Jesus and John (Mark ix. 38). John said to Jesus, "Master, we saw a man casting out demons in thy name, and we forbade him, because he did not follow us." But Jesus answered, "Forbid him not. No one shall work a deed of might in my name and then deny me presently; for he who is not against us, is for us." On the other hand, another saying of our Lord numbers people who have never known him (Matt. vii. 22) among those who cast out devils in his name. From one woman among his followers Jesus was known afterwards to have cast out "seven demons" (Mark xvi. 9, Luke viii. 2), and among the mighty deeds of which all believers were to be made capable, the unauthentic conclusion of Mark's gospel enumerates exorcism (xvi. 17). [218] It was as exorcisers that Christians went out into the great world, and exorcism formed one very powerful method of their mission and propaganda. It was a question not simply of exorcising and vanquishing the demons that dwelt in individuals, but also of purifying all public life from them. For the age was ruled by the black one and his hordes (Barnabas); it "lieth in the evil one," keitai en ponero (John). Nor was this mere theory; it was a most vital conception of existence. The whole world and the circumambient atmosphere were filled with devils; not merely idolatry, but every phase and form of life was ruled by them. They sat on thrones, they hovered around cradles. The earth was literally a hell, though it was and continued to be a creation of God. To encounter this hell and all its devils, Christians had command of weapons that were invincible. Besides the evidence drawn from the age of their holy scriptures, they pointed to the power of exorcism committed to them, which routed evil spirits, and even forced them to bear witness to the truth of Christianity. "We," says Tertullian towards the close of his Apology (ch. xlvi.), "we have stated our case fully, as well as the evidence for the correctness of our statement-- that is, the trustworthiness and antiquity of our sacred writings, and also the testimony borne by the demonic powers themselves (in our favor)." Such was the stress laid on the activity of the exorcists. [219] In Paul's epistles, [220] in Pliny's letter, and in the Didachê, they are never mentioned. [221] But from Justin downwards, Christian literature is crowded with allusions to exorcisms, and every large church at any rate had exorcists. Originally these men were honored as persons endowed with special grace, but afterwards they constituted a class by themselves, in the lower hierarchy, like lectors and sub-deacons. By this change they lost their pristine standing. [222] The church sharply distinguished between exorcists who employed the name of Christ, and pagan sorcerers, magicians, etc.; [223] but she could not protect herself adequately against mercenary impostors, and several of her exorcists were just as dubious characters as her "prophets." The hotbed of religious frauds was in Egypt, as we learn from Lucian's Peregrinus Proteus, from Celsus, and from Hadrian's letter to Servian. [224] At a very early period pagan exorcists appropriated the names of the patriarchs (cp. Orig., c. Cels. I. xxii.), of Solomon, and even of Jesus Christ, in their magical formulæ; even Jewish exorcists soon began to introduce the name of Jesus in their incantations. [225] The church, on the contrary, had to warn her own exorcists not to imitate the heathen. In the pseudo-Clementine de Virginitate we read (i. 12): "For those who are brethren in Christ it is fitting and right and comely to visit people who are vexed with evil spirits, and to pray and utter exorcisms over them, in the rational language of prayer acceptable to God, not with a host of fine words neatly arranged and studied in order to win the reputation among men of being eloquent and possessed of a good memory. Such folk are just like a sounding pipe, or a tinkling cymbal, of not the least use to those over whom they pronounce their exorcisms. They simply utter terrible words and scare people with them, but never act according to a true faith such as that enjoined by the Lord when he taught that this kind goeth not out save by fasting and prayer offered unceasingly, and by a mind earnestly bent (on God).' Let then make holy requests and entreaties to God, cheerfully, circumspectly, and purely, without hatred or malice. For such is the manner in which we are to visit a sick (possessed) brother or a sister . . . . without guile or covetousness or noise or talkativeness or pride or any behavior alien to piety, but with the meek and lowly spirit of Christ. Let them exorcise the sick with fasting and with prayer; instead of using elegant phrases, neatly arranged and ordered, let them act frankly like men who have received the gift of healing from God, to God's glory. By your fastings and prayers and constant watching, together with all the rest of your good works, mortify the works of the flesh by the power of the Holy Spirit. He who acts thus is a temple of the Holy Spirit of God. Let him cast out demons, and God will aid him therein. . . . The Lord has given the command to cast out demons' and also enjoined the duty of healing in other ways, adding, Freely ye have received, freely give.' A great reward from God awaits those who serve their brethren with the gifts which God has bestowed upon themselves." Justin writes (Apol. II. vi.): "The Son of God became man in order to destroy the demons. This you can now learn from what transpires under your own eyes. For many of our Christian people have healed a large number of demoniacs throughout the whole world, and also in your own city, exorcising them in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate; yet all other exorcists, magicians, and dealers in drugs failed to heal such people. Yea, and such Christians continue still to heal them, by rendering the demons impotent and expelling them from the men whom they possessed." In his dialogue against the Jews (lxxxv.), Justin also writes: "Every demon exorcised in the name of the Son of God, the First-born of all creatures, who was born of a virgin and endured human suffering, who was crucified by your nation under Pontius Pilate, who died and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven--every demon exorcised in this name is mastered and subdued. Whereas if you exorcise in the name of any king or righteous man, or prophet, or patriarch, who has been one of yourselves, no demon will be subject to you. . . . Your exorcists, I have already said, are like the Gentiles in using special arts, employing fumigation and magic incantations." From this passage we infer that the Christian formulae of exorcism contained the leading facts of the story of Christ. [226] And Origen says as much, quite unmistakably, in his reply to Celsus (I. vi.): "The power of exorcism lies in the name of Jesus, which is uttered as the stories of his life are being narrated." [227] Naturally one feels very skeptical in reading how various parties in Christianity denied each other the power of exorcism, explaining cures as due either to mistakes or to deception. So Irenæus (II. xxxi. 2): "The adherents of Simon and Carpocrates and the other so-called workers of miracles were convicted of acting as they acted, not by the power of God, nor in truth, nor for the good of men, but to destroy and deceive men by means of magical illusions and universal deceit. They do more injury than good to those who believe in them, inasmuch as they are deceivers. For neither can they give sight to the blind or hearing to the deaf, nor can they rout any demons save those sent by themselves--if they can do even that." [228] With regard to his own church, Irenæus (cp. below, ch. iv.) was convinced that the very dead were brought back to life by its members. In this, he maintains, there was neither feint, nor error, nor deception, but astounding fact, as in the case of our Lord himself. "In the name of Jesus, his true disciples, who have received grace from him, do fulfill a healing ministry in aid of other men, even as each has received the free gift of grace from him. Some surely and certainly drive out demons, so that it frequently happens that those thus purged from demons also believe and become members of the church. [229] Others again, possess a fore-knowledge of the future, with visions and prophetic utterances. . . . . And what shall I more say? For it is impossible to enumerate the spiritual gifts and blessings which, all over the world, the church has received from God in the name of Jesus Christ, who was crucified under Pontius Pilate, and which she exercises day by day for the healing of the pagan world, without deceiving or taking money from any person. For as she has freely received them from God, so also does she freely give" (iatroi anarguroi). The popular notion prevalent among the early Christians, as among the later Jews, was that, apart from the innumerable hosts of demons who disported themselves unabashed throughout history and nature, every individual had beside him a good angel who watched over him, and an evil spirit who lay in wait for him (cp., e.g., the "Shepherd" of Hermas). If he allowed himself to be controlled by the latter, he was thereby "possessed," in the strict sense of the word; i.e., sin itself was possession. This brings out admirably the slavish dependence to which any man is reduced who abandons himself to his own impulses, though the explanation is naively simple. In the belief in demons, as that belief dominated the Christian world in the second and third centuries, it is easy to detect features which stamp it as a reactionary movement hostile to contemporary culture. Yet it must not be forgotten that the heart of it enshrined a moral and consequently a spiritual advance,. viz., in a quickened sense of evil, as well as in a recognition of the power of sin and of its dominion in the world. Hence it was that a mind of such high culture as Tertullian's could abandon itself to this belief in demons. It is interesting to notice how the Greek and Roman elements are bound up with the Jewish Christian in his detailed statement of the belief (in the Apology), and I shall now quote this passage in full. It occurs in connection with the statement that while demons are ensconced behind the dead gods of wood and stone, they are forced by Christians to confess what they are, viz., not gods at all, but unclean spirits. At several points we catch even here the tone of irony and sarcasm over these "poor devils" which grew so loud in the Middle Ages, and yet never shook belief in theist. But, on the whole, the description is extremely serious. People who fancy at this time of day that they would possess primitive Christianity if they only enforced certain primitive rules of faith, may perhaps discover from what follows the sort of coefficients with which that Christianity was burdened. [230] "We Christians," says Tertullian (ch. xxii. f.), "affirm the existence of certain spiritual beings. Nor is their name new. The philosophers recognize demons; Socrates himself waited on a demon's impulse, and no wonder--for a demon is said to have been his companion from childhood, detaching his mind, I have no doubt, from what was good! The poets, too, recognize demons, and even the ignorant masses use them often in their oaths. In fact, they appeal in their curses to Satan, the prince of this evil gang, with a sort of instinctive knowledge of him in their very souls. Plato himself does not deny the existence of angels, and even the magicians attest both kinds of spiritual beings. But it is our sacred scriptures which record how certain angels, who fell of their own free will, produced a still more fallen race of demons, who were condemned by God together with their progenitors and with that prince to whom we have already alluded. Here we cannot do more than merely describe their doings. The ruin of man was their sole aim. From the outset man's overthrow was essayed by these spirits in their wickedness. Accordingly they proceed to inflict diseases and evil accidents of all kinds on our bodies, while by means of violent assaults they produce sudden and extraordinary excesses of the soul. Both to soul and to body they have access by their subtle and extremely fine substance. Invisible and intangible, those spirits are not visible in the act; it is in their effects that they are frequently observed, as when, for example, some mysterious poison in the breeze blights the blossom of fruit trees and the grain, or nips them in the bud, or destroys the ripened fruit, the poisoned atmosphere exhaling, as it were, some noxious breath. With like obscurity, the breath of demons and of angels stirs up many a corruption in the soul by furious passions, vile excesses, or cruel lusts accompanied by varied errors, the worst of which is that these deities commend themselves to the ensnared and deluded souls of men, [231] in order to get their favorite food of flesh--fumes and of blood offered up to the images and statues of the gods. And what more exquisite food could be theirs than to divert then from the thought of the true God by means of false illusions? How these illusions are managed, I shall now explain. Every spirit is winged; angel and demon alike. Hence in an instant they are everywhere. The whole world is just one place to them. 'Tis as easy for them to know as to announce any occurrence; and as people are ignorant of their nature, their velocity is taken for divinity. Thus they would have themselves sometimes thought to be the authors of the events which they merely report--and authors, indeed, they are, not of good, but occasionally of evil events. The purposes of Divine providence were also caught up by them of old from the lips of the prophets, and at present from the public reading of their works. So picking up in this way a partial knowledge of the future, they set up a rival divinity for themselves by purloining prophecy. But well do your Croesuses and Pyrrhuses know the clever ambiguity with which these oracles were framed in view of the future. . . . . As they dwell in the air, close to the stars, and in touch with the clouds, they can discern the preliminary processes in the sky, and thus are able to promise the rain whose coming they already feel. Truly they are most kind in their concern for health! First of all, they make you ill; then, to produce the impression of a miracle, they enjoin the use of remedies which are either unheard of or have quite an opposite effect; lastly, by withdrawing their injurious influence, they get the credit of having worked a cure. Why, then, should I speak further of their other tricks or even of their powers of deception as spirits--of the Castor apparitions, of water carried in a sieve, of a ship towed by a girdle, of a beard reddened at a touch--things done to get men to believe in stones as gods, instead of seeking after the true God? "Moreover, if magicians call up ghosts and even bring forward the souls of the dead, if they strangle boys in order to make the oracle speak, if they pretend to perform many a miracle by means of their quackery and juggling, if they even send dreams by aid of those angels and demons whose power they have invoked (and, thanks to them, it has become quite a common thing for the very goats and tables to divine), how much more keen will be this evil power in employing all its energies to do, of its own accord and for its own ends, what serves another's purpose? Or, if the deeds of angels and demons are exactly the same as those of your gods, where is the pre-eminence of the latter, which must surely be reckoned superior in might to all else? Is it not a more worthy conception that the former make themselves gods by exhibiting the very credentials of the gods, than that the gods are on a level with angels and demons? Locality, I suppose you will say, locality makes a difference; in a temple you consider beings to be gods whom elsewhere you would not recognize as such! . . . . "But hitherto it has been merely a question of words. Now for facts, now for a proof that gods' and demons' are but different statues for one and the same substance. Place before your tribunals any one plainly possessed by a demon. Bidden speak by any Christian whatsoever, that spirit will confess he is a demon, just as frankly elsewhere he will falsely pretend to be a god. [232] Or, if you like, bring forward any one of those who are supposed to be divinely possessed, who conceive divinity from the fumes which they inhale bending over an altar, and ("ructando curantur") are delivered of it by retching, giving vent to it in gasps. Let the heavenly virgin herself, who promises rain, let that teacher o£ healing arts, Æsculapius, ever ready to prolong the life of those who are on the point of death, with Socordium, Tenatium (?), and Asclepiadotum--let them then and there shed the blood of that daring Christian, if--in terror of lying to a Christian--they fail to admit they are demons. Could any action be more plain? Any proof more cogent? Truth in its simplicity stands here before your eyes; its own worth supports it; suspicion there can be none. Say you, it is a piece of magic or a trick of some sort? . . . . What objection can be brought against something exhibited in its bare reality? If, on the one hand, they (the demons) are really gods, why do they pretend (at our challenge) to be demons? From fear of us? Then your so-called Godhead' is subordinated to us, and surely no divinity can be attributed to what lies under the control of men. . . . . So that Godhead' of yours proves to be no godhead at all; for if it were, demons would not pretend to it, nor would gods deny it. . . . . Acknowledge that there is but one species of such beings, namely, demons, and that the gods are nothing else. Look out, then, for gods! For now you find that those whom you formerly took for such, are demons." In what follows, Tertullian declares that the demons, on being questioned by Christians, not only confess they are themselves demons, but also confess the Christian's God as the true God. "Fearing God in Christ, and Christ in God, they become subject to the servants of God and Christ. Thus at our touch and breath, overpowered by the consideration and contemplation of the (future) fire, they leave human bodies at our command, reluctantly and sadly, and--in your presence--shamefacedly. You believe their lies; they believe them when they tell the truth about themselves. When anyone lies, it is not to disgrace but to glorify himself. . . . . Such testimonies from your so-called deities usually result in a making people Christians." In ch. xxvii. Tertullian meets the obvious retort that if demons were actually subject to Christians, the latter could not possibly succumb helplessly to the persecutions directed against them. Tertullian contradicts this. The demons, he declares, are certainly like slaves under the control of the Christians, but like good-for-nothing slaves they sometimes blend fear and contumacy, eager to injure those of whom they stand in awe. "At a distance they oppose us, but at close quarters they beg for mercy. Hence, like slaves that have broken loose from workhouses, or prisons, or mines, or any form of penal servitude, they break out against us, though they are in our power, well aware of their impotence, and yet rendered the more abandoned thereby. We resist this horde unwillingly, the same as if they were still unvanquished, stoutly maintaining the very position which they attack, nor is our triumph over them ever more complete than when we are condemned for our persistent faith." In ch. xxxvii. Tertullian once more sums up the service which Christians render to pagans by means of their exorcists. "Were it not for us, who would free you from those hidden foes that are ever making havoc of your health in soul and body--from those raids of the demons, I mean, which we repel from you without reward or hire?" He says the same thing in his address to the magistrate Scapula (ii.): "We do more than repudiate the demons: we overcome them, we expose then daily to contempt, and exorcise them from their victims, as is well known to many people." [233] This endowment of Christians must therefore have been really acknowledged far and wide, and in a number of passages Tertullian speaks as if every Christian possessed it. [234] It would be interesting if we could only ascertain how far these cures of psychical diseases were permanent. Unfortunately, nothing is known upon the point, and yet this is a province where nothing is more common than a merely temporary success. Like Tertullian, Minucius Felix in his "Octavius" has also treated this subject, partly in the same words as Tertullian (ch. xxvii.). [235] The apologist Theophilus (ad Autolyc. ii. 8) writes: "The Greek poet spoke under the inspiration, not of a pure, but of a lying spirit, as is quite obvious from the fact that even in our own day possessed people are sometimes still exorcised in the name of the true God, whereupon their lying spirits themselves confess that they are demons, the actual demons who formerly were at work in the poets." This leads us to assume that the possessed frequently cried out the name of "Apollo" or of the Muses at the moment of exorcising. As late as the middle of the third century Cyprian also speaks, like earlier authors, of demonic cures wrought by Christians (ad Demetr. xv.): "O if thou wouldst but hear and see the demons when they are adjured by us, tormented by spiritual scourges, and driven from the possessed bodies by racking words; when howling and groaning with human voices (!), and feeling by the power of God the stripes and blows, they have to confess the judgment to come! Come and see that what we say is true. And forasmuch as thou sayest thou dost worship the gods, then believe even those whom thou dost worship. Thou wilt see how those whom thou implorest implore us; how those of whom thou art in awe stand in awe of us. Thou wilt see how they stand bound under our hands, trembling like prisoners--they to whom thou dost look up with veneration as thy lords. Verily thou wilt be made ashamed in these errors of thine, when thou seest and hearest how thy gods, when cross-questioned by us, at once yield up the secret of their being, unable, even before you, to conceal those tricks and frauds of theirs." [236] Similarly in the treatise To Donatus (ch. v.): "In Christianity there is conferred (upon pure chastity, upon a pure mind, upon pure speech) the gift of healing the sick by rendering poisonous potions harmless, by restoring the deranged to health, and thus purifying them from ignominious pains, by commanding peace for the hostile, rest for the violent, and gentleness for the unruly, by forcing--under stress of threats and invective--a confession from unclean and roving spirits who have come to dwell within mankind, by roughly ordering them out, and stretching them out with struggles, howls, and groans, as their sufferings on the rack increase, by lashing them with scourges, and burning them with fire. This is what goes on, though no one sees it; the punishments are hidden, but the penalty is open. Thus what we have already begun to be, that is, the Spirit we have received, comes into its kingdom." The Christian already rules with regal power over the entire host of his raging adversary. [237] Most interesting of all are the discussions between Celsus and Origen on demons and possessed persons, since the debate here is between two men who occupied the highest level of contemporary culture. [238] Celsus declared that Christians owed the power they seemed to possess to their invocation and adjuration of certain demons. [239] Origen retorted that the power of banishing demons was actually vested in the name of Jesus and the witness of his life, and that the name of Jesus was so powerful that it operated by itself even when uttered by immoral persons (c. Cels. I. vi.). Both Origen and Celsus, then, believed in demons; and elsewhere (e.g., I. xxiv. f.) Origen adduces the old idea of the power exercised by the utterance of certain "names"; in fact, he indicates a secret "science of names" [240] which confers power on the initiated, although of course one had to be very careful to recite the names in the proper language. "When recited in the Egyptian tongue, the one class is specially efficacious in the case of certain spirits whose power does not extend beyond such things and such a sphere, whilst the other class is effective with some spirits if recited in Persian, and so forth." "The name of Jesus also comes under this science of names, as it has already expelled numerous spirits from the souls and bodies of mankind and shown its power over those who have thus been freed from possession." [241] Origen several times cites the fact of successful exorcism (I. xlvi., xlvii.), and the fact is not denied by Celsus, who admits even the "miracles" of Jesus. Only, his explanation was very different (lxviii.). "The magicians," he said, "undertake still greater marvels, and men trained in the schools of Egypt profess like exploits, people who for a few pence will sell their reverend arts in the open market-place, expelling demons from people, blowing diseases away with their breath, calling up the spirits of the heroes, exhibiting expensive viands, with tables, cakes, and dainties, which are really non-existent, and setting inanimate things in motion as if they really possessed life, whereas they have but the semblance of animals. If any juggler is able to perform feats of this kind, must we on that account regard him as God's son'? Must we not rather declare that such accomplishments are merely the contrivances of knaves possessed by evil demons?" Christians are jugglers or sorcerers or both; Christ also was a master of demonic arts--such was the real opinion of Celsus. [242] Origen was at great pains to controvert this very grievous charge (see, e.g., I. lxviii.). And he succeeded. He could appeal to the unquestionable fact that all Christ's works were wrought with the object of benefiting men. [243] Was it so with magicians? Still, in this reproach of Celsus there lay a serious monition for the church and for the Christians, a monition which more than Celsus canvassed. As early as the middle of the second century a Christian preacher had declared, "The name of the true God is blasphemed among the heathen by reason of us Christians; for if we fulfill not the commands of God, but lead an unworthy life, they turn away and blaspheme, saying that our teaching is merely a fresh myth and error." [244] From the middle of the second century onwards the cry was often raised against Christians, that they were jugglers and necromancers, and not a few of them were certainly to blame for such a charge. [245] Cures of demon-possession practised by unspiritual men as a profession must have produced a repellent impression on more serious people, despite the attractive power which they did exercise (Tert., Apol. xxiii., "Christianos facere consuerunt"). Besides, frivolous or ignorant Christians must often have excused themselves for their sins by pleading that a demon had seduced them, or that it was not they who did the wrong but the demon. [246] But there was hardly any chance of the matter being cleared up in the third century. Christians and pagans alike were getting more and more entangled in the belief in demons. In their dogmas and their philosophy of religion, polytheists certainly became more and more attenuated as a sublime monotheism was evolved; but in practical life they plunged more helplessly than ever into the abysses of an imaginary world of spirits. The protests made by sensible physicians [247] were all in vain. __________________________________________________________________ [208] Based on the essay from which the previous section has largely borrowed. Cp. on this point Weinel, Die Wirkungen des Geistes und der Geister im nachapost. Zeitalter (1899), pp. 1 f., and the article "Dämonische" in the Protest. Real Encykl., iv.(3), by J. Weiss. [209] Tertullian (de Anima ix.) furnishes an excellent example of the way in which morbid spiritual states (especially visions) which befell Christians in the church assemblies depended upon the preaching to which they had just listened. One sister, says Tertullian, had a vision of a soul in bodily form, just after Tertullian had preached on the soul (probably it was upon the corporeal nature of the soul). He adds quite ingenuously that the content of a vision was usually derived from the scriptures which had just been read aloud, from the psalms, or from the sermons. [210] Cp. the biography of Blumhard by Zündel (1881); Ribot's Les maladies de la personnalité (Paris, 1885), Les maladies de la mémoire (Paris, 1881), and Les maladies de la volonté (Paris, 1883) [English translations of the second in the International Scientific Series, and of the first and third in the Religion of Science Library, Chicago]; see also Jundt's work, Rulman Merswin: un problème de psychologie religieuse (Paris, 1890), especially pp. 96 f.; also the investigations of Forel and Krafft-Ebing. [211] Cp. the interesting passage in Joseph., Ant. viii. 2. 5:Paresche Solomoni mathein ho theos kai ten kata ton daimonon technen eis opheleian kai therapeian tois anthropois; epodas te suntaxamenos hais paregoreitai ta nosemata kai tropous exorkoseon katelipen, hois hoi endoumenoi ta daimonia hos meket' epanelthein ekdioxousi; kai haute mechri nun par' hemin he therapeia pleiston ischuei ("God enabled Solomon to learn the arts valid against demons, in order to aid and heal mankind. He composed incantations for the alleviation of disease, and left behind him methods of exorcism by which demons can be finally expelled from people. A method of healing which is extremely effective even in our own day"). Compare also the story that follows this remark. The Jews must have been well known as exorcists throughout the Roman empire. [212] And also the Persian. [213] Cp. the remarkable passage in Dig. Leg. xiii. c. 1, § 3: Medicos fortassis quis accipiet etiam eos qui alicuius partis corporis vel certi doloris sanitatem pollicentur: ut puta si auricularis, si fistulæ vel dentium, non tamen si incantavit, si inprecatus est si ut vulgari verbo impostorum utar, exorcizavit: non sunt ista medicinæ genera, tametsi sint, qui hos sibi profuisse cum praedicatione adfirmant ("Perchance we should admit as physicians those also who undertake to cure special parts of the body or particular diseases, as, for example, the ear, ulcers, or the teeth; yet not if they employ incantations or spells, or--to use the term current among such impostors--if they exorcise.' Though there are people who loudly maintain that they have been helped thereby.") [214] The scientific statement and establishment of this belief, in philosophy, goes back to Xenocrates; after him Posidonius deserves special mention. Cp. Apuleius, de Deo Socratis. [215] Jas. iii. 15 speaks of a sophia daimoniodes. [216] John the Baptist was also said to have been possessed (cp. Matt. xi. 18). [217] Jesus himself explains that he casts out demons by aid of the spirit of God (Matt. xii. 28), but he seems to have been repeatedly charged with possessing the devil and with madness (cp. John vii. 20, viii. 48 f., x. 20). [218] Indeed, it is put first of all. [219] In the pseudo-Clementine epistle "on Virginity" (i. 10), the reading of Scripture, exorcism, and teaching are grouped as the most important functions in religion. [220] See, however, Eph. vi. 12; 2 Cor. xii. 7, etc. [221] No explanation has yet been given of the absence of exorcism in Paul. His doctrine of sin, however, was unfavorable to such phenomena. [222] The history of exorcism (as practised at baptism, and elsewhere on its own account) and of exorcists is far too extensive to be discussed here; besides, in some departments it has not yet been sufficiently investigated. Much information may still be anticipated from the magical papyri, of which an ever-increasing number are coming to light. So far as exorcism and exorcists entered into the public life of the church, see Probst's Sakramente und Sakramentalien, pp. 39 f., and Kirchliche Disziplin, pp. 116 f. [223] Cp. the apologists, Origen's reply to Celsus, and the injunction in the Canons of Hippolytus (Texte u. Unters. vi. 4, pp. 83 f.): "Oionistes vel magus vet astrologus, hariolus, somniorum interpres, praestigiator . . . . vel qui phylacteria conficit . . . . hi omnes et qui sunt similes his neque instruendi neque baptizandi sunt." Observe also the polemic against the magical arts of the Gnostics. [224] Vopiscus, Saturn. 8: "Nemo illic archisynagogus Judaeorum, nemo Samarites, nemo Christianorum presbyter, non mathematicus, non haruspex, non aliptes." [225] Compare the story of the Jewish exorcists in Acts xix. 13: "Now certain of the itinerant Jewish exorcists also undertook to pronounce the name of the Lord Jesus over those who were possessed by evil spirits. I adjure you,' they said, by the Jesus whom Paul preaches.'" It is admitted, in the pseudo-Cypr. de Rebapt. vii., that even non-Christians were frequently able to drive out demons by using the name of Christ. [226] In the formula of exorcism the most important part was the mention of the crucifixion; cp. Justin's Dial. xxx., xlix., lxxvi. [227] Ischuein dokousin . . . . to onomati Iesou meta tes epangelias ton peri auton historion. [228] Cp. the sorry and unsuccessful attempts of the church in Asia to treat the Montanist prophetesses as demoniacs who required exorcism. Compare with this Firmilian's account (Cypr., Epist. lxxv. 10) of a Christian woman who felt herself to be a prophetess, and "deceived" many people: Subito apparuit illi unus de exorcistis, vir probatus et circa religiosam disciplinam bene semper conversatus, qui exhortatione quoque fratrum plurimorum qui et ipsi fortes ac laudabiles in fide aderant excitatus erexit se contra illum spiritum nequam revincendum . . . . ille exorcista inspiratus dei gratia fortiter restitit et esse illum nequissimum spiritum qui prius sanctus putabatur ostendit ("Suddenly there appeared before her one of the exorcists, a tried man, of irreproachable conduct in the matter of religious discipline. At the urgent appeal of many brethren present, themselves as courageous and praiseworthy in the faith, he roused himself to meet and master that wicked spirit. . . . Inspired by the grace of God, that exorcist made a brave resistance, and showed that the spirit which had previously been deemed holy, was in reality most evil"). [229] Still it seems to have been made a matter of reproach, in the third century, if any one had suffered from possession. Cornelius taxes Novatian (cp. Euseb., H.E. vi. 43) with having been possessed by a demon before his baptism, and having been healed by an exorcist. [230] Next to Tertullian, it is his predecessor Tatian who has given the most exact description of the Christian doctrine of demons (in his Oratio ad Græcos vii.-xviii.). The demons introduced "Fatum" and polytheism. To believers, i.e., to men of the Spirit (pneumatikoi), they are visible, but psychic men (psuchikoi) are either unable to see them, or only see them at rare intervals (xv.-xvi.). Illnesses arise from the body, but demons assume the final responsibility for them. "Sometimes, indeed, they convulse our physical state with a storm of their incorrigible wickedness; but smitten by a powerful word of God they depart in terror, and the sick man is cured." Tatian does not deny, as a rule, that possessed persons are often healed, even apart from the aid of Christians. In the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (ix. 10. 16-18) there is also important information upon demons. For the Christian belief in demons, consult also Diels, Elementum (1899), especially pp. 50 f. [231] This ranks as the chef-d'oeuvre of iniquity on the part of the demons; they are responsible for introducing polytheism, i.e., they get worshipped under the images of dead gods, and profit by sacrifices, whose odor they enjoy. [232] In this, as in some other passages of the Apology, Tertullian's talk is too large. [233] See also the interesting observations in de Anima i. [234] 2Cp., for example, de Corona xi. Other Christian writers also express themselves to the same effect, e.g., the speech of Peter in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies (ix. 19), which declares that Christians at baptism obtain a gift of healing other people by means of exorcisms: "Sometimes the demons will flee if you but look on them, for they know those who have surrendered themselves to God, and flee in terror because they honor such people" (eniote de hoi daimones monon enidonton humon pheuxontai; isasin gar tous apodedokotas heautous to theo, dio timontes autous pephobemenoi pheugousin). [235] "Adjurati (daemones) per deum verum et solum inviti miseris corporibus inhorrescunt, et vel exiliunt statim vel evanescunt gradatim, prout fides patientis adiuvat aut gratia curantis adspirat. Sic Christianos de proximo fugitant, quos longe in coetibus per vos lacessebant," etc. [236] See also Quod Idola Dei non sint (vii.), and Cypr., Ep. lxix. 15: "Hodie etiam geritur, ut per exorcistas voce humana et potestate divina flagelletur et uratur et torqueatur diabolus, et cum exire se et homines dei dimittere saepe dicat, in eo tamen quod dixerit fallat . . . . cum tamen ad aquam salutarem adque ad baptismi sanctificationem venitur, scire debemus et fidere [which sounds rather hesitating], quia illic diabolus opprimitur" ("This goes on today as well, in the scourging and burning and torturing of the devil at the hands of exorcists, by means of the human voice and the divine power, and in his declaring that he will go out and leave the men of God alone, yet proving untrue in what he says. . . . . However, when the water of salvation and the sanctification of baptism is reached, we ought to know and trust that the devil is crushed there"). [237] Compare with this Lactantius, Divin. Instit. ii. 15, iv. 27, who repeats in part the description of Cyprian, but lays special emphasis on the sign of the cross as a means of salvation from demons. [238] Origen (in Hom. xv. 5, in Jesu Nave xi., pp. 141 f.) has developed a theory of his own to explain the suppression of demons by the church, especially in the light of its bearing upon the spread of Christianity. "Anyone who vanquishes a demon in himself, e.g., the demon of lewdness, puts it out of action; the demon is cast into the abyss, and cannot do any harm to anyone. Hence there are far fewer demons now than before; hence, also, a large number of demons having been overthrown, the heathen are new free to believe, as they would not be did whole legions of demons exist as formerly" ("Et inde est quod plurimo daemonum numero iam victo ad credulitatem venire gentes relaxantur, qui utique nullatenus sinerentur, si integras eorum, sicut prius fuerant, subsisterent legiones"). [239] The ethical principles of Christianity, says Celsus (I. iv. f.), are common to Christians and philosophers alike, while the apparent strength of the former lies in the names of a few demons and in incantations. [240] Peri onomaton ta en aporretois philosophein. [241] See on this point the statement of Origen's pupil Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (in Euseb., H.E. vii. 10. 4), for the reason why the Valerian persecution broke out. Here pagan and Christian exorcisers opposed each other. Of the latter, Dionysius says: "There are and were among them many persons whose very presence and look, though they merely breathed and spoke, were able to scatter the delusive counsels of the sinful demons." Local persecution of Christians elsewhere, and indeed the great persecution under Diocletian, arose in this way, pagan priests affirming that the presence of Christians who attended the sacrifices hindered their saving influence, etc. [242] He gives his opinion of the Gnostic exorcisers in particular in VI. xxxix. f. [243] Cp., e.g., III. xxviii., and I. lxviii. [244] 2 Clem. xiii. 3, muthon tina kai planen. [245] Origen, who himself admits that Christian exorcists were usually uneducated people, asserts deliberately and repeatedly that they employed neither magic nor sorcery but prayer alone and "formulæ of exorcism which are so plain that even the plainest man can make use of them" (c. Cels. VII. iv.: sun oudeni periergo kai magiko e pharmakeutiko pragmati, alla mone euche kai horkosesin haplousterais kai hosa an dunaito prosagein haplousteros anthropos. Cp. Comm. in Matth. xiii. 7, vol. iii., p. 224). [246] Cp. Origen, de Princip. iii. 2. 1: "Hence some of the less intelligent believers think that all human transgressions arise from their [i.e., the demons'] antagonistic powers, which constrain the mind of the sinner" ("Unde et simpliciores quique domino Christo credentium existimant, quod omnia peccata, quaecumque commiserint homines, ex istis contrariis virtutibus mentem delinquentium perurgentibus fiant"). [247] So the famous physician Posidonius at the close of the fourth century, of whom Philostorgius (H.E. viii. 10, reported by Photius) narrates: "He said, though incorrectly, that it was not by the incentive of demons` that men grew frenzied, but that it was the bad juices of certain sick bodies which wrought the mischief; since the power of demons was in no whit hostile to the nature of man" (legein auton, homos ouk orthos ouchi daimonon epithesei tous anthropous ekbacheuesthai, hugron de tinon kakochumian to pathos ergazesthai; me gar einai to parapan ischun daimonon anthropon phusin epereazousan). __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 4 THE GOSPEL OF LOVE AND CHARITY [248] "I was hungry, and ye fed me; I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink; I was a stranger, and ye took me in; naked, and ye clothed me; I was sick, and ye visited me; I was in prison, and ye came to me. In as much as ye did it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye did it unto me." These words of Jesus have shone so brilliantly for many generations in his church, and exerted so powerful an influence, that one may further describe the Christian preaching as the preaching of love and charity. From this standpoint, in fact, the proclamation of the Saviour and of healing would seem to be merely subordinate, inasmuch as the words "I was sick, and ye visited me" form but one link in the larger chain. Among the extant words and parables of Jesus, those which inculcate love and charity are especially numerous, and with them we must rank many a story of his life. [249] Yet, apart altogether from the number of such sayings, it is plain that whenever he had in view the relations of mankind, the gist of his preaching was to enforce brotherliness and ministering love, and the surest part of the impression he left behind him was that in his own life and labors he displayed both of these very qualities. "One is your Master, and ye are all brethren"; "Whoso would be first among you shall be servant of all; for the Son of Man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many." It is in this sense that we are to understand the commandment to love one's neighbor. How unqualified it is, becomes evident from the saying, "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you; [250] that ye may be sons of your Father in heaven, for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust." "Blessed are the merciful"--that is the keynote of all that Jesus proclaimed, and as this merciful spirit is to extend from great things to trifles, from the inward to the outward, the saying which does not pass over even a cup of cold water (Matt. x. 42) lies side by side with that other comprehensive saying, "Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors." Brotherliness is love on a footing of equality; ministering love means to give and to forgive, and no limit is to be recognized. Besides, ministering love is the practical expression of love to God. While Jesus himself was exhibiting this love, and making it a life and a power, his disciples were learning the highest and holiest thing that can be learned in all religion, namely, to believe in the love of God. To them the Being who had made heaven and earth was "the Father of mercies and the God of all comfort"--a point on which there is no longer any dubiety in the testimony of the apostolic and post-apostolic ages. Now, for the first tine, that testimony rose among men, which cannot ever be surpassed, the testimony that God is Love. The first great statement of the new religion, into which the fourth evangelist condensed its central principle, was based entirely and exclusively on love: "We love, because He first loved us," "God so loved the world," "A new commandment give I unto you, that ye love one another." And the greatest, strongest, deepest thing Paul ever wrote is the hymn commencing with the words: "Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal." The new language on the lids of Christians was the language of love. But it was more than a language, it was a thing of power and action. The Christians really considered themselves brothers and sisters, and their actions corresponded to this belief. On this point we possess two unexceptionable testimonies from pagan writers. Says Lucian of the Christians: "Their original lawgiver had taught them that they were all brethren, one of another. . . . They become incredibly alert when anything of this kind occurs, that affects their common interests. On such occasions no expense is grudged." And Tertullian (Apolog. xxxix.) observes: "It is our care for the helpless, our practice of loving kindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. Only look,' they say, look how they love one another!' (they themselves being given to mutual hatred). Look how they are prepared to die for one another!' [251] (they themselves being readier to kill each other)." Thus had this saying became a fact: "Hereby shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another." The gospel thus became a social message. The preaching which laid hold of the outer man, detaching him from the world, and uniting him to his God, was also a preaching of solidarity and brotherliness. The gospel, it has been truly said, is at bottom both individualistic and socialistic. Its tendency towards mutual association, so far from being an accidental phenomenon in its history, is inherent in its character. It spiritualizes the irresistible impulse which draws one man to another, and it raises the social connection of human beings from the sphere of a convention to that of a moral obligation. In this way it serves to heighten the worth of man, and essays to recast contemporary society, to transform the socialism which involves a conflict of interests into the socialism which rests upon the consciousness of a spiritual unity and a common goal. This was ever present to the mind of the great apostle to the Gentiles. In his little churches, where each person bore his neighbor's burden, Paul's spirit already saw the dawning of a new humanity, and in the epistle to the Ephesians he has voiced this feeling with a thrill of exultation. Far in the background of these churches--i.e., when they were what they were meant to be--like some unsubstantial semblance, lay the division "between Jew and Gentile, Greek and Barbarian, great and small, rich and poor. For a new humanity had now appeared, and the apostle viewed it as Christ's body, in which every member served the rest and each was indispensable in his own place. Looking at these churches, with all their troubles and infirmities, he anticipated, in his exalted moments of enthusiasm, what was the development of many centuries. [252] We cannot undertake to collect from the literature of the first three centuries all the passages where love and charity are enjoined. This would lead us too far afield, although we should come across much valuable material in making such a survey. We would notice the reiteration of the summons to unconditional giving, which occurs among the sayings of Jesus, whilst on the contrary we would be astonished to find that passages enforcing the law of love are not more numerous, and that they are so frequently overshadowed by ascetic counsels; we would also take umbrage at the spirit of a number of passages in which the undisguised desire of being rewarded for benevolence stands out in bold relief. [253] Still, this craving for reward is not in every case immoral, and no conclusion can be drawn from the number of times when it occurs. The important thing is to determine what actually took place within the sphere of Christian charity and active love, and this we shall endeavor to ascertain. Three passages may be brought forward to show the general activities which were afoot. In the official writing sent by the Roman to the Corinthian church c. 96 A.D., there is a description of the first-rate condition of the latter up till a short time previously (1 Clem. i., ii.), a description which furnishes the pattern of what a Christian church should be, and the approximate realization of this ideal at Corinth. "Who that had stayed with you did not approve your most virtuous and steadfast faith? Who did not admire your sober and forbearing Christian piety? Who did not proclaim the splendid style of your hospitality? Who did not congratulate you on your perfect and assured knowledge? For you did everything without respect of persons; you walked by the ordinances of God, submitting to your rulers and rendering due honor to your senior men. Young persons also you charged to have a modest and grave mind; women you instructed to discharge all their tasks with a blameless, grave, and pure conscience, and to cherish a proper affection for their husbands, teaching them further to look after their households decorously, with perfect discretion. You were all lowly in mind, free from vainglory, yielding rather than claiming submission, more ready to give than to take; content with the supplies provided by God and holding by them, you carefully laid up His words in your hearts, and His sufferings were ever present to your minds. Thus a profound and unsullied peace was bestowed on all, with an insatiable craving for beneficence. . . . . Day and night you agonized for all the brotherhood, that by means of compassion and care the number of God's elect might be saved. You were sincere, guileless, and void of malice among yourselves. Every sedition and every schism was an abomination to you. You lamented the transgressions of your neighbors and judged their shortcomings to be your own. You never rued an act of kindness, but were ready for every good work." Then Justin concludes the description of Christian worship in his Apology (c. lxvii.) thus: "Those who are well-to-do and willing, give as they choose, each as he himself purposes; the collection is then deposited with the president, who succours orphans, widows, those who are in want owing to sickness or any other cause, those who are in prison, and strangers who are on a journey." Finally, Tertullian (Apolog. xxxix.) observes: "Even if there does exist a sort of common fund, it is not made up of fees, as though we contracted for our worship. Each of us puts in a small amount one day a month, or whenever he pleases; but only if he pleases and if he is able, for there is no compulsion in the matter, everyone contributing of his own free will. These monies are, as it were, the deposits of piety. They are expended upon no banquets or drinking-bouts or thankless eating-houses, but on feeding and burying poor people, on behalf of boys and girls who have neither parents nor money, in support of old folk unable now to go about, as well as for people who are shipwrecked, or who may be in the mines or exiled in islands or in prison--so long as their distress is for the sake of God's fellowship--themselves the nurslings of their confession." In what follows we shall discuss, so far as may be relevant to our immediate purpose:-- 1. Alms in general, and their connection with the cultus and officials of the church. 2. The support of teachers and officials. 3. The support of widows and orphans. 4. The support of the sick, the infirm, and the disabled. 5. The care of prisoners and people languishing in the mines. 6. The care of poor people needing burial, and of the dead in general. 7. The care of slaves. 8. The care of those visited by great calamities. 9. The churches furnishing work, and insisting upon work. 10. The care of brethren on a journey (hospitality), and of churches in poverty or any peril. 1. Alms in general and in connection with the cultus.--Liberality was steadily enjoined upon Christians; indeed, the headquarters of this virtue were to lie within the household, and its proof was to be shown in daily life. From the apostolic counsels down to Cyprian's great work de Opere et Eleemosynis, there stretches one long line of injunctions, in the course of which ever-increasing stress is laid upon the importance of alms to the religious position of the donor, and upon the prospect of a future recompense. These points are already prominent in Hermas, and in 2 Clem. we are told that "almsgiving is good as a repentance from sin; fasting is better than prayer, but almsgiving is better than either" (kalon eleemosune hos metanoia hamartias, kreisson nesteia proseuches, eleemosune de amphoteron). Cyprian develops alms [254] into a formal means of grace, the only one indeed which remains to a Christian after baptism; in fact he goes still further, representing alms as a spectacle which the Christian offers to God. [255] It is not our business to follow up this aspect of almsgiving, or to discuss the amount of injury thus inflicted on a practice which was meant to flow from a pure love to men. The point is that a great deal, a very great deal, of alms was given away privately throughout the Christian churches. [256] As we have already seen, this was well known to the heathen world. [257] But so far from being satisfied with private almsgiving, [258] early Christianity instituted, apparently from the first, a church fund (Tertullian's arca), and associated charity very closely with the cultus and officials of the church. From the ample materials at our disposal, the following outline may be sketched:--Every Sunday (cp. already 1 Cor. xvi. 2), or once a month (Tertullian), or whenever one chose, gifts in money or kind (stips) were brought to the service and entrusted to the president, by whom they were laid on the Lord's table and so consecrated to God. [259] Hence the recipient obtained them from the hand of God. "Tis God's grace and philanthropy that support you," wrote bishop Cornelius (Eus., H.E. vi. 43). The president decided who were to be the recipients, and how much was to be allocated to each, a business in which he had the advice of the deacons, who were expected to be as familiar as possible with the circumstances of each member, and who had the further task of distributing the various donations, partly at the close of worship, partly in the homes of the indigent. In addition to regular voluntary assessments--for, as the principle of liberty of choice was strictly maintained, we cannot otherwise describe these offerings--there were also extraordinary gifts, such as the present of 200,000 sesterces brought by Marcion when, as a Christian from Asia, he entered the Roman church about the year 139. [260] Among these methods of maintenance we must also include the love-feasts, or agapæ, with which the Lord's Supper was originally associated, but which persisted into a later age. The idea of the love-feast was that the poor got food and drink, since a common meal, to which each contributed as he was able, would unite rich and poor alike. Abuses naturally had to be corrected at an early stage (cp. 1 Cor. xi. 18 f.), and the whole affair (which was hardly a copy of the pagan feasts at the Thiasoi) never seems to have acquired any particular importance upon the whole. [261] From the very first, the president appears to have had practically an absolute control over the donations; [262] but the deacons had also to handle them as executive agents. The responsibility was heavy, as was the temptation to avarice and dishonesty; hence the repeated counsel, that bishops (and deacons) were to be aphilarguroi, "no lovers of money." It was not until a later age that certain principles came to be laid down with regard to the distribution of donations as a whole, from which no divergence was permissible. This system of organized charity in the churches worked side by side with private benevolence--as is quite evident from the letters and writings of Cyprian. But it was inevitable that the former should gradually handicap the latter, since it wore a superior lustre of religious sacredness, and therefore, people were convinced, was more acceptable to God. Yet, in special cases, private liberality was still appealed to. One splendid instance is cited by Cyprian (Epist. lxii.), who describes how the Carthaginian churches speedily raised 100,000 sesterces (between £850 and £1000). [263] In 250 A.D. the Roman church had to support about 100 clergy and 1500 poor persons. Taking the yearly cost of supporting one man at £7, 10s. (which was approximately the upkeep of one slave), we get an annual sum of £12,000. If, however (like Uhlhorn, op. cit., p. 153; Eng. trans., p. 159), we allow sixty Roman bushels of wheat per head a year at 7s. 6d., we get a total of about £4300. It is safe to say, then, that about 250 A.D. the Roman church had to expend from half a million to a million sesterces (i.e., from £5000 to £10,000) by way of relief. The demands made upon the church funds were heavy, as will appear in the course of the following classification and discussion. 2. The support of teachers and officials.--The Pauline principle [264] that the rule about a "laborer being worthy of his hire" applied also to missionaries and teachers, was observed without break or hesitation throughout the Christian churches. The conclusion drawn was that teachers could lay claim to a plain livelihood, and that this claim must always have precedence of any other demand upon the funds. When a church had chosen permanent officials for itself, these also assumed the right of being allowed to claim a livelihood, but only so far as their official duties made inroads upon their civil occupations. [265] Here, too, the bishop had discretionary power; he could appropriate and hand over to the presbyters and deacons whatever he thought suitable and fair, but he was bound to provide the teachers (i.e., missionaries and prophets) with enough to live on day by day. Obviously, this could not fail to give rise to abuses. From the Didachê and Lucian we learn that such abuses did arise, and that privileges were misemployed. [266] 3. The support of widows and orphans. [267] --Wherever the early Christian records mention poor persons who require support, widows and orphans are invariably in the foreground. This corresponds, on the one hand, with the special distress of their position in the ancient world, and on the other hand with the ethical injunctions which had passed over into Christianity from Judaism. As it was, widows and orphans formed the poor kat' exochen The church had them always with her. "The Roman church," wrote bishop Cornelius, "supports 1500 widows and poor persons" (Eus., H.E. vi. 43). Only widows, we note, are mentioned side by side with the general category of recipients of relief. Inside the churches, widows had a special title of honor, viz., "God's altar," [268] and even Lucian the pagan was aware that Christians attended first and foremost to orphans and to widows (Peregrin. xii.). The true worship, James had already urged (i. 27), is to visit widows and orphans in their distress, and Hermas (Mand. viii. 10) opens his catalogue of virtues with the words: cherais huperetein, orphanous kai husteroumenous episkeptesthai ("to serve widows and visit the forlorn and orphans"). [269] It is beyond question that the early church made an important contribution to the amelioration of social conditions among the lower classes, by her support of widows. [270] We need not dwell on the fact, illustrated as early as the epistles to Timothy, that abuses crept into this department. Such abuses are constantly liable to occur wherever human beings are relieved, in whole or in part, of the duty of caring for themselves. [271] 4. The support of the sick, the infirm, the poor, and the disabled.--Mention has already been made of the cure of sick people; but where a cure was impossible the church was bound to support the patient by consolation (for they were remembered in the prayers of the church from the very first; cp. 1 Clem. lix. 4), visitation, [272] and charitable gifts (usually in kind). Next to the sick came those in trouble (en thlipsei) and people sick in soul (kamnontes te psuche, Herm. Mand. viii. 10) as a rule, then the helpless and disabled (Tertullian singles out expressly senes domestici), finally the poor in general. To quote passages would be superfluous, for the duty is repeatedly inculcated; besides, concrete examples are fairly plentiful, although our records only mention such cases incidentally and quite accidentally. [273] Deacons, "widows," and deaconesses (though the last-named were apparently confined to the East) were set apart for this work. It is said of deacons in the Apostolic Constitutions (see Texte u. Unters. ii. 5. 8 f.): "They are to be doers of good works, exercising a general supervision day and night, neither scorning the poor nor respecting the person of the rich; they must ascertain who are in distress and not exclude them from a share in the church funds, compelling also the well-to-do, to put money aside for good works." Of "widows" it is remarked, in the same passage, that they should render aid to women afflicted by disease, and the trait of philoptochos (a lover of the poor) is expected among the other qualities of a bishop. [274] In an old legend dating from the Decian persecution, there is a story of the deacon Laurentius in Rome, who, when desired to hand over the treasures of the church, indicated the poor as its only treasures. This was audacious, but it was not incorrect; from the very first, any possessions of the church were steadily characterized as poor funds; and this remained true during the early centuries. [275] The excellence of the church's charitable system, the deep impression made by it, and the numbers that it won over to the faith, find their best voucher in the action of Julian the Apostate, who attempted an exact reproduction of it in that artificial creation of his, the pagan State-church, in order to deprive the Christians of this very weapon. The imitation, of course, had no success. [276] Julian attests not only the excellence of the church's system of relief, but its extension to non-Christians. He wrote to Arsacius (Sozom. v. 16): "These godless Galileans feed not only their own poor but ours; our poor lack our care." This testimony is all the more weighty inasmuch as our Christian sources yield no satisfactory data on this point. Cp., however, under (8), and Paul's injunction in Gal. vi. 10: "Let us do good to all, especially to those who belong to the household of the faith." "True charity," says Tertullian (Apol. xlii.), "disburses more money in the streets than your religion in the temples." The church-funds were indeed for the use of the brethren alone, but private beneficence did not restrict itself to the household of faith. In a great calamity, as we learn from reliable evidence (see below), Christians did extend their aid to non-Christians, even exciting the admiration of the latter. 5. Care for prisoners and for people languishing in the mines.--The third point in the catalogue of virtues given by Hermas is: ex anankon lutrousthai tous doulous tou theou ("Redeem the servants of God from their bonds"). Prisoners might be innocent for various reasons, but above all there were people incarcerated for their faith or imprisoned for debt, and both classes had to be reached by charity. In the first instance, they had to be visited and consoled, and their plight alleviated by gifts of food. [277] Visiting prisoners was the regular work of the deacons, who had thus to run frequent risks; but ordinary Christians were also expected to discharge this duty. If the prisoners had been arrested for their faith, and if they were rather distinguished teachers, there was no hardship in obeying the command; in fact, many moved heaven and earth to get access to prisoners, [278] since it was considered that there was something sanctifying about intercourse with a confessor. In order to gain admission they would even go the length of bribing the gaolers, [279] and thus manage to smuggle in decent meals and crave a blessing from the saints. The records of the martyrs are full of such tales. Even Lucian knew of the practice, and pointed out the improprieties to which it gave rise. Christian records, particularly those of a later date, [280] corroborate this, and as early as the Montanist controversy it was a burning question whether or no any prominent confessor was really an impostor, if, after being imprisoned for misdemeanors, he made out as if he had been imprisoned on account of the Christian faith. Such abuses, however, were inevitable, and upon the whole their number was not large. The keepers, secretly impressed by the behavior of the Christians, often consented of their own accord to let them communicate with their friends (Acta Perpet. ix.: "Pudens miles optio, præpositus carceris, nos magnificare coepit, intelligens magnam virtutem esse in nobis; qui multos ad nos admittebat, ut et nos et illi invicem refrigeraremus" ("Pudens, a military subordinate in charge of the prison, began to have a high opinion of us, since he recognized there was some great power of God in us. He let many people in to see us, that we and they might refresh one another"). If any Christian brethren were sentenced to the mines, they were still looked after, even there. [281] Their names were carefully noted; attempts were made to keep in touch with them; efforts were concocted to procure their release, [282] and brethren were sent to ease their lot, to edify and to encourage them. [283] The care shown by Christians for prisoners was so notorious that (according to Eusebius, H.E. v. 8) Licinius, the last emperor before Constantine who persecuted the Christians, passed a law to the effect that "no one was to show kindness to sufferers in prison by supplying them with food, and that no one was to show mercy to those who were starving in prison." "In addition to this," Eusebius proceeds to relate, "a penalty was attached, to the effect that those who showed compassion were to share the fate of the objects of their charity, and that those who were humane to the unfortunate were to be flung into bonds and imprisonment and endure the same suffering as the others." This law, which was directly aimed at Christians, shows, more clearly than anything else could do, the care lavished by Christians upon their captive brethren, although much may have crept in connection with this which the State could not tolerate. But they did more than try to merely alleviate the lot of prisoners. Their aim was to get them ransomed. Instances of this cannot have been altogether rare, but unfortunately it is difficult for us to form any judgment on this matter, since in a number of instances, when a ransom is spoken of, we cannot be sure whether prisoners or slaves are meant. Ransoming captives, at any rate, was regarded as a work which was specially noble and well-pleasing to God, but it never appears to have been undertaken by any church. To the last it remained a monopoly of private generosity and along this line individuals displayed a spirit of real heroism. [284] 6. Care of poor people requiring burial, and of the dead in general.--We may begin here with the words of Julian, in his letter to Arsacius (Soz., v. 15): "This godlessness (i.e., Christianity) is mainly furthered by its philanthropy towards strangers and its careful attention to the bestowal of the dead." Tertullian declares (see p. 153) that the burial of poor brethren was performed at the expense of the common fund, and Aristides (Apol. xv.) corroborates this, although with him it takes the form of private charity. "Whenever," says Aristides, "one of their poor passes from the world, one of them looks after him and sees to his burial, according to his means." We know the great importance attached to an honorable burial in those days, and the pain felt at the prospect of having to forego this privilege. In this respect the Christian church was meeting a sentiment which even its opponents felt to be a human duty. Christians, no doubt, were expected to feel themselves superior to any earthly ignominy, but even they felt it was a ghastly thing not to be buried decently. The deacons were specially charged with the task of seeing that everyone was properly interred (Const. Ap. iii. 7), [285] and in certain cases they did not restrict themselves to the limits of the brotherhood. "We cannot bear," says Lactantius (Instit. 6.12), "that the image and workmanship of God should be exposed as a prey to wild beasts and birds, but we restore it to the earth from which it was taken, [286] and do this office of relatives even to the body of a person whom we do not know, since in their room humanity must step in." [287] At this point also we must include the care of the dead after burial. These were still regarded in part as destitute and fit to be supported. Oblations were presented in their name and for the welfare of their souls, which served as actual intercessions on their behalf. This primitive custom was undoubtedly of immense significance to the living; it comforted many an anxious relative, and added greatly to the attractive power of Christianity. [288] 7. Care for slaves. -- It is a mistake to suppose that any "slave question" occupied the early church. The primitive Christians looked on slavery with neither a more friendly nor a more hostile eye than they did upon the State and legal ties. [289] They never dreamt of working for the abolition of the State, nor did it ever occur to them to abolish slavery for humane or other reasons -- not even amongst themselves. The New Testament epistles already assume that Christian masters have slaves (not merely that pagan masters have Christian slaves), and they give no directions for any change in this relationship. On the contrary, slaves are earnestly admonished to be faithful and obedient. [290] Still, it would not be true to assert that primitive Christianity was indifferent to slaves and their condition. On the contrary, the church did turn her attention to them, and effected some change in their condition. This follows from such considerations as these:-- (a) Converted slaves, male or female, were regarded in the full sense of the term as brothers and sisters from the standpoint of religion. Compared to this, their position in the world was reckoned a matter of indifference. [291] (b) They shared the rights of church members to the fullest extent. Slaves could even become clergymen, and in fact bishops. [292] (c) As personalities (in the moral sense) they were to be just as highly esteemed as freemen. The sex of female slaves had to be respected, nor was their modesty to be outraged. The same virtues were expected from slaves as from freemen, and consequently their virtues earned the same honor. [293] (d) Masters and mistresses were strictly charged to treat all their slaves humanely, [294] but, on the other hand, to remember that Christian slaves were their own brethren. [295] Christian slaves, for their part, were told not to disdain their Christian masters, i.e., they were not to regard themselves as their equals. [296] (e) To set a slave free was looked upon, probably from the very beginning, as a praiseworthy action; [297] otherwise, no Christian slave could have had any claim to be emancipated. Although the primitive church did not admit any such claim on their part, least of all any claim of this kind on the funds of the church, there were cases in which slaves had their ransom paid for out of such funds. [298] The church never condemned the rights of masters over slaves as sinful; it simply saw in them a natural relationship. In this sphere the source of reform lay, not in Christianity, but in general considerations derived from moral philosophy and in economic necessities. From one of the canons of the Council of Elvira (c. 300 A.D.), as well as from other minor sources, we learn that even in the Christian church, during the third century in particular, cases unfortunately did occur in which slaves were treated with revolting harshness and barbarity. [299] In general, one has to recollect that even as early as the second century a diminution of the great slave-establishment can be detected--a diminution which, on economic grounds, continued during the third century. The liberation of slaves was frequently a necessity; it must not be regarded, as a rule, in the light of an act prompted by compassion or brotherly feeling. 8. Care for people visited by great calamities.--As early as Hebrews x. 32 f. a church is commended for having nobly stood the test of a great persecution and calamity, thanks to sympathy and solicitous care. From that time onward, we frequently come across counsels to Christian brethren to show themselves especially active and devoted in any emergencies of distress; not counsels merely, but also actual proofs that they bore fruit. We shall not, at present, go into cases in which churches lent aid to sister churches, even at a considerable distance; these fall to be noticed under section 10. But some examples referring to calamities within a church itself may be set down at this stage of our discussion. When the plague raged in Alexandria (about 259 A.D.), bishop Dionysius wrote (Euseb., H.E., vii. 22): "The most of our brethren did not spare themselves, so great was their brotherly affection. They held fast to each other, visited the sick without fear, ministered to them assiduously, and served them for the sake of Christ. Right gladly did they perish with them. . . . Indeed many did die, after caring for the sick and giving health to others, transplanting the death of others, as it were, into themselves. In this way the noblest of our brethren died, including some presbyters and deacons and people of the highest reputation. . . . . Quite the reverse was it with the heathen. They abandoned those who began to sicken, fled from their dearest friends, threw out the sick when half dead into the streets, and let the dead lie unburied." A similar tale is related by Cyprian of the plague at Carthage. He exclaims to the pagan Demetrianus (x.): "Pestem et luem criminaris, cum peste ipsa et lue vel detecta sint vel aucta crimina singulorum, dum nec infirmis exhibetur misericordia et defunctis avaritia inhiat ac rapina. Idem ad pietatis obseqium timidi, [300] ad impia lucra temerarii, fugientes morientium funera et adpetentes spolia mortuorum" ("You blame plague and disease, when plague and disease either swell or disclose the crimes of individuals, no mercy being shown to the weak, and avarice and rapine gaping greedily for the dead. The same people are sluggish in the discharge of the duties of affection, who rashly seek impious gains; they shun the deathbeds of the dying, but make for the spoils of the dead"). Cyprian's advice is seen in his treatise de Mortalitate. His conduct, and the way he inspired other Christians by his example, are narrated by his biographer Pontianus (Vita, ix. f.): "Adgregatam primo in loco plebem de misercordiae bonis instruit. Docet divinae lectionis exemplis . . . . tunc deinde subiungit nun esse mirabile, si nostros tantum debito caritatis obsequio foveremus; cum enim perfectum posse fieri, qui plus aliquid publicano vel ethnico fecerit, qui malum bono vincens et divinae clementiae instar exercens inimicos quoque dilexerit. . . . . Quid Christiana plebs faceret, cui de fide nomen est? distributa sunt ergo continuo pro qualitate hominum atque ordinum ministeria [organized charity, then]. Multi qui paupertatis beneficio sumptus exhibere non poterant, plus sumptibus exhibebant, compensantes proprio labore mercedem divitiis omnibus cariorem . . . . fiebat itaque exuberantium operum largitate, quod bonum est ad omnes, non ad solos domesticos fidei ("The people being assembled together, he first of all urges on them the benefits of mercy. By means of examples drawn from the sacred lessons, he teaches them. . . . Then he proceeds to add that there is nothing remarkable in cherishing merely our own people with the due attentions of love, but that one might become perfect who should do something more than heathen men or publicans, one who, overcoming evil with good, and practicing a merciful kindness like to that of God, should love his enemies as well. . . . What should a Christian people do, a people whose very name was derived from faith? The contributions are always distributed then according to the degree of the men and of their respective ranks. Many who, on the score of poverty, could not make any show of wealth, showed far more than wealth, as they made up by personal labor an offering dearer than all the riches in the world. Thus the good done was done to all men, and not merely to the household of faith, so richly did the good works overflow"). We hear exactly the same story of practical sympathy and self-denying love displayed by Christians even to outsiders, in the great plague which occurred during the reign of Maximinus Daza (Eus., H.E., ix. 8): "Then did they show themselves to the heathen in the clearest light. For the Christians were the only people who amid such terrible ills showed their fellow feeling and humanity by their actions. Day by day some would busy themselves with attending to the dead and burying them (for there were numbers to whom no one else paid any heed); others gathered in one spot all who were afflicted by hunger throughout the whole city, and gave bread to them all. When this became known, people glorified the Christians' God, and, convinced by the very facts, confessed the Christians alone were truly pious and religious." It may be inferred with certainty, as Eusebius himself avows, that cases of this kind made a deep impression upon those who were not Christians, and that they gave a powerful impetus to the propaganda. 9. The churches furnishing work and insisting upon work.--Christianity at the outset spread chiefly among people who had to work hard. The new religion did not teach its votaries "the dignity of labor" or "the noble pleasure invariably afforded by work" What it inculcated was just the duty of work. [301] "If any will not work, neither let him eat" (2 Thess. iii. 10). Over and again it was enunciated that the duty of providing for others was conditioned by their incapacity for work. The brethren had soon to face the fact that some of their numbers were falling into restless and lazy habits, as well as the sadder fact that these very people were selfishly trying to trade upon the charity of their neighbors. This was so notorious that even in the brief compass of the Didachê there is a note of precautions which are to be taken to checkmate such attempts, while in Lucian's description of the Christians he singles out, as one of their characteristic traits, a readiness to let cunning impostors take advantage of their brotherly love. [302] Christianity cannot be charged at any rate with the desire of promoting mendicancy or with underestimating the duty of work. [303] Even the charge of being "infructuosi in negotiis" (of no use in practical affairs) was repudiated by Tertullian. "How so?" he asks. "How can that be when such people dwell beside you, sharing your way of life, your dress, your habits, and the same needs of life? We are no Brahmins or Indian gymnosophists, dwelling in woods and exiled from life. . . . We stay beside you in this world, making use of the forum, the provision-market, the bath, the booth, the workshop, the inn, the weekly market, and all other places of commerce. We sail with you, fight at your side, till the soil with you, and traffic with you; we likewise join our technical skill to that of others, and make our works public property for your use" (Apol., xlii.). [304] Even clerics were not exempted from making a livelihood, [305] and admirable sayings on the need of labor occur in Clement of Alexandria as well as in other writers. We have already observed (pp. 155 f.) that one incentive to work was found in the consideration that money could thus be gained for the purpose of supporting other people, and this idea was by no means thrown out at random. Its frequent repetition, from the epistle to the Ephesians onwards, shows that people recognized in it a powerful motive for the industrious life. It was also declared in simple and stirring language that the laborer was worthy of his hire, and a fearful judgment was prophesied for those who defrauded workmen of their wages (see especially Jas. v. 4 f.). It is indeed surprising that work was spoken of in such a sensible way, and that the duty of work was inculcated so earnestly, in a society which was so liable to fanaticism and indolence. But we have not yet alluded to what was the really noticeable feature in this connection. We have already come across several passages which would lead us to infer that, together with the recognition that every Christian brother had the right to a bare provision for livelihood, the early Christian church also admitted its obligation to secure this minimum either by furnishing him with work or else by maintaining him. Thus we read in the pseudo-Clementine homilies (cp. Clem., viii.): "For those able to work, provide work; and to those incapable of work, be charitable." [306] Cyprian also (Ep., ii.) assumes that if the church forbids some teacher of dramatic art to practice his profession, it must look after him, or, in the event of his being unable to do anything else, provide him with the necessaries of life. [307] We were not aware, however, if this was really felt to be a duty by the church at large, till the discovery of the Didachê. This threw quite a fresh light on the situation. In the Didachê (xii.) it is ordained that no brother who is able to work is to be maintained by any church for more than two or three days. The church accordingly had the right of getting rid of such brethren. But the reverse side of this right was a duty. "If any brother has a trade, let him follow that trade and earn the bread he eats. If he has no trade, exercise your discretion in arranging for him to live among you as a Christian, but not in idleness. If he will not do this (i.e., engage in the work with which you furnish him), he is trafficking with Christ (christemporos). Beware of men like that." It is beyond question, therefore, that a Christian brother could demand work from the church, and that the church had to furnish him with work. What bound the members together, then, was not merely the duty of supporting one another--that was simply the ultima ratio; it was the fact that they formed a guild of workers, in the sense that the churches had to provide work for a brother whenever he required it. This fact seems to me of great importance, from the social standpoint. The churches were also labor unions. The case attested by Cyprian proves that there is far more here than a merely rhetorical maxim. The Church did prove in this way a refuge for people in distress who were prepared to work. Its attractive power was consequently intensified, and from the economic standpoint we must attach very high value to a union which provided work for those who were able to work, and at the same time kept hunger from those who were unfit for any labor. 10. Care for brethren on a journey (hospitality) and for churches in poverty or peril. [308] --The diaconate went outside the circle of the individual church when it deliberately extended its labors to include the relief of strangers, i.e., in the first instance of Christian brethren on their travels. In our oldest account of Christian worship on Sunday (Justin, Apol., I. lxvii.; see above, p. 153), strangers on their travels are included in the list of those who receive support from the church-collections. This form of charity was thus considered part of the church's business, instead of merely being left to the goodwill of individuals; though people had recourse in many ways to the private method, while the virtue of hospitality was repeatedly inculcated on the faithful. [309] In the first epistle of Clement to the Corinthian church, it is particularly noted, among the distinguishing virtues of the church, that anyone who had stayed there praised their splendid sense of hospitality. [310] But during the early centuries of Christianity it was the Roman church more than any other which was distinguished by the generosity with which it practiced this virtue. In one document from the reign of Marcus Aurelius, a letter of Dionysius the bishop of Corinth to the Roman church, it is acknowledged that the latter has maintained its primitive custom of showing kindness to foreign brethren. "Your worthy bishop Soter has not merely kept up this practice, but even extended it, by aiding the saints with rich supplies, which he sends from time to time, and also by addressing blessed words of comfort to brethren coming up to Rome, like a loving father to his children" (Eus., H.E., iv. 23. 10). We shall return to this later on; meanwhile it may be pointed out, in this connection, that the Roman church owed its rapid rise to supremacy in Western Christendom, not simply to its geographical position within the capital of the empire, or to the fact of its having been the seat of apostolic activity throughout the West, but also to the fact that it recognized the special obligation of caring for Christians in general, which fell to it as the church of the imperial capital. A living interest in the collective church of Christ throbbed with peculiar intensity throughout the Roman church, as we shall see, from the very outset, and the practice of hospitality was one of its manifestations. At a time when Christianity was still a homeless religion, the occasional travels of the brethren were frequently the means of bringing churches together which otherwise would have had no common tie; while in an age when Christian captives were being dragged off, and banished to distant spots throughout the empire, and when brethren in distress sought shelter and solace, the practical proof of hospitality must have been specially telling. As early as the second century one bishop of Asia Minor even wrote a book upon this virtue. [311] So highly was it prized within the churches that it was put next to faith as the genuine proof of faith. "For the sake of his faith and hospitality, Abraham had a son given him in his old age." "For his hospitality and piety was Lot saved from Sodom." "For the sake of her faith and hospitality was Rahab saved." Such are the examples of which, in these very words, the Roman church reminds her sister at Corinth. [312] Nor was this exercise of hospitality merely an aid in passing. The obligation of work imposed by the Christian church has been already mentioned (cp. pp. 173 f.); if any visitors wished to settle down, they had to take up some work, as is plain from the very provision made for such cases. Along roads running through waste country hospices were erected. The earliest case of this occurs in the Acta Archelai [313] (fourth century). It was easy to take advantage of a spirit so obliging and unsparing (e.g., the case of Proteus Peregrinus, and especially the churches' sad experience of so-called prophets and teachers). Heretics could creep in, and so could loafers or impostors. We note, accordingly, that definite precautions were taken against these at quite an early period. The new arrival is to be tested to see whether or not he is a Christian (cp. 2 and 3 John; Did., xii.). In the case of an itinerant prophet, his words are to be compared with his actions. No brother is to remain idle in any place for more than two days, or three at the very most; after that, he must either leave or labor (Did., xii.). Later on, any brother on a journey was required to bring with him a passport from his church at home. Things must have come to a sad pass when (as the Didachê informs us) it was decreed that any visitor must be adjudged a false prophet without further ado, if during an ecstasy he ordered a meal and then partook of it, or if in an ecstasy he asked for money. Many a traveler, however, who desired to settle down, did not come with empty hands; such persons did not ask, they gave. Thus we know (see above) that when Marcion came from Pontus and joined the Roman church, he contributed 200,000 sesterces to its funds (Tert., de Præscr., xxx.). Still, such cases were the exception; as a rule, visitors were in need of assistance. Care lavished on brethren on a journey blossomed naturally into a sympathy and care for any distant churches in poverty or peril. The keen interest shown in a guest could not cease when he left the threshold of one's house or passed beyond the city gates. And more than this, the guest occupied the position of a representative to any church at which he arrived; he was a messenger to them from some distant circle of brethren who were probably entire strangers and were yet related to them. His account of the distress and suffering of his own church, or of its growth and spiritual gifts, was no foreign news. The primitive churches were sensible that their faith and calling bound them closely together in this world; they felt, as the apostle enjoined, that "if one member suffer, all the members suffer with it, while if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it" (1 Cor. xii. 26). And there is no doubt whatever that the consciousness of this was most vigorous and vital in the very ages during which no external bond as yet united the various churches, the latter standing side by side in almost entire independence of each other. These were the ages when the primitive article of the common symbol, "I believe in one holy church," was really nothing more than an article of faith. And of course the effect of the inward ties was all the stronger when people were participating in a common faith which found expression ere long in a brief and vigorous confession, or practicing the same love and patience and Christian discipline, or turning their hopes in common to that glorious consummation of Christ's kingdom of which they had each received the earnest and the pledge. These common possessions stimulated brotherly love; they made strangers friends, and brought the distant near. "By secret signs and marks they manage to recognize one another, loving each other almost before they are acquainted"; such is the description of Christians given by the pagan Cæcilius (Min. Felix, ix. 3). Changes afterwards took place; but this vital sense of belonging to one brotherhood never wholly disappeared. In the great prayers of thanksgiving and supplication offered every Sabbath by the churches, there was a fixed place assigned to intercession for the whole of Christendom throughout the earth. Before very long this kindled the consciousness that every individual member belonged to the holy unity of Christendom, just as it also kept them mindful of the services which they owed to the general body. In the epistles and documents of primitive Christianity, wherever the church-prayers emerge their ecumenical character becomes clear and conspicuous. [314] Special means of intercourse were provided by epistles, circular letters, collections of epistles, the transmission of acts or of official records, or by travelers and special messengers. When matters of importance were at stake, the bishops themselves went forth to settle controversial questions or to arrange a common basis of agreement. It is not our business in these pages to describe all this varied intercourse. We shall confine ourselves to the task of gathering and explaining those passages in which one church comes to the aid of another in any case of need. Poverty, sickness, persecution, and suffering of all kinds formed one class of troubles which demanded constant help on the part of churches that were better off; while, in a different direction, assistance was required in those internal crises of doctrine and of conduct which might threaten a church and in fact endanger its very existence. Along both of these lines the brotherly love of the churches had to prove its reality. The first case of one church supporting another occurs at the very beginning of the apostolic age. In Acts xi. 27 f. we read that Agabus in Antioch foretold a famine. On the news of this, the young church at Antioch made a collection on behalf of the poor brethren in Judæa, and dispatched the proceeds to them by the hands of Barnabas and Paul. [315] It was a Gentile Christian church which was the first, so far as we are aware, to help a sister church in her distress. Shortly after this, the brotherly love felt by young Christian communities drawn from pagans in Asia and Europe is reported to have approved itself on a still wider scale. Even after the famine had passed, the mother church at Jerusalem continued poor. Why, we do not know. An explanation has been sought in the early attempt by which that church is said to have introduced a voluntary community of goods; it was the failure of this attempt, we are to believe, that left the local church impoverished. This is merely a vague conjecture. Nevertheless, the poverty at Jerusalem remains a fact. At the critical conference in Jerusalem, when the three pillar-apostles definitely recognized Paul's mission to the Gentiles, the latter pledged himself to remember the poor saints at Jerusalem in distant lands; and the epistles to the Galatians, the Corinthians, and the Romans, show how widely and faithfully the apostle discharged this obligation. His position in this matter was by no means easy. He had made himself responsible for a collection whose value depended entirely on the voluntary devotion of the churches which he founded. But he was sure he could rely on them, and in this he did not deceive himself. Paul's churches made his concerns their own, and money for the brethren far away at Jerusalem was collected in Galatia, Macedonia, and Achaia. Even when the apostle had to endure the prospect of all his work in Corinth being endangered by a severe local crisis, he did not fail to remember the business of the collection along with more important matters. The local arrangements for it had almost come to a standstill by the time he wrote, and the aim of his vigorous, affectionate, and graceful words of counsel to the church is to revive the zeal which had been allowed to cool amid their party quarrels (2 Cor. viii. 9). Not long afterwards he is able to tell the Romans that "those of Macedonia and Achaia freely chose to make a certain contribution for the poor saints at Jerusalem. They have done it willingly, and indeed it was a debt. For if the Gentiles have been made partakers of their spiritual things, they owe it to them also to minister to them in secular things" (Rom. xv. 26 f.). In this collection Paul saw a real duty of charity which rested on the Gentile churches, and one has only to realize the circumstances under which the money was gathered in order to understand the meaning it possessed for the donors themselves. As yet, there was no coming or going between the Gentile and the Judean Christians, though the former had to admit that the latter were one with themselves as brethren and as members of a single church. The churches in Asia and Europe were imitators of the churches of God in Judæa, (1 Thess. ii. 14), yet they had no fellowship in worship, life, or customs. This collection formed, therefore, the one visible expression of that brotherly unity which otherwise was rooted merely in their common faith. This was what lent it a significance of its own. For a considerable period this devotion of the Gentile Christians to their distressed brethren in Jerusalem was the sole manifestation, even in visible shape, of the consciousness that all Christians shared an inner fellowship. We do not know how long the contributions were kept up. The great catastrophes which occurred in Palestine after 65 A.D. had a disastrous effect at any rate upon the relations between Gentile Christians and their brethren in Jerusalem and Palestine. [316] --Forty years later the age of persecutions burst upon the churches, though no general persecution occurred until the middle of the third century. When some churches were in distress, their possessions seized [317] and their existence imperilled, the others could not feel happy in their own undisturbed position. Succor of their persecuted brethren seemed to them a duty, and it was a duty from which they did not shrink. Justin (loc. cit.) tells us that the maintenance of imprisoned Christians was one of the regular objects to which the church collections were devoted, a piece of information which is corroborated and enlarged by the statement of Tertullian, that those who languished in the mines or were exiled to desert islands or lay in prison all received monies from the church. [318] Neither statement explains if it was only members of the particular church in question who were thus supported. This, however, is inherently improbable, and there are express statements to the contrary, including one from a pagan source. Dionysius of Corinth (Eus., H.E., iv. 23. 10) writes thus to the Roman Christians about the year 170: "From the very first you have had this practice of aiding all the brethren in various ways and of sending contributions to many churches in every city, thus in one case relieving the poverty of the needy, or in another providing for brethren in the mines. By these gifts, which you have sent from the very first, you Romans keep up the hereditary customs of the Romans, a practice your bishop Soter has not merely maintained but even extended." A hundred years later Dionysius, the bishop of Alexandria, in writing to Stephen the bishop of Rome, has occasion to mention the churches in Syria and Arabia. Whereupon he remarks in passing, "To them you send help regularly, and you have just written them another letter" (Eus., H.E., vii. 5. 2). Basil the Great informs us that under bishop Dionysius (259-269 A.D.) the Roman church sent money to Cappadocia to purchase the freedom of some Christian captives from the barbarians, an act of kindness which was still remembered with gratitude in Cappadocia at the close of the fourth century. [319] Thus Corinth, Syria, Arabia, and Cappadocia, all of them churches in the East, unite in testifying to the praise of the church at Rome; and we can understand, from the language of Dionysius of Corinth, how Ignatius could describe that church as the prokathemene tes agapes, "the leader of love." [320] Nor were other churches and their bishops behindhand in the matter. Similar stories are told of the church at Carthage and its bishop Cyprian. From a number of letters written shortly before his execution, it is quite clear that Cyprian sent money to provide for the Christians who then lay captive in Numidia (Ep. lxxvi.-lxxix.), and elsewhere in his correspondence there is similar evidence of his care for stranger Christians and foreign churches. The most memorable of his letters, in this respect, is that addressed to the bishops of Numidia in 253 A.D. The latter had informed him that wild hordes of robbers had invaded the country and carried off many Christians of both sexes into captivity. Whereupon Cyprian instituted a collection on their behalf and forwarded the proceeds to the bishops along with the following letter (Ep. lxii.). It is the most elaborate and important document from the first three centuries bearing upon the support extended to one church by another, and for that reason we may find space for it at this point. "Cyprian to Januarius, Maximus, Proculus, Victor, Modianus, Nemesianus, Nampulus, and Honoratus, the brethren: greeting. "With sore anguish of soul and many a tear have I read the letter which in your loving solicitude you addressed to me, dear brethren, with regard to the imprisonment of our brothers and sisters. Who would not feel anguish over such misfortunes? Who would not make his brother's grief his own? For, says the apostle Paul: Should one member suffer, all the others suffer along with it; and should one member rejoice, the others rejoice with it also. And in another place he says: Who is weak, and I am not weak? We must therefore consider the present imprisonment of our brethren as our imprisonment, reckoning the grief of those in peril as our grief. We form a single body in our union, and we ought to be stirred and strengthened by religious duty as well as by love to redeem our members the brethren. "For as the apostle Paul once more declares: Know ye not that ye are God's temple and that the Holy Spirit dwelleth in you? Though love failed to stir us to succor the brethren, we must in this case consider that it is temples of God who are imprisoned, nor dare we by our procrastination and neglect of fellow-feeling allow temples of God to remain imprisoned for any length of time, but must put forth all our energies, and with all speed manage by mutual service to deserve the grace of Christ our Lord, our Judge, our God. For since the apostle Paul says: So many of you as are baptized into Christ have put on Christ, we must see Christ in our imprisoned brethren, redeeming from the peril of imprisonment him who redeemed us from the peril of death. He who took us from the jaws of the devil, who bought us with his blood upon the cross, who now abides and dwells in us, he is now to be redeemed by us for a sum of money from the hands of the barbarians. . . . . Will not the feeling of humanity and the sense of united love incline each father among you to look upon those prisoners as his sons, every husband to feel, with anguish for the marital tie, that his wife languishes in that imprisonment?" Then, after an account of the special dangers incurred by the consecrated "virgins"--"our church, having weighed and sorrowfully examined all those matters in accordance with your letter, has gathered donations for the brethren speedily, freely, and liberally; for while, according to its powers of faith, it is ever ready for any work of God, it has been raised to a special pitch of charity on this occasion by the thought of all this suffering. For since the Lord says in his gospel: I was sick and ye visited me, with what ampler reward for our alms will he now say I was in prison and ye redeemed me? And since again he says I was in prison and ye visited me, how much better will it be for us on the day of judgment, when we are to receive the Lord's reward, to hear him say: I was in the dungeon of imprisonment, in bonds and fetters among the barbarians, and ye rescued me from that prison of slavery! Finally, we thank you heartily for summoning us to share your trouble and your noble and necessary act of love, and for offering us a rich harvest-field wherein to scatter the seeds of our hope, in the expectation of reaping a very plentiful harvest from this heavenly and helpful action. We transmit to you a sum of a hundred thousand sesterces [close upon £1000] collected and contributed by our clergy and people here in the church over which by God's mercy we preside; this you will dispense in the proper quarter at your own discretion. "In conclusion, we trust that nothing like this will occur in future, but that, guarded by the power of God, our brethren may henceforth be quit of all such perils. Still, should the like occur again, for a test of love and faith, do not hesitate to write of it to us; be sure and certain that while our own church and the whole of the church pray fervently that this may not recur, they will gladly and generously contribute even if it does take place once more. In order that you may remember in prayer our brethren and sisters who have taken so prompt and liberal a share in this needful act of love, praying that they may be ever quick to aid, and in order also that by way of return you may present them in your prayers and sacrifices, I add herewith the names of all. Further, I have subjoined the names of my colleagues (the bishops) and fellow-priests, who like myself were present and made such contributions as they could afford in their own name and in the name of their people; I have also noted and forwarded their small sums along with our own total. It is your duty--faith and love alike require it--to remember all these in your prayers and supplications. "Dearest brethren, we wish you unbroken prosperity in the Lord. Remember us." Plainly the Carthaginian church is conscious here of having done something out of the common. But it is intensely conscious also of having thus discharged a duty of Christian love, and the religious basis of the duty is laid down in exemplary fashion. It is also obvious that so liberal a grant could not be taken from the proceeds of the ordinary church-collections. Yet another example of Cyprian's care for a foreign church is extant. In the case (cp. above, p. 175) already mentioned of the teacher of the histrionic art who is to give up his profession and be supported by the church, if he has no other means of livelihood, Cyprian (Ep. ii.) writes that the man may come to Carthage and find maintenance in the local church if his own church is too poor to feed him. [321] Lucian's satire on the death of Peregrinus, in the days of Marcus Aurelius, is a further witness to the alert and energetic temper of the interest taken in churches at the outbreak of persecution or during a period of persecution. The governor of Syria had ordered the arrest of this character, who is described by Lucian as a nefarious impostor. Lucian then describes the honor paid him, during his imprisonment, by Christians, and proceeds as follows: "In fact, people actually came from several Asiatic townships, sent by Christians, in the name of their churches, to render aid, to conduct the defence, and to encourage the man. They become incredibly alert when anything of this kind occurs that affects their common interests. On such occasions, no expense is grudged. Thus they pour out on Peregrinus, at this time, sums of money which were by no means trifling, and he drew from this source a considerable income." [322] What Lucian relates in this passage cannot, therefore, have been an infrequent occurrence. Brethren arrived from afar in the name of their churches, not merely to bring donations for the support of prisoners, but also to visit them in prison, and to encourage them by evidences of love; they actually endeavored to stand beside them in the hour of trial. The seven epistles of Ignatius form, as it were, a commentary upon these observations of the pagan writer. In them we find the keen sympathy shown by the churches of Asia Minor as well as by the Roman church in the fortunes of a bishop upon whom they had never set eyes before: we also get a vivid sense of their care for the church at Antioch, which was now orphaned. Ignatius is being taken from Antioch to Rome in order to fight with beasts at the capital, and meanwhile the persecution of Christians at Antioch proceeds apace. On reaching Smyrna, he is greeted by deputies from the churches of Ephesus, Magnesia, and Tralles. After several days' intercourse, he entrusts them with letters to their respective churches, in which, among other things, he warmly commends to the brethren of Asia Minor his own forlorn church. "Pray for the church in Syria," he writes to the Ephesians. "Remember the church in Syria when you pray," he writes to the Trallians; "I am not worthy to belong to it, since I am the least of its members." And in the letter to the Magnesians he repeats this request, comparing the church at Antioch to a field scorched by the fiery heat of persecution, which needs some refreshing dew: the love of the brethren is to revive it. [323] At the same time we find him turning to the Romans also. There appears to have been some brother from Ephesus who was ready to convey a letter to the Roman church, but Ignatius assumes they will learn of his fortunes before the letter reaches them. What he fears is, lest they should exert their influence at court on his behalf, or rob him of his coveted martyrdom by appealing to the Emperor. The whole of the letter is written with the object of blocking the Roman church upon this line of action. [324] But all that concerns us here is the fact that a stranger bishop from abroad could assume that the Roman church would interest itself in him, whether he was thinking of a legal appeal or of the Roman Christians moving in his favor along some special channels open to themselves. A few days afterwards Ignatius found himself at Troas, accompanied by the Ephesian deacon Burrhus, and provided with contributions from the church of Smyrna. [325] Thence he writes to the churches of Philadelphia and Smyrna, with both of which he had become acquainted during the course of his journey, as well as to Polycarp, the bishop of Smyrna. Messengers from Antioch cached him at Troas with news of the cessation of the persecution at the former city, and with the information that some churches in the vicinity of Antioch had already dispatched bishops or presbyters and deacons to congratulate the local church (Philad., x. 2). Whereupon, persuaded that the church of Antioch had been delivered from its persecution through the prayers of the churches in Asia Minor, Ignatius urges the latter also to send envoys to Antioch in order to unite with that church in thanking God for the deliverance. "Since I am informed," he writes to the Philadelphians (x. 1 f.), "that, in answer to your prayers and love in Jesus Christ, the church of Antioch is now at peace, it befits you, as a church of God, to send a deacon your delegate with a message of God for that church, so that he may congratulate the assembled church and glorify the Name. Blessed in Jesus Christ is he who shall be counted worthy of such a mission; and ye shall yourselves be glorified. Now it is not impossible for you to do this for the name of God, if only you have the desire." The same counsel is given to Smyrna. The church there is also to send a messenger with a pastoral letter to the church of Antioch (Smyrn., xi.). The unexpected suddenness of his departure from Troas prevented Ignatius from addressing the same request to the other churches of Asia Minor. He therefore begs Polycarp not only himself to despatch a messenger with all speed (Polyc., vii. 2), but to write in his name to the other churches and ask them to share the general joy of the Antiochene Christians either by messenger or by letter (Polyc., viii. 1). A few weeks later the church at Philippi wrote to Polycarp that it also had made the acquaintance of Ignatius during that interval; it requested the bishop of Smyrna, therefore, to forward its letter to the church of Antioch whenever he sent his own messenger. Polycarp undertakes to do so. In fact, he even holds out the prospect of conveying the letter himself. As desired by them, he also transmits to them such letters of Ignatius as had come to hand, and asks for reliable information upon the fate of Ignatius and his companions. [326] Such, in outline, is the situation as we find it in the seven letters of Ignatius and in Polycarp's epistle to the Philippians. What a wealth of intercourse there is between the churches! What public spirit! What brotherly care for one another! Financial support retires into the background here. The foreground of the picture is filled by proofs of that personal cooperation by means of which whole churches, or again churches and their bishops, could lend mutual aid to one another, consoling and strengthening each other, and sharing their sorrows and their joys. Here we step into a whole world of sympathy and love. From other sources we also learn that after weathering a persecution the churches would send a detailed report of it to other churches. Two considerable documents of this kind are still extant. One is the letter addressed by the church of Smyrna to the church of Philomelium and to all Christian churches, after the persecution which took place under Antonius Pius. The other is the letter of the churches in Gaul to those in Asia Minor and Phrygia, after the close of the bloody persecution under Marcus Aurelius. [327] In both letters the persecution is described in great detail, while in the former the death of bishop Polycarp is specially dwelt on, since the glorious end of a bishop who was well known in the East and West alike had to be announced to all Christendom. The events, which transpired in Gaul, had a special claim upon the sympathy of the Asiatic brethren, for at least a couple of the latter, Attalus of Pergamum and Alexander, a Phrygian, had suffered a glorious martyrdom in the Gallic persecution. The churches also took advantage of the opportunity to communicate to the brethren certain notable experiences of their own during the period of persecution, as well as any truths which they had verified. Thus the Smyrniote church speaks very decidedly against the practice of people delivering themselves up and craving for martyrdom. It gives one melancholy instance of this error (Mart. Polyc., iv.). The churches of Gaul, for their part (in Eus., H.E., v. 2), put in a warning against excessive harshness in the treatment of penitent apostates. They are able also to describe the tender compassion shown by their own confessors. It was otherwise with the church of Rome. She exhorted the church of Carthage to stand fast and firm during the Decian persecution, [328] and at a subsequent period conferred with it upon its mode of dealing with apostates. [329] Here a special case was under discussion. Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, had fled during the persecution; nevertheless, he had continued to superintend his church from his retreat, since he could say with quite a good conscience that he was bound to look after his own people. The Romans, who had not been at first informed of the special circumstances of the case, evidently viewed the bishop's flight with serious misgiving; they thought themselves obliged to write and encourage the local church. The fact was, no greater disaster could befall a church in a period of distress than the loss of its clergy or bishop by death or dereliction of duty. In his treatise on "Flight during a Persecution," Tertullian relates how deacons, presbyters, and bishops frequently ran away at the outbreak of a persecution, on the plea of Matt. x. 23: "If they persecute you in one city, flee unto another." The result was that the church either collapsed or fell a prey to heretics. [330] The more dependent the church became upon its clergy, the more serious were the consequences to the church of any failure or even of any change in the ranks of the latter. This was well understood by the ardent persecutors of the church in the third century, by Maximin I, by Decius, by Valerian, and by Diocletian. Even a Cyprian could not retain control of his church from a place of retreat! He had to witness it undergoing shocks of disastrous force. It was for this very reason that the sister churches gave practical proof of their sympathy in such crises, partly by sending letters of comfort during the trial, as the Romans did, partly by addressing congratulations to the church when the trial had been passed. In his church history Eusebius furnishes us with selections from the ample correspondence of Dionysius, bishop of Corinth, and one of these letters, addressed to the church of Athens, is relevant to our present purpose. Eusebius writes as follows (H.E., IV. xxiii. 2 f.): "The epistle exhorts them to the faith and life of the gospel, which Dionysius accuses them of undervaluing. Indeed, he almost says they have fallen away from the faith since the martyrdom of Publius, their bishop, which had occurred during the persecution in those days. He also mentions Quadratus, who was appointed bishop after the martyrdom of Publius, and testifies that by the zeal of Quadratus they were gathered together again and had new zeal imparted to their faith." The persecution which raged in Antioch during the reign of Septimius Severus claimed as its victim the local bishop of that day, one Serapion. His death must have exposed the church to great peril, for when the episcopate was happily filled up again, the bishop of Cappadocia wrote a letter of his own from prison to congratulate the church of Antioch, in the following terms: "The Lord has lightened and smoothed my bonds in this time of captivity, by letting me hear that, through the providence of God, the bishopric of your holy church has been undertaken by Asclepiades, whose services to the faith qualify him thoroughly for such a position" (Eus., H.E., VI. xi. 5). Hitherto we have been gleaning from the scanty remains of the primitive Christian literature whatever bore upon the material support extended by one church to another, or upon the mutual assistance forthcoming in a time of persecution. But whenever persecutions brought about internal crisis and perils in a church, as was not infrequently the case, the sympathetic interest of the church extended to this sphere of need as well, and attempts were made to meet the situation. Such cases now fall to be considered--cases in which it was not poverty or persecution, but internal abuses and internal dangers, pure and simple, which drew a word of comfort or of counsel from a sister church or from its bishop. In this connection we possess one document dating from the very earliest period, viz., the close of the first century, which deserves especial notice. It is the so-called first epistle of Clement, really an official letter sent by the Roman church to the Corinthian. [331] Within the pale of the latter church a crisis had arisen, whose consequences were extremely serious. All we know, of course, is what the majority of the church thought of the crisis, but according to their account certain newcomers, of an ambitious and conceited temper, had repudiated the existing authorities and led a number of the younger members of the church astray. [332] Their intention was to displace the presbyters and deacons, and in general to abolish the growing authority of the officials (xl.-xlviii.). A sharp struggle ensued, in which even the women took some part. [333] Faith, love, and brotherly feeling were already threatened with extinction (i.-iii.). The scandal became notorious throughout Christendom, and indeed there was a danger of the heathen becoming acquainted with the quarrel, of the name of Christ being blasphemed, and of the church's security being imperilled. [334] The Roman Church stepped in. It had not been asked by the Corinthian church to interfere in the matter; on the contrary, it spoke out of its own accord. [335] And it did so with an affection and solicitude equal to its candor and dignity. It felt bound, for conscience' sake, to give a serious and brotherly admonition, conscious that God's voice spoke through its words for peace, [336] and at the same time for the strict maintenance of respect towards the authority of the officials (cp. xl. f.). Withal it never forgets that its place is merely to point out the right road to the Corinthians, not to lay commands upon them; [337] over and again it expresses most admirably its firm confidence that the church knows the will of God and will bethink itself once more of the right course. [338] It even clings to the hope that the very agitators will mend their ways (cp. liv.). But in the name of God it asks that a speedy end be put to the scandal. The transmission of the epistle is entrusted to the most honored men within its membership. "They shall be witnesses between us and you. And we have done this that you may know we have had and still have every concern for your speedy restoration to peace" (lxiii. 3). The epistle concludes by saying that the Corinthians are to send back the envoys to Rome as soon as possible in joy and peace, so that the Romans may be able to hear of concord regained with as little delay as possible and to rejoice speedily on that account (lxv. 1). There is nothing in early Christian literature to compare with this elaborate and effective piece of writing, lit up with all the brotherly affection and the public spirit of the church. But similar cases are not infrequent. The church at Philippi, for example, sent a letter across the sea to the aged Polycarp at Smyrna, informing him of a sad affair which had occurred in their own midst. One of their presbyters, named Valens, had been convicted of embezzling the funds of the church. In his reply, which is still extant, Polycarp treats this melancholy piece of news (Polyc., ad Phil., xi.). He does not interfere with the jurisdiction of the church, but he exhorts and counsels the Philippians. They are to take warning from this case and avoid avarice themselves. Should the presbyter and his wife repent, the church is not to treat them as enemies, but as ailing and erring members, so that the whole body may be saved. The bishop lets it be seen that the church's treatment of the case does not appear to him to have been entirely correct. He exhorts them to moderate their passion and to be gentle. But, at the same time, in so doing he is perfectly conscious of the length to which he may venture to go in opposing an outside church. When Ignatius, bishop of Antioch, is being conveyed across Asia Minor, he takes the opportunity of writing brief letters to encourage the local churches in any perils to which they may be exposed. He warns them against the machinations of heretics, exhorts them to obey the clergy, urges a prudent concord and firm unity, and in quite a thorough fashion gives special counsels for any emergency. At the opening of the second century a Roman Christian, the brother of the bishop, desires to lay down the via media of proper order and discipline at any crisis in the church, as he himself had found that via, between the extremes of laxity and rigor. His aim is directed not merely to the Roman church but to Christendom in general (to the "foreign cities"); he wishes all to learn the counsels which he claims to have personally received from the Holy Spirit through the church (Herm. Vis. ii. 4). In the days of Marcus Aurelius it was bishop Dionysius of Corinth in particular who sought (no doubt in his church's name as well as in his own) by means of an extensive correspondence to confirm the faith of such churches, even at a great distance, as were in any peril. Two of his letters, those to the Athenians and the Romans, we have already noticed, but Eusebius gives us the contents of several similar writings, which he calls "catholic" epistles. Probably these were meant to be circulated throughout the churches, though they were collected at an early date and also (as the bishop himself is forced indignantly to relate) were interpolated. One letter to the church at Sparta contains an exposition of orthodox doctrine with an admonition to peace and unity. In the epistle to the church of Nicomedia in Bithynia he combats the heresy of Marcion. "He also wrote a letter to the church in Gortyna, together with the other churches in Crete, praising their bishop Philip for the testimony borne to the great piety and steadfastness of his church, and warning them to guard against the aberrations of heretics. He also wrote to the church of Amastris, together with the other churches in Pontus. . . . . Here he adds explanations of some passages from Holy Scripture, and mentions Palmas, their bishop, by name. He gives them long advice, too, upon marriage and chastity, enjoining them also to welcome again into their number all who come back after any lapse whatsoever, be it vice or heresy. There is also in his collection of letters another addressed to the Cnosians (in Crete), in which he exhorts Pinytus, the bishop of the local church, not to lay too heavy and sore a burden on the brethren in the matter of continence, but to consider the weakness of the majority" (Eus., H.E., iv. 23). Such is the variety of contents in these letters. Dionysius seems to have spoken his mind on every question, which agitated the churches of his day, nor was any church too remote for him to evince his interest in its inner fortunes. After the close of the second century a significant change came over these relationships, as the institution of synods began to be adopted. The free and unconventional communications, which passed between the churches (or their bishops) yielded to an intercourse conducted upon fixed and regular lines. A new procedure had already come into vogue with the Montanist and Quartodeciman controversies, and this was afterwards developed more highly still in the great Christological controversies and in the dispute with Novatian. Doubtless we still continue to hear of cases in which individual churches or their bishops displayed special interest in other churches at a distance, nor was there any cessation of voluntary sympathy with the weal and woe of any sister church. But this gave place more than ever both to an interest in the position taken up by the church at large in view of individual and particular movements, and also to the support of the provincial churches. [339] Keen interest was shown in the attitude taken up by the churches throughout the empire (or their bishops) upon any critical question. On such matters harmony could be arranged, but otherwise the provincial churches began to form groups of their own. Still, for all this, fresh methods emerged in the course of the third century by which one church supported or rallied another, and these included the custom of inviting the honored teachers of one church to deliver addresses in another, or of securing them, when controversies had arisen, to pronounce an opinion, to instruct the parties, and to give a judgment in the matter. Instances of this are to be found, for example, in the career of the great theologian Origen. [340] Even in the fourth and fifth centuries, the material support of poor churches from foreign sources had not ceased; Socrates, in his church history (vii. 25) notes one very brilliant example of the practice. __________________________________________________________________ [248] In his work, Die christliche Liebestätigkeit in der alten Kirche (1st ed., 1882; Eng. trans., Christian Charity in the Ancient Church, Edinburgh), Uhlhorn presents a sketch which is thorough, but unfair to paganism. The Greeks and Romans also were acquainted with philanthropy. [249] One recalls particularly the parable of the good Samaritan, with its new definition of "neighbor" and also the parable of the lost son; among the stories, that of the rich young man. The gospel of the Hebrews tells the latter incident with especial impressiveness. "Then said the Lord to him, How canst thou say, I have kept the law and the prophets,' when it is written in the law, Thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself'? And look, many of thy brethren, sons of Abraham, are lying in dirt and dying of hunger, while thy house is full of many possessions, and never a gift comes from it to them." [250] The saying "Fast for them that persecute you" is also traditional (Didachê i.). [251] Also Cæcilius (in Minuc. Felix, ix.): "They recognise each other by means of secret marks and signs, and love one another almost before they are acquainted." [252] Warnings against unmercifulness, and censures of this temper, must have begun, of course, at quite an early period; see the epistle of James (iv.-v.) and several sections in the "Shepherd" of Hermas. [253] All these points are illustrated throughout the literature, from the Didachê and Hermas downwards. For unconditional giving, see Did. 1. 5 f.: panti to aitounti se didou kai me apaitei; pasi gar thelei didosthai ho pater ek ton idion charismaton. makarios ho didous kata ten entolen; athoos gar estin. ouai to lambanonti; ei men gar chreian echon lambanei tis, athoos estai; ho de me chreian echon dosei diken, hina ti elabe kai eis ti; en sunoche de genomenos exetasthesetai peri hon epraxe, kai ouk exeleusetai ekeithen, mechris hou apodo ton eschaton kodranten ("Give to everyone who asks of thee, and ask not back again; for the Father desireth gifts to be given to all men from his own bounties. Blessed is he who gives according to the commandment, for he is guiltless. But woe to him who receives; for if a man receives who is in need, he is guiltless, but if he is not in need he shall give satisfaction as to why and wherefore he received, and being confined he shall be examined upon his deeds, and shall not come out till he has paid the uttermost farthing"). The counsel of unconditional giving, which is frequently repeated, is closely bound up with the question of earthly possessions in the early church, and consequently with the question of asceticism. Theoretically, from the very outset, there was to be neither property nor wealth at all; such things belong to the world which Christians were to renounce. Consequently, to devote one's means to other people was a proceeding which demanded a fresh point of view; to part with one's property was the authorized and most meritorious course of action, nor did it matter, in the first instance, who was the recipient. In practical life, however, things were very different, and this was constantly the result of the very theory just mentioned, since it never gave up the voluntary principle (even the attempt at communism in Jerusalem, if there even was such an attempt, did not exclude the voluntary principle). It was by means of this principle that Christian love maintained its power. In practical life, complete renunciation of the world was achieved only by a few; these were the saints and heroes. Other people were in precisely the same position, with the same feelings and concern, as serious, devoted Catholics at the present day; they were actuated by motives of ascetics and of love alike. It is needless, therefore, to depict this state of matters in closer detail. The extreme standpoint is represented by Hermas, Sim. (see above, pp. 97 f.). A great deal has been written upon early Christian "communism," but nothing of the kind ever existed in the great Gentile church--for we need not take any account of an isolated phenomenon like the semi-pagan sect of the Carpocratians and their communism. Monastic "communism" is only called such by a misuse of the term, and, besides, it is irrelevant to our present subject. Even on the soil of Jewish Christianity, no communism flourished, for the example of the Essenes was never followed. Uhlhorn remarks truly (op. cit., p. 68; Eng. trans., 74) that "we cannot more radically misconceive the so-called communism' of early Christianity than by conceiving it as an institution similar to those which existed among the Essenes and the Therapeutæ. It is far more correct to represent the state of things as an absence of all institutions whatsoever." Directions not infrequently occur (e.g., Barn. xix. 8; Tert., Apol. xxxix.) which have a communistic ring, but they are not to be taken in a communistic sense. The common formula ouk ereis idia einai ("thou shalt not say these things are thine own") simply enjoins liberality, forbidding a man to use his means merely for his own advantage. I have already remarked that, upon the whole, the voluntary principle was never abandoned in the matter of Christian giving and the scale of gifts. This statement, however, admits of one qualification. While the West, so far as I can judge, knew nothing as yet of the law of first-fruits and tithes throughout our epoch (for Cyprian, de Unit. xxvi., is not to be understood as implying the law of tithes), in some quarters of the East the law of first-fruits was taken over at a very early period (see Didachê xiii.). From the Didachê it passed, as an apostolic regulation, into all the Oriental apostolic constitutions. Origen, however, does not appear to regard it yet as a law of the church, though even he admits the legitimacy of it (in Num. Hom. xi. 1; in Jos. Nav. Hom., xvii.). [254] De Op. et Eleem. 1: "Nam cum dominus adveniens sanasset illa quae Adam portaverat vulnera et venena serpentis antiqui curasset, legem dedit sano et pracepit ne ultra jam peccaret, ne quid peccanti gravius eveniret. Coartati eramus et in angustum innocentiae praescriptione conclusi, nec haberet quid fragilitatis humanae infirmitas atque imbecillitas faceret; nisi iterum pietas divina subveniens justitiae et misericordiae operibus ostensis viam quandam tuendae salutis aperiret ut sordes postmodum, quascumque contrahimus, eleemosynis abluamus ("For when the Lord had at his advent cured the wounds which Adam brought, and healed the poison of the old serpent, he gave a law to the sound man and bade him sin no more, lest a worse thing should befall the sinner. We were restrained and bound by the commandment of innocence. Nor would human weakness and impotence have any resource left to it, unless the divine mercy should once more come to our aid, by pointing out works of righteousness and mercy, and thus opening a way to obtain salvation, so that by means of alms we may wash off any stains subsequently contracted"). [255] Op. cit., xxi.: "Quale munus cuius editio deo spectante celebratur! Si in gentilium munere grande et gloriosum videtur proconsules vel imperatores habere presentes, et apparatus ac sumptus apud munerarios maior est ut possint placere maioribus--quanto inlustrior muneris et maior est gloria deum et Christum spectatores habere, quanto istic et apparatus uberior et sumptus largior exhibendus est, ubi ad spectaculum conveniunt caelorum virtutes, conveniunt angeli omnes, ubi munerario non quadriga vel consulatus petitur sed vita aeterna praestatur, nec captatur inanis et temporarius favor vulgi sed perpetuum praemium regni caelestis accipitur" ("What a gift is it which is set forth for praise in the sight of God! If, when the Gentiles offer gifts, it seems a great and glorious thing to have proconsuls or emperors present, and if their better classes make greater preparations and display in order to please the authorities--how much more illustrious and splendid is the glory of having God and Christ as the spectators of a gift! How much more lavish should be the preparation, how much more liberal the outlay, in such a case, when the powers of heaven muster to the spectacle, when all the angels gather when the donor seeks no chariot or consulship, but life eternal is the boon; when no fleeting and fickle popularity is craved for, but the lasting reward of the kingdom of heaven is received!"). [256] The pagan in Macarius Magnes (iii. 5) declares that several Christian women had become beggars by their lavish donations. "Not in the far past, but only yesterday, Christians read Matt. xix. 21 to prominent women and persuaded them to share all their possessions and goods among the poor, to reduce themselves to beggary, to ask charity, and then to sink from independence into unseemly pauperism, reducing themselves from their former good position to a woebegone condition, and being finally obliged to knock at the doors of those who were better off." [257] With Clement of Alexandria, the motive of love to men is steadily kept in the front rank; cp. Paed. iii., and in particular the fine saying in iii. 7. 39: kathaper ton phreaton hosa pephuken bruein apantloumena eis to archaion anapiduei metron, houtos he metadosis agathe philanthropias huparchousa pege, koinonousa tois dipsosi potou auxetai palin kai pimplatai ("Even as such wells as spring up rise to their former level even after they have been drained, so that kindly spring of love to men, the bestowal of gifts, imparts its drink to the thirsty, and is again increased and replenished"). Cyprian (in de Unit. xxvi.) complains of a lack of benevolence: "Largitas operationis infracta est. . . . nunc de patrimonio nec decimas damus et cum vendere jubeat dominus, emimus potius et augemus" ("Liberality in benevolence is impaired . . . . we do not now give even the tithe of our patrimony away. The Lord bids us sell, but we prefer to buy and lay up"). [258] One recommendation very frequently made, was to stint oneself by means of fasting in order to give alms. In this way, even the poor could afford something. See Hermas Sim. v.; Aristides, Apol. xv. ("And if anyone among them is poor or needy, and they have no food to share, they fast for two or three days, that they may meet the poor man's need of sustenance"); Apost. Constit. v. 1, etc. The habit also prevailed in pre-Christian ages. Otherwise, whenever the question is raised, how alms are to be provided, one is pointed to work; in fact, this is almost the only point at which work is taken into consideration at all within the sphere of the religious estimate. See Eph. iv. 28 ("Let him that stole, steal no more, but rather work with his hands at honest work, so that he may have something to give the needy"); and Barn. xix. 10: dia cheiron sou ergase eis lutron hamartion sou [the reference being to alms]. Cp. my short study (in the "Evangelisch-Sozial" Magazine, 1905, pp. 48 f.) on "The Primitive Christian Conception of the Worth of Labour." [259] The relation of stips and oblationes is a question which has not been cleared up yet, and need not be raised here. [260] See on this point Book 4, Chap. I. (1). The money was returned. [261] Cp. also Jude ver. 12; Tert., Apol. xxxix.; de Ieiun. xvii.; Clem., Paed. ii. 1. We need not enter into the controversies over the agapæ; cp. Keating's The Agape and the Eucharist (1901), Batiffol's Études d'hist. et de théol. positive (1902), pp. 279 f., and Funk on "L'Agape" (Rev. d'hist. ecclésiastique, t. iv. 1, 1903). In later days the feasts served to satisfy the poor at the graves of the martyrs. Constantine justified this practice of feasts in honor of the dead against objections which were apparently current; cp. his address to the council (xii.), where he dwells expressly on their charitable uses: ta sumposia (for the martyrs, at their graves) pros eleon kai anaktesin ton deomenon poioumena kai pros boetheian ton ekpesonton. haper an tis phortika einai nomize, ou kata ten theian kai makarian didaskalian phronei ("These feasts are held for the purpose of helping and restoring the needy, and in aid of the outcast. Anyone who thinks them burdensome, does not judge them by the divine and blessed rule of life"). [262] On the traces of an exception to this rule in the Apostolic Constitutions, see Texte u. Untersuch. ii. 5, pp. 12 f., 58. [263] For special collections ordered by the bishop, see Tertull., de Jejun. xiii., and Clem., Hom. iii. 71: hopote chreia tinos porou pros to anankaion genoito, hama hoi pantes sumballesthe ("Whenever any funds are needed, club together, all of you"). [264] Paul even describes the principle as a direction of Jesus himself; see 1 Cor. ix. 14: ho kurios dietaxen tois to euangelion katangellousin ek tou euangeliou zen. [265] The circumstances are not quite clear; still, enough is visible to corroborate what has been said above. Church officials were not, in the first instance, obliged to abandon their civil calling, and so far as that provided then with a livelihood they had no claim on the church's funds. But in the course of time it became more and more difficult, in the larger churches, to combine civil employment with ecclesiastical office. There is one very instructive account in the Clementine homilies (iii. 71) which indicates that some people were skeptical upon the duty of supporting the bishop and clergy. The author writes: Zakchaios [the bishop] monos humin holos heauton ascholein apodedokos, koilian echon kai heauto me euscholon, pos dunatai ten anankaian porizein trophen? ouchi de eulogon estin pantas humas tou zen autou pronoian poiein, ouk anamenontas auton humas aitein? touto gar prosaitountos estin; mallon de tethnexetai limo e touto poiein hupostaie; pos de kai humeis ou diken huphexete, me logisamenoi hoti "axios estin ho ergates tou misthou autou"? kai me legeto tis; Oukoun ho dorean paraschetheis logos poleitai? me genoito; ei tis gar echon pothen zen laboi, houtos polei ton logon--ei de me echon tou zen charin lambanei trophen, hos kai ho kurios elaben en te deipnois kai philois, ouden echon ho eis authis panta echon, ouch hamartanei. akolouthos oun timate [by an honorarium] presbuterous, katechetas, diakonous chresimous, cheras eu bebiokuias, orphanous hos ekklesias tekna ("Zacchaeus alone has devoted himself wholly to your interests; he needs food, and yet has no time to provide for himself; how then is he to get the requisitive provisions for a livelihood? Is it not reasonable that you should all provide for his support? Do not wait for him to ask you--asking is a beggar's rôle, and he would rather die than stoop to that. Shall not you also incur punishment for failing to consider that the labourer is worthy of his hire'? Let no one say, Then is the word which was given freely, to be sold?' God forbid. If any man has means and yet accepts any help, he sells the word. But there is no sin in a man without means accepting support in order to live--as the Lord also accepted gifts at supper and among his friends, he who had nothing though he was the Lord of all things. Honor, then, in appropriate fashion the elder catechists, useful deacons, respectable widows, and orphans as children of the church"). A fixed monthly salary, such as that assigned by the church of Theodotus to her bishop Natalis, was felt to be obnoxious. (Cp. the primitive story in Eus., H.E. v. 28). [266] Details will be found below, in the chapter [Book III. Chap. 1] on the mission-agents. [267] In the liturgy, widows and orphans are also placed immediately after the servants of the church. [268] See Polycarp, ad Phil. iv.; Tert., ad Uxor. i. 7; pseudo-Ignat., Tars. 9; and Apos. Constit. ii. 26 (where the term is applied also to orphans; cp. iv. 3). I shall not discuss the institution of Widows, already visible in the first epistle to Timothy, which also tended to promote their interests. The special attention devoted to widows was also meant to check the undesirable step of remarriage. [269] In Vis. II. 4. 3, it is remarkable also how prominent are widows and orphans. See Aristides, Apol. xv.: "They do not avert their attention from widows, and they deliver orphans from anyone who oppresses them." Instances of orphans being adopted into private families are not wanting. Origen, for example, was adopted by a Christian woman (Eus., H.E. vi. 2); cp. Acta Perpet. et Felic. xv.; Apost. Const. iv. 1. Lactantius (Instit. vi. 12) adduces yet another special argument for the duty of supporting widows and orphans: "God commands them to be cared for, in order that no one may be hindered from going to his death for righteousness' sake on the plea of regard for his dear children, but that he may promptly and boldly encounter death, knowing that his beloved ones are left in God's care and will never lack protection." [270] See, further, Herm., Simil. i. v. 3, ix. 26-27, x. 4; Polyc., Epist. vi. 1; Barn. xx. 2; Ignat., Smyrn. vi. (a propos of heretics: "They care not for love, or for the widow, or for the orphan, or for the afflicted, or for the prisoner or ransomed, or for the hungry or thirsty"--peri agapes ou melei autois, ou peri cheras, ou peri orphanou, ou peri thlibomenou, ou peri dedemenou e lelumenou, e peri peinontos e dipsontos), ad Polyc. iv.; Justin's Apol. I. lxvii.; Clem., Ep. ad Jacob. 8 (tois men orphanois poiountes ta goneon, tais de cherais ta andron, "acting the part of parents to orphans and of husbands to widows"); Tert., ad Uxor. i. 7-8; Apost. Constit. (Bks. III., IV.); and pseudo-Clem., de Virgin. i. 12 ("pulchrum et utile est visitare pupillos et viduas, imprimis pauperes qui multos habent liberos"). For the indignation roused by the heartlessness of many pagan ladies, who were abandoned to luxury, read the caustic remark of Clement (Paedag. iii. 4. 30): paidion de oude prosientai orphanon hai tous psittakous kai tous charadrious ektrephousai ("They bring up parrots and curlews, but will not take in the orphan child"). [271] Scandalmongering, avarice, drunkenness, and arrogance had all to be dealt with in the case of widows who were being maintained by the church. It even happened that some widows put out to usury the funds they had thus received (cp. Didasc. Apost. xv.; Texte u. Unters. xxv. 2. pp. 78, 274 f.) But there were also highly gifted widows. In fact (cp. Apost. Constit.), it was considered that true widows who persevered in prayer received revelations. [272] See Tert., ad Uxor. ii. 4, on the difficult position of a Christian woman whose husband was a pagan: "Who would be willing to let his wife go through street after street to other men's houses, and indeed to the poorest cottages, in order to visit the brethren?" [273] Naturally, nether private nor, for the matter of that, church charity was to step in where a family was able to support some helpless member; but it is evident, from the sharp remonstrance in 1 Tim. v. 8, that there were attempts made to evade this duty ("If anyone does got provide for his own people, and especially for his own household, he has renounced the faith and is worse than an infidel"). [274] Apost. Constit., in Texte u. Unters. ii. 5. 8 f. In the Vita Polycarps (Pionius) traits of this bishop are described which remind us of St Francis. On the female diaconate, see Uhlhorn (op. cit., 159-171; Eng. trans., 165 f.). [275] It was not possible, of course, to relieve all distress, and Tertullian (de Idolat., xxiii.) mentions Christians who had to borrow money from pagans. This does not seem to have been quite a rare occurrence. [276] We may certainly conclude that a register was kept of those who bad to be maintained. This very fact, however, was a moral support to poor people, for it made them sure that they were not being neglected. [277] Heb. x. 34, tois desmiois sunepathesate; Clem. Rom. lix. 4 (in the church's prayer), lutrosai tous desmious hemon; Ignat., Smyrn. vi. (the duty of caring peri dedemenou e lelumenou); Clem., Ep. ad Jacob. 9 (tois en phulakais epiphainomenoi hos dunasthe boetheite); Arist., Apol. xv. ("And if they hear that anyone of their number is imprisoned or in distress for the sake of their Christ's name, they all render aid in his necessity, and if he can be redeemed, they set him free"). Of the young Origen we are told (Eus., H.E. vi. 3) that "not only was he at the side of the holy martyrs in their imprisonment, and until their final condemnation, but when they were led to death he boldly accompanied them into danger." Cp. Tert., ad Mart. i f. (both the church and charitable individuals supplied prisoners with food), Acta Pass. Perpet. iii.; Petri Alex., Ep. c. 2 (Lagarde's Reliq. jur. eccles., p. 64, 14 f.), c. 11 (ibid., p. 70, 1 f.), c. 12 (ibid., p. 70, 20 f.). [278] Thekla, in the Acta Theclæ, is one instance, and there are many others; e.g., in Tertull., ad Uxor. ii. 4. [279] As in Thekla's case; see also Lucian's Peregr. xii., and the Epist. Lugd., in Euseb., H.E. v. 1. 61. [280] Cp. Lucian, Peregr. xii., xiii., xvi. ("costly meals"). Tertullian, at the close of his life, when he was filled with bitter hatred towards the Catholic church, wrote thus in de Jejun. xii.: "Plainly it is your way to furnish restaurants for dubious martyrs in the gaols, lest they miss their wonted fare and so grow weary of their life, taking umbrage at the novel discipline of abstinence! One of your recent martyrs (no Christian he!) was by no means reduced to this hard régime. For after you had stuffed him during a considerable period, availing yourselves of the facilities of free custody, and after he had disported himself in all sorts of baths (as if these were better than the bath of baptism), and in all resorts of pleasure in high life (as if these were the secret retreats of the church), and with all the seductive pursuits of such a life (preferable, forsooth, to life eternal)--and all this, I believe, just in order to prevent any craving for death--then on the last day, the day of his trial, you gave him in broad daylight some medicated wine (in order to stupefy him against the torture)!" [281] Cp. Dionysius of Corinth (in Eus., H.E., iv. 23), who pays a brilliant testimony to the Roman church in this connection. [282] Cp. the story told by Hippolytus (Ref. [Philos.] ix. 12) of the Roman bishop Victor, who kept a list of all Christians sentenced to the mines in Sardinia, and actually procured their liberty through the intercession of Marcia to the Emperor Commodus. [283] Some extremely beautiful examples of this occur in the treatise of Eusebius upon the Palestinian martyrs during the Diocletian persecution. The Christians of Egypt went to the most remote mines, even to Cilicia, to encourage and edify their brethren who were condemned to hard labor in these places. In the mines at Phæno a regular church was organized. Cp. also Apost. Constit. v. 1: Ei tis Christianos dia to onoma tou christou . . . . katakrithe hupo asebon eis . . . . metallon, me paridete auton, all' ek tou kopou kai tou hidrotos humon pempsate auto eis diatrophen autou kai eis misthodosian ton stratioton ("If any Christian is condemned for Christ's sake . . . . to the mines by the ungodly, do not overlook him, but from the proceeds of your toil and sweat send him something to support himself and to reward the soldiers"). [284] Herm. Sim., I.: anti agron agorazete psuchas thlibomenas, katha tis dunatos estin ("Instead of fields buy souls in trouble, as each of you is able"); Sim., X. v. 2 f.; Clem. Rom. lv. 2: epistametha pollous en hemin paradedokotas heautous eis desma, hopos heterous lutrosontai; polloi heautous exedokan eis douleian, kai labontes tas timas auton heterous epsomisan ("We know that many of our own number have given themselves up to be captives, in order to ransom others; many have sold themselves to slavery, and with the price of their own bodies they have fed others"); Apost. Constit. iv. 9: ta ek tou dikaiou kopou athroizomena chremata diatassete diakonountes agorasmous ton hagion, rhuomenoi doulous kai aichmalotous, desmious, epereazomenous, hekontas ek katadikes k.t.l. ("All monies accruing from honest labor do ye appoint and apportion to the redeeming of the saints, ransoming thereby slaves and captives, prisoners, people who are sore abused or condemned by tyrants," etc.), cp. v. 1-2. In Idolol. xxiii., Tertullian refers to release from imprisonment for debt, or to the efforts made by charitable brethren to prevent such imprisonment. When the Numidian robbers carried off the local Christians, the Carthaginian church soon gathered the sum of 100,000 sesterces as ransom-money, and declared it was ready to give still ampler aid (Cypr., Ep. 62). When the Goths captured the Christians in Cappadocia about the year 255, the Roman church sent contributions in aid of their ransom (Basil., Ep. ad Dam. lxx.). See below (10) for both of these cases. The ransoming of captives continued even in later days to be reckoned a work of special merit. Le Blant has published a number of Gallic inscriptions dating from the fourth and fifth centuries, in which the dead person is commended because "he ransomed prisoners." [285] A certain degree of luxury was even allowed to Christians; cp. Tertull., Apol. xlii.: "If the Arabians complain of us [for giving them no custom], let the Sabeans be sure that the richer and more expensive of their wares are used as largely in burying Christians as in fumigating the gods." Another element in a proper burial was that a person should lie among his companions in the faith. Anyone who buried his people beside non-Christians needlessly incurred severe blame. Yet about the middle of the third century we find a Spanish bishop burying his children among the heathen; cp. Cyprian, Ep. lxvii. 6: "Martialis [episcopus] præter gentiliam turpia et lutulenta conviva in collegio diu frequentata filios in eodem collegio exterarum gentium more apud profana sepulcra deposuit et alienigenis consepelivit" ("Martialis himself frequented for long the shameful and filthy banquets of the heathen in their college, and placed his sons in the same college, after the custom of foreign nations, amid profane sepulchres, burying them along with strangers"). Christian graves have been found now and then in Jewish cemeteries. [286] Christians were therefore opposed to cremation, and tried to gather even the fragments of their brethren who had been martyred in the flames. The belief of the "simplices" about the resurrection of the body wavered a little in view of the burning of the body, but the theologians always silenced any doubts, though even they held that burning was a piece of wickedness. Cp. Epist. Lugd. (Eus., H.E. v. 1, towards the close; Tert., de Anima li.: "Nec ignibus funerandum aiunt (i.e., some pagans), parcentes superfluo animae (i.e., because particles of the soul still clung to the body). Alia est autem ratio pietatis istius (i.e., of Christianity), non reliquiis animae adulatrix, sed crudelitatis etiam corporis nomine aversatrix, quod et ipsum homo non mereatur poenali exitu impendi"; Tert., de Resurr. i.: "Ego magis ridebo vulgus, tum quoque, cum ipsos defunctos atrocissime exurit, quos postmodum gulisossime nutrit. . . . . O pietatem de crudelitate ludentem!" ("I have greater derision for the crowd, particularly when it inhumanely burns its dead, only to pamper them afterwards with luxurious indulgence. . . . . Out upon the piety which mocks its victims with cruelty!"). The reasons which seem to have led Christians from the first to repudiate cremation have not been preserved. We can only surmise what they were. [287] The question of the relation between the churches and the collegia tenuiorum (collegia funeraticia) may be left aside. Besides, during the past decade it has passed more and more out of notice. No real light has been thrown by such guilds upon the position of the churches, however convincing may be the inference that the rights obtained by these collegia may have been for a time available to Christians as well. Cp. Neumann, Röm. Staat und Kirche, i. 102 f. [288] Tertullian is our first witness for this custom. It did not spring up independently of pagan influence, though it may have at least one root within the Christian cultus itself. Tertullian attacked the common pagan feasts of the dead and the custom of bringing food to the graves; but this rooted itself as early as the third century, and was never dislodged. [289] The Didachê (iv. 11) even bids slaves obey their (Christian) masters hos tupo theou ("as a type of God"). [290] The passages in Paul's epistles are well known; see also 1 Peter. In his letter to Philemon, Paul neither expects nor asks the release of the slave Onesimus. The only possible sense of 1 Cor. vii. 20 f. (hekastos en te klesei he eklethe, en taute meneto; doulos eklethes? me soi meleto; all' ei kai dunasai eleutheros genesthai, mallon chresai) is that the apostle counsels slaves not even to avail themselves of the chance of freedom. Any alteration of their position would divert their minds to the things of earth--such seems to be the writer's meaning. It is far from certain whether we may infer from this passage that Christian slaves begged from Christian masters the chance of freedom more often than their pagan fellows. Christian slave-owners often appear in the literature of the second and third centuries. Cp. Athenag., Suppl., xxxv.; Acta Perpetuæ; etc. [291] Paul is followed on this point by others; e.g., Tatian, Orat., xi.; Tertull., de Corona, xiii.; and Lactantius, Instit., v. 16, where, in reply to the opponents who cry out, "You too have masters and slaves! Where then is your so-called equality?" the answer is given, "Alia causa nulla est cur nobis invicem fratrum nomen impertiamus nisi quia pares esse nos credimus. Nam cum omnia humana non corpore sed spiritu metiamur, tametsi corporum sit diversa condicio, nobis tamen servi non sunt, sed eos et habemus et dicimus spiritu fratres, religone conservos" ("Our sole reason for giving one another the name of brother is because we believe we are equals. For since all human objects are measured by us after the spirit and not after the body, although there is a diversity of condition among human bodies, yet slaves are not slaves to us; we deem and term them brothers after the spirit and fellow-servants in religion"). De Rossi (Boll. di Arch. Christ. 1866, p. 24) remarks on the fact that the title "slave" never occurs in the sepulchral inscriptions of Christianity. Whether this is accidental or intentional, is a question which I must leave undecided. On the duty of Christian masters to instruct their slaves in Christianity, cp. Arist., Apol., xv.: "Slaves, male and female, are instructed so that they become Christians, on account of the love felt for them by their masters; and when this takes place, they call them brethren without any distinction whatsoever." [292] The Roman presbyter or Bishop, Pius, the brother of Hermas, must have belonged to the class of slaves. Callistus, the Roman bishop, was originally a slave. Cp. the eightieth canon of Elvira: "Prohibendum ut liberti, quorum patroni in saeculo fuerint, ad clerum non promoveantur" ("It is forbidden to hinder freemen from being advanced to the rank of clergy, whose owners may be still alive"). [293] Ample material on this point is to be found in the Acts of the Martyrs. Reference may be made in especial to Blandina, the Lyons martyr, and to Felicitas in the Acts of Perpetua. Not a few slaves rank among "the holy martyrs" of the church. Unless it had been set down, who would imagine that Blandina was a slave--Blandina, who is held in high honor by the church, and whose character has such noble traits? In Euseb., Mart. Pal. (Texte u. Unters. xxiv. 2. p. 78), we read: "Porphyry passed for a slave of Pamphilus, but in love to God and in amazing confession of his faith he was a brother, nay more, a beloved son, to Pamphilus, and was like his teacher in all things."--Cp., however, the penitential ordinance appointed for those astute Christian masters who had forced their Christian slaves to offer sacrifice during the Diocletian persecution (canons 6 and 7 of Peter Alex., in Routh's Reliq. Sacr. iv. 29 f.). The masters are to do penance for three years kai hos upokrinamenoi kai hos katanankasantes tous homodoulous thusai, hate de parakousantes tou apostolou ta auta thelontos poiein tous despotas tois doulois, anientas ten apeilen, eidotas, phesin, hoti kai humon kai auton ho kurios estin en ouranois, kai prosopolepsia par' auto ouk estin (Eph. vi. 9; then follows Col. iii. 11) . . . skopein opheilousin ho kateirgasanto thelesantes ten psuchen heauton sosai, hoi tous sundoulous hemon helkusantes epi eidololatreian dunamenous kai autous ekphugein, ei to dikaion kai ten isoteta esan autois paraschontes, hos palin ho apostolos legei (Col. vi. 1) ("for having played the hypocrite and for having compelled their fellow-servants to sacrifice--in disobedience to the apostle, who enjoins masters and servants to do the same things, and to forbear threatening, knowing, saith he, that you and they have a Lord in heaven, with whom there is no respect of persons. . . . They ought to consider this compulsion of theirs, due to their desire to save their own lives, by which they drag our fellow-servants into idolatry, when they could themselves avoid it--that is, if masters treated them justly and equitably, as the apostle once more observes"). Only a single year's penance was imposed on slaves thus seduced. Tertullian, on the contrary (de Idol., xvii.), shows that the same courage and loyalty was expected from Christian slaves and freedom as from the highly born. The former were not to hand the wine or join in any formula when they attended their pagan lords at sacrifice. Otherwise they were guilty of idolatry. For attempts on the part of pagan masters to seduce their slaves from the faith, cp. Acta Pionii, ix., etc. [294] A beautiful instance of the esteem and position enjoyed by a Christian female slave in a Christian home, is afforded by Augustine in his description of the old domestic ("famula decrepita") belonging to his maternal grandfather's house, who had nursed his grandfather as a child ("sicut dorso gandiuscularum puellarum parvuli portari solent" = as little children are often carried on the backs of older girls); i.e., she was active as early as the year 300 A.D. "On account of her age and her excellent character, she was highly respected by the heads of that Christian home. Hence the charge of her master's daughters [i.e., including Monica] was given her, and she fulfilled her duty thoroughly [better than the mother did]. When necessary, she was strict in restraining the girls with a holy firmness, and in teaching them with a sober judgment" ("Propter senectam ac mores optimas in domo christiana satis a dominis honorabatur; unde etiam curam filiarum dominicarum commissam diligenter gerebat, et erat in eis coercendis, cum opus esset, sancta severitate vehemens atque in docendis sobria prudentia," Confess. ix. 8. 17). The basis of Augustine's own piety rested on this slave! [295] A long series of testimonies, from the Lyons epistle onwards, witnesses to the fact that Christian masters had heathen slaves. Denunciations of their Christian masters by such slaves, and calumnies against Christian worship, cannot have been altogether uncommon. [296] As early as 1 Tim. vi. 1 f. It proves that Christianity must have been in many cases "misunderstood" by Christian slaves. [297] Authentic illustrations of this are not available, of course. [298] From the epistle of Ignatius to Polycarp (iv.) two inferences may be drawn: (1) that slaves were ransomed with money taken from the church collections, and (2) that no claim to this favor was admitted. Doulous kai doulas me huperephanei; alla mede autoi phusiousthosan [Christian slaves could easily lose their feelings of deference towards Christian owners], all' eis doxan theou pleon douleuetosan, hina kreittonos eleutherias apo theou tuchosin; me eratosan apo tou koinou eleutherousthai, hina me douloi heurethosin epithumias ("Despise not male or female slaves. Yet let not these again be puffed up, but let them be all the better servants to the glory of God, that they may obtain a better freedom from God. Let them not crave to be freed at the public cost, lest they be found to be slaves of lust"). [299] Canon v.: "Si qua femina furore zeli accensa flagris verberaverit ancillam suam, ita ut intra tertium diem animam cum cruciatu effundat," etc. ("If any mistress, in a fit of passion, scourges her handmaid, so that the latter expires within three days," etc.). Canon xli. also treats of masters and slaves. We do not require to discuss the dispensation given by Callistus, bishop of Rome, to matrons for entering into sexual relations with slaves, as the object of this dispensation was to meet the case of high-born ladies who were bent on marriage, and not to admit that slaves had equal rights. Hippol. Philos., ix. 12: kai gunaixin epetrepsen, ei anandroi eien kai helikia ge ekkaiointo anaxia e heauton axian me boulointo kathairein dia to nomimos gamethenai, echein hena hon an hairesontai, sunkoiton, eite oiketen, eite eleutheron, kai touton krinein anti andros me nomo gegamemenen ("He even permitted women, if unmarried and inflamed with a passion unworthy of their age, or unwilling to forfeit their position for the sake of a legal marriage, to have any one they liked as a bedfellow, either slave or free, and to reckon him their husband although he was not legally married to them"). [300] Cp. Cyprian, per Pont., ix.: "Jacebant interim tota civitate vicatim non jam corpora, sed cadavera plurimorum" ("Meanwhile all over the city lay, not bodies now, but the carcasses of many"). [301] At the same time there was a quiet undercurrent of feeling expressed by the maxim that absolute devotion to religion was a higher plane of life--"The heavenly Father who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies will provide for us." Apostles and prophets (with the heroes of asceticism, of course, from the very outset) did not require to work. The idea was that their activity in preaching demanded their entire life and occupied all their time. [302] The pseudo-Clementine de Virgin., i. 11, contains a sharp warning against the "otiosi," or lazy folk, who chatter about religion instead of attending to their business. [303] Cp. 2 Thess. iii. 6: parangellomen humin en onomati tou kuriou I. Ch. stellesthai humas apo pantos adelphou ataktos peripatountos, cp. verse 12. [304] "Tertullian at this point is suppressing his personal views; he speaks from the standpoint of the majority of Christians. In reality, as we see from the treatise de Idololatria, he was convinced that there was hardly a single occupation or business in which any Christian could engage without soiling his conscience with idolatry. [305] The earliest restrictions on this point occur in the canons of the Synod of Elvira (canon xix.). They are very guarded. "Episcopi, presbyteres et diacones de locis suis [this is the one point of the prohibition] negotiandi causa non discedant. . . . sane ad victum sibi conquirendum aut filium, aut libertum, aut mercenarium, aut amicum, aut quemlibet mittant; et si voluerint negotiari, intra provinciam negotientur" ("Let no bishop or presbyter or deacon leave his place for the purpose of trading. . . . he can, of course, send his son, or his freedman, or his hired servant, or a friend, or anyone else, to procure provisions; but if he wishes to transact business, he must confine himself to his own sphere"). [306] parechontes meta pases euphrosunes tas trophas . . . . tois atechnois dia ton epitedeumaton ennoumenoi tas prophaseis tes anankaias trophes; technite ergon, adranei eleos ("Providing supplies with all kindliness . . . . furnishing those who have no occupation with employment, and thus with the necessary means of livelihood. To the artificer, work; to the incapable, alms"). [307] "Si paenurian talis et necessitatem paupertatis obtendit, potest inter ceteros qui ecclesiae alimentis sustinentur huius quoque necessitatis adiuvari, si tamen contentus sit frugalioribus et innocentibus cibis nec putet salario se esse redimendum, ut a peccatis cesset" ("Should such a person allege penury and the necessities of poverty, his wants may also be met among those of the other people who are maintained by the church's aliment--provided always that he is satisfied with plain and frugal fare. Nor is he to imagine he must be redeemed by means of an allowance of money, in order to cease from sins"). [308] I have based this section on a study of my own which appeared in the Monatsschrift f. Diakonie und innere Mission (Dec. 1879, Jan. 1880); but, as the relations of the individual church with Christendom in general fall to be noticed in this section, I have thought it appropriate to treat the subject in greater detail. The ideal background of all this enterprise and activity may be seen in Tertullian's remark (de Præscr., xx.): "Omnes ecclesiae una; probant unitatem ecclesarum communcatio pacis et appellatio fraternitatis et contesseratio hospitalitatis" ("All churches are one, and the unity of the churches is shown by their peaceful intercommunion, the title of brethren, and the bond of hospitality"). [309] Rom. xii. 13, "Communicating to the necessities of the saints, given to hospitality"; 1 Pet. iv. 9, "Using hospitality one towards another without murmuring"; Heb. vi. 10, xiii. 2, "Forget not to show love to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares." Individuals are frequently commended by Paul to the hospitality of the church; e.g., Rom. xvi. 1 f., "Receive her in the Lord, as becometh the saints." See also 3 John 5-8. In the "Shepherd" of Hermas (Mand. viii. 10) hospitality is distinctly mentioned in the catalogue of virtues, with this remarkable comment: en gar te philoxenia heurisketai agathopoiesis pote ("for benevolence from time to time is found in hospitality"), while in (Sim., viii. 10. 3), praise is assigned to those Christians who eis tous oikous auton hupedexanto tous doulous tou theou ("gladly welcomed God's servants into their houses"). Aristides, in his Apology (xv.), says that if Christians "see any stranger, they take him under their roof and rejoice over him as over a very brother" (xenon ean idosin, hupo stegen eisagousi kai chairousin ep' auto hos epi adelpho alethino). The exercise of hospitality by private individuals towards Christian brethren is assumed by Tertullian to be a duty which no one dare evade; for, in writing to his wife (ad Uxor. ii. 4), he warns her against marrying a heathen, should he (Tertullian) predecease her, on the ground that no Christian brother would get a spiritual reception in an alien household. But hospitality was inculcated especially upon officials of the church, such as elders (bishops) and deacons, who practiced this virtue in the name of the church at large; cp. 1 Tim. iii. 2, Tit. i. 8 (1 Tim. v. 10). In Hermas (Sim., ix. 27. 2) hospitable bishops form a special class among the saints, since "they gladly received God's servants into their houses at all times, and without hypocrisy." In the Didachê a comparatively large amount of space is taken up with directions regarding the care of travelers, and Cyprian's interest in strangers is attested by his seventh letter, written to his clergy at Carthage from his place of retreat during the Decian persecution. He writes: "I beg you will attend carefully to the widows, and sick people, and all the poor. You may also pay the expenses of any strangers who may be in need, out of my own portion which I left with my fellow-presbyter Rogatianus. In case it should be all used, I hereby forward by the hands of Naricus the acolyte another sum of money, so that the sufferers may be dealt with more promptly and liberally" ("Viduarum et infirmorum et omnium pauperum curam peto diligenter habeatis, sed et peregrinis si qui indigentes fuerint sumptus suggeratis de quantitate mea propria quam apud Rogatianum compresbyterum nostrum dimisi. Quae quantitas ne forte iam erogata sit, misi eidem per Naricum acoluthum aliam portionem, ut largius et promptius circa laborantes fiat operatio"). Cp. also Apost. Const., iii. 3 (p. 98, 9 f., ed. Lagarde), and Ep. Clem. ad Jacob. (p. 9, 10 f., ed. Lagarde): tous xenous meta pases prothumias eis tous heauton oikous lambanete ("Receive strangers into your homes with all readiness"). In his satire on the death of Peregrinus (xvi.), Lucian describes how his hero, on becoming a Christian, was amply provided for on his travels: "Peregrinus thus started out for the second time, and betook himself to traveling; he had an ample allowance from the Christians, who constituted themselves his bodyguard, so that he lived in clover. Thus for some time he provided for himself in this fashion." From the pseudo-Clementine epistle de Virginitate one also learns to appreciate the appeal and exercise of hospitality. Finally, Julian (Ep. ad Arsac.) emphasizes he peri tous xenous philanthropia among Christians, and wishes that his own party would imitate it (see above, p. 162). [310] 1 Clem. i. 2: tis gar parepidemesas pros humas . . . . to megaloprepes tes philoxenias humon ethos ouk ekeruxen? ("What person who has sojourned among you . . . . has not proclaimed your splendid, hospitable disposition?"); cp. above, p. 152. [311] Melito of Sardes, according to Eusebius (H.E., iv. 26. 2). [312] 1 Clem. x. 7, xi. 1, xii. 1. [313] Ch. iv.: "Si quando veluti peregrinans ad hospitium pervenisset, quae quidem diversoria hospitalissimus Marcellus instruxerat." [314] Cp. 1 Clem. lix. 2 f, with my notes ad loc. Polyc., Phil., xii. 2 f. [315] No doubt, the account (in Acts) of the Antiochene donation and of the journey of Barnabas and Paul to Jerusalem does lie open to critical suspicion (see Overbeck, ad loc.). [316] The meaning of Heb. vi. 10 is uncertain. I may observe at this point that more than three centuries later Jerome employed this Pauline collection as an argument to enforce the duty of all Christians throughout the Roman empire to support the monastic settlements at the sacred sites of Jerusalem and Bethlehem. In his treatise against Vigilantius (xiii.), who had opposed the squandering of money to maintain monks in Judæa, Jerome argues from 2 Cor. 8, etc., without more ado, as a scriptural warrant for such collections. [317] Even by the time of Domitian, Christian churches were liable to poverty, owing to the authorities seizing their goods; cp. Heb. x. 34 (if the epistle belongs to this period), and Eus., H.E., iii. 17. [318] Tert., Apol., xxxix.: "Si qui in metallis et si qui in insulis, vel in custodiis, dumtaxat ex causa dei sectae, alumni suae confessionis fiunt" (cp. p. 153). [319] Basil, Ep. ad Damasum Papam (lxx). [320] Ign., ad Rom., prooemium. Cp. Zahn, ad loc.: "In caritatis operibus semper primum locum sibi vindicavit ecclesia Romana" ("The Roman church always justified her primacy in works of charity"). [321] "Si illic ecclesia non sufficit ut laborantibus praestat alimenta, poterit se ad transferre (i.e., to Carthage), et hic quod sibi ad victum atque ad vestitum necessarium fuerit accipere" ("If the local church is not able to support those who need labor, let it send them on to us to get the needful food and clothing"). [322] It may be observed at this point that there were no general collections in the early church, like those maintained by the Jews in the Imperial age. The organization of the churches would not tend greatly to promote any such undertakings, since Christians had no headquarters such as the Jews possessed in Palestine. [323] Eph., xxi. 2; Trall., xii. 1; Magn., xiv. [324] Even here Ignatius remembers to commend the church at Antioch to the church of Rome (ix.): "Remember in your prayers the Syrian church, which has God for its shepherd now instead of me. Jesus Christ alone shall be its overseer (bishop)--he and your love together." [325] Philad., xi. 2; Smyrn., xii. 1. [326] Polyc., ad Phil., xiii. [327] It is preserved, though not in an entirely complete form, by Eusebius (H.E., v. 1 f.). The Smyrniote letter also occurs in an abbreviated form in Eusebius (iv. 15); the complete form, however, is also extant in a special type of text, both in Greek and Latin. [328] Ep. viii. in Cyprian's correspondence (ed. Hartel). [329] Cp. my study (in the volume dedicated to Weizsäcker, 1892) on "The letters of the Roman clergy from the age of the papal vacancy in 250 A.D." There is also an interesting remark of Dionysius of Alexandria in a letter addressed to Germanus which Eusebius has preserved (H.E., vii. 11. 3). Dionysius tells how "one of the brethren who were present from Rome accompanied" him to his examination before Æmilianus the governor (during the Valerian persecution). [330] "Sed cum ipsi auctores, id est ipsi diaconi et presbyteri et episcopi fugiunt, quomodo laicus intellegere potuerit, qua ratione dictum: Fugite de civitate in civitatem? (Tales) dispersum gregem faciunt et in praedam esse omnibus bestiis agri, dum non est pastor illis. Quod nunquam magis fit, quam cum in persecutione destituitur ecclesia a clero" ("But when the very authorities themselves--deacons, I mean, and presbyters and bishops--take to flight, how can a layman see the real meaning of the saying, Flee from city to city'? Such shepherds scatter the flock and leave it a prey to every wild beast of the field, by depriving it of a shepherd. And this is specially the case when a church is forsaken by the clergy during persecution").--De Fuga, xi. [331] Cp. the inscription. [332] Cp. i. 1, iii. 3, xxxix. 1, xlvii. 6, etc. [333] This is probable, from i. 3, xxi. 6. [334] Cp. xlvii. 7, i. 1. [335] i. 1, xlvii. 6-7. [336] Cp. lix. 1, lvi. 1, lxiii. 2. [337] Cp. especially lviii. 2: dexasthe ten sumboulen hemon ("accept our counsel"). [338] Cp. xl. 1, xlv. 2 f., liii. 1, lxii. 3. [339] Instances of this occur, e.g., in the correspondence of Cyprian and of Dionysius of Alexandria. [340] Cp. Eus., H.E., vi. 19. 15; 33. 2; 37; 32. 2. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 5 THE RELIGION OF THE SPIRIT AND OF POWER, OF MORAL EARNESTNESS AND HOLINESS\ [341] In its missionary activities the Christian religion presented itself as something more than the gospel of redemption and of ministering love; it was also the religion of the Spirit and of power. No doubt, it verified its character as Spirit and power by the very fact that it brought redemption and succor to mankind, freeing them from demons (see above, pp. 125 f.) and from the misery of life. But the witness of the Spirit had a wider reach than even this. "I came to you in weakness and fear and with great trembling; nor were my speech and preaching in persuasive words of wisdom but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power" (1 Cor. ii. 3, 4). Though Paul in these words is certainly thinking of his conflict with demons and of their palpable defeat, he is by no means thinking of that alone, but also of all the wonderful deeds that accompanied the labors of the apostles and the founding of the church. These were not confined to his own person. From all directions they were reported, in connection with other missionaries as well. Towards the close of the first century, when people came to look back upon the age in which the church had been established, the course of events was summed up in these words (Heb. ii. 3): "Salvation began by being spoken through the Lord, and was confirmed for us by those who heard it, while God accompanied their witness by signs and wonders and manifold miracles and distributions of the holy Spirit." The variety of expressions [342] here is in itself a proof of the number of phenomena which emerge in this connection. Let us try to single out the most important of them. (1) God speaks to the missionaries in visions, dreams, and ecstasy, revealing to them affairs of moment and also trifles, controlling their plans, pointing out the roads on which they are to travel, the cities where they are to stay, and the persons whom they are to visit. Visions occur especially after a martyrdom, the dead martyr appearing to his friends during the weeks that immediately follow his death, as in the case of Potamiæna (Eus., H.E., vi. 5), or of Cyprian, or of many others. It was by means of dreams that Arnobius (Jerome, Chron., p. 326) and others were converted. Even in the middle of the third century, the two great bishops Dionysius and Cyprian [343] were both visionaries. Monica, Augustine's mother, like many a Christian widow, saw visions frequently; she could even detect, from a certain taste in her mouth, whether it was a real revelation or a dream-image that she saw (Aug., Conf., vi. 13. 23: "Dicebat discernere se nescio quo sapore, quem verbis explicare non poterat, quid interesset inter revelantem te et animam suam somniantem"). She was not the first who used this criterion. (2) At the missionary addresses of the apostles or evangelists, or at the services of the churches which they founded, sudden movements of rapture are experienced, many of them being simultaneous seizures; these are either full of terror and dismay, convulsing the whole spiritual life, or exultant outbursts of a joy that sees heaven opened to its eyes. The simple question, "What must I do to be saved?" also bursts upon the mind with an elemental force. (3) Some are inspired who have power to clothe their experience in words--prophets to explain the past, to interpret and to fathom the present, and to foretell the future. [344] Their prophecies relate to the general course of history, but also to the fortunes of individuals, to what individuals are to do or leave undone. (4) Brethren are inspired with the impulse to improvise prayers and hymns and psalms. (5) Others are so filled with the Spirit that they lose consciousness and break out in stammering speech and cries, or in unintelligible utterances--which can be interpreted, however, by those who have the gift. (6) Into the hands of others, again, the Spirit slips a pen, either in an ecstasy or in exalted moments of spiritual tension; they not merely speak but write as they are bidden. (7) Sick persons are brought and healed by the missionaries, or by brethren who have been but recently awakened; wild paroxysms of terror before God's presence are also soothed, and in the name of Jesus demons are cast out. (8) The Spirit impels men to an immense variety of extraordinary actions--to symbolic actions which are meant to reveal some mystery or to give some directions for life, as well as to deeds of heroism. (9) Some perceive the presence of the Spirit with every sense; they see its brilliant light, they hear its voice, they smell the fragrance of immortality and taste its sweetness. Nay more; they see celestial persons with their own eyes, see them and also hear them; they peer into what is hidden or distant or to come; they are even rapt into the world to come, into heaven itself, where they listen to "words that cannot be uttered." [345] (10) But although the Spirit manifests itself through marvels like these, it is no less effective in heightening the religious and the moral powers, which operate with such purity and power in certain individuals that they bear palpably the stamp of their divine origin. A heroic faith or confidence in God is visible, able to overthrow mountains, and towering far above the faith that lies in the heart of every Christian; charitable services are rendered which are far more moving and stirring than any miracle; a foresight and a solicitude are astir in the management of life, that operate as surely as the very providence of God. When these spiritual gifts, together with those of the apostles, prophets, and teachers, are excited, they are the fundamental means of edifying the churches, proving them thereby to be "churches of God." The amplest evidence for all these traits is to be found in the pages of early Christian literature from its earliest record down to Irenæus, and even further. The apologists allude to them as a familiar and admitted fact, and it is quite obvious that they were of primary importance for the mission and propaganda of the Christian religion. Other religions and cults could doubtless point to some of these actions of the Spirit, such as ecstasy, vision, demonic and anti-demonic manifestations, but nowhere do we find such a wealth of these phenomena presented to us as in Christianity; moreover, and this is of supreme importance, the fact that their Christian range included the exploits of moral heroism, stamped them in this field with a character which was all their own and lent them a very telling power. What existed elsewhere merely in certain stereotyped and fragmentary forms, appeared within Christianity in a wealth of expression where every function of the spiritual, the mental, and the moral life seemed actually to be raised above itself. [346] In all these phenomena there was an implicit danger, due to the great temptation which people felt either to heighten them artificially, or credulously to exaggerate them, [347] or to imitate them fraudulently, or selfishly to turn them to their own account. [348] It was in the primitive days of Christianity, during the first sixty years of its course, that their effects were most conspicuous, but they continued to exist all through the second century, although in diminished volume. [349] Irenæus confirms this view. [350] The Montanist movement certainly gave new life to the "Spirit," which had begun to wane; but after the opening of the third century the phenomena dwindle rapidly, and instead of being the hall-mark of the church at large, or of every individual community, they become no more than the endowment of a few favored individuals. The common life of the church has now its priests, its altar, its sacraments, its holy book and rule of faith. But it no longer possesses "the Spirit and power." [351] Eusebius is not the first (in the third book of his history) to look back upon the age of the Spirit and of power as the bygone heroic age of the church, [352] for Origen had already pronounced this verdict on the past out of an impoverished present. [353] Yet this impoverishment and disenchantment hardly inflicted any injury now upon the mission of Christianity. During the third century, that mission was being prosecuted in a different way from that followed in the first and second centuries. There were no longer any regular missionaries--at least we never hear of any such. And the propaganda was no longer an explosive force, but a sort of steady fermenting process. Quietly but surely Christianity was expanding from the centers it had already occupied, diffusing itself with no violent shocks or concussions in its spread. If the early Christians always looked out for the proofs of the Spirit and of power, they did so from the standpoint of their moral and religious energy, since it was for the sake of the latter object that these gifts had been bestowed upon the church. Paul describes this object as the edification of the entire church, [354] while as regards the individual, it is the new creation of man from death to life, from a worthless thing into a thing of value. This edification means a growth in all that is good (cp. Gal. v. 22: "The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control"), and the evidence of power is that God has not called many wise after the flesh, nor many noble, but poor and weak men, whom he transformed into morally robust and intelligent natures. Moral regeneration and the moral life were not merely one side of Christianity to Paul, but its very fruit and goal on earth. The entire labor of the Christian mission might be described as a moral enterprise, as the awakening and strengthening of the moral sense. Such a description would not be inadequate to its full contents. Paul's opinion was shared by Christians of the sub-apostolic age by the apologists and great Christian fathers like Tertullian [355] and Origen. Read the Didachê and the first chapter of Clemens Romanus, the conclusion of Barnabas, the homily entitled "Second Clement," the "Shepherd" of Hermas, or the last chapter of the Apology of Aristides, and everywhere you find the ethical demands occupying the front rank. They are thrust forward almost with wearisome diffuseness and with a rigorous severity. Beyond all question, these Christian communities seek to regulate their common life by principles of the strictest morality, tolerating no unholy members in their midst, [356] and well aware that with the admission of immorality their very existence at once ceases. The fearful punishment to which Paul sentences the incestuous person (1 Cor. 5) is not exceptional. Gross sinners were always ejected from the church. Even those who consider all religions, including Christianity, to be merely idiosyncrasies, and view progress as entirely identical with the moral progress of mankind--even such observers must admit that in these days progress did depend upon the Christian churches, and that history then had recourse to a prodigious and paradoxical system of levers in order to gain a higher level of human evolution. Amid all the convulsions of the soul and body produced by the preaching of a judgment, which was imminent, and amid the raptures excited by the Spirit of Christ, morality advanced to a position of greater purity and security. Above all, the conflict undertaken by Christianity was one against sins of the flesh, such as fornication, adultery, and unnatural vices. In the Christian communities, monogamy was held to be the sole permissible union of the sexes. [357] The indissoluble character of marriage was inculcated (apart from the case of adultery), [358] and marriage was also secured by the very difficulties which second marriages encountered. [359] Closely bound up with the struggle against carnal sins was the strict prohibition of abortion and the exposure of infants. [360] Christians further opposed covetousness, greed, and dishonesty in business life; they attacked mammon-worship in every shape and form, and the pitiless temper which is its result. Thirdly, they combated double-dealing and falsehood. It was along these three lines, in the main, that Christian preaching asserted itself in the sphere of morals. Christians were to be pure men, who do not cling to their possessions and are not self-seeking; moreover, they were to be truthful and brave. The apologists shared the views of the sub-apostolic fathers. At the close of his Apology, addressed to the public of paganism, Aristides exhibits the Christian life in its purity, earnestness, and love, and is convinced that in so doing he is expressing all that is most weighty and impressive in it. Justin follows suit. Lengthy sections of his great Apology are devoted to a statement of the moral principles in Christianity, and to a proof that these are observed by Christians. Besides, all the apologists rely on the fact that even their opponents hold goodness to be good and wickedness to be evil. They consider it superfluous to waste their time in proving that goodness is really goodness; they can be sure of assent to this proposition. What they seek to prove is that goodness among Christians is not an impotent claim or a pale ideal, but a power, which is developed on all sides and actually exercised in life. [361] It was of special importance to them to be able to show (cp. the argument of the apostle Paul) that what was weak and poor and ignoble rose thereby to strength and worth. "They say of us, that we gabble nonsense among females, half-grown people, girls, and old women. [362] Not so. Our maidens philosophize,' and at their distaffs speak of things divine" (Tatian, Orat., xxxiii.). "The poor, no less than the well-to-do, philosophize with us" (ibid., xxxii.). "Christ has not, as Socrates had, merely philosophers and scholars as his disciples, but also artizans and people of no education, who despise glory, fear, and death." [363] "Among us are uneducated folk, artizans, and old women who are utterly unable to describe the value of our doctrines in words, but who attest them by their deeds." [364] Similar retorts are addressed by Origen to Celsus (in his second book), and by Lactantius (Instit., VI. iv.) to his opponents. A whole series of proofs is extant, indicating that the high level of morality enjoined by Christianity and the moral conduct of the Christian societies were intended to promote, and actually did promote, the direct interests of the Christian mission. [365] The apologists not infrequently lay great stress on this. [366] Tatian mentions "the excellence of its moral doctrines" as one of the reasons for his conversion (Orat., xxix.), while Justin declares that the steadfastness of Christians convinced him of their purity, and that these impressions proved decisive in bringing him over to the faith (Apol., II. xii.). We frequently read in the Acts of the Martyrs (and, what is more, in the genuine sections) that the steadfastness and loyalty of Christians made an overwhelming impression on those who witnessed their trial or execution; so much so, that some of these spectators suddenly decided to become Christians themselves. [367] But it is in Cyprian's treatise "to Donatus" that we get the most vivid account of how a man was convinced and won over to Christianity, not so much by its moral principles, as by the moral energy which it exhibited. Formerly he considered it impossible to put off the old man and put on the new. But "after I had breathed the heavenly spirit in myself, and the second birth had restored me to a new manhood, then doubtful things suddenly and strangely acquired certainty for me. What was hidden disclosed itself; darkness became enlightened; what was formerly hard seemed feasible, and what had appeared impossible seemed capable of being done." Tertullian and Origen speak in similar terms. But it is not merely Christians themselves who bear witness that they have been lifted into a new world of moral power, of earnestness, and of holiness; even their opponents bear testimony to their purity of life. The abominable charges circulated by the Jews against the moral life of Christians did hold their own for a long while, and were credited by the common people as well as by many of the educated classes. [368] But anyone who examined the facts found something very different. Pliny told Trajan that he had been unable to prove anything criminal or vicious on the part of Christians during all his examination of them, and that, on the contrary, the purpose of their gatherings was to make themselves more conscientious and virtuous. [369] Lucian represents the Christians as credulous fanatics, but also as people of a pure life, of devoted love, and of a courage equal to death itself. The last-named feature is also admitted by Epictetus and Aurelius. [370] Most important of all, however, is the testimony of the shrewd physician Galen. He writes (in his treatise [371] "de Sententiis Politiæ Platonicæ") as follows: "Hominum plerique orationem demonstrativam continuam morte assequi nequeunt, quare indigent, ut instituantur parabolis. veluti nostro tempore videmus homines illos, qui Christiani vocantur, fidem suam e parabolis petiisse. Hi tamen interdum talia faciunt, qualia qui vere philosophantur. Nam quod mortem contemnunt, id quidem omnes ante oculos habemus; item quod verecundia quadam ducti ab usu rerum venerearum abhorrent. sunt enim inter eos et feminae et viri, qui per totam vitam a concubitu abstinuerint; [372] sunt etiam qui in animis regendis coercendisque et in acerrimo honestatis studio eo progressi sint, ut nihil cedant vere philosophantibus." [373] One can hardly imagine a more impartial and brilliant testimony to the morality of Christians. Celsus, too, a very prejudiced critic of Christians, finds no fault with their moral conduct. Everything about them, according to him, is dull, mean, and deplorable; but he never denies them such morality as is possible under the circumstances. As the proof of "the Spirit and of power" subsided after the beginning of the third century, the extraordinary moral tension also became relaxed, paving the way gradually for a morality which was adapted to a worldly life, and which was no longer equal to the strain of persecution. [374] This began as far back as the second century, in connection with the question, whether any, and if so what, post-baptismal sins could be forgiven. But the various stages of the process cannot be exhibited in these pages. It must suffice to remark that from about 230 A.D. onwards, many churches followed the lead of the Roman church in forgiving gross bodily sins, whilst after 251 A.D. most churches also forgave sins of idolatry. Thus the circle was complete; only in one or two cases were crimes of exceptional atrocity denied forgiveness, implying that the offender was not re-admitted to the church. It is quite obvious from the later writings of Tertullian ("nostrorum bonorum status iam mergitur," de Pudic., i.), and from many a stinging remark in Origen's commentaries, that even by 220 A.D. the Christian churches, together with their bishops and clergy, were no longer what they had previously been, from a moral point of view; [375] nevertheless (as Origen expressly emphasizes against Celsus; cp. III. xxix.-xxx.) their morals still continued to excel the morals of other guilds within the empire and of the population in the cities, whilst the penitential ordinances between 251 and 325, of which we possess no small number, point to a very earnest endeavor being made to keep up morality and holiness of life. Despite their moral deterioration, the Christian churches must have still continued to wield a powerful influence and fascination for people of a moral disposition. But here again we are confronted with the complexio oppositorum. For the churches must have also produced a powerful effect upon people in every degree of moral weakness, just on account of that new internal development which had culminated about the middle of the third century. If the churches hitherto had been societies which admitted people under the burden of sin, not denying entrance even to the worst offender, but securing him forgiveness with God and thereafter requiring him to continue pure and holy, now they had established themselves voluntarily or involuntarily as societies based upon unlimited forgiveness. Along with baptism, and subsequent to it, they had now developed a second sacrament; it was still without form, but they relied upon it as a thing which had form, and considered themselves justified in applying it in almost every case--it was the sacrament of penitence. Whether this development enabled them to meet the aims of their Founder better than their more rigorous predecessors, or whether it removed them further from these aims, is not a question upon which we need to enter. The point is that now for the first time the attractive power of Christianity as a religion of pardon came fully into play. No doubt, everything depended on the way in which pardon was applied but it was not merely a frivolous scoff on the part of Julian the apostate when he pointed out that the way in which the Christian churches preached and administered forgiveness was injurious to the best interests of morality, and that there were members in the Christian churches whom no other religious societies would tolerate within their bounds. The feature which Julian censured had arisen upon a wide scale as far back as the second half of the third century. When clerics of the same church started to quarrel with each other, as in the days of Cyprian at Carthage, they instantly flung at each other the most heinous charges of fraud, of adultery, and even of murder. One asks, in amazement and indignation, why the offending presbyter or deacon had not been long ago expelled from the church, if such accusations were correct? To this question no answer can be given. Besides, even if these repeated and almost stereotyped charges were not in every case well founded, the not less serious fact remains that one brother wantonly taxed another with the most heinous crimes. It reveals a laxity that would not have been possible, had not a fatal influence been already felt from the reverse side of the religion of the merciful heart and of forgiveness. Still, this forgiveness is not to be condemned by the mere fact that it was extended to worthless characters. We are not called upon to be its judges. We must be content to ascertain, as we have now ascertained, that while the character of the Christian religion, as a religion of morality, suffered some injury in the course of the third century, this certainly did not impair its powers of attraction. It was now sought after as the religion which formed a permanent channel of forgiveness to mankind. Which was partly due, no doubt, to the fact that different groups of people were now appealing to it. Yet, if this sketch of the characteristics of Christianity is not to be left unfinished two things must still be noted. One is this: the church never sanctioned the thesis adopted by most of the gnostics, [376] that there was a qualitative distinction of human beings according to their moral capacities, and that in consequence of this there must also be different grades in their ethical conduct and in the morality which might be expected from them. But there was a primitive distinction between a morality for the perfect and a morality which was none the less adequate, and this distinction was steadily maintained. Even in Paul there are evident traces of this view alongside of a strictly uniform conception. The Catholic doctrine of "præcepta" and "consilia" prevailed almost from the first within the Gentile church, and the words of the Didachê which follow the description of "the two ways" (c. vi.: "If thou canst bear the whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect: but if thou canst not, do what thou canst") only express a conviction which was very widely felt. The distinction between the "children" and the "mature" (or perfect), which originally obtained within the sphere of Christian knowledge, overflowed into the sphere of conduct, since both spheres were closely allied. [377] Christianity had always her heroic souls in asceticism and poverty and so forth. They were held in exceptional esteem (see above), and they had actually to be warned, even in the sub-apostolic age, against pride and boasting (cp. Ignat., ad Polyc. v.: ei tis dunatai en hagneia menein eis timen tes sarkos tou kuriou, en akauchesia meneto; ean kauchesetai, apoleto--"If anyone is able to remain in purity to the honor of the flesh of the Lord, let him remain as he is without boasting of it. If he boast, he is a lost man;" also Clem. Rom. xxxviii.: ho hagnos en te sarki eto kai me alazoneuestho--"Let him that is pure in the flesh remain so and not boast about it"). It was in these ascetics of early Christianity that the first step was taken towards monasticism. Secondly, veracity in matters of fact is as liable to suffer as righteousness in every religion: every religion gets encumbered with fanaticism, the indiscriminate temper, and fraud. This is writ clear upon the pages of church history from the very first. In the majority of cases, in the case of miracles that have never happened, of visions that were never seen, of voices that were never heard, and of books that were never written by their alleged authors, we are not in a position at this time of day to decide where self-deception ended and where fraud began, where enthusiasm became deliberate and then passed into conventional deception, any more than we are capable of determining, as a rule, where a harsh exclusiveness passes into injustice and fanaticism. We must content ourselves with determining that cases of this kind were unfortunately not infrequent, and that their number increased. What we call priest-craft and miracle-fraud were not absent from the third or even from the second century. They are to be found in the Catholic church as well as in several of the gnostic conventicles, where water was changed into wine (as by the Marcosians) or wine into water (cp. the books of Jeû). Christianity, as the religion of the Spirit and of power, contained another element which proved of vital importance, and which exhibited pre-eminently the originality of the new faith. This was its reverence for the lowly, for sorrow, suffering, and death, together with its triumphant victory over these contradictions of human life. The great incentive and example alike for the eliciting and the exercise of this virtue lay in the Redeemer's life and cross. Blent with patience and hope, this reverence overcame any external hindrance; it recognized in suffering the path to deity, and thus triumphed in the midst of all its foes. "Reverence for what is beneath us--this is the last step to which mankind were fitted and destined to attain. But what a task it was, not only to let the earth lie beneath us, we appealing to a higher birthplace, but also to recognize humility and poverty, mockery and despite, disgrace and wretchedness, suffering and death--to recognize these things as divine." [378] Here lies the root of the most profound factor contributed by Christianity to the development of the moral sense, and contributed with perfect strength and delicacy. It differentiates itself, as an entirely original element, from the similar phenomena which recur in several of the philosophical schools (e.g., the Cynic). Not until a much later period, however,--from Augustine onwards,--did this phase of feeling find expression in literature. Even what is most divine on earth has its shadow nevertheless, and so it was with this reverence. It was inevitable that the new aesthetic, which it involved, should become an aesthetic of lower things, of death and its grim relics; in this way it ceased to be aesthetic by its very effort to attain the impossible, until finally a much later period devised an aesthetic of spiritual agony and raptures over suffering. But there was worse behind. Routine and convention found their way even into this phase of feeling. What was most profound and admirable was gradually stripped of its inner spirit and rendered positively repulsive [379] by custom, common talk, mechanical tradition, and ritual practices. Yet, however strongly we feel about the unsightly phlegm of this corruption, and however indignantly we condemn it, we should never forget that it represented the shadow thrown by the most profound and at the same time the most heroic mood of the human soul in its spiritual exaltation; it is, in fact, religion itself, fully ripe. __________________________________________________________________ [341] In presenting this aspect of the Christian religion, one has either to be extremely brief or very copious. In the volume which has been already mentioned (on p. 125), Weinel has treated it with great thoroughness. Here I shall do no more than adduce the salient points. [342] Cp. Justin's Dial. xxxix.: photizomenoi dia tou onomatos tou christou toutou; ho men gar lambanei suneseos pneuma, ho de boules, ho de ischuos, ho de iaseos, ho de prognoseos, ho de didaskalias, ho de phobou theou ("Illuminated by the name of Christ. For one receives the spirit of understanding, another the spirit of counsel, another the spirit of might, another the spirit of healing, another the spirit of foreknowledge, another the spirit of teaching, another the spirit of the fear of God"). [343] Cp. my essay on "Cyprian als Enthusiast" in the Zeitschrift für die neutest. Wissenschaft iii. (1902), pp. 177 f. [344] These prophecies do not include, however, the Christian Sibylline oracles. The Jewish oracles were accepted in good faith by Christians, and quoted by them (ever since Hermas) as prophetic; but the production of Christian Sibyllines did not begin, in all likelihood, till after the middle of the third century. These oracles are an artificial and belated outcome of the primitive Christian enthusiasm, and are simply a series of forgeries. Cp. my Chronologie i., pp. 581 f., ii., pp. 184 f. [345] Cp., however, Orig., Hom. xxvii. 11, in Num. (vol. 10, p. 353): "In visions there is wont to be temptation, for the angel of evil sometimes transforms himself into an angel of light. Hence you must take great care to discriminate the kind of vision, just as Joshua the son of Nun on seeing a vision knew there was a temptation in it, and at once asked the figure, Art thou on our side, or on our foes'?" ("Solet in visionibus esse tentatio; nam nonnunquam angelus iniquitatis transfigurat se in angelum lucis, et ideo cavendum est et sollicite agendum, ut scienter discernas visionum genus, sicut et Iesus Nave, cum visionem viderit, sciens in hoc esse tentationem, statim requisit ab eo qui apparuit et dicit: Noster es an adversariorum?"). See also what follows. [346] We must not ignore the fact that these proofs of "the Spirit and power" were not favorable to the propaganda in all quarters. Celsus held that they were trickery, magic, and a gross scandal, and his opinion was shared by other sensible pagans, although the latter were no surer of their facts than Celsus himself. Paul had observed long ago that, instead of recommending Christianity, speaking with tongues might on the contrary discredit it among pagans (see 1 Cor. xiv. 23: "If the whole congregation assemble and all speak with tongues, then will not uneducated or unbelieving men, who may chance to enter, say that you are mad?"). [347] At that period, as all our sources show, belief in miracles was strong upon the whole; but in Christian circles it seems to have been particularly robust and unlimited, tending more and more to deprive men of any vision of reality. Compare, for example, the apocryphal Acts, a genre of literature whose roots lie in the second century. We must also note how primitive popular legends which were current acquired a Christian cast and got attached to this or that Christian hero or apostle or saint. One instance of this may be seen in the well-known stories of corpses which moved as if they could still feel and think. Tertullian (de Anima, li.) writes thus: "I know of one woman, even within the church itself, who fell peacefully asleep, after a singularly happy though short married life, in the bloom of her age and beauty. Before her burial was completed, when the priest had begun the appointed office, she raised her hands from her side at the first breath of his prayer, put them in the posture of devotion, and, when the holy service was concluded, laid them back in their place. Then there is the other story current among our people, that in a certain cemetery one corpse made way of its own accord for another to be laid alongside of it" (this is also told of the corpse of bishop Reticius of Autun at the beginning of the fourth century). [348] Cp. what has been already said (p. 132) on exorcists being blamed, and also the description of the impostor Marcus given by Irenæus in the first book of his great work. When the impostor Peregrinus joined the Christians, he became (says Lucian) a "prophet," and as such secured for himself both glory and gain. The Didachê had already endeavored to guard the churches against men of this kind, who used their spiritual gifts for fraudulent ends. There were even Christian minstrels; cp. the pseudo-Clementine epistle de Virginitate, ii. 6: "Nec proicimus sanctum canibus nec margaritas ante porcos; sed dei laudes celebramus cum omnimoda disciplina et cum omni prudentia et cum omni timore dei atque animi intentione. Cultum sacrum non exercemus ibi, ubi inebriantur gentiles et verbis impuris in conviviis suis blasphemant in impietate sua. Propterea non psallimus gentilibus neque scripturas illis praelegimus, ut ne tibicinibus aut cantoribus aut hariolis similes simus, sicut multi, qui ita agunt et haec faciunt, ut buccella panis saturent sese et propter modicum vini eunt et cantant cantica domini in terra aliena gentilium ac faciant quod non licet" ("We do not cast what is holy to the dogs nor throw pearls before swine, but celebrate the praises of God with perfect self-restraint and discretion, in all fear of God and with deliberate mind. We do not practice our sacred worship where the heathen get drunk and impiously blaspheme with impure speech at their banquets. Hence we do not sing to the heathen, nor do we read aloud our scriptures to them, that we may not be like flute-players, or singers, or soothsayers, as many are who live and act thus in order to get a mouthful of bread, going for a sorry cup of wine to sing the songs of the Lord in the strange land of the heathen and doing what is unlawful"). See also the earlier passage in i. 13: May God send workmen who are not "operarii mercenarii, qui religionem et pietatem pro mercibus habeant, qui simulent lucis filios, cum non sint lux sed tenebrae, qui operantur fraudem, qui Christum in negotio et quaestu habeant" ("mere hirelings, trading on their religion and piety, irritating the children of light although they themselves are not light but darkness, acting fraudulently, and making Christ a matter of profit and gain"). [349] They must have been generally and inevitably discredited by the fact that the various parties in Christianity during the second century each denied that the other possessed the Spirit and power, explaining that when such phenomena occurred among its opponents they were the work of the devil, and unauthentic. [350] He actually declares (see above, p. 135) that people are still raised from the dead within the Christian church (ii. 31. 2). On the spiritual gifts still operative in his day, cp. ii. 32. 4: Dio kai en to ekeinou onomati (that of Jesus) hoi alethos autou mathetai, par autou labontes ten charin, epitelousin ep' euergesia te ton loipon anthropon, kathos heis hekastos auton dorean eilephe par autou; hoi men gar daimonas elaunousi bebaios kai alethos, hoste pollakis kai pisteuein autous ekeinous tous katharisthantas apo ton poneron pneumaton kai einai en te ekklesia; hoi de kai prognosin echousi ton mellonton kai optasias kai rheseis prophetikas; alloi de tous kamnontas dia tes ton cheiron epitheseos iontai kai hugieis apokathistasin; ede de kai nekroi egerthesan kai paremeinan sun hemin hikanois etesi; kai ti gar? ouk estin arithmon eipein ton charismaton hon kata pantos tou kosmou he ekklesia para theou labousa en to onomati Iesou Christou tou staurothentos epi Pontiou Pilatou, hekastes hemeras ep' euergesia te ton ethnon epitelei (cp. above, p.135). Irenæus distinctly adds that these gifts were gratuitous. Along with other opponents of heresy, he blames the Gnostics for taking money and thus trading upon Christ. A prototype of this occurs as early as Acts viii. 15 f. (the Case of Simon Magus), where it is strongly reprimanded (to argurion sou sun soi eie eis apoleian, "Thy money perish with thee!"). [351] All the higher value was attached to such people as appeared to possess the Spirit. The more the phenomena of Spirit and power waned in and for the general mass of Christians, the higher rose that cultus of heroes in the faith (i.e., ascetics, confessors, and workers of miracles) which had existed from the very first. These all bear unmistakable signs of the Christ within them, in consequence of which they enjoy veneration and authority. Gradually, during the second half of the third century in particular, they took the place of the dethroned deities of paganism, though as a rule this position was not gained till after death.--Though Cyprian still made great use of visions and dreams, he merely sought by their means to enhance his episcopal authority. In several cases, however, they excited doubts and incredulity among people; cp. Ep. lxvi. 10: "Scio somnia ridicula et visiones ineptas quibusdam videri" ("I know that to some people dreams seem absurd and visions senseless"). This is significant. [352] H. E., iii. 37: "A great many wonderful works of the Holy Spirit were wrought in the primitive age through the pupils of the apostles, so that whole multitudes of people, on first hearing the word, suddenly accepted with the utmost readiness faith in the Creator of the universe." [353] In c. Cels. II. viii., he only declares that he himself has seen still more miracles. The age of miracles therefore lay for Origen in earlier days. In II. xlvii. he puts a new face on the miracles of Jesus and his apostles by interpreting them not only as symbolic of certain truths, but also as intended to win over many hearts to the wonderful doctrine of the gospel. Exorcisms and cures are represented by him as still continuing to occur (frequently; cp. I. vi.). From I. ii. we see how he estimated the present and the past of Christianity: "For our faith there is one especial proof, unique and superior to any advanced by aid of Grecian dialectic. This diviner proof is characterized by the apostle as the demonstration of the Spirit and of power'--the demonstration of the Spirit' on account of the prophecies which are capable of producing faith in hearer and reader, the demonstration of power' on account of the extraordinary wonders, whose reality can be proved by this circumstance, among many other things, that traces of them still exist among those who live according to the will of the Logos." [354] Cp. pseudo-Clem., de Virgin., I. xi.: "Illo igitur charismate, quod a domino accepisti, illo inservi fratribus pneumaticis, prophetis, qui dignoscant dei esse verba ea, quae loqueris, et enarra quod accepisti charisma in ecclesiastico conventu ad aedificationem fratrum tuorum in Christo" ("Therefore with that spiritual gift which thou hast received from the Lord, serve the spiritual brethren, even the prophets, who know that the words thou speakest are of God, and declare the gift thou hast received in the church-assembly to the edification of thy brethren in Christ"). [355] The highly characteristic passage in Apol. xlv., may be quoted in this connection: "Nos soli innocentes, quid mirum, si necesse est? enim vero necesse est. Innocentiam a deo edocti et perfecte eam novimus, ut a perfecto magistro revelatam, et fideliter custodiamus, ut ab incontemptibili dispectore mandatam. Vobis autem humana aestimatio innocentiam tradidit, humana item dominatio imperavit, inde nec plenae nec adeo timendae estis disciplinae ad innocentiae veritatem. Tanta est prudentia hominis ad demonstrandum bonum quanta auctoritas ad exigendum; tam illa falli facilis quam ista contemni. Atque adeo quid plenius, dicere: Non occides, an docere: ne irascaris quidem?" etc. ("We, then, are the only innocent people. Is that at all surprising, if it is inevitable? And inevitable it is. Taught of God what innocence is, we have a perfect knowledge of it as revealed by a perfect teacher, and we also guard it faithfully as commanded by a judge who is not to be despised. But as for you, innocence has merely been introduced among you by human opinions, and it is enjoined by nothing better than human rules; hence your moral discipline lacks the fullness and authority requisite for the production of true innocence. Human skill in pointing out what is good is no greater than human authority in enforcing obedience to what is good; the one is as easily deceived as the other is disobeyed. And so, which is the ampler rule--to say, Thou shalt not kill,' or Thou shalt not so much as be angry'?") [356] Martyr. Apoll., xxvi.: "There is a distinction between death and death. For this reason the disciples of Christ die daily, torturing their desires and mortifying them according to the divine scriptures; for we have no part at all in shameless desires, or scenes impure, or glances lewd, or ears attentive to evil, lest our souls thereby be wounded." [357] It formed part of the preparation for Christianity that monogamy had almost established itself by this time among the Jews and throughout the Empire as the one legal form of union between the sexes. Christianity simply proclaimed as an ordinance of God what had already been carried out. Contrary practices, such as concubinage, were still tolerated, but they counted for little in the social organism. Of course the verdict on "fornication" throughout the Empire generally was just as lax as it had always been, and even adultery on the man's side was hardly condemned. The church had to join issue on these points. [358] We may ignore casuistry in this connection. [359] The second century was filled with discussions and opinions about the permissibility of second marriages. [360] Cp. the Didachê; Athenag., Suppl., xxxv., etc. (above, p. 123). [361] Celsus distinctly admits that the ethical ideas of Christianity agree with those of the philosophers (I. iv.); cp. Tert., Apol., xlvi.: "Eadem, inquit, et philosophi monent atque profitentur" ("These very things, we are told, the philosophers also counsel and profess"). Here too we must, however, recognize a complexio oppositorum, and that in a twofold sense. On the one hand, morality, viewed in its essence, is taken as self-evident; a general agreement prevails on this (purity in all the relationships of life, perfect love to one's neighbors, etc.). On the other hand, under certain circumstances it is still maintained that Christian ethics are qualitatively distinct from all other ethics, and that they cannot be understood or practiced apart from the Spirit of God. This estimate answers to the double description given of Christian morality, which on one side is correct behavior in every relationship on earth, while on the other side it is a divine life and conduct, which is supernatural and based on complete asceticism and mortification. This extension of the definition of morality, which is most conspicuous in Tatian, was not, however, the original creation of Christianity; it was derived from the ethics of the philosophers. Christianity merely took it over and modified it. This is easily understood, if we read Philo, Clement, and Origen. [362] Celsus, III. xliv.: "Christians must admit that they can only persuade people destitute of sense, position, or intelligence, only slaves, women, and children, to accept their faith." [363] Justin, Apol., II. x. He adds: dunamis estin tou arretou patros kai ouchi anthropeiou logou kataskeue ("He is a power of the ineffable Father, and no mere instrument of human reason"). So Diognet. vii.: tauta anthropou ou dokei ta erga, tauta dunamis esti theou ("These do not look like human works; they are the power of God"). [364] Athenag., Suppl. xi.; cp. also Justin, Apol., I. lx.: par hemin oun esti tauta akousai kai mathein para ton oude tous charakteras ton stoicheion epistamenon, idioton men kai barbaron to phthegma, sophon de kai piston ton noun onton, kai peron kai cheron tinon tas opseis; hos suneinai ou sophia anthropeia tauta gegonenai, alla dunamei theou legesthai ("Among us you can hear and learn these things from people who do not even know the forms of letters, who are uneducated and barbarous in speech, but wise and believing in mind, though some of them are even maimed and blind. From this you may understand these things are due to no human wisdom, but are uttered by the power of God"). Tertull., Apol., xlvi.: "Deum quilibet opifex Christianus et invenit, et ostendit, et exinde totum quod in deum quaeritur re quoque adsignat, licet Plato adfirmet factitatorem universitatis neque inveniri facilem et inventum enarrari in omnes difficilem" ("There is not a Christian workman who does not find God, and manifest him, and proceed to ascribe to him all the attributes of deity, although Plato declares the maker of the universe is hard to find, and hard, when found, to be expounded to all and sundry"). [365] Ignat., ad Ephes. x.: epitrepsate autois (i.e., the heathen) kan ek ton ergon humin matheteuthenai; pros tas orgas auton humeis praeis, pros tas megalorremosunas auton humeis tapeinophrones, pros tas blasphemias auton humeis tas proseuchas . . . . me spoudazontes antimimesasthai autous; adelphoi auton heurethomen te epieikeia; mimetai tou kuriou spoudazomen einai ("Allow them to learn a lesson at least from your works. Be meek when they break out in anger, be humble against their vaunting words, set your prayers against their blasphemies . . . .; be not zealous to imitate them in requital. Let us show ourselves their brethren by our forbearance, and let us be zealous to be imitators of the Lord"). [366] Cp. also 2 Clem. lxiii.: ta ethne akouonta ek tou stomatos hemon ta logia tou theou hos kala kai megala thaumazei; epeita katamathonta ta erga hemon hoti ouk estin axia ton rhematon hon legomen, enthen eis blasphemian trepontai, legontes einai muthon tina kai planen ("When the Gentiles hear from our mouth the words of God, they wonder at their beauty and greatness; then, discovering our deeds are not worthy of the words we utter, they betake themselves to blasphemy, declaring it is all a myth and error"). Such instances therefore did occur. Indirectly, they are a proof of what is argued above. [367] Even the second oldest martyrdom of which we know, that of James, the son of Zebedee, as related by Clement of Alexandria in his Hypotyposes (cp. Eus., H.E., ii. 9), tells how the accuser himself was converted and beheaded along with the apostle.--All Christians recognised that the zenith of Christian morality was reached when the faith was openly confessed before the authorities, but the sectarian Heracleon brought forward another view, which of course they took seriously amiss. His contention was that such confession in words might be hypocritical as well as genuine, and that the only conclusive evidence was that afforded by the steady profession, which consists in words and actions answering the faith itself (Clem. Alex., Strom., IV. ix. 71 f.). [368] Probably, e.g., by Fronto, the teacher of M. Aurelius (cp. the Octavius of Minutius Felix), and also by Apuleius, if the woman described in Metam., ix. 14 (omnia prorsus ut in quandam caenosam latrinam in eius animam flagitia confluxerant--"every vice had poured into her soul, as into some foul cesspool") was a Christian (spretis atque calcatis divinis numinibus invicem certae religionis mentita sacrilega presumptione dei, quem praedicaret unicum--"scorning and spurning the holy deities in place of the true religion, she affected to entertain a sacrilegious conception of God--the only God, as she proclaimed"). The orator Aristides observed in the conduct of Christians a mixture of humility and arrogance, in which he finds a resemblance between them and the Jews (Orat., xlvi.). This is his most serious charge, and Celsus raises a similar objection (see Book III., Chapter V.). [369] "Adfirmabant autem [i.e., the Christians under examination] hanc fuisse summam vel culpae suae vel erroris, quod essent soliti stato die ante lucem convenire carmenque Christo quasi deo dicere secum invicem, seque sacramento non in scelus aliquod obstringere, sed ne furta, ne latrocinia, ne adulteria committerent, ne fidem fallerent, ne depositum appellati abnegarent" ("They maintained that the head and front of their offending or error had been this, that they were accustomed on a stated day to assemble ere daylight and sing in turn a hymn to Christ as a god, and also that they bound themselves by an oath, not for any criminal end, but to avoid theft or robbery or adultery, never to break their word, or to repudiate a deposit when called upon to refund it"). [370] Both of course qualify their admission. Epictetus (Arrian, Epict. Diss., iv. 7. 6) declares that the Galileans' aphobia before tyrants was due to habit, while Aurelius attributes the readiness of Christians to die, to ostentation (Med. xi. 3). [371] Extant in Arabic in the Hist. anteislam. Abulfedae (ed. Fleischer, p. 109). Cp. Kalbfleisch in the Festschrift für Gomperz (1902), pp. 96 f., and Norden's Kunstprosa, pp. 518 f. [372] From the time of Justin (and probably even earlier) Christians were always pointing, by way of contrast to the heathen, to the group of their brethren and sisters who totally abjured marriage. Obviously they counted on the fact that such conduct would evoke applause and astonishment even among their opponents (even castration was known, as in the case of Origen and of another person mentioned by Justin). Nor was this calculation quite mistaken, for the religious philosophy of the age was ascetic. Still, the applause was not unanimous, even among strict moralists. The pagan in Macarius Magnes, III. xxxvi. (i.e., Porphyry) urged strongly against Paul that in 1 Tim. iv. 1 he censures those who forbid marriage, while in 1 Cor. 7 he recommends celibacy, even although he has to admit he has no word of the Lord upon virgins. "Then is it not wrong to live as a celibate, and also to refrain from marriage at the order of a mere man, seeing that there is no command of Jesus extant upon celibacy? And how can some women who live as virgins boast so loudly of the fact, declaring they are filled with the Holy Ghost like her who bore Jesus?" The suspicious attitude of the early Christians towards sexual intercourse (even in marriage) comes out in Paul unmistakably. On this point the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles (beginning with the Acts of Paul) are specially significant, as they mirror the popular ideas on the subject. The following facts may be set down in this connection. (1) Marriage was still tolerated as a concession to human weakness. (2) The restriction of sexual intercourse, or even entire abstinence from it, was advocated and urgently commended. (3) Second marriage was designated "a specious adultery" (heuprepes moicheia). (4) Virgins were persuaded to remain as they were. (5) Instead of marriage, platonic ties ("virgines subintroductæ") were formed, audaciously and riskily. Cp. Tertull., de Resurr., viii.: "Virginitas et viduitas et modesta in occulto matrimonii dissimulatio et una notitia eius ("Virginity and widowhood and secret self-restraint upon the marriage-bed and the sole practical recognition of that restraint [i.e., monogamy]"). Such, in the order of diminuendo, were the four forms assumed by sexual asceticism. [373] "As a rule, men are unable to follow consecutively any argumentative speech, so that they need to be educated by means of parables. Just as in our own day we see the people who are called Christians seking their faith from parables. Still, they occasionally act just as true philosophers do. For their contempt of death is patent to us all, as is their abstinence from the use of sexual organs, by a certain impulse of modesty. For they include women and men who refrain from cohabiting all through their lives, and they also number individuals who in ruling and controlling themselves, and in their keen pursuit of virtue, have attained a pitch not inferior to that of real philosophers." Galen, of course, condemns the faith of Christians as a mere obstinate adherence to what is quite unproven: peri diaphoras sphugmon, II. iv. (hina me tis euthus kat' archas, hos eis Mousou kai Christou diatriben aphigmenos, nomon anapodeikton akoue--"That no one may hastily give credence to unproven laws, as if he had reached the way of life enjoined by Moses and Christ"), and III. iii. (thatton an tis tous apo Mousou kai Christou metadidaxeien e tous tais hairesi prostetekotas iatrous te kai philosophous--"One could more easily teach novelties to the adherents of Moses and Christ than to doctors and philosophers who are stuck fast in the schools"). [374] The number of those who lapsed during the persecutions of Decius and Diocletian was extraordinarily large; but Tertullian had already spoken of "people who are only Christians if the wind happens to be favorable" (Scorp., i.). [375] The "Shepherd" of Hermas shows, however, the amount of trouble which even at an earlier period had to be encountered. [376] It is surprising that the attractiveness of these (gnostic) ideas was not greater than it seems to have been. But by the time that they sought to establish their situation on Christian soil or to force their way in, the church's organization was well knit together, so that gnosticism could do no more in the way of breaking it up or creating a rival institution. [377] The ascetics are not only the "perfect" but also the "religious," strictly speaking. Cp. Origen (Hom. ii. in Num., vol. x. p. 20), who describes virgins, ascetics, and so forth, as those "qui in professione religionis videntur"; also Hom. xvii. in Luc. (vol. v. p. 151), where, on 1 Cor. i. 2, he observes: "Memini cum interpretarer 1 Cor. i. 2 dixisse me diversitatem ecclesiae et eorum qui invocant nomen domini. Puto enim monogamum et virginem et eum, qui in castimonia perseverat, esse de ecclesia dei, eum vero, qui sit digamus, licet bonam habeat conversationem et ceteris virtutibus polleat, tamen non esse de ecclesia et de numero, qui non habent rugam aut maculam aut aliquid istius modi, sed esse de secundo gradu et de his qui invocant nomen domini, et qui salvantur quidem in nomine Jesu Christi, nequaquam tamen coronantur ab eo" (church = virgins, ascetics, and the once married: those who call on the name of the Lord = the second rank, i.e., the twice married, even though their lives are pure otherwise). [378] Goethe, Wanderjahre xxiv., p. 243. [379] Goethe (ibid., p. 255) has said the right word on this as well: "We draw a veil over those sufferings (the sufferings of Christ in particular), just because we reverence them so highly. We hold it is a damnable audacity to take these mysterious secrets, in which the depth of the divine sorrow lies hid, and play with them, fondle them, trick them out, and never rest until the supreme object of reverence appears vulgar and paltry." __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 6 THE RELIGION OF AUTHORITY AND OF REASON, OF THE MYSTERIES AND OF TRANSCENDENTALISM I. "Some Christians [evidently not all] will not so much as give or accept any account of what they believe. They adhere to the watchwords Prove not, only believe,' and Thy faith shall save thee.' Wisdom is an evil thing in the world, folly a good thing." So Celsus wrote about the Christians (I. ix.). In the course of his polemical treatise he brings forward this charge repeatedly in various forms; as in I. xii., "They say, in their usual fashion, Enquire not'"; I. xxvi. f., "That ruinous saying of Jesus has deceived men. With his illiterate character and lack of eloquence he has gained of course almost no one but illiterate people"; [380] III. xliv., "The following rules are laid down by Christians, even by the more intelligent among them. Let none draw near to us who is educated, or shrewd, or wise. Such qualifications are in our eyes an evil. But let the ignorant, the idiots, and the fools come to us with confidence'"; vi. x. f., "Christians say, Believe first of all that he whom I announce to thee is the Son of God."' "All are ready to cry out, Believe if thou wilt be saved, or else be gone.' What is wisdom among men they describe as foolishness with God, and their reason for this is their desire to win over none but the uneducated and simple by means of this saying." Justin also represents Christians being charged by their opponents with making blind assertions and giving no proof (Apol., I. lii.), while Lucian declares (Peregr., xiii.) that they "received such matters on faith without the slightest enquiry" (aneu tinos akribous pisteos ta toiauta paredexanto). A description and a charge of this kind were not entirely unjustified. Within certain limits Christians have maintained, from the very first, that the human understanding has to be captured and humbled in order to obey the message of the gospel. Some Christians even go a step further. Bluntly, they require a blind faith for the word of God. When the apostle Paul views his preaching, not so much in its content as in its origin, as the word of God, and even when he notes the contrast between it and the wisdom of this world, his demand is for a firm, resolute faith, and for nothing else. "We bring every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ" (2 Cor. x. 5), and--the word of the cross tolerates no sophia logou (no wisdom of speech), it is to be preached as foolishness and apprehended by faith (1 Cor. i. 17 f.). Hence he also issues a warning against the seductions of philosophy (Col. ii. 8). Tertullian advanced beyond this position much more boldly. He prohibited Christians (de Præscr. viii. f.) from ever applying to doctrine the saying, "Seek and ye shall find." "What," he exclaims (op. cit., vii.), "what has Athens to do with Jerusalem, or the Academy with the church? What have heretics to do with Christians? Our doctrine originates with the porch of Solomon, who had himself taught that men must seek the Lord in simplicity of heart. Away with all who attempt to introduce a mottled Christianity of Stoicism and Platonism and dialectic! Now that Jesus Christ has come, no longer need we curiously inquire, or even investigate, since the gospel is preached. When we believe, we have no desire to sally beyond our faith. For our belief is the primary and palmary fact. There is nothing further that we have still to believe beyond our own belief. . . . . To be ignorant of everything outside the rule of faith, is to possess all knowledge." [381] Many missionaries may have preached in this way, not merely after but even previous to the stern conflict with gnosticism. Faith is a matter of resolve, a resolve of the will and a resolve to obey. Trouble it not by any considerations of human reason! Preaching of this kind is only possible if at the same time some powerful authority is set up. And such an authority was set up. First and foremost (cp. Paul), it was the authority of the revealed will of God as disclosed in the mission of the Son to earth. Here external and internal authority blended and coincided, for while the divine will is certainly an authority in itself (according to Paul's view), and is also capable of making itself felt as such, without men understanding its purpose and right (Rom. 9 f.), the apostle is equally convinced that God's gracious will makes itself intelligible to the inner man. Still, even in Paul, the external and internal authority vested in the cross of Christ is accompanied by other authorities which claim the obedience of faith. These are the written word of the sacred documents and the sayings of Jesus. In their case also neither doubt nor contradiction is permissible. For all that, the great apostle endeavored to reason out everything, and in the last resort it is never a question with him of any "sacrifice of the intellect" (see below). Some passages may seem to contradict this statement, but they only seen to do so. When Paul demands the obedience of faith and sets up the authority of "the word" or of "the cross," he simply means that obedience of faith which is inseparable from any religion whatsoever, no matter how freely and spiritually it may be set forth. But, as Celsus and Tertullian serve to remind us (if any reminder at all is necessary on this point), many missionaries and teachers went about their work in a very different manner. They simply erected their authority wherever they went; it was the letter of Scripture more and more, [382] but ere long it became the rule of faith, together with the church (the church as "the pillar and ground of the truth," stulos kai hedraioma tes aletheias, as early as 1 Tim. iii. 15). True, they endeavored to buttress the authority of these two magnitudes, the Bible and the church, by means of rational arguments (the authority of the Bible being supported by the proof from the fulfillment of prophecy, and that of the church by the proof from the unbroken tradition which reached back to Christ himself and invested the doctrine of the church with the value of Christ's own words). In so doing they certainly did not demand an absolutely blind belief. But, first of all, it was assuredly not every missionary or teacher who was competent to lead such proofs. They were adduced only by the educated apologists and controversialists. And in the second place, no inner authority can ever be secured for the Bible and the church by means of external proofs. The latter really remained a sort of alien element. At bottom, the faith required was blind faith. Still, it would be a grave error to suppose that for the majority of people the curt demand that authorities must be simply believed and reason repudiated, acted as a serious obstacle to their acceptance of the Christian religion. [383] In reality, it was the very opposite. The more peremptory and exclusive is the claim of faith which any religion makes, the more trustworthy and secure does that religion seem to the majority; the more it relieves them of the duty and responsibility of reflecting upon its truth, the more welcome it is. Any firmly established authority thus acts as a sedative. Nay more. The most welcome articles of faith are just the most paradoxical, which are a mockery of all experience and rational reflection; the reason for this being that they appear to guarantee the disclosure of divine wisdom and not of something which is merely human and therefore unreliable. "Miracle is the favorite child of faith." That is true of more than miracles; it applies also to the miraculous doctrines which cannot be appropriated by a man unless he is prepared to believe and obey them blindly. But so long as the authorities consisted of books and doctrines, the coveted haven of rest was still unreached. The meaning of these doctrines always lies open to some doubt. Their scope, too, is never quite fixed. And, above all, their application to present-day questions is often a serious difficulty, which leads to painful and disturbing controversies. "Blind faith" never gains its final haven until its authority is living, until questions can be put to it, and answers promptly received from it. During the first generations of Christendom no such authority existed; but in the course of the second century and down to the middle of the third, it was gradually taking shape--I mean, the authority of the church as represented in the episcopate. It did not dislodge the other authorities of God's saving purpose and the holy Scripture, but by stepping to their side it pushed them into the background. The auctoritas interpretiva is invariably the supreme and real authority. After the middle of the third century, the church and the episcopate developed so far that they exercised the functions of a sacred authority. And it was after that period that the church first advanced by leaps and bounds, till it became a church of the masses. For while the system of a living authority in the church had still defects and gaps of its own--since in certain circumstances it either exercised its functions very gradually or could not enforce its claims at all--these defects did not exist for the masses. In the bishop or priest, or even in the ecclesiastical fabric and the cultus, the masses were directly conscious of something holy and authoritative to which they yielded submission, and this state of matters had prevailed for a couple of generations by the time that Constantine granted recognition and privileges to Christianity. This was the church on which he conferred privileges, this church with its enormous authority over the masses! These were the Christians whom he declared to be the support of the throne, people who clung to the bishops with submissive faith and who would not resist their divinely appointed authority! The Christianity that triumphed was the Christianity of blind faith, which Celsus has depicted. When would a State ever have shown any practical interest in any other kind of religion? II Christianity is a complexio oppositorum. The very Paul who would have reason brought into captivity, proclaimed that Christianity, in opposition to polytheism, was a "reasonable service of God" (Rom. xii. 1, logike latreia), and declared that what pagans thought folly in the cross of Christ seemed so to those alone who were blinded, whereas what Christians preached was in reality the profoundest wisdom. He went on to declare that this was not merely reserved for us as a wisdom to be attained in the far future, but capable of being understood even at present by believers as such. He promised that he would introduce the "perfect" among them to its mysteries. [384] This promises (cp., e.g., 1 Cor. ii. 6 f., sophian en tois teleiois) he made good; yet he never withheld this wisdom from those who were children or weak in spiritual things. He could not, indeed he dared not, utter all he understood of God's word and the cross of Christ--laloumen theou sophian en musterio ten apokekrummenen ("We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, even the hidden wisdom")--but he moved freely in the realm of history and speculation, drawing abundantly from "the depths of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God." In Paul one feels the joy of the thinker who enters into the thoughts of God, and who is convinced that in and with and through his faith he has passed from darkness into light, from confusion, cloudiness, and oppression into the lucid air that frees the soul. "We have been rescued from darkness and lifted into the light"--such was the chant which rose from a chorus of Christians during those early centuries. It was intellectual truth and lucidity in which they reveled and gloried. Polytheism seemed to them an oppressive night; now that it was lifted off them, the sun shone clearly in the sky! Wherever they looked, everything became clear and sure in the light of spiritual monotheism, owing to the living God. Read, for example, the epistle of Clemens Romanus, [385] the opening of the Clementine Homily, [386] or the epistle of Barnabas; [387] listen to the apologists, or study Clement of Alexandria and Origen. They gaze at Nature, only to rejoice in the order and unity of its movement; heaven and earth are a witness to them of God's omnipotence and unity. They ponder the capacities and endowments of human nature, and trace in them the Creator. In human reason and liberty they extol his boundless goodness; they compare the revelations and the will of God with this reason and freedom, and lo, there is entire harmony between them! Nothing is laid on man which does not already lie within him, nothing is revealed which is not already presupposed in his inward being. The long-buried religion of nature, religion meta logou, has been rediscovered. [388] They look at Christ, and scales fall, as it were, from their eyes! What wrought in him was the Logos, the very Logos by which the world had been created and with which the spiritual essence of man was bound up inextricably, the Logos which had wrought throughout human history in all that was noble and good, and which was finally obliged to reveal its power completely in order to dissipate the obstacles and disorders by which man was beset--so weak was he, for all the glory of his creation. Lastly, they contemplate the course of history, its beginning, middle, and end, only to find a common purpose everywhere, which is in harmony with a glorious origin and with a still more glorious conclusion. The freedom of the creature, overcome by the allurements of demons, has occasioned disorders, but the disorders are to be gradually removed by the power of the Christ-Logos. At the commencement of history humanity was like a child, full of good and divine instincts, but as yet untried and liable to temptation; at the close, a perfected humanity will stand forth, fated to enter immortality. Reason, freedom, immortality--these are to carry the day against error, failure, and decay. Such was the Christianity of many people, a bright and glad affair, the doctrine of pure reason. The new doctrine proved a deliverance, not an encumbrance, to the understanding. Instead of imposing foreign matter on the understanding, it threw light upon its own darkened contents. Christianity is divine revelation, but it is at the same time pure reason; it is the true philosophy. Such was the conception entertained by most of the apologists, and they tried to show how the entire content of Christianity was embraced by this idea. Anything that did not fit in, they left out. It was not that they rejected it. They simply explained it afresh by means of their "scientific" method, i.e., the method of allegorical spiritualizing, or else they relegated it to that great collection of evidence, the proof of prophecy. In this way, anything that seemed obnoxious or of no material value was either removed or else enabled to retain a formal value as dart of the striking proof which confirmed the divine character of Christianity. It is impossible in these pages to exhibit in detail the rational philosophy which thus emerged; [389] for our immediate purpose it is enough to state that a prominent group of Christian teachers existed as late as the opening of the fourth century (for Lactantius was among their number) who held this conception of Christianity. As apologists and as teachers ex cathedra they took an active part in the Christian mission. Justin, [390] for example, had his "school," no less than Tatian. The theologians in the royal retinue of Constantine also pursued this way of thinking, and it permeated any decree of Constantine that touched on Christianity, and especially his address to the holy council. [391] When Eusebius wishes to make the new religion intelligible to the public at large, he describes it as the religion of reason and lucidity; see, for example, the first book of his church history and the life of Constantine with its appendices. We might define all these influential teachers as "rationalists of the supernatural," to employ a technical term of modern church history; but as the revelation was continuous, commencing with creation, never ceasing, and ever in close harmony with the capacities of men, the term "supernatural" is really almost out of place in this connection. The outcome of it all was a pure religious rationalism, with a view of history all its own, in which, as was but natural, the final phenomena of the future tallied poorly with the course traversed in the earlier stages. From Justin, Commodian, and Lactantius, we learn how the older apocalyptic and the rationalistic moralism were welded together, without any umbrage being taken at the strange blend which this produced. III But authority and reason, blind faith and clear insight, do not sum up all the forms in which Christianity was brought before the world. The mental standpoint of the age and its religious needs were so manifold that it was unwilling to forgo any form, even in Christianity, which was capable of transmitting anything of religious value. It was a complex age, and its needs made even the individual man complex. The very man who longed for an authority to which he might submit blindfold, often longed at the same moment for a reasonable religion; nor was he satisfied even when he had secured them both, but craved for something more, for sensuous pledges which gave him a material representation of holy things, and for symbols of mysterious power. Yet, after all, was this peculiar to that age? Was it only in these days that men have cherished such desires? From the very outset of the Christian religion, its preaching was accompanied by two outward rites, neither less nor more than two, viz., baptism and the Lord's supper. We need not discuss either what was, or what was meant to be, their original significance. The point is, that whenever we enter the field of Gentile Christianity, their meaning is essentially fixed; although Christian worship is to be a worship in spirit and in truth, these sacraments are sacred actions which operate on life, containing the forgiveness of sins, knowledge, and eternal life. [392] No doubt, the elements of water, bread, and wine are symbols, and the scene of operation is not external; still, the symbols do actually convey to the soul all that they signify. Each symbol has a mysterious but real connection with the fact which it signifies. To speak of water, bread, and wine as holy elements, or of being immersed in water that the soul might be washed and purified: to talk of bread and wine as body and blood, or as the body and the blood of Christ, or as the soul's food for immortality: to correlate water and blood--all this kind of language was quite intelligible to that age. It was intelligible to the blunt realist, as well as to the most sublime among what may be called "the spiritualists." The two most sublime spiritualists of the church, namely, John and Origen, were the most profound exponents of the mysteries, while the great gnostic theologians linked on their most abstract theosophies to realistic mysteries. They were all sacramental theologians. Christ, they held, had connected, and in fact identified, the benefits he brought to men with symbols; the latter were the channel and vehicle of the former; the man who participates in the unction of the holy symbol gets grace thereby. This was a fact with which people were familiar from innumerable mysteries; in and with the corporeal application of the symbol, unction or grace was poured into the soul. T he connection seemed like a predestined harmony, and in fact the union was still more inward. The sentence of the later schoolmen, "Sacramenta continent gratiam," is as old as the Gentile church, and even older, for it was in existence long before the latter sprang into being. The Christian religion was intelligible and impressive, owing to the fact that it offered men sacraments. [393] Without its mysteries, people would have found it hard to appreciate the new religion. But who can tell how these mysteries arose? No one was to blame, no one was responsible. Had not baptism chanced to have been instituted, had not the observance of the holy supper been enjoined (and can any one maintain that these flowed inevitably from the essence of the gospel?), then some sacrament would have been created out of a parable of Jesus, not of a word or act of some kind or another. The age for material and certainly for bloody sacrifices was now past and gone; these were no longer the alloy of any religion. But the age of sacraments was very far from being over; it was in full vigor and prime. Every hand that was stretched out for religion, tried to grasp it in sacramental form; the eye saw sacraments where sacraments there were none, and the senses gave them body. [394] Water and blood, bread and wine--though the apostle Paul was far from being a sacramental theologian, yet even he could not wholly avoid these mysteries, as is plain if one will but read the tenth chapter of First Corinthians, and note his speculations upon baptismal immersion. But Paul was the first and almost [395] the last theologian of the early church with whom sacramental theology was really held in check by clear ideas and strictly spiritual considerations. After him all the flood-gates were opened, and in poured the mysteries with their lore. In Ignatius, who is only sixty years later than Paul, they had already dragged down and engulfed the whole of intelligent theology. A man like the author of Barnabas believes he has fathomed the depths of truth when he connects his ideas with the water, the blood, and the cross. And the man who wrote these words--"There are three that bear witness, the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree in one" (1 John v. 8)--had a mind which lived in symbols and in mysteries. In the book of Revelation the symbols generally are not what we call "symbols" but semi-real things -- e.g., the Lamb, the blood, the washing and the sprinkling, the seal and the sealing. Much of this still remains obscure to us. What is the meaning, for example, of the words (1 John ii. 27) about the "unction," an unction conveying knowledge which is so complete that it renders any further teaching quite unnecessary? But how is this, it may be asked? Is not John a thorough "spiritualist"? And are not Origen, Valentinus, and Basilides also "spiritualists"? How, then, can we assert that their realistic expressions meant something else to them than mere symbols? In the case of John this argument can be defended with a certain amount of plausibility, since we do not know his entire personality. All we know is John the author. And even as an author he is known to us merely on one side of his nature, for he cannot have always spoken and written as he does in his extant writings. But in regard to the rest, so far as they are known to us on several sides of their characters, the plea is untenable. This is plain from a study of Clement and Origen, both of whom are amply accessible to us. In their case the combination of the mysterious realistic element with the spiritual is rendered feasible by the fact that they have simply no philosophy of religion at all which is capable of being erected upon one level, but merely one which consists of different stories built one upon the other. [396] In the highest of these stories, realism of every kind certainly vanishes; in fact, even the very system of intermediate agencies and forces, including the Logos itself, vanishes entirely, leaving nothing but God and the souls that are akin to him. These have a reciprocal knowledge of each other's essence, they love each other, and thus are absorbed in one another. But ere this consummation is reached, a ladder must be climbed. And every stage or rung has special forces which correspond to it, implying a theology, a metaphysic, and an ethic of its own. On the lowest rung of the ascent, religion stands in mythological guise accompanied by sacraments whose inward value is as yet entirely unknown. Even so, this is not falsehood but truth. It answers to a definite state of the soul, and it satisfies this by filling it with bliss. Even on this level the Christian religion is therefore true. Later on, this entirely ceases, and yet it does not cease. It ceases, because it is transcended; it does not cease, because the brethren still require this sort of thing, and because the foot of the ladder simply cannot be pulled away without endangering its upper structure. After this brief sketch we must now try to see the significance of the realistic sacramental theology for these spiritualists. Men like Origen are indeed from our standpoint the most obnoxious of the theologians who occupied themselves with the sacraments, the blood, and the atonement. In and with these theories they brought back a large amount of polytheism into Christianity by means of a back-door, since the lower and middle stories of their theological edifice required [397] to be furnished with angels and archangels, æons, semi-gods, and deliverers of every sort. This was due both to cosmological and to soteriological reasons, for the two correspond like the lines AB and BA. [398] But, above all, theology was enabled by this means to respond to the very slightest pressure of popular religion, and it is here, of course, that we discover the final clue to the singular enigma now before us. This theology of the mysteries and of these varied layers and stages afforded the best means of conserving the spiritual character of the Christian religion upon the upper level, and at the same time of arranging any compromise that might be desirable upon the lower. This was hardly the result of any conscious process. It came about quite naturally, for everything was already present in germ at the very first when sacraments were admitted into the religion. [399] So much for the lofty theologians. With the inferior men the various stages dropped away and the sacramental factors were simply inserted in the religion in an awkward and unwieldy fashion. Read over the remarks made even in that age by Justin the rationalist upon the "cross," in the fifty-fifth chapter of his Apology. A more sturdy superstition can hardly be imagined. Notice how Tertullian (de Bapt., i.) speaks of "water" and its affinity with the holy Spirit! One is persuaded, too, that all Christians with one consent attributed a magical force, exercised especially over demons, to the mere utterance of the name of Jesus and to the sign of the cross. One can also read the stories of the Lord's supper told by Dionysius of Alexandria, a pupil of Origen, and all that Cyprian is able to narrate as to the miracle of the host. Putting these and many similar traits together, one feels driven to conclude that Christianity has become a religion of magic, with its center of gravity in the sacramental mysteries. "Ab initio sic non erat" is the protest that will be entered. "From the beginning it was not so." Perhaps. But one must go far back to find that initial stage--so far back that its very brief duration now eludes our search. Originally the water, the bread and wine (the body and the blood), the name of Jesus, and the cross were the sole sacraments of the church, whilst baptism and the Lord's super were the sole mysteries. But this state of matters could not continue. For different reasons, including reasons of philosophy, the scope of all sacraments tended to be enlarged, and so our period witnesses the further rise of sacramental details--anointing, the laying on of hands, sacred oil and salt, etc. But the most momentous result was the gradual assimilation of the entire Christian worship to the ancient mysteries. By the third century it could already rival the most imposing cultus in all paganism, with its solemn and precise ritual, its priests, its sacrifices, and its holy ceremonies. These developments, however, are by no means to be judged from the standpoint of Puritanism. Every age has to conceive and assimilate religion as it alone can; it must understand religion for itself, and make it a living thing for its own purposes. If the traits of Christianity which have been described in the preceding chapters have been correctly stated, if Christianity remained the religion of God the Father, of the Saviour and of salvation, of love and charitable enterprise, then it was perhaps a misfortune that the forms of contemporary religion were assumed. But the misfortune was by no means irreparable. Like every living plant, religion only grows inside a bark. Distilled religion is not religion at all. Something further, however, still remains to be considered. We have already seen how certain influential teachers--teachers, in fact, who founded the whole theology of the Christian Church--felt a strong impulse, and made it their definite aim, to get some rational conception of the Christian religion and to present it as the reasonable religion of mankind. This feature proved of great importance to the mission and extension of Christianity. Such teachers at once joined issue with contemporary philosophers, and, as the example of Justin proves, they did not eschew even controversy with these opponents. They retained all that they had in common with Socrates, Plato, and the Stoics; they showed how far people could go with them on the road; they attempted to give an historical explanation [400] of the points in common between themselves and paganism; and in this way they inaugurated the great adjustment of terms which was inevitable, unless Christians chose to remain a tiny sect of people who refused to concern themselves with culture and scientific learning. Still, as these discussions were carried on in a purely rational spirit, and as there was a frankly avowed partiality for the idea that Christianity was a transparently rational system, vital Christian truths were either abandoned or at any rate neglected. This meant a certain impoverishment, and a serious dilution, of the Christian faith. Such a type of knowledge was certainly different from Paul's idea of knowledge, nor did it answer to the depths of the Christian religion. In one passage, perhaps, the apostle himself employs rational considerations of a Stoic character, when those were available for the purposes of his apologetic (cp. the opening sections of Romans), but he was hardly thinking about such ideas when he dwelt upon the Christian sophia, sunesis, episteme, and gnosis ("wisdom," "intelligence," "understanding," and "knowledge"). Something very different was present to his mind at such moments. He was thinking of absorption in the being of God as revealed in Christ, of progress in the knowledge of his saving purpose, manifested in revelation and in history, of insight into the nature of sin or the power of demons (those "spirits of the air") or the dominion of death, of the boundless knowledge of God's grace, and of the clear anticipation of life eternal. In a word, he had in view a knowledge that soared up to God himself above all thrones, dominions, and principalities, and that also penetrated the depths from which we are delivered--a knowledge that traced human history from Adam to Christ, and that could, at the same time, define both faith and love, both sin and grace. Paradoxical as it may appear, these phases of knowledge were actually fertilized and fed by the mysteries. From an early period they attached themselves to the mysteries. It was in the train of the mysteries that they crossed from the soil of heathenism, and it was by dint of the mysteries that they grew and developed upon the soil of Christianity. The case of the mysteries was at that time exactly what it was afterwards in the sixteenth and the seventeenth centuries. Despite all their acuteness, it was not the rationalists among the schoolmen who furthered learning and promoted its revival--it was the cabbalists, the natural philosophers, the alchemists, and the astrologers. What was the reason of this, it may be asked? How can learning develop itself by aid of the mysteries? The reply is very simple. Such development is possible, because learning or knowledge is attained by aid of the emotions and the imagination. Both are therefore able to arouse and to revive it. The great speculative efforts of the syncretistic philosophy of religion, whose principles have been already outlined (cp. pp. 30 f.), were based upon the mysteries (i.e., upon the feelings and fancies, whose products were thrown into shape by the aid of speculation). The gnostics, who to a man were in no sense rationalists, attempted to transplant these living and glowing speculations to the soil of Christianity, and withal to preserve intact the supremacy of the gospel. The attempt was doomed to fail. Speculations of this kind contained too many elements alien to the spirit of Christianity which could not be relinquished. [401] But as separate fragments, broken up as it were into their constituent elements, they were able to render, and they did render, very signal services to a fruitful Christian philosophy of religion--these separate elements being originally prior perhaps to the combinations of later ages. All the more profound conceptions generated within Christianity subsequently to the close of the first century, all the transcendental knowledge, all those tentative ideas, which nevertheless were of more value than mere logical deductions--all this sprang in large measure from the contact of Christianity with the ancient lore of the mysteries. It disengaged profound conceptions and rendered them articulate. This is unmistakable in the case of John or of Ignatius or of Irenæus, but the clearest case is that of the great Alexandrian school. Materials valuable and useless alike, sheer fantasy and permanent truth which could no longer be neglected, all were mixed up in a promiscuous confusion--although this applies least of all to John, who, more than anyone, managed to impress a lofty unity even upon the form and expression of his thoughts. Such ideas will, of course, be little to the taste of anyone who holds that empiricism or rationalism confines knowledge within limits which one must not so much as try to overleap; but anyone who assigns greater value to tentative ideas than to a deliberate absence of all ideas whatsoever, will not be disposed to underestimate the labor expended by the thinkers of antiquity in connection with the mysteries. At any rate, it is beyond question that this phase of Christianity, which went on developing almost from the very hour of its birth, proved of supreme importance to the propaganda of the religion. Christianity gained special weight from the fact that in the first place it had mysterious secrets of its own, which it sought to fathom only to adore them once again in silence, and secondly, that it preached to the perfect in another and a deeper sense than it did to simple folk. These mysterious secrets may have had, as it is plain that they did have, a deadening effect on thousands of people by throwing obstacles in the way of their access to a rational religion; but on other people they had a stimulating effect, lending them wings to soar up into a supra-sensible world. [402] This ascent into the supra-sensible world (theopoiesis, apotheosis) was the last and the highest word of all. The supreme message of Christianity was its promise of this divine state to every believer. We know how, in that age of the twilight of the gods, all human hopes concentrated upon this aim, and consequently a religion which not only taught but realized this apotheosis of human nature (especially in a form so complete that it did not exclude even the flesh) was bound to have an enormous success. Recent investigations into the history of dogma have shown that the development of Christian doctrine down to Irenæus must be treated in this light, viz., with the aim of proving how the idea of apotheosis--that supreme desire and dream of the ancient world, whose inability to realize it cast a deep shadow over its inner life--passed into Christianity, altered the original lines of that religion, and eventually dominated its entire contents. [403] The presupposition for it in primitive Christianity was the promise of a share in the future kingdom of God. As yet no one could foresee what was to fuse itself with this premise and transform it. But Paul coordinated with it the promise of life eternal in a twofold way: as given to man in justification (i.e., in the Spirit, as an indissoluble inner union with the love of God), and as infused into man through holy media in the shape of a new nature. The fourth evangelist has grasped this double idea still more vividly, and given it sharper outline. His message is the spiritual and physical immanence of life eternal for believers. Still, the idea of love outweighs that of a natural transformation in his conception of the unity of believers with the Father and Son, so that he only approaches the verge of the conception. "We have become gods." He still seems to prefer the expression "children of God." The apologists also keep the idea of apotheosis secondary to that of a full knowledge of God, [404] but even after the great epoch when "gnosticism" was opposed and assimilated, the church went forward in the full assurance that she understood and preached apotheosis as the distinctive product of the Christian religion. When she spoke of "adoptio" by God, or of "participatio dei," for example, although a spiritual relationship continued to be understood, yet its basis and reality lay in a sacramental renewal of the physical nature: "Non ab initio dii facti sumus; sed primo quidem homines, tunc demum dii" (We were not made gods at first; at first we were men, thereafter we became gods at length). These are the words of Irenæus (cp. IV. xxxviii. 4, and often elsewhere), and this was the doctrine of Christian teachers after him. "Thou shalt avoid hell when thou hast gained the knowledge of the true God. Thou shalt have an immortal and incorruptible body as well as a soul, and shalt obtain the kingdom of heaven. Thou who hast lived on earth and knows the heavenly King, shalt be a friend of God and a joint-heir with Christ, no longer held by lusts, or sufferings, or sicknesses. For thou hast become divine, and all that pertains to the God-life hath God promised to bestow on thee, seeing that thou, now become immortal, art deified." [405] This was the sort of preaching which anyone could understand, and which could not be surpassed. Christianity, then, is a revelation which has to be believed, an authority which has to be obeyed, the rational religion which may be understood and proved, the religion of the mysteries or the sacraments, the religion of transcendental knowledge. So it was preached. It was not that every missionary expressed but one aspect of the religion. The various presentations of it were all mixed up together, although every now and then one of them would acquire special prominence. It is with amazement that we fathom the depths of this missionary preaching; yet those who engaged in it were prepared at any moment to put everything else aside and rest their whole faith on the confession that "There is one God of heaven and earth, and Jesus is the Lord." __________________________________________________________________ [380] Still Celsus adds that there are also one or two discreet, pious, reasonable people among the Christians, and some who are experts in intelligent argument. [381] Cp. de Carne Christi, ii.: "Si propheta es, praenuntia aliquid; si apostolus, praedica publice; si apostolicus, cum apostolis senti; si tantum Christianus es, crede quod traditum est" ("If you are a prophet, predict something; if an apostle, preach openly; if a follower of the apostles, think as they thought; if you are merely a Christian individual, believe tradition"). But faith was many a time more rigorous among the masses (the "simpliciores" or "simplices et idiotae") than theologians--even than Tertullian himself--cared. Origen's laments over this are numerous (cp.,`e.g., de Princip., iv. 8). [382] For details on the significance of the Bible in the mission, see Chapter VIII. [383] Naturally it did repel highly cultured men like Celsus and Porphyry. For Celsus, see above, p. 219. Porphyry, the pagan in Macarius Magnes (IV. ix.), writes thus on Matt. xi. 25: "As the mysteries are hidden from the wise and thrown down before minors and senseless sucklings (in which case, of course, even what is written for minors and senseless people should have been clear and free from obscurity), it is better to aim at a lack of reason and of education! And this is the very acme of Christ's sojourn upon earth, to conceal the ray of knowledge from the wise and to unveil it to the senseless and to small children!" [384] For the "perfect," see p. 216. They constitute a special class for Paul. The distinction came to be sharply drawn at a later period, especially in the Alexandrian school, where one set of Christian precepts was formed for the "perfect" ("those who know"), another for believers. Christ himself was said by the Alexandrians (not merely by the gnostics) to have committed an esoteric doctrine to his intimate disciples and to have provided for its transmission. Cp. Clement of Alexandria, as quoted in Eus., H.E., ii. 1: Iakobo to dikaio kai Ioanne kai Petro meta ten anastasin paredoken ten gnosin ho kurios, houtoi tois loipois apostolois paredokan, k.t.l. ("The Lord delivered all knowledge after the resurrection to James the Just, and John, and Peter; they delivered it to the rest of the apostles, and the rest of the apostles to the seventy," etc.). [385] Especially chap. xix. f. [386] 2 Clem. i. 4-6: to phos hemin echarisato . . . . peroi ontes te dianoia proskunountes lithous kai zula kai chruson kai arguron kai chalkon, erga anthropon . . . . amaurosin oun perikeimenoi kai toiautes achluos gemontes en te horasei aneblepsamen ("He bestowed on us the light . . . . we were blind in understanding, worshipping stones and stocks and gold and silver and brass, the works of men. . . . . Thus, girt with darkness and oppressed by so thick a mist in our vision, we regained our sight"). There are numerous passages of a similar nature. [387] Cp. chap. i., chap. ii. 2 f. [388] Cp. Justin's Apology, Tertullian's tract de Testimonio Animæ, etc. [389] I have endeavored to expound it in my Dogmengeschichte I.(3), pp. 462-507 [Eng. trans., iii. 267 f.]. [390] See the Acta Justini, and his Apology. We know that Tatian had Rhodon as one of his pupils (Eus., H.E. v. 13). [391] This address, even apart from its author, is perhaps the most impressive apology ever written (for its genuineness, see my Chronologie, ii. pp. 116 f., and Wendland in Philolog. Wochenschr. 1902, No. 8). It was impressive for half-educated readers, i.e., for the educated public of those days. Very effectively, it concludes by weaving together the (fabricated) prophecies of the Sibylline oracles and the (interpolated) Eclogue of Virgil, and by contrasting the reign of Constantine with those of his predecessors. The Christianity it presents is exclusive; even Socrates finds no favor, and Plato is sharply censured (ch. ix.) as well as praised. Still, it is tinged with Neoplatonism. The Son of God as such and as the Christ is put strongly in the foreground; he is God, at once God's Son and the hero of a real myth. But everything shimmers in a sort of speculative haze which corresponds to the style, the latter being poetic, flowery, and indefinite. [392] See the gospel of John, the epistle of John, and the Didachê with its sacramental prayer. [393] Many, of course, took umbrage at the Lord's supper as the eating and drinking of flesh and blood. The criticism of the pagan (Porphyry) in Mac. Magnes, III. xv., is remarkable. He does not attack the mystery of the supper in the Synoptic tradition, but on John vi. 53 ("Except ye eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in yourselves") he observes: "Is it not, then, bestial and absurd, surpassing all absurdity and bestial coarseness, for a man to eat human flesh and drink the blood of his fellow tribesman or relative, and thereby win life eternal? [Porphyry, remember, was opposed to the eating of flesh and the tasting of blood in general.] Why, tell me what greater coarseness could you introduce into life, if you practice that habit? What further crime will you start, more accursed than this loathsome profligacy? The ear cannot bear to hear it mentioned--and by it,' I am far from meaning the action itself, I mean the very name of this strange, utterly unheard of offence. Never, even in extraordinary emergencies, was anything like this offence enacted before mankind in the most fantastic presentations of the Erinyes. Not even would the Potidæans have admitted anything like this, although they had been debilitated by inhuman hunger. Of course we know about Thyestes and his meals, etc. [then follow similar cases from antiquity]. All these persons unintentionally committed this offence. But no civilized person ever served up such food, none ever got such gruesome instructions from any teacher. And if thou wert to pursue thine inquiries as far as Scythia or the Macrobii of Ethiopia, or to travel right round the margin of the sea itself, thou wouldst find people who eat lice and roots, or live on serpents, and make mice their food, but all refrain from human flesh. What, then, does this saying mean? For even although it was meant to be taken in a more mystical or allegorical (and therefore profitable) sense, still the mere sound of the words upon the ear grates inevitably on the soul, and makes it rebel against the loathsomeness of the saying. . . . . Many teachers, no doubt, attempt to introduce new and strange ideas. But none has ever devised a precept so strange and horrible as this, neither historian nor philosopher, neither barbarian nor primitive Greek. See here, what has come over you that you foolishly exhort credulous people to follow such a faith? Look at all the mischief that is set thus afoot to storm the cities as well as the villages! Hence it was, I do believe, that neither Mark nor Luke nor Matthew mentioned this saying, just because they were of opinion that it was unworthy of civilized people, utterly strange and unsuitable and quite alien to the habits of honorable life." [394] By the end of the second century, at the very latest, the disciplina arcani embraced the sacraments, partly owing to educational reasons, partly to the example of pagan models. It rendered them still more weighty and impressive. [395] Not quite the last, for Marcion and his disciples do not seem to have been sacramental theologians at all. [396] This construction is common to them and to the idealist philosophers of their age. [397] For a considerable length of time one of the charges brought by Christians against the Jews was that of angel-worship (Preaching of Peter, in Clem. Alex., Strom., vi. 5; Arist., Apol., xiv. Celsus also is acquainted with this charge, and angel-worship is, of course, a note of the errorists combated in Colossians). Subsequently the charge came to be leveled against the Christians themselves, and Justin had already written rather incautiously (Apol. I. vi.): [ton theon] kai ton par' autou huion elthonta kai didaxanta hemas tauta kai ton ton allon hepomenon kai exomoioumenon agathon angelon straton, pneuma te to prophetikon sebometha kai proskunoumen ("Both God and the Son who came from him and taught us these things, also the host of the other good angels who follow and are made like to him, and also the prophetic Spirit--these we worship and adore"). The four words pneuma te to prophetikon are supposed by some to be an interpolation. [398] As to the "descent" and "ascent" of the soul, cp. Anz., "Zu Frage nach dem Ursprung des Gnosticismus" (Texte u. Unters. xv. 4, 1897). [399] The necessity of priests and sacrifices was an idea present from the first in Gentile Christianity--even at the time when Christians sought with Paul to know of spiritual sacrifices alone and of the general priesthood of believers. Cp. Justin's Dial., cxvi.: ou dechetai par' oudenos thusias ho theos, ei me dia ton hiereon autou ("God receives sacrifices from no one, save through his priests"). [400] Jewish Alexandrian philosophers had been the pioneers in this direction, and all that was really needed was to copy them. But they had employed a variety of methods in their attempt, amongst which a choice had to he made. All these attempts save one were childish. One was quite appropriate, viz., that which explained the points of agreement by the sway of the same Logos which worked in the Jewish prophets and in the pagan philosophers and poets. One attempt, again, was naïve, viz., that which sought to expose the Greek philosophers and poets as plagiarists--though Celsus tried to do the same thing with reference to Christ. Finally, it was both naive and fanatical to undertake to prove that all agreements of the philosophers with Christian doctrine were but a delusion and the work of the devil. [401] These included the distinction between the god of creation (the demiurgus) and the god of redemption (redemption corresponding to emanation, not to creation), the abandonment of the Old Testament god, the dualistic opposition of soul and body, the disintegration of the redemptive personality, etc. Above all, redemption to the syncretist and the gnostic meant the separation of what had been unnaturally conjoined, while to the Christian it meant the union of what had been unnaturally divided. Christianity could not give up the latter conception of redemption, unless she was willing to overturn everything. Besides, this conception alone was adequate to the monarchical position of God. [402] With this comparative appreciation of speculation in early Christianity, we concede the utmost that can be conceded in this connection. It is a time-honored view that the richest fruit of Christianity, and in fact its very essence, lies in that "Christian" metaphysic which was the gradual product of innumerable alien ideas dragged into contact with the gospel. But this assertion deserves respect simply on the score of its venerable age. If it were true, then Jesus Christ would not be the founder of his religion, and indeed he would not even be its forerunner, since be neither revealed any philosophy of religion nor did he lay stress on anything which from such a standpoint is counted as cardinal. The Greeks certainly forgot before very long the Pauline saying ek merous ginoskomen . . . . blepomen gar arti di' esoptrou en ainigmati ("We know in part . . . . for now we see in a mirror, darkly";), and they also forgot that as knowledge (gnosis) and wisdom (sophia) are charismatic gifts, the product of these gifts affords no definition of what Christianity really is. Of the prominent teachers, Marcion, Apelles, and to some extent Irenæus, were the only ones who remained conscious of the limitations of knowledge. [403] Cp. my Dogmengeschichte (third ed.) i., especially pp. 516 f. [Eng. trans., iii. 275 f.]. [404] Yet cp. Justin., Dial. cxxiv., a parallel to the great section in John. x. 33 f. [405] Hippol., Philos. x. 34. Cp. pseudo-Hippolytus, Theoph., viii.: ei athanatos gegonen ho anthropos, estai kai theos ("If man become immortal, he shall also be divine"). __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 7 THE TIDINGS OF THE NEW PEOPLE AND OF THE THIRD RACE: THE HISTORICAL AND POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS OF CHRISTENDOM I The gospel was preached simultaneously as the consummation of Judaism, as a new religion, and as the restatement and final expression of man's original religion. Nor was this triple aspect preached merely by some individual missionary of dialectic gifts; it was a conception which emerged more or less distinctly in all missionary preaching of any scope. Convinced that Jesus, the teacher and the prophet, was also the Messiah who was to return ere long to finish off his work, people passed from the consciousness of being his disciples into that of being his people, the people of God: humeis genos eklekton, basileion hierateuma, ethnos hagion, laos eis peripoiesin (1 Pet. ii. 9: "Ye are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession"); and in so far as they felt themselves to be a people, Christians knew they were the true Israel, at once the new people and the old. This conviction that they were a people--i.e., the transference of all the prerogatives and claims of the Jewish people to the new community as a new creation which exhibited and realized whatever was old and original in religion--this at once furnished adherents of the new faith with a political and historical self-consciousness. Nothing more comprehensive or complete or impressive than this consciousness can be conceived. Could there be any higher or more comprehensive conception than that of the complex of momenta afforded by the Christians' estimate of themselves as "the true Israel," "the new people," "the original people," and "the people of the future," i.e., of eternity? This estimate of themselves rendered Christians impregnable against all attacks and movements of polemical criticism, while it further enabled them to advance in every direction for a war of conquest. Was the cry raised, "You are renegade Jews"--the answer came, "We are the community of the Messiah, and therefore the true Israelites." If people said, "You are simply Jews," the reply was, "We are a new creation and a new people." If, again, they were taxed with their recent origin and told that they were but of yesterday, they retorted, "We only seem to be the younger People; from the beginning we have been latent; we have always existed, previous to any other people; we are the original people of God." If they were told, "You do not deserve to live," the answer ran, "We would die to live, for we are citizens of the world to come, and sure that we shall rise again." There were one or two other quite definite convictions of a general nature specially taken over by the early Christians at the very outset from the stores accumulated by a survey of history made from the Jewish standpoint. Applied to their own purposes, these were as follows:--(1) Our people is older than the world; (2) the world was created for our sakes; [406] (3) the world is carried on for our sakes; we retard the judgment of the world; (4) everything in the world is subject to us and must serve us; (5) everything in the world, the beginning and course and end of all history, is revealed to us and lies transparent to our eyes; (6) we shall take part in the judgment of the world and ourselves enjoy eternal bliss. In various early Christian documents, dating from before the middle of the second century, these convictions find expression, in homilies, apocalypses, epistles, and apologies, [407] and nowhere else did Celsus vent his fierce disdain of Christians and their shameless, absurd pretensions with such keenness as at this point. [408] But for Christians who knew they were the old and the new People, it was not enough to set this self-consciousness over against the Jews alone, or to contend with them for the possession of the promises and of the sacred book; [409] settled on the soil of the Greek and Roman empires, they had to define their position with regard to this realm and its "people." The apostle Paul had already done so, and in this he was followed by others. In classifying mankind Paul does speak in one passage of "Greeks and barbarians" alongside of Jews (Rom. i. 14), and in another of "barbarians and Scythians" alongside of Greeks (Col. iii. 11); but, like a born Jew and a Pharisee, he usually bisects humanity into circumcised and uncircumcised--the latter being described, for the sake of brevity, as "Greeks." [410] Beside or over against these two "peoples" he places the church of God as a new creation (cp., e.g., 1 Cor. x. 32, "Give no occasion of stumbling to Jews or Greeks or to the church of God"). Nor does this mere juxtaposition satisfy him. He goes on to the conception of this new creation as that which is to embrace both Jews and Greeks, rising above the differences of both peoples into a higher unity. The people of Christ are not a third people to him beside their neighbors. They represent the new grade on which human history reaches its consummation, a grade which is to supersede the previous grade of bisection, cancelling or annulling not only national but also social and even sexual distinctions. [411] Compare, e.g., Gal. iii. 28: ouk eni Ioudaios oude Hellen, ouk eni arsen kai thelu; pantes gar humeis heis este en Christo Iesou, or Gal. v. 6: en Christo Iesou oute peritome ti ischuei oute akrobustia, alla pistis di' agapes energoumene (cp. vi. 15, oute gar peritome ti estin oute akrobustia, alla kaine ktisis, and 2 Cor. v. 17). 1 Cor. xii. 13: en heni pneumati hemeis pantes eis hen soma ebaptisthemen, eite Ioudaioi eite Hellenes, eite douloi eite eleutheroi. Coloss. iii. 11: hopou ouk eni Hellen kai Ioudaios, peritome kai akrobustia, barbaros, Skuthes, doulos, eleutheros. Most impressive of all is Ephes. ii. 11 f.: mnemoneuete hoti pote humeis ta ethne . . . . ete apellotriomenoi tes politeias tou Israel . . . . (ho Christos) estin he eirene hemon, ho poiesas ta amphotera hen kai to mesotoichon tou phragmou lusas . . . . hina tous duo ktise en hauto eis hena kainon anthropon poion eirenen, kai apokatallaxetous amphoterous en heni somati. Finally, in Rom. 9-11 Paul promulgates a philosophy of history, according to which the new People, whose previous history fell within the limits of Israel, includes the Gentile world, now that Israel has been rejected, but will embrace in the end not merely "the fulness of the Gentiles" (pleroma ton ethnon) but also "all Israel" (pas Israel). Greeks (Gentiles), Jews, and the Christians as the new People (destined to embrace the two first)--this triple division now becomes frequent in early Christian literature, as one or two examples will show. [412] The fourth evangelist makes Christ say (x. 16): "And other sheep have I which are not of this fold; them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one flock, one shepherd." And again, in a profound prophetic utterance (iv. 21 f.): "The hour cometh when neither in this mountain [that of the Samaritans, who stand here as representatives of the Gentiles] nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father; ye worship what ye know not; we worship what we know, for salvation is of the Jews. But the hour cometh and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and truth." This passage is of importance, because it is something more than a merely formal classification; it defines, in a positive manner, the three possible religious standpoints and apportions them among the different peoples. First of all, there is ignorance of God, together with an external and therefore an erroneous worship (=the Gentiles, or Samaritans); secondly, there is a true knowledge of God together with a wrong, external worship (= the Jews); and thirdly, there is true knowledge of God together with worship that is inward and therefore true (=the Christians). This view gave rise to many similar conceptions in early Christianity; it was the precursor of a series of cognate ideas which formed the basis of early Christian speculations upon the history of religion. It was the so-called "gnostics" in particular who frankly built their systems upon ideas of this kind. In these systems, Greeks (or pagans), Jews, and Christians sometimes appear as different grades; sometimes the two first are combined, with Christians subdivided into "psychic" (psuchikoi) and "pneumatic" (pneumatikoi) members; and finally a fourfold division is also visible, viz., Greeks (or pagans), Jews, churchfolk, and "pneumatic" persons. [413] During that period, when religions were undergoing transformation, speculations on the history of religion were in the air; they are to be met with even in inferior and extravagant systems of religion. [414] But from all this we must turn back to writers of the Catholic church with their triple classification. In one early Christian document from the opening of the second century, of which unfortunately we possess only a few fragments (i.e., the Preaching of Peter, in Clem., Strom., vi. 5. 41), Christians are warned not to fashion their worship on the model of the Greeks or of the Jews (me kata tous Hellenas sebesthe ton theon . . . mede kata Ioudaious sebesthe . . . . mede kata Ioudaious sebesthe). Then we read: hoste kai humeis hosios kai dikaios manthanontes ha paradidomen humin, phulassesthe kainos ton theon dia tou Christou sebomenoi; heuromen gar en tais graphais kathos ho kurios legei; idou diatithemai humin kainen diatheken ouch hos diethemen tois patrasin humon en orei Choreb; nean hemin dietheto, ta gar Hellenon kai Ioudaion palaia, humeis de hoi kainos auton trito genei sebomenoi Christianoi ("So do you keep what you have learnt from us holily and justly, worshipping God anew through Christ. For we find in the scriptures, as the Lord saith, Behold I make a new covenant with you, not as I made it with your fathers in Mount Horeb. A new covenant he has made with us, for that of the Greeks and Jews is old, but ye who worship him anew in the third manner are Christians"). [415] This writer also distinguishes Greeks, Jews, and Christians, and distinguishes them, like the fourth evangelist, by the degree of their knowledge and worship of God. But the remarkable thing is his explicit assumption that there are three classes, neither more nor less, and his deliberate description of Christianity as the new or third genus of worship. There are several similar passages which remain to be noticed, but this is the earliest of them all. Only, it is to be remarked that Christians do not yet call themselves "the third race"; it is their worship which is put third in the scale. The writer classifies humanity, not into three peoples, but into three groups of worshippers. Similarly the unknown author of the epistle to Diognetus. Only, with him the conception of three classes of worshippers is definitely carried over into that of three peoples ("Christians esteem not those whom the Greeks regard as gods, nor do they observe the superstition of the Jews . . . . [thou enquirest] about the nature of this fresh development or interest which has entered life now and not previously," ch. i.; cp. also ch. v.: "They are attacked as aliens by the Jews, and persecuted by the Greeks"). This is brought out particularly in his endeavor to prove that as Christians have a special manner of life, existing socially and politically by themselves, they have a legitimate claim to be ranked as a special "nation." In his Apology to the Emperor Pius, Aristides distinctly arranges human beings in three "orders," which are equivalent to nations, as Aristides assigns to each its genealogy--i.e., its historical origin. He writes (ch. ii.): phaneron gar estin hemin, o basileu, hoti tria gene eisin anthropon en tode to kosmo; hon eisin hoi ton par' humin legomenon theon proskunetai kai Ioudaioi kai Christianoi; autoi de palin hoi tous pollous sebomenoi theous eis tria diairountai gene, Chaldaious te kai Hellenas kai Aiguptious (then follows the evidence for the origin of these nations, whilst the Christians are said to "derive their genealogy from Jesus Christ"). [416] How seriously Irenæus took this idea of the Christians as a special people, is evident from his remarks in iv. 30. The gnostics had attacked the Jews and their God for having appropriated the gold and silver vessels of the Egyptians. To which Irenæus retorts that it would be much more true to accuse Christians of robbery, inasmuch as all their possessions originated with the Romans. "Who has the better right to gold and silver? The Jews, who took it as a reward for their labor in Egypt? or we, who have taken gold from the Romans and the rest of the nations, though they were not our debtors?" This argument would be meaningless unless Irenæus regarded Christians as a nation which was sharply differentiated from the rest of the peoples and had no longer anything to do with them. As a matter of fact, he regarded the exodus of Israel from Egypt as a type of the "profectio ecclesiae e gentibus" (iv. 30. 4). The religious philosophy of history set forth by Clement of Alexandria rests entirely upon the view that these two nations, Greeks and Jews, were alike trained by God, but that they are now (see Paul's epistle to the Ephesians) to be raised into the higher unity of a third nation. It may suffice to bring forward three passages bearing on this point. In Strom., iii. 10. 70, he writes (on the saying "where two or three are gathered together," etc.): eie d' an kai he homonoia ton pollon apo ton trion arithmoumene meth' hon ho kurios, he mia ekklesia, ho heis anthropos, to genos to hen. e me ti meta men tou henos tou Ioudaiou ho kurios nomotheton en, propheteuon de ede kai ton Ieremian apostellon eis Babulona, alla kai tous ex ethnon dia tes propheteias kalon, sunege laous tous duo, tritos de en ek ton duein ktizomenos heis kainon anthropon, ho de emperipatei te kai katoikei en aute te ekklesia ("Now the harmony of the many, calculated from the three with whom the Lord is present, might signify the one church, the one man, the one race. Or was the Lord legislating with the one Jew [at Sinai], and then, when he prophesied and sent Jeremiah to Babylon, calling some also from the heathen, did he collect the two peoples together, while the third was created out of the twain into a new man, wherein he is now resident, dwelling within the church"). Again, in Strom., v. 14. 98, on Plato's Republic, iii. p. 415: ei me ti treis tinas hupotithemenos phuseis, treis politeias, hos hupelabon tines, diagraphei, kai Ioudaion men arguran, Hellenon de triten [a corrupt passage, incorrectly read as early as Eus., Prepar., xiii. 13; on the margin of L there is the lemma, Hellenon sideran e chalken, Christianon chrusen], Christianon de, hois ho chrusos ho basilikos enkatamemiktai, to hagion pneuma ("Unless he means by his hypothesis of three natures to describe, as some conjecture, three polities, the Jews being the silver one, and the Greeks the third [the lemma running thus:--"The Greeks being the iron or brass one, and the Christians the gold one"], along with the Christians, with whom the regal gold is mixed, even the holy Spirit"). Finally, in Strom., vi. 5. 42: ek goun tes Hellenikes paideias, alla kai ek tes nomikes eis to hen genos tou sozomenou sunagontai laou hoi ten pistin prosiemenoi, ou chrono diairoumenon ton trion laon, hina tis phuseis hupolaboi trittas, k.t.l. ("From the Hellenic discipline, as also from that of the law, those who accept the faith are gathered into the one race of the people who are saved--not that the peoples are separated by time, as though one were to suggest three different natures," etc.). [417] Evidence may be led also from other early Christian writers to show that the triad of "Greeks (Gentiles), Jews, and Christians" was the church's basal conception of history. [418] It was employed with especial frequency in the interpretation of biblical stories. Thus Tertullian enlists it in his exposition of the prodigal son (de Pudic., viii. f.); Hippolytus (Comm. in Daniel, ed. Bonwetsch, p. 32) finds the Christians in Susanna, and the Greeks and Jews in the two elders who lay snares for her; while pseudo-Cyprian (de Mont. Sina et Sion, vii.) explains that the two thieves represent the Greeks and Jews. But, so far as I am aware, the blunt expression "We Christians are the third race" only occurs once in early Christian literature subsequent to the Preaching of Peter (where, moreover, it is simply Christian worship which is described as the third class), and that is in the pseudo-Cyprianic tract de Pascha Computus (c. 17), written in 242-243 A.D. Unfortunately, the context of the expression is not quite clear. Speaking of hell-fire, the author declares it has consumed the opponents of Ananias, Azarias, and Misael, "et ipsos tres pueros a dei filio protectos--in mysterio nostro qui sumus tertium genus hominum--non vexavit" ("Without hurting, however, those three lads, protected by the Son of God--in the mystery which pertains to us who are the third race of mankind"). It is hard to see how the writer could feel he was reminded of Christians as the third race of men by the three children who were all-pleasing in God's sight, although they were cast into the fiery furnace; still, reminded he was, and at any rate the inference to be drawn from the passage is that he must have been familiar with the description of Christians as a "third race." What sense he attached to it, we are not yet in a position to determine with any certainty; but we are bound to assume, in the first instance, from our previous investigations, that Christians were to him a third race alongside of the Greeks (Gentiles) and Jews. Whether this assumption is correct or false, is a question to be decided in the second section of our inquiry. II The consciousness of being a people, [419] and of being indeed the primitive and the new people, did not remain abstract or unfruitful in the church; it was developed in a great variety of directions. In this respect also the synagogue had led the way at every point, but Christianity met its claim by making that claim her own and extending it, wherever this was possible, beyond the limits within which Judaism had confined it. There were three cardinal directions in which the church voiced her peculiar consciousness of being the primitive people. (1) She demonstrated that, like any other people, she had a characteristic life. (2) She tried to show that so far as the philosophical learning, the worship, and the polity of other peoples were praiseworthy, they were plagiarized from the Christian religion. (3) She began to set on foot, though merely in the shape of tentative ideas, some political reflections upon her own actual importance within the world-empire of Rome, and also upon the positive relation between the latter and herself as the new religion for the world. 1. The proofs advanced by early Christianity with regard to its politeia [citizenship] were twofold. The theme of one set was stated by Paul in Philippians iii. 20: "Our citizenship (politeia) is in heaven" (cp. Heb. xiii. 13 f.: "Let us go outside the camp . . . . for here we have no permanent city, but we seek one which is to come"). On this view Christians feel themselves pilgrims and sojourners on earth, walking by faith and not by sight; their whole course of life is a renunciation of the world, and is determined solely by the future kingdom towards which they hasten. This mode of life is voiced most loudly in the first similitude of Hermas, where two cities with their two lords are set in opposition--one belonging to the present, the other to the future. The Christian must have nothing whatever to do with the former city and its lord the devil; his whole course of life must be opposed to that of the present city, with its arrangements and laws. In this way Christians were able emphatically to represent themselves as really a special people, with a distinctive course of life; but they need not have felt surprised when people took them at their word, and dismissed them with the remark: pantes heautous phoneusantes poreuesthe ede para ton theon kai hemin pragmata me parechete ("Go and kill yourselves, every one of you; begone to God at once, and don't bother us"), quoted by Justin, Apol., II. iv. This, however, represented but one side of the proof that Christianity had a characteristic life and order of its own. With equal energy an attempt was made to show that there was a polity realized in Christianity which was differentiated from that of other nations by its absolute morality (see above, pp. 205 f.). As early as the apostolic epistles, no point of dogma is more emphatically brought forward than the duty of a holy life, by means of which Christians are to shine as lights amid a corrupt and crooked generation. "Not like the Gentiles," nor like the Jews, but as the people of God--that is the watchword. Every sphere of life, down to the most intimate and trivial, was put under the control of the Spirit and re-arranged; we have only to read the Didachê in order to find out the earnestness with which Christians took "the way of life." In line with this, a leading section in all the Christian apologies was occupied by the exposition of the Christian polity as a polity which was purely ethical, the object being in every case to show that this Christian polity was in accordance with the highest moral standards, standards which even its opponents had to recognize, and that for this very reason it was opposed to the polity of the other nations. The Apologies of Justin (especially I. xiv. f.), Aristides (xv.), Tatian and Tertullian especially, fall to be considered in this light. [420] The conviction that they are in possession of a distinctive polity is also voiced in the notion of Christians as the army of the true God and of Christ. [421] 2. The strict morality, the monotheistic view of the world, and the subordination of the entire life of man, private and social, to the regulations of a supreme ethical code--all this is "what has been from the very first" ("quod ab initio fuit"). Now as the church finds this once more repeated in her own life, she recognizes in this phenomenon the guarantee that she herself, though apparently the youngest of the nations, is in reality the oldest. Furthermore, as she undertakes to bring forward proof for this conviction by drawing upon the books of Moses, which she appropriated for her own use (cp. Tatian, Theophilus, Clement, Tertullian, and Julius Africanus), [422] she is thereby dethroning the Jewish people and claiming for herself the primitive revelation, the primitive wisdom, and the genuine worship. Hence she acquires the requisite insight and courage, not merely to survey and appropriate for herself the content of all connected with revelation, wisdom, and worship that had appeared on the horizon of other nations, but to survey and estimate these materials as if they were merely copies made from an original in her own possession. We all know the space devoted by the early Christian apologies to the proof that Greek philosophy, so far as it merited praise and was itself correct, had been plagiarized from the primitive literature which belonged to Christians. The efforts made in this direction culminate in the statement that "Whatever truth is uttered anywhere has come from us." The audacity of this assertion is apt to hide from us at this time of day the grandeur and vigor of the self-consciousness to which it gives expression. Justin had already claimed any true piece of knowledge as "Christian," whether it occurred in Homer, the tragedians, the comic poets, or the philosophers. Did it never dawn on him, or did he really suspect, that his entire standpoint was upset by such an extension of its range, and that what was specifically "Christian" was transformed into what was common to all men? Clement of Alexandria, at any rate, who followed him in this line of thought, not merely foresaw this inference, but deliberately followed it up. By comparing itself with philosophy, early Christianity gave itself out as a "philosophy," while those who professed it were "philosophers." This, however, is one form of its self-consciousness which must not be overrated, for it is almost exclusively confined to the Christian apologetic and polemic. Christians never doubted, indeed, that their doctrine was really the truth, and therefore the true philosophy. But then it was infinitely more than a philosophy. It was the wisdom of God. They too were different from mere philosophers; they were God's people, God's friends. It suited their polemic, however, to designate Christianity as philosophy, or "barbarian" philosophy, and adherents of Christianity as "philosophers." And that for two reasons. In the first place, it was the only way of explaining to outsiders the nature of Christian doctrine--for to institute a positive comparison between it and pagan religions was a risky procedure. And in the second place, this presupposition made it possible for Christians to demand from the State as liberal treatment for themselves as that accorded to philosophy and to philosophic schools. It is in this light, pre-eminently, that we must understand the favorite parallel drawn by the apologists between Christianity and philosophy. Individual teachers who were at the head either of a school (didaskaleion) within the church or of an independent school, did take the parallel more seriously; [423] but such persons were in a certain sense merely adjuncts of catholic Christendom. [424] The charge of plagiarism was not merely levelled against philosophy, so far as philosophy was genuine, but also against any rites and methods of worship which furnished actual or alleged parallels to those of Christianity. Little material of this kind was to be found in the official cults of the Greeks and Romans, but this deficiency was more than remade up for by the rich spoil which lay in the mysteries and the exotic cults, the cult of Mithra, in particular, attracting the attention of Christian apologists in this connection at a very early period. The verdict on all such features was quite simple: the demons, it was argued, had imitated Christian rites in the cults of paganism. If it could not be denied that those pagan rites and sacraments were older than their Christian parallels, the plea readily suggested itself that the demons had given a distorted copy of Christianity previous to its real appearance, with the object of discrediting it beforehand. Baptism, the Lord's supper, the rites of expiation, the cross, etc., are instances in point. The interests of dogma are always able to impinge on history, and they do so constantly. But here we have to consider some cases which are specially instructive, since the Christian rites and sacraments attained their final shape under the influence of the mysteries and their rites (not, of course, the rites of any special cultus, but those belonging to the general type of the mysteries), so that dogma made the final issue of the process its first cause. Yet even in this field the quid pro quo appears in a more favorable light when we notice that Christendom posits itself as the original People at the dawn of human history, and that this consciousness determines their entire outlook upon that history. For, in the light of this presupposition, the Christians' confiscation of those pagan rites and ceremonies simply denotes the assertion of their character as ideally human and therefore divine. Christians embody the fundamental principles of that divine revelation and worship which are the source of human history, and which constitute the primitive possession of Christianity, although that possession has of course lain undiscovered till the present moment. 3. The most interesting side of the Christian consciousness of being a people, is what may be termed, in the narrower sense of the word, the political. Hitherto, however, it has been studied less than the others. The materials are copious, but up till now little attention has been paid to them. I shall content myself here with laying bare the points of most inportance. [425] The political consciousness of the primitive church was based on three presuppositions. There was first of all the political element in the Jewish apocalyptic, which was called forth by the demand of the imperial cultus and the terror of the persecution. Then there was the rapid transference of the gospel from the Jews to the Greeks, and the unmistakable affinity between Christianity and Hellenism, as well as between the church and the world-wide power of Rome. Thirdly, there was the fall and ruin of Jerusalem and the Jewish state. The first of these elements stood in antithesis to the two others, so that in this way the political consciousness of the church came to be defined in opposite directions and had to work itself out of initial contradictions. The politics of Jewish apocalyptic viewed the world-state as a diabolic state, and consequently took up a purely negative attitude towards it. This political view is put uncompromisingly in the apocalypse of John, where it was justified by the Neronic persecution, the imperial claim for worship, and the Domitianic reign of terror. The largest share of attention, comparatively speaking, has been devoted by scholars to this political standpoint, in so far as it lasted throughout the second and the third centuries, and quite recently (1901) Neumann has discussed it thoroughly in his study of Hippolytus. The remarkable thing is that although Christians were by no means nunmerous till after the middle of the second century, they recognized that Christianity formed the central point of humanity as the field of political history as well as its determining factor. Such a self-consciousness is perfectly intelligible in the case of Judaism, for the Jews were really a large nation and had a great history behind them. But it is truly amazing that a tiny set of people should confront the entire strength of the Roman empire, [426] that it should see in the persecution of the Christians the chief role of that empire, and that it should make the world's history culminate in such a conflict. The only explanation of this lies in the fact that the church simply took the place of Israel, and consequently felt herself to be a people; this implied that she was also a political factor, and indeed the factor which ranked as decisive alongside of the state and by which in the end the state was to be overcome. Here we have already the great problem of "church and state" making its appearance, and the uncompromising form given to it at this period became normal for succeeding ages. The relationship between these two powers assumed other forms, but this form continued to lie concealed beneath them all. This, however, is only one side of the question. The transition of the gospel from the Jews to the Greeks, the unmistakable affinity between Christianity and Hellenismn, as well as between the church and the Roman world-power, and finally the downfall of the Jewish state at the hands of Rome--these factors occasioned ideas upon the relation of the empire to the church which were very different from the aims of the accepted apocalyptic. Any systematic treatment of this view would be out of place, however; it would give a wrong impression of the situation. The better way will be, as we are dealing merely with tentative ideas, to get acquainted with the most important features and look at them one after another. 2 Thess. ii. 5-7 is the oldest passage in Christian literature in which a positive meaning is attached to the Roman empire. It is represented there, not as the realm of antichrist, but, on the contrary, as the restraining power by means of which the final terrors and the advent of antichrist are held in check. For by to katechon (ho katechon), "that which (or he who) restrains," we must understand the Roman empire. If this be so, it follows that the church and the empire could not be considered merely as diametrically opposed to each other. Rom. xiii. 1 f. makes this quite plain, and proceeds to draw the inference that civil authority is theou diakonos ("a minister of God"), appointed by God for the suppression of wickedness; resistance to it means resistance to a divine ordinance. Consequently one must not merely yield to its force, but obey it for conscience' sake. The very payment of taxes is a moral duty. The author of 1 Pet. ii. 13 ff. [427] expresses himself in similar terms. But he goes a step further, following up the fear of God directly with honor due to the emperor (pantas timesate, ten adelphoteta agapate, ton theon phobeisthe, ton basilea timate). [428] Nothing could be more loyal than this conception, and it is noticeable that the author was writing in Asia Minor, among the provinces where the imperial cultus flourished. Luke begins his account of Christ with the words (ii. 1): egeneto en tais hemerais ekeinais exelthen dogma para Kaisaros Augoustou apographesthai pasan ten oikoumenen. As has been correctly surmised, the allusion to the emperor Augustus is meant to be significant. It was the official and popular idea that with Augustus a new era dawned for the empire; the imperial throne was its "peace," the emperor its saviour (soter). Behind the earthly saviour, Luke makes the heavenly appear--he, too, is bestowed upon the whole world, and what he brings is peace (ver. 14, epi ges eirene). [429] Luke hardly intended to set Augustus and Christ in hostile opposition; even Augustus and his kingdom are a sign of the new era. This may also be gathered front the book of Acts, which in my opinion has not any consciously political aim; it sees in the Roman empire, as opposed to Judaism, the sphere marked out for the new religion, it stands entirely aloof from any hostility to the emperor, and it gladly lays stress upon such facts as prove a tolerant mood on the part of the authorities towards Christians in the past. Justin (Apol., I. xii.) writes to the emperor: arogoi humin kai summachoi pros eirenen esmen panton mallon anthropon ("We, more than any others, are your helpers and allies in promoting peace"), admitting thereby that the purpose of the empire was beneficial (pax terrena), and that the emperors sought to effect this purpose. Also, in describing Christians as the power [430] best adapted to secure this end--inasmuch as they shun all crime, live a strictly moral life, and teach a strict morality, besides scaring and exorcising those supreme enemies of mankind, the demons--he too, in a certain sense, affirms a positive relationship between the church and the state. When the author of the epistle to Diognetus differentiates Christians from the world (the state) as the soul from the body (ch. vi.) and elaborates his account of their relationship in a series of antitheses, he is laying down at the same time a positive relation between the two magnitudes in question: enkekleistai men he psuche to somati, sunechei de aute to soma; kai Christianoi katechontai men hos en phroura to kosmo, autoi de sunechousi ton kosmon ("The soul is shut up in the body, and yet holds the body together; so Christians are kept within the world as in a prison, yet they hold the world together,"). Similarly Justin (Apol. II. vii.). All this implies already a positive political standpoint, [431] but the furthest step in this direction was taken subsequently by Melito (in Eus., H.E., iv. 26). It is no mere accident that he writes in loyal Asia Minor. By noting Luke's suggestion with regard to Augustus, as well as all that had been already said elsewhere upon the positive relations subsisting between the church and the world-empire, Melito could advance to the following statement of the situation in his Apology to Marcus Aurelius:-- "This philosophy of ours certainly did flourish at first among a barbarian people. But springing up in the provinces under thy rule during the great reign of thy predecessor Augustus, it brought rich blessings to thine empire in particular. For ever since then the power of Rome has increased in size and splendor; to this hast thou succeeded as its desired possessor, and as such shalt thou continue with thy son if thou wilt protect the philosophy which rose under Augustus and has risen with the empire, a philosophy which thine ancestors also held in honor along with other religions. The most convincing proof that the flourishing of our religion has been a boon to the empire thus happily inaugurated, is this--that the empire has suffered no mishap since the reign of Augustus, but, on the contrary, everything has increased its splendor and fame, in accordance with the general prayer." Melito's ideas [432] need no analysis; they are plainly and clearly stated. The world-empire and the Christian religion are foster-sisters; they form a pair; they constitute a new stage of human history; the Christian religion means blessing and welfare to the empire, towards which it stands as the inward to the outward. Only when Christianity is protected and permitted to develop itself freely, does the empire continue to preserve its size and splendor. Unless one is to suppose that Melito simply wanted to flatter--a supposition for which there is no ground, although there was flattery in what he said--the inference is that in the Christianity which formed part of the world-empire he really recognized a co-ordinate and sustaining inward force. Subsequent developments justified this view of Melito, and in this light his political insight is marvellous. But still more marvellous is the fact that at a time like this, when Christians were still a feeble folk, he actually recognized in Christianity the one magnitude parallel to the state, and that simply on the ground of religion--i.e., as being a spiritual force which was entrusted with the function of supporting the state. [433] There is yet another early Christian writer on whom the analogy of Christendom and the world-empire dawned (a propos of its oecumenical range); only, he attempted to explain it in a very surprising fashion, which betrayed a deep hostility towards the empire. Hippolytus writes (in Dan., iv. 9): "For as our Lord was born in the forty-second year of the emperor Augustus, whence the Roman empire developed, and as the Lord also called all nations and tongues by means of the apostles and fashioned believing Christians into a people, the people of the Lord, and the people which consists of those who bear a new name--so was all this imitated to the letter by the empire of that day, ruling according to the working of Satan': for it also collected to itself the noblest of every nation, and, dubbing them Romans, got ready for the fray. And that is the reason why the first census took place under Augustus, when our Lord was born at Bethlehem; it was to get the men of this world, who enrolled for our earthly king, called Romans, while those who believed in a heavenly king were termed Christians, bearing on their foreheads the sign of victory over death." The oecumenical range of the Roman empire is, therefore, a Statanic aping of Christianity. As the demons purloined Christian philosophy and aped the Christian cultus and sacraments, so also did they perpetrate a plagiarism against the church by founding the great imperial state of Rome! This is the self-consciousness of Christendom expressed in perhaps the most robust, but also in the most audacious form imaginable! The real cosmopolitan character of Christianity is stated by Octavius (Min. Felix, xxxiii.) thus: "Nos gentes nationesque distinguimus: deo una domus est mundus hic totus" ("We draw distinctions between nations and races, but to God the whole of this world is one household"). Origen's political views are more accurate, but how extravagant are his ideas! In chapters lxvii.-lxxv. of his eighth book against Celsus, by dint of a fresh interpretation given to a primitive Christian conception, and a recourse to a Platonic idea, he propounds the idea that the church, this kosmos tou kosmou (in Joh. vi. 38), or universe of the universe, is the future kingdom of the whole world, destined to embrace the Roman empire and humanity itself, to amalgamate and to replace the various realms of this world.. Cp. ch. lxviii.: "For if, in the words of Celsus, all were to do as we do, then there is no doubt whatever that even the barbarians would become law-abiding and humane, so soon as they obeyed the Word of God; then would all religions vanish, leaving that of Christ alone to reign. And reign it will one day, as the Word never ceases to gain soul after soul." This means the reversal of the primitive Christian hope. The church now presents itself as the civilizing and cohesive power which is to create, even in the present age, a state that shall embrace an undivided humanity. Origen, of course, is not quite sure whether this is feasible in the present age. No further away than ch. lxxii., a propos of the question (to which Celsus gave a negative answer) whether Asia, Europe, and Libya, Greeks and barbarians alike, could agree to recognize one system of laws, we find him writing as follows: "Perhaps," he says, "such a result would not indeed be possible to those who are still in the body; but it would not be impossible to those who are released from the body" (kai tacha alethos adunaton men to toiouto tois eti en somasi ou men adunaton kai apolutheisin auton). [434] In II. xxx. he writes: "In the days of Jesus, righteousness arose and fulness of peace, beginning with his birth. God prepared the nations for his teaching, by causing the Roman emperor to rule over all the world; there was no longer to be a plurality of kingdoms, else would the nations have been strangers to one another, and so the apostles would have found it harder to carry out the task laid on them by Jesus, when he said, Go and teach all nations.'" In his reply to Celsus (III. xxix.-xxx.), this great father of the church, who was at the same time a great and sensible statesman, submits a further political consideration, which is not high-flown this time, but sober. It has also the advantage of being impressive and to the point. Although the passage is somewhat lengthy. I quote it here, as there is nothing like it in the literature of early Christianity [Greek text in Hist. Dogma, ii. 126]:-- "Apollo, according to Celsus, required the Metapontines to consider Aristeas as a god. But the Metapontines considered Aristeas was a man, and perhaps not even a respectable man, and this conviction of theirs seemed to them more valid than the declaration of the oracle that Aristeas was a god and deserving of divine honor. Consequently they would not obey Apollo, and no one regarded Aristeas as a god. But with regard to Jesus, we may say that it proved a blessing to the human race to acknowledge him as God's son, as God appearing in a human soul and body. . . . . God, who sent Jesus, brought to nought all the conspiracies of the demons and gave success to the gospel of Jesus over the whole earth for the conversion and amelioration of mankind, causing churches everywhere to be established, which should be ruled by other laws than those of superstitious, licentious, and evil men. For such is the character of the masses who constitute the assemblies throughout the various towns. Whereas, the churches or assemblies of God, whom Christ instructs, are lights in the world,' compared to the assemblies of the districts among which they live as strangers. For who would not allow that even the inferior members of the church, and such as take a lower place when judged by the standard of more eminent Christians--even these are far better people than the members of profane assemblies? "Take the church of God at Athens; it is a peaceable and orderly body, as it desires to please God, who is over all. Whereas the assembly of the Athenians is refractory, nor can it be compared in any respect to the local church or assembly of God. The same may be said of the church of God at Corinth and the local assembly of the people, as also of the church of God at Alexandria and the local assembly in that city. And if any candid person hears this and examines the facts of the case with a sincere love for the truth, he will admire him who conceived the design and was able to realize it, establishing churches of God to exist as strangers amid the popular assemblies of the various cities. Furthermore, if one compares the council of the Church of God with that of the cities, one by one, it would be found that many a councillor of the church is worthy to be a leader in God's city, if such a city exists in the world; whereas other councillors in all parts of the world show not a trait of conduct to justify the superiority born of their position, which seems to give them precedence over their fellow-citizens. Such also is the result of any comparison between the president of the church in any city and the civic magistrates. It will be found that, in the matter of conduct, even such councillors and presidents of the church as are extremely defective arid indolent compared to their more energetic colleagues, are possessed of virtues which are in general superior to those of civic councillors and rulers." At this point I shall break off the present part of our investigation. The evidence already brought forward will suffice to give some idea of how Christians held themselves to be the new People and the third race of mankind, and also of the inferences which they drew from these conceptions. But how did the Greeks and Romans regard this phenomenon of Christianity with its enormous claims? This is a question to which justice must be done in an excursus. __________________________________________________________________ [406] By means of these two convictions, Christians made out their case for a position superior to the world, and established a connection between creation and history. [407] Cp. the epistles of Paul, the apocalypse of John, the "Shepherd" of Hermas (Vis. ii. 4. 1), the second epistle of Clement (xiv.), and the Apologies of Aristides and Justin (II. vii.). Similar statements occur earlier in the Jewish apocalypses. [408] He is quite aware that these pretensions are common to Jews and Christians, that the latter took them over from the former, and that both parties contended for the right to their possession. Meta tauta , observes Origen (c. Cels. IV. xxiii.), sunethos heauto gelon to Ioudaion kai Christianon genos pantas parabebleke nukteridon hormatho e murmexin ek kalias proelthousin e batrachois peri telma sunedreuousin e skolexin en borborou gonia ekklesiazousi kai pros allelous diapheromenois, tines auton eien hamartoloteroi, kai phaskousin hoti panta hemin ho theos prodeloi kai prokatangellei, kai ton panta kosmon kai ten ouranion phoran apolipon kai ten tosauten gen paridon hemin monois politeuetai kai pros hemas monous epikerukeuetai kai pempon ou dialeipei kai zeton, hopos aei sunomen auto. kai en to anaplasmati ge heautou paraplesious hemas poiei skolexi, phaskousin hoti ho theos estin, eita met' ekeinon hemeis hup' autou gegonotes pante homoioi to theo, kai hemin panta hupobebletai, ge kai hudor kai aer kai astra, kai hemon heneka panta, kai hemin douleuein tetaktai. legousi de ti par' auto hoi skolekes, hemeis delade, hoti nun, epeide tines [en] hemin plemmelousin, aphixetai theos e pempsei ton huion, hina kataphlexe tous adikous, kai hoi loipoi sun auto zoen aionion echomen. kai epipherei ge pasin hoti tauta [mallon] anekta skolekon kai batrachon e Ioudaion kai Christianon pros allelous diapheromenon ("In the next place, laughing as usual at the race of Jews and Christians, he likens them all to a flight of bats, or a swarm of ants crawling out of their nest, or frogs in council on a marsh, or worms in synod on the corner of a dunghill, quarrelling as to which of them is the greater sinner, and declaring that God discloses and announces all things to us beforehand; God deserts the whole world and the heavenly region and disregards this great earth in order to domicile himself among us alone; to us alone he makes his proclamations, ceasing not to send and seek that we may company with him for ever.' And in his representation of us, he likens us to worms that declare there is a God, and next to him are we whom he has made in all points like unto himself, and to whom all things are subject--land and water, air and stars; all things are for our sakes, and are appointed to serve us.' As he puts it, the worms, i.e., we Christians, declare also that since certain of our number commit sin, God will come or send his son to burn up the wicked and to let the rest of us have life eternal with himself.' To all of which he subjoins the remark that such discussions would be more tolerable among worms and frogs than among Jews and Christians"). [409] This controversy occupies the history of the first generation, and stretches even further down. Although the broad lines of the position taken up by Christians on this field were clearly marked out, this did not exclude the possibility of various attitudes being assumed, as may be seen from my study in the third section of the first volume of the Texte u. Untersuchungen (1883), upon "the anti-Jewish polemic of the early church." [410] Even in the passage from Colossians the common expression "Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision" (Hellen kai Ioudaios, peritome kai akrobustia) is put first; "barbarian, Scythian, bond and free" (barbaros, Skuthes, doulos, eleutheros) follows as a rhetorical amplification. [411] It was in the conception of Christ as the second Adam that the conception of the new humanity as opposed to the old, a conception which implies a dual division, was most deeply rooted. The former idea obviously played a leading part in the world of Pauline thought, but it was not introduced for the first time by him; in the Messianic system of the Jews this idea already held a place of its own. In Paul and in other Christian thinkers the idea of a dual classification of mankind intersects that of a triple classification, but both ideas are at one in this, that the new humanity cancels the old. [412] For Christians as the new People, see the "Shepherd" of Hermas, and Barn. v. 7 (Christos) heauto ton laon ton kainon hetoimazon (Christ preparing himself the new people); vii. 5, huper hamartion mellon tou laou tou kainou prospherein ten sarka (Christ about to offer his flesh for the sins of the new people); xiii. 6, blepete . . . . ton laon touton [new and evidently young] einai proton (ye see that this people is the first); 2 Clem. ad Cor. ii. 3, eremos edokei einai apo tou theou ho laos hemon, nuni de pisteusantes pleiones egenometha ton dokounton echein theon ("Our people seemed to be forsaken of God, but now we have become more numerous by our faith than those who seemed to possess God"); Ignat., ad Ephes. xix.-xx.; Aristides, Apol., xvi. ("truly this people is new, and a divine admixture is in them"); Orac. Sibyll., i. 383 f., blastos neos antheseien ex ethnon ("a fresh growth shall blossom out of the Gentiles"). Bardesanes also calls the Christians a new race. Clement (Paed. I. v. 15, on Zech. ix. 9) remarks: ouk erkei to polon eirekenai monon, alla kai to neon prosetheken auto, ten en Christo neolaian tes anthropotetos . . . . emphainon ("To say colt' was not enough; young' had to be added, in order to bring out the youth of humanity"); and in I. v. 20 he observes, neoi ho laos ho kainos pros antidiastolen tou presbuterou laou ta nea mathontes agatha ("In contradistinction to the older people, the new people are young because they have learned the new blessings"). See also I. vii. 58, kai gar en hos alethos dia men Moseos paidagogos ho kurios tou laou tou palaiou, di' hautou de tou neou kathegemon laou, prosopon pros prosopon ("For it was really the Lord who instructed the ancient people by Moses; but the new people he directs himself, face to face"). The expression "new people" was retained for a long while in those early days; cp., e.g., Constant., ad s. Coet. xix., kata chronon tou Tiberiou e tou soteros exelampse parousia . . . . e te nea tou demou diadoche suneste, k.t.l. ("About the time of Tiberius the advent of the Saviour flashed on the world . . . . and the new succession of the people arose," etc.). On the other hand, Christians are also the "non-gens," since they are not a nation; cp. Orig., Hom. I. in Ps. xxxvi. (vol. xii. p. 155): "Nos sumus non gens' [Deut. xxxii. 21], qui pauci ex ista civitate credimus, et alii ex alia, et nusquam gens integra ab initio credulitatis videtur assumpta. Non enim sicut Iudaeorum gens erat vel Aegyptiorum gens ita etiam Christianorum genus gens est una vel integra, sed sparsim ex singulis gentibus congregantur."--For Christians as a distinctive genus, or as the genus of the truly pious, see Mart. Polyc., iii. 2, e gennaiotes tou theophilous kai theosebous genous ton Christianon ("the brave spirit of the God-beloved and God-fearing race of Christians"); xiv., pan to genos ton dikaion ("the whole race of the righteous"); Martyr. Ignat. Antioch., ii., to ton Christianon theosebes genos ("the pious race of Christians"). Also Melito, in Eus., H.E., iv. 26. 5, to ton theosebon genos ("the race of the pious"), Arnobius, i. 1 ("Christiana gens"), pseudo-Josephus, Testim. de Christo (to phulon ton Christianon--the tribe of the Christians); Orac. Sibyll., iv. 136, eusebeon phulon, etc. Several educated Christians correlated the idea of a new and at the same time a universal people with the Stoic cosmopolitan idea, as, for example, Tertullian, who points out more than once that Christians only recognise one state, i.e., the world. Similarly, Tatian writes (Orat., xxviii.): "I repudiate your legislation; there ought to be only one common polity for all men" (tes par' humin kategnon nomothesias; mian men gar echren einai kai koinen hapanton ten politeian). This democratic and cosmopolitan feature of Christianity was undoubtedly of great use to the propaganda among the lower and middle classes, particularly throughout the provinces. Religious equality was felt, up to a certain degree, to mean political and social equality as well. [413] It is impossible here to go into the question of how this ethnological division of humanity intersected and squared with the other religious division made by the gnostics, viz., the psychological (into "hylic," "psychic," and "pneumatic" persons). [414] With regard to the religious system of the adherents of Simon Magus, we have this fragmentary and obscure piece of information in Irenæus (I. xxiii.): Simon taught that "he himself was he who had appeared among the Jews as the Son, who had descended in Samaria as the Father, and made his advent among other nations as the holy Spirit" ("Semetipsum esse qui inter Judaeos quidem quasi fllius apparuerit, in Samaria autem quasi pater descenderit, in reliquis vero gentibus quasi spiritus sanctus adventaverit"). [415] The term "religio Christiana" does not occur till Tertullian, who uses it quite frequently. The apologists speak of the distinctive theosebeia of Christians. [416] "It is clear to us, O king, that there are three orders of mankind in this world; these are, the worshippers of your acknowledged gods, the Jews, and the Christians. Furthermore, those who worship a plurality of gods are again divided into three orders, viz., Chaldeans, Greeks, and Egyptians." In the Syrian and Armenian versions the passage runs somewhat otherwise. "This is clear, O king, that there are four races of men in the world, barbarians and Greeks, Jews and Christians" (omitting altogether the further subdivision of the Greeks into three classes). Several scholars prefer this rendering, though it should be noted that Hippolytus also, in Philos., x. 30 (twice) and 31 (twice), contrasts the Egyptians, Chaldeans, and Greeks with the Jews and Christians. Still, the question is one of minor importance for our present purpose.--Justin (Dial. cxxiii.) also derives Christians from Christ, not as their teacher but as their progenitor: hos apo tou henos Iakob ekeinou, tou kai Israel epiklethentos, to pan genos humon prosegoreuto Iakob kai Israel, houto kai hemeis apo tou gennesantos hemas eis theon Christou . . . . kai theou tekna alethina kaloumetha kai esmen . . . . ("As all your nation has been called Jacob and Israel from the one man Jacob, who was surnamed Israel, so from Christ who begat us unto God . . . . we are called, and we are, God's true children"). [417] Clement (Strom., ii. 15. 67) once heard a "wise man" explain that Gentiles ("seat of the ungodly"), Jews ("way of sinners"), and heretics ("seat of the scornful") were meant in Ps. i. 1. This addition of "heretics" is simply due to the passage under discussion. [418] The letter of Hadrian to Servianus (Vopisc., Saturnin., viii.) is to be included among these witnesses, if it is a Christian fabrication: "Hunc (nummum) Christiani, hunc Judaei, hunc omnes venerantur et gentes" ("Christians, Jews, and all nations worship this one thing, money"). [419] Cp. the first book of the Church History of Eusebius, especially ch. iv.: tes men gar tou soteros hemon Iesou Christou parousias neosti pasin anthropois epilampsases, neon homologoumenos ethnos, ou mikron oud' asthenes oud' epi gonias pou ges hidrumenon, alla kai panton ton ethnon poluanthropotaton te kai theosebestaton . . . . to para tois pasi te tou Christou prosegoria tetimemenon ("It is agreed that when the appearance of our Saviour Jesus Christ recently broke upon all men, there appeared a new nation, admittedly neither small nor weak nor dwelling in any corner of the earth, but the most numerous and pious of all nations . . . . honored by all men with the title of Christ"). [420] The belauded description in the epistle to Diognetus (v. 6) is a fine piece of rhetoric, but not much more than that. The author manages to express three aspects, as it were, in a single breath: the Christian polity as the climax of morals, the Christian aloofness from the world, and the inwardness by which this religion was enabled to live in the midst of the world and adapt itself to all outward conditions without any loss of purity. A man who is able to weave these ideas into one perfect woof, either stands on the high level of the fourth evangelist--a position to which the author can hardly be promoted--or else incurs the suspicion of paying no serious attention to any one of the three ideas in question. [421] Hermas (Sim. ix. 17) brings forward one most important aspect of the Christian polity, viz., its power of combining in a mental and moral unity peoples of the most varied capacities and customs. The stones built into the tower (i.e., the church) from the various mountains (the nations) are at first many-colored, but upon being built in, they all acquire the same white color: labontes ten sphragida mian phronesin eschon kai hena noun, kai mia pistis auton egeneto kai mia agape . . . . dia touto he oikodome tou purgou mia chroa egeneto lampra hos ho helios ("On receiving the seal they had one understanding and one mind, one faith and one love became theirs . . . . wherefore the fabric of the tower became of one color, bright as the sun"); cp. also Iren., I. 10. 2. Celsus (c. Cels., VIII. lxxii.) longed ardently for such a unity of mankind, instead of humanity being split up into nationalities. But he regarded it as a mere Utopia. Ei gar de hoion te eis hena sumphronesai nomon tous ten 'Asian kai Europen kai Libuen Hellenas te kai barbarous achri peraton nenememenous ("Were it at all possible that the inhabitants of Asia, Europe, and Libya, Greeks and barbarians alike, should unite to obey one law"). On which Origen remarks: adunaton touto nomisas einai epipherei [sc. Celsus] hoti ho touto oiomenos oiden ouden ("Judging this an impossibility, he adds that anyone who thinks it possible knows nothing at all"). [422] Note in passing that this marks the beginning in general of the universal chronography of history, and consequently of the general Christian outlook upon the entire course of human history. [423] Such teachers, with their small groups, hardly felt themselves to be the "primitive people." Their consciousness of entire independence was expressed in the titles of "gifted "and "learned." We shall have to discuss the Christian didaskaleia [instruction] and its significance for the Christian propaganda in another connection; but we can well understand how pagans found the Christians' claim to be "learned" and "philosophers" a peculiarly ridiculous and presumptuous pretension. On their part, they dubbed Christians as credulous, and scoffed at them as pistoi ("believers"), who put faith in foreign fables and old wives' gossip. [424] They have nothing to do with the primitive shape assumed by Christianity, that of Jesus as the teacher and the disciples as his pupils. [425] Tertullian's sentence (Apol., xxxviii.): "Nulla magis res nobis aliena quam publica; unam omnium rempublicam agnoscimus, mundum" ("Nothing is more alien to us than politics; we acknowledge but one universal state, the world") has a Stoic tinge; at best, it may be taken with a grain of salt. Besides, people who despise the state always pursue a very active policy of their own. [426] Tertullian was the first who was able to threaten the state with the great number of Christians (Apol., xxxvii., written shortly before 200 A.D.), for up till then people had merely endeavored to hold out the terrors of the calamities at the close of the world and the return of Christ. Although Christians still lacked a majority in the empire, still (from the outset) a substitute for this, so to speak, was found in the telling fact of the broad diffusion of Christianity throughout the whole empire and beyond its bounds. Even as early as the first generations, the fact that Christians were to be found everywhere strengthened and molded their self-consciousness. In contrast to nations shut up within definite boundaries, even though these were as large as those of the Parthians, Tertullian calls Christians (Apol., xxxvii.) the "gens totius orbis," i.e., the people of the whole world. And this had been felt long before even Tertullian wrote. [427] Cp. Tit. iii.1. With regard to Paul's language in Romans, one may recollect what a quiet and happy time the early years of Nero were. [428] Greek Christians usually called the emperor basileus ("king"), a common title in the East, where it had not the same servile associations as "rex" had on the lips of people in the West. But basileus was also a title of the Lord Christ (kurios Christos) which Christians dared not avoid uttering (not merely on account of "the kingdom of God," basileia tou theou, but also because Jesus had called himself by this name: John xviii. 33 f.). This occasioned a painful dilemma, though prudent Christians made strenuous efforts to repudiate the apparent treason which their religious usage of this title inevitably suggested, and to make it clear that by "kingdom" and "king" they understood nothing earthly or human, but something divine (so already Justin's Apol., I. vi.). Some hotspurs, no doubt, declared to their judges that they recognised only one king or emperor (God or Christ), and so drew upon themselves just punishment. But these cases were very rare. Christ was also called "imperator" in the West, but not in writings intended for publicity. [429] Even the expression used in Eph. ii. 14, autos estin he eirene hemon ("he is our peace"), is modelled on the language applied to the emperor in Asia Minor. I have shown elsewhere how strongly this language has influenced the terminology of Luke in the above-mentioned passage of his gospel. No doubt we have to think of Micah v. 4, in connection with Eph. ii. 14 and Luke ii. 14. But this converging of different lines was quite characteristic of the age and the idea in question. [430] Wherever mention is made of the power of the Christian people which upholds the state and frees humanity, it is always these two factors which are in view--their strict morality and their power over demons. Others also wield the former weapon, though not so well. But the second, the power over demons, pertains to Christians alone, and therefore they render an incomparable service to the state and to the human race, small though their numbers may be. From this conviction there grew up in Christianity the consciousness of being the power which conserves and emancipates mankind in this world. [431] I might also include here the remark of Athenagoras in his "Supplicatio" to the emperors (xviii.): echoite aph' heauton kai ten epouranion basileian exetazein; hos gar humin patri kai huio panta kecheirotai, anothen ten basileian eilephosin--basileos gar psuche en cheiri theou, phesi to prophetikon pneuma--houtos heni to theo kai to par autou logo huio nooumeno ameristo panta hupotetaktai ("May you be able to discover the heavenly kingdom by considering yourselves! For as all things are subject to you, father and son, who have received the kingdom from above--since the king's soul is in the hand of God, saith the spirit of prophecy,--so are all things subordinate to the one God and to the Logos proceeding from him, even the Son, who is not apprehended apart from him"). [432] Tertullian's opinion was different. He knew of no solidarity of Christianity and the empire: "Sed et Cæsares credidissent super Christo, si aut Cæsares non essent necessarii saeculo, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Cæsares" (Apol., xxi.: "Yes, the very Cæsars would have believed on Christ, if Cæsars had not been necessary to the world, or if they could have been Cæsars and Christians as well"). [433] Cp. also Orig., c. Cels., VIII. lxx.: all' hoi kath' hupothesin Kelsou pantes an peisthentes Rhomaioi euchomenoi periesontai ton polemion e oude ten archen polemesontai, phrouroumenoi hupo theias dunameos, tes dia pentekonta dikaious pente poleis holas epangeilamenes diasosai ("According to the notion of Celsus, if all the Romans are brought to believe, they will either overcome their foes by praying, or refrain from fighting altogether, being guarded by that power divine which promised to save five entire cities for the sake of fifty just persons"). [434] I do not understand, any more than Origen did, the political twaddle which Celsus (lxxi.) professes to have heard from a Christian. It can hardly have come from a Christian, and it is impossible nowadays to ascertain what underlay it. I therefore pass it by. __________________________________________________________________ EXCURSUS CHRISTIANS AS A THIRD RACE, IN THE JUDGMENT OF THEIR OPPONENTS For a proper appreciation of the Greek and Roman estimate of Christianity, it is essential, in the first instance, to recollect how the Jews were regarded and estimated throughout the empire, since it was generally known that the Christians had emanated from the Jews. Nothing is more certain than that the Jews were distinguished throughout the Roman empire as a special people in contrast to all others. Their imageless worship (atheotes), their stubborn refusal to participate in other cults, together with their exclusiveness (amixia), marked them off from all nations as a unique people. [435] This uniqueness was openly acknowledged by the legislation of Cæsar. Except for a brief period, the Jews were certainly never expected to worship the emperor. Thus they stood alone by themselves amid all the other races who were included in, or allied to, the Roman empire. The blunt formula "We are Jews" never occurs in the Greek and Roman literature, so far as I know; [436] but the fact was there, i.e., the view was widely current that the Jews were a national phenomenon by themselves, deficient in those traits which were common to the other nations. [437] Furthermore, in every province and town the Jews, and the Jews alone, kept themselves aloof from the neighboring population by means of their constitutional position and civic demeanor. Only, this very uniqueness of character was taken to be a defect in public spirit and patriotism, as well as an insult and a disgrace, from Apollonius Molon and Posidonius down to Pliny, Tacitus, and later authors, [438] although one or two of the more intelligent writers did not miss the "philosophic" character of the Jews. [439] Disengaging itself from this Jewish people, Christianity now encountered the Greeks and Romans. In the case of Christians, some of the sources of offence peculiar to the Jews were absent; but the greatest offence of all appeared only in heightened colors, viz., the atheotes and the amixia (misanthropia). Consequently the Christian religion was described as a "superstitio nova et malefica" (Suet., Nero, 16), as a "superstitio prava, immodica" (Plin., Ep., x. 96, 97), as an "exitiabilis superstitio" (Tacit., Annal., xv. 44), and as a "vana et demens superstitio" (Min. Felix, 9), while the Christians themselves were characterized as "per flagitia invisi," and blamed for their "odium generis humani." [440] Several sensible people during the course of the second century certainly took a different view. Lucian saw in Christians half crazy, credulous fanatics, yet he could not altogether refuse them his respect. Galen explained their course of life as philosophic, and spoke of them in terms of high esteem. [441] Porphyry also treated them, and especially their theologians, the gnostics and Origen, as respectable opponents. [442] But the vast majority of authors persisted in regarding them as an utter abomination. "Latebrosa et lucifuga natio," cries the pagan Cæcilius (in Minut. Felix, viii. f.), "in publicum muta, in angulis garrula; templa ut busta despiciunt, deos despuunt, rident sacra . . . . occultis se notis et insignibus noscunt et amant mutuo paene antequam noverint . . . . cur nullas aras habent, templa nulla, nulla nota simulacra . . . . nisi illud quod colunt et interprimunt, aut punieudum est aut pudendum? unde autem vel quis ille aut ubi deus unicus, solitarius, destitutus, quem non gens libera, non regna, non saltem Romana superstitio noverunt? Judaeorum sola et misera gentilitas unum et ipsi deum, sed palam, sed templis, aris, victimis caeremoniisque coluerunt, cuius adeo nulla vis ac potestas est, ut sit Romanis numinibus cum sua sibi natione captivus. At iam Christiani quanta monstra, quae portenta confingunt." [443] What people saw--what Cæcilius saw before him--was a descending series, with regard to the numina and cultus: first Romans, then Jews, then Christians. So monstrous, so repugnant are those Christians (of whose faith and life Cæcilius proceeds to tell the most evil tales), that they drop out of ordinary humanity, as it were. Thus Cæcilius indeed calls them a "natio," but he knows that they are recruited from the very dregs of the nations, and consequently are no "people" in the sense of a "nation." The Christian Octavius has to defend them against this charge of being a non-human phenomenon, and Tertullian goes into still further details in his Apology and in his address ad Nationes. In both of these writings the leading idea is the refutation of the charge brought against Christianity, of being something exceptional and utterly inhuman. "Alia nos opinor, natura, Cyropennæ [Cynopae?] aut Sciapodes," we read in Apol., viii., "alii ordines dentium, alii ad incestam libidinem nervi? . . . . homo est enim et Christianus et quod et tu" ("We are of a different nature, I suppose! Are we Cyropennae or Sciapodes? Have we different teeth, different organs for incestuous lust? . . . . Nay, a Christian too is a man, he is whatever you are." In Apol., xvi., Tertullian is obliged to refute wicked lies told about Christians which, if true, would make Christians out to be quite an exceptional class of human beings. Whereas, in reality, "Christiani homines sunt vobiscum degentes, eiusdem victus, habitus, instructus, eiusdem ad vitam necessitatis. neque enim Brachmanae aut Indorum gymnosophistae sumus, silvicolae et exules vitae . . . . si caeremonias tuas non frequento, attamen et illa die homo sum" (Apol., xlii.: "Christian men live beside you, share your food, your dress, your customs, the same necessities of life as you do. For we are neither Brahmins nor Indian gymnosophists, inhabiting the woods, and exiles from existence. If I do not attend your religious ceremonies, none the less am I a human being on the sacred day"). "Cum concutitur imperium, concussis etiam ceteris membris eius utique et nos, licit extranei a turbis aestimemur, [444] in aliquo loco casus invenimur" (Apol., xxxi.: "When the state is disturbed and all its other members affected by the disturbance, surely we also are to be found in some spot or another, although we are supposed to live aloof from crowds." It is evident also from the nicknames and abusive epithets hurled at them, that Christians attracted people's attention as something entirely strange (cp., e.g., Apol. 1). In his two books ad Nationes, no less than in the Apology, all these arguments also find contemporary expression. Only in the former one further consideration supervenes, which deserves special attention, namely, the assertion of Tertullian that Christians were called "genus tertium" (the Third race) by their opponents. The relevant passages are as follows:-- Ad Nat., I. viii.: "Plane, tertium genus dicimur. An Cyropennae aliqui vel Sciapodes vel aliqui de subterraneo Antipodes? Si qua istic apud vos saltem ratio est, edatis velim primum et secundum genus, ut ita de tertio constet. Psammetichus quidem putavit sibi se de ingenio exploravisse prima generis. dicitur enim infantes recenti e partu seorsum a commercio hominum alendos tradidisse nutrici, quam et ipsam propterea elinguaverat, ut in totum exules vocis humanae non auditu formarent loquellam, sed de suo promentes eam primam nationem designarent cuius sonum natura dictasset. Prima vox beccos' renuntiata est; interpretatio eius panis' apud Phrygas nomen est; Phryges primum genus exinde habentur . . . . sint nunc primi Phryges, non tamen tertii Christiani. Quantae enim aliae gentium series post Phrygas? verum recogitate, ne quos tertium genus dicitis principem locum obtineant, siquidem non ulla gens non Christiana. itaque quaecunque gens prima, nihilominus Christiana. ridicula dementia novissimos diciti et tertios nominatis. sed de superstitione tertium genus deputamur, non de natione, ut sint Romani, Judaei, dehinc Christiani. ubi autem Graeci? vel si in Romanorum suberstitionibus censentur, quoniam quidem etiam deos Graeciae Roma sollicitavit, ubi saltem Ægyptii, et ipsi, quod sciam, privatae curiosaeque religionis? porro si tam monstruosi, qui tertii loci, quales habendi, qui primo et secundo antecedunt?" ("We are indeed called the third race of men! Are we monsters, Cyropennae, or Sciopades, or some Antipodeans from the underworld? If these have any meaning for you, pray explain the first and second of the races, that we may thus learn the third.' Psammetichus thought he had ingeniously hit upon primeval man. He removed, it is said, some newly born infants from all human intercourse and entrusted their upbringing to a nurse whom he had deprived of her tongue, in order that being exiled entirely from the sound of the human voice, they might form their words without hearing it, and derive them from their own nature, thus indicating what was the first nation whose language was originally dictated by nature. The first word they uttered was beccos,' the Phrygian word for bread. The Phrygians, then, are held to be the first race . . . . If, then, the Phrygians are the first race, still it does not follow that the Christians are the third. For how many other races successively came after the Phrygians? But take heed lest those whom you call the third race take first place, since there is no nation which is not Christian. Whatever nation, therefore, is the first, is nevertheless Christian now. It is senseless absurdity for you to call us the latest of nations and then to dub us the Third. .But, you say, it is on the score of religion and not of nationality that we are considered to be third; it is the Romans first, then the Jews, and after that the Christians. What about the Greeks then? Or supposing that they are reckoned among the various Roman religions (since it was from Greece that Rome borrowed even her deities), where do the Egyptians at any rate come in, since they possess a religion which, so far as I know, is all their own, and full of secrecy? Besides, if those who occupy the third rank are such monsters, what must we think of those who precede them in the first and second?"). Further, in ad Nat., I. xx. (after showing that the charges brought against Christians recoil upon their adversaries the heathen), Tertuilian proceeds: "Habetis et vos tertium genus etsi non de tertio ritu, attamem de tertio sexu. Illud aptius de viro et femina viris et feminis iunctum" ("You too have your third race' [i.e., of eunuchs], though it is not in the way of a third religion, but of a third sex. Made up of male and female in conjunction, it is better suited to pander to men and women!") Add also a passage fromn the treatise Scorpiace (x.: a word to heretics who shunned martyrdom): "Illic constitues et synagogas Judaeorum fontes persecutionum, apud quas apostoli flagella perpessi sunt, et populos nationum cum suo quidem circo, ubi facile conclamant: Usque quo genus tertium?'" ("Will you set up there [i.e., in heaven] also synagogues of the Jews--which are fountains of persecution--before which the apostles suffered scourging, and heathen crowds with their circus, forsooth, where all are ready to shout, How long are we to endure this third race?'"). From these passages we infer:-- i. That "the third race" (genus tertium) as a designation of Christians on the lips of the heathen was perfectly common in Carthage about the year 200. Even in the circus people cried, "Usque quo genus tertium?" ii. That this designation referred exclusively to the Christian method of conceiving and worshipping God. The Greeks, Romans, and all other nations passed for the first race (genus primum), in so far as they mutually recognized each other's gods or honored foreign gods as well as their own, and had sacrifices amid images. The Jews (with their national God, their exclusiveness, and a worship which lacked images but included sacrifice) [445] constituted the second race (genus alterum). The Christians, again (with.their spiritual God, their lack of images and sacrifices, and the contempt for the gods--contemnere deos--which they shared with the Jews [446] ), formed the Third race (genus tertium). iii. When Tertullian talks as if the whole system of classification could denote the chronological series of the nations, it is merely a bit of controversial dialectic. Nor has the designation of "the Third race" (genus tertium) anything whatever to do either with the virginity of Christians, or, on the other hand, with the sexual debaucheries set down to their credit. [447] All these results [448] were of vital importance to the impression made by Christianity (and Judaism [449] ) upon the pagan world. As early as the opening of the second century Christians designate their religion as "the third method" of religion (cp. the evidence above furnished by the Preaching of Peter), and frankly declare, about the year 240 A.D., "We are the third race of mankind" (cp. the evidence of the treatise de Pascha Computus). [450] Which proves that the pagans did borrow this conception, and that (even previously to 200 A.D.) [451] they described the Jews as the second and the Christians as the third race of men. This they did for the same reason as the Christians, on account of the nature of the religion in question. It is indeed amazing! One had certainly no idea that in the consciousness of the Greeks and Romans the Jews stood out in such bold relief from the other nations, and the Christians from both, or that they represented themselves as independent "genera," and were so described in an explicit formula. Neither Jews nor Christians could look for any ample recognition, [452] little as the demarcation was intended as a recognition at all. The polemical treatises against Christians prove that the triple formula "Romans, etc., Jews, and Christians" was really never absent from the minds of their opponents. So far as we are acquainted with these treatises, they one and all adopt this scheme of thought: the Jews originally parted company with all other nations, and after leaving the Egyptians, they formed an ill-favored species by themselves, while it is from these very Jews that the Christians have now broken off, retaining all the worst features of Judaism and adding loathsome and repulsive elements of their own. Such was the line taken by Celsus, Porphyry, and Julian in their anti-Christian writings. Celsus speaks of the genos of the Jews, and opposes both gene in the sharpest manner to all other nations, in order to show that when Christians, as renegade Jews, distinguish themselves from this genos--a genos which is, at least, a people-- they do so to their own loss. He characterizes Christians (VIII. ii.) as apoteichizontes heautous kai aporregnuntes apo ton loipon anthropon ("people who separate themselves and break away front the rest of mankind"). For all that, everything in Christianity is simply plagiarized from a plagiarism, or copied from a copy. Christians per se have no new teaching (mathema, I. iv.; cp. II. v. and IV. xiv.). That they have any teaching at all to present, is simply due to the fact that they have kept back the worst thing of all, viz., their stasiazein pros to koinon ("their revolt against the common weal"). [453] Porphyry--who, I imagine, is the anti-Christian controversialist before the mind of Eusebius [454] --in his Preparatio, i. 2, begins by treating Christians as a sheer impossibility, inasmuch as they will not and do not belong to the Greeks or to the barbarians. Then he goes on to say: kai med' auto to para Ioudaiois timoumeno theo kata ta par autois prosanechein nomima, kainen de tina kai eremen anodian heautois suntemein mete ta Hellenon mete ta Ioudaion phulattousan ("Nor do they adhere to the rites of the God worshipped by the Jews according to their customs, but fashion some new and solitary vagary for themselves of which there is no trace in Hellenism or Judaism"). So that he also gives the triple classification. Finally, Julian (Neumann, p.164) likewise follows the division of Hellenes, Ioudaioi, and Galilaioi [Greeks, Jews, Galileans]. The Galileans are neither Greeks nor Jews; they have come from the Jews, but have separated from them and struck out a path of their own. "They have repudiated every noble and significant idea current among us Greeks, and among the Hebrews who are descended from Moses; yet they have lifted from both sources everything that adhered to these imitations like an ill-omened demon, taking their godlessness from the levity of the Jews, and their careless and lax way of living from our own thoughtlessness and vulgarity." Plainly, then, Greek and Jews and Christians were distinguished throughout upon the ground of religion, although the explicit formula of "the third race" occurs only in the West. After the middle of the third century, both empire and emperor learnt to recognize and dread the third race of worshippers as a "nation," as well as a race. They were a state within the state. The most instructive piece of evidence in this connection is the account of Decius given by Cyprian (Ep. lv. 9): "Multo patientius et tolerabilius audivit levari adversus se aemulum principem quam constitui Romae dei sacerdotem" ("He would hear of a rival prince being set up against himself with far more patience and equanimity than of a priest of God being appointed at Rome"). The terrible edict issued by this emperor for the persecution of Christians is in the first instance the practical answer given by the state to the claims of the "New People" and to the political view advocated by Melito and Origen. The inner energy of the new religion comes out in its self-chosen title of "the New People" or "the Third race" just as plainly as in the testimony extorted from its opponents, that in Christianity a new genus of religion had actually emerged side by side with the religions of the nations and of Judaism. It does not afford much direct evidence upon the outward spread and strength of Christianity, for the former estimate emerged, asserted itself, and was recognized at an early period, when Christians were still, in point of numbers, a comparatively small society. [455] But it must have been of the highest importance for the propaganda of the Christian religion, to be so distinctly differentiated from all other religions and to have so lofty a consciousness of its own position put before the world. [456] Naturally this had a repelling influence as well on certain circles. Still it was a token of power, and power never fails to succeed. __________________________________________________________________ [435] There were also their special customs (circumcision, prohibition of swine's flesh, the sabbath, etc.), but these did not contribute so seriously as atheotes and amixia to establish the character of the Jews for uniqueness; for customs either identical or somewhat similar were found among other Oriental peoples as well. For atheotes (cp. my essay on "The Charge of Atheism in the First Three Centuries," Texte u. Unters., xxviii. 4), see Pliny, Hist. Nat., xiii. 4. 46: "gens contumelia numinum insignis" ("a race distinguished by its contempt for deities"); Tacit., Hist., v. 5: "Judaei mente sola unumque numen intellegunt . . . . igitur nulla simulacra urbibus suis, nedum templis sistunt; non regibus haec adolatio non Cæsaribus honor" ("the Jews conceive of their deity as one, by the mind alone . . . . hence there are no images erected in their cities or even in their temples. This reverence is not paid to kings, nor this honor to the Cæsars"); Juv., Satir., xiv. 97: "nil praeter nubes et caeli numen adorant" ("they venerate simply the clouds and the deity of the sky"), etc. For misanthropia and amixia, see Tacit. (loc.cit.): "Apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnes alios hostile odium" ("Among themselves their honesty is inflexible, their compassion quick to move, but to all other persons they show the hatred of antagonism"); and earlier still, Apollonius Molon (in Joseph., Apion. ii. 14). Cp. Schürer's Gesch. des jüd. Volk., III.(3), p. 418 [Eng. trans., II. ii. 295]. [436] Yet, cp. Epist. Aristeas § 16 (ed. Wendland, 1900, p. 6): ton panton epopten kai ktisten theon houtoi sebontai, hon kai pantes, hemeis de prosonomazontes heteros Zena kai Dia. [437] In Egypt a clear-cut triple division obtained--Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews. Cp. Schürer III.(3), p. 23 [Eng, trans., II. ii. 231]. [438] Apollonius Molon in Joseph., Apion., II. 15, "The most stupid of the barbarians, atheoi, misanthropoi"; Seneca (in August., de Civit., vi. 11), "sceleratissima gens"; Tacitus (Hist., v. 8), "despectissima pars servientium--taeterrima gens"; Pliny (loc. cit.), Marcus Aurelius (in Ammian, xxii. 5), and Cæcilius (in Min. Felix, x.), "Judaeorum misera gentilitas." [439] Aristotle (according to Clearchus), (philosophoi para Surois); Theophrastus (according to Porphyry), hate philosophoi to genos ontes); Strabo (xvi. 2. 35, pp. 760 f.); and Varro (in August., de Civit., iv. 31). [440] Tacitus (loc. cit.); cp. Tertull., Apol. xxxv., "publici hostes"; xxxvii., "hostes maluistis vocare generis humani Christianos" (you prefer to call Christians the enemies of the human race); Minuc., x., "pravae religionis obscuritas"; viii., "homines deploratae, inlicitae ac desperatae factionis" (reprobate characters, belonging to an unlawful and desperate faction); "plebs profanae coniurationis"; ix., "sacraria taeterrima impiae citionis" (abominable shrines of an impious assembly); "eruenda et execranda consensio" (a confederacy to be rooted out and detested). [441] The passage is extant only in the Arabic (see above, p. 212). [442] Of the historical basis of the Christian religion and its sacred books in the New Testament, Porphyry and the Neoplatonists in general formed no more favorable opinion than did Celsus, while even in the Old Testament they found (agreeing thus far with the Christian gnostics) a great deal of folly and falsehood. The fact is, no one, not even Celsus, criticised the gospel history so keenly and disparagingly as Porphyry. Still, much that was to be found in the books of Moses and in John appeared to them of value. Further, they had a great respect for the Christian philosophy of religion, and endeavored in all seriousness to come to terms with it, recognizing that it approximated more nearly than that of the gnostics to their own position. The depreciatory estimate of the world and the dualism which they found in gnosticism seemed to them a frivolous attack upon the Godhead. Per contra Porphyry says of Origen: "His outward conduct was that of a Christian and unlawful. But he thought like a Greek in his views of matter and of God, and mingled the ideas of the Greeks with foreign fables" (in Eus., H.E., vi. 19). On the attitude of Plotinus towards the gnosis of the church and gnosticism, cp. Karl Schmidt in Texte u. Unters., N.F. v. part 4. [443] "Apeople who skulk and shun the light of day, silent in public but talkative in holes and corners. They despise the temples as dead-houses, they scorn the gods, they mock sacred things . . . . they recognize each other by means of secret tokens and marks, and love each other almost before they are acquainted. Why have they no altars, no temples, no recognized images . . . . unless what they worship and conceal deserves punishment or is something to be ashamed of? Moreover, whence is he, who is he, where is he, that one God, solitary and forsaken, whom no free people, no realm, not even a Roman superstition, has ever known? The lonely and wretched race of the Jews worshipped one God by themselves, but they did it openly, with temples, altars, victims, and ceremonies, and he has so little strength and power that he and all his nation are in bondage to the deities of Rome! But the Christians! What marvels, what monsters, do they feign!" [444] Hence the request made to Christians is quite intelligible: "Begone from a world to which you do not belong, and trouble us not." Cp. the passage already cited [p. 252] from Justin's Apol. II. iv., where Christians are told by their opponents, pantes heautous phoneusantes poreuesthe ede para ton theon kai hemin pragmata me parechete Tertullian relates (ad Scap. v.) how Arrius Antoninus, the proconsul of Asia, called out to the Christians who crowded voluntarily to his tribunal in a time of persecution, "You miserable wretches; if you want to die, you have precipices and ropes." Celsus (in Orig., c. Cels. VIII. lv.) writes: "If Christians decline to render due honor to the gods or to respect those appointed to take charge of the religious services, let them not grow up to manhood or marry wives or have children or take any part in the affairs of this life, but rather be off with all speech, leaving no posterity behind them, that such a race may become utterly extinct on earth." Hatred of the empire and emperor, and uselessness from the economic standpoint--these were standing charges against Christians, charges which the apologists (especially Tertullian) were at great pains to controvert. Celsus tries to show Christians that they were really trying to cut off the branch on which they sat (VIII. lxviii.): "Were all to act as you do, the emperor would soon be left solitary and forlorn, and affairs world presently fall into the hands of the wildest and most lawless barbarians. Then it would be all over with the glory of your worship and the true wisdom among men." As the Christians were almost alone among religionists in being liable to this charge of enmity to the empire, they were held responsible by the populace, as everybody knows, for any great calamities that occurred. The passages in Tertullian bearing on this point are quite familiar; but one should also compare the parallel statements in Origen (in Matt. Comment Ser., xxxix.). Henceforth Christians appear a special group by themselves. Maximinus Daza, in his rescript to Sabinus (Eus., H.E., ix. 9), speaks of the ethnos ton Christianon (the nation of the Christians), and the edict of Galerius reluctantly admits that Christians succeeded in combining the various nations into a relative unity by means of their commandments (Eus., H.E., viii. 17. 7): tosaute autous pleonexia pareschekei kai anoia kateilephei, hos me hepesthai tois hupo ton palai katadeichtheisin . . . . alla kata ten auton prothesin kai hos hekastos ebouleto, houtos heautois kai nomous poiesai kai toutous paraphulastein kai en diaphorois diaphora plethe sunagein ("Such arrogance had seized them and such senselessness had mastered them, that instead of following the institutions of their ancestors . . . . they framed laws for themselves according to their own purpose, as each desired, and observed these laws, and thus held various gatherings in various places"). [445] Cp. ad Nat., I. viii. [446] Cp. what is roundly asserted in ad Nat., I. viii.: "It is on the score of religion and not of nationality that we are considered to be third; it is the Romans first, then the Jews, and after that the Christians." Also, I. xx.: "Tertium genus [dicimur] de ritu" ("We are called a third race on the ground of religion"). It seems to me utterly impossible to suppose that Tertullian might have been mistaken in this interpretation of the title in question. [447] Passages may indeed be pointed out in which either virginity (or unsexual character) or unnatural lust is conceived as "genus tertium" (a third race), or as a race (genus) in general (Tertull., de Virg. Vel., vii.: "Si caput mulieris vir est, ubique et virginis, de qua fit mulier illa quae nupsit, nisi si virgo tertium genus est monstrosum aliquod sui capitis." "If the man is the head of the woman, he is also the head of the virgin, for out of a virgin comes the woman who marries; unless she is some monstrosity with a head of its own, a third race"). Cp. op cit., v., where the female sex is "genus secundi hominis"; pseudo-Cypr., de Pudic. vii., "Virginitas neutrius est sexus"; and Clem. Alex., Paedag., II. x. 85, oude gar aidoia echei he huaina hama ampho, arrenos kai theleos, kathos hupeilephasi tines, hermaphroditous teratologountes kai triten tauten metaxu theleias kai arrenos androgunon kainotomountes phusin [a similar sexual analogy]. Cp., on the other hand, op. cit., I. iv. 11, where there is a third condition common to both sexes, viz., that of being human beings and also children; also Lampridius, Alex. Sever., xxiii.: "Idem tertium genus hominum eunuchos dicebat" ("He said eunuchs were a third race of mankind"). Obviously, however, such passages are irrelevant to the point now under discussion. [448] It is remarkable that Tertullian is only aware of the title "tertium genus" as a pagan description of Christians, and not as one also applied by Christians to themselves. But despite his silence on the fact that Christians also designated their religion as "the third kind" of religion, we must nevertheless assume that the term rose as spontaneously to the lips of Christians as of their opponents, since it is unlikely, though not impossible, that the latter borrowed it from Christian literature. (Consequently Fronto, in his lost treatise against the Christians, must have made polemical use of the title "genus tertium" which he found in Christian writings, and by this means the term passed out into wider currency among the heathen. Yet in Minucius Felix it does not occur.) To recall the chronological succession of its occurrences once again: at the opening of the second century one Christian writer (the author of the Preaching of Peter) calls the Christian religion "the third kind" of religion; in the year 197, Tertullian declares, "Tertium genus dicimur" ("We are called the third race"); while in 242-243 A.D. a Roman or African Christian (pseudo-Cyprian) writes, "Tertium genus sumus" ("We are the third race"). [449] I add, Judaism--for hitherto in our discussion we could not determine with absolute certainty whether any formula was current which distinguished the Jews from all other peoples with regard to their conception and worship of God. Now it is perfectly plain. The Jews ranked in this connection as an independent magnitude, a "genus alterum." [450] It is now clear that we were right in conjecturing above that the Romans were to pseudo-Cyprian the first race, and the Jews the second, as opposed to the Third race. [451] How long before we do not know. By the end of the second century, at any rate, the title was quite common. It is therefore hardly possible to argue against the authenticity of Hadrian's epistle to Servianus (see above) on the ground that it contains this triple division: "Hunc [nummum] Christiani, hunc Judaei, hunc omnes venerantur et gentes" ("This pelf is revered by the Christians, the Jews, and the nations"). But the description of Romans, Greeks, etc., as "gentes" is certainly very suspicious; it betrays, unless I am mistaken, the pen of a Christian writer. [452] Thanks to Varro, who had a genius for classification, people had been accustomed among literary circles, in the first instance, to grade the gods and religions as well. Perhaps it was under the influence of his writings (and even Tertullian makes great play with them in his treatise ad Nationes) that the distinction of Jews and Christians as "the second and third ways" obtained primarily among the learned, and thence made its way gradually into the minds of the common people. It is utterly improbable that this new classification was influenced by the entirely different distinction current among the Egyptians (see above), of the three gene (Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews). Once it was devised, the former conception must have gone on working with a logic of its own, setting Judaism and Christianity in a light which was certainly not intended at the outset. It developed the conception of three circles, of three possible religions! Strangely enough, Tertullian never mentions the "genus tertium" in his Apology, though it was contemporaneous with the ad Nationes. Was the fact not of sufficient importance to him in encountering a Roman governor? [453] The triton genos which Celsus mentions rather obscurely in V. lxi. has nothing to do with the third race which is our present topic. It refers to distinctions within Christianity itself. [454] Cp. von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf in the Zeitschrift für neutestamentliche Wissenschaft, i. 2, pp. 101 f. [455] They could not have been utterly insignificant, however; otherwise this estimate would be incredible. In point of numbers they must have already rivalled the Jews at any rate. [456] Judaism already owed no small amount of her propaganda to her apologetic and, within her apologetic, to the valuation of herself which it developed. Cp. Schürer, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, III.(3), pp. 107 f. [Eng. trans., II. iii. 249 f.]. __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 8 THE RELIGION OF A BOOK AND A HISTORICAL REALIZATION Christianity, unlike Islam, never was and never became the religion of a book in the strict sense of the term (not until a much later period, that of rigid Calvinism, did the consequences of its presentation as the religion of a book become really dangerous, and even then the rule of faith remained at the helm). Still, the book of Christianity--i.e., in the first instance, the Old Testament--did exert an influence which brought it to the verge of becoming the religion of a book. Paul, of course, when we read him aright, was opposed to this development, and wide circles throughout Christendom--both the gnostics and the Marcionites -- even went the length of entirely repudiating the Old Testament or of ascribing it to another god altogether, though he too was righteous and dependent on the most high God. [457] But in the catholic church this gnostic criticism was indignantly rejected, whilst the complicated position adopted by the apostle Paul towards the book was not understood at all. The Old Testament, interpreted allegorically, continued to be the sacred book for these Christians, as it was for the Jews, from whom they aimed to wrest it. This attitude to the Old Testament is quite intelligible. What other religious society could produce a book like it? [458] How overpowering and lasting must have been the impression made by it on Greeks, educated and uneducated alike, once they learnt to understand it! Many details might be strange or obnoxious, but the instruction and inspiration of its pages amply made up for that. Its great antiquity--stretching in some parts, as men held, to thousands of years [459] --was already proof positive of its imperishable value; its contents seemed in part a world of mysteries and in part a compendium of the profoundest wisdom. By its inexhaustible wealth, by its variety, comprehensiveness, and extensive character, it seemed like a literary cosmos, a second creation which was the twill of the first. [460] This indeed was the deepest impression which it made. The opinion most widely held by Greeks who came in contact with the Old Testament was that this was a book which was to be coupled with the universe, and that a similar verdict could be passed upon both of them. Variously as they might still interpret it, the fact of its being a parallel creation to the world, equally great and equally comprehensive, and of both issuing from a single author, appeared indubitable even to the gnostics and the Marcionites, whilst the members of the catholic church recognized in this divine author the most high God himself! [461] In the entire history of human thought, when did any other book earn such an opinion? [462] The Old Testament certainly was an enormous help to the Christian propaganda, and it was in vain that the Jews protested. [463] We have one positive testimony, in the following passage from Tatian (Orat. xxix.), that for many people the Old Testament formed the real bridge by which they crossed to Christianity. "When I was paying earnest heed to what was profitable," he writes, "some barbarian writings came into my hands which were too old for Greek ideas and too divine for Greek errors. These I was led to trust, owing to their very simplicity of expression and the unstudied character of their authors, owing to their intelligible description of creation, their foreknowledge of the future, the excellence of their precepts, and the fact of their embracing the universe under the sole rule of God. Thus was my soul instructed by God, and I understood how other teachings lead to condemnation, whilst these writings abolish the bondage that prevails throughout the world and free us from a plurality of rulers and tyrants innumerable. They furnish us, not with something which we had not already received, but with something which had been received but which, thanks to error, had been lost." [464] This confession is particularly noticeable, not merely on account of the explicit manner in which it brings out the significance of the Old Testament for the transition to Christianity, but also for its complete and clear statement of the reasons for this influence. In the first place, the form of this book made a deep impression, and it is characteristic of Tatian the Greek, though he would remain a Greek no longer, that its form is the first point which he singles out. The vigorous style of the prophets and psalmists captivated the man who had passed through the schools of rhetoric and philosophy. Vigor coupled with simplicity--this was what made the book seem to him so utterly different from those treatises and unwieldy tomes in which their authors trade desperate efforts to attain clearness of thought upon questions of supreme moment. The second item mentioned by the apologist is the narrative of creation in Genesis. This also is significant and quite intelligible. Every Greek philosopher had his cosmology, and here was a narrative of creation that was both lucid and comprehensible. It did not look like a philosophy, nor did it look like an ordinary myth; it was an entirely new genre, something between and above them both. It can only have been inspired by God himself! The third feature which struck Tatian was the prophecies of the book. A glance at the early Christian writers, and especially at the apologists, reveals the prominent and indeed the commanding role played by the argument from prophecy, and this argument could only be led by means of the Old Testament. The fourth item was the moral code. Here Tatian was certainly thinking in the first instance of the decalogue, which even the gnostics, for all their critical attitude towards the book as a whole, considered only to require completion, and which was therefore distinguished by them from the rest of the Old Testament. [465] To Gentile Christians the decalogue invariably meant the sum of morals, which only the sayings of the Sermon on the Mount could render more profound. [466] Finally, the fifth item mentioned by the apologist is the rigid monotheism which stamps the whole volume. This list really includes all the elements in the Old Testament which seemed of special weight and marked its origin as divine. But in a survey of the services rendered by it to the Christian church throughout the first two centuries, the following points stand out clearly. 1. Christians borrowed from the Old Testament its monotheistic cosmology and view of nature. Though the gospels and epistles presuppose this, they do not expressly state it, and in the Old Testament books people found exactly what they required, viz., in the first place, innumerable passages proclaiming and inculcating monotheism, and also challenging polytheism, and in the second place many passages which extolled God as the creator of heaven and earth and depicted his creation. 2. From the Old Testament it could be proved that the appearance and the entire history of Jesus had been predicted hundreds and even thousands of years ago; and further, that the founding of the New People which was to be fashioned out of all nations upon earth, [467] had from the very beginning been prophesied and prepared for (cp. pp. 240 f.). [468] Their own religion appeared, on the basis of this book, to be the religion of a history which was the fulfillment of prophecy; what remained still in the future could only be a brief space of time, and even in its course everything would be fulfilled in accordance with what had been prophesied. The certain guarantee for this was afforded by what had already been fulfilled. By aid of the Old Testament, Christian teachers dated back their religion to the very beginning of things, and connected it with the creation. This formed one of the most impressive articles of the mission-preaching among educated people, and thereby Christianity got a hold which was possessed by no religion except Judaism. But one must take good care not to imagine that to the minds of these Christians the Old Testament was pure prophecy which still lacked its fulfillment. The Old Testament was indeed a book of prophecies, but for that very reason it had didactic significance as the complete revelation of God, which needed no manner of addition whatsoever, and excluded any subsequent modification. The historical fulfillment--"lex radix evangeliorum" (Tert., Scorp., ii.)--of these revelations merely attested their truth in the eyes of all the world. Indeed, the whole gospel was thus put together from the Old Testament. Handbooks of this kind must have been widely circulated in different though similar editions. 3. Proofs from the Old Testament were increasingly employed to justify principles and institutions adopted by the Christian church (not merely imageless, spiritual worship, the abolition of the ceremonial law and its precepts, with baptism and the Lord's supper, but also--though hesitatingly--the Christian priesthood, the episcopate, and the new organizations within the cultus). 4. The book was used for the purpose of exhortation, following the formula of "a minori ad maius." If God had praised or punished this or that in the past, how much more, it was argued, are we to look for similar treatment from him, we who are now living in the last days and who have received "the calling of promise." 5. From the Old Testament (i.e., from its prophetic denunciations) Christians proved [469] that the Jewish people had no covenant with God (cp. pp. 66 f.). 6. Christians edified themselves by means of the Old Testament and its sayings about trust in God, about God's aid, about humility, and about holy courage, as well as by means of its heroic spirits and its prophets, above all, by the psalms. What has been summarized in these paragraphs is enough to indicate the importance of the Old Testament for primitive Christianity and its mission. [470] Be it remembered, however, that a large portion of its contents was allegorized, i.e., criticized and re-interpreted. Without this, a great deal of the Old Testament would have been unacceptable to Christians. Anyone who refused such re-reading of its contents had to reject the book in whole or part. [471] After the rise of the New Testament, which was the most important and independent product of the primitive church, and which legitimized its faith as a new religion, certain aspects of the Old Testament fell into the background. Still, these were not numerous. Plainly, there were vital points at which the former could not undertake to render the service done by the latter. No doubt any statement of Christian morality always went back to the words of Jesus as its primary source. Here the Old Testament had to retire. But elsewhere the latter held its own. It was only in theory, not in practice, that an imperceptible revolution occurred. The conflict with gnosticism, and the formation of the New Testament which took place in and with that conflict, made it plain to the theologians of the catholic church that the simple identification of the Old Testament and the gospel was by no means a matter of course. The first theologians of the ancient catholic church, Irenæus and Tertullian, already relax this absolute identification; they rather approximate to the conception of the apostle Paul, viz., that the Old Testament and the old covenant mark quite a different level from that of the New. The higher level of the new covenant is recognized, and therewith the higher level of the New Testament as well. Now in theory this led to many consequences of no small moment, for people learned to assign higher value to the specific significance of the Christian religion when it was set in contrast to the Old Testament--a point on which the gnostics had insisted with great energy. But in practice this change of estimate did not seriously affect the use of the Old Testament. If one could now hold theoretically that much of the Old Testament was "demutatum, suppletum, impletum, perfectum," and even "expunctum" by the New Testament (Tert., de Orat., i.), the third century saw the Old Testament allegorized and allegorically employed as direct evidence for the truths of Christianity. Indeed people really ceased to allegorize it. As the churches became stocked with every kind of sacred ceremony, and as they carefully developed priestly, sacrificial and sacramental ideas, people now began to grow careless and reckless in applying the letter of Old Testament ceremonial laws to the arrangements of the Christian organization and worship. In setting itself up as a legislative body, the church had recourse to the Old Testament in a way that Paul had severely censured; it fell back on the law, though all the while it blamed the Jews and declared that their observance of the law was quite illicit. In dogma there was now greater freedom from the Old Testament than had been the case during the second century; Christological problems occupied the foreground, and theological interests shifted from problems of theos and logos to those of the Trinity and of Christology, as well as to Christocentric mysteries. In the practice of the church, however, people employed the Old Testament more lavishly than their predecessors, in order to get a basis for usages which they considered indispensable. For a purpose of this kind the New Testament was of little use. The New Testament as a whole did not generally play the same role as the Old Testament in the mission and practice of the church. The gospels certainly ranked on a level with the Old Testament, and actually eclipsed it; through them the words of Jesus gleamed and sparkled, and in them his death and resurrection were depicted. But the epistles never enjoyed the same importance--particularly as many passages in them, in Paul especially, landed the fathers of the church in sore difficulties, [472] above all during the conflict with gnosticism. Augustine was the first to bring the Pauline gospel into prominence throughout the West; in the East, it never emerged at all from the shadow. As for the Johannine theology, it left hardly any traces upon the early church. Only one or two sections of it proved effective. As a whole, it remained a sealed book, though the same may be said of the Pauline theology. [473] __________________________________________________________________ [457] Cp., for example, the letter of Ptolemæus to Flora, with my study of it in the Sitzungsberichte d. K. Pr. Akad. d. Wiss., May 15, 1902. [458] It had this double advantage, that it was accessible in Greek, and also that the Hebrew original was familiar. On the Septuagint, see the studies by Nestle and Deissmann, besides the epistle of Aristeas (ed. Wendland, 1900). [459] In his treatise de Pallio Tertullian exclaims triumphantly, "Your history only reaches back to the Assyrians; we are in possession of the history of the whole world" ("Ferme apud vos ultra stilus non solet. ab Assyriis, si forte, aevi historiae patescunt. qui vero divinas lectitamus, ab ipsius mundi natalibus compotes sumus"). [460] Hence the numerous names for the book, partly due to its origin, partly to its contents (soteria grammata). [461] Certain gnostics distinguished the god of creation and the god of the Old Testament. This distinction prevailed wherever nature was depreciated in comparison with the religious attainments of the pre-Christian era. Nature is fierce and fatal; the law is, relatively speaking, moral. [462] Attacks by gnostics and pagans were not awanting, but the latter must have seldom assailed it on the whole. When they busied themselves seriously with the book, they almost invariably respected it. "Unde scis illos libros (veteri Testamenti) unius veri et veracissimi dei spiritu esse humano generi ministratos?" (Aug., Confess., vi. 5, 7: "Whence knowest thou that these books have been imparted to mankind by the spirit of the one true and most truthful God?")--this is a Manichæan or gnostic objection. [463] Their right to the book was simply denied; their misinterpretation of it proved that it was no longer theirs; the opinion was even current (cp. Barnabas epist.) that it never had been theirs, and that they had appropriated it unfairly. "In Judaeorum oleastro insiti sumus," says Tertullian (de Testim., v., after Rom. xi.); but the oleaster had thereby lost its very right to exist. [464] Cp. also Justin, Dial. c. Tryph., vii. ff.: Igenonto tines pro pollou chronou panton touton ton nomizomenon philosophon palaioteroi, makarioi kai dikaioi kai theophileis, theio pneumati lalesantes kai ta mellonta thespisantes, ha de nun ginetai; prophetas de autous kalousin; houtoi monoi to alethes kai eidon kai exeipon anthropois, met' eulabethentes mete dusopethentes tina . . . . alla mona tauta eipontes ha ekousan kai ha eidon hagio plerothentes pneumati; sungrammata de auton eti kai nun diamenei, k.t.l. . . . . Emou de parachrema pur en te psuche anephthe kai eros eiche me ton propheton kai ton andron ekeinon, hoi eisi Christou philoi ("Long ago there were certain men, more ancient than all those who are esteemed philosophers, men blessed and righteous and beloved of God, who spoke by the spirit of God, and foretold what would come to pass, even what is now coming to pass. Their name is that of prophets. They alone saw the truth and proclaimed it to men, neither reverencing nor dreading any man . . . . but only saying what they saw and heard, being filled with the holy spirit. Writings of theirs are still extant. . . . . A fire was at once kindled in my soul, and I was seized with a passion for the prophets and for those who are the friends of Christ"). [465] Cp. the epistle of Ptolemæus to Flora. [466] Cp. the Didachê. [467] The apologists refute the idea that the Jewish proselytes were this new people. It was an obvious objection. But Christians alone have adherents ek pantas genous anthropon. [468] 1To cite but a single passage, compare the Preaching of Peter (Clem. Alex., Strom., VI. xv.): Hemeis de anaptuxantes tas biblous has eichomen ton propheton, ha men dia parabolon, ha de di' ainigmaton, ha de authentikos kai autolexei ton Christon Iesoun onomazonton, heuromen kai ten parousian autou kai ton thanaton kai ton stauron kai tas loipas kolaseis pasas, hosas epoiesan auto hoi Ioudaioi, kai ten egersin kai ten eis ouranous analepsin pro tou Hierosoluma krithenai, kathos egegrapto tauta panta ha edei auton pathein kai gegrammenon eis auton ("Unrolling the books of the prophets in our possession, which name Christ Jesus partly in parables, partly in enigmas, and partly in plain expressions and in so many words, we find his advent, death, cross, and the other punishments inflicted on him by the Jews, his resurrection and his ascension into heaven, previous to the fall of Jerusalem, even as it is written, All these things which he had to suffer, and which shall be after him.' Learning all this, we believed in God by means of what had been written about him"). This writer explains, then, that on the ground of the Old Testament he came to believe in God the Father of Jesus Christ. Tertull., Apol., xlvi.: "Ostendimus totum statum nostrum, et quibus modis probare possimus ita esse sicut ostendimus, ex fide scilicet et antiquitate divinarum litterarum, item ex confessione spiritualium potestatum" [i.e., the testimony which the demons exorcised by us are forced to bear] ("We have stated all our case, and also shown you how we are able to prove it, viz., from the trustworthy character and great age of our sacred writings, and likewise from the confession of the powers of spiritual evil"). These, then, were the two decisive proofs. [469] How impressive was the argument-- you see, the Jewish nation is dispersed, the temple is destroyed, the sacrifices have ceased, the princes of the house of Juda have disappeared! Compare the extensive use of these facts by Eusebius in his Church History. [470] No thorough statement of the significance and employment of the Old Testament in the early church is available even at this time of day. In his Untersuchungen zum ersten Clemensbrief (1891), Wrede, however, has shown how such an essay should be planned and executed. His summary there (p. 75) agrees with what I have stated above. "Clement's use of Scripture," he writes, "depends wholly on the presupposition common to all Christians, that the Old Testament is the one holy book given by God to Christians, and to Christians directly and expressly; its words can lay claim to absolute authority, and they furnish the primary and most important basis of all Christian paradosis (tradition). Historically, it would be a totally inadequate account of the real facts of the case to declare that the Old Testament in whole or part still retained its value for Christians, as though the recognition of this was the result of some kind of reflection. The possession of this wonderful infallible volume was really, in the eyes of Christians, one of the most convincing and attractive features of the new religion, We simply cannot possess our minds too fully of the view that in those days there was not the slightest idea of a second sacred scripture ever rising one day to rank with the Old Testament, much less to round off the earlier book." In worship, readings were regularly given from the Old Testament, and further acquaintance with it was certainly promoted by means of brief selections and writings like the Testimonia of Cyprian. Private reading of the Bible was also practiced, as is plain from the Acts of the Scillitan Martyrs, several passages in Tertullian and Origen, and other sources. Origen (Hom. II. in Num., vol. x. p. 19) thinks that from one to two hours of prayer and Bible-reading is barely an adequate minimum for the individual Christian; in Hom. in Levit. ix. 7, he describes "divina lectio, orationes assiduae, et sermo doctrinae" as "nutrimenta spiritus." In pseudo-Clem., de Virginit., I. x., the reading of the Bible at small devotional gatherings held in private houses is mentioned. Justin assumes, in his Apology, that the Old Testament is easily accessible, and that the emperor could readily procure a copy. But the description of Pamphilus at Cæsarea (Jerome, adv. Rufin. I. ix.) is particularly illuminating: "Scripturas sanctas non ad legendum tantum, sed et ad habendum tribuebat promptissime, nec solum viris sed et feminis quas vidisset lectioni deditas, unde et multos codices praeparabat, ut cum necessitas poposcisset, volentibus largiretur" ("He readily provided Bibles not only to read but to keep, not only for men but for any women whom he saw addicted to reading. Hence he would prepare a large number of volumes, so that, when any demand was made upon him, he might be in a position to gratify those who applied to him"). For the diffusion of Scripture knowledge by means of reading (in small circles or publicly), cp. pseudo-Clem., de Virg., II. vi. Yet Augustine was not alone in his complaint (Conf., vi. 11. 18): "Ubi ipsos codices quaerimus? Unde aut quomodo comparamus? A quibus sumimus? ("Where are we to find even the books [i.e., of Scripture]? Where and how can we procure them? From whom can we get them?"). [471] Like Barnabas before him, Origen has shown with perfect clearness that the literal sense is in many cases inadmissible. Compare, for example, Hom. VII. 5 in Levit. (vol. ix. pp. 306 f.): "Si adsideamus literae, et secundum hoc vel quod Judaeis vel id quod vulgo videtur accipiamus, quae in lege scripta sunt, erubesco dicere et confiteri, quia tales leges dederit deus. videbuntur enim magis elegantes et rationabiles hominum leges, verbi gratia vel Romanorum vel Atheniensium vel Lacedaemoniorum. si vero secundum hanc intelligentiam, quam docet ecclesia, accipiatur dei lex, tunc plane omnes humanas supereminet leges et veri dei lex esse creditur." It may not be superfluous to recall that any authoritative text, especially one which was explained as of divine authority, demanded the allegorical interpretation, since those who recognized or maintained its authority usually connected the text with ideas which were quite different from the interpretation sanctioned by the historical interpretation. Nay more. Authority was desired and devised for such ideas themselves. For example, to treat the Song of Solomon as a love-song and then to vindicate the authority of its sacred text, is the acme of absurdity; it became an intolerable burden for the church to do so. But the same difficulty arose in connection with a book like Genesis. Those who admitted the book to the canon had no desire to canonize a wretched Jacob, etc.; but they were prepared for all such contingencies, and employed the allegorical method to remove any stumbling-blocks. Here, indeed, one may even ask whether the final redactor did not smooth over his work with allegorical expositions; in that event, only the sources of the book would need to be explained historically, whereas the book itself (apart from its canonization) would invite the allegorical method--the latter going back to the age of the book's final redaction. Once a Bible text is explained as possessing divine authority, no one needs to trouble any longer about the allegorical interpretation of those who had canonized it; the acceptance of it as a divine authority tacitly enjoined the faithful to read it in such a way as to draw the maximum of edifying matter from it. This was the true method of interpretation! A few connecting links, be they ever so slender and arbitrary, had to be made between certain parts of the literal text and the fine ideas which were attached to the letter. But, once this was done, everything was in order, and those ideas now ranked as the ideas of the text itself. So it is at bottom with all books of human law, mutatis mutandis. They all invite an "allegorical" interpretation alongside of the historical (i.e., the sense of the original lawgiver). They not only permit but involve the acceptance of any explanation as legitimate which can at all be reconciled with the letter of their writing, even though the reconciliation he rather forced. [472] The second epistle of Peter already bewails this, and one can see from the great work of Irenæus what difficulties were raised by the Pauline doctrines of predestination, sin, freedom, and grace. Tertullian felt these difficulties still more keenly than Irenæus, but as a Montanist he could solve them by means of the Paraclete; cp., e.g., de Resurr., lxiii.: "Deus pristina instrumenta manifestis verborum et sensuum luminibus ab omni ambiguitatis obscuritate purgavit" ("God has now purged from all the darkness of ambiguity those ancient scriptures, by the plain light of their language and their meanings," i.e., by the new prophecy). [473] Along with the Bible, i.e., primarily with the Old Testament, a considerable literature of apocalypses and allied writings entered the Christian churches. These also contained cosmological and philosophical materials. Tertullian conjectures that pagan philosophers may have been acquainted with them, but he speaks very slightingly of them (de Anima, ii.): "Quid autem, si philosophi etiam illa incursaverunt quae penes nos apocryphorum confessione damnantur, certos nihil recipiendum quod non conspiret germanae, et ipso iam aevo pronatae propheticae paraturae, quando et pseudoprophetarum meminerimus et multo prius apostatarum spirituum," etc. ("What if the philosophers have also attacked those writings which we condemn under the title of apocryphal,' convinced as we are that nothing should be received unless it tallies with the true prophetic system which has also arisen in the present age, since we do not forget the existence of false prophets and apostate spirits long before them," etc.); cp. de Resurr. lxiii., where he says that the gnostics "arcana apocryphorum superducunt, blasphemiae fabulas" ("introduce apocryphal mysteries and blasphemous fables"). __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER 9 THE CONFLICT WITH POLYTHEISM AND IDOLATRY 1. In combating "demons" (pp. 125 f.) and in taking the field against the open immorality which was part and parcel of polytheism (pp. 205 f.), the early church was waging war against polytheism. But it did not rest content with this onset. Directly, no doubt, the "dumb idols" were weakened by this attack; still, they continued to be a real power, particularly in the circles from which the majority of Christians were drawn. Nowadays, the polemic against the gods of Olympus, against Egyptian cats and crocodiles, or against carved and cast and chiseled idols, seems to our eyes to have been cheap and superfluous. It was not a difficult task, we may fairly add; philosophers like the Cynics and satirists like Lucian supplied a wealth of material, and the intellect and moral sense alike had long ago outgrown that sort of deity. But it was by no means superfluous. Had it been unnecessary, the apologists from Aristides to Arnobius would never have pursued this line of controversy with such zest, the martyr Apollonius would never have troubled to deliver his long polemic before the senate, and Tertullian, an expert in heathen laws and customs, would never have deemed it necessary to refute polytheism so elaborately in his defense before the presiding magistrate. Yet even from this last-named refutation we see how disreputable (we might almost say, how shabby) the public system of gods and sacrifices had already become. It was scoffed at on the stage; half-dead animals of no value were offered in sacrifice; [474] the idols were dishonored, the temples were profaned. [475] The whole business lay under a mass of disgust, disdain, derision, and nausea. But it would be a serious mistake to suppose that this feeling was universal. Not merely was everything kept going officially, but many minds still clung to such arrangements and ceremonies. The old cults were freshened by the influx of the new religions, and a new significance was often lent even to their most retrograde elements. Besides, whether the public system of religion was flourishing or entirely withered, it by no means represented the sole existing authority. In every town and province, at Rome as well as at Alexandria, in Spain, in Asia, in Egypt, there were household gods and family gods, with household customs of religion, and all manner of superstitions and ceremonies. These rarely rise above the surface of literature, but inscriptions, tombs, and magical papyri have brought them nearer us. Here every household function has its guardian spirit; every event is under one controlling god. And this religious world, this second-class religion, it must he remembered, was living and active everywhere. As a rule, the apologists contented themselves with assailing the official world of gods. [476] Their method aimed, in the first place, at rousing the moral sense against these so-called "gods" by branding their abominable vices; in the second place, it sought to exhibit the folly and absurdity of what was taught or told about the gods; and, thirdly, it aimed at exposing the origin of the latter. The apologists showed that the gods were an empty nothing, illusions created by the demons who lay in wait behind their dead puppets and introduced them in order to control men by this means. Or, following the track of Euhemerus, they showed that the so-called gods were nothing but dead men. [477] Or, again, they pointed out that the whole thing was a compound of vain fables and deceit, and very often the product of covetous priestcraft. In so doing they displayed both wit and irony, as well as a very strong feeling of aversion. We do not know, of course, how much of all this argument and feeling was original. As has been already remarked, the Stoic, Sceptic, and Cynic philosophers (in part, the Epicureans also) had preceded Christianity along this line, and satires upon the gods were as cheap as blackberries in that age. Consequently, it is needless to illustrate this point by the citation of individual passages. A perusal of the Apology of Aristides, which is of no great size, is quite sufficient to give one an idea of this kind of polemic; the Oratio ad Graecos of pseudo-Justin may also be consulted, and especially the relevant sections in the Apology of Tertullian. The duty of keeping oneself free from all contamination with polytheism ranked as the supreme duty of the Christian. It took precedence of all others. It was regarded as the negative side of the duty of confessing one's faith, and the "sin of idolatry" was more strictly dealt with in the Christian church than any sin whatsoever. [478] Not for long, and not without great difficulty, did the church make up her mind to admit that forgiveness could be extended to this offence, and what forced her first to this conclusion was the stress of the terrible consequences of the Decian outburst (i.e., after 250 A.D.). [479] This we can well understand, for exclusiveness was the condition of her existence as a church. If she made terms with polytheism at a single point, it was all over with her distinctive character. Such was the position of affairs, at any rate until about the middle of the third century. After that she could afford to be less anxious, since the church as an institution had grown so powerful, and her doctrine, cultus, and organization had developed in so characteristic a fashion by that time, that she stood out as a sharply defined magnitude sui generis, even when, consciously or unconsciously, she went half-way to meet polytheism in disguise, or showed herself rather lenient towards it. But as the duty of confession did not involve the duty of pushing forward to confess, or indeed of denouncing oneself, [480] (in the epistle of the church of Smyrna to the church of Philomelium an explicit protest is even entered against this practice, while elsewhere [481] the Montanist craving for martyrdom is also censured), [482] so to protest against polytheism did not involve the obligation of publicly protesting against it of one's own accord. There were indeed cases in which a Christian who was standing as a spectator in court audibly applauded a confessor, and in consequence of this was himself arrested. Such cases were mentioned with approval, for it was held that the Spirit had impelled the spectator. But open abuse of the emperor or of the gods was not sanctioned any more than rebellion; in fact, all unprovoked insults and all upsetting of images were rebuked. [483] Here and there, however, such incidents must have occurred, for in the sixtieth canon of Elvira we read: "Si quis idola fregerit et ibidem fuerit occisus, quatenus in evangelio scriptum non est neque invenietur sub apostolis unquam factum, placuit in numerum eum non recipi martyrum" ("If anyone shall have broken an idol and been slain in the act, he shall not be reckoned among the martyrs, seeing that no such command is to be found in scripture, nor will any such deed be found to be apostolic"). 2. In order to combat polytheism effectively, one could not stop short of the philosophers, not even of the most distinguished of their number, for they had all some sort of connection with idol-worship. But at this stage of their polemic the apologists diverged in different directions. All were agreed that no philosopher had discovered the truth in its purity and perfection; and further, that no philosopher was in a position to demonstrate with certainty the truth which he had discovered, to spread it far and wide, or to make men so convinced of it as to die for it. But one set of apologists were quite content with making this strict proviso; moreover, they delighted in the harmony of Christianity and philosophy; indeed, like Justin, they would praise philosophers for their moral aims and profound ideas. The Christian teachers in Alexandria even went the length of finding a parallel to the Jewish law in Greek philosophy. [484] They found affinities with Plato's doctrine of God and metaphysics, and with the Stoic ethic. They recognized philosophers like Seneca [485] as their fellows to some extent. They saw in Socrates a hero and forerunner of the truth. Others, again, would not hear of philosophy or philosophers; the best service they could render the gospel-mission was, in their opinion, to heap coarse abuse on both. Tatian went to incredible lengths in this line, and was guilty of shocking injustice. Theophilus fell little short of him, while even Tertullian, for all his debt to the Stoics, came dangerously near to Tatian. But these apologists were under an entire delusion if they imagined they were accomplishing very much by dint of all their calumnies. So far as we are in a position to judge, it was the methods, not of these extremists, but of Justin, Clement, and Origen, that impressed the Greek world of culture. Yet even the former had probably a public of their own. Most people either do not think at all, or else think in the crudest antitheses, and such natures would likely be impressed by Tatian's invectives. Besides, it is impossible to ignore the fact that neither he nor Tertullian were mere calumniators. They were honest men. Wherever they came upon the slightest trace of polytheism, all their moral sense rose in revolt; in polytheism, they were convinced, no good was to be found, and hence they gave credit to any calumnies which a profligate literature put at their disposal. Now traces of polytheism were thickly sown throughout all the philosophers, including even the most sublime of their number. Why, Socrates himself had ordered a cock to be slain, after he was dead, in honor of Æsculapius! The irony of the injunction was not understood. It was simply viewed as a recognition of idolatry. So even Socrates the hero had to be censured. Yet, whether half-admirers or keen opponents of philosophy, the apologists to a man occupied philosophic ground, and indeed Platonic ground. They attacked philosophy, but they brought it inside the church and built up the doctrinal system of the church on the outlines of Platonism and with the aid of Platonic material (see below, the epilogue of this book). 3. From the practical point of view, what was of still greater moment than the campaign against the world and worship of the gods, was the campaign against the apotheosis of men. This struggle, which reached its height in the uncompromising rejection of the imperial cultus, marked at the same time the resolute protest of Christianity against the blending of religion and patriotism, and consequently against that cultus of the state in which the state (personified in the emperor) formed itself the object of the cultus. One of the cardinal aims and issues of the Christian religion was to draw a sharp line between the worship of God and the honor due to the state and to its leaders. Christianity tore up political religion by the roots. The imperial cultus [486] was of a twofold nature. In both aspects it was an Oriental, not a Greek or a Roman phenomenon; yet this worship of the dead Cæsars and of the living Cæsar, with its adoration of the imperial images, was dovetailed, not only without any difficulty, but inevitably, into the "caeremoniae Romanae," once the empire had become imperial. From the first the headquarters of the former (i.e., the worship of the dead Cæsars) were in Rome, whence it passed into the provinces as the most vital element of the state religion. The latter (i.e., the worship of the living Cæsar) originated in the East, but as early as the first century it was adopted by Caligula and Domitian, and during the second century it became quite common (in the shape of adoration paid to the imperial images). The rejection of either cult was a crime which came under the head of sacrilege as well as of high treason, and it was here that the repressive measures taken by the state against Christianity almost invariably started, inasmuch as the state did not concede Christianity the same liberty on this point as she granted to Judaism. Had the Christians merely turned round against Olympus and hit upon some compromise with the imperial cultus, they would in all probability have been left entirely unmolested--such is Tertullian's blunt assertion in his Apology (xxviii. f.). Nearly all the encounters between individual Christians and the regulations of the empire resolved themselves into a trial for treason. The positive value of the imperial cultus for the empire has been stated recently and impressively by von Wilamowitz-Moellendorf. [487] The Christians repudiated the imperial cultus in every shape and form, even when they met it in daily life, in the very oaths and turns of expression which made the emperor appear a superhuman being. Unhesitatingly they reckoned it a phase of idolatry. Withal, they guarded themselves against the charge of being disrespectful and disloyal, by pointing to their prayers for the emperor and for the state. [488] These prayers, in fact, constituted a fixed part of Christian worship from the very first, [489] while the saying of Christ, "Render unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's," was generally referred, not merely to obedience and the punctual payment of taxes, but also to intercession. The sharpest strictures passed by individual Christian teachers upon the character of the Roman state and the imperial office never involved the neglect of intercession or dissuaded Christians from this duty. Numerous passages, in which the emperor is mentioned immediately after God, attest the fact that he was held by Christians to be "a deo secundus ante omnes et super omnes deos" (Tertull., Apol. xxx.: "second only to God, before and above all the gods"). [490] Christians, in fact, could declare that they tolerated no defect, either in the theory or in the practice of their loyalty. They taught--and they made their teaching an inherent element of history--that worship paid to God was one thing, and honor paid to a ruler quite another; also, that to worship a monarch was a detestable and humiliating offence. Nevertheless, they strictly inculcated obedience to all authority, and respect for the emperor. The general position of the church did not alter upon this point during the third century; [491] it adhered to its sharp denial of apotheosis in the shape of the imperial cultus. But at another point apotheosis gradually filtered into the church with elemental force, namely, through the worship of the apostles and the martyrs. As early as the apocryphal Acts, written towards the close of the second and the opening of the third century, we find the apostles appearing as semi-divine; in fact, even by the year 160 A.D., the pagans in Smyrna were afraid that the Christians would pay divine honors to the martyred Polycarp, while Lucian scoffs at the impostor Peregrinus, with his cheap martyrdom, passing for a god amongst the Christians. Both fear and scoff were certainly baseless as yet. But they were not baseless three generations afterwards. Towards the close of the third century there were already a number of chapels in existence, consecrated [492] to the apostles, patriarchs, martyrs, and even the archangels; people had a predilection for passing the night at the graves of the saints, and a cultus of the saints had been worked out in a wide variety of local forms, which afforded an indispensable means of conserving those ancient cults to which the common people still clung. Theoretically, the line between the worship of God and this cultus of deliverers and intercessors was sharply drawn throughout the third century, although one Christian root for the latter cultus is evident in the communion of the saints. As things stood, however, the distinction between the two was constantly blurred in the course of practical experience. [493] For all its monotheism, the Christian religion at the close of the third century represented a religion which was exceptionally strong in saints and angels and deliverers, in miraculous relics, and so forth; on this score it was able to challenge any cult whatsoever. Porphyry (the pagan quoted in Macar. Magnes, IV. xxi.) was quite alive to this. He wrote as follows: "If, therefore, you declare that beside God there are angels who are not subject to suffering and death, and are incorruptible in nature--just the beings we call gods, inasmuch as they stand near the godhead--then what is all the dispute about, with regard to names? Or are we to consider it merely a difference of terminology? . . . . So, if anyone likes to call them either gods or angels-- for names are, on the whole, of no great moment, one and the same goddess, for example, being called Athenê and Minerva, and by still other names among the Egyptians and the Syrians--then it makes no great difference, as their divine nature is actually attested even by yourselves in Matt. xxii. 29-31." [494] 4. The warfare against polytheism was also waged by means of a thoroughgoing opposition to the theatre and to all the games. Anyone who considers the significance [495] of these features in ancient life and their close connection with idolatry, [496] knows what a polemic against them implied. But we may point out that existence, in case of vast numbers of people, was divided into daily drudgery and--"panis et circenses" (free food and the theatre). No member of the Christian church was allowed to be an actor or gladiator, to teach acting (see Cypr., Epist. ii.), or to attend the theatre. [497] The earliest flash of polemic occurs in the Oratio of Tatian (xxii.-xxiii.), and it was followed by others, including the treatises of Tertullian and pseudo-Cyprian (Novatian) de Spectaculis, and the discussions of Lactantius. [498] These writings by themselves are enough to show that the above prohibitions were not universally obeyed. [499] The passion for public games was almost irresistible, and Tertullian has actually to hold out hopes of the spectacle afforded by the future world as a compensation to Christians who were robbed of their shows in the present. [500] Still, the conflict with these shows was by no means in vain. On the contrary, its effects along this line were greater than along other lines. By the time that Constantine granted privileges to the church, public opinion had developed to such a pitch that the state immediately adopted measures for curtailing and restricting the public spectacles. [501] 5. A sharp attack was also made upon luxury, in so far as it was bound up in part with polytheism and certainly betrayed a senseless and pagan spirit. Cp. the Paedagogus of Clement, and Tertullian's writings "de cultu feminarum." It was steadily maintained that the money laid out upon luxuries would be better spent in charity. But no special regulations for the external life of Christians were as yet drawn up. 6. With regard to the question of how far a Christian could take part in the manners and customs and occupations of' daily life without denying Christ and incurring the stain of idolatry, there was a strict attitude as well as a lenient, freedom as well as narrowness, even within the apostolic age. Then the one burning question, however, seems to have been that of food offered to idols, or whether one could partake of meals provided by unbelievers. In those days, as the large majority of Christians belonged to the lower classes, they had no representative duties, but were drawn from working people of the lower orders, from day-laborers, in fact, whose simple occupation hardly brought them into any kind of relation to public life, and consequently exempted them from any conflict in this sphere. Presently, however, a change came over the situation. A host of difficult and vexatious problems poured upon the churches. Even the laxer party would do nothing that ran counter to the will of God. They, too, had scriptural proofs ready to support their position, and corollaries from scriptural principles. "Flee from one city to another" was the command they pled when they prudently avoided persecution. "I have power over all things," "We must be all things to all men"--so they followed the apostle in declaring. They knew how to defend even attendance at public spectacles from scripture. Novatian (de Spect., ii.) sorrowfully quotes their arguments as follows: "Where, they ask, are such scriptures? Where are such things prohibited? Nay, was not Elijah the charioteer of Israel? Did not David himself dance before the ark? We read of horns, psalteries, trumpets, drums, pipes, harps, and choral dances. The apostle, too, in his conflict with evil sets before us the struggle of the cæstus and our wrestling with the spiritual powers of wickedness. Again, he takes illustrations front the racecourse, and holds out to us the prize of the crown. Why, then, may not a faithful Christian look at things of which the sacred books could write?" This defense of attendance at the games sounds almost frivolous. But there were many graver conflicts on this subject, which one can follow with serious interest. Participation in feasts and in convivial gatherings already occasioned such conflicts to a large extent, but it was the question of one's occupation that was really crucial. Can a Christian engage in business generally in the outside world without incurring the stain of idolatry? Though the strict party hardly tabooed a single occupation on the score of principle, yet they imposed such restrictions as amounted almost to a prohibition. In his treatise de Idololatria, Tertullian goes over a series of occupations, and his conclusion is the same in almost every case: better leave it alone, or be prepared to abandon it at any moment. To the objection, "But I have no means of livelihood," the reply follows, "A Christian need never be afraid of starving." [502] Tertullian especially prohibits the manufacture of idols (iv. f.), as was only natural. Yet there were Christian workmen who knew no other trade, and who tried to shelter themselves behind the text, "Let every man abide in the calling wherein he was called" (1 Cor. vii. 20). They also pointed out that Moses had a serpent manufactured in the wilderness. From Tertullian's charges it is quite evident that the majority in the church connived at such people and their practices. "From idols they pass into the church; from the workshop of the adversary they come to the house of God; to God the Father they raise hands that fashion idols; to the Lord's body they apply hands that have conferred bodies upon idols. Nor is this all. They are not content to contaminate what they receive from other hands, but even hand on to others what they have themselves contaminated. Manufacturers of idols are actually elected to ecclesiastical office!" (vii.). As against these lax members of the church, Tertullian prohibits the manufacture, not only of images and statues, but also of anything which was even indirectly employed in idol-worship. Carpenters, workers in stucco, joiners, slaters, workers in gold-leaf, painters, brass-workers, and engravers--all must refrain from manufacturing the slightest article required for idol worship; all must refuse to participate in any work (e.g., in repairs) connected therewith (ch. viii.). Similarly, no one is allowed to practice as an astrologer or a magician. Had not the magi to depart home "by another way"? [503] Nor can any Christian be a schoolmaster or a professor of learning, since such professions frequently bring people into contact with idolatry. [504] Knowledge of the pagan gods has to be diffused; their names, genealogy and myths have to be imparted; their festivals and holy days have to be observed, "since it is by means of them that the teacher's fees are reckoned." The first payment of any new scholar is devoted by the teacher to Minerva. Is the contamination of idolatry any the less because in this case it leads to something else? It may be asked, if one is not to be a teacher of pagan learning, ought one then to be a pupil? But Tertullian is quite ready to be indulgent on this point, for--"how can we repudiate secular studies which are essential to the pursuit of religious studies?" A remarkable passage (x.). [505] Then comes trade. Tertullian is strongly inclined to prohibit trade altogether [506] owing to its origin in covetousness and its connection, however indirectly, with idolatry. It provides material for the temple services. What more need be said? "Even supposing that these very wares--frankincense, I mean, and other foreign wares--used in sacrificing to idols, are also of use to people as medicinal salves, and particularly to us Christians in our preparations for a burial, still you are plainly promoting idolatry, so long as processions, ceremonies, and sacrifices to idols are furnished at the cost of danger, loss, inconvenience, schemes, discussion, and commercial ventures." "With what face can a Christian dealer in incense, who happens to pass by a temple, spit on the smoking altars, and puff aside their fumes, when he himself has provided material for those very altars?" (xi.). [507] The taking of interest on money was not differentiated from usury, and was strictly prohibited. But the prohibition was not adhered to. Repeatedly, steps had to be taken against even the clergy, the episcopate, and the church widows for taking interest or following occupations tinged with usury. [508] Can a Christian hold a civil appointment? Joseph and Daniel did; they kept themselves free from idolatry, said the liberal party in the church. But Tertullian is unconvinced. "Supposing," he says, "that any one holder of an office were to succeed in coming forward with the mere title of the office, without either sacrificing or lending the sanction of his presence to a sacrifice, without farming out the supply of sacrificial victims, without handing over to other people the care of the temples or superintending their revenues, without holding spectacles either at his own or at the state's expense, without presiding at such spectacles, without proclaiming or announcing any ceremony, without even taking an oath, and moreover--in regard to other official business--without passing judgment of life or death on anyone or on his civil standing . . . . without either condemning or laying down ordinances of punishment, without chaining or imprisoning, or torturing a single person--well, supposing all that to be possible, then there is nothing to be said against a Christian being an official!" Furthermore, the badges of officials are all mixed up with idolatry. "If you have abjured the pomp of the devil, know that whatever part of it you touch is idolatry to you" (xvii.-xviii.). This involves the impossibility of any Christian being a military officer. But may he not be a private and fill subordinate positions in the army? "The inferior ranks do not need to sacrifice, and have nothing to do with capital punishments.' True, but it is unbecoming for anyone to accept the military oath of God and also that of man, or to range himself under the standard of Christ and also under that of the devil, or to bivouac in the camp of light and also in the camp of darkness; no soul can be indebted to both, to Christ and to the devil." You point to the warriors of Israel, to Moses and Joshua, to the soldiers who came to John the Baptist, to the centurion who believed. But "subsequently the Lord disarmed Peter, and in so doing unbuckled the sword of every soldier. Even in peace it is not to be worn" (xix.). Furthermore, in ordinary life a good deal must be entirely proscribed. One must abjure any phrase in which the gods are named. Thus one dare not say "by Hercules," or "as true as heaven" (medius fidius), or use any similar expletive (xx.). And no one is tacitly to accept an adjuration addressed to himself, from fear of being recognized as a Christian if he demurs to it. [509] Every pagan blessing must be rejected; accept it, and you are accursed of God. "It is a denial of God for anyone to dissemble on any occasion whatsoever and let himself pass for a pagan. All denial of God is idolatry, just as all idolatry is denial of God, be it in word or in deed" (xxi.-xxii.). Even the pledge exacted from Christians as a guarantee when money is borrowed, is a denial of God, though the oath is not sworn in words (xxiii.). "Such are the reefs and shoals and straits of idolatry, amid which faith has to steer her course, her sails filled by the Spirit of God." Yet after the close of the second century the large majority of Christians took quite another view of the situation, and sailed their ship with no such anxieties about her track. [510] Coarse forms of idolatry were loathed and severely punished, but during the age of Tertullian, at least, little attention was paid any longer to such subtle forms as were actually current. Moreover, when it suits his point to do so, Tertullian himself in the Apology meets the charge of criminal isolation brought against Christians, by boasting that "we share your voyages and battles, your agriculture and your trading" (xlii.), remarking in a tone of triumph that Christians are to be met with everywhere, in all positions of state, in the army, and even in the senate. "We have left you nothing but the temples." Such was indeed the truth. The facts of the case show that Christians were to be found in every line of life, [511] and that troubles occasioned by one's occupation must have been on the whole very rare (except in the case of soldiers; see below, Bk. IV. Ch. II.). Nor was the sharp criticism passed by Tatian, Tertullian, Hippolytus, and even (though for different reasons, of course) by Origen, upon the state as such, and upon civil relations, translated very often into practice. [512] The kingdom of Christ, or the world-empire of the Stoics, or some platonic republic of Christian philosophy, might be played off against the existing state, as the highest form of social union intended by God, but all this speculation left life untouched, at least from the close of the second century onwards. The Paedagogus of Clement already furnishes directions for managing to live a Christian life in the world. By the close of our period, the court, the civil service, and the army were full of Christians. [513] Still, it was significant, highly significant indeed, that gross and actual idolatry was combated to the bitter end. With it Christianity never came to terms. [514] __________________________________________________________________ [474] Tert., Apol., xiv.: "I wish now to review your sacred rites. I do not censure your methods of sacrifice, offering what is worn-out, scabbed, and corrupting, cutting off for the altar the useless parts from the fat and sound--e.g., head and hoofs, which you would hand at home to your dogs and children -- not giving a third part of the tithe of Hercules," etc. [475] Tert., Apol. xlii.: "Every day, you complain, the temple-receipts are dwindling away. How few people nowadays put in their contributions!" Cp. Arnobius, I. xxiv. [476] Household superstitions perhaps seemed to them too unimportant, or else they counted upon these being dragged down of their own accord in the collapse of the public superstitions. On this point they certainly made a miscalculation.--A scene at Ephesus is related in Acts, which may be adduced at this point. Thanks to Paul's preaching, the converts were roused to bring out the books of magic which they had at home and to burn them (Acts xix. 19). But there are few parallels to this scene in the literature of early Christianity. [477] The Euhemeristic vein was neither the oldest nor the most popular, however, among Christian writers. [478] Cp. Tertull., de Idol. i.: "Principale crimen generis humani, summus saeculi reatus, tota causa iudicii, idolatria" ("Idolatry is the principal crime of mankind, the supreme guilt of the world, the entire reason of judgment"). In the opening chapter of this treatise Tertullian endeavors to prove that all the cardinal vices (e.g., adultery, murder, etc.) are included in idolatry. [479] Hitherto it had only dawned on Tertullian, during his conflict with the laxity displayed by the church in her treatment of fleshly sins, that under certain circumstances a denial of the faith extorted by means of torture was a lesser sin than adultery and fornication. A similar position was afterwards adopted by Cyprian. [480] Even to escape in time was permissible, according to Matt. x. 23, but the Montanists and Tertullian would not allow this; cp. the latter's treatise "de Fuga in Persecutione." Clement speaks very thoughtfully on the point; cp. Strom., IV. x., lxxvi.-lxxvii., and VII. xi.-xii. [481] The Acts of Perpetua relate, without any censure, how Saturus voluntarily announced that he was a Christian. But then these Acts are Montanist. [482] It was not quite the same thing when Christians trooped into court, in order to force the magistrate either to have them all killed or to spare them all; cp. Tertull., ad Scap. v.: Arrius Antoninus in Asia cum persequeretur instanter, omnes illius civitatis Christiani ante tribunalia eius se manu facta obtulerunt. tum ille paucis duci jussis reliquis ait: o deiloi, ei thelete apothneskein, kremnous he brochous echete (cp. above, p. 270). [483] Still, there were some Christians who exulted in this kind of thing, as is plain from several records (from a late period, of course) of the martyrs. Eusebius narrates approvingly (de Mart. Pal., ii.) the action of the martyr Romanus, who, just after the Diocletian persecution had broken out, saw in Antioch a procession of men, women, and children on their way to the temples, and tried to stop them by means of loud warnings. [484] Cp. my lecture on "Socrates and the Early Church" (1900). [485] Cp. Tert., de Anima, xx.: "Seneca saepe noster." [486] In addition to the well-known German literature on the subject, see Beurlier's Essai sur le culte rendu aux empereurs romain (1890). [487] In Geschichte des gerich. Religion ("Jahrbuch des Freien deutschen Hochstifts," 1904; reprint, pp. 23 f.): "The idea by which Augustus brought renewal to the world was the religion of Poseidonius: faith in a universal reason and the unity of all life, in the Stoic universal deity, providence and necessity. He could regard himself as the organ or representative of this cosmic law; he could expect the personal survival of his soul as a reward for his clemency, since this corresponded exactly to the doctrine of Poseidonius. Hence the cult of the "divas" was its justification. No one can understand the age or the man if he regards the "divi filius" claim as merely ornamental or an imposture. Naturally enough, it ran counter to the taste and reason of Tiberius, who was averse to anything mystical, though he was addicted to a superstitious faith in astrology. Caligula's belief in his divine nature made him a fool, and sensible people only saw a farce in Claudius being consecrated to divine honors by his murderers. Yet even they took it very seriously. The cultus of the person inevitably passed once more, as it had done after Alexander the Great, into the cultus of the office. The emperor was god, because he was emperor; he was not the viceroy of the universe because the god in him possessed the strength and the authority of lordship. His person embodied the supreme power of the empire, and this made itself felt by the smallest and most remote of his subjects. This personal embodiment was as unapproachable to the million as a universal god in heaven, further removed from each individual than the gods of his village or his district. And if one could not manage to understand the unity of all life in heaven and on earth, still on earth this unity of the state, the church, the law, and morals was a fact; it might deserve the predicate of "divine," and, if so, then the worship of its personal exponents was an irresistible religious obligation. Thus the imperial cultus, or the cultus of the empire, was the cardinal article of religion. To deny it was tantamount to the ancient crime of denying the patrioi theoi [ancestral or traditional gods] of the city republics. All other deities who shared the worship of civil or municipal bodies fell into their place within and below this religion; henceforth their cultus had no meaning save as part of the larger cultus which the state enjoined. Even in the West the imperial cultus absorbed within itself the older deities, whether Fortuna, Silvanus, the Mater Augusti or Augustæ. The content of this faith was great indeed, for all the benefits of civilization, from the security of physical life up to the highest pleasures of the human spirit, were viewed as gifts of the deity, who was at once immanent in the empire and also for the time being in the emperor or in his genius or fortune as the personal embodiment of the divine. . . . . It followed quite logically that the refusal to sacrifice to the emperor was high treason. The Christians refused this from the firm and clear sense that they were resisting the politeia tou kosmou in so doing. They felt that they were citizens of another empire. It was equally logical to regard them as atheoi, since their denial of the state-religion meant a denial of all the gods whose existence was due to the favor of the state." [488] Cp. the familiar passages from the New Testament, the apostolic fathers, and the apologists. The content of these intercessions, which was current in Carthage, is given by Tertullian in Apol., xxxix. ("Oramus etiam pro imperatoribus, pro ministris eorum et potestatibus, pro statu saeculi, pro rerum quiete, pro mora finis"--"We pray too for the emperors, for their subordinates, and for all authorities, for the welfare of the world, for peace, for the delay of the end"); and xxx. ("Precantes sumus semper pro omnibus imperatoribus: vitam illis prolixam, imperium securum, domum tutam, exercitus fortes, senatum fidelem, populum probum, orbem quietum, quaecumque hominis et Caesaris vota sunt [a deo oramus]"--"We ever pray to God for all the emperors, for length of life to them, for the safety of the empire, for the protection of the royal household, for bravery in the army, loyalty in the senate and virtue among the people, for peace throughout the world; in short, for whatever, as man or emperor, the Cæsars would desire"). [489] Their origin dates from the very earliest times, but we do not know what considerations led to their institution. [490] This high estimate of the emperors as "second to God alone" does not, however, affect the conviction that they could never be Christians. At least it does not in the case of Tertullian (cp. Apol., xxi.: "Et Caesares credidissent super Christo, si aut Caesares non essent necessarii saeculo, aut si et Christiani potuissent esse Caesares"--"The Cæsars, too, would have believed in Christ, if they had not been necessary to the world as Cæsars, or if they could have been Cæsars and Christians as well"). Sixty years later a different view prevailed throughout the East. Not only was it reported widely that Alexander Severus and Philip had become secretly Christians, but even so prominent a teacher as Dionysius of Alexandria believed this legend and did not take umbrage at it. [491] Dionysius of Alexandria (Eus., H.E. vii. 23) no doubt applied Isa. xliii. 19 to Gallienus, who was friendly disposed towards the Christians. But this was mere rhetoric. [492] Cp. Eus., Mart. Pal., p. 102 (Texte u. Unters. xv. 4). [493] Origen attacks only a moiety of polytheistic superstition and its expressions; cp. Hom. viii. 4 in Jesum Nave (vol. xi. p. 67): "Illi qui, cum Christiani sint, solemnitates gentium celebrant, anathema in ecclesias introducunt. Qui de astrorum cursibus vitam hominum et gesta perquirunt, qui volatus avium et cetera huiusmodi, quae in saeculo prius observabantur, inquirunt, de Jericho anathema inferunt in ecclesiam, et polluunt castra domini et vinci faciunt populum dei" ("Those who, even though they are Christians, celebrate the festivals of pagans, bring anathema into the churches. Those who make out the life and deeds of men from the courses of the stars, who study the flight of birds, and engage in similar practices, which they formerly observed in the world, bring the anathema of Jericho on the church; they pollute the camp of the Lord, and cause God's people to be overcome"). He could and should have mentioned a great deal more; only in such directions he was no longer sensitive to polytheism. [494] Porphyry then proceeds, in his attack upon the cheap criticism leveled by Christians (see above) at idolatry: "When, therefore, it is admitted that the angels share in the divine nature, it is not, on the other hand, the belief of those who pay seemly honor to the gods, that God is composed of the wood or stone or brass from which the image is manufactured, nor is it their opinion that, whenever a hit of the image is broken off, some injury is thereby inflicted on the power of the god in question. Images and temples of the gods have been created from all antiquity for the sake of forming reminders to men. Their object is to make those who draw near them think of God thereby, or to enable them, after ceasing from work, and abstaining from anything else, to address their vows and prayers to him, that each may obtain from him whatever he is in need of. For when any person gets an image or picture of some friend prepared for himself, he certainly does not believe that his friend is to be found in the image, or that his members exist actually inside the different portions of the representation. His idea rather is that the honor which he pays to his friend finds expression in the image. And while the sacrifices offered to the gods do not bring them any honor, they are meant as a testimony to the goodwill of their worshippers, implying that the latter are not ungrateful to the gods." The majority of Christians by this time scarcely held so pure and spiritual a view of the matter as this "worshipper of idols." [495] For what follows, see Bigelmair's Die Beteiligung der Christen am öffentlichen Leben in vorconstantinischer Zeit (1902). [496] Tert., de Spect. iv.: "Quid erit summum ac praecipuum, in quo diabolus et pompae et angeli eius censeantur, quam idololatria? . . . . Igitur si ex idololatria universam spectaculorum paraturam constare constiterit, indubitate praeiudicatum erit etiam ad spectacula pertinere renuntiationis nostrae testimonium in lavacro, quae diabolo et pompae et angelis eius sint mancipata, scil. per idololatriam. Commemorabimus origines singulorum, quibus incunabulis in saeculo adoleverint, exinde titulos quorundam, quibus nominibus nuncupentur, exinde apparatus, quibus superstitionibus instruantur, tum loca, quibus praesidibus dicantur, tum artes, quibus auctoribus deputentur. Si quid ex his non ad idolum pertinuerit, id neque ad idololatriam neque ad nostram eiurationem pertinebit" ("Where, more than in idolatry, will you find the devil with his pomp and angels? . . . . Therefore, if it can be proven that the whole business of the shows depends upon idolatry, unquestionably we shall have anticipated the conclusion that the confession of renouncing the world which we make in baptism, refers to these shows which have been handed over to the devil and his pomp and angels, i.e., on account of their idolatry. We shall now exhibit their separate sources, the nurseries in which they have grown to maturity in the world; next the titles of some of them, the names by which they are called; after that, their contents, the superstitions by which they are supported; then their seats, the patrons to which they are dedicated; and finally their arts, the authors to whom they are to be referred. If any of these is found to have no connection with an idol, then it is irrelevant to idolatry and irrelevant also to our oath of abjuration"). Novatian, de Spect. ii.: "Quando id quod in honore alicuius idoli ab ethnicis agitur [sc. the theatrical spectacles] a fidelibus christianis spectaculo frequentatur, et idololatria gentilis asseritur et in contumeliam dei religio vera et divina calcatur" ("Since whatever is performed by pagans in honor of any idol is attended by faithful Christians in the public spectacles, and thus pagan idolatry is maintained, whilst the true and divine religion is trodden under foot in contempt of God"). [497] Minuc. Felix, xii.: "Vos vero suspensi interim atque solliciti honestis voluptatibus abstinetis, non spectacula visitis, non pompis interestis, convivia publica absque vobis, sacra certamina" ("But meantime, anxious and unsettled, you are abstaining from respectable enjoyments; you attend no spectacles, you take no part in public displays, public banquets and the sacred contest you decline"). [498] Instit., vi. 20-21; see also Arnob., iv. 35 f.--Along with the games, participation in public festivals was also forbidden, as these were always bound up with polytheism. Cp. the seventh canon of Ancyra: peri ton sunestiathenton en heorte ethnike, en topo aphorismeno tois ethnikois, idia bromata epikomisamenon kai phagonton, edoxe dietian hupopesontas dechthenai ("With regard to those who have sat down at a pagan banquet, in a place set apart for pagans, even though they brought and ate their own food, it seems good to us that they be received after they have done penance for two years"). In this connection, Tertullian, de Idol. xiii.-xvi., is particularly important. All public festivals, he declares, are to be avoided, since they are held either owing to wantonness or to timidity. "If we rejoice with the world, it is to be feared that we shall also mourn with the world." Here, of course, it is plain that Tertullian is in a minority. The majority of Christians at Carthage saw nothing wrong in attending public or private feasts; in fact, it was considered rather a dangerous mark of the factious spirit to abstain from them. "Let your works shine,' is Christ's rule," says Tertullian in his cry of complaint. "But here are all our shops and doors shining! Nowadays you will find more doors unilluminated and unwreathed among the pagans than among the Christians! What do you think about the custom? If it is meant as honor to an idol, then certainly it is idolatry to honor an idol. If, again, it is done for the sake of some man, then let us remember that all idolatry is worship paid to men (the gods of the pagans having been formerly men themselves)." "I know how one Christian brother was severely punished in a vision on that very night, because his slaves had decorated his gateway with wreaths on the sudden proclamation of some public thanksgiving." Tertullian only draws the line at well-established family feasts such as those at the assumption of the toga virilis, betrothals, marriages, and name-givings, since these are not necessarily contaminated with idolatry, and since the command to observe no particular days does not apply in these instances. "One may accept an invitation to such functions, provided that the title of the invitation does not run to assist at a sacrifice.' Except in the latter event, I can please myself as much as I like. Since Satan has so thoroughly entangled the world in idolatry, it must be allowable for us to attend certain ceremonies, if thereby we stipulate that we are under obligations to a man and not to an idol." [499] Novatian, de Spect. i.: "Quoniam non desunt vitiorum assertores blandi et indulgentes patroni qui praestant vitiis auctoritatem et quod est deterius censuram scripturarum caelestium in advocationem criminum convertunt, quasi sine culpa innocens spectaculorum ad remissionem animi appetatur voluptas--nam et eo usque enervatus est ecclesiasticae disciplinae vigor et ita omni languore vitiorum praecipitatur in peius ut non iam vitiis excusatio sed auctoritas detur--placuit paucis vos non nunc instruere [i.e., de spectaculis], sed instructos admonere" ("Plausible advocates of vice are not awanting, nor are complaisant patrons who lend their authority to vice and--what is worse--twist the rebuke of scripture into a defense of crimes; as if any innocent pleasure could be sought from public shows by way of relaxation for the mind. The vigor of ecclesiastical discipline has become so weakened and so deteriorated by all the languor produced by vices, that wickedness wins no longer an apology but actual authority for itself. Consequently I have determined not now to instruct you [on public shows], but in a few words to admonish those who have been instructed"). [500] De Spect., xxx., with its closing sentence, "Ceterum qualia illa sunt, quae nec oculus vidit nec auris audivit nec in cor hominis ascenderunt? Credo, circa et utraque cavea et omni stadio gratiora" ("But what are the things that eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man? Superior, I imagine, to the circus, the theatre, the amphitheatre, and any racecourse!"). [501] Against games of chance, cp. the treatise of pseudo-Cyprian (Victor) adversus Aleatores, and a number of cognate passages in other writings. [502] Cp. especially the sharp remarks in ch. xii. f. a propos of the passages from the gospels, which conclude: "Nemo eorum, quos dominus allegit, non habeo, dixit, quo vivam. Fides famem non timet. Scit etiam famem non minus sibi contemnendam propter deum quam omne mortis genus; didicit non respicere vitam, quanto magis victum? Quotusquisque haec adimplevit? sed quae penes homines difficilia, penes deum facilia?" ("None of those whom the Lord chose for himself ever said, I have no means of livelihood. Faith has no fear of starvation. Faith knows it must despise starvation as much as any kind of death, for the sake of God. Life it has learnt not to respect; how much more, food? How many, you ask, have answered to these conditions? Ah well, what is hard with men is easy with God"). [503] Tertullian, de Anima, lvii.: "Quid ergo dicemus magiam? Quod omnes paene--fallaciam! Sed ratio fallaciae solos non fugit Christianos, qui spiritualia nequitiae, non quidem socia conscientia, sed inimica scientia novimus, nec invitatoria operatione, sed expugnatoria dominatione tractamus multiformem luem mentis humanae, totius erroris artificem, salutis pariter animaeque vastatorem. Sic etiam magiae, secundae scilicet idololatriae," etc. ("What then shall we say about magic? Just what almost everybody says--that it is sheer imposture! The nature of the imposture has been detected by more than Christians, though we have discovered these spirits of iniquity, not because we are in league with them, but by a hostile instinct, not because our methods of work attract them, but on the contrary because we handle them by means of a power which vanquishes them. This protean pest of the human mind! This deviser of all error! This destroyer alike of our salvation and of our soul! For thus it is, by magic, which is simply a second idolatry," etc.). [504] Mathematics was also suspect. Even in the beginning of the fourth century there was opposition offered in Emesa to Eusebius being promoted to the episcopate, on the ground that he practiced mathematical studies (Socrates, H.E. ii. 9). [505] The perusal of bad and seductive literature was, of course, always prohibited, so soon as this danger became felt. If one must not listen to blasphemous or heretical speeches, far less must one handle books of this character. What Dionysius of Alexandria relates about his own practice, only proves the rule (Eus., H.E. vii. 7): "I have busied myself," he writes to Philemon, the Roman presbyter, "with the writings and also the traditions of the heretics, staining my soul for a little with their utterly abominable ideas, yet deriving this benefit from them, that I refute them for myself and loathe them all the more. One of the presbyters sought to dissuade me, fearing lest I might become mixed up with the mire of their iniquity and so injure my own soul. I felt he was quite right, but a divine vision came to confirm me, and a voice reached me with the clear command: Read all that you come across, for you can estimate and prove everything; and this capacity has been from the first the explanation of your faith.' I accepted the vision, as it tallied with the apostolic word spoken to the stronger Christians, Be skilled moneychangers.'" Cp. Didasc. Apost., ii. (ed. Achelis, p. 5): "Keep away from all heathen writings, for what hast thou to do with strange words or laws and false prophecies, which indeed seduce young people from the faith? What dost thou miss in God's Word, that thou dost plunge into these pagan histories? If thou wilt read histories, there are the books of Kings; if wise men and philosophers, there are the prophets, with whom thou shalt find more wisdom and understanding than in all the wise men and philosophers; for these are the words of the one and the only wise God. If thou cravest hymns, there are the psalms of David; and if thou wantest information about the beginning of all things, there is the book of Genesis by the great Moses; if thou wilt have laws and decrees, there are his laws. . . . . Keep thyself therefore from all those strange things, which are contrary." General prohibitions of definite books under pain of punishment begin with Constantine's order regarding the writings of Arius and other heretics (Eus., Vita Const., iii. 66; for the prohibition of the writings of Eunomius, ep. Philostorgius, H.E. xi. 5).--Whether one should quote pagan philosophers and poets, and, if so, how, remained a problem. The apologists made ample use of them, as we know. Paul's citations from profane literature are striking (Tit. i. 12, 1 Cor. xv. 33, Acts xvii. 28); since Origen's treatment of them, they have often been discussed and appealed to by the more liberal. Origen (Hom. xxxi., in Luc., vol. v. p. 202) thought: "Ideo assumit Paulus verba etiam de his qui foris sunt, tit sanctificet eos." [506] Tertullian stands here pretty much by himself. We find even a man like Irenæus (cp. iv. 30. 1) had no objections to a Christian engaging in trade. [507] The clergy themselves were not absolutely forbidden to trade; only restrictions were laid on them (cp. the nineteenth canon of Elvira). [508] Cp. Funk, "Interest and Usury in Christian Antiquity" (Tübingen Theol. Quartalschrift vol. lvii., 1875, pp 214 f.). See Eus., H.E. v. 21; Cyprian, de Lapsis, vi., and Testim., iii. 48; Commod., Instruct., ii. 24; and the twentieth canon of the Council of Elvira. [509] "I know one Christian who, on being publicly addressed during a law-suit with the words Jove's wrath be on you,' answered, Nay, on you.'" The unlawfulness of this answer, according to Tertullian, consisted, not simply in the malediction, but in the recognition of Jupiter which it implied. [510] Read the second and third books of Clement's Paedagogus. The author certainly does not belong to the lax party, but he does not go nearly the length of Tertullian. On the other hand, he lashes (Paed. III. xi. 80) mere "Sunday Christianity": "They drop the heavenly inspiration of the congregation when they leave the meeting-place, and become like the great majority with whom they associate. Or rather, in laying aside the affected and specious mask of solemnity, they show their real nature, undisguised. After listening reverently to the word of God, they leave what they have heard within the church itself, and go outside to amuse themselves in godless society with music," etc. [511] Of course, as Tertullian sarcastically observes (Apol. xliii.), "pimps, panders, assassins, poisoners and sorcerers, with sacrificial augurs, diviners, and astrologers, very reasonably complain of Christians being a profitless race!" As early as Acts 19. we read of tradesmen in Ephesus who lived by the cult of Diana feeling injured by Christians. [512] Still, Cæcilius (in Min. Felix, viii.) describes Christians as a "natio in publico muta, in angulis garrula (a people tongue-tied in public, but talkative in corners), honores et purpuras despiciunt (despising honors and purple robes)." Cp. Tatian, Orat., xi.: basileuein ou thelo, ploutein ou boulomai, ten strategian paretemai . . . . doxomanias apellagmai ("I have no desire to reign--no wish to be rich. I decline all leadership. . . . . I am void of any frenzy for fame"); Speratus (in Martyr. Scil.): "Ego imperium huius saeculi non cognosco" ("of the kingdom of this world I know nothing"); Tertull., Apol. xlii.: "Christianus nec aedilitatem affectat ("the Christian has no ambition to be aedile"), and his critique of Roman laws in chaps iv.-vi. of the Apology. On the charge of "infructuositas in negotio" (barrenness in affairs), see Tert., de Pallio, v., where all that is said of the pallium applies to Christians: "Ego, inquit, nihil foro, nihil campo, nihil curiae debeo, nihil officio advigilo, nulla rostra praeoccupo, nulla praetoria observo, canales non odoro, cancellos non adoro, subsellia non contundo, iura non conturbo, causas non elatro, non iudico, non milito, non regno, secessi de populo. in me unicum negotium mihi est; nisi aliud non curo quam ne curem. vita meliore magis in secessu fruare quam in promptu. sed ignavam infamabis. scilicet patriae et imperio reique vivendum est. erat olim ista sententia. nemo alii nascitur moriturus sibi. certe cum ad Epicuros et Zenones ventum est, sapientes vocas totum quietis magisterium, qui eam summae atque unicae voluptatis nomine consecravere," etc. ("I," quoth the cloak, "I owe no duty to the forum, the hustings, or the senate-house. I keep no obsequious vigils, I haunt no platforms, I boast no great houses, I scent no cross-roads, I worship no lattices, I do not wear out the judicial bench, I upset no laws, I bark in no pleadings at the bar; no judge am I, no soldier, and no king. I have withdrawn from the people. My peculiar business is with myself. No care have I save to shun care. You, too, would enjoy a better life in retreat than in publicity. But you will decry me as indolent. We must live,' forsooth, for country, empire, and estate.' Well, our view prevailed in days gone by. None, it was said, is born for another's ends, since to himself he is to die. At all events, when you come to the Epicureans and Zenos, you dub all the teachers of quietism sages'; and they have hallowed quietism with the name of the unique' and 'supreme' pleasure"). Apolog., xxxviii. f: "Nec ulla magis res aliena quam publica . . . . unam omnium rempublicam agnoscimus, mundum ("Nothing is so alien to us as political affairs . . . . We recognize but one universal commonwealth, viz., the universe"). On the absence of any home-feeling among Christians, see Diognet. v. 5: patridas oikousin idias, all' hos paroikoi; metechousi panton hos politai, kai panth' hupomenousin hos xenoi; pasa xene patris estin auton, kai pasa patris xene ("They inhabit their own countries, but merely as sojourners; they share in everything as citizens and endure everything as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign"); also Clem., Paed. iii. 8. 41: patrida epi gen ouk echomen ("On earth we have no fatherland"); Vita Polycarpi, vi.: panti doulo theou pas o kosmos polis, patris de he epouranios Ierousalem; entautha de paroikein, all' ou katoikein, hos xenoi kai parepidemoi tetagmetha (cp. also xxx.). Not without reason does Celsus (Orig., VIII. lxviii.) remark to his Christian opponent: "Were all to behave as you do, the emperor would ere long be left solitary and deserted, and the affairs of this world would presently fall into the hands of the most wild and lawless barbarians." He proceeds to point out that, in the event of this, Christianity would cease to exist, and that the Roman Empire consequently was the support of Christianity. To which Christians replied that, on the contrary, it was they alone who upheld the empire. Between the second century and the third (the line may be drawn about 180 A.D.) a vital change took place. In the former, Christians for the most part had the appearance of a company of people who shunned the light and withdrew from public life, an immoral, nefarious set who held aloof from actual life; in the third century, paganism, to its alarm, discovered in Christianity a foe which openly and energetically challenged it in every sphere, political, social, and religious. By this time the doctrine of Christianity was as familiar as its cultus, discipline, and organization; and just as Christian basilicas rose everywhere after the reign of Gallienus beside the older temples, so Christians rose to every office in the state. So far as regards the civil and social status of Christianity, the period dating from 250 A.D., belongs on the whole to the fourth century rather than to the preceding age. [513] It is not surprising that Origen proves the existence of a numerous class of Christians who believed everything, were devoted to the priests, and yet were destitute of any moral principle. What does surprise us is that he assigns heaven to them, simply because they were believers! (Hom. x. 1, in Jesum Nave, vol. xi. p. 102, Hom. xx. 1, pp. 182 f.). It is also significant, in this connection, that Augustine's mother, Monica, was concerned about the adultery of her young son, but that she did not warn him about banquets till he became a Manichean (cp. Confess. iii.). [514] Nor did the sects of Christianity, with rare exceptions. In one or two cases the rarefied intellectualism and spiritual self-confidence of the gnostics made all external conduct, including any contact with idols, a matter of entire indifference, while open confession of one's faith was held to be useless and, in fact, suicidal (cp. the polemic against this in Iren. iv. 33. 9; Clem., Strom. iv. 4. 16; and Tertull., Scorpiace adv. Gnost.). But the opponents of heresy taxed the gnostics in such cases also with a denial of their Christian position on principle, where no such denial existed whatsoever (cp. what has been said on Heracleon, p. 210), while at the same time they described the freer attitude of the gnostics towards the eating of sacrificial meat as an apostasy. __________________________________________________________________ EPILOGUE CHRISTIANITY IN ITS COMPLETED FORM AS SYNCRETISTIC RELIGION How rich, then, and how manifold, are the ramifications of the Christian religion as it steps at the very outset on to pagan soil! And every separate point appears to be the main point; every single aspect seems to be the whole! It is the preaching of God the Father Almighty (theos pater pantokrator), of his Son the Lord Jesus Christ, and of the resurrection. It is the gospel of the Saviour and of salvation, of redemption and the new creation. It is the message of man becoming God. It is the gospel of love and charity. It is the religion of the Spirit and power, of moral earnestness and holiness. It is the religion of authority and of an unlimited faith; and again, the religion of reason and of enlightened understanding. Besides that it is a religion of "mysteries." It proclaims the origin of a new people, of a people which had existed in secret from the very beginning. It is the religion of a sacred book. It possessed, nay, it was, everything that can possibly be considered as religion. Christianity thus showed itself to be syncretistic. But it revealed to the world a special kind of syncretism, namely, the syncretism of a universal religion. Every force, every relationship in its environment, was mastered by it and made to serve its own ends--a feature in which the other religions of the Roman empire make but a poor, a meager, and a narrow show. Yet, unconsciously, it learned and borrowed from many quarters; indeed, it would be impossible to imagine it existing amid all the wealth and vigor of these religions, had it not drawn pith and flavor even from them. These religions fertilized the ground for it, and the new grain and seed which fell upon that soil sent down its roots and grew to be a mighty tree. Here is a religion which embraces everything. And yet it can always be expressed with absolute simplicity: one name, the name of Jesus Christ, still sums up everything. The syncretism of this religion is further shown by its faculty for incorporating the most diverse nationalities--Parthians, Medes and Elamites, Greeks and barbarians. It mocked at the barriers of nationality. While attracting to itself all popular elements, it repudiated only one, viz., that of Jewish nationalism. But this very repudiation was a note of universalism, for, although Judaism had been divested of its nationalism and already turned into a universal religion, its universalism had remained for two centuries confined to narrow limits. And how universal did Christianity show itself, in relation to the capacities and culture of mankind! Valentinus is a contemporary of Hermas, and both are Christians; Tertullian and Clement of Alexandria are contemporaries, and both are teachers in the church; Eusebius is a contemporary of St Antony, and both are in the service of the same communion. Even this fails to cover what may be termed "syncretism," in the proper sense of the word. After the middle of the third century A.D., Christianity falls to be considered as syncretistic religion [515] in the fullest sense; as such it faced the two other syncretistic products of the age, Manicheanism and the Neoplatonic religion which was bound up with the sun-cult. [516] Henceforward, Christianity may be just as truly called a Hellenic religion as an Oriental, a native religion as a foreign. From the very outset it had been syncretistic upon pagan soil; it made its appearance, not as gospel pure and simple, but equipped with all that Judaism had already acquired during the course of its long history, and entering forthwith upon nearly every task in which Judaism was defective. Still, it was the middle of the third century that first saw the new religion in full bloom as the syncretistic religion par excellence, and yet, for all that, as an exclusive religion. As a church, it contained everything the age could proffer, a powerful priesthood, with a high priest and subordinate clergy, a priesthood which went back to Christ and the apostles, and led bishops to glory in their succession and apostolic ordination. Christianity possessed every element included in the conception of "priesthood." Its worship and its sacraments together represented a real energy of the divine nature. The world to come and the powers of an endless life were in operation in the cultus, and through it upon the world; they could be laid hold of and appropriated in a way that was at once spiritual and corporeal. To believers, Christianity disclosed all that was ever embraced under the terms "revealed knowledge," "mysteries," and "cultus." In its doctrine it had incorporated everything offered by that contemporary syncretism which we have briefly described (pp. 30 f.). And while it certainly was obliged to re-arrange this syncretism and correct it in some essential points, upon the whole it did appropriate the system. In the doctrinal system of Origen which dominated thoughtful Christians in the East during the second half of the third century, the combination of the gospel and of syncretism is a fait accompli. Christianity possessed in a more unsullied form the contents of what is meant by "the Greek philosophy of religion." [517] Powerful and vigorous, assured of her own distinctive character, and secure from any risk of being dissolved into contemporary religions, she believed herself able now to deal more generously and complaisantly with men, provided only that they would submit to her authority. Her missionary methods altered slowly but significantly in the course of the third century. Gregory Thaumaturgus, who shows himself a pupil of Origen in his religious philosophy with its comprehensive statement of Christianity, but who, as a Hellenist, excels his master, accommodated himself as a bishop in a truly surprising way to the pagan tendencies of those whom he converted. We shall hear of him later on. Saints and intercessors, who were thus semi-gods, poured into the church. [518] Local cults and holy places were instituted. The different provinces of life were distributed afresh among guardian spirits. The old gods returned; only, their masks were new. Annual festivals were noisily celebrated. Amulets and charms, relics and bones of the saints, were cherished eagerly. [519] And the very religion which erstwhile in its strictly spiritual temper had prohibited and resisted any tendency towards materialism, now took material shape in every one of its relationships. It had mortified the world and nature. But now it proceeded to revive them, not of course in their entirety, but still in certain sections and details, and--what is more--in phases that were dead and repulsive. Miracles in the churches became more numerous, more external, and more coarse. Whatever fables the apocryphal Acts of the Apostles had narrated, were dragged into contemporary life and predicated of the living present. This church, whose religion Porphyry blamed for its audacious critique of the universe, its doctrine of the incarnation, [520] and its assertion of the resurrection of the flesh [521] --this church labored at her mission in the second half of the third century, and she won the day. But had she been summoned to the bar and asked what right she had to admit these novelties, she could have replied, "I am not to blame. I have only developed the germ which was planted in my being from the very first." This religion was the first to cut the ground from under the feet of all other religions, and by means of her religious philosophy, as a civilizing power, to displace ancient philosophy. [522] But the reasons for the triumph of Christianity in that age are no guarantee for the permanence of that triumph throughout the history of mankind. Such a triumph rather depends upon the simple elements of the religion, on the preaching of the living God as the Father of men and on the representation of Jesus Christ. For that very reason it depends also on the capacity of Christianity to strip off repeatedly such a collective syncretism and unite itself to fresh coefficients. The Reformation made a beginning in this direction. __________________________________________________________________ [515] One of my reviewers, de Grandmaison (in Études, Rev. par les pères de la comp. de Jésus, vol. xcvi., 5th Aug. 1903, p. 317) asks, "How can a syncretistic religion continue to be exclusive? That is what one fails to see." But if it gives out as its own inherent possession whatever it has taken over and assimilated; nay more, if it makes this part of its very being--why should it not be able to remain exclusive? [516] See my Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, Bd. I.(3), pp. 766 f., 785 f. (Eng. trans., iii. 316 f.): "Three great religious systems confronted each other in Western Asia and Southern Europe from the close of the third century: Neoplatonism, Catholicism, and Manicheanism. All three may be characterized as the final products of a history which had lasted for over a thousand years, the history of the religious development of the civilized nations from Persia to Italy. In all three the old national and particular character of religion was laid aside; they were world-religions of the most universal tendency, with demands whose consequences transformed the whole life of man, both public and private. For the national cultus they substituted a system which aspired to be at once a theology, a theory of the universe, and a science of history, while at the same time it embraced a definite ethic and a ritual of worship. Formally, therefore, all these religions were alike; they were also alike in this, that each had appropriated the elements of different older religions. Further, they showed their similarity in bringing to the front the ideas of revelation, redemption, ascetic virtue, and immortality. But Neoplatonism was natural religion spiritualized, the polytheism of Greece transfigured by Oriental influences and developed into pantheism. Catholicism was the monotheistic world-religion based on the Old Testament and the gospel, but built up with the aid of Hellenic speculation and ethics. Manicheanism was the dualistic world-religion, resting on Chaldæism, but interspersed with Christian, Parsi, and perhaps Buddhist ideas. Manicheanism lacked the Hellenic element, while Catholicism almost entirely lacked the Chaldee and Persian. Here are three world-religions developing in the course of two centuries (c. A.D. 50-250), Catholicism coming first and Manicheanism last. Both of these were superior to Neoplatonism, for the very reason that the latter had no founder; it therefore developed no elemental force, and never lost the character of being an artificial creation. Attempts were made to invent a founder for it, but naturally they came to nothing. Yet, even apart from its contents as a religion, Catholicism was superior to Manicheanism, because its founder was venerated, not merely as the bearer of revelation, but as the redeemer in person and the Son of God." These three syncretistic religions all opposed the imperial cultus. Christianity was its only open foe, for the Neoplatonic religion of the sun was indeed designed to confirm it. Yet Neoplatonism also proved a foe to it, by transferring religion to the inward life. This cut at the roots of the imperial cultus. It was a supreme delusion on the part of Julian to imagine that he could link political religion with the Neoplatonic religion of the sun. [517] The philosophy of religion which men like Posidonius and Philo founded, and which culminated in Neoplatonism, was rounded off by the Christian philosophy of religion which developed until the beginning of the third century. Its final statement was given by Origen. It led to an alarming increase of dullness towards the reality of the senses and fostered an indiscriminate attitude towards life, but it deepened the inner life and modified the philosophical conception of God by introducing the doctrine of creation. The idea of the Incarnation was also brought within the range of speculation, and even at the present day there are many distinguished thinkers who venture to see in that idea the distinctive worth of the Christian religion as well as its main significance for the history of the human spirit. The contest with the materialists, the skeptics, and the Epicureans was waged by the apologists, especially by Origen and Dionysius of Alexandria. [518] The habit of seeking oracular hints from the Scriptures is part and parcel of this movement. So far as I know, the earliest evidence for it comes from the fourth century, but it is certainly later than that period. Cp Aug., Epist. lv. 37: "Hi qui de paginis evangelicis sortes legunt, etsi optandum est, ut hoc potius faciant quam ad daemonia concurrant, tamen etiam ista mihi displicet consuetudo, ad negotia saecularia et ad vitae huius vanitatem propter aliam vitam loquentia oracula divina velle convertere" ("As for those who read fortunes out of the pages of the gospel, though it were better they should do this than betake themselves to the demons, still, I dislike the custom of trying to turn divine oracles which speak of another life into counsels upon secular affairs and the vanity of this life"). This, however, is more lax than the attitude of Hermas (Mand. xi.) towards the false prophets. Cp., too, the famous "tolle, lege" of Augustine's own history. [519] The question is not what amount of mythology, superstition, and sacramentalism the church took over, but rather what was the result of its borrowings, and what it did not borrow. In regard to the first point, we have to reckon not only with the amount of analogous ideas and practices current here and there from the very first within the churches (for, of course, the fact that here or there a few Syrians were converted, does not mean that the entire cast of things was Syrian, any more than the incorporation of Greek converts means a peculiarly Hellenic tinge), but with the problem, When were such ideas and practices consecrated by the church and admitted to public use, or to public expression in prayer and doctrine (in a city, in a province, or throughout the entire church)? The story of this process remains to be written, and it can only be written in part. Besides, many elements came in side by side from the very first. Yet we can explain in certain cases, perhaps, when definite pieces of pagan mythology and ritual were taken over into the public representation of the church's religion, with the requisite alterations of their garb. The answer to such problems, however, needs to be sought with much more caution and care than is usual at present. Attempts to refer the primitive Christian Sabbath and Lord's supper, and the doctrines of the virgin birth, the resurrection on the third day, the ascension, etc., to the influence of a definite pagan origin (whether obscure or open), seem to me radically unsound and as yet entirely unsuccessful. (How these institutions and ideas came into existence at so early a period is another question.) Generally, we may say that if the catholic churches and not individual gnostic circles are kept in view (though even this distinction may be disputed), the fundamental principles of the idealistic philosophy were received, only to be followed by mythology and ritual. As for the second point, the most important thing is to determine for how long and with what strenuousness the church resisted astrology, the deadly foe of morals and religion. Anyone who will consider the influence of astrology during the imperial period, when the natural sciences had in general decayed, its knack of assuming the garb of science, its widespread diffusion, and its adaptation to the active and passive moods of the age, will be able to appreciate aright the resistance offered by the church (for gnosticism in this department too was pretty defenseless). Here we recognize a great achievement of the church. Schürer, in his recent essay on the seven-day week of the church during the first centuries (Zeits. f. die neutest. Wiss., vi., 1905, pp. 1 f., 43 f.), has thoroughly investigated the position of the church towards astrology. In the second century, practically nothing was heard of it; i.e., it was attacked as pagan pseudo-science, as bad as polytheism, or worse. In the third century it raised its head within the church. In the fourth, it had to be sharply refuted. The theologians of the church always condemned it with indignation, but after the third century they no longer controlled the Christian communities, and they could not prevent it filtering in, and permeating alike the ideas and the speech of the people. [520] Cp. the pagan in Macarius Magnes, IV. xxii.: ei de kai tis ton Hellenon houto kouphos ten gnomen, hos en tois agalmasin endon oikein nomizein tous theous, pollo katharoteron eichen ten ennoian tou pisteuontos hoti eis ten gastera Marias tes parthenon eisedu to theion, embruon te egeneto kai techthen esparganothe, meston haimatos choriou kai choles kai ton eti pollo touton atopoteron ("A Greek might be silly enough to believe that the gods dwelt in their shrines, but he would at least be more reverent than the man who believes that the deity entered the womb of the Virgin Mary, became an embryo, was born and swaddled as from the foetus full of blood and bile and all the rest of it"). [521] The points of agreement between Celsus and Origen are already striking and instructive, although Celsus's was not a religious nature; still more striking are the points of agreement between Porphyry and the Oriental church teachers of his age. Porphyry's acute criticism of the gospels (especially the Fourth gospel), which is at many points quite justified, as well as of the apostle Paul, with whom he had little sympathy, cannot blind us to the fact that, apart from these three points, he was substantially of one mind with the Christians, and that he and they breathed the same religious atmosphere. The main point of difference lay in the fact that he reverently combined the entire universe with the Godhead, refusing to separate the Godhead from it, although he hated "the garment spotted by the flesh" as thoroughly as did the Christian teachers. [522] Cp. the question stated by Henrici in his Das Urchristenthum (1902), p. 3. __________________________________________________________________ [141] At the Scilitan martyrdom the proconsul remarks; "Et nos religiosi sumus, et simplex est religio nostra" ("We also are religious, and our religion is simple"). To which Speratus the Christian replies: "Si tranquillas praebueris aures tuas, dico mysterium simplicitatis" ("If you give me a quiet hearing, I shall tell you the mystery of simplicity"). [142] Cp. my Grundriss der Dogmengeschichte (4th ed., 1905). __________________________________________________________________ BOOK III THE MISSIONARIES: THE METHODS OF THE MISSION AND THE COUNTER-MOVEMENTS __________________________________________________________________ CHAPTER I THE CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES (APOSTLES, EVANGELISTS, AND PROPHETS OR TEACHERS: THE INFORMAL MISSIONARIES) I Before entering upon the subject proper, let us briefly survey the usage of the term "apostle," in its wider and narrower senses, throughout the primitive Christian writings. [523] 1. In Matthew, Mark, and John, "apostle" is not a special and distinctive name for the inner circle of the disciples of Jesus. These are almost invariably described as "the twelve," [524] or the twelve disciples. [525] As may be inferred from Matt. xix. 28, the choice of this number probably referred to the twelve tribes of Israel. [526] In my opinion the fact of their selection is historical, as is also the tradition that even during his lifetime Jesus once dispatched them to preach the gospel, and selected them with that end in view. At the same time, the primitive church honored them pre-eminently not as apostles but as the twelve disciples (chosen by Jesus). In John they are never called the apostles; [527] in Matthew they are apparently called "the twelve apostles" (x. 2) once, [528] but this reading is a correction, Syr. Sin. giving "disciples." At one place Mark writes "the apostles" (vi. 30), but this refers to their temporary missionary labors during the life of Jesus. All three evangelists are thus ignorant of "apostle" as a designation of the twelve: there is but one instance where the term is applied to them ad hoc. [529] 2. With Paul it is quite otherwise. He never employs the term "the twelve" (for in 1 Cor. xv. 5 he is repeating a formula of the primitive church), [530] but confines himself to the idea of "apostles." His terminology, however, is not unambiguous on this point. (a) He calls himself an apostle of Jesus Christ, and lays the greatest stress upon this fact. [531] He became an apostle, as alone one could, through God (or Christ); God called him and gave him his apostleship, [532] and his apostleship was proved by the work he did and by the way in which he did it. [533] (b) His fellow-missionaries--e.g., Barnabas and Silvanus--are also apostles; not so, however, his assistants and pupils, such as Timothy and Sosthenes. [534] (c) Others also--probably, e.g., Andronicus and Junias [535] are apostles. In fact, the term cannot be sharply restricted at all; for as God appoints prophets and teachers "in the church," so also does he appoint apostles to be the front rank therein, [536] and since such charismatic callings depend upon the church's needs, which are known to God alone, their numbers are not fixed. To the apostleship belong (in addition to the above mentioned call of God or Christ) the wonderful deeds which accredit it (2 Cor. xii. 12) and a work of its own (1 Cor. ix. 1-2), in addition to special rights. [537] He who can point to such is an apostle. The very polemic against false apostles (2 Cor. ix. 13) and "super-apostles" (2 Cor. xi. 5, xii. 11) proves that Paul did not regard the conception of "apostle" as implying any fixed number of persons, otherwise the polemic would have been differently put. Finally, a comparison of 1 Cor. xv. 7 with verse 5 of the same chapter shows, with the utmost clearness, that Paul distinguished a circle of apostles which was wider than the twelve--a distinction, moreover, which prevailed during the earliest period of the church and within Palestine. [538] (d) But in a further, strict, sense of the term, "apostle" is reserved for those with whom he himself works [539] and here some significance attaches to the very chronological succession of those who were called to the apostleship (Rom. xvi. 7). The twelve who were called during the lifetime of Jesus fall to be considered as the oldest apostles; [540] with their qualities and functions they form the pattern and standard for all subsequent apostles. Thus the twelve, and (what is more) the twelve as apostles, come to the front. As apostles Paul put them in front; in order to set the dignity of his own office in its true light, he embraced the twelve under the category of the original apostolate (thereby allowing their personal discipleship to fall into the background, in his terminology), and thus raised them above all other apostles, although not higher than the level which he claimed to occupy himself. That the twelve henceforth rank in history as the twelve apostles, and in fact as the apostles, was a result brought about by Paul; and, paradoxically enough, this was brought about by him in his very effort to fix the value of his own apostleship. He certainly did not work out this conception, for he neither could nor would give up the more general conception of the apostleship. Thus the term "apostle" is confined to the twelve only twice in Paul, [541] and even in these passages the reference is not absolutely certain. They occur in the first chapter of Galatians and in 1 Cor. ix. 5. Gal. i. 17 speaks of of hoi pro emou apostoloi ("those who were apostles before me"), where in all likeliehood the twelve are alone to be understood. Yet the subsequent remark in verse 19 (heteron ton apostolon ouk eidon ei me Iakobon ton adelphon tou kuriou) shows that it was of no moment to Paul to restrict the conception rigidly. In 1 Cor. ix. 5 we read, me ouk echomen exousian adelphen gunaika periagein hos kai hoi loipoi apostoloi kai hoi adelphoi tou kuriou kai Kephas the collocation of loipon apostolon with the Lord's brothers renders it very probable that Paul here is thinking of the twelve exclusively, and not of all the existing apostles, when he mentions "the apostles." To sum up our results: Paul holds fast to the wider conception of the apostolate, but the twelve disciples form in his view its original nucleus. 3. The terminology of Luke is determined as much by that of the primitive age (the Synoptic tradition) as by the post-Pauline. Following the former, he calls the chosen disciples of Jesus "the twelve," [542] or "the eleven;" [543] but he reproduces the latter in describing these disciples almost invariably throughout Acts as simply "the apostles"--just as though there were no other [544] apostles at all--and in relating, in his gospel, how Jesus himself called them apostles (vi. 13). Accordingly, even in the gospel he occasionally calls them "the apostles." [545] This would incline one to assert that Luke either knew, or wished to know, of no apostles save the twelve; but the verdict would be precipitate, for in Acts xiv. 4, 14, he describes not merely Paul but also Barnabas as an apostle. [546] Obviously, the terminology was not yet fixed by any means. Nevertheless it is surprising that Paul is only described as an "apostle" upon one occasion in the whole course of the book. He does not come [547] under the description of the qualities requisite for the apostleship which Luke has in view in Acts i. 21 f., a description which became more and more normative for the next age. Consequently he cannot have been an apostle for Luke, except in the wider sense of the term. 4. The apocalypse of John mentions those who call themselves apostles and are not (ii. 2), [548] which implies that they might be apostles. Obviously the writer is following the wider and original conception of the apostolate, The reference in xviii. 20 does not at least contradict this, [549] any more than xxi. 14 (see above), although only the twelve are named here "apostles," while the statement with its symbolic character has certainly contributed largely to win the victory for the narrower sense of the term. 5. In First Peter and Second Peter (i. 1), Peter is called an apostle of Jesus Christ. As for Jud. 17 and 2 Peter iii. 2 (mnesthenai ton proeiremenon rhematon hupo ton hagion propheton kai tes ton apostolon humon entoles tou kuriou kai soteros), in the first passage it is certain, and in the second very likely, that only the twelve disciples are to be understood. 6. That the epistle of Clement uses "apostles" merely to denote the original apostles and Paul, is perfectly clear from xlii. 1 f. (the apostles chosen previous to the resurrection) and xlvii. 4 (where Apollos, as aner dedokimasmenos par' apostolois, a man approved by the apostles, is definitely distinguished from the apostles); cp. also v. 3 and xliv. 1. For Clement's conception of the apostolate, see below. The epistle of Barnabas (v. 9) speaks of the Lord's choice of his own apostles (idios apostoloi), and therefore seems to know of some other apostles; in viii. 3 the author only mentions the twelve "who preached to us the gospel of the forgiveness of sins [550] and were empowered to preach the gospel," without calling them expressly "apostles." [551] As the Preaching of Peter professes to be an actual composition of Peter, it is self-evident that whenever it speaks of apostles, the twelve are alone in view. [552] 7. The passage in Sim. IX. xvii. 1 leaves it ambiguous whether Hermas meant by "apostles" the twelve or some wider circle. But the other four passages in which the apostles emerge (Vis., III. v. 1; Sim., IX. xv. 4, xvi. 5, xxv. 2) make it perfectly clear that the author had in view a wider, although apparently a definite, circle of persons, and that he consequently paid no special attention to the twelve (see below, Sect. III., for a discussion upon this point and upon the collocation of apostles, bishops, and teachers, or of apostles and teachers). Similarly, the Didachê contemplates nothing but a wider circle of apostles. It certainly avows itself to be, as the title suggests, a didache kuriou dia ton ib apostolon (an instruction of the Lord given through the twelve apostles), but the very addition of the number in this title is enough to show that the book knew of other apostles as well, and xi. 3-6 takes apostles exclusively in the wider sense of the term (details of this in a later section). 8. In the dozen or so passages where the word "apostle" occurs in Ignatius, there is not a single one which renders it probable that the word is used in its wider sense. On the contrary, there are several in which the only possible allusion is to the primitive apostles. We must therefore conclude that by "apostle" Ignatius simply and solely understood [553] the twelve and Paul (Rom. iv. 3). Any decision in the case of Polycarp (Ep., vi. 3, viii. 1) is uncertain, but he would hardly have occupied a different position from that of Ignatius. His church added to his name the title of an "apostolic and prophetic teacher" (Ep. Smyrn., xvi. 2). shows that while two conceptions existed side by side, the narrower was successful in making headway against its rival. [554] II One other preliminary inquiry is necessary before we can proceed to the subject of this chapter. We are to discuss apostles, prophets, and teachers as the missionaries or preachers of Christianity; the question is, whether this threefold group can be explained from Judaism. Such a derivation is in any case limited by the fact that these classes did not form any triple group in Judaism, their close association being a characteristic of primitive Christianity. With regard to each group, the following details are to be noted:-- 1. Apostles. [555] --Jewish officials bearing this title are unknown to us until the destruction of the temple and the organization of the Palestinian patriarchate; but it is extremely unlikely that no "apostles" previously existed, since the Jews would hardly have created an official class of "apostles" after the appearance of the Christian apostles. At any rate, the fact was there, as also, beyond question, was the name [556] --i.e., of authoritative officials who collected contributions from the Diaspora for the temple and kept the churches in touch with Jerusalem and with each other. According to Justin (Dial. xvii., cviii., cxvii.), the thoroughly systematic measures which were initiated from Jerusalem in order to counteract the Christian mission even in Paul's day were the work of the high priests and teachers, who despatched men (andras cheirotonesantes eklektous) all over the world to give correct information about Jesus and his disciples. These were "apostles" [557] that is, this task was entrusted to the "apostles" who kept Jerusalem in touch with the Diaspora. [558] Eusebius (in Isa. xviii. 1 f.) proves that the chosen persons whom Justin thus characterizes are to be identified with the "apostles" of Judaism. The passage has been already printed (cp. p. 59), but in view of its importance it may once more be quoted: heuromen en tois ton palaion sungrammasin, hos hoi ten Hierousalem oikountes tou ton Ioudaion ethnous hiereis kai presbuteroi grammata diacharaxantes eis panta diepempsanto ta ethne tois hapantachou Ioudaiois diaballontes ten Christou didaskalian hos hairesin kainen kai allotrian tou theou, parengellon te di' epistolon me paradexasthai auten . . . . hoi te apostoloi auton epistolas biblinas komizomenoi [559] apantachou ges dietrechon, ton peri tou soteros hemon endiaballontes logon. apostolous de eiseti kai nun (so that the institution was no novelty) ethos estin Ioudaiois onomazein tous enkuklia grammata para ton archonton auton epikomizomenons. The primary function, therefore, which Eusebius emphasized in the Jewish "apostles" of his own day, was their duty of conveying encyclical epistles issued by the central authority for the instruction and direction of the Diaspora. In the law-book (Theodosianus Codex, xvi. 8. 14), as is only natural, another side is presented "Superstitionis indignae est, ut archisynagogi sive presbyteri Judaeorum vel quos ipsi apostolos vocant, qui ad exigendum aurum atque argentum a patriarcha certo tempore diriguntur," etc. ("It is part of this worthless superstition that the Jews have chiefs of their synagogues, or elders, or persons whom they call apostles, who are appointed by the patriarch at a certain season to collect gold and silver"). The same aspect is adduced, as the context indicates, by Julian (Epist. xxv.; Hertlein, p. 513), when he speaks of "the apostleship you talk about" legomene par humin apostole Jerome (ad Gal., i. 1) merely remarks: "Usque hodie a patriarchis Judaeorum apostolos mitti" ("To this day apostles are despatched by the Jewish patriarchs"). But we gain much more information from Epiphanius, who, in speaking of a certain Joseph (adv. Hær., xxx. 4), writes: houtos ton par autois axiomatikon andron enarithmios en; eisi de houtoi meta ton patriarchen apostoloi kaloumenoi, prosedreuousi de to patriarche kai sun auto pollakis kai en nukti kai en hemera sunechos diagousi, dia to sumbouleuein kai anapherein auto ta kata ton nomon. [560] He tells (chap. xi.) when this Joseph became an apostle (or, got the eukarpia tes apostoles), and then proceeds: kai met' epistolon houtos apostelletai eis ten Kilikon gen; hos anelthon ekeise apo hekastes poleos tes Kilikias ta epidekata kai tas aparchas para ton en te eparchia Ioudaion eisepratten . . . . epei oun, hoia apostolos (houtos gar par autois, hos ephen, to axioma kaleitai), embrithestatos kai kathareuon dethen ta eis katastasin eunomias, houtos epitelein proballomenos, pollous ton kakon katastathenton archisunagogon kai hiereon kai presbuteron kai azaniton . . . . kathairon te kai metakinon tou axiomatos hupo pollon enekoteito, k.t.l. ("He was despatched with epistles to Cilicia, and on arriving there proceeded to levy from every city of Cilicia the titles and firstfruits paid by the Jews throughout the province. When, therefore, in virtue of his apostleship (for so is this order of men entitled by the Jews, as I have said), he acted with great rigour, forsooth, in his reforms and restoration of good order-which was the very business before him--deposing and removing from office many wicked chiefs of the synagogue and priests and presbyters and ministers . . . . he became hated by many people"). Putting together these functions of the "apostles," [561] we get the following result. (1) They were consecrated persons of a very high rank; (2) they were sent out into the Diaspora to collect tribute for headquarters; (3) they brought encyclical letters with them, kept the Diaspora in touch with the centre and informed of the intentions of the latter (or of the patriarch), received orders about any dangerous movement, and had to organize resistance to it; (4) they exercised certain powers of surveillance and discipline in the Diaspora; and (5) on returning to their own country they formed a sort of council which aided the patriarch in supervising the interests of the law. In view of all this one can hardly deny a certain connection between these Jewish apostles and the Christian. It was not simply that Paul [562] and others had hostile relations with them their very organization afforded a sort of type for the Christian apostleship, great as were the differences between the two. But, one may ask, were not these differences too great? Were not the Jewish apostles just financial officials? Well, at the very moment when the primitive apostles recognized Paul as an apostle, they set him also a financial task (Gal. ii. 10); he was to collect money throughout the Diaspora for the church at Jerusalem. The importance henceforth attached by Paul to this side of his work is well known; on it he spent unceasing care, although it involved him in the sorest vexations and led finally to his death. Taken by itself, it is not easy to understand exactly how the primitive apostles could impose this task on Paul, and how he could quietly accept it. But the thing becomes intelligible whenever we assume that the church at Jerusalem, together with the primitive apostles, considered themselves the central body of Christendom, and also the representatives of the true Israel. That was the reason why the apostles whom they recognized were entrusted with a duty similar to that imposed on Jewish "apostles," viz., the task of collecting the tribute of the Diaspora. Paul himself would view it, one imagines, in a somewhat different light, but it is quite probable that this was how the matter was viewed by the primitive apostles. In this way the connection between the Jewish and the Christian apostles, which on other grounds is hardly to be denied in spite of all their differences, becomes quite evident. [563] These statements about the Jewish apostles have been contested by Monnier (op. cit., pp. 16 f.): "To prop up his theory, Harnack takes a text of Justin and fortifies it with another from Eusebius. That is, he proves the existence of an institution in the first century by means of a second-century text, and interprets the latter by means of a fourth-century writer. This is too easy." But it is still more easy to let such confusing abstractions blind us to the reasons which in the present instance not only allow us but even make it obvious to explain the testimony of Justin by that of Eusebius, and again to connect it with what we know of the antichristian mission set on foot by the Jerusalemites, and of the false apostles in the time of Paul. I have not ignored the fact that we possess no direct evidence for the assertion that Jewish emissaries like Saul in the first century bore the name of "apostles." (2) Prophets.--The common idea is that prophets had died out in Judaism long before the age of Jesus and the apostles, but the New Testament itself protests against this erroneous idea. Reference may be made especially to John the Baptist, who certainly was a prophet and was called a prophet; also to the prophetess Hanna (Luke ii. 36), to Barjesus the Jewish prophet in the retinue of the pro-consul at Cyprus (Acts xiii. 7), and to the warnings against false prophets (Matt. vii. 15, xxiv. 11, 25 = Mark xiii. 22, 1 John iv. 1, 2 Pet. ii. 1). Besides, we are told that the Essenes possessed the gift of prophecy; [564] of Theudas, as of the Egyptian, [565] it is said, prophetes elegen einai ("he alleged himself to be a prophet, Joseph" Antiq., xx. 5. 1); Josephus the historian played the prophet openly and successfully before Vespasian; [566] Philo called himself a prophet, and in the Diaspora we hear of Jewish interpreters of dreams, and of prophetic magicians. [567] What is still more significant, the wealth of contemporary Jewish apocalypses, oracular utterances, and so forth shows that, so far from being extinct, prophecy was in luxuriant bloom, and also that prophets were numerous, and secured both adherents and readers. There were very wide circles of Judaism who cannot have felt any surprise when a prophet appeared: John the Baptist and Jesus were hailed without further ado as prophets, and the imminent return of ancient prophets was an article of faith. [568] From its earliest awakening, then, Christian prophecy was no novelty, when formally considered, but a phenomenon which readily coordinated itself with similar contemporary phenomena in Judaism. In both cases, too, the high value attached to the prophets follows as a matter of course, since they are the voice of God; recognized as genuine prophets, they possess an absolute authority in their preaching and counsels. They were not merely deemcd capable of miracles, but even expected to perform them. It even seemed credible that a prophet could rise from the dead by the power of God; Herod and a section of the people were quite of opinion that Jesus was John the Baptist redivivnt (see also Rev. xi. 11). [569] (3) Teachers.--No words need be wasted on the importance of the scribes and teachers in Judaism, particularly in Palestine; but in order to explain historically the prestige claimed and enjoyed by the Christian didaskaloi it is necessary to allude to the prestige of the Jewish teachers. "The rabbis claimed from their pupils the most unqualified reverence, a reverence which was to exceed even that paid to father and mother." "Let esteem for thy friend border on respect for thy teacher, and respect for thy teacher on reverence for God." "Respect for a teacher surpasses respect for a father; for son and father alike owe respect to a teacher." "If a man's father and teacher have lost anything, the teacher's loss has the prior claim; for while his father has only brought the nian into the world, his teacher has taught him wisdom and brought him to life in the world to come. If a man's father and teacher are bearing burdens, he must help the teacher first, and then his father. If father and teacher are both in captivity, he must ransom the teacher first." As a rule, the rabbis claimed everywhere the highest rank. "They love the uppermost places at feasts and the front seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the market-place, and to be called by men rabbi'"(Matt. xxiii. 6 f. and parallel passages). "Their very dress was that of people of quality." [570] Thus the three members of the Christian group--apostles, prophets, teachers--were already to be met with in contemporary Judaism, where they were individually held in very high esteem. Still, they were not grouped together; otherwise the prophets would have been placed in a more prominent position. The grouping of these three classes, and the special development of the apostleship, were the special work of the Christian church. It was a work which had most vital consequences. III As we are essaying a study of the missionaries and teachers, let us take the Didachê into consideration. [571] In the fourth chapter, where the author gathers up the special duties of Christians as members of the church, this counsel is put forward as the first commandment: teknon mou, tou lalountos soi ton logon tou theou mnesthese nuktos kai hemeras, timeseis de auton hos kurion; hothen gar he kuriotes laleitai, ekei kurios estin ("My son, thou shalt remember him that speaketh to thee the word of God by night and day; thou shalt honour him as the Lord. For whencesoever the lordship is lauded, there is the Lord present "). [572] As is plain from the whole book (particularly from what is said in chap. xv. on the bishops and deacons), the writer knew only one class of people who were to be honored in the church, viz., those alone who preached the word of God in their capacity of ministri evangelii. [573] But who are these lalountes ton logon tou theou in the Didachê? Not permanent, elected officials of an individual church, but primarily independent teachers who ascribed their calling to a divine command or charism. Among them we distinguish (1) apostles, (2) prophets, and (3) teachers. These preachers, at the time when the author wrote, and for the circle of churches with which he was familiar, were in the first place the regular missionaries of the gospel (apostles), in the second place the men who ministered to edification, and consequently sustained the spiritual life of the churches (prophets and teachers). [574] (1) They were not elected by the churches, as were bishops and deacons alone (xv. 1, cheirotonesate heautois episkopous kai diakonous). In 1 Cor. xii. 28 we read: kai ohus men etheto ho theos en te ekklesia proton apostolous, deuteron prophetas, triton didaskalous (cp. Ephes. iv. 11: kai autos edoken tous men apostolous, tous de prophetas, tous de euangelistas, tous de poimenas kai didaskalous. The early source incorporated in Acts xiii. gives a capital idea of the way in which this divine appointment is to be understood in the case of the apostles. In that passage we are told how after prayer and fasting five prophets and teachers resident in the church at Antioch (Barnabas, Simeon, Lucius, Manaen, and Saul) received instructions from the holy Spirit to despatch Barnabas and Saul as missionaries or apostles. [575] We may assume that in other cases also the apostles could fall back on such an exceptional commission. [576] The prophets were authenticated by what they delivered in the form of messages from the Holy Spirit, in so far as these addresses proved spiritually effective. But it is impossible to determine exactly how people were recognized as teachers. One clue seems visible, however, in Jas. iii. 1, where we read: me polloi didaskaloi ginesthe, eidotes hoti meizon krima lempsometha. From this it follows that to become a teacher was a matter of personal choice--based, of course, upon the individual's consciousness of possessing a charisma. The teacher also ranked as one who had received the holy Spirit [577] for his calling; whether he was a genuine teacher (Did., xiii. 2) or not, was a matter which, like the genuineness of the prophets (Did., xi. 11, xiii. 1), had to be decided by the churches. Yet they merely verified the existence of a divine commission; they did not in the slightest degree confer any office by their action. As a rule, the special and onerous duties which apostles and prophets had to discharge (see below) formed a natural barrier against the intrusion of a crowd of interlopers into the office of the preacher or the missionary. (2) The distinction of "apostles, prophets, and teachers" is very old, and was common in the earliest period of the church. The author of the Didachê presupposes that apostles, prophets, and teachers were known to all the churches. In xi. 7 he specially mentions prophets; in xii. 3 f. he names apostles and prophets, conjoining in xiii. 1-2 and xvi. 1-2 prophets and teachers (never apostles and teachers: unlike Hermas). The inference is that although this order--"apostles, prophets, and teachers"--was before his mind, the prophets and apostles formed in certain aspects a category by themselves, while in other aspects the prophets had to be ranked with the teachers (see below). This order is identical with that of Paul (1 Cor. xii. 28), so that its origin is to be pushed back to the sixth decade of the first century; in fact, it goes back to a still earlier period, for in saying ohus men etheto ho theos en te ekklesia proton apostolous, k.t.l., Paul is thinking without doubt of some arrangement in the church which held good among Jewish Christian communities founded apart from his co-operation, no less than among the communities of Greece and Asia Minor. This assumption is confirmed by Acts xi. 27, xv. 22, 32, and xiii. 1. f. In the first of these passages we hear of prophets who had migrated from the Jerusalem-church to the Antiochene; [578] the third passage implies that five men, who are described as prophets and teachers, occupied a special position in the church at Antioch, and that two of their number were elected by them as apostles at the injunction of the Spirit (see above). [579] Thus the apostolic vocation was not necessarily involved in the calling to be a prophet or teacher; it required for itself a further special injunction of the Spirit. From Acts xiii. 1 f. the order--"apostles, prophets, teachers"--follows indirectly but quite obviously; we have therefore evidence for it (as the notice may be considered historically reliable) in the earliest Gentile church and at a time which was probably not even one decade distant from the year of Paul's conversion. A century may have elapsed between the event recorded in Acts xiii. 1 f. and the final editing of the Didachê. But intermediate stages are not lacking. First, we have the evidence of 1 Cor. (xii. 28), [580] with two witnesses besides in Ephesians (whose evidence is all the more weighty if the epistle is not genuine) and Hermas. Yet neither of these witnesses is of supreme importance, inasmuch as both fail to present in its pristine purity the old class of the regular lalountes ton logon tou theou as apostles, prophets, and teachers; both point to a slight modification of this class, owing to the organization of individual churches, complete within themselves, which had grown up on other bases. Like Did. xi. 3, Eph. ii. 20 and iii. 5 associate apostles and prophets, and assign them an extremely high position. All believers, we are told, are built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, to whom, in the first instance, is revealed the secret that the Gentiles are fellow-heirs of the promise of Christ. That prophets of the gospel, and not of the Old Testament, are intended here is shown both by the context and by the previous mention of apostles. Now in the list at iv. 11 the order "apostles, prophets, and teachers" is indeed preserved, but in such a way that "evangelists" are inserted after "prophets," and "pastors" added to "teachers" (preceding them, in fact, but constituting with them a single group or class). [581] From these intercalated words it follows (1) that the author (or Paul) knew missionaries who did not possess the dignity of apostles, [582] but that he did not place them immediately after the apostles, inasmuch as the collocation of "apostles and prophets" was a sort of noli me tangere (not so the collocation of "prophets and teachers"); (2) that he reckoned the leaders of an individual church (poimenes) among the preachers bestowed upon the church as a whole (the individual church in this way made its influence felt); (3) that he looks upon the teachers as persons belonging to a definite church, as is evident from the close connection of teachers with poimenes and the subsequent mention (though in collocation) of the former. The difference between the author of Ephesians and the author of the Didachê on these points, however, ceases to have any significance when one observes two things: (a) first, that even the latter places the poimenes (episkopoi) of the individual church side by side with the teachers, and seeks to have like honor paid to them (xv. 1-2); and secondly (b), that he makes the permanent domicile of teachers in an individual church (xiii. 2) the rule, as opposed to any special appointment (whereas, with regard to prophets, domicile would appear, from xiii. 1, to have been the exception). It is certainly obvious that the Didachê's arrangement approaches more nearly than that of Ephesians to the arrangement given by Paul in Corinthians, but it would be more than hasty to conclude that the Didachê must therefore be older than the former epistle. We have already seen that the juxtaposition of the narrower conception of the apostolate with the broader is very early, and that the latter, instead of being simply dropped, kept pace for a time with the former. Furthermore, it must be borne in mind that passages like Acts xiii. 1, xi. 27, xxi. 10, etc., prove that although the prophets, and especially the teachers, had to serve the whole church with their gifts, they could possess, even in the earliest age, a permanent residence and also membership of a definite community, either permanently or for a considerable length of time. Hence at an early period they could be viewed in this particular light, without prejudice to their function as teachers who were assigned to the church in general. As for Hermas, the most surprising observation suggested by the book is that the prophets are never mentioned, for all its enumeration of classes of preachers and superintendents in Christendom. [583] In consequence of this, apostles and teachers apostoloi and didaskaloi are usually conjoined. [584] Now as Hermas comes forward in the role of prophet, as his book contains one large section (Mand. xi) dealing expressly with false and genuine prophets, and finally as the vocation of the genuine prophet is more forcibly emphasized in Hermas than in any other early Christian writing and presupposed to be universal, the absence of any mention of the prophet in the "hierarchy" of Hermas must be held to have been deliberate. In short, Hermas passed over the prophets because he reckoned himself one of them. If this inference be true [585] we are justified in supplying "prophets "wherever Hermas names "apostles and teachers," so that he too becomes an indirect witness to the threefold group of "apostles, prophets, teachers." [586] In that case the conception expounded in the ninth similitude of the "Shepherd" is exactly parallel to that of the man who wrote the Didachê. Apostles (prophets) and teachers are the preachers appointed by God to establish the spiritual life of the churches; next to them come (chapters xxv.-xxvii.) the bishops and deacons. [587] On the other hand, the author alters this order in Vis., III. v. 1, where he writes: [588] hoi men oun lithoi hoi tetragonoi kai leukoi kai sumphonountes tais harmogais auton, houtoi eisin hoi apostoloi (add kai prophetai) kai episkopoi kai didaskaloi kai diakonoi hoi poreuthentes kata ten semnoteta tou theou kai episkopesantes kai didaxantes kai diakonesantes hagnos kai semnos tois eklektois tou theou, hoi men kekoimemenoi, hoi de eti ontes According to the author of the Didachê also, the episkopoi and diakonoi are to be added to the apostoloi, prophetai, and didaskaloi, but the difference between the two writers is that Hernias has put the bishops, just as the author of Ephesians has put the poimenes, before the teachers. The reasons for this are unknown to us; all we can make out is that at this point also the actual organization of the individual communities had already modified the conception of the organization of the collective church which Hermas shared with the author of the Didachê. [589] Well then; one early source of Acts, Paul, Hermas, and the author of the Didachê all attest the fact that in the earliest Christian churches "those who spoke the word of God" (the lalountes ton logon tou theou) occupied the highest position, [590] and that they were subdivided into apostles, prophets, and teachers. They also bear evidence to the fact that these apostles prophets, and teachers were not esteemed as officials of an individual community, but were honored as preachers who had been appointed by God and assigned to the church as a whole. The notion that the regular preachers in the church were elected by the different churches is as erroneous as the other idea that they had their "office" transmitted to them through a human channel of some kind or other. So far as men worked together here, it was in the discharge of a direct command from the Spirit. Finally, we have to consider more precisely the bearings of this conclusion, viz., that, to judge from the consistent testimony of the earliest records, the apostles, prophets, and teachers were allotted and belonged, not to any individual community, but to the church as a whole. By means of this feature Christendom possessed, amid all its scattered fragments, a certain cohesion and a bond of unity which has often been underestimated. These apostles and prophets, wandering from place to place, and received by every community with the utmost respect, serve to explain how the development of the church in different provinces and under very different conditions could preserve, as it did, such a degree of homogeneity. Nor have they left their traces merely in the scanty records, where little but their names are mentioned, and where witness is borne to the respect in which they were held. In a far higher degree their self-expression appears throughout a whole genre of early Christian literature, namely, the so-called catholic epistles and writings. It is impossible to understand the origin, spread, and vogue of a literary genre so peculiar and in many respects so enigmatic, unless one correlates it with what is known of the early Christian "apostles, prophets, and teachers." When one considers that these men were set by God within the church--i.e., in Christendom as a whole, and not in any individual community, their calling being meant for the church collective--it becomes obvious that the so-called catholic epistles and writings, addressed to the whole of Christendom, form a genre in literature which corresponds to these officials, and which must have arisen at a comparatively early period. An epistle like that of James, addressed "to the twelve tribes of the dispersion," with its prophetic passages (iv.-v.), its injunctions uttered even to presbyters (v. 14), and its emphatic assertions (v. 15 f.), this epistle, which cannot have come from the apostle James himself, becomes intelligible so soon as we think of the wandering prophets who, conscious of a divine calling which led them to all Christendom, felt themselves bound to serve the church as a whole. We can well understand how catholic epistles must have won great prestige, even although they were not originally distinguished by the name of any of the twelve apostles. [591] Behind these epistles stood the teachers called by God, who were to be reverenced like the Lord himself. It would lead us too afar afield to follow up this view, but one may refer to the circulation and importance of certain "catholic" epistles throughout the churches, and to the fact that they determined the development of Christianity in the primitive period hardly less than the Pauline epistles. During the closing decades of the first century, and at the opening of the second, the extraordinary activity of these apostles, prophets, or teachers left a lasting memorial of itself in the "catholic" writings; to which we must add other productions like the "Shepherd" of Hermas, composed by an author of whom we know nothing except the fact that his revelations were to be communicated to all the churches. He is really not a Roman prophet; being a prophet, he is a teacher for Christendom as a whole. It has been remarked, not untruly, that Christendom came to have church officials--as distinct from local officials of the communities--only after the episcopate had been explained as an organization intended to perpetuate the apostolate in such a way that every bishop was held, not simply to occupy an office in the particular community, but to rank as a bishop of the catholic church (and, in this sense, to be a follower of the apostles). This observation is correct. But it has to be supplemented by the following consideration that in the earliest age special forms of organization did arise which in one aspect afford an analogy to ecclesiastical office in later catholicism. For "those who spake the word of God" (the lalountes ton logon tou theou) were catholic teachers (didaskaloi katholikoi). [592] Yet even when these primitive teachers were slowly disappearing, a development commenced which ended in the triumph of the monarchical episcopate, i.e., in the recognition of the apostolic and catholic significance attaching to the episcopate. The preliminary stages in this development may be distinguished wherever in Ephesians, Hermas, and the Didachê the permanent officials of the individual community are promoted to the class of apostles, prophets, and teachers," or already inserted among them. When this happened, the fundamental condition was provided which enabled the bishops at last to secure the prestige of "apostles, prophets, and teachers." If one looks at 1 Cor. xii. 28 or Did. xiii. ("the prophets are your high-priests"), and then at the passages in Cyprian and the literature of the following period, where the bishops are extolled as the apostles, prophets, teachers, and high-priests of the church, one has before one's eyes the start and the goal of one of the most important developments in early Christianity. In the case of prominent bishops like Polycarp of Smyrna, the end had long ago been anticipated; for Polycarp was honored by his church and throughout Asia as an "apostolic and prophetic teacher." As for the origin of the threefold group, we have shown that while its component parts existed in Judaism, their combination cannot be explained from such a quarter. One might be inclined to trace it back to Jesus Christ himself, for he once sent out his disciples as missionaries (apostles), and he seems (according to Matt. x. 41) to have spoken of itinerant preaching prophets whom he set on foot. But the historicity of the latter passage is disputed; [593] Jesus expressely denied the title "teacher" to his disciples (Matt. xxiii. 8); and an injunction such as that implied in the creation of this threefold group does not at all tally with the general preaching of Jesus or with the tenor of his instructions. We must therefore assume that the rise of the threefold group and the esteem in which it was held by the community at Jerusalem (and that from a very early period) were connected with the "Spirit" which possessed the community. Christian prophets are referred to in the context of Acts 2. (cp. verse 18); they made their appearance very soon (Acts iv. 36). Unfortunately, we do not know any further details, and the real origin of the enthusiastic group of "apostles, prophets, and teachers" is as obscure as that of the ecclesiastical group of "bishops, deacons, and presbyters," or of the much later complex of the so-called inferior orders of the clergy. In each case it is a question of something consciously created, which starts from a definite point, although it may have sprung up under pressure exerted by the actual circumstances of the situation. IV The Didachê begins by grouping together apostles and prophets (xi. 3), and directing that the ordinance of the gospel is to hold good as regards both of them; but in its later chapters it groups prophets and teachers together and is silent on the apostles. From this it follows, as has been already pointed out, that the prophets had something in common with apostles on the one hand and with teachers on the other. The former characteristic may be inferred from the expression kata ta dogma tou euangeliou, as well as from the detailed injunctions that follow. [594] The "ordinance of the gospel" can mean only the rules which we read in Mark vi. (and parallels), [595] and this assumption is corroborated by the fact that in Matt. x., which puts together the instructions for apostles, itinerant prophets also are mentioned, who are supposed to be penniless. To be penniless, therefore, was considered absolutely essential for apostles and prophets; this is the view shared by 3 John, Origen, and Eusebius. John remarks that the missionaries wandered about and preached, without accepting anything from pagans. They must therefore have been instructed to "accept" from Christians. Origen (contra Cels., III. ix.) writes: "Christians do all in their power to spread the faith all over the world. Some of them accordingly make it the business of their life to wander not only from city to city but from township to township and village to village, in order to gain fresh converts for the Lord. Nor could one say they do this for the sake of gain, since they often refuse to accept so much as the bare necessities of life; even if necessity drives them sometimes to accept a gift, they are content with getting their most pressing needs satisfied, although many people are ready to give them much more than that. And if at the present day, owing to the large number of people who are converted, some rich men of good position and delicate high-born women give hospitality to the messengers of the faith, will any one venture to assert that some of the latter preach the Christian faith merely for the sake of being honored? In the early days, when great peril threatened the preachers of the faith especially, such a suspicion could not easily have been entertained; and even at the present day the discredit with which Christians are assailed by unbelievers outweighs any honor that some of their fellow-believers show to them." Eusebius (H.E., iii. 37) writes: "Very many of the disciples of that age (pupils of the apostles), whose heart had been ravished by the divine Word with a burning love for philosophy [i.e., asceticism], had first fulfilled the command of the Saviour and divided their goods among the needy. Then they set out on long journeys, performing the office of evangelists, eagerly striving to preach Christ to those who as yet had never heard the word of faith, and to deliver to them the holy gospels. In foreign lands they simply laid the foundations of the faith. That done, they appointed others as shepherds, entrusting them with the care of the new growth, while they themselves proceeded with the grace and co-operation of God to other countries and to other peoples." See, too, H.E., v. 10. 2, where, in connection with the end of the second century, we read: "There were even yet many evangelists of the word eager to use their divinely inspired zeal, after the example of the apostles, to increase and build up the divine Word. One of these was Pantænus" (entheou zelon apostolikou mimematos suneispherein ep' auxesei kai oikodome tou theiou logou promethoumenoi, hon heis genomenos kai Pantainos). [596] The second essential for apostles, laid down by the Didachê side by side with poverty, namely, indefatigable missionary activity (no settling down), is endorsed by Origen and Eusebius also. [597] The Didachê informs us that these itinerant missionaries were still called apostles at the opening of the second century. Origen and Eusebius assure us that they existed during the second century, and Origen indeed knows of such even in his own day; but the name of "apostle" was no longer borne, [598] owing to the heightened reverence felt for the original apostles and also owing to the idea which gained currency even in the course of the second century, that the original apostles had already preached the gospel to the whole world. This idea prevented any subsequent missionaries from being apostles, since they were no longer the first to preach the gospel to the nations. [599] We have already indicated how the extravagant estimate of the primitive apostles arose. [600] Their labours were to be looked upon as making amends for the fact that Jesus Christ did not himself labour as a missionary in every land. Furthermore, the belief that the world was near its end produced, by a sort of inevitable process, the idea that the gospel had by this time been preached everywhere; for the end could not come until this universal proclamation had been accomplished, and the credit of this wonderful extension was assigned to the apostles. [601] On these grounds the prestige of the primitive apostles shot up to so prodigious a height, that their commission to the whole world was put right into the creed. [602] We are no longer in a position nowadays to determine the degree of truth underlying the belief in the apostles' world-wide mission. In any case it must have been extremely slight, and any representation of the twelve apostles as a unity organized for the purpose of worldwide labours among the Gentile churches is to be relegated without hesitation to the province of legend. [603] Unfortunately, we know next to nothing of any details concerning the missionaries (apostles) and their labours during the second century; their very names are lost, with the exception of Pantænus, the Alexandrian teacher, and his mission to "India" (Eus., H.E., v. 10). Perhaps we should look upon Papylus in the Acts of Carpus and Papylus as a missionary; for in his cross-examination he remarks: en pase eparchia kai polei eisin mou tekna kata theon (ch. 32, "in every province and city I have children according to God"). Attalus in Lyons was probably a missionary also (Eus., H.E. v. 1). Neither of these cases is, however, beyond doubt. If we could attach any value to the romance of Paul and Thecla (in the Acta Pauli), one name would come up in this connection, viz., that of Thecla, the only woman who was honored with the title of he apostolos. But it is extremely doubtful if any basis of fact, apart from the legend itself, underlies the veneration felt for her, although the legend itself may contain some nucleus of historic truth. Origen knows of cases within his own experience in which a missionary or teacher was subsequently chosen to be bishop by his converts, [604] but the distinction between missionary and teacher had been blurred by this time, and the old triad no longer existed. Yet even though we cannot describe the labours of the apostles during the second century--and by the opening of the third century only stragglers from this class were still to be met with--the creation and the career of this heroic order form of themselves a topic of supreme interest. Their influence need not, of course, be overestimated. For, in the first place, we find the Didachê primarily concerned with laying down rules to prevent abuses in the apostolic office; so that by the beginning of the second century, as we are not surprised to learn, it must have been already found necessary to guard against irregularity. In the second place, had apostles continued to play an important part in the second century, the stereotyped conception of the primitive apostles, with their fundamental and really exhaustive labours in the mission-field, could never have arisen at all or become so widely current. Probably, then, it is not too hazardous to affirm that the church really had never more than two apostles in the true sense of the term, one great and the other small, viz., Paul and Peter--unless perhaps we add John of Ephesus. The chief credit for the spread of Christianity scarcely belongs to the other regular apostles, penniless and itinerant, otherwise we should have heard of them, or at least have learnt their names; whereas even Eusebius was as ignorant about them as we are to-day. The chief credit for the spread of Christianity is due to those who were not regular apostles, and also to the "teachers." V Though the prophets, [605] according to the Didachê and other witnesses, had also to be penniless like the apostles, they are not to be reckoned among the regular missionaries. Still, like the teachers, they were indirectly of importance to the mission, as their charismatic office qualified them for preaching the word of God, and, indeed, put them in the way of such a task. Their inspired addresses were listened to by pagans as well as by Christians, and Paul assumes (1 Cor. xiv. 24), not without reason, that the former were especially impressed by the prophet's harangue and by his power of searching the hearer's heart. Down to the close of the second century the prophets retained their position in the church; [606] but the Montanist movement brought early Christian prophecy at once to a head and to an end. Sporadic traces of it are still to be found in later years, [607] but such prophets no longer possessed any significance for the church; in fact, they were quite summarily condemned by the clergy as false prophets. Like the apostles, the prophets occupied a delicate and risky position. It was easy for them to degenerate. The injunctions of the Didachê (ch. xi.) indicate the sort of precautions which were considered necessary, even in the opening of the second century, to protect the churches against fraudulent prophets of the type sketched by Lucian in Proteus Peregrinus; and the latter volume agrees with the Didachê, inasmuch as it describes Peregrinus in his prophetic capacity as now settled in a church, now itinerating in company with Christians who paid him special honor--for prophets were not confined to any single church. Nor were even prophetesses awanting; they were to be met with inside the Catholic Church as well as among the gnostics in particular. [608] The materials and sources available for a study of the early Christian prophets are extremely voluminous, and the whole subject is bound up with a number of questions which are still unsettled; for example, the relation of the Christian prophets to the numerous categories of the pagan prophets (Egyptian, Syrian, and Greek) who are known to us from the literature and inscriptions of the period, is a subject which has never yet been investigated. [609] However, these materials are of no use for our immediate purpose, as no record of the missionary labours of the prophets is extant. VI The Didachê mentions teachers twice (xiii. 2, xv. 1-2), and, what is more, as a special class within the churches. Their ministry was the same as that of the prophets, a ministry of the word; consequently they belonged to the "honored" class, and, like the prophets, could claim to be supported. On the other hand, they were evidently not obliged to be penniless; [610] nor did they wander about, but resided in a particular community. These statements are corroborated by such passages in our sources (see above, pp. 336 f.) as group apostles, prophets, and teachers together, and further, by a series of separate testimonies which show that to be a teacher was a vocation in Christianity, and that the teacher enjoyed great repute not only in the second century, but partly also, as we shall see, in later years. First of all, the frequency with which we find authors protesting that they are not writing in the capacity of teachers (or issuing instructions) proves how serious was the veneration paid to a true teacher, and how he was accorded the right of issuing injunctions that were universally valid and authoritative. Thus Barnabas asserts: ego de ouch hos didaskalos all' hos heis ex humon hupodeixo (i. 8, "I am no teacher, but as one of yourselves I will demonstrate"); and again, "Fain would I write many things, but not as a teacher" polla de thelon graphein ouch hos didaskalos, iv. 9). [611] Ignatius explains, ou diatassomai humin hos on tis . . . . proslalo humin hos sundidaskalitais mou ("I do not command you as if I were somebody . . . . I address you as my school-fellows," ad Eph., iii. 1); [612] and Dionysius of Alexandria in the third century still writes (Ep. ad Basil.): ego de ouch hos didaskalos, all' hos meta pases haplotetos prosekon hemas allelois dialegesthai ("I speak not as a teacher, but with all the simplicity with which it befits us to address each other"). [613] The warning of the epistle of James (iii. 1): me polloi didaskaloi ginesthe, proves how this vocation was coveted in the church, a vocation of which Hermas pointedly remarks (Sim., IX. xxv. 2) that its members had received the holy Spirit. [614] Hermas also refers (Mand., IV. iii. 1) to a saying which he had heard from certain teachers with regard to baptism, and which the angel proceeds deliberately to endorse; this proves that there were teachers of high repute at Rome in the days of Hermas. An elaborate charge to teachers is given in the pseudo-Clementine Epist. de Virginitate (I. 11): "Doctores esse volunt et disertos sese ostendere . . . . neque adtendunt ad id quod dicit [Scriptura]: Ne multi inter vos sint doctores, fratres, neque omnes sitis prophetæ.' . . . . Timeamus ergo iudicium quod imminet doctoribus; grave enim vero iudicium subituri sunt doctores illi, qui docent [615] et non faciunt, et illi qui Christi nomen mendaciter assumunt dicuntque se docere veritatem, at circumcursant et temere vagantur seque exaltant atque gloriantur in sententia carnis suae. . . . . Verumtamen si accepisti sermonem scientiae aut sermonem doctrinae aut prophetias aut ministerii, laudetur deus . . . . illo igitur charismate, quod a deo accepisti (sc. charismati didaches illo inservi fratribus pneumaticis, prophetis, qui dignoscant dei esse verba ea, quae loqueris, et enarra quod accepisti charisma in ecclesiastico conventu ad aedificationem fratrum tuorum in Christo" ("They would be teachers and show off their learning. . . . . and they heed not what the Scripture saith: Be not many teachers, my brethren, and be not all prophets.' . . . . Let us therefore dread that judgment which hangs over teachers. For indeed a severe judgment shall those teachers undergo who teach but do not practise, as also those who falsely take on themselves the name of Christ, and say they are speaking the truth, whereas they gad round and wander rashly about and exalt themselves and glory in the mind of their flesh. . . . . But if thou hast received the word of knowledge, or of teaching, or of prophecy, or of ministry, let God be praised. . . . . Therefore with that spiritual gift received from God, do thou serve thy brethren the spiritual ones, even the prophets who detect that thy words are the words of God; and publish the gift thou hast received in the assembly of the church to edify thy brethren in Christ"). From this passage it is plain that there were still teachers (and prophets) in the churches, that the former ranked below the latter (or had to submit to a certain supervision), and that, as we see from the whole chapter, gross abuses had to be dealt with in this order of the ministry. As was natural, this order of independent teachers who were in the service of the entire church produced at an early period prominent individuals who credited themselves with an exceptionally profound knowledge of the dikaiomata tou theou (ordinances of God), and consequently addressed themselves, not to all and sundry, but to the advanced or educated, i.e., to any select body within Christendom. Insensibly, the charismatic teaching also passed over into the profane, and this marked the point at which Christian teachers as an institution had to undergo, and did undergo, a change. It was inevitable that within Christianity schools should be founded similar to the numerous contemporary schools which had been established by Greek and Roman philosophers. They might remain embedded, as it were, in Christianity; but they might also develop very readily in a sectarian direction, since this divisive tendency beset any school whatsoever. Hence the efforts of itinerant Christian apologists who, like Justin [616] and Tatian, [617] set up schools in the larger towns; hence scholastic establishments such as those of Rhodon and the two Theodoti at Rome; [618] hence the enterprise of many so-called "gnostics"; hence, above all, the Alexandrian catechetical school (with its offshoots in Cæsarea Palest.), whose origin, of course, lies buried in obscurity, [619] and the school of Lucian at Antioch (where we hear of Sulloukianistai, i.e., a union similar to those of the philosophic schools). But as a direct counterpoise to the danger of having the church split up into schools, and the gospel handed over to the secular culture, the acumen, and the ambition of individual teachers, [620] the consciousness of the church finally asserted its powers, and the word "school" became almost a term of reproach for a separatist ecclesiastical community. [621] Yet the "doctors" (didaskaloi)--I mean the charismatic teachers who were privileged to speak during the service, although they did not belong to the clergy--did not become extinct all at once in the communities; indeed, they maintained their position longer than the apostles or the prophets. From the outset they had been free from the "enthusiastic" element which characterized the latter and paved the way for their suppression. Besides, the distinction of "milk" and "strong meat," of different degrees of Christian sophia, sunesis, episteme and gnosis, was always indispensable. [622] In consequence of this, the didaskaloi had naturally to continue in the churches till the bulk of the administrative officials or priests came to possess the qualification of teachers, and until the bishop (together with the presbyters) assumed the task of educating and instructing the church. In several even of the large churches this did not take place till pretty late, i.e., till the second half of the third century, or the beginning of the fourth. Up to that period "teachers" can still be traced here and there. [623] Beside the new and compact organization of the churches (with the bishops, the college of presbyters, and the deacons) these teachers rose like pillars of some ruined edifice which the storm had spared. They did not fit into the new order of things, and it is interesting to notice how they are shifted from one place to another. Tertullian's order [624] (de Præscr., iii.) is: "bishop, deacon, widow, virgin, teacher, martyr"! Instead of putting the teacher among the clergy, he thus ranks him among the spiritual heroes, and, what is more, assigns him the second place amongst them, next to the martyrs--for the order of the list runs up to a climax. In the Acta Perpetuæ et Felic., as well as in the Acta Saturnini et Dativi (under Diocletian; cp. Ruinart's Acta Martyr., Ratisbon, 1859, p. 418), both of African origin, we come across the title "presbyter doctor," and from Cyprian (Ep. xxix.) we must also infer that in some churches the teachers were ranked in the college of presbyters, and entrusted in this capacity with the duty of examining the readers. [625] On the other hand, in the account given by Hippolytus in Epiph., Hær., xlii. 2 (an account which refers to Rome in the days of Marcion), the teachers stand beside the presbyters (not inside the college of presbyters): hoi hepieikeis presbuteroi kai didaskaloi, a position which is still theirs in Egyptian villages after the middle of the third century. Dionysius of Alexandria (Eus., H.E., vii. 24. 6), speaking of his sojourn in such villages, observes, "I called together the presbyters and teachers of the brethren in the villages" (sunekalesa tous presbuterous kai didaskalous ton en tais komais adelphon). As there were no bishops in these localities at that period, it follows that the teachers still shared with the presbyters the chief position in these village churches. This item of information reaches us from Egypt; and, unless all signs deceive us, we find that in Egypt generally, and especially at Alexandria, the institution of teachers survived longest in juxtaposition with the episcopal organization of the churches (though their right to speak at services of worship had expired; see below). Teachers still are mentioned frequently in the writings of Origen, [626] and what is more, the "doctores" constitute for him, along with the "sacerdotes," quite a special order, parallel to that of priests within the church. He speaks of those "who discharge the office of teachers wisely in our midst" c. Cels., IV. lxxii.), and of "doctores ecclesiae" (Hom. XIV. in Gen., vol. ii. p. 97). In Hom. II. in Num. (vol. ii. p. 278) he remarks: "It often happens that a man of low mind, who is base and of an earthly spirit, creeps up into the high rank of the priesthood or into the chair of the doctorate, while he who is spiritual and so free from earthly ties that he can prove all things and yet himself be judged by no man--he occupies the rank of an inferior minister, or is even left among the common throng" ("Nam saepe accidit, ut is qui humilem sensum gerit et abiectum et qui terrena sapit, excelsum sacerdotii gradum vel cathedram doctores insideat, et ille qui spiritualis est et a terrena conversatione tam liber ut possit examinare omnia et ipse a nemine iudicari, vel inferioris ministerii ordinem teneat vel etiam in plebeia multitudine relinquatur "). [627] In Hom. VI. in Levit. (vol. ix. p. 219) we read: "Possunt enim et in ecclesia sacerdotes et doctores filios generare sicut et ille qui dicebat (Gal. iv. 19), et iterum alibi dicit (1 Cor. iv. 15). Isti ergo doctores ecclesiae in huiusmodi generationibus procreandis aliquando constrictis femoralibus utuntur et abstinent a generando, cum tales invenerint auditores, in quibus sciant se fructum habere non posse!" [628] These passages from Origen, which might be multiplied (see, e.g., Hom. II. in Ezek. and Hom. III. for the difference between magistri and presbyteri), show that during the first thirty years of the third century there still existed at Alexandria an order of teachers side by side with the bishop, the presbyters, and the deacons. But indeed we scarcely need the writings of Origen at all. There is Origen himself, his life, his lot--and that is the plainest evidence of all. For what was the man himself but a didaskalos tes ekklesias, busily travelling as a teacher upon endless missions, in order to impress true doctrine on the mind, or to safeguard it? What was the battle of his life against that "ambitious" and utterly uneducated bishop Demetrius, but the conflict of an independent teacher of the church with the bishop of an individual community? And when, in the course of this conflict, which ended in a signal triumph for the hierarchy, a negative answer was given to this question among other things, viz., whether the "laity" could give addresses in the church, in presence of the bishops, was not the affirmative answer, which was still given by bishops like Alexander and Theoktistus, who pointed to the primitive usage, [629] simply the final echo of an organization of the Christian churches older and more venerable than the clerical organization which was already covering all the field? During the course of the third century, thc "teachers" were thrust out of the church, i.e., out of the service; [630] some of them may have even been fused with the readers. [631] No doubt, the order of teachers had developed in such a way as to incur at a very early stage the exceptionally grave risk of sharply Hellenizing and thus secularizing Christianity. The 8[8a?KaXot of the third century may have been very unlike the &8c ,, caXot who had ranked as associates of the prophets. But Hellenizing was hardly the decisive reason for abolishing the order of teachers in the churches; here, as elsewhere, the change was due to the episcopate with its intolerance of any office that would not submit to its strict control and allow itself to be incorporated in the simple and compact organization of thc hierarchy headed by the bishop. After the middle of the third century, not all, but nearly all, the teachers of the church were clerics, while the instruction of the catechumens was undertaken either by the bishop himself or by a presbyter. The organizing of the catechetical system gradually put an end to the office of independent teachers. The early teachers of the church were missionaries as well; [632] a pagans as well as catechumens entered their schools and listened to their teaching. We have definite information upon this point in the case of Justin (see above), but Tatian also delivered his "Address" in order to inform the pagan public that he had become a Christian teacher, and we have a similar tradition of the missionary work done by the heads of the Alexandrian catechetical school in the way of teaching. Origen, too, had pagan hearers whom he instructed in the elements of Christian doctrine (cp. Eus., H.E., vi. 3); indeed, it is well known that even Julia Mamæa, the queen-mother, had him brought to Antioch that she might listen to his lectures (Eus., H.E., vi. 21). Hippolytus also wrote her a treatise, of which fragments have been preserved in a Syriac version. When one lady of quality in Rome was arraigned on a charge of Christianity, her teacher Ptolemæus (diduskalos ekeines ton Christianon mathematon genomenos) was immediately arrested also (Justin, Apol., II. 2). In the African Acta Saturnini et Dativi, dating from Diocletian's reign, we read (Ruinart's Acta Mart., Ratisbon, 1859, p. 417) the following indictment of the Christian Dativus, laid by Fortunatianus ("vir togatus") with regard to his sister who had been converted to Christianity: "This is the fellow who during our father's absence, while we were studying here, perverted our sister Victoria, and took her away from the glorious state of Carthage with Secunda and Restituta as far as the colony of Abitini; he never entered our house without beguiling the girls' minds with some wheedling arguments" ("Hic est qui per absentiam patris noster, nobis hic studentibus, sororem nostram Victoriam seducens, hinc de splendidissima Carthaginis civitate una cum Secunda et Restituta ad Abitinensem coloniam secum usque perduxit, quique nunquam domum nostram ingressus est, nisi tunc quando quibusdam persuasionibus puellares animos illiciebat"). This task also engaged the whole activity of the Christian apologists. The effects upon the inner growth of Christianity we may estimate very highly. [633] But we know nothing of the scale on which they worked among pagans. We have no information as to whether the apologies really reached those to whom they were addressed, notably the emperors; or, whether the educated public took any notice of them. Tertullian bewails the fact that only Christians read Christian literature ("ad nostras litteras nemo venit nisi iam Christianus," de Testim., i.), and this would be true of the apologies as well. Celsus, so far as I know, never takes them into account, though there were a number of them extant in his day. He only mentions the dialogue of Aristo of Pella; but that cannot have been typical, otherwise it would have been preserved. The apologists set themselves a number of tasks, emphasizing and elucidating now one, now another aspect of the truth. They criticized the legal procedure of the state against Christians; they contradicted the revolting charges, moral and political, with which they were assailed; they criticized the pagan mythology and the state-religion; they defined, in very different ways, their attitude to Greek philosophy, and tried partly to side with it, partly to oppose it; [634] they undertook an analysis of ordinary life, public and private; they criticized the achievements of culture and the sources as well as the consequences of conventional education. Still further, they stated the essence of Christianity, its doctrines of God, providence, virtue, sin, and retribution, as well as the right of their religion to lay claim to revelation and to uniqueness. They developed the Logos-idea in connection with Jesus Christ, whose ethics, preaching, and victory over demons they depicted. Finally, they tried to furnish proofs for the metaphysical and ethical content of Christianity, to rise from a mere opinion to a reasoned conviction, and at the same time--by means of the Old Testament--to prove that their religion was not a mere novelty but the primitive religion of mankind. [635] The most important of these proofs included those drawn from the fulfilment of prophecy, from the moral energy of the faith, from its enlightenment of the reason, and from the fact of the victory over demons. The apologists also engaged in public discussions with pagans (Justin, Apol. II., and the Cynic philosopher Crescens; Minucius Felix and Octavius) and Jews (Justin, Dial. with Trypho; Tertull., adv. Jud., i.). In their writings some claimed the right of speaking in the name of God and truth; and although (strictly speaking) they do not belong to the charismatic teachers, they describe themselves as "taught of God." [636] The schools established by these teachers could only be regarded by the public and the authorities as philosophic schools; indeed, the apologists avowed themselves to be philosophers [637] and their doctrine a philosophy, [638] so that they participated here and there in the advantages enjoyed by philosophic schools, particularly in the freedom of action they possessed. This never can have lasted any time, however. Ere long the Government was compelled to note that the preponderating element in these schools was not scientific but practical, and that they were the outcome of the illegal "religio Christiana." [639] VII "Plures efficimur quotiens metimur a vobis; semen est sanguis Christianorum . . . . illa ipsa obstinatio, quam exprobratis magistra est"--so Tertullian cries to the authorities (Apol. 1.: "The oftener we are mown down by you, the larger grow our numbers. The blood of Christians is a seed. . . . . That very obstinacy which you reprobate is our instructress"). The most numerous and successful missionaries of the Christian religion were not the regular teachers but Christians themselves, in virtue of their loyalty and courage. How little we hear of the former and their results! How much we hear of the effects produced by the latter! Above all, every confessor and martyr was a missionary; he not merely confirmed the faith of those who were already won, but also enlisted new members by his testimony and his death. Over and again this result is noted in the Acts of the martyrs, though it would lead us too far afield to recapitulate such tales. While they lay in prison, while they stood before the judge, on the road to execution, and by means of the execution itself, they won people for the faith. Ay, and even after death. One contemporary document (cp. Euseb. vi. 5) describes how Potamiæna, an Alexandrian martyr during the reign of Septimius Severus, appeared immediately after dcath even to non-Christians in the city, and how they were converted by this vision. This is by no means incredible. The executions of the martyrs (legally carried out, of course) must have made an impression which startled and stirred wide circles of people, suggesting to their minds the question: Who is to blame, the condemned person or the judge? [640] Looking at the earnestness, the readiness for sacrifice, and the steadfastness of these Christians, people found it difficult to think that they were to blame. Thus it was by no means an empty phrase, when Tertullian and others like him asserted that the blood of Christians was a seed. Nevertheless, it was not merely the confessors and martyrs who were missionaries. It was characteristic of this religion that everyone who seriously confessed the faith proved of service to its propaganda. [641] Christians are to "let their light shine, that pagans may see their good works and glorify the Father in heaven." If this dominated all their life, and if they lived according to the precepts of their religion, they could not be hidden at all; by their very mode of living they could not fail to preach their faith plainly and audibly. [642] Then there was the conviction that the day of judgment was at hand, and that they were debtors to the heathen. Furthermore, so far from narrowing Christianity, the exclusiveness of the gospel was a powerful aid in promoting its mission, owing to the sharp dilemma which it involved. We cannot hesitate to believe that the great mission of Christianity was in reality accomplished by means of informal missionaries. Justin says so quite explicitly. What won him over was the impression made by the moral life which he found among Christians in general. How this life stood apart from that of pagans even in the ordinary round of the day, how it had to be or ought to be a constant declaration of the gospel--all this is vividly portrayed by Tertullian in the passage where he adjures his wife not to marry a pagan husband after he is dead (ad Uxor., II. iv.-vi.). We may safely assume, too, that women did play a leading role in the spread of this religion (see below, Book IV. Chap. II.). But it is impossible to see in any one class of people inside the church the chief agents of the Christian propaganda. In particular, we cannot think of the army in this connection. Even in the army there were Christians, no doubt, but it was not easy to combine Christianity and military service. Previous to the reign of Constantine, Christianity cannot possibly have been a military religion, like Mithraism and some other cults. [643] __________________________________________________________________ [523] Though it is only apostles of Christ who are to be considered, it may be observed that Paul spoke (2 Cor. viii. 23) of apostoloi ekklesion, and applied the title "apostle of the Philippians" to Epaphroditus, who had conveyed to him a donation from that church (Philip. ii. 25). In Heb. iii. 1 Jesus is called "the apostle and high-priest of our confession." But in John xiii. 16 "apostle" is merely used as an illustration: ouk estin doulos meizon tou kuriou autou, oude apostolos meizon tou pempsantos auton. For the literature on this subject, see my edition of the Didachê (Texte u. Untersuchungen, vol. ii., 1884) and my Dogmengeschichte I.3 (1894), pp. 153 f. [Eng. trans., vol. i. pp. 212 f.], Seufert on Der Ursprung and die Bedeutung des Apostolats in d. Christliche Kirche (1887), Weizsäcker's Der Apost. Zeitalter2 (1892, s.v.), Zahn's Skizzen aus dem Leben der alten Kirche2 (1898), p. 338, Haupt on Zum Verständnisse des Apostolats im N. T. (1896), Wernle's Anfänge unserer Religion2 (1904), and Monnier's La notion de 1'Apostolat des origins à Irénée (1903). [524] Matt. x. 5, xx. 17, xxvi. 14, 47; Mark (iii. 14), iv. 10, vi. 7, ix. 35, x. 32, xi. 11, xiv. 10, 17, 20, 43; John vi. 67, 70, 71, xx. 24. [525] Matt. x. 1, xi. 1, xxvi. 20.--Add further the instances in which they are called "the eleven" (Mark xvi. 14) or "the eleven disciples" (Matt. xxviii. 16). [526] This is explicitly stated in Barn. 8: ousin dekaduo eis marturion ton phulon hoti ib hai phulai tou Israel ("They are twelve for a testimony to the tribes, for there are twelve tribes in Israel"). [527] This is a remarkable fact. In the Johannine epistles "apostle" never occurs at all. Yet these letters were composed by a man who, whatever he may have been, claimed and exercised apostolic authority over a large number of the churches, as is plain from the third epistle (see my study of it in the fifteenth volume of the Texte und Untersuchungen, part 3). More on this point afterwards. [528] Not "the twelve" pure and simple. Elsewhere the term, "the twelve apostles," occurs only in Apoc. xxi. 14, and there the "twelve" is not superfluous, as the Apocalypse uses "apostle" in a more general sense (see below). [529] The phrasing of Mark iii. 14 (epoiesen dodeka hina osin met' autou kai hina apostelle autous kerussein kai echein exousian ekballein ta daimonia) corresponds to the original facts of the case. The mission (within Israel) was one object of their election from the very first; see, further, the saying upon "fishers of men" (Mark i. 17).--In this connection we must also note those passages in the gospel where apostellein is used, i.e., where it is applied by Jesus to his own commissions and to the disciples whom he commissions (particularly John xx. 21, kathos apestalken me ho pater, kago pempo humas). [530] From the absence of the term "twelve" in Paul, one might infer (despite the gospels) that it did not arise till later; 1 Cor. xv. 5, however, proves the reverse. [531] See the opening of all the Pauline epistles, except 1 and 2 Thess., Philippians and Philemon; also Rom. i. 5, xi. 13, 1 Cor. iv. 9, ix. 1 f., xv. 9 f., 2 Cor. xii. 12, Gal. i. 17 (ii. 8). It may be doubted whether, in 1 Cor. iv. 9 (doko, ho theos hemas tous apostolous eschatous apedeixen hos epithanatious), is to be taken as an attribute of eschatous or as a predicative. I prefer the former construction (see 1 Cor. xv. 8 f.), and it seems to me therefore probable that the first person plural here is an epistolary plural. [532] Gal. i. 1 f., Rom. i. 5 elabomen charin kai apostolen). It is hard to say whether elabomen is a real plural, and, if so, what apostles are here associated with Paul. [533] 1 Cor. ix. 1, 2, xv. 9 f., 2 Cor. xii. 12, Gal. i. 2. [534] 1 Cor. ix. 4 f. and Gal. ii. 9 prove that Barnabas was an apostle, whilst 1 Thess. ii. 7 makes it very probable that Silvanus was one also. In the greetings of the Thessalonian and Philippian epistles Paul does not call himself an apostle, since he is associating himself with Timothy, who is never given this title (1 Thess. ii. 7 need not be taken as referring to him). It is therefore quite correct to ascribe to him (as in 2 Tim. iv. 5) the work of an evangelist. Apollos, too [see p. 79], is never called an apostle. As for euangelistes, it is to be noted that, apart from 2 Timothy, it occurs twice in the New Testament; namely, in the We-journal in Acts (xxi. 8, as a title of Philip, one of the seven), and in Ephes. iv. 11, where the reason for evangelists being mentioned side by side with apostles is that the epistle is addressed to churches which had been founded by nonapostolic missionaries, and not by Paul himself--just as the term hoi akousantes (sc. ton kurion) is substituted for "apostles" in Heb. ii. 3, because the readers for whom the epistle was originally designed had not received their Christianity from apostles. [535] Rom. xvi. 7 (episemoi en tois apostolois, ohi kai pro emou gegonan en Christo); en is probably (with Lightfoot, as against Zahn) to be translated "among" rather than "by," since the latter would render the additional phrase rather superfluous and leave the precise scope of apostoloi unintelligible. If en means "by," this passage is to be correlated with those which use hoi apostoloi for the original apostles, since in the present case this gives the simplest meaning to the words. At any rate, the ohi refers to Andronicus and Junias, not to apostolois. [536] 1 Cor. xii. 28 f.; Eph. iv. 2. Even Eph. ii. 20 and iii. 5 could not be understood to refer exclusively to the so-called "original apostles," otherwise Paul would simply be disavowing his own position. [537] It cannot be proved--at least not with any great degree of probability from 1 Cor. ix. 1 that one must have seen the Lord in order to be able to come forward as an apostle. The four statements are an ascending series (ouk eimi eleutheros; ouk eimi apostolos; ouchi Iesoun ton kurion hemon heoraka; ou to ergon mou humeis este en kurio), as is proved by the relation of the second to the first. It is clear that the third and fourth statements are meant to attest the second, but it is doubtful if they contain an attestation which is absolutely necessary. [538] Cp. Origen, Hom. in Num., xxvii. 11 (vol. x. p. 353, ed. Lommatzsch): "In quo apostolus ostendit [sc. 1 Cor. xv. 7) esse et alios apostolos exceptis illis duodecim." [539] 1 Cor. ix. 2 and Gal. ii. (a Jewish and a Gentile apostolate); cp. also Rom. xi. 13, ethnon apostolos. Peter (Gal. ii. 8) has the apostole t. peritomes. Viewed ideally, there is only one apostolate, since there is only one church; but the concrete duties of the apostles vary. [540] The apostolate is the highest rank (1 Cor. xii. 28); it follows that the main thing even about the twelve is the fact of their being apostles. [541] Apart from 1 Cor. xv. 7 (cp. verse 5), where the twelve appear as the original nucleus of the apostles; probably also apart from Rom. xvi. 7 (cp. p. 321, note) and i. 5. [542] Luke viii. 1, ix. 1, 12, xviii. 31, xxii. 3, 47; Acts vi. 2. Only once, then, are they called by this title in Acts, and that in a place where Luke seems to me to be following a special source. [543] Luke xxiv. 9, 33 (cp. Acts ii. 14, Petros sun tois hendeka). [544] Acts i. 2, ii. 37,42-43, 42-43, iv. 33, 35, 36, 37, 5.2, 12, 18, 29, 40, vi. 6, viii. 1, xiv. 18, ix. 27, xi. 1, xv. 2, 4, 6, 22, 23, xvi. 4. In the later chapters "apostle" no longer occurs at all. Once we find the expression of hoi hendeka apostoloi (Acts i. 26). [545] Luke ix. 10, xvii. 5, xxii. 14, xxiv. 10. The gospel of Peter is more cautious; it speaks of mathetai (30), or of hoi dodeka mathetai (59), but never of apostoloi. Similarly, the apocalypse of Peter (5) writes, it hemeis hoi dodeka mathetai. [546] With both Paul (see above) and Luke, then, the apostolic dignity of Barnabas is well established.--In regard to the Seventy disciples Luke does speak of an apostellein and calls them "seventy other" apostles, in allusion to the twelve. Yet he does not call them explicitly apostles. Irenæus (II. xxi. 1), Tertullian (adv. Marc., iv. 24), Origen (on Rom. xvi. 7), and other writers, however, describe them as apostles, and people who were conjectured to have belonged to the Seventy were also named apostles by a later age. [547] The apostle to be elected must have companied with Jesus from the date of John's baptism until the ascension; he must also have been a witness of the resurrection (cp. also Luke xiv. 48, Acts i. 8). (Paul simply requires an apostle to have "seen" the Lord.) This conception of the apostolate gradually displaced the original conception entirely, although Paul still retained his apostolic dignity as an exception to the rule. [548] Cp. (above) Paul's judgment on the false apostles. [549] Euphrainou ourane kai hoi hagioi kai hoi apostoloi kai hoi prophetai. For the collocation of the Old Testament prophets, cp. also Luke xi. 49, 2 Pet. iii. 2. But in our passage, as in Eph. iii. 20, iii. 5, iv. 11, the writer very possibly means Christian prophets. [550] Of hoi rhantizontes paides hoi euangelisamenoi hemin ten aphesin hamartion kai ton hannismon tes kardias, hois edoken tou euangeliou ten exousian--ousin dekaduo eis marturion ton phulon, hoti dekaduo phulai tou Israel--eis to kerussein. ("The children who sprinkle are those who preached to us the gospel of the forgiveness of sins and purification of heart; those whom he empowered to preach the gospel, being twelve in number for a testimony to the tribes--since there are twelve tribes in Israel"). [551] As v. 9 shows, this is merely accidental. [552] See von Dobschütz in Texte u. Unters., xi. 1. Jesus says in this Preaching Exelexamen humas dodeka mathetas krinas axious emou kai apostolous pistous hegesamenos einai, pempon epi ton kosmon euangelisasthai tous kata ten oikoumenen anthropous, k.t.l. ("I have chosen you twelve disciples, judging you to be worthy of me and esteeming you to be faithful apostles, sending you out into the world to preach the gospel to all its inhabitants," etc. ). [553] Ignatius disclaims apostolic dignity for himself, in several passages of his epistles; which nevertheless is a proof that there was a possibility of one who had not been an original apostle being none the less an apostle. This survey of the primitive usage of the word "apostle" [554] During the course of the second century it became more rare than ever to confer the title of "apostles" on any except the biblical apostles or persons mentioned as apostles in the Bible. But Clement of Rome is called an apostle by Clement of Alexandria (Strom., IV. xvii. 105), and Quadratus is once called by this name. [555] The very restricted use of the word in classical (Attic) Greek is well known (Herod., I. 21. v. 38; Hesychius: apostolos; strategos kata ploun pempomenos). In the LXX. the word occurs only in 1 Kings xiv. 6 (describing the prophet Abijah: Hebrew slvch). Justin has to fall back on apostellein in order to prove (Dial. lxxv.) that the prophets in the Old Testament were called apostoloi. Josephus calls Varus, the head of a Jewish deputation to Rome, apostolos auton (Antiq., xvii. 11. 1). The classical usage does not explain the Jewish-Christian. Hence it is probable that apostolos on Jewish soil retained the technical sense of "messenger." [556] If Judaism had never known apostles, would Paul have spoken of "apostles" in 2 Cor. viii. 23 and Phil. ii. 25? [557] The passages have been printed above, on pp. 57 f.; cheirontonesantes denotes the apostolate (cp. Acts xiii. 3). [558] For this intercommunication see, e.g., Acts, xxviii. 21: oute grammata peri sou edexametha apo tes Ioudaias (say the Roman Jews, with regard to Paul) oute paragenomenos tis ton adelphon apengeilen. A cognate reference is that of 2 Cor. iii. 1, to epistolai sustatikai. [559] The allusion is to Isa. xviii. 1-2, where the LXX. reads: ouai . . . . ho apostellon en thalasse homera kai epistolas bublinas epano tou hudatos, while Symmachus has not homera but apostolous Eusebius therefore refers this passage to the false "apostles" of Judaism, and the words poreusontai gar angeloi kouphoi, k.t.l., to the true apostles. [560] "He belonged to the order of their distinguished men. These consist of men called apostles'; they rank next to the patriarch, with whom they are associated and with whom they often spend whole nights and days taking counsel together and consulting him on matters concerning the law." [561] Up till now only one inscription has been discovered which mentions these apostles, viz., the epitaph of a girl of fourteen at Venosa: "Quei dixerunt trenus duo apostuli et duo rebbites" (Hirschfeld, Bullett. dell Instil. di corrisp. archaeol., 1867, p. 152). [562] Was not Paul himself, in his pre-Christian days [cp. p. 59], a Jewish "apostle"? He bore letters which were directed against Christians in the Diaspora, and had assigned to him by the highpriests and Sanhedrin certain disciplinary powers (see Acts viii. 2, xxii. 4 f., xxvi. 10 f., statements which deserve careful attention). [563] We do not know whether there were also "apostles" among the disciples of John--that narrow circle of the Baptist which, as the gospels narrate, was held together by means of fasting and special prayers; we merely know that adherents of this circle existed in the Diaspora (at Alexandria: Acts xviii. 24 f., and Ephesus: Acts xix. 1 f.). Apollos (see above, p. 79) would appear to have been originally a regular missionary of John the Baptist's movement; but the whole narrative of Acts at this point is singularly coloured and obscure. [564] Cp. Josephus' Wars, i. 3. 5, ii., 7. 3, 8. 12; Antiq. xiii. 11. 2, xv. 10. 5, xvii. 3. 3. [565] Acts xxi. 38; Joseph., Antiq., xx. 8. 6; Wars, ii. 13. 5. [566] Wars, iii. 8. 9; cp. Suet., Vespas., v., and Dio Cass., lxvi. 1. [567] Cp. Hadrian, Ep. ad Servian. (Vopisc., Saturn., viii.).--One cannot, of course, cite the gospel of pseudo-Matthew, ch. xiii. ("et prophetae qui fuerant in Jerusalem dicebant hanc stellam indicare nativitatem Christi"), since the passage is merely a late paraphrase of the genuine Matthew. [568] Only it is quite true that the Sadducees would have nothing to do with prophets, and that a section of the strict upholders of the law would no longer hear of anything ranking beside the law. It stands to reason also that the priests and their party did not approve of prophets. After the completion of the canon there must have been a semi-official doctrine to the effect that the prophets were complete (cp. Ps. lxxiv. 9: ta semeia hemon ouk eidomen, ouk estin eti prophetes, kai hemas ou gnosetai eti, also 1 Macc. iv. 46, ix. 27, xiv. 41), and this conviction passed over into the church (cp. Murator. Fragm., "completo numero"); the book of Daniel was no longer placed among the prophets, and the later apocalypses were no longer admitted at all into the canon. Josephus is undoubtedly echoing a widely spread opinion when he maintains that the "succession of the prophets" is at an end (Apion., i. 8; cp. also Euseb., H.E., iii., 10. 4: "From the time of Artaxerxes to our own day all the events have been recorded, but they do not merit the same confidence as we repose in the events that preceded them, since there has not been during this time an exact succession of prophets"--apo de Artaxerxou mechri tou kath' hemas chronou gegraptai men hekasta, pisteos d' ouch homoias hexiotai tois pro auton, dia to me genesthai ten ton propheton akribe diadochen). Julian, c. Christ., 198 C: to par Hebraiois [prophetikon pneuma] epelipen ("the prophetic spirit failed among the Hebrews"). But although the line of the "canonical" prophets had been broken off before the appearance of Jesus, prophecy need not therefore have been extinguished. [569] The saying of Jesus, that all the prophets and the law prophesied until John (Matt. xi. 13), is very remarkable (see below); he appears to have been thinking of the cessation of prophecy, probably owing to the nearness of the end. But the word also admits of an interpretation which does not contemplate the cessation of prophecy. [570] Schürer, Gesch. d. jüd. Volkes, II.3 pp. 317 f. (Eng. trans., II. i. 317). [571] In what follows I have drawn upon the section in my larger edition of the Didachê (1884), which occupies pp. 93 f. [572] Compare the esteem above mentioned in which the Jews held their teachers. Barnabas (xix. 9-10), in a passage parallel to that of the Didachê, writes: agapeseis hos koren tou ophthalmou sou panta ton lalounta soi ton logon kuriou, mnesthese hemeran kriseos nuktos kai hemeras ("Thou shalt love as the apple of thine eye everyone who speaks to thee the word of the Lord; night and day shalt thou remember the day of judgment"). [573] The author of Hebrews also depicts the hegoumenoi more closely, thus: hoitines elalesan humin ton logon tou theou (xiii. 7). The expression hegoumenoi or proegoumenoi (see also Heb. xiii. 17), which had a special vogue in the Roman church, although it is not unexampled elsewhere, did not become a technical expression in the primitive age; consequently it is often impossible to ascertain in any given case who are meant by it, whether bishops or teachers. [574] According to chap. xv., bishops and deacons belong to the second class, in so far as they take the place of prophets and teachers in the work of edifying the church by means of oral instruction. [575] The despatch of these two men appears to be entirely the work of the holy Spirit. Aphorisate de moi ton Barnaban kai Saulon eis to ergon ho proskeklemai autous, says the Spirit. The envoys thus act simply as executive organs of the Spirit. [576] In the epistles to Timothy, Timothy is represented as an "evangelist," i.e., as an apostle of the second class, but he is also the holder of a charismatic office. Consequently, just as in Acts xiii., we find in I. i. 18 these words: tauten ten parangelian paratithemai soi, teknon Timothee, kata tas proagousas epi se propheteias; and in iv. 14, the following: me amelei tou en soi charismatos, ho edothe soi dia propheteias [meta epitheseos ton cheiron tou presbuteriou]. [577] This may probably be inferred even from 1 Cor. xiv. 26, where didache follows apokalupsis, and it is made perfectly clear by Hermas who not only is in the habit of grouping apostoloi and didaskaloi, but also (Sim., ix. 25. 2) writes thus of the apostles and teachers: "They taught the word of God soberly and purely . . . . even as also they had received the holy Spirit" (didaxantes semnos kai hagnos ton logon tou theou . . . . kathos kai parelabon to pneuma to hagion). [578] On a temporary visit. One of them, Agabus, was permanently resident in Judæa about fifteen years later, but journeyed to meet Paul at Cæsarea in order to bring him a piece of prophetic information (Acts 21. 10 f.). [579] From the particles employed in the passage, it is probable that Barnabas, Simeon, and Lucius were the prophets, while Manäen and Saul were the teachers, One prophet and one teacher were thus despatched as apostles. As the older man, Barnabas at first took the lead (his prophetic gift may be gathered from the name assigned to him, "Barnabas" = huios parakleseos (Acts iv. 36); for in 1 Cor. xiv. 3 we read, ho propheteuon anthropois lalei paraklesin). [580] Observe that after enumerating apostles, prophets, and teachers, Paul does not proceed to give any further category of persons with charismatic gifts, but merely adds charismatic gifts themselves; note further that he gives no classification of these gifts, but simply arranges them in one series with a double epeita, whereas the apostles, prophets, and teachers are enumerated in order with proton, deuteron, and triton. The conclusion is that the apostolate, the prophetic office (not, speaking with tongues), and teaching were the only offices which made their occupants persons of rank in the church, whilst the dunameis, iamata, antilempseis, k.t.l., conferred no special standing on those who were gifted with such charismata. Hence with Paul, too, it is the preaching of God's word which constitutes a position in the ekklesia of God. This agrees exactly with the view of the author of the Didachê. [581] It does not follow that the "teachers" are to be considered identical with the "pastors," because tous de does not immediately precede didaskalous. The inference is merely that Paul or the author took both as comprising a single group. [582] I have already tried (p. 321) to explain exactly why evangelists are mentioned in Ephesians. [583] In Sim. ix. 15. 4a Old Testament prophets are meant. [584] Cp. Sim., ix. 15, 4b: hoi de m apostoloi kai didaskaloi tou kerugmatos tou huiou tou theou ("the forty are apostles and teachers of the preaching of the Son of God"); 16. 5: hoi apostoloi kai hoi didaskaloi hoi keruxantes to onoma tou huiou tou theou (" the apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God "); 25. 2: apostoloi kai didaskaloi hoi keruxantes eis holon ton kosmon kai hoi didaxantes semnos kai hagnos ton logon tou kuriou ("apostles and teachers who preached to all the world, and taught soberly and purely the word of the Lord "). Vis., III. v. 1. (see below) is also relevant in this connection. Elsewhere the collocation of apostolos, didaskalos occurs only in the Pastoral epistles (1 Tim. ii. 7, 2 Tim. i. 2); but these passages prove nothing, as Paul either is or is meant to be the speaker. [585] Lietzmann (Götting. Gelehrte Anz., 1905, vi. p. 486) proposes another explanation: "Apostles and teachers belong to the past generation for Hermas; he recognises a prophetic office also, but only in the Old Testament (Sim., ix. 15. 4). He does occupy himself largely with the activities of the true prophet, and feels he is one himself; but he conceives this propheteuein as a private activity which God's equipment renders possible, but which lacks any official character. So with his censor in the Muratorian Fragment." Perhaps this is the right explanation of the difficulty. But can Hermas have really estimated the prophets like the Muratorian Fragmentist? [586] Hermas, like the author of the Didachê, knows nothing about "evangelists" as distinguished from "apostles"; he, too, uses the term "apostle" in its wider sense (see above, p. 326). [587] In conformity with the standpoint implied in the parable, the order is reversed in chapters xxvi.-xxvii.; for the proper order, see Vis., III. v. 1. [588] "The squared white stones that fit together in their joints, are the apostles and bishops and teachers and deacons who walked after the holiness of God and acted as bishops, teachers, and deacons, purely and soberly for the elect of God. Some have already fallen asleep, and others are still living." [589] It is to be observed, moreover, that Sim. ix. speaks of apostles and teachers as of a bygone generation, whilst Vis. iii. declares that one section of the whole group have already fallen asleep, while the rest are still alive. We cannot, however, go into any further detail upon the important conceptions of Hermas. [590] So, too, the author of Hebrews. Compare also 1 Pet. iv. 11: ei tis lalei, hos logia theou· ei tis diakonei, hos ex ischuos hes choregei ho theos [a passage which illustrates the narrative in Acts vi.]. [591] This period, of course, was past and gone, when one of the charges levelled at the Montanist Themison was that he had written a catholic epistle and thus invaded the prerogative of the original apostles: see Apollonius (in Euseb., H.E., v. 18. 5)--Themison etolmese, mimoumenos ton apostolon, katholiken tina suntaxamenos epistolen katechein tous ameinon autou pepisteukotas ("Themison ventured, in imitation of the apostles, to compose a catholic epistle for the instruction of people whose faith was better than his own"). [592] I shall at this point put together the sources which prove the threefold group. (1) The lalountes ton logon tou theou (and they alone at first, it would appear; i.e., apostles, prophets, and teachers) are the hegoumenoi or tetimemenoi in the churches; this follows from (a) Did., iv. 1, xi. 3 f., xiii., xv. 1-2, when taken together; also (b) from Heb. xiii. 7, 17, 24, where the hegoumenoi are expressly described as lalountes ton logon tou theou probably (c) from Clem. Rom., i. 3, xxi. 6; (d) from Acts xv. 22, 32, where the same persons are called hegoumenoi and then prophetai and (e) from the "Shepherd" of Hermas. (2) Apostles, prophets, and teachers: cp. Paul (1 Cor. xii. 28 f., where he tacks on dunameis, charismata iamaton, antilempseis, kuberneseis, gene glosson. When the fathers allude to this passage during later centuries, they do so as if the threefold group still held its own, oblivious often of the presence of the hierarchy. Novatian, after speaking of the apostles who had been comforted by the Paraclete, proceeds (de Trinit., xxix.): "Hic est qui prophetas in ecclesia constituit, magistro erudit" ("This is he who places prophets in the church and instructs teachers "). Cyril of Jerusalem (Catech., xviii. 27) will recognize no officials as essential to the church, not even bishops, except the persons mentioned in the above passage. Ambrose (Hexaëm, iii. 12, 50) writes: "God has girt the vine as it were with a trench of heavenly precepts and the custody of angels; . . . . he has set in the church as it were a tower of apostles, prophets, and teachers, who are wont to safeguard the peace of the church" ("Circumdedit enim vineam velut vallo quodam caelestium praeceptorum et angelorum custodia . . . . posuit in ecclesia velut turrim apostolorum et prophetarum atque doctorum, qui solent pro ecclesiae pace praetendere"; see in Ps. cxviii., Sermo xxii., ch. 15). Vincent of Lerin (Commonit. 37, 38) speaks of false apostles, false prophets, false teachers; in ch. 40, where one expects to hear of bishops, only apostles and prophets and teachers are mentioned. Paulinus of Nola (Opera, ed. Hartel, i. p. 411 f.) addressed an inquiry to Augustine upon apostles, prophets and teachers, evangelists and pastors. He remarks very significantly: "In omnibus his diversis nominibus simile et prope unum doctrinae officium video fruisse tractatum" ("Under all these different names I see that a like and almost identical order of doctrine has been preserved"), and rightly assumes that the prophets cannot be those of the Old Testament, but must be Christian prophets. (3) Prophets and teachers, who select apostles from their number (Acts xiii. 1). (4) Apostles, prophets, and teachers: the Didachê (adding bishops and deacons). (5) Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers: Ephes. iv. 11.. (6) Apostles and teachers (prophets being purposely omitted), with bishops and deacons in addition: Hermas, Sim., 9. (7) Apostles (prophets), bishops, teachers, deacons: Hermas, Vis., iii. (8) Apostles, teachers, prophets: Clem. Hom., xi. 35, memnesthe apostolon e didaskalon e propheten. (9) Apostles and prophets (the close connection of the two follows at an early period from Matt. x. 41): Rev. xviii. 20 (ii. 2, 20), Ephes. ii. 20, iii. 5, Did., xi. 3. (According to Irenæus, III. ii. 4, John the Baptist was at once a prophet and an apostle: "et prophetae et apostoli locum habuit"; according to Hippolytus, de Antichr., 50, John the disciple was at once an apostle and prophet.) So the opponent of the Alogi, in Epiph., Hær., 51. 35, etc.; cp. Didasc., de Charism. [Lagarde, Reliq., pp. 4, 19 f.]: hoi prophetai eph' hemon propheteusantes ou parexeteinan heautous tois apostolois ("our prophets did not measure themselves with the apostles"). (10)Prophets and teachers: Acts xiii. 1 (2 Pet. ii. 1), Did., xiii. 1-2, xiv. 1-2, Pseudo-Clem., de Virg., I. 11: "Ne multi inter vos sint doctores neque omnes sitis prophetae" (loc. cit., logos didaches e propheteias e diakonias). In the later literature, the combination (false prophets and false teachers) still occurs frequently; see, e.g., Orig., Hom. ii. in Ezek. (Lommatzsch, xiv. pp. 33, 37), and Vincent of Lerin., loc. cit., xv. 23. In the pseudo-Clementine Homilies Jesus himself is called "our teacher and prophet." (11) Apostles and teachers (Hermas): 1 Tim. ii. 7, 2 Tim. i. 11, Clem., Strom., vii. 16. 103: hoi makarioi apostoloi te kai didaskaloi, Eclog. 23. (12) Polycarp is described in the epistle of his church (xvi. 2) as en tois kath' hemas chronois didaskalos apostolikos kai prophetikos, genomenos episkopos tes en Smurne katholikes ekklesias (cp. Acta Pion. 1: apostolikos aner ton kath' hemas genomenos). Here the ancient and honorable predicates are conjoined and applied to a "bishop." But it is plain that there was something wholly exceptional in an apostolic and prophetic teacher surviving "in our time." The way in which Eusebius speaks is very noticeable (Mart. Pal., xi. 1): of one group of twelve martyrs he says, they partook of prophetikou tinos e kai apostolikou charismatos kai arithmou (a prophetic or apostolic grace and number). (13) Alexander the Phrygian is thus described in the epistle from Lyons (Eus., H.E., v. 1. 49): gnostos schedon pasi dia ten pros theon agapen kai parresian tou logou; en gar kai ouk amoiros apostolikou charismatos ("Well known to all on account of his love to God and boldness of speech--for he was not without a share of apostolic grace"). An admirable proof that the prophets were bestowed on the church as a whole, instead of on any individual congregation (that it was so with the apostles, goes without saying), is furnished by Valentinian circles (Excerpta ex Theodot., 24): "The Valentinians declare that the Spirit possessed by each individual of the prophets for service is poured out on all members of the church; wherefore the tokens of the Spirit, i.e., healing and prophecy, are performed by the church" (legousin hoi Oualentinianoi hoti ho kata heis ton propheton eschen pneuma exaireton eis diakonian, touto epi pantas tous tes ekklesias exechuthe; dio kai ta semeia tou pneumatos iaseis kai propheteiai dia tes ekklesias epitelountai). Compare the claims of the Montanist prophets and the history of the "Shepherd" of Hermas in the church. The passage from the Eclogues of Clement, referred to under (11), reads as follows: hosper dia tou somatos ho soter elalei kai iato, houtos kai proteron "dia ton propheton," nun de "dia ton apostolon kai didaskalon" . . . . kai pantote anthroton ho philanthropos enduetai theos eis ten anthropon soterian, proteron men tous prophetas, nun de ten ekklesian ("Even as the Saviour spake and healed through his body, so did he formerly by the prophets and so does he now by the apostles and teachers Everywhere the God who loves men equips man to save men, formerly the prophets and now the church"). This passage is very instructive; but, as is evident, the old threefold group is already broken up, the prophets being merely admitted and recognized as Old Testament prophets. I leave it an open question whether the pneumatikoi of Origen (de Orat., xxviii.) are connected with our group of teachers. The taxis propheton marturon te kai apostolon (Hipp., de Antichr., 59) is irrelevant in this connection. [593] I would point, not to the words of Matt. xi. 13 (pantes gar hoi prophetai kai ho nomos heos Ioannou epropheteusan), since that saying perhaps (see p. 333) covers a new type of prophets, but certainly to the situation in which Matt. x. 40 f. is uttered; the latter seems to presuppose the commencement and prosecution of missionary labours. [594] "Let every apostle who comes to you be received as the Lord. But he shall not remain more than one day, or, if need be, two; if he remains for three days, he is a false prophet. And on his departure let the apostle receive nothing but bread, till he finds shelter; if he asks for money, he is a false prophet" Pas ho apostolos erchomenos pros humas dechtheto hos kurios; ou menei de ei me hemeran mian; ean de e chreia, kai ten allen; treis de ean meine, pseudoprophetes estin; exerchomenos de ho apostolos meden lambaneto ei me arton heos hou aulisthe; ean de argurion aite, pseudoprophetes estin xi. 4-6). [595] Lietzmann (loc. cit., p. 486) objects that the words could not mean what apostles and prophets had to do, but simply how the community was to treat them. We are to think of passages like Matt. x. 40 f. But this view seems to me excluded by what follows (4 f.) in Did. xi. Here there is certainly an injunction to the community, but the latter is to make the dogma the norm for its treatment of these officials, the dogma laid down in the gospel; and this is to be found in Mark vi. (and parallels). [596] The word "evangelist" occurs in Ephes. iv. 2, Acts xxi. 8, 2 Tim. iv. 5, and then in the Apost. Canons (ch. 19). Then it recurs in Tertull., de Præscr., iv., and, de Corona, ix. (Hippol., de Antichr., 56, calls Luke apostle and evangelist). This proves that any distinction between apostles and evangelists was rarely drawn in the early ages of the church; on the contrary, the apostles themselves were frequently described as hoi euangelisamenoi (cp. Gal. i. 8, Clem. Rom., xliii. 1, and Polyc., Epist. vi. 3; in Barn. viii. 3 the twelve indeed, without the designation of "apostles," are thus described). Eusebius calls the evangelists the imitators of the apostles, but in the earliest period they were held by most people simply to be apostles. [597] 7Apostles have merely to preach the word; that is literally their one occupation. This conception, which Acts vi. 6 already illustrates, lasted as long as the era of the actual apostles was remembered. The Abgar-source, transcribed by Eusebius (H.E., i. 13), also confirms the idea that no apostle was to receive any money, and makes one notable addition to the duties of the apostolate. When Thaddæus was summoned to preach God's word to a small group, he remarked "I shall say nothing in the meantime, for I am sent to preach the word of God (keruxai) publicly. But assemble all thy citizens in the morning, and I will preach to them." [598] It is, of course, merely by way of sarcasm that Cyprian speaks of Novatian's apostles (Ep. lv. 24). [599] Naturally, Eusebius thus comes into conflict with his own conception of the situation; compare ii. 3, iii. 1-4, and iii. 37. [600] The idea of collective statements made by the apostles occurs as early as the Didachê (cp. its title), Jude and 2 Peter, and Justin (Apol., i. 62). [601] Cp. Tert., de Carne, ii.: "Apostolorum erat tradere." The idea of the apostolic tradition is primitive and not destitute of an historical germ; it was first of all in Rome, and certainly under the influence of the genius of the city and the empire, that this idea was condensed and applied to the conception and theory of a tradition which transmitted itself through an apostolic succession. Afterwards this theory became the common possession of Christianity and constituted the idea of "catholicity." Origen (cp. de Princ., iv. 9) defends it as confidently as Tertullian ("Regula et disciplina quam ab Jesu Christo traditam sibi apostoli per successionem posteris quoque suis sanctam ecclesiam docentibus tradiderunt"). [602] Details in my Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte, I.(3) pp. 153-156 [Eng. trans., i. pp. 160 f.); I shall return to the legends of the mission in Book IV. Chap. I., but without attempting to exhaust the endless materials; all I shall do is to touch upon them. The most extreme and eccentric allusion to the importance of the twelve apostles occurs in the Pistis Sophia, ch. 7 (Schmidt, p. 7), where Jesus says to the twelve: "Be glad and rejoice, for when I set about making the world, I was in command of twelve powers from the very first (as I have told you from the beginning), which I had taken from the twelve saviours (soteres) of the treasure of light according to the commandment of the first mystery. These, then, I deposited in the womb of your mother, while I entered the world--these that live now in your bodies. For these powers were given to you in the sight of all the world, since ye are to be the deliverers of the world, that ye may be able to endure . . . . the threats of the archons of the world, and the sufferings of the world, your perils and all your persecutions." Compare ch. 8 (p. 9): "Be glad then and rejoice, for ye are blessed above all men on earth, since it is ye who are to be the deliverers of the world." In Clement's Eclogues (c. 16) also the apostles are usually called soteres ton anthropon ("saviours of men"). Origen calls them "kings" (Hom. xii. 2, in Num., vol. x. pp. 132 f. ), and he does not reject the interpretation (de Princ., ii. 8. 5) of the saying "My soul is sorrowful even unto death" which made Jesus think of the apostles as his soul; The "multitudo credentium" are the body of Christ, the apostles are his soul! [603] It is worth noting that, according to the early Christian idea, the Mosaic law also had spread over the whole world. In their world-wide preaching, the apostles therefore came upon the results produced by that law (see, for example, the statements of Eusebius in the first book of his church-history). [604] Cp. Hom. xi. 4, in Num., vol. x. p. 113: "Sicut in aliqua, verbi gratia, civitate, ubi nondum Christiani nati sunt, si accedat aliquis et docere incipiat, laboret, instruat, adducat ad fidem, et ipse postmodam its quos docuit princeps et episcopus fiat." [605] In the Gentile church they were steadily differentiated from the seers or panteis (cp. Hermas, Mand., xi.; Iren. Fragm., 23 [ed. Harvey]: houtos ouketi hos prophetes all' hos mantis logisthesetai. Still, the characteristics are not always distinctive or distinct. The faculty of prediction (" aliquid praenuntiare"), e.g., belongs to the prophet as well as to the seer, according to Tertullian (de Carne, ii.). [606] Tertullian (de Præscr., iii.) no longer reckons them as a special class: "Quid ergo, si episcopus, si diaconus, si vidua, si virgo, si doctor, si etiam martyr lapsus a regula fuerit?" ("What if a bishop, a deacon, a widow, a virgin, a teacher, or even a martyr, have fallen away from the rule of faith?"). In a very ancient Christian fragment discovered by Grenfell and Hunt (The Oxyrhynchus Papyri, I., 1898, No. 5, pp. 8 f.; ep. Sitzungsber. der Preuss. Akad., 1898, pp. 516 f.) these words occur: to prophetikon pneuma to somateion estin tes prophetikes taxeos, ho estin to soma tes sarkos Iesou Christou to migen te anthropoteti dia Marias. The fragment perhaps belongs to Melito's last treatise peri propheteias, but unfortunately it is so short and abrupt that no certain opinion is possible. For the expression he prophetike taxis, Cp. Serapion of Antioch's Ep. ad Caricum et Pontium (Eus., H.E., v. 19. 2): he energeia tes pseudous tautes taxeos tes epilegomenes neas propheteias. The expression must have been common about 200 A.D. [607] Cp. Firmilian in Cyprian's Epist. lxxv. 10. [608] From the Coptic version of the Acta Pauli (Paul's correspondence with the Corinthian church) we find that the prophet of the Corinthian church who is mentioned there was not a man but a woman (named Theonoe, not Theonas). Another prophetess, called Myrte, occurs in these Acts. Origen writes (Hom. v. 2, in Judic., vol. xi. p. 250): "Though many judges in Israel are said to have been men, none is mentioned as a prophet save Deborah. This very fact affords great comfort to the female sex, and incites them not to despair by any means of being capable of prophetic grace, despite the weakness of their sex; they are to understand and believe that purity of mind, not difference of sex, wins this grace" (Cum plurimi iudices viri in Israel fuisse referuntur, de nullo eorum dicitur quia propheta fuerit, nisi de Debbora muliere. praestat et in hoc non minimam consolationem mulierum sexui etiam prima ipsius literae facies, et provocat eas, ut nequaquam pro infirmitate sexus desperent, etiam prophetiae gratiae capaces se fieri posse, sed intelligant et credant quod meretur hanc gratiam puritas mentis non diversitas sexus). [609] As impostors mingled here and there with the prophets, no sharp distinction can have existed. Celsus (Orig., c. Cels. VII., ix., xi.) gives an extremely interesting description of the prophets, as follows: "There are many who, though they are people of no vocation, with the utmost readiness, and on the slightest occasion, both within and without the sacred shrines, behave as if they were seized by the prophetic ecstasy. Others, roaming like tramps throughout cities and camps, perform in the same fashion in order to excite notice. Each is wont to cry, each is glib at proclaiming, I am God,' I am the Son of God' (pais theou), or I am the Spirit of God,' I have come because the world is on the verge of ruin, and because you, O men, are perishing in your iniquities. But I would save you, and ye shall see me soon return with heavenly power! Blessed is he who now honors me! All others I will commit to everlasting fire, cities and lands and their inhabitants. Those who will not now awake to the punishments awaiting them, shall repent and groan in vain one day. But those who believe in me, I will preserve eternally. . . . .' These mighty threats are further mixed up with weird, half-crazy, and perfectly senseless words, in which no rational soul can discover any meaning, so obscure and unintelligible they are. Yet the first comer who is an idiot or an impostor can interpret them to suit his own fancy! . . . . These so-called prophets, whom more than once I have heard with my own ears, confessed their foibles to me, after I had exposed them, and acknowledged that they had themselves invented their incomprehensible jargon." [610] When Origen, in the story told by Eusebius (H.E., vi. 3), carried out the gospel saying, not to have two staves, etc., it was a voluntary resolve upon his part. Shortly before that, we are told how he purchased an annuity by selling his books, in order to free himself from all care about a livelihood. [611] On the other hand, in ix. 9 he writes: oiden ho ten emphuton dorean tes didaches autou themenos en hemin ("He knoweth, who hath placed in you the innate gift of his teaching"). [612] Note diatassomai in this passage, the term used by Ignatius of the apostles (Trall., iii. 3, Rom., iv. 3; cp. Trall., vii. 1, ta diatagmata ton apostolon). [613] See further, Commodian, Instruct., ii. 22. 15: "Non sum ego doctor, sed lex docet"; ii. 16. 1: "Si quidem doctores, dum exspectant munera vestra aut timent personas, laxant singula vobis; et ego non doceo." [614] Didaskaloi hoi didaxantes semnos kai hagnos ton logon tou kuriou . . . . kathos kai parelabon to pneuma to hagion. [615] Cp. Did., xi. 10: prophetes, ei ha didaskei ou poiei, pseudoprphetes esti ("If a prophet does not practise what he teaches, he is a false prophet"). [616] Justin's are best known from the Acta Justini. He stands with his scholars before the judge Rusticus, who inquires, "Where do you meet?" Justin at first gives an evasive answer; his aim is to avoid any suggestion of the misleading idea that the Christians had a sacred spot for worship. Then, in reply to the urgent demand, "Where dost thou assemble thy scholars?" he declares: ego epano meno tinos Martinou tou Timotinou balaneiou, kai para panta ton chronon touton--epedemesa de te Rhomaion polei touto deuteron--ou ginosko allen tina suneleusin ei me ten ekeinou ("I stay above a certain Martinus at the Timotinian bath, and during all the time--for this is my second visit to Rome--I know of no other meeting-place but this"). Justin had also a school at Ephesus. [617] On Tatian's school, which became sectarian, see Iren., i. 28: oiemati didas. kalou epartheis . . . . idion charaktera didaskaleiou sunestesato. Tatian came from Justin's school. [618] For Rhodon, see Eus., H.E., v. 13 (he came from Tatian's school); for the Theodoti, whose school became sectarian and then attempted to transform itself into a church, see Eus., H.E., v. 28. Praxeas, who propagated his doctrine in Asia, Rome, and Carthage, is called a "doctor" by Tertullian; cp. also the schools of Epigonus, Cleomenes, and Sabellius, in Rome. [619] Cp. Eus., H.E., v. 10: hegeito en Alexandreia tes ton piston autothi diatribes ton apo paideias aner epidoxotatos, onoma auto Pantainos, ex archaiou ethous didaskaleiou ton hieron logon par autois sunestotos ("The school of the faithful in Alexandria was under the charge of a man greatly distinguished for his learning; his name was Pantunus. A school of sacred letters has been in existence there from early days, and still survives"). Jerome (Vir. Illust., 36) remarks: "Alexandriae Marco evangelista instituente semper ecclesiastici fuere doctores" ("There have always been ecclesiastical teachers instituted by Mark the evangelist at Alexandria"); Clem., Strom., I. i. 2. [620] Hermas boasts that the good teachers (Sim., ix. 25. 2) "kept nothing at all back for evil intent--meden holos enosphisanto eis epithumian poneran on such teachers as introduced didachai xenai (strange doctrines), however, see Sim., ix. 19. 2-3, viii. 6. 5; Vis., iii. 7. 1. It is noticeable that in the famous despatch of Constantine to Alexandria, which was intended to quiet the Arian controversy, the emperor holds up the practice of the philosophic schools as an example to the disputants (Eus., Vita Const., ii. 71); still, he does so in a way that shows plainly that nothing lay farther from him than any idea of the church as a philosophic school: hina mikro paradeigmati ten humeteran sunesin hupomnesaimi, iste depou kai tous philosophous autous hos heni men hapantes dogmati suntithentai, pollakis de epeidan ei tini ton apophaseon merei diaphonosin, ei kai te tes epistemes arete chorizontai, te mentoi tou dogmatos henosei palin eis allelous sumpneousin ("Let me recall to your minds a slight example of what I mean. You know, of course, that while the philosophers all agree in one principle, they often differ in details of their argument. Yet, for all their disagreement upon the virtue of knowledge, the unity of their principles seems to reconcile them once more"). The distinction drawn between it he chorizousa tes epistemes arete and he tou dogmatos henosis is interesting. [621] The Theodotian church at Rome was dubbed a school by its opponents (cp. Euseb., H.E., v. 28); Hippolytus inveighs against the church of Callistus, his opponent, as a didaskaleion (Philos., ix. 12, p. 458. 9; p. 462. 42); and Rhodon similarly mentions a Marcionite didaskaleion (Eus., H.E., v. 13. 4). [622] Cp. the Pauline epistles, Hebrews, Barnabas, etc., also Did. xi. 2. : didaskein eis to prostheinai dikaosunen kai gnosin kuriou ("Teach to the increase of righteousness and the knowledge of the Lord "). [623] Cp. Bonwetsch's remarks on Melito (Festschrift f. Oettingen, 1898, p. 51) "The teachers still occupy a prominent position in the church, alongside of the bishop. Together with him, they constitute the fixed order of the church. The same monition applies to both, that they nourish themselves on sacred knowledge and be heavenly minded. Teachers are also described as experts in Scripture, and tenants of the teacher's chair, who are exposed by their position to the danger of self-assumption. The bishops also occupy the teacher's chair, as the same passages show; but the teachers were able to retain their special position alongside of them, perhaps because not all bishops as yet possessed the teaching gift." [624] In de Præscr., xiv. , the "doctor" is also mentioned. [625] Cyprian (loc. cit.) also speaks of "doctores audientium," but it is impossible to determine the relationship which he implies between these and the readers. As catechists, the doctors were now and then ranked among the clergy, and, in fact, in the college of presbyters. As against Lagarde, no comma is to be placed in Clem. Homil. III. 71 after presbuterous: timate presbuterous katechetas, diakonous chresimous, cheras eu bebiokuias (as (cp. above, p. 158). [626] And in those of Clement. According to Quis Div. Salv. xli., the Christian is to choose for himself a teacher who shall watch over him as a confessor. In Paed. III. 12. 97 Clement discusses the difference between a pedagogue and a teacher, placing the latter above the former. [627] Here "spiritalis" (gnostikos, pneumatikos) is in contrast to the teachers as well as to the priests. According to Clement of Alexandria, the "spiritual" person is apostle, prophet, and teacher, superior to all earthly dignitaries--a view which Origen also favours. [628] "For even in the church, priests and doctors can beget children, even as he who wrote Gal. iv. 19, and again in another place 1 Cor. iv. 15. Therefore such doctors of the church refrain from begetting offspring, when they find an irresponsive audience!" [629] Eus., H.E., vi. 19. Their arguments prove that the right of "laymen" (for the teachers were laymen) to speak at services of worship had become extinct throughout Egypt, Palestine, and most of the provinces, for the two bishops friendly to this proposal had to bring evidence for the practice from a distance, and from comparatively remote churches. They write thus: "Wherever people are to be found who are able to profit the brethren, they are exhorted by the holy bishops to give addresses to the congregation; as, for example, Euelpis has been invited by Neon in Laranda, Paulinus by Celsus in Iconium, and Theodorus by Atticus in Synnada, all of whom are our blessed brethren. Probably this has also been done in other places unknown to us." The three persons mentioned in this passage are the last of the "ancient" teachers who are known to us. [630] In this connection reference may perhaps be made to the important statement of Alexander, bishop of Alexandria (in Theodoret's H.E., i. 3), that Lucian remained outside the church at Antioch (aposunagogos)) during the regime of three bishops. Lucian was the head of a school. [631] On this order and office, originally a charismatic one, which under certain circumstances embraced the further duty of explaining the Scriptures, cp. the evidence I have stated in Texte u. Untersuch., ii. 5, pp. 57 f., "On the Origin of the Readership and the other Lower Orders" [Eng. trans. in Sources of the Apostolic Canons, by Wheatley and Owen (Messrs A. & C. Black)]. [632] Tertullian complains that the heretical teachers, instead of engaging in mission work, merely tried to win over catholic Christians; cp. de Præscr., xlii.: "De verbi autem administratione quid dicam, cum hoc sit negotium haereticis, non ethnicos convertendi, sed nostros evertendi. Ita fit, ut ruinas facilius operentur stantium aedificiorum quam exstructionem iacentium ruinarum" ("But concerning the ministry of the word, what shall I say? for heretics make it their business not to convert pagans but to subvert our people. . . . . Thus they can effect the ruin of buildings which are standing more easily than the erection of ruins that lie low"). See also adv. Marc., ii. 1. I shall return to this complaint later on. [633] It was the task of apologists and teachers to exhibit the Christian faith in its various stages, and to prove it. Rhodon (Eus., H.E., v. 13) says of the gnostic Apelles: didaskalos einai legon ouk edei to didaskomenon hup' autou kratunein ("Though calling himself a teacher, he knew not how to confirm what he taught"). "Non difficile est doctori," says Cyprian (Ep. lxxiii. 3), "vera et legitima insinuare ei qui haeretica pravitate damnata et ecclesiastica veritate comperta ad hoc venit ut discat, ad hoc discit ut vivat" ("It is not hard for a teacher to instil what is true and genuine into the mind of a man who, having condemned heretical evil and learnt the church's truth, comes to learn, and learns in order that he may live"). Everyone knows the importance of apologetic to the propaganda of Judaism, and Christians entered on a rich inheritance at this and at other points, since their teachers were able to take over the principles and material of Jewish apologetic. Directly or indirectly, most of the Christian apologists probably depended on Philo and the apologetic volumes of selections made by Alexandrian Judaism as well as philosophical compendia of criticisms upon ancient mythology. As for the dissemination of apologies throughout the church, Justin's at least was read very soon in very different sections of the church; Irenæus knew it in Gaul, Tertullian in Carthage, probably Athenagoras in Athens and Theophilus in Antioch. By the end of the second century Tertullian had a whole corpus of apologetic writings at his command; cp. de Testim., i.: "Nonnulli quidem, quibus de pristina litteratura et curiositatis labor et memoriae tenor perseveravit, ad eum modum opuscula penes nos condiderunt, commemorantes et contestificantes in singula rationem et originem et traditionem et argumenta sententiarum, per quae recognosci possit nihil nos aut novum aut portentosum suscepisse, de quo non etiam communes et publicae litterae ad suffragium nobis patrocinentur, si quid aut erroris eiecimus aut aequitatis admisimus" ("Some, indeed, who have busied themselves inquisitively with ancient literature, and kept it in their memories, have published works of this very kind which we possess. In these they record and attest the exact nature, origin, tradition, and reasons of their opinions, from which it is plain that we have not admitted any novelty or extravagance, for which we cannot claim the support of ordinary and familiar writings; this applies alike to our exclusion of error and to our admission of truth"). [634] Three different attitudes to Greek philosophy were adopted: it contained real elements of truth, due to the working of the Logos; or these were plagiarized from the Old Testament; or they were simply demonic replicas of the truth, as in the case of pagan mythology. [635] Literary fabrications, which were not uncommon in other departments (cp. the interpolation in Josephus, etc.), played a rôle of their own here. But the forgeries which appeared in the second century seem to me to be for the most part of Jewish origin. In the third century things were different. [636] Compare, e.g., Aristides, Apol. ii.: "God himself granted me power to speak about him wisely." Diogn., Ep. 1: tou theou tou kai to legein kai to akouein hemin choregountos aitoumai dothenai emoi men eipein houtos, k.t.l. ("God, who supplies us both with speech and hearing, I pray to grant me utterance so as," etc.). [637] Some of them even retained the mantle of the philosopher; at an early period in the church Justin was described as "philosopher and martyr." [638] Ti gar, says Justin's (Dial. c. Tryph., i.) Trypho, a tropos of contemporary philosophy, ouch hoi philosophoi peri theou ton hapanta poiountai logon, kai peri monarchias autois kai pronoias hai zeteseis gignontai hekastote; e ou touto ergon esti philosophias, exetazein peri tou theiou; ("Why not? do not the philosophers make all their discourses turn upon the subject of God, and are they not always engaged in questions about his sole rule and providence? Is not this the very business of philosophy, to inquire concerning the Godhead?"). Cp. Melito's phrase, he kath' hemas philosophia Similarly others. [639] The apologists, on the one hand, complain that pagans treat Christianity at best as a human philosophy, and on the other hand claim that, as such, Christianity should be conceded the liberty enjoyed by a philosophy. Tertullian (Apol., xlvi. f.) expatiates on this point at great length; Plainly, the question was one of practical moment, the aim of Christians being to retain, as philosophic schools and as philosophers, at least some measure of freedom, when a thoroughgoing recognition of their claims could not be insisted upon. "Who forces a philosopher to sacrifice or take an oath or exhibit useless lamps at noon? No one. On the contrary, they pull down your gods openly, and in their writings arraign your religious customs, and you applaud them for it! Most of them even snarl at the Cæsars." The number of sects in Christianity also confirmed well-disposed opponents in the belief that they had to deal with philosophic schools (c. xlvii.). [640] In the ancient epistle of the Smyrniote church on the death of Polycarp, we already find Polycarp a subject of general talk among the pagans. In the Vita Cypriani (ch. i.), also, there is the following allusion: "Non quo aliquem gentilium lateat tanti viri vita" ("Not that the life of so great a man can be unknown to any of the heathen"). [641] "Bonum huius sectae usu iam et de commercio innotuit," says Tertullian (Apol., xlvi.) very distinctly ("The worth of this sect is now well known for its benefits as well as from the intercourse of life"); de Pallio, vi.: "Elinguis philosophia vita contenta est" (" Life is content with even a tongueless philosophy"). What Tertullian makes the pallium say (ch. v.) is true of Christians (cp. above, p. 310). Compare also what has been already specified in Book II. Chap. IV., and what is stated afterwards in Chap. IV. of this Book. [642] In the Didasc. Apost. (cp. Achelis in Texte u. Untersuchungen, xxv. 2. pp. 276, 80, 76 f.) we find that the church-widows made proselytes. [643] Africa is the only country where we may feel inclined to conjecture that the relations between Christianity and the army were at all intimate. __________________________________________________________________ EXCURSUS TRAVELLING: THE EXCHANGE OF LETTERS AND LITERATURE [644] The apostles, as well as many of the prophets, travelled unceasingly in the interests of their mission. The journeys of Paul from Antioch to Rome, and probably to Spain, lie in the clear light of history, but--to judge from his letters--his fellow-workers and companions were also continually on the move, partly along with him, and partly on their own account. [645] One thinks especially of that missionary couple, Aquila and Priscilla. To study and state in detail the journeys of Paul and the rest of these missionaries would lead us too far afield, nor would it be relevant to our immediate purpose. Paul felt that the Spirit of God drove him on, revealing his route and destination; but this did not supersede the exercise of deliberation and reflection in his own mind, and evidences of the latter may be found repeatedly throughout his travels. Peter also journeyed as a missionary; he too reached Rome. However, what interests us at present is not so much the travels of the regular missionaries as the journeys undertaken by other prominent Christians, -from which we may learn the vitality of personal communication and intercourse throughout the early centuries. In this connection the Roman church became surprisingly prominent. The majority of the Christians with whose travels we are acquainted made it their goal. [646] Justin, Hegesippus, Julius Africanus, and Origen were Christian teachers who were specially travelled men, i.e., men who had gone over a large number of the churches. Justin, who came from Samaria, stayed in Ephesus and Rome. Hegesippus reached Rome via Corinth after starting, about the middle of the second century, on an Eastern tour occupying several years, during which he visited many of the churches. Julius Africanus from Emmaus in Palestine also appeared in Edessa, Rome, and Alexandria. But the most extensive travels were those of Origen, who, from Alexandria and Cæsarea (in Palestine) respectively, made his appearance in Sidon, Tyre, Bostra, Antioch, Cæsarea (in Cappadocia), Nikomedia, Athens, Nicopolis, Rome, and other cities [647] (sometimes more than once). The following notable Christians [648] journeyed from abroad to Rome:-- Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna (Eus., H.E., iv. 14, v. 24). Valentinus the gnostic, from Egypt (Iren., iii. 4. 3). Cerdo the gnostic, from Syria (Iren., i. 27. 1, iii. 4. 3). Marcion the heretic, from. Sinope (Hippolytus, cited in Epiph., Hær.; xlii. 1 f.). Marcellina the heretic (Iren., i. 25. 6). Justin the apologist, from Samaria (see his Apology; also Euseb., H.E., iv. 11). Tatian the Assyrian (Orat. xxxv.). Hegesippus, from the East (Eus., H.E., iv. 22, according to the hupomnemata of Hegesippus). Euelpistus, Justin's pupil, from Cappadocia (Acta Justini). Hierax, Justin's pupil, from Cappadocia (Acta Justini). [649] Rhodon, from Asia (Eus., H.E., v. 13). Irenæus, from Asia (Eus., H.E., v. 1-4; [Martyr. Polyc., append.]). Apelles, Marcion's pupil (Tertull., de Præscr., xxx.; though Apelles may have been born at Rome), from ----? Florinus, from Asia (Eus., H.E., v. 15. 20). Proclus and other Montanists from Phrygia or Asia (Eus., H.E., ii. 25, iii. 31, vi. 20; Tertull., adv. Prax., 1). [Tertullian, from Carthage (de Cultu Fem., i. 7; Eus., H.E., ii. 2).] Theodotus, from Byzantium (Epiph., Hær., liv. 1). Praxeas, from Asia (Tert., adv. Prax., 1). Abercius, from Hieropolis (see his inscription). Julius Africanus, from Emmaus (Kestoi). Alcibiades, from Apamea in Syria (Hippol., Philos., ix. 13). [Prepon the Marcionite, an Assyrian (Hippol., Philos., vii. 31).] Epigonus, from Asia (Hipp., Philos., ix. 7). Sabellius, from Pentapolis (Theodoret, Hær. Fab., ii. 9). Origen, from Alexandria (Eus., H.E., vi. 14). Many Africans, about the year 250 (Cyprian's epistles). [650] Shortly after the middle of the second century, Melito of Sardes journeyed to Palestine (Eus., H.E., iv. 26), as did Alexander from Cappadocia (Eus., H.E., vi. 11) and Pionius froth Smyrna (about the middle of the third century: see the Acta Pionii); Julius Africanus travelled to Alexandria (Eus., H.E., vi. 31); Hermogenes, a heretic, emigrated from the East to Carthage (Theophilus of Antioch opposed him, as did Tertullian); Apelles went from Rome to Alexandria (Tert., de Præscr., xxx.); during the Decian persecution and afterwards, Roman Christians were despatched to Carthage (see Cyprian's epistles); at the time of Valerian's persecution, several Roman brethren were in Alexandria (Dionys. Alex., cited by Euseb., H.E., vii. 11); while Clement of Alexandria got the length of Cappadocia (Eus., H.E., vi. 11). This list is incomplete, but it will give some idea of the extent to which the travels of prominent teachers promoted intercommunication. As for the exchange of letters, [651] I must content myself with noting the salient points. Here, too, the Roman church occupies the foreground. We know of the following letters and despatches issued from it:-- The pastoral letter to Corinth (i.e., the first epistle of Clement), c. 96 A.D. The "Shepherd" of Hermas, which (according to Vis., ii. 4) was sent to the churches abroad. The pastoral letter of bishop Soter to Corinth (i.e., the homily he sent thither, or 2 Clem.). The letter in reply, from Dionysius of Corinth, shows that Rome had for decades been in the habit of sending letters and despatches to a number of churches. During the Montanist controversy, under (Soter) Eleutherus and Victor, letters passed to Asia, Phrygia, and Gaul. During the Easter controversy, Victor issued letters to all the churches abroad. Pontian wrote to Alexandria, assenting to the condemnation of Origen. During the vacancy in the Papacy after bishop Fabian's death, letters passed to Carthage, to the other African churches, and to Sicily; the Roman martyrs also wrote to the Carthaginian. Bishop Cornelius wrotee numerous letters to Africa, as well as to Antioch and Alexandria. Bishop Stephanus wrote to Africa, Alexandria, Spain, and Gaul, as well as to all the churches abroad during the controversy over the baptism of heretics. He also sent letters and despatches to Syria and Arabia, following the custom of his predecessors. Letters of bishop Xystus II. to Alexandria. Letters of bishop Dionysius to Alexandria. A letter and despatches of bishop Dionysius to Cappadocia. A letter of bishop Felix to Alexandria. Letters to Antioch during the trouble caused by Paul of Samosata. Among the non-Roman letters are to be noted: those of Ignatius to the Asiatic churches and to Rome, that written by Polycarp of Smyrna to Philippi and other churches in the neighbourhood, the large collection of those written by Dionysius of Corinth (to Athens, Lacedæmon, Nicomedia, Crete, Pontus, Rome), the large collections of Origen's letters (no longer extant), of Cyprian's (to the African churches, to Rome, Spain, Gaul, Cappadocia), and of Novatian's (to a very large number of churches throughout all Christendom: no longer extant), and of those written by Dionysius of Alexandria (preserved in fragments). [652] Letters were sent from Cappadocia, Spain, and Gaul to Cyprian (Rome); the synod which gathered in Antioch to deal with Paul of Samosata, wrote to all the churches of Christendom; and Alexander of Alexandria, as well as Arius, wrote letters to a large number of churches in the Eastern empire. [653] The more important Christian writings also circulated with astonishing rapidity. [654] Out of the wealth of material at our disposal, the following instances may be adduced:-- Ere the first half of the second century expired, the four gospels appear to have reached the majority, or at any rate a very large number, of churches throughout the empire. A collection of Paul's letters was already known to Clement of Rome, Ignatius, Polycarp, and all the leading gnostics. The first epistle of Clement (addressed to Corinth) was in the hands of Polycarp (at Smyrna), and was known to Irenæus at Lyons, as well as to Clement of Alexandria. A few weeks or months after the epistles of Ignatius were composed, they were collected and despatched to Philippi; Irenæus in Lyons and Origen in Alexandria were acquainted with them. The Didachê was circulated in the second century through East and West alike. The "Shepherd" of Hermas, in its complete form, was well known in Lyons, Alexandria, and Carthage, even in the second century. The Apology and other works of Justin were known to Irenæus at Lyons, and to Tertullian at Carthage, etc. Tatian was read in Alexandria. By the close of the second century, writings of Melito, bishop of Sardes (during the reign of Marcus Aurelius) were read in Ephesus, Alexandria, Rome, and Carthage. As early as about the year 200 A.D., writings of Irenæus (who wrote c. 190) were read in Rome and Alexandria, whilst, like Justin, he was known at a later period to Methodius in Lycia. The writings of several authors in Asia Minor during the reign of Marcus Aurelius were read in Alexandria, Carthage, and Rome. The "Antitheses" of the heretic Marcion were known to all the larger churches in the East and West by the end of the second century. The apocryphal Acta Pauli, originating in Asia, was probably read in all the leading churches, and certainly in Rome, Carthage, and Alexandria, by the end of the second century. Numerous writings of the Roman Hippolytus were circulated throughout the East. What a large number of Christian writings were gathered from all parts of the world in the library at Cæsarea (in Palestine) is known to us from the Church History of Eusebius, which was written from the material in this collection. It is owing primarily to this library, which in its way formed a counterpart of the Alexandrian, that we possess to-day a coherent, though very limited, knowledge of Christian antiquity. [655] And even previous to that, if one takes the trouble (and it is no trouble) to put together, from the writings of Celsus, Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement of Alexandria, and Origen, their library of Christian works, it becomes evident that they had access to an extensive range of Christian books from, all parts of the church. These data are merely intended to give an approximate idea of how vital was the intercourse, personal and epistolary and literary, between the various churches, and also between prominent teachers of the day. It is not easy to exaggerate the significance of this fact for the mission and propaganda of Christianity. The co-operation, the brotherliness, and moreover the mental activity of Christians, are patent in this connection, and they were powerful levers in the extension of the cause. Furthermore, they must have made a powerful impression on the outside spectator, besides guaranteeing a certain unity in the development of the religion and ensuring the fact that when a Christian passed from the East to the West, or from one distant church to another, he never felt himself a stranger. Down to the age of Constantine, or at any rate until the middle of the third century, the centripetal forces in early Christianity were, as a matter of fact, more powerful than the centrifugal. And Rome was the centre of the former tendencies. The Roman Church was the Catholic Church. It was more than the mere symbol and representative of Christian unity; to it more than to any other Christians owed unity itself. So far as I know, the technical side of the spread of early Christian literature has not yet been investigated, and any results that can be reached are far from numerous. [656] We must realize, however, that a large number of these writings, not excluding the oldest and most important of them, together with almost all the epistolary literature, was never "edited" in the technical sense of the term--never, at any rate, until after some generations had passed. There were no editions of the New Testament (or of the Old?) until Origen (i.e., the Theodotian), although Marcion's New Testament deserves to be called a critical revision and edition, while revised editions.were meant by those early fathers who bewailed the falsification of the Bible texts by the gnostics. For the large majority of early Christian writings the exemplars in the library at Caesarea served as the basis for editions (i.e., transcripts) from the fourth and fifth centuries onwards. Yet even after editions of the Scriptures were published they were frequently transcribed at will from some rough copy. From the outset the apologies, the works of the gnostics (which were meant for the learned), and any ecclesiastical writings designed, from Irenæus downwards, for the educated Christian public, were published and circulated. The first instance of a bishop collecting and editing his own letters is that of Dionysius of Corinth, during the reign of Marcus Aurelius (Eus., H.E., iv. 23). Unedited or unpublished writings were naturally exposed in a special degree to the risk of falsification. The church fathers are full of complaints on this score. Yet even those which were edited were not preserved with due care. [657] To what extent the literature of Christianity fell into the hands of its opponents, is a matter about which we know next to nothing. Tertullian speaks quite pessimistically on the point (de Testim. i.), and Norden's verdict is certainly true (Kunstprosa, pp. 517 f.): "We cannot form too low an estimate of the number of pagans who read the New Testament. . . . . I believe I am correct in saying that pagans only read the New Testament when they wanted to refute it." Celsus furnished himself with quite a considerable Christian library, in which he studied deeply before he wrote against the Christians; but it is merely a rhetorical phrase, when Athenagoras assumes (Suppl., ix.) that the emperors knew the Old Testament. The attitude of the apologists to the Scriptures, whether they are quoting them or not, shows that they do not presuppose any knowledge of their contents (Norden, loc. cit.). Writings of Origen were read by the Neoplatonist philosophers, who had also in their hands the Old Testament, the gospels, and the Pauline epistles. We may say the same of Porphyry and Amelius. One great obstacle to the diffusion of the Scriptures lay in the Greek version, which was inartistic and offensive (from the point of view of style), [658] but still more in the old Latin version of the Bible, which in many parts was simply intolerable. How repellent must have been the effect produced, for example, by reading (Baruch ii. 29) "Dicens: si non audieritis vocis meae, si sonos magnos hagminis iste avertatur in minima in gentibus, hubi dispergam ibi." [659] Nor could Christianity in the West boast of writers whose work penetrated far into the general literature of the age, at a time when Origen and his pupils were forcing an entrance for themselves. Lactantius, whose evidence is above suspicion, [660] observes that in Latin society Christians were still considered "stulti" (Instit., v. 1 f.), [661] and personally vouches for the lack of suitable and skilled teachers and authors; Minucius Felix and Tertullian could not secure "satis celebritatis," whilst, for all his admirable qualities as a speaker and writer, Cyprian "is unable to satisfy those who are ignorant of all but the words of our religion, since his language is mystical and designed only for the ears of the faithful. In short, the learned of this world who chance to become acquainted with his writings are in the habit of deriding him. I myself once heard a really cultured person call him Coprianus' [dung-man] by the change of a single letter in his name, as if he had bestowed on old wives' fables a polished intellect which was capable of better things" (placere ultra verba sacramentum ignorantibus non potest, quoniam mystica hunt quae locutus est et ad id praeparata, ut a solis fidelibus audiantur: denique a doctis huius saeculi, quibus forte scripta eius innotuerant, derideri solet. audivi ego quendam hominen1 sane disertum, qui eum immutata una litera ' Coprianum' vocaret, quasi quod elegans ingenium et melioribus rebus aptum ad aniles fabulas contulisset "). In the Latin West, although Minucius Felix and Cyprian (ad Donatum) wrote in a well-bred style, Christian literature had but little to do with the spread of the Christian religion; in the East, upon the contrary, it became a factor of great importance from the third century onwards. __________________________________________________________________ [644] Cp. Zahn's Weltkehr and Kirche während der drei ersten Jahrhunderte (1877); Ramsay in Expositor, vol. viii., Dec. 1903, pp. 401 f. ("Travel and Correspondence among the Early Christians") [also reproduced in his Letters to the Seven Churches, 1904, ch. 1.], his Church in the Roman Empire, pp. 364 f., and his article on "Travel" in Hastings' Dictionary of the Bible. "It is the simple truth that travelling, whether for business or for pleasure, was contemplated and performed under the empire with an indifference, confidence, and, above all, certainty which were unknown in after centuries until the introduction of steamers and the consequent increase in ease and sureness of communication." Compare the direct and indirect evidence of Philo, Acts, Pliny, Appian, Plutarch, Epictetus, Aristides, etc. Iren., iv. 30. 3: "Mundus pacem habet per Romanos, et nos sine timore in viis ambulamus et navigamus quocumque voluerimus" ("The world enjoys peace, thanks to the Romans, and we can travel by road and sea wherever we wish, unafraid"). One merchant boasts, in an inscription on a tomb at Hierapolis in Phrygia, that he voyaged from Asia to Rome seventy-two times (C.I.G., 3920). The author of Acts treats Paul's journey from Ephesus to Jerusalem and his return by land as a simple excursion (xviii. 21-32). No excessive length of time was needed to cover the distances. In twelve days one could reach Alexandria from Neapolis, in seven from Corinth. With a favourable wind, the voyage from Narbo in Southern France to Africa occupied only five days (Sulpic. Sever., Dial., i. 3); from the Syrtes to Alexandria took six days (ibid., i. 6). The journey by land from Ephesus to Antioch in Syria certainly took a month (cp. Evagrius, Hist. Eccles., i. 3); but there were rapid messengers who traversed the empire with incredible speed. Of one it is said (Socrates, H.E., vii. 19), houtos ho Palladios megisten ousan ton Rhomaion archen mikran edeixe te tachuteti ("This Palledius made the huge empire of Rome seem small by his speed"). Cp. Friedlander's Sittengeschichte (vol. ii., at the beginning). For the letters, cp. Deissmann's Bible Studies (Eng. trans., 1901) and Wehofer's Untersuch. zur altchristl. Epistolographie (in "Wiener akad. Sitzungsber., Philos.-Hist. Klasse, cxliii., 1901," pp. 102 f). Norden (Antike Kunstprosa, p. 492) observes: "The epistolary literature, even in its artless forms, had a far greater right to exist, according to the ideas of the age, than we can understand at the present day. The epistle gradually became a literary form into which any material, even of a scientific nature, could be thrown loosely and freel