HISTORY
OF THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH
BY
GEORGE H. DRYER, D. D.
Volume I
BEGINNING OF THE KINGDOM
PREFACE.
Twenty
years ago the author became convinced that an urgent need of English-speaking
Protestantism was a popular history of the Christian Church. Each year since
has deepened his conviction of its necessity for the American Churches and the
American people. No Church and no people can afford to be ignorant of its past.
Our heritage is the society and civilization into which we are born. These are
mainly determined by the history of our country and of the Christian religion.
The distinguishing feature of our civilization is that it is Christian. The Man
of Galilee uttered words and lived a life by which public opinion judges men
and nations. Our developing civilization feels the influence of the centuries
of Christian history. Every intelligent man should know, at least in outline,
the history of his own land and of the Christian Church. The forces molding the
life of our times are the forces active in the one as in the other. Every
Christian must rejoice in the knowledge of the providential guidance of the
Church of God, and the development and conquests of the Christian religion. Our
own life finds help m it, as did that of the psalmist and prophets of the Old,
and the apostles of the New Covenant, in the history of Israel. Our hearts can
not fail to glow as we see
Christian
history lengthening out the muster-roll of the heroes of the faith found in the
eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
The
gravity of the situation can hardly be overstated. Our schools teach everywhere
the unity of nature, the unity of human history. Our Roman Catholic friends
have their theory of the unity of Church history, which, however deficient in
proof, does not fail in completeness. How, then, do we teach human history—the
history of the Christian religion ? Our American youth can study in our schools
and colleges the history of Greece, of Rome, of Egypt, and of the Oriental
nations of antiquity; they can learn the course of the history of the Middle
Ages, and the rise of the modern nations; they can, in modern history, find
instruction in the history of the United States, England, France, Germany, and
other European and Asiatic nations; they can find guidance in universal
history, in the history of civilization, the history of literature, of
philosophy, of economics, of the special sciences; but where, outside of the
theological seminaries, can they study the history of the Christian Church ?
What Christian college has such a professorship? What Church instructs its own
adherents? What reading-course supplies this lack ? Can we afford to ignore
Christian history? Are the divisions of Protestantism so fundamental that
Protestants can not teach it? Have not even the errors and failures of Church
history lessons we should heed ?
It is
believed there is room for a popular history of the Christian Church, which shall
be accurate and impartial in its presentation of the facts; which shall give
the life and movement of the times; which shall show the development and effect
of the controlling forces of the Christian life and factors of Christian
history; and which shall give its readers some acquaintance with the greatest
names in the recorded life of the Church, such as they have with Washington or
Cromwell, with Napoleon or Bismarck. Such a history should be upon the shelves
of the Church and Sunday-school libraries, welcomed by Young People’s Societies
and Reading Courses, and read and enjoyed in the family circle.
This book
has been written for popular use. It is hoped it will have interest for those
who only hear it read aloud. Yet care has been taken and accuracy sought that
its arrangement and presentation of facts may afford material for careful study
and independent judgment. While the author’s opinions have not been concealed,
he has endeavored to distinguish them from the statement of facts. It is
believed it will not fail in inspiration and suggestion.
These
considerations have determined the method employed in its composition. The aim
has been to place the reader in the midst of the Christian life of the time.
For this purpose the life of the state and the conditions of society have been
presented in detail. These were as real to the Christians of those times as are
to us our politics, economic and social conditions; indeed, they were much more
directly affected by them. The history of the Church is more than the record of
doctrines and usages which it rejected or retained; it is the record of life;
and the Church which conquered the Roman Empire and its Teutonic invaders was
very much alive. Because of the differences of opinion as to the teaching and
tendencies of the early Church, these have been presented largely in the
language of the writers of the time. Those who read this history are entitled
to the testimony of the best authorities. It would have been a pleasure to give
foot-notes and references; but for its purpose, the arrangement of the
literature at the head of the chapters has been thought more serviceable. On
controverted questions space forbids the statement of different views; the
materials for judgment, so far as possible, have been given, and the conclusion
in the words of men eminent for their ability, learning, and impartiality. Such
are Bishop Lightfoot,on the Christian Ministry; Canon Gore, on the Papal
Supremacy; Professor Ramsay, on Apostolic Succession; and Dr. C. W. Bennett, on
Baptism. In one passage, Mr. Lecky’s summary of Eusebius, and in another Mr.
Hodgson’s of Procopius, have been given because a study of the original authors
made clear that it would be difficult to improve them in faithfulness and effectiveness.
An attempt has been made to show the relation 01 this history to forms of
Church-life with which we are familiar, and for this purpose sometimes the
bounds of the period have not been strictly observed. I wish to acknowledge the
courtesy and kindness received for six years from the librarian and assistant
of the Rochester Theological Seminary, and aid given by the Royal Library of
Berlin. In addition to the reading of the works of Professor Harnack, I am glad
to acknowledge the increased obligation from hearing two courses of his
lectures on this period. I am most indebted to him in the treatment of Gnosticism,
Manichaeism, the Christological Controversies, and Augustine.
The
preparation of this volume has been the delight, as well as the toil of years.
The inspiration of such noble company and triumphant faith has blessed my life.
I owe the deepest personal obligation for help ministered to practical
Christian living by men as far removed from each other, and as little
attractive to my choice, as John Calvin and St. Anthony. Every genuine
Christian life has help in it. It is hoped that this work may aid in making
evident the unity of all Christians in the personal abiding of the risen L,ord
and the ministration of the Holy Ghost— a unity which compasses all divisions
and generations of the race, and unites the Church in earth and heaven.
May this
presentation of the unity of Christian history, and the power and supremacy of the
spiritual and moral forces of the Christian religion, aid in the advancement of
the kingdom of God among men, and reveal the glory of the reigning Christ on
whom the ages wait!
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
Part I
THE CONQUEST.
I.
The Empire of Rome.
II.
The Christian Church.
III.
The Persecutions.
IV.
The Christian Empire of Rome.
V.
The Barbarians.
Part II THE
TRUTHS THAT WON.
I.
Teaching of the Early Church—Apostles’ Creed.
II.
Founding of Christian Theology—Origen.
III.
Doctrine of the Trinity—Creed of Nicaea.
IV.
Doctrine; of the Person of Christ—Creed of Chalcedon.
V.
Pelagian Controversy—Doctrine of Human Sin and Redemption.
Part III THE
NEW RULERS OF THE NEW WORLD.
I.
The Organization of the Early Church.
II.
The Development of the Episcopate.
III.
Provincial Synods—Metropolitans and Patriarchs.
IV.
The Primacy of Rome.
V.
The Clergy.
Part IV WORSHIP
AND DISCIPLINE.
I.
Worship of the Early Church.
II.
Worship of the Old Catholic Church.
III.
Greek Catholic Worship.
IV.
Roman Catholic Worship.
V.
The Discipline of the Church.
Part V
THE NEW SOCIETY.
I.
The New Social Order in Rome.
II.
Christian Life and Society.
III.
The Monastic Life.
IV.
Turning-points and Results.
LITERATURE.
Many
books are, doubtless, omitted which might well have had a place here. The list
is sufficiently complete, however, for the use of the average student.
On the
Whole Period.
For the
writings of the fathers in the original tongues, “Migne’s Cursus Patrologiae,”
found in all the larger libraries, is full and complete. It has been used for
this volume except for the apostolic fathers, where Harnack and Gebhardt and
Zahn’s “ Patrum Apostolicorum Opera,” and Bishop Lightfoot’s “Apostolic
Fathers,” 4 vols., have been preferred; Vallarsi’s edition of “Jerome” has been
used; the “ Monumenta Germanise ” of Pertz and his successors have been
consulted; also, Bouquet’s “Recueil des Historiens des Gaules,” and the “Acta
Sanctorum ” of the Bollandists. The source for the English reader is the “
Ante-Nicene Library of the Fathers.” I would gladly have conformed my
quotations to this text, but for the fact that my own copy was beyond the sea.
The volume containing the works of Eusebius, ably and helpfully edited by Dr.
McGiffert, is sold by itself.
Neander
and Gieseler are unsurpassed in their use of the sources, but their style and
plan commends them only to the serious student. The text-books of Histories of
Hase and Kurtz are well known and valuable, the Church. Moeller’s is the last
and best of the works of German scholars translated into English. The work of
Karl Muller is concise and much more readable, but is not yet translated. The
reader should be warned against wasting his time upon translations of Mosheim’s
history. Milman’s “ History of Christianity ” is well written, and should be
read with Gibbon. Milman’s “ History of Latin Christianity” is a much better
work; Vol. I treats of this period. Schaff’s “Church History” is good, the work
of a scholar, but diffuse. Professor Sheldon’s “ Church History” is equally
scholarly, but more concise. It is an able, but not a specially popular book;
the history of doctrines is treated in a separate work. There are no better Church
histories written in one volume than those of Dr. George P. Fisher and Bishop
J. F. Hurst. The former excels in his treatment of the theological development,
while the latter is particularly valuable on the modern history of the Church.
The limitations imposed upon an author who writes a history of the Church in
one volume, is shown in the fact that the history of the first six centuries
covers, in Dr. Fisher’s work, 146, and 100 pages in that of Bishop Hurst. The
Church histories of Alzog and Hergenrother present the Roman Catholic view. The
former is translated, and is the more impartial on this period. Neander, or
Schaff, with Gibbon and Milman, will give a good view of the course of events
in Church and State. De Pressense’s series of volumes on this time is readable
and interesting. Of great value are special articles in Herzog s “ Real
Encyclopaedia,” McClintock and Strong’s “ Encyclopaedia,” Smith and Wace’s “
Dictionary of Christian Biography,” and Smith and Cheetham’s “ Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities.”
Part
I.—Chapter I.—The Empire of Rome. Authorities.
The best
work on this period in English is Merivale’s “ Empire under the Romans,” 7
vols. Valuable are Gibbon’s “Decline and Fall,” Vols. I and II, and Mommsen’s
“History of Rome,” Vol. V. Smaller works are Merivale’s or Pelham’s “ History
of Rome,” in one volume. Fisher’s “Beginnings of Christianity,” and Inge’s “
Society in Rome Under the Caesars, ’ are interesting and helpful.
German
authorities are: Mommsen and Mar-quardt’s “ Romische Alterthiimer,” 6 vols.;
Schiller-Voigt’s “Romische Alterthiimer. Hermann Schiller’s “ Romische
Kaiserzeit,” 3 vols., is an excellent work.
Chapter
II.—The Christian Church. Authorities.
Schurer’s
“History of the Jews in the Time of Christ” is the best single work. Stapfer’s
“Palestine in the Time of Christ” is interesting and in one volume. Weiss’s is
the best “Life of Christ;” Cony-beare and Howson not surpassed on “St. Paul.”
Westcott’s “ Introduction to the Study of the Gospels” and “History of the
Canon of the New Testament ” are excellent. Reuss’s “ History of the Canon of
the Holy Scriptures” shows the growth of the Canon. “ The Introduction to the
New Testament,” of Dr. Bernhard Weiss, and Dr. Sanday’s Bampton Lecture on “
Inspiration,” are the best helps accessible to the English student. Bishop
Lightfoot’s “ Essays on Supernatural Religion ” are invaluable as discussions
of the value of the evidence on which a judgment must be based. Neander’s
“Planting and Training of the Christian Church ” is well worth reading, but the
later authorities should be read first. The sections on the beginnings of
Christianity in the Church Histories and Histories of Doctrines should be
consulted.
Chapter
III.—The Persecutions. Sources
The
Apologies of Justin Martyr, Tertulllan, Ongen, and Lactantius,—nothing can take
the place of these. They are found with “The Martyrs of Lyons,” and the
“Martyrdom of Perpetua and Felicitas,” in the “ Ante-Nicene Library of the
Fathers.” With them should be read the “Ecclesiastical History” of Eusebius.
Special
Works.
Schultze’s
“Untergang des Griechischen und Romi-schen Heidenthums,” 2 vols., is the best
work on the subject. Excellent and interesting is Ulhorn’s “Conflict of
Christianity with Heathenism.” The treatment of the subject in Lecky’s “History
of European Morals” deserves attention. See also Donaldson’s article, “Celsus,”
in the Ency. Brit. There is no better work in one volume than Ramsay’s “ Church
and Roman Empire.”
Chapter
IV.—The Christian Empire of Rome. Sources.
Gregory
of Tours “ Historia Francorum;” Salvian’s “De Gubernatione Dei;” Sulpicius
Severus’s “Chronica ;” Apollinaris Sidonius’s “ Epistolae;” Procopius’s “ De Bello
Gothico.”
The best
authorities are: Gibbon’s “ Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire,” Findlay’s
“History of Greece,” Vol. I, Hodgkin’s “ Italy and Her Invaders,” 6 vols. In
German, the section in Hauck’s “Kirchen-geschichte in Deutschland ” is excellent.
Specially commended are Oznam’s “ Byzantine Empire,” in the “ Story of the
Nations ” series, and Bryce’s article, “Justinian,” in Ency. Brit.
Chapter
V.—The Barbarians. Authorities.
Gregory
of Tours, Procopius, as in the last chapter; Tacitus’s “Germania,” with the
references in Caesar’s “ De Bello Gallico;” Gregory I’s “Epistolae;” the lives
of Saints Patrick, Columba, Severinus, and Columban (compare Gibbon and
Hodgkin); Guizot’s “History of Civilization.” Dahn’s Weitersheim’s “
Volkerwanderung ” is a German authority. Bradley’s “ History of the Goths,” in
the “ Story of the Nations ” series, is an admirable treatment of the subject.
Maclear’s “ Apostles of Mediaeval Europe,” and Smith’s “ Mediaeval Missions,”
are good books.
Part
II.—Chapter I.—Teaching of the Early Church. Authorities.
Hagenbach’s,
Shedd’s, Sheldon’s, and Harnack’s “History of Doctrines.” Shedd is written in
good style and strongly Calvinistic; Sheldon is accurate and excellent;
Harnack’s is the latest and best of the German works; the German edition is
used here. The sources are the New Testament and the “ Apostolic Fathers;” the
latter are found in the “Ante-Nicene Library.”
Special
Works.
Weiss’s
“Biblical Theology of the New Testament;” Wendt’s “Teaching of Jesus.”
Schmidt’s “Biblical Theology of the New Testament,” is old but still useful.
Bishop Lightfoot’s excursus in his Commentary on the Galatians, and published
separately in his “ Dissertations ” on “ St. Paul and the Three,” will always
be worthy of thoughtful attention.
Part
II.—Chapter II.—The Founding of Christian Theology.—Origen. Sources.
Irenaeus,
Tertullian, Hippolytus, Clement, and Origen in the “Ante-Nicene Library.” The
source for the Life of Origen is Eusebius’s “Ecclesiastical History.” Special
Works.
Bigg’s
“Christian Platonists of Alexandria;” Hatch’s “The Influence of Greek Ideas and
Usages upon the Christian Church;” Farrar’s “History of Interpretation.”
Westcott’s “ Origen,” in his “ Christian Thought in the West,” is an admirable
study. Patrick’s “Apology of Origen against Celsus” is an excellent edition for
the English reader.
Part
II.—Chapter III.—Doctrine of the Trinity.— Creed of Nicaea. Sources.
Works of
Athanasius, “Ante-Nicene Library;” works of Gregory of Nyssa, “ Post-Nicene
Library”.
Special
Works.
Dorner’s
“Doctrine of the Person of Christ;” Gwat-kin’s “Studiesin Arianism;” Bright’s “
Introductions ” to his editions of “ Athanasius.”
Hefele’s
“History of the Councils ” is learned and fair; the first two volumes, covering
this period, are translated into English. Schaff’s “ Creeds of Christendom ”
gives the creeds in the original and translation. The 2ist chapter of Bishop
Hurst’s “Church History” gives an admirable summary. Liddon’s “The Divinity of
our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ ” is strongly commended.
Part
II.—Chapter IV.—The Doctrine of the Person of Christ.
Authorities.
Dorner
and Hefele, as in the preceding chapter. Harnack’s treatment of this period, in
his “ History of Doctrines,” is very full and suggestive. Gore’s “Life of Leo
the Great.”
Part
II.—Chapter V. -Pelagian Controversy.
Sources.
Works of
Augustine in “ The Post-Nicene Library.” See all the Histories of Doctrine.
Literature.
Special
Works.
Reuter’s
“Augustinische Studien;” Allen’s “Continuity of Christian Thought,” strongly
commended ; Dorner’s article, “Augustinus,” in Herzog’s Real Ency.
Part
ill.—The New Rulers op the New World.
Sources.
Works of
Cyprian in “ Ante-Nicene LibraryAugustine in “ Post-Nicene LibraryAmbrose, Leo,
Gregory, in Migne “ Patrologia;” Bright’s “Sermons of Leo I.”
Special
Works.
Hatch’s “
Organization of the Early Christian Churches.” Hatch’s “ Origin of Church
Institutions” treats of a later period but is very valuable. Hatch’s article,
“Priest,” in the “Dictionary of Christian Antiquities.” Articles in the
“Expositor,” 1887, give the different views of the origin of episcopacy.
Ramsay’s “ The Church and the Roman Empire.” Greenwood’s “Cathedra Petri” is
full and accurate, the first two volumes are on this period. Geffken’s “Church
and State,” 2 volumes. Article “Popedom” in Ency. Brit. H. C. Lea’s “History of
Sacerdotal Celibacy ” is a most impartial and important work, and should be
read by every student. See also lives of Ambrose; Augustine; Leo I, by Canon
Gore; Gregory I, by Bramley.
Part
IV.—Worship and Discipline.
Sources.
“Letters
of Pliny,” “Teaching of the Twelve,” “Justin Martyr,” “Apostolic
Constitutions,” and “Ancient Liturgies,” in the Ante-Nicene Library. Swainson’s
“Early Greek Liturgies,” and Daniel’s “Thesaurus Liturgicus,” are authorities.
The guide for this section has been Kostlin’s “Geschichte des Gottes-
22
Literature.
dienst.”
Dr. Bennett’s “Christian Archaeology” is scholarly and valuable. Swainson’s
article, “ Liturgy ” in the “ Dictionary of Christian Antiquities.”
DISCIPLINE.
Sources.
See
Cyprian, Tertullian, “Apostolic Constitutions;” “Apostolic Canons,” in “
Ante-Nicene Library;” Hefele as above on the Canons of the Councils; Bright’s “
Canons of the First Four General Councils;” Mead’s article, “Penitence,” in the
“Dictionary of Christian Antiquities.” Of the several lives of “ Chrysostom,”
Stephens’s is the best.
Part
V.—Chapter I.—The Old Social Order in Rome.
Authorities.
Friedlander’s
“Darstellung aus der Sittengeschichte Roms” is learned, interesting, and
graphic in its portrayal. Dollinger’s “ Heidenthum und Judenthum,” English
translation, “Jew and Gentile in the Court of the Temple of Christ,” is the
work of an able scholar, and with all corrections of later writers an
invaluable aid to the student. Of great help are Mommsen-Mar-quardt’s, and
Schiller-Voigt’s “Romische Alterthiimer.” Teuffel’s “Geschichte Romische
Literatur.” Zeller’s “History of Ancient Philosophy” is the fullest and best.
Erdmann and Uberweg on Ancient Philosophy in their Histories of Philosophy are
good, Erdmann to be preferred. It is also treated in Schwegler’s “ History of
Philosophy,” in one volume.
There are
good English translations of Plato and Aristotle. Jowett’s Plato and Grant’s
Aristotle are the best; found also in Bohn’s library. Lecky’s “ History of
European Morals ” has an appreciative sketch of Stoicism. The subject is
treated in all the Church histories.
Literature.
23
Part
V.—Chapter II.—Christian Life and Society.
Sources.
The New
Testament, The Apostolic Fathers, The Apologists, Clement, Tertullian, Cyprian,
and Origen, in the“Ante-Nicene Library;” Brace’s “ Gesta Christi;” Storrs’s
“Historic Evidences of Christianity;” Ulhorn’s “Charity in the Christian
Church;” Withrow’s “Catacombs.” Bishop Hurst’s Chapter 26 in his “ Church
History,” on the “ Church in the Catacombs,” is concise, accurate, and
instructive.
Part
V.—Chapter III.—The Monastic Life.
Sources.
Athanasius’s
“Life of Antony,” Jerome’s “Letters,” Letters of Chrysostom and Augustine, all
in the “ Post-Nicene Fathers;” Harnack’s “Pseudo-Clemen-tinische Brief;”
Harnack’s “Das Monchthum;” Mon-talembert’s “ Monks of the West;” Littledale’s
article, “Monachism,” in Ency. Brit.; Weingarten’s article, “Monchthum,” in
Herzog’s Real Ency.; Venable’s article, “Monastery,” in “ Dictionary of
Christian Antiquities.”
Part V.-=—Chapter IV.
Sources.
Eusebius’s
“ Ecclesiastical History,” Sozomen’s “ Ecclesiastical History,” in the
“Post-Nicene Library;” Bishop Lightfoot’s article, “ Eusebius,” in the “
Dictionary of Christian Biography;” Fergusson’s “ History of Architecture,” 2
vols. Gamicci “Storia della arte Christiana nei primi otto secoli della Chiesa
e Corredata della Collegione di tutti i Monumenti di Pittura e Scultura,”
1872-1880, 6 vols.; from this work, more than from any other source, I have
derived my impressions concerning the catacombs. Hubsch “Architecture
Chretienne” from Constantine
Literature.
to
Charlemagne, one volume, great folio; Texier and Pullan on Byzantine
architecture, one volume, great folio; Dehio and Bezold’s “Die Kirchliche
Baukunst des Abendlandes,” 3 vols., folio, plates, have been the authorities
used on architecture. Bennett’s “ Christian Archaeology ” is valuable, as is
also Nesbitt’s article, “Church,” in the Dictionary of Christian Antiquities.
fart First
THE CONQUEST.
25
Chapter
I.
THE EMPIRE OF ROME.
In the
last four hundred years the wealth and power of the race and the seats of
civilization have passed from the shores of the Mediterranean to the banks of
the Thames and the Spree, the Neva and the Seine. The transfer across the
Atlantic would not be more momentous than this change of the center of all
lands from the southern to the northern side of the Alps. The transition is
from the leadership and dominion of Europe to that of the globe; from following
in the wake of a mighty past to the new era, in which the conquests of the
Christian faith and civilization are bound by no lands and shut in by no seas,
but constitute the true dominion of the world.
This
shifting of the center of civilization and authority renders the restoration of
the Papal dominion, whether temporal in Italy or spiritual in Christendom, as
vain as the restoration of the Roman Empire. Rome can never again rule the
world. The landlocked Mediterranean can never again be the great highway of
commerce and seat of government. The navies of the world and the argosies of
its commerce must ride on deeper waters and connect more widely-sundered lands.
For the first time in two thousand years, Rome no longer holds the leadership
of the world.
If now we
live in a Rome-less world, we need to know, at least in outline, the world in
which Rome bore rule; what Rome was; the work she wrought ; the presence and
influence which filled and pervaded the ages. This is essential to any true
understanding of the early Christian centuries. Freeman did not exaggerate when
he said: “ That Christianity should become the religion of the Roman Empire, is
the miracle of history; but that it did so become, is the leading fact of all
history, from that day onwards.” To bring a dead world and society to life
again, is no easy task; but it is the only way to make history of value; and
when the art of the historian accomplishes this, there is a delight such as no
creations of the novelist can give, since there is an equal exercise of the
imagination, while the great men and events of the past become our teachers,
and we trace the action of forces which underlie all history, and therefore the
times in which we live. •
To
understand the Empire of Rome, we shall need a comprehensive view of the lands
in which she ruled; a clear conception of her power and government through a
comparison with the Empire of Britain; to trace, in a few strokes, the
character and career of her rulers; to see the forms of her Government, the
structure of her society, and glance at those economic conditions of trade,
manufactures, and agriculture which determine the national well-being of a
people. While making Roman society and rule live again, we are to remember that
Rome was the mightiest antagonist and most relentless persecutor the Christian
faith ever had. The sternest conflict was waged for centuries, and the victory
decided for all time the fate of the contest between Christianity and every form
of heathenism. The time will not be lost in which we seek to live in that Roman
world in which our Lord was born, the apostles labored, and the Christian
Church was founded and came to victory.
No fairer
lands were ever united under a single rule than those of Rome. They descend
toward and surround the Mediterranean Sea. This sea The Lands lies for two
thousand miles between Africa of R°me* and Europe. The
distance from Gibraltar to Syria is as great as from New York to Denver. It is
ten times the size of all the great lakes which The Medi-flow into the St. Lawrence.
It was the terranean. maritime highway of the Roman world. Grouped upon its
shores arose the seats of ancient civilization and modern power. Around its
eastern end lay Egypt, the land of the earliest historic civilization;
Phoenicia, through whose hands Assyrian and Babylonian culture reached the
West, and from whose cities of Sidon and Tyre sprang the letters and commerce
of the ancient world; Greece, the mistress of literature and art; and
Palestine, from whose tribes came forth the religion which has ruled all the
ages since. On the southern shore stood Carthage, daughter of Tyre and rival of
Rome. The peninsula of Spain shuts in its western end. On its soil arose the
power which freed the land from the Moslem, conquered and possessed for three hundred
years the Western Continent, and during the sixteenth century ruled as the
mightiest power in Europe. France, once a powerful monarchy, and now a great
republic, forms part of its northern coast. Genoa, Pisa, Florence, and above
all Venice, controlled its commerce and grew opulent through its trade. At the
eastern end is the great Balkan peninsula. From its metropolis, Constantinople,
the Moslem power ruled for four hundred years the nations east of the Adriatic.
The power which commanded the Mediterranean ruled the Western world and Western
civilization, and determined the destiny of those European races which, through
conquest and dominion, were to people and possess other continents.
Italy is
the central and fairest of the three northern peninsulas; it extends for seven
hundred miles into the great Mediterranean—twice the length of the peninsula of
Florida. Half-way down on its western side the yellow Tiber finds its way to
the sea. Fourteen miles from its mouth, on seven small hills which clustered
about its banks, was founded the city of Rome. Her situation, as well as the
martial virtues of her citizens, made her the center of trade and source of
authority in all the lands from the Alps to the Atlas, and from the Straits of
Gibraltar to the River Euphrates. Although the arms of her legions carried the
rule of Rome to the shores of the Atlantic and German Oceans, the Black,
Caspian, and Red Seas, to the banks of the Rhine and Danube, yet Rome was
essentially, in all ages, a Mediterranean power. The mighty power which filled
and ruled this scene finds its most instructive par-ihe Rule of
ru*e °f modern Britain. As
Rome com-
the island of Great Britain is but the base thatof Great °Perations
and home of the great cap-Britain. tains of her civilization, of the governors
ol provinces which are empires, the commanders of the trade and commerce of the
world, so Italy was
The
Empire of Rome.
3V
but the
base of the Roman power and the home of the governing race. Britain, like Rome,
is the greatest colonizing and civilizing power of the world. Her commerce and
her colonies are followed by her conquests and dominion. Britain is as eager as
Rome for commercial and naval supremacy. A glance at the map will show how she
commands the strategic points of maritime intercourse. The control of the ocean
routes by Bermuda, Jamaica, St. Helena, Cape Town, Aden, Bombay, Ceylon,
Singapore, and Hong Kong make this evident. So, in the Mediterranean, she holds
Gibraltar, Cyprus, and Egypt. Whatever powers rule its shores, upon its waters
Britain reigns supreme. Rome was seven hundred years in accomplishing this
result; but so thoroughly was the work of conquest done, that she wielded the
scepter of its sway for five hundred years from the Tiber, and for more than a
thousand years from Constantinople. As the drum-beat of Britain is heard around
the world, so the supremacy of Rome rested on the valor of her legions. Britain
enlists and drills natives of all lands—Sepoys, Sikhs, Goorkas, and Arabs—in
her armies of conquest and possession. So Rome recruited and re-enforced her
proudest legions from the allies and mercenaries of Gaul and Britain, from the
Germans and Goths.
As wealth
and trade, government and civilization, in the British Empire, center on the
banks of the Thames, so far more intensely did that of the great Empire of Rome
center in its capital by the Tiber. As the British Parliament is the supreme
source of authority and court of appeal from America, Africa, and Australia,
and to subject princes and nations in
India, so
were the Roman Senate and the Roman emperors to the subject-lands of Rome. The
power which conquers plains and oceans allows, and necessarily reserves, a
greater freedom of government and administration than was ever known to the
provinces of Rome. Widely different from any pagan culture and rule is the rule
of the British Empire through the acceptance, as corner-stones of its dominion,
of the Christian religion, constitutional government, and personal liberty,
civil and religious. Still, some startling resemblances confront us. In
colonies, conquests, and government, Rome was easily chief in the ancient, as
Britain is in the modern world. Her rule brought order, prosperity, and the
arts and achievements of civilization. Law, equitable administration, improved
social usages, and the best roads in the world followed in the train of the
armies of Rome, as they do to-day the conquests of Britain. Into the sphere of
this dominion came the religion of Christ.
Our Lord
was born in the age of Augustus—the great age of Roman rule. The first Roman
emperor The Rulers of had reigned twenty-seven years “ when this Empire jesus
was born in Bethlehem of Judea, in the days of Herod the king.” Thus the
beginning of the Roman Empire and the Christian religion were in the same
generation.
If Julius
laid the foundation for the fortune and throne of the Caesars, Augustus
consolidated their
power and
established the empire. His
The
Ccesars. . r
successors
in the direct line ended with the brutal and cruel Nero. Tiberius had been a
worn-out debauchee and misanthrope; Caligula a madman; Claudius little better
than an imbecile; while
The
Empire of Rome.
33
the last
of the Julian house was the murderer of his brother, Britannicus, and his
mother, Agrippina.
After the
short revolutionary reigns Revoiu-
.
. tionary
of Galba,
Otho, and Vitelhus, Vespasian Emperors, founded the Flavian line of emperors.
The
Flavian house, with the exception of the crafty and bloodthirsty Domitian,
formed a succession of the best rulers among the emperors of FIavlan
Rome. Vespasian, Titus, and Trajan were Emperors, generals worthy of Rome’s
noblest time. 60'192 Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, and Marcus
Aurelius were cultivated men and enlightened rulers. They secured the best
results possible from imperial despotism; they postponed the fall, but could
not maintain the prosperity of the Roman State. Gibbon placed in their reign
the greatest average happiness of mankind. Strange that he should think the
largest happiness of the race to be joined to a decaying nation and a declining
state!
Commodus,
the last of the Flavian emperors, was succeeded for nearly half a century by
the house of Septimus Severus (i93-235)> and a series XheMiIitary
of military chieftains, all of whom reigned Emperors by the choice or consent
of the legions. ,92=284-Of the twenty-six emperors who
came to the throne in this period, twent3r-two were put to death by
their soldiers or by victorious rivals. Of the four others, Decius died in
battle, Valerian in captivity, Claudius by pestilence; and only Septimus
Severus was excepted from an evil fate.
Diocletian,
in order to end this era of military despotism and anarchy, divided the
imperial rule among four leading generals, and crowned his system by his
3
34
The
Conquest.
own
abdication. Though other claimants disputed the imperial authority with
Constantine, and though the apostate Julian reigned for two years as the last
of the house of the first Christian emperor, yet, in any real sense,
Diocletian, one of the greatest, was also the last pagan emperor of Rome.
To trace
the reign and fortunes of these emperors in detail may seem more interesting
than to cause to live about us the society and institutions in which they
moved. The latter may require a stronger effort of the imagination and a larger
fund of information. Yet the reward is greater; we then have the background and
setting for the lives and deeds of those men who made glorious the page of
Christian history, and can measure, to some extent, the influence of those
uncounted thousands who founded and gave victory to the Christian Church. The
life of the greatest man has a narrow limit; institutions sum up and
crystallize the most serviceable endeavors of the ablest men, and of society,
and transmit them from generation to generation. Some knowledge of Roman
institutions will not only give form and shape to the life and society of the
time, but will help us to understand the Christian institutions as well.
ROMAN
GOVERNMENT.
The Roman
Republic and Empire was, first of all, a city state Rome, the city, ruled until
the extent of her conquests made impossible the exercise of The imperial power
through a city magistracy Magistrates chosen by a portion
of her inhabitants. Even then the old forms of a city government survived in
the State under the empire, while Roman
The
Empire of Rome.
35
society
and civilization found its centers in the city communities of the provinces,
which were formed and administered after the model of the capital.
The
Government of Rome for five hundred years combined rotation in office with
skill, experience, and stability never equaled. The officers were, as a rule,
annually elected; but the governing body was an official aristocracy, holding
offices for life, yet annually recruited from the body of the citizens.
We may
have a better understanding of this organization if we suppose its principles
applied to the government of an American State. Then, if its officers were
annually elected, and not eligible to successive re-election, the governor and
lieutenant-governor would represent the consuls; the judges of the State, the
praetors; the Board of Public Works, the sediles; the comptroller and
treasurer, the quaestors; the State assessors, if chosen once in five years,
the censors; the attorney-general, chosen to defend the rights of the people,
the tribunes. To its College of Pontiffs, with pontifex maximus at its head,
caring for the interests of religion and holding offices for life, we, of
course, have no official representatives. If, then, these officials had to
begin their course with the office considered lowest in the list—that of
treasurer—and advance, though by popular election, yet in graded succession,
and after serving their term of office, they became the life-members of the
State Legislature, the only law-making and governing body; if they should
choose, by their own election, the members of their body who should keep their
number up to the legal limit of 300, and later 600 members; and if the property
qualification of the
36
The
Conquest.
members
was $1,600, and later $40,000, we would have a fair picture of the magistracy
and Senate of Rome. If the President of the United States should become an
absolute ruler, and himself appoint those officers whom he chose to remain,
assuming to himself the tribunate, the censorships, and the office of pontifex
maximus, and then should fill all the vacancies in the number of the senators,
generally with their consent, but sometimes without, we would have the image of
that administration under the imperial rule.
Under the
empire, the Senate formed an aristocratic body of men chosen for life, whose
duty was rather to consult with the emperor than to legislate, like the Senate
of the Napoleonic regime in France. It exercised authority in conjunction with
the emperor for the first two centuries of our era, was oppressed by the
military emperors of the third century, and became merely the Municipal Council
of Constantinople under Constantine.
Of much
greater import than the waning influence of the Senate and Roman magistracy,
which more and more merged into the imperial authority, were the cities and
municipalities of the empire, which were formed and ruled by the spirit and
power of the earlier time. Rome was a city state; its civilization was a
civilization begun, developed, ruled, and almost confined to cities. When, at
the founding of the empire, the rule of Rome ceased to be the rule of one The
Munid- city, it became the rule of the cities and paiities. municipalities of
her provinces. Whatever of talent or genius for government remained in the
empire, came from these communities to the cap
The
Empire of Rome.
37
ital and
to the chief offices of the State; for in these municipalities, in their
administration and government, was preserved all of liberty, of in- Their
Gov-dependent civil and political life, left in ernment. this great despotism.
In Italy they were formed as the conquests of the Republic advanced. In France
and Spain, they were established at all the centers of trade, government, and
population. So, in the conquered lands to the north and east of Italy, and in
Britain, they formed the centers and support of Roman power, society, and
civilization. In the East, in a land of cities, Rome sometimes entered into an
alliance with them, whereby they preserved the freedom of their administration
by the payment of the taxes in a stated sum; sometimes they obtained or
accepted the privileges accorded by their conquerors to the civic communities
of the West. In any event, their government conformed more and more, though
with the retention of the old names for their officers, to the city
organizations of the West.
The
administration of a Roman provincial city was committed to two men chosen
annually by, and from among, those of the population who The city had the right
of citizenship, for the exer- Magistracy, cise of the judicial and religious
authority of the city. They were called Duumviri jure dicundo ; that is, two
men who give the law. With these were chosen two men who had charge of the
police, the public buildings, streets, roads, and city property; they were
called iEdiles. These officials are assisted by two treasurers or quaestors.
The Duumviri represented the consuls, praetors, and pontifex maximus of Rome,
discharging duties like theirs. They appointed censors, who were
38
The
Conquest.
a part of
the city magistracy, held their office for five years, and who drew up the list
of all the assessable property in the city and its territory upon which was
based the imperial taxation, for administrative and judicial districts were
grouped around the cities. The city officers passed in succession through the
grades of its magistracy, and possessed a considerable property qualification.
When they had served their term of office, they became life-members of the
Senate of the city—more often called Decurionate, and The its members
decurions. This City Council Decurionate. hac[ jn
municipality, in domestic matters, all the authority of the Roman Senate. Its
number was fixed by the act of the Senate at Rome, which was the charter of the
city; but it could not exceed one hundred. It was composed of the city officers
who had served their terms, and ot certain prominent men, enough to make up the
legal number, who were chosen by the Council on account of especial merit or
worth. For the first century of our era, these city offices, which led to
lifelong Decurionate and its honors, were eagerly sought by rich men, who, upon
their entry into a city magistracy, gave expensive games or erected some public
building to signalize their term of office. As this Council of Decurions were
responsible personally for all the taxes of the city and its allotted
surrounding territory, so that, if they failed to collect the amount from the
property of the inhabitants, they had to pay it out of their own pockets, the
office, in the increasing expense of the Imperial Government and poverty of the
population, came to be a burden instead of a privilege. After 200, the Council
of Decurions was only a corpora-
The
Empire of Rome.
39
tion for
the collection of taxes. The emperor had the right to confirm the city
magistrates. If suitable (wealthy) ones did not present themselves, he could
nominate through the senior Duumviri, which was an election not to be declined.
So he could, and by his officers did, fill up the number of vacant places in
the decurionate. Thus no wealthy man escaped the obligations of making good the
taxes. Hence the city aristocracy was one of wealth ; for the wealthy classes
controlled all official positions.
This
tendency was increased by the institution of the Augustales. These were six
men, partly free and partly rich freedmen, chosen to have charge AugugtaIes
of the worship of the emperors. They were elected by the decurions on account
of their wealth. On their election, they gave great games and paid a large sum
into the city treasury as qualification for office. With the worship of living
emperors in many ways was connected the existing rites or worship of Mercury,
Hercules, Castor and Pollux. The native and local worships were almost
unlimited. The Duumviri of each city chose the pontifices and augurs. Religion
was bound up with every official action of the community. Its prosperity was
inseparably connected with the strict observance of religious rites.
The
emperor exercised his rule through the governors of provinces. They were called
proconsuls, propraetors, or procurators, and had the rank and dignity and
governed as imperial viceroys. Their importance depended upon the wealth and
resources of the province they ruled. Paul appeared before them at Cyprus, at
Corinth, and at Caesarea. They
4o
The
Conquest.
presided
often at the persecutions and martyrdom of Christians. They secured the public
peace, the administration of the law, and the collection
The
Provin-
ciai
Admin- of the revenue. They made real the rule istration. R0me.
Under them were the officials, civil and military, necessary to carry on the
Imperial Government as now in India. In fact, the British governors of India
and her provinces afford the nearest parallel. Prsefects were officers sent out
annually as representatives of the Roman prsetor, to administer justice in the
colonies and municipalities. Sent by the emperor, they represented the Imperial
Government and its administration. The name and no small part of the functions
of the office survive in the French prefect.
Thus we
have passed in review the governmental institutions of the Roman State and of
her cities. With these the early Christians had daily to do; they formed the
framework and substance sometimes, as with Paul, of their defense, and
sometimes, as in his case, of their condemnation and martyrdom; for in this
survey we must not forget the position and person of the emperor, who ruled
with absolute sovereignty over a larger population than any European sovereign
since, unless we except Queen Victoria since the English crown undertook the
government of India in 1857. To a rule always liable to the caprices of despotism,
and sometimes base and horrible beyond description, was added the most
prevalent of all religious and official rites—the worship of the living
emperors of Rome. However dry these matters of administration and government
are to us, to the early Christians they were of the most intense interest,
The
Empire of Rome.
4i
because
upon the disposition of the Roman governor, or the magistrates of a Roman city,
might depend the life or death of the Christian missionary, or of those
converted through his preaching.
If
persecution and martyrdom depended upon the disposition of Roman governors and
magistrates, there was no intermission of the pressure of Roman taxation. The
slave portion of the Christian population alone escaped it, and its effects
were felt long after the empire ceased to be pagan. Therefore, a glance at it
will help us to understand the life of that time. Upon conquest—and all the
lands of Rome were conquered territory—the real estate Roman of a province
became the property of the Taxation. Roman people, or of the State. The
inhabitants were left in possession upon the payment of a tributum, or annual
tax, which was the rent. This was usually one-tenth of the produce of the land;
often one-fifth; seldom as little as one-twentieth. The cities had to care for
the assessment—the raising and payment of the taxes. They were bound together
into provinces, or dioceses, in which the governor held a Provincial Assembly
each year, composed of the deputies of these cities and communes. This
Provincial Union was bound together by the worship of the emperors. The high
priest was a very eminent man; he had charge of the financial administration of
the Union, presided at the Provincial Assembly, and at the public games. These
Assemblies cared for the financial administration; the erection of
commemorative monuments; they chose the high priest, and made complaints
against the governor, and sent them, through their ambassador, to the emperor
42
The
Conquest.
or the
Senate. We easily see how the Roman Administration and State represented to the
Christians that idolatry which they loathed, and which brought them to prison
and to death.
While the
Roman system of taxes in their assess, ment had commendable features of
definiteness for a fixed period, and local adjustment, yet their collection was
as merciless, impolitic, and destructive as can well be conceived. In the first
place, all the direct taxes—that is, all but the fixed tribute—were sold to the
highest bidder. The collection of these was undertaken by great stock companies
of publicani, hence publicans, who had to deposit a large sum as Collection of
security with the State. They must collect the Taxes, j-^e taxes or be
financially ruined. Their profit was the sum raised in excess of the wants of
the State, and they had every motive to oppress and drain dry the tax-payer.
Not less certain of economic ruin was the system of collection of the direct
taxes. The collective property of the wealthy citizens who formed the
Decurionate, or City Council, was the guarantee for the annual taxes of the
city and adjacent districts. In this way the State was sure of a fixed revenue
at the beginning of the financial year. But the results were disastrous. If
through bad harvests, epidemics, or tempests, or from slower and more certain
causes, the city or district decreased in population or wealth, we may be
certain that the strongest members of the community—its wealthy aristocracy—
would use every means to collect the taxes before impoverishing themselves. The
laws were harsh and severe. The freeman who could not pay the poll or property
tax was sold into slavery, and his family
The
Empire of Rome.
43
also, if
necessary to make up the required amount. Thus, if a city or district began to
decline, its ruin was progressively accelerated. The possessor of little
property either left for more favored regions, or sunk into helpless slavery.
The land went out of cultivation, so that slaves became a burden rather than a
source of profit. This rigid and inhuman system of taxation was one great cause
of the increasing poverty and economic ruin of the Roman Empire. Financial
administration and taxation, in all ages and in all communities, have a most
intimate relation to the welfare of the State.
The early
Christians saw before their eyes the power and splendor of the Roman Empire—the
great kingdom of “ this world ”—and felt the pressure of its taxation; but they
had to do directly with its society, of which they formed first a hated, and
then an antagonistic part. If their life and work is to have meaning for us, we
must know something of its structure. In all Roman communities, as in the
capital, the Senate, or city official aristocracy, stood at the head. From the
Senate, even in imperial times, were chosen the great officers of the court and
of the State, the governors of provinces, the commanders of legions, and the
higher administrative posts. Below them, at Rome, ranked the knights, a Roman
moneyed aristocracy whose ruinous com- Society, petition and usurious gains
impoverished the provinces. Below them were the freedmen—men born in slavery,
who became the trusted confidants of their masters, or of great native
capacity, who, procuring their freedom, often amassed immense fortunes, and
came to the highest posts of influence with the aris
44
The
Conquest.
tocracy
and in the court, but could never wipe off the stain of their servile origin.
In the capital, the middle class died out, and there remained only the citizens
who were fed by the State, and the slaves. In the provincial cities, next to
the aristocracy of t]ie decurions were the Augustales. Then came the body of
the citizens, never large in number in proportion to the inhabitants who could
vote for the officers of the municipality. They were artists, handworkers of
all kinds, small traders, teachers, and lower government officials, often
living from hand to mouth; then the non-voting citizens, mostly foreigners and
their descendants, who followed small handicrafts and trades, like the Jews in
the Greek cities under Roman rule of St. Paul’s time, and to whom he first
preached. These became a constantly-diminishing class in the West, as business
came more and more into the hands of freedmen. The middle class ceased to
exist, and slavery, like a bottomless abyss, swallowed up all below the
wealthier classes. In the first century, it is estimated there were more slaves
than freemen in the empire. Though recruited no longer to the same extent by
war, its ranks were continually replenished by the poverty which made
impossible the payment of debts and taxes.
The
imperial times saw the most flourishing trade, commerce, industry,
manufactures, and agriculture Economic known to ancient peoples or a pagan
rule, conditions of They also saw their decline. A view of the Empire. material
conditions of their life can not fail to make us better acquainted with the
early Christians.
These
favorable conditions were: (i) An unsur
The
Empire of Rome.
45
passed
economic domain. It was bounded on the west by the Atlantic, on the south by
the Great Desert, on the north by the trackless forests or uncultivated wastes
of Germany and Russia; while its trade with Central and Eastern Asia and India,
with Eastern and Central Africa, was the foundation of the prosperity of great
cities like Antioch, Alexandria, and Carthage. (2) To this unsurpassed economic
domain Rome gave four hundred years of peace such as the old world never knew,
and as are not found in the history of any Oriental civilization. The immense
standing army was kept mainly on the frontier. As a rule, the conflicts of
pretenders to the empire were not of long duration, and concerned mainly the
legionaries, and did not greatly affect the civic inhabitants. When the
barbarians burst through the frontier defenses, they found a population unused
alike to war and arms. (3) Rome laid down and kept in repair the best and most
extensive lines of communication before the construction of railways. (4) She
gave a uniform currency and a traffic little hampered by tariff laws to this
immense population of diverse nationalities and * tongues.
Manufactures
felt this increased demand of trade. They made rapid and large advance in the
variety and amount of commodities produced. Manufac-The division of labor, the
associations of tures. capital (stock companies) and of laborers (guilds,
unions, etc.), were never surpassed until our day.
Great
advance was made in agriculture. Improved breeds of cattle and Agricu,ture'
sheep, etc., the introduction of new kinds of trees,
46
The
Conquest.
fruits,
vegetables, and their higher cultivation, marked the first century of our era.
This
economic prosperity did not continue. The causes of its decline were : (i)
Slavery, rendering free labor disgraceful and unprofitable; (2) The greed of
Roman capitalists, accumulating immense estates and depopulating the fairest
portions of Italy; then entering into competition with the manufactures and
trade of the provinces, and either breaking down their mar-Causes ket or
ruining them with high rates of in-of Decline, terest; (3) The ruinous system of
taxation; (4) The fact that $5,000,000 more was imported annually from the East
than was exported, mainly articles of luxury, and this balance was paid in
precious metals, producing, in time, a dearth of coin in the empire. To these
should be added the loss of political freedom, and moral deterioration, which
renders vain the greatest economic advantages.
In
religion, the era of skepticism, profligacy, and debauchery, reaching from
Sulla to Nero (B. C. 80-A. D. 69), gave way to better morals under Vespasian,
and to a strong craving after the satisfaction of religious needs. These the
old Roman religion
Religion.
.
could not
reach. They sought relief m natural theology—the law of the nature of things—
like our scientific materialists or agnostics; in philosophy, the teaching of
Plato, Zeno, and Plotinus; in worships, with their mysteries, purifications,
and symbolism. Meanwhile, religion played a great part in the life of the
people. Its officers were the leading officials, as its temples were the most splendid
buildings in every community. Its priesthoods were not only supported by the
State, but heavily endowed
The
Empire of Rome.
47
with
private funds. Its idolatry came into the Government, the social and business
life, the amusements, and the homes of the people.
The pagan
Empire of Rome was the most imposing fabric of human government the world had
ever seen. The result of the conquests and wars of the aristocratic Roman
Republic, its greatness, had been preparing for more than half a millennium. It
had elements of power, of wisdom, and perpetuity beyond any preceding form of
human rule. It brought to warring nations peace. It gave a common citizenship
and a universal law. Its rise was the golden age of Roman literature and of
Roman taste and achievement in art. It made highways for the nations, and fused
races, nationalities, philosophies, and religions. Its legions for four hundred
years made the Pax Ro-mana, and its governors its jurisprudence, respected from
the Firth of Forth to the Euphrates, and from the Straits of Gibraltar to the
Sea 6f Azov. The eagles of its dominion and the fasces of its rule traveled
unhindered from the cataracts of the Nile to the mouths of the Danube and the
Rhine. To this reign of peace and order, breaking down of national and tribal
barriers, fusion of customs, ideas, languages, and peoples, there was a reverse
side. The material and industrial basis of the Roman Empire was slavery—a
slavery enormously increased in numbers by wars of conquest, and beyond all
others harsh, relentless, and cruel. To this witness Roman law, Roman
industries and prisons, and the Roman amphitheater. The extravagance of the
emperors and of the Imperial Administration wasted the wealth of the world, and
resulted in a system of taxation so burdensome,
48
The
Conquest.
oppressive,
and finally destructive, that it impoverished the most fertile countries,
diminished and enslaved the population, and made inevitable the ruin of the
empire.
A careful
student of the time has said: “ The pride and luxury of the society which had
attained the dominion of the world knew no refinement or restraint such as made
the Greek decadence last through centuries ; while, in a single generation, the
Roman decline rushed into the steep descent of the sensualities and bestialities
of society under Nero—an abyss from which it never emerged, and the only hope
for whose redemption could be in no philosophic incitement to moral reform, but
in a new dogma and a great revelation.”
Chapter
II.
THE
CHRISTIAN CHURCH.
We have
had before us the outline and proportions of the society and government of the
Roman Empire, in which the Christian Church was born, with which it was in
conflict for centuries, and which was its first great conquest. Over against
the gigantic strength and resources of the one should be set forth those
qualities of the other which led to its predominance and triumph; for these
things are not arbitrary. God has his laws, which work in every age for the
establishment of the Divine kingdom. There is an increasing action of the moral
forces of our nature in the Christian sphere. The causes which in the first six
centuries prevailed in the overthrow of heathenism in the Roman world are as
mighty now for a like conquest in the Orient.
Our Lord
sprang out of Judah. The preparation for his advent was mainly with that
remarkable race. This preparation was of vast importance and of thrilling
interest, but can not be adequately treated here. Its outlines are familiar to
those acquainted with the Christian Scriptures and with Christian preaching.
Fuller information may be profitably sought in the works of Edersheim and
Schurer. The Church was, in its origin, purely Jewish. The apostles and first
converts, like their Lord, were of
4
49
50
The
Conquest.
that
race. Under Paul’s leadership, the national limits were overpassed. After the
tak-its origin. ^ jemsajem 'Titus, and its complete
overthrow
by Hadrian, the Jewish element ceases to be an important factor in the
development of the Christian Church. We can never forget our obligation to that
people, to whose Scriptures we appeal and of whom our Lord was born. It was
their fault and our grief that his own received him not, and that they were the
fiercest foes, as they were the first instigators of Christian persecutions.
Not as a
product of Jewish development or from any combination with Greek and Roman
elements did Christianity originate. It owed its existence and importance to
three things, which intrinsically, and certainly in their connection, were unique.
They are the character or person of its founder, the doctrines which he taught,
and the society which he formed.
The
founder of no great historic religion has been an ordinary man. Jesus differed
from the greatest of these, not in degree, but in kind. The fulfillment of the
mission of other men rested upon what they did, his upon what he was. Other
founders of religions wrought to old age. His work closed before they would
have begun theirs. He manifested himself but three years to men; and his words
were spoken, and finished was his task. His method was equally unique. He did
not retire from the world for solitude and reflection, like Buddha or Mahomet;
he did not elaborate a system and commit it to writing, like Confucius; he did
not meet men in the marketplaces and at social gatherings for conversation,
like
The
Christian Church. 51
Socrates.
He chose the severest test of the greatness of a human personality. He gathered
about him a few men from the ordinary walks of life, and lived with them in the
closest intimacy of private life and of public ministration. He won men by
living with them. The teaching by life has been the chiefest source of all
victories since. The whole effect of his mission was the impression he made
upon the men thus chosen. It was this impression of the nature of the man which
gave weight to his words and made deeds of power seem natural to him. This is
the origin of all remembered utterances and narratives which make him known to
us. This impression, made by his living with men, reveals a greatness of soul,
a sublimity of character, a breadth of sympathy, and a depth of compassion
which make him, simply as a man, the noblest, the most attractive, and the most
commanding figure of the ages. In all times since, he has been the point of
support for aspiring natures, struggling souls, and stricken hearts, and also
of every great moral endeavor of human society where his name was known. These
things all men confess; but to his followers he has ever been the most complete
and impressive revelation of the will of the invisible God to men. He and he
alone makes rational, moral, and spiritual the universe in which we live. His
death and resurrection bring the brightness of unclouded day into the unbroken
darkness of human guilt, human sorrow, and certain death. This surely was
worthy of the Son of God. On the other hand, the total impression that he makes
is that he is very man. He seeks men, seeks to cleanse them, to enlarge their
natures, to bring
52
The
Conquest.
them to a
realization of the purpose of their being, and all this with a depth of
tenderness and affection beyond what men feel for their dearest friends. When
men compare their lives with his, it is the narrowness of intellect, the
littleness and poverty of nature, the lack of depth and breadth, and never the
reverse, which makes them cry out this life is impossible. Yet unnumbered
thousands in every generation testify that this life, so wonderful, so
supremely regnant, can reproduce itself in the human spirit, and that this transformation
is the great experience of human life.
The
doctrines of Jesus, which are unique with him, and which give his teaching the
predominance among all the faiths of the world, on the lowest ground of the
principle of the survival of the fittest, The cluster around four
great truths: i. He reDoctrines. vealed the one God to men; that is, the
supremacy and continuity of being and law throughout the universe, and in all
eternities past and to come, and that this God, supreme and regnant, is the
Heavenly Father of the race. This teaching was most antagonistic to the
universal polytheism and idolatry, the source of its bitterest opposition, and
yet its most powerful solvent. By teaching God as our Father, as the Father of
Jesus himself, he made the most universal and powerful of human relations
interpret God to men.
He
revealed the Divine forgiveness. He taught that all men needed forgiveness;
that men
Forgiveness.
°
did not
need to die to be lost, but were now lost in their sins, and were in danger of
eternal sin; that men escaped from sin only by turning, re
The
Christian Church.
53
penting,
and receiving the Divine forgiveness. The Divine forgiveness is a loosing from
sin, a cleansing from sin, and the beginning of a new life in which men do not
willfully depart from the Heavenly Father, but cleave to him in the endeavor to
do his will with the whole heart. The purification of the heart and conscience
from both sin and guilt is alone accomplished by the Divine forgiveness.
He
revealed that love is the principle of moral and spiritual life in men, as in
the nature of God. Christian love (aydizri) was a new thing in human history.
Jesus revealed it to men, and taught that it was the principle of the new life.
It came to human hearts, and controlled them through the Holy Spirit. It is the
law of the individual and social life of the Christians. The early ages of the
Church were bright with its radiance; and in no other respect is its history
more instructive to us.
He
revealed immortality to men. All else led up to this. The great themes and
facts of Christian preaching—Christ crucified, Jesus and the resurrection—were
its guarantee. It did not seem strange to them that a love which had overcome
the .
evil in
human hearts and in social life, *
controlling
the life by its law, and bringing into Divine communion, should prepare men, in
likeness of their Lord, to put on immortality. The spiritual life, the
enthroning of the Christian love, the indwelling Christ, are ever the clearest
proofs of a life beyond this.
These
four great truths—God, our relation to him; the Divine forgiveness; Christian
love; and immortality—were the smooth stones out of the brook
54
The
Conquest.
through
which was overthrown the colossal form of the pagan society and State.
The society
Jesus formed was the sling which hurled these stones. The secret of the
strength of this society was that its members were men and women convinced that
in them lived, and through them wrought, the Spirit of Christ—the Holy Spirit
of the living God. They brought forth the accordant fruits. This, in every age
and land, is the most essential and truest characteristic of a Christian
Church. The religion of Jesus Christ is eminently social. No one can receive
his Spirit and not wish others to share it. With the reception of the Divine
for-The society. gjveness was recejve(} the Spirit of
Christ,
and by
that fact the believer became related to the Christian Church. Through this
entrance into the Christian brotherhood, its fellowship, and watch-care, the
purity of the faith and of Christian life was maintained. In the midst of
heathen society, from which they must in great part separate, there was formed
another society, animated by a different spirit, inspired by other ideas, and
with other aims. This society kept together Christian believers, organized them
for service, ministered the means of grace, and led the attack upon heathenism.
These few Christian believers—poor, despised, and friendless—were stronger than
the mightiest empire and the greatest civil society in the world. They formed
the true kingdom of God, and they waited in ardent expectation and devout hope
for its perfect realization, when should come unto them their absent Lord. The
influence of Jesus, the truths he taught, the Church he founded, are the great
motor forces which acted upon and
The
Christian Church.
55
moved men
then, and which move men now; they transformed human society then, and they
change it now. They all center in the person of Christ and the work he wrought.
He was the founder and is the substance of Christianity. He is the author and
finisher of the faith. The greatness of Paul and John but bring more
prominently before us the source from which it was derived.
Pentecost
was the birthday of the Christian Church. The Holy Ghost came in answer to the
age-long prayer of humanity. He came the perpetual witness to the incarnation
and resurrection of our Lord, and the consummation of his mission. That D.
.
Birth and
day the
mingled tongues of Asia, Africa, Growth of and Europe heard in familiar accents
the the Church* message of the divine salvation. The Holy Spirit
gave a common experience to these widely-sundered hearts and lives. The grace
of his transforming presence knew no barriers of nationality or speech. Then
was begun the mission-work of the Christian Church. She received three thousand
converts on the day of her birth. For the remainder of the cen-
1 he
tury the
work went on under the direction Apostolic of the apostles and those converted
under Church-their ministry, and is the Apostolic Church.
Christianity began to spread from Jerusalem as a center almost immediately, and
that remained the mother Church until its overthrow in the destruction of the
city by Titus.
The most
remarkable of these apostolic missionaries is St. Paul. Added to great natural
gifts and solid learning, God gave a marvelous conversion and call to the
apostolate. Converted about 34 A. D., he,
56
The
Conquest.
as a wise
master-builder, in three missionary jour-* neys (40-58) laid the foundations of
the Church in Asia Minor and Greece. On his fifth visit to Jerusalem since his
conversion, he was apprehended, and, to prevent his murder by the Jews, taken
at once to Caesarea (58). There he remained two years in prison; but, having appealed
to Caesar, made a winter voyage to Rome, where he arrived in the spring of 61.
He remained in prison two years, in comparatively easy confinement; when on his
trial, he, after having been five years a captive, was released. About a year
of liberty was given him, in which he appears to have traveled to Asia Minor,
and preached the gospel in Spain. A second time in prison, he was soon released
p ui by a martyr’s death in June, 64. His letters give us a very
complete picture of the man and of his work. His main thought was nothing less
than winning the world for Christ. His two great achievements were: The loosing
of the obligation of the Mosaic law from the converts from heathenism to
Christianity, so making it a universal religion ; and the teaching of a better
righteousness than that of the law—the righteousness of faith. He has been
called the first fundamental theologian of Christianity. The order of and dates
of the New Testament writings, so far as we can determine them, are as follows:
Compare
the date of Paul’s writings with the Synoptic Gospels, 60-80.
1
Thessalonians,.....53 St. Matthew, . . Soon after 70
2
Thessalonians, . . . 53 or 54 St. Mark,.........67
1
Corinthians, . . 58, spring St. Luke,.........80
2
Corinthians, 58, midsummer St.John,.........96
Galatians,......55
or 57 Acts,...........80
Romans,.....59,
spring James,..........50
The
Christian Church.
Ephesians,
Colossians, Philemon, . Philippians,
i
Timothy, Titus,, . .
2
Timothy, Hebrews, .
62 or 60
1 Peter,
62 or 60
2 Peter,
62 or 60
1 John,
62
2 and 3 John
63
Jude, . . . .
63
Revelation,
64 66
• . 67 or
130 . . After 90 . . Before 90
.....60
. 70 or
90-95
55
No age
shall ever come that shall not be quickened into enthusiasm by the recorded
work and words of power of this most heroic soul, this most devoted and saintly
follower of our Lord, this ablest and most winning Christian missionary of all
the Christian ages. His influence to-day is not less potent than his work more
than eighteen hundred years ago.
Of the
life and works of most of the apostles, little has come down to us. With St.
Paul wrought also the three teachers of the Apostolic Age. St. Peter was the
preacher on the e er’ day of Pentecost; the spokesman of the
Apostolic College; the head of the Church of the circumcision through all the
nations where dwelt the dispersed remnants of the chosen people. He was at
Antioch and Babylon. Tradition speaks of a ministry at Rome * He perished in
the Neronian persecutions, June, 64.
St.
James, the brother of our Lord, was to the Church at Jerusalem all that St.
Peter was to the Jews of the Dispersion. He commanded the respect of the
enemies of the Christian faith James* by his devout life; and yet
his countrymen stoned him, as they had stoned Stephen, 66. He remains the ideal
type of the converted Jew, and his epistle makes for righteousness to-day as
did his example and character in the days of the expiring Jewish nation.
♦See Appendix, Note A.
58
The
Conquest.
To St.
John was given a longer career and a grander mission. After the destruction of
Jerusalem, and probably after the death of the mother of our Lord, St. John
removed to Ephesus. There, entering upon the work of St. Paul in Asia Minor, he
saw grow up around him the most prosperous and flourishing Churches of the
first century. He lived to see Christians of the second and third generation.
He had length of days in which not only to declare the Lord’s words, but in
which to reflect upon and weigh their meaning. He saw their effect upon the
world, society, and the Church. From the union of such susceptibility and
intuition of the Divine with his most intimate fellowship with the Lord and the
maturity of long experience, came the richest heritage of the Church—the
Scriptures written by the beloved disciple.
These
Scriptures have a larger unaccomplished mission before them in the Christian
Church than any other writings of the Sacred Record.
The
extension of the Church went on among the different races of the Roman Empire.
After the overthrow of Jerusalem, Rome became the great center of the Christian
world. At the end of the first century, the gospel had been fully preached in
the chief cities of her provinces. Its message had been proclaimed beyond the
Euphrates and on the western shore of India. Its truths found adherents south
of the Roman dominion, in Arabia and in Africa.
From the
first the Jewish converts in Judea must have been considerable in number. This
appears from the fact of the necessity of conciliating their opposition to the
work of Paul, as at the Council of Je
The
Christian Church.
59
rusalem,
and the number of poor saints in this mother Church for whom he made
collection. James, the brother of the L,ord, was the head of this Church until
his death. He was succeeded by Symeon, son of Cleopas—a relative, presumably
cousin, of our L,ord— who held the position for nearly forty years, being, it
is said, more than one hundred years of
- .
, , . . The Jews.
age at
his martyrdom by crucifixion, 106 or 107. After the end of the first century,
the Jewish Christians divided into two sects—the Ebionites, who held that the
law should be observed by all Christian converts, though sacrifices were done
away; and the Nazarenes, who held, according to the Council of Jerusalem, that
it was binding only on those who by birth were Jews. Ebionitic and Gnostic
elements were combined in the Jewish Christian heretical sect of the Elkasites,
who held Christianity to be a critically-revised Mosaism. They spread in Syria
and Arabia. Mohammed became acquainted with them, and from them drew those
ideas of Christianity which he taught in the Koran, and which have been ever
since the orthodox view of Christianity and its teaching in all the Mohammedan
world. May God open the way for a better knowledge than this heretical
distortion ! These sects have left a large body of apocryphal writings, like
the Preaching of Peter, the Gospel of James, the Clementine Homilies, etc.
The Jews
in the Greek and Roman cities were more liberal. When they became Christians
they seem to have entered into the main body of the Christian societies, and
not to have remained separate sects. From among these Paul found some of his
earliest and best helpers. Such were Aquila and
6o
The
Conquest.
Priscilla,
Timothy and Lydia. These remain as types of the movement among the Israelites
of the dispersion, until the destruction of Jerusalem and the suppression of
the rebellion of Barcocheba turned the feeling of the Jew toward the Christian
to intense hatred. A form for bitter cursing of Christians was adopted among
the prayers of the synagogue, and was in use for ages after. The relations
between Jews and Christians, religious, social, and political, since 135, would
form a book whose tragic interest would surpass that of any romance, and be no
unimportant contribution to the history of Christianity and civilization.
Through
the believing Jews of the Dispersion, Christianity gained an entrance among the
Gentiles, particularly the Greek population of the cities. Indeed, Greek was
the language of the Church at Rome until after 150. It also spread among them
by migration. Every Christian was a missionary. Within a year from the death of
Christ there were probably Christians in Rome. The Greeks were the first great
race to become pervaded with the Christian teaching. Their language became that
of the Christian Scriptures and of the early Christian Church and its _u
_ , writers—a use for which it was admirably
The
Greeks. . . J
adapted.
Its philosophy has in every age led thoughtful, inquiring minds, like Justin
Martyr and Neander, to accept Christ. It was the founda^ tion of all education,
and so the common possession of the educated classes. From it has come much of
the fundamental framework of Christian theology. The most flourishing early
Churches were in its domain; as Antioch, Alexandria, Corinth, Thessalonica,
The
Christian Church.
61
and
particularly the cities, and even country districts, of Asia Minor. If
Christianity drew on the Greek population for form of thought and language, it
repaid the debt in taking to itself and preserving the life of the people. The
great Eastern or Greek Church has been the main sphere of its activity,
thought, and influence for more than a thousand years. Through it, more than by
any other means, it affects the world.
From
Antioch, very early, the Christian missionaries preached the gospel in Syria in
the native tongue. The center of Syrian Christianity was for many years at
Edessa; and the seat of its theological school was there until after 400, and
later at Nisibis. They produced devoted missionaries and able scholars. A large
number of their writings and of translations of Greek Christian authors have
come down to us. The New Testament was first translated into their tongue. They
had a rich hym- *
nology.
Christianity spread eastwards. Before 250, there were not a few Christians in
Persia. They sustained severe and bloody persecutions from 340 to 400. Out of
enmity to the Roman Empire, the Nes-torian and Monophysite sects were
protected, and found a refuge and home in Persia. Armenia became Christian in
the latter part of the third century (280-300), through the labors of Gregory
the Illuminator. Nestorian missionaries carried on their labors and founded
Churches in China.
The
Jewish and Greek converts early made known the glad tidings in the West. Paul’s
letter to the Romans proves that a flourishing Church was early established in
the capital of the empire. Though the early Church at Rome was Greek, yet in
the
02
The
Conquest:
time of
St. Paul there were Christians in Caesar’s household; and at the close of the
century, under Domitian, the emperor’s cousin, the Consul Flavius Clemens was
executed, and his wife, Domitilla, banished, probably on account of their
adherence to the Christian faith. From Rome, Christian teaching came to
Carthage and the cities of North Africa, where it rapidly spread, and where was
made the sec-mthe ond translation of the New Testament west. and
the first in the Latin tongue. Christianity found its way into Spain from Rome,
and first in the Apostolic Age; early also into the cities of Southern France,
from Asia Minor, and to those of Germany and Britain. The first Christians in
these cities were probably Oriental slaves, merchants, and artisans from Italy,
Greece, and Syria. For the first two centuries the advance of Christianity was
by the individual Christian winning the individual heathen. Christianity
remained in the cities confined to the Roman population until after the fall of
the Roman Empire. In the practical work of preaching Christ, these objections
were met: Its Jewish, barbaric origin; it was a religion of yesterday; no
pictures or images in its worship; the heathen called it atheism; its morality
too strict; political dangers; the members from the poorer and lower classes;
they were accused of fanaticism and creating a new mythology. They met these by
preaching monotheism as an original revelation, claimed the Christian religion
as reaching to the beginning of the world, the conception of the redemption,
and, above all, Jesus Christ, who was the concrete ideal of a holy life. This
preaching was enforced by their strict morality
The
Christian Church. 63
and
brotherly love, and by the heroism of their suffering even unto death. Loyalty
to conviction to this extent was a novelty in the heathen world.
Of the
progress of the faith during the second century, Tertullian, writing near its
close, says (Apology I, 45): “The outcry is that the State is filled with
Christians. They are in the fields, in the citadels, in the islands. They make
lamentations as for some calamity, that both sexes, every age and condition,
even high rank, are passing over to the Christian faith; for now it is the immense
number of the Christians which makes your enemies, so few, almost all the
inhabitants of your various cities being followers of Christ.” Whatever
allowance may be made for rhetorical exaggeration in this passage, that the
Christians were rapidly increasing in the West was a fact too evident to be
denied. Its progress was even greater in the East. The rapid rise and variety
of the heretical sects shows how Christian ideas had taken possession of the
thought of the time and of the most diverse sections of society.
Chapter
III.
THE
PERSECUTIONS.
The
preaching of Christianity and its progress did not pass unobserved by the Roman
State and its rulers. Under Tiberius (14-37), Caligula (37-41), Claudius
(41-54), the early years of Nero, the Christians were considered as a Jewish
sect, and protected by the Roman law. The Jews succeeded in making the
difference plain to the Government. Under Nero, in June, 64, broke out the
first great persecution of the Christians. Savage and cruel beyond conception,
the persecution showed what the Church had to expect for the next two hundred
and fifty years. The gigantic conflict was begun. There was no day, from that
time until 313, when a Christian who would not deny his faith had any
protection from the law; nay, those bearing the name were outlaws, as much as
robbers. Of this persecution, Tacitus tells us: “A vast multitude were
convicted, not so much on the charge of making the conflagration or burning of
Rome, as of hating the human race. And in their deaths they were made subjects
of sport; for they were covered with the hides of wild beasts and worried to
death by dogs, or nailed to crosses, or set fire to; and when day declined,
they were burned, to serve for nocturnal lights. Nero had offered his own
garden for this exhibition, and also exhibited a game of the circus, sometimes
mingling with the crowd in the dress of a charioteer, and sometimes standing in
his chariot.”
64
The
Persecutions.
65
This
persecution showed the numbers and heroic constancy of the Christians at Rome.
In this time of fierce testing of the faith of believers, Peter and Paul
received the martyr’s crown.
We shall
get a better idea of the conflict if we consider the attitude of the State and
the individual emperors toward the new religion. Though Vespasian and Titus
(69-81) were well spoken of by the Christians, who regarded them as instruments
of Divine justice in executing judgment upon the Jews, and only Domitian
(81-96) was a bloody persecutor, yet, during all these years, the persecution
was continued as a permanent police measure against them as a sect dangerous to
the public safety. This principle was merely unwritten law. No edict was
issued; but the governors, when any case came before them, judged it according
to the precedent set them by the Progress of emperor. The followers of a sect
whose the ConfIict-tendency was to unsettle the foundations and
principles of Roman society, were held as outlaws, and the very name treated as
a crime. Nerva (96-98) called back those banished by Domitian. Trajan, who, as
general and statesman, was called the second founder of the empire, ruled from
98 to 117. He wrote a rescript or letter to Pliny, governor of Bithynia, which
remained the fundamental law of the empire until the reign of Decius, 250.
Trajan directed those accused of Christianity, if they sacrificed to the
heathen gods, should be set at liberty; if not, they are to be punished ; that
being a Christian is a crime which is exposed to capital punishment. But he
added: “ Christians are not to be sought out by the State, but apprehended only
upon personal complaints by name.
5
66
The
Conquest.
Anonymous
accusations are not to be considered. Such a thing does not fit my age.” The
Government did not wish to multiply cases. The Christians complained that they
should either be called criminals and punished, or called innocent and left in
peace. We can not be collectively criminals and individually innocent. It is
against all law to say that, if we will only deny or sacrifice, we shall be
free. If it is a crime to be a Christian, we should be punished; if not, we
should be undisturbed. Under Trajan were martyred Symeon, Bishop of Jerusalem,
and Ignatius, Bishop of Antioch. Hadrian (117-138) was no old Roman, but a
modern spirit, curious, religious, and skeptical. He maintained Trajan’s
policy, but cautioned against wholesale accusations. Antoninus Pius (138-161)
wished a better religious condition through a restoration of the old worship.
Christians were accused in his reign of causing the famine. Justin Martyr tells
of cases of individual martyrdom. Polycarp suffered at Smyrna, 155. Marcus
Aurelius (161-180)—a philosopher and a stoic—whose “ Meditations” show him to
be a rationalistic monotheist, upheld idolatry. He caused a more rigid
execution of the law against the Christians. They were to be sought out. He
thought the Christian fearlessness of death was obstinacy. There seems to be a
wearisome repetition of these opinions of emperors and regulations of the
State. There were life and movement enough then. All the imagination and skill
of the artist can not make these scenes as vivid to us as they were to the poor
Christians under Rome’s ablest and wisest rulers. Take this scene, enacted
under
The
Persecutions.
67
Marcus
Aurelius at Lyons, in Gaul, 177, and given to us by eye-witnesses:
“ Present
at the examination of these was Alexander, a native of Phrygia, and a
physician. He lived for many years in Gaul, and had become well known to all
for his love to God, and his boldness in proclaiming the truth. He stood near
the judgment-seat, and urged by signs those who had denied, to confess. The
mobs, enraged that those who had formerly denied should now confess, cried out
against Martyrs of Alexander, as if he were the cause of this Ly°ns>
*77-change. Then the governor summoned him before him, and inquired of him who
he was; and when Alexander said he was a Christian, the governor burst into a
passion, and condemned him to the wild beasts. On the next day he entered the
amphitheater with Attalus, a man of mark in the city; for the governor, wishing
to gratify the mob, again exposed Attalus to the wild beasts. These two, after
being tortured in the amphitheater with all the instruments devised for that
purpose, and having undergone a severe contest, at last were themselves
sacrificed. Alexander uttered no groan or murmur of any kind, but conversed in
his heart with God; but Attalus, when he was placed in the iron chair, and all
the parts of his body were burning, and when the fumes of his body were borne
aloft, said to the multitude in Latin: ‘ Lo, this which ye do is eating men;
but as for us, we neither eat men, nor practice any other wickedness.’ And
being asked what name God has, he answered: ‘ God has not a name as men have.’
“After
all these, on the last day of the gladiatorial
68
The
Conquest.
shows,
Blandina was again brought in along with Ponticus, a bo}^ of about fifteen
3^ears of age. These two had been taken daily to the amphitheater to see the
tortures which the rest endured, and. force was used to compel them to swear by
the idols of the heathen; 'but on account of their remaining steadfast, and
setting all their devices at naught, the multitudes were furious against them,
so as neither to pity the tender years of the boy nor respect the sex of the
woman. Accordingly, they exposed them to every terror and inflicted on them
every torture, repeatedly trying to compel them to swear. But they failed in
effecting this; for Ponticus, encouraged by his sister—so plainly, indeed, that
even the heathen saw that it was she who encouraged and confirmed him— after
enduring nobly every kind of torture, gave up the ghost. And the blessed
Blandina,—after she had been scourged and exposed to the wild beasts, and
roasted in the iron chair, she was at last inclosed in a net and cast before a
bull; and after she had been well tossed by the bull, she also was sacrificed,
the heathens themselves acknowledging that never among them did woman endure so
many and such fearful tortures.”
Commodus
(180-192) relaxed the severe measures of his father, though there were
martyrdoms in his reign. He was said to be influenced by his favorite
concubine, Marcia, who favored the Christians. Perti-nax, after a three months’
reign, was succeeded by Septimus Severus (193-211). He personally inclined to
the Persian worship of Mithra, or the sun. He was an able general and a great
builder and founder of public monuments. In 197 he issued an edict pro
The
Persecutions.
69
hibiting
every subject in the empire from embracing the Jewish or Christian faith. Upon
this followed seven years of persecution in Palestine, Egypt, Africa, Italy,
and Gaul. Leonidas, father of Origen, was martyred at Alexandria. In this
reign, Tertullian wrote, when he could not mistake or exaggerate without
injuring the cause for which he pleaded. Tertuiiian’s He says (sec. 50): “You
put Christians on w‘tness. crosses and stakes. You tear the
Christians with your claws. We lay our heads upon the block; we are cast to the
wild beasts; we are burned in the flames; we are condemned to the mines; we are
banished to the islands. Nor does your cruelty, however exquisite, avail you;
it is rather a temptation to us. The oftener we are mown down by you, the more
in numbers do we grow; the blood of Christians is seed.”
An
instance of what Tertullian means we can see in an extract from the martyrdom
of Perpetua and Felicitas, who suffered at Carthage, 202: “Perpetua is first
led in. She was tossed, and fell on her loins; and when she saw her tunic, she
drew it over her as a veil for her middle, rather mindful of her modesty than
of her suffering. Then she was called for again, and bound up her disheveled
hair; for it Martyrs at was not becoming for a martyr to suffer
Carthage, with disheveled hair, lest she should seem 203* to be
mourning in her glory. So she rose up; and when she saw Felicitas crushed, she
approached and gave her hand, and lifted her up; and both of them stood
together. And when the populace called for them into the midst, they rose up of
their own accord, and transferred themselves whither the people wished;
70
The
Conquest.
but they
first kissed one another, that they might consummate their martyrdom with the
kiss of peace. The rest, indeed, immovable and in silence, received the sword
thrust; but Perpetua, that she might taste some pain, being pierced between the
ribs, cried out loudly, and she herself placed the wavering right hand of the
youthful gladiator to her throat.”
The house
of Septimus Severus; his son, Cara-calla (211-218); his cousins, Elagabalus
(218-222), and Alexander Severus (222-235), were given to Syrian worship,
particularly of the sun. Julia Mam-mea, the mother of Alexander Severus, was a
woman of extraordinary strength of character, and interested in philosophy and
the Christian religion. She sent for Origen and Hippolytus in order to converse
with them about their faith. Her son was an eclectic; he was interested in and
admired Christianity. He believed in immmortality, and inscribed' the Golden
Rule on the walls of his palace. He admired the spirit of the Christian society
and the organization of the Church. He placed the statues of Apollonius Tyana,
Abraham, and Jesus in his prayer-room. All these Septimian emperors favored
Christianity, and the Churches had peace.
He was
succeeded by Maximinus, the Thracian (235-238), a raw barbarian. He hated the
Christians because they had been friends of Alexander Severus. He issued an
edict that the bishops and chief clergy were to be put to death; but his reign
was too short and he was too busy to do more than begin its execution.
The
Churches were undistutbed during the reign of the three Gordians (238-244).
Philip the Arabian
The
Persecutions.
7i
(244-249)
believed in a religion lying behind all religions. He favored the Christians.
His wife, Severn, corresponded with Origen.
The
Christians did more than to preach the truths of Christianity and to follow
their Lord to prison and to death; they defended the faith. No Christian can
read those Apologies, which are never an excuse, but a defense, which is also
an attack, without a higher courage and a warmer glow of Christian love. The
apologists of the second century were Greek; they comprise such names as
Quadratus and Aristides, Aristo and Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Tatian, Mileto
and Irenaeus, Theophilus of Antioch and Clement of Alexandria. In the third
century, Hip-polytus and Origen also wrote in Greek. These apologists sought to
justify the Christian faith, to reason, and to educate men. The Latin
apologists, Tertullian, Minucius Felix, and Cyprian, wrote in the third
century; Lactantius, at the close of the Diocletian persecution, in the fourth;
and Augustine and Salvian, in the fifth centuries. The Latin apologists
attacked directly the heathen religions. Their defense was an irresistible
onset. Augus- The tine’s “ City of God” and Salvian’s “ Divine Apologists.
Government” were written to justify the ways of God to a world dying in the
agonies of the barbarian invasions. The object of the apologists was to reply
at first directly to the emperor, then later to the educated classes, to the
charges made against the Christians, to protest against persecutions, and to
set forth the real teachings of the Christian religion. Their method was to
criticise the heathen religions as fabulous and absurd and as immoral according
to the tes
72
The
Conquest.
timony of
their own writers; to show that all peculiar Christian doctrines can be
justified to the reason, and that Christianity was the primitive revelation.
They all appealed to the power of the Christian life and the constancy of the
Christians in martyrdom. The only literary attacks upon Christianity which have
come down to us are those of Celsus, about 150, and of Porphyry, about one
hundred years later. Origen, in his “ Contra Celsus,” preserves and refutes the
attack. The work of Porphyry is much less important. The work of the apologists
was thoroughly and triumphantly accomplished. No form of heathenism in any age
can survive it, if the appeal is made to reason. There is no question on which
side lies the weight of the argument. In spite of the wider knowledge and
different lines of attack upon Christianity, and necessarily of defense, after
fifteen hundred years there is a striking modernness in the thought of Origen’s
reply to Celsus. The four great apologies are by Justin Martyr, Tertullian,
Origen, and Augustine. If but two can be read, read Justin and Tertul-lian.
They bring back the life and dangers of the early Church.
With
Decius (249-251) there is a change. Decius is an old Roman. He does not believe
that Christianity and the empire can stand together. He means to destroy it
from the face of the earth. The edict of 250 provided that “all men, with their
wives and children, shall offer sacrifice; if not, be imprisoned, and be
compelled with all power; if not, then let them be executed in the worst
manner.” The prefects, or governors, are threatened with severe penalties if
they do not bring back the Christians to the
' The
Persecutions. 73
old
religion. They are to be summoned at definite periods. This was a general
persecution throughout the empire. Fabianus, Bishop of Rome, Babylas of
Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem, were martyred. Origen was tortured at
Tyre. Gallus (251-254) carried on the persecution. Valerian (254-260), by
edict, prohibited all gatherings of Christians; all bishops and leaders were to
be arrested and sent into exile. The clergy who were exiled were to have their
goods confiscated, and, if they remained Christians, to be executed by the
sword. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, was martyred 258; as were Sextus II, Bishop
of Rome, and his deacon, Laurentius.
Gallienus
(261-268) restored the legal position of the Christians to that of Trajan’s
time, gave them freedom of worship, and their cemeteries practical toleration.
So it remained during the reigns of Claudius (268-270), Aurelian (270-275),
Tacitus (275276), Probus (276-282), Carus (282-283), and Diocletian (from 284
to 303) ; so that the Churches had forty years of peace, and greatly prospered.
Diocletian
was an able ruler, and if he had not undertaken the persecution of the
Christians, would have ranked as a great statesman. He gave the persecution
Roman Empire the administrative form of Diocletian, which it
retained in the East until its overthrow in 1453. Incited by his co-regent
Galerius, he began the cruelest of all the persecutions in 303. Four edicts
followed each other in the course of the year. He decreed the destruction of
the Christian churches, the burning of the Scriptures, the dismissal of all
civil and military officials who are Christians, the withdrawal of all rights
of citizenship, and the imprison
74
The
Conquest.
ment of
all the clergy. Torture was to be used upon those refusing, and every device to
compel them to sacrifice; and finally death for all Christians. These were
carried out with all the power of the State. “ We read of twenty, fifty, and
one hundred put to death in a single day; of a whole Church gathered together
in Phrygia, and then burned, with the edifice in which they worshiped; that
women and children were cut open alive in the palace of Galerius, in order to
inspect their entrails.”
No wonder
that the historian Lecky sums up these sufferings so vividly, an unanswerable
reply to the depreciation of Gibbon: “We read of
*
Christians bound in chairs of red-hot iron, while the stench of their
half-consumed bodies rose in a suffocating cloud to heaven; of others torn to
the very bone by shells or hooks of iron; of holy virgins given over to the
lusts of the gladiators or the mercies of the pander; of two hundred and
twenty-seven converts sent on one occasion to the mines, each with the sinews
of one leg severed by a red-hot iron, and with an eye scooped out from its
socket; of fires so slow that the victims writhed for hours in their agony; of
tortures prolonged and varied through entire days. . . . For the love of their
Divine Master, for the cause which they believed to be true, men, and even weak
girls, endured these things, when one word would have freed them from their sufferings.”
These recitals of Christian sufferings make evident that the faith of the early
Christians was a realization—(i) Of the value of the unseen ; (2) The
prevailing might of the Divine order; (3) The salvation of the risen Lord. None
to whom the things of this
The
Persecutions.
75
world
were the chief end of life; none who believed that there was no Supreme Mind in
the universe, or that he could not make his purpose known MotIves of
to men; none for whom Jesus was but a Christian good man and a great ethical
teacher, Martyrdom-ever faced the lions in the arena or
the tortures of the amphitheater. With these witnesses unto blood, there was no
question of the Divine power over the material order and the realm of nature.
Justin Martyr stands for them all. “ Do you suppose,” said the prefect Rusticus
to him, “ that you will ascend up to the heaven to receive some recompense
there?” “I do not suppose,” was the martyr’s ready correction; “ I know it.”
Spiritual realities were to them the great verities of human life.
Other
religions have had their martyrs; but after the enthusiasm of the first or
second generation has passed away, these witnesses cease. If the ChHst|an
victory does not quickly come, the cause is and other lost. Where is there a
parallel to the two Mart^rs* hundred and fifty years of
outlawry and suffering from a power invincible for a thousand years, and which
represented the civil and political order of the world, yet enduring the last
persecution with a fortitude eqUal to that of the Apostolic Age ?
What was
the effect of'the persecutions? They consolidated, purified, and reanimated the
Church. They showed conclusively that the heathen religions had lost all
vitality, and with them was perishing heathen society; that Christianity was
the one living, growing moral force and spiritual power in a dying world.
While, in
the course of centuries, the love and
?6
The
Conquest.
reverence
for the martyrs of the Christian faith de-Our Debt generated into a baneful
worship of saints to the and a disgusting exhibition, reverence, and Martyrs worship
of spurious relics, yet the world’s debt to them is not paid nor their service
to humanity ended. The martyrs for civil liberty in modern times drew their
inspiration from the Christian victims of the amphitheater and the Roman
executioner. No greater service could be rendered to a materialistic
civilization, a self-indulgent Christianity, an unbelieving generation, than
its awakening to a stalwart faith in those spiritual and supreme realities for
which the Christian martyrs died
The
battle was to the death; but the Church did not die. The pagan empire did.
Diocletian abdicated issue of the in defeat, 305. Constantine Chlorus did
Conflict. n0|- persecute the Christians His son, Constantine the
Great, succeeded him in 306. He saw the sign which conquers, engraved it upon
his banners, triumphed at the battle of the Milvian Bridge, and, as the first
Christian emperor, entered Rome, October 28, 312. The edict of Milan,
proclaiming toleration, dates from 313; in 323, Christianity became the
religion of the Roman Empire At that time, in the western provinces of the
Orient, the Christians formed one-fourth of the population; in some provinces
of the empire, one-tenth; few less than that. Probably, out of a population of one
hundred millions, ten millions were Christians. From 390-410, the heathen
became a minority. By 550 the heathen worship and culture had vanished. It
remained in existence in the country places in Italy in the sixth century, in
the Peloponnesus in the eighth and ninth. It was
The
Persecutions.
77
confined
to the country, and hence called pagan. By 450, throughout the empire there was
a common culture and worship of a Catholic Christian character.
If we
consider the influence opposed to Christianity, and the material means at her
disposal, this is
the
mightiest conquest ever made by a re. . J
Magnitude
ligious
faith. Whatever of power, of phi- of the losophy, of intellectual culture, of
wealth Con(*uest-or social station was in the Roman
world, was arrayed against the gospel of the crucified Nazarene. No bitterer
enemies or persecutors were found than the Jews, from whose race he sprang, and
to whose Scriptures he appealed. To the Roman pride of power and the stoic
ideal of moral greatness the gospel of Jesus presented an exact antithesis.
Humility and love took the place of pride and exalted self-respect. To the most
unrestrained, splendid, and universal luxury, licentiousness, and vice, the
apostles and their followers preached the cross, self-denial, and chastity,
even in thought. This conflict was not merely one of taste, of sentiment, of
ideals. It touched every relation and every hour of daily life. The opposition
between this long-intrenched and close-clinging idolatry and the spiritual
worship of the Christians was not only ever-present and unsleeping, it was
active and aggressive. It had in command, and did not hesitate to use, the
power of the mightiest and most universal empire of the world.
Chapter
IV.
THE
CHRISTIAN EMPIRE OF ROME.
The
Christian Empire of Rome began with Constantine, who, with all defects, was a
great ruler, and west, compares favorably with the most eminent 3East76*
^is predecessors on the imperial throne. 313-1453- He removed the Government of
the empire to the finest site ever occupied by a great capital, whether of
commerce or of political dominion. Constantinople is the monument of his
genius, as well as the bearer of his name. The City of the Sultans surpasses
to-day, as it has done for fifteen hundred years, in wealth, importance, and
population, the mistress of the victorious legions of Scipio and Caesar, the
capital of reunited Italy. The undivided empire of Constantine endured only to
the death of Theodosius the Great, at the close of the century in which it had
been founded. Domestic dissensions and imperial proscriptions destroyed the
family of Constantine. Julian’s apostasy and short-lived restoration of
heathenism had no permanent influence. Valentinian and Theodosius were able
generals and honest rulers. They stayed the tide of barbarian invasion until
the next century. Theodosius divided the empire.
Alaric,
king of the Visigoths, attacked the imperial city in the feeble reign of his
son Honorius, and Effect of on August 24, 410, took and sacked Rome. Taxation,
^he weakened monarchy, the attenuated shadow of the Empire of Rome, lingered
on, encom-78
The
Christian Empire of Rome. 79
passed
and oppressed by the increasing waves of barbarian invasion, until it came to
an end in 476. Thus fell, not the Roman Empire—that lived on in one form or
another until 1806—but the Roman Empire of the West.
This
rapid conquest was due, not simply to the valor of the barbarians, but to the
vicious system of the Roman administration. It had been for two hundred years
little more than a means for the collection of taxes from a diminishing
population with decreasing wealth. The inhabitants were systematically
disarmed. Those following any gainful vocation or possessing property must be
followed in their calling by their children, who could not change their
residence. The Decurionate having for generations been an instrument of fiscal
oppression, from which even its members sought to escape, could appeal to no
love of country, rally no defenders of the State, or command any public resources
to resist invasion. The civil life of the cities being entirely dependent upon
the capital, they could not once unite for common defense when all that men
hold dear was at stake.
The Roman
Empire in the West went down before the barbarians. The East was earlier
attacked, but repulsed them. The local political or- The Roman
ganization independent of the imperial Empire power afforded a means of
resistance, in the East* greatly aided by the denser population, the
greater number of walled towns, and the everywhere easy access to the sea. The
imperial arms were superior in the open field; and the existence of these local
authorities made impossible such complete subversion of the political order as
in the West.
8o
The
Conquest.
Yet in
the East the havoc made by these invaders was terrible. Finlay (Vol. I, p. 186,
History of Effect of Greece) says: “ In many provinces the Barbarian higher
classes were completely extermi-lnvasions. nate(j. The ioss Qf
their slaves and serfs, who had been carried away by the invader, either
reduced them to the condition of humble cultivators, or forced them to emigrate
and to abandon their land, from which they were unable to obtain any revenue in
the miserable state of cultivation to which the capture of their slaves, the
destruction of the agricultural buildings, and the want of a market had reduced
the country. In many of the towns the diminished population was reduced to
misery by the ruin of the district. Houses remained unlet; the laborer and the
artisan could alone find bread; the walls of cities were allowed to fall in
ruins; the streets were neglected ; many public buildings had become useless;
aqueducts remained unrepaired; internal communications ceased.” Out of the
overwhelming disaster and ruin of the Old World came forth the two political
forces which Two Con- were to dominate Europe for the next trolling Pow-
thousand years, and to affect Christendom
ers
Surviving
the
Downfall until this day. The one, the Eastern Em-of Rome. pjrG) a survivai
0f the past, conserved the old civilization, and so adapted the
despotism of imperial Rome to changing conditions as to secure its existence
for a millennium; the other—the new birth for the new time—was that group of
new nationalities and Governments, rising upon the overthrown foundations of
the Roman Empire in the West, which were to develop into the Christendom of the
Middle Ages and the States of modern Europe. The per
The
Christian Empire of Rome. 81
petuity
and importance of both the Eastern Empire and the new nations and their
influence depended upon their acceptance of the Christian faith and the work of
the Christian Church.
Thus, out
of this flood of invasion, defeat, and distress arose the Empire of the East,
to be the bulwark of Europe, not only against the savage TheEmpire
tribes of the North, but for eight hundred ' * years against the conquests,
first of the Saracen, then of the Turk; against the Mohammedan religion and
dominion. When centuries of struggle, of warring civilizations and. religions
ceased, the Western nations had come to consciousness of their coherent
national existence and power. When Constantinople at last fell, England was,
under Henry VI, in the midst of the wars of the Roses, and the way prepared for
the reign of the house of Tudor; there had been four hundred years of national
life since the Norman conquest ; two centuries had elapsed since Magna Charta,
and one since the founding of the House of Commons; France was making way for
Louis XI, and Spain for Ferdinand and Isabella. The banded forces of
Christendom by this time far outweighed those of the Moslem dominion; }^et then
the fall of Constantinople brought Turkish armies into Hungary and Germany for
two hundred years. The Eastern Empire preserved for Europe the treasures of the
Greek literature and arts, and the knowledge and authority of Roman law. She
gave us the founders of the art of modern painting and the Byzantine style of
architecture, more widely spread than any other, extending from Moscow to
Spain, and from St. Mark’s at Venice to India. Order, law, and a public
administration,
6
82
The
Conquest.
where
they governed, had their lesson for the world, which knew so little of them.
The Greek
Church gave the people the Scriptures in their own tongue; hence there was a
connection influence between the people and the clergy which of the Greek did
not exist in the West. The clergy in Church. tjie
were more popular and more
learned,
and the laity less ignorant and of more political importance. The Greek Church
was the informing spirit of the empire, its support in peril, and the cause of
its prolonged existence. She performs the like office to-day in Russia, the
modern representative and heir 'of the traditions of the Byzantine monarchy.
From the
death of Theodosius (395) to the assassination of Maurice (602), eleven
emperors reigned; Eastern anc^ *he throne descended from father
Emperors, to son but twice in two hundred years. 395-527 exceptions
were Arcadius (395-408),
the son,
and Theodosius (408-450), the grandson, of the last ruler of the undivided
Empire of Rome. The former was ruled by his wife Eudoxia, and the latter,
during his entire reign of thirty-two years, by his sister Pulcheria, who alone
of the family inherited the ability and character of her grandfather, the great
Theodosius. She crowned her labors by marrying the Senator Marcian (450-457),
to take the throne on her brother’s decease. The five emperors who succeeded
the second Theodosius were all born in the lower or middle ranks of life, and
when past middle age came to the throne. Three of them—Marcian, Zeno (474491),
and Anastasius (491-518)—succeeded to the empire through the choice of the
daughters of the emperors; two of them—L,eo I (457-474), and Justin I
The
Christian Empire of Rome.
83
(518-5
2 7), by the choice of the imperial guard. They formed a series of prudent,
economical, and reforming emperors, whose providence laid the foundation for
the successes of the reign of Justinian.
Justinian
came to the throne in 527, and reigned for thirty-eight years. He was a
diligent administrator. His reign was renowned for the justinian,
successes of his generals, Belisarius and 527-565. Narses, who reconquered
North Africa, Italy, and Eastern Spain from the Vandals and the Goths. He
caused the codification of the Roman law, and lavished the wealth of the empire
in costly public buildings, as well as foreign wars. His prodigality laid the
foundation for the misfortunes of his successors. St. Sophia, in Constantinople,
though now a mosque, is a monument of his brilliant reign.
The
successors of Justinian were, like his predecessors, men in mature life. Justin
II (565-578) was his nephew. His successor and son- Eastern in-law,
Tiberius (578-582), whose reign was Emperors, cut short by an untimely death,
was the 565’602-best emperor who ruled from
Constantinople. His son-in-law and successor, the upright but unfortunate
Maurice (582-602), a man of tried capacity in civil administration, but lacking
sagacity and unsuccessful in war, inheriting the results of Justinian’s reign
of glory, as L,ouis XVI of France did those of the Grand Monarch, after a reign
of twenty years, saw his children slain before his eyes, and was then put to
death by the cruel usurper Phocas, in 602.
To trace
the rise and fall of nations is one thing; to feel the throes of a dying world
is quite another. It is difficult to realize the amount of human suffer
84
The
Conquest,
ing
caused by this displacement of populations, the overturning of an established
social order, and the „ . settlement of vast hordes of barbarians
The Ruin
of the
amid the wealth and refinement of the oid world, highest civilization of the
ancient world. Taking from the citizens the bulk of their personal property,
and from one to two-thirds of their real estate, and sinking of the smaller
proprietors into serfdom were the least of the evils of the barbarian
invasions. Some estimate of the ruin wrought may be made from the fate of the
provinces of North Africa. In the later years of Rome’s dominion, they were
exceedingly prosperous and fruitful, supplying the grain for the imperial
capital, and filled with flourishing cities. They never recovered from the
Vandal invasions and rule; suffered new losses upon the reconquest of Belisarius,
and had no power to resist the onset of the Saracen conquest.
The case
of those who suffered from the inroads of the heathen barbarians, like the Huns
under At-tila, was much worse.
Of even
our Saxon heathen ancestors, a contemporary—Apollinaris Sidonius—writing about
the time
Saxon of
the first invasion of Britain, says: “Be-invaders. fore j^ey raise
the deep-biting anchor from the hostile soil, and set sail from the continent
for their own country, their custom is to collect the crowd of their prisoners
together, by a mockery of equality, to make them cast lots which of them shall
undergo the iniquitous sentence of death ; and then, at the moment of
departure, to slay every tenth man so selected by crucifixion, a practice which
is the more lamentable because it arises from a superstitious no*
The
Christian Empire of Rome.
85
tion that
it will insure them a safe return. They think the foul murders which they thus
commit are acts of worship to their gods, and they glory in extorting cries of
agony instead of ransoms from their victims.”
So the
fertile lands of Thrace and Macedonia— modern Bulgaria—although in the
immediate vicinity of Constantinople, were ravaged more than once each
generation after 378. The barbarian leaders withdrew their hosts, leaving
behind them smoking ruins and piles of dead bodies, inviting pestilence.
If this
was so in the provinces, how fared it with imperial Italy herself? Italy, whose
brave sons had made the rule of Rome commensurate with
. . .
. Fate of Italy.
the
civilized world, felt now the weight of oppression meted out to others for
seven hundred years. First, Alaric, with his Visigoths, marched the whole
length of the peninsula. His hosts were followed by those of Odoacer,
Theodoric, Vitiges, and Totila, while the ruder Lombards crowded in and took
permanent possession of the land. Justinian’s generals, Belisarius and Narses,
warred in the heart of Italy for twenty years, and inflicted more misery than
all the barbarians, and secured for the Eastern emperors for two centuries the
Exarchate of Ravenna.
Following
Procopius, an English historian gives a vivid picture of the horrors of that
time in Central Italy—scenes not without parallel in those days of doom of a
dying people.
“ The war
had now lasted four years, and it was over a ruined and wasted Italy that the
wolves of war were growling. The summer of 538 was long remembered as the time
when Famine and her child
86
The
Conquest.
Disease,
in their full horror, first fell upon Tuscany, Liguria, and iEmilia. The fields
had now been left two years uncultivated. A self-sown crop—poor, but still a
crop—sprang up in the summer of 537. Unreaped by the hand of man, it lay
rotting on the ground; no plow stirred the furrows, no hand scattered fresh
seed upon the earth; and in the following summer there was, of course, mere
desolation. The inhabitants of Tuscany betook them to the mountains, and fed
upon the acorns which they gathered in the oak-forests that cling around the
shoulders of the Apennines. The dwellers in iEmilia flocked into Picenum. It
was computed that not less than fifty thousand peasants perished with famine.
Procopius marked the stages of decline in this hunger-smitten people, and
describes it: First, the pinched face and yellow complexion, surcharged with
bile; then the natural moisture dried up, and the skin, looking like tanned
leather, adhering to the bones; the yellow color turning to a livid purple, and
the purple to black, which made the poor, famine-stricken countryman look like
a burned-out torch; the expression of dazed wonder in the face sometimes
clinging to the wild eyes of the maniac—he saw and noted it all. As is always
the case after long endurance of hunger, some men, when provisions were brought
into the country, could not profit by them. However carefully the nourishment
was doled out to them in small quantities at a time, as one feeds a little
child, still, in many cases, their digestion could not bear it, and those who
had survived the famine died of food. Elsewhere, the famine-wasted inhabitants
might be seen streaming forth into the fields to pluck any
The
Christian Empire of Rome.
green
herb that could be made available for food. Often, when they had knelt down for
this purpose, their strength would not serve them to pull it out of the ground.
And so it came to pass that they lay down and died upon the ungathered herbage,
unburied—for there were none to bury them—but undesecrated ; for even the birds
of carrion found nothing to attract them in these fleshless corpses.”
But to
Rome, the Eternal City, the proud empress of the world, the haughty mistress of
legions used to eight hundred years of victory, came the Downfall direst
retribution. She who had conquered of R°me-the world was
conquered, sacked, and pillaged, time after time, by Alaric (410), Genseric
(455), Greeks under Belisarius, and Goths under Totila—five times before 552.
She who had plundered the wealth of every ancient civilization was successively
pillaged as no other city had been. She who had been exempt from taxes for over
five hundred years, while absorbing the wealth of nations through her rapacious
pub-licani, fell into the clutches of the imperial logothetes till her poverty
was too evident to be denied. She whose forum had been crowded with hostages
saw three hundred children of her nobles, who were held in custody, fall in one
day before the maddened Goth. Vitiges, in 537, broke down her aqueducts, thus
destroying the most lavish water-supply that any city ever possessed. Totila,
in 546, broke down two-thirds of her walls, carried off the gates, and left
Rome, for a brief time, without an inhabitant. At the end of our period, she
was at the lowest point of her humiliation. Gregory the Great says: “What more
can befall us in this world ? We see nothing but sorrows;
88
The
Conquest.
we hear
nothing but complaints. Ah, Rome! formerly mistress of the world, what has
happened to thee? Where is the Senate? Where are the people? The buildings are
in ruins, and the walls are falling. . . . You all know how our troubles are increasing.
Everywhere the sword! Everywhere death! I am weary of life.” In the famine of
her siege, food had brought more than its weight in gold. Later the garrison
had raised grain for sustenance on the site of Nero’s Golden House and the
palaces and gardens of the aristocracy. Corinth, Jerusalem, and even Carthage,
might deem themselves avenged. Though more than two centuries had passed since
the empire became Christian, the old religion prevailed among the aristocracy
and ruling class at Rome. The heathen spirit may be seen in the giving of
gladiatorial games by Honorius one hundred years after Constantine. Only the
conquest and destruction of Alaric and Genseric, and the disasters of the sixth
century, destroyed the heathenism of the patrician homes and made the new Rome
a Christian city. Upon the old Rome—the Rome thirsting for the blood of saints,
and delighting in the cruel games and tortures of the amphitheater—came the
fulfillment of the prophecy of the revelator:
“Therefore
shall her plagues come in one day, death, and mourning, and famine; and she
shall be burned with fire; for strong is the Lord God which judgeth her. . . .
And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth
their merchandise any more, the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious
stones, and of pearls, and fine linen, and purple and silk, and scarlet, and
all thyine
The
Christian Empire of Rome.
89
wood, and
all manner of vessels of ivory, and all manner of vessels of most precious
wood, and of brass, and of iron, and marble and cinnamon, and odors and
ointments, and frankincense and wine, and oil and fine flour, and wheat and
beasts, and sheep, and horses, and chariots, and slaves, and souls of men. And
the fruits that thy soul lusted after are departed from thee, and thou shalt
find them no more at all. The merchants of these things which were made rich by
her shall stand afar off for the fear of her torment, weeping and wailing, and
saying, Alas! Alas! that great city, that was clothed in fine linen, and
purple, and scarlet, and decked with gold, and precious stones, and pearls !
For in one hour so great riches is come to naught. And every shipmaster, and
all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by the sea, stood
afar off, and cried when they saw the smoke of her burning, saying, What city
is like unto this great city? And they cast dust on their heads and cried,
weeping and wailing, and saying, Alas! Alas! that great city, wherein were made
rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour
she is made desolate. Rejoice over her, thou heaven, and ye holy apostles and
prophets; for God hath avenged you on her.” (Rev. xviii, 8-20.)
Chapter
V.
THE
BARBARIANS.
There
have passed before us the Roman Empire, in the height of its power and its
decline; the Christian Church, growing from an unknown Jewish sect until it
became stronger than any political power in the world. We have seen the ages of
conflict between these two contending forces, and have felt horror and
compassion alternate amid scenes of Christian persecution and the anguish of a
dying world. We have seen the rule of Rome pass from pagan to Christian
emperors, and undergo a renewal which should prolong its career another
millennium.
We now
turn our faces from the past to the future. We look upon a brighter scene as we
mark the progress of a new force in the world and in civilization. If the old
world and its culture died, it was to make way for a better one. The Teutonic
peoples were without letters and without arts; yet to them were to pass the
rule and the home of the proudest and mightiest conquerors known in human
history. Brave, pure in domestic life, truthful and loyal, rude and savage, but
not cruel, they brought the vigor of a new race, and nature unspoiled, if
untrained. The control of future ages and the civilization of the race lay not
with the empire whose capital was on the Bosphorus, but with those tribes of
the German forests who, through the influence of Christianity, became nations, and
have come to the dominion of the 90
The
Barbarians.
91
world.
The society whose beginnings we now trace fills and dominates Christendom until
this day. We now enter upon a new world.
The
barbarians first threatened the existence, and then the borders of Rome, from
the days of Brennus to those of Marcus Aurelius, or for more than five hundred
years. Taught by the conquests of Caesar and the successes of the earlier
emperors, they were restrained until the Franks made a permanent breach in the
frontiers, A. D. 250. In seven years (168-175) under Marcus Aurelius, more than
one hundred thousand Roman soldiers were taken prisoners by the barbarians, and
the resources of the empire weie taxed to the utmost. About a century later,
Decius fell’in battle against them, 254. A little over a hundred years later,
Valens perished at Adrianople. The persistent approaches of the Teutonic
invaders were not checked by abandoning to them the province of Dacia, beyond
the Danube, or the transfer or power from the Tiber to the Bosphorus. In 378
Valens, the Eastern emperor, was defeated and slain at the battle of
Adrianople; and from that time the recurring waves of barbarian invasion were
never checked. The Goths, the Vandals, the Franks, the Heruli, and the Lombards
were all of Teutonic blood and training, with kindred speech and institutions,
and common vigor of race and martial valor.
The Goths
overran Italy. Under Alaric, after three sieges, they took Rome in 410. They
joined in repelling the Huns under Attila in 4=51.
* , . , .
r ^ The Goths.
lheodoric,
king of the Ostrogoths—greatest of the Gothic rulers—defeated the Heruli and
killed their ruler, Odoacer, the first king of Italy, and
92
The
Conquest.
reigned
in his stead at Ravenna, from 489-526. The Goths invaded Spain in 415, and
founded a kingdom, which they extended and consolidated, and which endured
until the Mohammedan conquest in 711, and has colored all the after-history of
the Spanish race.
The
Vandals began their westward march in 406. They overran Northern Africa in 429;
took Carthage in 419: and under their great but ruthless
The
Vandals. _ . , , ^
•
captain,
Gensenc, sacked Rome m 455. The armies of the Bmperor Justinian, under
Belisa-rius and Narses, broke the power of the Vandals in Africa, and overthrew
the Goths in Italy. Rome was besieged and taken five times in sixteen years
before 552. After this date, with the exception of the Gothic dominion in
Spain, neither Goths nor Vandals appear in history.
The
The Lombards descended into Italy un-
Lombards.
der Alboin in 568, and after reigning for two hundred years,
remained the permanent controlling race-force in Northern Italy.
The
Franks, following other Germanic invaders of Gaul, particularly the Goths and
Burgundians, who had defeated Attila at Chalons in 4 s 1.
The
Franks. . .
came into
possession of the land, and giving it their name, called it France. Before 500,
under their able and victorious leader, Clovis—the first king of the Franks in
France—they founded the first of modern Christian nations. At the close of this
period (600), the Roman race had perished in France, in Spain, in Italy, in
Northern Africa, in Germany, and in Switzerland, and in the northern and western
half of what is now Turkey in Europe. So England had been overrun and taken
possession of
The
Barbarians.
93
by the
Saxons, and was yet to be conquered both by the Danes and the Normans.
The
heathenism of civilization had been overcome, so that its power passed into
Christian hands. The heathenism of barbarism remained.
#
Conversion
The
barbaric world was the greater con- of the
quest,
viewed with respect to the extent of Barbarians* its sway or the
results of its conversion. The Goths were a great Teutonic people, dwelling
between the Baltic and the Black Seas. Christian captives, brought among them
from their raids, first made known to them the new religion. Ulfilas, of their
blood, became the first apostle of their nation. He settled with a portion of
the tribes on the lands south of the Danube, where he served as a bishop for
forty years. He translated the Scriptures into their tongue—the first accents
of Teutonic speech to re-echo the Gospel story. Ulfilas was an Arian. The
Arians believed that Christ was of a different substance from the Father, and
therefore of inferior divinity. Through Ulfilas and his followers, the Goths
Hast and West, the Vandals, the Suevi, the Burgundians, and the Lombards,
became Arian Christians—a fact of most momentous significance in the history of
barbarian conquests. Arianism seemed to interfere less with the desires of
savage warriors, and having a looser organization, to impose less discipline
and restraint than the orthodox faith. Through evil and good report the tribes
remained for two hundred years faithful to the teachings of the Arian creed.
Hence Ala-ric, Theodoric, Genseric, and Totila were all heretics in the eyes of
their orthodox or Catholic Christian subjects, and could hardly found a stable
dominion.
94
The
Conquest.
They
reverenced the orthodox bishops and priests, and, except the Vandals in Africa,
did not persecute the laity; but their Christianity was always that of the
tribe, never that of the nation.
It was,
therefore, of vast importance when Clovis, the king of the Franks, adopted the
faith of his Cath-. olic wife, Clotilda. From that time thek
* power
of the Franks increased, until they formed the first of Christian nations of
barbarian descent. The Arian power was overthrown in Africa and Italy; the
Gothic Recared of Spain became Catholic in 589, and king of the Lombards at the
close of the century. Over the barbarian hosts conquering France, Italy, Spain,
and Africa, had passed the two forms of Christian faith. Heathenism in worship
had disappeared, but heathenism in life remained; and, alas, how much of it had
found entrance into the Church itself! At the end of the period, Christianity
had conquered the Empire of the East, and thrice the greater portion of the
Empire of the West; once the civilized Roman world, twice in Arian and Catholic
forms the barbarians, who were to be the enduring foundations of the modern
world.
The
barbarian conquests produced no line of great men. Theodoric, founder of the
Ostrogothic influence of Kingdom in Italy, left no successors, and thontheCh
^is kingdom was wrested from his race in Barbarians the next generation; while
the successors of Clovis, the ill-fated Merovingians, raised up no ruler to be
remembered. Yet upon those new foundations of race, language, institutions,
customs, sentiments, and ideals the Christian religion built up the fabric of
modern civilization. She preserved what
The
Barbarians.
95
was most
precious and enduring in the old civilization, refined the splendid vigor and
courage of the new races, and informed them with a spirit as alien to their
wild marauding valor as to the haughty pride of the imperial legions. To the
strength, freedom, reverence, and chastity of the Teutonic invaders the Church
brought the best treasures of the old culture; she restrained their passions ;
tamed their fierceness; brought them under rule and law; but, most of all, gave
that direction and impetus to their religious nature which resulted in the
Germanic form of the mediaeval Church, its fittest material symbol being the
consummate flower of the art of the architect—the Gothic cathedral.
Hence the
men to be recalled as the founders of these nations are the Christian
missionaries. They laid the foundation of stable government work of and
civilization, as well as led the people to Christian take the first and
greatest step in national among the life—the conversion from idolatrous hea-
Barbarians thenism to Christianity. For what they did, and for the influence of
their work on all ages since, their names should be held in everlasting
remembrance.
There are
only a few glimpses of the work which went on for three hundred years among
these savage invaders. That it was done, and remained done, is the great fact
in Christian history. It could not have caused the same results if the
conversion of the empire had not preceded; but it will prevail mightily on the
earth after the power of Rome has waned. Not a few lessons for the conduct of
modern missions can be drawn from the record of these saintly and successful
followers of our Iyord.
96
The
Conquest.
Some of
the missionaries were captives, as was Succath, or St. Patrick; some were
hostages, as was work Ulfilas. The one in the hardships of a rig-of Captives. 0r0us
bondage among the heathen, the other in the splendid surroundings of the
imperial court, proved the value of the religion of Jesus Christ, and felt
called to evangelize the heathen. Ulfilas for forty years was a most successful
missionary. Had his faith been orthodox instead of Arian, his converts might have
been the founders of a nationality as enduring as that of the Franks or Saxons.
St.
Patrick was born near Glasgow, Scotland, in 387. At the age of sixteen he was
taken captive by st Patrick, the Irish. After about seven years of
slav-387-465- ery, he escaped, but was held in thrall by his strong desire to
win the Irish to the religion of Christ. For eleven years he translated and
studied in the monasteries of Southern Gaul. He began his mission-work in
Ireland in 432, and for more than thirty years made missionary tours through
the island, preaching to the chiefs and converting the clans. His knowledge of
the language, and raising up of a clergy who could teach in the native tongue,
were large elements of success in his work. “ He and his associates had made
for themselves, by the labor Of their own hands, civilized dwellings amid the
tangled forests and the dreary morass. At a time when clan-feuds and bloodshed
were rife, kings rose and fell suddenly from their thrones, and all else was
stormy and changeful, they had covered the island with monasteries, where very
soon the Scripture began to be studied, ancient books collected and read, and
missionaries trained for their own country and for the
The
Barbarians.
97
rest of
Europe. Every monastic establishment was an outpost of civilization amidst the
surrounding heathenism; to reclaim the tribes from their superstitions, to
revise their old laws and usages, was the one object of their lives.”
There
were hermits like St. Severinus, who was, apparently, a native of the East, and
of noble origin. He spoke Latin as his native tongue, and The work of was a
presbyter, trained in the monastic ^g^rfnus! life in the deserts of Thebaid. He
never 452-482. spoke of his origin, and none knew of his past life. He came to
the Roman province of Noricum, the lands of the Danube between Passau and
Vienna, about 455. It was a scene of horror and desolation amid Attila’s
warring sons and the invading Teutonic tribes. Amidst the dissolution of all
political and social order, and the constant rapine and plunder of the
barbarians, Severinus taught and ministered for thirty years, dying at Vienna,
482. He taught by his own example how to endure suffering, and yet to trust and
hope in God; while he himself was the source and stay of such moral order as
remained. He lived a strict ascetic life, going barefooted in winter as well as
in summer, and even over the frozen Danube. He slept on hair-cloth at night,
and wore it in the daytime. Until sunset he fasted, unless on a day of
festivity. In his humility, he would allow no credit to be given him for his
endurance, but said that God made him an example to others to warn and to
encourage them. All gifts were refused, and he declined the episcopate. He
lived in a little cell or hut, around which were grouped others in which dwelt
those who chose to live with him a monastic
7
98
The
Conquest.
life. His
disinterestedness, his ceaseless charity, and knowledge of human nature gave
him the reverence and respect, not only of the people with whom he lived, but
of their savage neighbors. They regarded him with awe for his prophetic power.
Though taking nothing for himself, he collected tithes for the redemption of
captives and the relief of the poor. He devoted himself especially to the
release of the captives taken by the marauding bands who overran the province.
The king of the Alemanni promised to free his prisoners and withdraw from Roman
territory. When he did not keep his word, Severinus appeared in his presence,
and so awed him that he at once sent back seventy captives. The soldiers being
unpaid, began to dissolve and to plunder for themselves. One cohort remained
faithful; but they sent a messenger to Italy for their wages, but he was
intercepted and killed. In the midst of these scenes of misery, Severinus
encouraged the resistance and promised victory to those soldiers who remained,
and which they gained; or he warned the inhabitants of the towns of the
approaching invasion, so that they might remove to a place of safety. Those who
did not heed were killed or taken away captive. To the sick and the poor he
ministered, and sought to tame the pride and violence of the barbarian kings.
The future greatness of Odoacer he predicted when he was but a common soldier;
and he foretold the accession of Paulinus to the episcopate of the capital of
Nori-cum. When about to die, he called to him the king of the Rugi, and
exhorted his hard-hearted wife, Giso, to a better life, at the same time
warning them of approaching disasters. He urged the people to
The Barbarians.
99
withdraw
from the land and seek homes in Italy. Then he called around him his
fellow-monks, and gave them his dying charge, which few can read, after
fourteen centuries, without emotion. He called them to his side, kissed them,
and received the holy communion. Stretching himself in the form of the cross,
he commanded them to sing the Psalm, “ Praise ye the Lord, all ye his saints,”
and slept in the Lord. Such high-hearted courage, unselfishness, and boundless
charity laid the foundations of the new world.
Many more
of these missionaries were monks at the head of a band of Christian brethren.
They crossed the seas, or plunged into the pathless The work
forests, or erected schools for the training of of Monks-the people
or of missionaries to other tribes. Such were St. Martin of Tours, and St.
Columba, the founder of Iona.
St.
Martin was born of heathen parents, in Pan-nonia, in 316. He was a soldier by
profession, and had served in more than one war. He
St.
Martin
was
converted and went back to his native of Tours, country, sought his mother, and
won her 316-400. to Christ. For some time he lived the life of a hermit on an
island near Genoa. In 360 he began his first monastery. In 371 he was
consecrated Bishop of Tours. His fame centers in his monastery at that city. He
used all his influence to save the lives of the Priscillian heretics in 388. He
died in 400. He owes his renown largely to his friend Sulpicius Sev-erus, who
wrote his life. He is the earliest patron-saint of France.
St.
Columba, the founder of the celebrated monastic settlement at Iona, was born at
Garten, in
IOO
The
Conquest.
Donegal,
Ireland, in 521. After having been involved in the tribal wars of Ireland, he
became a st. coiumba, monk, and founded two monasteries in Ire-521-597. land.
In 563 he went to Scotland. He founded the mother monastery on the island of
Iona. He preached to and converted the Piets of Northern Scotland; and his
disciples, the islands north and west of the mainland. He and his followers
thoroughly evangelized these lands. He died in 597. Of his character, a
contemporary says: “ In every work of mercy, he was most ready with his
assistance, and healed with mildness the mental and bodily ills of all who came
to him. He exercised toward himself the strictest discipline to leave others a
good example, and he abhorred all carnal and mental vices. His ordinary food
was bread and herbs, his drink water; but on festivals of the Church, he ate
bread made of corn, and drank a cup of ale or whey. His bed was not a soft and
easy couch, but the bare ground, with a stone for his pillow.”
Another
biographer tells us of the monastery at Iona: “ It was of the simplest
character, consisting of Monastery a number of small wattle-built huts, surat
lona. rounding a green court. It included a chapel; a dwelling-house for the
abbot and his monks; another for the entertainment of strangers; a refectory
and kitchen ; and outside the trench a rampart, a byre for the cows, a barn and
a storehouse for the grain, and other outbuildings. All these were constructed
of timber or wattles.”
Of their
life it is recorded: “ Their rule required of them that, morning and evening,
they should repair to the oratory and join in the sacred services
The
Barbarians.
ioi
Every
Wednesday and Friday, except in the interval between Easter and Whitsunday, was
a fast day, and no food was taken until three o’clock
. , _
, . - Life at Iona-.
in the
afternoon, except on the occasion of the arrival of a stranger, when the rule
was relaxed, that they might indulge their national hospitality. The intervals
of devotion were employed in reading, writing, and labor. Diligence was
inculcated by the exhortations and life of the founder, who allowed no hour to
pass in which he was not engaged in prayer, or reading or writing, or some
other employment. ‘Reading’ included chiefly the study of the Holy Scripture,
especially the Psalter, which was diligently committed to memory; and besides
this, that of books in the Greek and Eatin languages, and the lives of some of
the saints. St. Columba was distinguished for his devotion to this occupation,
and the books of Kells and Durrow are wonderful specimens of the perfection
which his followers acquired in the arts of transcribing and illuminating
service-books and manuscripts. Active labor was also required of every member
of the little community. He learned to till the ground, to sow the corn, to
store the grain, to milk the cows, to guide the skiff or coracle on the stormy
sea.”
Some, not
a few, missionaries were ambassadors of Christ in the courts of petty chiefs or
great kings of those days. Such was Remigius, Bishop work of of Rheims, when,
in answer to the request Remigius of Clotilda, the wife of Clovis, he came to
and ciovis. instruct and prepare for baptism the king of the Franks. “ The
sacrament was administered on Christ-mas-day. The church was hung with
embroidered
102
The
Conquest.
tapestry
and white curtains, and blazed with a thousand lights, while odors of incense
filled the place. The king was struck with awe. “ Is this heaven thou didst
promise me?” said he to the bishop. “Not heaven itself, but the way thither,”
replied the bishop. The service proceeded. As he knelt before the font to wash
away the leprosy of his heathenism, “ Sicambrian,” said Remigius, “ gently bow
thy neck; burn that thou didst adore, and adore that*thou didst burn.”
Such was
Augustine of Canterbury, a monk of St. Andrew, at Rome, the monastery of
Gregory the Augustine of Great. At the command of that great Canterbury. Pope,
he set out across France; but, dis-596-605. Couraged by what he
heard of the heathen Saxons, turned back. Under the renewed command of Gregory,
he, in company with forty monks, again undertook and successfully prosecuted
his journey, arriving in England in 596. At their head he marched in solemn
procession, to hold audience with Ethelbert, king of Kent. He preached Christ
to him, and won the king to the Christian faith. On June 2, 597, Augustine
baptized him, to the great joy of his Christian wife Bertha—the first Saxon
king in England to accept the Gospels and the Church which were henceforth to
rule the Northern nations, as well as the land of Rome. Eight years later, the
work of the missionary was done, and he was buried in the yet unfinished Abbey
of Canterbury.
Thus
these captives, hermits, monks, and bishops, who appear at the courts of the
kings, won a mightier conquest than Caesar’s legions, and founded a dominion
more enduring than that of his successors.
The
Barbarians.
103
It seemed
in these centuries as if, with the barbarians, the forests had crossed the
Rhine and the Alps, and spread over the once fertile fields contrasts of of
France and Italy. Where had flour- these Ages, ished towns in the midst of a
cultivated district, the place deserted by man was taken possession of by
nature, and the forests concealed the buildings and walls. History recalls no
parallel of this revolution. The subdual of the forests and plains of North
America for settlement, in this century, equals it in magnitude; but in the
one, civilization replaced savagery; in the other, barbarism destroyed a proud
and ancient civilization; and suffering, misery, and ruin filled North Africa
and all Europe, except a part of the Balkan peninsula.
The
temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, which had witnessed so many barbarian chiefs
bound and following the car of their conqueror up the Via Sacra, who, after
gracing his triumph, suffered death at his hands, saw the successors of those
chiefs, at the head of barbarian hosts, ascend the same way to pillage for
weeks the palaces, and decimate the descendants of the commanders of victorious
legions—the aristocracy of Rome. It had seen the spoils of the treasuries of
the world pass before its portals. It saw its gates of gold carried off by one
barbarian general, while another took away half of the gilded tiles of the
roof.
The
Coliseum, the monument of the magnificence of Vespasian, built by the toil of
Jewish captives, where the death-agonies of the martyrs of the Christian faith
delighted the populace and rulers of Rome, saw the remnants of that population
fed and kept alive by the charity of a Christian bishop, who filled
104
The
Conquest.
the place
once occupied by the emperor and the Senate.
In the
midst of this mightiest and most protracted of revolutions, one stable element
alone remained. The Eie- order had become Christian in
mentoi
name. In name the barbarians became Continuity. Qhristjans
aiso. Though only in name, it
gave
opportunity for the worship, the institutions, the truths, and spirit of the
Christian religion, not only to minister to the miseries of a dying world, but
to nourish and mold the nascent civilization of modern times. At the foundation
of all our political order and complex civilization is Christianity.
In no
historic period have been taught more impressive lessons in the divine
education of the race than in the early Christian centuries.
The fall
of pagan Rome teaches the necessary failure of materialistic civilization. The
experiment can Failure of never be tried on a wider scale, or in more
Materialistic favorable circumstances. No ruin could Civilization. more COmplete.
No historian fails to read and record its lesson. The follies of the first
French Revolution confirm its teaching. It would seem as if the atheistic
statesmen of Italy, the Social Democrats of Germany, and the Church of the
Indifferent in England and America, might lay it to heart.
The
persecutions and triumph of Christianity set in vivid light the fact that they
make no mistake who Divine Order side with God. The scaffold or the stake
Evident on sj^e 0f q0(j an(j truth
is more to be desired than thrones among their adversaries. The spiritual
kingdom and civilization does not fade
The
Barbarians.
105
or die.
It alone prevails. There is a Divine order in human affairs.
The
triumph and world-wide reign of the religion of Christ is sure. It presents the
noblest ideal, the sublimest truth, the best message that the Lessons of
religious nature of mankind can receive. the It subdues and remedies human sin.
It Conc»uest* was given for the redemption of mankind.
Those doubt its prevalence who doubt the possibility of such redemption—that
any power can overcome the evil in human nature and in human life. The future
welfare and progress of the race is bound up in the development and power of
the Christian faith.
Nor do
its victories pale. There are witnesses as ready to go to prison and to death
for the name of Christ in all Christian lands this day as in the days of
Christian martyrdom. There are as illustrious and devoted missionaries as any
age can show. The Church of Livingstone and Duff, Patteson and Han-nington,
Judson, Goodell, and Coan, Paton, Thoburn, and Taylor, need not doubt that God
is in the midst of her. Meanwhile the glorious examples of the missionaries of
these ages enforce those prime essentials of enthusiastic faith, lifelong
sacrifice, disinterested love, which with humility and labor, under God,
command success.
f*art
Smmd.
THE
TRUTHS THAT WON.
107
Chapter
I.
TEACHING
OF THE EARLY CHURCH-THE APOSTLES’ CREED.
Religion
has ever been the first and most important element in every human society and
civilization. Quinet has said: “The variations of Religion and paganism reveal
the chief cause of the va- Theology, riations of the social life of antiquity.
Religion is the ideal which reigns over a whole civilization, giving to its
arts even the same family air.” That the Christian religion holds a not less
important relation to modern civilization it is hoped will be evident in this
volume.
Religion
has been defined as the living reciprocal relationship of God to man and man to
God. Its aim and effort is communion with the living God. The Christian
religion is this relationship as based upon the Christian revelation contained
in the Holy Scriptures. Religion is a matter of the inward personal life. It
concerns the emotions and will quite as much as the intellect. It appeals to
and commands the assent and devotion of the whole man. His whole nature is its
domain. To this nature Christianity appeals, and demands the decision of the
will upon its claims to purify and rule the personal and social life of men.
For this purpose its truths are preached and believed. These truths win the
man, and they win society. They bring salvation to the soul, and perpetuity to
the State and civilization.
109
no
The
Truths that Won.
Theology
is the intellectual apprehension of these truths, their relation to each other
and to all other truth. Hence the task of theology varies with the varying sum
and aspects of human knowledge ; but she is always the queen of the sciences,
allying the whole circle of knowledge in every age to the highest thoughts
reached by the human mind. The development of Christian theology was made
necessary by preaching Christianity to the educated heathen, and answering
objections, and defending it against their philosophers. So the apologists were
the first Christian theologians. It was developed by the defense of Christian
truth against its distortion and mixture with heathen elements by heretical
sects. It was farther developed by the desire of the ablest Christian thinkers,
independent of controversy, to arrange Christian truths in the best order and
proportion; that is, system. Though as theology in any systematic form always
follows and never precedes the conquests of religion, yet every advance in the
religious history of men, every great reform, is born of some great soul
getting a larger knowledge and drinking deeper of the truths of God and his
purpose for men. This was the significance of the teaching of Christ. His soul
was large enough to incarnate and make known to men the profoundest truths for
their help and salvation.
The one
great instrument by which Christian truth was spread among men during the
centuries of its outlawry and persecution was preaching. It will require an
effort of the mind to put ourselves in the place of those who first listened to
it. There was no general education of the people; there were no printed
Teaching
of the Early Church. hi
copies of
the Scriptures for private reading and study. There was no New Testament in
existence until after the writing of St. John’s Gospel at the The Mission close
of the first century. There was no Preaching authorized collection of the
Scriptures of Apostolic the New Testament in general use among A«e-the
Churches, as were the Scriptures of the Old Testament, to the exclusion of
other Christian writings, until more than fifty years later. Paul’s first
letter, the first in order of time of the New Testament writings, was not
penned until twenty years after the Pentecost, and our earliest Gospels were
yet later. The appeal was not to the written Scriptures of the New Testament,
but to the preaching. It was the living word of the living man that conveyed
the truest impression of the L,ord crucified and risen, of his deeds of love
and power, and words of salvation. If we were to listen to this preaching, we
would hear first the reference to the prophets as the basis of the teaching,
much as the Christian preaching of our day refers to the New Testament. The
speaker, having thus set forth the hope of Israel, growing more clear and
definite through the ages, proceeds to declare its fulfillment through the
Christ whom the Jews crucified, and whom God raised from the dead, and through
whom now is preached repentance and forgiveness of sins. Next is given to those
who receive the message, in public and in private, the Lord’s words, and
narrative of his life, death, and resurrection, the precious and common gospel
of the Christian preaching. To this truth is added the attestation of the
Spirit of God, present with the preacher and the congregation, and manifesting
himself, not only
112
The
Truths that Won.
to the
hearts of men, but by permanent endowments of gifts and capacities. Thus were
developed more than is possible by education, native abilities; and others were
added whose existence was never suspected, and whose exercise mightily aided in
the spread of the faith. The presence of the risen Lord, accompanying the preaching
by his Spirit, was made known, not only by the changed habits, dispositions and
desires, and renewed nature of the individual believers, but by the new power —
that of Christian love—which came into and pervaded the new society. The new
truth, the Divine power which accompanied it, and the results which followed
from it in the new life of the individual and of society, were what made the
preaching, not the written Scriptures, the means of founding the Christian
Church in the chief cities of the Roman Empire. It was a ministration of Divine
life, through consecrated human life, to the life of men and society. After the
appeal to the Old Testament if the audience were Jews, and to the teachings of
the poets and philosophers if they were Greeks, and the presentation of the
death and resurrection of the Son of God as the universal ground for immediate
repentance before God and belief in our Lord Jesus Christ, there would come the
teaching of the Lord’s words and his works. These would be emphasized at baptism
and the Lord’s Supper, which were observed from the first, and in their
application to the inward life and daily practice of believers. They thus
became the living standard by which men and Churches measured themselves before
any written Gospels came into general circulation. It is very
Teaching
op the Early Church. 113
hard for
us to realize the intellectual attitude of the men of that day. Most of them
could not read; but their memory served them immeasurably better than ours. It
had never been debilitated by a daily press. Words heard in a service were
remembered, and remembered literally for a lifetime. St. Anthony so learned his
Bible that he did not need to refer to any written word. The great preachers
and theologians had a command of the letter of the Scriptures that seems
impossible to men of our time. These facts do not exclude the existence and
circulation of fragmentary accounts of the work and words of our Lord from the
first. Indeed, the opening words of St. Luke’s Gospel seem to make certain their
existence. But there was no such necessity felt for their use, and no such
circulation of them as would seem essential to us. That the
preaching—universal, living, mighty in spiritual power—was the means of
preserving as well as of proclaiming the truth, and of founding the Churches,
seems to be one of the fundamental facts of the early apostolic age.
By the
time of the destruction of Jerusalem all this was changed. The older apostles
and ministers of the Word, who had been eye-witnesses Turning-of his work and
passion, were dead. They point, had left behind them the memory of the 70
A> D truths they had taught. The first three Gospels and the most of
the New Testament was then in writing. The youngest disciple, the one most
intimately associated with his Lord, remained to guard the deliverance, to
preserve the tradition, and, by his writings, to complete the Canon. The second
gener-
8
ii4
The: Truths that Won.
ation of
Christians appealed to these writings as to the Old Testament. From the Epistle
of Barnabas down we have the quotations from which the whole New Testament
could be restored, if the manuscripts were destroyed. The first place in these
writings was given to the Lord’s words and the record of his life; then came
the letters of St. Paul and the other apostles; then the Acts and the
Revelation.
The
common faith ot the early Christians included a belief in the Supreme God as
the Heavenly Father, hence monotheism; a belief in the resur-
Common
. i i -
Faith of
the rection, eternal life, and the kingdom of
Ear,y God for
men. To receive this efift of God,
Christians.
. .
men must
repent of their sms, believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and live lives of
self-denial, inward and outward purity. Christ was believed to be, and received
as, the Revealer of the true God and his will for men, their Redeemer from sin
through his death, and as living the perfect life and making this life possible
to men. Hence, as the Savior and Judge of the world, to those who renounced the
world the Spirit of God brought the renewal of nature and the indwelling of
Christ, which enabled believers to live in the Spirit and to be a community of
saints. They believed this common spiritual experience leveled all barriers of
race, nationality, social position, or even sex. In the Church was found
equality and brotherhood as nowhere else this side heaven. The two sacraments
of baptism and the Lord’s Supper were the distinctive marks of this society
from its founding, as the command of the risen Lord.
The
Apostolic Fathers are those who wrote in
Teaching
of the Early Church. 115
the age
succeeding the apostles. Their writings are mainly practical. They have great
value The as witnesses to the teaching and life of ApostoHc the
Church in the age succeeding the a er5‘ apostles and the New
Testament Scriptures.
The
Epistle of Barnabas was written from Alexandria, probably about 80 A. D. It is
moral in import, and catechetical in form. Its aim is
r .
Barnabas.
to prove,
through the use of the allegoric
method,
that the Old Testament is spiritual in its
teaching.
The
Epistle of Clement, Bishop of Rome, was written to the Church at Corinth, 96 A.
D. He moves in the atmosphere of the apostolic Clement teaching; he
recalls the careers of Peter and Paul, and gives glimpses of the Church
organization. The so-called Second Epistle of Clement is the earliest Christian
sermon extant outside of the New Testament, written about 130 A. D.
Ignatius,
Bishop of Antioch, wrote his epistles on the way to martyrdom at Rome, where he
suffered, 107. The seven genuine letters show an Ignatlus
enthusiastic Christian zeal and readiness to die for his Lord. They exalt the
episcopate as a defense against division, and warn against the Gnostic errors
already springing up.
The “Teaching
of the Twelve,” in fifteen chapters, is of Alexandrian origin, and dates from
about 110. The first six chapters are a treatise on Christian ..Xeaching
morals, setting forth the two ways of life and of the ^ death very much like
the Epistle of Barna- Twelve* bas. The remaining chapters are a
manual of Christian worship, with directions added in regard to the
n6
The Truths that Won,
reception
of apostles, prophets, and wayfaring Christians, and the choice of bishops and
deacons.
“ The
Shepherd ” of Hermas was written from Rome, where his brother was bishop, about
140. It is a homiletic allegory, ethical in its aim. It shows that Christians
can and should repent of sins committed after baptism. It is, of the least
literary merit of any of the Apostolic Fathers.
Papias
and Polycarp were scholars of St. John, while Polycarp was the teacher of St.
Irenaeus. Papias is known to us only by a few fragments of Papias and his
“Oracles of the Lord,” an exegesis Poiycarp. rather than a collection of the
Lord’s words. He was a Millenarian. Polycarp’s letter is written from Smyrna,
where he was bishop, and where he suffered martyrdom, 155. He quotes, in a
short space, from Matthew, Luke, Acts, 1 Peter, and Paul’s Epistles, including
the Pastoral Epistles.
The
progress of the development of these truths into the docrines of the Christian
Church and their crystallization into its creeds divides itself into five
periods:
First
period, 30-170, by which time the Apostles’ Creed was in universal use in the
Churches of the Catholic Christian faith.
Second
period, 170-254 to the death of Origen.
Third
period, 254-381 to Council of Constantinople, the close of the Arian
controversy. Revised Nicean Creed.
Fourth
period, 381-451 to the Council and Creed of Chalcedon; and
Fifth period,
400-600. The Monophysite controversies. The Pelagian controversy.
Teaching
of the Early Church. 117
The
developments which culminate in the creeds came always as the result of
controversy. The first Confession of Faith required of be-
^
First Perold
lievers
was the acknowledgment of the to the
Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost in baptism. Aa"^^e
This direction, found in Matthew] xxviii, use of the 19, was in use from the
first, and the verse A£^e8’ is better attested by early
quotations than almost any other passage in the New Testament.'
The first
controversy which we have recorded was caused by the Christian Jews seeking to
impose the yoke of the law upon the Gentile converts. How steadfastly Paul
resisted this, with what EWon|tcg passionate hate he was regarded,
how his life was embittered and his work and influence sought to be destroyed,
we may read in his Epistles. A striking confirmation of the existence of this
hatred is found in the Ebionite sect. Though followers of the Judaizers of St.
Paul’s day, they did not emerge into prominence until early in the second
century. They held that the obligation of the law was universal; that Jesus was
not born of the Virgin, but that the Divine Spirit came upon him at baptism;
that he was a good Jew, but that Paul was an apostate from the law, and a false
apostle. They were never numerous, but lingered on until the fourth century.
As
Ebionism would restrict Christianity to the limitations of a Jewish sect, so
Gnosticism, at the other extreme, would make it a philosophy of religion which
should take into itself all the
&
Gnosticism.
permanent
elements of the Greek philosophy, Persian dualism, and Christianity. In this
age of universal intercourse of nations and knowledge of
118
The Truths thai Won.
religions,
which for the first time surpasses that of the beginning of our era in the
Roman Empire, we now see this same movement going on. An effort is made to
replace Christianity by a higher development called Theosophy, or Christian
Science, or some other name, in which it shall be a component element with
esoteric Buddhism, the Vedantic philosophy, theurgy, spiritualism, or other
offshoots of alien faiths and fantastic philosophies. In this there is nothing
new or alarming. This eclectic movement may lead away individuals; it has
neither force nor vitality enough to touch the foundations of the faith. So the
Gnostics led away good, pious people, had a strict morality, anticipated
Christian theology in some particulars, formed numerous Churches and
communities, but faded away before the awakened consciousness of the Church to
the majesty and power of her Lord, and the sentiment that his teaching is the
absolute religion, and no factor of a higher development.
The first
of the Gnostics was Simon Magus, mentioned in the eighth chapter of the Acts,
and his dis-simon ciple, Menander. He seemed to have a great Magus. following
in Samaria, and came to Rome to teach his doctrines, which were a mingling of
Syrian-Phoenician idolatry and Christian ideas, he himself being the
representative of the highest God.
Cerinthus,
who lived in Asia Minor in the time of St. John, followed him. He taught that
the world was not created by the highest God, but by
Cerinthus.
an
inferior being. Jesus was a man naturally begotten, into whom Christ descended
at his baptism, and from whom he separated at the crucifixion, so that Christ
did not die.
Teaching
of the Early Church. 119
Marcion
was a practical, reforming, rather than an intellectual or philosophical
leader. He was a prosperous ship-owner from Pontus, who came to Rome in 139. He
joined the Church there, to Marcion which he gave a considerable sum
of money. He was expelled for his heretical teaching, 144. He traveled much in
the Hast, and founded his societies in Christian communities. He was living in
163. Marcion taught that the God of the Old Testament, the God of creation and
the law, is not the supreme or good God, the God of redemption. All the New
Testament writings, except the Epistles of Paul and the Gospel of Luke, were
rejected. Marcion was a strong religious character, of strict morality and of
great organizing talent. Marcionite. Churches were formed wherever the
Christians were at all numerous.
Following
Saturninus and Basilides, Valentinus was the last and ablest great teacher of
the Gnostics. “ In his school were started those problems of
.
Valentinus,
the
relations of the persons in the Trinity 138-160. and the natures in Christ,
which occupied ^gypt the Greek fathers for three centuries. His writings are
marked by originality and depth;” and yet his scheme was fantastic and absurd.
The most
important of the Gnostic teachings were: The distinction of the highest God
from the Creator of the world —the opposition between creation and redemption,
so that the mediator of the Gnostic one can not be the mediator of the other;
Doctrines, the highest God is not the God of the Old Testament, hence it was
not his revelation; matter is independent and eternal—evil inheres in matter;
the ab
120
The
Truths that Won.
solute
God unfolds himself in aeons, or heavenly powers; Jesus and Christ are sharply
distinguished— there is no real union between Christ and the man Jesus;
Christians are divided into three classes— spiritual (who are saved), natural
(who are capable of being saved), material (who are not); the distinction is
rather intellectual than moral, though including both. The second advent is
rejected. A severe asceticism was taught, though a smaller part thought the sensuous
nature indifferent, and became libertines.
The
Gnostics anticipated the Church in endeavoring to found their whole doctrine
upon the New Testament Scriptures without the aid of tradition, and in their
distinction in regard to the Old Testament as in part fulfilled, in part done
away, and in part changed. With them originated the Roman Catholic doctrines of
purgatory, of the two standards of morals—one for the religious, and one for
the common Christian— and that the soul of the advanced Christian is the bride
of Christ.
Though
falling beyond the limits of the first period, in logical order comes the last
of the eclectic Manichfetsm, attempts to form a universal religion. This
350-1200. was ma(je by Mani, of noble Persian descent,
born in Southern Babylonia, 215. His father was an adherent of a Babylonian
sect, which had been influenced by Christianity. Mani traveled extensively in
Central Asia and India, and, returning, began to teach his religion. He made
many converts, and came to the Persian court of King Sapor. In 270 he would
have been arrested, but escaped by flight. Hormuz (272-273), his successor,
favored Mani; but he was soon followed by Bahram I, who delivered
Teaching
of the Early Church. 121
him to
the rage of the Magian priests. He was crucified and his body flayed in 276.
Mani’s
system was not the heresy of a Christian sect, but was built on the foundation
of the old Semitic, Babylonian nature-religions. It assimilated Persian and
Christian elements; yet Mohammedanism is much nearer Christianity than
Manichseism; for Mohammedanism is monotheistic, while the chief effort of
Manichseism was to solve the problem of the origin and existence of evil by a
crude dualistic materialism. Light is good, darkness evil. Men escape from the
dominions of darkness to that of light through the acceptance of the teaching
of Mani, the greatest of the prophets, or, in the West, the Paraclete, and by a
strict ascetic discipline. There is no redemption in the system. In the West it
became greatly modified by Christianity, and enthralled the strong mind of
Augustine for nine years. To its apparent solution of the problem of evil it
added a simple worship, a strict morality, and a firm organization. It spread
rapidly. For centuries its head, or pope, lived at Babylon, and later at
Samarcand. From it sprang the heretical sect of Bogmiles, Paulicans, and
Cathari, which troubled the Church in the thirteenth century; after which they
disappeared. Augustine combated their opinions, and is the chief writer against
them.
Against
the widespread, subtle, and most dangerous Gnostic errors and heresy, the
Church, its teachers, and bishops had to contend from 125 Defense of to 250.
From this opposition, essential to the Faith* the life of
Christianity arose three important developments : First, the adoption of the
Apostles’
122
The
Truths that Won.
Creed as
the universal Confession of Faith for the Church. We can trace its use before
140 in the Roman Church. Some trace it back to the time of St. Paul; but of
this we have no proof. In its old Roman form, it is as follows:
“I
believe in God the Father Almighty. And in Jesus Christ his only begotten Son
our Lord, who was born of the Holy Ghost and the Virgin Mary: crucified under
Pontius Pilate and buried; the third day he arose from the dead; he ascended
into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of the Father; from thence he shall
come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the Holy Ghost; the holy Church;
the forgiveness of sins; the resurrection of the body; (the life everlasting).”
“ The Maker of heaven and earth ” was added in the Gnostic controversy. The
other clauses were added later; the descent into hell, the last of all.
This
Creed is strictly monotheistic. The Father Almighty is the Creator of the world
and of matter. He created all things, so that they are under his power and
dominion. This excludes all dualism. Jesus Christ is the Son of God and Son of
man. This excludes all docetism, views of Cerinthus, and dynamistic
monarchianism, those of Paul, of Samosata. The Christian doctrine of Last
Things, or Escha-tology, excludes all Gnostic doctrines of aeons and
development. This Creed thus shuts out definitely the Gnostic doctrine from the
teaching of the Church. Those who realized the greatness of the struggle and
its pressing danger can not repeat this earliest of the Christian creeds
without seeing in it a memorial of one of the greatest victories won by
Christian truth.
Teaching
of the Early Church. 123
The ages
have only added to the value of these great truths the Creed proclaims. They
have won, and they will win.
A second
result of this conflict with Gnosticism was the formation of a strict or closed
New Testament canon, so as to shut out all but the New apostolic
writings from an authoritative or Testament devotional use in the Church, and
to in- Canon* elude those shut out by Marcion’s or any other
mutilating rule.
The third
result was the development of the power of the episcopate, which will be
treated in the third part of this volume. From these three sources as the issue
of this conflict with heresy—the Apostles’ The Creed, the New Testament Canon,
and the Episcopate, power of the episcopate as the guarantee of the purity of
doctrine—arose the old Catholic Church, including the East and West, and as
opposed to the heretical sects. At the end of this period it stood forth to the
world a great religion and firmly-established Church; its Scriptures, Creed,
and organization enabling it to stand firm against the cruel persecutions which
were to come, and greatly aiding in that conflict with the empire and the
barbarians which was to issue in her triumph.
Chapter
II.
FOUNDING
OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY—ORIGEN.
The
second period, which extends from 170 to 254, saw the rise of the greatest
Church teachers before the time of Constantine. The most important of these
were Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Tertullian, Clement of Alexandria, and, above all,
Origen. They were all vigorous and successful apologists. The great work of
Irenaeus and Hippolytus, in which Tertullian joined, was combating Gnosticism.
The defense against false teaching and its repulse must always follow its
attack. So completely was their work done that the ground was cleared for
Origen to lay the foundations for a comprehensive statement of the whole circle
of Christian doctrine. The period was marked by the rise and decay of
Montanism, and the rise of those heretical opinions concerning the Trinity and
the relation of the Son to the Father, which preceded the outbreak of the Arian
controversy.
Our
period opens with a controversy no longer of mere intellectual interest, but of
practical import as bearing upon the daily life of believers and of the Church.
Montanism ran its course from
Montanism.
150 to
300. Montanus appeared about 150 in Pepezua, Phrygia. He called believers to
receive the reign of the Paraclete (Holy Ghost) through the prophecy which
Montanus proclaimed. “ The heavenly Jerusalem is in Pepezua. Now is the reign
of the Paraclete. Stand aloof from the world; leave 124
Founding
of Christian Theology. 125
house and
home, and come to Pepezua, and build up the kingdom of God! Bring to an end the
worldly conformity of Church by strict personal life, and by the exercise of
strict moral Church discipline on all sinners in the Church! The prophets are
to decide on all cases of difficulty.” Later, in the West, the gathering at
Pepezua was given up, and the effort was made to bring the whole Church to
their rigorist opinions. In the Church there have always been those who believed
that the Church should stand altogether aloof from the world, and utter an
unceasing protest against its spirit and its works, and those who believe that
Christianity is to pervade the whole of human society, and thus bring in the
kingdom of God. The tendency of the latter class is to a laxity which floods
the Church with worldliness as the standards of the Church are lowered to
conform to the ideals of the world. Then the former class make their power
known by protest and division. The Montanists were the Puritans of their time.
Some features of their life remind us of early Methodism and some of the
Irvingite sect. Tertullian was their greatest advocate. The Montanists spread
rapidly, but came in conflict with the episcopal organization by their doctrine
of prophecy; this proved too strong for them. Montanism died out; but so did
spiritual gifts from the Church.
The great
Church teachers of this period were Irenseus, Hippolytus, Clement of
Alexandria, and Origen. Irenseus was born in Asia Minor, about 130. He was a
scholar of Pofycarp, ren®us* Bishop of Smyrna, who was a
scholar of St. John. He came to Rome, perhaps with Polycarp, and was
126
The
Truths that Won.
teaching
there when Polycarp was martyred, 155. He went to Lyons in Gaul, and became
presbyter of that Church. He was absent in Rome, on business for the Churches,
during the persecution of 177, in which Bishop Ponthinus was martyred. He was
chosen his successor, and died there, probably in 202; tradition says by
martyrdom. Though his teaching was only developed in controversy, he was the
first systematic theologian, from whom all since have learned. He was fitted
for this work by his philosophic spirit, his breadth of view, and his
moderation in temperament. His central thoughts were three: (1) The unity of
God in creation, redemption, and dominion. (2) Jesus Christ the sole Redeemer
through his incarnation. For redemption he must be both God and man. (3) Human
nature becomes divine through the gift of eternal life through the incarnation,
which is the central point of history. “Jesus Christ, on account of his great
love for us, was made what we are, that we may become what he is.” He sums up
our humanity in himself.
Hippolytus
was a Roman presbyter, writing in Greek, who flourished from 199 to 235. He was
a scholar of Irenseus, a learned and voluminous writer.
He was
the friend of the Empress Severa,
* and the
opponent of the Roman Bishops Zephyrinus and Callistus, whom he accused of
Modal-ism and laxity in the administration of Church discipline. He sympathized
with Tertullian, and was the friend of Origen. Being banished to the Island of
Sardinia in the persecution of Maximinus, he died in exile, 235. His greatest
work which has come down to us is the “ Refutation of all Heresies.” Irenseus
Founding
of Christian Theology. 127
and
Hippolytus, with Tertullian, were the great literary opponents of Gnosticism.
He shared the theological views of Irenseus.
Tertullian
was born in Carthage, 160. His father was a centurion of the proconsul of
Africa. He was trained in literature, philosophy, history, science, and
antiquities. He spoke and wrote Greek.
-r-r , i*
1 1 1 111 • 1 • Tertullian.
He
studied law, and probably practiced in Rome. His conversion, which occurred in
192, was as radical and complete in bringing his whole nature into the
obedience and service of Christ, as St. Paul’s before or St. Augustine’s after
his time. In the midst of heathen licentiousness, he seems to have lived a life
of moral cleanness, to have been the husband of one wife, though childless. He
was ordained presbyter of the Church in Carthage. He was a Montanist in
principle from 200 to 205. In the latter year he identified himself with them
on the question of the veiling of virgins. He held, with the Montanists, that
maidens should not appear unveiled in public. The year of his death is unknown;
it may have been anywhere from 223 to 240.
Tertullian’s
greatness is in his writings, in which he appears as a powerful apologist, an
acute theologian, and an unceasing advocate of a strict Christian life and a
rigorous Church discipline. The times in which he lived doubtless influenced
the character of his writings. Four years after his conversion, the Septimian
persecution broke out. During seven j^ears it raged; and in the eight subsequent
ones Tertullian wrote most of his writings which have come down to us, and
changed from the Catholic to the Montanistic communion. Christianity for him
was a warfare in
128
The Truths that Won.
which
every Christian should be eager to die for his crucified Lord. He embraced it
with all the warmth and devotion of his passionate nature. It admitted of no
compromises, but was always in the field facing a powerful, unscrupulous, and
deadly foe, whose success meant nothing less than the undying damnation of the
soul In him there was none of the sweet reasonableness of Christianity. His
feeling and thinking is the opposite of that of his great contemporary, Origen,
whose experience of persecution was personal in the keenest bereavements of his
youth and the cruel tortures of his age and the martyrdoms of his scholars and
friends; yet the atmosphere of suffering never embittered the great soul of the
most unwearied of the Christian fathers. But Tertullian was of African blood
and Ronian training, if indeed there did not mingle in his veins the blood of
the races who had fought under Hannibal and conquered under Scipio; so he could
contemplate with fierce delight the endless sufferings of cruel persecutors in
the torments of another world. So he was Roman in his thinking. The formal
legal side, not the spiritual, ruled him. His conception of Christianity is law
rather than love. The Paraclete Holy Ghost gave a new law, through Montanistic
prophecy, in whose particular rules and commands, definiteness, and application,
it was superior to the New Testament. This is the fundamental idea of Latin
theology; it is always legal. Its philosophy is realistic; its law must be
definite, with an authorized expositor to determine its application. If not the
Montanist Paraclete, then the bishop or the Pope in the Catholic Church, or the
Old Testament precepts in the Re-
Founding
of Christian Theology. 129
formed
Church. This view had its right against the one-sided philosophical
contemplation and spiritual and idealistic conceptions of the Greek fathers. It
had its mission in the formation of a fixed rule of faith and firm discipline,
which, from Rome, was to subject and train the rude and barbarous tribes of
Teutonic heathenism. But it is a partial view, and not the full idea of the
Christian faith. To the Christ who is the truth must be added the Christ who is
the life; and to the commands and ordinances of the law must be added the love
which is the highest fulfillment of the supreme moral obligation.
Of this
Latin theology Tertullian was the father. He first gave expression to those
fundamental ideas which have ruled its course—the sense of the sinfulness of
sin; the necessity of satisfaction in redemption ; the need of grace; and the
value of good works. He began its doctrine of man and of redemption. He is the
father of Cyprian and Augustine, Jerome and Leo I, of Calvin, Knox, and the
English Puritans. His extraordinary power of concise, clear, definite, and
fitting expression of ideas in a single word made him the author of distinctive
theological terms; such as “ substance ” and “ persons ” in the Trinity, “ two
natures ” in Christ, “ satisfaction ” in redemption, and “ original sin.” His
charm is in his style—terse, pointed, and weighty. Single sentences stand out like
flashlights from a beacon; antitheses are sharpened into paradoxes. Cardinal
Newman has called him the most powerful writer of the early centuries. Add to
this the power of an impetuous nature, glowing with love to his Lord, spurning
compromises and restraints* which strove to real-
9
130
The
Truths that Won.
ize in
the Church that ascetic ideal of holiness which led to the founding of monastic
communities within the century following his death, and it can be easily seen
why, in spite of his narrowness and harshness, he attracts more readers than
almost any other Church father.
Titus
Flavius Clemens succeeded, as the head of the Catechetical School of
Alexandria, its founder, Pantsenus. From its founding, about 180, for more
Clement than two hundred years, it was the most of renowned school in
Christendom. It was Alexandria. foundeci for ^e
instruction in Christianity
of
converts from paganism of philosophic culture. It was continued as a school for
the training of Christian teachers and theologians. Clement was a man of wide
scholarship and philosophic culture, who had traveled from Rome to Athens, and
from Antioch to Jerusalem, and back to Alexandria. He wras converted
in middle life. He seems to have been at the head of the Alexandrian school
from 190 to 202, when he fled from the Septimian persecution to Cap-padocia;
and afterwards he returned to Jerusalem, where he is supposed to have died,
220. This school, on the basis of the Holy Scriptures, wrought out its system,
with the aid of the philosophy of Plato and his followers, and the allegorical
method of Philo. For Clement “ Christianity is the doctrine of the creation,
education, and redemption of the human race through the Logos, whose work
culminates in the perfect Christian or Gnostic.”
Origen
was the profoundest scholar of the early Church. He was a learned critic, a
diligent exegete, one of the ablest of the apologists, the first great theo
Founding
of Christian Theology. 131
logian.
With a breadth of thought unsurpassed in the ages since, he laid the foundation
for those definitions afterward formulated by the Coun- origen cils into the
Creeds. Origen was born at Hls Life-Alexandria in 185. His parents
were both Christians. His father, Leonidas, was a man of wealth and liberal
culture, who delighted in directing the steps of his son in the paths of
secular learning as well as in the more congenial walks of sacred literature.
The quickness of perception and depth of understanding shown by the boyish
learner in holy themes was the joy of his father’s heart. When seventeen years
of age, Alexandria became the chief scene of Christian suffering during the
Septimian persecutions. Origen’s father was apprehended, and carried before the
magistrate. Origen strove to reach him, that he might share his fate; his
mother only prevented him by concealing his clothes. Finding that he could not
accomplish his purpose, he wrote a letter to his father, exhorting him to take
heed and not to change his mind “on account of us;” that is, his mother, six
brothers, and himself. Leonidas was martyred, his property confiscated; and
Origen supported the widow and dependent orphans by opening a school for
secular instruction in philosophy, and received aid also from a wealthy lady,
who supported a number of young men while they pursued their studies. During
the persecution he was both zealous and diligent in visiting the martyrs in
prison, going with them to trial, and kissing them when led away to die. He
narrowly escaped sharing their fate. At length he could not remain in one
place, but for safety went from house to house. His talents and his zeal led
the
132
The
Truths that Won.
Christians
to reopen their school, with Origen as sole instructor when but eighteen years
of age. He soon raised up a notable group of scholars, prelates, and martyrs.
For this purpose he had the advantage of superior instruction as well as of
great natural gifts and unwearied diligence. Pantaenus and Clement, the
founders of the Alexandrian school, were his instructors in divinity, while
Ammonius Saccas, the founder of the Neo-Platonic school of philosophy, was his
tutor in metaphysics. Though Origen thought it best to close his philosophical
school when he became instructor in theology, he was no bigot. Alone of all the
men of his time, so far as we know, “ he also instructed many of the more
common people in the Biblical studies, asserting frequently that they would
receive no small advantage from them in understanding the Holy Scriptures.”
At this
time and during his whole life Origen was a strenuous ascetic. While teaching,
he sold his copies of classical writings, receiving therefor an annuity of
twelve cents per day, on which he lived for many years, refusing the voluntary
contributions of his friends. He not only denied himself by severe and rigorous
fasts, but after laborious days, cut short his sleep. Even the few hours he
gave to sleep he spent stretched on the bare ground. Fulfilling literally the
Savior’s command not to have “ two coats, neither shoes,” he suffered poverty,
cold, and all but nakedness. While still a young man, misunderstanding Matt
xix. 12, he performed an act of selfmutilation, which brought upon him severe
ecclesiastical censure, and of which he afterward repented. The rashness and
error of his youth taught him
Founding
of Christian Theology. 133
that
God’s methods of discipline are better than ours. In these years Origen devoted
himself with untiring assiduity to study. He says: “When I had devoted myself
wholly to the Word, and my fame went abroad concerning my proficiency, as I was
sometimes visited by heretics, sometimes by those who were conversant with the
studies of the Greeks, especially those who were pursuing philosophy, I was
resolved to examine both those opinions of the heretics and those works of the
philosophers which pretend to speak the truth.” The heathen Porphyry tells us
how well he carried out this design: “He was always in company with Plato and
the works of the chief philosophers known to his time, and others whose
writings are valued in his hands.” He acquired not only the learning of the
Greeks, but also became familiar with the Hebrew, in which his mother was his
fellow-student.
Origen
was no mere scholar and ascetic; he knew well the men, the form and fashion of
his time. About the age of twenty-seven he visited Rome, the capital of the
world—the representative of its material forces as Alexandria of its
intellectual energy. He went on two missionary journeys to Arabia, once to the
heathen, and in 215 to the heretics. At the age of forty-three, 228, he visited
Palestine. Two years later he visited Ephesus, staid some time at Athens, and,
on his return, stopped at Caesarea, where he was ordained presbyter. This act
angered Demetrius, Bishop of Alexandria, who excommunicated him. Origen went to
Caesarea in 231, at the age of forty-six, leaving Alexandria forever. The
sentence of excommunication was entirely disregarded by the
134
The
Truths that Won,
bishops
of Palestine, Arabia, Phoenicia, and Greece; and he was on friendly terms with
his two scholars, who succeeded Demetrius in the See of Alexandria.
The fame
of Origen was such that he was upon terms of intimacy with the greatest and
best of the age in which he lived. He was called to visit the Empress Mammea,
the mother of Alexander Severus, probably at Antioch in 228. He taught
concerning the faith in Christ, and we know that his words were not unfavorably
received. Later the Emperor Philip the Arabian assisted him in opening his
school at Caesarea; and Origen corresponded with his wife, the Empress Severa.
He had the friendship of the best and ablest bishops of his time; but one of
them is known to have been unfriendly to him, and he from envy. His lectures
were so highly esteemed that the Bishop of Jerusalem and the chiefest of his
clergy sat as learners at his feet.
The
twenty-three years that he spent at Caesarea formed the most fruitful period of
his literary life. The wealth of Ambrose, whom he had converted from the
Gnostic heresy, enabled him to keep seven amanuenses, who relieved each other
as the indefatigable vigor of Origen successively wearied them. He also kept
seven copyists of his own work, beside those skilled in calligraphy, for the
parts of his difficult work requiring more than ordinary skill. Origen wrote
the first detailed commentary on the Scriptures. He wrote “ Contra Celsus,”
unrivaled among apologies. His recension of the Greek version of the Old
Testament was the greatest work of his life. It consists of six and sometimes
eight or nine columns of parallel versions, with critical notes on each. The
Founding
of Christian Theology. 135
“ De
Principiis ” is the first independent attempt of a Christian thinker to form a
system of theology. His commentaries upon the Scriptures have only partially
come down to us; and yet they form in the Berlin edition of 1831 sixteen
volumes of his works. In these writings we have some proof of the untiring
energy of the man.
Origen
seems to have been nurtured in an atmosphere of martyrdom. The names of eight
of his first pupils, who suffered death for the gospel’s sake, have come down
to us. When he was just established at Caesarea the Maximinian persecution
broke out. Origen at once published his oration concerning martyrdom to comfort
and sustain the afflicted Church. Eighteen years later the Decian persecution
raged. Origen was now an old man; but his fame made him worthy of the test. He
was apprehended, tortured with the iron collar, immured in the deepest recesses
of the prison, stretched for days upon the rack, threatened with burning at the
stake; but he never faltered. The fury of the persecution spent itself. Origen
was released; but he did not rally. He lingered a few months, and then, as his
father had done, received a martyr’s crown, 254.
Some
measure of the penetration and suggestiveness of Origen’s ideas may be gained
from a few extracts. We can then see why no theological writer can escape
dealing with the problems which he states or with his method of treatment of
them.
“Now, in our
judgment, God can do everything which it is possible for him to do without
ceasing to be God, and good, and wise. But Celsus asserts— not comprehending
the expression, ‘God can do all
136
The Truths that Won.
things’—‘that
he will not desire to do anything wicked, admitting that he has the power, but
not the Concern- to ev^-’ We, on the contrary,
main-
ing tain
that, as that will which by nature pos-Contra sesses the property of sweetening
other Ceisus, hi, things through its own inherent sweet-70, 493. ne5Sj can
n0|- produce bitterness contrary to its own peculiar nature; nor that
whose nature is to produce light through its being light can 'cause darkness:
so neither is God able to commit wickedness; for the power of doing evil is
contrary to his Deity and its omnipotence.”
“There
is, therefore, One whose favor we should seek, and to whom we ought to pray
that he would be gracious to us—the Most High God, whose favor The inter £a*ned
^y piety and the practice of every cession virtue. And if he would
have us to seek of the favor of others after the Most High
Angels.
. . .
Contra
God, let him consider that, as the motion
ceisus,
viii, Qf shadow follows the motion of the 64, 664.
body
which casts it, so in like manner it follows that, when we have the favor of
God, we have also the good-will of all angels and spirits who are friends of
God. For they know who are worthy of the Divine approval, and they are not only
well disposed to them, but they co-operate with them in their endeavors to please
God; they seek his favor on their behalf; with their prayers they join their
own prayers and intercession for them. We may indeed boldly say that men who
aspire after better things have, when they pray to God, tens of thousands of
sacred powers on their side.”
“I think,
therefore, that all the saints who depart
Founding
of Christian Theology. 137
from this
life will remain in some place situated on the earth, which Holy Scripture
calls paradise, as in some place of instruction, and, so to speak, The
class-room or school of souls, in which they Future are to be instructed in all
the things which DeSp“{*'ci_ they had seen on
earth, and to receive also pHs, 2, some information respecting the things 6’2"'
which are to follow in the future, as even when in this life they had obtained
in some degree indications of future events, although through a glass
darkly,—all of which are revealed more clearly and distinctly to the saints in
their proper time and place. If any one, indeed, be pure in heart and holy in mind
and more practiced in perception, he will, by making more rapid progress,
quickly ascend to a place in the air, and reach the kingdom of heaven through
those mansions in the various places which the Greeks have termed spheres—that
is, globes—but which I^oly Scripture has called heaven; in each of which he
will first see clearly what is done there, and, in the second place, will
discover the reason why things are so done; and thus he will, in order, pass
through all gradations following him who hath passed into the heavens, Jesus
the Son of God, who said, ‘ I will that where I am, these may be also.’ ”
“For in
the same way also our bodies are to be supposed to fall into the earth like a
grain; Resurrec_ and—that germ being implanted in them tion-germ which
contains the bodily substance—al-though the bodies die and become corrupted,
pHs, 11, and are scattered abroad, yet, by the word ,0’3’
249‘ of God, that very germ which is always safe in the substance of
the body raises them from the earth,
The
Truths that Won.
and
restores and repairs them, as the power which is in the grain of wheat, after
its corruption and death, repairs and restores the grain into a body having
stalk and ear. And so also to those who shall deserve to obtain an inheritance
in the kingdom of heaven, that germ of the body’s restoration which we have
before mentioned, by God’s command, restores, out of the earthly and animal
body, a spiritual one, capable of inhabiting the heavens.”
“The
sufferings and disparities of life, the contrasts of the law and the gospel
simply reveal that what we see is but a fragment of a vast system in which we
can do no more than to trace
Our
Relation . .
to the
tendencies, consequences, signs, and rest
scheme of
Up0n the historic fact of the incarnation. Things.
. . . .
In this
respect the entire range of being is ‘as one thought,’ answering to the
absolutely perfect will of God, while ‘we that are but part can see but part,
now this and now that.’ ” A single sentence from Origen was quoted by Bishop
Butler as containing the germ of his Analogy.
As a
theological teacher, Origen had grave faults, which the Church has recognized
and condemned. Led by the influence of his Platonic conceptions, he believed in
the pre-existence of human souls in an-Defects other stage of being before
their birth in of origen. this world; in a succession of worlds previous to and
after this, so that the history of this world is but a moment in the successive
world ages; in a purificatory process carried on from world to world, until
all, even Satan, should be completely redeemed from sin. He believed this
redemption to depend upon the free choice of the will; yet he never showed
Founding
of Christian Theology. 139
how that
choice should in other worlds, more than in this, result in eternal
blessedness. In consequence of these views, and following the Alexandrian
tradition, he taught there were two classes of Christians—the ordinary believer
and the advanced Gnostic, or Christian—and two classes of truth for each.
In spite
of these defects, he was thoroughly Christian in his thought, the eighth
chapter of Romans and the fifteenth of First Corinthians being the basis of his
teaching. In the breadth of his view, the geniality of his temper, and the
devoutness of his spirit he has never been surpassed. He has been the teacher
of teachers, and attracted the great Christian thinkers of every age, with the
possible exception of Luther. He has been called the Schleiermacher of the
early Church. In spite of all errors, no other writer of the early Church is so
fruitful and suggestive.
Origen’s
distinctive greatness is as a scholar and a teacher. In these combined
relations he has never been surpassed in the Christian Church. His unwearied
diligence laid under tribute and absorbed for his use the knowledge of his
time. Through his personal influence and his writings he has more widely
influenced Christendom than any other father of the Church. Augustine and
Aquinas, Luther, Calvin, and Wesley have more profoundly influenced portions of
Christendom; the influence of Origen has touched the whole.
He owes
this distinction to his achievements as a student and teacher of the Holy
Scrip- Biblical tures. This field absorbed the greater por- Scholar, tion of
his iron toil. Jerome knew more Hebrew, was a sounder exegete, and gave
Christendom the
The
Truths that Won.
best of
the ancient versions of the Holy Scriptures, the Latin Vulgate; but the
services of Origen exceeded his. Origen was the founder of the science of
textual criticism, through his great labors on the Sep-tuagint and on the New
Testament. His Scholia are the earliest specimens of marginal explanations. His
Commentaries were the first continuous exegesis of the Scriptures. All
commentators, ancient or modern, have dug from his mine; and a very
considerable part of what is valuable in them they owe to Origen. Not only did
he lay the foundation, but eagerly built up the fabric of Biblical
interpretation. If he used the allegorical method, it was with definite limits,
while he was an accurate grammarian as well. His knowledge and contribution to
the interpretation of the Bible were absolutely unrivaled.
His
influence as an apologist and theologian was scarcely less far-reaching. As a
theologian he aimed to make central in his thinking the supremacy of God our
Father and his character as holiness and love;
Jesus
Christ as the Mediator of creation, rev
*
elation, and redemption ; in the unity of creation, human free will, or the
power of moral determination, as a decisive element in the fulfillment of the
Divine counsel. He also emphasized the teaching that Christ died for all men.
He aimed to show the agreement of the best human thinking with the Holy
Scriptures, and that they are consistent with all real knowledge and with the
highest reason. To this end he used Plato’s philosophy, his archetypal ideas,
and the allegoric method. He won to Christianity the educated classes of the
Greek world, and made forever, as against all heretics, the Old Testament a
Founding
of Christian Theology. 141
part of
the Christian Scriptures. He struck the grand outlines of an all-embracing
Christian theology, which, however they may have been rectified, have never
been surpassed.
To these
results of his thinking and his labors must be added his abilities and disposition
as a man and his character as a Christian, which made him so inspiring as a
teacher and so pure as an example. To his sympathy with all human learning he
added an equal sympathy with all human souls.
This
moved him to teach the rude and the a a e • ignorant as well as
those trained in the schools, made him a most winning and successful
controversialist, and gave him, as a teacher of teachers, friends of the great
and noble spirits of all times. Though an ascetic, he was not of the legal
spirit. His mastery of himself and harmony with his highest convictions gave an
ease and sweetness of spirit amid unfavorable or frightful surroundings, which,
like his tireless labors, has never been excelled in all the ages since.
Chapter
III.
THE
DOCTRINE OF THE TRINITY—CREED OF NIC^EA.
After the
conflict with the attempts to absorb the Christian religion in a religious
philosophy had failed, men began to occupy themselves with the intellectual
representations of the relations of the three Divine persons acknowledged in
Christian baptism, especially that of the Son to the Father, and between the
two natures in the person of our Lord. The Monarchian- Greek disposition,
intellect, and culture i5m* seemed to be peculiarly fitted for and
to delight in this task. Its difficulty may be conceived when we reflect that,
after all the efforts of all the ablest thinkers during the centuries of the
history of our race, we yet know so little of the relations of body, mind, and
spirit in ourselves. If these great/Greek thinkers and theologians did not
attain to absolute certainty in their conclusions, and answer all questions to
the satisfaction of thoughtful minds for all ages, they did present that
solution of these problems which at that time demanded authoritative answer from
the Church, and which was the wisest then offered, and has commanded general
assent in the Church in all ages since. It is easy to say that the view of
Athanasius or Leo is defective; yet no man familiar with the question would
replace them with the views of Arius or Eusebius, of Nestorius or Eu-tyches;
and the choice had to be made from among 142
The
Doctrine of the Trinity.
them. In
the consideration of these questions, we are to remember that the Protestant
Christian is bound, as to his faith and conscience, only by the Holy
Scriptures, which contain all that is necessary to salvation both for our faith
and practice, and that these creeds have for us only the authority of their
truth. We are also to remember that they represent to us the highest result of
human thinking and the best expression of the mind of the Church on the most
difficult problems of the Christian faith. These problems could not be ignored;
some answer must be given; the future of the Church depended upon the answer
indorsed by her authority. It is of no inconsiderable consequence that the
great branches of the Christian faith, the Greek, Roman Catholic, and
Protestant Churches, rest upon these great common foundations of theological
thinking.
Three
views were presented and discussed before the adoption of that conception of
the Divinity of our Lord which prevailed at Nicaea. These were Dyna-mistic
Monarchianism, Modalistic Monarch- Dynamistic ianism, and
Subordinationism. D3>,namistic Monarchian-Monarchianism—from
dynamis (power) and ,sm" monarchy (sole rule of one)—taught
that the Divine in Christ was only a power, and not a nature. Christ had not a
pre-existing spiritual being, but one after his moral condition—a man exalted
to Divine dignity. It exalted the human moral development of Christ. This view
was first contended for by a layman, The-odotus, a leather-worker from
Byzantium. His work belongs to a former period, but is given here for connected
presentation. He came to Rome about 185, and taught that Christ was a mere man.
He was ex
144
The
Truths thai Won.
communicated
by Bishop Victor, 192-202. The leading representative of these opinions was
Paul of Sa-mosata, Bishop and Viceroy of Antioch under Queen Zenobia of
Palmyra. He was excommunicated, 269; deposed, the sentence being then carried
into execution, in 273. The Unitarians are the modern representatives of this
party; they were never numerous in the Church.
Respecting
these views, many went to the other extreme, and were called Modalistic
Monarchians, Modaiistic because they made Christ only a mode of Monarchian-
being the Father. They were also called Patripassians; that is, the Father
suffers because they said “ God was crucified,” “ God died,” etc. Its most
prominent advocate was Sabellius, of Libya, who came to Rome, and was at first
favored, but afterward excommunicated, by Bishop Callistus, 218-223. He taught
that, for creation, God is Father; for redemption, he is Redeemer; for the
Church, he is the Holy Ghost. Hence, the Trinity is one of equality and
economy. This was a large and influential party in the Church. The Roman
bishops for thirty years—Victor, Zephyrinus, and Callistus—were Modalistic
Monarchians.
There
were those who believed that Christ was Divine, but that his independent
personal being must Subordina* be emphasized in opposition to the
follow-tionism. ers of Sabellius. They held the Son to be subordinate to the
Father. They taught that Christ, the Logos, had a personal substance and
pre-existence ; that he belongs to the inward necessity of the being of the
Father. It is false to say there was a time when he was not. Christ was truly
God, but
The
Doctrine of the Trinity.
inferior
in dignity. The word Logos, applied to Christ, is found in St.John’s Gospel. It
was so used by Justin Martyr, in 135; Theophilus of Antioch, 175; and
Athenagoras, 175-185. The term is used to express the thought that the Mediator
of creation and redemption is the same. Dionysius of Alexandria taught that
Christ is the creature of the Father. Hippolytus and Tertullian, though they
combated modalism, held subordination views. Origen advanced to the statement
of the eternal generation of the Son, though he held that he was inferior in
person and office.
In the
third period (254-381), the Church came to a definite and authoritative
decision in regard to the Divinity of our Lord. She advanced be- Anus
and yond all Monarchianism and Subordina- His Doctrine, tionism to the creeds
of Nicsea and Constantinople. The occasion of taking this step was the teaching
of the presbyter, Arius. The one great man by whom it was carried through was
Athanasius. Both of these men were connected with the Church in Alexandria.
Arius was a scholar, as was Eusebius of Nicomedia, and Lucian of Antioch. Lucian
was a thorough Biblical scholar, but was influenced by the views of Paul of
Samosata, whose deposition he refused to sanction. Arius, thus trained and
influenced, came to Alexandria, where he was ordained presbyter, 311. He was an
eloquent preacher, with a subtle mind. He was tall, of agreeable address, and
lived a pure life. He stated his view, that “there was a time when the Lord was
not,” in 319, and was condemned by a council of Egyptian bishops in 321.
Christianity had now come to the throne of the world; and beyond all
10
146
The
Truths that Won,.
questions
of politics, of civil and social life, these theological distinctions became
the theme of discussion in the street and in the market-place. The gist of the
doctrine of Arius was: “ The Father is Father; the Son is Son; therefore, the
Father must have existed before the Son; therefore, once the Son was not;
therefore, he was made, like all creatures, of a substance which had not
previously existed.” . These opinions were rejected by the Council of Nicaea,
325. After long debate, the 318 bishops came to the decision, with only two
dissenting voices, that the Son was of the same substance with the Father, and
hence of equal co-eternity. Arius was condemned and banished. Eleven years
later he was recalled, and died in 336, as he was about to be restored to his
former position in the Church.
The man
most influential in securing the condemnation of Arius at Nicaea—the lifelong
and victorious Athanasius. °PPonent of his doctrines—was Athanasius,
His at that time a young deacon attached to Teaching. Alexander, the Bishop of
Alexandria. Athanasius argued in favor of the eternal generation of the Son and
his consubstantiality (Homoousia) with the Father—that is, his perfect Divinity
as Son of God—on the following grounds: The Father must always have been
Father, or he could not be the absolute and unchanging God. The Son is not
Divine if he is not Son by nature, but only by God’s grace. The unity of man
with God falls to the ground if the Mediator of their unity is only a creature,
and not the absolute God. “ If Christ,” he said, “ differed from other
creatures simply as being the only creature immediately produced by God, then
he could not
The
Doctrine of the Trinity.
i47
bring the
creature into fellowship with God, since we must be constrained to think of
something still intermediate between him as a creature and the Divine essence,
which differed from him—something whereby he might stand in communion with God;
and this intermediate being would be precisely the Son of God in the proper
sense. In analyzing the conception of God communicated to the creature, it
would be necessary to arrive, at least, at the conception of that which
requires nothing intermediate in order to communion with God—which does not
participate in God’s essence as something foreign to itself, but which is
itself the self-communicating essence of God. This is the only Son of God—the
being who can be so called in the proper sense. The expressions, Son of God and
Divine generation, are of a symbolic nature, and denote simply the
communication of the Divine essence. It is only on the supposition that Christ
is, in this sense alone, the proper Son of God, that he can make rational
creatures children of God. It is the Logos who imparts himself to them through
whom they live in God—the Son of God within them, through fellowship with whom
they become themselves children of God.”
Professor
Moller puts it concisely thus: “ Nothing less than the Eternal Son of God,
through his incarnation, could accomplish the redemption of mankind. Christ has
renewed the whole man through his union with him. The fundamental thought of
Athanasius is that, through a real union of Divinity with human nature,
salvation is accomplished, in which the Divine life makes possible to extend
the natural connection with the whole of humanity—to overcome death and
148
The
Truths that Won.
to raise
to immortality. The incarnation is necessary through the need of revelation and
of redemption. The Divine life comes into the life of man objectively through
the Holy Ghost, and subjectively through faith; that is, the reception of the
Lord.”
The
incarnation was the center of the teaching of Origen, but as a means of
relating the Father to the . . creation of the race and the world, and re' vealing
him to man. Athanasius advanced to the incarnation as the essential guarantee
of redemption—its central purpose. The work of Athanasius in defense of this
doctrine only began with the definition of the Nicaean Council. Athanasius was
born at Alexandria about 296. He was trained in Homer, Plato, and logic. He
knew thoroughly paganism and Judaism. His chief study was Christian theology.
His treatises, “Against the Gentiles ” and “ On the Incarnation,” are
remarkable theological essays, especially for a man not more than twenty-two
years of age. He was twenty-nine at the Council of Nicaea, and elected Bishop
of Alexandria— a position second only to that of Rome—the succeeding year, 326.
In November, 330, the Emperor Constantine commanded him to receive Arius back
into the Church. From this time his conflicts ceased only with his life. “ He
was small in stature,” says Gregory Nazianzen; “but his face was radiant with
intelligence ; accessible to all; slow to anger; quick in sympathy, pleasant in
conversation, and still more pleasant in temper; effective alike in discourse
and in action; assiduous in devotions; helpful to Christians of every class and
age.” He wrought in his diocese with exemplary fidelity. He ruled as a thorough
The
Doctrine of the Trinity.
149
going and
successful bishop; but refused to receive Arius into communion with the Church
in 331. He was summoned to a Council at Caesarea in 334, charged with having
put a Milesian bishop (Arsenius) to death. The charge was renewed at a Synod at
Tyre in 335, where his enemies showed in a box an arm of the murdered Arsenius.
“ Did any of you know Arsenius?” calmly asked Athanasius. Many voices answered
in the affirmative. A hooded figure was led into the midst of the assembly, the
covering was removed, and Arsenius stood before them. Commanding him to hold
out his hands,—“ Did any of you know of Arsenius having three hands?” said
Athanasius. His enemies could only raise cries of magic to cover their
confusion; nevertheless, they condemned him, and deposed him from his See.
Athanasius appealed to the Emperor Constantine. He appeared in person before
him in the public street as he was returning on horseback to his palace, and
besought his justice. The emperor ordered an investigation. The Arian bishops
changed the charge to one of threatening to detain the grain-ships bound for
Constantinople, and the emperor’s jealousy being aroused, he was banished to
Treves, February, 336. He remained there two years and a half. Arius died the
same year, and Constantine the Great in May, 337. He was recalled soon after
the death of the latter, but did not arrive at Alexandria until November, 338.
Constantius, the successor of the first Christian emperor, was an able ruler,
and sought to control the policy of the Church as his fathers had done. He was
a zealous Arian. A Synod at Antioch, under the control of the Eusebian party,
in 340, deposed Atha
The
Truths that Won.
nasius,
and elected Gregory of Cappadocia, an Arian, in his stead. Athanasius appealed
to Julius, Bishop of Rome, and sailed for Rome at Easter, 340. Another Arian
Council at Antioch, 341, renewed the condemnation of Athanasius. In the
meanwhile, Julius had called a Council at Rome, which met in October or
November, 341. It pronounced Athanasius innocent. He spent the next two years
at Rome and Milan. He was present at the end of the year 343, with one hundred
and seventy bishops, at the Council of Sardica, where he was again acquitted.
Gregory, the Arian Bishop of Alexandria, died in February, 345. In 346, Athanasius
visited Treves, Adrianople, Antioch, and Jerusalem, and returned, after a six
years’ exile, to Alexandria, October 21, 346. More than four hundred bishops,
including those of Britain, were in communion with him. After the death of his
brother Constans in 350, and the usurper Magnentius in 353, Constantius was the
sole ruler of the Roman Empire. He hated Athanasius with a bitter personal
hatred. For ten years Athanasius held his ground at Alexandria, though
condemned by Councils at Arles in 353, and Milan in 355. “ Finally, on the 8th
of February, 356, while he was engaged in service in the Church of St. Theonas,
a band of armed men burst into the sacred building. Here, for a time, he
maintained his composure, and desired the deacon to read the psalm and the
people to respond, ‘ For his mercy endureth forever,’ as the soldiers rushed
forward with fierce shouts toward the altar. He at length made his escape in
the crowd, and withdrew to the solitudes of Upper Egypt.” (Apology for His
Flight, 24.) George 01 Cappadocia, a bitter Arian, was sent to supersede
The
Doctrine of the Trinity. 151
him in
Lent, 357. Athanasius spent the next six years in exile among the monks of the
Egyptian desert. He admired and promoted monasticism. The monks alone protected
him against imperial despotism. The emperor compelled his old friend, the aged
Hosius of Cordova, to pronounce against him in 357, and Liberius, Bishop of
Rome, in 358, as did the Arian Councils, Ariminum in 359, and Seleucia in 360.
Constantius died November 4, 361. The apostate Julian succeeded him. George of
Cappadocia was murdered by the pagan party, December 24, 361. Athanasius was
recalled by Julian, and returned to Alexandria, February 22, 362. Athanasius
was now the greatest person in the Roman world—too eminent as a Christian and a
bishop to be left in peace by the pagan Julian. At his command he went into his
fourth exile, October 23, 362. On leaving, he said : “ Be of good heart; it is
but a cloud; it will soon pass.” In a few months (June 26, 363), Julian closed
his career. In July the undaunted bishop was at Alexandria. In September he
sailed for Antioch, to meet the Emperor Jovian. He returned to Alexandria,
February, 364. The same year Jovian died, and was succeeded by Valens, a bitter
Arian. Athanasius was banished for the last time, October 5, 365. He is said to
have lived for many months in his father’s tomb, near Alexandria. He returned,
February 1, 366, and was undisturbed in his See until his death, May 2, 373, at
the age of seventy-seven.
He had
been Bishop of Alexandria forty-seven years. Five times banished by four em-
His perors, he had spent twenty years in exile. Character. We can but join in
the words of Hooker: “ The whole
152
The Truths that Won.
world
against Athanasius, and Athanasius against it; half a hundred years spent in
doubtful trial, which of the two in the end should prevail—the side which had
all, or else the part which had no friends but God and death—the one a defender
of his innocency, the other a finisher of all his troubles?” The greatness of
Athanasius rests upon his unshaken adherence to his conception of the Divinity
of Christ. Deeply religious; sensitive yet persistent; firm, discreet, and
affectionate; moderate when triumphant,— if he sometimes felt and was
influenced by the stress of controversy, his life and its results are among the
greatest in Christian history. .
Men like
Origen and Athanasius, like Basil and the two Gregories, declared, defended,
and expounded truth amid the warring sects and parties of the Church; but her
Councils defined the faith in clear, precise, and unmistakable terms, and yet
brief enough to become the easily-remembered Confession of the common people,
especially as they became a part of the highly-developed liturgy of the Church.
The
(Ecumenical Councils of the first six centuries are those of Nicsea, 325; I
Constantinople, 381;
(Ecumenical
Ephesus, 431 ; Chalcedon, 451; II Con-Coundis. stantinople, 553. Three of
these—Nicaea, I Constantinople, and Chalcedon—formulated creeds for the use of
the Church and the defense of the faith. These creeds are remarkable as being
expansions or explications of the Apostles’ Creed. They are also remarkable for
not going beyond the questions then pressing for decision; and in brevity
contrast strongly with the later Creeds, like the Thirty-nine Articles, or the
Augsburg and Westminster
The
Doctrine of the Trinity. 153
Confessions.
The Councils were called by the emperor, who summoned to them all Christian
bishops. These alone, with the emperor or his representative, had voice or
vote. Men like Arius or Athanasius could be present as the advisers of the
bishops. The Councils not only decided points of doctrine, but determined
questions of discipline, usage, authority, and jurisdiction. The conclusions of
the Councils on the latter were embodied in articles called canons, or rules.
The
Council of Nicsea, the greatest and most important of these assemblies,
consisted of three hundred and eighteen bishops. Hosius of Cordova, Eusebius of
Caesarea, and Eusebius * of Nicomedia were the ablest and
most influential of its prelates. Both Arius and Athanasius were in attendance.
The Council gave the definition of the Son to the Father, which centered in the
word ho-moousios—of the same substance as the Father.
The
Nicsean Creed is as follows:
“ We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of all things, visible and
invisible; and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begot- Nicaan ten of
the Father [the only begotten—that Creed, is, of the essence of the Father—God
of God], Light of light, very God of very God; begotten, not made, being of one
substance with the Father; by whom all things were made [both in heaven and in
earth]; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down and was incarnate, and
was made man. He suffered, and the third day he rose again, ascended into
heaven; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead. And in the
Holy Ghost.
154
The
Truths that Won.
[“ But
those who say, ‘ There was a time when he was not;’ and ‘ He was not before he
was made;’ and ‘ He was made out of nothing;’ or ‘ He is of another substance’
or ‘essence;’ or ‘The Son of God is created,’or ‘changeable,’ or
‘alterable’—they are condemned by the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church.”]
The
Emperor Constantine confirmed the decrees of the Council; but, influenced by
Eusebius of Nico-media, he leaned more and more to the Arian side. Constantius
was a Christian from personal conviction, but also a thorough Arian. By him the
orthodox were oppressed and banished. Julian the Apostate despised both parties
alike. Jovian favored the Creed of Nicsea, but Valens was its bitter opponent.
Upon his death, Theodosius came to the throne—a great ruler, a Nicaean
Christian, and the friend of Ambrose.
In the
East, and among the majority of the theologically-trained bishops, the Creed of
Nicaea was not received with favor. They were conservatives, and could not
advance beyond the teachings of Origen, while they disliked the terms of the
Creed as savoring of Sabellianism. Still less were they inclined to Arianism.
That they were finally won to a convinced and reasoned support of the Creed of
Nicaea was due to the writings and influence of three men, called the great
Cappadocians. Two of them—Basil and Gregory of Nyssa—were brothers; while the
third—Gregory of Nazianzen—was their lifelong friend. All three were
bishops—Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia, Gregory of Nyssa, and Gregory of
Sasima, and, for a short time, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Basil,
330-390, was a leader and ruler of men,
The
Doctrine of the Trinity.
i55
founder
of flourishing Church institutions, and author of the first great rule of the
monastic life. Gregory-Nazianzen, preacher and poet, was a volumi- The Three
nous writer; born, 325; Bishop of Sasima, Cappadocians. 370; Archbishop of
Constantinople for a few months in 381 ; died, 392. Gregory of Nyssa was born
335, and became Bishop of Nyssa in 371; attended the Council of Constantinople,
381. He died 395. He was the theologian of the age. His “ Great Catechism ” was
the most significant dogmatic work of the fourth century. Through the influence
of these men and their teacher, Apollinaris of Laodicea, the one hundred and
eighty-six bishops, most of whom were from the East, at the first Council of
Constantinople, 381, called by Theodosius, accepted the Nicsean teaching. They
further settled the Trinitarian doctrine by more precisely defining the
relation of the Father and the Son, and added an article concerning the Holy
Ghost. This article condemned the doctrine of Macedonius, who taught that the
Holy Spirit is a Divine energy diffused throughout the universe, but not a
distinct person in the Trinity.
The Creed
of Constantinople is as follows:
“ We
believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and of all
things, visible and invisible. And in one Lord Jesus Creedof Christ,
the only begotten Son of God, be- Constanti-gotten of the Father before all
worlds’ nop,e* aeons; Light of light, very God of very God;
begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father; by whom all things
were made; who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and
was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and
The
Truths that Won.
was made
man. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was
buried, and the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures, and
ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father; from thence
he shall come again with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom
shall have no end. And in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and giver of life, who
proceedeth from the Father, and who, with the Father and the Son together, is
worshiped and glorified ; who spake by the prophets. In one Holy Catholic and
Apostolic Church. We acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins; we look
for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come. Amen.”
Sometimes
we wonder if the lost causes, after all, should not secure our suffrage. Some
evil things succeed. This is particularly the case if we do not fully enter
into or understand the distinctions which divided the Church into parties. It
may reassure us to have so eminent a scholar and fair a judge as Professor
Harnack declare: “ The victory of the Arian doctrine, in all probability, meant
the ruin of Christendom. The Arian Christology is the most inwardly empty and
dogmatically worthless of all that meet us in the history of doctrine. But it
had its mission as a bridge between the half-heathen in the Church and monotheism,
and in the early training of the Teutonic races.’*
Chapter
IV.
DOCTRINE
OF THE PERSON OF CHRIST—CREED OF CHALCEDON. 381-451.
These
seventy years were those of the overthrow and dissolution of the Roman Empire
and society in the West, and, for more than fifty years, of political weakness
in the East. During these years Rome was taken by the Goths, North Africa
conquered by the Vandals under Genseric, Gaul and Spain conquered by the Franks
and Burgundians, while all Middle Europe was ravaged by the Mongol savage
Attila.
On the
other hand, this was the golden age of Christian theology. The greatest galaxy
of Christian writers in the early Church wrought at this time. While the old
order changed and the old The Men of world died, Christian thought showed a the
Period, vigor seldom since surpassed. The greatest men of the former period
made this illustrious with their closing labors. Such were the three great
Cappado-cians—Basil; the two Gregories and their teacher, Apollinaris; with
Didymus the Blind, the great teacher of the Catechetical School of Alexandria ;
and Diodorus, the founder of the great Exegetical School of Antioch. But groups
of the ablest Christian teachers came to the ripeness of their powers and the
fullness of their labors in these seventy years. Among them were the most
famous names of the Christian Church. In the West we find the great Latin
fathers, Ambrose,
i57
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The Truths that Won.
Jerome,
and Augustine; writers like Vincent of Serins, Sulpicius Severus, and Paulinus
of Nola; and Rome’s ablest bishops, like Innocent and Leo. In the East,
centering about Antioch, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Chrysostom, Theodoret, the
most eloquent preachers and the ablest exegetes of the early Church; and prelates
like Nestorius and Ibas of Edessa. With Alexandria as a center, were Isidore of
Pelusium and Synesius; Epiphanius, the great detector and preserver of heresy;
and the most powerful prelates of the East, its patriarchs, Theophilus, Cyril,
and Dios-curus.
The first
forty years of this period was an interval of peace between two great
controversies—the Trinitarian, under Athanasius, and the Christological,
connected with the names of Nestorius and
Nestorius.
_ _ . .
Eutyches.
Men began to thmk how the Son of God and the Son of man are united in Christ.
The controversy was started by Nestorius, a native of Syria, and trained in the
School of Antioch, who, in 428, had been made Patriarch of Constantinople.
Nestorius was a sincere and pious Christian, but with a limited intellectual
horizon, and lacking in tact and political foresight. He taught: “The
God-Eogos-the-Divine lived in Jesus as in a temple. God is not born, but man
has been born, and suffered; hence Mary can not be called the mother of God.
Before the incarnation there was only one nature—the Divine—in Christ ;
afterward there were two, the Divine and human.” Nestorius was in favor with
the emperor. At his request, by imperial command, a General or CEcumen-ical
Council was called at Ephesus at Pentecost, 431.
Cyril,
Patriarch of Alexandria^ 412-444, was an . ^
Doctrine
of the Person of Christ. 159
able
theologian, a powerful, politic, and unscrupulous ruler of the Church. He was
jealous of Nestorius because the Patriarch of Constantinople cyrii of was taken
from Antioch instead of Alex- Alexandria, andria. Cyril condemned his teaching,
and accused him of heresy. He won to his side Ccelestine, Bishop of Rome.
Menon, Bishop of Ephesus, the seat of the Council, was his friend. Cyril came
from Alexandria to Ephesus with a fleet and fifty bishops. About two hundred
bishops were present. The bishops from Syria, the supporters of Nestorius, had
not arrived, nor the legates from Rome, when the Council began its sessions.
The imperial commissaries protested against such precipitate action.
Nevertheless, through the influence of Menon and the treachery of John,
Patriarch of Antioch, the plans of Cyril were carried out; and these
proceedings were afterward sanctioned by the Roman legates. The Council framed
no new Creed, but declared that the Creed of Nicsea should be interpreted in
the sense of the Alexandrians. The Council condemned and deposed Nestorius. The
Emperor Theodosius II was displeased with the Council, and refused to sanction
its acts. He exiled both Nestorius and Cyril. The sentence was never taken from
Nestorius, who wandered into Arabia and Upper Egypt, and died in banishment,
probably about 440. Cyril began negotiations with the court for his
restoration, In 433, upon signing a creed drawn up by Theodoret, he was
restored to his See and to favor with the emperor, and obtained the recognition
of the acts of the Council of Ephesus. Alexandria now became the supreme power
in the Eastern Church. Cyril died in 444. His successor,
160
The Truths thai Won.;
Dioscurus,
was passionate and violent, where he had been prudent and strong.
Eutyches,
the aged Archimandrite, or head, of a monastery near Constantinople in 448, was
accused of heresy by Eusebius of Dorylaeum. In sermons, Eutyches had taught,
“My God Jesus Christ is not like me in nature. He has not taken the human body,
but a body like the human; that is, not an individual body, but a body which is
a compendium of human nature. He had not a personal humanity. The human to the
Divine in Christ is like a drop of water in the ocean. Before the incarnation
there were two natures, the human and the Divine in Christ; since, but one, the
Divine.” The accusation was tried before Flavian, Patriarch of Constantinople.
Eutyches was condemned; but being favored by the empress, he appealed to a
General Council.
Dioscurus,
who was all-powerful with the emperor, urged the calling of such an assembly.
He sought three things—the adoption of the view of the Alexandrian party; the
deposition of all bishops who had written against the one nature in Christ; and
the depression in rank of the Bishop of Rome, who had opposed him, beneath the
Eastern patriarchs. Dioscurus opened the assembly, 135 bishops being present,
in August, 449, at Ephesus. Eutyches was restored without even according a
hearing to his accuser. Flavian, Eusebius, and a long list of bishops were
deposed, and Rome was placed below the Oriental patriarchs. When one or two
bishops endeavored to oppose these proceedings, Dioscurus called soldiers and monks
into the assembly. “ ‘ Cut those in two who
Doctrine
of the Person of Christ. 161
speak of
two natures/ was the cry.” Flavian was grossly ill used, taken into exile, and
died in a few days while on the journey. The Roman legates escaped by flight.
This Council was called the Robber Synod, from these violent proceedings, and
its acts annulled.
In 450,
Theodosius II died, and was succeeded by his sister, Pulcheria, who raised her
husband, the Senator Marcian, an able ruler, to the throne. In order to put an
end to these destructive council of divisions, and to curb the ambition and Cha*cedon.
usurpation of the Patriarch of Alexandria, Marcian summoned the fourth and
greatest CEcumenical Council to meet in September, 451, at Chalcedon. Six
hundred and thirty Eastern bishops and four legates from Leo I of Rome were
present. The devastations of Attila prevented the attendance of Western
bishops. Rome, which had been in alliance with Alexandria for one hundred
years, now came to a union with the emperor against the pride and violence of
Dioscurus, the head of the Church State of Alexandria. Leo, the Bishop of Rome,
was then the greatest man living. At the Council the Alexandrian watchword was,
“ Out of two natures, one Christ;” that of Antioch, “ In two natures, one
Christ;” the decision of the Council, “ Two natures in one person.” The Council
reinstated the bishops deposed at Ephesus. Dioscurus was deposed, not for
heresy, but for violence and irregularity. The orthodoxy of both Cyril and
Theodoret was affirmed. The Creed adopted was mainly derived from Leo’s letter
to Flavian in 449. Its twenty-eighth canon gave equal dignity to the See of
Constantinople with that of
11
162
The
Truths that Won,
Rome.
Canon Gore admirably sums up the issues and value of this controversy:
“ Another
danger threatened the Church. Nes-torius denied that the babe on Mary’s knees
was God. The new error necessitated a new dogma. The Christian knew that, in
worshiping Christ, God and man, he was worshiping, not two persons, but one,
and that one the Eternal Son, who was born of Mary. He, then, that denied that
Mary’s child was God, denied either that it was indeed God who had taken flesh,
or that it was indeed flesh that he had taken. Christ was one person, and that
person Divine. For this truth Eutyches had fought: Christ is one; he is Divine.
But having but one idea, and that to oppose Nes-torianism, he lost, in the
assertion of the unity and Divinity of Christ’s person, all sense of the
counter truth which alone gives reality to the incarnation, the truth of his
humanity.
“Eutyches
refused to say that the human nature remained in the incarnation. He shrank
from calling Christ ‘of one substance’ with us men. In some sort of way he left
us to suppose that the human nature was absorbed into and lost in the Divinity.
The Church’s instinct was sound when it condemned in Eutyches the merging or
annihilation of the human nature. The whole doctrine of our salvation depends
on Christ being of one substance with us. He did not merely touch our nature as
from the outside, and, by touching, transmit it into something else; he took it
in all its parts—body, soul, and spirit—with all its feelings, wants,
instincts, powers, temptations, weaknesses ; sin only excepted. He took it all;
he is it,
Doctrine
of the Person of Christ. 163
and he is
it forever. The whole doctrine of the second Adam centers in this. No assuming
of the appearance of man, of the clothing of mere human flesh, will avail
anything; Christ is the second Adam, the new man, the first parent of a
restored human nature. The whole value of the atoning sacrifice depends on
this, that it was Man who offered himself in that human nature, that in us had
sinned. The whole meaning of the ascension is lost if it is not our human
nature which is exalted to God’s right hand.”
The
following is the Creed of Chalcedon:
“ We,
then, following the holy fathers, all with one consent, teach men to confess
one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, the same perfect in Godhead, and
also perfect in manhood ; truly creed of God and truly man, of a reasonable
[ra- chalcedon. tional] soul and body; consubstantial [co-essential] with the
Father according to the Godhead, and con-substantial with us according to the
manhood; in all things like unto us, without sin; begotten before all ages of
the Father according to the Godhead, and in these latter days for us and for
our salvation ; born of the Virgin Mary, the mother of God, according to the
manhood; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, Only-begotten, to be acknowledged
in two natures, inconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably; the
distinction of natures being by no means taken away by the union, but rather
the property of each nature being preserved, and concurring in one Person and
one Substance; not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same
Son, and Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ; as the prophets
from the beginning have declared concern
164
The
Truths that Won.
ing him,
and the Lord Jesus Christ himself has taught us, and the Creed of the holy
fathers has handed down to us.”
The
definition of the doctrine concerning the person of Christ was completed at the
third Council of Constantinople in 681, where the relation of the human and
Divine wills is clearly stated. Henceforth the doctrine of the Church
concerning our -Lord is that he is of one substance with the Father, of two
natures in one person, with two wills.
The
Council of Chalcedon inflicted irreparable injury upon the Eastern Empire. The
Roman definition was unpopular. Riots and long continued dis-Resuits of
turbances followed the conclusion of the the Council Council in Palestine and
Egypt. It re-of Chalcedon. gu^e(j jn
jogs Qf Coptic, Sj'riaC,
and Armenian
Churches from the communion of the Greek Church. It weakened the allegiance of
these populations to the Imperial Government. The great Sees of Antioch and
Alexandria and their influence fell away from the Church and Government at
Constantinople. Instead of a united Christianity in the East, there was formed
a Coptic Church in Egypt; the Syrians became Monophysites through the unwearied
labors of Jacob Baradeus from after 541 ; and hence they were called Jacobites.
The Nestorians were as far from being reconciled as ever. The Armenians
retained the Creed of Cyril, but rejected Chalcedon. The work of the Council
was regarded as the carrying out of the imperial program. All the Churches
which were not Greek in race or speech separated from the Catholic Church. The
result was more owing to race and national differences than to
Doctrine
of the Person of Christ. 165
theological
distinctions. The emperors tried for one hundred and fifty years to heal these
dissensions, but failed.—Justinian called a General Council, the second
oTConstantinople, in 553, to interpret the Creed of Chalcedon in a Monophysite
sense. At his desire, it condemned Origen and three of the early opponents of
the Monophysite doctrine—Theodore, Diodorus, and Ibas. These efforts were unavailing.
This agelong and widespread disaffection toward the Church and Empire was one
potent cause of the rapid Mohammedan conquests of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt.
After 1,400 years, these Oriental Churches present a divided and degraded
Christianity to the Moslem population and governments under whom they have been
in subjection and contempt for twelve centuries.
Chapter
V.
THE
PELAGIAN CONTROVERSY — DOCTRINE OF HUMAN SIN AND REDEMPTION.
The chief
figure in the Pelagian controversy was Aurelius Augustinus, the greatest of the
Latin fathers, whose views on anthropology have profoundly affected the
theology of Christendom until this day.
St.
Augustine was born at Tagaste, in Numidia, North Africa—present
Algiers—November 13, 354. st Augus- fetter, Patricius, was a
burgess of the
tine.
town, and was still a pagan at the birth of His Life, ^ son> He
was a man of vehement and sensual disposition, but afterward became a
Christian. His mother, Monica, was a Christian, and a woman of piety, who took
care to have her son instructed in the true faith, and placed among the
catechumens; yet, notwithstanding all his mother’s admonitions and prayers, he
grew up without any profession of Christian piety or any devotion to Christian
principles. His father was greatly interested in his education. He was sent
first to Madura, and afterward, when seventeen years of age, to Carthage, to
learn rhetoric. In his nineteenth year he read Cicero’s “ Hortensius,” and
eagerly engaged in philosophical studies. In 383 he left Carthage for Rome. His
stay of twelve years at Carthage—from his seventeenth to his twenty-ninth
year—was remarkable for two phases of his experience, which color all his after
life and thought. Carthage was a most immoral city. Led on by his pas-166
The
Pelagian Controversy. 167
sions,
Augustine plunged into the profligate life of the time. He formed an illicit
connection—common enough in that society—and had a natural son born to him,
whom he greatly loved, and named Adeoda-tus. Wearied and disgusted with a
sensual life, he took refuge with the Manicliaeans, whose dualistic principles,
especially the essentially evil nature of matter, harmonized with his struggles
and feelings. He went to Rome a Manichaean, and lodged with one of the sect;
but meeting Faustus, their great leader, he was greatly disappointed in his
converse with him. While he was teaching in Rome, Milan wished for a professor
of rhetoric. He was sent by Symmachus, the praefect of Rome, to fill the place.
At Milan he made the acquaintance of the great Ambrose, who received him “ like
a father.” He went to hear him, “ trying to discover if his eloquence came up
to the fame thereof.” At last he was fully convinced of his Manichaean errors,
but far from a Christian.
He has
left an account of his conversion (Confessions, 8, 13; R N. F., Vol. I, p.
127): “I flung myself down—how, I know not—under a
.
. . Conversion.
certain
fig-tree, giving free course to my tears, and the streams of mine eyes gushed
out—an acceptable sacrifice unto Thee. And, not indeed in these words, but to
this effect, spake I much unto Thee, ‘ But Thou, O Lord, how long ? How long,
Lord? Wilt Thou be angry forever? O, remember not against us former
iniquities!’ for I felt that I was enthralled by them. I sent up these
sorrowful cries: ‘ How long, how long? To-morrow, and to-morrow? Why not now?
Why is there not, this hour, an end to my uncleanness ?’ I was saying these
things, and
i68
The
Truths that Won.
weeping
in the most bitter contrition of my heart, when, lo ! I heard the voice as of a
boy or girl—I know not which—coming from a neighboring house, chanting and
oft-repeating: ‘Take up and read!’
‘ Take up
and read !’ Immediately my countenance was changed, and I began more earnestly
to consider whether it was usual for children, in any kind of game, to sing
such words; nor could I remember ever to have heard the like. So, restraining
the torrent of my tears, I rose up, interpreting it in no other way than as a
command to me from heaven to open the book, and to read the first chapter I
should light upon. ... So I quickly returned to the place where Alypius was
sitting; for there had I put down the volume of the apostles when I rose
thence. I grasped, opened, and in silence read that paragraph on which my eyes
first fell: ‘ Not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness,
not in strife and envying: but put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not
provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof.’ No further would I
read, nor did I need; for instantly, as the sentence ended—by a light, as it
were, of security infused into my heart—all the gloom of doubt vanished away.’’
He was
then thirty-two years of age. He pursued a course of instruction for baptism,
and that rite was administered to him and his son by Ambrose, at Easter, 387.
He gave up his profession as a teacher, and left Milan. His mother—the saintly
Monica— died at Ostia as he was about to sail for Africa. In the same year he
entered a community of monks, living by rule, in his native city. There he
lived in retirement for about three years. In 391 he visited
The
Pelagian Controversy. 169
Hippo—now
Bona—when he was forced, by the acclamations of the people, to be ordained
presbyter, at the age of thirty-seven. Four years later he was ordained
coadjutor bishop with Valerius; and on the death of the latter, 396, succeeded
him in his See. From his forty-first year until his death—thirty-four years—he
faithfully performed the duties of a bishop in the early Church. While living
in community with his clergy, and conscientious in the performance of the
duties of his office, it largely directed his literary labors. The bishop was
the defense of the Church against heresy. Hence, from the practical side of his
work came the incitement which made his writings so largely controversial. He
wrote his “Confessions” in 397; carried on his controversy with the
Mani-chseans from 395 to 400; with the Donatists, from 400 to 415 ; the
Pelagian, from 412 to 428. His great apology for the faith, the “City of God,”
was written 413-426. His most finished doctrinal work, on the “ Holy Trinity,”
occupied him nearly thirty years, from 400 to 428.
In 429,
the Vandals, under Genseric, invaded Africa, carrying ruin and devastation with
them. Genseric, in 430, besieged Hippo. Augustine was seized with a fatal
illness. Surrounded by the sufferings and sorrows of a doomed city and a dying
race, in the third month of the siege, after seventy-five years of conflict,
this strong warrior soul passed from the city of defeat and death to the city
of God, August 28, 430.
Pelagius
was a British monk, of whose early life nothing is known. He came to Rome
pelagian about 400. He was pious, of agreeable ad* Controversy, dress, and had
an earnest, moral aim. He was scan
The
Truths that Won.
dalized
at the evil lives of the Roman clergy. When he rebuked them, they replied that
“Augustine taught that ‘ to do good is God's gift/ and he had not given them
that gift.” Pelagius taught that God required nothing impossible of men ; and
that no ascetic exercise annuls the duty of watching and conquering self.
The chief
points of difference are the following: Pelagius Hexd:
Sin is
not in the nature, but in the will. Physical death is natural, not the result
of sin.
Adam’s
sin has not injured his descendants. There is no original sin.
A sinless
life, led by man’s own power, is not absolutely impossible. The freewill can
always act against sin at the decisive moment.
All
children are born in the state of Adam’s innocence. Children dying unbaptized
go to heaven. Infant baptism is a consecration.
Augustine
Hei,d:
In Adam's
sinj all his descendants are involved as sinful, corrupted, and
guilty. Every man is in original sin.
We live
only by the grace of Christ, and that grace is active, effective, and
irresistible.
This
grace is bouna up with baptism; so that unbaptized heathen, and children dying
unbaptized, are shut out of heaven Infant baptism is for the remission of sin.
Semi-Pelagianism
arose in the monasteries of Southern France from the rejection of the extreme
opinions of Augustine in regard to grace and free-semi- will Its characteristic
teaching was that Peiagiamsm grace and free-will work together in
human salvation Some held that free-will began the work of salvation, and was
supplemented by grace, and others that grace began the work, and was enforced
The
Pelagian Controversy. 171
by
free-will. John Cassianus, their greatest leader, taught that grace is
necessary to every man, but freewill works with grace.
Pelagius
met Augustine in 411, and then went to Palestine; and so far as we know, he
spent the remainder of his life in the East. Augustine, feeling that Pelagian
doctrines were the essence of what is Antichristian, wrote against him. A
scholar course of the of Augustine, Orosius, went to Palestine, Controversy,
and, with Jerome, accused Pelagius at the Synods of Jerusalem and Diospolis,
415. At both he was acquitted. He was condemned by two North African Synods, 416.
Both parties appealed to Pope Innocent I. He was on both sides, but finally
inclined to the African bishops. Pelagius’s Confession of Faith, directed to
him, did not arrive at Rome until after Innocent's death in 417. His successor,
Zosimus, expressly recognized the orthodoxy of Pelagius, 418. In the same year
the Synod of Carthage condemned Pelagius, and his opponents obtained a rescript
from the Emperor Honorius, April 30, 418. Then Pope Zosimus pronounced on that
side. Pelagius was condemned, with Nestorius, by the Council of Ephesus, in
431. The small Synods of Orange and Valence, in 529, decided in favor of
Augustinian teaching as against both Pelagianism and Semi-Pelagianism. Gregory
the Great, 590-604, adopted a modified Augustin-ianism, which ruled through the
Middle Ages. We must admit the truth of the deeper views of sin and grace as
taught by Augustine; but all Protestants reject his teaching that saving grace
is bound to the sacrament of baptism; and all who are not predesti-narians deny
that grace is irresistible.
172
The
Truths that Won.
The
peculiar doctrines of Augustine are in relation to the effects of Adam’s sin,
original sin, the elec-Augustinian tion of grace, and predestination. These
Teaching. are important from their wide and long-enduring influence,
and can best be given in his own words.
“
Nevertheless, that one sin, admitted into a place where such perfect happiness
reigned, was of so p ^ heinous a character that in one man the whole
human race was originally, and, as one may say, radically condemned; and it can
not be pardoned and blotted out except through the one Mediator between God and
men —the man Christ Jesus, who only has had power to be so born as not to need
a second birth.” (Enchiridion, 48, p. 253.)
“Hence,
the whole mass of the human race is condemned ; for he who at first gave
entrance to sin has original sin-^een punished, with all his
posterity, who Universal were in him as in a root, so that no one demnationof is
exempt from this just and due punish-the Non- ment, unless delivered by mercy
and undeserved grace; and the human race is so apportioned that in some is
displayed the efficacy of merciful grace; in the rest, the efficacy of just
retribution. For both could not be displayed in all; for if all had remained under
the punishment of just condemnation, there would have been seen in no one the
mercy of redeeming grace. And, on the other hand, if all had been transformed
from darkness to light, the severity of retribution would have been manifest in
none. But many more are left under punishment than are delivered from it, in
order that it may thus be shown what was due to all. And had it
The
Pelagian Controversy.
been
inflicted on all, no one could justly have found fault with the justice of Him
who taketh vengeance; whereas, in the deliverance of so many from that just
award, there is cause to render the most cordial thanks to the gratuitous
bounty of Him who delivers.” (De Civitate Dei, XXI, xii, p. 463.)
“And,
consequently, both those who have not heard the gospel, and those who, having
heard it and been changed by it for the better, have not re- M
.
The Mass
ceived
perseverance; and those who, hav- of the ing heard the gospel, have refused to
come Non’e,ect-to Christ—that is, to believe on him—since
he himself says, ‘No man cometh unto me, except it were given him of my Father;5
and those who, by their tender age, were unable to believe, but might be
absolved from original sin by the sole laver of regeneration, and yet have not
received this laver, and have perished in death,—are not made to differ from
that lump which it is plain is condemned, as all go from one [Adam] into
condemnation. Some are made to differ, however—not by their own merits, but by
the grace of the Mediator; that is to say, they are justified freely in the
blood of the second Adam. Therefore, when we hear, ‘ For who maketh thee to
differ ? and what hast thou that thou hast not received? Now, if thou hast
received it, why dost thou glory as if thou hadst not received it?’ (1 Cor. iv,
7)—we ought to understand that, from that mass of perdition which originated
through the first Adam, no one can be made to differ except he who has this
gift, which whosoever has, has received by the grace of the Savior.” (De
Correptione et Gratia, Vol. V, ch. xii, p. 476.)
174
The
Truths that Won.
“ Those,
then, are elected, as has often been said, who are called according to the
purpose, who also are Election predestinated and foreknown. If any one and
Perse- of these perishes, God is mistaken; but verance. none 0f them
perishes, because God is not mistaken. If any one of these perishes, God is
overcome by human sin; but none of them perishes, because God is overcome by
nothing.” (De Correptione et Gratia, Vol. V, ch. xiv, p. 477.)
These
peculiar doctrines of Augustine widely and deeply influenced his own age. They
were the result of his thinking and experience, but were elaborated Peculiar in
his controversies with the Manichseans, Doctrines the Donatists, and the
Pelagians. They powerfully influenced modern Christendom. They ruled the
thinking of the Middle Ages and the teaching of Calvin, Luther, the English
Puritans, and their ecclesiastical descendants. For fourteen centuries he has
been the leading theological teacher of Western Christendom. Beginning with
Arminius and Wesley, the reaction against his opinions has become general in
this century.
Augustine,
to the grief of Christendom, was not a scholar, nor was he a broad,
constructive, or sympathetic theologian. He was a powerful and original,
Character of though not a consistent or comprehensive his Thinking, thinker.
His central thought is the doctrine of sin; his chief excellence, the
exaltation of grace. He brought religion out of philosophic cosmology, and
worship into the sphere of the innermost life of the soul. His chief teaching
may be grouped about the three ideas—the Church, predestination, and the
evangelical faith.
The
Pelagian Controversy. 175
According
to Augustine, the Holy Spirit is bound to the Church, so that the Church is the
necessary means of salvation. The Holy Spirit is infallibly communicated
through the sacrament of
1- • 1 i
• 1 ■ -.*1 i 1 The Church.
ordination,
by which an indelible character is imparted to the recipient, and the priest is
separated from the laity as the one through whom the grace of God is conveyed
to men, and the holy sacrifice of the Eucharist offered to God. Thus unbaptized
children are forever unsaved; marriage must become a sacrament, so as to be
consecrated by the Church ; property is consecrated by alms; the Church should
direct all science; and the State is only valuable when it places its means at
the service of the Church. In these positions, Augustine is the father of Roman
Catholicism, of the duty of religious persecution, and of those ideas of Church
authority and the necessity of priestly sacrifice which are contradicted by the
whole history of the Protestant Churches.
Predestination
has been so fully treated in the extracts that only the briefest characterization
is attempted here. The aim of Augustine’s teaching is union with God. Sin is
separation from Predestina-God, self willing to be independent, the tion*
proud thought of the heart. Sin brings unrest; only God can give rest. This is
brought to men in communion with God through grace, which irresistibly seizes
us and gives us a new being. Grace is conceived as coming from the absolute
decree of God before all time; so that the saved are sons of God before their
birth, their faith in Christ, or any connection with the means of grace. It is
conceived as flowing, independently of Christ or his work, out of
176
The Truths that Won.
the being
of God. Every process of the earthly or individual life, or of collective
history, is only an appearance ; in reality, it occurred before all time in the
counsels of God. From this results a conception of God which contradicts the
most evident ethical principles. Augustine never fully overcame his
Manichse-ism. There is a persistent dualism running through his whole scheme of
thought. The devil and his kingdom forever rival, if they do not endanger, the
supremacy of God.
Grace
which brings salvation is given on account of Christ, his sufferings, and his
cross. “And thus he appears for us as our head, himself the fount of The Evan-
grace.” The just shall live by faith, is a geitcai Faith. new
thought from the Holy Scriptures. These Scriptures were the foundation of
Augustine’s thinking. He lived in them. They were the source of the faith by
which we are saved. In his love and use of the Bible and treatment of
traditions outside of it, he laid down positions held by the Protestant
Churches. In his fundamental conviction, “ For me to cleave to God is good;”
and that God is in us to create faith and good works, bringing the human soul
into immediate connection and dealing with God; and in the rejection of all
human merit or good works as procuring salvation; but that it is of God’s grace
alone,—he does away with all Church or priestly mediation, and prepares the way
for the Reformation.
These are
his main, but not only, contradictions. They arise from the cast of his mind,
more acute and profound than comprehensive ; from his lack of broad culture,
his practical aim, and the exigencies of controversy. The ground of his central
teaching con
The
Pelagian Controversy.
177
cerning
original sin seems to have been suggested to him from the practice of infant
baptism as of use in the controversy with Pelagius. The teaching concerning the
priesthood and the Church was developed in the Donatist controversy. Augustine,
with all his writings, prepared no work which will compare with Origen’s “ De
Principiis.” Perhaps his greatest error, and the one from which Christendom has
suffered longest, is that of confining the work of the Holy Ghost to those who
are in communion with the Catholic Church. The recognition of the larger
mission of the Holy Spirit is the prerequisite to success in the work of
Christian missions, and the fundamental condition of the reunion of
Christendom.
Professor
Harnack has called Augustine the Reformer of Christian Piety. It is this aspect
of his work which commends him to us, in spite of contradictions and unworthy
conceptions of God and man. For Augustine, Christianity was not a higher
knowledge; with him there were no differing classes of Christians according to
intellectual capacity. He taught that, “ not what one knew or said decided, but
what one loved; for when it is asked whether any one be a good man, it is not
asked what he believes and rightly hopes, but what he loves. For he who loves
rightly, without doubt rightly believes and rightly hopes ; but he who loves
not, believes in vain. Little love is little righteousness; great love is great
righteousness; perfect love is perfect righteousness.”
Through
love in humility, we renounce self and lust, and receive God and his law; the
peace of God is poured into the soul; the living God is its Friend. So he
taught, in his “City of God,” that the historical
178
The Truths thai Won.
development
was to end in perfection through the Divine education of the race. Augustine
was a man of high-souled courage; he loved God; he was fearlessly truthful and
honest. His works have been the support of all truth-loving souls from Luther
and Calvin to the Jansenist of Port Royal and to Dollinger and the opponents of
the Vatican decrees of our own day. His character and personality gave weight
to his words through the ages, and is well outlined in our closing extract :
“ O how
wonderful, how beautiful and lovely are the dwellings of thy house, Almighty
God ! . . .
0
Jerusalem, holy city of God, dear bride of Christ,
Augustine’s my heart loves thee; my soul has already Meditations, long sighed
for thy beauty! The King of kings himself is in the midst of thee, and his
children are within thy walls. There are the hymning choirs of angels, the
fellowship of heavenly citizens. There is the wedding-feast of all who, from
this sad, earthly pilgrimage, have reached thy joys. There is the far-seeing
choir of the prophets; there the company of the twelve apostles; there the
triumphant army of innumerable martyrs and holy confessors. Full and perfect
love there reigns; for God is all in all. They love and praise; they praise and
love him for evermore. Blessed, perfectly and forever blessed, shall I too be,
if, when my poor body shall be dissolved, . . .
1
may stand before my King and God, and see him in his glory,
as he himself hath deigned to promise.
‘ Father,
I will that they also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they
may behold my glory which I had with thee before the world was.’ ” (P. N. F.,
Vol. I, p. 6.)
fari
Third.
THE
RULERS IN THE NEW WORLD.
Chapter
I.
THE
ORGANIZATION OF THE EARLY CHURCH.
Our Lord
left no command on the subject of Church government, and no ideal constitution
for the societies gathered in his name. He gave, as the principle of their
being and organization, a love like his own, and a spiritual headship never
vacant or changed, because held by himself, and manifest and ministered by the
Holy Ghost. This makes legitimate all forms of Church rule and authority which
do not violate these two fundamental principles of the Redeemer’s reign in his
kingdom.
The
Church was an assembly of all baptized believers. All had, or were supposed to
possess, the Holy Spirit. They controlled their affairs TheApostollc
in a democratic, congregational manner, Church, and the spiritual motive
predominated. AP°st,e** The apostles were those to whom
they owed their founding and first hearing of the gospel. They were not
necessarily of the twelve, but, both in their time and later, of those who had
not seen the Lord, being traveling teachers or evangelists, who had given up
whatever property they possessed to the poor, and went everywhere preaching the
word. They are mentioned in the Acts xiii, i; i Cor. xii, 28; Eph. iv, n ; and
the “Teaching of the Twelve.” The nearest modern example would be the itinerant
founders of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America.
181
182 The
Rulers in the New World.
The
prophets were sometimes traveling teachers, like the apostles, as we see in the
“ Teaching of the Twelve,” and in the “Shepherd” of Her-Prophets. mag.
an(^ sometimes settled, as seem to
have been
Agabus and the daughters of Philip. The distinctive feature of their office was
that they gave the word of the Lord. They were held in high honor, and judged
as true or false by the test of their lives. They offered prayers at the
communion, and received of the gifts then offered.
The
teachers were men like Apollos, or assistants of the aposties, like Timothy, or
Titus, or Silvanus.
They
taught the teaching necessary for the
*
congregation and suggested by the Spirit. They taught of faith, love, and
wisdom. Prophets and teachers are grouped together, as at Antioch— Barnabas and
Simeon, Lucius and Manaen. In addition, there were those specially endowed with
gifts, by the Spirit, of government or ministration to the needs of the poor,
the sick, or of the Church. These were all spiritual gifts to a person, and not
to an office.
But the
leadership of the Church was not left entirely to these personal endowments, of
which it Church might be deprived by death or removal, officers, a certain
position was given to men who were first converted, and had and maintained
influence in the Church, such as Stephanas, at Corinth. Men were chosen to an
official position in the early societies, having recognized duties and
responsibilities. Such was the choice of the deacons recorded in the sixth
chapter of Acts. So Paul and Barnabas ordained elders in every Church they
founded in Asia Minor, on their first missionary journey. So Titus
Organization
of the Early Church. 183
was
exhorted to ordain elders in the Churches in Crete. So Paul writes to the
bishops and deacons of the Church at Philippi, and calls to him the elders of
the Church at Ephesus. And we find, early in his ministry, in the Church at
Jerusalem, at the Apostolic Council, 55, the apostles and elders; so, also, 1
Pet.v, 1.
These
official terms, bishops and elders, or presbyters, seem to be used
interchangeably, and their offices were of equal rank and dignity during the
first hundred years of the Christian Church. Compare Titus i, 5 and i, 7; 1
Tim. v, 17-19, with iii, 1 and iv, 14; Acts xx, 17 with xx, 28; so, also, the
epistle of Clement, 96, and “The Shepherd” of Hermas, 130, shown, also, by the
language of Irenseus, 177-202, and Clement of Alexandria, 190-220. The apostles
living and teaching in communities of Jews and Gentiles conformed the
organization of the Churches more or less to the social forms with which they
were familiar. There was no idea of establishing an exact pattern of Church
government, to be closely copied during the Christian ages. This is clearly
seen when we consider the apostolate, the foremost ecclesiastical office in
their time. They made no provision for its continuance after their death. The
apostolic fathers knew nothing of an apostolic succession of bishops. Hence,
whatever shape Christian truth, Christian love, and the necessities and
circumstances of the time, under the guidance of the presence and power of the
Holy Spirit, gave to the organization and polity of the Church, was both
legitimate and providential.
This
organization was, at the first, of the simplest kind. Following the forms of
the organization known to the Synagogue, as far as these were suited to a
184 The
Rulers in the New World.
Christian
assembly, the first officers of the infant Church, after the apostles, were
deacons and presbyters, or elders. It is significant that the dea-Deacons. cQns^
first Church officers chosen, were
destined
to an office which had developed through the exigencies and increase of the
work, and was wholly original, but has continued through all forms of Church
organization, and through all ages to our time. The deacons were chosen at
first to relieve the apostles from the care of temporal concerns, and to
minister to the sick, the poor, the widows, and later, the martyrs, and any
needing help. In the early Church, the ministry was to the temporal necessities
of the faithful, and the first officers chosen by the Church were for this
service. Though two of the original seven were preachers of the word, this
ministry seems not to have belonged to their office. Their character and
demeanor were to be such as becomes representative men in the Christian
society, holding positions of responsibility in respect both to the Church and
to the world. In time, they became the ministers or deputies of the bishops in
their administration of the increasing temporalities of the Church, and
assistants of the presbyters in the administration of the sacrament of baptism
and of the Lord’s Supper. When men of signal ability, they became assistants of
presbyters and bishops at the Diocesan, Provincial, and even (Ecumenical
Councils. Long before 400, the office became a recognized step toward the
priesthood. And yet, though this office is found in almost all forms of
Church-life, still, in none of them do its original duties form the main
functions of the officers who bear its name. In the
Organization
of the Early Church. 185
Greek,
Roman Catholic, and Episcopal Protestant Churches, it is a lower step to the
priesthood or eldership, and its duties are confined to assisting the
officiating ministers in the sacraments. In the Churches of the Presbyterian
and Congregational polity, the main duty of the deacons is to look after the
temporal and spiritual condition and current expenses of the Church. If the
sick and poor come under their charge, it is only an incident, and not the main
concern of the office.
Indeed,
the original idea in its purity seems only to be realized in the revived office
of deaconess. Their work and ministry were known and
. .
Deaconesses*
praised
in the Apostolic Church, and mentioned by heathen enemies in the beginning of
the second century. From the second to the third century, the office became
inferior to that of the widows of the Church, who discharged most of their
peculiar duties. In the Greek Church, it was revived in the fourth century. In
the Roman Church, it gave way finally to the female monastic orders. It was
revived in Germany, England, and America, in this century, for the
accomplishment of a work long neglected in Protestantism. The crying need,
especially in our large centers of population, is for a revival of the
primitive office of deacon, and the congregational care of the sick, destitute,
widow, the orphan, and the aged.
The word
presbyter is the Greek word for senior, or elder. From it come our words priest
and Presbyterian, Presbytery, etc. Its nearest Eng, . , . : ,
, . . Presbyters.
lish
equivalent is elder, and it is so translated in our version of the New
Testament. To the Christian presbyter were given the functions and du
186 The
Rulers in the New World.
ties
which were confided to the elders in the Jewish synagogue. The Jewish elders
formed a court, which administered discipline in their community and assembly.
There is little doubt that Christian presbyters or elders were at first
disciplinary officers, who looked after the morals and behavior of the society.
The presbyters condemned to ecclesiastical censure, and deprived of communion,
or assigned other forms of discipline or penance. They also pronounced the
penitent absolved, and restored to the communion of the Church. The communities
in which the founder, or predominant element, was Jewish, had elders. The
Church at Jerusalem had elders, but also a lengthened presidency of James, the
brother of our Lord. The Churches at Ephesus had elders; but St. John long
presided over them. So the Church at Antioch had elders; but Ignatius was their
bishop. The administration of the Eucharist and the benediction were deemed
inherent in the office of presbyter; but all presbyters were not originally
preachers, though teaching from the Scriptures came to be their recognized
work, especially in the East. While the Churches of Jewish origin had elders,
the Churches of Gentile stock had bishops—probably conforming to the title and
office of the mutual relief and burial clubs of that time. The presbyterate has
suffered no such transformation as the diaconate and episcopacy. It is now, as
it has been through the ages, the great office of the Christian ministry
through which the preaching of the word, the administration of the sacraments,
and the care of souls has been, and is now, ministered to millions of
believers. Through the presbyterate, as by no other means, the love, word, and
Organization
of the Early Church. 187
sacraments
of our Lord come to the hearts and family life of Christians. A Church could
exist without bishops and without deacons; but without the discharge of the
duties which fall to the office of the Christian presbyter, it could have no
organized life. The piety, devotion, ability, and character of the presbyterate
has, in every generation, been the surest test of the spiritual condition and
the effective work of the Christian Church.
In the
Gentile communities, the bishop was largely a financial as well as a
disciplinary officer. Representing the Church, he seems to have had charge of
the funds which were ministered by the dea-
.
Bishops.
cons to
the sick and the poor. In this way he became responsible, not only for the
contributions for current expenses, but also for the money or real estate given
to the Christian community by bequest or deed of gift. As he had charge of the
financial resources of the Church, and presided over the congregation, as the
presbyter in Churches of Jewish origin, he must have kept the canon, or
catalogue, or list of members. This being in his custody, he alone could tell
who w^ere worthy of letters of Christian commendation, and of the alms and
temporal care of the Church. Thus, when heresies were rife, the bishop was the
depositary of the apostolic tradition of the faith; and he applied the standard
to all members of the Church, especially to those receiving her aid. Not only
so, but he was the recognized defender of the faith against the heretics; and
through his ability in controversy and his government, he was the great bond of
the unity of the Church and the guard of its purity both in faith and morals.
188 The
Rulers in the New World.
Hence he
became more and more a preacher of Christian truth and the representative of
the Christian community.
In the
intercourse of the Churches with each other, the presbyterate would extend to
the Gentile Churches, as no one man, and hence no bishop, could perform the
duties which devolved upon the presbyters ; hence they formed the council of
the bishop in cases of discipline and administration, dispensing the
sacraments, and teaching under commission of the bishop. How did Churches
originally having elders come to have bishops? In various ways in different
places. In some places, apostolic residence—as at Jerusalem or Ephesus, and
possibly Peter at Antioch— gave a permanent presidency to the College of
Presbyters. This continued in Palestine until 200. In other places, “ the
College of Presbyters would tend to choose, for the performance or
superintendence of any action resolved upon, one of their number, who would be
the episcopos for the occasion. If of proved fitness for executive duties, he
would be often chosen, and tend to become permanent. His authority was long a
delegated one, and his influence dependent mainly on his personal qualities.”
The
bishop was in the beginning but the first among equals, and then president of
the presbyters for purposes of discipline. The worship of the Church demanded a
leader, a single individual. The intercourse between the Churches demanded a
representative man in each. From 125 to 200, the bishops increased in power
through the conflict with the Gnostic heresies and Montanism. In Asia Minor,
Syria, and North Africa, there was a bishop in every
Organization
of the Early Church. 189
small
town; in Pontus, Gaul, and later in Upper Italy, they were only in the chief
cities; in the time of Irenseus, only one bishop was in Gaul, at Lyons. By 170,
each individual community was ruled by a gradation of officials, at whose head
was the bishop; and the bishop represented the community.
In regard
to apostolic succession in this age, Professor Ramsay says: “ The theories of
the functions of the episcopate and its relations to the community varied with
the lapse of time. In Igna- Apostolic tius, the Clementines, and the Apostolic
Succession. Constitution, 115-260, the bishop stood in the place of the unseen
Lord, intrusted with the oversight of his Master’s household until he should
return. Later it came to be a not unnatural inference, from the belief that the
bishop was the custodian and conservator of apostolic teaching, that he, rather
than the presbyters, took the apostolic place. The bishops had succeeded the
apostles in the presidency of several of the Churches by a delegated vicarious
ordination.”
Chapter
II.
THE
DEVELOPMENT OF THE EPISCOPATE.
Thk great
feature of the Church organization of this period, 170-600, was the increase in
the power and authority of the Christian bishop. It is difficult to conceive
how the Church could have maintained herself against the manifold heresies and
divisions of the century between 150 and 250, without the strong and
centralized government of the episcopate. This also formed so firm a bond of
union and government that the organization of the Church was stronger than that
of the Roman Empire, as experience taught Decius and Diocletian. The
development of a fixed and controlling executive power like the episcopate
seems to have been an historic necessity. The office drew to it, for the
service of the Church, the greatest men of the time. In persecution, they were
the first selected for the attack. They nobly stood the test of martyrdom; as
witness Symeon and Alexander of Jerusalem, Ignatius and Babylas of Antioch,
Fabianus and Sixtus of Rome, Cyprian of Carthage, Pothinus of Lyons, and
Methodius of Tyre, to take only the most noted. They were among the first
missionaries to the barbarians, as Ulfilas to the Goths and St. Martin of Tours
to the Franks. Indeed, in any list of the great men of this time, confined even
to teachers and writers, the larger and more influential part would be found in
the ranks of the episcopate. Such were Athanasius, Chrysostom, Ambrose,
Augustine, 190
Development
of the Episcopate. 191
Cyprian,
and Eusebius of Csesarea. To them fell the task of preserving and transmitting
the laws and culture of the old civilization to their Frankish conquerors, a
task which later came to the monasteries.
At the
beginning of this period the presbyters formed with the bishops a college or
board, like a Board of Trustees, for the charge of the Bishops and different
administrative duties. The bishop Presbyters, regarded himself as
fellow-presbyter and priest with them, only that he had precedence in rank.
They often formed an aristocratic party, in opposition to the bishop. The
deacons were subordinate to them, as they could not administer the Lord’s
Supper, which was the function of the presbyters.
The
defense against heresy increased the authority of the bishop and the respect of
the office. Irenseus taught that neither Apostolic Churches nor the scholars of
the apostles can assure the truth against Defense human weakness of
remembrance and sub- against jective influence. But God assures the truth
through the bishops, who, in virtue of Apostolic their office, have a gift of
the Holy Ghost, Successlon> and take the place of the apostles
and prophets. The gift is such that in the apostolic office of bishop lies the
assurance of apostolic truth. The bishop is the heir of the spiritual gifts of
the early Church, and, through the succession of bishops, is the continuance of
the authority of the apostolate in the Church. This is the germ of the theory
of apostolic succession ; and in 190 this view finds its earliest expression.
Its farther development is thus sketched by Professor Ramsay: “ When discipline
as well as doctrine centered in the bishops, it began to be argued that they
192 The
Rulers in the New World.
had
succeeded, not only to the seats which the apostles filled, but also to the
powers which they possessed. It began to be urged that the powers, especially
of binding and loosing, which the Lord had conferred on the apostles, were
given them, not personally, or as constituting the Church of the time, but in
representative capacity, as the first members of a long line of Church
officers. Against an early assertion of this view, Tertullian raised a vigorous
protest; nor did the view win its way to general acceptance until the time of
the great Latin theologians of the fifth century, 410-440. It was a still later
development of this view to maintain that the bishops had also succeeded to the
power of the apostles in the conferring of spiritual gifts, and that through
them, and through them exclusively, did it please the Holy Spirit to enter into
the souls of either individual Christians in baptism, or of Church officers in
ordination. It was received as a doctrine by the Council of Paris, 829, and
passed into the ordinals, or ritual for ordination.”
The man
whose writings and influence affected the doctrines of the Church and the
development of the episcopacy more than any other one man in this
or any
other period of the history of the
Cyprian
* . .
Church,
was Thascius Caecilius Cypnanus. He was born at Carthage, about 200. Of
patrician family, and highly educated, he had either inherited or acquired
considerable wealth. For some time he was occupied as a teacher of rhetoric.
Enthusiastic in his temperament, accomplished in classical literature and
rhetorical art, while a pagan he courted discussions with converts to
Christianity. Csecilius,
Development
of the Episcopate. 193
a
presbyter of Carthage, was the instrument of his conversion; and he assumed his
name when he was baptized, 246. He devoted his wealth to the relief of the poor
and to other pious uses. He was chosen bishop of the Church at Carthage, 248,
an office which he held until his martyrdom in 258. We have a contemporary
account of his execution. The people crowded to the scene. He was called the
friend of the poor, the helper of the defenseless. The place of execution was
thronged as at the death of a king. The governor said: “A few more such
executions, and we are lost.”
Cyprian’s
extraordinary qualifications and activity as an ecclesiastical ruler are seen
clearly in his letters. He lived in the times of heretical divisions, schisms,
and of the persecutions. He apprehended Cyprianon the unity of the
Church as of a living or- the ganism. He made this union a visible and EP,sc°Pate°
external one, through the sacraments and the regularly-ordained clergy; not in
a unity of faith and fellowship with our common Lord. He declared: “ He can no
longer have God for his Father who has not the Church for his mother. . . .
Does any one believe this unity, which comes from the Divine strength and
coheres in celestial sacraments, can be divided in the Church ? He who does not
hold this unity does not hold God’s law, does not hold the faith of the Father
and of the Son, does not hold life and salvation.**
Cyprian
made the episcopate the representative of this unity. He taught the substantial
equality of the Christian bishops. The bishops, by the gift of the Spirit
received at ordination, are the successors of the
13
194 The
Rulers in the New World.
apostles—they
have apostolic powers, are teachers and judges of Christians; they bind and
loose, and are stewards of Divine gifts of grace. His motto was, “The Church in
the bishop.” He says: “They are the Church who are a people united to the
priest, and the flock which adheres to its pastor. Whence you ought to know that
the bishop is in the Church, and the Church is in the bishop, and if any one be
not with the bishop, that he is not in the Church ”
The
ability and generosity, the self-denial, paternal care, and benignity of this
great prelate, with his death of martyrdom, tended to make this the prevailing
doctrine and the corner-stone of the religious organization.
The
position of Augustine as the great theologian of the West, his piety, his
success as a controversial-infiuence of ist, his character and growing influence,
Augustine. made decisive his opinions on Church authority. He
follows in the path of Cyprian, but goes beyond him. “ No one attains to
salvation and to eternal life who has not Christ for his head—who does not
belong to his body, which is the Church. The entire Christ is the Head and
body; the Head is the only begotten Son of God, and the body is the Church. He
who agrees not with the Scriptures with the doctrine concerning the Head,
although he may stand in external communion with the Church, notwithstanding,
belongs not to her. But moreover, he who holds fast to all the Scripture
teaches respecting the Head, and yet cleaves not to the unity of the Church,
belongs not to her. ... I should not believe the gospel had I not been moved to
do so by the authority of the Catholic Church.” Undoubtedly, unity was
Development
of the Episcopate. 195
the great
need of the Church in that age of the dissolution of all political and social
bonds; but this was a great price to pay for it. A broad foundation was laid for
the claims of Rome, and the superstructure was not long wanting.
The
noblest representative of the episcopate of these centuries was Ambrose of
Milan. His father’s name was Ambrose, and he was praetorian Ambrose, praefect,
or imperial governor, of Gaul, HisLife Spain, and Britain. During
his term of office, his son Ambrose was born in Gaul, probably in 340. While
quite young, his father died, when his mother repaired to Rome. There he
received a religious education, and was reared in habits of virtue by his
mother, a woman of exceptional accomplishment and piety. He was trained in the
rudiments of Greek and Roman literature, and in law. He won such reputation in
the practice of law at the court of Probus, the praetorian praefect of Italy,
that he was taken into his counsel, and afterward appointed consular praefect,
or imperial governor, for Liguria and iEmilia, which included Milan, Liguria,
Turin, Genoa, and Bologna. His residence was at Milan, and by prudent and
gentle use of his power, he conducted the affairs of the province with general
approbation and growing popularity.
Auxentius,
Bishop of Milan, died in 374. The tide of religious feeling ran high between
the Arians and the orthodox. The people came together for the election of a new
bishop. Ambrose came in his civil capacity of governor. “He spoke to the people
in a grave, eloquent, and pathetic address, admonishing them to lay aside their
contentions, and to proceed to
196 The
Rulers in the New World.
the
election in the spirit of religious meekness.” Some one cried out, “ Let
Ambrose be bishop,” when he was at once unceremoniously chosen to the vacant
See. He declined the office, and concealed himself, but was discovered, and his
election was confirmed by the emperor. He was then a catechumen, but was
baptized, and eight days afterward, in his thirty-fifth year, toward the end of
374, ordained Bishop of Milan. He had never married, but lived with his sister
Marcellina, who had early taken the vows of a virgin in the Church, and a
brother, Satyrus, likewise unmarried, and both older than himself, in the
tenderest intimacy and family affection. Upon his ordination, as he had large
means, he distributed his money to the poor and settled his lands upon the Church,
except some of which he made his sister tenant for life. His sister looked
after all the domestic needs of the household, while his brother relieved him
from all financial cares and responsibilities. He entered upon a regular course
of theological study, under the care of Simplician, a presbyter of Rome. He
studied Philo, Origen, and Basil, and read Clement of Alexandria and Didyinus.
In his thinking, he drew from the Scriptures, the philosophic writings of
Cicero, and from Philo and Origen. He was fitted for the duties of the high
office to which he was so unexpectedly called by the purity of his character,
his natural ability as a teacher and governor, his warm sympathies, and
undaunted courage; also, in the execution of his duties, he was able, bold, and
upright.
Ambrose
responded with zeal to the cause of the orthodox against the Arians. He
presided at Aquileia in 381, where the Arian bishops were condemned and
Development
of the Episcopate. T97
deposed.
He withstood successfully Symmachus in his petition for the restoration of the
Altar of Victory in the hall of the Roman Senate, and the revival of the pagan
ceremonies. In 384, the young Emperor Valentinian and his mother Justina
professed the Arian faith. They requested the use of two churches for the Arian
party, but Ambrose refused. Force was employed to take possession of the large
basilica for the imperial worshipers. The people favored Ambrose, and filled
the church. Ambrose said: “ If you demand my person, I am ready to submit;
carry me to prison or to death—I will not resist; but I will never betray the
Church of Christ. I will not call upon the people to succor me; I will die at
the foot of the altar rather than desert it.” One of the imperial chamberlains
sent word to him: “ While I live, dost thou despise Valentinian, I will strike
off thy head!” Ambrose replied: “ God grant you to fulfill what you threaten;
for then my fate will be that of a bishop, your act will be that of a eunuch.”
The empress desisted from her purpose. When the emperor was urged to confront
Ambrose in the church, he replied: “ His eloquence would compel you yourselves
to lay me, bound hand and foot, at his feet.”
Ambrose
refused to celebrate communion with those who had caused the death of
Priscillian for heresy, and with the usurper who had murdered his friend, the
Emperor Gratian. He expended the treasure and melted the sacramental service of
the church to rescue the multitudes of Christians taken captive in the wars of
that time. He successfully interceded with Theodosius for the pardon of those
who had supported the usurper Eugenius. When Theodosius
198 The
Rulers in the New World.
himself,
in a fit of ungovernable rage, had caused the massacre of seven thousand
persons in the circus at Thessalonica, as punishment for a riot in which the
majesty of the emperor had been insulted, and some of his officers maltreated
and killed, Ambrose withdrew from the capital, and wrote a courteous but manly
letter, in which he bade the emperor repent and do public penance for his sin.
Theodosius acknowledged his guilt, stripped himself of his royal insignia, and,
praying for pardon with groans and tears, was received again into communion
with the Church.
Ambrose
proved true indeed what his secretary said of him after his death,—he was “ a
man who, for fear of God, had never feared to speak the truth to kings.” The
writings of his episcopate of twenty-three years fill four volumes, and
comprise commentaries, sermons, ethical and practical writings, and ninety-two
letters. Some of his hymns have come down to us, and are in all collections.
The old Roman spirit and power speak in them.
He was
not above his age in his exaltation of celibacy, his superstitious reverence of
relics, dreams, and false miracles, and his bigotry, preventing justice to
infidels and heretics where the interests of the Church were concerned. But he
was great in character and as a Christian bishop. He fed with a liberal hand
the poor who flocked to his dwelling; he showed uncommon generosity and
kindness to his adversaries; with Christian affection, he sought the happiness
of all men. He everywhere commanded the confidence of men. The dying
Theodosius, “ the last great emperor of the world,” commended his sons to his
care.
Development
of the Episcopate.
When
Ambrose was dying, the regent Stilicho urged the people to pray for his
recovery. “ I have not so lived among you,” said Ambrose, “ as to be ashamed to
live; I have so good a Master that I am not afraid to die.” He passed from the
cares of the Church militant to the joys of the Church triumphant, on Good
Friday, April 4, 397.
If there
was magnificent scope for the exercise of episcopal powers in the days of
Ambrose, the opportunity was not less in the time of the Teu- Bishops in tonic
conquest. The bishop then had his ^eutonkT residence in the city—often in the
praeto- Conquest, rium, or house of the Roman governors. He wore the dress of a
Roman noble, and was the center of the old Roman life, culture, and law. He
acted as judge among the Roman inhabitants, as understanding their law, and
where were concerned widows and orphans. He had in his care and administered
the great wealth and large estates of the Church, which had been given and
bequeathed by the pious of both the Roman and Teutonic peoples. In the
assemblies of the Frankish nobles, he sat beside the king. In this intercourse,
the bishops brought to the Frankish nobility, not only the Roman culture, but
the Christian religion. The bishops were either men trained to a monkish life
in the cloisters, or men of rank and literary talent from the old Gallic
nobility; in either case, men of education. The monk had to outgrow the
cloister; the noble often lacked the spiritual mind. Of the necessary
qualifications for the office. Sidonius Apollinaris, himself a bishop of the
time and a man of rank, writes: “If a monk is called to be a bishop, he might
be as holy as Paul or Anthony,
200
The
Rulers in the New World.
Hilarius
or Macarius; yet would an objection be raised whether he would not use his
office, not as a bishop, but as an abbot. ^ He would be able to entreat for
souls with the heavenly, but not with the earthly judge. The laity would not
accommodate themselves, as would the clergy, to a monastic discipline. If he
should be a clergyman, so would jealousy be aroused in all the rest; if a
layman, so would they take it ill that he came from the laity. He should be
capable of every embassy; not once only should he be in the service of the city
before the king in royal sables, or stand before princes in purple cloaks.” The
bishops were the one bond for the whole society; their election, the only
political act of the people. They were the “ natural protectors and helpers of
the poor, the prisoners, slaves, and freedmen. They used beneficence in such
great measure as perhaps the world never saw again. When the Goths had ravaged
Southeastern Gaul, Bishop Patiens, of Lyons, distributed grain gratuitously,
not only in Lyons, but in all the cities on the Rhone and the Saone, in Arles,
Riez, Avignon, Orange, Albi,Valence, Troyes, and Clermont. Sidonius Apollinaris
strove to mediate between contending armies, freeing those carried into
slavery. So did the bishops generally. No merchant went through the land to
whom was denied an episcopal letter of commendation. The Jews knew how to prize
their worth.” It was not strange that, in an age of defeat, invasion, and ruin,
the rule of the world fell into hands so able, characters so disinterested, and
wills so strong. These were the new rulers of the new world.
Chapter
III.
PROVINCIAL
SYNODS, METROPOLITANS, AND .PATRIARCHS.
In the
sketch of the Roman provincial administration, in the first part of this
volume, the meeting and functions of the Provincial Assembly for arranging
matters of taxation was described. This had its first and fullest development
in Asia Minor. The importance of understanding the Roman political
administration is seen, not only in the conflict of the heathen empire with the
Church, and in the state of society treated in the fifth part, but especially
in re spect to the organization of the Christian Church, which, in all the
gradations above the local society, followed closely the imperial model.
Provincial
Synods, or Councils, are first found in Asia Minor, after the example of the
Administrative Council [of the province at the time of the synods Montanist and
Paschal controversies. They and Metro-spread widely through Asia Minor and the
P°,Itans Kast, in the period from 160 to 200. They met in the spring
and fall. They are first found in the West in the early part of the third
century. They were first called to settle controversies, as under Cyprian; but
by 250 they have a fixed form in Africa and Rome. Bishops alone vote in these
assemblies; but other clergy may attend. In the first half of the third
century, the bishops of the provincial capital have a precedence over the other
bishops of the province.
201
202 The
Rulers of the New World.
He
convokes the Synod, prepares the business which shall come before it, and draws
up its decrees. He is the superior bishop of the province, and becomes
metropolitan, or archbishop. The Provincial Synods develop an independent
Church organization. The metropolitans were formally recognized by the Council
of Nicsea. It provided that no bishop could be consecrated without the consent
of his metropolitan. Though with no legal right, he came to influence the
elections, as the Bishop of Alexandria those of Egypt. He exercised
ecclesiastical superintendence over the whole province—the erection of new
bishoprics, the delimitation of the metropolitan See, the removal of a bishop,
the power of alienating Church property, and the care of the vacant bishoprics.
In extreme cases, appeal was made to him, when he had the power of controlling
the provincial bishop without the assistance of other bishops. He sent synodal
letters, or accounts of important decisions or proceedings of the Councils, to
the bishops. He could give or receive letters of communion, and publish and
carry into effect laws enacted either by the emperors, or by Councils, relating
to the Church.
The
bishops of a province elected and ordained their metropolitan without the
concurrence of the Their metropolitan of any other province. This Election. was
approved constitution of the
Church
from Nicsea to Chalcedon, 325-451. Afterward, in the East, the election was
conditioned by the rights of the patriarch.
In the
latter part of the third century, Synods of more than one province were called
together in cases
Provincial
Synods.
203
of
controversy, as in the controversy concerning the Lapsed, or those who had
taken part in heathen sacrifices, when were assembled the bishops of Africa and
Mauritania. So, in the case Patr,archs* of Paul of Samosata, in
262-268, a Synod of all the Syrian bishops was called at Antioch, and
invitations were sent to the Bishops of Egypt and Cappa-docia. Groups of
provinces were united into prefectures for purposes of imperial administration.
These came to have ecclesiastical Synods. At the Council of Chalcedon, 451,
following and influenced by the civil divisions of the empire into dioceses,
the metropolitans of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Constantinople, and Rome
became patriarchs. By the end of this period, the Bishop of Rome had gained a
certain primacy over the other patriarchs. The Greek and Roman Catholic
Churches recognize patriarchs of Constantinople, Jerusalem, Antioch, and
Alexandria, thus maintaining a double succession. The Syrian, Maronite, and
Coptic Churches have patriarchs, as have also the Nestorians and the Armenians.
None of these Oriental Churches acknowledge the supremacy of the Roman See.
The
organization of the Greek and Oriental Churches culminates in the patriarchate.
The Church of England has the complete episcopal organization, with archbishops
at its head, who are Metropolitans of Armagh and Dublin, of Canterbury and
York. The various episcopal Churches among the Protestants, except the
Protestant Episcopal Church, which follows the Church of England, have the
office, functions, and order of bishops, with no tactual succes
204 The
Rulers in the New World.
sion.
This is the episcopacy of the first two centuries. It includes the Lutherans,
Moravians, and Methodist Episcopalians.
The
Reformed Churches and the Presbyterian bodies are governed by Assemblies of
presbyters and laymen. All clergymen are of equal rank. The Independents,
Congregationalists, and Baptists have no gradation of clerical rank or Church
superiority, the individual Church being the unit and sole authority in their
organization. Each of these great systems of Church polity—the Episcopal,
Presbyterian, and Congregational—can claim some features of the organization of
the early Church. Despite all the variety in that organization during the first
century, it may be doubted if there is in existence a Church polity which does
not either largely add to the organization of the Apostolic Church, or
contradict the principles or usage of the apostles themselves.
Chapter
IV.
THE
PRIMACY OF ROME.
How did
the Bishop of Rome come to have an authority superior to the other bishops of
the Church?
How did
he become Pope and head of the Roman Catholic Church?
How did
he come to claim to be the supreme ruler in the Church for all Christendom, and
the vicegerent, or representative, of God on earth?
These
questions outline the history and claims of the Papacy. The answers to them can
not fail to be of interest to every Christian.
The
accomplishment of these ends and the defining of these claims was a process of
centuries; but it depended, first and chiefly, on the political source of the
importance of the rule and authority of the Im£°£1"°* city of
Rome. That alone explains the See of Rome, facts. How great was that dominion,
how long in preparation, how enduring in structure, will be plain to the reader
of the opening pages of this volume. Without some comprehension of the
world-wide and age-enduring rule of Rome, there can be no understanding of the
existence and authority of the Roman Catholic Church. With that clearly in
mind, there is no mystery in its origin, growth, and predominance. Rome was the
source of law and government for four hundred years over the lands conquered by
the Christian faith—a territory larger than that of all Europe.
205
206 The
Rulers in the New World.
From Rome
law was received, and appeals in its administration were made, and allegiance
rendered, for more than the lifetime of ten generations of men. It would have
been strange if, after the destruction of Jerusalem, the center of the
societies of that Church which aimed at universal conquest for our Lord had
been at any other place than at the capital of the world. That time was at the
full-tide of the power and splendor of the empire. It was the age of the
Coliseum.
The
Church of the first generation after the Passion and Pentecost looked, as did
Paul and the other First center aPostles, to Jerusalem as
the mother Church, of the church Its fall made necessary another center. An-at
Jerusalem. might claim to be the first Church of
the
Gentile Christians, and Ephesus to have had an acknowledged influence during
the life of St. John; but neither of them could compare with the metropolis and
capital of the empire, where Jewish and Gentile Christians were nearer fusion
than anywhere else, where St. Paul was martyred, and where St. Peter was said
to have preached and ruled and died with him.*
That Rome
was necessarily the center of every widespread religious movement in the empire
is Rome Takes Prove(^ by every influential heretic coming the Place
of to Rome, from Simon Magus to Sabellius. Jerusalem. t^e
great Gnostic leaders, Marcion and Valentinian, and Theodotus, the
author of the error for which Paul of Samosata was condemned. The causes which
drew heretical teachers to Rome would make influential the Church which met and
overcame their teachings, and cast them out of its fold. With this great cause,
as always in every process of histor-
*See
Appendix, Note A.
The
Primacy of Rome.
ical
development, wrought many important minor ones. A cause of no small influence
was the position of the Christian society at Rome. It was early
founded—probably soon after Pentecost—by some Jewish Christians, whose names
and share in the work are alike unknown. When St. Paul wrote, in 57, the Church
was then strong, influential, and well spoken of in all Churches of the
Christian faith. The next notice we have of the Church is in the epistle of
Clement, 96, in which he shows how the Roman Church interests herself in the
affairs of other Churches. He gives the judgment and advice of the Church in
Rome in regard to disorders in the Church at Corinth. The Church showed itself
liberal, sympathetic, and interested in intercourse with other Churches in the
provinces, and equal to the demands which her position made upon her.
The
conflict with the Gnostic heresies and Mon-tanist error in the second century
increased the influence of the Church of the largest city where the faith of
Christ was preached. Not only were Effectofthe chiefs of heretical
parties busy in Rome, Controver-but appeals were made to the Roman Hereupon
Church by both parties where differences the Position arose in the provinces,
as in the case of of Rome* the Montanist controversy in Asia Minor.
Bishop Victor, of Rome, 190-202, endeavored, in the Paschal controversy, to
cause all the Churches, especially those of Asia Minor, to conform to the Roman
date for celebrating Easter. Irenseus, writing 190, holds that “ the true faith
in the whole Church must be in agreement with Rome, because it is the greatest,
the oldest, and known of all, and founded by the apostles
208
The
Rulers in the New World.
Peter and
Paul, and had preserved the apostolic tradition and faith until his time by a
succession of bishops.”
A check
in this progress to a primacy over the bishops of the other Churches was
experienced at the Effect of the c^ose °f the second
century, in the develop-Organization ment and independence of the provincial of
Synods. organizat-ion Qf $ynods,
and in the theory of Tertullian and Cyprian that all bishops, not those of the
apostolic seats—that is, cities where the apostles had lived—only, assure and
preserve the Christian faith.
Cyprian
taught that the episcopate from its origin was one, and all bishops are equal.
In each, all are represented. The chair of Peter, Bishop of Rome, is the symbol
of the unity of the episcopate. In the case of Paul of Samosata, 273, the
heathen Kmperor Aurelian decided that those were Christians who were in
communion with the Bishop of Rome. This applies to the provincial bishops.
A third
cause was the fact that Rome was the only apostolic seat in the West. Her
authority, derived from the residence and teaching of the apostles, was ^
shared with no city west of the Adriatic.
Rome the
. "
Only
Apos- From her the faith went out to Africa,
* the
^Vest" Spain and Britain, while Irenseus, born in ’ Asia Minor, and ruling
the Church in Gaul, acknowledged the greatness of the Roman Church. The
uniqueness of this position was seen in the relations between the bishops of
the East and West. When the Synodal decrees were sent from the bishops of the
East, they were sent to the Bishops of Rome, who communicated them to the other
Churches of the
The
Primacy of Rome. 209
West. Two
most momentous secular changes, the removal of the capital from Rome and the
barbarian invasions, greatly enhanced the position of Rome as the mother Church
and the superior episcopal seat in the West.
The
removal of the capital from Rome to Constantinople freed the Roman Bishop from
the nearness and oppression of the imperial power, which proved so often
injurious, and sometimes fatal, to Removal of the occupant of the See of
Constantinople. the CaP'taI
/- , -r^.
/* tv , from Rome to
The power
of the Bishops of Rome had constants opportunity to develop without the calling
nopie. to account, dwarfing of prerogative, and pruning of claims, which would
have limited it, if the imperial residence had remained by the Tiber instead of
being transferred to the Bosphorus.
The
invasions of the barbarians tended to the same result. The secular power being
humbled or overthrown, the conquerors looked with awe and reverence at the only
possessor of power, Effect of the of influence and government, whom
their Barbarian numbers could not intimidate or their arms ConcJuest*
and pillage destroy. The fact that these alien invaders were of the Arian Creed
bound the orthodox or Nicsean Christians to the supremacy of the Roman See as
their patron and protector. In him was preserved the majesty of the Roman name
and the authority of the Roman power. In the person of Leo I, the Bishop of
Rome acceded to the vacant throne of the emperors of the West. Thus the Bishop
of Rome became the head of Western Christendom, and hence of the Roman Catholic
Church.
The
progress of the See of Rome to the primacy
14
210
The
Rulers in the New World.
is seen
in its relations with the bishops of the East. There was now the capital of the
empire, and apostolic seats and churches as ancient as
Influence
of .
Theological
Rome. The predominance of Rome was Co"tI™ver"
greatly advanced by the theological controversies of the East. Rome always
profited by fishing in troubled waters. During the great Arian controversy her
bishops were the steadfast supporters of the orthodox cause. Athanasius found
protection and support from Julius, 340-346, which kept the West firm by his
side. The result was at once apparent. The Synod of Arles, 314, and the Council
of Nicaea, 325, had not once mentioned any claims of the superiority of the
Bishop of Rome; but the Council of Sardica, 343, decreed that a bishop
condemned by a Provincial Council might appeal to Julius, Bishop of Rome, who
might review the case before judges named by him. The Council was a small one
of the bishops adhering to Athanasius; and the jurisdiction conferred is one of
honor and for the present emergency by an oppressed minority. The Roman
bishops, however, claimed it gave a general and direct jurisdiction over the
whole Church, and falsely ascribe it to the great Council of Nicaea. The first
Council of Constantinople, 381, however, gave Constantinople a place beside
Rome as one of the patriarchates. The bishops of North Africa were in dispute
in regard to appeals to Rome with its bishops from 418 to 432. The Canons of
Sardica, falsely ascribed to Nicaea, were appealed to in order to sustain the
claims of Rome. The African bishops investigated the case, denounced the false
claim, and refused the right to appeal. Nevertheless, Chrysostom, 403-407,
appealed
The
Primacy of Rome. 211
to Rome
from the arrogance of Theophilus and the tyranny of the emperor. So both
parties in the controversies of Nestorius and Eutyches appealed to the occupant
of the Roman See. Yet the Bishops of Rome have not always been orthodox.
Victor, Zephy-rinus, and Callistus, 190-222, were Modalistic Monar-chians.
L,iberius, 358, signed a heterodox creed at the command of the Arian emperor.
Zosimus, 417, favored Pelagius, while the occupant of no See ever made a more
pitiable exhibition of obsequiousness and tergiversation than Vigilius, 540-555.
The
extension of the hierarchical constitution, through the creation of
metropolitans and patriarchs, favored the advancement of the Roman Bishop. In
the West, it made him the supreme eccle- Effect of th siastical
authority. In the East, after Chal- Metropolitan cedon, 451, Alexandria was
overthrown Constltut,on* and Antioch discredited by the Nestorian
heresy, while Constantinople, with no apostolic tradition, and hampered by the
imperial authority, was no match for the growing power of Rome. We will see
this power suffering defeats, but making steady advance toward the recognition
of permanent authority and primacy in the great Popes of the last two centuries
of this period.
The list
of the Bishops of Rome for the first two centuries presents only four Latin
names. The membership and officers of the Church and the language of its
worship were alike largely Greek. The Christian religion had not yet won the
ruling minds of the great governing race of the ancient world. Indeed, there is
no name of note in the list from St. Clement, 100-109, to that of Innocent I,
402-417. While Ath
2i2 The
Rulers in the New World.
anasius,
Chrysostom, Cyprian, Ambrose, and Augustine were making forever illustrious the
Sees they Early Bishops ruled, no great words or work or character of Rome. COmes
from Rome. While great schools at Alexandria, Caesarea, and Antioch were
producing scholars, authors, and eminent prelates, but two au~ thors of any
note are recorded in the Roman annals, and they were the schismatic Hippolytus
and Nova-tian; for while Jerome was a Roman presbyter the work by which he is
remembered was done after he left Rome. If there is no single great name in
these centuries in the history of the Roman Church, in the last two of our
period, 400-600, there were three great men who were most able ecclesiastical
rulers, and obtained and secured the primacy of the Roman See in all the lands
of the West. The first Leo and the first Gregory were the ablest men of their
times, and laid the foundations for that supremacy of the Roman Church which
endured until the Reformation.1
Innocent
entertained the appeal of Chrysostom against Theophilus of Alexandria, and
endeavored to arrange a Council of Bishops to secure justice. He innocent i,
inclined against Pelagius. During his pon-402-417- tificate Rome was taken by
Alaric, though in his absence. He encouraged celibacy. By his enlightened rule
he won many heathen to the Church. He had genius for administration. He
strongly urged the claims of Rome. He wrote thus to the Council of Carthage,
417: “Whatever was transacted in the provinces—let them be ever so
remote—should not be considered as ratified until it had come to the knowledge
of the Apostolic Chair; so that by its entire authority every just decision
might be confirmed,
The
Primacy of Rome.
213
and other
Churches, as the pure streams should be distributed from their original,
undisturbed source through the different countries of the world, might learn
from this Church what they had to ordain, whom they had to pronounce innocent,
and whom to reject as irreclaimably wrong.” These claims were rejected in North
Africa; but the time came when they could be made good.
Leo I,
born about 390, was a man of lofty ambition and commanding intellect. He was
highly cultivated, according to the standards of that time, but knew no Greek.
He came in conflict with the Mani-chaeans, and gave them choice of conversion
or banishment. He was distinguished above all his Leo 1, predecessors for his
preaching. From his 440-461. short, pithy sermons are derived many of the
lessons found in the Roman Breviary. Ninety-six of his sermons and one hundred
and ninety-three of his letters have come down to us. After the complete
destruction of Aquileia in 452 by Attila, King of the Huns, Leo met him, and
persuaded him to turn back from an attack on Rome. He was less successful with
Gen-seric in 455; but he showed equal courage, and mitigated in some degree the
horrors of the worst sack and pillage Rome has known. At the Council of
Chalcedon, 451, Leo’s letter to Flavian, in which he set forth the doctrine of
the two natures in the one person of our Lord, became the basis of the Creed of
the Council and of the Church. But Leo’s greatness stands out as the “
representative of the imperial dignity and severity of old Rome; and he is the
true founder of the mediaeval Papacy in all its magnificence of conception and
uncompromising strength.” He
214 The
Rulers in the New World.
was the
first Pope. What were the grounds of his conception of the authority of the Roman
See will be given nearly in his own words. His chief thought is that he is
Peter’s representative. This teaching had first been broached by Stephen,
253-257; it had not been forgotten by Damasus, 366-385, Siricius, 385-395, or
Innocent; but Leo first made it of permanent influence. It is the one
theological basis for the Roman supremacy, and answers our third question in
regard to the claims of Rome. Leo says: “The love of the whole Church
recognizes Peter himself in his See, and Peter’s care still rules in all parts
of the Church.” Peter’s successor is all he was, whose special commission it
was to “ strengthen his brethren” and “to feed Christ’s sheep.” More than this,
“Christ willed that his sacred gift (the spreading of the gospel) should belong
to the office of all the apostles only so far as is consistent with his having
endowed the blessed Peter, chief of all the apostles, with it in a supreme
manner, and his having willed that from him, as from a head, his gifts should
flow out into the whole body, so that he should know that he has no share in
the Divine mystery who has dared to retire from the solid foundations of
Peter.” And moreover, “ though there are many bishops and pastors, yet Peter
should govern them all by his peculiar office, whom Christ governs by his
supreme authority. Thus great and wonderful is the share in its own power which
the Divine condescension assigned to this man.” Rome is mightier than when at
the head of the empire. “ They [the apostles Peter and Paul] it is who have brought
thee [Rome] to such a height of glory, that as a holy race, an elect people, a
The
Primacy of Rome. 215
royal and
sacerdotal state, raised to be bead of the world through the Holy See of the
blessed Peter, thou shouldest rule with a broader sway in the divine religion
than by thine earthly dominion.”
Canon
Gore sums up tersely the points of Leo’s theory: " 1. Whatever Peter
was among the apostles, that the Pope is among the bishops. 2. The statement of
Pope is not patriarch, or chief among pa- Leo’s Claims, triarchs, but is in
immediate relation to the whole Church East and West, similar to the relation
of the capital to the whole Roman Empire. 3. Peter is a mediator between Christ
and the other apostles. He is the only immediate recipient of the sacerdotal
grace; and what the others receive, they receive through him. If this be true,
then separation frqm Rome is separation from grace, and therefore from Christ.”
Of course, there is no support for such teaching in the Holy Scriptures, and
the example of St. Paul at Antioch is in evident disproof. But Leo’s theory of
mediatorship was consistent and thoroughgoing. He says: “Indulgence of God can
not be obtained except by sacerdotal [priestly] supplication.” His practice
corresponded with his theory. He wrote to the Illyrian bishops “that on himself
as the successor of the apostle Peter, on whom, Leo’s as a reward of his faith,
the Lord had con- Practice, ferred the primacy of the apostolic rank, and on
whom he had firmly grounded the universal Church, was devolved the care of all
the Churches, to participate in which he invited .his colleagues, the other
bishops.” He succeeded in securing an edict from Valentinian III, 445, “ that
nothing should be done in Gaul, contrary to the ancient usage, without the authority
of
216 The
Rulers in the New World.
the
Bishop of Rome; and the decree of the Apostolic See should henceforth be law.”
Leo’s
greatest triumph was the acceptance of his teaching as the basis of the Creed
of Chalcedon; but Leo and the with this victory came a sore defeat. The
Chalcedon1 twenty-eighth canon of this Council, fol-45i. lowing the
canon of the first Council of Constantinople, 381, made the city on the
Bosphorus equal in rank with Rome, and enlarged the limits of her patriarchate.
This shattered Leo’s theory and claim of universal and immediate appellate
jurisdiction. He contended against it, but it remained in force in the East.
Leo’s
greatest work was the establishment of the right of bishops, in cases of
importance, to appeal from their metropolitans to the Pope at Rome. This is the
corner-stone of the Papacy, and is rejected by the Greek, Oriental, and English
Churches, who retain the constitutions of metropolitans and patriarchs.
Leo does
not refer to the Virgin Mary; mentions relics but once; sanctions prayers to
the saints, but mentions only Sts. Peter, Paul, and Laurence. He makes no
allusion to confession in any sacramental sense.
His
conduct in controversy has been denounced as “ imperious, precipitate, unjust,
and not overscru-Character pulous ;’1 and his style characterized as
of Leo. “ business-like, severe, terse, and epigrammatic.” He was sincerely
pious, modest in reference to himself, and with himself severe. His whole life
was given to the aggrandizement of the See of Rome, which he was convinced was
the only safeguard of 'society, the Church, and the faith. In ability to think
The
Primacy of Rome. 217
and to
rule, no greater name is found among the Popes of Rome.
The years
following Leo’s pontificate were stormy ones for the Roman See. On account of a
quarrel with the Bishop of Constantinople, com- From Leo to munion was broken
off between the Hast i*
and West
from 484-519. A few years later, the armies of Justinian came into Italy. After
twenty years of rapine, desolation, and conquest, the Popes were little more
independent than the Bishops of Constantinople. No bishop of the imperial
capital ever showed greater compliance or baseness than Vigilius, 540-555.
Under his four successors— Pelagius I, John III, Benedict I, and Pelagius II,
555-590—the Papacy reached the lowest depths of degradation and dependence.
From this condition it was raised by Gregory I, who realized Leo’s theories in
practice, and from whom directly descends the Papacy of the Middle Ages.
Gregory
I, called the Great, was born, probably, at Rome, about 540. His father,
Gordianus, possessed senatorial rank. Pope Felix II is said to Gregory have
been his great-grandfather. His the Qreat-mother, Sylvia, was
remarkable for her mental endowments. Both she and two of his father’s sisters,
Tar-sillia and iEmiliana, have been canonized as saints. He was educated for
the law. When about thirty years of age, he was chosen prcetor urbanus by the
citizens, a position he held for three years (571-574), discharging his duties
with great pomp and magnificence. Deeply affected by the death of his father,
he retired from public life, and gave his whole fortune to pious uses. He built
six monasteries in Italy, and
218 The Rulers
in the New World.
one in
Rome, dedicated to St. Andrew, in which he embraced the Benedictine rule, and
devoted his whole time to works of charity and the exercise of fasting,
meditation, and prayer. He became abbot of the monastery in 575, and afterward
was Papal representative at the court of Constantinople for three years. In
590, he was chosen Pope. He declined, but was confirmed by the emperor. As
Bishop of Rome, he had charge of the Churches and ecclesiastical interests of
the city. As metropolitan, he had the oversight of the seven suffragan, or
later cardinal, bishops in the neighborhood of Rome. As patriarch, he ruled
over Central and Southern Italy and the islands of Sicily, Sardinia, and
Corsica. In addition, with Leo, he claimed appellate jurisdiction over the
whole Church.
Gregory
was a great administrator—one of the very greatest of a great race. Eight
hundred and work forty of his letters remain to attest the of Gregory. vjg0r
of his mind and the variety of his occupations and responsibilities. During his
pontificate, the Lombards were checked; discipline enforced in Italy, France,
England, Spain, and Africa; paganism, Arianism, and Donatism weakened. He saw
realized the desire of his heart for forty years, in 596, in the mission of the
monk, Augustine, for the conversion of England. He was the inventor of the
Church doctrine of purgatory, and the modern Roman teaching concerning masses
and transubstantiation. The present order of the mass is almost entirely due to
his arrangement. He gave attention to sacred music and primary education. Not
slow to assert the authority of the Papal Chair, he was far from claim
The
Primacy of Rome. 219
ing the
titles and privileges of his successors. In his protest against the use of the
title of Universal Bishop he says: “The apostle Peter was the first member of
the universal Church. As for Paul, Andrew, and John, they were only the heads
of particular congregations; but all were members of the Church under one head,
and none would ever be called universal.”
In his
administration as patriarch, he paid particular attention to the choice of
bishops. The candidate should be already in holy orders; not (a)
choice bound to any secular office; free from of B‘sh°Ps
bodily defects; of good life and conversation; well-versed in the Holy
Scriptures, especially the Psalms; benevolent and charitable; not a youth, or
one who had married a second wife or a widow, or who had young children. If
suitably qualified, he was to be chosen from the clergy he was to rule. The use
of money or influence in the elections was strongly prohibited. Finally,
Gregory reserved the right of confirmation to himself.
While he
insisted on his rights of supervision and strict discipline over bishops and
metropolitans, he was equally careful to respect theirs. He (b) His Ad-writes
to Dominicus of Carthage in 592 : ministration
.
.in Reference
“But as
to what your fraternity has writ- to the ten about ecclesiastical privileges,
have no Bishops, doubt whatever about this, that as we defend our own rights,
so we preserve those of every single Church. I neither grant to any one,
through favor, more than he has a claim to; nor, through ambition, derogate
from the just rights of any; but I desire to honor my brethren in all respects,
but that each one should
220
The
Rulers in the New World.
be so
honored that his rights be not opposed to those of another.”
Gregory
took great interest in the condition of the cletgy. He held that “bad priests
are the cause of (c) The the people’s ruin ;” that “ what is a fault in clergy.
a iayman, is a crime in a clergyman;” and “
that a clergyman, corrupt within, can not long stand in relation to the world
outside.” He forbade the ordination of any one in public office, civil or
military. Wandering clergymen were called back to their work. He urged upon all
the supreme duty of aiding the poor and oppressed. “ In all the clergy, he
required strict celibacy; they were to have no women in their houses but
mothers, sisters, or wives married before ordination, from whom they were to
live separately.”
As the
first monk who became Pope, he had great solicitude for the condition of those
following the monastic life. To an abbot, he writes:
(d)
Monks. , . ’ _ , ,
“As the
ceaseless remissness of thy deceased predecessor saddened us, so thy care
rejoices us. Restrain, therefore, those who are committed to thee from
gluttony, pride, avarice, vain discourse, and all uncleanness. In which
correction, know that this order is to be observed, that thou love the persons,
but persecute the vices, lest, shouldst thou act otherwise, correction pass
into cruelty, and thou ruin those thou desirest to amend.” He ordained that no
man was to become a monk under eighteen years of age; two years of probation
were always to be required (Benedict required but one), and from soldiers
three; no married person was to receive the vows, unless both man and wife were
willing to embrace the mo
The
Primacy of Rome. 221
nastic
life; not even an abbot was to leave his convent except on urgent occasions,
and no one ever alone; no monk or nun was to retain any private possession; no
young woman was to be made an abbess ; no woman was to be “ veiled ” (finally
and irrevocably consecrated to virginity) under sixty years of age—(forty
appears to have been the previous limit fixed by the Councils.) He was careful
to see that monastic communities were provided with endowments, and to protect
them in the possession of such as had been given them by bequest or otherwise.
He contributed largely from the revenues of “ the patrimony ” for this purpose.
The care
and increase of this patrimony was an unceasing object of his solicitude. The
See of Rome had large possessions, constituting what (e, Care
of was called the “Patrimony of St. Peter,” “thePatri-not only in Italy
and the adjoining islands, mony* ’ but also in remoter parts,
including Illyria, Gaul, Dalmatia, and even Africa and the East. In regard to
the possessions of the Church in Italy, Mr. Bryce says: “ Ever since the
restriction of the Western Empire had emancipated the ecclesiastical potentate
from secular control, the first and most abiding object of Gregory’s schemes
and prayers had been the acquisition of territorial wealth in the neighborhood
of the capital. He had, indeed, a sort of justification ; for Rome, a city with
neither trade nor industry, was crowded with poor, for whom it devolved upon
the bishop to provide.” Thus was laid the foundation for wealth which led to
power, and, one hundred and fifty years later, to that temporal dominion which
ceased only in 1870. These estates of the entire pat
222
The
Rulers in the New World.
rimony
were managed by officers called “ rulers of the patrimony ” and “ defensores,”
to whom Gregory continually wrote, directing them about the management of the
farms and the protection of the peasants. In this work, he showed a genius for
administration more minute and not inferior to Leo’s. The revenues of the
“patrimony” were divided according to *■ custom in the West—in equal parts to the bishops, the clergy, the buildings and service of
the Church, and to the poor.
Gregory
was unbounded in his charities. A great part of the population of Rome depended
on them.
Daily,
when he sat down to dinner, a por-
(!)
Charities. . J , , . ,
r
tion was
sent to the poor at his door. He had the poor and infirm searched out in every
street, and kept a large book for the names of the objects of his bounty.
What
difficulties he fought against in the closing years of his work, and yet how
untiring and success-LastDays ful he was in its performance, his letters of
Gregory. shoW. In 6oo, he writes to Eulogius
of Alexandria: “In the last year, I have received your letter, but have been
unable to answer it until now, owing to the excess of my illness. For nearly
two years I have been confined to my bed, and afflicted with such pains from
gout that I have hardly been able to rise for three hours’ space on festivals
to celebrate mass. I am soon compelled, by excess of pain, to lie down again,
and seek relief by groaning. My pain is sometimes alleviated, and sometimes
intense ; but never so alleviated as to leave me, nor so intense as to kill me.
Hence I am daily dying, but never die.” Writing to Theodelinda, Queen of the
Lom-
The
Primacy of Rome.
bards, in
604, he says: “ Not only are we unable to dictate; we can not even rise to
speak; as your messengers, who found us well when they came, have left us in
the utmost danger.” The indefatigable and dauntless spirit left this home of
pain, March 12, 604.
In
personal appearance, Gregory was of medium height. The expression of his
countenance was mild; his features were regular; his com- Gregory’s plexion
swarthy and fresh. He had a high Appearance, forehead, with dark hair, nose
slightly aquiline, lips thick and ruddy, and his beard somewhat tawny and of
moderate length.
Gregory
had an excessive preference for monastic and ascetic forms of life, and the
superstitions of the age in regard to miracles and relics. He Gregory’s was
sometimes too courtly in his address Character to rulers, the most lamentable
instance of which was his letter to the cruel usurper Phocas. “ In nature and
bearing he was singularly tolerant, liberal, and kindly;” in administration,
considerate yet firm— never harsh or domineering.
The use
of the pallium was introduced in confirming the election of bishops, and so
strengthening the power of Rome, 543-595. The pallium Th was a
narrow band, which surrounded the neck, and hung down before and behind, like a
letter Y. It was made of white wool, ornamented with four dark-purple crosses.
It was sent from Rome by the Pope, and no election was valid which was not
confirmed by the receipt of this gift. This made the entire episcopacy of the
West dependent on the Roman See, and is the corner-stone of the constitution
and administration of the Roman Catholic Church.
224 The
Rulers in the New World.
Two
events beyond this period were necessary to the development of the Papacy of
the Middle Ages. Conquests of One, the conquest of the Saracens, which the
Saracens, destroyed the patriarchates of Jerusalem, Antioch, and Alexandria,
limited the development and growth of Constantinople, and so removed all
rivalry, if not resistance, of the Churches of the Orient. On the other hand,
the life-and-death struggle of Christendom for existence in Africa, Spain,
France, and Italy made helpful the centralization of authority and discipline
in Rome; and the conversion of the Teutonic nations contributed to the same
result.
The final
step, and the one on which the Papacy of the Middle Ages rested, was not taken
until “ the “Forged ‘Forged Decretals’secured it its temporal Decretals.”
suzerainty, the immunity of its priesthood in the superior ecclesiastical
tribunals, and the tremendous prerogative of excommunication and interdict.”
The
Papacy was the slow-growing development of the hierarchical constitution of the
Church. The Causes of the sYstem °f bishops, archbishops,
and patri-Deveiopment archs seemed to require a head to complete of the Papacy.
an(^ secure This develop
ment also
represents the results of personal ambition and fraud. From the forged date of
the Sardican Canon to the Forged Decretals and donation of Constantine, through
the Middle Ages, fraud has been a powerful element in the establishment of the
Papal claims.
However
beneficial such a centralized authority was, in some respects, to the life and
civilization of
The
Primacy of Rome. 225
the
Middle Ages, we should not forget that it rendered necessary the separation of
the Greek and Roman Churches, and hence the division of Christendom in the face
of a powerful Mohammedanism, which was the crowning misfortune of the Crusades,
and caused the loss of Constantinople to Christendom ; and that it rendered
necessary the great Reformation before the Middle Ages could give way to modern
times. It is to-day a survival of an outworn part in the life of the Church and
of Christian civilization. Its claims, both political and ecclesiastical, are
as anachronistic and impossible of realization as its infallibility is incredible.
15
Chapter
V.
THE
CLERGY.
The
development of the life and work of the clergy and their position in the
Church, the State, and society was determined by the action of three forces—the
theoretic ideal of the office, the organization and discipline of the Church,
and its legal establishment by the State.
Though
there were special officers from the first in the Church, these never received
spiritual gifts to the exclusion of the rest of the Church, nor were they The
Growth channels through which the grace neces-of the sacer- sary to a Christian
life came to the body of dotai ideal keijeverSj nor were
they widely sundered
from
them. The consciousness of this general priesthood of believers remained long
in the Church. Tertullian says: “Are not we laymen priests? Where three are, a
Church is, although they be laymen. For each individual lives by his own faith;
nor is there exception of persons with God.” Also Origen says: “All Christians
are priests; not merely or pre-eminently the office-bearers, but all according
to the measure of their knowledge and their services in the kingdom of God.” On
the other hand, Clement, 96, quotes the Jewish priests in the Old Testament as
a type and analogy of the Christian ministry. This was a favorite parallel with
those who wished to exalt the clergy above the laity. In the third century,
especially after the overthrow of Montanism, there came into promi-226
The
Clergy.
227
nence
tlie idea of the Christian minister as a sacerdotal priest. This was favored by
the increasing comparison of the Christian worship with the heathen mysteries.
The sacrificial idea was first set forth fully by Cyprian, and with emphasis,
as a fundamental distinction, by Augustine. The development of this doctrine is
shown in the next part of this work, which treats of Christian worship. The
third element in the growth of this theory of the office of the clergy was the
predominance of the ascetic and monastic ideal of the Christian life. Through
this influence the clergy were expected to separate themselves from the world
and from the life of the home.
The
growth of the Church, the increase of its functions, and the power of the
hierarchical development caused a corresponding multiplication of clerical
offices. By the side of the bishop, the church or-presbyters, and deacons, came
into being sanction the minor orders of the clergy, which be- pijne.
Minor came very numerous in the large cities. orders. These were the
s?ib-deacons, through the division of the work of the deacons; the lectors,
those who read the Holy Scriptures; the exorcists, those who had care of the
spiritually sick, and repeated over them the prayers of the Church; the
acolyths, who were the personal companions of the bishops, and who rendered
personal service to the clergy; the ostiaries) the doorkeepers, who
saw that no suspicious persons entered the places of Christian worship, and
watched over the separation of the catechumens and penitents in the services of
the Church. Both of the latter were from analogous officers in the heathen
temples. By 260 most Churches in Rome and the West had these
228
The
Rulers in the New World.
lower
orders. The development in the East was independent and not so early. The
Church in Rome, under Cornelius, 251-253, had in its clergy forty-six
presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolyths, fifty-two
exorcists, lectors, and ostiaries. Fifteen hundred widows, sick, and poor were
cared for by the Churches, which fifty years later were forty • in number.
After the establishment of the Church by Constantine, not only did the numbers
of the clergy greatly increase, but there were added two lower grades, not
orders, of clerical service—the para-bolani, those who cared for and ministered
to the sick for the Church; and the copialce, or fossores, those who buried the
dead. These formed a kind of guild, under the control of the bishop. Their
number was often increased to augment his power, and was not seldom limited by
law. The limit at Alexandria of the parabolani was 600; at Constantinople,
1,100. For the care of the property of the Church were created the offices of
stewards, treasurers, secretaries, legal advisers, and keepers of the archives.
These positions were not necessarily, but often, filled by the clergy. The increase
in the numbers and wealth of the Church led to the creation of the office of
archdeacon. He was the right hand of the bishop in the care of church property,
in his judicial administration, in the supervision of the lower clergy, and in
the appointment of presbyters and deacons. Thus he came to have great
influence. The character of the administration of the bishop often depended on
the ability and piety, or the reverse, of the archdeacon. The archpresbyter
never came to have the same importance, but he represented the bishop in
The
Clergy.
229
his
absence. Comparatively few of the clergy, and almost none in the West, could be
educated in the theological schools of Alexandria, Caesarea, Antioch, Edessa,
or Nisibis. They were therefore trained in the lower orders for the diaconate,
and in that office for the order of presbyters. In this training and promotion
through the grades of the clergy was limited the choice of the people, and
formed the higher clergy. Later the monasteries often became schools from which
were taken the clergy. Deacons were not ordained before twenty-five years of
age, nor presbyters before the age of thirty.
As the
ascetic and later monastic ideal came to prevail in the Church, the theory
gained ground that the clergy should not marry. In the third century this began
to be applied to the bishops, celibacy of The small Spanish Council of Elvira,
305, the c,er«y-pronounced against a married clergy ; the great
Council of Nicaea, 325, refused to take such action. The Council of Gangra, 360,
pronounced against those who refused to take part in divine service celebrated
by married priests. But the usage was for marriage to be allowed which took
place before ordination, but none to men in orders, hence no second marriages.
The Council of Ancyra, 314, allowed a deacon to marry, if he had stated his
intention to do so at his ordination. From about this time dates the Greek
usage that deacons and priests may marry before ordination, but not a second
time; bishops must be and remain unmarried. In the West, the action of
Siricius, Bishop of Rome, 385, in issuing*a decretal (letter) against a married
clergy—that is, deacons, presbyters, and bishops—forms the turning-
230 The
Rulers in the New World.
point.
This view was confirmed by the Synods of Carthage, 401; Turin, 401; and Orange,
441; and by the influence of bishops like Augustine, who lived together with
their clergy in a house in common. Leo I included sub-deacons in the
prohibition. The popes were zealous for clerical celibacy as freeing the ministry
from the cares and complications of the world; yet there were married bishops
from 350 to 410 such as Hilary of Poitiers, the father of Gregory Nazianzen and
Synesius of Cyrene. Vigilantius, about 400, appeals to bishops who chose only
married men for deacons. But the monastic ideal prevailed; the unmarried clergy
were more dependent and pliant to the commands of the Popes and bishops, and
were on this account as well preferred.
Those who
had led an immoral life could not be ordained, or those who had married twice,
or who had married a sister-in-law, or a niece, or those who Exclusion
been baptized when ill. Also actors,
from
dancers, pantomimes, soldiers, and slaves Ordination. prevjous
to emancipation, were excluded.
The
clergy were forbidden to follow secular callings except in cases of necessity.
They were not to undertake the affairs of others, or to do business on
commission; nor were they allowed to take interest, which was accounted usury.
They were also forbidden to assume any civil office.
Through
its establishment by the State, the The Effect of Church became a legal
institution, with the union of wai claims upon her members, and sup-
the
Church , , , , r ,
with the
ported by the power and resources of the state. State. The clergy were directly
supported from the treasury of the State. The endowments
The
Clergy.
231
and
temple property were often given to the Church, and also money from the
communal treasury, for the erection of church edifices. The emperor made
presents of land, etc., to the Church. She was also authorized to receive
gifts, bequests, and fees.
The
clergy, like the heathen priests, were exempt from all personal public service.
They were also relieved from all municipal offices and the burdens of the
Decurionate. Hence, as many of the
1 ..
1 , . , 1
, Exemptions.
latter
sought to enter the ranks of the clergy, it became a law that every one
inscribed in the list of the decurions must resign his property before becoming
a clergyman. All Church and clerical property was exempt from extraordinary
taxes and compulsory services. The clergy were also free from all ordinary
legal processes, and had laws and courts of their own.
The
bishops exercised judicial authority through courts of arbitration. Even the
heathen preferred these to the ordinary civil courts. They received police
jurisdiction in certain cases, and had supervision of all moral questions.
Bishops also had the right of intercession in the cases of condemned criminals.
The right
of asylum for those accused of crime was granted to the Christian Churches, as
formerly to the heathen temples. This was a temporary refuge from popular rage
or private vengance, but was not designed to withdraw the transgressor from the
course of civil justice. Heresy now became a crime against the State, and false
teachers were liable to civil penalties. The first to be so executed were
Priscillian and his companion, by the usurper Maxi
232 The
Rulers in the New World.
mus, 385.
The act was denounced by Ambrose, St. Martin of Tours, and the leading
Christian bishops; but in the following centuries the Church and its rulers
seemed wholly to lose sight of the rights of conscience.
Was this
development normal and justified? Such was the development, sketched in these
chapters, from the Church of the earlier generations of Christians, which, with
its spirituality, simplicity, sacrifice, and abounding love, appeals to every
Christian heart. The Church came into union with the State, and was often
stronger than any civil or secular power. It had an elaborate and
thoroughly-disciplined hierarchy, whose members in the West were forbidden to
marry, and were organized under a monarchical papal rule. It came to be an
institution of vast wealth, with an army of servitors, clerical and monastic,
whose prelates had often all the pride and power, and sometimes even violence,
of the secular princes.
We are
compelled to ask, Was this development, which presents to us a Church as far
removed from that of the first century as from the extremest form of
Protestantism, necessary, or was it designed by her Lord? Granting that growth
and development were necessary, does that justify all that took place? Are
there any principles by which we can judge whether a course of development is
right, normal, and beneficent, or the reverse? History is a world judgment ;
but just because it is a judgment, it is not a justification of all that has
been done in the world or in the Church. Historic existence is not historic
justification, but may be the exact opposite. History
The
Clergy.
233
shows the
development of institutions, but does not justify their means of growth or
their existence. The principles underlying the office of the Christian ministry,
and which should control its development and its relations to the Church, have
never been better stated than by Bishop Lightfoot, the ablest scholar England
has given the Christian Church in this century, and which forms a basis for the
reunion of Christendom more Scriptural, spiritual, and stable than any decrees
of Popes or Councils.
“ The
kingdom of Christ, not being a kingdom of this world, is not limited by the
restrictions which fetter other societies, political or religious. Xheidea|of
It is, in the fullest sense, free, comprehen- the Christian sive, universal. It
displays this character, M,n,stry-not only in the acceptance of all
comers who seek admission, irrespective of race, caste, or sex, but also in the
instruction and treatment of those who are already its members. It has no
sacred days or seasons, no special sanctuaries; because every time and every
place alike are holy. It interposes no sacrificial tribe or class between God
and man, by whose intervention alone God is reconciled and man is forgiven.
Each individual member holds personal communion with the Divine Head. To him
immediately he is responsible, and from him directly he obtains pardon and
draws strength.
“ The
influence of this idea on the moral and spiritual growth of the individual
believer is too plain to require any comment; but its social effects may call
for a passing remark. It will hardly be denied,
I think,
by those who have studied the history of modern civilization with attention,
that his concep
The
Rulers in the New World.
tion of
the Christian Church has been mainly instrumental in the emancipation of the
degraded and oppressed, in the removal of the artificial barriers between class
and class, and in the diffusion of a general philanthropy, untrammeled by the
fetters of any party or race; in short, that to it mainly must be attributed
the most important advantages which constitute the superiority of modern over
ancient societies. Consciously or unconsciously, the idea of a universal
priesthood, of the religious equality of all men— which, though not untaught
before, was first embodied in the Church of Christ—has worked, and is working,
untold blessings in political institutions and in social life. But the careful
student will also observe that the idea has hitherto been very imperfectly
apprehended; that, throughout the history of the Church it has been struggling
for recognition, at most times discerned in some of its aspects, but at all
times wholly ignored in others; and that, therefore, the actual results are a very
inadequate measure of its efficacy, if only it could assume due prominence, and
were allowed free scope in action,
“ This,
then, is the Christian ideal: a holy season, extending the whole year round; a
temple confined only to the limits of the habitable world; a priesthood
co-extensive with the human race.
“ So it
was with the Christian priesthood. For communicating instruction, and for
preserving public order; for conducting religious worship, and for dispensing
social charities, it became necessary to appoint special officers. But the
priestly functions and privileges of the Christian people were never regarded
as transferred, or even delegated, to these
The
Clergy.
235
officers.
They are called stewards, or messengers of God, servants or ministrants of the
Church, and the like; but the sacerdotal title is never once conferred upon
them. The only priests under the gospel, designated as such in the New
Testament, are the saints — the members of the Christian brotherhood. . . . As
individuals, all Christians are priests alike; as members of a corporation,
they have their several and distinct offices. The similitude of the human body,
where each limb or organ performs its own functions, and the health and growth
of the whole frame are promoted by the harmonious but separate working of every
part, was chosen by St. Paul to represent the progress and operation of the
Church.”
fart
Fmirilr. WORSHIP AND DISCIPLINE.
237
Chapter
I.
WORSHIP
OF THE EARLY CHURCH.
The
conquests of Christianity were the conquests of religious conceptions and ideas
which the modern world esteems as superior to those of pa- influence of ganism;
and the Christian, as the revela- Wor8hiPIn
.
the Develop-
tion of
God for man’s salvation. These mentofthe conceptions and ideas became incarnate
in Church, the historic life of Jesus, who was presented as very God and very
man, and so the author of redemption. The Christianity of the early centuries
was based on the incarnation, which alone assured complete reconciliation of
man with God. Those receiving these truths and ideals necessarily separated
themselves from the heathen life and society around them, and from a society
with a different social code and a different aim from that into which they had
been born. The struggle of that society for union, cohesion, development, and
predominance, under a stronger and more centralized form of rule, has been
shown in the last chapters. The victory of Christianity was the victory of a
firmly-consolidated Church. Christianity, as it came in contact with the
unformed elements of social and political order which were taking the place of
the old civilization, appeared to the barbarian tribes not so much a system of
intellectual truths as an imposing and venerable system of government—the only
relic of the world-wide power and
239
240
Worship and Discipline.
predominance
of Rome. So the barbarians were won quite as much to the Church as to
Christianity—oftentimes much more to their own hurt and age-long scandal and
loss of Christendom.
But
neither the doctrines of the Church nor its order and government would alone
have satisfied the new nations which were taking the place of the worn-out
populations of the empire. The Teutonic tribes were naturally religious. In
depth, purity, and power of religious sentiment, they have seldom been
surpassed among the races of mankind. In vain would the religious teachings, or
the compact and powerful organization of the Church, have appealed to the
Northern invaders, if Christianity had been a philosophy, and not a religion. A
religion has worship, and appeals to the perennial needs of the human heart.
The worship of the Christians was as much superior to the religious rites of
their pagan neighbors as were their doctrines more sublime, and their
organization the heir of all the genius for human rule that was ever possessed
by Rome as the lawgiver of the world.
While it
is always to be borne in mind that the spiritual worship of the Christians was
an immense gain for humanity—a gain which can only be apprehended when we
contrast it with the religious rites of the pagan Orient—we must not forget
that, with the development of doctrine and ecclesiastical organization, there
was a like development of Christian worship. This development was in part
necessary for meeting the changed conditions of the Church and congregations,
and the fulfillment of the mission of the Church to the men of those times. But
like all re-
Worship
of the Early Church, 241
\
ligious
development, unless under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the baser elements
inevitably appear. The only development which can honor God must be directed by
God. This Divine direction can only be received by a Church predominantly
spiritual, quickened and responsive to the influence of the Holy Ghost. On the
contrary, the Church, for the three centuries from Constantine until Gregory I,
experienced the incoming flood-tide of worldliness and political corruption in
consequence of its union with the State, and at the same time the overthrow of
the old order, and its replacement by savage hordes, ignorant of letters and
the very rudiments of culture. It would be strange indeed if, to the higher
purposes of the Divine Spirit, there was not failure of adequate response—if
there did not creep in perversions and corruptions. These were not thrown off
and corrected until men more in accord with the Spirit of God than was the
regular organization of the Church appeared in the Reformation, yet a thousand
years in the future.
No
adequate conception of the early Church is possible without a knowledge of its
worship. In the study of the religious services of the Church will be found set
forth in vivid "contrast the strength and weakness, the purity and
defects, the glory and corruption of the Christianity of the first six
centuries.
The
development of Christian worship during this period divides itself into four
sections:
1.
The early Church, 30-170.
2.
The old Catholic Church, 170-381.
3.
Greek Catholic Church, 381-600.
4.
Roman Catholic Church, 381-600.
16
242
Worship and Discipline.
The first
apostles were Jews. Until compelled to separation by persecution, they observed
the Jewish Worship of Sabbath; the hours of prayer and the the Jewish temple
services, with meetings from house
Christians
in , _ , . J°
. .
the
Apostolic to house of the members of the Christian
Ase- community
for praise and prayer; the love-feast; and the Lord’s Supper. (Acts ii, 15; x,
9; xxii, 17; ii, 46; v, 24; and xii, 12.) .
When they
could no longer worship in the forms to which they and their fathers were
accustomed in the temple, whatever of form was taken over into Christian
assemblies came from the synagogue rather than from the temple. The service
seems to have included prayer, reading of the Scriptures, exposition of the
Scriptures read, with exhortation and benediction, and probably singing. There
were two parts of the Christian worship which were original and unique, though
both based on the Passover Supper. They were the love-feast and the Lord’s
Supper. These were the distinctive parts of Christian worship. The Lord’s
Supper was observed as in the presence of the unseen Lord. They, the members of
his household, pledged themselves to him; and, by his love being bound to each
other, they made remembrance of his death. The performance of this rite
enjoined by the risen Lord was preaching the gospel “ in the fullest and
highest sense, and in the most significant form.” The love-feast was the common
meal in token of a common brotherhood. It was an unceasing witness to the test
of the discipleship applied by the world. “ By this shall all men know that ye
are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”
Worship
op the Early Church.
The
Christians converted from heathenism mingled with a few converted Jews, and
were under the guidance of the apostles, or those taught by Worghipof
them. We have a picture of such a Church the Gentile in Paul’s first Epistle to
the Corinthians. Christ,ans-The passages relating to Christian
worship are:
i Cor.
xiv, 33, 39, 40; xii, 3, 4, 17; xi, 20; xvi, 2, 19. Compare with these Eph. iv,
30; 1 Thess. v, 19; and Rom. xvi, 5.
The
worship was held usually in the house of some prominent member of the Church as
above, at Corinth and at Philippi; while at Ephesus Paul secured the school of
Tyrannus as a place for Christian teaching, whether of worship we can not say.
They met on the first day of the week—the L,ord’s-day. (1 Cor. xvi, 2; Acts xx,
7; Rev. i, 10.) The order of worship seems to have been prayer, reading
Scriptures, prayer, teaching, prophecy, speaking with tongues, singing.
Teaching was probably an exposition of the passage read, with practical
applications, the result of reflection and the attainment of knowledge or
gnosis. Prophecy was (the speaking with authority the will of the
Lord, the Spirit directly aiding in the explanation of the Scriptures, the
preaching of Christ, or the treatment of present emergencies. Speaking with
tongues was the expression of sorrowful or joyful emotions in an ecstatic
state, caused by thoughts of heaven and future glory. In time, teaching and
prophecy came together, and formed the sermon and exhortation. Speaking with
tongues passed into the songs and hymns of the Church.
Worship
and Discipline.
The
love-feast, or Agapse, was originally a full meal, of which the Lord’s Supper
was only a part.
The At
the beginning of the second century Love-feast. they were separated.
Love-feasts continued to be observed until 350-400.
In the
worship of the Apostolic Age, the Church comes together as a body of believers,
called to be saints, in whom dwells the Holy Ghost. They worship the Lord,
crucified and risen, and the Heavenly Father. The purpose of the worship is the
edification of believers, and the conversion of those who know not God. The aim
is to secure the surrender of the whole body to the Lord, the renewing of the
mind, and the doing of the will of God. As a condition to this edification, all
things are to be done decently and in order. The Church, as a body of believers,
are the children of God, themselves priests, as being in immediate communion
with him. Those who speak or take part in the service are called of the Spirit,
and through these the mind of the Spirit is made known to the Church.
The chief
point in the service is the Lord’s Supper—with and through it the preaching of
the death The Lord’s and resurrection of Jesus Christ, and thus Supper.
reconciliation to God and participation in the gift of the Holy Ghost and the
fellowship of the brethren. From the following, the example of the Lord at the
Paschal Supper, and the statements in
1 Cor.
xi, 20 ff., the order of its administration seems to have been as follows:
1.
The Eucharistic prayer.
2.
Blessing of God on the gifts offered, or benediction.
Worship
of the Early Church. 245
3.
Preaching of the words of Jesus.
4.
Consecration of the elements.
5.
Breaking of bread.
6.
Administering of the cup.
7.
Prayer of thanksgiving.
8.
Hymns of praise.
There
were no special liturgies:
Dr.
Plumptre gives this sketch of the Apostolic worship and love-feast:
“ The
Church meets together in a large room hired for the purpose, or given by one of
the more wealthy converts. The materials of the meal were according to the
taste and wealth of the community. They would include meat, poultry, fish,
cheese, milk, and honey, with, of course, bread and wine. The cost of the meal
fell practically on the richer members of the Church, whether it was provided
out of the common funds, or from contributions in kind of the provisions
suitable. At the appointed hour, they came and waited for each other, men and
women being seated at different tables, perhaps, on opposite sides of the room,
until the bishop or presbyter of the Church pronounced the blessing. They ate
and drank. Originally, at some time before or after the meal, one loaf was
specially blessed and broken, one cup passed around especially as the ‘cup of
blessing.’ When the meal was over, water was brought, and they washed their
hands. Then, if not before, according to the season of the year, lamps were
placed on their stands, and the more devotional part of the meeting began.
Those who had special gifts were called upon to expound Scripture, or to speak
a word of exhortation, or to sing a hymn. It was the natural time for
246
Worship and Discipline.
intelligence
to be communicated from other Churches; for letters from them or their bishops
to be read; for strangers who had come with Church letters to be received.
Collections were made for the relief of distressed Churches at a distance, or
for the poor of the district. Then came the salutation—the‘holy kiss/ which
told of brotherhood—the final prayer, the quiet and orderly dispersion.”
The
suspicion of the heathen in times of persecution, the excesses like heathen
feasts, the spirit of caste in the Church, and the ascetic ideal which made it
obligatory to partake of the sacrament of Holy Communion, fasting, changed this
freedom and simplicity of the early Christian worship.
The
second century was the Post-Apostolic Age. It saw the conflict with Gnosticism
and with Monta-Worship of nism, and the cessation of spiritual gifts.
Apostolic
Those specially possessing them—apostles Age. and prophets—flourished in the
Church until the casting out of Montanism. The Church met for worship on the
first day of the week. So testify Barnabas, Ignatius, Pliny, and Justin. The
place of meeting depended upon the extent that the Church enjoyed peace from
the persecuting State, whether in public or secret places. The aim is, as
before, the building up of the Church and the conversion of those who do not
believe. The teaching was given by teachers of the local Church—bishop or
presbyters, or prophets or apostles, if any were present. These were
evangelists who addressed the people; afterward, any moved by the Spirit might
do likewise, but all under the direction of the president or bishop. The
service is the immediate act of the
Worship
of the Early Church.
Church in
prayer and consecration, and of God with the Church through the word and the
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper as organs of the Holy Spirit. There is no
priestly mediation; but the Church is a congregation of priests as the free
children of God. The Lord’s Supper is no act of merit or necessity before God,
but the spontaneous expression of the life of faith in self-surrender and
prayer, and in spiritual service, which is the real offering the Christians
bring to God.
The
purity and simplicity of the Christian worship, as set forth in the Acts and
Epistles of the New Testament, and as preserved in the memo- Letter rials of
the Catacombs, awaken the admira- of tion of every devout heart. Nor
are we without authentic literary monuments of the worship of the early Church.
A heathen governor, writing of the Christians of Bithynia, who were within the
sphere of the influence both of St. Paul and St. John, gives an account of
Christian worship which had come to his knowledge through the judicial
examinations of those condemned to die for the “ Name,” which can never fail to
touch the Christian heart. Pliny, in his letters to Trajan, about 111 A. D.,
says he was told by those who had worshiped with the Christians that “ they
were accustomed to meet on a stated day, before sunrise, and to repeat among
themselves a hymn to Christ as to a god, and to bind themselves, as with an
oath (sacramentum), not to commit any wickedness ; not to be guilty of theft,
robbery, or adultery; never to break a promise or withhold a pledge; after
which it was their custom to separate, and meet again at a promiscuous,
harmless meal.” In this account,
248
Worship and Discipline.
we see
the meeting on a “ stated day the Lord’s-day; the gathering before sunrise,
that they might not be disturbed by their heathen neighbors; the singing of a
Christian hymn (so hymns, as distinguished from psalms, must date back to the
first century) ; then the participation in the sacrament, with such instruction
as made it a real and efficient agent in the moral development of the
individual and of the Church; afterward, their coming together again for the
love-feast, which made manifest and deepened their Christian fellowship. Such
was the worship of the martyr Church of Bithynia. A picture so pure and fair
must ever attract the thought and secure the reverence of Christians of every
age and clime.
We have
the worship of the early Church of about the same date set forth more in
detail, and yet The Teaching a simplicity as
marked, in the “Teach-
of the
ing of the Twelve,” A. D. no: “But on Twelve. L,ord’s-day do
ye assemble and break
bread,
and give thanks after confessing your transgressions, in order that your
sacrifice may be pure. But every one that hath controversy with his friend, let
him not come together with you until they be reconciled, that your sacrifice may
not be profaned. . . . Now, concerning the Eucharist, thus give thanks; first
concerning the cup : ‘We thank thee, our Father, for the holy wine of David thy
servant, which thou hast made known to us through Jesus thy Servant; to thee be
glory for ever and ever!’ And concerning the broken bread: ‘We thank thee, our
Father, for the life and knowledge which thou hast made known to us through
Jesus thy Servant; to thee be glory forever! Even as this broken bread
Worship
of the Early Church. 249
was
scattered over the hills and became one, so let thy Church be gathered together
from the ends of the earth into thy kingdom; for thine is the glory and the
power, through Jesus Christ forever.’ But let no one eat or drink of your
thanksgiving [Eucharist] except those baptized into the Lord’s name. But after
ye are filled, thus give thanks: ‘ We thank thee, Holy Father, for thy Holy
Name, which thou didst cause to be tabernacled in our hearts, and for the
knowledge and faith and immortality which thou hast made known to us through
Jesus thy Servant; to thee be glory forever. Thou, Master Almighty, didst
create all things for thy Name’s sake; thou gavest food and drink to men for
enjoyment, that they might give thanks to thee; but to us thou didst freely
give spiritual food and drink and life eternal through thy Servant. Before all
things we thank thee that thou art mighty; to thee be glory forever! Remember,
Lord, thy Church, to deliver it from all evil, and to make it perfect in thy
love, and gather it from the four winds, sanctified for thy kingdom, which thou
hast prepared for it; for thine is the power and the glory forever. Let grace
come, and let this world pass away. Hosanna to the Son of David! If any one is
holy, let him come; if any one is not so, let him repent! Maranatha, Amen.’ But
permit the prophets to give thanks to as much as they desire.”
We
observe in these directions the assembling on the Lord’s-day, and the
celebration of the Eucharist, in which confession of sins and reconciliation of
the brethren is marked. There is given a short form of prayer for the
consecration of the wine and the bread;
250
Worship and Discipline.
then the
communion; and after it, the longer prayer of thanksgiving and intercession for
the Church. The whole bears the impress of the gathering together of believers
for prayer. It is not the worship of the great congregation, and has no kinship
to even the oldest liturgies which have come down to us.
Some
twenty-five years later, in 135, Justin Martyr gives, in his “Apology” to the
Emperor Antoninus Justm Pius, a graphic and touching picture of Martyr.
Christian worship. (Apology I, 6, 7, 65. A. N. F., Vol. I, pp. 185 and 186.)
“And on
the day called Sunday, all who live in cities or in the country gather together
in one place, and the memoirs of the apostles and the writings of the prophets
are read as long as the time permits. Then, when the reader has ceased, the
president verbally instructs, and exhorts to the imitation of these good
things. Then we all rise together and pray; and as we before said, when our
prayer is ended, bread and wine and water are brought, and the president in
like manner offers prayers and thanksgivings, according to his ability; and the
people assent, saying, Amen; and there is a distribution to each, and a
participation of that over which thanks have been given, and to those who are
absent a portion is sent by the deacons. And they who are well-to-do and
willing, give what each thinks fit; and what is collected is deposited with the
president, who succors the orphans and the widows, and those who, through
sickness or any other cause, are in want, and those who are in bonds, and the
strangers sojourning among us, and, in a word, takes care of all who are in
need.”
Worship
of the Early Church. 251
The celebration
of the Lord’s Supper is set forth more in detail in the passage to which Justin
refers above: “ Those who are called brethren are assembled, in order that we
may offer hearty prayers in common for ourselves and for the (newly) baptized
(one), and for all others in every place, that we may be counted worthy, now
that we have learned the truth, by our works also to be found good citizens and
keepers of the Commandments, so that we may be saved with everlasting
salvation. Having ended the prayers, we salute one another with a kiss. There
is then brought to the president of the brethren bread and a cup of wine mixed
with water; and he, taking them, gives praise and glory to the Father of the
universe, through the name of the Son and the Holy Ghost, and offers thanks at
considerable length for our being counted worthy to receive these things at his
hands. And when he has concluded the prayer and thanksgivings, all the people
present express their assent by saying, Amen. Those who are called by us
deacons give to each of those present to partake of the bread and the wine
mixed with water, over which the thanksgiving was pronounced, and to those who
were absent they carry away a portion.”
In this
testimony we have set forth the gathering together on Sunday, the Lord’s-day;
the reading of the lessons from the Gospels and prophets; the sermon, and the
exhortation; the rising, and then the common prayer of thanksgiving and
intercession, and the holy kiss; then the consecration of the bread and wine
mixed with water (symbolizing the Divine and human natures of our Lord), by the
president or presbyter, the people joining in the Amen; the com
252
Worship and Discipline.
munion,
the deacons distributing the elements of the sacrament. The president,
presbyter, or bishop, then gives thanks the people as before responding Amen.
We notice the Christian love which prompts a reservation of a portion for those
necessarily absent; then the collection for the orphans, widows, sick, poor,
the captives, or the strangers sojourning among them It will be seen that the
religion of Justin’s time was of a very practical kind, and that the Church
always cared for her own poor.
Order of
From these notices we derive the fol-
worsbip,
lowing order of worship in the Post-Apostolic Church:
First
Part.
1.
Singing a psalm.
2.
Reading—Gospels and Prophets.
3.
Address of the President—exposition and application of the
lesson.
4.
The whole Church rises in prayer and intercession for the
needs and requests of the Church.
Second
Part—The Eucharist.
1.
The kiss of peace—sign of brotherhood.
2.
The offering of the gifts through the deacons (our
collection.)
3.
Prayer of the President. A threefold prayer of thanksgiving
for creation, redemption, and salvation.
Thanksgiving
for the cup.
Thanksgiving
for the bread.
4.
Prayer of consecration of the elements.
5.
Communion—the bread, and then the wine.
6.
Prayer of thanksgiving.
7.
Prayer of intercession—“Remember thy Church, O Lord,” etc.
Chapter
II.
WORSHIP
OF THE OLD CATHOLIC CHURCH.
Our next
period treats of the worship of the old Catholic Church—the period from 170
until 381, or until the settlement of the Arian controversy at the Council of
Constantinople. The Church passed through the Septimian, Decian, and Diocletian
persecutions, and then rejoiced in the imperial favor and patronage of
Constantine, succeeded by the divisions and persecutions of the Arian
controversy. These great changes could not but effect the worship. It is a
great change indeed from the small houses of prayer to the imperial basilicas,
from the persecuted bands of believers to the Church of the court, thronged by
the heathen multitude. These things made necessary some changes, and brought in
more. The authorities are Tertullian, Cyprian, and the second book of the
Apostolic Constitutions. There are two principles of worship in this period,
the second of which entirely supplants the first at its end.
First,
the conception of the early Church that worship is the act of the Church; the
sacrifices which it offers [are Jtself. The only priest between God and his
Church is the Lord Jesus Christ. So Tertullian says: “For this is a spiritual
sacrifice, TwoPrinC|. which does away with the old sacri- pies of
fices. . . . We are true worshipers and Worsh,P* true priests, who,
praying in the spirit, make an offering of prayer, a sacrifice appropriate and
accept-
*53
Worship
and Discipline.
able to
God.” Likewise Irenaeus says: “ Sacrifices do not sanctify the man; but the
conscience of him who offers sanctifies the sacrifice.”
The
second, which at first lay alongside of the former, even in the same minds, was
the conception of worship as consisting in the sacrifice which is the act of
the priest, and in which the priest is the mediator between the Church and God.
The essence and worth of worship are in the sacrifice, which is the service
well pleasing to God, and in the objective performance of which lies its value.
The central act of the sacrament becomes, not the participation of the people,
but the consecration by the priest. Tertullian makes a sharp distinction
between clergy and people, and speaks of offering sacrifice. Cyprian holds that
the bishops succeed to the apostolic office, and speaks of celebrating
sacrifice and offering the cup of tha blood of Christ. To the prevalence of
this view contributed the overthrow and reaction against Montanism, the
exaltation of the episcopate and the clergy, the influence of the catechumenate
forming two classes in the Church, the influence of the penitential discipline,
and the carrying over the ideas of priesthood and sacrifice from the Old
Testament, and, finally, the influence of the secret discipline and the heathen
mysteries.
Tertullian
seems to make the intercessions which the Christians make on behalf of emperors
and the Testimony Peace empire, on behalf of
enemies,
of and
for fruitful seasons. The commem-TertuJHan. oration an(j
intercession for the dead take place in connection with the Eucharist. He
describes the blessing of the cup in the Lord’s Supper as conse-
Old
Catholic Church Worship. 255
cration ;
and the consecration of the bread to be a representation of the Lord’s body he
held to have been accomplished by the Lord’s words, “ This is my body.”
He states
that the Eucharist was administered to all those who were present; for he
recommends those who hesitated to be present at the celebration on fast-days,
for fear of breaking their fast, to be present indeed, but to reserve the
portion which they received. This applies to the bread only. It was consecrated
bread, which some were in the habit of putting to their lips before the
ordinary meal. The Eucharist was received, not at the usual meal-time—as the
Lord’s command seemed to require—but in assemblies, before dawn, and from no
other hands than those of the presidents. It was given into the hands, and the
Christians felt an anxious dread lest any portion of the bread or wine should
fall to the ground; for the holy communion was administered under both kinds.
Prayers, which are called prayers of sacrifice, followed communion.
Cyprian
says that, in the eucharistic action, “ because we make mention of his passion
in all our sac-rices (for the passion of the Lord is the CyprIan
sacrifice which we offer), we ought to do no other thing than he did; for
Scripture says that, so often as we offer the cup in commemoration ^ of the
Lord and his passion, we should do that which it is evident the Lord did
(mixing water with wine).” In the eucharistic action, as well as in prayers,
intercession was made for brethren suffering affliction, whose names were
recited, as were also the names of those who made offerings, and of the dead
who had
256
Worship and Discipline.
departed
uncensured in the communion of the Church. The liturgical office of the priest
seems to be summed up in sanctifying the oblation, in prayers and
supplications; and the brethren are admonished that, when they come together to
celebrate the divine sacrifices with the priest of God, they should not indulge
in noisy and unseemly prayers, a passage which seems to imply that the
congregation took a prominent part in the eucharistic service. The deacons
presented the cup, after consecration, to those who were present, probably in a
certain order; the bread was received into the right hand, and was not
unfre-quently carried home in a casket.
The
Apostolic Constitutions, Book II, says: “After the sacrifice has been made
(consecration of the ele-“TheApos- ments), let each rank severally partake of
tone consti- the Lord’s body and of the precious blood, tutions. approaching in
rank with reverence and godly fear, as to the body of a king; and let the women
draw near with veiled heads, as befits the rank of women. And let the doors be
watched, lest any unbeliever or uninitiated person enter.” By ranks, we are no
doubt to understand the several orders of the clergy and ascetics, and then
laymen and women. Clement, Origen, and Dionysius add nothing worthy of note to
the traits presented by these writers.
From Tertullian
we learn that, in the intercession, prayer was made in commemoration and for
the dead. The consecration of the bread was made in the use of the words, “This
is my body.” We see the strictness of the fasts and the practice of reserving a
portion of the sacrament prevalent in North Africa, and the cele
Old
Catholic Church Worship. 257
bration
of the Eucharist in the early morning, as in Justin’s time. Christians received
the communion in both kinds, and the bread from the hand of the presbyters or
bishop in their own hands. Cyprian confirms the statements of Tertullian, and
makes mention of mixing the wine with the water; and that the office of
presbyter or bishop was confined to the consecration prayers and supplications,
as in the “Teaching of the Twelve,” and in the time of Justin; and the
congregation took part in the prayers after communion, like a modern
prayer-meeting. This freedom of worship seems to have become more formal in the
directions of the “Apostolic Constitutions;” and yet we see that the spirit,
and largely the form, of the service is akin to the earlier usage of the days
of Justin Martyr.
In this
period, Sunday is the day of Christian worship. Wednesdays and Fridays, the
,
Fasting.
days
commemorating the Savior s betrayal and crucifixion, fasting was observed until
three o’clock in the afternoon—the hour of his death. In the forty years’ peace
(263-303), the Chris- order of tians built large churches and had legal
Worship, ownership of their cemeteries. Christian worship in this period, as
set forth in the second book of the “Apostolic Constitutions,” was as follows:
First
Part.
1.
Singing of psalms. Reading two portions from Old Testa
ment.
Singing.
Reading two portions from the New Testament.
2.
Addresses—the bishop or presbyters.
3.
Common Church prayer. The Church standing facing the
east,
with upraised arms; the men with uncovered heads, the women veiled.
17
258
Worship and Discipline.
Second
Part—The Eucharist.
1.
The preparation. Kiss of peace; offering of gifts; Ter-
tullian’s
prayer for the dead.
2.
The consecration. Prayer of praise and thanksgiving;
the
Lord’s Prayer.
(a)
Prayer of praise and intercession by the deacon, re
sponded
to by the Church.
(b)
High priestly benediction through the celebrant.
(c)
Consecration prayer of the bishop.
(d)
The offering—words of institution.
Communion,
closing with a psalm.
Chapter
III.
GREEK
CATHOLIC WORSHIP.
We see an
established and stately ceremonial when we read the description which Cyril,
Bishop of Jerusalem, gives of the liturgy, as it was actually celebrated there,
350-386 A. D.
After
describing the Sursum Corda, Preface, and Sanctus, he proceeds: “ Then, after
hallowing ourselves by these spiritual hymns, we beseech the merciful God to
send forth his Holy Spirit upon the elements displayed upon the table, to make
the bread the body of Christ, and the wine the blood of Christ ; for most
certainly, whatsoever the Holy Spirit may have touched, that is hallowed and
transformed. Then after that the spiritual sacrifice—the unbloody service—is
completed, over that sacrifice of propitiation we beseech God for the common
peace of the Churches; for the welfare of the world; for kings ; for soldiers
and allies; for those in infirmity; for those in special trouble; and generally
we all pray for all who need help; and this sacrifice we offer. Then we make
mention also of those who have gone to rest before us—first patriarchs,
prophets, apostles, and martyrs—that God, at their prayers and intercessions,
would receive our supplications; then also on behalf of the holy fathers and
bishops who have gone to rest before us; and generally of all our body who have
gone to rest before us,—believing that the greatest benefit will accrue to'
their souls for whom the
259
26o
Worship
and Discipline.
supplication
is offered while the holy and most awful sacrifice is displayed. Then follows
the Lord’s Prayer, and the ‘ Holy things to the holy onesafter which ye hear
the voice of the chanter, with divine melody, inviting you to partake of the
holy mysteries, and saying: ‘ O taste, and see how good the Lord is!’ Permit
not the bodily palate—no, but faith unfeigned— to judge of these things; for
they who taste are bidden to taste not of bread and wine, but of the copy
([dvTtTU7toir) of the body and blood of Christ. When you approach, then, draw
near, not with the wrists straight out, not with the fingers spread, but making
the left hand a throne for the right, as for that which is to receive a king,
and hallowing the palm, receive the body of Christ, saying, after the
reception, the Amen. Then, after carefully hallowing thine eyes by the touch of
the holy body, partake of it, giving heed lest any portion of it fall aside and
be lost; for whatsoever thou hast lost, thou hast suffered damage of thine own
members. Then, after communicating of the body, draw near also to the cup of
the blood, not stretching forth thine hands, but bending, and, with an air of
adoration and reverence, saying the Amen, sanctify thyself, partaking also of
the blood of Christ. Further, touching with thy hands the moisture remaining on
thy lips, sanctify both thine eyes and thy forehead, and the other organs of
thy senses. Then, while awaiting the prayer, give thanks unto God, who hath
thought thee worthy of so great mysteries.” We have here a superstitious
reverence for the elements accompanying a teaching of transformation, but not
transubstantiation.
Antioch,
Jerusalem, and Alexandria had their litur
Greek
Catholic Worship. 261
gical
service. We have no proof of a written liturgy before the fifth century. The
great name of this period is Chrysostom; the great Church is St. Sophia, at
Constantinople. The usage of the imperial capital prevailed throughout the
Greek Church, and in all the lands of its conquests, from the Sea of Kamtchatka
to the Adriatic. Its forms of worship are those of the great Sclavic race and
Russian Empire. In the conception of Christian worship of this period,
priesthood and sacrifice are as much essential factors as they were in the Old
Testament theocracy. It completes those by offering a perfect means of
salvation and embracing all men.
The
essence of the worship is the edification of the people. The service is a
symbolic representation. What is executed before the eyes of the The Greek
devout is not the fact itself, but an intima- c^eption tion through symbol and
action. It is not of worship, the representation of the sacrifice of the Son of
God, but the mysterious allegorical representation of the Divine act for the
redemption of the world, accomplished by our Lord in the sacrifice of Golgotha
and in his glorious resurrection. The worship is carried out without the
co-operation of the Church; but it presumes its presence, and without it there
is no sense or aim in the dramatic representation. Hence there are no private
masses. The Greek conception of the Church in worship is a holy fellowship of
initiated or consecrated members, to whom are confided the Divine mysteries,
and which is intrusted with consecrated forms. In this it resembles the heathen
mysteries. The division of the church, the chancel and the sanctuary; the
related action of the priest, deacon,
262
Worship and Discipline.
and
choir; the relation between the prayers and the singing,—remind one of the
antique classic drama and its chorus.
The
Byzantine Church is a many-domed structure; but all parts command a view of the
space in front of Description of the altar, which is the stage for the per-the
worship, formance of the worship. The women occupy the galleries; the men, the
floor. A wall separates the sanctuary with the altar from the chancel in front
of it and the church without. This wall is covered with paintings—Christ on the
right hand, Mary on the left, both surrounded with a band of apostles and
saints. The frames of these pictures are covered with gold-leaf and ornamented
with precious stones. Before this pictured wall, and separated from the rest of
the church by a low rail, is the space for the action of the drama of worship.
Right and left are great candles. In the light of these, through the splendor
of the gold-and-silver-adorned pictures, the priests and deacons exercise their
office. At their side stands the choir of singers. The wall inclosing the
sanctuary is pierced for three sets of doors from the chancel. The large ones
in the center are called the royal doors, and are used only by the priests to
pass through, except in Easter-week, when the faithful may enter by them.
Usually, they use the doors at the side. Within the sanctuary, at the left or
north side, is the table for the offerings; at the right, the diaconicum, or
clothing-room for the officiating priest. In the midst is the altar, which
symbolizes the holy sepulcher. The silk altar-cloth is consecrated by the
bishop. On it is represented the burial of Christ. One of the four ends must
contain a martyr’s relics.
Greek
Catholic Worship. 263
A cross
lies on the altar, before which are lighted candles. On the altar are also the
house of the sacrament for the consecrated bread, most richly wrought, and a
copy of the Gospels. The celebration of divine worship begins on Saturday
evening, the action representing the history of redemption, from the creation
until the birth of Christ. The service at six o’clock on Sunday morning
represents the history from the birth of Christ until his entrance upon his
ministry. The chief service, at ten o’clock A. M., represents the life of
Christ, from the beginning of his ministry until his ascension.
The
following is the order of the service according to the liturgy of Chrysostom,
which is Order o# most generally used in the Greek Church, ^e Greek and which
dates from the eighth century, Church, though with some later additions, and
shows the full development of the liturgical tendencies of the closing
centuries of this period:
A. Mass
for the catechumens. (The cathechumens are those under instruction, or on
probation, in the Church.)
(a)
The officiating priest kisses the altar and Gospel.
(b)
The Litany chanted by the deacons, responded by the
choir
(“Kvpie eXeqoov).
(c) Antiphonal
recitation of the holy praises, like a sum
mary
preaching of the gospel.
(1d)
Little Entrance—The Gospels were joyfully borne into the church; choir; hymns
to the Trinity.
(e)
Reading Scriptures.
1.
Epistle through celebrant; responsive hallelujah;
Psalmody.
2.
Gospel through the deacon ; responsive, “ Praise to
thee, O
Christ!” blessing with trikerion and dike-rion (two or three fingers);
dismissal of catechumens.
264
Worship and Discipline.
B. Mass
for the faithful.
I.
Preparation and dressing; silent prayer; spreading
out of
the antimensium (altar-cloth) upon the altar; choir, song of the cherubim;
kindling of the incense; washing of the hands. . Great
Entrance—Gifts joyfully placed upon the altar. Shutting of the holy doors.
Silent
prayer.
II.
Eucharist. .
(a)
Creed—the constitution of catechumens.
(b)
Canon—
1.
Apostolic benediction.
2.
Prsefatio.
3.
Prayers of the Canon.
(aa)
Thanks for creation; sanctus.
(1bb)
Thanks for redemption; offering; response, ‘‘Thine of thine;” oblation.
(1cc)
Consecration; epiklesis (invocation) of the Holy Ghost.
(1dd)
Commemoration (all kneel); hymns of thanks.
(ee)
Prayer for the Church triumphant.
(ff)
Prayer for the communicants.
(1c)
Communion—“ The holy things to the holy ones choir singing.
(d)
Post-communion—Exhibition of the elements; bringing back of the table of
oblation ; choir, Psalm xlvii; prayer of thanksgiving; benediction ;
recitation, Psalms xxxiv and cxiii. Distribution of gifts (antidoron).
Removal
of the priestly garments. -
Conclusiou;
dismissal.
Of the
effect of such ritualistic service—of the exaltation of ritual as the means of
instruction and grace for the people—Professor Harnack says: “ Whoever to-day studies
the condition of the Greek religion among the orthodox and Monophysites—not the
Greek
Catholic Worship.
religion
of the ignorant and common people, but also the ritual of worship, the magic
ceremonies, and the
representations
of the common priests and monks_
he will,
at many places, have the impression that religion can scarcely sink to lower
depths. It has really become superstition—a chaos of mixed and wholly
heterogeneous but firmly welded sentences and forms; an opaque, variegated, and
verbose ritual, highly treasured because it binds the people and the race to
each other and to their past, but of which only the inferior parts are yet
living. . . . Polytheism, in the full sense of the word, is re-established.
Religion has lost contact with spiritual truth. . . . The ritual may always set
forth, it may itself include, the sublimest and loftiest thoughts; yet, as a
spiritual religion, it has no place, and is a degeneration.”
Yet no
one who has seen a congregation at a service of the Greek Catholic Church but
must admire their reverence and devotion. Their singing, without the aid of any
instrument, is the most magnificent heard in any Christian worship. Among their
clergy are many men of large intelligence and deep piety. They have the
Scriptures in the language of the people. We can but think that there is among
them a greater latent force, which might be used for the upbuilding of the
kingdom of God, than anywhere else in Christendom.
Chapter
IV.
ROMAN
CATHOLIC WORSHIP.
In the
Roman Catholic Liturgy there is a real, not symbolic, offering of the New
Testament sacrifice, through the priesthood of the New Testament theocracy. All
is centered in a real sacri^
The Roman
. . i
Catholic
fice, the repetition of that of Golgotha.
Conception
daily renewed and offered before God.
* Worship
is no longer the act of the congregation, but that of the priest; and its
significance as a means of grace is the real mediation of the priesthood. It
needs neither the co-operation nor presence of the Church, but is of value in
itself; hence the practice of private masses. The Church finds its center in
the altar; prayer is concentrated on the sacrifice; and all is the
divinely-ordained worship of God.
We give
now a comparative view of the chief liturgies. First, the Greek and Roman
Catholic in comparison comparison until the Canon of the mass, of the areek or
eucharistic service proper. Then we Catholic have a comparative view of the old
and Service. simpler Ambrosian and Gregorian Canons ; then the Mozarabic and
Ephesian, from which comes the liturgy of the Church of England; and finally
the usage of the Roman Catholic and Greek Churches.
266
Roman
Catholic Worship. 267
Greek.
Roman Cathouc.
I. ACT OF
PREPARATION.
i.
Preparation, of Liturgicai, Persons.
(a)
Prayer before the pictures. (a) Orationes prseparatoriae—
(b)
Entrance to the sanctuary. touching the
hands.
(c)
Putting on the vestments. (b) Putting on the vestments.
(1c)
Spiritual preparation— Graduale antiphon, Con-fiteor.
2.
Preparation of Liturgicai, Pi,ace.
Pros
Komidie (entrance). Preparation of the gifts. (a) Cutting out of the Lamb.
Entrance
to the place of sacrifice with prayer.
(*)
with
(c)
Piercing
the Lamb the holy lance.
Mixing of
water and of wine.
Assembly
of the Church in prayer about the Lamb.
Placing
the gifts on the (a) Discus. (b)
Covering
with the holy (c) star, holy covering, in- (d) cense. (e)
Salutatio.
Altar
prayer. Ascendens ad altare. Inclinatus super altare. Osculatur altare.
II.
SERVICE OF THE WORD. A. Introduction.
1. Introit sentence.
2. Psalm.
1. Ektenie (a litany).
2.
Antiphons.
3.
Beatitudes.
With
Gloria Patri.
Little
Entrance with the 3. Kyrie (rest of the Ektenie Gospels.
corresponds with II A,
Trisagion—“Holy,
holy, 1-3.)
holy.”
Gloria in Excelsis.
268
Worship and Discipline.
Greek.
Roman
Catholic.
i.
Salutatio.
B.
Reading oe the Scriptures.
i.
Salutatio.
Prokeimenon
(introduc- Collect, tory) passage from the 2. Epistle.
Old
Testament. 2. New Testament.
(1aa)
Epistle.
Graduale
and verse —
Hymn.
Hallelujah
(or Tractus)—
choral
response. Sequence.
Psalmody.
Hallelujah.
(bb)
Gospels.
3.
Gospels.
“ Praise
to thee, O Christ!”
C.
Preaching oe the Word—Exposition.
Ektenie
(Litany).
Sermon
III. THE
EUCHARIST.
A.
Offering.
(aa)
Constituting the offering of the Church.
Silent
prayer.
Handwashing—I
n c e n s e
(hVTTjpiOV.)
{bb)
Offering of gifts.
Great
entrance.
Mere
liturgical, formal, and ceremonial representation of the elements.
The offering of prayer
Note.—Introit
is the anthem at the beginning of the Eucharistic service. Antiphon is a psalm,
chant, or hymn, sung responsively by two sections of the choir. Confiteor is a
form of general confession of sins. Collect is a short prayer. Graduale is an
anthem sung after the epistle. Sequence is words set to the last notes
prolonged of the hallelujah. Tractus is a single voice singing the psalm in the
midst of the choir. Epiklesis is an invocation, usually of the Holy Ghost.
Ektenie
(Litany),
for the
bread, water, wine. Epiklesis of the Holy Ghost. Purification gifts. Prayer for
the acceptance of the Secretu. Intercession for those excluded from the
fellowship of sacrifice.
Roman
Catholic Worship. 269
Hence
arose the great families of liturgies; for the service of the Christian Church
from the days of Constantine to those of Luther was a liturgical service, and
came to be a highly-enriched and The Great elaborate ceremonial. This is still
the Liturgies, case in the Greek, Oriental, and Roman Catholic Churches; in a
lesser degree in the Church of England and her descendants who use her liturgy.
There can
be no question of the impression of such a liturgical service on the minds of
the unlettered and untutored sons of the forests, who took the place of the
proconsuls and patricians of Rome; or of the hold that the great Christian
truths so often repeated took on them. And there is a place in all worship for
impressiveness and grandeur. “ The Lord is in his holy temple,” is a
magnificent conception, a glorious reality. But with the service in a foreign
tongue, it is easy to overestimate the educational or spiritual benefit
received, and the tendency to tediousness and unmeaning repetition is great. We
can only sketch the characteristics of these great liturgies, and their use in
the Greek and Roman and the Episcopal Churches of Protestantism. For while
Presbyterianism has its forms of prayer and order of service, they have been
far more individual and of the local Church than common to the whole ecclesiastical
body or communion. For more convenient reference, we place these directories of
worship in a table, side by side, so that the reader may readily observe
wherein they are identical, and wherein they differ.
2 70
THE GREAT
LITURGIES.
AMBROSIAN
AND
GREGORIAN.
Sursum Corda.
Preface.
Sanctus.
Prayer
for the liv- g ing and for ac- 5 ceptance of the • Sacrifice.
Pm
GALLACIAN,
MOZARABIC,
AND
EPHESIAN,
f Prefatory Prayer. Introit.
Gloria in
Excelsis.
EPISTLE
AND
GOSPEL.
•
a
3
*C
rt
Oblation
of Ele .2 ments. 'g
O
NICENE
CREED.
Expulsion
of Catechumens.
Oblation.
Prayer
for the Dead.
Preface
to the d Iyord’s Prayer. © Embolismus. .c The Lord’s Prayer.
a
Communion.
*3
Pray e
Church.
TRIUMPHAL
Prayer
for Quick and Dead.
Kiss of
Peace.
COMMEMOR
ATION OF INSTITUTION.
Elevation
and Fraction of Host into nine parts. Invocation.
LORD’S
PRAYER. O
a
Embolismus. Union of Consecrated Elements.
COMMUNION.
Prayer.
Dismissal
by the Deacon’s Declaration.
The
Mysteries are completed.
ROMAN.
Prefatory
Prayer. Introit.
Gloria in
Excelsis.
EPISTLE
AND GOSPEL.
NICENE
CREED.
Oblation
of Elements.
r for
the-j f
h' s{
3AL HYMN,
dt
2 I
Sursum Corda.
TRIUMPHAL
HYMN.
Comm
emoration of the Living (Te igitur.)
WORDS OF
INSTITUTION.
Oblation.
Com
memoration of the Dead. Union of Consecrated Elements. Elevation.
LORD’S
PRAYER.
Embolismus.
COMMUNION
Thanksgiving.
Dismissal with Blessing.
GREEK
ORDO.
THE GREAT
EU-CHARISTIC PRAYER.
1.
The Preface. [Sursum Corda.]
2.
The Prayer of the Triumphal Hymn. [Preface.]
3.
TheTriumphal Hymn., [Sanctus.]
4.
Commemoration of our Lord's Life.
5.
Comm emoration of Institution.
THE
CONSECRATION.
6.
Words of Institution of the Bread.
7.
Words of Institution of the Wine.
8.
Oblation of the Body and Blood.
9.
Intro ductory Prayer for the Descent of the Holy Ghost.
10.
Prayer for the Change of Elements.
THE GREAT
INTERCESSORY PRAYER.
11.
General Intercession for the Quick and the Dead.
12.
Prayer before the Ivord’s Prayer.
13.
The Lord's Prayer.
14.
The Embolismus.
THE
COMMUNION.
15.
The Prayer of Inclination.
16.
T h e Holy Things to the Holy Ones and the Elevation of the
Host.
17.
The Fraction.
18.
The Confession.
19.
The Communion.
20.
IheAntidoron and Prayer of Thanksgiving.
Roman
Catholic Worship.
Let us
take the Ambrosian and Gregorian form as the simplest. It begins with the
sursum cor da, “ Lift up your hearts.” Then the preface—that is, a form serving
as an introduction to the anaphora or missa fideliam (mass for believers),
consisting of the benediction, as in the Liturgy of St. James, “The love of the
Lord and Father, the grace of the Son and God, and the fellowship and gift of
the Holy Ghost be with you all.” Second, then the sursum cor da and the
response, “ We lift them up unto the Lord ” (Habeamus ad Do??imum). Third,
thanksgiving (Deo gratias—eucharistia), “Let us give thanks unto the Lord!”
Response, “ It is meet and right ”—Liturgy of St. Chrysostom—“ It is meet and
right to worship Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in the consubstantial and
undivided Trinity.” Fourth, the contestation, the preface proper and equal to
the Great Entrance of the Greeks, was originally bringing in of gifts. Roman
words: “ It is very meet and right, just and wholesome we should always and
everywhere give thanks to thee, O Holy Lord, Father Almighty, Eternal God,
through our Lord Christ,” the meet and right of Ritual of the Church of
England. Then follows the sanctusy “ Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty.”
(Trisagion.)
Oblation
is a consecration of the elements, sometimes a short prayer being added.
Preface to the Lord’s Prayer, the Roman form is: “Let us pray. Being taught
with the precepts of salvation, and trained with the divine institution, let us
dare to speak,”—the Lord’s Prayer, by the priest. Embo-lismus; that is, an
inserted prayer—the name given to the prayer which in almost all ancient
liturgies
272
Worship and Discipline.
follows
the Lord’s Prayer, founded on one or both of the last petitions. It was usually
repeated by the priest in a low voice, symbolizing the silence in which our
Lord lay in the grave. From the Church of Jerusalem we have the following form
: “And lead us not into temptation, O Lord, the Lord of hosts, who knowest our
infirmity; but deliver us from the evil one, and his works, and every assault
and will of his, for the sake of the Holy Name which is called upon our
lowliness!”
The
Ephesian liturgy is next, from which comes that of the Church of England, which
is the source of that of the Methodist Episcopal Church. The following elements
are added to the Ambrosian rite. The introit is the anthem at the beginning of
the eucharistic office. There is added:
Gloria in
Excelsis.
Epistle
and Gospel.
Nicsean
Creed. Expulsion of catechumens.
Kiss of
peace. ,
Elevation
and fraction of the host (the consecrated bread) into nine parts. Union of the
consecrated elements.
Prayer.
Dismissal.
In the
Roman service are added no new elements, though there is given a different
order. The same is true of the Greek ritual, though there is a greater
elaboration of the parts.
A
scholarly American writer has said: “The thought of the liturgy of the Greek
Church is the Divine manifestation in effecting the work of human redemption,
extending from the act of creation, through all the intervening dispensations,
to the life
Roman
Catholic Worship. 273
of
Christ, from his birth to his glorification. Every prayer, lesson, antiphonal,
or chant; every posture, action, change of vestments, shifting of colors, etc.,
are so many symbols to illustrate the unfolding history of redemption. In the
Latin Church the entire liturgy centers in one thought of supreme interest—the
atoning sacrifice of Christ—veritably repeated at every mass. With variety in
secondary parts, during the changing festivals of the year, the point around
which the whole system revolves, and toward which every member points, is the
sacrificial offering of Christ in the mass by the officiating priest, and the
appropriating of its benefits by the worshiping Church.”
In regard
to the doctrine underlying all this ritual, Cyprian is the first who speaks of
the priest offering a sacrifice in the sacrament of the Lord’s Doctrine
Supper. The fathers inclining toward of the transubstantiation are Gregory of
Nyssa Sacranient* and Chrysostom in the East, and Hilary and Ambrose
in the West. In the symbolic school are reckoned Basil, Eusebius, Gregory
Nazianzen, and Augustine.
Gregory
the Great taught that in the Lord’s Supper the sacrifice of Christ is actually
repeated, and his doctrine has become the (Roman) standard.
Not until
the fourth century was it regarded as essential that both celebrant and
recipient should be fasting at the time of communion. Tertulliau and Cyprian
seem to favor it, and it was commanded by Basil, Chrysostom, Ambrose, and
Augustine.
Baptism
was the most significant rite of Bapt|5m the Christian Church. It
marked the decisive moment when the heathen broke with his old life
18
274
Worship and Discipline.
and
society, the idolater with his old religion and worship; the hour when he put
on the new life, became a member of the new society, and an heir of heaven. The
Church, at the administration of this sacrament, prayed that he might receive
the Holy Ghost; the presbyter or bishop placed his hands on his head, in token
of the bestowal of the heavenly gift. This afterward became separated from
baptism, and became the rite of confirmation. The candidate, on his part,
renounced the devil and his works, the world and the flesh, and professed his
acceptance of the common faith of the Church in the Creed used at baptism.
Those to be baptized were clothed in white, and all the surroundings were such
as to lend impressiveness to the act, as we see in the baptism of Clovis, pp.
101-2. The effect upon the recipient can not be imagined by one brought up in a
Christian land. All former sins were believed to be washed away. So taught the
“Shepherd” of Hermas, 130. Later, a magical efficacy was attached to the
sacrament, like the initiation to the heathen mysteries. It was spoken of as “
initiation,” “ illumination,” etc. Most of the fathers, after 200, taught
baptismal regeneration. It remained the turning-point in the life of the
believer— the decisive breaking from the old life, and the beginning of the
new.
' The
Kucharist was first celebrated on the L,ord’s-day. Then, also, on the
fast-days—Wednesdays and
Time and
Fridays; in the Bast, also on Saturday.
Method of
When Christianity became supreme, daily Celebration. ceiebration
became usual. In the Apostolic Age, the hour was at the evening meal; Pliny
says before dawn. In the third century, Tertullian,
Roman
Catholic Worship. 275
Cyprian,
and others speak of the same practice. Cyprian, the morning for public and
solemn communion. When the Church triumphed, set hours began to be appointed.
They were at first nine o’clock; on ordinary feast-days, at twelve; on
fast-days, at three in the afternoon.
It is
believed no regularly-prescribed liturgies were in use in the ante-Nicaean
period. No elevation of the host, or its adoration, are known in the writings
and monuments of the first six centuries; no use of ceremonial lights until
after 300.—Jerome favors them, 378; no use of incense for the first four
hundred years. The Agapae, or love-feasts, continued to be observed until 391;
no private mass, where the priest alone received the elements, in this period.
The celebrating of the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper was (29-350) the supreme
object of all meetings of the saints.
Should
any one dwelling in town absent himself for three Sundays from the Church, he
should, for a time, be suspended from communion. The laity received both bread
and wine in the sacrament of the holy communion until the twelfth century.
Adult
baptism was the more common for the first six centuries. It was often postponed
until just before death. The nature and duration of Baptlsm>
instruction before baptism varied with circumstances—from a few days to two or
three years. Infant baptism is attested from 250. From the fourth century, the
propriety of infant baptism was unquestioned, and the practice was not unusual.
The duty of performing baptism pertained to the episcopal office, and could be
discharged by the bishop, and
276
Worship and Discipline.
by those only
to whom his right was delegated. So in the East and West, in the first six
centuries, though others, even laymen, baptized in cases of necessity.
The
apostolic mode, ordinarily, was by immersion;* but this was not exclusively the
case. The “ Teaching of the Twelve,” ch. vii, thus provides: “And concerning
baptism, thus baptize ye: Having first said all these things, baptize into the
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, in living water.
But if thou have not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst
not in cold, in warm. But if thou have not either, pour out water thrice upon
the head into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
But before the baptism, let the baptizer fast, and the baptized, and whatever
others can; but thou shalt order the baptized to fast one or two days before.”
The early
Church practiced trine immersion. Dr. Bennett says: “ We are compelled to
believe that, while immersion was the usual mode of administrating baptism from
the first to the twelfth century, there was very early a large measure of
Christian liberty allowed in the Church, by which the mode of baptism could be
adjusted to the peculiar circumstances. To this conclusion we are led by the
combined testimony of the ‘ Teaching of the Twelve/ of the decisions of the
Church fathers and the Councils, and of the uniform art representations.”
Preaching
took place on Sundays, fast-days, great festivals, and fasts in Lent. In
Africa, the preacher sat, while the congregation stood. In the ’ East, both
sat, as did Chrysostom. Preaching was, in the earliest age, especially the duty
of the
# See
Appendix, Note B.
Roman
Catholic Worship. 277
bishop.
It was reserved wholly to him in the African Churches. In the East, presbyters
were more generally permitted to preach. Chrysostom preached most of his
sermons as a presbyter. Primarily, the power and duty was in the bishop; but he
might, and usually did, authorize presbyters who were capable to preach. Monks
and other laymen, as Origen, were sometimes permitted to preach in the East,
but not in the West. No sermons by any Roman bishop are extant before Leo I.
The apostles, bishops, and presbyters of the earlier ages—Origen, Augustine,
Tertullian, Athanasius, and Jerome—were extempore preachers; Basil, the two
Gregories, and Chrysostom preached written sermons. Preaching passed into
disuse in the Roman Church, toward the end of this period. The influence of
barbarians who could not understand Latin, and preachers who could not use the
Teutonic tongues, contributed to this result.
The
earliest feasts of the Church—the Passover, Pentecost, and Easter—were observed
from its birth. With the former would be associated the The church events of
our Lord’s passion, and with the Year* latter his ascension. Palm
Sunday was observed in the Greek Church in the fourth century. In the early
part of the third century, we find notices of the fast before Easter. Irenseus
and Tertullian speak of it as a fast of one or two days, or of forty hours.
Generally, it corresponded to the time the Savior lay in the grave. Toward the
end of this period, it was a Lenten fast of approximately forty days. Leo I
speaks of ember days—that is, days of fasting—in relation to the four seasons.
They seem not to have secured any general observance in this period. The
278
Worship and Discipline.
Roman
custom was to observe as fast-days the Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays of
the first week in Lent, and the weeks succeeding the festival of Pentecost, and
the 14th of September, and the 13th of December. Kpiphany—the feast of the
manifestation of God at the baptism of our Lord—was observed in the East, from
about the close of the second century, on the 6th of January. Christmas is
earliest noticed as a festival of the birth of the Lord Jesus Christ, on
December 25th, in the pontificate of Liberius, 352-366, at Rome. It was not
celebrated independently of Epiphany, in the East, until the last quarter of
the fourth century. In the West, the feast of Epiphany was celebrated from 360.
It came, in that part of the Church, to refer to the visit of the magi. The
Christmas festival, extending to January 6th in the latter part of this period,
came to be preceded by fifty days of special prayer, known as the Advent.
Sunday,
from apostolic times, was observed as the Lord’s-day—the day of Christian
worship. It was made a day of rest from labor—all but
The Week.
, J _ . , , ,
.
that
necessary for agriculture—by a law of Constantine, 321. Wednesdays and Fridays
were the ordinary fast-days of the Church.
Hours
The hours for prayer observed by those
of
Prayer, especially given to the religious life and in the monasteries were:
1.
Nocturnas,.............12 Midnight.
2.
Matina*L,audes,...........3 A. M.
3.
Prima,...............6 A. M.
4.
Tertia,...............9 A. M.
5.
Sextia,...............12 A. M.
6.
Nona,...............3 P. M.
7.
Vespers,..............6 P. M.
8.
Completorium or compline,.....9 P. M.
Chapter
V.
THE
DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH.
The Church
being a voluntary association, and inviting all to receive the gospel and
become members of the society of believers, there must D,sc,p„ne
ln be some means of discipline to preserve the Early the moral purity of
the brotherhood. The Church-method of Peter, in dealing with Ananias
and Sap-phira, could not be of universal application. Therefore, the Church,
from the first, possessed and exercised this right in accordance with the
precept of our Lord in Matt, xviii, 15-17. Paul gives an instance in detail in
the fifth chapter of First Corinthians, and
2 Cor.
ii, 5-10. He lays down the general rule in
2 Thess.
iii, 6, 14, 15. With this agrees 3 John 10. The exclusion from the Church, and
so throwing back into the world, is called delivering over to Satan, because
the powers which rule the moral world outside of the Church are considered as
hostile to God. This act, and the release from it, or absolution, is the act of
the Church—generally of the body of presbyters, under the direction of the
bishop. Of course, the apostles, as the source of the gospel preaching, had
original jurisdiction in cases of discipline. The offender was expected to
acknowledge his sin with public humiliation and penitence. This confession and
satisfaction to the community or brotherhood which he had disgraced by his fall
were
279
280
Worship and Discipline.
the
indispensable conditions of his absolution. The gross or mortal sins were
idolatry, murder, adultery, and fornication. With idolatry was, of course,
classed apostasy, and, later, heresy.
The early
view was, that all sins are forgiven in baptism. Hermas, A. D. 130, held that
it was possible to forgive sin—gross sin—once after baptism, the view generally
being that Christ might forgive sins at the end of life, but that the Church
could not, though Irenseus teaches that for “ those who now sin Christ will die
no more, but will come as judge and demand an account; therefore, be not proud,
but afraid, lest, after having known Christ, doing something displeasing to
God, we should have no further remission of sins.”
The
Montanist controversy makes an era in the history of penitence. Previous to
150, there is no Effect of instance of readmission to the Church of Montanism a
gross sinner, except through the intercession of a confessor or
prophet. To that date, public penance was a help, but not a commandment. So
Tertullian denies that the bishop, representing the Church, can exercise
discipline, the power of binding and loosing—or the power of the keys, as it is
called from Matt, xvi, 19; xviii, 18; and John xx, 23—but that the Holy Spirit
in the Church can do this only through the Montanist prophet. Callistus, Bishop
of Rome, declared that he conferred pardon for the sins of adultery and
fornication on the ground of repentance rendered. Tertullian denounced this
action; and Hippolytus was driven to the formation of a schismatic Church; the
latter expressly saying that Callistus is the first to extend such forgiveness.
The
Discipline
of the Church.
281
power of
the bishop prevailed, and Montanism was overthrown. The Decian persecution
caused a further advance in Church discipline. Cyprian is the father of the
penitential discipline of the ancient Church, and it is closely connected with
his views of the powers of the bishop and the doctrine of the sacrifices in the
sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.
The
fundamental rule of the priestly system of penance is, that the Spirit
accompanies the office, irrespective of the character of the person Penitence
who fills it. As a consequence, Church after penitence came to be looked upon
as a 250 A' D‘ healing medicinal act, more than as
showing repentance, or as a penalty for gross sins. The penitential system,
founded from 250-500, then began to decay, and after 600, was all but dead.
We have,
up to the beginning of this period—(a) Suspension from communion for a fixed
period; (&) This suspension from communion and from the prayers of the
Church, together with definite acts of penance; (c) Excommunication, either
final, or with the condition that the offender might be readmitted by means of
penitence.
At the
time of Cyprian, the sentence of penitence did not exceed one or two years. It
was regarded as a privilege and concession, cautiously granted, as it was
administered but once. Penitence was voluntary for the most part, the time of
its duration being determined by the earnestness of the repentance and the
discretion of the bishop. Of this discipline, Tertullian and Cyprian speak in
terms which show its depth and genuineness.
“
Penitence is a discipline for the abasement and
282
Worship and Discipline.
humiliation
of man, enjoining such conversation as Tertullian on inviteth mercy. It is
directed, also, even Penitence. jn matter of dress and food—to lie
in sackcloth and ashes; to hide his body in filthy garments ; to cast down his
spirit with mourning; to exchange for severe treatment the sins which he hath
committed; for the rest, to use simple things for meat and drink, to-wit, not
for the belly’s, but for the soul’s sake; for the most part, also, to cherish
prayer by fasts; to groan, to weep, and to mourn night and day unto the Lord
his God; to throw himself upon the ground before the presbyters, and to fall on
his knees before the beloved of God, to enjoin all the brethren to bear the
message of his prayer for mercy.” (Tertullian, De Pcenitentia, ch. ix.)
“ Men
must pray and entreat with increased continuance ; pass the days in mourning,
and the nights in vigils and weeping; employ their whole
* time in
tears and lamentations; lie stretched on the ground; prostrate themselves among
ashes, sackcloth, and dust; after Christ’s raiment lost, wish for no garment
beside; after the devil’s feast, must voluntarily fast; give themselves to
righteous works, whereby sins are cleansed; apply themselves to frequent
almsgiving, whereby souls are freed from death.” (Cyprian, De Lapsis, ch. xxi.)
The
penitential discipline of the Church, or public penance, was elaborated at the
Councils of Neo-Csesa-The rea and Ancyra, in 314. This took the
Penitential place of the indefinite period of penitence System. £xe(j
by ^e earnestness of the repentance of the penitent and discretion of the
bishop. Now penitence became a penal sentence, which was to be
Discipline
of the Church. 283
worked out
by certain appointed stages—:so many years to be passed in one stage
under certain conditions ; so many years in another, with a relaxation of the
conditions, the latter stage not to be begun until the earlier one was
completed; and so, step by step, the outcast was restored to full communion.
This system lost its vigor in the early part of the fifth century, through the
abolition of the office of penitential presbyter, who had charge of it. The
system, with its stations, was as follows:
The first
station was that of the mourners (fleyites). The position of mourners was the
position of those whose penitence had already begun. The Mourners
mention of the name is rare among early ' authorities; and it is not likely
that the thing itself was frequently imposed. It was a part of the scheme and
framework of the system, held in reserve rather than commonly inflicted. In the
appointment of the ancient churches, there was an open area or space set apart
in front of the door. All who entered the church necessarily entered through
this area or approach. This was the place assigned to the mourners, and beyond
it they were forbidden to pass. The mourners, being placed outside the very
doors of the church, could take no part in what was going on inside. They were
cut off from all sacred rites whatever. They could hear neither the reading of
the Scriptures nor the preaching; still less could they join in the prayers and
the sacred mysteries.
There is
no express mention of any austerities peculiar to the second station. The
hearer (b) Hearers is within the door, in the narthex, or porch, (Audientesi.
of the church, where he could listen to the Scrip
284
Worship and Discipline.
tures and
the sermon. In some buildings he might be able to hear while standing in the
vestibule; but, as a rule, his place must have been assigned within the
building, at the lower end of the church.
The
Kneelers occupied the third station in the Eastern system. In the Western, it
was not only the Kneelers principal, but in general practice must have
(Substrati), been the only one, except, perhaps, that of Bystanders. Their
position was within the door of the church, so that they might go out with the
catechumens. They stood within the walls of the building, in the part below the
ambo or reading-desk. The kneelers were again recognized as a part, though an
erring part, of the Christian fold. The delinquent, in this stage of penitence,
was arrayed in sackcloth. Sozomen (vii, 16) gives this account: “In the Western
Church, and especially at Rome, the place in which the penitents stand is
visible to all. They take up their position in it, distressed and sorrowful.
When the liturgy is finished, as they may not share in the public mysteries.
they throw themselves prostrate on the ground with cries and tears, when the
bishop, in his compassion, coming to them, falls likewise by their side,
raising his voice with theirs, till at length the whole congregation is
dissolved in tears. After this, the bishop is the first to rise, and to take
them by the hand; and when he has offered the prayers suitable for sinners
performing penance, he dismisses them from the church.’’
The last
penitential station was that of Bystanders. Bystanders ^ey stood
together with the faithful, com' .Consis- municating with them, but in prayer
only ; tentes) kejng dismjssed
before the eucha-
ristic
service, their position was above the ambo.
Discipline
of the Church. 285
%At the
end of our period, public penance came into disuse. There were exhortations to
private confession, but this was voluntary. There is no trace of compulsory
auricular confession in this period.
Such has
been the course of the development of Christian worship and the discipline of
penitence in the ancient Church. Through this, which Effect of h lay
nearest the people’s heart and daily life Discipline and thought, rather than
through any doc- of Penitence* trinal error, came the superstitions
and corruptions of the later centuries of this period. The discipline of
penance was looked upon as a medicine for the sins of the daily life. Pardon
for sins after baptism was supposed to be secured by daily repentance and
prayer— the five prayers of the Church, its fasts and offerings. In time, to
the reception of the sacrament and as a preparation thereto, came the discipline
of penitence, which, not in this period but in the Church of the Middle Ages,
developed into the compulsory practice of auricular confession; i. e.y
private confession to a priest.
The
effect this discipline was supposed to secure was peace, of soul to the
penitent. On the contrary, the peace and joy of God’s children fled from his
Church. It has been so in every age. Spiritual advice and counsel are given the
believer in the fellowship and watch-care of the Christian Church. Such counsel
and admonition form one of the highest privileges and most solemn duties of the
Christian pastorate. But God alone can forgive sin, and the assurance of his
Spirit can alone comfort the penitent and the sorrowing. The High-Church
movement of our time, with its sacramental system of doctrine, its elab-
286
Worship and Discipline.
orate
ritual and minute ceremonial, has sought to revive a system of Church penitence
and priestly confession and absolution. With it, as with its prototype in the
early Church, success has been the death-blow to Christian peace and joy. The
father of this movement in Protestantism was Dr. E. B. Pusey. That he was a man
of real holiness of life only makes more evident the tendency of these
teachings. His own words will show most faithfully the effect of this system.
Of his own religious experience he writes, September 26, 1840: “ My dear wife’s
illness [she died a year before the date of this letter] first brought to me
what has since been deepened by the review of my past life; how, amid special mercies
and guardianship of God, I am scarred all over and seamed with sin, so that I
am a monster to myself. I loathe myself; I can feel of myself only like one
covered with leprosy from head to foot. Guarded as I have been, there is no one
with whom I do not compare myself, and find myself worse than they; and yet.
thus wounded and full of sores, I am so shocked at myself that I dare not lay
my wounds bare to any one: I dare not so shock people.”
After
choosing his intimate friend, Keble, the author of the “ Christian Year,” as
his confessor, he framed a set of rules for his daily life. The following are
some of them: “ To aim to offer all acts to God, and to pray for his grace in
them before commencing them; as, conversations; while people are coming into a
room or before I enter a room; each separate letter which I write; each course
of study; and in the course of each of these, if continued long; and His pardon
at the end, and note down omissions. Never,
Discipline
of the Church. 287
if I can,
to look at beauty of nature without inward confession of uuworthiness. To make
mental acts, from time to time, of being inferior to every one I see. To drink
cold water at dinner, as only fit to be where there is not a drop ‘to cool this
flame.’ To make the fire to me from time to time the type of hell. Always to
lie down in bed, confessing that I am unworthy to lie down except in hell, but
so praying to lie down in the Everlasting Arms.” He desired “ not to smile if
he could help it, except with children, or when it seems a matter of love, like
one just escaping out of the fire.” He wore a hair shirt in the daytime unless
ill, used a hard seat by day and a hard bed by night. He considered his wife’s
death, his suspension from preaching by the university for teaching false
doctrine, and the death of his daughter, as punishments for his sins. However
much there is to be granted to that spiritual vision which, the clearer it
becomes and the nearer we get to God, leads to the abhorrence of one’s self in
dust and ashes; and however valuable are these habits of self-recollection and
self-restraint to any real holiness of character, and however much better
overscrupulousness may be than a careless and ease-loving forgetfulness of God
in the daily life.—yet it must be said that there is no warrant for this
legalism and lifelong aspect of penitence in the New Testament. Paul passed out
of the seventh into the eighth chapter of Romans^ and did not wear a hair shirt
when he wrote the Epistle to the Galatians. The freedom of Christ’s Spirit, and
the brotherhood with him in the Father’s house, is exchanged' for a yoke of
servitude. The assurance and joy of the Christian life are not in the sacra-
288
Worship and Discipline.
ments,
but in Christ himself. Not penance, but his word abiding, gives peace. This is
the Christian faith.
The
greatest corruptions of this period came from
that
which was most sacred, the worship of the
corruptions
Church. The development of liturgy at
of these
Ages, close of the period caused the cessation Effectof r
r _
Elaborate
of preaching, as a rule, at the public serv-
Rituai. jce>
This was especially the case with the Greek Church, with its more elaborate
ritual. At the same time, in the East, the ritual was in the language of the
people, and the laity were better educated, and so retained the use of the Holy
Scriptures. In the West, Latin was retained as the language of the Church
service, while both the service and the Scripture were in a tongue foreign to
the speech of the people. The first translation of the Bible in the Latin
Church into the language of any of the Teutonic peoples—Wycliffe’s—was nearly
eight hundred years later.
With
preaching and the Scriptures withdrawn from the people, the influence of the
Church became almost altogether legal, or even magical, the spiritual and even
intellectual influence almost altogether failed. Then the extravagant language
used in the liturgies, or by the preachers, concerning the sacrament of the
Lord’s Supper, tended to convert the most solemn and pathetic service of the
Church into a magical rite, and the extravagance of liturgical statement became
the doctrine of the Church.
Alongside
of this perversion of what was holiest in the Church, the worship of her Lord,
came the influence of heathen elements, which not only corrupted
Discipline
of the Church. 289
the
spiritualitly of worship, but brought in polytheism instead of the worship of
the Christian’s God, one and triune.
These
corruptions came into the Church after the time of Constantine. It was not
strange that immediately after the most prolonged and se- worship of verest of
the persecutions that the Church Martyrs, should reverence the martyrs who had
died for the faith. The day of their martyrdom was celebrated as their
birthday, and feasts were held at their graves. Augustine tells us of his
mother, the saintly Monica, that, “ as was the custom in Africa, she bore to the
memory of the martyrs sacrificial beer, bread, and unmixed wine.” Yet this was
very like the heathen sacrifices at the graves of their dead. Splendid churches
were erected over the places of the martyrs’ burial, as over the tombs of St.
Peter and St. Paul at Rome, and of many others.
From the
veneration of the martyrs came the invocation of the martyrs and of the saints.
Legends of their lives and mighty works were re- worship of ceived as Holy
Scripture, and recited at Sa,nts-the feast-day set apart for their
commemoration. They were supposed to have power to bless or injure. With the
martyrs, they took the place of the old heathen heroes and city founders. So
churches, communities, and cities came to have patron saints. In this way, as
with the old heathen mythology, the helpful powers were classified and
localized. To relics of the martyrs were added those of the saints. These were
almost indispensable to the consecration of a church, and were greatly prized
by heathen converts of royal or noble birth or station. Often they were
19
290
Worship and Discipline.
used as
protective charms, like the heathen amulets. With this veneration of relics,
mostly spurious, grew the desire to make pilgrimages to the holy places.
The life
of the monks was no offensive novelty to Worship those who knew the heathen
ascetics, while of the the idea of virginity, on which rested the virgin Mary. conventual
life of the nuns, was familiar for centuries through the Vestal Virgins. So
with the increasing reverence of the Virgin Mary, culminating in the feast of
the Purification on February 2d, sanctioned by the Emperor Justinian, 542, and
of her Ascension, or Assumption, August 15th, by Emperor Maurice, 582-602. To
her came naturally those ideas long associated with the worship of Astarte,
Isis, and Cybele.
In like
manner with many of the insignia and vestments of the clergy. The miter of the
bishop Heathen was taken from the head-dress of the Per-Eiements in
sian priests; the scarlet robes of the car-christian dinal from those of the
heathen priest, the worship. Roman flamen. The alb, a white linen tunic with
sleeves reaching to the feet, was an Egyptian sacred dress. The dalmatic, a
short-sleeved shirt, was worn by Commodus and Elagabalus, and is now the outer
garment worn by the deacon at the Roman Catholic mass.
Thus says
Schultze: “ The worship of the Christians had elements which, in their outward
appearance, or in their contents, or both, must have seemed familiar to the
heathen. So with the old names—temple, holy temple area, the all holiest, and
the altar of sacrifice. The table form of the Christian altar gave way in the
fourth century to a stone altar, which
Discipline
of the Church.
reminded
more of the antique altar. There, in the liturgical language, they spoke of
offering and sacrifice, and the action of sacrifice was really exhibited. Also
the name sacerdos, for the Christian priest, turned back to the word of
antiquity. In the worship itself there did not fail the use of incense, which
indeed had been the case of the Old Testament rites, but which yet was in union
with the antique (heathen) worship.”
It is not
intended to convey the impression that these heathen influences were the only
ones that wrought these transformations in the Church. Some of them are as old
as human nature, and found in every religion of mere human development. Others
were from the influence of a time when culture and intellectual life paled
before the advancing floods of barbarism; some from an attempt to adapt to the
Church some features of the Jewish ritual; but circumstances made the
polytheistic trend of the heathen influence strong and effective.
This
chapter on Christian worship may well close with a sketch of the greatest of
Christian preachers, one of the holiest of men, and whose service in the
ordering of Christian worship is recognized Chrysostom, in the name given to
the liturgy most in His Llfe-use in the Greek Catholic Church. John,
surnamed Chrysostom, or the Golden Mouth, was born at Antioch in 347. Secundus,
his father, was a military officer of high rank. Anthusa, his mother, was left
a widow at twenty years of age. She was wealthy, intelligent, devout, and
devoted herself to the training of her son. She appears to have been superior
to the women of her time, who were uneducated, kept in
292
Worship and Discipline.
unnatural
seclusion until marriage, and often treated by their husbands with severity and
distrust. John had as teacher the most famous rhetorician of his time,
Iyibanius. At the age of twenty-three he became a Christian, and was baptized.
He wished to abandon secular life and become a monk. His mother took him into
the room where he was born, and implored him to remain with her, who had given
her life for him, until her death. He yielded to her pleadings, but at her death
carried out his purpose, and began the life of a monk in 375.
For six
years he remained with the community, or until 381, when, in the thirty-fifth
year of his age, he was ordained deacon. Five years later, when His work at
forty, he was ordained presbyter. After Antioch, serving as deacon, he devoted
his life to preaching. For seventeen years he labored in Antioch, and six in
Constantinople, and became the most famous preacher of all the Christian ages.
Augustine, L,eo, and Ambrose and Cassarius of Arles were the great preachers of
the West; but none of these, nor the great preachers of the East, with Gregory
Nazi-anzen at their head, approached the abundance, the variety and excellence
of the great presbyter of Antioch. In a sedition in a circus at Antioch, in
387, the statues of the Emperor Theodosius and his wife were overthrown, and
the emperor was justly incensed. While the populace was awaiting the punishment
of their misdeeds, which the Bishop Flavian exerted himself to avert, John
preached to the people his justly celebrated sermons on the “ Statues.” He led
the people to penitence, comforted them in their suspense, and exhorted them to
perseverance in good
Discipline
of the Church. 293
works
when arrived the news of their pardon. While in Antioch, he wrote the treatise
on “The Priesthood,” the most of his “Commentaries,” and the most renowned of
his sermons. On the twenty-first of February, 398, in his fifty-first year,
without effort on his part, he was consecrated Archbishop and Patriarch of Constantinople.
The last
ruler of the undivided Empire of Rome was dead, and the Government had fallen
into the feeble hands of Arcadius, the son of Theodosius the Great—hands too
weak to hold the reins, Chrysostom which were seized by court
favorites or by at Constan-his ambitious wife. The first of these tin°P,e-favorites
was Rufinus, master of offices, and who, on the death of Theodosius, became
regent of the East. Rufinus was an able man, but one of the most avaricious,
unscrupulous, and treacherous characters of a time when baseness and violence
ruled in the public service. He was killed by the soldiers of Gainas, a Gothic
general, November 27, 395. Eutropius, the eunuch, succeeded to the vacant post.
He had supplanted Rufinus, who intended his daughter to be the imperial consort
of Arcadius. Eutropius secured his marriage with Eudoxia, an able and ambitious
woman, the daughter of a Frankish general, April 25, 395. Further to secure his
position, Eutropius called to the capital the celebrated preacher of Antioch.
At first, Chrysostom was favored by the empress. Eutropius, for his misrule,
was banished to Cyprus, and afterward brought back to Heraclea, and executed,
399. The Gothic General Gainas was defeated and killed in an insurrection,
December 23, 401. From henceforth the will of Eudoxia was supreme in the State.
294
Worship and Discipline.
The’strict
preaching of Chrysostom alienated her from him. Theophilus, the great Patriarch
and Primate of Alexandria, had consecrated John as Archbishop of Constantinople.
He was envious that the new patriarch had been taken from Antioch instead of
Alexandria. His one desire was to make Alexandria the great See of the East. In
401, some monks, called the “ Tall Brothers,” came to Constantinople, and
complained of ill usage from Theophilus. Chrysostom, while respecting their
excommunication, interceded for them. Theophilus answered him angrily. Eudoxia
heard their story, and summoned Theophilus to Constantinople to answer for his
conduct. In the meantime Chrysostom made a tour of three months in Asia Minor,
deposing immoral bishops, and setting the affairs of the Churches in order,
and, at the same time, raising up a host of enemies against himself. During the
absence of Chrysostom, the emissaries of Theophilus won the empress to his
side.
He came,
accompanied by Epiphanius, and, with rich gifts, wrought upon the bishops and
the court. He scorned to plead to the charge against him, but Council of
proceeded to act as a judge, calling a Coun-TheOak. cii at
a county estate of the empress near Constantinople, called The Oak,
June, 403, to inquire into the orthodoxy of Origen, and to hear complaints
against Chrysostom. The patriarch of the capital refused to appear at a Council
packed by his enemies. The question of the orthodoxy of Origen was dropped; and
Epiphanius, seeing through the intrigues of Theophilus, sailed for Cyprus, but
died on the way. The Council of The Oak deposed Chrysostom for
maladministration, and handed him over to
Discipline
of the Church.
the emperor
on a veiled charge of treason, which it was hoped would lead to a sentence of
death. Chrysostom withdrew into banishment; but thoroughly frightened by an
earthquake, the empress recalled him in three days. In spite of his endeavors,
Chrysostom’s return was a triumphal entry. Theo-philus fled to Alexandria. In
September of the same year the statue of the empress was erected in the square
in front of the great door of the church. Chrysostom preached against it as a
manifestation of pride and vanity amounting to sacrilege. The wrath of the
empress was inappeasable. She heard, falsely however, that in a public
discourse he had compared her to Herodias seeking the head of John. From
henceforth reconciliation was impossible. John had not waited for the annulment
of the decree, unjust and invalid, of the Council of The Oak.
On that
charge, he was again deposed, and, in Easter week, arrested and carried away to
banishment to Cucusus on the Armenian frontier. Chrysostom appealed to Innocent
I of Rome, who Banishment recognized his orthodoxy, and, with the and
Death-Emperor Honorius, demanded his return. On the way to Cucusus, his
guards treated him with brutal severity, seeking to end his days 011 the
journey. He was kindly received at Cucusus. Friends from Antioch visited him;
and he kept up a constant correspondence with his flock, from whom he had been
torn. Well has it been said that these three years were the most glorious of
his life. The Empress Eudoxia died six months after his banishment; but his
enemies only added to the severity of his treatment. In the winter of 405-6 he
was taken to the
296
Worship and Discipline.
mountain
town of Arbissus, sixty miles from Cucusus. There, in the bitter winter
weather, and amid more savage men, John, a native of sunny Antioch, suffered
severely, and his ever-feeble health was greatly impaired. On returning to
Cucusus, he revived again, and hoped yet to resume his work at Constantinople.
His enemies now secured his banishment, in 407, to Pityus, the most
inhospitable spot in the empire, on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. The
guards who were to enforce the decree spared no pains to hasten the death of
the illustrious prisoner. In great weakness, as he passed through Comana, he
asked the guards to delay the journey; but they hurried on. He fainted in the
way, and was carried back to the monastery. Asking for white garments, he
distributed his own raiment among the clergy who were present. Having received
the Eucharist, he spoke a few farewell words, and repeating his favorite motto,
“ Glory be to God for all things, Amen,” went to be with his Lord.
The
letters of Chrysostom, written in his banishment, even more than his sermons,
testify to his genuine and exalted Christian character. Equally
His
eminent as a preacher and saint, he wrought character. jn a
generation unworthy of him. The place he was called to fill was most difficult.
Few could have succeeded; but by temperament and race he was unfitted for such
a struggle. Great orators are seldom leaders of men. Demosthenes, Cicero, Peter
the Hermit, and even Savonarola, are significant examples. The gifts of
moderation, judgment, and decision are not those by which an orator gains
success. On the other hand, no Roman or English prel
Discipline
of the Church. 297
ate, after
his return from banishment, would so soon, or so helplessly, have been at the
mercy of his foes.
Chrysostom
is represented as small in stature, his frame attenuated by the austerities of
the monastery and his habitually ascetic mode of living, Personal his cheeks
pale and hollow, his eyes deeply Appearance set, but bright and piercing, his
broad and lofty forehead furrowed by wrinkles, his head bald. He frequently
delivered his discourses sitting in the reading desk, in order to be nearer to
his hearers and well raised above them. His health was not good; his digestion
never recovered from his life in the monastery, and perhaps caused an
irritability of temper, of which his enemies complained.
The
source of his power in the pulpit was his unrivaled knowledge of the
Scriptures. The six years spent in the monastery gave him a mas- source of his
tery both of its letter and meaning, which Power as •
J
Preacher.
was of
first importance to a great Christian preacher. He grew great on the thoughts
of God. Then he loved men; his great aim, of which he never lost sight, was to
convert souls. This gave earnestness to his preaching. The sermons of
Chrysostom and his exposition were clear, logical, full of apt and versatile
illustration; his language simple, yet refined. The ordinary reader can not
turn his pages, in spite of all difference of age, race, speech, and sometimes
luxuriant rhetoric, without feeling the genuine Christian spirit, and being
both interested and helped in the spiritual life. Their main characteristics
are their ethical aim, their straightforward common sense, and the warmth of
Christian love. The same qualities added to wide knowledge of the Scriptures,
298
Worship and Discipline.
through
mastery of the Greek tongue and the use of the historic and grammatical method
in interpretation, make his commentaries of lasting value.
A
biographer says : “ It is this rare union of powers which constitutes his
superiority to almost all the other Christian preachers with whom he might be
compared. Savonarola had all, and more than all, his fire and vehemence, but
untempered by his sober, calm good sense, and wanting his rational method of
interpretation. Wesley is almost his match in simple, straightforward,
practical exhortation, but does not rise into flights of eloquence like his.
The great French preachers resemble him in his more ornate and declamatory
vein; but they lack that simpler common-sense style of address which equally
distinguished him.”
fart
Fifth:.
THE NEW
SOCIETY.
299
Chapter
I.
THE OLD
SOCIAL ORDER IN ROME.
IT is
always difficult to give an accurate estimate and representation of those
relations of men with each other which we call society, and of that society’s
life and moral value. It is not a Difference* light task to depict that social
life whose between a influence presses upon us as impalpably andl" and
unceasingly as the air we breathe and Chr,s*ian
r 1 • i ,
Civilization.
ot which
we are a part. Every resident in a foreign land realizes how imperfect must be
such an estimate with narrower resources of observation and materials for
judgment. How then can we arrive at results of permanent worth in endeavoring
to reconstruct the social order of past generations.
Against
this difficulty of the task may be placed its necessity. No man can avoid some
judgment upon the social order and moral life of the world in which he lives.
Nor can he long remain in a foreign country and not feel the proportionate
value of these resultant and main factors of the national life. Indeed, without
this informing life the history of past ages is but a mass of dates and names,
as devoid of interest as of profit. With this, not only are they again alive,
but speak with no uncertain sound in regard to some of the deepest and most
perplexing problems men have to face. The endeavors, failures, and successes of
these ages have a living interest
301
302
The New
Society.
and an
abiding lesson. The society of those times was as much alive as ours, and its
lessons in social dynamics are much easier followed and quite as profitable. We
see but the trend and flow of things around us; it is not seldom difficult to
distinguish the main current from its divided parts and swirling eddies. We see
all things in process; very little of final result. With past ages the
difficulty is, at the same time, less and different. With them there is little
question of the results; they are even more apparent than the process by which
they have been reached. Both processes and results find often their best
interpretation in the life of our time reflected upon them, and they show the
results of processes with which we are daily familiar. The past and the present
are the complements of each other.
The
nature of man does not greatly change; the tendency of his desires, the aim of
his endeavors, the possibilities of his achievements may, but these changes are
not so great but that they are related to and explain each other. History never
repeats itself; for the principles of social organization and the laws of their
actions are uniform, not the particular circumstances or example. The
fundamental principles of human nature and the great laws of social organism do
not change, but their action is modified by those principles of growth and
retrogression which distinguish the sapling from the giant of the forest, and
the oak firmly rooted through the storms of a thousand years from his neighbor
whose rotten heart needs but the first tempest to reveal its inward decay.
History separates, as nothing else, the transitory from the permanent, the
seeming from the real.
Old
Social Order in Rome.
303
To
estimate the new life which Christianity brought into society, and the
transformation which it wrought, we must understand in some measure the old
order which it replaced. If there are those who think that Christianity has,
and has had, but little influence upon human affairs in this world; that it is
concerned exclusively with a world of which our senses can give no positive
knowledge, and of preparation for that world to the neglect, if not the
despite, of this; that it is a system of belief in part proved false or
unfitted to our time, and in part concerned only with that which can neither be
proved nor disproved, and therefore may be ignored, or might better be done
away,—he needs no further answer than the careful and open-minded consideration
of the facts to which attention is called in these pages. If there are others
who think all religions are in the main alike, and the distinctive virtues and
energies of Christianity are only what it has in common with other faiths, they
need only to place these facts before them, and live among them, to realize
that the difference between a heathen and a Christian civilization is the most
profound social difference in the history of the race. The most splendid
society of Athens or Rome, of Cordova or Delhi, is more alien to us than the
crassest ignorance and crudeness of the time's of St. Louis or Charlemagne.
There are possibilities of power and growth, of permanence and beneficence in
the one, which are impossible in the other. Christianity as a determining
factor in civilization can not be ignored, and is not likely to be done away.
No better
proof of this statement can be found than some adequate conception of the
social and moral
304
The New
Society.
life of
the opening century at once of the Roman Empire and the Christian religion. The
materials of its representation are drawn from its contemporary heathen
literature, its monuments and inscriptions, its laws, its social customs and
usages. To bring this life into a compass narrow enough for intelligent
comprehension, we will take the generation living from Paul’s first missionary
journey to the destruction of Jerusalem, from 40 to 70 A. D., the age of the
active ministry of the apostles. We will consider briefly in order the life of
the court and aristocracy, the condition of women, children, and slaves, the
influence of the literature, philosophy, religion, and amusements of the
people. These, in connection with the political and economic life sketched in
the first part, will furnish materials sufficiently full and accurate for both
portrayal and estimate.
Claudius
came to the throne of the world, 41 A. D. He was fifty years of age, had never
been thought of for the empire, and possessed few of the
Society
In _ . , . ’ r
, -r-r
Heathen
qualities which fit men for rule. He was
Rome.
industrious and of literary tastes, and had The Court............
. ’ , ,
he lived
m private station would have maintained the character of a quiet and respected
gentleman. In the foremost position of the world, he was ruled by his wives and
his freedmen, and his timidity made him cruel. His first wife had borne him two
children, when he divorced her because he believed she had threatened his life.
His second wife, according to the prevalent custom, was divorced for
incompatibility.
Messalina,
his third wife, he married before he was emperor. She was the daughter of
Antonia, the
Old
Social Order in Rome.
305
granddaughter
of Mark Antony and Octavia, while Claudius was the son of Antonia’s sister. The
next year she bore a son who was called Britan- „
.
_ , . MeasaHnn,
nicus,
from his father’s campaign in that the Daughter island; they had also a
daughter, Octavia. of Anton,a-She assumed part in the government,
and, without consulting either the Senate or the emperor, she gave away the
command of provinces and legions. She corrupted or intimidated the judges, and
sold Roman citizenships and the offices of state. The freedmen, Polybius and
Narcissus, were the instruments by which she ruled. Her morals were the most
disreputable, and she was relentlessly cruel where her fears, her avarice, or
her passions were concerned. Julia, the beautiful niece of Claudius, she caused
to be put to death, because she feared she might become her rival, and also the
husband of her victim, and his sister, another Julia, who was the daughter of
Livia, wife of Augustus. She caused the death of Appius Silanus, who rejected
her advances; Julius Catonius, who was about to impeach her; and Valerius
Atticus, that she might gain possession of his estate. One of the freedmen,
Polybius, was executed at her order. The other powerful favorite feared for his
life, and determined she should die. Until this time her adulteries had been
with dissolute nobles and actors; she now sought to win a handsome Roman youth,
Cornelius Silius, who would have nothing to do with her, so corrupt was her
character, but that he expected, through her, the death of her husband and a
share in the throne. While Claudius was absent she publicly married Silius with
all the rights of a legal connubium. The freedman, Narcissus, made use of this
event to
20
3°6
The New
Society.
show the
emperor his danger, and finally, on his own responsibility, signed her
death-warrant. She was killed by a tribune of the guards in the gardens of
Lucullus, a portion of the domains which had belonged to her victim, Valerius
Atticus, in the fall of the same year as her disgraceful marriage.
In the
next year, 49, Claudius married Agrippina, the widow of a dissolute noble. By
her first husband
she was
aunt of Messalina and the mother
Agrippina.
,
of Nero.
He died a natural death, the result of his excesses, but she was accused of
shortening the days of her second husband, a man of great wealth. Agrippina
herself was of the highest nobility; she was a sister of the Emperor Caligula,
her aunt was the wife of Tiberius, while she herself was the granddaughter of
Augustus and niece of Claudius, whom she married. Being at the same time the
mother of Nero, she stood in the most intimate relationship with each of the
five emperors of the house of Julius Caesar. Her father was an able general,
and she was born at his headquarters, named after her, later, Colonia Agrippa
(now Cologne), A. D. 17. Her mother, Agrippina, in moral character, in beauty,
and intellectual endowments, was one of the noblest women of imperial times.
Agrippina,
the fourth wife of Claudius, was a wise and energetic, dissolute and
unscrupulous, beautiful and ambitious woman. She ruled with her husband, on
whose coins her head appears. For two years she labored with the freedman,
Pallas, to induce Claudius to set aside his own son Britannicus, and make her
son Nero, three years older, the heir of the throne. She succeeded in this
plan, A. D. 51. She then caused
Old
Social Order in Rome. 307
the death
of Julius Silanus, the husband of Octavia, the emperor’s daughter and sister of
Britannicus, in order that she might marry Nero, which she did in 53. Then she
secured the death of Lollia Paullina as a possible rival; of her sister-in-law,
Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina; and of the brother of her
daughter-in-law Octavia’s first husband, who, like herself, was a descendant of
Augustus. Having assured the succession to her son Nero, she resolved on the
death of her husband, the emperor. He was poisoned with the aid of Locusta and
a Greek physician, Xenophon, A. D. 54. For some time she ruled with Nero, who
came to the throne at the age of seventeen. A few years later, Nero wished to
divorce Octavia, one of the few pure women of the imperial house, in order to
marry Poppoea Sabina. His mother opposed this project, whereupon he decided she
should die. Nero invited her to visit him at Baioe, a seaport town south of
Rome. She went by ship; there was a pretended reconciliation, with hypocrisy,
on both sides. On her return, the ship was so arranged as to go to pieces when
they got out to sea. Agrippina saved herself by swimming, and fled to a villa
near the Lucrine Ivake, and informed her son of her happy escape.
Nero ordered Anicetus, the commander of the fleet, to kill her. He went to her
villa with a band of men. They surprised her in her bedroom, and she fell under
the strokes of the tribune,
A. D. 59.
Messalina had caused the death of Agrippina’s sister, and another sister’s
husband; Agrippina brought to death the mother of Messalina, and the husband of
her daughter Octavia.
Nero, the
matricide, had nine years yet to reign.
3°8
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Society.
He had
caused the death of Britannicus—his cousin by
Nero.
birth, brother by adoption, and brother-in-law by marriage—by poison, in his
presence, and at his own table. His sister Octavia, the wife of Nero, he put to
death in 62. In the same year he married Poppoea Sabina, who died three years
later in consequence of a brutal kick from her husband. He caused the execution
of the poet Lucan, and his old tutor, Seneca, of Paetus, the noblest of the
senators, and of Corbulo, the ablest of the generals. Licentiousness and
cruelty have made his name a byword. He was the first persecutor of the
Christians, and under him Peter and Paul died as martyrs. In consequence of a
revolt he fled, but took his own life, dying just as the executioner arrived,
A. D. 68.
There
succeeded the short and troubled reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, when, in
69, Vespasian came to the throne. He was an economical and temperate prince,
and brought back some reverence and order to the court. His son Titus died an
early death in consequence of licentiousness, while the other son, Domitian,
lived in adultery with Julia, Titus’s daughter, whose death he caused.
Adultery, incest, and brutal, disgusting cruelty stain the names of most of the
emperors of this time. In the second century the relations of Hadrian and
Antinous, the vices of Fausta, wife of Marcus Aurelius, and the excesses of
their son Commodus, kept up the evil reputation, which did not fail of
representatives in the century succeeding, in Caracalla and Elagabalus, until
the hereditary monarchy died out, and only soldiers bore rule.
It is sad
and distasteful to read such a tale; but it
Old
Social Order in Rome.
should be
told. The court influenced the life of the time more than in any age since. If
Nero showed a preference for eloquence or music, rhetoricians and musicians
abounded; and when Marcus Aurelius came to the throne, the court and society
became philosophers; also, because nothing like it can be found in the
Christian ages, the nearest parallel being found in the renewed Roman
heathenism of the court of Pope Alexander VI. Such bloodthirstiness and
sensuality may be found in Oriental courts, but not again in Europe. Even in
courts the most corrupt, Christian sentiment has been some restraint, and such
abysses of corruption and breath of moral pestilence has not again come upon
Western civilization.
While
this sickening taint so infected the rulers of the world and the imperial
house, the preaching of the gospel of Jesus just began to form the new society,
in the midst of the dying world, which was to bring in the new social order.
While Messalina, Agrippina, and Nero ruled the world, the first generation of
Christians received the gospel. What a setting for the books of the New
Testament, most of which were written in this period. Is there in human history
a greater contrast than between these teachings and the forces which then ruled
the world? No wonder that Christians spoke of the world as lying in the wicked
one, and thought of the speedy second coming of the Lord as the only solution
of the intolerable situation around them.
The court
may be much more corrupt than the people ; it is seldom better. A surer index
to the morals of society is the condition of women. The matrons of Rome’s early
time were pure and noble,
3IQ
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worthy of
respect and reverence like Lucretia, or Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi.
The profound and ter-women. rible corruption of the civil wars was never
Divorce, cured. This is shown in the frequency of divorce. In the time just
before the empire, we find C. Sulpicius divorced his wife because she went on
the streets unveiled; another Roman noble because she had spoken confidentially
with a freedman; and another because she had gone to the play without his knowledge.
So with the generation before Augustus: Cicero separated from his first wife in
order to marry a richer one; and from his second because she did not grieve
enough over the death of his daughter Julia. The strictly moral Cato divorced
his first wife, who had borne him two children; and delivered his second wife,
Marcia, with the consent of her father, to his friend Hortensius, after whose
death he married her the second time. Pompey rejected his first wife, Antistia,
in order to form a relationship with Sulla through marriage with his
stepdaughter ^Emilia, who, for this purpose, was compelled to separate from her
husband, Glabrio. After her death he married Mucia, whom he divorced in order
to marry Caesar’s daughter Julia. Under the empire the condition of these
relations was worse. Of Julius Caesar and Augustus we can not record what was
the common talk of the streets, and denied by none of their biographers.
The women
began to divorce their husbands without alleging any ground except their
preference for Dissolute- another. Juvenal speaks of a woman of ness*
the nobility who had eight husbands in five years. Roman women were more
susceptible to the moral contagion of their time, from the fact that all
Old
Social Order in Rome.
their
knowledge and experience of life came after their marriage. They had childhood,
but no girlhood. The majority of them married soon after the twelfth year, and
before they were fourteen. It is not strange that in an era of change, of
riches, of power and luxury, with all old bonds of custom and habit broken
down, and no influence of religion to restrain them, they should run to the
same excess of riot as the men. Roman writers, from Horace down, unanimously
testify to the unchastity of the women. Seneca says: “ A man who has not formed
an immoral relation with a married woman is despised by them.” This evil did
not cease with the doing away with the worst excesses of the court in the first
century. Dio, nearly two hundred years later, tells of the consul in
consequence of the Septimian law against adultery receiving in one year three
thousand complaints.
To this
widespread and profound dissoluteness, contributed in no small degree, besides
the pollution of the court, the corrupting influence of Cause5
literature—like the writings of Ovid and Martial, and many another poet; the
pictures on the walls, which, as Propertius said, “ put out the eyes of
innocence;” the seductions of the theater, of which Friedlander says, “The
immoral effects of the theater can hardly be represented great or terrible
enough the scenes of slaughter and martyrdom in the arena, which seared the
conscience and killed every tender feeling; besides the incitements of the
banquets of which Tacitus speaks.
This
immorality, so fearfully prevalent, was not universal. Had it been, Rome could
not have continued to exist three generations, instead of twelve,
312
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under the
empire. The inscriptions tell a different tale of family affection and family
life. Pliny in his letters introduces us to a circle of noble ’ and excellent
women. He tells us of Arria, the wife of Paetus, one of the noblest and purest
senators of Rome. Her husband and son were at the same time dangerously ill.
The son, of rare worth, died. Arria bore him to the grave without his father
knowing of his death. She answered Paetus’s questions with assumed ease,—he was
better, he had slept. When she could no longer restrain her tears, she left the
room and gave way to her grief. When its violence was spent, she returned with
dry eyes and placid countenance. Paetus recovered from his sickness. He was
concerned in the conspiracy of Scribonianus, who raised a revolt in Illyria in
42. The chief was killed; Paetus was taken prisoner and brought to Rome. Arria
sought to gain access to him on the ship which conveyed him to the capital, in
the guise of a slave, such as always waited on a man of his rank. Failing in
this, she hired a boat and followed the ship. When her son-in-law adjured her
to preserve her own life, and said, among other things, “Do you wish then your
daughter to die with me, if I must die?” “ If she has lived as long and as
harmoniously with you as I with Paetus, yes,” was the reply. She was then
carefully watched, but she said: “You accomplish nothing. You can cause that I
suffer a harder death; that I shall die you can not prevent.” With these words,
she sprang from her seat and dashed her head against the wall. As they brought
her back to life, she said, “ I said I would find a hard way to death if you
denied me an easy
Old Social
Order in Rome. 313
one.”
When occasion came, she snatched a dagger and plunged it into her breast, and
then handing it to her hesitating husband, said, “It does not hurt, Paetus.”
Her
daughter Arria, and granddaughter Fannia, were worthy of her. They saw their
husbands slain in the imperial proscriptions of Nero and Domitian. They would
have followed the example of the elder Arria; but at the dying request of those
they loved, they consented to live for their children. Pliny testifies that
Fannia was as attractive and gracious as she was noble..
If the
condition of women was such as the Roman writers depict, that of the children
could not have been favorable. They were sinned against . before their birth.
Well said the husband Ch,,dren‘ of Agrippina, that “ the son of such
parents could bring no good to the State.” That son was Nero. Abortion, or the
exposure of children to death or a worse fate, was common during the whole
period of the heathen empire. When the children grew up they were intrusted to
the care of slaves, with whom they always began and often completed their
education, and from which association, with rare exceptions, they received an
early moral taint. They were in the power of their father, who could sell them
or put them to death.
The
corrupting influence of their time came in upon them from every side,—from art,
from literature, from the games. When we take into progressive account the evil
example of the parents Corruption, and the society in which they moved, the
effect of slavery, enormous, licentious, and cruel, in which they
The New
Society.
were
reared, and the utter lack of religious and feeble moral restraint, the
progressive deterioration of Roman society, literature, art, and national life
and power, is seen to be inevitable. Indeed, we can see why Christianity, could
not save the State, and why the race must die. The inward virus and physical
taint of generations of moral corruption could not be purged away. The
barbarians—rude, violent, and uncultured, but pure—could alone supply the
vigorous physical life necessary for the new world.
No
feature of Roman society was more prominent or more influenced its moral
condition than slavery.
CI
The slaves of Rome were recruited, in the
Slaves,
/
sources
of first place, from captives taken in war.
supply.
jewjsh captives are represented on
the Arch
of Titus. Besides the prisoners sent to the Egyptian mines after the Jewish
wars, or sent into the provinces to fight in the ampitheater, or reserved for
the conqueror’s triumph at Rome, ninety thousand were sold as slaves.
Man-stealing was practiced by pirates. Marauders on the frontiers, highwaymen,
and the unwary were enticed, even in cities. These victims were sold in the
markets as slaves. Again, the judgments of the courts, sometimes for crimes and
misdemeanors, but more often for debt from the failure to pay taxes or the
usurious loans, kept up the supply. Then, of course, the children of slaves,
though by no means keeping up the full number, formed a large portion of the
whole.
The rapid
advance in wealth and the habits of luxury accompanying the creation of great
establishments, the formation of immense estates and the driving out of the
peasant proprietors, the use of slaves in
Old
Social Order in Rome. 315
trade and
manufactures, produced a demand which only an increasing number of slaves could
supply.
On the
rural estates, there were special classes of slaves to work in the fields, to
care for the olive-orchards and vineyards, to look after each classes of kind
of stock; as horses, cattle, sheep, and Slaves, swine. So those who had charge
of the fruit garden, the vegetable garden, the bees, the poultry and birds, the
fish and game in the parks.
In the
urban home, the porter stood at the door in chains. Female slaves were numerous
in the apartments of the women, and their mistresses treated them with as great
rigor as the masters did the slaves that were employed in the field and in
other service. Slaves of different kinds had charge of the carpets and the
furniture, of the kitchen utensils and provisions, the art collections and the
wardrobes. For personal service there were slaves for the chamber, the toilet,
the bath, the kitchen, service at the table, and even bearers of sedan chairs
instead of horses. Slaves were also the accountants, the superintendents,
readers, secretaries, librarians, copyists, teachers, musicians, actors,
artists, dwarfs, deformities, and fools. When the master walked abroad, slaves—
the anteaiyibulones—went before him ; slaves—the pcdi-sequi—went behind him ;
and a slave—the nojneiicla-tor—walked by his side. When a lady went out, those
slaves who followed her bore her sandals, fan, and parasol.
Slaves
were much more numerous in Italy in proportion to the free population than in
Number of Rome. Yet, in the capital, they formed slave*, more than half the
population. Friedlander’s estimate
316
The New
Society.
of the
population of Rome, in which Mommsen in the main agrees, is as follows:
Roman
citizens,..............320,000
Their
women and children,........300,000
Senators
and knights,......................10,000
Garrison,..................................20,000
Strangers,..................................60,000
Slaves,..................900,000
i,6io;ooo*
Mommsen
says: “Before the law the slave was wholly without rights; he was a thing, over
whom the slave with- master alone had authority. He could com-out Rights. pej
kjm ^0 the meanest or the most immoral service. He could torture and
kill him, or, old and sick, let him die of hunger.”
The
condition of the slave was worse in the country. In a great part of Italy the
field-hands labored in chains during the day; at night they lodged in a prison
dormitory; and they wore a brand-mark or the head half-shorn.
Slaves
could be sold as gladiators or courtesans. The punishments were cruel beyond
recital. The very housemaids at the ladies’ toilet wore no clothing on the
upper part of the body, so that the mistress could prick or strike them more effectively.
If driven to desperation so as to kill a master or mistress, all the slaves,
sometimes hundreds or thousands in number, were put to death.
During
the second century there was a change for Causes of better in
the condition of the slaves,
Ameiiora-
and an acknowledgment of their natural rights. Thus were recognized the slave’s
marriage* his family relationship, and his property.
* See
Appendix, Note C.
Old
Social Order in Rome. 317
He became
capable of marrying a wife or entering into a corporation. When he bccame free,
he had some rightful place in society. This change came from the influence of
Stoic philosophy, from political relations, which lessened the supply of
prisoners of war and those taken by force, and, above all, from the influence
of the preaching of the gospel and of the growing Christian Church.
The age
of Augustus was the great age of Roman literature. Seventy-five years before,
and as many after, include the great masterpieces of the
.
m Literature.
Latin
tongue.. The emperors from Augustus to Marcus Aurelius, excluding the
successors of Nero, who reigned less than a year, except Ves-pasion and Trajan,
were all authors; and all except Claudius were poets. Poets as well as poetry
enjoyed the favor of the emperor. The great nobles of Augustus’s reign, like
Maecenas, Massala, and Pollio, were generous in their treatment of the
illustrious Latin poets. In an age when no money was to be made by copyrights,
the sole defense of the poet against hunger was the patronage of the wealthy.
This was extended through the first century with the usual results of such
patronage. The praises of the nobility were sung; their gardens, dwellings,
furniture, the splendor and luxury of their apparel and entertainments were
described; and yet, though in the attitude of a beggar, a lean living was doled
out to the poet.
Seldom
has poetry had a wider influence than in this age. The first training of an
educated man began with Homer, much as the Bible with us, but wholly with a
literary aim. Then he early became
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Society.
acquainted
with, and studied all through the years he was in the grammar school, the works
of Greek and Latin poets. This formed his lan-
lnfluenceof
, . .. .
Poetry on
guage as much as it controlled his taste ; Ed— so that his soberest
prose had a poetic coloring and diction. After the grammar school, the boy
passed into the hands of the rhetorician, where he studied the prose writers
and declamation. In an age when there was no free public life and no liberty of
public speech, and when even secret authorship was highly dangerous, the
attention of educated men was turned to poetry and oratory, in which all were
amateurs, and which gave a habit of unreality to their thought and its
expression. If literature was the means of education, the fashion of court and
of society, the occupation of educated men, and so the common topic of
conversation in the social intercourse of men and women, it had no healing for
the ills of the time. While lofty thoughts, inspiriting examples, and tasteful
elegance do not fail in the greatest writers of these times, in Cicero and
Livy, in Virgil and Horace, yet so much of it was tainted with the prevalent
moral corruption that there was, at the close of the first century, a reaction
in favor of the Latin writers of the simpler and nobler days of Roman society,
while men turned toward philosophy for that help to an improvement in morals
which they sought in vain from literature.
Indeed,
the later part of the first century saw a reaction, though not a recovery, from
the crimes and excesses of the rule of the house of Caesar.
Philosophy.
. . .
Vespasian
wrought a change in the direction of economical expenditure and a moral life.
The
Old
Social Order in Rome.
3r9
gain was
well-nigh lost under his sons; but the tendency was felt until the death of
Marcus Aurelius. The last age of the republic and the first of the empire had
been as much an age of skepticism as of open profligacy and unblushing
immorality. Skepticism never satisfies. The human heart and society soon weary
of its mocking and fruitless negations. Roman society sought relief in strange
Oriental worship and philosophy. Philosophy—that is, the pro-foundest and
truest thoughts concerning the essence, the origin, and the purpose and end of
things—had been cultivated with rich results by the Greeks before the arms of
Rome had passed the waters which surround the Italian Peninsula. Their efforts
proved God to be a necessity of human thought, if the scheme of things is
considered as a united whole, the craving of the human spirit after immortal
life, and yet the inability of the unaided intellect to establish these
positions ; so that the period closed in Pyrrhonic skepticism. The Romans were
so wholly dependent on the Greeks for their philosophic guidance that a sketch
of the course of Greek thought must be given to understand the philosophy which
attracted them.
The first
philosophers sought to find the ultimate principle of things in something
material, and founded the Ionic School. Thales, the first of these, ionic
school. 600 B. CM placed it in water; Anaximenes, Pythagoras. 570 B.
C., in air; Heraclitus, 500 B. C., in fire; Anaximander, 502 B. C., in infinite
matter. Pythagoras, 525 B. C., taught that the universe is a harmony built up
of number and measure, and pervaded by a world soul. He taught metempsychosis,
or that souls go into different human bodies.
32°
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Society.
The same
problem was approached by the Eleatic School, from the side of thought
irrespective of ma-Eleatic terial existence. Xenophanes of Colophon, school,
617 B. C., its founder, placed the principle of the universe in a pantheistic
idea of unity; Parmenides, 500 B. C., in simple being, in which thought and the
thing thought are the same. Empedocles, 492-532 B. C., thought of the universe
as an eternal sphere, of which love and hate are the fundamental powers.
Democritus, 460-350 B. C., was the founder of the Atomic philosophy. He
conceived of the universe as an aggregate of allied and ordered atoms, the soul
as composed of a sum of round fiery atoms. Anaxagoras, 500-428 B. C., made a
great advance on all previous thinking in making Nous, or Reason, the first
principle of things.
Socrates,
470-399 B. C., made the second great advance, in turning the attention ©f
thinkers and philosophers from the universe to man ‘ himself. He gave an
ethical tendency to philosophy. Its aim, he taught, should be selfknowledge,
virtue, self-restraint, self-conquest, and a blameless life.
The three
Socratic schools, which represented three ethical tendencies springing from his
teaching, socratic were the Cyrenaic, which held the highest Scnoois. good to
be enjoyment; the Cynic, with which the highest good was renunciation, the
avoidance of enjoyment; and the Megarian, with which the highest good was the
eternal and all-existing being, sometimes represented as spirit and thought,
and sometimes as God.
Plato was
the greatest scholar of Socrates, in many
Old
Social Order in Rome.
respects
the most illustrious thinker of Greece, and the greatest idealistic philosopher
of all time. His was a richly-gifted nature, at 429-348 b.c. once poetic,
speculative, and profoundly philosophic. In briel, these are his leading
thoughts concerning God, the world, and man:
Plato
taught that God, in his being, is unknowable, but he must be conceived as
spiritual. The multitude know him only through appear- His
Doc-ances; the wise, by abstraction, knowledge. trines- Qod. The
highest God is an intelligent, free, wise, and just spirit. He is the Former of
the world, not its Creator; for matter eternally exists. God is in 110 sense
the Author of evil.
The
Divine reason organizes matter according to a pattern of eternal ideas. These
ideas are a medium between God and matter. They are the
, The
World.
Divine
conceptions and thoughts, according to which, as types, God makes the things of
the world. These ideas are eternal, unchangeable, and exist only in themselves,
separate from all things, but the patterns of all that is. They are founded in
God, and he is the all-embracing idea. The highest idea is God.
The world
and the stars have souls. The human soul is a reproduction in miniature of the
world soul, of the same substance, formed after the
Alan.
same idea
of the Good. I11 the human soul are three elements—the immortal soul, the
reasonable, the divine; the better, masculiue, courageous element; and the
feminine sensuous element. The last two are mortal. The human soul existed in
another state before birth. The soul is immortal, the
21
322
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Society.
fruit of
the life before and kernel of the life to come. All virtue is knowledge, and
all vice comes from ignorance and error. Sin is involuntary; unright. eousness
is a sickness of the soul, which comes upon it like sickness to the body. He
who does evil, errs only in judgment; it is no act of the free will, but of the
passionate nature. As guilt is only a want of spiritual power, so redemption is
but coming to one’s self. In his ideal state, he allowed community of wives,
slavery, exposure of crippled children, and sexual vice.
Aristotle
was the scholar of Plato. His mind and disposition were the opposite of his
master’s. He was Aristotle, mathematical, critical, realistic, the phi-384=322
b. c. losopher of the understanding, and a sys-temizer. He was the founder of
logic and dialectic. He denied Plato’s teaching of ideas, the pre-existence of
souls, and that no man is voluntarily evil.
God is
represented as the final cause, the universal object of desire and love, as
pure intelligence without His Doc- power, active only in thought. He is not
trines. God. Creator, as the world is eternal. He denied Divine providence.
The soul
is the substance which, only through the body, comes to manifestation. The soul
can not think without the body. Yet the reason is immortal, while all else of
the soul perishes with the body. The unity of the soul is denied. The highest
wisdom of Aristotle is a sound and judicious morality. In the State he allows
hate and revenge, the exposure and death of weakly children and abortion, and
defends slavery, denying that the slaves have reasonable souls.
Old
Social Order in Rome.
323
With all
deductions, Plato’s thought leads to the antechamber of the Divine presence,
and has been the means of leading great and inquiring The Result5
spirits—such as Justin Martyr, Schleier- of Greek macher, and Neander—to
Christ. It in- Think,n*-fluenced both Origen and Augustine.
Aristotle laid down laws of thought which all men must heed. His ideas of
natural philosophy were dominant until the Reformation. His metaphysics ruled
the schoolmen, and so the dogmatic theology of the Roman Catholic Church until
this day, as, through John of Damascus, it does that of the Greek Church.
The
leading philosophic tendencies after these two great thinkers are Stoicism,
Epicureanism, and Skepticism.
The
founder of Stoicism was Zeno of Citium, 340-260. His system is a materialistic
pantheism. Yet the world-reason is the author of the ^ ^ ( moral
law, and the rewarding and punishing judge. All is unalterably determined from
eternity.
Evil is
necessary; without it there is no good. Every human soul is a part of the
Godhead. All myths and idolatry are received and alle- Ethjcs
gorically explained. The wise man must subject all his emotions and passions to
reason, and attain to perfect apathy and to self-control. Suicide, lying, and
sexual vice were allowed.
The
Epicureans adopted the Atomic sys-EpIcurean,snl< tem
of philosophy. They taught that the Epicurus, highest good is enjoyment and
freedom 342 27°‘ from care.
Pyrrho,
the founder of philosophic skepticism,
324
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Society.
taught
the impossibility of attaining to philosophic Skepticism knowledge. We are
compelled by neces-Pyrrho, sity to be contented with the appearance 335B.C. of
things. Carneades, 215-130 B. C., combated every religious belief.
Greek
philosophy, showing the necessary direction of human thought and the limits of
its achievements, was a preparation for the gospel of Christ.
In all
this speculation, the Romans, who were not original thinkers, were influenced
mainly by the Roman Stoic School. They accepted the panthe-Phiiosophy. jstic
idea Qf Q0d, the materialistic conception of the
universe, and the fatalistic view of man. The two greatest names among them
were Seneca and Epictetus.
Seneca
taught: “The wise man lives with the gods on an equal footing; for he is really
himself God, or bears a part of the Godhead in him.
Seneca.
x . .
We are,
at the same time, God s associates and his members.” Yet we find how little
this means and how completely man is left to himself when we read: “ Prayer is
useless. Why raise the hands to heaven ? Wherefore trouble the gods when you
can make yourself happy? It becomes you to become an equal associate with the
gods, rather than to appear before them as one praying to them.”
The moral
tendency of Stoicism appears to the best advantage in Epictetus. The beginning
of philosophy to him is the knowledge of our
Epictetus.
* « , . T J .
own
weakness and impotence. In order to become good, we must first see that we are
bad. Philosophy must purify us from the darkness which imagines we need
nothing, and from despair of our
Old
Social Order in Rome. 325
own
powers. He refers man to God. From God shall man seek what he lacks, moral
help; but the God to whom we must turn is the God in us. Our reason and will
are the higher powers, in whose help we must confide, and whom we should
follow. There is much in his teaching which is in accord with Christian
morality; but there is a selfish trend where apathy is the aim, and compassion,
if shown, is never to be felt. This Stoical teaching accorded well with the
Roman pride and insensibility to pain. It culti' vated a lofty self-respect,
and often a keen sense of honor. But there was in it no place for sympathy with
men. Stoicism emphasized the dignity of men, and so favorably affected criminal
legislation and the condition of slaves.
The Roman
youth, seeking a higher education, went from the rhetorical school to the
lectures of the philosophers, usually from his eighteenth philosophy to his
twenty-fifth year. Physics, logic, and ,n Education, ethics were
taught; but the aim was predominantly moral. The teacher not only taught, but applied
his doctrine, and was the confidential friend and spiritual adviser of his
pupils. These schools kept up the tradition of pure morality in Roman society.
While the Cynics preached morality to the people, yet philosophy failed to work
any regeneration, and to do more than to delay the progressive degeneration.
Its power was insufficient, its ideals too poor, its circles too narrow. It
allied itself with the heathen religion in Neo-Platonism; but its final effort
was its final failure. The wandering, begging, and cheating philosophers became
a plague of the country where they were at all numerous.
326
The New
Society.
Ammonius
Saccas was the founder of Neo-Platonism. Plotinus was its most eminent teacher.
He Neo=Piato= taught that the universe of things consists tin us 2os” a
supersensuous world, and our world, 270 a. d. or the world of appearance. The
super-sensuous world consists of the Original Being, the world of ideas
(Plato’s), and the soul. The Original Being is simply active power; all being
is the production of this “ One.” In the “ One” is all, so far as it has being,
and hence is divine. The system is, therefore, dynamistic pantheism. The first
production of the Original Being is reason, both the ideal world and the idea.
From reason comes the soul, which is an immaterial substance. The soul produces
the world of appearance. The world is not evil; but the cause of evil is the
intermixture with matter, which is the foundation of every individual being.
Evil is, therefore, the intermixture of man with the sensuous. Redemption
consists in freeing man from the sensuous by asceticism; this leads back to
reason. This purifies the soul, and prepares for the imitation of God. The soul
becomes not merely without sin, but becomes God, through the vision of God;
that is, through ecstasy.
The
religions of the heathen were as diverse as their different races and
nationalities. They had the common characteristics of polytheism and Religion,
idolatry. The Greek clothed his religion with his wonderful poetic and artistic
genius. Egypt taught immortality, but degraded man to the worship of beasts. In
Persia, the belief in immortality was blended with that of an eternal conflict
between good , and evil. The Shemitic and Babylonian star and
Old
Social Order in Rome.
327
nature
worship was licentious and cruel. With their intensely practical character, the
gods of the Romans were those of agriculture, the family, the State, and, above
all, war. There was a most exact and scrupulous observance of ritualistic
requirements under the most severe penalties in auguries, and auspices, and
religious forms of the State ceremonial. Rome not only had the twenty great
gods which Plato enumerates, but adopted those of the countries which she
conquered, and crowned all with the deification of the members of the imperial
house. This, of course, was the degradation of whatever lofty ideas were ever
symbolized in the mythologies. For although there was recognized not the
deification of the individual emperor, with all his weaknesses, vices, and
crimes, so much as the power and permanence of the Roman State, yet this
remained the highest ideal.
The
pettiness, selfishness, and yet intimate union of idolatry with the whole life
of the individual and of the family may be seen by a glance at Idolatry
and its relation to the life of the ordinary the Course of Roman citizen.
Juno was the protectress Goddess of the Roman women. On their birthday of the
they sacrificed to Juno Natalis. The feast Women-of the Matronalia
they celebrated with sacrifices in the temple of Juno L,ucina, in remembrance
of the founding of marriage by Romulus at the seizing of the daughters of the
Sabines. As Fluvonia, she was associated with -Mena in the purification of
women. In regard to marriage and its rites, she was honored by the bride as
Juga, Curitis, Domiduca, Unixia, Pronuba, Einixia. As Ossipaga, Opliigena, and
Lu-cina, she watched over the unborn child and its birth.
328
The New
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As
Conciliatrix and as Viriplaca, she appeased the husband; and as Sororia,
preserved peace among sisters.
The
goddesses invoked at birth, besides Juno, were Mane-Geneta, Carmenta, and
Egeria. The god The child- called upon at the first cry of the new-born
'who*pro- was Vaticanus. The child was laid
tected
it. upon the ground. If the father took it up in his arms, all was well; but if
not, it was killed or exposed : hence there was a goddess of uplifting, or
Levana. The divinities who protected the child in his infancy were Cunina,
Statilinus, Edusa, Potina, Paventia, Fabulinus, and Catius. Juventas, the
goddess of youth, had a temple ; Orbana, the goddess of orphans, her sanctuary.
The fever goddess had two temples. With special rites were honored Pietas, Pax,
Bonus Eventus, Spes, Quies, Pudicitia, Honor, and Virtus, who all had temples
or chapels. Especially honored was Concordia.
The
religious service and idolatry which encompassed the life of the mother and her
son from the be-The After Life °f existence, entered into all
and its
Di- his after life. Terminus presided over the vinities. boundaries of his
estate; Silvanus of his forests; Dea Dia, over the fruits of the field; Pales,
over the flocks; Flora, over the flowers,—and had a festival of unbridled
license. Vertumnus presided over the fields and gardens, and his wife Pomona,
the fruits; and the great goddess Ceres watched the grain. If he began family
life, Vesta guarded the hearth. The Lares and Penates of the house had their
altar and offerings.
The
fifteenth day after his birth, the Fates, or Fata
Old
Social Order in Rome.
329
Scribenda,)
were called upon, and through life he never ceased to worship Fortune. Every
State employment was mixed up with idolatry. The soldier worshiped the eagle
borne on the standard of his cohort or legion. All civil and judicial oaths were
tainted with the pervading idolatry, and every citizen must sacrifice, if
called upon, to the genius of the emperor. From this recital the inevitable
antagonism and incessant conflict iu which the Christian engaged against
idolatry, and which entered into and broke up the relations of business,
society—all public and family life. The Christians could not live in the old,
they were compelled to found a new world.
The utter
failure of art, literature, philosophy, and religion to reform Roman society or
pre- The Amu5e_ serve heathen civilization, unmistakably ments.
confronts us when we consider the amusements of the people.
The
theater was the oldest of these. The three theaters in the time of the empire
would accommodate from 50,000 to 75,000 people—a much The larger
number, in proportion to the popu- Theaters, lation, than could find room in
the theaters of any capital in Europe. The old stage presented a rustic comedy,
with coarse and obscene allusions. At the time of the introduction of
Christianity the representations were usually mythological scenes. Those
specially preferred were the love adventures of Jupiter, Venus and Adonis,
Apollo and Daphne, Phaedra and Hippolytus, etc. Ovid said he thought his poems
“should not be charged with immorality, when the emperor and senators, the
matrons and maidens, yes, even children, saw the mimes. The wife deceive?
330
The New
Society.
her
husband, and not only the ears hear unchaste speeches, but the eye is
accustomed on the stage to revolting shame.”
The
heathen Zosimus, writing in the fifth century, said: “The introduction of
pantomimes under Augustus was a symptom of the universal moral ruin of the
world which began with the beginning of the monarchy.”
The
corrupt moral influence of the theaters, which could accommodate at one time
one-twentieth of the
free
population, could never be inconsider-
The
Circus. , . , • - • r ^ 1 i
able; but
was insignificant when compared with that of the circus and amphitheater. The
great circus under Julius Caesar had 150,000 sittings ; under Titus, 250,000;
and under Trajan, to the end of the empire, 385,000. It was the boast of Rome
that all her citizens could find accommodation in her circus. Being free, it
was crowded. In the morning before daybreak people came streaming in to find
places. It was thronged from the time of Julius Caesar to the end of this
period. Of course, in such a vast space, little attention could be paid to
individual horses and charioteers. Hence they were distinguished by their
colors, which could be seen across the immense crowd, and through the dust. The
races were run by horses hitched two or four abreast. Nero drove ten abreast at
Olympia. They were driven fourteen times the length of the arena, or seven
times around the course, a distance of about five miles. All the violence of
the most intense political partisanship, the excitement of the horse-race, and
the risk and anxiety of the most eager gambling, raged in the circus. The
people staid all day. After Nero’s time, from twenty to
Old
Social Order in Rome.
twenty-four
races were run each day. The crowds and excitement of the circus endured
through Christian times. A riot at the circus at Constantinople nearly cost
Justinian his throne, and occasioned the loss of thirty-two thousand lives.
The
corruption of the theater, the excitement of the circus, culminated in the
games of the The amphitheater. These comprised the gladi-
phuhea*^" atorial games and the contests with wild beasts.
The first
mention of gladiatorial games is in 264
B. C.;
when three pairs fought at the funeral of Brutus Perus. In 65 B. C., Julius
Caesar sought combats of to give games which should surpass any- G,adlator»-thing
seen in Rome; but the resolution of the Senate limited him to the use of 320
pairs of gladiators. Augustus ordered that the praetor should give these games
twice a year, with not more than 120 men. When private persons gave games the
usual number was one hundred pairs. During the reign of Augustus ten thousand
men fought in his games. In the games of one year at the Dacian triumph of
Trajan, 106, the same number fought. In the course of four years, about 240,
five thousand men fought in these games.
Gladiators
were sometimes sentenced criminals; sometimes prisoners of war, or slaves, and
even voluntary recruits. They were trained in the sources of gladiatorial
schools. Caligula established supply and
. . r
j j Training of
the first
one in Rome. Doinitian founded oiadiators. four. There were always from twelve
hundred to two thousand gladiators in Rome. There were also schools at Capua,
Praeneste, Ravenna, and Alexandria—places chosen for the healthfulness of their
location. The
332
The New
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discipline
of these schools was of cruel severity. The men were kept in little cells,
without windows on three sides, and opening on a pillared hall. The punishments
were scourgings, brandings, and heavy chains. At Pompeii the remains of sixty
of these men have been found in their cells, many of them heavily fettered.
They not seldom committed suicide. Symmachus, in the last of the fourth
century, tells of twenty nine Saxon captives who were to have taken part in the
games in honor of his son’s accession to the praetorship, who strangled each
other with their bare hands.
Not
satisfied with such scenes, the Roman tiger Battles thiret f°r blood
showed itself in Julius in the Am- Caesar at his triumphal games—causing to
phitheater. jn the arena five hundred foot, three
hundred
horse, and twenty elephants.
For this
purpose excavations were made, and artificial lakes formed. In these sea-fights
under Julius Naval Caesar, 46 B. C., fought one thousand men Battles. an(j
two thousand rowers ; under Augustus three thousand soldiers, and under
Claudius nineteen thousand. Nero, Titus, and Domitian favored the populace with
these rare sights, as did Philip the Arabian, in 248, at the secular games.
Games in
which wild animals fought were introduced in 186 B. C. In Pompey’s games were
used Combats seventeen elephants, five hundred lions, with and four hundred
other animals. Julius wild Beasts. Qxsar use(j four
hundred lions and forty
elephants;
Augustus, three thousand five hundred animals. These numbers are small compared
with five thousand wild and nine thousand tame animals
Old
Social Order in Rome. 333
used by
Titus, 80, in the hundred days’ festival; or the eleven thousand slain in 106,
at the Dacian games of Trajan. The aristocracy also gave private games in which
they were used. The games of the Emperor Philip (248) rivaled any before seen.
Rhinoceroses were pitted against elephants, bears and elephants against
buffaloes, while lions, tigers, leopards, hyenas, wild horses, wild asses,
giraffes! and even hippopotamuses and crocodiles, were found,* and fought for
their lives in the arena. Criminals were sentenced, and Christians were
condemned to martyrdom by being thrown to the wild beasts; while, with a
refinement of cruelty difficult to imagine, these executions took place in the
course of the representation of plays upon the stage—the death of Jason and of
Hercules; the robber Laureolus crucified; Daedalus torn to pieces by the lions,
or Orpheus by the bears.
These
games, and the amphiteaters for them, were found from Jerusalem to Seville, and
from England to North Africa. There was no important Extent of the city in which
there were not numerous nc* .°f
^
Gladiatorial
bloody
offerings. There was hardly a Games, small town in Italy where annual combats,
at least of wild beasts, were not held two or three or four days in the year.
In small or poor places three or four pairs of gladiators fought; in larger
ones, twenty, thirty, or even fifty pairs. According to the expenditure of
human life was estimated their splendor. They were most numerous in Italy,
Gaul, North Africa, and Spain. There were never so many in Greece and the
Asiatic lands. The only Roman of eminence who pronounced against them was
Seneca.
334
The New
Society.
In Rome,
of course, the games were given with the greatest expenditure of blood and
treasure. The Time given seven yearly games under Augustus lasted to
Games sixty-six days; Tiberius raised the number in Rome. tQ eighty-seven;
Marcus Aurelius to one hundred and thirty-five, where it remained. Besides
these, were the extraordinary games which sometimes filled out one or two
hundred days. These games included the theater, circus, and amphitheater.
The
imperial games cost annually one hundred thousand dollars under Augustus. Three
days’ games The Expense *n a *n Central Italy cost
twenty-two of the thousand dollars. Yet Augustus gave Games, jjerod five
hundred thousand dollars for games at Jerusalem; and two thousand five hundred
Jewish captives fought in the amphitheater at Caesarea, 70, after the fall of
Jerusalem. Aurelian’s games upon entering office as consul, about 265, cost two
hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars. The games of Symmachus’s son as
praetor, about 375. cost four hundred and fifty thousand dollars. These sums
should be increased sixfold to tenfold to represent the money of our day.
The most
significant monument of Roman imperial times is the Coliseum, built by the
Emperor The Vespasian 70-80. It rested on eighty coliseum, mighty arches, and
rose one hundred and fifty feet into the air. It was elliptical in shape, about
625 feet long by 505 feet broad, while the arena was 280 feet long by nearly
180 feet in breadth; it had sittings for 87,000 spectators. The splendor of the
display, as representing the world-wide dominion and unceasing permanence of
Rome, doubtless at
Old
Social Order in Rome. 335
tracted
many of the spectators. The Venerable Bede
"Vn
il 3 comm°a in his time, about 750:
h !!g
Collseum stands, Rome will stand;
&5r
M,e ?u1Tm fa!ls’Rome wiu fa“; wI’e"
R°'"=
ialls,
will fall the world.”
The last
day before the games began, the gladiators were called together and given a
free meal in public furnished with costly meats and drinks Many spent the day
in riotous excess, otli-ers in taking leave of their wives and Co,,scum-friends,
and the Christians of their fellow-believers The next day the seats are filled.
The emperor and his family occupy the imperial box. The senators, the knights,
and wealthy members of society fill the marble benches. Women, as well as men,
are there to feast their eyes on scenes of blood. Indeed, at their head are the
Vestal Virgins. From senators to women of fashion, all are in their gayest
attire and most sumptuous array. The ornaments of wealth, the insignia of
office, the beauty and power of Rome, are there. Suddenly the trumpets of the
heralds sound. The gladiators, in the costumes of the different nationalities
they represent, and armed with the arms they are about to use, pass in long
procession around the arena. When they reach the imperial box, they hail the
emperor with, “ Imperator, we who are about to die, salute thee.” No Christian
pen would willingly trace the scenes of these bloody conflicts. If a wounded
gladiator implores for life, the emperor by turning up his thumbs grants it,
but more often, by turning them down, gives the signal for the finishing
stroke. The multitude manifests the greatest displeasure when a gladiator seems
unwilling to die.
336
The New
Society.
When the
combat ceases, attendants, attired to represent the gods of the lower regions,
come out with gleaming hot irons to test the fallen and see if they are dead. The
bodies are borne to the dead-chamber, and any lingering wretch with the stroke
of the sword is released from his pain.
There
were six hundred years of these brutal, cruel, public murders. It was high time
for Alaric, Genseric, Totila, and Belisarius to sweep the race Abolition fr°m
ground, polluted with drinking of these such streams of human blood; for,
though Games. Constantine decreed the abolition of these games, October i, 326,
and Valentinian forbade the condemnation of a Christian to a school of the
gladiators in 365, and they had ceased in the Bast, they continued in Rome. In
404, the monk Telemachus, plunging between the combatants to separate them in
the last gladiatorial games given in Rome, was torn in pieces by the raging
multitude, whose pleasure he had spoiled.
If we
consider the extent of these bloody spectacles of the amphitheater, every
province of the empire Extent and having a
procurator of games, who was influence of also interested in keeping up the
supply the Games. ^ capital; if we consider the cost, the revenues
of provinces being lavished in a few days; if we take into account that the
theaters, the circus, and the amphitheater could accommodate at one time more
than one-third of the whole population, men and women, of the city; that the
ordinary free plays and games occupied from three to four months in the year,
while there were added from one to two months
Old
Social Order in Rome.
337
more by
the extraordinary games, besides all the private spectacles,—we can estimate
their immense influence and the irremediable demoralization caused by them. We
can see why the Roman citizen, who must attend the theater, the circus, and the
games of the amphitheater from dawn to setting sun each second or third day,
could not support himself, and why, out of 320 000 Roman citizens, 200,000 were
fed by the State. This free distribution of grain was practiced, to the ruin of
agriculture and draining the resources of the State, not only at Rome, but at
Alexandria, at Antioch, and in other cities of the empire. There is a necessary
connection between bad morals and bad economics.
The
reader may think this picture of Roman society and morals overdrawn. The
contrary is the case. No missionary would dare to print corruption or speak of
the familiar sights of every-day of Roman
x .
Society.
life in a
heathen land. Nor could the his- witness of torian of Rome desire or dare to
record the Pompeii, daily scenes of the most splendid and refined society of
the capital of the world. What the heathenism was to which the gospel came, and
which the gospel conquered, buried and restored Pompeii tells us with evidence
impossible to question. The historian, sober and never partial to the
Christians, Hermann Schiller, says: “Pompeii shows frightful immorality.”
Christianity
has its dark spots, its crowded slums, in its great capitals and in the centers
of population; but the cruel slavery, the unbridled and unconcealed profligacy,
the basest forms of immorality, are as for-
22
33*
The New
Society.
eign to
Christian civilization and as unknown to the citizens of a Christian land as
the games of the Roman amphitheater. The world has moved, and moved along the
plane of Christian morals. Along this plane the path of future progress lies.
Chapter
II.
CHRISTIAN
LIFE AND SUCIETY.
The new
world began with the individual. The Christian was a new man. Regeneration,
however difficult to explain as a process, is a fact The Effect of
experience. Growth in the physical of world is one of the most
complex and in- ^p^the* explicable of processes, but none the less individual,
one of the most evident and controlling of facts. Such an experience alone
could give the purity and equality of the first Christian ages. This
regeneration wrought that entire ethical reform which has always made the
religion of Christ the most powerful agent in the moral elevation of the
individual, and enabled it to reach and save the slave, the outcast, and the
criminal. According to the letters of St. Paul, these, turned from their evil
ways, became members of the Christian Church. This work continued; for Celsus,
more than a hundred years later makes it a reproach against the Christians that
they receive such into their fellowship. Since the preaching of the Cross to
the dying thief, the Christian faith has saved those who were lost. Its cure is
radical and complete. Not only were men turned from their old life,—they were
turned to a new one. The old desires and affections were driven out by the
expulsive power of a new and all-controlling affection for the loftiest ideal,
and the noblest and most winning personality which ever appealed to the human
heart. The believer was
339
340
The New
Society,
not all
the time striving, by mortifications and weary, fruitless endeavors, to arrive
at moral purity; he received inward cleansing through God’s unspeakable gift.
He wrought not for life, but from life. The contents of his Christian
experience were positive rather than negative. Self-restraint came as the
result of the inward, more abundant life, not as the sole and direct result of
moral endeavor. What philosophy and merely ethical teaching in every age has
failed to do, that the Christian religion wrought, according to the testimony
of heathen observers like Galen, 130-200: “ We know that the people called
Christians have founded a religion in parables and miracles. In moral training
we see them in no wise inferior to the philosophers. They practice celibacy, as
do many of their women; in diet they are abstemious, in fastings and prayers
assiduous; they injure no one. In the practice of virtue they surpass
philosophers; in probity, in continence, in the genuine performance of
miracles, they infinitely excel them.”
Let us
remember that this work was accomplished in the midst of all that habit,
association, universal influence anc* all-powerful custom could do
to draw of oid Christians back into the old heathen life. Associations,
strength of those influences sur
rounding
them we can have no conception. An apt illustration of them is given by
Augustine in his “Confessions.” “Alypius, a Christian, was compelled by his
friend to go to the amphitheater. Shutting his eyes, he kept his soul
unpolluted> until, through some chance in the fight, there arose a terrible outcry.
Almost involuntarily he opened his eyes. With the sight of the flowing blood,
he drank in the inhu
Christian
Life and Society.
manity of
the place. He was intoxicated with the bloody pleasure. He saw, he cried, he
was inflamed. He took the mania away with him and it stung him to return.”
It was
not that the new life died away with the obligation of watchfulness,
self-examination, and the realization of a nobler ideal; these were insisted
upon, but they were not all—they did not stand alone—they were related to and a
part of that divine salvation by which lost men and a corrupt society could be
redeemed. Its power was inexhaustible, its redemption plenteous.
According
to the Christian conception, the regeneration of the individual was not an end
in itself. When a man was born of God, he was born social into a new society,
the kingdom of God, Reform, represented on earth by the Church of the Ivord
Jesus Christ. Hence the salvation of the individual and of society were
correlative factors; the one involved the other. The principle which was to
regenerate society, and of the new social order brought in by the acceptance of
the reign of Christ, was Christian love; love that sacrifices, love that
forgets self, love that dies, love that brings purity and peace. This love is
divine; it is received by men; it allies them to God; it binds them to each
other; it is the attractive, crystallizing power of the new society in the new
world.
The
purifying influence of this love is felt first in the home. Here the new lile came;
lor wherever Christ was preached, “women were invited The and
welcomed into the Christian conimu- Christian nities, and were admitted equally
with men to all Christian privileges. Hence, in a Christian
342
The New
Society.
family
the wife and mother held an honorable place.0 Chastity, in contrast
with heathen licentiousness, investing marriage with a religious sanctity, and
allowing divorce only for the cause named by Christ, hallowed and strengthened
the life of the home. The blessing of the Son of Mary came upon the womanhood
of the race
As “
saints,” “brethren,” and “ sisters,” the earliest names for Christians, they
formed a holy brotherhood,
united
and pure. This aspiration after
Marriage,
. . r
purity
was seen m the Christian view of marriage. Three things were regarded as
essential— one husband with one wife, or monogamy; divorce only for adultery;
no alliance of the sexes tolerated except in marriage, hence concubinage done
away among them. Marriage was allowed, widowhood honored, but virginity was by
many preferred. Second marriage was discountenanced. Everywhere the thought
was, purity at any price. Knowing the condition of human society, we can see
why they should go to the other extreme. Yet Paul’s comparison of the relation
of Christ to his Church to marriage, honors in the highest degree this relation
on which depends the family life.
The
difficulties of the situation are proved by the severe and long-continued
struggle against concubinage, a relation in which the woman renounced the name
of wife, and the rank and dignity of her husband ; and the children did not
take the full legal position of children born in legitimate marriage, and yet
which had a certain lawful relation as a kind of legalized polygamy. The
practice became widespread. The laws against it of Constantine* and later
Christian
Life and Society,
those of
Justinian, hardly checked it, and it was , wholly done away by law only in the
ninth century. Pope Calixtus was blamed for having favored such marriages, and
three Councils—400, 402, and 538-mention them without placing their right in
question. Christianity made chastity as obligatory upon man as upon woman, yet
only under Theodosius II was first recognized the right of the wife to divorce
in case of her husband s adultery. The position of women in the Church brought
purity and equality into the home. The Pauline precept enthroned love there as
Christ had taught the indissoluble union of husband and wife. The Church gave
the right and the ideal, the realization came slowly in the State. Before that
ideal sexual immorality hid itself, and unnatural vice perished from civilized
society.
In the
Christian home the children shared in the blessings which came upon the
parents. No richer blessing could come to any child than to be born to a
heritage of purity and love. Chndren‘ The heathen practices of
abortion, or the exposure of the children to die, or to be brought up as the
meanest of slaves, could never enter the Christian family. “Under the old Roman
law, parents might at any time put their children to death, or sell them as
slaves; but this severity was at once voluntarily softened in Christian
families, and the power was taken away by Christian emperors.” The blessing of
the Babe of Bethlehem came upon the childhood of the world. The old household
gods, with their familiar rites, were displaced, but the Christian home had its
religious life.
From the
beginning, “grace” was said at meals—
344
The New
Society.
hardly
any other Christian observance is older, or of Religious more
universal usage. The practice of
Life in
making the sign of the cross on the fore-the Home. kead, by tjie
beginning of the third century, came to be a perpetually-repeated sign in
families, Children were early taught the Lord’s Prayer and the Apostles’ Creed
and to pray at midnight, sunrise, and at every meal. They were taught from the
Scriptures, beginning with the Psalms. Christian songs and hymns were an
abundant source of recreation at meal'times, and in all family and friendly
reunions.
No
attempt was made in the first century to do away with slavery; that would have
been impossible without a political and social revolution.
A ’ A slave could live a
Christian life. Christians generally considered slavery as belonging to this
world, and therefore not as immoral, but yet as not corresponding to the
highest will of God. The Church cared for the spiritual welfare of slaves, and
taught that their masters were to improve their condition, and were responsible
for their souls. Their position was greatly improved by the Church; slaves even
became bishops. Christian feeling toward slavery is well expressed by Gregory
the Great: “As our Redeemer, the Author of the whole Creation, took upon him
human nature for the purpose of releasing Us by his grace from the chains of
bondage, in which we were held, so is a salutary action performed when men,
whom nature from the beginning made free, and whom the rights of nations have
subjected to the yoke of slavery, are restored to the freedom in which they are
born.”
Christian
Life and Society.
The
increasing poverty and economic distress rendered slavery unprofitable at the
close of this period. The invasions of the barbarians broke up the
slave-markets allowed the escape of multitudes of bondmen, and seriously
affected the institution. The influence of monasticism, in despising property
and luxury, tended in the'same direction; but the one chief cause leading to
the cessation of slavery in Europe was the teaching of the Christian gospel,
and the influence of the Christian Church. We may say, in the words of Mommsen:
“Christianity had, in the beginning, considered servitude as a provisional
condition, and its task as its abolition. Its influence was such that not only
Christian owners freed their slaves in greater numbers, but also the freedom of
slaves was purchased out of the means of the Church; and, finally, the law did
away with gladiatorial games, es* tablished a kind of manumission before the
Church in the community, and fully did away with the difference between the
free and the freedman.”
Such were
some of the effects of the application of the principles of Christian love in
the family life. Its results were not less far-reaching in the wider circles of
business and society.
The
acceptance of the gospel rendered inevitable antagonism to the prevalent
practices of public and social life. It required the reception and ChrIstlan
manifestation in life of the Spirit of Christ, and Heathen so utterly alien to
the dominant philos- Soclet>-ophy, customs, and usages, and even
laws of the State. The one close-clinging sin. intermixed with all the forms of
social, public, and even domestic life, Was idolatry. With this the Christian
convert could
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make no
compromise. The result was separation, which often involved the disruption of
families; the breaking up of all business or trade interests upon which
depended a livelihood; the incurring of the enmity of old-time friends,
associates, and often relatives, which not infrequently led to a martyr’s
death. This separation involved a constant restraint, lest old habits,
passions, associations, finding occasion in the multiplied points of conflict
between the new faith and the old accustomed life, should bring the believer
into sin and disgrace. Such Christian watchfulness, circumspect walking, and
careful self-restraint were essential to the Christian in the midst of the
dominant heathenism of the first three centuries. Hence, the Christian received
a new spirit, lived a new life, developed a new society, with institutions and
offices fitted for its needs, which should one day, in the providence of God,
take the place of a decaying and fallen state, and raise the fabric of a purer
and nobler civilization.
Many
trades and occupations were closed to the Christians. Such were all which had
to do with the Trades and manufacture or ornamentation of idols, or
Professions, portrayal of idolatrous scenes, and so, in large part, all
decorative art, all trade in objects of idolatrous worship. Actors, and all
connected with the stage, were compelled to cease their connection with it on
professing faith in Christ. Montanists held that Christians should not even
teach in the schools, so permeated was the literature with idolatry ; only the
simplest trades and callings were without its degrading taint. We must remember
these were the most serious and practical questions of the
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347
daily
life of Christians for two hundred and fifty years.
Take the
ease of a soldier who is converted to the Christian faith,—must he therefore
desert his colors, and, if unpunished, remain under the stigma of disloyalty;
or stay with them, Pub"C Ufe and either take part in
the idolatry of the soldiers or die a martyr’s death? So Christians were
dissuaded from taking public office. The Council of Elvira, 303, ordered that
Christian magistrates should not attend church in the year that they served as
duumviri, and pronounced upon life and death.
What,
then, in the life of the Christian took the place of the civic and military
duties from which they were excluded; the social life, which cen- Christian
tered in idolatrous feasts, or lascivious plays, Fellowship, or cruel games of
the amphitheater; the overthrow of business interests, and the intimacies of
friendship and domestic life turned to hatred? The one and sufficient answer
is, the purity and fellowship of the early Christian society. Profession of
faith in Christ made essential personal communion with God and purity of life.
Of these things their heathen enemies testified. But the charm which drew men
from the world, and held them safe amid manifold trials and temptations, was
the love of God manifested in the fellowship of the Christian society. Great as
have been the victories of the fellowship of the Christian faith in all the
ages since, it may be doubted if it was ever purer or more fervent and
attractive than in the Church of persecution and martyrdom. By them was
accepted, realized, and they rejoiced in the test, “ We know that we have
passed from death unto life, be
34§
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cause we
love the brethren.” Tertullian tells us that the heathen said, “ See how these
Christians love one another.” This was promoted by the common meal, or
love-feast, partaken for the first two centuries in connection with the Sunday
worship, and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Afterward as an evening meal,
it continued until the fourth century. At both love-feast and sacrament all
distinctions of rank faded away. The Christian master and the Christian slave
sat side by side. The inequalities of fortune were forgotten, and all were
brethren and sisters in the Lord, greeting each other with the holy kiss. The
world, into which they were born, and which they had known, with many individuals
of high character, and many domestic, civil, and martial virtues, was yet a
world without love—the very picture of a materialized society; the world into
which he entered through the Christian faith as by a second birth, was a world
loving God, receiving and manifesting his love in a fellowship as wonderfully
attractive as it was unique. It was not so hard to die in a company so lowly
and so noble, so pure in faith, so ardent in affection, and so triumphant in
hope.
The
source of all that made glad the heart of the Christian was his communion with
God. The teach-Communion ing of the unity of God wrought an intel-with aod.
lectual and moral revolution to one brought up in idolatry. How could there be
communion with the multifarious gods of heathenism ? But the Father Almighty,
Maker of heaven and earth, came near to men. He was our Father, the Father of
our Lord Jesus Christ. In him was the basis of this fellowship. The marked
characteristic of the life of indi
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vidual
Christians—from all we know from the documents, the narratives and memorials
upon the tombs
of the
early Christians which have come down to us_
is
joyfulness; not simply cheerfulness, but joyfulness. These despised Christians
had their ministration of the Holy Spirit that made them able always to
rejoice. They, and they only, were victorious in this dying world.
This
purity, fellowship, and rejoicing was ministered to by the instruction, the
worship, and discipline of the Church. The instruction of the Church was most
definite and precise in ,nstruct,on* the preparation for baptism. “
The catechumens were instructed in the great articles of the Creed (Apostles’),
the nature of the sacraments, and penitential discipline of the Church. Special
examinations and inquiries into character were made at intervals during the
forty days. It was a time of fasting watching, and prayer.” This instruction
was continuously followed by the leading of the Scriptures and committing
passages to memory in private or in the home when possible, or in the worship
of the Church; and also by that great means of expounding Christian doctrine
and enforcing Christian practice, the preaching of the Word. All the great
doctors of the Church were preachers; and, in the early years, laymen, as well
as men ordained, could preach
The
worship of the Church was at first mainly during the first half of this period
eminently social in character. Its psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, its
unpremeditated prayer and Worsh,p* its accustomed forms for common
supplication both in use, made the worship one of thanksgiving rather
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than one
of expiation, and gave a sense of freedom and fellowship which were unknown in
the Church when the love-feast and offering of fruits and grain in the service
ot the Eucharist gave way to the restraint of a fixed and stately, and often
tedious, ceremonial. The lessons of the worship of the Lord’s-day were deepened
when the solemnities of Lent, the rejoicings of Easter and Pentecost, were
filled put in the round of the Christian year. If there was less of freedom,
there was more of order and an unceasing inculcation of Christian truth of
value to the ruder nations of the North.
The
discipline of fasting two days in the week was to inculcate self restraint. The
discipline of the Discipline Church was invaluable in making supreme
moral obligations without respect of persons, and in deepening the sense of
sin, while holding out the hope of pardon. It had its characteristic faults,
and it failed in the end, but only when the monastic life had absorbed nearly
all the more earnest Christians under a still more rigorous rule. This
discipline, first Christian and then monastic, testified to the universal
supremacy of moral obligation during the ages of national decay, and when the
darkness of intellectual night settled down over Christendom. The reality of
this Christian fellowship was shown . in the protection the Church afforded to
the
Christianity
s
in
Business weak or the unfortunate from the fraud and Relations, violence which
had long known no restraint
The Seri-
0
coioni,
or except that of force. The Church be-
Hereditary
iieve(i in justice in business relations. The Tenants.
. J
soil, m
many places, was tilled by tenants whose interest passed from father to son,
and who
Christian
Life and Society.
were
called colonit but who were practically serfs. With these tillers of
the land every sort of fraud was used to get as much out of them as possible,
as they were too poor to obtain the protection of the law. Extracts gathered by
Uhlhorn show clearly their condition and the work of the Church.
-‘How
they ill use the poor farmers!” exclaims Chrysostom. “ Do they treat them more
humanely than the barbarians do ? They do not hesitate to impose insupportable
burdens, daily heavier, upon those who are perishing with hunger, who are
toiling away their lives. Whether the land yields anything or nothing, they
always demand the same.” In them, too, the Church took an interest. Theodoret,
in a letter (Ep. 23), entreats a land-owner for some indulgence toward the
coloni of his flock: “ Have pity on the laborers who have labored in the fields
and have gained but little. Eet the scanty harvest be an occasion to thee of a
plentiful spiritual harvest.” Augustine seriously appeals to the conscience of
one Romulus, concerning his oppression of coloni, on whom double supplies were
about to be imposed, and threatens him with eternal judgment: “They toil for a
short time; but do thou look to it that thou heap not up treasure against the
day of wrath and revelation of the righteous judgment of God.” Gregory the
Great’s letters (Epist. i, 51, I, 56) show how careful lie was about the
welfare of the common people, and contain a number of directions to his
dcfensorcs (agents) for the alleviation of their condition. He writes to his
Subdeacon Anthemius: “Not only by frequent injunctions, but also personally,
have I, as I remember, exhorted thee to have less in view, in thy deportment
352
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as our
vicar, the temporal profit of the Church, than the alleviation of the miseries
of the poor, and, on the contrary, to protect them against whatever oppression
may be inflicted on them.” To the Subdeacon Peter, too, who administered the
Church property in Sicily, he gives this excellent advice: “I desire that the
noble and respectable may honor thee for thy humility, and not loathe thee for
thy pride. But if thou shouldest see them commit an injustice against the poor,
then quickly raise thyself up from thy humility, so that thou mayest be
submissive to them as long as they act justly, but their opponent as soon as
they do evil.” Gregory, having learned that many farmers, constrained to pay
their taxes before selling their harvests, were having recourse to loans, and
thus falling into the hands of usurers, commissions Peter, the subdeacon, to
make them an advance out of the Church resources, which they may repay by
installments. Thus the Deacon Cyprian receives a like commission. He is to make
advances to the farmers, that they may not get money elsewhere, since they will
then have either to pay interest or have their produce undervalued. “For these
neither will the Church treasury be ruined nor the prosperity of the farmers destroyed.”
“The
Church opposed whatever violence was exercised by the rich and noble against
the poor and Resistance humble, and, as Ambrose says, protected t0
of^the106 the Naboths against the Ahabs, of whom Powerful, a new one
rose up every day.” One of the circumstances by which Chrysostom drew down upon
himself the wrath of the Empress Eudoxia was this : The empress, relying upon a
certain law, desired
Christian
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to
possess herself of the vineyard of a poor widow for a payment in money.
Chrysostom protected the widow in her possessions, uninfluenced by the wealth
of the empress. The property of widows and orphans was frequently intrusted to
the Church for preservation and management. Augustine once mentions this, and
adds: “The bishops protect the orphans that they may not be oppressed by
strangers after the death of their parents.” In Pavia, a respectable man had
surreptitiously obtained an imperial rescript, by which the property of an
orphan, held as a deposit by the Church, was adjudged to him. Nevertheless,
Ambrose refused to deliver it up, withstood all the threats and annoyances of
the corrupted officials, and at last effected a withdrawal of the rescript.
Many of Augustine’s letters treat of the proposed marriage of an orphan girl who
had been intrusted to the Church, and the care of whom the bishop,
notwithstanding his numerous cares and labors, did not neglect. He writes to
Felix: “For your piety knows what care the Church and the bishops should take
for the protection of all men, but especially of orphan children.” The charity
of the early Church was as marked as the fellowship from which it sprang, and
the joyous spirit with which it was administered. Christian Paul insists on the
necessity of labor, not Charity.
. .
Necessity
only for
self-support, but that Christians and Dignity may have to give to the needy. He
taught of Labor* the dignity of labor by working with his own hands.
The apostle whose Lord worked as a carpenter, recognized the value of labor,
the independence which it confers, and the curse and moral degradation of
Idleness. The rule he gave was that “ if any would not
23
354
Thf: New Society.
work,
neither should he eat.” The charity of the Church did not rest on the great
gifts of the wealthy, or on vast endowments for the relief of social need, but
on the self-denial and the spirit of Christian love and brotherhood of the
laboring classes. The first duty of the Church in regard to social relations
was to find work for the unemployed, a much harder task in days of slavery than
in ours; but which it was forward to do. From the beginning the Church took
care of its own poor, its sick, widows, and orphans. The poor at Jerusalem were
specially remembered, as were always the widows and the desolate, widows above
sixty years of age having a life pension from the Church.
The
fruits of labor were not for selfish enjoyment. The Christian spirit prompted
to large and generous The Service hospitality; letters of Christian fellowship
of Wealth. were 0f substantial value. Covetousness
Hospitality.
Care ot
the was rebuked, and on every hand aid com-
Poor and man(ie(i
to be given to the poor. This was Distressed. °
r
illustrated
and enforced in every service for worship. The Lord’s Supper, observed each
week in the smallest Christian assembly, always had an oblation or presentation
of gifts for the poor. This charity, in its method, was as considerate and
Christian as it was unceasing and abundant. The membership of the Church gave
to the Lord as a part of divine worship, and the poor received it from the Lord
as ministered through his Church. For this congregational care of the poor were
set apart the deacons, the deaconesses, and the widows of the Church. There did
not fail personal investigation and ministration to the suffering and
distressed. The ardent love which
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355
prompted
thank-offerings to God in compassion for human need, brought as well personal
service. In the capital of the world, in the early part of the third century,
the Roman bishop could boast there was no Christian beggar in that vast
population. Twenty-five years later another bishop reckoned one thousand five
hundred widows and poor under the care of the Church. The heathen Emperor
Julian renders unwilling testimony to the continued and unbounding charity of
the Christian Church.
When
Christianity became the religion of the State, the Church care of the poor,
instead of being the relief of those in need in Christian con- The
Congre-gregations, became that of the poor of the charuy'be-entire community,
under the charge of the comes that of bishop. Basil himself attended to the
sick thecom-and the leprous. Chrysostom lived a life munity. of simplicity and
self-denial in the midst of Byzantine luxury, while filling the most splendid
ecclesiastical station of the age. At Antioch his Church cared for three
thousand widows and virgins, while at Constantinople he fed daily seven
thousand poor. At Alexandria seven thousand five hundred received the care of
the Church. Ambrose takes special care of the poor; and Augustine desires no
other garment than such as he can give to a poor brother. Gregory I had every
month carts full of provision driven through the city for the relief of the
poor, and distributed among them grain, oil, wine, and meat. Every one in
distress expected relief from the bishop, the poor Roman, homeless through the
ravages of the barbarians, and the wild German, when suffering or in need,
equally sought his aid, and never
356
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found
refusal. Yet this beneficence was subject to such impositions, when there could
be no longer the close personal supervision of congregational care, that it is
the burden of the complaint of Basil, Gregory Nazianzen, Ambrose, and
Chrysostom. It seemed impossible to deal with it amid the appalling distress
whose reality was unquestioned.
The
necessity for this more careful discrimination, and the rise of monasticism,
caused the care of the The Care of poor to become institutional. The indi-the
church viduai Christian no longer felt it his duty
for the
Poor . . . .
becomes
in- to minister to the suffering and afflicted stitutionai. through the weekly
offerings which were distributed by those having charge of the dependent
members of the flock, the offering and the ministration, both a work of
Christian love. Now an order of men and women performed this service.
One-fourth of the revenues of the Church which came into the hands of the
bishop were devoted to the care of the poor and the needy. Not only the current
revenues from the offerings of the faithful, but the income of the large landed
estates of the Church, were used for this purpose.
Personal
solicitations did not cease, but the motive was no longer the warm Christian
love moved to
The compassion
by a brother’s need. From Bestowing 25° & was taught that
alms purged away
Aims.
sin. Leo thus expresses the thought: “ Alms destroy sins, abolish death,
extinguish the penalty of eternal fire.” The great influence of Augustine
extended the merit of alms beyond death: “It is not to be doubted that the dead
are assisted by the prayers of the Church, by the saving sacrifice, and
Christian
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by alms
which are offered for their souls, and that the Lord deals more mercifully with
them than their sins have deserved.” This teaching was elaborated into the
doctrine of purgatory by Gregory the First, and was the motive for the abundant
gifts of the succeeding ages.
This
charity of the Church developed forms of wider usefulness after Christianity
became the religion of the empire. Basil was the pio- Charitable neer in this
work. He established the first ,nstitutions-
Hospitals,
Christian
hospital at Neo-Caesarea, in 370. etc.
It was a
new thing in the heathen world. About it were grouped houses for strangers and
for widows and orphans. The example of Basil found quick imitation. In 375,
Ephrem Syrus established one at Edessa; Chrysostom founded one at Antioch, and
two at Constantinople. They were commended by the Council of Chalcedon, 451.
They were first established in Rome, 398, by friends of Jerome. They became
prevalent in the West from 500 to 550. Under Gregory I, 590-604, there were a
large number in Italy, and thirty-five in Constantinople. Institutions were
also established for the care of orphans, foundlings, and the aged ; and
asylums for the insane, the blind, deaf and dumb, and for magdalens. These
institutions were at first under the oversight of the bishop, but were
afterward confided to a separate monastic order.
The
self-sacrificing love of the Christians did not stop with fellow-believers.
Cyprian, 248-258, tells of the devastating plague at Carthage, and carin* for
how the Christians buried the dead left by the Dead-the heathen in
the streets and the homes, and so saved
35«
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the city
from further infection. The same service was rendered at Alexandria amid like
circumstances One form of beneficence peculiar to those times was the
redemption of Christians taken into captivity Release of the and slavery. For
the purchase of the free-Captives. dom of the Numidian captives Cyprian
collected in a few days $3,500. The great bishops of the time, and those under
theim again and again sold the sacramental vessels of the Church to ransom
captives. Gregory I says: “ It would be a sin and a crime to esteem the
furniture of the Church above the prisoners.” Candidus, Bishop of Sergiopolis,
on one occasion ransomed 12,000 prisoners for $45,000. Prices were sometimes
much higher. The Lombards demanded $350 for a clergyman, while $45,000 was paid
as the ransom of two Cilician bishops. The Church and individuals were zealous
in the work. On the gravestone of a Christian woman, Eugenia, we read: “ With
her treasures she delivered the prisoners from unjust fetters.” Thus the
Christian Church ministered to the overwhelming distress of the times. Well may
Ulhorn say: “What would have become of the Roman Empire without Christianity?
What numbers has the Church assisted; how much misery it alleviated; how many
tears it dried ! It ministered comfort and consolation to a dying world.”
If
Pompeii revealed to the modern world what heathenism was, the catacombs made a
revelation The equally marvelous and irrefragable in reCatacombs. gar(j
to ^ jjfe 0f early Christian Church.
The inscriptions—more than ten thousand in number—represent the life of the
Christian society from the first century until the fall of Rome; in
Christian
Lite and Society.
410. In
the rooms used as places of worship, and as family burial-places, and in the
hundreds of miles of the tombs of the Christian community, are made clear the
theology, the Christian usages, the cycle of Christian thoughts, and, above
all, the conceptions of the life beyond. The prominent elements of the
Christian life, as there depicted, are purity, fellowship, family affection,
and serene cheerfulness Though a cemetery, there are revealed only abiding
peace and joyful hope. No examples are found in the inscriptions of prayer for
the dead, clerical celibacy, or the worship of Mary.
Chapter
HI.
THE
MONASTIC LIFE
The
fourth century saw the rise and rapid spread of that ideal of Christian life
which has largely af-Monastic Life fected the life of the Chmch since. It
thlNewTes- dominates the Roman and Greek Catholic tament. Churches. There is no
mention of it in the New Testament, and its life and ideals are the farthest
possible from the teachings of our Lord, or of St. John or St. Paul. In the
life of the early Church there was, on account of the present distress, a
tendency toward celibacy. But there is only one passage, and that highly
figurative (Rev. xiv, 4), which intimates that the celibate is superior to the
married state, though it may be iess burdensome, and afford greater
opportunities for the performance of Christian work. The influence of St. James
and the example of John the Baptist were in its favor; but with Paul, according
to his own testimony^ it was a matter of expediency; while Peter, certainly
living in marriage, has been honored as the chief of the apostles by the
Churches most exalting celibacy.
The
monastic ideal was *. First, a withdrawal from the world; second, a
mortification of the flesh through The Monastic severe fastings, denials of
comfortSj punish-ideai* ments like the wearing of haircloth or chains the
neglect of the body; third, the life of contemplation and prayer dwelling
solely upon God, 360
The
Monastic Life. 361
his Word,
and the future life. This ideal, realized in a community of men or of women
living in common, under rule, and bound by vow to chastity, poverty and obedience,
under a superior as the head of the community, forms the monastery. The ideal
of such a lile has never been better expressed than by St. Bernard: “To occupy
one's self with God is not to be idle; it is the occupation of all
occupations.” The power of this ideal must not be undervalued. To do so is to
fail to understand a large and influential portion of the history both of
civilization and of the Church. There is need in Christian life for detachment
from the world; there is need for the denial and subjection of the body; there
is need, if there is to be strength in the Christian soul and saving health in
the Christian Church, for converse with God and dwelling upon his great
thoughts for men. If these things are forgotten, or die out of the life of the Church
at large, God will raise up, and believing hearts will find a refuge where they
may perpetuate themselves; and so the life of Christ may not fade from the
vision of any generation of men. We need, for our own spiritual culture as well
as understanding, to read sympathetically the record of this age-long striving
after holiness, which preserved the power of the Christian life and the graces
of the Christian spirit in ages of ignorance and violence, and of the
secularization and sale of the holiest and most sacred offices of the Christian
religion. It was a refuge from oppression, the abode of boundless kindness and
charity to the poor, the wretched, and suffering, and a realm of quietude of
spirit in a wild and stormy world.
362
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But this
element of truth and this service of righteousness and charity must not blind
us to the The Reverse reality of things, to the facts of history. SMonast£e
^he monastic ideal and life is but a partial
Life. and
one-sided development of the Christian ideal, Christian teaching, and Christian
life. Instead of endeavoring so to preach and apply the gospel of Jesus Christ
as to save the whole man and the whole realm of society, it devotes itself to a
part of our nature and a part of society, neglecting or suppressing the rest.
The nature thus distorted had its own revenge. The age of the greatest
sunremacv of monastic institutions was an age when Christianity must be
reformed or die. No corruptions of a corrupt age and Church equaled the
corruptions of the monasteries.
The
tendency toward celibacy and poverty in the early Church did not result in the
formation of a class No Monasti- of ascetics. The earliest notice ol such is C,SEariythe
no* ke*ore I5°* At same time it may
Church, be that the apostles and teachers mentioned in the “Teaching of the
Twelve,” in their life of wandering and evangelization, had no ties of family
and home. This seems to be tne state ot things presented to us in the so-called
“ Letter of Clement,” about 300, where, also, the abuses to which it led point
to the monastic life as a remedy.
There
were many contributing causes to the development of the monastic life. Among
them may Causes of the be mentioned the idea of two standards of sprla/o? h°liness
and moral obligation,—one for the Monasticism. ordinary Christian, and
another for the “ religious ” or more devout: the teaching of Greek phi
The
Monastic Life.
363
losophy
adopted by Origen, that the mind is purified and strengthened by the denial and
ascetic treatment of the body; the insistence upon the opposition between the
flesh and the spirit by the heretical sects, and the influence of those
rigoristic ideals of Montanism which, being cast out of the Church, found
refuge in the monastic circles; and the contemplative spirit of the Eastern
races. With these wrought the political revolutions of the third century, the
licentiousness and luxury of heathen society, the persecutions of Decius and
Diocletian, and the ruin brought upon the empire by the barbarian invasions. To
these were added the sorrows, sufferings, and disappointments which so often
turn the course of the life of individuals.
But the
chief causes which determined the Christian spirit toward this ideal were
two,—the secularization of the Church, and the opportunity The Two afforded by
the physical and social condi- Chief Causes.
.
r __v - , . The Secularl-
tion of
the population of Egypt for begin- zation of the ning such a life.
The Church of Cyprian Church, is no longer the Church of denial, purity,
humility, and the spiritual gifts of the first two centuries. The narrative of
Eusebius shows the Church largely secularized before the Diocletian
persecutions. This, which was the green tree before Constantine, became the dry
when heathenism pressed into the State Church. The Christian ideal could not be
realized in the established Church of the fourth century. That ideal could not
die. It fled to the deserts and the retreats far from the world, society, and
the great but secularized Church. In these at least, poverty, humility, and
self-conquest should not die out of Christianity, while
3^4
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opportunity
should be given for dwelling upon the eternal things of God, in whose presence
the changes of human life and the revolutions in the history of the State and
the Church are of so little importance.
Egypt
gave the opportunity for the development of this spirit of discontent with the
great Church ot Physical and empire> 1n the
direction of a flight from social Condi- the world and the formation of
monastic tion of Egypt. socjeties# A severe
pestilence, which decimated the population, may have given an initial impulse.
The climate allowed the reduction of the necessities of human existence to a
minimum. The warmth and even temperature, the bright and clear atmosphere, made
necessary onlv the smallest amount and the simplest food. The soil in such a
climate allowed the raising of the amount required with the least care and
exertion, while the poor Coptic population had lived for ages with so little of
the external conveniences or ornaments of life that the simplicity of the
barest cell could scarcely impose an unaccustomed hardship, nor the fasts of
the most rigorous self-denial distress them.
The way
for this, like all great changes, was gradually prepared. From 200 to 250 there
were ascetic Hermits and virgins and widows in the Church. From Anchorites. 26o,
members of the lower classes went into the desert and led a solitary life. A
representative of this class is St. Symeon Stylites, who lived, 423-460, on the
top of a pillar whose summit was only three feet in diameter, surrounded by a
balustrade, and whose height was raised at different times from twelve to sixty
feet. He fasted, taking but one meal a week, and less in Lent. About his neck
he wore a
The
Monastic Life.
heavy
iron chain. Three Christian emperors came to see him—Theodosius II, Marcian,
and Leo —and crowds of strangers from all lands. By his life and exhortations
he converted multitudes of Saracens and other nomads of the desert. About 300,
Hieracas, a follower of Origen, at Leontopolis, gathered around him a society
of ascetics, whom he trained in theological studies and a life of
self-conquest. They were in a position between the ascetics, who did not
abandon family life and society, and those who followed the monastic life.
Though monasticism was known before Christianity among the devotees of
Brahmanism and the regular monkish orders of Buddhism, and there had been in
Egypt heathen recluses who dwelt in the same cell fifteen or twenty years, and the
successive steps in Christianity of ascetics, hermits, and unorganized bodies
of disciples around a single teacher or guide, yet before 300 there is no trace
of monasticism. Our earliest account is from Egypt, 310. It spread rapidly, and
soon after was found in Palestine and Syria.
All
tendencies become crystallized into institutions only through some remarkable
individual. Such was St. Antony, who more st,Antony* than any other
was the founder of the monastic life in Christendom.
Antony
was an Egyptian, of the Coptic race and speech, and descended from wealthy
parents, who were Christians. He was born at Coma, Life of near the
Thebaid, about 251. From his Antony, parents he received a Christian training,
was taught to read, but had no education in Greek literature or philosophy. He
was pure in life, attended Church,
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and loved
his home. The death of his parents, when he was about eighteen years old,
changed the whole current of his life, much as the like event did that of
Gregory the Great, and the loss of his child the career of Paulinus of Nola.
Six months later, while dwelling upon the apostolic example of sharing temporal
goods, recorded in the second chapter of Acts, he entered the church, and heard
read from the Gospel the words of our Lord to the rich young ruler:
" If thou wilt be perfect, sell that thou hast, and give to the poor,
and thou shalt have treasure in heaven; and come and follow me.” He regarded it
as a voice from God. His lands he gave to his native village, on condition that
he should be relieved from the taxes; all his personal property he sold, and
gave the proceeds to the poor, except a small amount which he reserved for the
support of a little sister, left in his charge by the death of his parents.
Soon after he heard read in the church, “ Take no thought for the morrow.” In
compliance with the admonition, he placed his sister under the charge of the
virgins of the Church to care for and educate; and selling the remnant of his
property and distributing it to the needy, he entered upon an ascetic and
contemplative life. In a place not far from his home he began his career. He
labored with his hands; part of his earnings he spent for bread; the rest he
gave away. He was much in prayer, and gave such attention to reading the
Scriptures that what he learned he remembered, so that his memory was his
library. He fasted, and slept on the ground. His inward temptations became so
great that he went to a tomb near a neighboring village, probably in a cave or
grotto, and, taking with
The
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him a
supply of bread, shut himself in alone. The next day a friend went by, and,
looking in, found him insensible on the ground. He took him to the village,
where he revived, but went back to renew the combat.
In the
ascetic life, where outward temptations are escaped, iuward ones are never
wanting. Antony found himself pursued by obscene thoughts Antony** and
surrounded by visions of nude women. Temptations. He believed that demons
filled the air about him, sometimes as savage beasts, and sometimes as devils.
Not content with assailing his thoughts and defiling his imagination, he was
assured that they set upon him with physical violence, the wounds and bruises
of which remained after the vision had passed. Confiding in the Divine
protection, he rebuked the evil spirits, when they gnashed their teeth upon him
and withdrew. There is no question that the austerities weakening his body,
with the conflict in his mind, well-nigh unsettled his reason.
After
this severe conflict, when about thirty-four years of age, he withdrew to a
deserted castle in the mountains. He took with him a sufficient Retirement
supply of bread for six months. For this and Counsei. necessary provision
he returned twice a year. For twenty years, in this place, he led a strictly
ascetic and contemplative life, tempted again by visions of devils, but
comforted by visions of angels. He had now acquired that conquest over self,
tranquillity of mind, and large knowledge of human nature, which made him a
help and guide to others. So many resorted to him that, at length, to secure
the needful retirement, he withdrew still further into the interior, some of
the desert tribes showing him a high moun
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tain,
with a limpid stream flowing at its base, sweet, cold, and healthful. There
were near it a few wild palm-trees. Not far away he found a small tract of
ground, which he watered, and upon which he raised the grain and vegetables he
required.
He seldom
left his retreat; but when he did, the effect was remarkable. Twice he visited
Alexandria, His visits to once at the time of the Maximian persecu-Aiexandria.
tion, 311, when he was sixty years of age. He ministered to the confessors in
their chains; when before the tribunal he exhorted them to readiness to suffer,
and accompanied them to their death. So great was his influence that the judge
ordered no monk to appear in court, but all to withdraw from the city. The others
concealed themselves; but Antony remained. He showed himself openly to the
governor, and continued his ministration to the confessors and martyrs. At the
age of one hundred years he again visited Alexandria. The Arians had falsely
reported that he agreed with them. Acceding to the request of the bishops and
brethren, he came from his mountain home, and preached publicly against the
Arians. All the citizens, the heathen, and even their priests, flocked to the
church to see and hear him whom all called the man of God. As many heathen are
said to have become Christians in the days of his visitation as previously in
the same number of years. Finally, at the age of one hundred and five, the time
of his departure drew near. In the prevalent mania for the veneration of relics
he had no share. He thought himself no better than the patriarchs, prophets,
and Christ himself, who were buried. He commanded his disciples so to bury him
The
Monastic Life.
that no
man might know the place where rested his remains, which was faithfully done.
He ordered gifts of his clothing—his only possessions—to be made to Athanasius
and to another bishop who was a long-time friend. Then he kissed the brethren,
blessed them, and was peacefully gathered to his fathers.
Antony,
through his experience, attained to great practical wisdom. He said:‘'The
weapons against evil spirits are an upright life and faith in w,5dom
of God. Prayer, fasting, contempt of money Antony, and reputation, love
for the poor, with mildness and humilit)', are the means.” This wisdom is
evinced by his sayings: "It is our duty to guard against evil thoughts, to
keep the soul for the Lord as if a charge accepted from him, so that he may
recognize his work as made by him.” " Man’s great work is to to take
his guilt upon himself before God, and expect temptations until his latest
breath. Without temptations, none can enter into the kingdom of heaven.” To an
abbot he gave this advice : *' Trust not in your own righteousness, and regret
not what is already past”
Antony
attained to such quiet confidence in God, and self-conquest, as became manifest
in his countenance. The purity and serenity of his serenity of mind gave a
composure of manner and a Antony, countenance never sad, but so joyful as to
diffuse cheerfulness. His life knew neither boasting nor murmuring, but he
always gave thanks to God. “God only could heal afflictions, and whenever and
to whom he would, he bestowed his benefits.”
Antony
impressed his own age. His life, written by Athanasius, and the influence of
Athanasius uoon
24
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Jerome,
gave such an impetus to the monastic life, both in the East and West, that he
appears as the The Founder rea^ f°un(ier of monasticism.
In Antony, ofMonasti- that life is seen in its fairest colors; for he had a peculiar
vocation to a contemplative life, and that sound understanding which preserved
him from the extravagances so soon to appear in the monastic life.
The
monastic life spread with great rapidity in the East. The earliest form of rule
for a monastic com-Deveiopment munity is that of
Pachomius, 350. It has of Eastern one hundred and ninety-four heads or
di-Monasticism. vjgjons^ an(j mjnute
regulations and
scrupulosity
would drive mad an ordinary man. In Jerome’s time—fifty years later—it numbered
fifty thousand adherents.
The rule
of the greatest repute in the East was that of St. Basil, 330-390. An intimate
knowledge of Rule of human nature, common sense, and high-Basii. toned piety
characterize this rule. The whole life was given to prayer. The canonical hours
were observed, the midday hour being divided into two, so as to make seven
times a day. Work was not neglected for prayer; for while the tongue was
employed in petition and praise, the hands were busy. The food was such as
should nourish the body, and whatever was placed upon the table should be
eaten. The clothing of the monk should show humility, simplicity, and
cheapness. He was to wear the same garment day and night, and never to change
it for work or rest. Weaving and shoemaking were the vocations preferred, and
above all agriculture. Brothers working at a distance were to keep the hours of
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Monastic Life.
37i
prayer in
the field. No one was to call anything, either shoe, or vestment, or any
necessary of life, his own. Silence was strictly observed, and 110 woman was
allowed in the precincts of the monastery. Medicine should not be rejected
under the false notion that it is an interference with the will of God. No one
was to leave the convent without the license of the superior. Such a monastery
had its oratory, refectory, and other monastic offices, and orderly rows of
contiguous cells inclosed in a high, protecting wall; and without were often
straggling groups of cabins for the anchorites. From these their inmates
repaired every Saturday and Sunday to the monastery for worship and
instruction, bringing with them the mats and baskets and other articles they
had finished, and taking back materials for the work of the next week, together
with a supply of bread and water, after having partaken of a little cooked food
and wine in the general refectory.
The
monastery of Santa Laura, on Mount Athos, is the type of the monasteries of the
East. Its fortified inclosure includes between three and four
. .
. Santa Laura.
acres,
comprising two courts, m the center of which stands the catholicon, or church,
surrounded by an open cloister, on which, from three sides, the cells open. The
refectory, which opens from the west cloister facing the church, is a cruciform
hall, the arms about one hundred feet in length and rounded at the ends. The
monks in the East were orthodox and realistic. Their partisanship was ignorant,
fierce, and cruel, as was experienced by Flavian and Hypatia. They felt the
corrupting influence of the prevalent saint and angel worship, and the ven
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eration
of relics. The monasteries were under the jurisdiction of the bishops. As the
Greek clergy marry, the monastic life has never affected the life of the clergy
as in the West; but from it always came the incumbents of the bishoprics and
the higher Offices of the Church. Eastern monasticism was never as active or
industrious, or exerted as great an influence upon learning and civilization,
as the Western monastic institutions; still it is the complement and necessary support
of the great secular Byzantine Church.
The
monastic life was commended to the West by the visit of Athanasius, the
influence of the institu-Monastic tions of Basil upon the bishops banished to
Life in the the East during the Arian controversy, and west.
gxhortations of Ambrose, Chrysostom,
and
Augustine. But the real founder of Western monasticism was Eusebius Hieronymus,
better known as St. Jerome.
The place
of his birth was Strido, not far from Aquileia, in the year 346. His parents
were ortho-St. Jerome. dox Christians. They were not wealthy, His Life. kut
owned houses and slaves. They probably perished in the Gothic invasions of 377.
Paul-inian, a brother, twenty years younger, lived constantly with Jerome after
385; a sister also, after a wayward life, embraced asceticism. Jerome was
brought up in comfort, and had a good education. At about seventeen years of
age he went to Rome for its completion. Professing the Christian faith, he was
baptized before 366. Afterward he visited Gaul, staying most of the time at
Treves. From 370 to 373 he lived an ascetic life with Rufinus and other friends
at Aquileia. In 374 he traveled through Thrace,
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Monastic Life.
373
Pontus,
Bithynia, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Cilicia, to Antioch. For five years, 374-379,
he lived as a hermit among other monks in the desert of Chalcis, near Antioch.
He was ordained presbyter at Antioch in 379, and then studied under the
celebrated Apollina-ris of Laodicea. In 380—381 he was at Constantinople, and
enjoyed the tuition of Gregory of Nazianzen ; he was also acquainted with
Gregory of Nyssa. At that time weakness of his eyes made dictation necessary,
and this was henceforth his usual method of composition. Here he translated
into Latin Eusebius and Origen. From 382 to 385 he was in Rome, the secretary
of Pope Damasus, and acknowledged to be the most learned man of his time. He
was not chosen Pope, as he had some expectation, and journeyed to Antioch,
Jerusalem, and Egypt in 386. While in Egypt he studied with Didymus the Blind,
the last great catechetical teacher of Alexandria. After visiting the Egyptian
monasteries, he came to Bethlehem in the fall of 386. There he founded a
monastery, in which he lived until his death, twenty-four years later, in 420.
In this monastery he gave himself to Biblical studies and expounded the
Scripture daily.
The
excitable, vain, and somewhat arrogant disposition of Jerome involved him in
abundant controversy. He wrote against Jovinian in defense of celibacy ;
against his former friend Rufinus, in condemnation of Origen; and against
Vigilantius, in favor of the veneration of martyrs, celibacy, and asceticism.
He contended with his bishop, John of Jerusalem, and, through a
misunderstanding for which he was not to blame , with Augustine.
Jerome
was not a theologian; but his wide and
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accurate
knowledge, versatile talent, literary style, and his indefatigable industry
were used for the advancement of Biblical learning, and his services were
surpassed by Origen alone, whom he excelled in a more sober and rational
exegesis. He was the best Hebrew scholar among the fathers. His great
achievement, to which he devoted twenty*three years of his life, was the
translation of the Greek and Hebrew Scriptures into the Latin language. This is
the Vulgate Version, a translation never surpassed except by the English
Version of 1611, and the German of Luther. In his studies on the canon, he drew
the marked distinction between the Old Testament Scriptures and the Apocrypha,
which has been insisted on by Protestants. He rejected purgatory and
mil-lenarianism, and held to the original equality of bishops and presbyters.
In his “ Commentaries ” he endeavored to develop the literal and historic
sense. On this account, and the wide range of his information, he is more
helpful to the expositor than any other of the fathers. Jerome was passionate
and bitter, vehement and vacillating, full of prejudice and abusive in
controversy, with a nervous dread of heresy that deprived him of high moral
courage. He was credulous and superstitious; but he was a man, through all
sickness, disappointment, and disaster, of indomitable industry, thorough
scholarship, and self-denial, and a literary style which gives interest to all
he wrote. In that nature, so stormy and so long disciplined, there must have
been a rare power of attraction to gather around him such a circle of friends
as those of which he was the center. These friends were mainly women, and women
of the highest circles of the Roman aris
The
Monastic Life.
375
tocracy.
Through them and their friends lie exerted that influence which so powerfully
promoted the monastic life in the West. The times were those of the dissolution
of Roman society and the overthrow of the Roman rule and civilization; no other
source gives so vivid a picture of this period as the Letters of Jerome, from
which these details are drawn. We see clearly the influences which promoted the
monastic life, and the refuge it proved amid the throes of a dying world.
The first
Roman lady to begin the ascetic life was Marcella. She was decended from the
family of the Marcelli, and had great wealth. Her mother, Albina, was left a
widow by her father’s early Marce„a death. She
entertained Athanasius when he came to Rome, in 340. Marcella married, and
seven months later was left a widow, which she remained during life. She lived
with her mother, in her palace on the Aventine and at her country seat near
Rome. She began an ascetic life in 374. She lived simply, giving her wealth to
the poor, but was moderate in her austerities, following the counsels of her
mother, whom she never left. She met Jerome in 382. Her house became a center
where a circle of wealthy ladies gathered around her for the study of the
Scriptures, and for singing and prayer. After her mother’s death, in 387, she
lived in a little house outside the city, with her friend Principia, and
devoted her whole time to good works. I11 the sack of Rome, 410, she was
injured by the Goths, and died a few days afterward.
The first
of the aristocratic ladies of Rome to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, and there
begin an
376
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ascetic
life, was Melania. She was the daughter of the consular Marcellinus, and was
born about 350.
She
married, but was left a widow at
Melania.
_ .
twenty-two
years of age. Two of her three children died soon after their father. She
placed her son in the charge of the urban praetor, and sailed for Palestine in
372. She had met Jerome and his friend Rufinus, the translator of Origen into
Latin. Rufinus was in her company in Egypt in 374, and within six months was
imprisoned, in the persecution under Valens. Melania went to Palestine, where,
upon the Mount of Olives, in 375, she founded a community of fifty virgins. Her
house was open to all. She was acquainted with John, Bishop of Jerusalem, with
Jerome, and with Paula, while Rufinus made his home there after his release. In
397, after an absence of twenty-five years, she returned to Rome to persuade
her granddaughter, Melania the younger, to embrace an ascetic life. She found
her married, and failed to separate her from her husband. On her way Rufinus
traveled with her. They visited Augustine in Africa, and Paulinus at Nola. For
the next two years she lived at Rome with her son, his two children, and his son-in-law.
In 408 her son died, and the family left Rome. They traveled to Sicily and
Africa, where she had estates. Rufinus accompanied them, and died in Sicily.
They passed over to Africa, where her widowed daughter-in-law remained. Melania
left them, and went on to Jerusalem, where she died forty days after her
arrival, in 410.
Melania,
her granddaughter, was born in 383. When about thirteen she married a husband
who was seventeen years of age. They were tenderly at
The
Monastic Life.
tached to
each other. When the elder Melania returned to Jerusalem, she remained at
Sagaste, in Africa, where her brother died. The wealth of neiania the
grandmother came into her hands. She the Younger, gave away the
estates she inherited in Gaul and Italy, but retained those in Spain and
Africa. She is said to have liberated eight thousand slaves. Robbed of her
property by Count Heraclian, she traveled with her husband and mother to Egypt,
and settled in Bethlehem in 414. They attached themselves to Jerome and the
younger Paula. She reconciled the followers of Rufinus and Jerome. From her
husband, Pisanius, she separated that he might become the head of a monastery,
while she entered a convent. In 437 she is said to have visited Constantinople.
The lives
of two other noble women show the same tendency. Perhaps these details may be
pardoned if they make the conditions of the Furiaand time more real, and
clearer the forces im- Fabioia. pelling to the monastic life. Furia was of the
oldest Roman aristocracy, and possessed a vast fortune. Her father and
father-in-law were both consulars. Her husband died early, leaving her with a
family of young sons and an infirm father. Through the influence of her
deceased mother and that of Jerome, she remained a widow. Fabiola was extremely
wealthy, and of aristocratic descent. The vices of her first husband forced her
to divorce him. For protection, she married a second husband while the first
was still alive; hence she was excluded from the Church. After the death of her
second husband she went through a public penance, and was restored to its
communion. She sold all her possessions, and sup
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ported
monasteries in Italy and the islands; she ministered personally to the wants of
the poor. In 395 she visited Bethlehem, and was greatly attached to Jerome. She
returned, when—with the aid of Pam-machius, the son-in-law of Paula—she
established a hospital at Pontus, near Rome. In this she ministered personally
to the worst and most offensive cases of disease and suffering until her death,
in 399.
By far
the most interesting of this group of wealthy, intelligent, and pious women,
was Paula
and her
family. Her mother and hus-
Paula,
band were
descended from the greatest names in the history of Rome, while her father
traced his descent to Agamemnon. She possessed great wealth, owning the whole
town of Actium, called, from the victory of Augustus, Nicopoli. She was born in
347. She married early, and her husband died in 380, leaving her, at
thirty-three years of age, with a family of four daughters and a son. In 382
she entertained Epiphanius, Bishop of Cyprus, and Paulinus, Bishop of Antioch.
Through them she became acquainted with Jerome, and received an impulse toward
the ascetic life. Her married daughter, Blaesilla, lost her husband, and died
in 384, in consequence, as it was thought, of ascetic severities. Another
daughter, Paulina, married, in 385, the Senator Pammachius, the cousin of
Marcella, a man of learning, ability, and eloquence, the friend of Jerome and
Augustine. Paulina, his wife, died in 397. After his wife’s death he became a
monk, while retaining his position as senator. He gave munificently to the
poor, and, with Fabiola, established a hospital at Pontus of world-wide fame.
He died in the siege of
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Monastic Life.
379
Rome by
Alaric, in 409. In 386, Paula took her daughter Eustochium with her, leaving
behind her daughter Rufina—who died soon after—and her’son Toxatius, and sailed
for the East. She visited Epi-phanius at Cyprus, and met Jerome at Antioch.
They went to Egypt, and returned and settled in Bethlehem in 386. This was her
home until her death, eighteen years later, in 404. Paula knew Greek and Latin,
and learned Hebrew. She had great love for the Scriptures, and read through the
whole Bible with Jerome. She managed a convent for women with patience and
tact. Once one of the wealthiest women of Rome, she gave away all her own and
much of her children’s property. She dressed in a coarse garb, and presented a
sordid appearance while performing all sorts of menial duties in the relief of
distress. She was slight in body and weak in health; her mortifications and
illnesses wore her away. Her affection for Jerome and his love for her are as
touching as any literary fellowship on record.
Eustochium,
her daughter, who was the first noble lady to take on the vow of perpetual
celibacy, went with her mother to the East, and lived
Eustochium.
with her
until her death. She took her mother’s place at the head of the convent and in
caring for Jerome, until her death in 418. Like her mother, she knew Greek,
Latin, and Hebrew. Though small in stature, she possessed great courage and
decision of character.
The son
of Paula married Leta, the daughter of a heathen priest. Leta became a
Christian. Toxatluj She wrote to Jerome in regard to the training of
her daughter Paula, in 401. While still a child,
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but not
until after her grandmother’s death, she was sent to Bethlehem for her
education. She was there in 416.
Of this
circle was Paulinus of Nola, visited by Melania and her family. His father was
the Roman PauHnus governor of Gaul, and he was born at Bor-ofNoia. deaux, 353.
He was Roman consul before 379. His wealth was so great that Ambrose calls his
possessions kingdoms, and Augustine styles him “ the richest of the rich.” He
was liberally educated. The poet Ausonius was his tutor. He reckoned Martin of
Tours, Ambrose, Augustine, and Jerome among his friends. He was baptized when
about thirty years of age. Some six years later he married. Within the
following year his son and brother died. He was ordained presbyter in 393. He
determined to lead a monastic life, and retired to Nola, with his wife
Therasia, in 394. There he was made bishop, in 409, and lived until his death,
in 431. At Nola he built a monastery and three churches, while he and his wife
lived in a humble dwelling. Paulinus gradually distributed his whole property.
Uranius, his disciple, says: “He opened his barns to the poor, his storehouses
to strangers who arrived. It was too small a thing for him to feed whole
provinces; he invited from all quarters those whom he fed and clothed. How many
prisoners did he not ransom ; how many debtors oppressed by their creditors did
he not liberate by paying off their debts, by the same pious deed drying the
tears of the debtor and rejoicing the creditor!” His self-sacrifice and
devotion are equaled by his humility and affection, and enlivened by a
cheerful, playful humor. He was like
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Monastic Worship.
his time
in his veneration of relics and worship ot saints.
No one
reading the sources can doubt that the relations of these noble women with
Jerome were pure j but there is a sensuousness in his language as he writes to
them, which prejudices against the monastic life more [than attacks of its
foes. Such rela* tions are always hazardous, and often corrupt. Purity of
thought and purity of expression are found rather in the life of the Christian
home than in that of the convent or monastery.
Western
monasticism differed necessarily from that of the Hast. On account of the
climate, different buildings, furniture, dress, and fare Benedict were
essential. Monasticism first flourished of Nursia. in Southern Gaul
in monasteries founded by Greek monks, who studied Greek theology and Christian
literature. In the rest of Gaul the bishops opposed monasticism as dualistic in
teaching and practice. St. Martin of Tours first turned the tide in favor of
the monks. Before long, bishops were taken from the monastery, and proved
themselves pure in life and shepherds of the flock, who could neither be forced
nor bribed. Jovinian and Vigilantius, adversaries of Jerome, opposed the
principles of the monastic life, the merit of good works, asceticism, and
celibacy, but were before their time, and the current was too strong for them.
The name most influential in Western monasticism was Benedict of Nursia. He was
born at Nursia, in the Umbria, about 480. His parents were of the higher class.
He was sent to Rome to complete his education. The immorality of his companions
drove him to the life of a hermit; for
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many
years he lived in a cave near Subiaco. At the request of the monks he undertook
the government of their monastery, but found the vices of the monks too much
for him. He withdrew, probably about 530, to Monte Cassino, where, on the site
of an old temple of Apollo, he founded his monastery and published his rule. He
was tenderly attached to his sister Scholastica, who became the head of a
convent of nuns. He met and rebuked Totila in 542, and died at Monte Cassino in
543.
The
Benedictine order was his great achievement. It spread quickly, and, though
reformed again and The order of again, prevailed over all Western Europe.
Benedict,
^t the outbreak of the Reformation, there were twelve thousand Benedictine
monasteries. It was a great advance over all previous orders. It had a stronger
organization, but avoided severe austerities. It divided the daily life between
work, study, and prayer. In the summer, Easter to October 1st, work lasted from
6 o’clock to 10 A. M.; then reading, from 10 to 12; the midday meal and a
siesta or reading until 2.30; then work until evening. In the winter, October
1st to Lent, the monks read until 7 A. M.; then worked until 3 P. M. In Lent
they worked from 9 A. M. until 7 P. M. Every one had to draw a book from the
library, and read it through during Lent. The monks always observed the seven
canonical hours of prayer (see Hours, p. 278). Eight hours were allowed for
sleep. On Sundays and holy days the monks partook of holy communion. The
Benedictines were allowed but twro meals a day. At each meal two
cooked dishes were served; but all fiesh-meat was prohibited, though poultry,
eggs, and
The
Monastic Worship.
fish were
allowed. Occasionally a third dish of fruit or young vegetables was provided. A
pound of bread was given daily for each monk, which the abbot might increase to
those who had hard work to do. A pint of wine was served daily to each member
of the community, though Benedict recommends voluntary abstinence as the best
course. This fare was better than that of the lower classes of any European
peasantry of that day. The dress, aside from the outer garb of the order, was
allowed to be varied by the abbot, according to the exigencies of the climate
and the weather. They did not glory in dirt, but had a change of raiment, and
another dress when they went abroad from the monastery. The rule shows
knowledge of human nature and strong common sense.
They were
a refuge from violence, and could protect both their inmates and those seeking
their aid. They represented the moral order of so- The Va|ue f
ciety, the protection of the Almighty God. the Monas-The prior of Solmes,
having offended the ter,es-Lord of Sable, the latter met him on the
bridge of the town, and exclaimed: “ Monk, if I did not fear God, I would throw
you into the Sartlie.” “ Monsig-neur,” replied the monk, “ if you fear God, I
have nothing to fear.” They afforded both place and protection to women in an
age of violence and fraud. A woman could avoid a hateful marriage by recourse
to a convent. There she enjoyed consideration. The abbess of a great
Benedictine house held a high position among the proudest nobility of the land.
So in the days of invasion, the strong monastery walls not only sheltered the neighboring
inhabitants, but preserved them from starvation, when the rapine of
3«4
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Society.
marauding
bands left nothing for their sustenance. In the famine in Campania, Benedict
himself distributed all the stores of the monastery of Monte Cassino to the
poor, trusting in God for their renewal. The greatest benefit to civilization
of the Benedictine rule was that it restored in Europe the dignity of labor.
The free middle class of Rome, which had once been the strength of her armies
and the State, had disappeared, and manual labor was performed only by slaves.
When the barbarians came in, the prejudice of a strong military class against
labor was almost as great as that of the Roman population. But Benedict “
taught the world again to work.” It was work sanctified by prayer, by quiet
contemplation, by the reading of the Scriptures, and by daily worship. Work and
worship went hand in hand.
The
nearest task for the monastery was the clearing of the forest, the drainage of
morass and fen, construction of good roads, and the erection of substantial and
noble buildings. The monks not only taught agriculture, preserving the science
of the old world which had passed away, but they taught the children of the
community in the school. Any bright lad could, through them, come to command
all the learning of the time. The taste for literature and learning first shown
in the monasteries of Southern Gaul was greatly promoted, immediately after the
death of Benedict, by the former Minister of State, Cassiodorus. He was a man
of noble family, born in Calabria, a senator, and from 493 until 540, with the
exception of a short interval, the minister, first, of Odoacer, and then of
Theodoric and his descendants. He then retired to a monastery which he erected
at Vivarium.
The
Monastic Worship. 385
There he
founded a library and a school of copyists, busied with Christian science and
classical learning. He lived in this beautiful retreat, and amid congenial
occupations, until his ninety-third year. Through his influence, the
Benedictine libraries preserved the treasures of the old culture, the masters
of Christian theology, and the Latin tongue. The Scriptorium was used daily to
copy and illustrate manuscripts of the Scriptures, of the fathers, and of
classical literature. The indebtedness of European literature and learning to
the monasteries is beyond estimate.
But,
nevertheless, the curse of the monastic life followed the Benedictines.
Reformed by Bruno and Bernard, they had sunk into idleness and TheCurse0|
sloth at the founding of the Mendicant the Monastic Orders, 1215, and were
worse than useless at the time of the Reformation. The always-present source of
monastic degeneration was its false and perverted view of life and moral
conduct. Monks were under the vow of chastity; therefore woman was a venomous
serpent. All natural instincts, such as ties of relationship and friendship,
were killed outright. A sick brother was waited upon year after year, and yet
never spoke a kind word to the attendant monk lest it should injure his
humility. A brother, to keep from idle words, carried a large stone in his
mouth for years. The loneliness and silence wrought an overscrupulousness, and
sometimes insanity. Spiritual pride was seldom absent from the monastery, and
ambition and covetousness were frequent guests. The abbot had unlimited power,
the power of an Oriental despot, and generally for life. If he were an
oppressor, there was usually
*;>
386
The New
Society.
no
redress. Events of our day prove how cruel monkish punishments can be. A
universal system of spying and reporting was inculcated as a religious duty.
The monastery walls were prison walls as well. Yet if the abbot was slack in
discipline, and wealth increased, in came idleness and sensuality. The most
famous epicure of the century, the author of “The Physiology of Taste,” relates
how his first ideas of the gratification of the appetite were received, when, a
boy at a feast of monks in a monastery. Coarseness and grossness were not far
off, as Chaucer testifies in his “ Canterbury Tales.” An Italian author,
writing a century later, 1476, declares that he has several times been present
at the marriage of monks and nuns, and that “the well of the nunneries has as
many little bones as in Bethlehem at Herod’s time. Therefore,” he says, “may
the earth open and swallow up the wretches alive, with those who protect them!”
He adds the following wish: “ The best punishment for them would be for God to
abolish purgatory; they would then receive no more alms, and would be forced to
go back to their spades.” Monta-lembert, the brilliant historian and defender
of monasticism, says of its abuses: “They have been pointed out and
stigmatized, from the origin of the monastic institution, by those saints and
doctors who were its most ardent apologists, by Chrysostom as by Augustine.
Combated, pursued, and repressed by the authors of all the rules and of all
reforms, from St. Benedict to St. Bernard, these abuses and scandals periodically
renewed themselves, like the heads of the hydra.”
Aside
from all abuses, the social loss caused by
The
Monastic Worship.
387
the
monastic life was great. The hundreds of thousands of monks in Egypt and Syria,
withdrawn from all productive employment and the defense of the land, greatly
facilitated the conquests of the Saracens. The withdrawal of the purest and
best spirits from' the active life of the community lowered the moral tone of
the whole. This was progressively weakened as the gentler and more refined
members of the community took vows of celibacy, and reared 110 families; so the
succeeding generations were the children of the coarser and more violent. In
the circumstances of modern life, the well-trained families of devoted
Christian pastors outweigh the moral and spiritual influence of any monastery.
From them children go to positions of honor and responsibility in the various
callings of life, in the professions, in the walks of learning and the pursuits
of science, and in high office in Church and State. O11 the other hand, the age
rejects the spiritual selfishness of the monastic life. In the century
following 1789, more of such institutions have been suppressed and destroyed in
Roman Catholic countries than in all Protestant lands through the Reformation,
Chapter
IV.
TURNING
POINTS AND RESULTS.
. No Six
centuries of human history or the history of institutions or society pass with
an even flow. Change, advance, or retrogression marks each century of the
record of the life of man. These changes, as they affected the different parts
of the life of the Church and its development, have been related. We look now
for the great events which affected the whole course of the life and work of
the Church. Such was the reign of Constantine; such was the fall of Rome.
The reign
of Constantine made an epoch in Church history. The State and society became
out-Reign of wardly Christian. Christianity entered into Constantine,
legislation to ameliorate the lot of the prisoner and the slave, and to elevate
woman. The first great Council of the Church was held, and the first great
Conciliar Creed was formulated. The heathen sacrifices, priests, and religion
vanished when once the support of the State was withdrawn. Nor can it be said
that the Church failed to respond to the great demand made upon her. The great
names of her early history are in the century following the conversion of
Constantine. But the Church of the entire community, established, paid, and
responsible to the State, is always and necessarily different from the
voluntary societies under the pagan empire. No 388
Turning
Points and Results.
longer
worshiping in secret or in cheap and temporary structures, the temples of the
heathen gods, the basilicas of the civil administration, and the splendid
erections of the emperors were dedicated to purposes of Christian worship. The
great, the wealthy, the noble, crowded to the worship of the crucified
Naza-rene. The beneficial change wrought in society and the State was great.
Granted that the century succeeding was one of theological controversy, we must
bear in mind how great and how beneficial the change was from the revolutions
of the previous century, when the sole motive was the acquisition of political
power. Well has Findlay said: “Theological studies (which then engaged the
attention of all classes) certainly exercised a favorable influence on general
morality, if not on the temper of mankind; and the tone of society was
characterized by a purity of manners and a degree of charitable feeling to inferiors
which have probably never been surpassed.” The changes, however, were not all
gain to the Church. The love-feast and the holy kiss in worship, which had been
the expression of an ardent and enduring Christian affection, died out. So did
the expectation of the speedy second advent of our Lord, which was universal in
the Church at the time of Justin Martyr. The generous hospitality and weekly
offerings of gifts to the poor ceased. The age of great prelates and of the
monastic life had come.
No one individual
marks the greatness of this transition and the magnitude of its results more
clearly than Eusebius Pamphilius, Bishop Eusebius of of Caesarea. He was born,
probably about Ca-sarea. 260, at Caesarea. He lived through the forty years
390
The New
Society.
of peace
which the Church enjoyed between the persecutions of Decius and his successors
and that of Diocletian. At Caesarea,. on the foundation of Origen, Pampliilius
had gathered the best and amplest library in Christendom. That of Alexander,
Bishop of Jerusalem only a few miles distant, in easy reach, and used by
Eusebius, was only second to it. Having been ordained a presbyter, he used
these years and opportunities to acquire a vast erudition. Like thunder from a
clear sky, broke upon these quiet occupations and laborious studies the
Diocletian persecution. Of its horrors, Eusebius was an eye-witness. The
friendship and instruction of Pamphilius had been as profitable to Eusebius as
the use of his great library. He saw one after another of the Christian Church
suffer martyrdom, the church-edifices torn down, the Scriptures thrown into the
flames, and the presbyters hunted from place to place before his eyes. His
friend and benefactor, whose name he adopted, was taken to prison. He
ministered to him for years, and then saw him, with eleven others, led away to
die. He beheld Christians tortured and martyred in Tyre and in Egypt, where he
himself was imprisoned for the faith. Seven long years, with unforeseen
intervals of cessation and of fury, the persecution endured. Then came the
peace and the magnificent triumph of the religion of Christ. Eusebius estimated
well the momentous nature of the change, and set himself to the work of
composing the first history of the Church. All but the last book was probably
written between 313 and 315. The last book was added ten years later. Eusebius
also conceived, on a grand scale, his “Chronicle,” and his “Preparation,” and
“Demon
Turning
Points and Results. 391
stration
of the Gospel.” He was the author of numerous other works as well. From 325 to
the death of Constantine, 337, he was the chaplain, the intimate and
confidential friend of the emperor, though residing mostly at Caesarea, and
declining the See of Antioch. He lived until his eightieth year, having the love
and respect of the city where he had exercised his long and useful ministry,
and of which he had been bishop for thirty-five years. Eusebius was a scholar
and a man of peace, distinguished for his fairness and moderation. In the Arian
controversy he was not at home. He bore a prominent and creditable part at
Nicaea; but he was a theological conservative; he could not advance beyond the
position of Origen, and did not understand the deeper thoughts of Athanasius.
His part in the Synods of Tyre and Jerusalem in 335, and Constantinople in 336,
where he was led by the Arians under Eusebius of Nicomedia, though probably not
sharing in their intrigues and injustice, did not add to his reputation. His
tone of adulation in his Life and Orations on Constantine also deserves
criticism. But the change from the scenes of Christian suffering to the table
of the emperor and intimate friendship of a great man, a wise ruler, and one
who had been the means of working so great a change in Christian history, was
too much for the susceptible nature of Eusebius. If he was too courtly a
prelate for a Christian bishop, he at least did not pervert the truth. As a
historian he is authentic. He preserves more to us from the early writers of
Christianity, from the ancient history of the empires of the world, and from
the philosophers, than almost any other writer of ancient times. He
392
The New
Society.
quotes
one hundred authors for his ecclesiastical history alone, and is equally
abundant in citations in his other great works. His was not a creative mind. He
did not know how to use his materials or to tell a story; but he gave us in
authentic form the facts. To few men does the Church owe a greater debt. He
rescued her early history from oblivion, and wrote the most learned of the Apologies.
.
The zeal
of Constantine for the unity of the Church as a support of the State was
manifested in Donatist the Donatists’ schism. In 311 Mensurius, Schism. Bishop
of Carthage, died. His successor, Caecilian, was elected by a part of the
bishops of the provinces of the metropolitanate, and consecrated by Felix of
Aptunga. The bishops not consulted declared the consecration illegal, because
Felix, the consecrator, had, as they affirmed and the Catholics denied, been a
traditor; that is, had delivered up the Christian Scriptures to be burned in
the Diocletian persecution. They held that the faults of the administrator
rendered all ecclesiastical acts performed by him null and void. Hence,
Caecilian was not a bishop, because consecrated by Felix; nor his clergy able
to administer the sacraments, because ordained by him; nor were those who were
baptized by his clergy Christians. Hence arose a division throughout the
African Church, which has hardly been surpassed for sectarian bitterness. The
Donatists assembled in 330 in one Synod 270 bishops. In spite of the endeavors
of Constantine, who ordered an investigation on the spot, and two hearings of
the parties— at Arles, 314, and Milan, 316—the schism continued. The Catholics
held that the Holy Spirit was in the
Turning
Points and Results. 393
Church
and its ordinances irrespective of the faults of the individual administrator,
and the Donatists that a Church which did not exclude known sinners was not
holy and not a Church. One hundred years later they were as strong as ever.
Augustine argued against them, and finally procured against them an imperial
decree, 415; but both parties were overwhelmed in the common ruin of the Vandal
invasion which their divisions had promoted. Schisms had before arisen on account
of the lapsed and their treatment, and in opposition to episcopal power; such
were those of Felicissimus at Carthage, 250-300; Meletius, in Egypt, 305-365 ;
and Novatian, at Rome,’ 251-500.
The
material evidence of the great change made in the circumstances of Christianity
are seen in Christian art. Art is the last expression, the chriatian beautiful
and enduring flower of a society Art-and civilization. There must be
stability to the social order, somewhat of leisure, refinement, and wealth,
before there can be character and impressiveness in art. The Christian art of
this period has left its memorials in frescoes, mosaics, a few examples of
sculpture, the beginning of miniature-painting, and in architecture.
The
frescoes which have come down to us are from the walls of the catacombs. They
were generally wrought in haste, and by artists of no great skill. There are
some examples of 5
rare
beauty in wrall decoration in the ornamental use of vine, foliage,
and flowers, but the figures have usually little grace or beauty. The
representations are largely of the events recorded in the Old and New
394
The New
Society.
Testaments.
The Christian feeling is everywhere evident in the treatment, which is so
symbolical as to have little relation to reality, and the drawings do not
require or show great artistic ability. Their value is very great, but more
historical than aesthetic.
“ Mosaic
decoration is the art of arranging small cubes of different substances and
various colors, so as to present an ornamental pattern or an
Mosaics.
historical
or symbolical picture.” In ecclesiastical art pastes of glass artificially
colored were used. The gilt cubes, or tesser<z> so abundantly used to
give gold back or foregrounds, were “ formed by applying two thin plates of
glass, with a film of gold-leaf between them, to a cube of earthenware, and
then vitrifying the whole in a furnace.” Such mosaics may be said to be a
Christian art, and used on a grand scale only from the fourth century. The
indestructible nature of the material, which made the Italian artist
Ghirlandajo call it the only painting for eternity ; the subdued richness of
its coloring; its grand and solemn character when used in large masses,— make it
most appropriate for ecclesiastical use. The finest examples of this work for
the period are at Rome, Ravenna, Thessalonica, and in St. Sophia at
Constantinople concealed by the whitewash of the Moslems. A fine specimen of
Mosaic work at Ravenna shows the figure drawing of Byzantine art.
Only
three or four examples of Christian sculpture of the human figure for this
period are known. They sculpture and imitate the classic models. The other
Miniature- sculptures of this age, of Christian origin, Painting. are
relief around the sarcophagi, or stone coffins, in which the most wealthy
interred their dead. At this time began the practice of indenting squares into
the text of Christian MSS., or service books, and painting in them some
appropriate scene, and also the elaborate ornament of the text through the
artistic illustration of the borders, the beginning and end of the sections,
and the capital letters beginning the sections, as well as beautiful writing,
and the use of gold or silver letters on the parchments. A few of these from
this period, some of them very beautiful, have come down to us.
The main
field of Christian art in this period, and the scene of its triumphs, is in
architecture, and mainly in the erection of Christian churches. The motive and
the occasion were such as to make an epoch in the history of art. The
realization of Christian conceptions and aspirations through the art of the
architect is an edifice suitable for Christian worship. Structural art can have
no higher theme. The opportunity was the greatest. An immense empire had been
won to the Christian faith, and was to be provided with places of worship. From
whatever source the ruling motives came, the churches of the period may be
divided into three classes,—the basilicas; the round churches, an adaptation of
the secular memorial or tomb ; and the churches of the Byzantine style.
The
basilicas were adaptations of the secular basilica, or building for the
imperial adminis- BaslIIca5 tration, whether judicial or civil.
Sketches of the ground-plans show the original idea and their adaptation to
Christian use.
The
circular churches were found over a wide area, but were never numerous. St.
George’s, Thessalonica, and the ancient Pantheou at Rome, now converted into a
Christian temple, convey some idea of their appearance and use.
By far
the greatest triumph of the builder’s art of this period is the Byzantine style
of architecture, of Byzantine which the finest example is St. Sophia, at sty,e-
Constantinople, completed 563. In this style the building is nearly square, on
the model of a Greek cross, with a large central dome. This dome first rested
on piers or pillars; but the success of the effort at St. Sophia to clear the
space below of supports by placing the great dome on two lesser ones, and so
securing an audience-room one hundred feet wide and two hundred feet long
without an intervening pier or column, found frequent imitation. Such a room,
one hundred and seventy feet from the pavement to the ceiling of the dome, made
it a most mag-ificent place for Christian assemblage, though, alas! for more
than four hundred years, a place of worship for the followers of Mohammed. A
view of the interior of this temple accompanies these pages. The exterior of
the churches was not remarkable. Towers and spires were of later date—and St.
Sophia was never finished—but the interior was often lavishly adorned and
richly furnished. The description of Mr. Nesbit will enable us to realize the
interior of a Christian church in a great city of the empire in this period.
“A
stately gateway gave admittance to a large court surrounded by covered
colonnades, in the center Interior of of which was a fountain or vase
containing a Basilica. water, so that ablutions might be performed
before the church was entered. On one side of this court and entering from it
was the baptistery. The basilica was usually placed on the western side of the
court, so that the rising sun shone on its front. This front was pierced by
three or five doonvays, according to the number of the aisles, and in that part
which rose above the colonnade of the court windows of immense size admitted
light to the interior. The wall between and above these windows was covered,
sometimes in parts, with mosaic of glass in gold and color, but usually with
plates of richly-colored marbles and porphyries, arranged so as to form
patterns; sometimes, however, stucco painting was the cheaper substitute. When
the building was of brick, the same decoration, by means of marble slabs or
stucco, was designed for the whole exterior of the building. The doors were of
bronze, adorned with sculptures in relief, and frequently gilt; or of wood,
richly inlaid or carved. Curtains of the richest stuffs, often of purple or
scarlet embroidered with gold, hung at the doors to exclude the heat of summer
or the cold of winter, while the doors stood open.
“ In the
interior, the whole floor was covered with tesselated pavement, or with slabs
of many-colored marbles arranged in beautiful patterns. The aisles were
separated from the nave by ranges of marble columns, whose capitals supported
either arches or horizontal architraves. The great width of the nave— in a
first-class basilica frequently more than eighty feet—and the forest of columns
on either hand (one of the colonnades often containing twenty-four or more
columns), when there were double aisles, produced an architectural effect of
great magnificence. The clerestory wall, above the first colonnade of pillars
in the nave, was pierced by numerous immense windows with arched heads, one of
which was over each intercolumniation. These windows were, no doubt, divided by
columns or pilasters and architraves, and the divisions fitted with slabs of
marble pierced in a variety of patterns, and fitted with either alabaster or
plain or colored glass. The roof was flat and of wood; where magnificence was
sought, it was richly adorned with carving and gilt. The semi-dome, which
covered the apse, was covered with mosaic pictures, the subject being mainly
Christ, either seated or standing, with his apostles ranged on either hand.
Where a transept was built, it was usually divided from the nave by an arch,
the face of which, fronting the nave, was often also covered with mosaics; a
colossal bust of Christ was often the central object of the picture, being
placed above the crown of the arch, while on either side and below are
represented the seven candlesticks, the symbols of the evangelists, and the
twenty-four elders.
“ The
apse was furnished with a bench following its circumference, for the higher
clergy, in the center of which was a raised seat (cathedra) for the bishop; the
altar was usually placed on the chord of the apse on the top of a flight of
steps, and parted off from the nave by railings (cancelli). Below it was often
a platform or space, and this a quadrangular, usually oblong, inclosure
(chorus), in which the singers and readers were stationed. This inclosure was
formed by railings, or dwarf walls, and connected with these was the ambo, or
reading desk. In this space probably benches were provided; but the rest of the
Church was left altogether open and free. The seats in the chorus for the men
of rank on the right, and women of the same degree on the left, were either of
marble or of carved wood, in many instances gilded, the railings of the same
material or bronze. Over the altar was a lofty and richly-decorated canopy
(ciborium), from the arches of which hung curtains of stuffs of the richest
colors, interwoven with gold. Curtains like these often depended from the
arches of the nave, and hung at the doors. Vases, crowns, and lamps of silver
or gold hung from the arches, or were placed upon the dwarf walls, or
partitions, wThich separated the various divisions of the edifice.”
The
second turning point was the fall of Rome. One thing could have averted it. In
the East it was averted, and the mightiest contributing The Fan cause was that
Christianity became the re- of R°me-ligion of the entire
population—of the higher classes as well as of the lower orders. Thus all were
united in resisting the onset of the invaders. In the West the aristocracy and
the governing classes remained heathen until the overthrow of the State. There
was no union of the entire population to preserve the empire ; but the
barbarians were hired as mercenaries, and their chiefs given great offices and
commands, in hope that they would protect those incapable of rallying the
natural defenders of the country against their foes. Then the virus of the
Roman heathenism had so corrupted society that the real heathenism was not
changed by a nominal profession of Christianity. After Treves, the capital of
Eastern Gaul, had been taken and burned by the Franks, the first building
re-erected was the theater, which was soon filled with the crowds of idle,
worthless spectators. “ The world laughs and dies,” said Salvian. So great was
the corruption in North Africa that the Romans themselves said that only the
Vandal invaders restored chastity.
The fall
of the empire brought the overthrow of the old culture and civilization in the
West and its limitation in the East. Arts, literature, and learning necessarily
decayed. Not only through the was no advance possible, but there was
Barbarian a retrogression for centuries. The rude-Conquest. nesg
barbarism, slowly groping to
ward
civilization, covered all the lands of the West: Only the remnants of culture
and the arts of life remained. These were preserved by the Church, but purged,
of course, from the old leaven of idolatry, cruelty, and licentiousness. In the
East the splendid reign of Justinian displayed a remarkable development of
architecture, and secured the codification of the Roman law. The Church, which
had overthrown the heathen civilization, had now to undertake the training of
the new races who were to form the new world. She did not fail in her task, but
she herself suffered grievous loss. The ignorance, superstition, the violence
and crudeness of those ages, left its mark, not only on society, but on the
Church. The Christian life, the worship, and the theology, were coarsened and
materialized by it. From Augustine, 354-429, to Anselm, 1033-1109, is a long
distance; but in that time arose no great theological thinker of eminence, and
very few men of the learning of Bede or Alcuin appeared in the intervening
centuries. This influence became marked in the time from Chrysostom to Gregory.
Prof. Harnack has pointed out the change between the Church of Eusebius,
260-340, free from the worship of saints and intercessions with God, from the
use of amulets and other heathen practices, and that of Sozomen’s day, one
hundred years later, which had already become brutish, monkish, and
superstitious. A superstition was always ready, and deceptions were often
knowingly furthered by the priests, or at least not rebuked, for fear of
injuring the faith of the people. If practice or belief were deemed pious, they
did not inquire whether it were true.
There
were no decisions of the CEcumenical Councils of this period which go beyond
the faith held in common by Protestants and Roman Catholics; but there were
popularly-accepted doctrines and practices which we can not but regard as
perversions of the simplicity and purity of the gospel. Such were the doctrines
of the transformation, if not transubtantia-tion of the elements in the Lord’s
Supper; the sacerdotal office and power of the priest; the jurisdiction of the
Pope; the teaching of purgatory and the merit of good works. Such were the
usages of an elaborate and priestly liturgical worship, the worship of saints
and angels, the veneration of relics, the practices of pilgrimages, and, above
all, the celibacy of the clergy and the monastic orders, with the usurpation
and moral corruption which accompany it. All these come in after 250. Above
all, the old joy of Christian life had fled. Gregoria, a lady in waiting to the
empress at Constantinople, wrote to Gregory I that he must assure her by
revelation of the forgiveness of her sins. In his reply he wrote : “ Thou must
not surrender tl -self to full security on account of thy sins, till 011 the
day of thy death thou canst weep for them no more. Till that day comes, thou
must ever fear and tremble on account of thy sins.” How different from the
words of the Savior: “Thy sins, which are many, are all forgiven thee;” from
the words of St. Paul: “ In whom we have redemption, even the forgiveness of
sins! ” How different from the faith and joy of the early Church!
Yet in
spite of these declensions, there were immense gains, which civilization has
never lost. Idolatry and bloody sacrifices perished from the Civilization vast
domain conquered by Christianity, through the This was the first and greatest
achieve’ ment. Bloody spectacles and games, public licentiousness, and nameless
vice disappeared with heathenism. Marriage had a sanction and a sacredness, the
home a purity, and woman a position of honor before unknown. Mercy came into
the public law and civil society through the Church. She had been a stranger to
the heathen civilization. The children, widows, orphans, slaves, prisoners, the
sick and the maimed, the wretched debtor, and the outcast, felt her blessed
presence, and rejoiced in her healing, helpful ministry. Christianity brought
in the public worship of the congregation. The worship of the heathen is always
private, or state or tribal function. Christian worship of the Heavenly Father
and the common hope of immortality formed the most universal, profound, and
permanent of social ties. The Christian doctrine of universal brotherhood was
the source of all social amelioration and political advance. Christians should
always remember that we owe to the Church of this age the collection and
preservation of the writings of the New Testament, and its use as a standard
both of life and doctrine. No other
Turning
Points and Results. 403
service
can exceed this. We owe to it the heroism of martyrdom and the faith that faced
the world and conquered it. We owe to it the shaping of those doctrines of the
nature of God and of the Redeemer, of sin and redemption, which are
distinctively Christian. We owe to it the discipline, first of the Church, and
then of the monastery which preserved moral standards and exalted moral purity.
We can not but be touched by the spirit that left all that men hold dear to
draw near and converse with God; that shrunk from no sacrifice to minister to
human suffering and distress. Prayer and mercy have their lessons for every
age.
With what
a company of noble men and saintly women we have journeyed through these
changeful centuries! What national history can show men of higher character,
loftier of achievements ! Athanasius and Ambrose, Leo and Gregory, would rank
as great Founded the statesmen in any age. Origen, Eusebius, and Jerome have
rarely been equaled among scholars. Irenseus and Origen, Gregory of Nyssa, and
Augustine, traced the paths in which, during the ages since, the Christian
thinkers have walked. What orator has surpassed Chrysostom in persuasiveness,
or Tertullian in impassioned advocacy? In practical philanthropy few have wrought
so effectively as Basil and Benedict! Women like Monica and Anthusa glorify
motherhood. Scholastica, the sister of Benedict, and Olympias, the friend of
Chrysostom, are types of women whose love and service in every age have made
pure and strong the Church. How high is the average of moral character and
attainment! Men like Cyprian and Augustine, Leo and Gregory—the influence of
many of whose opinions we deplore— were men of pure motives and exalted
character. The very heretics, like Marcion and Arius, command our respect. If
the style in which the Christian fathers wrote is often not as attractive as
the thought conveyed, and we are repelled by diffuseness or lack of form, or,
as is sometimes the case, turgid ornament, let us remember that they wrote in
the decline of letters, and apply Macaulay’s test of comparing these authors
with their contemporaries, and we shall not need to defend them, even upon the
score of style. No Latin authors of the time surpass Tertullian, Augustine, or
Jerome, and the same is true of the Greek fathers, like Athanasius, the
Gregorys, and Chrysostom.
The
violence of prelates like Cyril and Dioscurus of Alexandria; the weakness of
those like Liberius Darker and Vigilius of Rome; the bitterness of shades,
theological controversy, the ignorance and sordidness of the monks, the
heathenism in life and worship, which in the last two centuries crowded out the
sermon and the Scriptures, and brought in the saints and magic, are the dark
spots in the picture.
But what
age has ever surpassed the Church of fellowship and martyrdom; of spiritual
gifts and conquest? What religious ideas have ever * wrought such immense and
beneficial changes in human society? We who have stood at the fountain-head and
traced the stream from its source, may well be assured of the supreme might and
majesty of those spiritual forces which Christianity has made the possession of
mankind; that no external foe can check her career of universal conquest; that
the only foes that can endanger her are inward ones ; that while she needs to
be abreast, if not leading the intellectual advance, the conquests of truth,
and the material forces of each age; yet the symbol of her unity as the seal of
her conquest is the abiding Christ in the human heart, in human life, and in
human society. By this sign she conquers. As we close our survey, Western
Christendom is slowly emerging from barbarism, and yet for six hundred years
successive attacks of heathen invaders are to be repelled, and heathen
nations—Saxons, Danes, Scandinavians, and the Slavic people—are to be converted
to the Christian faith. Above lowers the cloud of the Mohammedan conquests,
which are to wrest the fairest provinces from the Eastern Empire and the holy
places of the faitli from Christendom. Yet we sing with Cromwell’s charging
pikemen the words of the Hebrew psalmist, “ God is in the midst of her, God
shall help her, and that right early;” and, in the words of the old Byzantine
motto, pray, “ Light of Christ, shine 011 all.” Yea, in the full assurance of
faith, we join in the prayer of all Christians, of every name, of every age,
and all lands, the holy Church alike in earth and heaven, “ Thy kingdom come.”
The End.
APPENDIX.
Note: A,
pp. 57, 206.—Residence oe St. Peter in Rome.—The Roman Catholic tradition of a
twenty-five years* residence and rule of St. Peter in Rome is certainly false.
On the other hand, the tradition as to his death in Rome is uncontradicted by
any evidence in favor of any other city or place. It is traced back to the
first century, as it is referred to in a letter of Clement of Rome, between 90
and 100. The archaeological evidence, though of a latter date, is altogether in
its favor. From all the evidence now at hand, the author regards the tradition
that St. Peter was martyred at Rome under Nero, in spite of the lack of any
reference to him in the letters of St. Paul, as historically true.
Note B,
p. 276.—Mode oe Baptism.—The usual mode of baptism was by immersion. This is
the mode in use in the Greek Church from the earliest times, and in the Roman
Catholic Church ordinarily, until the latter part of the thirteenth century. On
the other hand, in all probability, other modes of baptism were in use from the
beginning. The baptisms recorded in the sixteenth of Acts, were more probably
by pouring or sprinkling than by immersion. If the early Church baptized for
the dead, there is no probability that the sick died unbaptized when they could
not be immersed. A choice of modes is given in the Teaching of the Twelve,
dating from no. So one mode at that date, and probably from the first, was not
essential to the sacrament. To this agrees the representation of the baptism of
the Holy Spirit. Most of the representations of baptism, which the author has
seen in the Catacombs, represent pouring rather than immersion. Yet a drawing
on a pontifical in Rome of the ninth century represents baptism, both adult and
infant, by immersion.
406
Appendix.
407
No
denomination of Christians at the present day baptizes as did the early Church.
Then the candidates immersed themselves three times in the name of the Father,
Son, and Holy Ghost, standing in water up to the waist, and dipping the head
under water three times. This shows how the multitudes of barbarians were
baptized in the rivers in Germany and Russia.
Note C,
p. 316.—The Population op Rome.—The latest researches, notably those of
Professor Lanciani, show that at the height of its power, the population of
ancient Rome was not more than one million. While the numbers given in the text
are thus reduced, the slave was probably greater, rather than less, than the
free population.