III. THE ORGANIZATION OF THE APOSTOLIC CHURCH
The Israelites were emphatically "a peculiar people." Though amounting, in the days of our Lord, to several millions of individuals, they were all the lineal descendants of Abraham; and though two thousand years had passed away since the time of their great progenitor; they had not meanwhile intermingled, to any considerable extent, with the rest of the human family. The bulk of the nation still occupied the land which had been granted by promise to the "father of the faithful;" the same farms had been held by the same families from age to age; and probably some of the proprietors could boast that their ancestors, fifteen hundred years before, had taken possession of the very fields which they now cultivated. They had all one form of worship, one high priest, and one place of sacrifice. At stated seasons every year all the males of a certain age were required to meet together at Jerusalem; and thus a full representation of the whole race was frequently collected in one great congregation.
The written law of Moses was the sacred bond which united so closely the Church of Israel. The ritual observances of the Hebrews, which had all a typical meaning, are described by the inspired lawgiver with singular minuteness; and any deviation from them was forbidden, not only because it involved an impeachment either of the authority or the wisdom of Jehovah, but also because it was calculated to mar their significance. Under the Mosaic economy the posterity of Abraham were taught to regard each other as members of the same family, interested, as joint heirs, in the blessings promised to their distinguished ancestor. The Israelites were knit together by innumerable ties, as well secular as religious; and when they appeared in one multitudinous assemblage on occasions of peculiar solemnity, [249:1] they presented a specimen of ecclesiastical unity such as the world has never since contemplated.
Some, however, have contended that the Christian community was originally constructed upon very different principles. According to them the word church [249:2] in the New Testament is always used in one of two senses--either as denoting a single worshipping society, or the whole commonwealth of the faithful; and from this they infer that, in primitive times, every Christian congregation was independent of every other. But such allegations, which are exceedingly improbable in themselves, are found, when carefully investigated, to be totally destitute of foundation. The Church of Jerusalem, [249:3] with the tens of thousands of individuals belonging to it, [249:4] must have consisted of several congregations; [249:5] the Church of Antioch, to which so many prophets and teachers ministered, [249:6] was probably in a similar position; and the Church of Palestine [249:7] obviously comprehended a large number of associated churches. When our Saviour prayed that all His people "may be one," [250:1] He evidently indicated that the unity of the Church, so strikingly exhibited in the nation of Israel, should still be studied and maintained; and when Paul describes the household of faith, he speaks of it, not as a loose mass of independent congregations, but as a "body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth." [250:2] The apostle here refers to the vital union of believers by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost; but he apparently alludes also to those "bands" of outward ordinances, and "joints" [250:3] of visible confederation, by which their communion is upheld; for, were the Church split up into an indefinite number of insulated congregations, even the unity of the spirit could neither be distinctly ascertained nor properly cultivated. When oiled by the spirit of Divine love, the machinery of the Church moves with admirable harmony, and accomplishes the most astonishing results; but, when pervaded by another spirit, it is strained and dislocated, and in danger of dashing itself to pieces.
Those who hold that every congregation, however small, is a complete church in itself, are quite unable to explain why the system of ecclesiastical organization should be thus circumscribed. The New Testament inculcates the unity of all the faithful, as well as the unity of particular societies; and the same principle of Christian brotherhood which prompts a number of individuals to meet together for religious fellowship, should also lead a number of congregations in the same locality to fraternize. The twelve may be regarded as the representatives of the doctrine of ecclesiastical confederation; for though they were commanded to go into all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature, yet, as long as circumstances permitted, they continued to co-operate. "When the apostles which were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria had received the word of God, they sent unto them Peter and John;" [251:1] and, at a subsequent period, they concurred in sending "forth Barnabas, that he should go as far as Antioch." [251:2] These facts distinctly prove that they had a common interest in everything pertaining to the well-being of the whole Christian commonwealth; and that, like Paul, they were entrusted with "the care of all the churches." Nor did the early Christian congregations act independently. They believed that union is strength, and they were "knit together" in ecclesiastical relationship. Hence, we read of the brother who was "chosen of the churches" [251:3] to travel with the Apostle Paul. It is now impossible to determine in what way this choice was made--whether at a general meeting of deputies from different congregations, or by a separate vote in each particular society--but, in whatever way the election was accomplished, the appointment of one representative for several churches was itself a recognition of their ecclesiastical unity.
We have seen that the worship of the Church was much the same as the worship of the synagogue, [251:4] and it would seem that its polity also was borrowed from the institutions of the chosen people. [251:5] Every Jewish congregation was governed by a bench of elders; and in every city there was a smaller sanhedrim, or presbytery, consisting of twenty-three members, [251:6] to which the neighbouring synagogues were subject. Jerusalem is said to have had two of these smaller sanhedrims, as it was found that the multitudes of cases arising among so vast a population were more than sufficient to occupy the time of any one judicatory. Appeals lay from all these tribunals to the Great Sanhedrim, or "Council," so frequently mentioned in the New Testament. [252:1] This court consisted of seventy or seventy-two members, made up, perhaps, in equal portions, of chief priests, scribes, and elders of the people, [252:2] The chief priests were probably twenty-four in number--each of the twenty-four courses, into which the sacerdotal order was divided, [252:3] thus furnishing one representative. The scribes were the men of learning, like Gamaliel, [252:4] who had devoted themselves to the study of the Jewish law, and who possessed recondite, as well as extensive information. The elders were laymen of reputed wisdom and experience, who, in practical matters, might be expected to give sound advice. [252:5] It was not strange that the Jews had so profound a regard for their Great Sanhedrim. In the days of our Lord and His apostles it had, indeed, miserably degenerated; but, at an earlier period, its members must have been eminently entitled to respect, as in point of intelligence, prudence, piety, and patriotism, they held the very highest place among their countrymen.
The details of the ecclesiastical polity of the ancient Israelites are now involved in much obscurity; but the preceding statements may be received as a pretty accurate description of its chief outlines. Our Lord himself, in the sermon on the mount, is understood to refer to the great council and its subordinate judicatories; [252:6] and in the Old Testament appeals from inferior tribunals to the authorities in the holy city are explicitly enjoined. [253:1] All the synagogues, not only in Palestine but in foreign countries, obeyed the orders of the Sanhedrim at Jerusalem; [253:2] and it constituted a court of review to which all other ecclesiastical arbiters yielded submission.
In the government of the Apostolic Church we may trace a resemblance to these arrangements. Every Christian congregation, like every synagogue, had its elders; and every city had its presbytery, consisting of the spiritual rulers of the district. In the introductory chapters of the book of the Acts we discover the germ of this ecclesiastical constitution; for we there find the apostles ministering to thousands of converts, and, as the presbytery of Jerusalem, ordaining deacons, exercising discipline, and sending out missionaries. [253:3] The prophets and teachers of Antioch obviously performed the same functions; [253:4] Titus was instructed to have elders established, or a presbytery constituted, in every city of Crete; [253:5] and Timothy was ordained by such a judicatory. [253:6] For the first thirty years after the death of our Lord a large proportion of the ministers of the gospel were Jews by birth, and as they were in the habit of going up to Jerusalem to celebrate the great festivals, they appear to have taken advantage of the opportunity, and to have held meetings in the holy city for consultation respecting the affairs of the Christian commonwealth. Prudence and convenience conspired to dictate this course, as they could then reckon upon finding there a considerable number of able and experienced elders, and as their presence in the Jewish metropolis on such occasions was fitted to awaken no suspicion. [253:7]
We may thus see that the transaction mentioned in the 15th chapter of the Acts admits of a simple and satisfactory explanation. When the question respecting the circumcision of the Gentile converts began to be discussed at Antioch, there were individuals in that city quite as well qualified as any in Jerusalem to pronounce upon its merits; for the Church there enjoyed the ministry of prophets; and Paul, its most distinguished teacher, was "not a whit behind the very chiefest apostles." But the parties proceeded in the matter in much the same way as Israelites were accustomed to act under similar circumstances. Had a controversy relative to any Mosaic ceremony divided the Jewish population of Antioch, they would have appealed for a decision to their Great Sanhedrim; and now, when this dispute distracted the Christians of the capital of Syria, they had recourse to another tribunal at Jerusalem which they considered competent to pronounce a deliverance. [254:1] This tribunal consisted virtually of the rulers of the universal Church; for the apostles, who had a commission to all the world, and elders from almost every place where a Christian congregation existed, were in the habit of repairing to the capital of Palestine. In one respect this judicatory differed from the Jewish council, for it was not limited to seventy members. In accordance with the free spirit of the gospel dispensation, it appears to have consisted of as many ecclesiastical rulers as could conveniently attend its meetings. But the times were somewhat perilous; and it is probable that the ministers of the early Christian Church did not deem it expedient to congregate in very large numbers.
A single Scripture precedent for the regulation of the Church is as decisive as a multitude; and though the New Testament distinctly records only one instance in which a question of difficulty was referred by a lower to a higher ecclesiastical tribunal, this case sufficiently illustrates the character of the primitive polity. A very substantial reason can be given why Scripture takes so little notice of the meetings of Christian judicatories. The different portions of the New Testament were put into circulation as soon as written; and though it was most important that the heathen should be made acquainted with the doctrines of the Church, it was not by any means expedient that their attention should be particularly directed to the machinery by which it was regulated. An accurate knowledge of its constitution would only have exposed it more fearfully to the attacks of persecuting Emperors. Every effort would have been made to discover the times and places of the meetings of pastors and teachers, and to inflict a deadly wound on the Church by the destruction of its office-bearers. Hence, in general, its courts appear to have assembled in profound secrecy; and thus it is that, for the first three centuries, so little is known of the proceedings of these conventions.
It is to be observed that, in the first century, when the rulers of the Church met for consultation, they all sat in the same assembly. When the ecclesiastical constitution was fairly settled, even the Twelve were disposed to waive their personal claims to precedence, and to assume the status of ordinary ministers. We find accordingly that there were then no higher and lower houses of convocation; for "the apostles and elders came together." [255:1] Some, who suppose that James was the first bishop of the holy city, imagine that in his manner of giving the advice adopted at the Synod of Jerusalem, they can detect marks of his prelatic influence. [255:2] But the sacred narrative, when candidly interpreted, merely shews that he acted on the occasion as a judicious counsellor. He was, assuredly, not entitled to dictate to Paul or Peter. The reasoning of those who maintain that, as a matter of right, he expected the meeting to yield to the weight of his official authority, would go to prove, not that he was bishop of the Jewish capital, but that he was the prince of the apostles.
The New Testament history speaks frequently of James, and extends over the whole period of his public career; but it never once hints that he was bishop of Jerusalem, he himself has left behind him an epistle addressed "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad," in which he makes no allusion to his possession of any such office. Paul, who was well acquainted with him, and who often visited the mother Church during the time of his alleged episcopate, is equally silent upon the subject. But it is easy to understand how the story originated. The command of our Lord to the apostles, "Go ye unto all the world and preach the gospel to every creature," [256:1] did not imply that their countrymen at home were not to enjoy a portion of their ministrations; and it was probably considered expedient that one of their number should reside in the Jewish capital. This field of exertion seems to have been assigned to James. His colleagues meanwhile travelled to distant countries to disseminate the truth; and as he was the only individual of the apostolic company who could ordinarily be consulted in the holy city, he soon became the ruling spirit among the Christians of that crowded metropolis. In all cases of importance and of difficulty his advice would be sought and appreciated; and his age, experience, and rank as one of the Twelve, would suggest the propriety of his appointment as president of any ecclesiastical meeting he would attend. The precedence thus so generally conceded to him would be remembered in after-times when the hierarchical spirit began to dominate; and would afford a basis for the legend that he was the first bishop of Jerusalem. And as he, perhaps, commonly occupied the chair when the rulers of the Church assembled there at the annual festivals, we can see too why he is also called "bishop of bishops" in documents of high antiquity. [257:1]
During a considerable part of the first century Jerusalem probably contained a much greater number of disciples than any other city in the Roman Empire; and until shortly before its destruction by Titus in A.D. 70, it continued to be the centre of Christian influence. There is every reason to believe that, for some time, all matters in dispute throughout the Church, which could not be settled by inferior judicatories, were decided by the apostles and elders there convened. But the rapid propagation of Christianity, the rise of persecution, and the progress of political events, soon rendered such procedure inconvenient, if not impracticable. Persons of Gentile extraction who lived in distant lands, and who were in humble circumstances, could not be expected to travel for redress of their ecclesiastical grievances to the ancient capital of Palestine; and, when the temple was destroyed, the myriads who had formerly repaired to it to celebrate the sacred feasts, of course discontinued their attendance. The Christian communities throughout the Empire about this period began to assume that form which they present in the following century, the congregations of each province associating together for their better government and discipline. There are not wanting evidences, as we shall now endeavour to show, that the apostles themselves suggested the arrangement.
It has been taken for granted by many that when Paul, on his arrival at Miletus, "sent to Ephesus and called the elders of the Church," [258:1] he convoked a meeting only of the ecclesiastical rulers of the chief city of the Proconsular Asia. But a more attentive examination, of the passage in which the transaction is described may lead us to doubt the correctness of such an interpretation. It is probable that, when the apostle sent to Ephesus, the Christian elders of the surrounding district, as well as of the capital, were requested to meet him at Miletus. Such a conclusion is sustained by the reason assigned for his mode of proceeding at this juncture. Ephesus was a seaport about thirty miles from Miletus, and it is said he did not touch at it on his voyage "because he would not spend the time in Asia, for he hasted, if it were possible for him, to be at Jerusalem the day of Pentecost." [258:2] But, had he merely wished to see the elders of this provincial metropolis, his visit to it need have created no delay, for he might have gone to it as quickly as the messenger who was the bearer of his communication. He seems, however, to have felt that, had he appeared there, he would have given offence had he not also favoured the Christian communities in its neighbourhood with his presence; and as he could not afford to spend so much time in Asia as would thus have been required, he adopted the expedient of inviting all the elders of the district to repair to him in the place where he now sojourned. [258:3] From Ephesus, the capital, his invitation could be readily transmitted to other provincial cities. The address which he delivered to the assembled elders certainly conveys the impression that they did not all belong to the metropolis, and its very first sentence suggests such an inference. "When they were come to him, he said unto them, Ye know from the first day that I came into Asia after what manner I have been with you at all seasons." [259:1] The evangelist informs us that he had spent only two years and three months at Ephesus, [259:2] and yet he here tells his audience that "by the space of three years" he had not ceased to warn every one night and day with tears. [259:3] He says also "I know that ye all among whom I have gone preaching the kingdom of God, shall see my face no more," [259:4]--thereby intimating that his auditors were not resident in one locality. We have also distinct evidence that when Paul formerly ministered at Ephesus, there were Christian societies throughout the province, for in his First Epistle to the Corinthians written from that city, [259:5] he sends his correspondents the salutations of "the Churches of Asia." [259:6] These Churches must obviously have been united by the ties of Christian fellowship; and the apostle must have been in close communication with them when he was thus employed as the medium of conveyance for the expression of their evangelical attachment.
In other parts of the New Testament we may discern traces of consociation among the primitive Churches. Thus, Paul, their founder, sends to "the Churches of Galatia" [259:7] a common letter in which he requires them to "serve one another," [259:8] and to "bear one another's burdens." [259:9] Without some species of united action, the Galatians could not well have obeyed such admonitions. Peter also, when writing to the disciples "scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia," [259:10] represents them as an associated body. "The elders," says he, "which are among you I exhort, who am also an elder....feed the flock of God which is among you taking the oversight thereof." [260:1] This "flock of God," which was evidently equivalent to the "Church of God," [260:2] was spread over a large territory; and yet the apostle suggests that the elders were conjointly charged with its supervision. Had the Churches scattered throughout so many provinces been a multitude of independent congregations, Peter would not have described them as one "flock" of which these rulers had the oversight.
But, though the elders of congregations in adjoining provinces could maintain ecclesiastical intercourse, and meet together at least occasionally or by delegates, it was otherwise with Churches in different countries. Even these, however, cultivated the communion of saints; for there are evidences that they corresponded with each other by letters or deputations. The attentive reader of the inspired epistles must have observed how the apostles contrived to keep open a door of access to their converts by means of itinerating preachers; [260:3] and the same agency seems to have been continued in succeeding generations. Disciples travelling into strange lands were furnished with "epistles of commendation" [260:4] to the foreign Churches; and Christian teachers, who had these credentials, were permitted freely to officiate in the congregations which they visited. It is an extraordinary fact that, during the lives of the apostles, there were preachers, in whom they had no confidence, who were yet in full standing, and who went from place to place addressing apostolic Churches. Having found their way into the ministry in a particular locality, they set out to other regions provided with their "letters of commendation;" and, on the strength of these testimonials, they were readily recognised as heralds of the cross. The apostles deemed it prudent to advise their correspondents not to rest satisfied with the certificates of these itinerant evangelists, but to try them by a more certain standard. "If there come any unto you," says John, "and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him God speed." [261:1]--"Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God, because many false prophets are gone out into the world." [261:2] Strange as it may now appear, even some of the apostles had personal enemies among the primitive preachers, and yet when these proclaimed the truth, they were suffered to proceed without interruption. "Some indeed," says Paul, "preach Christ even of envy and strife; and some also of good will. The one preach Christ of contention, not sincerely, supposing to add affliction to my bonds; but the other of love, knowing that I am set for the defence of the gospel. What then? notwithstanding, every way, whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice." [261:3]
The preceding statements may enable us to appreciate the unity of the Apostolic Church. This unity was not perfect; for there were false brethren who stirred up strife, and false teachers who fomented divisions. But these elements of discord no more disturbed the general unity of the Church than the presence of a few empty or blasted ears of corn affects the productiveness of an abundant harvest. As a body, the disciples of Christ were never so united as in the first century. Heresy had yet made little impression; schism was scarcely known; and charity, exerting her gentle influence with the brotherhood, found it comparatively easy to keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The members of the Church had "one Lord, one faith, one baptism." But their unity was very different from uniformity. They had no canonical hours, no clerical costume, no liturgies. The prayers of ministers and people varied according to circumstances, and were dictated by their hopes and fears, their wants and sympathies. When they met for worship, the devotional exercises were conducted in a language intelligible to all; when the Scriptures were read in their assemblies, every one heard in his own tongue the wonderful works of God. The unity of the Apostolic Church did not consist in its subordination to any one visible head or supreme pontiff; for neither Peter nor Paul, James nor John pretended to be the governor of the household of faith. Its unity was not like the unity of a jail where all the prisoners must wear the same dress, and receive the same rations, and dwell in cells of the same construction, and submit to the orders of the same keeper; but like the unity of a cluster of stalks of corn, all springing from one prolific grain, and all rich with a golden produce. Or it may be likened to the unity of the ocean, where all the parts are not of the same depth, or the same colour, or the same temperature; but where all, pervaded by the same saline preservative, ebb and flow according to the same heavenly laws, and concur in bearing to the ends of the earth the blessings of civilisation and of happiness.
IV. THE ANGELS OF THE SEVEN CHURCHES
The Apocalypse is a book of symbols. The light which we obtain from it may well remind us of the instruction communicated to the Israelites by the ceremonies of the law. The Mosaic institutions imparted to a Jew the knowledge of an atonement and a Saviour; but he could scarcely have undertaken to explain, with accuracy and precision, their individual significance, as their meaning was not fully developed until the times of the Messiah. So is it with "the Revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave unto him to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass," and which "he sent and signified by his angel unto his servant John." [263:1] The Church here sees, as "through a glass darkly," the transactions of her future history; and she can here distinctly discern the ultimate triumph of her principles, so that, in days of adversity, she is encouraged and sustained; but she cannot speak with confidence of the import of much of this mysterious record; and it would seem as if the actual occurrence of the events foretold were to supply the only safe key for the interpretation of some of its strange imagery.
In the beginning of this book we have an account of a glorious vision presented to the beloved disciple. He was instructed to write down what he saw, and to send it to the Seven Churches in Asia, "unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea." [264:1] A vision so extraordinary as that which he describes, must have left upon his mind a permanent and most vivid impression. "I saw," says he, "seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with a golden girdle. His head and his hair were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; and his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters--and he had in his rigid hand seven stars, and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength." [264:2]
In the foreground of this picture the Son of God stands conspicuous. His dress corresponds to that of the Jewish high priest, and the whole description of His person has obviously a reference, either to His own divine perfections, or to His offices as the Saviour of sinners. He himself is the expositor of two of the most remarkable of the symbols. "The seven stars," says He, "are the angels of the Seven Churches, and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest, are the Seven Churches." [264:3]
But though the symbol of the stars has been thus interpreted by Christ, the interpretation itself has been the subject of considerable discussion. Much difficulty has been experienced in identifying the angels of the Seven Churches; and there have been various conjectures as to the station which they occupied, and the duties which they performed. According to some they were literally angelic beings who had the special charge of the Seven Churches. [264:4] According to others, the angel of a Church betokens the collective body of ministers connected with the society. But such explanations are very far from satisfactory. The Scriptures nowhere teach that each Christian community is under the care of its own angelic guardian; neither is it to be supposed that an angel represents the ministry of a Church, for one symbol would not be interpreted by another symbol of dubious signification. It seems clear that the angel of the Church is a single individual, and that he must have been a personage well known to the body with which he was connected at the time when the Apocalypse was written.
It has often been asserted that the title "The angel of the Church" is borrowed from the designation of one of the ministers of the synagogue. [265:1] This point, however, has never been fairly demonstrated. In later times there was, no doubt, in the synagogue an individual known by the name of the legate, or the angel; but there is no decisive evidence that an official with such a designation existed in the first century. In the New Testament we have repeated references to the office-bearers of the synagogue; we are told of the rulers [265:2] or elders, the reader, [265:3] and the minister [265:4] or deacon; but the angel is never mentioned. Philo and Josephus are equally silent upon the subject. It is, therefore, extremely doubtful whether a minister with this title was known among the Jews in the days of the apostles. Even granting, what is so very problematical, that there were in the synagogues in the first century individuals distinguished by the designation of angels, it is still exceedingly doubtful whether the angels of the Seven Churches borrowed their names from these functionaries. If so, the angel of the Church must have occupied the same position as the angel of the synagogue, for the adoption of the same title indicated the possession of the same office. But it was the duty of the angel of the synagogue to offer up the prayers of the assembly; [266:1] and as, in all the synagogues, there was worship at the same hour, [266:2] he could, of course, be the minister of only one congregation. If then the angel of the Church discharged the same functions as the angel of the synagogue, it would follow that, towards the termination of the first century, there was only one Christian congregation in each of the seven cities of Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. It may, however, be fairly questioned whether the number of disciples in every one of these places was then so limited as such an inference would suggest. In Laodicea, and perhaps in one or two of the other cities, [266:3] there may have been only a single congregation; but it is scarcely probable that all the brethren in Ephesus still met together in one assembly. About forty years before, the Word of God "grew mightily and prevailed" [266:4] in that great metropolis; and, among its inhabitants, Paul had persuaded "much people" [266:5] to become disciples of Christ. But if the angel of the Church derived his title from the angel of the synagogue, and if the position of these two functionaries was the same, we are shut up to the conclusion that there was now only one congregation in the capital of the Proconsular Asia. The angel could not be in two places at the same time; and, as it was his duty to offer up the prayers of the assembled worshippers, it was impossible for him to minister to two congregations.
These considerations abundantly attest the futility of the imagination that the angel of the Church was a diocesan bishop. The office of the angel of the synagogue had, in fact, no resemblance whatever to that of a prelate. The rank of the ancient Jewish functionary seems to have been similar to that of a precentor in some of our Protestant churches; and when set forms of prayer were introduced among the Israelites, it was his duty to read them aloud in the congregation. The angel was not the chief ruler of the synagogue; he occupied a subordinate position; and was amenable to the authority of the bench of elders. [267:1] It is in vain then to attempt to recognise the predecessors of our modern diocesans in the angels of the Seven Churches. Had bishops been originally called angels, they never would have parted with so complimentary a designation. Had the Spirit of God in the Apocalypse bestowed upon them such a title, it never would have been laid aside. When, about a century after this period, we begin to discover distinct traces of a hierarchy, an extreme anxiety is discernible to find for it something like a footing in the days of the apostles; but, strange to say, the earliest prelates of whom we read are not known by the name of angels. [267:2] If such a nomenclature existed in the time of the Apostle John, it must have passed away at once and for ever! No trace of it can be detected even in the second century. It is thus apparent that, whatever the angels of the Seven Churches may have been, they certainly were not diocesan bishops.
The place where these angels are to be found in the apocalyptic scene also suggests the fallacy of the interpretation that they are the chief pastors of the Seven Churches. The stars are seen, not distributed over the seven candlesticks, but collected together in the hand of Christ. Though the angels seem to be in someway related to the Churches, the relation is such that they may be separated without inconvenience. What, then, can these angels be? How do they happen to possess the name they bear? Why are they gathered into the right hand of the Son of Man? All these questions admit of a very plain and satisfactory solution.
An angel literally signifies a messenger, and these angels were simply the messengers of the Seven Churches. John had long resided at Ephesus; and now that he was banished to the Isle of Patmos "for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus Christ," it would appear that the Christian communities among which he had ministered so many years, sent trusty deputies to visit him, to assure him of their sympathy, and to tender to him their friendly offices. In primitive times such angels were often sent to the brethren in confinement or in exile. Thus, Paul, when in imprisonment at Rome, says to the Philippians--"Ye have well done that ye did communicate with my affliction ... I am full, having received of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you." [268:1] Here, Epaphroditus is presented to us as the angel of the Church of Philippi. This minister seems, indeed, to have now spent no small portion of his time in travelling between Rome and Macedonia. Hence Paul observes--"I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and companion in labour and fellow-soldier, but your messenger and he that ministered to my wants." [269:1] In like manner, the individuals selected to convey, to the poor saints in Jerusalem, the contributions of the Gentile converts in Greece and Asia Minor, are called "the messengers of the Churches." [269:2] The practice of sending messengers to visit and comfort the saints in poverty, in confinement, or in exile, may be traced for centuries in the history of the Church. It also deserves notice that, in other parts of the New Testament as well as in the Apocalypse, an individual sent on a special errand is repeatedly called an angel. Thus, John the Baptist, who was commissioned to announce the approach of the Messiah, is styled God's angel, [269:3] or messenger, and the spies, sent to view the land of Canaan, are distinguished by the same designation. [269:4]
Towards the close of the first century the Apostle John must have been regarded with extraordinary veneration by his Christian brethren. He was the last survivor of a band of men who had laid the foundations of the New Testament Church; and he was himself one of the most honoured members of the little fraternity, for he had enjoyed peculiarly intimate fellowship with his Divine Master. Our Lord, "in the days of His flesh," had permitted him to lean upon His bosom; and he has been described by the pen of inspiration as "the disciple whom Jesus loved." [269:5] All accounts concur in representing him as most amiable and warm-hearted; and as he had now far outlived the ordinary term of human existence, the snows of age must have imparted additional interest to a personage otherwise exceedingly attractive. It is not to be supposed that such a man was permitted in apostolic times to pine away unheeded in solitary exile. The small island which was the place of his banishment was not far from the Asiatic metropolis, and the other six cities named in the Apocalypse were all in the same district as Ephesus. It was, therefore, by no means extraordinary that seven messengers from seven neighbouring Churches, to all of which he was well known, are found together in Patmos on a visit to the venerable confessor.
This explanation satisfies all the conditions required by the laws of interpretation. Whilst it reveals a concern for the welfare of John quite in keeping with the benevolent spirit of apostolic times, it is also simple and sufficient. In prophetic language a star usually signifies a ruler, and it is probable that the angels sent to Patmos were selected from among the elders, or rulers, of the Churches with which they were respectively connected; for, it is well known that, at an early period, elders, or presbyters, were frequently appointed to act as messengers or commissioners. [270:1] We may thus perceive, too, why the letters are addressed to the angels, for in this case they were the official organs of communication between the apostle and the religious societies which they had been deputed to represent. It is obvious that the instructions contained in the epistles were designed, not merely for the angels individually, but for the communities of which they were members; and hence the exhortation with which each of them concludes--"He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the Churches." [270:2] When the apostle was honoured with the vision, he was directed to write out an account of what he saw, and to "send it unto the Seven Churches which are in Asia;" [270:3] and this interpretation explains how he transmitted the communication; for, as Christ is said to have "sent and signified" His Revelation "by his angel unto his servant John," [271:1] so John, in his turn, conveyed it by the seven angels to the Seven Churches. It was, no doubt, thought that the messengers undertook a most perilous errand when they engaged to visit a distinguished Christian minister who had been driven into banishment by a jealous tyrant; but they are taught by the vision that they are under the special care of Him who is "the Prince of the kings of the earth;" for the Saviour appears holding them in His right hand as He walks in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks. When bearing consolation to the aged minister, each one of them could enjoy the comfort of the promise--"Can a woman forget her sucking child that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will not I forget thee. Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands." [271:2]
It has often been thought singular that only seven Churches of the Proconsular Asia are here addressed, as it is well known that, at this period, there were several other Christian societies in the same province. Thus, in the immediate neighbourhood of Laodicea were the Churches of Colosse and Hierapolis; [271:3] and in the vicinity of Ephesus, perhaps the Churches of Tralles and Magnesia. But the seven angels mentioned by John may have been the only ecclesiastical messengers in Patmos at the time of the vision; and they may have been the organs of communication with a greater number of Churches than those which they directly represented. Seven was regarded by the Jews as the symbol of perfection; and it is somewhat remarkable that, on another occasion noticed in the New Testament, [271:4] we find exactly seven messengers deputed by the Churches of Greece and Asia Minor to convey their contributions to the indigent disciples in Jerusalem. There are, too, grounds for believing that these seven religious societies, in their varied character and prospects, are emblems of the Church universal. The instructions addressed to the disciples in these seven cities of Asia were designed for the benefit of "THE CHURCHES" of all countries as well as of all succeeding generations; and the whole imagery indicates that the vision is to be thus interpreted. The Son of Man does not confine His care to the Seven Churches of Asia, for He who appears walking in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks is the same who said of old to the nation of Israel--"I will set up my tabernacle among you, and my soul shall not abhor you, and I will walk among you, and will be your God, and ye shall be my people." [272:1] In the vision, the "countenance" of the Saviour is said to have been "as the sun shineth in his strength;" [272:2] and the prayer of the Church catholic is--"God be merciful unto us, and bless us, and cause his face to shine upon us, that that thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations." [272:3]
The preceding statements demonstrate the folly of attempting to construct a system of ecclesiastical polity from such a highly-figurative portion of Scripture as the Apocalypse. In the angel of the Church some have believed they have discovered the moderator of a presbytery; others, the bishop of a diocese; and others, the minister of an Irvingite congregation. But the basis on which all such theories are founded is a mere blunder as to the significance of an ecclesiastical title. The angels of the Seven Churches were neither moderators, nor diocesans, nor precentors, but messengers sent on an errand of love to an apostle in tribulation.
* * * * *
PERIOD II.
FROM THE DEATH OF THE APOSTLE JOHN TO THE CONVERSION OF CONSTANTINE, A.D. 100 TO A.D. 312.
* * * * *
SECTION I.
THE HISTORY OF THE CHURCH.
I. THE GROWTH OF THE CHURCH
The dawn of the second century was full of promise to the Church. On the death of Domitian in A.D. 96, the Roman Empire enjoyed for a short time [275:1] the administration of the mild and equitable Nerva. This prince repealed the sanguinary laws of his predecessor, and the disciples had a respite from persecution. Trajan, who succeeded him, [275:2] and who now occupied the throne, seemed not unwilling to imitate his policy, so that, in the beginning of his reign, the Christians had no reason to complain of imperial oppression. All accounts concur in stating that their affairs, at this period, presented a most hopeful aspect. They yet displayed a united front, for they had hitherto been almost entirely free from the evils of sectarianism; and now, that they were relieved from the terrible incubus of a ruthless tyranny, their spirits were as buoyant as ever; for though intolerance had thinned their ranks, it had also exhibited their constancy and stimulated their enthusiasm. Their intense attachment to the evangelical cause stood out in strange and impressive contrast with the apathy of polytheism. A heathen repeated, not without scepticism, the tales of his mythology, and readily passed over from one form of superstition to another; but the Christian felt himself strong in the truth, and was prepared to peril all that was dear to him on earth rather than abandon his cherished principles. Well might serious pagans be led to think favourably of a creed which fostered such decision and magnanimity.
The wonderful improvement produced by the gospel on the lives of multitudes by whom it was embraced, was, however, its most striking and cogent recommendation. The Christian authors who now published works in its defence, to many of which they gave the designation of apologies, and who sought, by means of these productions, either to correct the misrepresentations of its enemies, or to check the violence of persecution, always appeal with special confidence to this weighty testimonial. A veteran profligate converted into a sober and exemplary citizen was a witness for the truth whose evidence it was difficult either to discard or to depreciate. Nor were such vouchers rare either in the second or third century. A learned minister of the Church could now venture to affirm that Christian communities were to be found composed of men "reclaimed from ten thousand vices," [276:1] and that these societies, compared with others around them, were "as lights in the world." [276:2] The practical excellence of the new faith is attested, still more circumstantially, by another of its advocates who wrote about half a century after the age of the apostles. "We," says he, "who formerly delighted in vicious excesses are now temperate and chaste; we, who once practised magical arts, have consecrated ourselves to the good and unbegotten God; we, who once prized gain above all things, give even what we have to the common use, and share it with such as are in need; we, who once hated and murdered one another, who, on account of difference of customs, would have no common hearth with strangers, now, since the appearance of Christ, live together with them; we pray for our enemies; we seek to persuade those who hate us without cause to live conformably to the goodly precepts of Christ, that they may become partakers with us, of the joyful hope of blessings from God, the Lord of all." [277:1] When we consider that all the old superstitions had now become nearly effete, we cannot be surprised at the signal triumphs of a system which could furnish such noble credentials.
Whilst Christianity demonstrated its divine virtue by the good fruits which it produced, it, at the same time, invited all men to study its doctrines and to judge for themselves. Those who were disposed to examine its internal evidences were supplied with facilities for pursuing the investigation, as the Scriptures of the New Testament were publicly read in the assemblies of the faithful, and copies of them were diligently multiplied, so that these divine guides could be readily consulted by every one who really wished for information. The importance of the writings of the apostles and evangelists suggested the propriety of making them available for the instruction of those who were ignorant of Greek; and versions in the Latin, the Syriac, and other languages [277:2] soon made their appearance. Some compositions are stripped of their charms when exhibited in translations, as they owe their attractiveness to the mere embellishments of style or expression; but the Word of God, like all the works of the High and the Holy One, speaks with equal power to every kindred and tongue and people. When correctly rendered into another language, it is still full of grace and truth, of majesty and beauty. In whatever dialect it may be clothed, it continues to awaken the conscience and to convert the soul. Its dissemination at this period either in the original or in translations, contributed greatly to the extension of the Church; and the gospel, issuing from this pure fountain, at once revealed its superiority to all the miserable dilutions of superstition and absurdity presented in the systems of heathenism.
When accounting for the rapid diffusion of the new faith in the second and third centuries, many have laid much stress on the miraculous powers of the disciples; but the aid derived from this quarter seems to have been greatly over-estimated. The days of Christ and His apostles were properly the times of "wonders and mighty deeds;" and though the lives of some, on whom extraordinary endowments were conferred, probably extended far into the second century, it is remarkable that the earliest ecclesiastical writers are almost, if not altogether, silent upon the subject of contemporary miracles. [278:1] Supernatural gifts perhaps ceased with those on whom they were bestowed by the inspired founders of the Church; [278:2] but many imagined that their continuance was necessary to the credit of the Christian cause, and were, therefore, slow to admit that these tokens of the divine recognition had completely disappeared. It must be acknowledged that the prodigies attributed to this period are very indifferently authenticated as compared with those reported by the pen of inspiration. [278:3] In some cases they are described in ambiguous or general terms, such as the narrators might have been expected to employ when detailing vague and uncertain rumours; and not a few of the cures now dignified with the title of miracles are of a commonplace character, such as could have been accomplished without any supernatural interference, and which Jewish and heathen quacks frequently performed. [279:1] No writer of this period asserts that he himself possessed the power either of speaking with tongues, [279:2] or of healing the sick, or of raising the dead. [279:3] Legend now began to supply food for popular credulity; and it is a suspicious circumstance that the greater number of the miracles which are said to have happened in the second and third centuries are recorded for the first time about a hundred years after the alleged date of their occurrence. [279:4] But Christianity derived no substantial advantage from these fictitious wonders. Some of them were so frivolous as to excite contempt, and others so ridiculous as to afford matter for merriment to the more intelligent pagans. [279:5]
The gospel had better claims than any furnished by equivocal miracles; and, though it still encountered opposition, it now moved forward in a triumphant career. In some districts it produced such an impression that it threatened the speedy extinction of the established worship. In Bithynia, early in the second century, the temples of the gods were well-nigh deserted, and the sacrificial victims found very few purchasers. [280:1] The pagan priests now took the alarm; the power of the magistrate interposed to prevent the spread of the new doctrine; and spies were found willing to dog the steps and to discover the meeting-places of the converts. Many quailed before the prospect of death, and purchased immunity from persecution by again repairing to the altars of idolatry. But, notwithstanding all the arts of intimidation and chicanery, the good cause continued to prosper. In Rome, in Antioch, in Alexandria, and in other great cities, the truth steadily gained ground; and, towards the end of the second century, it had acquired such strength even in Carthage--a place far removed from the scene of its original proclamation--that, according to the statement of one of its advocates, its adherents amounted to a tenth of the inhabitants. [280:2] About the same period Churches were to be found in various parts of the north of Africa between Egypt and Carthage; and, in the East, Christianity soon acquired a permanent footing in the little state of Edessa, [280:3] in Arabia, in Parthia, and in India. In the West, it continued to extend itself throughout Greece and Italy, as well as in Spain and France. In the latter country the Churches of Lyons and Vienne attract attention in the second century; and in the third, seven eminent missionaries are said to have formed congregations in Paris, Tours, Arles, Narbonne, Toulouse, Limoges, and Clermont. [281:1] Meanwhile the light of divine truth penetrated into Germany; and, as the third century advanced, even the rude Goths inhabiting Moesia and Thrace were partially brought under its influence. The circumstances which led to the conversion of these barbarians are somewhat remarkable. On the occasion of one of their predatory incursions into the Empire, they carried away captive some Christian presbyters; but the parties thus unexpectedly reduced to bondage did not neglect the duties of their spiritual calling, and commended their cause so successfully to those by whom they had been enslaved, that the whole nation eventually embraced the gospel. [281:2] Even the barriers of the ocean did not arrest the progress of the victorious faith. Before the end of the second century the religion of the cross seems to have reached Scotland; for though Tertullian certainly speaks rhetorically when he says that "the places of Britain inaccessible to the Romans were subject to Christ," [281:3] his language at least implies that the message of salvation had already been proclaimed with some measure of encouragement in Caledonia.
Though no contemporary writer has furnished us with anything like an ecclesiastical history of this period, it is very clear, from occasional hints thrown out by the early apologists and controversialists, that the progress of the Church must have been both extensive and rapid. A Christian author, who flourished about the middle of the second century, asserts that there was then "no race of men, whether of barbarians or of Greeks, or bearing any other name, either because they lived in waggons without fixed habitations, or in tents leading a pastoral life, among whom prayers and thanksgivings were not offered up to the Father and Maker of all things through the name of the crucified Jesus." [282:1] Another father, who wrote shortly afterwards, observes that, "as in the sea there are certain habitable and fertile islands, with wholesome springs, provided with roadsteads and harbours, in which those who are overtaken by tempests may find refuge--in like manner has God placed in a world tossed by the billows and storms of sin, congregations or holy churches, in which, as in insular harbours, the doctrines of truth are sheltered, and to which those who desire to be saved, who love the truth, and who wish to escape the judgment of God, may repair." [282:2] These statements indicate that the gospel must soon have been very widely disseminated. Within less than a hundred years after the apostolic age places of Christian worship were to be seen in the chief cities of the Empire; and early in the third century a decision of the imperial tribunal awarded to the faithful in the great Western metropolis a plot of ground for the erection of one of their religious edifices. [282:3] At length about A.D. 260 the Emperor Gallienus issued an edict of toleration in their favour; and, during the forty years which followed, their numbers so increased that the ecclesiastical buildings in which they had hitherto assembled were no longer sufficient for their accommodation. New and spacious churches now supplanted the old meeting-houses, and these more fashionable structures were soon filled to overflowing. [282:4] But the spirit of the world now began to be largely infused into the Christian communities; the Church was distracted by its ministers struggling with each other for pre-eminence; and even the terrible persecution of Diocletian which succeeded, could neither quench the ambition, nor arrest the violence of contending pastors.
If we stand, only for a moment, on the beach, we may find it impossible to decide whether the tide is ebbing or flowing. But if we remain there for a few hours, the question will not remain unsettled. The sea will meanwhile either retire into its depths, or compel us to retreat before its advancing waters. So it is with the Church. At a given date we may be unable to determine whether it is aggressive, stationary, or retrograde. But when we compare its circumstances at distant intervals, we may easily form a judgment. From the first to the fourth century, Christianity moved forward like the flowing tide; and yet, perhaps, its advance, during any one year, was not very perceptible. When, however, we contrast its weakness at the death of the Apostle John with its strength immediately before the commencement of the last imperial persecution, we cannot but acknowledge its amazing progress. At the termination of the first century, its adherents were a little flock, thinly scattered over the empire. In the reign of Diocletian, such was even their numerical importance that no prudent statesman would have thought it safe to overlook them in the business of legislation. They held military appointments of high responsibility; they were to be found in some of the most honourable civil offices; they were admitted to the court of the sovereign; and in not a few cities they constituted a most influential section of the population. The wife of Diocletian, and his daughter Valeria, are said to have been Christians. The gospel had now passed over the boundaries of the empire, and had made conquests among savages, some of whom had, perhaps, scarcely ever heard of the majesty of Rome. But it did not establish its dominion unopposed, and, in tracing its annals, we must not neglect to notice the history of its persecutions.
II. THE PERSECUTIONS OF THE CHURCH
The persecutions of the early Church form an important and deeply interesting portion of its history. When its Great Author died on the accursed tree, Christianity was baptized in blood; and for several centuries its annals consist largely of details of proscription and of suffering. God might have introduced the gospel amongst men amidst the shouts of applauding nations, but "He doeth all things well;" and He doubtless saw that the way in which its reign was actually inaugurated, was better fitted to exhibit His glory, and to attest its excellence. Multitudes, who might otherwise have trifled with the great salvation, were led to think of it more seriously, when they saw that it prompted its professors to encounter such tremendous sacrifices. As the heathen bystanders gazed on the martyrdom of a husband and a master, and as they observed the unflinching fortitude with which he endured his anguish, they often became deeply pensive. They would exclaim--"The man has children, we believe--a wife he has, unquestionably--and yet he is not unnerved by these ties of kindred: he is not turned from his purpose by these claims of affection. We must look into the affair--we must get at the bottom of it. Be it what it may, it can be no trifle which makes one ready to suffer and willing to die for it." [284:1] The effects produced on spectators by the heroism of the Christians cannot have escaped the notice of the heathen magistrates. The Church herself was well aware of the credit she derived from these displays of the constancy of her children; and hence, in an address to the persecutors which appeared about the beginning of the third century, the ardent writer boldly invites them to proceed with the work of butchery. "Go on," says he tauntingly, "ye good governors, so much better in the eyes of the people if ye sacrifice the Christians to them--rack, torture, condemn, grind us to powder--our numbers increase in proportion as you mow us down. The blood of Christians is their harvest seed--that very obstinacy with which you upbraid us, is a teacher. For who is not incited by the contemplation of it to inquire what there is in the core of the matter? and who, that has inquired, does not join us? and who, that joins us, does not long to suffer?" [285:1]
In another point of view the perils connected with a profession of the gospel exercised a wholesome influence. Comparatively few undecided characters joined the communion of the Church; and thus its members, as a body, displayed much consistency and steadfastness. The purity of the Christian morality was never seen to more advantage than in those days of persecution, as every one who joined the hated sect was understood to possess the spirit of a martyr. And never did the graces of the religion of the cross appear in more attractive lustre than when its disciples were groaning under the inflictions of imperial tyranny. As some plants yield their choicest odours only under the influence of pressure, it would seem as if the gospel reserved its richest supplies of patience, strength, and consolation, for times of trouble and alarm. Piety never more decisively asserts its celestial birth than when it stands unblenched under the frown of the persecutor, or calmly awaits the shock of death. In the second and third centuries an unbelieving world often looked on with wonder as the Christians submitted to torment rather than renounce their faith. Nor were spectators more impressed by the amount of suffering sustained by the confessors and the martyrs, than by the spirit with which they endured their trials. They approached their tortures in no temper of dogged obstinacy or sullen defiance. They rejoiced that they were counted worthy to suffer in so good a cause. They manifested a self-possession, a meekness of wisdom, a gentleness, and a cheerfulness, at which the multitude were amazed. Nor were these proofs of Christian magnanimity confined to any one class of the sufferers. Children and delicate females, illiterate artisans and poor slaves, sometimes evinced as much intrepidity and decision as hoary-headed pastors. It thus appeared that the victims of intolerance were upheld by a power which was divine, and of which philosophy could give no explanation.
We form a most inadequate estimate of the trials of the early Christians, if we take into account only those sufferings they endured from the hands of the pagan magistrates. Circumstances which seldom came under the eye of public observation not unfrequently kept them for life in a state of disquietude. Idolatry was so interwoven with the very texture of society that the adoption of the new faith sometimes abruptly deprived an individual of the means of subsistence. If he was a statuary, he could no longer employ himself in carving images of the gods; if he was a painter, he could no more expend his skill in decorating the high places of superstition. To earn a livelihood, he must either seek out a new sphere for the exercise of his art, or betake himself to some new occupation. If the Christian was a merchant, he was, to a great extent, at the mercy of those with whom he transacted business. When his property was in the hands of dishonest heathens, he was often unable to recover it, as the pagan oaths administered in the courts of justice prevented him from appealing for redress to the laws of the empire. [287:1] Were he placed in circumstances which enabled him to surmount this difficulty, he could not afford to exasperate his debtors; as they could have so easily retaliated by accusing him of Christianity. The wealthy disciple could not accept the office of a magistrate, for he would have thus only betrayed his creed; neither could he venture to aspire to any of the honours of the state, as his promotion would most certainly have aggravated the perils of his position. Our Saviour had said--"I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's foes shall be they of his own household." [287:2] These words were now verified with such woeful accuracy that the distrust pervading the domestic circle often imbittered the whole life of the believer. The slave informed against his Christian master; the husband divorced his Christian wife; and children who embraced the gospel were sometimes disinherited by their enraged parents. [287:3] As the followers of the cross contemplated the hardships which beset them on every side, well might they have exclaimed in the words of the apostle--"If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable." [287:4]
In the first century the very helplessness of the Church served partially to protect it from persecution. Its adherents were then almost all in very humble circumstances; and their numbers were not such as to inspire the sovereign with any political anxiety. When they were harassed by the unbelieving Jews, the civil magistrate sometimes interposed, and spread over them the shield of toleration; and though Nero and Domitian were their persecutors, the treatment they experienced from two princes so generally abhorred for cruelty elicited a measure of public sympathy. [288:1] At length, however, the Roman government, even when administered by sovereigns noted for their political virtues, began to assume an attitude of decided opposition; and, for many generations, the disciples were constantly exposed to the hostility of their pagan rulers.
The Romans acted so far upon the principle of toleration as to permit the various nations reduced under their dominion to adhere to whatever religion they had previously professed. They were, no doubt, led to pursue this policy by the combined dictates of expediency and superstition; for whilst they were aware that they could more easily preserve their conquests by granting indulgence to the vanquished, they believed that each country had its own tutelary guardians. But they looked with the utmost suspicion upon all new systems of religion. Such novelties, they conceived, might be connected with designs against the state; and should, therefore, be sternly discountenanced. Hence it was that Christianity so soon met with opposition from the imperial government. For a time it was confounded with Judaism, and, as such, was regarded as entitled to the protection of the laws; but when its true character was ascertained, the disciples were involved in all the penalties attached to the adherents of an unlicensed worship.
Very early in the second century the power of the State was turned against the gospel. About A.D. 107, the far-famed Ignatius, the pastor of Antioch, is said to have suffered martyrdom. Soon afterwards our attention is directed to the unhappy condition of the Church by a correspondence between the celebrated Pliny, and the Emperor Trajan. It would seem that in Bithynia, of which Pliny was governor, the new faith was rapidly spreading; and that those who derived their subsistence from the maintenance of superstition, had taken the alarm. The proconsul had, therefore, been importuned to commence a persecution; and as existing statutes supplied him with no very definite instructions respecting the method of procedure, he deemed it necessary to seek directions from his Imperial master. He stated, at the same time, the course which he had hitherto pursued. If individuals arraigned before his judgment-seat, and accused of Christianity, refused to repudiate the obnoxious creed, they were condemned to death; but if they abjured the gospel, they were permitted to escape unscathed. Trajan approved of this policy, and it now became the law of the Empire.
In his letter to his sovereign [289:1] Pliny has given a very favourable account of the Christian morality, and has virtually admitted that the new religion was admirably fitted to promote the good of the community, he mentions that the members of the Church were bound by solemn obligations to abstain from theft, robbery, and adultery; to keep their promises, and to avoid every form of wickedness. When such was their acknowledged character, it may appear extraordinary that a sagacious prince and a magistrate of highly cultivated mind concurred in thinking that they should be treated with extreme rigour. We have here, however, a striking example of the military spirit of Roman legislation. The laws of the Empire made no proper provision for the rights of conscience; and they were based throughout upon the principle that implicit obedience is the first duty of a subject. Neither Pliny nor Trajan could understand why a Christian should not renounce his creed at the bidding of the civil governor. In their estimation, "inflexible obstinacy" in confessing the Saviour was a crime which deserved no less a penalty than death.
Though the rescript of Trajan awarded capital punishment to the man who persisted in acknowledging himself a Christian, it also required that the disciples should not be inquisitively sought after. The zeal of many of the enemies of the Church was, no doubt, checked by this provision; as those who attempted to hunt down the faithful expressly violated the spirit of the imperial enactment. But still, some Christians now suffered the penalty of a good confession. Pliny himself admits that individuals who were brought before his own tribunal, and who could not be induced to recant, were capitally punished; and elsewhere the law was not permitted to remain in abeyance. About the close of the reign of Trajan, Simeon, the senior minister of Jerusalem, now in the hundred and twentieth year of his age, fell a victim to its severity. This martyr was, probably, the second son of Mary, the mother of our Lord. He is, perhaps, the same who is enumerated in the Gospels [290:1] among the brethren of Christ; and the chronology accords with the supposition that he was a year younger than our Saviour. [290:2] His relationship to Jesus, his great age, and his personal excellence secured for him a most influential position in the mother Church of Christendom; and hence, by writers who flourished afterwards, and who expressed themselves in the language of their generation, he has been called the second bishop of Jerusalem.
Though the rescript of Trajan served for a time to restrain the violence of persecution, it pronounced the profession of Christianity illegal; so that doubts, which had hitherto existed as to the interpretation of the law, could no longer be entertained. The heathen priests, and others interested in the support of idolatry, did not neglect to proclaim a fact so discouraging to the friends of the gospel. The law, indeed, still presented difficulties, for an accuser who failed to substantiate his charge was liable to punishment; but the wily adversaries of the Church soon contrived to evade this obstacle. When the people met together on great public occasions, as at the celebration of their games, or festivals, and when the interest in the sports began to flag, attempts were often made to provide them with a new and more exciting pastime by raising the cry of "The Christians to the Lions;" and as, at such times, the magistrates had been long accustomed to yield to the wishes of the multitude, many of the faithful were sacrificed to their clamours. Here, no one was obliged to step forward and hold himself responsible for the truth of an indictment; and thus, without incurring any danger, personal malice and blind bigotry had free scope for their indulgence. In the reign of Hadrian, the successor of Trajan, the Christians were sadly harassed by these popular ebullitions; and at length Quadratus and Aristides, two eminent members of the Church at Athens, presented apologies to the Emperor in which they vividly depicted the hardships of their position. Serenius Granianus, the Proconsul of Asia, also complained to Hadrian of the proceedings of the mob; and, in consequence, that Prince issued a rescript requiring that the magistrates should in future refuse to give way to the extempore clamours of public meetings.
Antoninus Pius, who inherited the throne on the demise of Hadrian, was a mild Sovereign; and under him the faithful enjoyed comparative tranquillity; but his successor Marcus Aurelius, surnamed the Philosopher, pursued a very different policy. Marcus is commonly reputed one of the best of the Roman Emperors; at a very early period of life he gave promise of uncommon excellence; and throughout his reign he distinguished himself as an able and accomplished monarch. But he was proud, pedantic, and self-sufficient; and, like every other individual destitute of spiritual enlightenment, his character presented the most glaring inconsistencies; for he was at once a professed Stoic, and a devout Pagan. This Prince could not brook the contempt with which the Christians treated his philosophy; neither could he tolerate the idea that they should be permitted to think for themselves. He could conceive how an individual, yielding to the stern law of fate, could meet death with unconcern; but he did not understand how the Christians could glory in tribulation, and hail even martyrdom with a song of triumph. Had he calmly reflected on the spirit displayed by the witnesses for the truth, he might have seen that they were partakers of a higher wisdom than his own; but the tenacity with which they adhered to their principles, only mortified his self-conceit, and roused his indignation. It is remarkable that this philosophic Emperor was the most systematic and heartless of all the persecutors who had ever yet oppressed the Church. When Nero lighted up his gardens with the flames which issued from the bodies of the dying Christians, he wished to transfer to them the odium of the burning of Rome, and he acted only with the caprice and cunning of a tyrant; and when Domitian promulgated his cruel edicts, he was haunted with the dread that the proscribed sect would raise up a rival Sovereign; but Marcus Aurelius could not plead even such miserable apologies. He hated the Christians with the cool acerbity of a Stoic; and he took measures for their extirpation which betrayed at once his folly and his malevolence. Disregarding the law of Trajan which required that they should not be officiously sought after, he encouraged spies and informers to harass them with accusations. He caused them to be dragged before the tribunals of the magistrates; and, under pain of death, to be compelled to conform to the rites of idolatry. With a refinement of cruelty unknown to his predecessors, he employed torture for the purpose of forcing them to recant. If, in their agony, they gave way, and consented to sacrifice to the gods, they were released; if they remained firm, they were permitted to die in torment. In his reign we read of new and hideous forms of punishment--evidently instituted for the purpose of aggravating pain and terror. The Christians were stretched upon the rack, and their joints were dislocated; their bodies, when lacerated with scourges, were laid on rough sea-shells, or on other most uncomfortable supports; they were torn to pieces by wild beasts; or they were roasted alive on heated iron chairs. Ingenuity was called to the ignoble office of inventing new modes and new instruments of torture.
One of the most distinguished sufferers of this reign was Justin, surnamed the Martyr. [293:1] He was a native of Samaria; but he had travelled into various countries, and had studied various systems of philosophy, with a view, if possible, to discover the truth. His attention had at length been directed to the Scriptures, and in them he had found that satisfaction which he could not obtain elsewhere. When in Rome about A.D. 165, he came into collision with Crescens, a Cynic philosopher, whom he foiled in a theological discussion. His unscrupulous antagonist, annoyed by this discomfiture, turned informer; and Justin, with some others, was put to death. Shortly afterwards Polycarp, the aged pastor of Smyrna, was committed to the flames. [293:2] This venerable man, who had been acquainted in his youth with the Apostle John, had long occupied a high position as a prudent, exemplary, and devoted minister. Informations were now laid against him, and orders were given for his apprehension. At first he endeavoured to elude his pursuers; but when he saw that escape was impossible, he surrendered himself a prisoner. After all, he would have been permitted to remain unharmed had he consented to renounce the gospel. In the sight of an immense throng who gloated over the prospect of his execution, the good old man remained unmoved. When called on to curse Christ he returned the memorable answer--"Eighty and six years have I served Him, and He has done me nothing but good; and how could I curse Him my Lord and Saviour?" "I will cast you to the wild beasts," said the Proconsul, "if you do not change your mind." "Bring the wild beasts hither," replied Polycarp, "for change my mind from the better to the worse I will not." "Despise you the wild beasts?" exclaimed the magistrate--"I will subdue your spirit by the flames." "The flames which you menace endure but for a time and are soon extinguished," calmly rejoined the prisoner, "but there is a fire reserved for the wicked, whereof you know not; the fire of a judgment to come and of punishment everlasting." These answers put an end to all hope of pardon; a pile of faggots was speedily collected; and Polycarp was burned alive.
Towards the end of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, or about A.D. 177, the Churches of Lyons and Vienne [294:1] in France endured one of the most horrible persecutions recorded in the annals of Christian martyrdom. A dreadful pestilence, some years before, had desolated the Empire; and the pagans seem to have been impressed with the conviction that the new religion had provoked the visitation. The mob in various cities became, in consequence, exasperated; and demanded, with loud cries, the extirpation of the hated sectaries. In the south of France a considerable time appears to have elapsed before the ill-will of the multitude broke out into open violence. At first the disciples in Lyons and Vienne were insulted in places of public concourse; they were then pelted with stones and forced to shut themselves up in their own houses; they were subsequently seized and thrown into prison; and afterwards their slaves were put to the torture, and compelled to accuse them of crimes of which they were innocent. Pothinus, the pastor of Lyons, now upwards of ninety years of age, was brought before the governor, and so roughly handled by the populace that he died two days after he was thrown into confinement. The other prisoners were plied with hunger and thirst, and then put to death with wanton and studied cruelty. Two of the sufferers, Blandina, a female, and Ponticus, a lad of fifteen, displayed singular calmness and intrepidity. For several days they were obliged to witness the tortures inflicted on their fellow-disciples, that they might, if possible, be intimidated by the appalling spectacle. After passing through this ordeal, the torture was applied to themselves. Ponticus soon sunk under his sufferings; but Blandina still survived. When she had sustained the agony of the heated iron chair, she was put into a net and thrown to a wild bull that she might be trampled and torn by him; and she continued to breathe long after she had been sadly mangled by the infuriated animal. While subjected to these terrible inflictions, she exhibited the utmost patience; no boasts escaped her lips; no murmurs were uttered by her; and even in the paroxysms of her anguish she was seen to be full of faith and courage. But such touching exhibitions of the spirit of the gospel failed to repress the fury of the excited populace. Their hatred of the gospel was so intense that they resolved to deprive the disciples who survived this reign of terror of the melancholy satisfaction of paying the last tribute of respect to the remains of their martyred brethren. They, accordingly, burned the dead bodies, and then cast the ashes into the Rhone. "Now," said they, "we will see whether they will rise again, and whether God can help them, and deliver them out of our hands." [296:1]
Under the brutal and bloody Commodus, the son and heir of Marcus Aurelius, the Christians had some repose. Marcia, his favourite concubine, was a member of the Church; [296:2] and her influence was successfully exerted in protecting her co-religionists. But the penal statutes were still in force, and they were not everywhere permitted to remain a dead letter. In this reign [296:3] we meet with some of the earliest indications of that zeal for martyrdom which was properly the spawn of the fanaticism of the Montanists. In a certain district of Asia, a multitude of persons, actuated by this absurd passion, presented themselves in a body before the proconsul Arrius Antoninus; and proclaimed themselves Christians. The sight of such a crowd of victims appalled the magistrate; and, after passing judgment on a few, he is said to have driven the remainder from his tribunal, exclaiming-- "Miserable men, if you wish to kill yourselves, you have ropes or precipices."
The reigns of Pertinax and Julian, the Emperors next in succession after Commodus, amounted together only to a few months; and the faithful had meanwhile to struggle with many discouragements; [296:4] but these short-lived sovereigns were so much occupied with other matters, that they could not afford time for legislation on the subject of religion. Septimius Severus, who now obtained the Imperial dignity, was at first not unfriendly to the Church; and a cure performed on him by Proculus, a Christian slave, [297:1] has been assigned as the cause of his forbearance; but, as his reign advanced, he assumed an offensive attitude; and it cannot be denied that the disciples suffered considerably under his administration. As the Christians were still obliged to meet at night to celebrate their worship, they were accused of committing unnatural crimes in their nocturnal assemblies; and though these heartless calumnies had been triumphantly refuted fifty or sixty years before, they were now revived and circulated with fresh industry. [297:2] About this period, Leonides, the father of the learned Origen, was put to death. By a law, promulgated probably in A.D. 202, the Emperor interdicted conversions to Christianity; and at a time when the Church was making vigorous encroachments on heathenism, this enactment created much embarrassment and anxiety. Some of the governors of provinces, as soon as they ascertained the disposition of the Imperial court, commenced forthwith a persecution; and there were magistrates who proceeded to enforce the laws for the base purpose of extorting money from the parties obnoxious to their severity. Sometimes individuals, and sometimes whole congregations purchased immunity from suffering by entering into pecuniary contracts with corrupt and avaricious rulers; and by the payment of a certain sum obtained certificates [297:3] which protected them from all farther inquisition. [297:4] The purport of these documents has been the subject of much discussion. According to some they contained a distinct statement to the effect that those named in them had sacrificed to the gods, and had thus satisfied the law; whilst others allege that, though they guaranteed protection, they neither directly stated an untruth, nor compromised the religious consistency of their possessors. But it is beyond all controversy that the more scrupulous and zealous Christians uniformly condemned the use of such certificates. Their owners were known by the suspicious designation of "Libellatici," or "the Certified;" and were considered only less criminal than the "Thurificati," or those who had actually apostatised by offering incense on the altars of paganism. [298:1]
About this time the enforcement of the penal laws in a part of North Africa, probably in Carthage, led to a most impressive display of some of the noblest features of the Christian character. Five catechumens, or candidates for baptism, among whom were Perpetua and Felicitas, [298:2] had been put under arrest. Perpetua, who was only two and twenty years of age, was a lady of rank and of singularly prepossessing appearance. Accustomed to all the comforts which wealth could procure, she was ill fitted, with a child at the breast, to sustain the rigours of confinement--more especially as she was thrown into a crowded dungeon during the oppressive heat of an African summer. But, with her infant in her arms, she cheerfully submitted to her privations; and the thought that she was persecuted for Christ's sake, converted her prison into a palace. Her aged father, who was a pagan, was overwhelmed with distress because, as he conceived, she was bringing deep and lasting disgrace upon her family by her attachment to a proscribed sect; and as she was his favourite child, he employed every expedient which paternal tenderness and anxiety could dictate to lead her to a recantation. When she was conducted to the judgment-seat with the other prisoners, the old gentleman appeared there, to try the effect of another appeal to her; and the presiding magistrate, touched with pity, entreated her to listen to his arguments, and to change her resolution. But, though deeply moved by the anguish of her aged parent, all these attempts to shake her constancy were in vain. At the place of execution she sung a psalm of victory, and, before she expired, she exhorted her brother and another catechumen, named Rusticus, to continue in the faith, to love each other, and to be neither affrighted nor offended by her sufferings. Her companion Felicitas exhibited quite as illustrious a specimen of Christian heroism. When arrested, she was far advanced in pregnancy, and during her imprisonment, the pains of labour came upon her. Her cries arrested the attention of the jailer, who said to her--"If your present sufferings are so great, what will you do when you are thrown to the wild beasts? You did not consider this when you refused to sacrifice." With undaunted spirit Felicitas replied--"It is I that suffer now, but then there will be Another with me, who will suffer for me, because I shall suffer for His sake." The prisoners were condemned to be torn by wild beasts on the occasion of an approaching festival; and when they had passed through this terrible ordeal, they were despatched with the sword.
After the death of Septimius Severus, the Christians experienced some abatement of their sufferings. Caracalla and Elagabalus permitted them to remain almost undisturbed; and Alexander Severus has been supposed by some to have been himself a believer. Among the images in his private chapel was a representation of Christ, and he was obviously convinced that Jesus possessed divine endowments; but there is no proof that he ever accepted unreservedly the New Testament revelation. He was simply an eclectic philosopher who held that a portion of truth was to be found in each of the current systems of religion; and who undertook to analyse them, and extract the spiritual treasure. The Emperor Maximin was less friendly to the Church; and yet his enmity was confined chiefly to those Christian ministers who had been favourites with his predecessor; so that he cannot be said to have promoted any general persecution. Under Gordian the disciples were free from molestation; and his successor, Philip the Arabian, was so well affected to their cause that he has been sometimes, though erroneously, represented as the first Christian Emperor. [300:1] The death of this monarch in A.D. 249 was, however, soon followed by the fiercest and the most extensive persecution under which the faithful had yet groaned. The more zealous of the pagans, who had been long witnessing with impatience the growth of Christianity, had become convinced that, if the old religion were to be upheld, a mighty effort must very soon be made to strangle its rival. Various expedients were meanwhile employed to prejudice the multitude against the gospel. Every disaster which occurred throughout the Empire was attributed to its evil influence; the defeat of a general, the failure of a harvest, the overflowing of the Tiber, the desolations of a hurricane, and the appearance of a pestilence, were all ascribed to its most inauspicious advancement. The public mind was thus gradually prepared for measures of extreme severity; and Decius, who now became emperor, aimed at the utter extirpation of Christianity. All persons suspected of attachment to the gospel were summoned before the civil authorities; and if, regardless of intimidation, they refused to sacrifice, attempts were made to overcome their constancy by torture, by imprisonment, and by starvation. When all such expedients failed, the punishment of death was inflicted. Those who fled before the day appointed for their appearance in presence of the magistrates, forfeited their property; and were forbidden, under the penalty of death, to return to the district. The Church in many places had now enjoyed peace for thirty years, and meanwhile the tone of Christian principle had been considerably lowered. It was not strange, therefore, that, in these perilous days, many apostatised. [301:1] The conduct of not a few of the more opulent Christians of Alexandria has been graphically described by a contemporary. "As they were severally called by name, they approached the unholy offering; some, pale and trembling, as if they were going, not to sacrifice, but to be sacrificed to the gods; so that they were jeered by the mob who thronged around them, as it was plain to all that they were equally afraid to sacrifice and to die. Others advanced more briskly, carrying their effrontery so far as to avow that they never had been Christians." [301:2] Multitudes now withdrew into deserts or mountains, and there perished with cold and hunger. The prisons were everywhere crowded with Christians; and the magistrates were occupied with the odious task of oppressing and destroying the most meritorious of their fellow-citizens. The disciples were sent to labour in the mines, branded on the forehead, subjected to mutilation, and reduced to the lowest depth of misery. In this persecution the pastors were treated with marked severity, and during its continuance many of them suffered martyrdom. Among the most distinguished victims were Fabian bishop of Rome, Babylas bishop of Antioch, and Alexander bishop of Jerusalem. [302:1]
The reign of Decius was short; [302:2] but the hardships of the Church did not cease with its termination, as Gallus adopted the policy of his predecessor. Though Valerian, the successor of Gallus, for a time displayed much moderation, he eventually relinquished this pacific course; and, instigated by his favourite Macrianus, an Egyptian soothsayer, began about A.D. 257 to repeat the bloody tragedy which, in the days of Decius, had filled the Empire with such terror and distress. At first the pastors were driven into banishment, and the disciples forbidden to meet for worship. But more stringent measures were soon adopted. An edict appeared announcing that bishops, presbyters, and deacons were to be put to death; that senators and knights, who were Christians, were to forfeit their rank and property; and that, if they still refused to repudiate their principles, they were to be capitally punished; whilst those members of the Church who were in the service of the palace, were to be put in chains, and sent to labour on the imperial estates. [302:3] In this persecution, Sixtus bishop of Rome, and Cyprian bishop of Carthage, [302:4] were martyred.
On the accession of Gallienus in A.D. 260, the Church was once more restored to peace. Gallienus, though a person of worthless character, was the first Emperor who protected the Christians by a formal edict of toleration. He commanded that they should not only be permitted to profess their religion unmolested, but that they should again be put in possession of their cemeteries [303:1] and of all other property, either in houses or lands, of which they had been deprived during the reign of his predecessor. This decree was nearly as ample in its provisions as that which was issued in their favour by the great Constantine upwards of half a century afterwards.
But, notwithstanding the advantages secured by this imperial law, the Church still suffered occasionally in particular districts. Hostile magistrates might plead that certain edicts had not been definitely repealed; and, calculating on the connivance of the higher functionaries, might perpetrate acts of cruelty and oppression. The Emperor Aurelian had even resolved to resume the barbarous policy of Decius and Valerian; and, in A.D. 275, had actually prepared a sanguinary edict; but, before it could be executed, death stepped in to arrest his violence, and to prevent the persecution. Thus, as has already been intimated, for the last forty years of the third century the Christians enjoyed, almost uninterruptedly, the blessings of toleration. Spacious edifices, frequented by crowds of worshippers, and some of them furnished with sacramental vessels of silver or gold, [303:2] were to be seen in all the great cities of the Empire. But, about the beginning of the fourth century, the prospect changed. The pagan party beheld with dismay the rapid extension of the Church, and resolved to make a tremendous effort for its destruction. This faction, pledged to the maintenance of idolatry, now caused its influence to be felt in all political transactions; and the treatment of the Christians once more became a question on which statesmen were divided. Diocletian, who was made Emperor in A.D. 285, continued for many years afterwards to act upon the principle of toleration; but at length he was induced, partly by the suggestions of his own superstitious and jealous temper, and partly by the importunities of his son-in-law Galerius, to enter upon another course. The persecution commenced in the army, where all soldiers refusing to sacrifice forfeited their rank, and were dismissed the service. [304:1] But other hostile demonstrations soon followed. In the month of February A.D. 303, the great church of Nicomedia, the city in which the Emperor then resided, was broken open; the copies of the Scriptures to be found in it were committed to the flames; and the edifice itself was demolished. The next day an edict appeared interdicting the religious assemblies of the faithful; commanding the destruction of their places of worship; ordering all their sacred books to be burned; requiring those who held offices of honour and emolument to renounce their principles on pain of the forfeiture of their appointments; declaring that disciples in the humbler walks of life, who remained steadfast, should be divested of their rights as citizens and free-men; and providing that even slaves, so long as they continued Christians, should be incapable of manumission. [304:2] Some time afterwards another edict was promulgated directing that all ecclesiastics should be seized and put in chains. When the jails were thus filled with Christian ministers, another edict made its appearance, commanding that the prisoners should by all means be compelled to sacrifice. At length a fourth edict, of a still more sweeping character and extending to the whole body of Christians, was published. In accordance with this decree proclamation was made throughout the streets of the cities, and men, women, and children, were enjoined to repair to the heathen temples. The city gates were guarded that none might escape; and, from lists previously prepared, every individual was summoned by name to present himself, and join in the performance of the rites of paganism. [305:1] At a subsequent period all provisions sold in the markets, in some parts of the empire, were sprinkled with the water or the wine employed in idolatrous worship, that the Christians might either be compelled to abstinence, or led to defile themselves by the use of polluted viands. [305:2]
Throughout almost the whole Church the latter part of the third century was a period of spiritual decay; and many returned to heathenism during the sifting time which now followed. Not a few incurred the reproach of their more consistent and courageous brethren by surrendering the Scriptures in their possession; and those who thus purchased their safety were stigmatised with the odious name of traditors. Had the persecutors succeeded in burning all the copies of the Word of God, they would, without the intervention of a miracle, have effectually secured the ruin of the Church; but their efforts to destroy the sacred volume proved abortive; for the faithful seized the earliest opportunity of replacing the consumed manuscripts. The holy book was prized by them more highly than ever, and Bible burning only gave a stimulus to Bible transcription. Still, however, sacred literature sustained a loss of no ordinary magnitude in this wholesale destruction of the inspired writings, and there is not at present in existence a single codex of the New Testament of higher antiquity than the Diocletian persecution. [305:3]
It has been computed that a greater number of Christians perished under Decius than in all the attacks which had previously been made upon them; but their sufferings under Diocletian were still more formidable and disastrous. Paganism felt that it was now engaged in a death struggle; and this, its last effort to maintain its ascendency, was its most protracted and desperate conflict. It has been frequently stated that the Diocletian persecution was of ten years' duration; and, reckoning from the first indications of hostility to the promulgation of an edict of toleration, it may certainly be thus estimated; but all this time the whole Church was not groaning under the pressure of the infliction. The Christians of the west of Europe suffered comparatively little; as there the Emperor Constantius Chlorus, and afterwards his son Constantine, to a great extent, preserved them from molestation. In the East they passed through terrific scenes of suffering; for Galerius and Maximin, the two stern tyrants who governed that part of the empire on the abdication of Diocletian, endeavoured to overcome their steadfastness by all the expedients which despotic cruelty could suggest. A contemporary, who had access to the best sources of information, has given a faithful account of the torments they endured. Vinegar mixed with salt was poured on the lacerated bodies of the dying; some were roasted on huge gridirons; some, suspended aloft by one hand, were then left to perish in excruciating agony; and some, bound to parts of different trees which had been brought together by machinery, were torn limb from limb by the sudden revulsion of the liberated branches. [306:1] But, even in the East, this attempt to overwhelm Christianity was not prosecuted from its commencement to its close with unabated severity. Sometimes the sufferers obtained a respite; and again, the work of blood was resumed with fresh vigour. Though many were tempted for a season to make a hollow profession of paganism, multitudes met every effort to seduce them in a spirit of indomitable resolution. At length tyranny became weary of its barren office, and the Church obtained peace. In A.D. 311, Galerius, languishing under a loathsome disease, and perhaps hoping that he might be relieved by the God of the Christians, granted them toleration. Maximin subsequently renewed the attacks upon them; but at his death, which occurred in A.D. 313, the edict in favour of the Church, which Constantine and his colleague Licinius had already published, became law throughout the empire.
It is often alleged that the Church, before the conversion of Constantine, passed through ten persecutions; but the statement gives a very incorrect idea of its actual suffering. It would be more accurate to say that, for between two and three hundred years, the faithful were under the ban of imperial proscription. During all this period they were liable to be pounced upon at any moment by bigoted, domineering, or greedy magistrates. There were not, indeed, ten persecutions conducted with the systematic and sanguinary violence exhibited in the times of Diocletian or of Decius; but there were perhaps provinces of the empire where almost every year for upwards of two centuries some Christians suffered for the faith. [307:1] The friends of the confessors and the martyrs were not slow to acknowledge the hand of Providence, as they traced the history of the emperors by whom the Church was favoured or oppressed. It was remarked that the disciples were not worn out by the barbarities of a continuous line of persecutors; for an unscrupulous tyrant was often succeeded on the throne by an equitable or an indulgent sovereign. Thus, the Christians had every now and then a breathing-time during which their hopes were revived and their numbers recruited. It was observed, too, that the princes, of whose cruelty they had reason to complain, generally ended their career under very distressing circumstances. An ecclesiastical writer who is supposed to have flourished towards the commencement of the fourth century has discussed this subject in a special treatise, in which he has left behind him a very striking account of "The Deaths of the Persecutors." [308:1] Their history certainly furnishes a most significant commentary on the Divine announcement that "the Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth." [308:2] Nero, the first hostile emperor, perished ignominiously by his own hand. Domitian, the next persecutor, was assassinated. Marcus Aurelius died a natural death; but, during his reign, the Empire suffered dreadfully from pestilence and famine; and war raged, almost incessantly, from its commencement to its close. The people of Lyons, who now signalised themselves by their cruelty to the Christians, did not escape a righteous retribution; for about twenty years after the martyrdom of Pothinus and his brethren, the city was pillaged and burned. [308:3] Septimius Severus narrowly escaped murder by the hand of one of his own children. Decius, whose name is associated with an age of martyrdom, perished in the Gothic war. Valerian, another oppressor, ended his days in Persia in degrading captivity. The Emperor Aurelian was assassinated. Diocletian languished for years the victim of various maladies, and is said to have abruptly terminated his life by suicide. Galerius, his son-in-law, died of a most horrible distemper; and Maximin took away his own life by poison. [308:4] The interpretation of providences is not to be rashly undertaken; but the record of the fate of persecutors forms a most extraordinary chapter in the history of man; and the melancholy circumstances under which so many of the enemies of religion have finished their career, have sometimes impressed those who have been otherwise slow to acknowledge the finger of the Almighty.
The persecutions of the early Church originated partly in selfishness and superstition. Idolatry afforded employment to tens of thousands of artists and artisans--all of whom had thus a direct pecuniary interest in its conservation; whilst the ignorant rabble, taught to associate Christianity with misfortune, were prompted to clamour for its overthrow. Mistaken policy had also some share in the sufferings of the Christians; for statesmen, fearing that the disciples in their secret meetings might be hatching treason, viewed them with suspicion and treated them with severity. But another element of at least equal strength contributed to promote persecution. The pure and spiritual religion of the New Testament was distasteful to the human heart, and its denunciations of wickedness in every form stirred up the malignity of the licentious and unprincipled. The faithful complained that they suffered for neglecting the worship of the gods, whilst philosophers, who derided the services of the established ritual, escaped with impunity. [309:1] But the sophists were not likely ever to wage an effective warfare against immorality and superstition. Many of themselves were persons of worthless character, and their speculations were of no practical value. It was otherwise with the gospel. Its advocates were felt to be in earnest; and it was quickly perceived that, if permitted to make way, it would revolutionize society. Hence the bitter opposition which it so soon awakened.
It might have been expected that the sore oppression which the Church endured for so many generations would have indelibly imprinted on the hearts of her children the doctrine of liberty of conscience. As the early Christians expostulated with their pagan rulers, they often described most eloquently the folly of persecution. "How unjust is it," said they, "that freemen should be driven to sacrifice to the gods, when in all other instances a willing mind is required as an indispensable qualification for any office of religion?" [310:1] "It appertains to man's proper right and natural privilege that each should worship that which he thinks to be God....Neither is it the part of religion to compel men to religion, which ought to be adopted voluntarily, not of compulsion, seeing that sacrifices are required of a willing mind. Thus, even if you compel us to sacrifice, you shall render no sacrifice thereby to your gods, for they will not desire sacrifices from unwilling givers, unless they are contentious; but God is not contentious." [310:2] When, however, the Church obtained possession of the throne of the empire, she soon ignored these lessons of toleration; and, snatching the weapons of her tormentors, she attempted, in her turn, to subjugate the soul by the dungeon, the sword, and the faggot. For at least thirteen centuries after the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, it was taken for granted almost everywhere that those branded with the odious name of heretics were unworthy the protection of the laws; and that, though good and loyal citizens, they ought to be punished by the civil magistrate. This doctrine, so alien to the spirit of the New Testament, has often spread desolation and terror throughout whole provinces; and has led to the deliberate murder of a hundredfold more Christians than were destroyed by pagan Rome. Even the fathers of the Reformation did not escape from the influence of an intolerant training; but that Bible which they brought forth from obscurity has been gradually imparting a milder tone to earthly legislation; and various providences have been illustrating the true meaning of the proposition that Christ's kingdom is "not of this world." [311:1] In all free countries it is now generally admitted that the weapons of the Church are not carnal, and that the jurisdiction of the magistrate is not spiritual. "God alone is Lord of the conscience;" and it is only by the illumination of His Word that the monitor within can be led to recognise His will, and submit to His authority.
Chapter III
FALSE BRETHREN AND FALSE PRINCIPLES IN THE CHURCH: SPIRIT AND CHARACTER OF THE CHRISTIANS.
Some have an idea that the saintship of the early Christians was of a type altogether unique and transcendental. In primitive times the Spirit was, no doubt, poured out in rich effusion, and the subjects of His grace, when contrasted with the heathen around them, often exhibited most attractively the beauty of holiness; but the same Spirit still dwells in the hearts of the faithful, and He is now as able, as He ever was, to enlighten and to save. As man, wherever he exists, possesses substantially the same organic conformation, so the true children of God, to whatever generation they belong, have the same divine lineaments. The age of miracles has passed away, but the reign of grace continues, and, at the present day, there may, perhaps, be found amongst the members of the Church as noble examples of vital godliness as in the first or second century.
There was a traitor among the Twelve, and it is apparent from the New Testament that, in the Apostolic Church, there were not a few unworthy members. "Many walk," says Paul, "of whom I have told you often, and now tell you, even weeping, that they are the enemies of the cross of Christ, whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame, who mind earthly things." [312:1] In the second and third centuries the number of such false brethren did not diminish. To those who are ignorant of its saving power, Christianity may commend itself, by its external evidences, as a revelation from God; and many, who are not prepared to submit to its authority, may seek admission to its privileges. The superficial character of much of the evangelism now current appeared in times of persecution; for, on the first appearance of danger, multitudes abjured the gospel, and returned to the heathen superstitions. It is, besides, a fact which cannot be disputed that, in the third century, the more zealous champions of the faith felt it necessary to denounce the secularity of many of the ministers of the Church. Before the Decian persecution not a few of the bishops were mere worldlings, and such was their zeal for money-making, that they left their parishes neglected, and travelled to remote districts where, at certain seasons of the year, they might carry on a profitable traffic [313:1]. If we are to believe the testimony of the most distinguished ecclesiastics of the period, crimes were then perpetrated to which it would be difficult to find anything like parallels in the darkest pages of the history of modern Christianity. The chief pastor of the largest Church in the Proconsular Africa tells, for instance, of one of his own presbyters who robbed orphans and defrauded widows, who permitted his father to die of hunger and treated his pregnant wife with horrid brutality. [313:2] Another ecclesiastic, of still higher position, speaks of three bishops in his neighbourhood who engaged, when intoxicated, in the solemn rite of ordination. [313:3] Such excesses were indignantly condemned by all right-hearted disciples, but the fact, that those to whom they were imputed were not destitute of partisans, supplies clear yet melancholy proof that neither the Christian people nor the Christian ministry, even in the third century, possessed an unsullied reputation.
Meanwhile the introduction of a false standard of piety created much mischief. It had long been received as a maxim, among certain classes of philosophers, that bodily abstinence is necessary to those who would attain more exalted wisdom; and the Gentile theology, especially in Egypt and the East, had endorsed the principle. It was not without advocates among the Jews, as is apparent from the discipline of the Essenes and the Therapeutae. At an early period its influence was felt within the pale of the Church, and before the termination of the second century, individual members here and there were to be found who eschewed certain kinds of food and abstained from marriage. [314:1] The pagan literati, who now joined the disciples in considerable numbers, did much to promote the credit of this adulterated Christianity. Its votaries, who were designated ascetics and philosophers [314:2] did not withdraw themselves from the world, but, whilst adhering to their own regimen, still remained mindful of their social obligations. Their self-imposed mortification soon found admirers, and an opinion gradually gained ground that these abstinent disciples cultivated a higher form of piety. The adherents of the new discipline silently increased, and by the middle of the third century, a class of females who led a single life, and who, by way of distinction, were called virgins, were in some places regarded by the other Church members with special veneration. [314:3] Among the clergy also celibacy was now considered a mark of superior holiness. [314:4] But, in various places, pietism about this time assumed a form which disgusted all persons of sober judgment and ordinary discretion. The unmarried clergy and the virgins deemed it right to cultivate the communion of saints after a new fashion, alleging that, in each other's society, they enjoyed peculiar advantages for spiritual improvement. It was not, therefore, uncommon to find a single ecclesiastic and one of the sisterhood of virgins dwelling in the same house and sharing the same bed! [315:1] All the while the parties repudiated the imputation of any improper intercourse, but in some cases the proofs of profligacy were too plain to be concealed, and common sense refused to credit the pretensions of such an absurd and suspicious spiritualism. The ecclesiastical authorities felt it necessary to interfere, and compel the professed virgins and the single clergy to abstain from a degree of intimacy which was unquestionably not free from the appearance of evil.
About the time that the advocates of "whatsoever things are of good report" were protesting against the improprieties of these spiritual brethren and sisters, Paul and Antony, the fathers and founders of Monachism, commenced to live as hermits. Paul was a native of Egypt, and the heir of a considerable fortune; but, driven at first by persecution from the abodes of men, he ultimately adopted the desert as the place of his chosen residence. Antony, in another part of the same country, guided by a mistaken spirit of self-renunciation, divested himself of all his property; and also retired into a wilderness. The biographies of these two well-meaning but weak-minded visionaries, which have been written by two of the most eminent divines of the fourth century, [316:1] are very humiliating memorials of folly and fanaticism. These solitaries spent each a long life in a cave, macerating the body with fasting, and occupying the mind with the reveries of a morbid imagination. In an age of growing superstition their dreamy pietism was mistaken by many for sanctity of uncommon excellence; and the admiration bestowed on them, tempted others, in the beginning of the following century, to imitate their example. Soon afterwards, societies of these sons of the desert were established; and, in the course of a few years, a taste for the monastic life spread, like wild-fire, over the whole Church.
It is a curious fact that the figure of the instrument of torture on which our Lord was put to death, occupied a prominent place among the symbols of the ancient heathen worship. From the most remote antiquity the cross was venerated in Egypt and Syria; it was held in equal honour by the Buddhists of the East, [316:2] and, what is still more extraordinary, when the Spaniards first visited America, the well-known sign was found among the objects of worship in the idol temples of Anahuac. [316:3] It is also remarkable that, about the commencement of our era, the pagans were wont to make the sign of a cross upon the forehead in the celebration of some of their sacred mysteries. [317:1] A satisfactory explanation of the origin of such peculiarities in the ritual of idolatry can now scarcely be expected; but it certainly need not excite surprise if the early Christians were impressed by them, and if they viewed them as so many unintentional testimonies to the truth of their religion. The disciples displayed, indeed, no little ingenuity in their attempts to discover the figure of a cross in almost every object around them. They could recognise it in the trees and the flowers, in the fishes and the fowls, in the sails of a ship and the structure of the human body; [317:2] and if they borrowed from their heathen neighbours the custom of making a cross upon the forehead, they would of course be ready to maintain that they thus only redeemed the holy sign from profanation. Some of them were, perhaps, prepared, on prudential grounds, to plead for its introduction. Heathenism was, to a considerable extent, a religion of bowings and genuflexions; its votaries were, ever and anon, attending to some little rite or form; and, because of the multitude of these diminutive acts of outward devotion, its ceremonial was at once frivolous and burdensome. When the pagan passed into the Church, he, no doubt, often felt, for a time, the awkwardness of the change; and was frequently on the point of repeating, as it were automatically, the gestures of his old superstition. It may, therefore, have been deemed expedient to supersede more objectionable forms by something of a Christian complexion; and the use of the sign of the cross here probably presented itself as an observance equally familiar and convenient. [318:1] But the disciples would have acted more wisely had they boldly discarded all the puerilities of paganism; for credulity soon began to ascribe supernatural virtue to this vestige of the repudiated worship. As early as the beginning of the third century, it was believed to operate like a charm; and it was accordingly employed on almost all occasions by many of the Christians. "In all our travels and movements," says a writer of this period, "as often as we come in or go out, when we put on our clothes or our shoes, when we enter the bath or sit down at table, when we light our candles, when we go to bed, or recline upon a couch, or whatever may be our employment, we mark our forehead with the sign of the cross." [318:2]
But whilst not a few of the Christians were beginning to adopt some of the trivial rites of paganism, they continued firmly to protest against its more flagrant corruptions. They did not hesitate to assail its gross idolatry with bold and biting sarcasms. "Stone, or wood, or silver," said they, "becomes a god when man chooses that it should, and dedicates it to that end. With how much more truth do dumb animals, such as mice, swallows, and kites, judge of your gods? They know that your gods feel nothing; they gnaw them, they trample and sit on them; and if you did not drive them away, they would make their nests in the very mouth of your deity." [319:1] The Church of the first three centuries rejected the use of images in worship, and no pictorial representations of the Saviour were to be found even in the dwellings of the Christians. They conceived that such visible memorials could convey no idea whatever of the ineffable glory of the Son of God; and they held that it is the duty of His servants to foster a spirit of devotion, not by the contemplation of His material form, but by meditating on His holy and divine attributes as they are exhibited in creation, providence, and redemption. So anxious were they to avoid even the appearance of anything like image-worship, that when they wished to mark articles of dress or furniture with an index of their religious profession, they employed the likeness of an anchor, or a dove, or a lamb, or a cross, or some other object of an emblematical character. [319:2] "We must not," said they, "cling to the sensuous but rise to the spiritual. The familiarity of daily sight lowers the dignity of the divine, and to pretend to worship a spiritual essence through earthly matter, is to degrade that essence to the world of sense." [319:3] Even so late as the beginning of the fourth century the practice of displaying paintings in places of worship was prohibited by ecclesiastical authority. A canon which bears upon this subject, and which was enacted by the Council of Elvira held about A.D. 305, is more creditable to the pious zeal than to the literary ability of the assembled fathers. "We must not," said they, "have pictures in the church, lest that which is worshipped and adored be painted on the walls." [320:1]
It has been objected to the Great Reformation of the sixteenth century that it exercised a prejudicial influence on the arts of painting and statuary. The same argument might have been urged against the gospel itself in the days of its original promulgation. Whilst the early Church entirely discarded the use of images in worship, its more zealous members looked with suspicion upon all who assisted in the fabrication of these objects of the heathen idolatry. [320:2] The excuse that the artists were labouring for subsistence, and that they had themselves no idea of bowing down to the works of their own hands, did not by any means satisfy the scruples of their more consistent and conscientious brethren. "Assuredly," they exclaimed, "you are a worshipper of idols when you help to promote their worship. It is true you bring to them no outward victim, but you sacrifice to them, your mind. Your sweat is their drink-offering. You kindle for them the light of your skill." [320:3] By denouncing image-worship the early Church, no doubt, to some extent interfered with the profits of the painter and the sculptor; but, in another way, it did much to purify and elevate the taste of the public. In the second and third centuries the playhouse in every large town was a centre of attraction; and whilst the actors were generally persons of very loose morals, their dramatic performances were perpetually pandering to the depraved appetites of the age. It is not, therefore, wonderful that all true Christians viewed the theatre with disgust. Its frivolity was offensive to their grave temperament; they recoiled from its obscenity; and its constant appeals to the gods and goddesses of heathenism outraged their religious convictions. [321:1] In their estimation, the talent devoted to its maintenance was miserably prostituted; and whilst every actor was deemed unworthy of ecclesiastical fellowship, every church member was prohibited, by attendance or otherwise, from giving any encouragement to the stage. The early Christians were also forbidden to frequent the public shows, as they were considered scenes of temptation and pollution. Every one at his baptism was required to renounce "the devil, his pomp, and his angels" [321:2]--a declaration which implied that he was henceforth to absent himself from the heathen spectacles. At this time, statesmen, poets, and philosophers were not ashamed to appear among the crowds who assembled to witness the combats of the gladiators, though, on such occasions, human life was recklessly sacrificed. But here the Church, composed chiefly of the poor of this world, was continually giving lessons in humanity to heathen legislators and literati. It protested against cruelty, as well to the brute creation as to man; and condemned the taste which could derive gratification from the shedding of the blood either of lions or of gladiators. All who sanctioned by their presence the sanguinary sports of the amphitheatre incurred a sentence of excommunication. [322:1]
At this time, though an increasing taste for inactivity and solitude betokened the growth of a bastard Christianity, and though various other circumstances were indicative of tendencies to adulterate religion, either by reducing it to a system of formalism, or by sublimating it into a life of empty contemplation, there were still abundant proofs of the existence of a large amount of healthy and vigorous piety. The members of the Church, as a body, were distinguished by their exemplary morals; and about the beginning of the third century, one of their advocates, when pleading for their toleration, could venture to assert that, among the numberless culprits brought under the notice of the magistrates, none were Christians. [322:2] Wherever the gospel spread, its social influence was most salutary. Its first teachers applied themselves discreetly to the redress of prevalent abuses; and time gradually demonstrated the effectiveness of their plans of reformation. When they appeared, polygamy was common; [322:3] and had they assailed it in terms of unmeasured severity, they would have defeated their own object by rousing up a most formidable and exasperated opposition. It would have been argued by the Jews that they were reflecting on the patriarchs; and it would have been said by the Roman governors that they were interfering with matters which belonged to the province of the civil magistrate. They were obliged, therefore, to proceed with extreme caution. In the first place, they laid it down as a principle that every bishop and deacon must be "the husband of one wife," [323:1] or, in other words, that no polygamist could hold office in their society. They thus, in the most pointed way, inculcated sound views respecting the institution of marriage; for they intimated that whoever was the husband of more than one wife was not, in every respect, "a pattern of good works," and was consequently unfit for ecclesiastical promotion. In the second place, in all their discourses they proceeded on the assumption that the union of one man and one woman is the divine arrangement. [323:2] Throughout the whole of the New Testament, wherever marriage is mentioned, no other idea is entertained. It is easy to see what must have been the effect of this method of procedure. It soon came to be understood that no good Christian could have at one time more than one wife; and at length the polygamist was excluded from communion by a positive enactment. [323:3]
Every disciple who married a heathen was cut off from Church privileges. The apostles had condemned such an alliance, [323:4] and it still continued to be spoken of in terms of the strongest reprobation. Nothing, it was said, but discomfort and danger could be anticipated from the union; as parties related so closely, and yet differing so widely on the all-important subject of religion, could not permanently hold cordial intercourse. A writer of this period has given a vivid description of the trials of the female who made such an ill-assorted match. Whilst she is about to be engaged in spiritual exercises, her husband will probably contrive some scheme for her annoyance; and her zeal may be expected to awaken his jealousy, and provoke his opposition. "If there be a prayer-meeting, the husband will devote this day to the use of the bath; if a fast is to be observed, the husband has a feast at which he entertains his friends; if a religious ceremony is to be attended, never does household business fall more upon her hands. And who would allow his wife, for the sake of visiting the brethren, to go from street to street the round of strange and especially of the poorer class of cottages? ... If a stranger brother come to her, what lodging in an alien's house? If a present is to be made to any, the barn, the storehouse are closed against her." [324:1]
The primitive heralds of the gospel acted with remarkable prudence in reference to the question of slavery. According to some high authorities, bondsmen constituted one-half [324:2] of the entire population of the Roman Empire; and as the new religion was designed to promote the spiritual good of man, rather than the improvement of his civil or political condition, the apostles did not deem it expedient, in the first instance, to attempt to break up established relations. They did not refuse to receive any one as a member of the Church because he happened to be a slave-owner; neither did they reject any applicant for admission because he was a slave. The social position of the individual did not at all affect his ecclesiastical standing; for bond and free are "all one in Christ Jesus." [324:3] In the Church the master and the servant were upon a footing of equality; they joined in the same prayers; they sat down, side by side, at the same communion table; and they saluted each other with the kiss of Christian recognition. A slave-owner might belong to a congregation of which his slave was the teacher; and thus, whilst in the household, the servant was bound to obey his master according to the flesh, in the Church the master was required to remember that his minister was "worthy of double honour." [325:1]
The spirit of the gospel is pre-eminently a spirit of freedom; but the inspired founders of our religion did not fail to remember that we may be partakers of the glorious liberty of the children of God, whilst we are under the yoke of temporal bondage. Whilst, therefore, they did not hesitate to speak of emancipation as a blessing, and whilst they said to the slave--"If thou mayest be made free, use it rather;" [325:2] they at the same time declared it to be his duty to submit cheerfully to the restraints of his present condition. "Let every man," said they, "abide in the same calling wherein he was called; for he that is called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's freeman." [325:3] They were most careful to teach converted slaves that they were not to presume upon their church membership; and that they were not to be less respectful and obedient when those to whom they were in bondage were their brethren in the Lord. "Let as many servants as are under the yoke," says the apostle, "count their own masters worthy of all honour, that the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them, because they are brethren, but rather do them service, because they are faithful and beloved, partakers of the benefit." [325:4]
The influence of Christianity on the condition of the slave was soon felt. The believing master was more humane than his pagan neighbour; [325:5] his bearing was more gentle, conciliatory, and considerate; and the domestics under his care were more comfortable. [325:6] There was a disposition among pious slave-owners to let the oppressed go free, and when they performed such an act of mercy, and both parties were in communion with the Church, the congregation was assembled to witness the consummation of the happy deliverance. [326:1] Thus, multitudes of bondsmen in all parts of the Roman Empire were soon taught to regard the gospel as their best benefactor.
Whilst Christianity, in the spirit of its Great Founder, was labouring to improve the tone of public sentiment, and to undo heavy burdens, it exhibited other most attractive characteristics. Wherever a disciple travelled, if a church existed in the district, he felt himself at home. The ecclesiastical certificate which he carried along with him, at once introduced him to the meetings of his co-religionists, and secured for him all the advantage of membership. The heathen were astonished at the cordiality with which the believers among whom they resided greeted a Christian stranger. He was saluted with the kiss of peace; ushered into their assembly; and invited to share the hospitality of the domestic board. If he was sick, they visited him; if he was in want, they made provision for his necessities. The poor widows were supported at the expense of the Church; and if any of the brethren were carried captive by predatory bands of the barbarians who hovered upon the borders of the Empire, contributions were made to purchase their liberation from servitude. [326:2] To those who were without the Church, its members appeared as one large and affectionate family. The pagan could not comprehend what it was that so closely cemented their brotherhood; for he did not understand how they could be attracted to each other by love to a common Saviour. He was almost induced to believe that they held intercourse by certain mysterious signs, and that they were affiliated by something like the bond of freemasonry. Even statesmen observed with uneasiness the spirit of fraternity which reigned among the Christians; and, though the disciples could never be convicted of any political designs, suspicions were often entertained that, after all, they might form a secret association, on an extensive scale, which might one day prove dangerous to the established government.
But Christianity, like the sun, shines on the evil and the good; and opportunities occurred for shewing that its charities were not confined within the limits of its own denomination. There were occasions on which its very enemies could not well refuse to admit its excellence; for in seasons of public distress, its adherents often signalised themselves as by far the most energetic, benevolent, and useful citizens. At such times its genial philanthropy appeared to singular advantage when contrasted with the cold and selfish spirit of polytheism. Thus, in the reign of the Emperor Gallus, when a pestilence spread dismay throughout North Africa, [327:1] and when the pagans shamefully deserted their nearest relatives in the hour of their extremity, the Christians stepped forward, and ministered to the wants of the sick and dying without distinction. [327:2] Some years afterwards, when the plague appeared in Alexandria, and when the Gentile inhabitants left the dead unburied and cast out the dying into the streets, the disciples vied with each other in their efforts to alleviate the general suffering. [327:3] The most worthless men can scarcely forget acts of kindness performed under such circumstances. Forty years afterwards, when the Church in the capital of Egypt was overtaken by the Diocletian persecution, their pagan neighbours concealed the Christians in their houses, and submitted to fines and imprisonment rather than betray the refugees. [328:1]
The fact that the heathen were now ready to shelter the persecuted members of the Church is itself of importance as a sign of the times. When the disciples first began to rise into notice in the great towns, they were commonly regarded with aversion; and, when the citizens were assembled in thousands at the national spectacles, no cry was more vociferously repeated than that of "The Christians to the lions." But this bigoted and intolerant spirit was fast passing away; and when the state now set on foot a persecution, it could not reckon so extensively on the support of popular antipathy. The Church had attained such a position that the calumnies once repeated to its prejudice could no longer obtain credence; the superior excellence of its system of morals was visible to all; and it could point on every side to proofs of the blessings it communicated. It could demonstrate, by a reference to its history, that it produced kind masters and dutiful servants, affectionate parents and obedient children, faithful friends and benevolent citizens. On all classes, whether rich or poor, learned or unlearned, its effects were beneficial. It elevated the character of the working classes, it vastly improved the position of the wife, it comforted the afflicted, and it taught even senators wisdom. Its doctrines, whether preached to the half-naked Picts or the polished Athenians, to the fierce tribes of Germany or the literary coteries of Alexandria, exerted the same holy and happy influence. It promulgated a religion obviously fitted for all mankind. There had long since been a prediction that its dominion should extend "from sea to sea and from the river unto the ends of the earth;" and its progress already indicated that the promise would receive a glorious accomplishment.
IV. THE CHURCH OF ROME IN THE SECOND CENTURY
The great doctrines of Christianity are built upon the facts of the life of our Lord. These facts are related by the four evangelists with singular precision, and yet with a variety of statement, as to details, which proves that each writer delivered an independent testimony. The witnesses all agree when describing the wonderful history of the Captain of our Salvation; and they dwell upon the narrative with a minuteness apparently corresponding to the importance of the doctrine which the facts establish or illustrate. Hence it is that, whilst they scarcely notice, or altogether omit, several items of our Saviour's biography, they speak particularly of His birth and of His miracles, of His death and of His resurrection. Thus, all the great facts of the gospel are most amply authenticated.
It is not so with the system of Romanism; as nothing can be weaker than the historical basis on which it rests. The New Testament demonstrates that Peter was not the Prince of the Apostles; for it records the rebuke which our Lord delivered to the Twelve when they strove among themselves "which of them should be accounted the greatest." [329:1] It also supplies evidence that neither Peter nor Paul founded the Church of Rome; as, before that Church had been visited by the Apostle of the Gentiles, its faith was "spoken of throughout the whole world;" [329:2] and the apostle of the circumcision was meanwhile labouring in another part of the Empire. [330:1] When writing to the Romans in A.D. 57, Paul greets many members of the Church, and mentions the names of a great variety of individuals; [330:2] but, throughout his long epistle, Peter is not once noticed. Had he been connected with that Christian community, he would, beyond doubt, have been prominently recognised.
There is, indeed, a sense in which Peter may, perhaps, be said to have founded the great Church of the West; for it is possible that some of the "strangers of Rome," [330:3] who heard his celebrated sermon on the day of Pentecost, were then converted by his ministry; and it may be that these converts, on their return home, proceeded to disseminate the truth, and to organize a Christian society, in the chief city of the Empire. This, however, is mere matter of conjecture; and it is now useless to speculate upon the subject; as, in the absence of historical materials to furnish us with information, the question must remain involved in impenetrable mystery. It is certain that the Roman Church was established long before it was visited by an apostle; and it is equally clear that its members were distinguished, at an early period, by their Christian excellence. When Paul was prisoner for the first time in the great city, he was freely permitted to exercise his ministry; but, subsequently, when there during the Neronian persecution, he was, according to the current tradition, seized and put to death. [330:4] Peter's martyrdom took place, as we have seen, [330:5] perhaps about a year afterwards; but the legend describing it contains very improbable details, and the facts have obviously been distorted and exaggerated.
For at least seventy years after the death of the apostle of the circumcision, nothing whatever is known of the history of the Roman Church, except the names of some of its leading ministers. It was originally governed, like other Christian communities, by the common council of the presbyters, who, as a matter of order, must have had a chairman; but though, about a hundred years after the martyrdom of Peter, when the presidents began to be designated bishops, an attempt was made to settle their order of succession, [331:1] the result was by no means satisfactory. Some of the earliest writers who touch incidentally upon the question are inconsistent with themselves; [331:2] whilst they flatly contradict each other. [331:3] In fact, to this day, what is called the episcopal succession in the ancient Church of Rome is an historical riddle. At first no one individual seems to have acted for life as the president, or moderator, of the presbytery; but as it was well known that, at an early date, several eminent pastors had belonged to it, the most distinguished names found their way into the catalogues, and each writer appears to have consulted his own taste or judgment in regulating the order of succession. Thus, it has probably occurred that their lists are utterly irreconcileable. All such genealogies are, indeed, of exceedingly dubious credit, and those who deem them of importance must always be perplexed by the candid acknowledgment of the father of ecclesiastical history. "How many," says he, "and who, prompted by a kindred spirit, were judged fit to feed the churches established by the apostles, it is not easy to say, any farther than may be gathered from the statements of Paul." [331:4]
About A.D. 139, Telesphorus, who was then at the head of the Roman presbytery, is said to have been put to death for his profession of the gospel; but the earliest authority for this fact is a Christian controversialist who wrote upwards of forty years afterwards; [332:1] and we are totally ignorant of all the circumstances connected with the martyrdom. The Church of the capital, which had hitherto enjoyed internal tranquillity, began in the time of Hyginus, who succeeded Telesphorus, to be disturbed by false teachers. Valentine, Cerdo, and other famous heresiarchs, now appeared in Rome; [332:2] and laboured with great assiduity to disseminate their principles. The distractions created by these errorists seem to have suggested the propriety of placing additional power in the hands of the presiding presbyter. [332:3] Until this period every teaching elder had been accustomed to baptize and administer the Eucharist on his own responsibility; but it appears to have been now arranged that henceforth none should act without the sanction of the president, who was thus constituted the centre of ecclesiastical unity. According to the previous system, some of the presbyters, who were themselves, perhaps, secretly tainted with unsound doctrine, might have continued to hold communion with the heretics; and it might have been exceedingly difficult to convict them of any direct breach of ecclesiastical law; but now their power was curtailed; and a broad line of demarcation was established between true and false churchmen. Thus, Rome was the city in which what has been called the Catholic system was first organized. Every one who was in communion with the president, or bishop, was a catholic; [332:4] every one who allied himself to any other professed teacher of the Christian faith was a sectary, a schismatic, or a heretic. [333:1]
The study of the best forms of government was peculiarly congenial to the Roman mind; and the peace enjoyed under the Empire, as contrasted with the miseries of the civil wars in the last days of the Republic, pleaded, no doubt, strongly in favour of a change in the ecclesiastical constitution. But though this portion of the history of the Church is involved in much obscurity, there are indications that the transference of power from the presbyters to their president was not accomplished without a struggle. Until this period the Roman elders appear to have generally succeeded each other as moderators of presbytery in the order of their seniority; [333:2] but it was now deemed necessary to adopt another method of appointment; and it is not improbable that, at this time, a division of sentiment as to the best mode of filling up the presidential chair, was the cause of an unusually long vacancy. According to some, no less than four years [333:3] passed away between the death of Hyginus and the choice of his successor Pius; and even those who object to this view of the chronology admit that there was an interval of a twelvemonth. [333:4] The plan now adopted seems to have been to choose the bishop by lot out of a leet of selected candidates. [333:5] Thus, to use the phraseology current towards the end of the second century, the new chief pastor "obtained the lot of the episcopacy." [334:1]
The changes introduced at Rome were probably far from agreeable to many of the other Churches throughout the Empire; and Polycarp, the venerable pastor of Smyrna, who was afterwards martyred, and who was now nearly eighty years of age, appears to have been sent to the imperial city on a mission of remonstrance. The design of this remarkable visit is still enveloped in much mystery, for with the exception of an allusion to a question confessedly of secondary consequence, [334:2] ecclesiastical writers have passed over the whole subject in suspicious silence; but there is every reason to believe that Polycarp was deputed to complain of the incipient assumptions of Roman prelacy. [334:3] Anicetus, who then presided over the Church of the capital, prudently bestowed very flattering attentions on the good old Asiatic pastor; and, though there is no evidence that his scruples were removed, he felt it to be his duty to assist in opposing the corrupt teachers who were seeking to propagate their errors among the Roman disciples. The testimony to primitive truth delivered by so aged and eminent a minister produced a deep impression, and gave a decided check to the progress of heresy in the metropolis of the Empire. [334:4]
But though the modified prelacy now established encountered opposition, the innovation thus inaugurated in the great city was sure to exert a most extensive influence. Rome was then, not only the capital, but the mistress of a large portion of the world. She kept up a constant communication with every part of her dominions in Asia, Africa, and Europe; strangers from almost every clime were to be found among her teeming population; and intelligence of whatever occurred within her walls soon found its way to distant cities and provinces. The Christians in other countries would be slow to believe that their brethren at head-quarters had consented to any unwarrantable distribution of Church power, for they had hitherto displayed their zeal for the faith by most decisive and illustrious testimonies. Since the days of Nero they had sustained the first shock of every persecution, and nobly led the van of the army of martyrs. Telesphorus, the chairman of the presbytery, had recently paid for his position with his life; their presiding pastor was always specially obnoxious to the spirit of intolerance; and if they were anxious to strengthen his hands, who could complain? The Roman Church had the credit of having enjoyed the tuition of Peter and Paul; its members had long been distinguished for intelligence and piety; and it was not to be supposed that its ministers would sanction any step which they did not consider perfectly capable of vindication. There were other weighty reasons why Christian societies in Italy, as well as elsewhere, should regard the acts of the Church of the imperial city with peculiar indulgence. It was the sentinel at the seat of government to give them notice of the approach of danger, [335:1] and the kind friend to aid them in times of difficulty. The wealth of Rome was prodigious; and though as yet "not many mighty" and "not many noble" had joined the proscribed sect, it had been making way among the middle classes; and there is cause to think that at this time a considerable number of the rich merchants of the capital belonged to its communion. It was known early in the second century as a liberal benefactor; and, from a letter addressed to it about A.D. 170, it would appear that even the Church of Corinth was then indebted to its munificence. "It has ever been your habit," says the writer, "to confer benefits in various ways, and to send assistance to the Churches in every city. You have relieved the wants of the poor, and afforded help to the brethren condemned to the mines. By a succession of these gifts, Romans, you preserve the customs of your Roman ancestors." [336:1]
The influence of the Roman Church throughout the West soon became conspicuous. Here, as in many other instances, commerce was the pioneer of religion; and as the merchants of the capital traded with all the ports of their great inland sea, it is not improbable that their sailors had a share in achieving some of the early triumphs of the gospel. Carthage, now one of the most populous cities in the Empire, is said to have been indebted for Christianity to Rome; [336:2] and by means of the constant intercourse kept up between these two commercial marts, the mother Church contrived to maintain an ascendancy over her African daughter. Thus it was that certain Romish practices and pretensions so soon found advocates among the Carthaginian clergy. [336:3] In other quarters we discover early indications of the extraordinary deference paid to the Church of the city "sitting upon many waters." Towards the close of the second century, Irenaeus, a disciple of Polycarp, was pastor of Lyons; and from this some have rather abruptly drawn the inference that the Christian congregations then existing in the south of France were established by missionaries from the East; but it is at least equally probable that the young minister from Asia Minor was in Rome before he passed to the more distant Gaul; and it is certain that he is the first father who speaks of the superior importance of the Church of the Italian metropolis. His testimony to the position which it occupied about eighty years after the death of the Apostle John shews clearly that it stood already at the head of the Western Churches. The Church of Rome, says he, is "very great and very ancient, and known to all, founded and established by the two most glorious Apostles Peter and Paul." [337:1] "To this Church in which Catholics [337:2] have always preserved apostolic tradition, every Catholic Church should, because it is more potentially apostolical, [337:3] repair." [337:4]
The term Catholic, which occurs for the first time in a document written about this period, [337:5] was probably coined at Rome, and implied, as already intimated, that the individual so designated was in communion with the bishop. The presiding pastors in the great city began now, in token of fraternity and recognition, to send the Eucharist to their brethren elsewhere by trusty messengers, [337:6] and thus the name was soon extended to all who maintained ecclesiastical relations with these leading ministers. Sectaries were almost always the minority; and in many places, where Christianity was planted, they were utterly unknown. The orthodox might, therefore, not inappropriately be styled members of the Catholic or general Church, inasmuch as they formed the bulk of the Christian population, and were to be found wherever the new religion had made converts. And though the heretics pleaded tradition in support of their peculiar dogmas, it was clear that their statements could not stand the test of examination. Irenaeus, in the work from which the words just quoted are extracted, very fairly argues that no such traditions as those propagated by the sectaries were to be found in the most ancient and respectable Churches. No Christian community in Western Europe could claim higher antiquity than that of Rome; and as it had been taught by Paul and Peter, none could be supposed to be better acquainted with the original gospel. Because of its extent it already required a larger staff of ministers than perhaps any other Church; and thus there were a greater number of individuals to quicken and correct each other's recollections. It might be accordingly inferred that the traditions of surrounding Christian societies, if true, should correspond to those of Rome; as the great metropolitan Church might, for various reasons, be said to be more potentially primitive or apostolical, and as its traditions might be expected to be particularly accurate. The doctrines of the heretics, which were completely opposed to the testimony of this important witness, should be discarded as entirely destitute of authority.
We can only conjecture the route by which Irenaeus travelled to the south of France when he first set out from Asia Minor; but we have direct evidence that he had paid a visit to the capital shortly before he wrote this memorable eulogium on the Roman Church. About the close of the dreadful persecution endured in A.D. 177 by the Christians of Lyons and Vienne, he had been commissioned to repair to Italy with a view to a settlement of the disputes created by the appearance of the Montanists. As he was furnished with very complimentary credentials, [339:1] we may presume that he was handsomely treated by his friends in the metropolis; and if he returned home laden with presents to disciples whose sufferings had recently so deeply moved the sympathy of their brethren, it is not strange that he gracefully seized an opportunity of extolling the Church to which he owed such obligations. His account of its greatness is obviously the inflated language of a panegyrist; but in due time its hyperbolic statements received a still more extravagant interpretation; and, on the authority of this ancient father, the Church of Rome was pompously announced as the mistress and the mother of all Churches.
It has been mentioned in a former chapter [339:2] that the celebrated Marcia who, until shortly before his death, possessed almost absolute control over the Emperor Commodus, made a profession of the faith. Her example, no doubt, encouraged other personages of distinction to connect themselves with the Roman Church; and, through the medium of these members of his flock, the bishop Eleutherius must have had an influence such as none of his predecessors possessed. It is beyond doubt that Marcia, after consulting with Victor, the successor of Eleutherius, induced the Emperor to perform acts of kindness to some of her co-religionists. [339:3] The favour of the court seems to have puffed up the spirit of this naturally haughty churchman; and though, as we have seen, there is cause to suspect that certain ecclesiastical movements in the chief city had long before excited much ill-suppressed dissatisfaction, the Christian commonwealth was now startled for the first time by a very flagrant exhibition of the arrogance of a Roman prelate. [340:1] Because the Churches of Asia Minor celebrated the Paschal feast in a way different from that observed in the metropolis, [340:2] Victor cut them off from his communion. But this attempt of the bishop of the great city to act as lord over God's heritage was premature. Other churches condemned the rashness of his procedure; his refusal to hold fellowship with the Asiatic Christians threatened only to isolate himself; and he seems to have soon found it expedient to cultivate more pacific councils.
At this time the jurisdiction of Victor did not properly extend beyond the few ministers and congregations to be found in the imperial city. A quarter of a century afterwards even the bishop of Portus, a seaport town at the mouth of the Tiber about fifteen miles distant from the capital, acknowledged no allegiance to the Roman prelate. [340:3] The boldness of Victor in pronouncing so many foreign brethren unworthy of Catholic communion may at first, therefore, appear unaccountable. But it is probable that he acted, in this instance, in conjunction with many other pastors. Among the Churches of Gentile origin there was a deep prejudice against what was considered the judaizing of the Asiatic Christians in relation to the Paschal festival, and a strong impression that the character of the Church was compromised by any very marked diversity in its religious observances. There is, however, little reason to doubt that Victor was to some extent prompted by motives of a different complexion. Fifty years before, the remarkable words addressed to the apostle of the circumcision--"Thou art Peter, and upon this Rock I will build my Church" [341:1]--were interpreted at Rome in the way in which they are now understood commonly by Protestants; for the brother of the Roman bishop Pius, [341:2] writing about A.D. 150, teaches that the Rock on which the Church is built is the Son of God; [341:3] but ingenuity was already beginning to discover another exposition, and the growing importance of the Roman bishopric suggested the startling thought that the Church was built on Peter! [341:4] The name of the Galilean fisherman was already connected with the see of Victor; and it was thus easy for ambition or flattery to draw the inference that Victor himself was in some way the heir and representative of the great apostle. The doctrine that the bishop was necessary as the centre of Catholic unity had already gained currency; and if a centre of unity for the whole Church was also indispensable, who had a better claim to the pre-eminence than the successor of Peter? When Victor fulminated his sentence of excommunication against the Asiatic Christians he probably acted under the partial inspiration of this novel theory. He made an abortive attempt to speak in the name of the whole Church--to assert a position as the representative or president of all the bishops of the Catholic world [342:1]--and to carry out a new system of ecclesiastical unity. The experiment was a failure, simply because the idea looming in the imagination of the Roman bishop had not yet obtained full possession of the mind of Christendom.
Prelacy had been employed as the cure for Church divisions, but the remedy had proved worse than the disease. Sects meanwhile continued to multiply; and they were, perhaps, nowhere so abundant as in the very city where the new machinery had been first set up for their suppression. Towards the close of the second century their multitude was one of the standing reproaches of Christianity. What was called the Catholic Church was now on the brink of a great schism; and the very man, who aspired to be the centre of Catholic unity, threatened to be the cause of the disruption. It was becoming more and more apparent that, when the presbyters consented to surrender any portion of their privileges to the bishop, they betrayed the cause of ecclesiastical freedom; and even now indications were not wanting that the Catholic system was likely to degenerate into a spiritual despotism.
V. THE CHURCH OF ROME IN THE THIRD CENTURY
Though very few of the genuine productions of the ministers of the ancient Church of Rome are still extant, [343:1] multitudes of spurious epistles attributed to its early bishops have been carefully preserved. It is easy to account for this apparent anomaly. The documents now known as the false Decretals, [343:2] and ascribed to the Popes of the first and immediately succeeding centuries, were suited to the taste of times of ignorance, and were then peculiarly grateful to the occupants of the Roman see. As evidences of its original superiority they were accordingly transmitted to posterity, and ostentatiously exhibited among the papal title-deeds. But the real compositions of the primitive pastors of the great city supplied little food for superstition; and must have contained startling and humiliating revelations which laid bare the absurdity of claims subsequently advanced. These unwelcome witnesses were, therefore, quietly permitted to pass into oblivion.
It has been said, however, that Truth is the daughter of Time, and the discovery of monuments long since forgotten, or of writings supposed to have been lost, has often wonderfully verified and illustrated the apologue. The reappearance, within the last three hundred years, of various ancient records and memorials, has shed a new light upon the history of antiquity. Other testimonies equally valuable will, no doubt, yet be forthcoming for the settlement of existing controversies.
In A.D. 1551, as some workmen in the neighbourhood of Rome were employed in clearing away the ruins of a dilapidated chapel, they found a broken mass of sculptured marble among the rubbish. The fragments, when put together, proved to be a statue representing a person of venerable aspect sitting in a chair, on the back of which were the names of various publications. It was ascertained, on more minute examination, that, some time after the establishment of Christianity by Constantine, [344:1] this monument had been erected in honour of Hippolytus--a learned writer and able controversialist, who bad been bishop of Portus in the early part of the third century, and who had finished his career by martyrdom, about A.D. 236, during the persecution under the Emperor Maximin. Hippolytus is commemorated as a saint in the Romish Breviary; [344:2] and the resurrection of his statue, after it had been buried for perhaps a thousand years, created quite a sensation among his papal admirers. Experienced sculptors, under the auspices of the Pontiff, Pius IV., restored the fragments to nearly their previous condition; and the renovated statue was then duly honoured with a place in the Library of the Vatican.
Nearly three hundred years afterwards, or in 1842, a manuscript which had been found in a Greek monastery at Mount Athos, was deposited in the Royal Library at Paris. This work, which has been since published, [345:1] and which is entitled "Philosophumena, or a Refutation of all Heresies," has been identified as the production of Hippolytus. It does not appear in the list of his writings mentioned on the back of the marble chair; but any one who inspects its contents can satisfactorily account for its exclusion from that catalogue. It reflects strongly on the character and principles of some of the early Roman bishops; and as the Papal see was fast rising into power when the statue was erected, it was obviously deemed prudent to omit an invidious publication. The writer of the "Philosophumena" declares that he is the author of one of the books named on that piece of ancient sculpture, and various other facts amply corroborate his testimony. There is, therefore, no good reason to doubt that a Christian bishop who lived about fifteen miles from Rome, and who flourished little more than one hundred years after the death of the Apostle John, composed the newly discovered Treatise. [345:2]
In accordance with the title of his work, Hippolytus here reviews all the heresies which had been broached up till the date of its publication. Long prior to the reappearance of this production, it was known that one of the early Roman bishops had been induced to countenance the errors of the Montanists; [345:3] and it would seem that Victor was the individual who was thus deceived; [345:4] but it had not been before suspected that Zephyrinus and Callistus, the two bishops next to him in succession, [345:5] held unsound views respecting the doctrine of the Trinity. Such, however, is the testimony of their neighbour and contemporary, the bishop of Portus. The witness may, indeed, be somewhat fastidious, as he was himself both erudite and eloquent; but had there not been some glaring deficiency in both the creed and the character of the chief pastor of Rome, Hippolytus would scarcely have described Zephyrinus as "an illiterate and covetous man," [346:1] "unskilled in ecclesiastical science," [346:2] and a disseminator of heretical doctrine. According to the statement of his accuser, he confounded the First and Second Persons of the Godhead, maintaining the identity of the Father and the Son. [346:3]
Callistus, who was made bishop on the death of Zephyrinus, must have possessed a far more vigorous intellect than his predecessor. Though regarded by the orthodox Hippolytus with no friendly eye, it is plain that he was endowed with an extraordinary share of energy and perseverance. He had been originally a slave, and he must have won the confidence of his wealthy Christian master Carpophores, for he had been intrusted by him with the care of a savings bank. The establishment became insolvent, in consequence, as Hippolytus alleges, of the mismanagement of its conductor; and many widows and others who had committed their money to his keeping, lost their deposits. When Carpophorus, by whom he was now suspected of embezzlement, determined to call him to account, Callistus fled to Portus--in the hope of escaping by sea to some other country. He was, however, overtaken, and, after an ineffectual attempt to drown himself, was arrested, and thrown into prison. His master, who was placable and kind-hearted, speedily consented to release him from confinement; but he was no sooner at large, than, under pretence of collecting debts due to the savings bank, he went into a Jewish synagogue during the time of public worship, and caused such disturbance that he was seized and dragged before the city prefect. The magistrate ordered him first to be scourged, and then to be transported to the mines of Sardinia. He does not appear to have remained long in exile; for, about this time, Marcia procured from the Emperor Commodus an order for the release of the Christians who had been banished to that unhealthy island; and Callistus, though not included in the act of grace, contrived to prevail upon the governor to set him at liberty along with the other prisoners. He now returned to Rome, where he appears to have acquired the reputation of a changed character. In due time he procured an appointment to one of the lower ecclesiastical offices; and as he possessed much talent, he did not find it difficult to obtain promotion. When Zephyrinus was advanced to the episcopate, Callistus, who was his special favourite, became one of the leading ministers of the Roman Church; and exercised an almost unbounded sway over the mind of the superficial and time-serving bishop. The Christians of the chief city were now split up into parties, some advocating the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity, and others abetting a different theory. Callistus appears to have dexterously availed himself of their divisions; and, by inducing each faction to believe that he espoused its cause, managed, on the death of Zephyrinus, to secure his election to the vacant dignity.
When Callistus had attained the object of his ambition, he tried to restore peace to the Church by endeavouring to persuade the advocates of the antagonistic principles to make mutual concessions. Laying aside the reserve which he had hitherto maintained, he now took up an intermediate position, in the hope that both parties would accept his own theory of the Godhead. "He invented," says Hippolytus, "such a heresy as follows. He said that the Word is the Son and is also the Father, being called by different names, but being one indivisible spirit; and that the Father is not one and the Son another (person), but that they both are one and the same.... The Father, having taken human flesh, deified it by uniting it to Himself,... and so he said that the Father had suffered with the Son." [348:1]
Though Callistus, as well as Hippolytus, is recognised as a saint in the Romish Breviary, [348:2] it is thus certain that the bishop of Portus regarded the bishop of Rome as a schemer and a heretic. It is equally clear that, at this period, all bishops were on a level of equality, for Hippolytus, though the pastor of a town in the neighbourhood of the chief city, did not acknowledge Callistus as his metropolitan. The bishop of Portus describes himself as one of those who are "successors of the apostles, partakers with them of the same grace both of principal priesthood and doctorship, and reckoned among the guardians of the Church." [348:3] Hippolytus testifies that Callistus was afraid of him, [348:4] and if both were members of the same synod, [348:5] well might the heterodox prelate stand in awe of a minister who possessed co-ordinate authority, with greater honesty and superior erudition. But still, it is abundantly plain, from the admissions of the "Philosophumena," that the bishop of Rome, in the time of the author of this treatise, was beginning to presume upon his position. Hippolytus complains of his irregularity in receiving into his communion some who had been "cast out of the Church" of Portus "after judicial sentence." [348:6] Had the bishop of the harbour of Rome been subject to the bishop of the capital, he would neither have expressed himself in such a style, nor preferred such an accusation.
Various circumstances indicate, as has already been suggested, that the bishop of Rome, in the time of the Antonines, was chosen by lot; but we may infer from the "Philosophumena" that, early in the third century, another mode of appointment had been adopted. [349:1] It is obvious that he now owed his advancement to the suffrages of the Church members, for Hippolytus hints very broadly that Callistus pursued a particular course with a view to promote his popularity and secure his election. It is beyond doubt that, about A.D. 236, Fabian was chosen bishop of Rome by the votes of the whole brotherhood, and there is on record a minute account of certain extraordinary circumstances which signalised the occasion. "When all the brethren had assembled in the church for the purpose of choosing their future bishop, and when the names of many worthy and distinguished men had suggested themselves to the consideration of the multitude, no one so much as thought of Fabian who was then present. They relate, however, that a dove gliding down from the roof, straightway settled on his head, as when the Holy Spirit, like a dove, rested upon the head of our Saviour. On this, the whole people, as if animated by one divine impulse, with great eagerness, and with the utmost unanimity, exclaimed that he was worthy; and, taking hold of him, placed him forthwith on the bishop's chair." [349:2]
Some time after the resurrection of the statue of Hippolytus, another revelation was made in the neighbourhood of Rome which has thrown much light upon its early ecclesiastical history. In the latter part of the sixteenth century, the unusual appearance of some apertures in the ground, not far from the Papal capital, awakened curiosity, and led to the discovery of dark subterranean passages of immense extent filled with monuments and inscriptions. These dismal regions, after having been shut up for about eight hundred years, were then again re-opened and re-explored.
The soil for miles around Rome is undermined, and the long labyrinths thus created are called catacombs. [350:1] The galleries are often found in stories two or three deep, communicating with each other by stairs; and it has been thought that formerly some of them were partially lighted from above. They were originally gravel-pits or stone-quarries, and were commenced long before the reign of Augustus. [350:2] The enlargement of the city, and the growing demand for building materials, led then to new and most extensive excavations. In the preparation of these vast caverns, we may trace the presiding care of Providence. As America, discovered a few years before the Reformation, furnished a place of refuge to the Protestants who fled from ecclesiastical intolerance, so the catacombs, re-opened shortly before the birth of our Lord, supplied shelter to the Christians in Rome during the frequent proscriptions of the second and third centuries. When the gospel was first propagated in the imperial city, its adherents belonged chiefly to the lower classes; and, for reasons of which it is now impossible to speak with certainty, [350:3] it seems to have been soon very generally embraced by the quarrymen and sand-diggers. [350:4] Thus it was that when persecution raged in the capital, the Christian felt himself comparatively safe in the catacombs. The parties in charge of them were his friends; they could give him seasonable intimation of the approach of danger; and among these "dens and caves of the earth," with countless places of ingress and egress, the officers of government must have attempted in vain to overtake a fugitive.
At present their appearance is most uncomfortable; they contain no chamber sufficient for the accommodation of any large number of worshippers; and it has even been questioned whether human life could be long supported in such gloomy habitations. But we have the best authority for believing that some of the early Christians remained for a considerable time in these asylums. [351:1] Wells of water have been found in their obscure recesses; fonts for baptism have also been discovered; and it is beyond doubt that the disciples met here for religious exercises. As early as the second century these vaults became the great cemetery of the Church. Many of the memorials of the dead which they contained have long since been transferred to the Lapidarian Gallery in the Vatican; and there, in the palace of the Pope, the venerable tombstones testify, to all who will consult them, how much modern Romanism differs from ancient Christianity.
Though many of these sepulchral monuments were erected in the fourth and fifth centuries, they indicate a remarkable freedom from superstitions with which the religion of the New Testament has been since defiled. These witnesses to the faith of the early Church of Rome altogether repudiate the worship of the Virgin Mary, for the inscriptions of the Lapidarian Gallery, all arranged under the papal supervision, contain no addresses to the mother of our Lord. [352:1] They point only to Jesus as the great Mediator, Redeemer, and Friend. It is also worthy of note that the tone of these voices from the grave is eminently cheerful. Instead of speaking of masses for the repose of souls, or representing departed believers as still doomed to pass through purgatory, they describe the deceased as having entered immediately into the abodes of eternal rest. "Alexander," says one of them, "is not dead, but lives beyond the stars, and his body rests in this tomb." "Here," says another, "lies Paulina, in the place of the blessed." "Gemella," says a third, "sleeps in peace." "Aselus," says a fourth, "sleeps in Christ." [352:2]
We learn from the testimony of Hippolytus that, during the episcopate of Zephyrinus, Callistus was "set over the cemetery." [352:3] This was probably considered a highly important trust, as, in those perilous times, the safety of the Christians very much depended on the prudence, activity, and courage of the individual who had the charge of their subterranean refuge. [352:4] The new curator seems to have signalised himself by the ability with which he discharged the duties of his appointment; he probably embellished and enlarged some of these dreary caves; and hence a portion of the catacombs was designated "The Cemetery of Callistus." Hippolytus, led astray by the ascetic spirit beginning so strongly to prevail in the commencement of the third century, was opposed to all second marriages, so that he was sadly scandalized by the exceedingly liberal views of his Roman brother on the subject of matrimony; and he was so ill-informed as to pronounce them novel. "In his time," says he indignantly, "bishops, presbyters, and deacons, though they had been twice or three times married, began to be recognised as God's ministers; and if any one of the clergy married, it was determined that such a person should remain among the clergy, as not having sinned." [353:1] We cannot tell how many of the ancient bishops of the great city were husbands; [353:2] we have certainly no distinct evidence that even Callistus took to himself a wife; but we have the clearest proof that the primitive Church of Rome did not impose celibacy on her ministers; and, in support of this fact, we can produce the unimpeachable testimony of her own catacombs. There is, for instance, a monument "To Basilus the Presbyter, and Felicitas his wife;" and, on another tombstone, erected about A.D. 472, or only four years before the fall of the Western Empire, there is the following singular record--"Petronia, a deacon's wife, the type of modesty. In this place I lay my bones: spare your tears, dear husband and daughters, and believe that it is forbidden to weep for one who lives in God." [353:3] "Here," says another epitaph, "Susanna, the happy daughter of the late Presbyter Gabinus, lies in peace along with her father." [353:4] In the Lapidarian Gallery of the papal palace, the curious visitor may still read other epitaphs of the married ministers of Rome.
Though the gospel continued to make great progress in the metropolis, there was perhaps no city of the Empire in which it encountered, from the very first, such steady and powerful opposition. The Sovereign, being himself the Supreme Pontiff of Paganism, might be expected to resent, as a personal indignity, any attempt to weaken its influence; and the other great functionaries of idolatry, who all resided in the capital, were of course bound by the ties of office to resist the advancement of Christianity. The old aristocracy disliked everything in the shape of religious innovation, for they believed that the glory of their country was inseparably connected with an adherence to the worship of the gods of their ancestors. Thus it was that the intolerance of the state was always felt with peculiar severity at the seat of government. Exactly in the middle of the third century a persecution of unusual violence burst upon the Roman Church. Fabian, whose appointment to the bishopric took place, as already related, under such extraordinary circumstances, soon fell a victim to the storm. After his martyrdom, the whole community over which he presided seems to have been paralysed with terror; and sixteen months passed away before any successor was elected; for Decius, the tyrant who now ruled the Roman world, had proclaimed, his determination rather to suffer a competitor for his throne than a bishop for his chief city. [354:1] A veritable rival was quickly forthcoming to prove the falsehood of his gasconade; for when Julius Valens appeared to dispute his title to the Empire, Decius was obliged, by the pressure of weightier cares, to withdraw his attention from the concerns of the Roman Christians. During the lull in the storm of persecution, Cornelius was chosen bishop; but after an official life of little more than a year, he was thrown into confinement. His death in prison was, no doubt, occasioned by harsh treatment. The episcopate of his successor Lucius was even shorter than his own, for he was martyred about six months after his election. [355:1] Stephen, who was now promoted to the vacant chair, did not long retain possession of it; for though we have no reliable information as to the manner of his death, it is certain that he occupied the bishopric only between four and five years. His successor Xystus in less than twelve months finished his course by martyrdom. [355:2] Thus, in a period of eight years, Rome lost no less than five bishops, at least four of whom were cut down by persecution: of these Cornelius and Stephen, by far the most distinguished, were interred in the cemetery of Callistus.
There is still extant the fragment of a letter written by Cornelius furnishing a curious statistical account of the strength of the Roman Church at this period. [355:3] According to this excellent authority it contained forty-six presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolyths, fifty-two others who were either exorcists, readers, or door-keepers, and upwards of fifteen hundred besides, who were in indigent circumstances, and of whom widows constituted a large proportion. All these poor persons were maintained by the liberality of their fellow-worshippers. Rome, as we have seen, was the birthplace of prelacy; and other ecclesiastical organisms unknown to the New Testament may also be traced to the same locality, for here we read for the first time of such officials as the acolyths. [355:4] We may infer from the details supplied by the letter of Cornelius, that there were now fourteen congregations [355:5] of the faithful in the great city; and its Christian population has been estimated at about fifty thousand. No wonder that the chief pastor of such a multitude of zealous disciples all residing in his capital, awakened the jealousy of a suspicious Emperor.
A schism, which continued for generations to exert an unhappy influence, commenced in the metropolis during the short episcopate of Cornelius. The leader of this secession was Novatian, a man of blameless character, [356:1] and a presbyter of the Roman Church. In the Decian persecution many had been terrified into temporary conformity to paganism; and this austere ecclesiastic maintained, that persons who had so sadly compromised themselves, should, on no account whatever, be re-admitted to communion. When he found that he could not prevail upon his brethren to adopt this unrelenting discipline, he permitted himself to be ordained bishop in opposition to Cornelius; and became the founder of a separate society, known as the sect of the Novatians. As he denied the validity of the ordinance previously administered, he rebaptized his converts, and exhibited otherwise a miserably contracted spirit; but many sympathised with him in his views, and Novatian bishops were soon established in various parts of the Empire.
Immediately after the rise of this sect, a controversy relative to the propriety of rebaptizing heretics brought the Church of Rome into collision with many Christian communities in Africa and Asia Minor. The discussion, which did not eventuate in any fresh schism, is chiefly remarkable for the firm stand now made against the assumptions of the great Bishop of the West. When Stephen, who was opposed to rebaptism, discovered that he could not induce the Asiatics and Africans to come over to his sentiments, he rashly tried to overbear them by declaring that he would shut them out from his communion; but his antagonists treated the threat merely as an empty display of insolence. "What strife and contention hast thou awakened in the Churches of the whole world, O Stephen," said one of his opponents, "and how great sin hast thou accumulated when thou didst cut thyself off from so many flocks! Deceive not thyself, for he is truly the schismatic who has made himself an apostate from the communion of the unity of the Church. For whilst thou thinkest that all may be excommunicated by thee, thou hast excommunicated thyself alone from all." [357:1]
When the apostle of the circumcision said to his Master--"Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God," Jesus replied--"Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona, for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven." To this emphatic acknowledgment of the faith of His disciple, our Lord added the memorable words--"And I say also unto thee, that thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." [357:2] As the word Peter signifies a stone, [357:3] this address admits of a very obvious and satisfactory exposition. "Thou art," said Christ to the apostle, "a lively stone [357:4] of the spiritual structure I erect; and upon this rock on which thy faith is established, as witnessed by thy good confession, I will build my Church; and though the rains of affliction may descend, and the floods of danger may come, and the winds of temptation may blow, and beat upon this house, it shall remain immoveable, [358:1] because it rests upon an impregnable foundation." But a different interpretation was already gaining wide currency; for though Peter had been led to deny Christ with oaths and imprecations, the rapid growth and preponderating wealth of the Roman bishopric, of which the apostle was supposed to be the founder, had now induced many to believe that he was the Rock of Salvation, the enduring basis on which the living temple of God was to be reared! Tertullian and Cyprian, in the third century the two most eminent fathers of the West, countenanced the exposition; [358:2] and though both these writers were lamentably deficient in critical sagacity, men of inferior standing were slow to impugn the verdict of such champions of the faith. Thus it was that a false gloss of Scripture was already enthralling the mind of Christendom; and Stephen boldly renewed the attempt at domination commenced by his predecessor Victor. His opponents deserved far greater credit for the sturdy independence with which they upheld their individual rights than for the scriptural skill with which they unmasked the sophistry of a delusive theory; for all their reasonings were enervated and vitiated by their stupid admission of the claims of the chair of Peter as the rock on which the Church was supposed to rest. [358:3] This second effort of Rome to establish her ascendancy was, indeed, a failure; but the misinterpretation of Holy Writ, by which it was encouraged, was not effectively corrected and exposed; and thus the great Western prelate was left at liberty, at another more favourable opportunity, to wrest the Scriptures for the destruction of the Church.
From the middle of the third century, the authority of the Roman bishops advanced apace. The magnanimity with which so many of them then encountered martyrdom elicited general admiration; and the divisions caused by the schism of Novatian supplied them with a specious apology for enlarging their jurisdiction. The argument from the necessity of unity, which was urged so successfully for the creation of a bishop upwards of a hundred years before, could now be adduced with equal plausibility for the erection of a metropolitan; and, from this date, these prelates undoubtedly exercised archiepiscopal power. Seventy years afterwards, or at the Council of Nice, [359:1] the ecclesiastical rule of the Primate of Rome was recognised by the bishops of the ten suburbicarian provinces, including no small portion of Italy. [359:2]
For the last forty years of the third century the Church was free from persecution, and, during this long period of repose, the great Western see enjoyed an unwonted measure of outward prosperity. Its religious services were now conducted with increasing splendour, and distressed brethren in very distant countries shared the fruits of its munificence. In the reign of Gallienus, when the Goths burst into the Empire and devastated Asia Minor, the bishop of Rome transmitted a large sum of money for the release of the Christians who had fallen into the hands of the barbarians. [359:3] A few years afterwards, when Paul of Samosata was deposed for heresy, and when, on his refusal to surrender the property of the Church of Antioch, an application was made to the Emperor Aurelian for his interference, that prince submitted the matter in dispute to the decision of Dionysius of Rome and the other bishops of Italy. [360:1] This reference, in which the position of the Roman prelate was publicly recognised, perhaps for the first time, by a Roman Emperor, was calculated to add vastly to the importance of the metropolitan see in public estimation. When Christianity was established about fifty years afterwards by Constantine, the bishop of the chief city was thus, to a great extent, prepared for the high position to which he was suddenly promoted.
None of the early bishops of Rome were distinguished for their mental accomplishments; and though they are commonly reputed the founders of the Latin Church, it would appear that, for nearly two hundred years, they all wrote and spoke the Greek language. The name Pope, which they have since appropriated, was now common to all pastors. [360:2] For the first three centuries almost every question relating to them is involved in much mystery; and, as we approach the close of this period, the difficulty of unravelling their perplexed traditions rather increases than diminishes. Even the existence of some who are said to have now flourished has been considered doubtful. [360:3] It is alleged that the see was vacant for upwards of three years and a half during the Diocletian persecution in the beginning of the fourth century; [360:4] but even this point has not been very clearly ascertained. The Roman bishopric was by far the most important in the Church; and the obscurity which overhangs its early history, cannot but be embarrassing to those who seek to establish a title to the ministry by attempting to trace it up through such dark annals.
On looking back over the first three centuries, we may remark how much the chairman of the Roman eldership, about the time of the death of the Apostle John, differed from the prelate who filled his place two hundred years afterwards. The former was the servant of the presbyters, and appointed to carry out their decisions; the latter was their master, and entitled to require their submission. The former presided over the ministers of, perhaps, three or four comparatively poor congregations dispirited by recent persecution; the latter had the charge of at least five-and-twenty flourishing city churches, [361:1] together with all the bishops in all the surrounding territory. In eventful times an individual of transcendent talent, such as Pepin or Napoleon, has adroitly bolted into a throne; but the bishop of Rome was indebted for his gradual elevation and his ultimate ascendancy neither to extraordinary genius nor superior erudition, but to a combination of circumstances of unprecedented rarity. His position furnished him with peculiar facilities for acquiring influence. Whilst the city in which he was located was the largest in the world, it was also the most opulent and the most powerful. He was continually coming in contact with men of note in the Church from all parts of the Empire; and he had frequent opportunities of obliging these strangers by various offices of kindness. He thus, too, possessed means of ascertaining the state of the Christian interest in every land, and of diffusing his own sentiments under singularly propitious circumstances. When he was fast rising into power, it was alleged that he was constituted chief pastor of the Church by Christ himself; and a text of Scripture was quoted which was supposed to endorse his title. For a time no one cared to challenge its application; for meanwhile his precedence was but nominal, and those, who might have been competent to point out the delusion, had no wish to give offence, by attacking the fond conceit of a friendly and prosperous prelate. But when the scene changed, and when the Empire found another capital, the acumen of the bishop of the rival metropolis soon discovered a sounder exposition; and Chrysostom of Constantinople, at once the greatest preacher and the best commentator of antiquity, ignored the folly of Tertullian and of Cyprian. "Upon the rock," says he, "that is, upon the faith of the apostle's confession," [362:1] the Church is built. "Christ said that he would build His Church on Peter's confession." [362:2] Soon afterwards, the greatest divine connected with the Western Church, and the most profound theologian among the fathers, pointed out, still more distinctly, the true meaning of the passage. "Our Lord declares," says Augustine, "On this rock I will found my Church, because Peter had said: Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God. On this rock, which thou hast confessed, He declares I will build my Church, for Christ was the rock on whose foundation Peter himself was built; for other foundation hath no man laid than that which is laid, which is Christ Jesus." [362:3] In the Italian capital, the words on which the power of the Papacy is understood to rest are exhibited in gigantic letters within the dome of St Peter's; but their exhibition only proves that the Church of Rome has lost the key of knowledge; for, though she would fain appeal to Scripture, she shews that she does not understand the meaning of its testimony; and, closing her eyes against the light supplied by the best and wisest of the fathers, she persists in adhering to a false interpretation.
SECTION II.
THE LITERATURE AND THEOLOGY OF THE CHURCH.
I. THE ECCLESIASTICAL WRITERS
By "the Fathers" we understand the writers of the ancient Christian Church. The name is, however, of rather vague application, for though generally employed to designate only the ecclesiastical authors of the first six centuries, it is extended, occasionally, to distinguished theologians who flourished in the middle ages.
The fathers of the second and third centuries have a strong claim on our attention. Living on the verge of apostolic times, they were acquainted with the state of the Church when it had recently passed from under the care of its inspired founders; and, as witnesses to its early traditions, their testimony is of peculiar value. But the period before us produced comparatively few authors, and a considerable portion of its literature has perished. There have been modern divines, such as Calvin and Baxter, who have each left behind a more voluminous array of publications than now survives from all the fathers of these two hundred years. Origen was by far the most prolific of the writers who flourished during this interval, but the greater number of his productions have been lost; and yet those which remain, if translated into English, would amount to nearly triple the bulk of our authorised version of the Bible. His extant works are, however, more extensive than all the other memorials of this most interesting section of the history of the Church.
Among the earliest ecclesiastical writers after the close of the first century is Polycarp of Smyrna. He is said to have been a disciple of the Apostle John, and hence he is known as one of the Apostolic Fathers. [365:1] An epistle of his addressed to the Philippians, and designed to correct certain vices and errors which had been making their appearance, is still preserved. It seems to have been written towards the middle of the second century; [365:2] its style is simple; and its general tone worthy of a man who had enjoyed apostolic tuition. Its venerable author suffered martyrdom about A.D. 167, [365:3] at the advanced age of eighty-six. [365:4]
Justin Martyr was contemporary with Polycarp. He was a native of Samaria, and a Gentile by birth; he had travelled much; he possessed a well-cultivated mind; and he had made himself acquainted with the various systems of philosophy which were then current. He could derive no satisfaction from the wisdom of the pagan theorists; but, one day, as he walked, somewhat sad and pensive, near the sea shore, a casual meeting with an aged stranger led him to turn his thoughts to the Christian revelation. The individual, with whom he had this solitary and important interview, was a member and, perhaps, a minister of the Church. After pointing out to Justin the folly of mere theorising, and recommending him to study the Old Testament Scriptures, as well on account of their great antiquity as their intrinsic worth, he proceeded to expatiate on the nature and excellence of the gospel. [366:1] The impression now made upon the mind of the young student was never afterwards effaced; he became a decided Christian; and, about A.D. 165, finished his career by martyrdom.
Justin is the first writer whose contributions to ecclesiastical literature are of considerable extent. Some of the works ascribed to him are unquestionably the productions of others; but there is no reason to doubt the genuineness of his Dialogue with Trypho the Jew, and of the two Apologies addressed to the Emperors, [366:2] Though the meeting with Trypho is said to have occurred at Ephesus, it is now perhaps impossible to determine whether it ever actually took place, or whether the Dialogue is only the report of an imaginary discussion. It serves, however, to illustrate the mode of argument then adopted in the controversy between the Jews and the disciples, and throws much light upon the state of Christian theology. Antoninus Pius and Marcus Aurelius appear to have been the Emperors to whom the Apologies are addressed. In these appeals to Imperial justice the calumnies against the Christians are refuted, whilst the simplicity of their worship and the purity of their morality are impressively described.
Justin, even after his conversion, still wore the philosopher's cloak, and continued to cherish an undue regard for the wisdom of the pagan sages. His mind never was completely emancipated from the influence of a system of false metaphysics; and thus it was that, whilst his views of various doctrines of the gospel remained confused, his allusions to them are equivocal, if not contradictory. But it has been well remarked that conscience, rather than science, guided many of the fathers; and the case of Justin demonstrates the truth of the observation. He possessed an extensive knowledge of the Scriptures; and though his theological views were not so exact or so perspicuous as they might have been, had he been trained up from infancy in the Christian faith, or had he studied the controversies which subsequently arose, it is beyond doubt that his creed was substantially evangelical. He had received the truth "in the love of it," and he counted not his life dear in the service of his Divine Master.
The Epistle to Diognetus, frequently included amongst the works of Justin, is apparently the production of an earlier writer. Its author, who styles himself "a disciple of apostles," designed by it to promote the conversion of a friend; his own views of divine truth are comparatively correct and clear; and in no uninspired memorial of antiquity are the peculiar doctrines of the gospel exhibited with greater propriety and beauty. Appended also to the common editions of the works of Justin are the remains of a few somewhat later writers, namely, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Hernias. Tatian was a disciple of Justin; [367:1] Athenagoras was a learned man of Athens; Theophilus is said to have been one of the pastors of Antioch; and of Hermas nothing whatever is known. The tracts of these authors relate almost entirely to the controversy between Christianity and Paganism. Whilst they point out the folly and falsehood of the accusations so frequently preferred against the brethren, they press the gospel upon the acceptance of the Gentiles with much earnestness, and support its claims by a great variety of arguments.
The tract known as the Epistle of Barnabas was probably composed in A.D.135. [367:2] It is the production apparently of a convert from Judaism who took special pleasure in allegorical interpretations of Scripture. Hermas, the author of the little work called Pastor, or The Shepherd, is a writer of much the same character. He was, in all likelihood, the brother of Pius, [368:1] who flourished about the middle of the second century, and who was, perhaps, the first or second individual who was officially designated Bishop of Rome. The writings of Papias, said to have been pastor of Hierapolis in the time of Polycarp, are no longer extant. [368:2] The works of Hegesippus, of a somewhat later date, and treating of the subject of ecclesiastical history, have also disappeared. [368:3]
Irenaeus of Lyons is the next writer who claims our special notice. He was originally connected with Asia Minor; and in his youth he is said to have enjoyed the tuition of Polycarp of Smyrna. We cannot tell when he left his native country, or what circumstances led him to settle on the banks of the Rhone; but we know that, towards the termination of the reign of Marcus Aurelius, he was appointed by the Gallic Christians to visit the Roman Church on a mission of importance. The Celtic language, still preserved in the Gaelic or Irish, was then spoken in France, [368:4] and Irenaeus found it necessary to qualify himself for the duties of a preacher among the heathen by studying the barbarous dialect. His zeal, energy, and talent were duly appreciated; soon after the death of the aged Pothinus he became the chief pastor of Lyons; and for many years he exercised considerable influence throughout the whole of the Western Church. When the Paschal controversy created such excitement, and when Victor of Rome threatened to rend the Christian commonwealth by his impetuous and haughty bearing, Irenaeus interposed, and to some extent succeeded in moderating the violence of the Italian prelate. He was the author of several works, [369:1] but his only extant production is a treatise "Against Heresies." It is divided into five books, four of which exist only in a Latin version; [369:2] and it contains a lengthened refutation of the Valentinians and other Gnostics.
Irenaeus is commonly called the disciple of Polycarp; but it is reported that he was also under the tuition of a less intelligent preceptor, Papias of Hierapolis. [369:3] This teacher, who has been already mentioned, and who was the author of a work now lost, entitled, "The Explanations of the Discourses of the Lord," is noted as the earliest ecclesiastical writer who held the doctrine of the personal reign of Christ at Jerusalem during the millennium. "These views," says Eusebius, "he appears to have adopted in consequence of having misunderstood the apostolic narratives.... For he was a man of very slender intellect, as is evident from his discourses." [369:4] His pupil Irenaeus possessed a much superior capacity; but even his writings are not destitute of puerilities; and it is not improbable that he derived some of the errors to be found in them from his weak-minded teacher. [369:5]
Irenaeus is supposed to have died in the beginning of the third century; and, shortly before that date, by far the most vigorous and acute writer who had yet appeared among the fathers, began to attract attention. This was the celebrated TERTULLIAN. He was originally a heathen, [370:1] and he appears in early life to have been engaged in the profession of a lawyer. At that time, as afterwards, there was constant intercourse between Rome and Carthage; [370:2] Tertullian seems to have been well acquainted with both these great cities; and he had probably resided for several years in the capital of the Empire. [370:3] But most of his public life was, perhaps, spent in Carthage, the place of his birth. In the beginning of the third century clerical celibacy was beginning to be fashionable; and yet Tertullian, though a presbyter, [370:4] was married; for two of his tracts are addressed To his Wife; and it is apparent from his works that then no law of the Church prohibited ecclesiastics from entering into wedlock.
The extant productions of this writer are numerous; and, if rendered into our language, would form a very portly volume. But though several parts of them have found translators, the whole have never yet appeared in English; and, of some pieces, the most accomplished scholar would scarcely undertake to furnish at once a literal and an intelligible version. [370:5] His style is harsh, his transitions are abrupt, and his inuendos and allusions most perplexing. He must have been a man of very bilious temperament, who could scarcely distinguish a theological opponent from a personal enemy; for he pours forth upon those who differ from him whole torrents of sarcasm and invective. [371:1] His strong passion, acting upon a fervid imagination, completely overpowered his judgment; and hence he deals so largely in exaggeration, that, as to many matters of fact, we cannot safely depend upon his testimony. His tone is dictatorial and dogmatic; and, though we cannot doubt his piety, we must feel that his spirit is somewhat repulsive and ungenial. Whilst he was sadly deficient in sagacity, he was very much the creature of impulse; and thus it was that he was so superstitious, so bigoted, and so choleric. But he was, beyond question, possessed of erudition and of genius; and when he advocates a right principle, he can expound, defend, and illustrate it with great ability and eloquence.
Tertullian is commonly known as the earliest of the Latin fathers. [371:2] The writer who first attempted to supply the rulers of the world with a Christian literature in their own tongue encountered a task of much difficulty. It was no easy matter to conduct theological controversies in a language which was not remarkable for flexibility, and which had never before been employed in such discussions; and Tertullian seems to have often found it necessary to coin unwonted forms of expression, or rather to invent an ecclesiastical nomenclature. The ponderous Latin, hitherto accustomed to speak only of Jupiter and the gods, engages somewhat awkwardly in its new vocation; and yet contrives to proclaim, with wonderful power, the great thoughts for which it must now find utterance. Several years after his appearance as an author, Tertullian lapsed into Montanism--a species of heresy peculiarly attractive to a man of his rugged and austere character. Some of his works bear clear traces of this change of sentiment; but others furnish no internal evidences warranting us to pronounce decisively respecting the date of their composition. It is remarkable that though he identified himself with a party under the ban of ecclesiastical proscription, his works still continued to be held in high repute, and to be perused with avidity by those who valued themselves on their zeal for orthodoxy. It is recorded of one of the most influential of the Catholic bishops of the third century that he read a portion of them daily; and, when calling for his favourite author, he is reported to have said--"Give me the Master." [372:1]
Tertullian flourished at a period when ecclesiastical usurpation was beginning to produce some of its bitter fruits, and when religion was rapidly degenerating from its primitive purity. [372:2] His works, which treat of a great variety of topics interesting to the Christian student, throw immense light on the state of the Church in his generation. His best known production is his Apology, in which he pleads the cause of the persecuted disciples with consummate talent, and urges upon the state the equity and the wisdom of toleration. He expounds the doctrine of the Trinity more lucidly than any preceding writer; he treats of Prayer, of Repentance, and of Baptism; he takes up the controversy with the Jews; [372:3] and he assails the Valentinians and other heretics. But the way of salvation by faith seems to have been very indistinctly apprehended by him, so that he cannot be safely trusted as a theologian. He had evidently no clear conception of the place which works ought to occupy according to the scheme of the gospel; and hence he sometimes speaks as if pardon could be purchased by penance, by fasting, or by martyrdom.
Clement of Alexandria was contemporary with Tertullian. Like him, he was a Gentile by birth; but we know nothing of the circumstances connected with his conversion. In early times Alexandria was one of the great marts of literature and science; its citizens were noted for their intellectual culture; and, when a Church was formed there, learned men began to pass over to the new religion in considerable numbers. It was, in consequence, deemed expedient to establish an institute where catechumens of this class, before admission to baptism, could be instructed in the faith by some well qualified teacher. The plan of the seminary seems to have been gradually enlarged; and it soon supplied education to candidates for the ministry. Towards the close of the second century, Pantaenus, a distinguished scholar, had the charge of it; and Clement, who had been his pupil, became his successor as its president. Some of the works of this writer have perished, and his only extant productions are a discourse entitled "What rich man shall be saved?" his Address to the Greeks or Gentiles, his Paedagogue, and his Stromata. The hortatory Address is designed to win over the pagans from idolatry; the Paedagogue directs to Jesus, or the Word, as the great Teacher, and supplies converts with practical precepts for their guidance; whilst in the Stromata, or Miscellanies, we have a description of what he calls the Gnostic or perfect Christian. He here takes occasion to attack those who, in his estimation, were improperly designated Gnostics, such as Basilides, Valentine, Marcion, and others.
Clement, as is apparent from his writings, was extensively acquainted with profane literature. But he formed quite too high an estimate of the value of the heathen philosophy, whilst he allegorized Scripture in a way as dangerous as it was absurd. By the serpent which deceived Eve, according to Clement, "pleasure, an earthly vice which creeps upon the belly, is allegorically represented." [374:1] Moses, speaking allegorically, if we may believe this writer, called the Divine Wisdom the tree of life planted in paradise; by which paradise we may understand the world, in which all the works of creation were called into being. [374:2] He even interprets the ten commandments allegorically. Thus, by adultery, he understands a departure from the true knowledge of the Most High, and by murder, a violation of the truth respecting God and His eternal existence. [374:3] It is easy to see how Scripture, by such a system of interpretation, might be tortured into a witness for any extravagance.
In the early part of the third century Hippolytus of Portus exerted much influence by his writings. It was long believed that, with the exception of some fragments and a few tracts of little consequence, the works of this father had ceased to exist; but, as stated in a preceding chapter, [374:4] one of his most important publications, the "Philosophumena, or Refutation of all Heresies," has been recently recovered. The re-appearance of this production after so many centuries of oblivion is an extraordinary fact; and its testimony relative to historical transactions of deep interest connected with the early Church of Rome, has created quite a sensation among the students of ecclesiastical literature.
Hippolytus was the disciple of Irenaeus, and one of the soundest theologians of his generation. His works, which are written in Greek, illustrate his learning, his acuteness, and his eloquence. His views on some matters of ecclesiastical discipline were, indeed, too rigid; and, by a writer of the fifth century, [375:1] he has been described as an abettor of Novatianism; but his zeal and piety are universally admitted. He is said to have lost his life in the cause of Christianity; and though he attests the heretical teaching of two of her chief pastors, the Church of Rome still honours him as a saint and a martyr.
Minucius Felix was the contemporary of Hippolytus. He was a Roman lawyer, and a convert from paganism. In his Dialogue, entitled "Octavius," the respective merits of Christianity and heathenism are discussed with much vivacity. In point of style this little work is surpassed by none of the ecclesiastical writings of the period.
Another and a still more distinguished author, contemporary with Hippolytus, was ORIGEN. He was born at Alexandria about A.D. 185; his father Leonides, who was a teacher of rhetoric, was a member of the Church; and his son enjoyed the advantages of an excellent elementary education. Origen, when very young, was required daily to commit prescribed portions of the Word of God to memory; and the child soon became intensely interested in the study of the sacred oracles. The questions which he proposed to his father, as he repeated his appointed tasks, displayed singular precocity of intellect; and Leonides rejoiced exceedingly as he observed from time to time the growing indications of his extraordinary genius. But, before Origen reached maturity, his good parent fell a victim to the intolerance of the imperial laws. In the persecution under Septimius Severus, when the young scholar was about seventeen years of age, Leonides was put into confinement, and then beheaded. He had a wife and seven children who were likely to be left destitute by his death; but Origen, who was his first born, afraid lest his constancy should be overcome by the prospect of a beggared family, wrote a letter to him when he was in prison to encourage him to martyrdom. "Stand steadfast, father," said the ardent youth, "and take care not to desert your principles on our account." At this crisis he would have exposed himself to martyrdom, had not his mother hid his clothes, and thus prevented him from appearing in public.
When Leonides was put to death his property was confiscated, and his family reduced to poverty. But Origen now attracted the notice of a rich and noble lady of Alexandria, who received him into her house, and became his patron. He did not, however, remain long under her roof; as he was soon able to earn a maintenance by teaching. He continued, meanwhile, to apply himself with amazing industry to the acquisition of knowledge; and at length he began to be regarded as one of the most learned of the Christians. So great was his celebrity as a divine that, more than once during his life, whole synods of foreign bishops solicited his advice and interference in the settlement of theological controversies.
Whilst Origen, by intense study, was constantly adding to his intellectual treasures, he also improved his mind by travelling. When about twenty-six years of age he made a journey to Rome; and he subsequently visited Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor, and Greece. As he passed through Palestine in A.D. 228, when he was in the forty-third year of his age, he was ordained a presbyter by some of the bishops of that country. He was now teacher of the catechetical school of Alexandria--an office in which he had succeeded Clement--and his ordination by the foreign pastors gave great offence to Demetrius, his own bishop. It has been said that this haughty churchman was galled by the superior reputation of the great scholar; and Origen, on his return to Egypt, was exposed to an ecclesiastical persecution. An indiscreet act of his youth was now converted into a formidable accusation, [377:1] whilst some incautious speculations in which he had indulged were urged as evidences of his unsoundness in the faith. His ordination was pronounced invalid; he was deprived of his appointment as president of the catechetical school; and he was excommunicated as a heretic. He now retired to Caesarea, where he appears to have spent the greater portion of the remainder of his life. The sentence of excommunication was announced by Demetrius to the Churches abroad; but though it was approved at Rome and elsewhere, it was not recognised in Palestine, Phoenice, Arabia, and Achaia. At Caesarea, Origen established a theological seminary such as that over which he had so long presided at Alexandria; and, in this institute, some of the most eminent pastors of the third century received their education.
This great man throughout life practised extraordinary self-denial. His clothing was scarcely sufficient to protect him from the cold; he slept on the ground; he confined himself to the simplest fare; and for years he persisted in going barefoot. [377:2] But his austerities did not prevent him from acquiring a world-wide reputation. Pagan philosophers attended his lectures, and persons of the highest distinction sought his society. When Julia Mammaea, the mother of Alexander Severus, invited him to visit her, and when, in compliance with this summons, he proceeded to Antioch [377:3] escorted by a military guard, he must have been an object of no little curiosity to the Imperial courtiers. It could now no longer be said that the Christians were an illiterate generation; as, in all that brilliant throng surrounding the throne of the Master of the Roman world, there was not, perhaps, one to be compared, with the poor catechist of Alexandria for varied and profound scholarship. But his theological taste was sadly vitiated by his study of the pagan philosophy. Clement, his early instructor, led him to entertain far too high an opinion of its excellence; and a subsequent teacher, Ammonius Saccas, the father of New Platonism, thoroughly imbued his mind with many of his own dangerous principles. According to Ammonius all systems of religion and philosophy contain the elements of truth; and it is the duty of the wise man to trace out and exhibit their harmony. The doctrines of Plato formed the basis of his creed, and it required no little ingenuity, to shew how all other theories quadrated with the speculations of the Athenian sage. To establish his views, he was obliged to draw much on his imagination, and to adopt modes of exegesis the most extravagant and unwarrantable. The philosophy of Ammonius exerted a very pernicious influence upon Origen, and seduced him into not a few of those errors which have contributed so greatly to lower his repute as a theologian.
Origen was a most prolific author; and, if all his works were still extant, they would be far more voluminous than those of any other of the fathers. But most of his writings have been lost; and, in not a few instances, those which remain have reached us either in a very mutilated form, or in a garbled Latin version. His treatise "Against Celsus," which was composed when he was advanced in life, and which is by far the most valuable of his existing works, has come down to us in a more perfect state than, perhaps, any of his other productions. It is a defence of Christianity in reply to the publication of a witty heathen philosopher who wrote against it in the time of the Antonines. [378:1] Of his celebrated "Hexapla," to which he is said to have devoted much of his time for eight and twenty years, only some fragments have been preserved. This great work appears to have been undertaken to meet the cavils of the Jews against the Septuagint--the Greek translation of the Old Testament in current use in the days of the apostles, and still most appreciated by the Christians. The unbelieving Israelites now pronounced it a corrupt version; and, that all might have an opportunity of judging for themselves, Origen exhibited the text in six consecutive columns--the first, containing the original Hebrew--the second, the same in Greek letters--and the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth, four of the most famous of the Greek translations, including the Septuagint. [379:1] The labour employed in the collation of manuscripts, when preparing this work, was truly prodigious. The expense, which must also have been great, is said to have been defrayed by Ambrosius, a wealthy Christian friend, who placed at the disposal of the editor the constant services of seven amanuenses. By his "Hexapla" Origen did much to preserve the purity of the sacred text, and he may be said to have thus laid the foundations of the science of Scripture criticism.
This learned writer cannot be trusted as an interpreter of the inspired oracles. Like the Jewish Cabbalists, of whom Philo, whose works he had diligently studied, [379:2] is a remarkable specimen, he neglects the literal sense of the Word, and betakes himself to mystical expositions. [379:3] In this way the divine record may be made to support any crotchet which happens to please the fancy of the commentator. Origen may, in fact, be regarded as the father of Christian mysticism; and, in after-ages, to a certain class of visionaries, especially amongst the monks, his writings long continued to present peculiar attractions.
On doctrinal points his statements are not always consistent, so that it is extremely difficult to form anything like a correct idea of his theological sentiments. Thus, on the subject of the Trinity, he sometimes speaks most distinctly in the language of orthodoxy, whilst again he employs phraseology which rather savours of the creed of Sabellius or of Arius. In his attempts to reconcile the gospel and his philosophy, he miserably compromised some of the most important truths of Scripture. The fall of man seems to be not unfrequently repudiated in his religious system; and yet, occasionally, it is distinctly recognized. [380:1] He maintained the pre-existence of human souls; he held that the stars are animated beings; he taught that all men shall ultimately attain happiness; and he believed that the devils themselves shall eventually be saved. [380:2] It is abundantly clear that Origen was a man of true piety. His whole life illustrates his self-denial, his single-mindedness, his delight in the Word of God, and his zeal for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ. In the Decian persecution he suffered nobly as a confessor; and the torture which he then endured seems to have hastened his demise. But with all his learning he was obviously deficient in practical sagacity; and though both his genius and his eloquence were of a high order, he possessed scarcely even an average share of prudence and common sense. His writings diffused, not the genial light of the Sun of Righteousness, but the mist and darkness of a Platonized Christianity. Though he induced many philosophers to become members of the Church, the value of these accessions was greatly deteriorated by the daring spirit of speculation which they were still encouraged to cultivate. Of his Christian courage, his industry, and his invincible perseverance, there can be no doubt. He closed a most laborious career at Tyre, A.D. 254, in the seventieth year of his age.
About the time of the death of Origen, a Latin author, whose writings are still perused with interest, was beginning to attract much notice. CYPRIAN of Carthage, before his conversion to Christianity, was a professor of rhetoric and a gentleman of property. When he renounced heathenism, he is supposed to have reached the mature age of forty-five or forty-six; and as he possessed rank, talent, and popular eloquence, he was deemed no ordinary acquisition to the Church. About two years after his baptism, the chief pastor of the metropolis of the Proconsular Africa was removed by death; and Cyprian, by the acclamations of the Christian people, was called to the vacant office. At that time there seem to have been only eight presbyters, [381:1] or elders, connected with the bishopric of Carthage; but the city contained probably some hundreds of thousands of a population; and, though the episcopal dignity was not without its perils, it did not want the attractions of wealth and influence. The advancement of Cyprian gave great offence to the other elders, who appear to have conceived that one of themselves, on the ground of greater experience and more lengthened services, had a better title to promotion. Though the new bishop was sustained by the enthusiastic support of the multitude, the presbytery contrived, notwithstanding, to give him considerable annoyance. Five of them, constituting a majority, formed themselves into a regular opposition; and for several years the Carthaginian Church was distracted by the struggles between the bishop and his eldership.
The pastorate of Cyprian extended over a period of about ten years; but meanwhile persecution raged, and the bishop was obliged to spend nearly the one-third of his episcopal life in retirement and in exile. From his retreat he kept up a communication by letters with his flock. [382:1] The worship and constitution of the Church about the middle of the third century may be ascertained pretty clearly from the Cyprianic correspondence. Some of the letters addressed to the Carthaginian bishop, as well as those dictated by him, are still extant; and as he maintained an epistolary intercourse with Rome, Cappadocia, and other places, the documents known as the Cyprianic writings, [382:2] are amongst the most important of the ancient ecclesiastical memorials. This eminent pastor has also left behind him several short treatises on topics which were then attracting public attention. Among these may be mentioned his tracts on "The Unity of the Church," "The Lord's Prayer," "The Vanity of Idols," "The Grace of God," "The Dress of Virgins," and "The Benefit of Patience."
The writings of Cyprian have long been noted for their orthodoxy; and yet it must be admitted that his hierarchical prejudices stunted his charity and obscured his intellectual vision. Tertullian was his favourite author; and it is evident that he possessed much of the contracted spirit and of the stiff formalism of the great Carthaginian presbyter. He speaks in more exalted terms of the authority of bishops than any preceding writer. It is not improbable that the attempts of his discontented elders to curb his power inflamed his old aristocratic hauteur, and thus led to a reaction; and that, supported by the popular voice, he was tempted absurdly to magnify his office, and to stretch his prerogative beyond the bounds of its legitimate exercise. His name carried with it great influence, and from his time episcopal pretensions advanced apace.
Cyprian was martyred about A.D. 258 in the Valerian persecution. As he was a man of rank, and perhaps personally related to some of the imperial officers at Carthage, he seems to have been treated, when a prisoner, with unusual respect and indulgence. On the evening before his death an elegant supper was provided for him, and he was permitted to enjoy the society of a numerous party of his friends. When he reached the spot where he was to suffer, he was subjected to no lingering torments; for his head was severed from his body by a single stroke of the executioner. [383:1]
The only other writer of note who flourished after Cyprian, in the third century, [383:2] was Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, or The Wonder-Worker. He belonged to a pagan family of distinction; and, when a youth, was intended for the profession of the law; but, becoming acquainted with Origen at Caesarea in Palestine, he was induced to embrace the Christian faith, and relinquish flattering prospects of secular promotion. He became subsequently the bishop of Neo-Caesarea in Pontus. When he entered on his charge he is said to have had a congregation of only seventeen individuals; but his ministry must have been singularly successful; for, according to tradition, all the inhabitants of the city, with seventeen exceptions, were, at the time of his death, members of the Church. The reports respecting him are obviously exaggerated, and no credit can be attached to the narrative of his miracles. [384:1] He wrote several works, of which his "Panegyric on Origen," and his "Paraphrase on Ecclesiastes," are still extant. The genuineness of some other tracts ascribed to him may be fairly challenged.
The preceding account of the fathers of the second and third centuries may enable us to form some idea of the value of these writers as ecclesiastical authorities. Most of them had reached maturity before they embraced the faith of the gospel, so that, with a few exceptions, they wanted the advantages of an early Christian education. Some of them, before their conversion, had bestowed much time and attention on the barren speculations of the pagan philosophers; and, after their reception into the bosom of the Church, they still continued to pursue the same unprofitable studies. Cyprian, one of the most eloquent of these fathers, had been baptized only about two years before he was elected bishop of Carthage; and, during his comparatively short episcopate, he was generally in a turmoil of excitement, and had, consequently, little leisure for reading or mental cultivation. Such a writer is not entitled to command confidence as an expositor of the faith once delivered to the saints. Even in our own day, with all the facilities supplied by printing for the rapid accumulation of knowledge, no one would expect much spiritual instruction from an author who would undertake the office of an interpreter of Scripture two years after his conversion from heathenism. The fathers of the second and third centuries were not regarded as safe guides even by their Christian contemporaries. Tatian was the founder of a sect of extreme Teetotallers. [383:1] Tertullian, who, in point of learning, vigour, and genius, stands at the head of the Latin writers of this period, was connected with a party of gloomy fanatics. Origen, the most voluminous and erudite of the Greek fathers, was excommunicated as a heretic. If we estimate these authors, as they were appreciated by the early Church of Rome, we must pronounce their writings of little value. Tertullian, as a Montanist, was under the ban of the Roman bishop. Hippolytus could not have been a favourite with either Zephyrinus or Callistus, for he denounced both as heretics. Origen was treated by the Roman Church as a man under sentence of excommunication. Stephen deemed even Cyprian unworthy of his ecclesiastical fellowship, because the Carthaginian prelate maintained the propriety of rebaptizing heretics.
Nothing can be more unsatisfactory, or rather childish, than the explanations of Holy Writ sometimes given by these ancient expositors. According to Tertullian, the two sparrows mentioned in the New Testament [383:2] signify the soul and the body; [383:3] and Clemens Alexandrinus gravely pleads for marriage [383:4] from the promise-"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them." [383:5] Cyprian produces, as an argument in support of the doctrine of the Trinity, that the Jews observed "the third, sixth, and ninth hours" as their "fixed and lawful seasons for prayer." [383:6] Origen represents the heavenly bodies as literally engaged in acts of devotion. [386:1] If these authorities are to be credited, the Gihon, one of the rivers of Paradise, was no other than the Nile. [386:2] Very few of the fathers of this period were acquainted with Hebrew, so that, as a class, they were miserably qualified for the interpretation of the Scriptures. Even Origen himself must have had a very imperfect knowledge of the language of the Old Testament. [386:3] In consequence of their literary deficiencies, the fathers of the second and third centuries occasionally commit the most ridiculous blunders. Thus, Irenaeus tells us that the name Jesus in Hebrew consists of two letters and a half, and describes it as signifying "that Lord who contains heaven and earth!" [386:4] This father asserts also that the Hebrew word Adonai, or the Lord, denotes "utterable and wonderful." [386:5] Clemens Alexandrinus is not more successful as an interpreter of the sacred tongue of the chosen people; for he asserts that Jacob was called Israel "because he had seen the Lord God," [386:6] and he avers that Abraham means "the elect father of a sound!" [386:7] Justin Martyr errs egregiously in his references to the Old Testament; as he cites Isaiah for Jeremiah, [386:8] Zechariah for Malachi, [386:9] Zephaniah for Zechariah, [386:10] and Jeremiah for Daniel. [386:11] Irenaeus repeats, as an apostolic tradition, that when our Lord acted as a public teacher He was between forty and fifty years of age; [387:1] and Tertullian affirms that He was about thirty years of age at the time of His crucifixion. [387:2] The opinion of this same writer in reference to angels is still more extraordinary. He maintains that some of these beings, captivated by the beauty of the daughters of men, came down from heaven and married them; and that, out of complaisance to their brides, they communicated to them the arts of polishing and setting precious stones, of preparing cosmetics, and of using other appliances which minister to female vanity. [387:3] His ideas upon topics of a different character are equally singular. Thus, he affirms that the soul is corporeal, having length, breadth, height, and figure. [387:4] He even goes so far as to say that there is no substance which is not corporeal, and that God himself is a body. [387:5]
It would seem as if the Great Head of the Church permitted these early writers to commit the grossest mistakes, and to propound the most foolish theories, for the express purpose of teaching us that we are not implicitly to follow their guidance. It might have been thought that authors, who flourished on the borders of apostolic times, knew more of the mind of the Spirit than others who appeared in succeeding ages; but the truths of Scripture, like the phenomena of the visible creation, are equally intelligible to all generations. If we possess spiritual discernment, the trees and the flowers will display the wisdom and the goodness of God as distinctly to us as they did to our first parents; and, if we have the "unction from the Holy One," we may enter into the meaning of the Scriptures as fully as did Justin Martyr or Irenaeus. To assist us in the interpretation of the New Testament, we have at command a critical apparatus of which they were unable to avail themselves. Jehovah is jealous of the honour of His Word, and He has inscribed in letters of light over the labours of its most ancient interpreters-- "CEASE YE FROM MAN." The "opening of the Scriptures," so as to exhibit their beauty, their consistency, their purity, their wisdom, and their power, is the clearest proof that the commentator is possessed of "the key of knowledge." When tried by this test, Thomas Scott or Matthew Henry is better entitled to confidence than either Origen or Gregory Thaumaturgus. The Bible is its own safest expositor. "The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple."