HISTORY
of the
CHRISTIAN CHURCH Schaff, Philip, History of the Christian Church, (Oak
Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.) 1997. This material has been
carefully compared, corrected, and emended (according to the
1910 edition of Charles Scribner's Sons) by The Electronic Bible
Society, Dallas, TX, 1998.
by
PHILIP SCHAFF
Christianus sum. Christiani nihil a me alienum puto
VOLUME II
ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIAINITY
a.d. 100–325.
PREFACE TO THE THIRD EDITION REVISED
A few months after the appearance of the revised edition of this volume, Dr. Bryennios, the learned Metropolitan of Nicomedia, surprised the world by the publication of the now famous Didache, which he had discovered in the Jerusalem Monastery of the Most Holy Sepulchre at Constantinople. This led me, in justice to myself and to my readers, to write an independent supplement under the title: The Oldest Church Manual, called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, etc., which is now passing through the press.
At the same time I have taken advantage of a new issue of this History, without increasing the size and the price, to make in the plates all the necessary references to the Didache where it sheds new light on the post-apostolic age (especially on pages 140, 184, 185, 202, 226, 236, 239, 241, 247, 249, 379, 640).
I have also brought the literature up to date, and corrected a few printing errors, so that this issue may be called a revised edition. A learned and fastidious German critic and professional church historian has pronounced this work to be far in advance of any German work in the fullness of its digest of the discoveries and researches of the last thirty years. ("Theolog. Literatur-Zeitung," for March 22, 1884.) But the Bryennios discovery, and the extensive literature which it has called forth, remind me of the imperfect character of historical books in an age of such rapid progress as ours.
New York, April 22, 1885.
FIFTH EDITION
The fourth edition (1886) was a reprint of the third, with a few slight improvements. In this fifth edition I have made numerous additions to the literature, and adapted the text throughout to the present stage of research, which continues to be very active and fruitful in the Ante-Nicene period.
Several topics connected with the catechetical instruction, organization, and ritual (baptism and eucharist) of the early Church are more fully treated in my supplementary monograph, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or The Oldest Church Manual, which first appeared in June, 1885, and in a third edition, revised and enlarged, January, 1889, (325 pages).
New York, July, 1889.
PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
This second volume contains the history of Christianity from the end of the Apostolic age to the beginning of the Nicene.
The first edict of Toleration, A. D. 311, made an
end of persecution; the second Edict of Toleration, 311 (there is no
third), prepared the way for legal recognition and protection; the
Nicene Council, 325, marks the solemn inauguration of the imperial
state-church. Constantine, like
We live in an age of discovery and research, similar to that which preceded the Reformation. The beginnings of Christianity are now absorbing the attention of scholars.
During the present generation early church history has been vastly enriched by new sources of information, and almost revolutionized by independent criticism. Among the recent literary discoveries and publications the following deserve special mention:
The Syriac
In view of these discoveries we would not be
surprised if the Exposition of the Lord’s Oracles by Papias, which was still in existence at Nismes in 1215,
the Memorials of Hegesippus, and the whole Greek
original of
In connection with these fresh sources there has
been a corresponding activity on the part of scholars. The Germans have
done and are doing an astonishing amount of Quellenforschung and Quellenkritik in numerous monographs and
periodicals, and have given us the newest and best critical editions of
the Apostolic Fathers and Apologists. The English with their strong
common sense, judicial calmness, and conservative tact are fast
wheeling into the line of progress, as is evident from the collective
works on Christian Antiquities, and the Christian Biography, and from
Bp. Lightfoot’s Clementine Epistles, which are soon to
be followed by his edition of the Ignatian Epistles. To the brilliant
French genius and learning of Mr. Renan we owe a graphic picture of the
secular surroundings of early Christianity down to the time of
The importance of these literary discoveries and
investigations should not blind us to the almost equally important
monumental discoveries and researches of Cavalier de Rossi, Garrucci,
and other Italian scholars who have illuminated the subterranean
mysteries of the church of Rome and of Christian art. Neander,
Gieseler, and Baur, the greatest church historians of the nineteenth
century, are as silent about the catacombs as Mosheim and Gibbon were
in the eighteenth. But who could now write a history of the first three
centuries without recording the lessons of those rude yet expressive
pictures, sculptures, and epitaphs from the homes of confessors and
martyrs? Nor should we overlook the gain which has come to us from the
study of monumental inscriptions, as for instance in rectifying the
date of
Before long there will be great need of an historic architect who will construct a beautiful and comfortable building out of the vast material thus brought to light. The Germans are historic miners, the French and English are skilled manufacturers; the former understand and cultivate the science of history, the latter excel in the art of historiography. A master of both would be the ideal historian. But God has wisely distributed his gifts, and made individuals and nations depend upon and supplement each other.
The present volume is an entire reconstruction of the corresponding part of the first edition (vol. I p. 144–528), which appeared twenty-five years ago. It is more than double in size. Some chapters (e.g. VI. VII. IX.) and several sections (e.g. 90–93, 103, 155–157, 168, 171, 184, 189, 190, 193, 198–204, etc.) are new, and the rest has been improved and enlarged, especially the last chapter on the literature of the church. My endeavor has been to bring the book up to the present advanced state of knowledge, to record every important work (German, French, English, and American) which has come under my notice, and to make the results of the best scholarship of the age available and useful to the rising generation.
In conclusion, I may be permitted to express my thanks for the kind reception which has been accorded to this revised edition of the work of my youth. It will stimulate me to new energy in carrying it forward as far as God may give time and strength. The third volume needs no reconstruction, and a new edition of the same with a few improvements will be issued without delay.
Union Theological Seminary,
October, 1883.
Illustrations from the Catacombs.
Alphabetical Index.
SECOND PERIOD
ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIANITY
or,
THE AGE OF PERSECUTION AND MARTYRDOM
from the
DEATH OF JOHN TO CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
a.d. 100–325.
"The blood of martyrs is the seed of the church"
SECOND PERIOD
ANTE-NICENE CHRISTIANITY
or,
THE AGE OF PERSECUTION AND MARTYRDOM
from the
DEATH OF JOHN TO CONSTANTINE THE GREAT
a.d. 100–325.
§ 1. Literature on the Ante-Nicene Age
I. Sources
1. The writings of the Apostolic Fathers, the
Apologists, and all the ecclesiastical authors of the 2nd and 3rd, and
to some extent of the 4th and 5th centuries; particularly
2. The writings of the numerous heretics, mostly extant only in fragments.
3. The works of the pagan opponents of Christianity, as Celsus, Lucian, Porphyry, Julian the Apostate.
4. The occasional notices of Christianity, in the contemporary classical authors, Tacitus, Suetonius, the younger Pliny, Dion Cassius.
II. Collections of Sources, (besides those included in the comprehensive Patristic Libraries):
Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn: Patrum Apostolicorum Opera. Lips., 1876; second ed. 1878 sqq.
Fr. Xav. Funk (R.C.): Opera Patrum Apost. Tübing., 1878, 1881, 1887, 2 vols. The last edition includes the Didache.
I. C. Th. Otto: Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum saeculi secundi. Jenae, 1841 sqq., in 9 vols.; 2nd ed. 1847–1861; 3rd ed. 1876 sqq. ("plurimum aucta et emendata").
Roberts And Donaldson: Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edinburgh (T.& T. Clark), 1868–’72, 25 volumes. American edition, chronologically arranged and enlarged by Bishop A. C. Coxe, D. D., with a valuable Bibliographical Synopsis by E. C. Richardson. New York (Christian Literature Company), 1885–’87, 9 large vols.
The fragments of the earliest Christian writers, whose works are lost, may be found collected in Grabe: Spicilegium Patrum ut et Haereticorum Saeculi I. II. et III. (Oxon. 1700; new ed. Oxf. 1714, 3 vols.); in Routh: Reliquiae Sacrae, sive auctorum fere jam perditorum secundi, tertiique saeculi fragmenta quae supersunt (Oxon. 1814 sqq. 4 vols.; 2nd ed. enlarged, 5 vols. Oxf. 1846–48); and in Dom. I. B. Pitra (O. S. B., a French Cardinal since 1863): Spicilegium Solesmense, complectens sanctorum patrum scriptorumque eccles. anecdota hactenus opera, selecta e Graecis, Orientialibus et Latinis codicibus (Paris, 1852–’60, 5 vols.). Comp. also Bunsen: Christianity and Mankind, etc. Lond. 1854, vols. V., VI. and VII., which contain the Analecta Ante-Nicaena (reliquicae literariae, canonicae, liturgicae).
The haereseological writings of Epiphanius,
Philastrius, Pseudo-
The Jewish and Heathen Testimonies are collected by N. Lardner, 1764, new ed. by Kippis, Lond. 1838.
III. Histories.
1. Ancient Historians.
Hegesippus (a Jewish Christian of the middle of the
second century): Ὑπομνήματα
τῶν
ἐκκλησιαστικῶν
πράξεων (quoted under the title πέντε
ὑπομνήματα
and πέντε
συγγράμματα). These ecclesiastical Memorials
are only preserved in fragments (on the martyrdom of James of
Jerusalem, the rise of heresies, etc.) in
*
The other historical writings of
Whatever may be said of the defects of
2. Modern Historians.
William Cave, (died 1713): Primitive Christianity. Lond. 4th ed. 1682, in 3 parts. The same: Lives of the most eminent Fathers of the Church that flourished in the first four centuries, 1677–’83, 2 vols.; revised by ed. H. Carey, Oxford, 1840, in 3 vols. Comp. also Cave’s Scriptorum ecclesiasticorum historia literaria, a Christo nato usque ad saeculum XIV; best ed. Oxford 1740–’43, 2 vols. fol.
*J. L. Mosheim: Commentarii de rebus Christianis ante Constantinum M. Helmst. 1753. The same in English by Vidal, 1813 sqq., 3 vols., and by Murdock, New Haven, 1852, 2 vols.
*Edward Gibbon: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. London, 1776–’88, 6 vols.; best edd. by Milman, with his own, Guizot’s and Wenck’s notes, and by William Smith, including the notes of Milman, etc. Reprinted, London, 1872, 8 vols., New York, Harpers, 1880, in 6 vols. In Chs. 15 and 16, and throughout his great work, Gibbon dwells on the outside, and on the defects rather than the virtues of ecclesiastical Christianity, without entering into the heart of spiritual Christianity which continued beating through all ages; but for fullness and general accuracy of information and artistic representation his work is still unsurpassed.
H. G. Tzschirner: Der Fall des Heidenthums. Leipz. 1829.
Edw. Burton: Lectures upon the Ecclesiastical History of the first three Centuries. Oxf. 1833, in 3 parts (in 1 vol. 1845). He made also collections of the ante-Nicene testimonies to the Divinity of Christ, and the Holy Spirit.
Henry H. Milman: The History of Christianity from the Birth of Christ to the Abolition of Paganism in the Roman Empire. Lond. 1840. 3 vols.; 2nd ed. 1866. Comp. also the first book of his History of Latin Christianity, 2d ed. London and New York, 1860, in 8 vols.
John Kaye (Bishop of Lincoln, d. 1853).
Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third Centuries, illustrated
from the writinqs of
F. D. Maurice: Lectures on the Eccles. Hist. of the First and Second Cent. Cambr. 1854.
*A. Ritschl: Die Entstehung der alt-katholischen Kirche. Bonn, 1850; 2nd ed. 1857. The second edition is partly reconstructed and more positive.
*E. de Pressensé (French Protestant): Histoire de trois premiers siècles de l’église chrétienne. Par. 1858 sqq. The same in German trans. by E. Fabarius. Leipz. 1862–’63, 4 vols. English transl. by Annie Harwood Holmden, under the title: The Early Years of Christianity. A Comprehensive History of the First Three Centuries of the Christian Church, 4 vols. Vol. I. The Apost. Age; vol. II. Martyrs and Apologists; vol. III. Heresy and Christian Doctrine; vol. IV. Christian Life and Practice. London (Hodder & Stoughton), 1870 sqq., cheaper ed., 1879. Revised edition of the original, Paris, 1887 sqq.
W. D. Killen (Presbyterian): The Ancient Church traced for the first three centuries. Edinb. and New York, 1859. New ed. N. Y., 1883.
Ambrose Manahan (R. Cath.): Triumph of the Catholic Church in the Early Ages. New York, 1859.
Alvan Lamson (Unitarian): The Church of the First Three Centuries, with special reference to the doctrine of the Trinity; illustrating its late origin and gradual formation. Boston, 1860.
Milo Mahan (Episcopalian): A Church History of the First Three centuries. N. York, 1860. Second ed., 1878 (enlarged).
J. J. Blunt: History of the Christian Church during the first three centuries. London, 1861.
Jos. Schwane (R.C.): Dogmengeschichte der vornicänischen Zeit. Münster, 1862.
Th. W. Mossman: History of the Cath. Church of J. Christ from the death of John to the middle of the second century. Lond. 1873.
*Ernest Renan: L’ Histoire des origines du Christianisme. Paris, 1863–1882, 7 vols. The last two vols., I’ église Chrétienne, 1879, and Marc Aurèle, 1882, belong to this period. Learned, critical, and brilliant, but thoroughly secular, and skeptical.
*Gerhard Uhlhorn: Der Kampf des Christenthums mit dem Heidenthum. 3d improved ed. Stuttgart, 1879. English transl. by Profs. Egbert C. Smyth and C. J. H. Ropes: The Conflict of Christianity, etc. N. York, 1879. An admirable translation of a graphic and inspiring, account of the heroic conflict of Christianity with heathen Rome.
*Theod. Keim, (d. 1879): Rom und das Christenthum. Ed. from the author’s MSS. by H. Ziegler. Berlin, 1881. (667 pages).
Chr. Wordsworth (Bishop of Lincoln): A Church History to the Council of Nicea, a.d. 325. Lond. and N. York, 1881. Anglo-Catholic.
A. Plummer: The Church of the Early Fathers, London, 1887.
Of the general works on Church History, those of Baronius, Tillemont (R.C.), Schröckh, Gieseler, Neander, and Baur. (the third revised ed. of vol. 1st, Tüb. 1853, pp. 175–527; the same also transl. into English) should be noticed throughout on this period; but all these books are partly superseded by more recent discoveries and discussions of special points, which will be noticed in the respective sections.
§ 2. General Character of Ante-Nicene Christianity.
We now descend from the primitive apostolic church to the Graeco-Roman; from the scene of creation to the work of preservation; from the fountain of divine revelation to the stream of human development; from the inspirations of the apostles and prophets to the productions of enlightened but fallible teachers. The hand of God has drawn a bold line of demarcation between the century of miracles and the succeeding ages, to show, by the abrupt transition and the striking contrast, the difference between the work of God and the work of man, and to impress us the more deeply with the supernatural origin of Christianity and the incomparable value of the New Testament. There is no other transition in history so radical and sudden, and yet so silent and secret. The stream of divine life in its passage from the mountain of inspiration to the valley of tradition is for a short time lost to our view, and seems to run under ground. Hence the close of the first and the beginning of the second centuries, or the age of the Apostolic Fathers is often regarded as a period for critical conjecture and doctrinal and ecclesiastical controversy rather than for historical narration.
Still, notwithstanding the striking difference, the church of the second and third centuries is a legitimate continuation of that of the primitive age. While far inferior in originality, purity, energy, and freshness, it is distinguished for conscientious fidelity in preserving and propagating the sacred writings and traditions of the apostles, and for untiring zeal in imitating their holy lives amidst the greatest difficulties and dangers, when the religion of Christ was prohibited by law and the profession of it punished as a political crime.
The second period, from the death of the apostle
John to the end of the persecutions, or to the accession of
Constantine, the first Christian emperor, is the classic age of the
ecclesia pressa, of heathen persecution, and of Christian martyrdom and
heroism, of cheerful sacrifice of possessions and life itself for the
inheritance of heaven. It furnishes a continuous commentary on the
Saviour’s words: "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in
the midst of wolves; I came not to send peace on earth, but a sword." r.
4:10;
But equally sublime and significant are the intellectual and spiritual victories of the church in this period over the science and art of heathenism, and over the assaults of Gnostic and Ebionitic heresy, with the copious vindication and development of the Christian truth, which the great mental conflict with those open and secret enemies called forth.
The church of this period appears poor in earthly
possessions and honors, but rich in heavenly grace, in world-conquering
faith, love, and hope; unpopular, even outlawed, hated, and persecuted,
yet far more vigorous and expansive than the philosophies of Greece or
the empire of Rome; composed chiefly of persons of the lower social
ranks, yet attracting the noblest and deepest minds of the age, and
bearing, in her bosom the hope of the world; "as unknown, yet
well-known, as dying, and behold it lives;" conquering by apparent
defeat, and growing on the blood of her martyrs; great in deeds,
greater in sufferings, greatest in death for the honor of Christ and
the benefit of generations to come. Isaac Taylor, in his Ancient Christianity of the early church challenge our respect, as well as affection; for theirs was the fervor of a
steady faith in things unseen and eternal; theirs, often, a meek
patience under the most grievous wrongs; theirs the courage to maintain
a good profession before the frowning face of philosophy, of secular
tyranny, and of splendid superstition; theirs was abstractedness from
the world and a painful self-denial; theirs the most arduous and costly
labors of love; theirs a munificence in charity, altogether without
example; theirs was a reverent and scrupulous care of the sacred
writings; and this one merit, if they had no other, is of a superlative
degree, and should entitle them to the veneration and grateful regards
of the modern church. How little do many readers of the Bible,
nowadays, think of what it cost the Christians of the second and third
centuries, merely to rescue and hide the sacred treasures from the rage
of the heathen!"
The condition and manners of the Christians in
this age are most beautifully described by the unknown author of the
"Epistola ad Diognetum" in the early part of the second century.
The community of Christians thus from the first felt itself, in distinction from Judaism and from heathenism, the salt of the earth, the light of the world, the city of God set on a hill, the immortal soul in a dying body; and this its impression respecting itself was no proud conceit, but truth and reality, acting in life and in death, and opening the way through hatred and persecution even to an outward victory over the world.
The ante-Nicene age has been ever since the Reformation a battle-field between Catholic and Evangelical historians and polemics, and is claimed by both for their respective creeds. But it is a sectarian abuse of history to identify the Christianity of this martyr period either with Catholicism, or with Protestantism. It is rather the common root out of which both have sprung, Catholicism (Greek and Roman) first, and Protestantism afterwards. It is the natural transition from the apostolic age to the Nicene age, yet leaving behind many important truths of the former (especially the Pauline doctrines) which were to be derived and explored in future ages. We can trace in it the elementary forms of the Catholic creed, organization and worship, and also the germs of nearly all the corruptions of Greek and Roman Christianity.
In its relation to the secular power, the ante-Nicene church is simply the continuation of the apostolic period, and has nothing in common either with the hierarchical, or with the Erastian systems. It was not opposed to the secular government in its proper sphere, but the secular heathenism of the government was opposed to Christianity. The church was altogether based upon the voluntary principle, as a self-supporting and self-governing body. In this respect it may be compared to the church in the United States, but with this essential difference that in America the secular government, instead of persecuting Christianity, recognizes and protects it by law, and secures to it full freedom of public worship and in all its activities at home and abroad.
The theology of the second and third centuries was mainly apologetic against the paganism of Greece and Rome, and polemic against the various forms of the Gnostic heresy. In this conflict it brings out, with great force and freshness, the principal arguments for the divine origin and character of the Christian religion and the outlines of the true doctrine of Christ and the holy trinity, as afterwards more fully developed in the Nicene and post-Nicene ages.
The organization of this period may be termed primitive episcopacy, as distinct from the apostolic order which preceded, and the metropolitan and patriarchal hierarchy which succeeded it. In worship it forms likewise the transition from apostolic simplicity to the liturgical and ceremonial splendor of full-grown Catholicism.
The first half of the second century is comparatively veiled in obscurity, although considerable light has been shed over it by recent discoveries and investigations. After the death of John only a few witnesses remain to testify of the wonders of the apostolic days, and their writings are few in number, short in compass and partly of doubtful origin: a volume of letters and historical fragments, accounts of martyrdom, the pleadings of two or three apologists; to which must be added the rude epitaphs, faded pictures, and broken sculptures of the subterranean church in the catacombs. The men of that generation were more skilled in acting out Christianity in life and death, than in its literary defence. After the intense commotion of the apostolic age there was a breathing spell, a season of unpretending but fruitful preparation for a new productive epoch. But the soil of heathenism had been broken up, and the new seed planted by the hands of the apostles gradually took root.
Then came the great literary conflict of the apologists and doctrinal polemics in the second half of the same century; and towards the middle of the third the theological schools of Alexandria, and northern Africa, laying the foundation the one for the theology of the Greek, the other for that of the Latin church. At the beginning of the fourth century the church east and west was already so well consolidated in doctrine and discipline that it easily survived the shock of the last and most terrible persecution, and could enter upon the fruits of its long-continued sufferings and take the reins of government in the old Roman empire.
SPREAD OF CHRISTIANITY.
§ 3. Literature.
I. Sources.
No statistics or accurate statements, but only scattered hints in
Pliny (107):
II. Works.
Mich. Le Quien (a learned Dominican, d. 1733): Oriens Christianus. Par. 1740. 3 vols. fol. A complete ecclesiastical geography of the East, divided into the four patriarchates of Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem.
Mosheim: Historical Commentaries, etc. (ed. Murdock) I. 259–290.
Gibbon: The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Chap. xv.
A. Beugnot: Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en Occident. Paris 1835, 2 vols. Crowned by the Académie des inscriptions et belles-letters.
Etienne Chastel: Histoire de la destruction du paganisme dans I’ empire d’ Orient. Paris 1850. Prize essay of the Académie.
Neander: History of the Christian Relig. and Church (trans. of Torrey), I. 68–79
Wiltsch: Handbuch der kirchl. Geographie u. Statistik. Berlin 1846. I. p. 32 sqq.
Chs. Merivale: Conversion of the Roman Empire (Boyle
Lectures for 1864), republ. N. York 1865. Comp. also his History of the
Romans under the Empire, which goes from Julius Caesar to
Edward A. Freeman: The Historical Geography of Europe. Lond. & N. York 1881. 2 vols. (vol. I. chs. II. & III. pp. 18–71.)
Comp. Friedländer, Sittengesch. Roms. III. 517 sqq.; and Renan: Marc-Aurèle. Paris 1882, ch. xxv. pp. 447–464 (Statistique et extension géographique du Christianisme).
V. Schultze: Geschichte des Untergangs des griech-römischen. Heidenthums. Jena, 1887.
§ 4. Hindrances and Helps.
For the first three centuries Christianity was placed
in the most unfavorable circumstances, that it might display its moral
power, and gain its victory over the world by spiritual weapons alone.
Until the reign of Constantine it had not even a legal existence in the
Roman empire, but was first ignored as a Jewish sect, then slandered,
proscribed, and persecuted, as a treasonable innovation, and the
adoption of it made punishable with confiscation and death. Besides, it
offered not the slightest favor, as Mohammedanism afterwards did, to
the corrupt inclinations of the heart, but against the current ideas of
Jews and heathen it so presented its inexorable demand of repentance
and conversion, renunciation of self and the world, that more,
according to
But in spite of these extraordinary difficulties
Christianity made a progress which furnished striking evidence of its
divine origin and adaptation to the deeper wants of man, and was
employed as such by
Nor was this progress confined to any particular
localities. It extended alike over all parts of the empire. "We are a
people of yesterday," says
§ 5. Causes of the Success of Christianity.
The chief positive cause of the rapid spread and ultimate triumph of Christianity is to be found in its own absolute intrinsic worth, as the universal religion of salvation, and in the perfect teaching and example of its divine-human Founder, who proves himself to every believing heart a Saviour from sin and a giver of eternal life. Christianity is adapted to all classes, conditions, and relations among men, to all nationalities and races, to all grades of culture, to every soul that longs for redemption from sin, and for holiness of life. Its value could be seen in the truth and self-evidencing power of its doctrines; in the purity and sublimity of its precepts; in its regenerating and sanctifying effects on heart and life; in the elevation of woman and of home life over which she presides; in the amelioration of the condition of the poor and suffering; in the faith, the brotherly love, the beneficence, and the triumphant death of its confessors.
To this internal moral and spiritual testimony
were added the powerful outward proof of its divine origin in the
prophecies and types of the Old Testament, so strikingly fulfilled in
the New; and finally, the testimony of the miracles, which, according
to the express statements of Quadratus,
Particularly favorable outward circumstances were the extent, order, and unity of the Roman empire, and the prevalence of the Greek language and culture.
In addition to these positive causes, Christianity
had a powerful negative advantage in the hopeless condition of the
Jewish and heathen world. Since the fearful judgment of the destruction
of Jerusalem, Judaism wandered restless and accursed, without national
existence. Heathenism outwardly held sway, but was inwardly rotten and
in process of inevitable decay. The popular religion and public
morality were undermined by a sceptical and materialistic philosophy;
Grecian science and art had lost their creative energy; the Roman
empire rested only on the power of the sword and of temporal interests;
the moral bonds of society were sundered; unbounded avarice and vice of
every kind, even by the confession of a Seneca and a Tacitus, reigned
in Rome and in the provinces, from the throne to the hovel. Virtuous
emperors, like Antoninus Pius and
"Christ appeared," says the great
Notes.
Gibbon, in his famous fifteenth chapter, traces the rapid progress of Christianity in the Roman empire to five causes: the zeal of the early Christians, the belief in future rewards and punishment, the power of miracles, the austere (pure) morals of the Christian, and the compact church organization. But these causes are themselves the effects of a cause which Gibbon ignores, namely, the divine truth of Christianity, the perfection of Christ’s teaching and Christ’s example. See the strictures of Dr. John Henry Newman, Grammar of Assent, 445 sq., and Dr. George P. Fisher, The Beginnings of Christianity, p. 543 sqq. "The zeal" [of the early Christians], says Fisher, "was zeal for a person, and for a cause identified with Him; the belief in the future life sprang out of faith in Him who had died and risen again, and ascended to Heaven; the miraculous powers of the early disciples were consciously connected with the same source; the purification of morals, and the fraternal unity, which lay at the basis of ecclesiastical association among the early Christians, were likewise the fruit of their relation to Christ, and their common love to Him. The victory of Christianity in the Roman world was the victory of Christ, who was lifted up that He might draw all men unto Him."
Lecky (Hist. of Europ. Morals, I. 412) goes deeper than Gibbon, and accounts for the success of early Christianity by its intrinsic excellency and remarkable adaptation to the wants of the times in the old Roman empire. "In the midst of this movement," he says, "Christianity gained its ascendancy, and we can be at no loss to discover the cause of its triumph. No other religion, under such circumstances, had ever combined so many distinct elements of power and attraction. Unlike the Jewish religion, it was bound by no local ties, and was equally adapted for every nation and for every class. Unlike Stoicism, it appealed in the strongest manner to the affections, and offered all the charm of a sympathetic worship. Unlike the Egyptian religion, it united with its distinctive teaching a pure and noble system of ethics, and proved itself capable of realizing it in action. It proclaimed, amid a vast movement of social and national amalgamation, the universal brotherhood of mankind. Amid the softening influence of philosophy and civilization, it taught the supreme sanctity of love. To the slave, who had never before exercised so large an influence over Roman religious life, it was the religion of the suffering and the oppressed. To the philosopher it was at once the echo of the highest ethics of the later Stoics, and the expansion of the best teaching of the school of Plato. To a world thirsting for prodigy, it offered a history replete with wonders more strange than those of Apollonius; while the Jew and the Chaldean could scarcely rival its exorcists, and the legends of continual miracles circulated among its followers. To a world deeply conscious of political dissolution, and prying eagerly and anxiously into the future, it proclaimed with a thrilling power the immediate destruction of the globe—the glory of all its friends, and the damnation of all its foes. To a world that had grown very weary gazing on the cold passionless grandeur which Cato realized, and which Lucan sung, it presented an ideal of compassion and of love—an ideal destined for centuries to draw around it all that was greatest, as well as all that was noblest upon earth—a Teacher who could weep by the sepulchre of His friend, who was touched with the feeling of our infirmities. To a world, in fine, distracted by hostile creeds and colliding philosophies, it taught its doctrines, not as a human speculation, but as a Divine revelation, authenticated much less by reason than by faith. ’With the heart man believeth unto righteousness;’ ’He that doeth the will of my Father will know the doctrine, whether it be of God;’ ’Unless you believe you cannot understand;’ ’A heart naturally Christian;’ ’The heart makes the theologian,’ are the phrases which best express the first action of Christianity upon the world. Like all great religions, it was more concerned with modes of feeling than with modes of thought. The chief cause of its success was the congruity of its teaching with the spiritual nature of mankind. It was because it was true of the moral sentiments of the age, because it represented faithfully the supreme type of excellence to which men were then tending, because it corresponded with their religious wants, aims, and emotions, because the whole spiritual being could then expand and expatiate under its influence that it planted its roots so deeply in the hearts of men."
Merivale (Convers. of the Rom. Emp., Preface) traces the conversion of the Roman empire chiefly to four causes: 1) the external evidence of the apparent fulfilment of recorded prophecy and miracles to the truth of Christianity; 2) the internal evidence of satisfying the acknowledged need of a redeemer and sanctifier; 3) the goodness and holiness manifested in the lives and deaths of the primitive believers; 4) the temporal success of Christianity under Constantine, which "turned the mass of mankind, as with a sweeping revolution, to the rising sun of revealed truth in Christ Jesus."
Renan discusses the reasons for the victory of Christianity in the 31st chapter of his Marc-Aurèle (Paris 1882), pp. 561–588. He attributes it chiefly "to the new discipline of life," and "the moral reform," which the world required, which neither philosophy nor any of the established religions could give. The Jews indeed rose high above the corruptions of the times. "Glorie éternelle et unique, qui doit faire oublier bien des folies et des violence! Les Juifs sont les révolutionnaires du 1er et du 2e siècle de notre ère " They gave to the world Christianity. "Les populations se précipitèrent, par une sorte du mouvement instinctif, dans une secte qui satisfaisait leur aspirations les plus intimes et ouvrait des ésperances infinies." Renan makes much account of the belief in immortality and the offer of complete pardon to every sinner, as allurements to Christianity; and, like Gibbon, he ignores its real power as a religion of salvation. This accounts for its success not only in the old Roman empire, but in every country and nation where it has found a home.
§ 6. Means of Propagation.
It is a remarkable fact that after the days of the
Apostles no names of great missionaries are mentioned till the opening
of the middle ages, when the conversion of nations was effected or
introduced by a few individuals as St. Patrick in Ireland, St. Columba
in Scotland, St.
To understand this astonishing fact, we must
remember that the foundation was laid strong and deep by the apostles
themselves. The seed scattered by them from Jerusalem to Rome, and
fertilized by their blood, sprung up as a bountiful harvest. The word
of our Lord was again fulfilled on a larger scale: "One soweth, and
another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye have not labored:
others have labored, and ye are entered into their labor" (
Christianity once established was its own best
missionary. It grew naturally from within. It attracted people by its
very presence. It was a light shining in darkness and illuminating the
darkness. And while there were no professional missionaries devoting
their whole life to this specific work, every congregation was a
missionary society, and every Christian believer a missionary, inflamed
by the love of Christ to convert his fellow-men. The example had been
set by Jerusalem and Antioch, and by those brethren who, after the
martyrdom of Stephen, "were scattered abroad and went about preaching
the Word."
11:19.
The gospel was propagated chiefly by living preaching and by personal intercourse; to a considerable extent also through the sacred Scriptures, which were early propagated and translated into various tongues, the Latin (North African and Italian), the Syriac (the Curetonian and the Peshito), and the Egyptian (in three dialects, the Memphitic, the Thebaic, and the Bashmuric). Communication among the different parts of the Roman empire from Damascus to Britain was comparatively easy and safe. The highways built for commerce and for the Roman legions, served also the messengers of peace and the silent conquests of the cross. Commerce itself at that time, as well as now, was a powerful agency in carrying the gospel and the seeds of Christian civilization to the remotest parts of the Roman empire.
The particular mode, as well as the precise time, of the introduction of Christianity into the several countries during this period is for the most part uncertain, and we know not much more than the fact itself. No doubt much more was done by the apostles and their immediate disciples, than the New Testament informs us of. But on the other hand the mediaeval tradition assigns an apostolic origin to many national and local churches which cannot have arisen before the second or third century. Even Joseph of Arimathaea, Nicodemus, Dionysius the Areopagite, Lazarus, Martha and Mary were turned by the legend into missionaries to foreign lands.
§ 7. Extent of Christianity in the Roman Empire.
sola vobis
relinquimus templa."Apol.c. 37. Long before
In the absence of statistics, the number of the Christians must be purely a matter of conjecture. In all probability it amounted at the close of the third and the beginning of the fourth century to nearly one-tenth or one-twelfth of the subjects of Rome, that is to about ten millions of souls.
But the fact, that the Christians were a closely united body, fresh, vigorous, hopeful, and daily increasing, while the heathen were for the most part a loose aggregation, daily diminishing, made the true prospective strength of the church much greater.
The propagation of Christianity among the barbarians in the provinces of Asia and the north-west of Europe beyond the Roman empire, was at first, of course, too remote from the current of history to be of any great immediate importance. But it prepared the way for the civilization of those regions, and their subsequent position in the world.
Notes.
Gibbon and Friedländer (III. 531)
estimate the number of Christians at the accession of Constantine (306)
probably too low at one-twentieth; Matter and Robertson too high at
one-fifth of his subjects. Some older writers, misled by the
hyperbolical statements of the early Apologists, even represent the
Christians as having at least equalled if not exceeded the number of
the heathen worshippers in the empire. In this case common prudence
would have dictated a policy of toleration long before Constantine.
Mosheim, in his Hist. Commentaries, etc.
(Murdock’s translation I. p. 274 sqq.) discusses at
length the number of Christians in the second century without arriving
at definite conclusions. Chastel estimates the number at the time of
Constantine at 1/15 in the West, 1/10 in the East, 1/12 on an average
(Hist. de la destruct.
du paganisme, p. 36). According to
§ 8. Christianity in Asia.
Asia was the cradle of Christianity, as it was of humanity and civilization. The apostles themselves had spread the new religion over Palestine, Syria, and Asia Minor. According to the younger Pliny, under Trajan, the temples of the gods in Asia Minor were almost forsaken, and animals of sacrifice found hardly any purchasers. In the second century Christianity penetrated to Edessa in Mesopotamia, and some distance into Persia, Media, Bactria, and Parthia; and in the third, into Armenia and Arabia. Paul himself had, indeed, spent three years in Arabia, but probably in contemplative retirement preparing for his apostolic ministry. There is a legend, that the apostles Thomas and Bartholomew carried the gospel to India. But a more credible statement is, that the Christian teacher Pantaeus of Alexandria journeyed to that country about 190, and that in the fourth century churches were found there.
The transfer of the seat of power from Rome to Constantinople, and the founding of the East Roman empire under Constantine I. gave to Asia Minor, and especially to Constantinople, a commanding importance in the history of the Church for several centuries. The seven oecumenical Councils from 325 to 787 were all held in that city or its neighborhood, and the doctrinal controversies on the Trinity and the person of Christ were carried on chiefly in Asia Minor, Syria, and Egypt.
In the mysterious providence of God those lands of the Bible and the early church have been conquered by the prophet of Mecca, the Bible replaced by the Koran, and the Greek church reduced to a condition of bondage and stagnation; but the time is not far distant when the East will be regenerated by the undying spirit of Christianity. A peaceful crusade of devoted missionaries preaching the pure gospel and leading holy lives will reconquer the holy land and settle the Eastern question.
§ 9. Christianity in Egypt.
In Africa Christianity gained firm foothold first in Egypt, and there probably as early as the apostolic age. The land of the Pharaohs, of the pyramids and sphinxes, of temples and tombs, of hieroglyphics and mummies, of sacred bulls and crocodiles, of despotism and slavery, is closely interwoven with sacred history from the patriarchal times, and even imbedded in the Decalogue as "the house of bondage." It was the home of Joseph and his brethren, and the cradle of Israel. In Egypt the Jewish Scriptures were translated more than two hundred years before our era, and this Greek version used even by Christ and the apostles, spread Hebrew ideas throughout the Roman world, and is the mother of the peculiar idiom of the New Testament. Alexandria was full of Jews, the literary as well as commercial centre of the East, and the connecting link between the East and the West. There the largest libraries were collected; there the Jewish mind came into close contact with the Greek, and the religion of Moses with the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle. There Philo wrote, while Christ taught in Jerusalem and Galilee, and his works were destined to exert a great influence on Christian exegesis through the Alexandrian fathers.
Mark, the evangelist, according to ancient
tradition, laid the foundation of the church of Alexandria. The Copts
in old Cairo, the Babylon of Egypt, claim this to be the place from
which Peter wrote his first epistle (
During the fourth century Egypt gave to the church the Arian heresy, the Athanasian orthodoxy, and the monastic piety of St. Antony and St. Pachomius, which spread with irresistible force over Christendom.
The theological literature of Egypt was chiefly Greek. Most of the early manuscripts of the Greek Scriptures—including probably the invaluable Sinaitic and Vatican MSS.—were written in Alexandria. But already in the second century the Scriptures were translated into the vernacular language, in three different dialects. What remains of these versions is of considerable weight in ascertaining the earliest text of the Greek Testament.
The Christian Egyptians are the descendants of the Pharaonic Egyptians, but largely mixed with negro and Arab blood. Christianity never fully penetrated the nation, and was almost swept away by the Mohammedan conquest under the Caliph Omar (640), who burned the magnificent libraries of Alexandria under the plea that if the books agreed with the Koran, they were useless, if not, they were pernicious and fit for destruction. Since that time Egypt almost disappears from church history, and is still groaning, a house of bondage under new masters. The great mass of the people are Moslems, but the Copts—about half a million of five and a half millions—perpetuate the nominal Christianity of their ancestors, and form a mission field for the more active churches of the West.
§ 10. Christianity in North Africa.
Böttiger: Geschichte der Carthager. Berlin, 1827.
Movers: Die Phönizier. 1840–56, 4 vols. (A standard work.)
Th. Mommsen: Röm. Geschichte, I. 489 sqq. (Book III. chs. 1–7, 5th ed.)
N. Davis: Carthage and her Remains. London & N. York, 1861.
R. Bosworth Smith: Carthage and the Carthaginians. Lond. 2nd ed. 1879. By the same: Rome and Carthage. N. York, 1880.
Otto Meltzer: Geschichte der Karthager. Berlin, vol. I. 1879.
These books treat of the secular history of the ancient Carthaginians, but help to understand the situation and antecedents.
Julius Lloyd; The North African Church. London, 1880. Comes down to the Moslem Conquest.
The inhabitants of the provinces of Northern Africa were of Semitic origin, with a language similar to the Hebrew, but became Latinized in customs, laws, and language under the Roman rule. The church in that region therefore belongs to Latin Christianity, and plays a leading part in its early history.
The Phoenicians, a remnant of the Canaanites, were
the English of ancient history. They carried on the commerce of the
world; while the Israelites prepared the religion, and the Greeks the
civilization of the world. Three small nations, in small countries,
accomplished a more important work than the colossal empires of
Assyria, Babylon, and Persia, or even Rome. Occupying a narrow strip of
territory on the Syrian coast, between Mount Lebanon and the sea, the
Phoenicians sent their merchant vessels from Tyre and Sidon to all
parts of the old world from India to the Baltic, rounded the Cape of
Good Hope two thousand years before Vasco de Gama, and brought back
sandal wood from Malabar, spices from Arabia, ostrich plumes from
Nubia, silver from Spain, gold from the Niger, iron from Elba, tin from
England, and amber from the Baltic. They furnished Solomon with cedars
from Lebanon, and helped him to build his palace and the temple. They
founded on the northernmost coast of Africa, more than eight hundred
years before Christ, the colony of Carthage. Καρχηδών),
the Latin Carthago. It means New City (Neapolis). The word Kereth or
Carth enters also into the names of other cities of Phoenician origin,
as Cirta in Numidia. ions of N. Davis and B. Smith (Rome and
Carthage, ch. xx. 263-291). The recent conquest of Tunis by France
(1881) gives new interest to the past of that country, and opens a new
chapter for its future. Smith describes Tunis as the most Oriental of
Oriental towns, with a gorgeous mixture of
races—Arabs, Turks, Moors, and
Negroes—held together by the religion of Islam.
Christianity reached proconsular Africa in the
second, perhaps already at the close of the first century, we do not
know when and how. There was constant intercourse with Italy. It spread
very rapidly over the fertile fields and burning sands of Mauritania
and Numidia.
The oldest Latin translation of the Bible,
miscalled "Itala" (the basis of Jerome’s "Vulgata"),
was made probably in Africa and for Africa, not in Rome and for Rome,
where at that time the Greek language prevailed among Christians. Latin
theology, too, was not born in Rome, but in Carthage.
§ 11. Christianity in Europe.
"Westward the course of Empire takes its way."
This law of history is also the law of Christianity. From Jerusalem to Rome was the march of the apostolic church. Further and further West has been the progress of missions ever since.
The church of Rome was by
far the most important one for all the West. According to is; thirty-first chapter, and Milman estimate the population of
Rome at 1,200,000; Hoeck (on the basis of the Monumentum Ancyranum),
Zumpt and Howson at two millions; Bunsen somewhat lower; while Dureau
de la Malle tries to reduce it to half a million, on the ground that
the walls of Servius Tullius occupied an area only one-fifth of that of
Paris. But these walls no longer marked the limits of the city since
its reconstruction after the conflagration under Nero, and the suburbs
stretched to an unlimited extent into the country. Comp. vol. I. p.
359
From Rome the church spread to all the cities of Italy. The first Roman provincial synod, of which we have information, numbered twelve bishops under the presidency of Telesphorus (142–154). In the middle of the third century (255) Cornelius of Rome held a council of sixty bishops.
The persecution of the year 177 shows the church
already planted in the south of Gaul in the
second century. Christianity came hither probably from the East; for
the churches of Lyons and Vienne were intimately connected with those
of Asia Minor, to which they sent a report of the persecution, and
Spain probably became acquainted with Christianity
likewise in the second century, though no clear traces of churches and
bishops there meet us till the middle of the third. The council of
Elvira in 306 numbered nineteen bishops. The apostle Paul once formed
the plan of a missionary journey to Spain, and according to See J. B. Gams
(R.C.): Die Kirchengeschichte von
Spanien, Regensburg, 1862-1879, 5 vols. The first
vol. (422 pages) is taken up with the legendary history of the first
three centuries. 75 pages are given to the discussion of
Paul’s journey to Spain. Gams traces Christianity in
that country to Paul and to seven disciples of the Apostles sent to
Rome, namely, Torquatus, Ctesiphon, Secundus, Indaletius, Caecilius,
Hesychius, and Euphrasius (according to the Roman Martyrologium, edited
by Baronius, 1586).
When
According to
The conversion of the barbarians of Northern and Western Europe did not begin in earnest before the fifth and sixth centuries, and will claim our attention in the history of the Middle Ages.
PERSECUTION OF CHRISTIANITY AND CHRISTIAN MARTYRDOM.
–––––
§ 12. Literature.
I. Sources:
Lactantius: De Mortibus persecutorum.
The Apologies of
Theod. Ruinart: Acta primorum martyrum sincera et selecta. Par. 1689; 2nd ed. Amstel. 1713 (covering the first four cent.).
Several biographies in the Acta Sanctorum. Antw. 1643 sqq.
Les Acts des martyrs depuis l’origine de l’église Chrétienne jusqu’à nos temps. Traduits et publiés par les R. R. P. P bénédictins de la congreg. de France. Par. 1857 sqq.
The Martyrol. Hieronymianum (ed. Florentini, Luc. 1668, and in Migne’s Patrol. Lat. Opp. Hieron. xi. 434 sqq.); the Martyrol. Romanum (ed. Baron. 1586), the Menolog. Graec. (ed. Urbini, 1727); De Rossi, Roller, and other works on the Roman Catacombs.
II. Works.
John Foxe (or Fox, d. 1587): Acts and Monuments of the Church (commonly called Book of Martyrs), first pub. at Strasburg 1554, and Basle 1559; first complete ed. fol. London 1563; 9th ed. fol. 1684, 3 vols. fol.; best ed. by G. Townsend, Lond. 1843, 8 vols. 8o.; also many abridged editions. Foxe exhibits the entire history of Christian martyrdom, including the Protestant martyrs of the middle age and the sixteenth century, with polemical reference to the church of Rome as the successor of heathen Rome in the work of blood persecution. "The Ten Roman persecutions" are related in the first volume.
Kortholdt: De persecutionibus eccl. primcevae. Kiel, 1629.
Gibbon: chap. xvi.
Münter: Die Christen im heidnischen Hause vor Constantin. Copenh. 1828.
Schumann Von Mansegg (R.C.): Die Verfolgungen der ersten christlichen Kirche. Vienna, 1821.
W. Ad. Schmidt: Geschichte der Denk u. Glaubensfreiheit im ersten Jahrhundert der Kaiserherrschaft und des Christenthums. Berl. 1847.
Kritzler: Die Heldenzeiten des Christenthums. Vol. i. Der Kampf mit dem Heidthum. Leipz. 1856.
Fr. W. Gass: Das christl. Märtyrerthum in den ersten Jahrhunderten. 1859–60 (in Niedner’s "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." for 1859, pp. 323–392, and 1860, pp. 315–381).
F. Overbeck: Gesetze der röm. Kaiser gegen die Christen, in his Studien zur Gesch. der alten Kirche, I. Chemn. 1875.
B. Aubé: Histoire des persécutions de l’église jusqu’ à la fin des Antonins. 2nd ed. Paris 1875 (Crowned by the Académie française). By the same: Histoire des persécutions de l’église, La polémique paÿenne à la fin du II. siècle, 1878. Les Chréstiens dans l’empire romain, de la fin des Antonins au milieu du IIIe siécle (180–249), 1881. L’église et L’état dans la seconde moitié du IIIe siécle, 1886.
K. Wieseler: Die Christenverfolgungen der Cäsaren, Hist. und chronol. untersucht. Gütersloh, 1878.
Gerh. Uhlhorn: Der Kampf des Christenthums mit dem Heidenthum. 3d ed. Stuttgart, 1879. Engl. transl. by Smyth & Ropes, 1879.
Theod. Keim: Rom und das Christenthum. Berlin, 1881.
E. Renan: Marc-Aurèle. Paris, 1882, pp. 53–69.
§ 13. General Survey.
The persecutions of Christianity during the first three centuries appear like a long tragedy: first, foreboding signs; then a succession of bloody assaults of heathenism upon the religion of the cross; amidst the dark scenes of fiendish hatred and cruelty the bright exhibitions of suffering virtue; now and then a short pause; at last a fearful and desperate struggle of the old pagan empire for life and death, ending in the abiding victory of the Christian religion. Thus this bloody baptism of the church resulted in the birth of a Christian world. It was a repetition and prolongation of the crucifixion, but followed by a resurrection.
Our Lord had predicted this conflict, and prepared His disciples for it. "Behold, I send you forth as sheep in the midst of wolves. They will deliver you up to councils, and in their synagogues they will scourge you; yea and before governors and kings shall ye be brought for My sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles. And brother shall deliver up brother to death, and the father his child: and children shall rise up against parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for My name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved." These, and similar words, as well as the recollection of the crucifixion and resurrection, fortified and cheered many a confessor and martyr in the dungeon and at the stake.
The persecutions proceeded first from the Jews,
afterwards from the Gentiles, and continued, with interruptions, for
nearly three hundred years. History reports no mightier, longer and
deadlier conflict than this war of extermination waged by heathen Rome
against defenseless Christianity. It was a most unequal struggle, a
struggle of the sword and of the cross; carnal power all on one side,
moral power all on the other. It was a struggle for life and death. One
or the other of the combatants must succumb. A compromise was
impossible. The future of the world’s history depended
on the downfall of heathenism and the triumph of Christianity. Behind
the scene were the powers of the invisible world, God and the prince of
darkness. Justin,
Number of Persecutions.
From the fifth century it has been customary to
reckon ten great persecutions: under Nero, Domitian, Trajan, So Ex. chs. 5-10; On the relation of
Christianity to the laws of the Roman empire, see Aubé,
De la legatité du
Christianisme dans l’empire Romain au Ier
siècle. Paris 1866.
The Result.
The long and bloody war of heathen Rome against
the church, which is built upon a rock, utterly failed. It began in
Rome under Nero, it ended near Rome at the Milvian bridge, under
Constantine. Aiming to exterminate, it purified. It called forth the
virtues of Christian heroism, and resulted in the consolidation and
triumph of the new religion. The philosophy of persecution is best
expressed by the terse word of
Religious Freedom.
The blood of persecution is also the seed of civil and religious liberty. All sects, schools, and parties, whether religious or political, when persecuted, complain of injustice and plead for toleration; but few practise it when in power. The reason of this inconsistency lies in the selfishness of human nature, and in mistaken zeal for what it believes to be true and right. Liberty is of very slow, but sure growth.
The ancient world of Greece and Rome generally was based upon the absolutism of the state, which mercilessly trampled under foot the individual rights of men. It is Christianity which taught and acknowledged them.
The Christian apologists first proclaimed, however
imperfectly, the principle of freedom of religion, and the sacred
rights of conscience. See the remarkable
passageAd Scapulam, c. 2: "Tamen humani juris et naturalis potestatis
est unicuique quod putaverit colere, nec alii obest, aut prodest
alterius religio. Sed religionis est cogere religionem, quae sponte
suscipi debeat non vi, cum et hostiae ab animo libenti expostulentur.
Ita etsi nos compuleritis ad sacrificandum, nihil praestabitis diis
vestris. Ab invitis enim sacrificia non desiderabunt, nisi si
contentiosi sunt; contentiosus autem deus non est." Comp. the similar
passage in
Similar views in favor of religious liberty were
expressed by Apol. I. c. 2, 4,
12 Instit. div. V.
20.
The Church, after its triumph over paganism, forgot this lesson, and for many centuries treated all Christian heretics, as well as Jews and Gentiles, just as the old Romans had treated the Christians, without distinction of creed or sect. Every state-church from the times of the Christian emperors of Constantinople to the times of the Russian Czars and the South American Republics, has more or less persecuted the dissenters, in direct violation of the principles and practice of Christ and the apostles, and in carnal misunderstanding of the spiritual nature of the kingdom of heaven.
§ 14. Jewish Persecution.
Sources.
I. Dio Cassius: Hist.
Rom. LXVIII. 32; LXIX. 12–14; Justin M.: Apol. I. 31, 47;
II. Fr. Münter.: Der Judische Krieg unter Trajan u. Hadrian. Altona and Leipz. 1821.
Deyling: Aeliae Capitol. origines et historiae. Lips. 1743.
Ewald: Gesch. des Volkes Israel, VII. 373–432.
Milman: History of the Jews, Books 18 and 20.
Grätz: Gesch. der Juden. Vol. IV. (Leipz. 1866).
Schürer: Neutestam. Zeitgeschichte (1874), pp. 350–367.
The Jews had displayed their obstinate unbelief and bitter hatred of the gospel in the crucifixion of Christ, the stoning of Stephen, the execution of James the Elder, the repeated incarceration as of Peter and John, the wild rage against Paul, and the murder of James the Just. No wonder that the fearful judgment of God at last visited this ingratitude upon them in the destruction of the holy city and the temple, from which the Christians found refuge in Pella.
But this tragical fate could break only the
national power of the Jews, not their hatred of Christianity. They
caused the death of Symeon, bishop of Jerusalem (107); they were
particularly active in the burning of
The Rebellion under Bar-Cochba. Jerusalem again Destroyed.
By severe oppression under Trajan and Hadrian, the
prohibition of circumcision, and the desecration of Jerusalem by the
idolatry of the pagans, the Jews were provoked to a new and powerful
insurrection (a.d. 132–135).
A pseudo-Messiah, Bar-Cochba (son of the stars,
Thus the native soil of the venerable religion of
the Old Testament was ploughed up, and idolatry planted on it. The Jews
were forbidden to visit the holy spot of their former metropolis upon
pain of death. As reported by
Justin M., a native of Palestine and a contemporary of this destruction
of Jerusalem. Apol. l.c. 47. Ad Zephan. 1:15 sqq.
Schürer quotes the passage, p. 363. "The Wailing Place
of the Jews" at the cyclopean foundation wall is just outside of the
Mosque El Aska, and near "Robinson’s Arch." There I
saw on Good Friday, 1877, a large number of Jews, old and young, men
and women, venerable rabbis with patriarchal beards, others dirty and
repulsive, kissing the stone wall and watering it with their tears,
while repeating from Hebrew Bibles and prayer-books the Lamentations of
Jeremiah,
The Talmud.
After this the Jews had no opportunity for any further independent persecution of the Christians. Yet they continued to circulate horrible calumnies on Jesus and his followers. Their learned schools at Tiberias and Babylon nourished this bitter hostility. The Talmud, i.e. Doctrine, of which the first part (the Mishna, i.e. Repetition) was composed towards the end of the second century, and the second part (the Gemara, i.e. Completion) in the fourth century, well represents the Judaism of its day, stiff, traditional, stagnant, and anti-Christian. Subsequently the Jerusalem Talmud was eclipsed by the Babylonian (430–521), which is four times larger, and a still more distinct expression of Rabbinism. The terrible imprecation on apostates (pratio haereticorum), designed to deter Jews from going over to the Christian faith, comes from the second century, and is stated by the Talmud to have been composed at Jafna, where the Sanhedrin at that time had its seat, by the younger Rabbi Gamaliel.
The Talmud is the slow growth of several
centuries. It is a chaos of Jewish learning, wisdom, and folly, a
continent of rubbish, with hidden pearls of true maxims and poetic
parables. Delitzsch calls it "a vast debating club, in which there hum
confusedly the myriad voices of at least five centuries, a unique code
of laws, in comparison with which the law-books of all other nations
are but lilliputian." It is the Old Testament misinterpreted and turned
against the New, in fact, though not in form. It is a rabbinical Bible
without inspiration, without the Messiah, without hope. It shares the
tenacity of the Jewish race, and, like it, continues involuntarily to
bear testimony to the truth of Christianity. A distinguished historian,
on being asked what is the best argument for Christianity, promptly
replied: the Jews. On the literature of
the Talmud see the articles in Herzog, and in McClintock & Strong,
and especially Schürer, Neutestamentl. Zeitgeschichte (Leipz. 1874), pp.
45-49, to which I add Schürer’s essay:
Die Predigt Jesu Christi in ihrem
Verhältniss zum Altem Testament und zum
Judenthum, Darmstadt, 1882. The relation of the
Talmud to the Sermon on the Mount and the few resemblances is discussed
by Pick in McClintock & Strong, vol. ix. 571.
Unfortunately this people, still remarkable even in its tragical end, was in many ways cruelly oppressed and persecuted by the Christians after Constantine, and thereby only confirmed in its fanatical hatred of them. The hostile legislation began with the prohibition of the circumcision of Christian slaves, and the intermarriage between Jews and Christians, and proceeded already in the fifth century to the exclusion of the Jews from all civil and political rights in Christian states. Even our enlightened age has witnessed the humiliating spectacle of a cruel Judenhetzein Germany and still more in Russia (1881). But through all changes of fortune God has preserved this ancient race as a living monument of his justice and his mercy; and he will undoubtedly assign it an important part in the consummation of his kingdom at the second coming of Christ.
§ 15. Causes of Roman Persecution.
The policy of the Roman government, the fanaticism of the superstitious people, and the self-interest of the pagan priests conspired for the persecution of a religion which threatened to demolish the tottering fabric of idolatry; and they left no expedients of legislation, of violence, of craft, and of wickedness untried, to blot it from the earth.
To glance first at the relation of the Roman state to the Christian religion.
Roman Toleration.
The policy of imperial Rome was in a measure tolerant. It was repressive, but not preventive. Freedom of thought was not checked by a censorship, education was left untrammelled to be arranged between the teacher and the learner. The armies were quartered on the frontiers as a protection of the empire, not employed at home as instruments of oppression, and the people were diverted from public affairs and political discontent by public amusements. The ancient religions of the conquered races were tolerated as far as they did not interfere with the interests of the state. The Jews enjoyed special protection since the time of Julius Caesar.
Now so long as Christianity was regarded by the Romans as a mere sect of Judaism, it shared the hatred and contempt, indeed, but also the legal protection bestowed on that ancient national religion. Providence had so ordered it that Christianity had already taken root in the leading cities of the empire before, its true character was understood. Paul had carried it, under the protection of his Roman citizenship, to the ends of the empire, and the Roman proconsul at Corinth refused to interfere with his activity on the ground that it was an internal question of the Jews, which did not belong to his tribunal. The heathen statesmen and authors, even down to the age of Trajan, including the historian Tacitus and the younger Pliny, considered the Christian religion as a vulgar superstition, hardly worthy of their notice.
But it was far too important a phenomenon, and
made far too rapid progress to be long thus ignored or despised. So
soon as it was understood as a new religion, and as, in fact,
claiming universal validity and acceptance, it was set down as unlawful
and treasonable, a religio illicita; and it was the constant reproach
of the Christians: "You have no right to exist." "Non licet esse
vos."
Roman Intolerance.
We need not be surprised at this position. For
with all its professed and actual tolerance the Roman state was
thoroughly interwoven with heathen idolatry, and made religion a tool
of itspolicy. Ancient history furnishes no example of a state without
some religion and form of worship. Rome makes no exception to the
general rule. "The Romano-Hellenic state religion" (says Mommsen), "and
the Stoic state-philosophy inseparably combined with it were not merely
a convenient instrument for every
government—oligarchy, democracy, or
monarchy—but altogether indispensable, because it was
just as impossible to construct the state wholly without religious
elements as to discover any new state religion adapted to form a
substitute for the old." The History of Rome,
translated by Dickson, vol. IV. P. II. p. 559.
The piety of Romulus and Numa was believed to have
laid the foundation of the power of Rome. To the favor of the deities
of the republic, the brilliant success of the Roman arms was
attributed. The priests and Vestal virgins were supported out of the
public treasury. The emperor was ex-officio the pontifex maximus, and
even an object of divine worship. The gods were national; and the eagle
of Jupiter Capitolinus moved as a good genius before the
world-conquering legions. "Nisi publice
adscitos." ἀνάγκαζε,
according to Dion Cassius.
It is true, indeed, that individuals in Greece and Rome enjoyed an almost unlimited liberty for expressing sceptical and even impious sentiments in conversation, in books and on the stage. We need only refer to the works of Aristophanes, Lucian, Lucretius, Plautus, Terence. But a sharp distinction was made then, as often since by Christian governments, between liberty of private thought and conscience, which is inalienable and beyond the reach of legislation, and between the liberty of public worship, although the latter is only the legitimate consequence of the former. Besides, wherever religion is a matter of state-legislation and compulsion, there is almost invariably a great deal of hypocrisy and infidelity among the educated classes, however often it may conform outwardly, from policy, interest or habit, to the forms and legal acquirements of the established creed.
The senate and emperor, by special edicts, usually allowed conquered nations the free practice of their worship even in Rome; not, however, from regard for the sacred rights of conscience, but merely from policy, and with the express prohibition of making proselytes from the state religion; hence severe laws were published from time to time against transition to Judaism.
Obstacles to the Toleration of Christianity.
To Christianity, appearing not as a national
religion, but claiming to be the only true universal one making its
converts among every people and every sect, attracting Greeks and
Romans in much larger numbers than Jews, refusing to compromise with
any form of idolatry, and threatening in fact the very existence of the
Roman state religion, even this limited toleration could not be
granted. The same all-absorbing political interest of Rome dictated
here the opposite course, and Apolog. c. 24 at the
close: "Apud vos quod vis coler ejus est praeter Deum verum, quasi non
hic magis omnium sit Deus, cuius omnes sumus."
Then, too, the conscientious refusal of the
Christians to pay divine honors to the emperor and his statue, and to
take part in any idolatrous ceremonies at public festivities, their
aversion to the imperial military service, their disregard for politics
and depreciation of all civil and temporal affairs as compared with the
spiritual and eternal interests of man, their close brotherly union and
frequent meetings, drew upon them the suspicion of hostility to the
Caesars and the Roman people, and the unpardonable crime of conspiracy
against the state. Hence the
reproachful designation "Hostes Caesarum et populi Romani."
The common people also, with their polytheistic ideas, abhorred the believers in the one God as atheists and enemies of the gods. They readily gave credit to the slanderous rumors of all sorts of abominations, even incest and cannibalism, practised by the Christians at their religious assemblies and love-feasts, and regarded the frequent public calamities of that age as punishments justly inflicted by the angry gods for the disregard of their worship. In North Africa arose the proverb: "If God does not send rain, lay it to the Christians." At every inundation, or drought, or famine, or pestilence, the fanatical populace cried: "Away with the atheists! To the lions with the Christians!"
Finally, persecutions were sometimes started by
priests, jugglers, artificers, merchants, and others, who derived their
support from the idolatrous worship. These, like Demetrius at Ephesus,
and the masters of the sorceress at Philippi, kindled the fanaticism
and indignation of the mob against the new religion for its
interference with their gains. Comp. Arts. 19:24;
16:16.
§ 16. Condition of the Church before the Reign of Trajan.
The imperial persecutions before Trajan belong to the
Apostolic age, and have been already described in the first volume. We
allude to them here only for the sake of the connection. Christ was
born under the first, and crucified under the second Roman emperor.
During the rapidly succeeding reigns of Galba, Otho, Vitellius, Vespacian, and Titus, the church, so far as we know, suffered no very serious persecution.
But Domitian (81–96), a
suspicious and blasphemous tyrant, accustomed to call himself and to be
called "Lord and God," treated the embracing of Christianity a crime
against the state, and condemned to death many Christians, even his own
cousin, the consul Flavius Clemens, on the charge of atheism; or
confiscated their property, and sent them, as in the case of Domitilia,
the wife of the Clemens just mentioned, into exile. His jealousy also
led him to destroy the surviving descendants of David; and he brought
from Palestine to Rome two kinsmen of Jesus, grandsons of Judas, the
"brother of the Lord," but seeing their poverty and rustic simplicity,
and hearing their explanation of the kingdom of Christ as not earthly,
but heavenly, to be established by the Lord at the end of the world,
when He should come to judge the quick and the dead, he let them go.
Tradition (in
His humane and justice-loving successor, Nerva (96–98), recalled the banished, and refused to treat the confession of Christianity as a political crime, though he did not recognise the new religion as a religio licita.
§ 17. Trajan. a.d.
98–117—Christianity
Forbidden—Martyrdom of Symeon of Jerusalem, and
I. Sources.
Plinius, jun.: Epist. x. 96 and 97 (al. 97 sq.).
Acta Martyrii Ignatii, in Ruinart, p. 8 sqq.; recent edd. by Theod. Zahn, in Patrum Apost. Opera (Lips. 1876), vol. II.
pp. 301 sqq.; FUNK, Opera Patr. Apost., vol. I.
254–265; II. 218–275; and Lightfoot: S.
II. Works.
On Trajan’s reign in general see Tillemont, Histoire des Empereurs; Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire.
On
On the chronology: Adolph
Harnack: Die Zeit des
The Epistles of
Or prohibited clubs.
This is the meaning of hetaeria (ἑταιρεία
or ἑταιρία),
collegium, sodalitas, sodalitium, company, brotherhood, especially a
private political club or union for party purposes. The Roman
sodalities were festive clubs or lodges, and easily available for
political and revolutionary ends. Trajan refused to sanction a company
of firemen in Nicomedia (Pliny, Ep. X. 34, al. 43). Comp.
Büttner, Geschichte der
politischen Hetärien in Athen (1840). and
Mommsen, De collegiis et sodali us Romanorum (Kiel, 1843).
To these inquiries
This decision was much milder than might have been
expected from a heathen emperor of the old Roman stamp.
This rescript might give occasion, according to the sentiment of governors, for extreme severity towards Christianity as a secret union and a religio illicita. Even the humane Pliny tells us that he applied the rack to tender women. Syria and Palestine suffered heavy persecutions in this reign.
In the same year (or probably between 110 and 116)
the distinguished bishop
Our knowledge of In three recensions,
two in Greek, and one in Syriac. The seven shorter Greek Ep. are
genuine. See below § 165.
Note on the Date of the Martyrdom of
The date a.d.107 has in
its favor the common reading of the best of the martyrologies of
But 107 a.d. is by no
means universally accepted. Keim (Rom und das Christenthum, p. 540) finds
the Martyrium Colbertinum wrong in stating that the death took place
under the first consulate of Sura and the second of Senecio, because in
107 Sura was consul for the third and Senecio for the fourth time. He
also objects that Trajan was not in Antioch in 107, but in 115, on his
way to attack the Armenians and Parthians. But this latter objection
falls to the ground if
§ 18. Hadrian. a.d. 117–138.
See Gregorovius: Gesch. Hadrians und seiner Zeit (1851); Renan: L’E’glise, chrétienne (1879), 1–44, and Wagenmann in Herzog, vol. v. 501–506.
The rescript of
Hadrian to Minucius Fundanus (124 or 128), preserved by
The Christian apologies, which took their rise under this emperor, indicate a very bitter public sentiment against the Christians, and a critical condition of the church. The least encouragement from Hadrian would have brought on a bloody persecution. Quadratus and Aristides addressed their pleas for their fellow-Christians to him, we do not know with what effect.
Later tradition assigns to his reign the martyrdom of St. Eustachius, St. Symphorosa and her seven sons, of the Roman bishops Alexander and Telesphorus, and others whose names are scarcely known, and whose chronology is more than doubtful.
§ 19 Antoninus Pius. a.d. 137–161. The Martyrdom of
Comte de Champagny (R.C.): Les Antonins. (a.d. 69–180), Paris, 1863; 3d ed. 1874. 3 vols., 8 vo. Merivale’s History.
Martyrium
Polycrates of Ephesus (c. 190), in Euseb. v. 24.
On the date of
Waddington: Mémoire sur la chronologie de la vie du rhéteur Aelius Aristide (in "Mém. de l’ Acad: des inscript. et belles letters," Tom. XXVI. Part II. 1867, pp. 232 sqq.), and in Fastes des provinces Asiatiques, 1872, 219 sqq.
Wieseler: Das Martyrium Polykarp’s und dessen Chronologie, in his Christenverfolgungen, etc. (1878), 3 87.
Keim: Die Zwölf Märtyrer von Smyrna und der Tod des Bishops Polykarp, in his Aus dem Urchristenthum (1878), 92–133.
E. Egli: Das Martyrium des Polyk., in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." for 1882, pp. 227 sqq.
He always offered
sacrifice himself as high-priest. Friedländer III. 492.
The persecution of the church at Smyrna and the
martyrdom of its venerable bishop, which was formerly assigned to the
year 167, under the reign of So Waddington, who
has made it almost certain that Quadratus was Roman consul a.d. 142, and proconsul in Asia from 154 to 155, and that
§ 20. Persecutions under
Arnold Bodek:
E. Renan: Marc-Aurèle et la fin du monde antique. Paris 1882. This is the seventh and the last vol. of his work of twenty years’ labor on the "Histoire des Origines du Christianisme." It is as full of genius, learning and eloquence, and as empty of positive faith as the former volumes. He closes the period of the definite formation of Christianity in the middle of the second century, but proposes in a future work to trace it back to Isaiah (or the "Great Unknown") as its proper founder.
On the legend of the Legio fulminatrix see
Med. xi. 3: Μὴ
κατὰ ψιλὴν
παράταξιν,
ὡς οἱ
Χριστιανοὶ,
ἁλλὰ
λελογισμένος
καὶ σεμνῶς
καὶ, ὥστε
καὶ ἂλλον
π εῖσαι
ατραγῴδως Bodek (l.c. p. 82
sqq.) maintains, contrary to the common view, that
Belonging to the later Stoical school, which
believed in an immediate absorption after death into the Divine
essence, he considered the Christian doctrine of the immortality of the
soul, with its moral consequences, as vicious and dangerous to the
welfare of the state. A law was passed under his reign, punishing every
one with exile who should endeavor to influence
people’s mind by fear of the Divinity, and this law
was, no doubt, aimed at the Christians. "Si quis aliquid
fecerit, quo leves hominum animi superstitio numinis terrerentur, Divus
Marcus hujusmodi homines in insulam relegari rescripsit."Dig. XLVIII.
tit. 19. 1. 13, quoted by Lecky in Hist. of Europ. Morals, I. 448.
9
About the year 170 the apologist
In 177, the churches of Lyons and Vienne, in the South of France, underwent a severe trial. Heathen slaves were forced by the rack to declare, that their Christian masters practised all the unnatural vices which rumor charged them with; and this was made to justify the exquisite tortures to which the Christians were subjected. But the sufferers, "strengthened by the fountain of living water from the heart of Christ," displayed extraordinary faith and steadfastness, and felt, that "nothing can be fearful, where the love of the Father is, nothing painful, where shines the glory of Christ."
The most distinguished victims of this Gallic
persecution were the bishop
About the same time a persecution of less extent appears to have visited Autun (Augustodunum) near Lyons. Symphorinus, a young man of good family, having refused to fall down before the image of Cybele, was condemned to be beheaded. On his way to the place of execution his own mother called to him: "My son, be firm and fear not that death, which so surely leads to life. Look to Him who reigns in heaven. To-day is thy earthly life not taken from thee, but transferred by a blessed exchange into the life of heaven."
The story of the "thundering legion" Legio fulminatrix,
κεραυνοφόρος.
The twelfth legion bore the name Fulminata as far back as the time of
Trajan; and hence it cannot be derived from this event.
Of isolated cases of martyrdom in this reign, we
notice that of
φιλόθεος
παλλακή
§ 21. Condition of the Church from Septimius Severus to Philip the Arabian. a.d. 193–249.
Clemens Alex.: Strom. II. 414. Tertull.: Ad Scapulam, c. 4, 5; Apol. (a.d. 198), c. 7, 12, 30, 37, 49.
Respecting the Alexandrian martyrs comp. Euseb.: VI. 1 and 5.
The Acts of the Carthaginian martyrs, which contain their ipsissima verba from their diaries in the prisons, but bear a somewhat Montanistic stamp, see in Ruinart, p 90 sqq.
Lampridius: Vita Alex. Severi, c. 22, 29, 49.
On Philip the Arabian see Euseb.:VI. 34, 36. Hieron.: Chron. ad ann. 246.
J. J. Müller: Staat und Kirche unter Alex. Severus. Zürich 1874.
F. Görres: Kaiser Alex. Severus und das Christenthum. Leipz., 1877.
Jean Réville: La religion à Rome sous les Sévères. Paris, 1886 (vii and 302 pp.); Germ. transl. by Krüger, 1888.
With
In the beginning of the third century (202) Septimius Severus, turned perhaps by Montanistic excesses, enacted a rigid law against the further spread both of Christianity and of Judaism. This occasioned violent persecutions in Egypt and in North Africa, and produced some of the fairest flowers of martyrdom.
In Alexandria, in consequence of this law,
In Carthage some catechumens, three young men and
two young women, probably of the sect of the Montanists, showed
remarkable steadfastness and fidelity in the dungeon and at the place
of execution.
The same state of things continued through the
first years of
The abandoned youth, El-Gabal, or Unless we should
prefer to derive it from אֵלּ and גִבִִָל
His far more worthy cousin and successor, Yet he meant no more
than toleration, as Lampridius says, 22 (21): Judaeis privilegia
reservavit, Christianos esse passus est.
His assassin, Maximinus the Thracian (235–238), first a herdsman, afterwards a soldier, resorted again to persecution out of mere opposition to his predecessor, and gave free course to the popular fury against the enemies of the gods, which was at that time excited anew by an earthquake. It is uncertain whether he ordered the entire clergy or only the bishops to be killed. He was a rude barbarian who plundered also heathen temples.
The legendary poesy of the tenth century assigns to his reign the fabulous martyrdom of St. Ursula, a British princess, and her company of eleven thousand (according to others, ten thousand) virgins, who, on their return from a pilgrimage to Rome, were murdered by heathens in the neighborhood of Cologne. This incredible number has probably arisen from the misinterpretation of an inscription, like "Ursula et Undecimilla" (which occurs in an old missal of the Sorbonne), or "Ursula et XI M. V.," i.e. Martyres Virgines, which, by substituting milia for martyres, was increased from eleven martyrs to eleven thousand virgins. Some historians place the fact, which seems to form the basis of this legend, in connexion with the retreat of the Huns after the battle of Chalons, 451. The abridgment of Mil., which may mean soldiers (milites) as well as thousands (milia), was another fruitful source of mistakes in a credulous and superstitious age.
This season of repose, however, cooled the moral zeal and brotherly love of the Christians; and the mighty storm under the following reign served well to restore the purity of the church.
§ 22. Persecutions under Decius, and
Valerian. a.d.
249–260. Martyrdom of
Dionysius Alex., in Euseb. VI. 40–42; VII. 10, 11.
Franz Görres: Die Toleranzedicte des Kaisers Gallienus, in the "Jahrbücher für protest. Theol.," 1877, pp. 606–630. By the same: Die angebliche Christenverfolgung zur Zeit der Kaiser Numerianus und Carinus, in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie." 1880 pp. 31–64.
"Maximus fratrum
numerus," says
The authorities were specially severe with the bishops and officers of the churches. Fabianus of Rome, Babylas of Antioch, and Alexander of Jerusalem, perished in this persecution. Others withdrew to places of concealment; some from cowardice; some from Christian prudence, in hope of allaying by their absence the fury of the pagans against their flocks, and of saving their own lives for the good of the church in better times.
Among the latter was
The poetical legend of the seven brothers at Ephesus, who fell asleep in a cave, whither they had fled, and awoke two hundred years afterwards, under Theodosius II. (447), astonished to see the once despised and hated cross now ruling over city and country, dates itself internally from the time of Decius, but is not mentioned before Gregory of Tours in the sixth century.
Under
The most distinguished martyrs of this persecution
under Valerian are the bishops
When
The much lauded martyrdom of the deacon
§ 23. Temporary Repose. a.d. 260–303.
The persecutions under Carus, Numerianus and
Carinus from 284 to 285 are not historical, but legendary. See Franz
Görres, l.c.
During this long season of peace the church rose rapidly in numbers and outward prosperity. Large and even splendid houses of worship were erected in the chief cities, and provided with collections of sacred books and vessels of gold and silver for the administration of the sacraments. But in the same proportion discipline relaxed, quarrels, intrigues, and factions increased, and worldliness poured in like a flood.
Hence a new trial was a necessary and wholesome
process of purification.
§ 24. The Diocletian Persecution, a.d. 303–311.
I. Sources.
Lactantius: De Mortibus Persec. c. 7 sqq. Of uncertain authorship.
Basilius M.: Oratio in Gordium mart.; Oratio in Barlaham mart.
II. Works.
Baronius: Annal. ad ann. 302–305.
Gibbon: Chrs. XIII., XIV. and XVI.
Jak. Burckhardt: Die Zeit Constantins des Gr. Basel, 1853, p. 325.
Th. Keim: Der Uebertritt Constantins des Gr. zum Christenthum. Zürich 1852. The same: Die römischen Toleranzedicte für das Christenthum (311–313), in the "Tüb. Theol. Jahrb." 1852. (His. Rom und das Christenthum only comes down to a.d. 192.)
Alb. Vogel: Der Kaiser Diocletian. Gotha 1857.
Bernhardt: Diokletian in s. Verhältnisse zu den Christen. Bonn, 1862.
Hunziker: Regierung und Christenverfolgung des Kaisers Diocletianus und seiner Nachfolger. Leipz. 1868.
Theod. Preuss: Kaiser Diocletian und seine Zeit. Leipz. 1869.
A. J. Mason: The Persecution of Diocletian. Cambridge, 1876. Pages 370. (Comp. a review by Ad. Harnack in the "Theol. Literaturzeitung" for 1877. No. 7. f. 169.)
Theod. Zahn: Constantin der Grosse und die Kirche. Hannover, 1876.
Brieger.: Constantin der Gr. als Religionspolitiker. Gotha, 1880. Comp. the Lit. on Constantine, in vol. III., 10, 11.
The forty years’ repose was followed by, the last and most violent persecution, a struggle for life and death.
"The accession of the Emperor So Arthur James
Mason begins his book on thePersecution of Diocletian.
Diocletian (284–305) was one of
the most judicious and able emperors who, in a trying period, preserved
the sinking state from dissolution. He was the son of a slave or of
obscure parentage, and worked himself up to supreme power. He converted
the Roman republican empire into an Oriental despotism, and prepared
the way for Constantine and Constantinople. He associated with himself
three subordinate co-regents, Maximian (who committed suicide, 310),
Galerius (d. 311), and Constantius Chlorus (d. 306, the father of
Constantine the Great), and divided with them the government of the
immense empire; thereby quadrupling the personality of the sovereign,
and imparting vigor to provincial administration, but also sowing the
seed of discord and civil war Maximian (surnamed
Herculius) ruled in Italy and Africa, Galerius (Armentarius) on the
banks of the Danube, and afterwards in the East, Constantius (Chlorus)
in Gaul, Spain, and Britain; while Diocletian reserved to himself Asia,
Egypt, and Thrace, and resided in Nicomedia. Galerius married a
daughter of Diocletian (the unfortunate Valeria), Constantius a
(nominal) daughter of Maximian (Theodora), after repudiating their
former wives. Constantine, the son of the divorced Helena, married
Fausta, the daughter of Maximian as his second wife (father and son
being married to two sisters). He was raised to the dignity of Caesar,
July 25, 306. See Gibbon, chs. XIII and XIV.
In the first twenty years of his reign Diocletian respected the toleration edict of Gallienus. His own wife Prisca his daughter Valeria, and most of his eunuchs and court officers, besides many of the most prominent public functionaries, were Christians, or at least favorable to the Christian religion. He himself was a superstitious heathen and an oriental despot. Like Aurelian and Domitian before him, he claimed divine honors, as the vicar of Jupiter Capitolinus. He was called, as the Lord and Master of the world, Sacratissimus Dominus Noster; he guarded his Sacred Majesty with many circles of soldiers and eunuchs, and allowed no one to approach him except on bended knees, and with the forehead touching the ground, while he was seated on the throne in rich vestments from the far East. "Ostentation," says Gibbon, "was the first principle of the new system instituted by Diocletian." As a practical statesman, he must have seen that his work of the political restoration and consolidation of the empire would lack a firm and permanent basis without the restoration of the old religion of the state. Although he long postponed the religious question, he had to meet it at last. It could not be expected, in the nature of the case, that paganism should surrender to its dangerous rival without a last desperate effort to save itself.
But the chief instigator of the renewal of
hostility, according to the account of Lactantius, was
Diocletian’s co-regent and son-in-law, Galerius, a
cruel and fanatical heathen. Lactantius (De
Morte. Persec. c. 9), calls him "a wild beast, " in whom dwelt "a
native barbarity and a savageness foreign to Roman blood." He died at
last of a terrible disease, of which Lacantius gives a minute account
(ch. 33).
In 303 Diocletian issued in rapid succession three
edicts, each more severe than its predecessor. Maximian issued the
fourth, the worst of all, April 30, 304. Christian churches were to be
destroyed; all copies of the Bible were to be burned; all Christians
were to be deprived of public office and civil rights; and at last all,
without exception, were to sacrifice to the gods upon pain of death.
Pretext for this severity was afforded by the occurrence of fire twice
in the palace of Nicomedia in Bithynia, where Diocletian resided Lactantius charges
the incendiarism on Galerius who, as a second Nero, endangered the
residence for the purpose of punishing the innocent Christians.
Constantine, who then resided at the Court, on a solemn occasion at a
later period, attributes the fire to lightning (Orat. ad Sanct. c. 25),
but the repetition of the occurrence strengthens the suspicion of
Lactantius. Gibbon, ch. XVI.,
intimates the probability of a political plot. In speaking of the fire
in the imperial palace of Nicomedia, he says: "The suspicion naturally
fell on the Christians; and it was suggested, with some degree of
probability, that those desperate fanatics, provoked by their present
sufferings, and apprehensive of impending calamities, had entered into
a conspiracy with their faithful brethren, the eunuchs of the palace,
against the lives of two emperors, whom they detested as the
irreconcilable enemies of the Church of God." The conjecture of Gibbon
was renewed by Burkhardt in his work on Constantine, pp. 332 ff, but
without any evidence. Baur rejects it as artificial and very
improbable. (Kirchengesch. I. 452, note). Mason (p. 97 sq.)
refutes it.
The persecution began on the twenty-third day of February, 303, the feast of the Terminalia (as if to make an end of the Christian sect), with the destruction of the magnificent church in Nicomedia, and soon spread over the whole Roman empire, except Gaul, Britain, and Spain, where the co-regent Constantius Chlorus, and especially his son, Constantine the Great (from 306), were disposed, as far as possible, to spare the Christians. But even here the churches were destroyed, and many martyrs of Spain (St. Vincentius, Eulalia, and others celebrated by Prudentins), and of Britain (St. Alban) are assigned by later tradition to this age.
The persecution raged longest and most fiercely in
the East under the rule of See Lactant., De
Morte Persec. ch. 18 and 19, 32, and Gibbon, ch. XIV. V. (vol. II. 16
in Smith’s edition). The original name of Maximin was
Daza. He must not be confounded with Maximian (who was older and died
three years before him). He was a rude, ignorant and superstitious
tyrant, equal to Galerius in cruelty and surpassing him in incredible
debauchery (See Lact. l.c. ch. 37 sqq.). He died of poison after being
defeated by Licinius in 313. See on this edict of
Maximin, Euseb. Mart. Pal. IX. 2; the Acts of Martyrs in Boll., May 8,
p. 291, and Oct. 19, p. 428; Mason, l.c. 284 sqq.
Lightfoot vindicates
him in his learned art. Euseb. in Smith and Wace, Dict. of Christ.
Biogr. II. 311.
In this, as in former persecutions, the number of apostates who preferred the earthly life to the heavenly, was very great. To these was now added also the new class of the traditores, who delivered the holy Scriptures to the heathen authorities, to be burned. But as the persecution raged, the zeal and fidelity of the Christians increased, and martyrdom spread as by contagion. Even boys and girls showed amazing firmness. In many the heroism of faith degenerated to a fanatical courting of death; confessors were almost worshipped, while yet alive; and the hatred towards apostates distracted many congregations, and produced the Meletian and Donatist schisms.
The number of martyrs cannot be estimated with any
degree of certainty. The seven episcopal and the ninety-two Palestinian
martyrs of Or ten years, if we
include the local persecutions of Maximin and Licinius after the first
edict of toleration (311-313). As "Nomine
Christianorum deleto; superstitione Christiana ubique deleta, et cultu
Deorum propagato." See the inscriptions in full in Baronius (ad. ann.
304, no. 8, 9; but they are inconsistent with the confession of the
failure in the edict of toleration, and acknowledged to be worthless
even by Gams (K. Gesch. v. Spanien, I. 387).
The martyrologies date from this period several
legends, the germs of which, however, cannot now be clearly sifted from
the additions of later poesy. The story of the destruction of the legio
Thebaica is probably an exaggeration of the martyrdom of St. Mauritius,
who was executed in Syria, as tribunus militum, with seventy soldiers,
at the order of Maximin. The martyrdom of Barlaam, a plain, rustic
Christian of remarkable constancy, and of Gordius, a centurion (who,
however, was tortured and executed a few years later under Licinius,
314) has been eulogized by St. Basil. A maiden of thirteen years, For details see the
Martyrologies, the "Lives of Saints, " also Baronius Annal. This
historian is so fully convinced of the "insigne et perpetuum miraculum
sanguinis S. Januarii," that he thinks; it unnecessary to produce; my
witness, since "tota Italia, et totus Christianus orbis testis est
locupletissimus!"Ad ann. 305 no. 6.
§ 25. The Edicts of Toleration. a.d. 311–313.
See Lit. in § 24, especially Keim, and Mason (Persecution of Diocletian, pp. 299 and 326 sqq.)
This persecution was the last desperate struggle of Roman heathenism for its life. It was the crisis of utter extinction or absolute supremacy for each of the two religions. At the close of the contest the old Roman state religion was exhausted. Diocletian retired into private life in 305, under the curse of the Christians; he found greater pleasure in planting cabbages at Salona in his native Dalmatia, than in governing a vast empire, but his peace was disturbed by the tragical misfortunes of his wife and daughter, and in 313, when all the achievements of his reign were destroyed, he destroyed himself.
Galerius, the real author of the persecution,
brought to reflection by a terrible disease, put an end to the
slaughter shortly before his death, by a remarkable edict of
toleration, which he issued from Nicomedia in 311, in connexion with
Constantine and Licinius. In that document he declared, that the
purpose of reclaiming the Christians from their wilful innovation and
the multitude of their sects to the laws and discipline of the, Roman
state, was not accomplished; and that he would now grant them
permission to hold their religious assemblies provided they disturbed
not the order of the state. To this he added in conclusion the
significant instruction that the Christians, "after this manifestation
of grace, should pray to their God for the welfare of the
emperors, of the state, and of themselves, that the state might prosper
in every respect, and that they might live quietly in their homes." M. de Broglie (L’Église et
l’Empire, I. 182) well characterizes
this manifesto: "Singulier
document, moitié insolent, moitié suppliant, qui
commence par insulter chrétiens et finit par leur demander
de prier leur maÎ tre pour lui." Mason (1.
c. p. 299): "The dying emperor shows no penitence, makes no confession,
except his impotence. He wishes to dupe and outwit the angry Christ, by
pretending to be not a persecutor but a reformer. With a curse, he
dashes his edict of toleration in the church’s face,
and hopes superstitiously that it will win him indemnity."
This edict virtually closes the period of persecution in the Roman empire.
For a short time Maximin, whom
But the young It is usually stated
(also by Keim, l.c., Gieseler, Baur, vol. I.. 454 sqq.), that
Constantine and Licinius issued two edicts of toleration, one in the
year 312, and one from Milan in 313, since the last refers to a
previous edict, but the reference seems to be to directions now lost
for officials which accompanied the edict of Galerius (311), of which
Constantine was a co-signatory. There is no edict of 312. See Zahn and
especially Mason (p. 328 sq.), also Uhlhorn (Conflict, etc., p. 497,
Engl. translation).
This was the first proclamation of the great
principle that every man had a right to choose his religion according
to the dictates of his own conscience and honest conviction, without
compulsion and interference from the government. "Ut daremus et
Christianis et omnibus liberam potestatem sequendi religionem, quam
quiscunque voluisset." See Euseb. H. X. 5; Lactant. De Mort. Pers. c.
48. Mason (p. 327) says of the Edict of Milan: "It is the very first
announcement of that doctrine which is now regarded as the mark and
principle of civilization, the foundation of solid liberty, the
characteristic of modern politics. In vigorous and trenchant sentences
it sets forth perfect freedom of conscience, the unfettered choice of
religion."
Paganism made another spasmodic effort. Licinius fell out with Constantine and renewed the persecution for a short time in the East, but he was defeated in 323, and Constantine became sole ruler of the empire. He openly protected and favored the church, without forbidding idolatry, and upon the whole remained true to his policy of protective toleration till his death (337). This was enough for the success of the church, which had all the vitality and energy of a victorious power; while heathenism was fast decaying at its root.
With Constantine, therefore, the last of the
heathen, the first of the Christian, emperors, a new period begins. The
church ascends the throne of the Caesars under the banner of the once
despised, now honored and triumphant cross, and gives new vigor and
lustre to the hoary empire of Rome. This sudden political and social
revolution seems marvellous; and yet it was only the legitimate result
of the intellectual and moral revolution which Christianity, since the
second century, had silently and imperceptibly wrought in public
opinion. The very violence of the Diocletian persecution betrayed the
inner weakness of heathenism. The Christian minority with its ideas
already controlled the deeper current of history. Constantine, as a
sagacious statesman, saw the signs of the times and followed them. The
motto of his policy is well symbolized in his military standard with
the inscription: "Hoc signo vinces." For a fuller account
of Constantine and his relation to the Church. see the next volume.
What a contrast between Nero, the first imperial persecutor, riding in a chariot among Christian martyrs as burning torches in his gardens, and Constantine, seated in the Council of Nicaea among three hundred and eighteen bishops (some of whom—as the blinded Confessor Paphnutius, Paul of Neocaesarea, and the ascetics from Upper Egypt clothed in wild raiment—wore the insignia of torture on their maimed and crippled bodies), and giving the highest sanction of civil authority to the decree of the eternal deity of the once crucified Jesus of Nazareth! Such a revolution the world has never seen before or since, except the silent, spiritual, and moral reformation wrought by Christianity itself at its introduction in the first, and at its revival in the sixteenth century.
§ 26. Christian Martyrdom.
I. Sources.
II. Works.
Sagittarius: De mart. cruciatibus, 1696.
H. Dodwell: De paucitate
martyrum, in his Dissertationes
Ruinart (R.C.): Praefatio generalis in Acta Martyrum.
P. W. Gass: Das christl. Märtyrerthum in den ersten Jahrhunderten, in Niedner’s "Zeitschrift f. Hist. Theol." 1859 and ’60.
E. de Pressensé: The Martyrs and Apologists. Translated from the French. London and N. Y. 1871. (Ch. II. p. 67 sqq.).
Chateaubriand: Les martyrs ou le triomphe de la rel. chrét. 2 vols. Paris 1809 and often (best Engl. trsl. by O W. Wight, N. York, 1859.) Has no critical or historical value, but merely poetical.
Comp. in part Mrs. Jameson: Sacred and Legendary Art. Lond. 1848. 2 vols.
To these protracted and cruel persecutions the church opposed no revolutionary violence, no carnal resistance, but the moral heroism of suffering and dying for the truth. But this very heroism was her fairest ornament and staunchest weapon. In this very heroism she proved herself worthy of her divine founder, who submitted to the death of the cross for the salvation of the world, and even prayed that his murderers might be forgiven. The patriotic virtues of Greek and Roman antiquity reproduced themselves here in exalted form, in self-denial for the sake of a heavenly country, and for a crown that fadeth not away. Even boys and girls became heroes, and rushed with a holy enthusiasm to death. In those hard times men had to make earnest of the words of the Lord: "Whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me, cannot be my disciple." "He, that loveth father and mother more than me, is not worthy of me." But then also the promise daily proved itself true: "Blessed are they, who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake; for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." "He, that loseth his life for my sake, shall find it." And it applied not only to the martyrs themselves, who exchanged the troubled life of earth for the blessedness of heaven, but also to the church as a whole, which came forth purer and stronger from every persecution, and thus attested her indestructible vitality.
These suffering virtues are among the sweetest and
noblest fruits of the Christian religion. It is not so much the amount
of suffering which challenges our admiration, although it was terrible
enough, as the spirit with which the early Christians bore it. Men and
women of all classes, noble senators and learned bishops, illiterate
artisans and poor slaves, loving mothers and delicate virgins,
hoary-headed pastors and innocent children approached their tortures in
no temper of unfeeling indifference and obstinate defiance, but, like
their divine Master, with calm self-possession, humble resignation,
gentle meekness, cheerful faith, triumphant hope, and forgiving
charity. Such spectacles must have often overcome even the inhuman
murderer. "Go on," says Comp. a similar
passage in the anonymous Ep. ad Diognetum, c. 6 and 7 at the close, and
in Justin M., Dial .c. Tryph.
Unquestionably there were also during this period,
especially after considerable seasons of quiet, many superficial or
hypocritical Christians, who, the moment the storm of persecution broke
forth, flew like chaff from the wheat, and either offered incense to
the gods (thurificati, sacrificati), or procured false witness of their
return to paganism (libellatici, from libellum), or gave up the sacred
books (traditores). De fuga in persec.
c. 13: "Massaliter totae ecclesiae tributum sibi irrogaverunt."
Those who cheerfully confessed Christ before the
heathen magistrate at the peril of life, but were not executed, were
honored as confessors. Ὁμολογήται,
confessores, Μάρτυρες,
Among these confessors and martyrs were not
wanting those in whom the pure, quiet flame of enthusiasm rose into the
wild fire of fanaticism, and whose zeal was corrupted with impatient
haste, heaven-tempting presumption, and pious ambition; to whom that
word could be applied: "Though I give my body to be burned, and have
not love, it profiteth me nothing." They delivered themselves up to the
heathen officers, and in every way sought the martyr’s
crown, that they might merit heaven and be venerated on earth as
saints. Thus Comp.
But after all due allowance for such adulteration and degeneracy, the martyrdom of the first three centuries still remains one of the grandest phenomena of history, and an evidence of the indestructible divine nature of Christianity.
No other religion could have stood for so long a period the combined opposition of Jewish bigotry, Greek philosophy, and Roman policy and power; no other could have triumphed at last over so many foes by purely moral and spiritual force, without calling any carnal weapons to its aid. This comprehensive and long-continued martyrdom is the peculiar crown and glory of the early church; it pervaded its entire literature and gave it a predominantly apologetic character; it entered deeply into its organization and discipline and the development of Christian doctrine; it affected the public worship and private devotions; it produced a legendary poetry; but it gave rise also, innocently, to a great deal of superstition, and undue exaltation of human merit; and it lies at the foundation of the Catholic worship of saints and relics.
Sceptical writers have endeavored to diminish its
moral effect by pointing to the fiendish and hellish scenes of the
papal crusades against the Albigenses and Waldenses, the Parisian
massacre of the Huguenots, the Spanish Inquisition, and other
persecutions of more recent date. Dodwell expressed the opinion, which
has been recently confirmed by the high authority of the learned and
impartial Niebuhr, that the Diocletian persecution was a mere shadow as
compared with the persecution of the Protestants in the Netherlands by
the Duke of Alva in the service of Spanish bigotry and despotism.
Gibbon goes even further, and boldly asserts that "the number of
Protestants who were executed by the Spaniards in a single province and
a single reign, far exceeded that of the primitive martyrs in the space
of three centuries and of the Roman empire." The victims of the Spanish
Inquisition also are said to outnumber those of the Roman emperors. The number of Dutch
martyrs under the Duke of Alva amounted, according to Grotius, to over
100,000; according to P. Sarpi, the R. Cath. historian, to 50,000.
Motley, in his History of the Rim of the Dutch Republic, vol. II. 504,
says of the terrible reign of Alva: "The barbarities committed amid the
sack and ruin of those blazing and starving cities are almost beyond
belief; unborn infants were torn from the living bodies of their
mothers; women and children were violated by the thousands; and whole
populations burned and hacked to pieces by soldiers in every mode which
cruelty, in its wanton ingenuity, could devise." Buckle and
Friedländer (III. 586) assert that during the eighteen years
of office of Torquemada, the Spanish Inquisition punished, according to
the lowest estimate, 105,000 persons, among whom 8,800 were burnt. In
Andalusia 2000 Jews were executed, and 17,000 punished in a single
year.
Admitting these sad facts, they do not justify any
sceptical conclusion. For Christianity is no more responsible for the
crimes and cruelties perpetrated in its name by unworthy professors and
under the sanction of an unholy alliance of politics and religion, than
the Bible for all the nonsense men have put into it, or God for the
abuse daily and hourly practised with his best gifts. But the number of
martyrs must be judged by the total number of Christians who were a
minority of the population. The want of particular statements by
contemporary writers leaves it impossible to ascertain, even
approximately, the number of martyrs. Dodwell and Gibbon have certainly
underrated it, as far as Ὀλίγοι
κατὰ
καιροὺς
καὶ σφόδρα
εὐαρίθμητοι
τεθνήκασι..
Adv. Cels. III. 8 The older testimony of Melito of Sardis, in the
well-known fragment from his Apology, preserved by Adv. Haer. IV. c.
33, § 9: Ecclesia omni in loco ob eam, quam habet erga Deum
dilectionem, multitudinem martyrum in omni tempore praemittit ad
Patrem.
Finally, while the Christian religion has at all times suffered more or less persecution, bloody or unbloody, from the ungodly world, and always had its witnesses ready for any sacrifice; yet at no period since the first three centuries was the whole church denied the right of a peaceful legal existence, and the profession of Christianity itself universally declared and punished as a political crime. Before Constantine the Christians were a helpless and proscribed minority in an essentially heathen world, and under a heathen government. Then they died not simply for particular doctrines, but for the facts of Christianity. Then it was a conflict, not for a denomination or sect, but for Christianity itself. The importance of ancient martyrdom does not rest so much on the number of victims and the cruelty of their sufferings as on the great antithesis and the ultimate result in saving the Christian religion for all time to come. Hence the first three centuries are the classical period of heathen persecution and of Christian martyrdom. The martyrs and confessors of the ante-Nicene age suffered for the common cause of all Christian denominations and sects, and hence are justly held in reverence and gratitude by all.
Notes.
§ 27. Rise of the Worship of Martyrs and Relics.
I. Sources.
In addition to the works quoted in §§ 12 and 26, comp. Euseb. H. E. IV. 15; De Mart. Palaest. c. 7. Clem. Alex.: Strom. IV. p. 596. Orig.: Exhort. ad mart. c. 30 and 50. In Num. Kom. X. 2. Tertull.: De cor. mil. c. 3; De Resurr. carn. c. 43. Cypr.: De lapsis, c. 17; Epist. 34 and 57. Const. Apost.: l. 8.
II. Works.
C. Sagittarius: De natalitiis mart. Jen. 1696.
Schwabe: De insigni veneratione, quae obtinuit erga martyres in primit. eccl. Altd. 1748.
In thankful remembrance of the fidelity of this "noble army of martyrs," in recognition of the unbroken communion of saints, and in prospect of the resurrection of the body, the church paid to the martyrs, and even to their mortal remains, a veneration, which was in itself well-deserved and altogether natural, but which early exceeded the scriptural limit, and afterwards degenerated into the worship of saints and relics. The heathen hero-worship silently continued in the church and was baptized with Christian names.
In the church of Smyrna, according to its letter
of the year 155, we find this veneration still in its innocent,
childlike form: "They [the Jews] know not, that we can neither ever
forsake Christ, who has suffered for the salvation of the whole world
of the redeemed, nor worship another. Him indeed we adore (προσκυνοῦμεν) as the Son of God; but the
martyrs we love as they deserve (ἀγαπῶμεν
ἀξίως) for their surpassing love to their King
and Master, as we wish also to be their companions and
fellow-disciples." Martyrium Ἡμέρα
γενέθλιος,
γενέθλια,
natales, natalitia martyrum.
But the early church did not stop with this.
Martyrdom was taken, after the end of the second century, not only as a
higher grade of Christian virtue, but at the same time as a baptism of
fire and blood, Lavacrum sanguinis,
βάπτισμα
διὰ
πυρός, comp.
In the Roman Catacombs we find inscriptions where the departed are requested to pray for their living relatives and friends.
The veneration thus shown for the persons of the
martyrs was transferred in smaller measure to their remains. The church
of Smyrna counted the bones of It is worthy of
note, however, that some of the startling phenomena related in the
Martyrium
A veneration frequently excessive was paid, not
only to the deceased martyrs, but also the surviving confessors. It was
made the special duty of the deacons to visit and minister to them in
prison. The heathen
CHAPTER III.
LITERARY CONTEST OF CHRISTIANITY WITH JUDAISM AND HEATHENISM.
§ 28. Literature.
I. Sources.
Tacitus (Consul 97, d. about 117): Annal. xv. 44. Comp. his picture of the Jews, Hist. v. 1–5.
Plinius (d. about 114):
Celsus (flourished about 150): Ἀληθὴς
λόγος. Preserved in fragments in
Lucian (d. about 180): Περὶ τῆς Περεγρίνου τελευτῆς c. 11–16; and Ἁληθὴς ἱστορία I. 30; II. 4, 11.
Porphyrius (about 300): Κατὰ
Χριστιανῶν
λόγοι. Only fragments preserved, and collected
by Holstein,
II. Works.
Nath. Lardner: Collection of Ancient Jewish and Heathen Testimonies to the Truth of the Christian Religion (Lond. 1727–’57) in the VI. and VII. vols. of his Works, ed. by Kippis, London, 1838. Very valuable.
Mosheim: introduction to his Germ. translation of
Bindemann: Celsus und seine Schriften gegen die Christen, in Illgen’s "Zeitschr. für hist. Theol." Leipz. 1842. N. 2, p. 58–146.
Ad. Planck: Lukian u. das Christenthum, in the "Studien u. Kritiken," 1851. N. 4; translated in the "Bibliotheca Sacra," Andover, 1852.
F. Chr. Baur: Das Christenthum der 3 ersten Jahrh. Tüb. secd. ed. 1860 (and 1863) pp. 370–430.
Neander: General History of the Christian Religion and Church; Engl. trans. by Torrey, vol. I., 157–178. (12th Boston ed.)
Richard von der Alm: Die Urtheile heidnischer und jüdischer Schriftsteller der vier ersten Jahrh. ueber Jesus und die ersten Christen. Leipz. 1865. (An infidel book.)
H. Kellner (R.C.): Hellenismus und Christenthum oder die geistige Reaction des antiken Heidenthums gegen das Christenthum. Köln 1866 (454 pp.)
B. Aubé: De l’ Apologétique chrétienne au IIe siécle. St. Justin, philosophe et martyr, 2nd ed. Paris 1875. By the same: Histoire des Persecutions de l’église. The second part, also under the titleLa polémique païenne à la fin du IIe siécle. Paris 1878.
E. Renan: Marc-Aurèle (Paris 1882), pp. 345 (Celse et Lucien), 379 sqq. (Nouvelles apologies).
J. W. Farrar: Seekers
after God. London, 1869, new ed. 1877. (Essays on Seneca,
Epictetus, and
Comp. the Lit. quoted in § 12, especially
Uhlhorn and Keim
(1881), and the monographs on Justin M.,
§ 29. Literary Opposition to Christianity.
Besides the external conflict, which we have considered in the second chapter, Christianity was called to pass through an equally important intellectual and literary struggle with the ancient world; and from this also it came forth victorious, and conscious of being the perfect religion for man. We shall see in this chapter, that most of the objections of modern infidelity against Christianity were anticipated by its earliest literary opponents, and ably and successfully refuted by the ancient apologists for the wants of the church in that age. Both unbelief and faith, like human nature and divine grace, are essentially the same in all ages and among all nations, but vary in form, and hence every age, as it produces its own phase of opposition, must frame its own mode of defense.
The Christian religion found at first as little favor with the representatives of literature and art as with princes and statesmen. In the secular literature of the latter part of the first century and the beginning of the second, we find little more than ignorant, careless and hostile allusions to Christianity as a new form of superstition which then began to attract the attention of the Roman government. In this point of view also Christ’s kingdom was not of the world, and was compelled to force its way through the greatest difficulties; yet it proved at last the mother of an intellectual and moral culture far in advance of the Graeco-Roman, capable of endless progress, and full of the vigor of perpetual youth.
The pious barbarism of the Byzantine emperors
Theodosius II. and Valentinian III. ordered the destruction of the
works of Porphyrius and all other opponents of Christianity, to avert
the wrath of God, but considerable fragments have been preserved in the
refutations of the Christian Fathers, especially
§ 30. Jewish Opposition. Josephus and the Talmud.
The hostility of the Jewish Scribes and Pharisees to
the gospel is familiar from the New Testament. Joseph. Antiqu. l.
XVIII.c. 3, sect. 3. Comp. on this much disputed passage, vol. I., p.
92. It is the special
merit of Keim to have thoroughly utilized Josephus for the biography of
Jesus. These coincidences
have been traced out in full by Lardner, Works, ed. Kippis, vol. VI. p.
406 ff.
The attacks of the later Jews upon Christianity
are essentially mere repetitions of those recorded in the
Gospels—denial of the Messiahship of Jesus, and
horrible vituperation of his confessors. We learn their character best
from the dialogue of Justin with the Jew Trypho. The fictitious
disputation on Christ by Jason and Papiscus, first mentioned by Celsus,
was lost since the seventh century. Ἱάσονος
καὶ
Παπίσκου
ἄντιλογία
περὶ
Χριστοῦ. D.
The Talmud is the Bible of Judaism separated from, and hostile to, Christianity, but it barely notices it except indirectly. It completed the isolation of the Jews from all other people.
§ 31. Pagan Opposition. Tacitus and Pliny.
The Greek and Roman writers of the first century, and some of the second, as Seneca, the elder Pliny, and even the mild and noble Plutarch, either from ignorance or contempt, never allude to Christianity at all.
Οἰδιπόδειοι
μίξεις, incesti
concubitus; and θυεστεῖα
δεῖπνα, Thyesteae
epulae
Their Indirect Testimony to Christianity.
On the other hand, however, the scanty and contemptuous allusions of Tacitus and Pliny to Christianity bear testimony to a number of facts in the Gospel History. Tacitus, in giving an account of the Neronian persecution, incidentally attests, that Christ was put to death as a malefactor by Pontius Pilate in the reign of Tiberius; that he was the founder of the Christian sect, that the latter took its rise in Judaea and spread in spite of the ignominious death of Christ and the hatred and contempt it encountered throughout the empire, so that a "vast multitude" (multitudo ingens) of them were most cruelly put to death in the city of Rome alone as early as the year 64. He also bears valuable testimony, in the fifth book of his History, together with Josephus, from whom he mainly, though not exclusively takes his account, to the fulfilment of Christ’s prophecy concerning the destruction of Jerusalem and the overthrow of the Jewish theocracy.
As to Pliny’s famous letter to
Trajan, written about 107, it proves the rapid spread of Christianity
in Asia Minor at that time among all ranks of society, the general
moral purity and steadfastness of its professors amid cruel
persecution, their mode and time of worship, their adoration of Christ
as God, their observance of a "stated day," which is undoubtedly
Sunday, and other facts of importance in the early history of the
Church. Trajan’s rescript in reply to
Pliny’s inquiry, furnishes evidence of the innocence
of the Christians; he notices no charge against them except their
disregard of the worship of the gods, and forbids them to be sought
for.
§ 32. Direct Assaults. Celsus.
The direct assault upon Christianity, by works
devoted to the purpose, began about the middle of the second century,
and was very ably conducted by a Grecian philosopher,
Celsus, with all his affected or real contempt for
the new religion, considered it important enough to be opposed by an
extended work entitled "A True Discourse," of which See the restoration
of Celsus from these fragments by Dr. Keim, quoted above.
Celsus first introduces a Jew, who accuses the
mother of Jesus of adultery with a soldier named Panthera; Πάνθηρ, panthera, here,
and in the Talmud, where Jesus is likewise called יֶשׁיּ
בֵנ
ףַּנְדִירָא is used, like the Latin lupa, as a type of ravenous
lust hence as a symbolical name for μοιχείρ.
So Nitzsch and Baur. But Keim (p. 12) takes it as a designation of the
wild rapacious (πᾶν
θηρῶν) Roman soldier. The
mother of Jesus was, according to the Jewish informant of Celsus, a
poor seamstress, and engaged to a carpenter, who plunged her into
disgrace and misery when he found out her infidelity.
But here, this philosophical and critical sophistry virtually, acknowledges its bankruptcy. The hypothesis of deception is the very last one to offer in explanation of a phenomenon so important as Christianity was even in that day. The greater and more permanent the deception, the more mysterious and unaccountable it must appear to reason.
Keim (Geschichte Jesu von Nazara,
I. 22) says of Celsus: "Von der
Jungfraugeburt bis zum Jammer des Todes bei Essig und
Galle, bis zu
den Wundern des Todes und der Auferstehung hat er unsere Evangelien
verfolgt, und anderen Quellen, welche zum Theil heute noch fliessen, hat
er den Glauben an die Hasslichkeit Jesu und an die
Sündhaftigkeit seiner Jünger
abgewonnen." Comp. Keim’s monograph
on Celsus, pp. 219-231. On the bearing of his testimony on the
genuineness of the Gospel of John, see vol. 1. p. 708.
It is true he perverts or abuses most of these facts; but according to his own showing they were then generally and had always been believed by the Christians. He alludes to some of the principal doctrines of the Christians, to their private assemblies for worship, to the office of presbyters. He omits the grosser charges of immorality, which he probably disowned as absurd and incredible.
In view of all these admissions we may here, with
Lardner, apply Samson’s riddle: "Out of the eater came
forth meat, and out of the strong came forth sweetness."
§ 33. Lucian.
Edd. of Lucian’s works by Hemsterhuis and Reiz (1743 sqq.), Jacobitz (1836–39), Dindorf (1840 and 1858), Bekker (1853), Franc. Fritzsche (1860–’69). The pseudo-Lucianic dialogue Philopatris (φιλόπατρις, loving one’s country, patriot) in which the Christians are ridiculed and condemned as enemies of the Roman empire, is of a much later date, probably from the reign of Julian the Apostate (363). See Gesner: De aetate et auctore Philopatridis, Jen. 1714.
Jacob:Charakteristik Lucians. Hamburg 1822.
G. G. Bernays: Lucian und die Cyniker. Berlin. 1879.
Comp. Keim: Celsus, 143–151; Ed. D. Zeller:Alexander und Peregrinus , in the "Deutsche Rundschau," for Jan. 1877; Henry Cotterill: Peregrinus Proteus (Edinb. 1879); Ad. Harnack in Herzog (ed. II.), VIII. 772–779; and the Lit. quoted in § 28.
In the same period the rhetorician
Thus he represents the matter in an historical
romance on the life and death of Harnack, l.c. denies
a reference to
Lucian treated the Christians rather with a
compassionate smile, than with hatred. He nowhere urges persecution. He
never calls Christ an impostor, as Celsus does, but a "crucified
sophist;" a term which he uses as often in a good sense as in
the bad. But then, in the end, both the Christian and the heathen
religions amount, in his view, to imposture; only, in his Epicurean
indifferentism, he considers it not worth the trouble to trace such
phenomena to their ultimate ground, and attempt a philosophical
explanation. Berneys (l.c. p. 43)
characterizes Lucian very unfavorably: "ein anscheinend nicht sehr glücklicher Advocat,
ist er ohne ernste Studien ins Literatenthum übergegangen;
unwissend und leichtfertig trägt er lediglich eine
nihilistische Oede in Bezuq auf alle religiösen und
metaphysischen Fraqen zur Schau und reisst alle als verkehrt und
lächerlich herunter." Berneys thinks that
the Peregrinus Proteus is not directed against the Christians, but
against the Cynic philosophers and more particularly against the then
still living Theagenes.
The merely negative position of this clever mocker of all religions injured heathenism more than Christianity, but could not be long maintained against either; the religious element is far too deeply seated in the essence of human nature. Epicureanism and scepticism made way, in their turns, for Platonism, and for faith or superstition. Heathenism made a vigorous effort to regenerate itself, in order to hold its ground against the steady advance of Christianity. But the old religion itself could not help feeling more and more the silent influence of the new.
§ 34. Neo-Platonism.
I. Sources.
Plotinus: Opera Omnia, ed. Oxf 1835, 3 vols.; ed. Kirchhoff, Lips. 1856; ed. Didot, Par. 1856; H. F. Müller, Berlin 1878–80.
Porphyrius: Κατὰ
Χριστιανῶν
λόγοι (fragments collected in Holstein: Dissert.
de vita et scriptis Porphyr.
Hierocles: Λόγοι φιλαλήθεις πρός Χριστιανούς (fragments in Euse b.: Contra Hierocl. lib., and probably also in Macarius Magnes: Ἀποκριτικὸς ἢ Μονογενής Par. 1876).
Philostratus: De Vita Apollonii Tyanensis libri octo (Greek and Latin), Venet. 1501; ed. Westerman, Par. 1840; ed. Kayser, Zürich, 1853, 1870. Also in German, French and English translations.
II. Works.
Vogt: Neuplatonismus u. Christenthum. Berl. 1836.
Ritter:Gesch. der Philos. vol. 4th, 1834 (in English by Morrison, Oxf. 1838).
Neander: Ueber das neunte Buch in der zweiten Enneade des Plotinus. 1843. (vid. Neander’s Wissenschaftl. Abhandlungen, published by Jacobi, Berl. 1851, p. 22 sqq.)
Ullmann: Einflusz des Christentums auf Porphyrius, in "Stud. u. Krit." 1832.
Kirchner:Die Philosophie des Plotin. Halle, 1854.
F. Chr. Baur: Apollonius von Tyana u. Christus. Tüb. 1832, republ. by Ed. Zeller, in Drei Abhandlungen zur Gesch. der alten Philosophie U. ihres Verh. zum Christenthum. Leipzig, 1876, pp. 1–227.
John H. Newman: Apollonius Tyanaeus. Lond. 1849 (Encycl. Metropol. Vol. X., pp. 619–644).
A. Chassang: Ap. de T., sa vie, ses voyages, ses prodiges, etc. Paris, 1862. Translation from the Greek, with explanatory notes.
H. Kellner: Porphyrius und sein Verhültniss zum Christenthum, in the Tübingen "Theol. Quartalschrift," 1865. No. I.
Albert Réville: Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ of the third century, translated from the French. Lond. 1866.
K. Mönkeberg: Apollonius v. Tyana. Hamb. 1877.
Fr. Ueberweg: History of Philosophy (Eng. transl. N. York, 1871), vol. I. 232–259.
Ed. Zeller: Philosophie der Griechen, III. 419 sqq.
More earnest and dignified, but for this very reason more lasting and dangerous, was the opposition which proceeded directly and indirectly from Neo-Platonism. This system presents the last phase, the evening red, so to speak, of the Grecian philosophy; a fruitless effort of dying heathenism to revive itself against the irresistible progress of Christianity in its freshness and vigor. It was a pantheistic eclecticism and a philosophico-religious syncretism, which sought to reconcile Platonic and Aristotelian philosophy with Oriental religion and theosophy, polytheism with monotheism, superstition with culture, and to hold, as with convulsive grasp, the old popular religion in a refined and idealized form. Some scattered Christian ideas also were unconsciously let in; Christianity already filled the atmosphere of the age too much, to be wholly shut out. As might be expected, this compound of philosophy and religion was an extravagant, fantastic, heterogeneous affair, like its contemporary, Gnosticism, which differed from it by formally recognising Christianity in its syncretism. Most of the NeoPlatonists, Jamblichus in particular, were as much hierophants and theurgists as philosophers, devoted themselves to divination and magic, and boasted of divine inspirations and visions. Their literature is not an original, healthy natural product, but an abnormal after-growth.
In a time of inward distraction and dissolution
the human mind hunts up old and obsolete systems and notions, or
resorts to magical and theurgic arts. Superstition follows on the heels
of unbelief, and atheism often stands closely connected with the fear
of ghosts and the worship of demons. The enlightened emperor Augustus
was troubled, if he put on his left shoe first in the morning, instead
of the right; and the accomplished elder Pliny wore amulets as
protection from thunder and lightning. In their day the long-forgotten
Pythagoreanism was conjured from the grave and idealized. Sorcerers
like Simon Magus, Elymas, Alexander of Abonoteichos, and Apollonius of
Tyana (d. a.d. 96), found great favor even
with the higher classes, who laughed at the fables of the gods. Men
turned wishfully to the past, especially to the mysterious East, the
land of primitive wisdom and religion. The Syrian cultus was sought
out; and all sorts of religions, all the sense and all the nonsense of
antiquity found a rendezvous in Rome. Even a succession of Roman
emperors, from Septimius Severus, at the close of the second century,
to Alexander Severus, embraced this religious syncretism, which,
instead of supporting the old Roman state religion, helped to undermine
it. The oldest apostle
of this strange medley of Hellenic, Persian, Chaldean and Egyptian
mysteries in Rome was Nigidius Figulus, who belonged to the strictest
section of the aristocracy, and filled the praetorship in 696 a.u.c. (58 b.c.) He
foretold the father of the subsequent emperor Augustus on the very day
of his birth his future greatness. The system was consecrated by the
name of Pythagoras, the primeval sage of Italian birth, the
miracleworker and necromancer. The new and old wisdom made a profound
impression on men of the highest rank and greatest learning, who took
part in the citation of spirits, as in the nineteenth century,
spirit-rapping and tablemoving exercised for a while a similar charm.
"These last attempts to save the Roman theology, like the similar
efforts of Cato in the field of politics, produce at once a comical and
a melancholy impression. We may smile at the creed and its propagators,
but still it is a grave matter when all men begin to addict themselves
to absurdity." Th. Mommsen, History of Rome, vol. IV. p. 563
(Dickson’s translation. Lond. 1867.)
After the beginning of the third century this
tendency found philosophical expression and took a reformatory turn in
Neo-Platonism. The magic power, which was thought able to reanimate all
these various elements and reduce them to harmony, and to put deep
meaning into the old mythology, was the philosophy of the divine Plato;
which in truth possessed essentially a mystical character, and was used
also by learned Jews, like Philo, and by Christians, like
The proper founder of Neo-Platonism was
From its love for the ideal, the supernatural, and
the mystical, this system, like the original Platonism, might become
for many philosophical minds a bridge to faith; and so it was even to
St.
The rhetorician Philostratus himself
gives no intimation of such design on his part, and simply states that
he was requested by the empress Julia Domna (a.d. 217), to draw up a biography of Apollonius from
certain memoranda of Damis, one of his friends and followers. The name
of Christ is never mentioned by him; nor does he allude to the Gospels,
except in one instance, where he uses the same phrase as the daemon in
St. Luke (viii. 28): "I beseech thee, torment me not (μή με
βασανίσῃς
.). Vita Apoll. IV. 25. Bishop Samuel Parker, in a work
on the Divine Authority of the Christian Religion (1681), Lardner,
Neander (K G. I. 298), and J. S. Watson (in a review of
Re’ville’s Apoll. of T., in the
"Contemporary Review" for 1867, p. 199 ff.), deny the commonly received
opinion, first maintained by Bishop Daniel Hust, and defended by Baur,
Newman, and Re’ville, that Philostratus intended to
draw a parallel between his hero and Christ. The resemblance is studied
and fictitious, and it is certain that at a later date Hierocles vainly
endeavored to lower the dignity of Christ by raising this Pythagorean
adventurer as portrayed by Philostratus, to a level with the eternal
Son of God.
The points of resemblance are chiefly these: Jesus
was the Son of God, Apollonius the son of Jupiter; the birth of Christ
was celebrated by the appearance of angels, that of Apollonius by a
flash of lightning; Christ raised the daughter of Jairus, Apollonius a
young Roman maiden, from the dead; Christ cast out demons, Apollonius
did the same; Christ rose from the dead, Apollonius appeared after his
death. Apollonius is made to combine also several characteristics of
the apostles, as the miraculous gift of tongues, for he understood all
the languages of the world. Like St. Paul, he received his earlier
education at Tarsus, labored at Antioch, Ephesus, and other cities, and
was persecuted by Nero. Like the early Christians, he was falsely
accused of sacrificing children with certain mysterious ceremonies. Comp. the account of
the resemblance by Baur, l.c. pp. 138 sqq.
These various attempts to Christianize paganism were of course as abortive as so many attempts to galvanize a corpse. They made no impression upon their age, much less upon ages following. They were indirect arguments in favor of Christianity: they proved the internal decay of the false, and the irresistible progress of the true religion, which began to mould the spirit of the age and to affect public opinion outside of the church. By inventing false characters in imitation of Christ they indirectly conceded to the historical Christ his claim to the admiration and praise of mankind.
§ 35. Porphyry and Hierocles
See the Lit. in § 34.
One of the leading Neo-Platonists made a direct
attack upon Christianity, and was, in the eyes of the church fathers,
its bitterest and most dangerous enemy. Towards the end of the third
century
Porphyry attacked especially the sacred books of
the Christians, with more knowledge than Celsus. He endeavored, with
keen criticism, to point out the contradictions between the Old
Testament and the New, and among the apostles themselves; and thus to
refute the divinity of their writings. He represented the prophecies of
Daniel as vaticinia post eventum, and censured the allegorical
interpretation of
Still Porphyry would not wholly reject
Christianity. Like many rationalists of more recent times, he
distinguished the original pure doctrine of Jesus from the
second-handed, adulterated doctrine of the apostles. In another work Περὶ
τῆς ἐκ
λογίων
φιλοσοφίας.
Fabricius, Mosheim, Neander, and others, treat the work as genuine, but
Lardner denies it to Porphyry. De Civit. Dei, l.
XIX. c. 22, 23; Comp. also
The last literary antagonist of Christianity in
our period is To this may be added
the extracts from an unnamed heathen philosopher (probably Hierocles or
Porphyrius) in the apologetic work of Macarius Magnes (about 400),
which was discovered at Athens in 1867, and published by Blondel;,
Paris 1876. See L. Duchesne, De Marcario Magnete et scriptis ejus, Par.
1877, and Zöckler in Herzog, ed. II. vol. IX. 160.
§ 36. Summary of the Objections to Christianity.
In general the leading arguments of the Judaism and heathenism of this period against the new religion are the following:
1. Against Christ: his illegitimate birth; his association with poor, unlettered fishermen, and rude publicans: his form of a servant, and his ignominious death. But the opposition to him gradually ceased. While Celsus called him a downright impostor, the Syncretists and Neo-Platonists were disposed to regard him as at least a distinguished sage.
2. Against Christianity: its novelty; its barbarian origin; its want of a national basis; the alleged absurdity of some of its facts and doctrines, particularly of regeneration and the resurrection; contradictions between the Old and New Testaments, among the Gospels, and between Paul and Peter; the demand for a blind, irrational faith.
3. Against the Christians: atheism, or hatred of
the gods; the worship of a crucified malefactor; poverty, and want of
culture and standing; desire of innovation; division and sectarianism;
want of patriotism; gloomy seriousness; credulity; superstition, and
fanaticism. Sometimes they were charged even with unnatural crimes,
like those related in the pagan mythology of Oedipus and his mother
Jocaste (concubitus Oedipodei), and of Thyestes and Atreus (epulae
Thyesteae). Perhaps some Gnostic sects ran into scandalous excesses;
but as against the Christians in general this charge was so clearly
unfounded, that it is not noticed even by Celsus and Lucian. The
senseless accusation, that they worshipped an ass’s
head, may have arisen, as Apol.c.
16:"Somniastis caput asininun esse deum nostrum. Hanc Cornelius Tacitus
suspicionem ejusmodi dei inseruit,"etc.
§ 37. The Apologetic Literature of Christianity.
Comp. Lit. in § 1 and 12.
I. The sources are all the writings of the
Apologists of the second and third centuries; particularly Justin M.: Apologia I. and II.; Tertull.: Apologeticus; Minucius
Felix: Octavius;
II. Fabricius:Dilectus argumentorum et Syllabus scriptorum, qui veritatem Rel. Christ. asseruerunt. Hamb. 1725.
Tzschirner: Geschichte der Apologetik. Lpz. 1805 (unfinished).
G. H. Van Sanden: Gesch. der Apol. translated from Dutch into German by Quack and Binder. Stuttg. 1846. 2 vols.
Semisch: Justin der Mürt. Bresl. 1840. II. 56–225.
W. B. Colton: The
Evidences of Christianity as exhibited in the writings of its
Apologists down to
Karl Werner (R.C.): Geschichte der apologetischen und polemischen Literatur der christl. Theologie. Schaffhausen, 1861–’65. 5 vols. (vol. I. belongs here).
James Donaldson: A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from, the Death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council. London, 1864–66. 3 vols.
Adolf Harnack: Die Ueberlieferung der Griechischen Apologeten des zweiten Jahrhunderts in der alten Kirche und im Mittelalter. Band I. Heft 1 and 2. Leipz. 1882.
These assaults of argument and calumny called forth in the second century the Christian apologetic literature, the vindication of Christianity by the pen, against the Jewish zealot, the Grecian philosopher, and the Roman statesman. The Christians were indeed from the first "ready always to give an answer to every man that asked them a reason of the hope that was in them." But when heathenism took the field against them not only with fire and sword, but with argument and slander besides, they had to add to their simple practical testimony a theoretical self-defence. The Christian apology against non-Christian opponents, and the controversial efforts against Christian errorists, are the two oldest branches of theological science.
The apologetic literature began to appear under
the reign of Hadrian, and continued to grow till the end of our period.
Most of the church teachers took part in this labor of their day. The
first apologies, by Quadratus, bishop of Athens, Aristides, philosopher
of Athens, and Aristo of Pella, which were addressed to the emperor
Hadrian, and the later works of Melito of Sardis, Claudius Apollinaris
of Hierapolis, and Miltiades, who lived under See on the works of
these Apologists, lost and partly recovered, Harnack, l.c. pp. 100
sqq.; 240 sqq.; and Renan, L’egl. chrét. p. 40
sqq. We shall refer to them in the chapter on Christian literature.
The most important Latin apologists are
Here at once appears the characteristic difference between the Greek and the Latin minds. The Greek apologies are more learned and philosophical, the Latin more practical and juridical in their matter and style. The former labor to prove the truth of Christianity and its adaptedness to the intellectual wants of man; the latter plead for its legal right to exist, and exhibit mainly its moral excellency and salutary effect upon society. The Latin also are in general more rigidly opposed to heathenism, while the Greek recognize in the Grecian philosophy a certain affinity to the Christian religion.
The apologies were addressed in some cases to the
emperors (Hadrian, Antoninus Pius, Orosius, however,
relates in big Hist. vii. 14, that Justin M., by his Apology, made the
emperor Antoninus Pius "benignum erqa Christianos."
Yet the chief service of this literature was to
strengthen believers and to advance theological knowledge. It brought
the church to a deeper and clearer sense of the peculiar nature of the
Christian religion, and prepared her thenceforth to vindicate it before
the tribunal of reason and philosophy; whilst Judaism and heathenism
proved themselves powerless in the combat, and were driven to the
weapons of falsehood and vituperation. The sophisms and mockeries of a
Celsus and a Lucian have none but a historical interest; the Apologies
of Justin and the Apologeticus of
The apologists do not confine themselves to the defensive, but carry the war aggressively into the territory of Judaism and heathenism. They complete their work by positively demonstrating that Christianity is the divine religion, and the only true religion for all mankind.
§ 38. The Argument against Judaism.
In regard to the controversy with Judaism, we have
two principal sources: the Dialogue of Διάλογος
πρὸς
Τρύφωνα
Ἰουδαῖον.
. Adverus Judaeos.
Also Ἰάσονος
καὶ
Παπίσκου
ἀντιλογία
περὶ Χ
ριστοῦ. Comp. the
discussion of Harnack, l.c. pp. 115-130. He assigns the book to a.d. 135 or soon after. It disappeared in the
seventh century.
I. The defensive apology answered the Jewish objections thus:
(1) Against the charge, that Christianity is an
apostasy from the Jewish religion, it was held, that the Mosaic law, as
far as it relates to outward rites and ceremonies was only a temporary
institution for the Jewish nation foreshadowing the substance of
Christianity, while its moral precepts as contained in the Decalogue
were kept in their deepest spiritual sense only by Christians; that the
Old Testament itself points to its own dissolution and the
establishment of a new covenant;
(2) Against the assertion, that the servant-form
of Jesus of Nazareth, and his death by the cross, contradicted the Old
Testament idea of the Messiah, it was urged, that the appearance of the
Messiah is to be regarded as twofold, first, in the form of a servant,
afterwards in glory; and that the brazen serpent in the wilderness, and
the prophecies of David in
(3) To the objection, that the divinity of Jesus
contradicts the unity of God and is blasphemy, it was replied, that the
Christians believe likewise in only one God; that the Old Testament
itself makes a distinction in the divine nature; that the plural
expression: "Let us make man,"
II. The aggressive apology or polemic theology urges as evidence against Judaism:
(1) First and mainly that the prophecies and types
of the Old Testament are fulfilled in Jesus Christ and his church.
Justin finds all the outlines of the gospel history predicted in the
Old Testament: the Davidic descent of Jesus, for example, in
(2) The destruction of Jerusalem, in which
Judaism, according to the express prediction of Jesus, was condemned by
God himself, and Christianity was gloriously vindicated. Here the
Jewish priest and historian Josephus, who wrote from personal
observation a graphic description of this tragedy, had to furnish a
powerful historical argument against his own religion and for the truth
of Christianity. Adv.Jud. c. 13
§ 39. The Defense against Heathenism.
I. The various Objections and Accusations of the heathens, which we have collected in §
(1) The attack upon the miraculous in the
evangelical history the apologists could meet by pointing to the
similar element in the heathen mythology; of course proposing this
merely in the way of argumentum ad hominem, to deprive the opposition
of the right to object. For the credibility of the miraculous accounts
in the Gospels, particularly that of the resurrection of Jesus,
(2) The novelty and late appearance of
Christianity were justified by the need of historical preparation in
which the human race should be divinely trained for Christ; but more
frequently it was urged also, that Christianity existed in the counsel
of God from eternity, and had its unconscious votaries, especially
among the pious Jews, long before the advent of Christ. By claiming the
Mosaic records, the apologists had greatly the advantage as regards
antiquity over any form of paganism, and could carry their religion, in
its preparatory state, even beyond the flood and up to the very gates
of paradise. Justin and
(3) The doctrine of the resurrection of the body,
so peculiarly offensive to the heathen and Gnostic understanding, was
supported, as to its possibility, by reference to the omnipotence of
God, and to the creation of the world and of man; and its propriety and
reasonableness were argued from the divine image in man, from the high
destiny of the body to be the temple of the Holy Spirit, and from its
intimate connection with the soul, as well as from the righteousness
and goodness of God. The argument from analogy was also very generally
used, but often without proper discrimination. Thus, Apolog. c. 43.
Comp. his special tract De resurrectione Carnis, c. 12, where he
defends the doctrine more fully against the Gnostics and their radical
misconception of the nature and import of the body.
(4) The charge of immoral conduct and secret vice
the apologists might repel with just indignation, since the New
Testament contains the purest and noblest morality, and the general
conduct of the Christians compared most favorably with that of the
heathens. "Shame! shame!" they justly cried; "to roll upon the innocent
what you are openly guilty of, and what belongs to you and your gods!"
II. To their defence the Christians, with the rising consciousness of victory, added direct arguments against heathenism, which were practically sustained by, its dissolution in the following period.
(1) The popular religion of the heathens,
particularly the doctrine of the gods, is unworthy, contradictory,
absurd, immoral, and pernicious. The apologists and most of the early
church teachers looked upon the heathen gods not as mere imaginations
or personified powers of nature or deifications of distinguished men,
but as demons or fallen angels. They took this view from the Septuagint
version of Πάντες οἱ
θεοὶ τῶν
εθνῶν
δαιμόνια.
Comp.
"What sad fates," says
(2) The Greek philosophy, which rises above the popular belief, is not suited to the masses, cannot meet the religious wants, and confutes itself by its manifold contradictions. Socrates, the wisest of all the philosophers, himself acknowledged that he knew nothing. On divine and human things Justin finds the philosophers at variance among themselves; with Thales water is the ultimate principle of all things; with Anaximander, air; with Heraclitus, fire; with Pythagoras, number. Even Plato not seldom contradicts himself; now supposing three fundamental causes (God, matter, and ideas), now four (adding the world-soul); now he considers matter is unbegotten, now as begotten; at one time he ascribes substantiality to ideas, at another makes them mere forms of thought, etc. Who, then, he concludes, would intrust to the philosophers the salvation of his soul?
(3) But, on the other hand, the Greek apologists
recognized also elements of truth in the Hellenic literature,
especially in the Platonic and Stoic philosophy, and saw in them, as in
the law and the prophecies of Judaism, a preparation of the way for
Christianity. Also the Stoics and
some of the poets as far as their moral teaching went, Comp. Just.
Apol. II.c. 8, and 13. See the
introduction of E. Spiess to his Logos spermatikos, Leipz. 1871.
The Latin fathers speak less favorably of the
Greek philosophy; yet even De Vera Religione
IV. 7: "Proxime Platonici a veritate Christiana absunt vel veri
Christiani sunt paucis mutatis verbis atque sententiis." Retract. I.
13: "Res ipsa quae nunc religio Christiana nuncupatur, erat apud
antiquos, nec defuit ab initio generis humani., quousque Christus
veniret in carnem, unde vera religio, quae jam erat, coepit appellari
Christiana." Comp. Lactantius, De Falsa Religione, I. 5; De Vita Beata,
VII. 7; Minucius Fel., Octav. 20
§ 40. The Positive Apology.
The Christian apology completed itself in the positive demonstration of the divinity of the new religion; which was at the same time the best refutation of both the old ones. As early as this period the strongest historical and philosophical arguments for Christianity were brought forward, or at least indicated, though in connection with many untenable adjunct.
1. The great argument, not only with Jews, but
with heathens also, was the prophecies; since
the knowledge of future events can come only from God. The first appeal
of the apologists was, of course, to the prophetic writings of the Old
Testament, in which they found, by a very liberal interpretation, every
event of the gospel history and every lineament of our
Saviour’s character and work. In addition to the
Scriptures, even such fathers as Comp. Dr. Friedlieb:Die
Sibyllinischen Weissagungen vollständig gesammelt,
mitkritischem Commentare und metrischer
Übersetzung. Leipz. 1852. Another edition
with a Latin version by C. Alexandre, Paris
1841, second ed. 1869, 2 tom. We have at present twelve books of χρησμοί
σιβυλλιακοίin
Greek hexameter, and some fragments. They have been critically
discussed by Blondel (1649), Bleek (1819), Volkmann (1853), Ewald
(1858), Tübigen (1875), Reuss, and Schürer (see
Lit. in his N. T.
Zeitgesch. p. 513). The Sibyl figures in the Dies Irae alongside
with King David (teste David cum Sibylla), as prophesying the day of
judgment. Best edition by
Robert Sinker from
the Cambridge MS., Cambridge, 1869, and an Appendix, 1879; an English
translation by Sinker, in the "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. XXII. (
Edinb. 1871). Discussions by Nitzsch (1810), Ritschl (1850 and 1857),
Vorstmann (1857), Kayser (1851), Lücke (1852), Dillmann (in
Herzog, first ed. XII. 315), Lightfoot (1875), and Warfield (in
"Presbyt. Review," York, January, 1880, on the apologetical value of
the work for its allusions to various books of the N. T.).
2. The types. These, too,
were found not only in the Old Testament, but in the whole range of
nature. Justin saw everywhere, in the tree of life in Eden, in
Jacob’s ladder, in the rods of Moses and Aaron, nay,
in every sailing ship, in the wave-cutting oar, in the plough, in the
human countenance, in the human form with outstretched arms, in banners
and trophies—the sacred form of the cross, and thus a
prefiguration of the mystery of redemption through the crucifixion of
the Lord. Apol. l.c, 55;
Dial. c. Tryph. c. 91.
3. The miracles of Jesus
and the apostles, with those which continued to be wrought in the name
of Jesus, according to the express testimony of the fathers, by their
contemporaries. But as the heathens also appealed to miraculous deeds
and appearances in favor of their religion, Justin, Arnobius, and
particularly
The subject of post-apostolic miracles is
surrounded by much greater difficulties in the absence of inspired
testimony, and in most cases even of ordinary immediate witnesses.
There is an antecedent probability that the power of working miracles
was not suddenly and abruptly, but gradually withdrawn, as the
necessity of such outward and extraordinary attestation of the divine
origin of Christianity diminished and gave way to the natural operation
of truth and moral suasion. Hence On the other hand,
however, St.
It is remarkable that the genuine writings of the
ante-Nicene church are more free from miraculous and superstitious
elements than the annals of the Nicene age and the middle ages. The
history of monasticism teems with miracles even greater than those of
the New Testament. Most of the statements of the apologists are couched
in general terms, and refer to extraordinary cures from demoniacal
possession (which probably includes, in the language of that age, cases
of madness, deep melancholy, and epilepsy) and other diseases, by the
invocation of the name of Jesus. They are analogous
to the "faith-cures, " real or pretended, of our own age. Adv. Haer. II. 31,
(S) 4: Ἢδη δὲ
καὶ νεκροὶ
ἠγέρθ̓σαν
καὶ
παρέμεινον
σὺν ἡμῖν
ἱκανοῖς
ἕτεσι. These two
passages can hardly be explained, with Heumann and Neander, as
referring merely to cases of apparent death.
4. The moral effect of
Christianity upon the heart and life of its professors. The Christian
religion has not only taught the purest and sublimest code of morals
ever known among men, but actually exhibited it in the life sufferings,
and death of its founder and true followers. All the apologists, from
the author of the Epistle to Diognetus down to Apol. l.c. 13 and
14.
5. The rapid spread of
Christianity by purely moral means, and in spite of the greatest
external obstacles, yea, the bitter persecution of Jews and Gentiles.
The anonymous apologetic Epistle to Diognetus which belongs to the
literature of the Apostolic Fathers, already thus urges this point: "Do
you not see the Christians exposed to wild beasts, that they may be
persuaded to deny the Lord, and yet not overcome? Do you not see that
the more of them are punished, the greater becomes the number of the
rest? This does not seem to be the work of man: this is the power of
God; these are the evidences of his manifestation." Ad Diogn. c. 7.
6. The reasonableness of Christianity, and its agreement with all the true and the beautiful in the Greek philosophy and poesy. All who had lived rationally before Christ were really, though unconsciously, already Christians. Thus all that is Christian is rational, and all that is truly rational is Christian. Yet, on the other hand, of course, Christianity is supra-rational (not irrational).
7. The adaptation of
Christianity to the deepest needs of human nature, which it alone can
meet. Here belongs Tert. Apolog. c.
17. Comp. the beautiful passage in De Testim Animae, c. 2: "Si enim
anima aut divina aut a Deo data est, sine dubio datorem num novit, et
si novit, utique et timet .... O testimonium veritatis, quae apud ipsa
daemonia testem efficit Christianorum."
This deep longing of the human soul for the living
God in Christ, Aug. Confess. I. 1:
"Fecisti nos ad Te, et inquietum est cor nostrum, donec requiescat in
Te."
ORGANIZATION AND DISCIPLINE OF THE CHURCH.
I. The chief sources for this chapter are the
Epistles of
II. See the Literature in vol. I. § 58 (p. 481 sqq. ), particularly the works of Rothe, Ritchsl, Lightfoot, and Hatch.
§ 41. Progress in Consolidation.
In the external organization of the church, several
important changes appear in the period before us. The distinction of
clergy and laity, and the sacerdotal view of the ministry becomes
prominent and fixed; subordinate church offices are multiplied; the
episcopate arises; the beginnings of the Roman primacy appear; and the
exclusive unity of the Catholic church develops itself in opposition to
heretics and schismatics. The apostolical organization of the first
century now gives place to the old Catholic episcopal system; and this,
in its turn, passes into the metropolitan, and after the fourth century
into the patriarchal. Here the Greek church stopped, and is governed to
this day by a hierarchical oligarchy of patriarchs equal in rank and
jurisdiction; while the Latin church went a step further, and produced
in the middle ages the papal monarchy. The germs of this papacy
likewise betray themselves even in our present period, particularly in
The characteristics, however, of the
pre-Constantinian hierarchy, in distinction from the
post-Constantinian, both Greek and Roman, are, first, its grand
simplicity, and secondly, its spirituality, or freedom from all
connection with political power and worldly splendor. Whatever
influence the church acquired and exercised, she owed nothing to the
secular government, which continued indifferent or positively hostile
till the protective toleration edict of Constantine (313). "Quid Christianis
cum regibus ? aut quid episcopis cum palatio?" Contra Cels. VIII.
68. Comp. the remarks of Neander, I. 129 (Boston ed.).
The consolidation of the church and its compact organization implied a restriction of individual liberty, in the interest of order, and a temptation to the abuse of authority. But it was demanded by the diminution of spiritual gifts, which were poured out in such extraordinary abundance in the apostolic age. It made the church a powerful republic within the Roman empire, and contributed much to its ultimate success. "In union is strength," especially in times of danger and persecution such as the church had to pass through in the ante-Nicene age. While we must deny a divine right and perpetual obligation to any peculiar form of government as far as it departs from the simple principles of the New Testament, we may concede a historical necessity and great relative importance to the ante-Nicene and subsequent organizations of the church. Even the papacy was by no means an unmixed evil, but a training school for the barbarian nations during the middle ages. Those who condemn, in principle, all hierarchy, sacerdotalism, and ceremonialism, should remember that God himself appointed the priesthood and ceremonies in the Mosaic dispensation, and that Christ submitted to the requirements of the law in the days of his humiliation.
§ 42. Clergy and Laity.
The idea and institution of a special priesthood,
distinct from the body of the people, with the accompanying notion of
sacrifice and altar, passed imperceptibly from Jewish and heathen
reminiscences and analogies into the Christian church. The majority of
Jewish converts adhered tenaciously to the Mosaic institutions and
rites, and a considerable part never fully attained to the height of
spiritual freedom proclaimed by Paul, or soon fell away from it. He
opposed legalistic and ceremonial tendencies in Galatia and Corinth;
and although sacerdotalism does not appear among the errors of his
Judaizing opponents, the Levitical priesthood, with its three ranks of
high-priest, priest, and Levite, naturally furnished an analogy for the
threefold ministry of bishop, priest, and deacon, and came to be
regarded as typical of it. Still less could the Gentile Christians, as
a body, at once emancipate themselves from their traditional notions of
priesthood, altar, and sacrifice, on which their former religion was
based. Whether we regard the change as an apostasy from a higher
position attained, or as a reaction of old ideas never fully abandoned,
the change is undeniable, and can be traced to the second century. The
church could not long occupy the ideal height of the apostolic age, and
as the Pentecostal illumination passed away with the death of the
apostles, the old reminiscences began to reassert themselves. Renan, looking at
the gradual development of the hierarchy out of the primitive
democracy, from his secular point of view, calls it, the most profound
transformation "in history, and a triple abdication: first the club
(the congregation) committing its power to the bureau or the committee
(the college of presbyters), then the bureau to its president (the
bishop) who could say: "Je suis le club,"and finally the presidents to
the pope as the universal and infallible bishop; the last process being
completed in the Vatican Council of 1870. See his E’glise
chrétienne, p. 88, and his English
Conferences (Hibbert Lectures, 1880), p 90.
In the apostolic church preaching and teaching
were not confined to a particular class, but every convert could
proclaim the gospel to unbelievers, and every Christian who had the
gift could pray and teach and exhort in the congregation. Comp.
On the other hand it is equally clear that there
was in the apostolic church a ministerial office, instituted by Christ,
for the very purpose of raising the mass of believers from infancy and
pupilage to independent and immediate intercourse with God, to that
prophetic, priestly, and kingly position, which in principle and
destination belongs to them all. Comp.
After the gradual abatement of the extraordinary
spiritual elevation of the apostolic age, which anticipated in its way
the ideal condition of the church, the distinction of a regular class
of teachers from the laity became more fixed and prominent. This
appears first in Ad Trall.c. 7:
ὁ
ἔντὸς
θυσιαστήιον
ὦν
καθαρός
ἐστιν ὁ δέ
ἐκτὸς
θυσιαστηρίου
ὢν οὐ
καθαρός
ἐστιν·
τουτέστιν,
ὁ χωρὶς
ἐπισκόπου
καὶ
πρεσβυτερίου
καὶ
διακόνου
πράσσων τι,
οὖτος οὐ
καθαρός
ες̓τιν τῇ
συνειδήσει.Funk’s
ed. I. 208. Some MSS. omit the second clause, perhaps from
homoeoteleuton. Von Gebhardt and Harnack also omit it in the Greek
text, but retain it in the Latin (qui extra attare est, non mundus
est). The τουτέστιν
evidently requires the clause. Cf. ch. 13. See
note in Schaff’s edition, p. 206 Ad Cor. 40: "Unto
the high-priest his proper services have been intrusted, and to the
priests their proper office is appointed, and upon the levites their
proper ministrations are laid. The layman is bound by the
layman’s ordinances (ὁ
λαϊκὸς
ἄνθρωπος
τοῖς
λαϊκοῖς
προστάγμασιν
δέδεται)." The
passage occurs in the text of Bryennios as well as in the older
editions, and there is no good reason to suspect it of being an
interpolation in the hierarchical interest, as Neander and Milman have
done. Bishop Lightfoot, in his St. Sacerdos, also
summus sacerdos ( Κλῆρος,clerus,
τάξιςordo,
ordosacerdotalis (Tertulli, De Ehort. Cast. 7), ordo eccelesiasticus
orecclesiae (De Monog. 11; De Idolol. 7); κληρικοί,
clerici. The first instance perhaps of the use of clerus in the sense
of clergy is in Λαός,
λαϊκοί, plebs.
In
Solemn "ordination" or consecration by the laying
on of hands was the form of admission into the "ordo ecclesiasticus" or
"sacerdotalis." In this order itself there were again three degrees,
"ordines majores," as they were called: the diaconate, the
presbyterate, and the episcopate—held to be of divine
institution. Under these were the "ordines minores," of later date,
from sub-deacon to ostiary, which formed the stepping-stone between the
clergy proper and the people. .Occasionally,
however we find a somewhat wider terminology.
Thus we find, so early as the third century, the
foundations of a complete hierarchy; though a hierarchy of only moral
power, and holding no sort of outward control over the conscience. The
body of the laity consisted of two classes: the faithful, or the
baptized and communicating members, and the catechumens, who were
preparing for baptism. Those church members who lived together in one
place, Πάροικοι,
παρεπίδημοι,
or parish, παροικία.
With the exaltation of the clergy appeared the
tendency to separate them from secular business, and even from social
relations—from marriage, for
example—and to represent them, even outwardly, as a
caste independent of the people, and devoted exclusively to the service
of the sanctuary. They drew their support from the church treasury,
which was supplied by voluntary contributions and weekly collections on
the Lord’s Day. After the third century they were
forbidden to engage in any secular business, or even to accept any
trusteeship. Celibacy was not yet in this period enforced, but left
optional.
With the growth of this distinction of clergy and
laity, however, the idea of the universal priesthood continued from
time to time to assert itself: in Adv. Haer. iv. 8,
§. Nonne et laici
sacerdotes sumus? De Exhort. Cast. c.
7. Comp. also De Monog. 7, 12; De Bapt. 17; De Orat. 18
Even in the Catholic church an acknowledgment of
the general priesthood showed itself in the custom of requiring the
baptized to say the Lord’s Prayer before the assembled
congregation. With reference to this, . Ad Cor. 44: Σύευδοκάσης
τῆς
ἐκκλησίας
πάσης , consentiente
universa ecclesia. Sine consensu
plebis.
Finally, we notice cases where the function of
teaching was actually exercised by laymen. The bishops of Jerusalem and
Caesarea allowed the learned Euseb., H. E. VI.
19: "There [in Caesarea] he [ Const. Apost. VIII.
31. Ambrosiaster, or Hilary the Deacon, in his Com. Ad Can. 98: "Laicus
praesentibus clericis nisi ipsis jubentibus, docere non audeat." The
99th canon forbids
women, no matter how "learned or holy," to "presume to teach men in a
meeting." Pope Leo I. (
It is worthy of notice that a number of the most
eminent church teachers of this period, Hermas, The Greek text (of
which only a fragment was known before) was found and published by
Bryennios, 1875, the Syriac version by Bensley, 1876. See
Harnack’s ed. in the Patres Apost. vol. I., and
Lightfoot, S.
§ 43. New Church Officers.
The expansion of the church, the development of her cultus, and the tendency towards hierarchical pomp, led to the multiplication of offices below the diaconate, which formed the ordines minores. About the middle of the third century the following new officers are mentioned:
1. Sub-deacons, or
under-helpers; Ὑποδιάκονοι,subdiaconi,
perhaps the same as the ὑπηρέται
of the New Testament and the earlier fathers.
2. Readers, Ἄναγνωσται,
lectores, mentioned by
3. Acolyths, Ἄκόλυθοι,
acolythi.
4. Exorcists, Ἔξορκισταί,exorcistae Δαιμονιζόμενοι,
ἐνεργούμενοι
5. Precentors, Ψάλται,
psalmistae cantores
6. Janitors or sextons, θυρωροί,
πυλωροί,
ostiarii janitores.
7. Besides these there were in the larger churches catechists, and, where the church language in the worship was not understood, interpreters; but the interpreting was commonly done by presbyters, deacons, or readers.
The bishop Cornelius of Rome (d. 252), in a letter
on the In Euseb. vi.
43.
As to the ordines majores, the deacons during this period rose in importance. In addition to their original duties of caring for the poor and sick, they baptized, distributed the sacramental cup, said the church prayers, not seldom preached, and were confidential advisers, sometimes even delegates and vicars of the bishops. This last is true especially of the "archdeacon," who does not appear, however, till the fourth century. The presbyters, on the contrary, though above the deacons, were now overtopped by the new office of bishop, in which the entire government of the church became centred.
§ 44. Origin of the Episcopate.
Besides the works already cited, compare the special works and essays on the Ignatian controversy, published since 1837, by Rothe (close of his Anfänge, etc.), Hefele (R.C.), Baur, Hilgenfeld, Bunsen, Petermann, Cureton, Lipsius, Uhlhorn, Zahn, Lightfoot (I. 376 sqq). Also R. D. Hitchcock on the Origin of Episcopacy, N. Y. 1867 (in the "Am. Presbyt. & Theol. Review" for Jan. 1867, pp. 133–169); Lightfoot on the Christian Ministry (1873); Hatch on the Organization of the Early Christian Church (1881); Renan, L’Eglise chrétienne (1879), ch. VI.Progrés de l’épiscopat; and Gore, The Ministry of the Church (1889).
The most important and also the most difficult
phenomenon of our period in the department of church organization is
the rise and development of the episcopate as distinct from the
presbyterate. This institution comes to view in the second century as
the supreme spiritual office, and is retained to this day by all Roman
and Greek Christendom, and by a large part of the Evangelical church,
especially the Anglican communion. A form of government so ancient and
so widely adopted, can be satisfactorily accounted for only on the
supposition of a religious need, namely, the need of a tangible outward
representation and centralization, to illustrate and embody to the
people their relation to Christ and to God, and the visible unity of
the church. It is therefore inseparable from the catholic principle of
authority and mediation; while the protestant principle of freedom and
direct intercourse of the believer with Christ, consistently carried
out, infringes the strict episcopal constitution, and tends to
ministerial equality. Episcopacy in the full sense of the term requires
for its base the idea of a real priesthood and real sacrifice, and an
essential distinction between clergy and laity. Divested of these
associations, it resolves itself into a mere superintendency. Such is the Swedish
and Danish Lutheran, the American Methodist, and the Moravian
episcopate, which recognizes the validity of non-episcopal orders. The
Anglican church harbors a high-church and a low-church theory of
episcopacy, the one derived from the mediaeval hierarchy, the other
from the Reformation, but repudiates the primacy as an antichristian
usurpation, although it must be confessed to be almost as old as
episcopacy, its roots going back to
During the lifetime of the apostles, those eye-
and ear-witnesses of the divine-human life of Jesus, and the inspired
organs of the Holy Spirit, there was no room for proper bishops; and
those who were so called, must have held only a subordinate place. The
church, too, in the first century was as yet a strictly supernatural
organization, a stranger in this world, standing with one foot in
eternity, and longing for the second coming of her heavenly bridegroom.
But in the episcopal constitution the church provided an extremely
simple but compact and freely expansible organization, planted foot
firmly upon earth, became an institution for the education of her
infant people, and, as chiliastic hopes receded, fell into the path of
quiet historical development; yet unquestionably she thus incurred also
the danger of a secularization which reached its height just when the
hierarchy became complete in the Roman church, and which finally
necessitated a reformation on the basis of apostolical Christianity.
That this secularization began with the growing power of the bishops
even before Constantine and the Byzantine court orthodoxy, we perceive,
for instance, in the lax penitential discipline, the avarice, and the
corruption with which Comp. Euseb. vii.
27-30 See the passages
quoted by Gieseler, vol. I. 282 sq. (Harpers’ ed. of
New York.)
We consider, first, the origin of the episcopate. The unreliable character of our
documents and traditions from the transition period between the close
of the apostolic church and the beginning of the post-apostolic, leaves
large room here for critical research and combination. First of all
comes the question: Was the episcopate directly or indirectly of
apostolic (Johannean) origin? This is the Greek,
the Roman Catholic, and the high Anglican theory. It is advocated by a
very few Continental Protestants as Chevalier Bunsen, Rothe and
Thiersch (an Irvingite), who trace episcopacy to John in Ephesus. So the Lutheran,
Presbyterian, and some eminent Episcopal writers. We mention Mosheim,
Neander, Lightfoot, Stanley, Hatch. Also Baur and Renan, who judge as
mere critics. Bishop Lightfoot
(l.c. p. 194) thus states the question with his own answer: "The
episcopate was formed, not out of the apostolic order by localization,
but out of the presbyterial by elevation; and the title, which
originally was common to all, came at length to be appropriated to the
chief among them."
I. For the apostolic origin of episcopacy the following points may be made:
(1) The position of James, who evidently stood at
the head of the church at Jerusalem, Ἐπίσκοπος
έπισκόπων.
(2) The office of the assistants and delegates of the apostles, like Timothy, Titus, Silas, Epaphroditus, Luke, Mark, who had a sort of supervision of several churches and congregational officers, and in a measure represented the apostles in special missions. But, in any case, these were not limited, at least during the life of the apostles, each to a particular diocese; they were itinerant evangelists and legates of the apostles; only the doubtful tradition of a later day assigns them distinct bishoprics. If bishops at all, they were missionary bishops.
(3) The angels of the seven churches of Asia,
(4) The testimony of
(5) The statement of Quis dives salvus,
c. 42. Adv.Haer. III.
3 De PraescR.C.
32 H. E.III. 36 Catal. sub
Polyc
(6) The uncertain tradition in H. E. III. 11.
Comp. the fragment of Hegesippus, in IV. 22. Lightfoot (Philippians p.
202) remarks against Rothe’s inference: "The account
of Hegesippus confines the object of this gathering to the appointment
of a successor of St. James. If its deliberations had exerted that vast
and permanent influence on the future of the church which
Rothe’s theory supposes, it is scarcely possible that
this early historian should have been ignorant of the fact, or knowing
it should have passed it over in silence."
(7) The tradition of the churches of Antioch and Rome, which trace their line of bishops back to apostolic institution, and kept the record of an unbroken succession.
(8) A passage in the second of the Pfaff Fragments
of
(9) Equally uncertain is the conclusion drawn from
an obscure passage in the Epistle of Ad Corinth. c. 44:
Οἱ
ἀπόστολοι
ἡμων
ἔγνωσαν
διὰ τοῦ
κυρίουἡμῶν
Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ
ὅτι ἔρις
ἔσται
ἐπὶ τοῦ
ὀνόματος
τῆς
ἐπισκοπῆς .
Διὰ ταύτην
οὖ́ν τὴν
αἰτίαν
πρόγνωσιν
εἰληφότες
τελείαν
κατέστησαν
τοὺς
προειρημένους
καὶ μεταξὺ
ἐπινομὴν
(or ἐπιμονὴν)
ἔδωκαν,
ὅπως , ἐὰν
κοιμηθῶσιν,
διαδέξωνται
ἕτεροι
δεδοκιμασμένοι
ἄνδρες
τὴν
λειτουργίαν
αὐτῶν. " Our
apostles knew through our Lord Jesus Christ that there would be strife
over the name of the bishop’s office [i.e., the office
of the ministry, in general; Comp. The reading is
obscure and disputed. The Alexandrian MS. reads: ἐπινομήν,
the Constantinopolitan: ἐπιδομήν
(both have EΠI-OMHN). The former
word is rare (from or from νέμω or fromνόμος) is not found
in the dictionaries; and hence various emendations have been proposed,
as άπονομήν
(Junius), ἐπιδοχήν
(Bryennios), ἐπιβολήν
(von Gebhardt and Harnack), ἐπιμονήν
(Bunsen, Lightfoot), ἐπιτροπήν
(Hilgenfeld), ἐπιλογήν,
ἐπινομίαν,
ἐπιστολήν,
ἐπιταγήν,
ἔτι
νόμον. Rothe
(Anfänge, p. 374) ingeniously translates ἐπινομήν
" testamentary disposition" (testamentarische Verfügung =ἐπινομίς
,an after-enactment, a codicil), and identifies it with
the δεύτεραι
διατάξεις
of the fragment of See also Gebhardt
and Harnack (presbyteri et diaconi illi, quos apostoli ipsi
constituerunt), the Roman Catholic editor Funk ("κοιμηθῶσιν,
sc. episcopi et diaconi de quorum successione Clemens agit"), and
Bishop Lightfoot ("the first generation of presbyters appointed by the
apostles themselves"). (Comp. also on this whole passage Lightfoot,
Philippians, p. 203, where he refutes Rothe’s
interpretation; Baur Ursprung des
Episcopats, p. 53; Ewald, Gesch. des Volkes Israel, VII. 300;
Ritschl, Altkath. K. 358 and 413, and Ilgenfeld, Apost.
Väter, 70.
(10) Finally, the philosophical consideration,
that the universal and uncontested spread of the episcopate in the
second century cannot be satisfactorily explained without the
presumption of at least the indirect sanction of the apostles. By the
same argument the observance of Sunday and infant baptism are usually
traced to apostolic origin. But it is not quite conclusive, since most
of the apostles died before the destruction of Jerusalem. It could only
apply to John, who was the living centre of the church in Asia Minor to
the close of the first century. Hence Rothe traces
the institution to John. And Bishop Lightfoot (Philippians, p. 204) is
inclined to this view: "Asia Minor was the nurse, if not the mother of
episcopacy in the Gentile churches. So important an institution,
developed in a Christian community, of which St. John was the living
centre and guide, could hardly, have grown up without his sanction: and
early tradition very distinctly connects his name with the appointment
of bishops in these parts." He repeats the same view more confidently
in his Ignat. and Polyc., I. 377.
II. The theory of the post-apostolic origin of the episcopate as a separate office or order, and its rise out of the presidency of the original congregational presbyterate, by way of human, though natural and necessary, development, is supported by the following facts:
(1) The undeniable identity of presbyters and
bishops in the New Testament,
(2) Later, at the close of the first and even in
the second century, the two terms are still used in like manner for the
same office. The Roman bishop Clement, in his First Epistle to the
Corinthians says, that the apostles, in the newly-founded churches,
appointed the first fruits of the faith, i.e., the first
converts, "bishops and deacons." C. 42. Comp. the
Commentary of Lightfoot. "It is impossible that he should have omitted
the presbyters, more especially as his one object is to defend their
authority, which had been assailed. The words ἐπίσκοπὸς
and πρεσβύτερος
therefore are synonymes in Clement, as they are in the apostolic
writers. In The ἡγούμενοι,
c. 1, also, and the προηγούμενοι,
c. 21, are not bishops, but congregational officers collectively, as in
Ch. 15: Χειροτονήσατε
ἑαυτοῖς
ἐπισκόπους
καὶ
διακόνους.
See Schaff’s monograph on the Didache, p. 211 sq Adv. Haer. iii. 2,
§5. Comp. also the letter of Comp. 2 Jno. 1. and
1.
(3) The express testimony of the learned Ad Titum i. 7.
Comp. Epist. 83 and 85. Ad
(4) The custom of the church of Alexandria, where,
from the evangelist Mark down to the middle of the third century, the
twelve presbyters elected one of their number president, and called him
bishop. This fact rests on the authority of Jerome, Epist. ad Evangelum
(Opp. iv. p. 802, ed. Martinay): Alexandriae a Marco evangelista usque
ad Heraclam et Dionysium episcopos presbyteri semper unum ex se electum
in excelsiori gradu collocatum episcopum nominabant, quomodo si
exercitus imperatorem faciat, aut diaconi elegant de se, quem
industrium noverint et archidiaconum vocent. Ed. Oxon. 1658, p.
331: "Constituit evangelista Marcus una cum Hakania patriarcha duodecim
presbyteros, qui nempe cum patriarcha manerent, adeo ut cum vacaret
patriachatus, unum e duodecim presbyteris eligerent, cnius capiti
reliqui undecim manus imponentes ipsi benedicerent et patriarcham
crearent, deinde virum aliquem insignem eligerent, quem secum
presbyterum constituerent, loco ejus, qui factus est patriarcha, ut ita
semper exstarent duodecim. Neque desiit Alexandriae institutum hoc de
presbyteris, ut scilcet patriarchas crearent ex presbyteris duodecim,
usque ad tempera Alexandri patriarchae Alexandriae. Is autem vetuit, ne
deinceps patriarcham presbyteri crearent. Et decrervit, ut mortuo
patriarcha convenient episcopi, qui patriarcham ordinarent."
III. Conclusion. The only
satisfactory conclusion from these various facts and traditions seems
to be, that the episcopate proceeded, both in the descending and
ascending scale, from the apostolate and the original presbyterate
conjointly, as a contraction of the former and an expansion of the
latter, without either express concert or general regulation of the
apostles, neither of which, at least, can be historically proved. It
arose, instinctively, as it were, in that obscure and critical
transition period between the end of the first and the middle of the
second century. It was not a sudden creation, much less the invention
of a single mind. It grew, in part, out of the general demand for a
continuation of, or substitute for, the apostolic church government,
and this, so far as it was transmissible at all, very naturally passed
first to the most eminent disciples and fellow-laborers of the
apostles, to Mark, Luke, Timothy, Clement,
We cannot therefore assume any strict uniformity.
But the whole church spirit of the age tended towards centralization;
it everywhere felt a demand for compact, solid unity; and this inward
bent, amidst the surrounding dangers of persecution and heresy, carried
the church irresistibly towards the episcopate. In so critical and
stormy a time, the principle, union is strength, division is weakness,
prevailed over all. In fact, the existence of the church at that period
may be said to have depended in a great measure on the preservation and
promotion of unity, and that in an outward, tangible form, suited to
the existing grade of culture. Such a unity was offered in the bishop,
who held a monarchical, or more properly a patriarchal relation to the
congregation. In the bishop was found the visible representative of
Christ, the great Head of the whole church. In the bishop, therefore,
all sentiments of piety found a centre. In the bishop the whole
religious posture of the people towards God and towards Christ had its
outward support and guide. And in proportion as every church pressed
towards a single centre, this central personage must acquire a peculiar
importance and subordinate the other presbyters to itself; though, at
the same time, as the language of Clement and
Besides this there was also a powerful practical
reason for elevating the powers of the bishop. Every Christian
congregation was a charitable society, regarding the care of the widow
and orphan, the poor and the stranger as a sacred trust; and hence the
great importance of the bishop as the administrative officer by whom
the charitable funds were received and the alms disbursed. In Greek
communities the title bishop (ἐπίσκοπος,
ἐπιμελιτής), was in wide use for financial
officers. Their administrative functions brought them in close relation
to the deacons, as their executive aids in the care of the poor and
sick. The archdeacon became the right arm, the "eye" and "heart" of the
bishop. In primitive times every case of poverty or suffering was
separately brought to the notice of the bishop and personally relieved
by a deacon. Afterwards institutions were founded for widows and
orphans, poor and infirm, and generally placed under the
superintendence of the bishop; but personal responsibility was
diminished by this organized charity, and the deacons lost their
original significance and became subordinate officers of public
worship. The philanthropic
and financial aspect of episcopacy has been brought out very fully by
Hatch, in his Bampton Lectures on The Organization of the Early
Christian Churches, Lect. II.
Whatever may be thought, therefore, of the origin and the divine right of the episcopate, no impartial historian can deny its adaptation to the wants of the church at the time, and its historical necessity.
But then, this primitive catholic episcopal system
must by no means be confounded with the later hierarchy. The dioceses,
excepting those of Jerusalem, Ephesus, Alexandria, Antioch, and Rome,
must have long remained very small, if we look at the number of
professing Christians. In the Apocalypse seven such centres of unity
are mentioned within a comparatively small compass in Asia Minor, and
at a time when the number of Christians was insignificant. In the year
258,
§ 45. Development of the Episcopate.
It is matter of fact that the episcopal form of
government was universally established in the Eastern and Western
church as early as the middle of the second century. Even the heretical
sects, at least the Ebionites, as we must infer from the commendation
of the episcopacy in the pseudo-Clementine literature, were organized
on this plan, as well as the later schismatic parties of
The episcopate first appears, as distinct from the
presbyterate, but as a congregational office only (in distinction from
the diocesan idea), and as yet a young institution, greatly needing
commendation, in the famous seven (or three) Epistles of The question of the
genuineness will be discussed in §165. Cureton (1845)
Bunsen, Lipsius, and others accept the Syriac version as the original
form of the Ignatian epistles, and regard even the short Greek text as
corrupt, but yet as dating from the middle of the second century.
Rothe, Hefele, Schaff (first ed.), Düsterdieck, Uhlhorn,
Zahn, Harnack, defend the genuineness of the shorter Greek recension.
The larger Greek recension is universally given up as spurious. The
origin of the hierarchical system is obscured by pious frauds. See
below, §164 and 165. In the Syriac Ep.
to
The substance of these epistles (with the
exception of that to the Romans, in which, singularly enough, not a
word is said about bishops Except that Ἐπίσκοπος
εἰς τόπον
θεοῦ
προκαθήμενος,
each bisbop being thus a sort of pope.
We shall give passages from the shorter Greek text (as edited by Zahn):
If any one is able to continue in purity (ἐν
ἁγνείᾳ
i.e., in the state of
celibacy), to the honor of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so
without boasting; if he boasts, he is lost (ἀπώλετο) if he become known more than the
bishop, Zahn reads, Ad
Polyc. cap. 5: ἐὰν
γνωσθῇ
πλέον τοῦ
ἐπισκόπου,i.e
. if he be better known or more esteemed than the bishop. The other
reading is, πλήν, beyond, or apart
from. Ad Polyc. cap. 5
and 6. The Greek text varies but little from the Syriac. Ad Ad Ad Magnes. c.
6. Ibid. c. 13. The
desire for "carnal" unity is significant, Ad Trallian. c. 2:
Ἀναγκαῖον
ἐστὶν,
ὥσπερ
ποιεῖτε,
ἄνευ τοῦ
ἐπισκόπου
μηδὲν
πράσσειν
ὑμᾶς
κτλ. Ad Philad. c.
3. Ad. Smyrn. c. 8:
Ὄπου ἄν
φανῇ ὁ
ἐπίσκοπος,
εκεῖ τὸ
πλῆθος
ἒστω,
ὥσπερ
α;̓̀ν ἦ
Χριστὸσ
Ἰησοῦς ,
ἐκεῖ ἡ
καθολικὴ
ἐκκλησία.
This is the first time that the term "catholic" is applied to the church, and that episcopacy is made a condition of catholicity.
"He that honors the bishop, shall be honored by
God; he that does anything without the knowledge of the bishop serves
the devil." Ad Smyrn. c. 9:
Ὁ
τιμῶν
ἐπίσκοπον
ὑπὸ θεοῦ
τετίμηται·
ὁ λάθρα
ἐπισκόπου
τι πράσσων
τῷ
διαβόλῳ
λατρεύει..
This is making salvation pretty much depend upon obedience to the bishop; just as Leo I., three centuries later, in the controversy with Hilary of Arles, made salvation depend upon obedience to the pope by declaring every rebel against the pope to be a servant of the devil! Such daring superabundance of episcopalianism clearly betrays some special design and raises the suspicion of forgery or large interpolations. But it may also be explained as a special pleading for a novelty which to the mind of the writer was essential to the very existence of the church.
The peculiarity in this Ignatian view is that the bishop appears in it as the head and centre of a single congregation, and not as equally the representative of the whole church; also, that (as in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies) he is the vicar of Christ, and not, as in the later view, merely the successor of the apostles,—the presbyters and deacons around him being represented as those successors; and finally, that there are no distinctions of order among the bishops, no trace of a primacy; all are fully coordinate vicars of Christ, who provides for himself in them, as it were, a sensible, perceptible omnipresence in the church. The Ignatian episcopacy, in short, is congregational, not diocesan; a new and growing institution, not a settled policy of apostolic origin.
§ 46. Episcopacy at the time of
In all these points the idea of the episcopate in
Comp. Adv. Haer.
III. 3, §1, 2; 4, 1; IV. 33, §8. I remember what
great stress the late Dr. Posey, when I saw him at Oxford in 1844, laid
on the testimony of
At the same time the wavering terminology of Comp. Adv.
Haer.III. 2, §2; IV. 26; V. 20; and his letter to Victor of
Rome in
The same view of the episcopal succession as the
preserver of apostolic tradition and guardian of orthodox doctrine, we
find also, though less frequently, in the earlier writings of De Praescr. HaeR.C.
32, 36 . Non ecclesia
numerus episcoporum. De Pudic. c. 21. Comp. § 42, p.
128.
§ 47.
The old catholic episcopalianism reached its maturity
in the middle of the third century in the teaching and example of "As
Epist. lxvi. 3.
Comp. De Unit.
But with all this, the bishop still appears in
Can. 3:Presbyter
quum ordinatur, episcopo eum benedicente et manum super caput ejus
tenente, etiam omnes presbyteri, qui praesentes sunt, manus suas juxta
manum episcopi super caput illius teneant.
The ordination of a bishop was performed by the
neighboring bishops, requiring at least three in number. In Egypt,
however, so long as there was but one bishop there, presbyters must
have performed the consecration, which Eutychius Eutychii
Patriarchae Alexandr. Annal. interpr. Pocockio (Oxon. 1658, I. p. 331).
See the passage quoted, p. 141. Or Ambrosiaster, Ad
§ 48. The Pseudo-Clementine Episcopacy.
Besides this orthodox or catholic formation of the
episcopate, the kindred monarchical hierarchy of the Ebionitic sect
deserves attention, as it meets us in the pseudo-Clementine Homilies.
Chronologically this falls in the middle of the second century, between
Hom. iii. 60, 62,
66, 70. Ep. Clem. ad Jac. 17. Comp. Recogn. iii. 66. Hom. xi. 36;
Recogn. iii. 66; vi. 15. Ἐπίσκοπος
ἐπισκόπων
, Hom. xi. 35; Recogn. iv. 35.
The Manichaeans had likewise a hierarchical organization (as the Mormons in modern times).
Montanism, on the other hand, was a democratic reaction against the episcopal hierarchy in favor of the general priesthood, and the liberty of teaching and prophesying, but it was excommunicated and died out, till it reappeared under a different form in Quakerism.
§ 49. Beginnings of the Metropolitan and Patriarchal Systems
Though the bishops were equal in their dignity and powers as successors of the apostles, they gradually fell into different ranks, according to the ecclesiastical and political importance of their several districts.
1. On the lowest level stood the bishops of the
country churches, the chorepiscopi who, though not mentioned before the
beginning of the fourth century, probably originated at an earlier
period. The country bishops
(χωρεπίσκοποι)
appear first in the councils of Ancyra and Neo-Caesarea, 314, and again
in the Council of Nicaea. They continued to exist in the East till the
9th century, when
they were superseded by the exarchs (ἔξαρχοι)
In the West, the chorepiscopi performed regular episcopal functions,
without proper subordination to the diocesans, and hence excited
jealousy and hostility till the office was abolished under Charlemagne,
and continued only as a title of various cathedral dignitaries. See
Haddan in Smith & Cheetham Dict. Chr. Ant. I. 354, and the
authorities quoted there
2. Among the city bishops the metropolitans rose
above the rest, that is, the bishops of the capital cities of the
provinces. μητροπόλεις, Hence μητροπολιται.
3. Still older and more important is the
distinction of apostolic mother-churches, Sedes apostolicae,
matrices ecclesiae.
4. Here we have the germs of the eparchal or patriarchal system, to which the Greek church to this day adheres. The name patriarch was at first, particularly in the East, an honorary title for all bishops, and was not till the fourth century exclusively appropriated to the bishops of the three ecclesiastical and political capitals of the Roman empire, Antioch, Alexandria and Rome, and also to the bishop of Jerusalem honoris causa, and the bishop of Constantinople or New Rome. So in the West the term papa afterwards appropriated by the Roman bishop, as summus pontifex, vicarius Christi, was current for a long time in a more general application.
§ 50. Germs of the Papacy.
Comp. the Lit. in vol. I. §25 (p. 245).
Blondel: Traité historique de la primauté en l’église. Genéve, 1641.
Salmasius: De Primatu Papae. Lugd. Bat. 1645.
Is. Barrow: The Pope’s Supremacy. Lond. 1680 (new ed. Oxf. 1836. N. York, 1845).
Rothensee (R.C.): Der Primal Des Papstes in allen Christlichen Jahrhunderten, 3 vols. Mainz, 1836–38 (I. 1–98).
Kenrick (R.C., archbishop of Baltimore, d. 1853): The Primacy of the Apostolic See vindicated. N. York, 4th ed. 1855.
R. I. Wilberforce (formerly archdeacon in the Anglican church; died in the Roman church, 1857): An Inquiry into the Principles of Church Authority; or Reasons for Recalling my subscriptions to the Royal Supremacy. Lond. 1854 (ch. vi.-x.).
J. E. Riddle: The History of the Papacy to the Period of the Reformation. Lond. 1856. 2 vols. (Chapter 1, p. 2–113; chiefly taken from Schröckh and Planck).
Thomas Greenwood: Cathedra Petri. A Political History of the great Latin Patriarchate. Lond. 1856–1872. 6 vols. Vol. I. ch. I.-VI. (A work of independent and reliable learning.)
Joh. Friedrich (Old Cath.): Zur ältesten Geschichte des Primates in der Kirche. Bonn, 1879.
E Renan: Conferences d’Angleterre. Rome et le christianisme. Paris 1880. The Hibbert Lectures delivered in Lond. 1880. English translation by Charles Beard, London (Williams & Norgate) 1880, another by Erskine Clement (Boston, 1880). Consists mostly of extracts from his books on the Origin of Christianity, skillfully put together.
H. Formby (R.C.): Ancient Rome and its connection with the Christian Religion. London 1880.
Jos. Langen (Old Cath.): Geschichte der römischen Kirche bis zum Pontificate Leo’s I. Bonn, 1881.
R. F. Littledale (Anglo-Cath.): The Petrine Claims, A Critical Inquiry London 1880. Controversial.
Among the great bishops of Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, the Roman bishop combined all the conditions for a primacy, which, from a purely honorary distinction, gradually became the basis of a supremacy of jurisdiction. The same propension to monarchical unity, which created out of the episcopate a centre, first for each congregation, then for each diocese, pressed on towards a visible centre for the whole church. Primacy and episcopacy grew together. In the present period we already find the faint beginnings of the papacy, in both its good and its evil features; and with them, too, the first examples of earnest protest against the abuse of its power. In the Nicene age the bishop of Jerusalem was made an honorary patriarch in view of the antiquity of that church, though his diocese was limited; and from the middle of the fourth century the new patriarch of Constantinople or New Rome, arose to the primacy among the eastern patriarchs, and became a formidable rival of the bishop of old Rome.
The Roman church claims not only human but divine
right for the papacy, and traces its institution directly to Christ,
when he assigned to Peter an eminent position in the work of founding
his church, against which even the gates of hades shall never prevail.
This claim implies several assumptions, viz. (1) that Peter by our
Lord’s appointment had not simply a primacy of
personal excellency, or of honor and dignity (which must be conceded to
him), but also a supremacy of jurisdiction over the other apostles
(which is contradicted by the fact that Peter himself never claimed it,
and that Paul maintained a position of perfect independence, and even
openly rebuked him at Antioch,
Leaving a full discussion of most of these points to polemical theology, we are here concerned with the papacy as a growth of history, and have to examine the causes which have gradually raised it to its towering eminence among the governing institutions of the world.
The historical influences which favored the ascendency of the Roman see were:
(1) The high antiquity of the Roman church, which had been honored even by Paul with the most important doctrinal epistle of the New Testament. It was properly the only apostolic mother-church in the West, and was thus looked upon from the first by the churches of Italy, Gaul, and Spain, with peculiar reverence.
(2) The labors, martyrdom, and burial at Rome of Peter and Paul, the two leading apostles. The whole Roman congregation passed through the fearful ordeal of martyrdom during the Neronian persecution, but must soon afterwards have been reorganized, with a halo of glory arising from the graves of the victims.
(3) The political pre-eminence of that metropolis of the world, which was destined to rule the European races with the sceptre of the cross, as she had formerly ruled them with the sword.
(4) The executive wisdom and the catholic orthodox instinct of the Roman church, which made themselves felt in this period in the three controversies on the time of Easter, the penitential discipline, and the validity of heretical baptism.
To these may be added, as secondary causes, her
firmness under persecutions, and her benevolent care for suffering
brethren even in distant places, as celebrated by Dionysius of Corinth
(180), and by
From the time of St. Paul’s
Epistle (58), when he bestowed high praise on the earlier Roman
converts, to the episcopate of Victor at the close of the second
century, and the unfavorable account by
The first example of the exercise of a sort of
papal authority is found towards the close of the first century in the
letter of the Roman bishop Ἡ
ἐκκλησία
τοῦ θεοῦ, ἡ
παροικοῦσα
Ῥώμην τῇ
ἐκκλησίᾳ
τοῦ θεοῦ,
τῇ
παροικούσῃ
Κόρινθον.
"The church of God which sojourns at Rome to the church of God which
mourns at Corinth!"Πάροικος
is a temporary, κάτοικος
a permanent, resident. The Christians appear here as strangers and
pilgrims in this world, who have their home in heaven; comp. This is very
evident towards the close from the newly discovered portions, chs. 59,
62 and 63 edition of Bryennios, Const. 1875). The chapters should new
light on the origin of the papal domination. Comp. the judicious
remarks of Lightfoot in his Appendix to S. It is quite evident
from the Epistle itself that at that time the Roman congregation was
still governed by a college of presbyters (collegialisch, nicht monarchisch, as
Langen, l.c. p. 81, expresses it).
Προκαθημένη
τῆς
ἀγάπης ,
praesidens in caritate. Inscription. Zahn in his ed., p. 75, says: "In
caritatis operibus semper primum locum sibi vindicavit ecclesia
Romana." Some Roman Catholic writers (as Möhler, Patrol. I.
144) explain the phrase very artificially and hierarchically: "head of
the love-union of Christendom (Vorsteherin des Liebesbundes)."Agape never means
church, but either love, or love-feast. See Langen, l.c. p. 94. Euseb., Hist. Eccl.
IV. 23, 10: ἐξ ἀρχῆς
ὑμῖν
ἔθος
ἐστὶ
τοῦτο,
πάντας μὲν
ἀδελφοὺς
ποικίλως
εὐεργετεῖν,
ἐκκλησίαις
τε πολλαῖς
ταῖς ματὰ
πᾶσαν
πόλιν
ἐφόδια
πέμπειν
The famous Passage,
Adv. Haer. iii. §2, is only extant in Latin, and of disputed
interpretation: "Ad hanc enim ecclesiam propter potentiorem (according
to Massuet’s conjecture: potiorem) principalitatem
necesse est omnem convenire ecclesia, hoc est, eos qui sunt undique
fideles, in qua semper ab his, qui sunt undique, conservata est ab
apostolis traditio." In the original Greek it probably read: Πρός
ταύτην γὰρ
τὴν
ἐκκλησίαν
διὰ τὴν
ἱκανωτέραν
πρωτεῖαν
συμβαίνειν
(or, in the local sense, συνέρχεσθαι)
δεῖ (according to others:
ἀνάγκη,
natural necessity) πᾶσαν τὴν
ἐκκλησίαν,
etc. The stress lies on principalitas, which stands probably for πρωτεία
(so Thiersch and Gieseler). Comp. Iren. IV. 38, 3, where πρωτεύει
is rendered principatitatem habet. Stieren and Ziegler (
This is surely to be understood, however, as a
precedence only of honor, not of jurisdiction. For when Pope Victor,
about the year 190, in hierarchical arrogance and intolerance, broke
fellowship with the churches of Asia Minor, for no other reason but
because they adhered to their tradition concerning the celebration of
Easter, the same
The celebrated
Petri cathedram
atque ecclesiam principalem, unde unitas sacerdotalis exorta est.
Epist. lv. c. 19 (ed. Bal.) Ad Cornelium episc. Rom. In
Goldhorn’s ed., Ecclesiae
catholicae radicem et matricem.
Firmilian.
Still more sharp and unsparing was the Cappadocian
bishop,
Nevertheless, on this question of baptism, also, as on those of Easter, and of penance, the Roman church came out victorious in the end.
Comparative Insignificance of the first Popes.
From these testimonies it is clear, that the
growing influence of the Roman see was rooted in public opinion and in
the need of unity in the ancient church. It is not to be explained at
all by the talents and the ambition of the incumbents. On the contrary,
the personality of the thirty popes of the first three centuries falls
quite remarkably into the background; though they are all canonized
saints and, according to a later but extremely doubtful tradition, were
also, with two exceptions, martyrs. Cardinal Newman
says (Apologia, p. 407): "The see of Rome possessed no great mind in
the whole period of persecution. Afterwards for a long time it had not
a single doctor to show. The great luminary of the western world is St.
He calls him in the
ninth book of the Philosophumenon, an ἀνήρ
ἰδιώτης
καὶ
αἰσχροκέρδης
.
§ 51. Chronology of the Popes.
I. Sources.
The principal sources for the obscure chronology of
the early bishops of Rome are the catalogues of popes. These are
divided into two classes, the oriental or Greek, and the occidental or
Latin. To the first belong the lists of Hegesippus and
To these may be added the "Martyrologia" and "Calendaria" of the Roman Church, especially the "Martyrologium Hieronymianum," and the "Martyrologium Romanum parvum" (both of the seventh or eighth century).
The inscriptions on the papal tombs discovered in Rome since 1850, contain names and titles, but no dates.
On the "Catalogus Liberianus," see especially the critical essay of Mommsen "Ueber de Chronographen des Jahres 354," in the "Transactions of the Royal Saxon Society of Sciences," Philos. histor. Section, vol. I. (1850), p. 631 sqq. The text of the Catalogue is given, p. 634–’37, and by Lipsius, Chronologie der röm. Bischöfe, Append. p. 265–268. The oldest MSS. of the "Liber Pontificalis" date from the seventh and eighth centuries, and present a text of a.d. 641, but with many variations. "Mit wahrer Sicherheit," says Waitz, "gelangen wir in der Geschichte des Papsthums nicht über das 7te Jahrhundert hinauf."
II. Works.
Phil. Jaffé: Regesta Pontificum Romanorum ab condita ecclesia ad Ann. 1198. Berolini 1851, ed. secunda correcta et aucta auspiciis Gul. Wattenbach. Lips. 1881 sqq. Continued by Potthast from 1198–1304, and supplemented by Harttung (Bd. I. a.d. 748–1198, Gotha 1880).
R A. Lipsius: Chronologie der Röm. Bischöfe bis zur Mitte des 4ten Jahrh. Kiel, 1869. Comp. Hort’s review of this book in the "Academy" for Sept. 15, 1871. Lipsius: Neue Studien zur Papstchronologie, in the "Jahrbücher für Protest. Theol." Leipz. 1880 (pp. 78–126 and 233–307). Lipsius denies that Peter ever was at Rome.
Abbé L. Duchesne: Étude sur le Liber Pontificalis. Paris, 1887. La date et les recensions du Liber Pontificalis. 1879. Le Liber Pontificalis. Texte, introduction et commentaire. Paris, 1884 and 1889, 2 vols. 4° (with facsimiles).
Adolf Harnack: Die Zeit des
G. Waitz: UEber die verschiedenen Texte des Liber Pontificalis, in the "Archiv der Gesellschaft für ältere deutsche Geschichtskunde," IV; and his review of Duchesne, and Lipsius, in H. v. Sybel’s "Histor. Zeitschrift" for 1880, p. 135 sqq.
The oldest links in the chain of Roman bishops are
veiled in impenetrable darkness. Or at least the
first appointed by Peter. The Catalogue of
Langen (l. c .p.
100 sqq.) carries the line of Roman presbyter-bishops down to
Alexander, and dates the monarchical constitution of the Roman church
(i.e. the diocesan episcopacy) from the age of Trajan or Hadrian.
It must in justice be admitted, however, that the list of Roman bishops has by far the preeminence in age, completeness, integrity of succession, consistency of doctrine and policy, above every similar catalogue, not excepting those of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Constantinople; and this must carry great weight with those who ground their views chiefly on external testimonies, without being able to rise to the free Protestant conception of Christianity and its history of development on earth.
§ 52. List of the Roman Bishops and Roman Emperors during the First Three Centuries.
From the lists of
Date
Popes
Emperors
Date
27 b.c.
a.d. 14–37
67–41
41–54
? 42–67
(63–64)
54–68
? 67–79
68
68–69
69 –69
? 79–91
79–81
81–96
? 91–100
96–98
98–117
? 100–109
? 109–119
117–138
? 119–128
? 128–139
138–161
? 139–142
? 142–154
? 154–168
161–180
? 168–176
? 177- 190
180–190
? 190–202
190–191
191–192
192–193
193–211
202–218
211–217
211–217
217–218
218–223
218–222
(
? 223–230
222–235
? 230–235
235–236
235–237
236–250
The two Gordians:
Balbinus
237–238
238–244
244–249
250–251
The See vacant till March, 251
249–251
? 251–252
251–252
? 251
(
252–253
252–253
? 253–257
253–268
256–259
259–268
? 257–258
Till July 21, 259
The See vacant
259–269
268–270
269–274
270–275
275–283
275–276
276–282
283–296
282–284
284–286
284–305
286–305
296–304
304 or 307
304–307
The See vacant
308–309
309–323
308–309
309–310
309–310
The See Vacant
reigning jointly.
311–314
314-335
323-337
sole ruler.
The whole number of popes, from the Apostle Peter to Leo XIII. (1878) is two hundred and sixty-three. This would allow about seven years on an average to each papal reign. The traditional twenty-five years of Peter were considered the maximum which none of his successors was permitted to reach, except Pius IX., the first infallible pope, who reigned twenty-seven years (1846-1878). The average term of office of the archbishops of Canterbury is fourteen years.
§ 53. The Catholic Unity.
J. A. Möhler (R.C.): Die Einheit der Kirche oder das Princip des Katholicismus. Tübingen 1825. Full of Catholic enthusiasm for the unity of the church.
R. Rothe: Die Anfänge der christl. Kirche. Wittenb. 1837 (pp. 553–711). A Protestant counterpart of Möhler’s book.
Huther.:
J. W. Nevin:
Joh. Peters (Ultramontane): Die Lehre des heil.
Jos. H. Reinkens (Old Cath. Bishop): Die Lehre des
heil.
Comp. also Hartel’s ed. of
On the basis of Paul’s idea of the
unity, holiness, and universality of the church, as the mystical body
of Christ; hand in hand with the episcopal system of government; in the
form of fact rather than of dogma; and in perpetual conflict with
heathen persecution from without, and heretical and schismatic
tendencies within—arose the idea and the institution
of: "the Holy Catholic Church," as the
Apostles’ Creed has it; The Church of
England retained the term "catholic" in the Creed, and the, ante-papal
and anti-papal use of this; term (=general, universal); while Luther in
his Catechism, and the Moravian church (in her liturgy) substituted the
word "Christian," and surrendered the use of "catholic" to the Roman
Catholics. "Roman" is a sectarian term (in opposition to Greek Catholic
and Evangelical Catholic). Credo ecclesiam;
yet not in (εἰς) ecclesiam, as in the case
of the Divine persons Communio sanctorum.
This clause, however, is not found in the original Creed of the Roman
church before the fifth century.
Nor is any distinction made here between a visible
and an invisible church. All catholic antiquity thought of none but the
actual, historical church, and without hesitation applied to this,
while yet in the eyes of the world a small persecuted sect, those four
predicates of unity, holiness, universality, and apostolicity, to which
were afterwards added exclusiveness infallibility and
indestructibility. There sometimes occur, indeed, particularly in the
The fathers of our period all saw in the church, though with different degrees of clearness, a divine, supernatural order of things, in a certain sense the continuation of the life of Christ on earth, the temple of the Holy Spirit, the sole repository of the powers of divine life, the possessor and interpreter of the Holy Scriptures, the mother of all the faithful. She is holy because she is separated from the service of the profane world, is animated by the Holy Spirit, forms her members to holiness, and exercises strict discipline. She is catholic, that is (according to the precise sense of ὃλος, which denotes not so much numerical totality as wholeness), complete, and alone true, in distinction from all parties and sects. Catholicity, strictly taken, includes the three marks of universality, unity, and exclusiveness, and is an essential property of the church as the body and organ of Christ, who is, in fact, the only Redeemer for all men. Equally inseparable from her is the predicate of apostolicity, that is, the historical continuity or unbroken succession, which reaches back through the bishops to the apostles, from the apostles to Christ, and from Christ to God. In the view of the fathers, every theoretical departure from this empirical, tangible, catholic church is heresy, that is, arbitrary, subjective, ever changing human opinion; every practical departure, all disobedience to her rulers is schism, or dismemberment of the body of Christ; either is rebellion against divine authority, and a heinous, if not the most heinous, sin. No heresy can reach the conception of the church, or rightly claim any one of her predicates; it forms at best a sect or party, and consequently falls within the province and the fate of human and perishing things, while the church is divine and indestructible.
This is without doubt the view of the ante-Nicene
fathers, even of the speculative and spiritualistic Alexandrians. The
most important personages in the development of the doctrine concerning
the church are, again,
1. In the Epistles of ἄθρωπον
εἰς
ἔνωσιν
κατηρτισμένον. Ad Smyrn. c. 8. ·Ad
We meet similar views, although not so clearly and
strongly stated, in the Roman Clement’s First Epistle
to the Corinthians, in the letter of the church of Smyrna on the
martyrdom of
2 Adv. Haer. iii.
24."Ubi ecclesia ibi et Spiritus Dei, et ubi Spiritus Dei, illic et
omnis gratia." Protestantism would say, conversely, putting the Spirit
first: "Ubi Spiritus Dei, ibi ecclesia et omnis gratia."
3.
4. Even Hom. 3 in Josuam,
c. 5. "Extra hanc domum, id est extra ecclesiam, nemo salvatur."
Of other Greek divines of the third century,
Methodius in particular, an opponent of
5. Finally,
The Catholic church was founded from the first by
Christ on St. Peter alone, that, with all the equality of power among
the apostles, unity might still be kept prominent as essential to her
being. She has ever since remained one, in unbroken episcopal
succession; as there is only one sun, though his rays are everywhere
diffused. Try once to separate the ray from the sun; the unity of the
light allows no division. Break the branch from the tree; it can
produce no fruit. Cut off the brook from the fountain; it dries up. Out
of this empirical orthodox church, episcopally organized and
centralized in Rome, "Christianus non
est, qui in Christi ecclesia non est." "Habere non potest
Deum patrem, qui ecclesiam non habet matrem." "Extra ecclesia
nulla salus." Yet he nowhere says "extra Romanam nulla salus."
In the controversy on heretical baptism,
We may freely acknowledge the profound and
beautiful truth at the bottom of this old catholic doctrine of the
church, and the historical importance of it for that period of
persecution, as well as for the great missionary work among the
barbarians of the middle ages; but we cannot ignore the fact that the
doctrine rested in part on a fallacy, which, in course of time, after
the union of the church with the state, or, in other words, with the
world, became more and more glaring, and provoked an internal protest
of ever-growing force. It blindly identified the spiritual unity of the
church with unity of organization, insisted on outward uniformity at
the expense of free development, and confounded the faulty empirical
church, or a temporary phase of the development of Christianity, with
the ideal and eternal kingdom of Christ, which will not be perfect in
its manifestation until the glorious second coming of its Head. The
Scriptural principle "Out of Christ there is no salvation," was
contracted and restricted to the
No effort after outward unity could prevent the distinction of all Oriental and Occidental church from showing itself at this early period, in language, customs, and theology;—a distinction which afterwards led to a schism to this day unhealed.
It may well be questioned whether our Lord
intended an outward visible unity of the church in the present order of
things. He promised that there should be "one flock one shepherd," but
not "one fold." Hatch, l.c. p. 187
sq.
§ 54. Councils.
Best Collections of Acts of Councils by Harduin (1715, 12 vols.), and Mansi (1759, 31 vols.).
C. J. Hefele (R.C. Bishop of Rottenburg, and member of the Vatican Council of 1870): Conciliengeschichte, Freiburg 1855; second ed. 1873 sqq., 7 vols. down to the Council of Florence, a.d. 1447 (See vol. I., pp. 83–242). English translation by W. R. Clark and H. R. Oxenham ( Edinb. 1871, 2d vol. 1876, 3d vol. 1883).
E. B. Pusey (d. 1882): The Councils of the Church, from the Council of Jerusalem, a.d. 51, to the Council of Constantinople, a.d. 381; chiefly as to their constitution, but also as to their object and history. Lond. 1857.
A. W. Dale: The Synod of Elvira [a.d. 306] and Christian Life in the Fourth Century. Lond. 1882.
Comp. the article Council in Smith and Cheetham and Lect. VII. in Hatch, Bampton Lect. on the Organization of the Early Christian Church. Lond. 1881, pp. 165 sqq.
Councils or Synods were an important means of
maintaining and promoting ecclesiastical unity, and deciding questions
of faith and discipline. Concilium, first
used in the ecclesiastical sense by a.d. 50. On the provincial
councils of the Roman empire see Marquardt,Römische Staatsverwaltung, I.
365-377, and Hatch, l.c. p. 164 sqq. The deliberations were preceded by
a sacrifice, and the president was called highpriest.
There are several kinds of Synods according to
their size, diocesan, provincial (or metropolitan), national,
patriarchal, and oecumenical (or universal). That is, within the
limits of the old Roman empire, as the orbis terrarum. There never was
an absolutely universal council. Even the seven oecumenical Councils
from 325 to 787 were confined to the empire, and poorly attended by
Western bishops. The Roman Councils held after that time (down to the
Vatican Council in 1870) claim to be oecumenical, but exclude the Greek
and all evangelical churches.
The synodical meetings were public, and the people
of the community around sometimes made their influence felt. In the
time of Comp. Epp.xi., xiii.,
lxvi., lxxi.
But with the advance of the hierarchical spirit,
this republican feature gradually vanished. After the council of Nicaea
(325) bishops alone had seat and voice, and the priests appear
hereafter merely as secretaries, or advisers, or representatives of
their bishops. The bishops, moreover, did not act as representatives of
their churches, nor in the name of the body of the believers, as
formerly, but in their own right as successors of the apostles. They
did not as yet, however, in this period, claim infallibility for their
decisions, unless we choose to find a slight approach to such a claim
in the formula: "Placuit nobis, Sancto Spiritu suggerente," as used,
for example, by the council of Carthage, in 252.
The more important acts, such as electing bishops,
excommunication, decision of controversies, were communicated to other
provinces by epistolae synodicae. In the intercourse and the
translation of individual members of churches, letters of
recommendation Epistolae formatae,
γράμματα
τετυπωμένα.
The effect of the synodical system tended to consolidation. The Christian churches from independent communities held together by a spiritual fellowship of faith, became a powerful confederation, a compact moral commonwealth within the political organization of the Roman empire.
As the episcopate culminated in the primacy, so
the synodical system rose into the oecumenical councils, which
represented the whole church of the Roman empire. But these could not
be held till persecution ceased, and the emperor became the patron of
Christianity. The first was the celebrated council of Nicaea, in the
year 325. The state gave legal validity to the decrees of councils, and
enforced them if necessary by all its means of coercion. But the Roman
government protected only the Catholic or orthodox
church, except during the progress of the Arian and other
controversies, before the final result was reached by the decision of
an oecumenical Synod convened by the emperor. This policy was
inaugurated by Constantine I. a.d. 326 (Cod.
Theod. 16, 5, 1). He confined the privileges and immunities which, in
313, he had granted to Christians in his later enactments to
"Catholicae legis observatoribus." He ratified the Nicene creed and
exiled Arius (325), although he afterwards wavered and was baptized by
a semi-Arian bishop (337). His immediate successors wavered likewise.
But as a rule the Byzantine emperors recognized the decisions of
councils in dogma and discipline, and discouraged and ultimately
prohibited the formation of dissenting sects. The state can, of course,
not prevent dissent as an individual opinion; it can only prohibit and
punish the open profession. Full religious liberty requires separation
of church and state.
§ 55. The Councils of Elvira, Arles, and Ancyra.
Among the ante-Nicene Synods some were occasioned by
the Montanist controversy in Asia Minor, some by the Paschal
controversies, some by the affairs of
In the beginning of the fourth century three Synods, held at Elvira, Arles, and Ancyra, deserve special mention, as they approach the character of general councils and prepared the way for the first oecumenical council. They decided no doctrinal question, but passed important canons on church polity and Christian morals. They were convened for the purpose of restoring order and discipline after the ravages of the Diocletian persecution. They deal chiefly with the large class of the Lapsed, and reflect the transition state from the ante-Nicene to the Nicene age. They are alike pervaded by the spirit of clericalism and a moderate asceticism.
1. The Synod of Elvira
(Illiberis, or Eliberis, probably on the site of the modern Granada)
was held in 306, Hefele, Gams, and
Dale decide in favor of this date against the superscription which puts
it down to the period of the Council of Nicaea (324). The chief reason
is that Hosius, bishop of Cordova, could not be, present in 324 when he
was in the Orient, nor at any time after 307, when he joined the
company of Constantine as one of his private councillors. "Placuit picturas
in ecclesia esse non debere, ne quod colitur et adoratur in parietibus
depingatur.""There shall be no pictures in the church, lest what is
worshipped [saints] and adored [God and Christ] should be depicted on
the walls." The last is the
interpretation of the canon by DeRossi, in Roma sotteranea, Tom. I., p.
97, and Hefele, I. 170. But Dale (p. 292 sqq.) thinks that it was aimed
against the idolatry of Christians. The best accounts
of the Synod of Elvira are given by Ferdinand de Mendoza, De
confirmando Concilio IIIiberitano ad Clementem VIII., 1593 (reprinted
in Mansi II. 57-397); Fr. Ant. Gonzalez, Collect. Can. Ecclesiae
Hispaniae, Madrid, 1808, new ed. with Spanish version, 1849 (reprinted
in Bruns, Bibl. Eccl. Tom. I. Pars II. 1 sqq.); Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. 148-192
(second ed., 1873; or 122 sqq., first ed.); Gams, Kirchengesch. von Spanien
(1864), vol. II. 1-136; and Dale in his monograph on the Synod of
Elvira, London, 1882.
The leading genius of the Elvira Synod and the
second in the list was Hosius, bishop of Corduba (Cordova), who also
attended the Council of Nicaea as the chief representative of the West.
He was native of Cordova, the birth-place of Lucan and Seneca, and more
than sixty years in the episcopate.
2. The first Council of Arles in the South of France Concilium
Arelatense, from Arelate or Arelatum Sextanorum, one of the chief Roman
cities in South-Eastern Gaul, where Constantine at one time resided,
and afterwards the West Gothic King Eurich. It was perhaps the seat of
the first bishopric of Gaul, or second only to that of Lyons and
Vienne. Several councils were held in that city, the second in 353
during the Arian controversy. Not 633, as
McClintock & Strong’s "Cyclop" has it sub
Arles. See Eus. H. E. x.
5; Mansi, II. 463-468; München, Das ersten Concil von Arles (in the "Bonner Zeitschrift für Philos.
und kath. Theol.," No. 9, 26, 27), and Hefele I. 201-219
(2nd ed.).
3. The Council of Ancyra,
the capital of Galatia in Asia Minor, was held soon after the death of
the persecutor Maximin (3l3), probably in the year 314, and represented
Asia Minor and Syria. It numbered from twelve to eighteen bishops (the
lists vary), several of whom eleven years afterwards attended the
Council of Nicaea. Marcellus of Ancyra who acquired celebrity in the
Arian controversies, presided, according to others Vitalis of Antioch.
Its object was to heal the wounds of the Diocletian persecution, and it
passed twenty-five canons relating chiefly to the treatment of those
who had betrayed their faith or delivered the sacred books in those
years of terror. Priests who had offered sacrifice to the gods, but
afterwards repented, were prohibited from preaching and all sacerdotal
functions, but allowed to retain their clerical dignity. Those who had
sacrificed before baptism may be admitted to orders. Adultery is to be
punished by seven years’ penance, murder by life-long
penance. Hefele, vol. I. 222
sqq., gives the canons in Greek and German with explanation. He calls
it a Synodus plenaria, i.e., a general council for the churches of Asia
Minor and Syria. See also Mansi II. 514 sqq. Two Arian Synods were held
at Ancyra in 358 and 375.
A similar Council was held soon afterwards at,
Neo-Caesarea in Cappadocia (between 314–325), mostly
by the same bishops who attended that of Ancyra, and passed fifteen
disciplinary canons. See Hefele I.
242-251.
§ 56. Collections of Ecclesiastical Law. The Apostolical Constitutions and Canons.
Sources.
I. Διαταγαὶ τῶν ἁγίων Ἀποστόλων διὰ Κλήμνετος, etc., Constitutiones Apostolicae, first edited by Fr Turrianus, Ven. 1563, then in Cotelier’s ed. of the Patres Apostolici (I. 199 sqq.), in Mansi (Collect. Concil. I.), and Harduin (Coll. Conc. I.); newly edited by Ueltzen, Rost. 1853, and P. A. de Lagarde, Lips. and Lond. 1854 and 1862. Ueltzen gives the textus receptus improved. Lagarde aims at the oldest text, which he edited in Syriac (Didascalia Apostolorum Syriace, 1854), and in Greek (Constit. Apostolorum Graece, 1862). Hilgenfels: Nov. Test. extra Canonem rec., Lips. (1866), ed. II. (1884), Fasc. IV. 110–121. He gives the Ap. Church Order under the title Duae Viae vel Judicium Petri.
Thos. Pell Platt: The Æthiopic Didascalia; or the Æthiopic Version of the Apostolical Constitutions, received in the Church of Abyssinia, with an Engl Transl, , Lond. 1834.
Henry Tattam: The Apostolical Constitutions, or Canons of the Apostles in Coptic. With an Engl. translation. Lond. 1848 (214 pages).
II. Κανόνες ἐκκλησιαστικοὶ τῶν ἁγ. Ἀποστόλων, Canones, qui dicuntur Apostolorum, in most collections of church law, and in Cotel. (I. 437 sqq.), Mansi, and Harduin (tom. I.), and in the editions of the Ap. Constitutions at the close. Separate edd. by Paul De Lagarde in Greek and Syriac: Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici antiquissimae Syriace, Lips. 1856; and Reliquiae juris ecclesiastici Graece, 1856 (both to be had at Trübner’s, Strassburg). An Ethiopic translation of the Canons, ed. by Winand Fell, Leipz. 1871.
W. G. Beveridge, (Bishop of St. Asaph, d. 1708): Συνόδικον, s. Pandectae Canonum S. G. Apostolorum et Conciliorum, ab Ecclesia Gr. reliquit. Oxon. 1672–82, 2 vols. fol.
John Fulton: Index Canonum. In Greek and English. With a Complete Digest of the entire code of canon law in the undivided Primitive Church. N. York 1872; revised ed. with Preface by P. Schaff, 1883.
Critical Discussions.
Krabbe: Ueber den Ursprung u. den Inhalt der Apost. Constitutionen des Clemens Romanus. Hamb. 1829.
S. v. Drey (R.C.): Neue Untesuchungen über die Constitut. u. Kanones der Ap. Tüb. 1832.
J. W. Bickell (d. 1848): Gesch. des Kirchenrechts. Giess. 1843 (I. 1, pp. 52–255). The second part appeared, Frankf., 1849.
Chase: Constitations of the Holy Apostles, including the Canons; Whiston’s version revised from the Greek; with a prize essay(of Krabbe) upon their origin and contents. New York, 1848.
Bunsen:
Hefele (R.C.): Conciliengeschichte I. p. 792 sqq. (second ed. 1873). The Didache Literature (fully noticed in Schaff’s monograph
Philoth. Bryennios: Διδαχὴ τῶν δώδεκα ἀποστόλων. Constantinople, 1833.
Ad. Harnack: Die Lehre der Zwölf Apostel. Leipz., 1884. Die Apostellehre und die jüdischen beiden Wege, 1886.
Ph. Schaff: The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, or the Oldest Church Manual. N. York, 1885. 3d ed. revised and enlarged, 1889.
Several church manuals or directories of public worship, and discipline have come down to us from the first centuries in different languages. They claim directly or indirectly apostolic origin and authority, but are post-apostolic and justly excluded from the canon. They give us important information on the ecclesiastical laws, morals, and customs of the ante-Nicene age.
1. The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles is the oldest and simplest church manual, of Jewish Christian (Palestinian or Syrian) origin, from the end of the first century, known to the Greek fathers, but only recently discovered and published by Bryennios (1883). It contains in 16 chapters (1) a summary of moral instruction based on the Decalogue and the royal commandment of love to God and man, in the parabolic form of two ways, the way of life and the way of death; (2) directions on the celebration of baptism and the eucharist with the agape; (3) directions on discipline and the offices of apostles (i.e. travelling evangelists), prophets, teachers, bishops (i.e. presbysters), and deacons; (4) an exhortation to watchfulness in view of the coming of the Lord and the resurrection of the saints. A very remarkable book. Its substance survived in the seventh book of the Apostolical Constitutions.
2. The Ecclesiastical Canons of the holy apostles or Apostolical Church Order, of Egyptian origin, probably of the third century. An expansion of the former in the shape of a fictitious dialogue of the apostles, first published in Greek by Bickell (1843), and then also in Coptic and Syriac. It contains ordinances of the apostles on morals, worship, and discipline.
3. The Apostolical
Constitutions, the most complete and important Church Manual. It
is, in form, a literary fiction, professing to be a bequest of all the
apostles, handed down through the Roman bishop Clement, or dictated to
him. It begins with the words: "The apostles and elders, to all who
among the nations have believed in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be with
you, and peace." It contains, in eight books, a collection of moral
exhortations, church laws and usages, and liturgical formularies which
had gradually arisen in the various churches from the close of the
first century, the time of the Roman Clement, downward, particularly in
Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, and Rome, partly on the authority of
apostolic practice. These were at first orally transmitted; then
committed to writing in different versions, like the creeds; and
finally brought, by some unknown hand, into their present form. The
first six books, which have a strongly Jewish-Christian tone, were
composed, with the exception of some later interpolations, at the end
of the third century, in Syria. The seventh book is an expansion of the
Didache of the Twelve Apostles. The eighth book contains a
liturgy, and, in an appendix, the apostolical canons. The collection of
the three parts into one whole may be the work of the compiler of the
eighth book. It is no doubt of Eastern authorship, for the church of
Rome nowhere occupies a position of priority or supremacy. Harnack (l.c.
266-268) identifies Pseudo-Clement with Pseudo- Turrianus Bovius;
and the eccentric Whiston regarded these pseudoapostolic Constitutions
as a genuine work of the apostles; containing Christ’s
teaching during the forty days between the Resurrection and Ascension.
But Baronius, Bellarmin, and Petavius attached little weight to them,
and the Protestant scholars, Daillé and Blondel, attacked
and overthrew their genuineness and authority. The work is a gradual
growth, with many repetitions, interpolations, and contradictions and
anachronisms. James, who was beheaded (a.d.
44), is made to sit in council with Paul (VI. 14), but elsewhere is
represented as dead (V. 7). The apostles condemn post-apostolic
heresies and heretics (VI. 8), and appoint days of commemoration of
their death (VIII. 33). Episcopacy is extravagantly extolled. P. de
Lagarde says: (Rel juris Eccles. ant., Preface, p. IV.): "Communis
vivorum doctorum fere omnium nunc invaluit opinio eas [constitutiones]
saeculo tertio clam succrevisse et quum sex aliquando libris septimo et
octavo auctas esse postea."
The "Apostolical Canons"
consist of brief church rules or prescriptions, in some copies
eighty-five in number, in others fifty, and pretend to be of apostolic
origin, being drawn up by As Bickell
supposes. Beveridge put the collection in the third century. According to
Daillé, Dr. von Drey, and Mejer.
The Greek church, at the Trullan council of 692, adopted the whole collection of eighty-five canons as authentic and binding, and John of Damascus placed it even on a parallel with the epistles of the apostle Paul, thus showing that he had no sense of the infinite superiority of the inspired writings. The Latin church rejected it at first, but subsequently decided for the smaller collection of fifty canons, which Dionysus Exiguus about the year 500 translated from a Greek manuscript.
§ 57. Church Discipline.
I. Several Tracts of
II. Morinus: De Disciplina in administratione sacram poenitentiae, Par. 1651 (Venet. 1702).
Marshall: Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church. Lond. 1714 (new ed. 1844).
Fr. Frank: Die Bussdisciplin der Kirche bis zum 7 Jahrh. Mainz. 1868.
On the discipline of the Montanists, see Bonwetsch: Die Geschichte des Montanismus (1881), pp. 108–118.
The ancient church was distinguished for strict discipline. Previous to Constantine the Great, this discipline rested on purely moral sanctions, and had nothing to do with civil constraints and punishments. A person might be expelled from one congregation without the least social injury. But the more powerful the church became, the more serious were the consequences of her censures, and when she was united with the state, ecclesiastical offenses were punished as offenses against the state, in extreme cases even with death. The church always abhorred blood ("ecclesia non sitit sanguiem"), but she handed the offender over to the civil government to be dealt with according to law. The worst offenders for many centuries were heretics or teachers of false doctrine.
The object of discipline was, on the one hand, the
dignity and purity of the church, on the other, the spiritual welfare
of the offender; punishment being designed to be also correction. The
extreme penalty was excommunication, or exclusion from all the rights
and privileges of the faithful. This was inflicted for heresy and
schism, and all gross crimes, such as, theft, murder, adultery,
blasphemy, and the denial of Christ in persecution. After Peccata mortalia,
or, ad mortem; after a rather arbitrary interpretation of Peccata,
venialia.
Persons thus excluded passed into the class of
penitents, Poenitentes.
The time and the particular form of the penances,
in the second century, was left as yet to the discretion of the several
ministers and churches. Not till the end of the third century was a
rigorous and fixed system of penitential discipline established, and
then this could hardly maintain itself a century. Though originating in
deep moral earnestness, and designed only for good, it was not fitted
to promote the genuine spirit of repentance. Too much formality and
legal constraint always deadens the spirit, instead of supporting and
regulating it. This disciplinary formalism first appears, as already
familiar, in the council of Ancyra, about the year 314. Can. 4 sqq. See
Hefele, Conciliengesch (second ed.) I. 225 sqq. Comp.
also the fifth canon of Neocaesarea, and Hefele, p. 246.
Classes of Penitents.
The penitents were distributed into four classes:—
(1) The weepers, Προσκλαίοντες,
flentes; also called χειμάζοντες,
hiemantes
(2) The hearers, Ἀκροώμενοι,
audientes, or auditores. The fourteenth canon of Nicaea (Hefele I. 418)
directs that "Catechumens who had fallen, should for three years be
only hearers, but afterwards pray with the Catechumens."
(3) The kneelers, Γονυκλίνοντες,
genuflectentes: also ὑποπίπτοντες
, Substrati. The terra γόνυ
κλίνωνas designating
a class of penitents occurs only in the 5th canon of the Council of Neocaesarea, held after
314 and before 325.
(4) The standers, Συνιστάμενοι,
consistentes.
Those classes answer to the four stages of
penance. Πρόσκλαυσις,
fletus; ἀκρόασις
auditus; ὑπόπτωσις,
prostratio, humiliatio; σύστασις,
consistentia. The last three classes are supposed to correspond to
three classes of catechumens, but without good reason. There was only
one class of catechumens, or at most two classes. See below,
§ 72. Πρεσβύτεροι
ἐπὶ τῆς
μετανοίας,
presbyteri poenitentiarii
Restoration.
After the fulfilment of this probation came the
act of reconciliation. Reconciliatio. The declarative,
and especially the direct indicative or judicial form of absolution
seems to be of later origin. Cypr. Epist. LV.,
c. 15: "Neque enim prejudicamus Domino judicaturo, quominus si
penitentiam plenam et justam peccatoris invenerit tunc ratum faciat,
quod a nobis fuerit hic statutum. Si vero nos aliquis poenitentiae
simulatione deluserit, Deus, cui non deridetur, et qui cor hominis
intuetur, de his, quae nos minus perspeximus, judicet et servorum
suorum sententiam Dominus mendet." Comp. the similar passages in Epist.
LXXV. 4, and De Lapsi, c. 17. But if the church can err in imparting
absolution to the unworthy, as
Two Parties.
In reference to the propriety of any restoration
in certain cases, there was an important difference of sentiment, which
gave rise to several schisms. All agreed that the church punishment
could not forestall the judgment of God at the last day, but was merely
temporal, and looked to the repentance and conversion of the subject.
But it was a question whether the church should restore even the
grossest offender on his confession of sorrow, or should, under certain
circumstances leave him to the judgment of God. The strict, puritanic
party, to which the Montanists, the
The point here in question was of great practical
moment in the times of persecution, when hundreds and thousands
renounced their faith through weakness, but as soon as the danger was
passed, pleaded for readmission into the church, and were very often
supported in their plea by the potent intercessions of the martyrs and
confessors, and their libelli pacis. The principle was: necessity knows
no law. A mitigation of the penitential discipline seemed in such cases
justified by every consideration of charity and policy. So great was
the number of the lapsed in the Decian persecution, that even
The strict party were zealous for the holiness of God; the moderate, for his grace. The former would not go beyond the revealed forgiveness of sins by baptism, and were content with urging the lapsed to repentance, without offering them hope of absolution in this life. The latter refused to limit the mercy of God and expose the sinner to despair. The former were carried away with an ideal of the church which cannot be realized till the second coming of Christ; and while impelled to a fanatical separatism, they proved, in their own sects, the impossibility of an absolutely pure communion on earth. The others not rarely ran to the opposite extreme of a dangerous looseness, were quite too lenient, even towards mortal sins, and sapped the earnestness of the Christian morality.
It is remarkable that the lax penitential
discipline had its chief support from the end of the second century, in
the Roman church.
But here we perceive, also, how the looser practice in regard to penance was connected with the interest of the hierarchy. It favored the power of the priesthood, which claimed for itself the right of absolution; it was at the same time matter of worldly policy; it promoted the external spread of the church, though at the expense of the moral integrity of her membership, and facilitated both her subsequent union with the state and her hopeless confusion with the world. No wonder the church of Rome, in this point, as in others, triumphed at last over all opposition.
§ 58. Church Schisms.
I. On the Schism of
II. On the Schism of Felicissimus:
III. On the
IV. On the Meletian Schism: Documents in Latin translation in Maffei: Osservationi Letterarie, Verona, 1738, tom. III p. 11 sqq., and the Greek fragments from the Liber de poenitentia of Peter of Alexandria in Routh: Reliquicae Sacr. vol. II. pp. 21–51. Epiphan.: Haer. 68 (favorable to Meletius); Athanas.: Apol. contra Arianos, § 59; and after him, Socr, Sozom., and Theod. (very unfavorable to Meletius).
Out of this controversy on the restoration of the lapsed, proceeded four schisms during the third century; two in Rome, one in North Africa, and one in Egypt. Montanism, too, was in a measure connected with the question of penitential discipline, but extended also to several other points of Christian life, and will be discussed in a separate chapter.
I. The Roman schism of See the particulars
in § 183, and in Döllinger’s
Hippol. and Call., Engl. transl. by A. Plummer (1876), p. 92 sqq. See Mommsen, Über den Chronographen vom
Jahr 354 (1850), Lipsius, Chronologie der Röm.
Bischöfe, p. 40 sqq.;
Döllinger, I.c. p. 332 sqq.; Jacobi in Herzog2 VI. 142 sqq.
II. The schism of
After the outbreak of the Decian persecution this
personal rivalry received fresh nourishment and new importance from the
question of discipline.
When the bishop returned, after Easter, 251, he
held a council at Carthage, which, though it condemned the party of
Felicissimus, took a middle course on the point in dispute. It sought
to preserve the integrity of discipline, yet at the same time to secure
the fallen against despair. It therefore decided for the restoration of
those who proved themselves truly penitent, but against restoring the
careless, who asked the communion merely from fear of death. In
His conflict with this schismatical movement
strengthened
III. The Καθαροί.
At the head of this party stood the Roman
presbyter
In spite of this strong opposition the
IV. The Meletian schism
in Egypt arose in the Diocletian persecution, about 305, and lasted
more than a century, but, owing to the contradictory character of our
accounts, it is not so well understood. It was occasioned by
The Donatist schism, which was more formidable than any of those mentioned, likewise grew out of the Diocletian persecution, but belongs more to the next period.
CHRISTIAN WORSHIP.
I. The richest sources here are the works of Justin M.,
II. See the books quoted in vol. I. 455, and the relevant sections in the archaeological works of Bingham (Antiquities of the Christian Church, Lond. 1708–22. 10 vols.; new ed. Lond. 1852, in 2 vols.), Augusti (whose larger work fills 12 vols., Leipz. 1817–31, and his Handbuch der Christl. Archaeol. 3 vols. Leipz. 1836), Binterim (R.C.), Siegel, Smith & Cheetham (Dict. of Chr. Ant., Lond. 1875, 2 vols.), and Garrucci (Storia della arte crist., 1872–80, 6 vols.)
§ 59. Places of Common Worship.
R. Hospinianus: De Templis, etc. Tig. 1603. And in his Opera, Genev. 1681.
Fabricius: De Templis vett. Christ. Helmst. 1704.
Muratori (R.C.): De primis Christianorum Ecclesiis. Arezzo, 1770.
Hübsch: Altchristliche Kirchen. Karlsruh, 1860.
Jos. Mullooly: St. Clement and his Basilica in Rome. Rome, 2nd ed. 1873.
De Vogüé: Architecture civile et relig. du Ie au Vlle siècle. Paris, 1877, 2 vols.
The numerous works on church architecture (by Fergusson, Brown, Bunsen, Kugler, Kinkel, Kreuser, Schnaase, Lübke, Voillet-le-Duc, De Vogüé etc.) usually begin with the basilicas of the Constantinian age, which are described in vol. III. 541 sqq.
The Christian worship, as might be expected from the humble condition of the church in this period of persecution, was very simple, strongly contrasting with the pomp of the Greek and Roman communion; yet by no means puritanic. We perceive here, as well as in organization and doctrine, the gradual and sure approach of the Nicene age, especially in the ritualistic solemnity of the baptismal service, and the mystical character of the eucharistic sacrifice.
Let us glance first at the places of public
worship. Until about the close of the second century the Christians
held their worship mostly in private houses, or in desert places, at
the graves of martyrs, and in the crypts of the catacombs. This arose
from their poverty, their oppressed and outlawed condition, their love
of silence and solitude, and their aversion to all heathen art. The
apologists frequently assert, that their brethren had neither temples
nor altars (in the pagan sense of these words), and that their worship
was spiritual and independent of place and ritual. Heathens, like
Celsus, cast this up to them as a reproach; but
In private houses the room best suited for worship
and for the love-feast was the oblong dining-hall, the triclinium,
which was never wanting in a convenient Greek or Roman dwelling, and
which often had a semicircular niche, like the choir Chorus, βῆμα. The two are
sometimes identified, sometimes distinguished, the bema being the
sanctuary proper for the celebration of the holy mysteries, the choir
the remaining part of the chancel for the clergy; while the nave was
for the laity. Ἄμβων,
suggestus, pulpitum. Τράπεζα,
mensa sacra; also ara, altare.
The first traces of special houses of worship Ἐκκλησία,
ἐκκλησιαστήριον,
κυριακά,
οἶκος
θεοῦ,, ecclesia, dominica,
domus Dei, templum. The names for a church building in the Teutonic and
Slavonic languages (Kirche, Church, Kerk, Kyrka, Tserkoff, etc.) are
derived from the Greek κυριακή,
κυριακόν,
(belonging to the Lord, the Lord’s house), through the
medium of the Gothic; the names in the Romanic languages (Chiesa,
Igreja, Eglise, etc.) from the Latin ecclesia, although this is also
from the Greek, and meant originally assembly (either a local
congregation, or the whole body of Christians). Churches erected
specially in honor of martyrs were called martyria, memoriae, tropaea,
tituli. In ecclcsima, in
domum Dei venire Τόπος,andἂθροισμα
τῶν
ἐκλεκτῶν De Mort. Persec. c.
12. The Chronicle of Edessa (in Assem. Bibl Orient. XI. 397) mentions
the destruction of Christian temples a.d.
292. Hist. Ecel. X. 4.
The description of a church in the Apostolic
Constitutions, II. 57, ed.
Ueltzen, p. 66 sqq.
§ 60. The Lord’s Day.
See Lit. in vol. I. 476.
The celebration of the Lord’s Day in
memory of the resurrection of Christ dates undoubtedly from the
apostolic age. The original
designations of the Christian Sabbath or weekly rest-day are: ἡ
μία orμία
σαββάτων,
the first day of the week ( Ep., c. 15: "We
celebrate the eighth day with joy, on which Jesus rose from the dead,
and, after having appeared [to his disciple, ;], ascended to heaven."
It does not follow from this that Barnabas put the ascension of Christ
likewise on Sunday. Ep. ad Magnes. c.
8, 9. Apol. I. 67. "Stato die,
’ in his letter to Trajan, Ep. X. 97. This " stated
day, "on which the Christian, in Bithynia assembled before day-light to
sing hymns to Christ as a God, and to bind themselves by a sacramentum,
must be the Lord’s Day. Ch. 14: Κυριακὴ
κυρίου,
pleonastic. The adjective in
Considering that the church was struggling into existence, and that a large number of Christians were slaves of heathen masters, we cannot expect an unbroken regularity of worship and a universal cessation of labor on Sunday until the civil government in the time of Constantine came to the help of the church and legalized (and in part even enforced) the observance of the Lord’s Day. This may be the reason why the religious observance of it was not expressly enjoined by Christ and the apostles; as for similar reasons there is no prohibition of polygamy and slavery by the letter of the New Testament, although its spirit condemns these abuses, and led to their abolition. We may go further and say that coercive Sunday laws are against the genius and spirit of the Christian religion which appeals to the free will of man, and uses only moral means for its ends. A Christian government may and ought to protect the Christian Sabbath against open desecration, but its positive observance by attending public worship, must be left to the conscientious conviction of individuals. Religion cannot be forced by law. It looses its value when it ceases to be voluntary.
The fathers did not regard the Christian Sunday as a continuation of, but as a substitute for, the Jewish Sabbath, and based it not so much on the fourth commandment, and the primitive rest of God in creation, to which the commandment expressly refers, as upon the resurrection of Christ and the apostolic tradition. There was a disposition to disparage the Jewish law in the zeal to prove the independent originality of Christian institutions. The same polemic interest against Judaism ruled in the paschal controversies, and made Christian Easter a moveable feast. Nevertheless, Sunday was always regarded in the ancient church as a divine institution, at least in the secondary sense, as distinct from divine ordinances in the primary sense, which were directly and positively commanded by Christ, as baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Regular public worship absolutely requires a stated day of worship.
Ep. ad Magna. c. 8,
9 in the shorter Greek recension (wanting in the Syriac edition). Cap. 15. This
Epistle is altogether too fierce in its polemics against Judaism to be
the production of the apostolic Barnabas. Dial c. TryPh. M.
19, 27 (Tom. I. P. II. p. 68, 90, in the third ed. of Otto). Dial. 12 (II, p.
46):σαββατίζειν
ὑμᾶς (so Otto reads,
but ἡμᾶς would be
better) ὁ
καινὸς
νόμος διὰ
παντὸς (belong to
σαββατίζειν)ἐθέλει.
Comp. Apol. I. 67 (I. p.
161):Τὴν δὲ
τοῦ ἡλίου
ἡμέραν
κοινῇ
πάντες τὴν
συνέλευσιν
ποιούμεθα,
ἐπειδὴ
πρώτη
ἐστὶν
ἡμέρα, ἐν
ᾗ ὁ θεὸς
τὸ σκότος
καὶ τὴν
ὕλην
τρέψας ,
κόσμον
ἐποίησε,
καὶ
Ἰησοῦς
Χριστὸς ὁ
ἡμέτερος
σωτὴρ τῇ
αυτῇ
ἡμέρᾳ ἐκ
νεκρῶν
ἀνέστη.
κ.τ.λ. Περὶ
κυριακῆς
λόγος. Euseb. IV.
26. In one of his
fragments περὶ τοῦ
πάσχα, and by his part in
the Quartadecimanian controversy, which turned on the yearly
celebration of the Christian Passover, but implied universal agreement
as to the weekly celebration of the Resurrection. Comp. Hessey, Bampton
Lectures on Sunday. London, 1860, p. 373. Adv. Haer. IV.
16. De Orat. c. 23:
"Nos vero sicut accepimus, solo die Dominicae Resurrectionis non ab
isto tantum [the bowing of the knee], sed omni anxietatis habitu et
officio cavere debemus, differentes etiam negotia, ne quem diabolo
locum demus." Other passages of
The Alexandrian fathers have essentially the same view, with some fancies of their own concerning the allegorical meaning of the Jewish Sabbath.
We see then that the ante-Nicene church clearly distinguished the Christian Sunday from the Jewish Sabbath, and put it on independent Christian ground. She did not fully appreciate the perpetual obligation of the fourth commandment in its substance as a weekly day of rest, rooted in the physical and moral necessities of man. This is independent of those ceremonial enactments which were intended only for the Jews and abolished by the gospel. But, on the other hand, the church took no secular liberties with the day. On the question of theatrical and other amusements she was decidedly puritanic and ascetic, and denounced them as being inconsistent on any day with the profession of a soldier of the cross. She regarded Sunday as a sacred day, as the Day of the Lord, as the weekly commemoration of his resurrection and the pentecostal effusion of the Spirit, and therefore as a day of holy joy and thanksgiving to be celebrated even before the rising sun by prayer, praise, and communion with the risen Lord and Saviour.
Sunday legislation began with Constantine, and belongs to the next period.
The observance of the Sabbath among the Jewish Christians gradually ceased. Yet the Eastern church to this day marks the seventh day of the week (excepting only the Easter Sabbath) by omitting fasting, and by standing in prayer; while the Latin church, in direct opposition to Judaism, made Saturday a fast day. The controversy on this point began as early as the, end of the second century
Wednesday, Feria quarta. Feria sexta, ἡ
παρασκευή Dies stationum of
the milites Christi. Semijejunia.
§ 61. The Christian Passover. (Easter).
R. Hospinianus: Festa Christ., h.e. de origine, progressu, ceremonies el ritibusfestorum dierum Christ. Tig. 1593, and often.
A. G. Pillwitz: Gesch. der heil. Zeiten in der abendländ. Kirche. Dresden, 1842.
M. A. Nickel (R.C.): Die heil. Zeiten u. Feste nach ihrer Gesch. u. Feier in der kath. Kirche. Mainz, 1825–1838. 6 vols.
P. Piper: Gesch. des Osterfestes. Berl. 1845.
Lisco: Das christl. Kirchenjahr. Berlin, 1840, 4th ed. 1850.
Strauss (court-chaplain of the King of Prussia, d. 1863): Das evangel. Kirchenjahr. Berlin, 1850.
Boberstag: Das evangel. Kirchenjahr. Breslau 1857.
H. Alt: Der Christliche Cultus, IInd Part: Das Kirchenjahr, 2nd ed. Berlin 1860.
L. Hensley: Art. Easter in Smith and Cheetham (1875), I. 586–595.
F. X. Kraus (R.C.): Art. Feste in "R. Encykl. der Christl. Alterthümer," vol. I. (1881), pp. 486–502, and the Lit. quoted there. The article is written by several authors, the section on Easter and Pentecost by Dr. Funk of Tübingen.
The yearly festivals of this period were Easter, Pentecost, and Epiphany. They form the rudiments of the church year, and keep within the limits of the facts of the New Testament.
Strictly speaking the ante-Nicene church had two
annual festive seasons, the Passover in commemoration of the
suffering of Christ, and the Pentecoste in commemoration of the
resurrection and exaltation of Christ, beginning with Easter and ending
with Pentecost proper. But Passover and Easter were connected in a
continuous celebration, combining the deepest sadness with the highest
joy, and hence the term pascha (in Greek and Latin) is often used in a
wider sense for the Easter season, as is the case with the French paqueor paques, and the Italian pasqua. The
Jewish passover also lasted a whole week, and after it began their
Pentecost or feast of weeks. The death of Christ became fruitful in the
resurrection, and has no redemptive power without it. The commemoration
of the death of Christ was called the pascha staurosimon or the
Passover proper. Pascha, πάσχα, is not
from the verb πάσχειν,
to, suffer (though often confounded with it and with the Latin passio
by the Father, who were ignorant of Hebrew), but from the Hebrew חסַכֶּ the Chaldee
אהָסְכַּ
, (Comp. the verb חסַכָּ to pass over,
to spare). See Ex. chg. 12 and 13; Easter is the
resurrection festival which follow., ; the Passover proper, but is
included in the same festive week. The English Easter (Anglo-Saxon
easter, eastran, German Ostern) is connected with East and sunrise, and
is akin to ἠώς, oriens, aurora
(comp. Jac. Grimm’s Deutsche Mythol. 1835, p. 181 and 349, and
Skeat’s Etym. Dict. E. Lang. sub Easter). The
comparison of sunrise and the natural spring with the new moral
creation in the resurrection of Christ, and the transfer of the
celebration of Ostara, the old German divinity of the rising,
health-bringing light, to the Christian Easter festival, was easy and
natural, because all nature is a symbol of spirit, and the heathen
myths are dim presentiments and carnal anticipations of Christian
truths.
The Christian Passover naturally grew out of the
Jewish Passover as the Lord’s Day grew out of the
Sabbath; the paschal lamb being regarded as a prophetic type of Christ,
the Lamb of God slain for our sins ( Τὸ
μέγα
σάββατον,
τὸ ἅγιον
σάββατον
, Sabbatum magnum. Παννυχίδες,vigiae
paschae, Easter Eve. Good Friday and Easter Eve were a continuous fast,
which was prolonged till midnight or cock-crow. See Tertull. Ad uxoR.
II. 4; Euseb. H. E. VI. 34; Apost. ConSt. V. 18; VII. 23. Various names:
πάσχα
σταυρώσιμου
(as distinct from π.
ἀναστάσιμου).ἡμέρα
σταυροῦ,
παρασκευὴ
μεγάλη or ἀγία,
parasceue, feria sexta major, Good Friday, Charfreitag (fromχάρις or from carus,
dear). But the celebration seems not to, have been universal; for
The paschal feast was preceded by a season of
penitence and fasting, which culminated in "the holy week." From Palm Sunday to
Easter Eve. Ἑβδομὰς
μεγάλη, or τοῦ
πάσχα, hebdomas magna,
hebdomas nigra (in opposition to dominica in albis), hebdomas crux,
Chaiwoche. quadragesima.
§ 62. The Paschal Controversies.
I. The sources for the paschal controversies:
Fragments from Melito,
Apollinarius, Polycrates,
II. Recent works, occasioned mostly by the Johannean controversy:
Weitzel: Die Christl. Passafeier der drei ersten Jahrh. Pforzheim, 1848 (and in the "Studien und Kritiken," 1848, No. 4, against Baur).
Baur: Das Christenthum der 3 ersten Jahrh. (1853). Tüb. 3rd ed. 1863, pp. 156–169. And several controversial essays against Steitz.
Hilgenfeld: Der Paschastreit und das Evang. Johannis (in "Theol. Jahrbücher" for 1849);Noch ein Wort über den Passahstreit (ibid. 1858); and Der Paschastreit der alten Kirche nach seiner Bedeutung für die Kirchengesch. und für die Evangelienforschung urkundlich dargestellt. Halle 1860 (410 pages).
Steitz: Several essays on the subject, mostly against Baur, in the "Studien u. Kritiken, "1856, 1857, and 1859; in the "Theol. Jahrbücher, "1857, and art. Passah in "Herzog’s Encycl." vol. XII. (1859), p. 149 sqq., revised in the new ed., by Wagenmann, XI. 270 sqq.
William Milligan: The Easter Controversies of the second century in their relation to the Gospel of St. John, in the "Contemporary Review" for Sept. 1867 (p. 101–118).
Emil Schürer: De Controversiis paschalibus sec. post Chr. soc. exortis, Lips. 1869. By the same: Die Paschastreitigkeiten des 2ten Jahrh., in Kahnis’ "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1870, pp. 182–284. Very full and able.
C. Jos. von Hefele (R.C.): Conciliengeschichte, I. 86–101 (second ed. Freib. 1873; with some important changes).
Abbé Duchesne: La question de la Pâque, in "Revue des questions historiques," July 1880.
Renan: L’église chrét. 445–451; and M. Aurèle, 194–206 (la question de la Páque.
Respecting the time of the Christian Passover and of
the fast connected with it, there was a difference of observance which
created violent controversies in the ancient church, and almost as
violent controversies in the modern schools of theology in connection
with the questions of the primacy of Rome, and the genuineness of
John’s Gospel. See note at the end
of the section.
The paschal controversies of the ante-Nicene age
are a very complicated chapter in ancient church-history, and are not
yet sufficiently cleared up. They were purely ritualistic and
disciplinary, and involved no dogma; and yet they threatened to split
the churches; both parties laying too much stress on external
uniformity. Indirectly, however, they involved the question of the
independence of Christianity on Judaism. So Renan regards
the controversy, Marc-Aurèle, p. 194, as a conflict between
two kinds of Christianity. "le
christianisme qui s’envisageait
comme une suite du
judaisme," and "le christianisme qui s’envisageait comme la
destruction du judaisme."
Let us first consider the difference of observance or the subject of controversy.
The Christians of Asia Minor, following the Jewish
chronology, and appealing to the authority of the apostles John and
Philip, celebrated the Christian Passover uniformly on the fourteenth
of Nisan (which might fall on any of the seven days of the week) by a
solemn fast; they fixed the close of the fast accordingly, and seem to
have partaken on the evening of this day, as the close of the fast, but
indeed of the Jewish paschal lamb, as has sometimes been supposed, By Mosheim (De
rebus christ. ante Const. M Com., p. 435 sqq.) and Neander (in the
first edition of his Church Hist., 1. 518, but not in the second I.
512, Germ. ed., I. 298 in Torrey’s translation). There
is no trace of such a Jewish custom on the part of the Quartadecimani.
This is admitted by Hefele (I. 87), who formerly held to three parties
in this controversy; but there were only two. The celebration of
the eucharist is not expressly mentioned by Justin M.
Dial.c.111; Iren. Adv. Haer. II. 22, 3; Tert. De Bapt. 19; The ιδ ́=14,
quarta decima. See Philosph. or
Refutat. of all Haeres. VIII. 18. So also Renan
regards it, L’égl.
Chrét., p. 445sq., but he brings it, like
Baur, in conflict with the chronology of the fourth Gospel. He traces
the Roman custom from the pontificate of Xystus and Telesphorus, a.d. 120.
The Roman church, on the contrary, likewise appealing to early custom, celebrated the death of Jesus always on a Friday, the day of the week on which it actually occurred, and his resurrection always on a Sunday after the March full moon, and extended the paschal fast to the latter day; considering it improper to terminate the fast at an earlier date, and to celebrate the communion before the festival of the resurrection. Nearly all the other churches agreed with the Roman in this observance, and laid the main stress on the resurrection-festival on Sunday. This Roman practice created an entire holy week of solemn fasting and commemoration of the Lord’s passion, while the Asiatic practice ended the fast on the 14th of Nisan, which may fall sometimes several days before Sunday.
Hence a spectacle shocking to the catholic sense of ritualistic propriety and uniformity was frequently presented to the world, that one part of Christendom was fasting and mourning over the death of our Saviour, while the other part rejoiced in the glory of the resurrection. We cannot be surprised that controversy arose, and earnest efforts were made to harmonize the opposing sections of Christendom in the public celebration of the fundamental facts of the Christian salvation and of the most sacred season of the church-year.
The gist of the paschal controversy was, whether the Jewish paschal-day (be it a Friday or not), or the Christian Sunday, should control the idea and time of the entire festival. The Johannean practice of Asia represented here the spirit of adhesion to historical precedent, and had the advantage of an immovable Easter, without being Judaizing in anything but the observance of a fixed day of the month. The Roman custom represented the principle of freedom and discretionary change, and the independence of the Christian festival system. Dogmatically stated, the difference would be, that in the former case the chief stress was laid on the Lord’s death; in the latter, on his resurrection. But the leading interest of the question for the early Church was not the astronomical, nor the dogmatical, but the ritualistic. The main object was to secure uniformity of observance, and to assert the originality of the Christian festive cycle, and its independence of Judaism; for both reasons the Roman usage at last triumphed even in the East. Hence Easter became a movable festival whose date varies from the end of March to the latter part of April.
The history of the controversy divides itself into three acts.
1. The difference came into discussion first on a
visit of Renan (l.c., p.
447) conjectures that Trenaeus and Florinus accompanied In a fragment of a
letter to the Roman bishop Victor, preserved by
"When the blessed καὶ
περὶ
ἅλλων
τινῶν
μικρὰ
σχόντες
(orἔχοντες) πρὸς
ἀλλήλους μὴ
τηρεῖν, i.e. the
fourteenth of Nisan, as appears from the connection and from ch. 23.
The τηρεῖν
consisted mainly in fasting, and probably also the celebration of the
eucharist in the evening. It was a technical term for legal
observances, Comp.
This letter proves that the Christians of the days
of
2. A few years afterwards, about a.d. 170, the controversy broke out in Laodicea, but was
confined to Asia, where a difference had arisen either among the
Quartadecimanians themselves, or rather among these and the adherents
of the Western observance. The accounts on this interimistic sectional
dispute are incomplete and obscure. H. E. IV. 26. With the exception
of a few fragments in the Chrenicon Paschale. Ed. Dindorf I. 13;
in Routh’s Reliquiae Sacrae I.p. 160. Quoted and
discussed by Milligan, l.c. p. 109 sq.
"There are some now who, from ignorance, love to
raise strife about these things, being guilty in this of a pardonable
offence; for ignorance does not so much deserve blame as need
instruction. And they say that on the fourteenth [of Nisan]
the Lord ate the paschal lamb (τὸ
πρόβατον
ἔφαγε) with his disciples, but that He
himself suffered on the great day of unleavened bread If this is the
genuine Quartadecimanian view, it proves conclusively that it agreed
with the Synoptic chronology as to the day of Christ’s
death, and that Weitzel and Steitz are wrong on this point. Since according to
the view of Apolinarius, Christ as the true fulfillment of the law,
must have died on the 14th, the day of the legal passover. This seems to be
the meaning of στασιάζειν
δοκεῖ, κατ’
αὐτούς, τὰ
εὐαγγέλια, inter
se pugnare, etc. On the assumption namely that John fixes the detail of
Christ on the fourteenth of Nisan, which, however, is a point in
dispute. The opponents who started from the chronology of the
Synoptists, could retort this objections.
The Fourteenth is the true Passover of the Lord,
the great sacrifice, the. Son of God The same argument
is urged in the fragments of
Here So Baur (p. 163
sq.) and the Tübingen School rightly maintain. As Weitzel, Steitz,
and Lechler assume in opposition to Baur. In the passage of
the Philosoph. above quoted and in the fragments of the Paschal
Chronicle. Epiphanius, it is
true, distinguishes different opinions among the Quartadecimanians
(Haer. L. cap. 1-3 Contra Quartadecimanas), but be makes no mention of
the practice of eating a Paschal lamb, or of any difference in this
chronology of the death of Christ.
Hence we conclude that Apolinarius protests
against the whole Quartadecimanian practice, although very mildly and
charitably. The Laodicean controversy was a stage in the same
controversy which was previously discussed by
3. Much more important and vehement was the third
stage of the controversy between 190 and 194, which extended over the
whole church, and occasioned many synods and synodical letters.
"We," wrote the Ephesian bishop to the Roman pope
and his church, "We observe the genuine day; neither adding thereto nor
taking therefrom. For in Asia great lights Μεγάλα
στοιχεῖα
in the sense of stars used Ep. ad Diog. 7; Justin Dial.c. 23 (τὰ
οὐράνια
στοιχεῖα). ὁ
ἐπὶ τὸ
στῆθος τοῦ
κυρίου
ἀναπεσών.
Comp. τὸ
πέταλον.On
this singular expression, which is probably figurative for priestly
holiness, see vol. 1. p. 431, note 1.
"Moreover, I, Polycrates, who am the least of you,
according to the tradition of my relatives, some of whom I have
followed. For seven of my relatives were bishops, and I am the eighth;
and my relatives always observed the day when the people of the Jews
threw away the leaven. I, therefore, brethren, am now sixty-five years
in the Lord, who having conferred with the brethren throughout the
world, and having studied the whole of the Sacred Scriptures, am not at
all alarmed at those things with which I am threatened, to intimidate
me. For they who are greater than I have said, ’we
ought to obey God rather than men.’ ... I could also
mention the bishops that were present, whom you requested me to summon,
and whom I did call; whose names would present a great number, but who
seeing my slender body consented to my epistle, well knowing that I did
not wear my gray hairs for nought, but that I did at all times regulate
my life in the Lord Jesus." Euseb. V. 24 (ed.
Heinichen, 1. p. 250 sqq).
Victor turned a deaf ear to this remonstrance,
branded the Asiatics as heretics, and threatened to excommunicate
them. He is probably the
author of the pseudo-Cypranic homily against dice players (De
Aleatoribus), which assumes the tone of the papal encyclical.
But many of the Eastern bishops, and even
We have from the same In the third
fragment discovered by Pfaff, probably from his book against Blastus.
See Opera. ad. Stieren, I. 887.
4. In the course of the third century the Roman
practice gained ground everywhere in the East, and, to anticipate the
result, was established by the council of Nicaea in 325 as the law of
the whole church. This council considered it unbecoming, in Christians
to follow the usage of the unbelieving, hostile Jews, and ordained that
Easter should always be celebrated on the first Sunday after the first
full moon succeeding the vernal equinox (March 21), and always after
the Jewish passover. In the Synodical
letter which the fathers of Nicaea addressed to the churches of Egypt,
Libya, and Pentapolis (Socrates, H. E. l.c. 9), it is said: "We have
also gratifying intelligence to communicate to you relating to the
unity of judgment on the subject of the most holy feast of Easter;
...that all the brethren in the East who have heretofore kept this
festival at the same time as the Jews, will henceforth conform to the
Romans and to us, and to all who from the earliest time have observed
our period of celebrating Easter."
Henceforth the Quartadecimanians were universally
regarded as heretics, and were punished as such. The Synod of Antioch,
341, excommunicated them. The Montanists and
But the desired uniformity in the observance of Easter was still hindered by differences in reckoning the Easter Sunday according to the course of the moon and the vernal equinox, which the Alexandrians fixed on the 21st of March, and the Romans on the 18th; so that in the year 387, for example, the Romans kept Easter on the 21st of March, and the Alexandrians not till the 25th of April. In the West also the computation changed and caused a renewal of the Easter controversy in the sixth and seventh centuries. The old British, Irish and Scotch Christians, and the Irish missionaries on the Continent adhered to the older cycle of eighty-four years in opposition to the later Dionysian or Roman cycle of ninety-five years, and hence were styled "Quartadecimanians "by their Anglo-Saxon and Roman opponents, though unjustly; for they celebrated Easter always on a Sunday between the 14th and the 20th of the mouth (the Romans between the 15th and 21st). The Roman practice triumphed. But Rome again changed the calendar under Gregory XIII. (a.d. 1583). Hence even to this day the Oriental churches who hold to the Julian and reject the Gregorian calendar, differ from the Occidental Christians in the time of the observance of Easter.
All these useless ritualistic disputes might have been avoided if, with some modification of the old Asiatic practice as to the close of the fast, Easter, like Christmas, had been made an immovable feast at least as regards the week, if not the day, of its observance.
Note.
The bearing of this controversy on the Johannean origin of the fourth Gospel has been greatly overrated by the negative critics of the Tübingen School. Dr. Baur, Schwegler, Hilgenfeld, Straus (Leben Jesu, new ed. 1864, p. 76 sq.), Schenkel, Scholten, Samuel Davidson, Renan (Marc-Aurèle, p. 196), use it as a fatal objection to the Johannean authorship. Their argument is this: "The Asiatic practice rested on the belief that Jesus ate the Jewish Passover with his disciples on the evening of the 14th of Nisan, and died on the 15th; this belief is incompatible with the fourth Gospel, which puts the death of Jesus, as the true Paschal Lamb, on the 14th of Nisan, just before the regular Jewish Passover; therefore the fourth Gospel cannot have existed when the Easter controversy first broke out about a.d. 160; or, at all events, it cannot be the work of John to whom the Asiatic Christians so confidently appealed for their paschal observance."
But leaving out of view the early testimonies for the authenticity of John, which reach back to the first quarter of the second century, the minor premise is wrong, and hence the conclusion falls. A closer examination of the relevant passages of John leads to the result that he agrees with the Synoptic account, which puts the last Supper on the 14th, and the crucifixion on the 15th of Nisan. (Comp. on this chronological difficulty vol. I. 133 sqq.; and the authorities quoted there, especially John Lightfoot, Wieseler, Robinson, Lange, Kirchner, and McClellan.)
Weitzel, Steitz, and Wagenmann deny the inference
of the Tübingen School by disputing the major premise, and
argue that the Asiatic observance (in agreement with the
Tübingen school and their own interpretation of
John’s chronology) implies that Christ died as the
true paschal lamb on the 14th, and not on the
15th of Nisan. To this view we object: 1) it conflicts with
the extract from Apolinarius in the Chronicon Paschale as given p. 214.
2) There is no contradiction between the idea that Christ died as the
true paschal lamb, and the Synoptic chronology; for the former was
taught by Paul (
It seems to me that the Asiatic observance of the 14th of Nisan was in commemoration of the last passover of the Lord, and this of necessity implied also a commemoration of his death, like every celebration of the Lord’s Supper. In any case, however, these ancient paschal controversies did not hinge on the chronological question or the true date of Christ’s death at all but on the week-day and the manner of its annual observance. The question was whether the paschal communion should be celebrated on the 14th of Nisan, or on the Sunday of the resurrection festival, without regard to the Jewish chronology.
§ 63. Pentecost.
Easter was followed by the festival of Pentecost. Πεντεκοστή (ἡμέρα),
Quinquagesima, is the fiftieth day after the Passover Sabbath, see vol.
I. 225 sqq. It is used by the fathers; in it wider sense for the whole
period of fifty days, from Easter to Whitsunday, and in a narrower
sense for the single festival of Whitsunday. De Idol. c. 12;
Comp. De Bapt. c. 19; Const. Apost. V. 20.
Subsequently the celebration was limited to the
fortieth day as the feast of the Ascension, and the fiftieth day, or
Pentecost proper (Whitsunday) as the feast of the outpouring of the
Holy Spirit and the birthday of the Christian Church. In this
restricted sense Pentecost closed the cycle of our
Lord’s festivals (the semestre Domini), among which it
held the third place (after Easter and Christmas). In this sense
Pentecoste is first used by the Council of Elvira (Granada) a.d. 306, can. 43. The week following was afterwards
called Hebdomadas Spiritus Sancti.
§ 64. The Epiphany
The feast of the Epiphany is
of later origin. ἡ
ἐπιφάνεια,
τὰ
επιφάνια, ἡ
θεοφάνεια,
ἡμέρα τῶν
φώτων: Epiphania,
Theophania, Dies Luminum, Festura Trium Regum, etc. The feast is first
mentioned by Clement of Alex. as the annual commemoration of the.
baptism of Christ by the Gnostic sect of the Basilidians (Strom. I.
21). Neander supposes that they derived it from the Jewish Christians
in Palestine.
In the West it was afterwards made a collective
festival of several events in the life of Jesus, as the adoration of
the Magi, the first miracle of Cana, and sometimes the feeding of the
five thousand. It became more particularly the "feast of the three
kings," that is, the wise men from the East, and was placed in special
connexion with the mission to the heathen. The legend of the three
kings (Caspar, Melchior, Baltazar) grew up gradually from the recorded
gifts, gold, frankincense, and myrrh, which the Magi offered to the
new-born King, of the Jews.
Of the Christmas festival
there is no clear trace before the fourth century; partly because the
feast of the Epiphany in a measure held the place of it; partly because
of birth of Christ, the date of which, at any rate, was uncertain, was
less prominent in the Christian mind than his death and resurrection.
It was of Western (Roman) origin, and found its way to the East after
the middle of the fourth century for
§ 65. The Order of Public Worship.
The earliest description of the Christian worship is
given us by a heathen, the younger Comp.
§17, p. 46, and G. Boissier, De l’authenticité de la lettre de
Pline au sujet des Chrétiens, in the
"Revue Archéol., " 1876, p. 114-125. "Quod essent soliti
stato die ante lucem convenire, Carmenque, Christo, Deo, dicere secum
invicem."
This account of a Roman official then bears witness to the primitive observance of Sunday, the separation of the love-feast from the morning worship (with the communion), and the worship of Christ as God in song.
Apol. l.c. 65-67
(Opera, ed. Otto III. Tom. I. P. I. 177-188). The passage quoted is
from ch. 67.
"On Sunday τῇ
τοῦ Ἡλίου
λεγομένῃ
ἡμέρᾳ Μέχρις
ἐγχωρεῖ Ὁ
προεστώς,
the presiding presbyter or bisbop. ·Τὴν
νουθεσίαν
καὶ
παράκλησιν. Εὐχὰς
πέμπομεν,
preces emittimus. Chap. 65. Ὅση
δύναμις
αὐτῷ, that is
probably pro viribus, quantum potest; or like
Here, reading of the Scriptures, preaching (and
that as an episcopal function), prayer, and communion, plainly appear
as the regular parts of the Sunday worship; all descending, no doubt,
from the apostolic age. Song is not expressly mentioned here, but
elsewhere. Cap. 13. Justin
himself wrote a book entitled ́ψάλτης.
The same parts of worship are mentioned in
different places by See the passages
quoted by Otto, l.c. 184 sq.
The eighth book of the Apostolical Constitutions
contains already an elaborate service with sundry liturgical prayers. B. VIII. 3 sqq.
Also VII. 33 sqq. See translation in the "Ante-Nicene Library, " vol.
XVII., P. II. 191 sqq. and 212 sqq.
§ 66. Parts of Worship.
1. The reading of Scripture
lessons from the Old Testament with practical application and
exhortation passed from the Jewish synagogue to the Christian church.
The lessons from the New Testament came prominently into use as the
Gospels and Epistles took the place of the oral instruction of the
apostolic age. The reading of the Gospels is expressly mentioned by
BK. VII. 5. The Ep. of Clemens
in the Codex Alexandrinus (A); Barnabas and Hermas in the Cod.
Sinaiticus.
2. The sermon ̔ομιλία,
λόγος, sermo,
tractatus. § 19,
ἀναγινώσκω
ὑμῖν. But the homily
may have first been delivered extempore, and taken down by short-hand
writers (ταχυγράφοι,
notarii). See Lightfoot, p. 306. Ed. by Bryennios
(1875), and in the Patr. Apost. ed. by de Gebhardt and Harnack, I.
111-143. A good translation by Lightfoot, S.
3. Prayer. This essential
part of all worship passed likewise from the Jewish into the Christian
service. The oldest prayers of post-apostolic times are the eucharistic
thanksgivings in the Didache, and the intercession at the close of
Clement’s Epistle to the Corinthians, which seems to
have been used in the Roman church. Ad Cor. ch. 59-61,
discovered and first published by Bryennios, 1875. We give
Clement’s prayer below, p. 228 sq. The prayers if the
Didache(chs.9 and 10), brought to light by Bryennios, 1883, are still
older, and breathe the spirit of primitive simplicity. See §
68. See vol. III. 517
sqq., and add to the literature there, quoted, Probst (R.C.), Die
Liturgie der 3 ersten Jahrh., Tüb., 1870;
C. A. Hammond, Ancient Liturgies (with
introduction, notes, and liturgical glossary), Oxford and Lond.,
1878.
The last book of the Apostolical Constitutions
contains the pseudo- or post-Clementine liturgy, with special prayers
for believers, catechumens, the possessed, the penitent, and even for
the dead, and a complete eucharistic service. Ap. Const., Bk.
VIII., also in the liturgical collections of Daniel, Neale, Hammond,
etc.
The usual posture in prayer was standing with outstretched arms in Oriental fashion.
4. Song. The Church
inherited the psalter from the synagogue, and has used it in all ages
as an inexhaustible treasury of devotion. The psalter is truly catholic
in its spirit and aim; it springs from the deep fountains of the human
heart in its secret communion with God, and gives classic expression to
the religious experience of all men in every age and tongue. This is
the best proof of its inspiration. Nothing like it can be found in all
the poetry of heathendom. The psalter was first enriched by the
inspired hymns which saluted the birth of the Saviour of the world, the
Magnificat of Mary, the Benedictus of Zacharias, the Gloria in Excelsis
of the heavenly host, and the Nunc Dimittis of the aged Simeon. These
hymns passed at once into the service of the Church, to resound through
all successive centuries, as things of beauty which are "a joy
forever." Traces of primitive Christian poems can be found throughout
the Epistles and the Apocalypse. The angelic anthem ( Const. Apost. lib.
VII. 47. Also in Daniel’s Thesaurus Hymnol., tom. III,
p. 4, where it is called ὕμνος
ἑωθινός(as
in Cod. Alex.), and commences: Δόξα ἐν
ὑψίστοις
θεῷ. Comp. Tom. II. 268
sqq. It is also called hymnus angelicus while the Ter Sanctus (from
The following is a free translation:
Daniel, l.c. vol. III. p. 5. Comp. in part Const. Ap. VIII. 37. The ὕμνος ἑαπερινόςor ὕμνος τοῦ λυχνικοῦ, commences:
Φῶς ἱλαρὸν ἁγίας δόχης
Ἀθανάτου πατρὸς οὐρανίου.
An author towards the close of the second
century In Euseb. H. E. V.
28.
The oldest Christian poem preserved to us which
can be traced to an individual author is from the pen of the profound
Christian philosopher, In the Paedag. III.
12 (p. 311 ed. Pott.); also in Daniel’s Thesaurus
hymnologicus III. p. 3 and 4. Daniel calls it "vetustissimus hymnus
ecclesiae", but the Gloria in Excelsis may dispute this claim. The poem
has been often translated into Cierinan, by Münter (in
Rambach’s Anthologie christl. Gesänge, I. p,
35); Dorner (Christologie, I. 293); Fortlage (Gesänge christl.
Vorzeit, 1844, p. 38); and in rhyme by Hagenbach
(Die K. G. der 3 ersten
Jahrh. p. 222 sq.). An English translation may be
found in Mrs. Charles: The Voice of Christian Life, in Song, N. York,
1858, p. 44 sq., and a closer one in the "Ante-Nicene Christian
Library, " vol. V. p. 343 sq.
Notes.
I. The Prayer of the Roman Church from the newly
recovered portion of the Epistle of Clement to the Corinthians, ch.
59–61 (in Bishop Lightfoot’s
translation, St.
"Grant unto us, Lord, that we may set our hope on Thy Name which is the primal source of all creation, and open the eyes of our hearts, that we may know Thee, who alone abidest Highest in the highest, Holy in the holy; who layest low the insolence of the proud: who scatterest the imaginings of nations; who settest the lowly on high, and bringest the lofty low; who makest rich and makest poor; who killest and makest alive; who alone art the Benefactor of spirits and the God of all flesh; who lookest into the abysses, who scannest the works of man; the Succor of them that are in peril, the Saviour of them that are in despair; the Creator and Overseer of every spirit; who multipliest the nations upon earth, and hast chosen out from all men those that love Thee through Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, through whom Thou didst instruct us, didst sanctify us, didst honor us. We beseech Thee, Lord and Master, to be our help and succor. Save those among us who are in tribulation; have mercy on the lowly; lift up the fallen; show Thyself unto the needy; heal the ungodly; convert the wanderers of Thy people; feed the hungry; release our prisoners; raise up the weak; comfort the faint-hearted. Let all the Gentiles know that Thou art God alone, and Jesus Christ is Thy Son, and we are Thy people and the sheep of Thy pastures
"Thou through Thine operation didst make manifest the everlasting faithful of the world. Thou, Lord, didst create the earth. Thou art faithful throughout all generations, righteous in Thy judgments, marvellous in strength and excellence. Thou that art wise in creating and prudent in establishing that which Thou hast made, that art good in the things which are seen and faithful with them that trust on Thee, pitiful and compassionate, forgive us our iniquities and our unrighteousnesses and our transgressions and shortcomings. Lay not to our account every sin of Thy servants and Thine handmaids, but cleanse us with the cleansing of Thy truth, and guide our steps to walk in holiness and righteousness and singleness of heart, and to do such things as are good and well-pleasing in Thy sight and in the sight of our rulers. Yea Lord, make Thy face to shine upon us in peace for our good, that we may be sheltered by Thy mighty hand and delivered from every sin by Thine uplifted arm. And deliver up from them that hate us wrongfully. Give concord and peace to us and to all that dwell on the earth, as thou gavest to our fathers, when they called on Thee in faith and truth with holiness, that we may be saved, while we render obedience to Thine almighty and most excellent Name, and to our rulers and governors upon the earth.
"Thou, Lord and Master, hast given them the power of sovereignty through Thine excellent and unspeakable might, that we knowing the glory and honor which Thou hast given them may submit ourselves unto them, in nothing resisting Thy will. Grant unto them therefore, O Lord, health, peace, concord, stability, that they may administer the government which Thou hast given them without failure. For Thou, O heavenly Master, King of the ages, givest to the sons of men glory and honor and power over all things that are upon earth. Do Thou, Lord, direct their counsel according to that which is good and well pleasing in Thy sight, that, administering in peace and gentleness with godliness the power which Thou hast given them, they may obtain Thy favor. O Thou, who alone art able to do these things and things far more exceeding good than these for us, we praise Thee through the High-priest and Guardian of our souls, Jesus Christ, through whom be, the glory and the majesty unto Thee both now and for all generations and for ever and ever. Amen."
II. A literal translation of the poem of
Ὕμνος τοῦ Σωτῆρος χριστού. (Στομίον πώλων ἀδάων).
This poem was for sixteen centuries merely a
hymnological curiosity, until an American Congregational minister,
§ 67. Division of Divine Service. The Disciplina Arcani.
Richard Rothe: De Disciplinae Arcani, quae dicitur, in Ecclesia Christ. Origine. Heidelb. 1841; and his art. on the subject in the first ed. of Herzog (vol. I. 469–477).
C. A. Gerh. Von Zezschwitz: System der christl. kirchlichen Katechetik. Leipz. 1863, vol. I. p. 154–227. See also his art. in the second ed. of Herzog, I. 637–645 (abridged in Schaff’s "Rel. Enc.").
G. Nath. Bonwetsch (of Dorpat): Wesen, Entstehunq und Fortgang der Arkandisciplin, in Kahnis’ "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1873, pp. 203 sqq.
J. P. Lundy: Monumental Christianity. N. York, 1876, p. 62–86.
Comp. also A. W. Haddan in Smith & Cheetham, I. 564–566; Wandinger, in Wetzer & Welte, new ed. vol. I. (1882), 1234–1238. Older dissertations on the subject by Schelstrate (1678), Meier (1679), Tenzell (1863), Scholliner (1756), Lienhardt (1829), Toklot (1836), Frommann (1833), Siegel (1836, I. 506 sqq.).
The public service was divided from. the middle of
the second century down to the close of the fifth, into the worship of
the catechumens, Λειτουργία
τῶν
κατηχουμένων,
Missa Catechumenorum. The name missa (from which our mass is derived)
occurs first in Λειτουργία
τῶν
πιστῶν, Missa
Fidelium. Μή
τις τῶν
κατηχουμένων,
μή τις τῶν
ἀκροωμένων,
μή τις
ἀπίστων,
μή τις
ἑτεροδόξων,
"Let none of the catechumens, let none of the hearers, let none of the
unbelievers, let none of the heterodox, stay here." Const. Apost. viii.
12. Comp.
The earliest witness for this strict separation is
De PraescR. Haer.
C. 41: "Quis catechimenus, quis fidelis, incertum est" that is, among
the heretics); "pariter adeunt, pariter orant, etiam ethnici, si
supervenerint; sanctum canibus et porcis, margaritas, licet non veras "
(since they have no proper sacraments), "jactabunt." But this does not
apply to all heretics, least of all to the Manichaeans, who carried the
notion of mystery in the sacrament much further than the Catholics. Μύητοι,
initiati=πιστοί,
fideles.
We have here the beginnings of the Christian mystery-worship, or what has been called since 1679 "the Secret Discipline," (Disciplina Arcani), which is presented in its full development in the liturgies of the fourth century, but disappeared from the Latin church after the sixth century, with the dissolution of heathenism and the universal introduction of infant baptism.
The Secret Discipline had reference chiefly to the
celebration of the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist, but
included also the baptismal symbol, the Lord’s Prayer,
and the doctrine of the Trinity. The learned Jesuit
Emanuel von Scheistrate first used this argument in Antiquitas
illustrate (Antw. 1678), and De Disciplina Arcani (
The origin of the Secret Discipline has been
traced by some to the apostolic age, on the ground of the distinction
made between "milk for babes" and "strong meat" for those "of full
age," and between speaking to "carnal" and to "spiritual" hearers. So Bonwetsch, l.c.,
versus Rothe and Zetzchwitz. The correspondence
is very apparent in the ecclesiastical use of such terms as μυστήριον,
σύμβολον,
μύησις,
μυσταγωγεῖν,
κάθαρσις ,
τελειώσις,
φωτισμός(of
baptism), etc. On the Greek, and especially the Eleusinian cultus of
mysteries, Comp. Lobeck, Aglaophanus, Königsberg, 1829;
several articles of Preller in Pauly’s Realencyklop. der
Alterthumswissenschaft III. 83 sqq., V. 311 sqq.,
Zetzs chwitz, l.c. 156 sqq., and Lübker’s
Reallex. des class. Alterthums. 5th ed. by Erler (1877), p. 762. Lobeck has refuted
the older view of Warburton and Creuzer, that a secret wisdom, and
especially the traditions of a primitive revelation, were propagated in
the Greek mysteries.
The Eastern church, however, has retained in her liturgies to this day the ancient form for the dismission of catechumens, the special prayers for them, the designation of the sacraments as "mysteries," and the partial celebration of the mass behind the veil; though she also has for centuries had no catechumens in the old sense of the word, that is, adult heathen or Jewish disciples preparing for baptism, except in rare cases of exception, or on missionary ground.
§ 68. Celebration of the Eucharist.
The celebration of the Eucharist or holy communion
with appropriate prayers of the faithful was the culmination of
Christian worship. Names:εὐχαριστία,
κοινωνία,
eucharistia, communio, communicatio, etc. Apol. l.c. 65,
66 Εὐχαριστηθέντος
ἄρτου
Then he relates the institution from the Gospels, and mentions the customary collections for the poor.
We are not warranted in carrying back to this period the full liturgical service, which we find prevailing with striking uniformity in essentials, though with many variations in minor points, in all quarters of the church in the Nicene age. A certain simplicity and freedom characterized the period before us. Even the so-called Clementine liturgy, in the eighth book of the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions, was probably not composed and written out in this form before the fourth century. There is no trace of written liturgies during the Diocletian persecution. But the germs (late from the second century. The oldest eucharistic prayers have recently come to light in the Didache ,which contains three thanksgivings, for the, cup, the broken and for all mercies. (chs. 9 and 10.)
From scattered statements of the ante-Nicene fathers we may gather the following view of the eucharistic service as it may have stood in the middle of the third century, if not earlier.
The communion was a regular and the most solemn
part of the Sunday worship; or it was the worship of God in the
stricter sense, in which none but full members of the church could
engage. In many places and by many Christians it was celebrated even
daily, after apostolic precedent, and according to the very common
mystical interpretation of the fourth petition of the
Lord’s prayer. Προσφορά.
In the prayers we must distinguish, first, the
general thanksgiving (the eucharist in the strictest sense of
the word) for all the natural and spiritual gifts of God, commonly
ending with the seraphic hymn, Ἐπίκλησις
τοῦ Πν. Ἁγ.
The elements were common or leavened bread Κοινὸς
ἄρτος, says;
Justin, while in view of its sacred import be calls it also uncommon
bread and drink. The use of leavened or unleavened bread became
afterwards, as is well known, a point of controversy between the Roman
and Greek churches. This simplest form
of distribution, "Σῶμα
Χριστοῦ,"
and "Αἴμα Χρ.,
ποτήριον
ζωῆς" occurs in the
Clementine liturgy of the Apostolic Constitutions, VIII. 13, and seems
to be the oldest. The Didache gives no form of distribution. The standing
posture of the congregation during the principal prayers, and in the
communion itself, seems to have been at first universal. For this was,
indeed, the custom always on the day of the resurrection in distinction
from Friday ("stantes oramus, quod est signunt resurrectionis," says
After the public service the deacons carried the
consecrated elements to the sick and to the confessors in prison. Many
took portions of the bread home with them, to use in the family at
morning prayer. This domestic communion was practised particularly in
North Africa, and furnishes the first example of a communio sub una
specie. In the same country, in
At first the communion was joined with a love feast, and was then celebrated in the evening,
in memory of the last supper of Jesus with his disciples. But so early
as the beginning of the second century these two exercises were
separated, and the communion was placed in the morning, the love feast
in the evening, except on certain days of special observance. On Maundy-Thursday,
according, to Apol. c.39: "About
the modest supper-room of the Christians alone a great ado is made. Our
feast explains itself by its name. The Greeks call it love. Whatever it
costs, our outlay in the name of piety is gain, since with the good
things of the feast we benefit the needy, not as it is with you, do
parasites aspire to the glory of satisfying their licentious
propensities, selling themselves for a belly-feast to all disgraceful
treatment-but as it is with God himself, a peculiar respect is shown to
the lowly. If the object of our feast be good, in the light of that
consider its further regulations. As it is an act of religious service,
it permits no vileness or immodesty. The participants, before
reclining, taste first of prayer to God. As much is eaten as satisfies
the cravings of hunger; as much is drunk as befits the chaste. They say
it is enough, as those who remember that even during the night they
have to worship God; they talk as those who know that the Lord is one
of their auditors. After the washing of hands and the bringing in of
lights, each is asked to stand forth and sing, as he can, a hymn to
God, either one from the holy Scriptures or one of his own composing-a
proof of the measure of our drinking. As the feast commenced with
prayer, so with prayer it closed. We go from it, not like troops of
mischief-doers, nor bands of roamers, nor to break out into licentious
acts, but to have aq ruucli care of our modesty and chastity as if we
had been at a school of virtue rather than a banquet." (Translation
from the "Ante-Nicene Library ").
The communion service has undergone many changes in the course of time, but still substantially survives with all its primitive vitality and solemnity in all churches of Christendom,—a perpetual memorial of Christ’s atoning sacrifice and saving love to the human race. Baptism and the Lord’s Supper are institutions which proclaim from day to day the historic Christ, and can never be superseded by contrivances of human ingenuity and wisdom.
§ 69. The Doctrine of the Eucharist.
Literature. See the works quoted, vol. I. 472, by Waterland (Episc. d. 1740), Döllinger (R. Cath., 1826; since 1870 Old Cath.), Ebrard (Calvinistic, 1845), Nevin (Calvinistic, 1846), Kahnis (Luth. 1851, but changed his view in his Dogmatik), E. B. Pusey (high Anglic., 1855), Rückert (Rationalistic, 1856), Vogan (high Anglic., 1871), Harrison (Evang. Angl., 1871), Stanley (Broad Church Episc., 1881), Gude (Lutheran, 1887).
On the Eucharistic doctrine of
Höfling: Die Lehre der ältesten Kirche vom Opfer im Leben und Cultus der Christen. Erlangen, 1851.
Dean Stanley: The Eucharistic Sacrifice. In "Christian Institutions" (N. Y. 1881) p. 73 sqq.
The doctrine concerning the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper, not coming into special discussion, remained indefinite and obscure. The ancient church made more account of the worthy participation of the ordinance than of the logical apprehension of it. She looked upon it as the holiest mystery of the Christian worship, and accordingly celebrated it with the deepest devotion, without inquiring into the mode of Christ’s presence, nor into the relation of the sensible signs to his flesh and blood. It is unhistorical to carry any of the later theories back into this age; although it has been done frequently in the apologetic and polemic discussion of this subject.
1. The Eucharist as a Sacrament.
The Didache of the Apostles contains
eucharistic prayers, but no theory of the eucharist. Ad Smyrn. c. 7;
against the Docetists, who deny τὴν
εὐχαριστίαν
σάρκα
εἶναι τοῦ
σωτῆρος
ἡμῶν ̓Λ.Χρ.,
κ.τ.λ. and Ad Ephes. C. 20: Ὅς (sc.
ἅρτος) ἔστιν
φάρμακον
ἀθανισίας ,
ἄντίδοτος
τοῦ μὴ
ἀποθανεῖν,
ἀλλὰ ζῇν
ἑν Ἰησοῦ
Χριστῶ διὰ
παντός . Both
passages are wanting in the Syriac version. But the first is cited by
Theodoret, Dial. III. p. 231, and must therefore have been known even
in the Syrian church in his time.
The same may be said of Apol. I. 66 (I.
182, third ed. of Otto). Here also occurs already the term μεταβολή, which
some Roman controversialists use at once as an argument for
transubstantiation. Justin says: Ἐξ
ἧς (i.e.τροφῆς) αἷμα καὶ
σάρκες
κατὰ
μεταβολὴν
τρέφονται
ἡμῶν, ex quo alimento
sanguis et carnes nostae per mutationem aluntur. But according to the
context, this denotes by no means a transmutation of the elements, but
either the assimilation of them to the body of the receiver, or the
operation of them upon the body, with reference to the future
resurrection. Comp.
Adv. haer. IV. 18,
and passim. In the second of
the Fragments discovered by Pfaff (Opp. Tren. ed Stieren, vol. I. p.
855), which Maffei and other Roman divines have unwarrantably declared
spurious. It is there said that the Christians, after the offering of
the eucharistic sacrifice, call upon the Holy Ghost, ὅπως
ἀποφήνῃ
τὴν θυσίαν
ταύτην καὶ
τὸν ἄρτον
σῶμα τοῦ
Χριστοῦ,
καὶ τὸ
ποτήριον
τὸ αἷμα
τοῦ Χρ., ἵνα
οἰ
μεταλαβόντες
τοῦτων τῶν
ἀντιτύπων,
τῆς
ἀφέσεως
τῶν
ἁμαρτιῶν
καὶ ζωῆς
αἰωνίου
τύχωσιν. Const. Apost. l. V.
c. 14 Τὰ
ἀντίτυπα
μυστήρια
τοῦ τιμίου
σώματος
αὐτοῦ καὶ
αἵματος.
So VI. 30, and in a eucharistic prayer, VII. 25. Other passages of the
Greek fathers see in Stieren, l.c. p. 884 sq. Comp. also
Bleek’s learned remarks in his large Com. on
A different view, approaching nearer the
Calvinistic or Reformed, we meet with among the African fathers. Adv. Marc. IV. 40;
and likewise III. 19. This interpretation is plainly very near that of
Œcolampadius, who puts the figure in the predicate, and who
attached no small weight to De Resur. Carnis,
c. 8."Caro corpore et sanguine Christi vescitur, ut et anima de Deo
saginetur." De Pudic. c. 9, he refers the fatted calf, in the parable
of the prodigal son, to the Lord’s Supper, and says:
"Opimitate Dominici corporis vescitur, eucharistia scilicet."De Orat.
c. 6: "Quod et corpus Christi in pane censetur," which should probably
be translated: is to be understood by the bread (not contained in the
bread). For this reason he
considers the mixing essential. Epist. 63 (ed. Bal.) c. 13: "Si vinum
tantum quis offerat, sanguis Christi incipit esse sine nobis; si vero
aqua sit sola, plebs incipit esse sine Christo. Quando autem utrumque
miscetur et adunatione confusa sibi invicem copitlatur, tunc
sacramentum spirituale et cŒleste perficitur."
The Alexandrians are here, as usual, decidedly
spiritualistic. Clement twice expressly calls the wine a symbol or an
allegory of the blood of Christ, and says, that the communicant
receives not the physical, but the spiritual blood, the life, of
Christ; as, indeed, the blood is the life of the body. Comment. ser. in
We have, therefore, among the ante-Nicene fathers,
three different views, an Oriental, a North-African, and an
Alexandrian. The first view, that of
2. The Eucharist as a Sacrifice.
This point is very important in relation to the
doctrine, and still more important in relation to the cultus and life,
of the ancient church. The Lord’s Supper was
universally regarded not only as a sacrament, but also as a
sacrifice, Προσφορά,
θυσία, oblatio,
sacrificium. So among the Jews
the cup of wine at the paschal supper was called "the cup of
blessing,"ποτήριον
ευλογίας
=εὐχαριστίας
, Comp.
The consecrated elements were regarded in a twofold light, as representing at once the natural and the spiritual gifts of God, which culminated in the self-sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Hence the eucharistic prayer, like that connected with the typical passover, related at the same time to creation and redemption, which were the more closely joined in the mind of the church for their dualistic separation by the Gnostics. The earthly gifts of bread and wine were taken as types and pledges of the heavenly gifts of the same God, who has both created and redeemed the world.
Upon this followed the idea of the self-sacrifice of the worshipper himself, the sacrifice of renewed self-consecration to Christ in return for his sacrifice on the cross, and also the sacrifice of charity to the poor. Down to the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the eucharistic elements were presented as a thank-offering by the members of the congregation themselves, and the remnants went to the clergy and he poor. In these gifts the people yielded themselves as a priestly race and a living thank-offering to God, to whom they owed all the blessings alike of providence and of grace. In later times the priest alone offered the sacrifice. But even the Roman Missal retains a recollection of the ancient custom in the plural form, "We offer," and in the sentence: "All you, both brethren and sisters, pray that my sacrifice and your sacrifice, which is equally yours as well as mine, may be meat for the Lord."
This subjective offering of the whole congregation on the ground of the objective atoning sacrifice of Christ is the real centre of the ancient Christian worship, and particularly of the communion. It thus differed both from the later Catholic mass, which has changed the thank-offering into a sin-offering, the congregational offering into a priest offering; and from the common Protestant cultus, which, in opposition to the Roman mass, has almost entirely banished the idea of sacrifice from the celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except in the customary offerings for the poor.
The writers of the second century keep strictly
within the limits of the notion of a congregational
thank-offering. Thus Justin says expressly, prayers and
thanksgivings alone are the true and acceptable sacrifices, which the
Christians offer. Adv. Haer. IV. c.
18, §. 4: "Verbum [the Logos] quod offertur Deo;" instead of
which should be read, according to other manuscripts: "Verbum per quod
offertur,"—which suits the connexion much better.
Comp. IV. 17, § 6: "Per Jes. Christum offert ecclesia."
Stieren reads "Verbum quod," but refers it not to Christ, but to the
word of the prayer. The passage is, at all events, too obscure and too
isolated to build a dogma upon. Epist. 63 ad
Council. c. 14: "Si Jesus Christus, Dominus et Deus noster, ipse est
summus sacerdos Dei Patris et sacrificium Patri seipsum primus obtulit
et hoc fieri in sui commemorationem praecepit: utique ille sacerdos
vice Christi vere fungitur, gui id, quod Christus fecit, imitatur et
sacrificium verum et plenum tunc offert."
§ 70. The Celebration of Baptism.
The Lit. see in vol. I. § 54, p. 465 sq., especially Wall and Höfling. On the archaeology of baptism see Bingham’s Antiquities, Augusti’s Denkwürdigkeiten, the first vol. of Binterim, and the art. Baptism in Smith and Cheetham, I. 155–172. Also Schaff, on the Didache (1885), p. 29–56. For pictorial illustrations see the monumental works of Cav. de Rossi, Garrucci, Roller, on the catacombs, and Schaff, l.c.
The "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" (ch. 7,) enjoins baptism, after catechetical instruction, in these words: "Baptize into the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost in living (running) water. But if thou hast not living water, baptize into other water; and if thou canst not in cold, then in warm. But if thou hast neither, pour water upon the head thrice, into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost."
Apol. I., c. 61 (I.
164 ed. Otto).
This account may be completed by the following
particulars from
Before the act the candidate was required in a
solemn vow to renounce the service of the devil, that is, all evil, Abrenunciatio
diaboti. Ὁμολόγησις,
professio. The creed was either said by the catechumen after The
priest, or confessed in answer to questions, and with the face turned
eastwards towards the light.
This act of turning front sin and turning to God,
or of repentance and faith, on the part of the candidate, was followed
by an appropriate prayer of the minister, and then by the baptism
itself into the triune name, with three successive immersions in which
the deacons and deaconesses assisted. The immersion in thrice dipping
the head of the candidate who stood nude in the water. See the authorities
(Quoted in Smith and Cheetham, I. 161, and more fully in Augusti..
l.c."Ter mergitamur, " says Ep. I. 41 in reply
to Leander, bishop of Hispala. Thomas Aquinas (Summa Theol., Tom. IV.,
f. 615, ed. Migne) quotes this letter with approval, but gives the
preference to trina immersio, as expressing "triduum sepulturus Christi
et etiam Trinitas personarum." The Russian
Orthodox Catechism defines baptism as "a sacrament, in which a man who
believes, having his body thrice plunged in water in the name of God
the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, dies to the carnal life of
sin, and is born again of the Holy Ghost to a life spiritual and holy."
In the case of infants the act is usually completed by pouring water
over the head, the rest of the body being, immersed. So I was informed
by a Greek priest. Pouring or affusion
is the present practice of the Roman Catholic church. It is first found
on pictures in the Roman catacombs, one of which De Rossi assigns to
the second century (in the cemetry of Calixtus). "It is remarkable that
in almost all the earliest representations of baptism that have been
preserved to us, this [the pouring of water from vessels over the body]
is the special act represented." Marriott in Smith and Cheetham, I.
168. But the art of painting can only represent a part of the act, not
the whole process; in all the Catacomb pictures the candidate stands
with the feet in water, and is undressed as for immersion, total or
partial. "Baptismus
clinicorum" (κλινικοί, from
κλ́ίνηbed)
Clinicus or grabbatarius designated one who was baptized on the sick
bed. The twelfth canon
of the Council of Neo-Caesarea (after 314) ordains: "Whosoever has
received clinical baptism cannot be promoted to the priesthood, because
his [profession of] faith was not from free choice, but from necessity
(ἐξ
ἀνάγκης
,fear of death), unless he, excel afterwards in zeal
and faith, or there is a deficiency of [able] men." This canon passed
into the Corpus jur. can. c. 1 Dist. 57. See Hefele, Conciliengesch, I. 249
(2nd ed.). Pouring and
sprinkling were still exceptional in the ninth century according to
Walafrid Strabo (De Rel. Eccl., c. 26), but they made gradual progress
with the spread of infant baptism, as the most convenient mode,
especially in Northern climates, and came into common use in the West
at the end of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas (d. 1274) says,
that although it may be safer to baptize by immersion, yet pouring and
sprinkling are also allowable (Summa Theol. P. III. Qu. LXVI. De Rapt.
art. 7: in Migne’s ed. Tom. IV. fol. 614): "Si totum
corpus aquâ non possit perfundi propter aquae paucitatem,
vel propter aliquam aliam causam, opportet caput perfundere, in quo
manifestatur principium animalis vitae. In Ireland aspersion seems to
have been practiced very early along with immersion." Trine immersion,
with the alternative of aspersion, is ordered in the earliest extant
Irish Baptismal Office, in the composition of which, however, Roman
influence is strongly marked." F. E. Warren, The Liturgy and Ritual of
the CeItic Church, Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1881, p. 65. Prof. Norman
Fox and other Baptist writer., ;, think that " neither infant baptism
nor the use of pouring and sprinkling for baptism would ever have been
thought of but for the superstitious idea that baptism was necessary to
salvation."But this idea prevailed among the fathers and in the Greek
church fully as much as in the Roman, while it is rejected in most
Protestant churches where sprinkling is practiced. Luther sought to restore immersion, but without
effect. Calvin took a similar view of the subject as Thomas Aquinas,
but he went farther and declared the mode of application to be a matter
of indifference, Inst. IV. ch. 15, §19: " Whether the person
who is baptized be wholly immersed (mergatur totus)and whether thrice
or once, or whether water be only poured (infusa)or sprinkled upon him
(aspergatur), is of no importance (minimum refert): but this should be
left free to the churches according to the difference of countries. Yet
the very word baptize signifies to immerse (mergere); and it is certain
that immersion was the practice of the ancient church." Most
Protestants agree with Calvin, except the Baptists, who revived the
ancient practice, but only in part (single instead of trine immersion),
and without the patristic ideas of baptismal regeneration, infant
baptism, and the necessity of baptism for salvation. They regard
baptism as a mere symbol which exhibits the fact that regeneration and
conversion have already taken place.
Thanksgiving, benediction, and the brotherly kiss concluded the sacred ceremony.
Besides these essential elements of the baptismal
rite, we find, so early as the third century, several other subordinate
usages, which have indeed a beautiful symbolical meaning, but, like all
redundancies, could easily obscure the original simplicity of this
sacrament, as it appears in
Exorcism, or the expulsion of the devil, which is
not to be confounded with the essential formula of renunciation, was
probably practised at first only in special cases, as of demoniacal
possession. But after the council of Carthage, a.d. 256, we find it a regular part of the ceremony of
baptism, preceding the baptism proper, and in some eases, it would
seem, several times repeated during the course of catechetical
instruction. To understand fully this custom, we should remember that
the early church derived the whole system of heathen idolatry, which it
justly abhorred as one of the greatest crimes,
The institution of sponsors, Ἀνάδοχοι,
sponsores, fideijussores.
Baptism might be administered at any time, but was commonly connected with Easter and Pentecost, and in the East with Epiphany also, to give it the greater solemnity. The favorite hour was midnight lit up by torches. The men were baptized first, the women afterwards. During the week following, the neophytes wore white garments as symbols of their purity.
Separate chapels for baptism, or baptisteries, occur first in the fourth century, and many
of them still remain in Southern Europe. Baptism might be performed in
any place, where, as Justin says, "water was." Yet
§ 71. The Doctrine of Baptism.
This ordinance was regarded in the ancient church as
the sacrament of the new birth or regeneration, and as the solemn rite
of initiation into the Christian Church, admitting to all her benefits
and committing to all her obligations. It was supposed to be preceded,
in the case of adults, by instruction on the part of the church, and by
repentance and faith (i.e. conversion) on the part of the
candidate, and to complete and seal the spiritual process of
regeneration, the old man being buried, and the new man arising from
the watery grave. Its effect consists in the forgiveness of sins and
the communication of the Holy Spirit. Justin calls baptism "the
water-bath for the forgiveness of sins and regeneration," and "the bath
of conversion and the knowledge of God." It is often called also
illumination, spiritual circumcision, anointing, sealing, gift of
grace, symbol of redemption, death of sins, &c. The patristic terms
for baptism expressive of doctrine are ἀναγέννησις,
παλιγγενεσία(and
λουτρὸν
παλιγγενεσίας
,
From "Non defectus (or
privatio), sed contemtus sacramenti damnat." This leaves the door open
for the salvation of Quakers, unbaptized children, and elect heathen
who die with a desire for salvation.
The effect of baptism, however, was thought to
extend only to sins committed before receiving it. Hence the frequent
postponement of the sacrament, Procrastinatio
baptismi. So the author of
the Apost. Constit., VI. 15, disapproves those who say: ὅτιὅταν
τελευτῶ,
βαπτίζομαι,
ἵνα μὴ
ἁμαρτήσω
καὶ
ῥυπανῶ τὸ
βάπτισμα.
But then the question arose, how the forgiveness
of sins committed after baptism could be obtained? This is the starting
point of the Roman doctrine of the sacrament of penance. De
Paenitientia. De Opere et
Eleemosynis.
Notes
In reviewing the patristic doctrine of baptism which was sanctioned by the Greek and Roman, and, with some important modifications, also by the Lutheran and Anglican churches, we should remember that during the first three centuries, and even in the age of Constantine, adult baptism was the rule, and that the actual conversion of the candidate was required as a condition before administering the sacrament (as is still the case on missionary ground). Hence in preceding catechetical instruction, the renunciation of the devil, and the profession of faith. But when the same high view is applied without qualification to infant baptism, we are confronted at once with the difficulty that infants cannot comply with this condition. They may be regenerated (this being an act of God), but they cannot be converted, i.e. they cannot repent and believe, nor do they need repentance, having not yet committed any actual transgression. Infant baptism is an act of consecration, and looks to subsequent instruction and personal conversion, as a condition to full membership of the church. Hence confirmation came in as a supplement to infant baptism.
The strict Roman Catholic dogma, first clearly
enunciated by St.
§ 72. Catechetical Instruction and Confirmation.
Literature.
I. Cyril (Κυρίλλος) of Jerusalem (315–386): Eighteen Catechetical Lectures, addressed to Catechumens (Κατηχήσεις φωτιζομένων), and Five Mystigogical Lectures, addressed to the newly baptized. Best ed. byTouttée, § 1720, reprinted in Migne’s Patrol. Gr. vol. 33.
II. Bingham: Antiquities, X. 2.
Zezschwitz (Tüb.):System der christl. Kirchl. Katechetik. Leipzig, vol. I. 1863; vol. II. in 2 Parts, 1869 and 1872.
Joh. Mayer (R.C.):Geschichte des Katechumenats, and der Katechese, in den ersten sechs Jahrh. Kempten, 1866.
A. Weiss (R.C.): Die altkirchliche Pädagogik dargestelit in Katecumenat und Katechese der ersten sechs Jahrh. Freiburg, 1869.
Fr. X. Funk (R. C): Die Katechumenats-classen des christl. Alterthums, in the Tübing. "Theol. Quartalschrift," Tüb. 1883, p. 41–77.
1. The catechumenate or
preparation for baptism was a very important institution of the early
church. It dates substantially from apostolic times. Theophilus was
"instructed" in the main facts of the gospel history; and Apollos was
"instructed" in the way of the Lord. Κατηχηταί,
doctores audientium. The term designates a function, not a special
office or class. Κατηχούμενοι,
ἀκροαταί,
auditores, audientes.
The Didache contains in the first six chapters, a high-toned moral catechism preparatory to baptism, based chiefly on the Sermon on the Mount.
There was but one or at most two classes of
Catechumens. The usual division into three (or four) classes rests on
confusion with the classes of Penitents. Ἀκροώμενοι,
or audientes; γονυκλίνοντες,
or genuflectentes; and φωτιζόμενοι,
or competentes. So Ducange, Augusti, Neander, Höfling,
Hefele (in the first ed. of his Conciliengesch., but modified in the second,
vol. I. 246, 249), Zezschwitz, Herzog, and many others. Bona and
Bingham add even a fourth class (ἐξωθούμενοι).
But this artificial classification (as Dr. Funk has shown, l.c.) arose
from a misunderstanding of the fifth canon of Neocaesarea (between 314
and 325), which mentions one γόνυ
κλίνων, but as
representing a class of penitents, not of catechumens. Suicer, Mayer,
and Weiss assume but two classes, audientes and competentes. Funk
maintains that the candidates for baptism (φωτιζόμενοι,
companies or electi baptizandi) were already numbered among the
faithful (fideles), and that there was only one class of
catechumens.
The catechetical school of Alexandria was particularly renowned for its highly learned character.
The duration of this catechetical instruction was
fixed sometimes at two years Conc. of Elvira,
can. 42 Const. Apost. VIII.
32.
2. Confirmation Σφραγίς,
χρίσμα,
confirmatio obsignatio, signaculum.
The Western church, after the third century,
restricted the power of confirmation to bishops, on the authority of
§ 73. Infant Baptism.
On Infant Baptism comp.
Just. M.: Dial. c. Tryph.
See Lit. in vol. I. 463sq., especially Wall. Comp. also W. R. Powers:
While the church was still a missionary institution
in the midst of a heathen world, infant baptism was overshadowed by the
baptism of adult proselytes; as, in the following periods, upon the
union of church and state, the order was reversed. At that time, too,
there could, of course, be no such thing, even on the part of Christian
parents, as a compulsory baptism, which dates from
Justinian’s reign, and which inevitably leads to the
profanation of the sacrament. Constantine sat among the fathers at the
great Council of Nicaea, and gave legal effect to its decrees, and yet
put off his baptism to his deathbed. The cases of Gregory of Nazianzum,
St. Orat. XL.
At the same time it seems an almost certain fact,
though by many disputed, that, with the baptism of converts, the
optional baptism of the children of Christian parents in
established congregations, comes down from the apostolic age. Comp. I. 469 sq.
The fact is not capable of positive proof, but rests on strong
probabilities. The Baptists deny it. So does Neander, but lie approves
the practice of infant baptism as springing from the spirit of
Christianity.
The apostolic fathers make, indeed, no mention of
it. But their silence proves nothing; for they hardly touch upon
baptism at all, except Hermas, and he declares it necessary to
salvation, even for the patriarchs in Hades (therefore, as we may well
infer, for children also). Dial. c. Tr. c.
43. Apol. l.c. 15 (Otto
1. 48): οἱ ἐκ
παίδων
ἐμαθητεύθησαν
τῷ
Χριστῷ Adv. Haer. II. 22,
§ 4: "Omnes venit per semetipsum salvare; omnes, inquam qui
per cum renascuntur in Deum, infantes et parvulos et pueros et juvenes
et seniores. Ideo per omnem venit aetatem, et infantibus infans factus,
sanctificans infantes; in parvulis parvulus, sanctificans hanc ipsam
habentes aetatem; simul et exemplunt illis pietatis effectus et
justitae et subjectionis, in juvenibus juvenis," etc. Neander, in
discussing this passage remarks, that" from this idea, founded on what
is inmost in Christianity, becoming prominent in the feeling of
Christians, resulted the practice of infant baptism" (I. 312, Boston
ed.)
In the churches of Egypt infant baptism must have
been practised from the first. For, aside from some not very clear
expressions of In Ep. ad Rom.
(Opera, vol. IV. col. 1047 ed. Migne; or IV. 565 ed. Delarue): "Pro hoc
et Ecclesia ab apostolis traditionem suscepit, etiam parvulis baptismum
dare." In Levit. Hom. VIII. (II. 496 in Migne), he says that "secundum
Ecclesiae observantiam" baptism was given also to children (etiam
parvulis). Comp. his Com. in Matt. XV. (III. 1268 sqq.) where he seems
to infer this custom from the example of Christ blessing little
children. That
The only opponent of infant baptism among the
fathers is the eccentric and schismatic
’Quid festinat innocens aetas ad remissionem
peccatorum?" The" innocens" here is to be taken only in a relative
sense; for
A later council of
Carthage of the year 418 went further and decreed: "item placuit, ut
quicunque parvulos recentes ab uteris matrum baptizandos negat ...
anathema sit."
§ 74. Heretical Baptism.
On Heretical Baptism comp.
Hefele: Conciliengeschichte, I. 117–132 (second ed.).
G. E. Steitz: Ketzertaufe, in Herzog, rev. ed., VII. 652–661.
Heretical baptism was, in the third century, the subject of a violent controversy, important also for its bearing on the question of the authority of the Roman see.
De Bapt. c. 15.
Comp. also Clement of Alex., Strom. I. 375. See p. 162. Some
Roman divines (Molkenkuhr and Tizzani, as quoted by Hefele, p. 121)
thought that such an irreverent Epistle as that of Firmilian (the
75th among
The Roman bishop According to
The doctrine of Unless it be
maintained that the baptismal grace, if received outside of the
Catholic communion, is of no use, but rather increases the guilt (like
the knowledge of the heathen), and become, ; available only by the
subjective conversion and regular confirmation of the heretic. This was
the view of
The controversy itself was conducted with great
warmth. Stephen, though advocating the liberal view, showed the genuine
papal arrogance and intolerance. He would not even admit to his
presence the deputies of "Pseudochristum,
pseudoapostolum, et dolosum operarium." Firmil. Ad Cyp. toward, ; the
end (
In the course of the fourth century, however, the
Roman theory gradually gained on the other, received the sanction of
the oecumenical Council of Nicaea in 325, was adopted in North Africa
during the Donatistic controversies, by a Synod of Carthage, 348,
defended by the powerful dialectics of St.
Note.
The Council of Trent declares (Sessio Sept., March 3, 1547, canon 4): "If any one says that the baptism, which is even given by heretics in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, with the intention of doing what the church doth, is not true baptism: let him be anathema." The Greek church likewise forbids the repetition of baptism which has been performed in the name of the Holy Trinity, but requires trine immersion. See the Orthodox Conf. Quaest. CII. (in Schaff’s Creeds II. 376), and the Russian Catch. (II. 493), which says: "Baptism, is spiritual birth: a man is born but once, therefore he is also baptized but once." But the same Catechism declares "trine immersion" to be "most essential in the administration of baptism"(II. 491).
The Roman church, following the teaching of St.
Evangelical creeds put their recognition of Roman Catholic or any other Christian baptism not so much on the theory of the objective virtue of the sacrament, as on a more comprehensive and liberal conception of the church. Where Christ is, there is the church, and there are true ordinances. The Baptists alone, among Protestants, deny the validity of any other baptism but by immersion (in this respect resembling the Greek church), but are very far on that account from denying the Christian status of other denominations, since baptism with them is only a sign (not a means) of regeneration or conversion, which precedes the rite and is independent of it.
CHRISTIAN ART.
§ 75. Literature.
Comp. the Lit. on the Catacombs, ch. VII.
FR. Münter: Sinnbilder u. Kunstvorstellungen der alten Christen. Altona, 1825.
Grüneisen: Ueber die Ursachen des Kunsthasses in den drei ersten Jahrhunderten. Stuttg. 1831.
Helmsdörfer: Christl. Kunstsymbolik u. Ikonographie. Frkf. 1839.
F. Piper: Mythologie u. Symbolik der christl. Kunst. 2 vols. Weimar, 1847–51. Ueber den christl. Bilderkreis. Berl. 1852 (p. 3–10). By the same: Einleitung in die monumentale Theologie. Gotha, 1867.
J. B. De Rossi (R.C.): De Christianis monumentis ἰχθύν exhibentibus, in the third volume of Pitra’s "Spicilegium Solesmense." Paris, 1855. Also his great work on the Roman Catacombs (Roma Sotteranea, 1864–1867), and his Archaeol. "Bulletin" (Bulletino di Archeologia cristiana, since 1863).
A. Welby Pugin (architect and Prof. of Ecclis. Antiquities at Oscott, a convert to the R.C. Ch., d. 1852): Glossary of Ecclesiastical Ornament and Costume. Lond. 1844, 4
P. Raffaelle Garrucci
(Jesuit): Storia delta Arte Cristiana nei primi otto secoli delta
chiesa. Prato, 1872–’80, 6 vols.
fol., with 500 magnificent plates and illustrations. A most important
work, but intensely Romish. By the same: Il crocifisso graffito in
casa dei Cesari.
Fr. Becker.: Die Darstellung Jesu Christi unter dem Bilde des Fisches auf den Monumenten der Kirche der Katakomben, erläutert. Breslau, 1866. The same: Das Spott-Crucifix der römischen Kaiserpaläste aus dem Anfang des dritten Jahrh. Breslau, 1866 (44 pp.). The same: Die Wand-und Deckengemälde der röm. Katakomben. Gera, 1876.
Abbé Jos. Al. Martigny: Diction. des Antiquités Chrétiennes. Paris, 1865, second ed., 1877. (With valuable illustrations).
F. X. Kraus (R.C.): Die christl. Kunst in ihren frühesten Anfängen. Leipzig, 1873 (219 pages and 53 woodcuts). Also several articles in his "Real-Encyklop. der. christl. Alterthümer," Freiburg i. B. 1880 sqq. (The cuts mostly from Martigny).
H. Achelis: Das Symbol d. Fisches u. d. Fischdemkmäler, Marb., 1888.
C. W. Bennett: Christian Archaeology, N. York, 1888.
§ 76. Origin of Christian Art.
Christianity owed its origin neither to art nor to science, and is altogether independent of both. But it penetrates and pervades them with its heaven-like nature, and inspires them with a higher and nobler aim. Art reaches its real perfection in worship, as an embodiment of devotion in beautiful forms, which afford a pure pleasure, and at the same time excite and promote devotional feeling. Poetry and music, the most free and spiritual arts, which present their ideals in word and tone, and lead immediately from the outward form to the spiritual substance, were an essential element of worship in Judaism, and passed thence, in the singing of psalms, into the Christian church.
Not so with the plastic arts of sculpture and painting, which employ grosser material—stone, wood, color—as the medium of representation, and, with a lower grade of culture, tend almost invariably to abuse when brought in contact with worship. Hence the strict prohibition of these arts by the Monotheistic religions. The Mohammedans follow in this respect the Jews; their mosques are as bare of images of living beings as the synagogues, and they abhor the image worship of Greek and Roman Christians as a species of idolatry.
The ante-Nicene church, inheriting the Mosaic
decalogue, and engaged in deadly conflict with heathen idolatry, was at
first averse to those arts. Moreover her humble condition, her contempt
for all hypocritical show and earthly vanity, her enthusiasm for
martyrdom, and her absorbing expectation of the speedy destruction of
the world and establishment of the millennial kingdom, made her
indifferent to the ornamental part of life. The rigorous Montanists, in
this respect the forerunners of the Puritans, were most hostile to art.
But even the highly cultivated
Yet this aversion to art seems not to have
extended to mere symbols such as we find even in the Old Testament, as
the brazen serpent and the cherubim in the temple. At all events, after
the middle or close of the second century we find the rude beginnings
of Christian art in the form of significant symbols in the private and
social life of the Christians, and afterwards in public worship. This
is evident from
The origin of these symbols must be found in the instinctive desire of the Christians to have visible tokens of religious truth, which might remind them continually of their Redeemer and their holy calling, and which would at the same time furnish them the best substitute for the signs of heathen idolatry. For every day they were surrounded by mythological figures, not only in temples and public places, but in private houses, on the walls, floors, goblets, seal-rings, and grave-stones. Innocent and natural as, this effort was, it could easily lead, in the less intelligent multitude, to confusion of the sign with the thing signified, and to many a superstition. Yet this result was the less apparent in the first three centuries, because in that period artistic works were mostly confined to the province of symbol and allegory.
From the private recesses of Christian homes and
catacombs artistic representations of holy things passed into public
churches ill the fourth century, but under protest which continued for
a long time and gave rise to the violent image controversies which were
not settled until the second Council of Nicaea (787), in favor of a
limited image worship. The Spanish Council of Elvira (Granada) in 306
first raised such a protest, and prohibited (in the thirty-sixth canon)
"pictures in the church (picturas in ecclessia), lest the objects of
veneration and worship should be depicted on the walls." This sounds
almost iconoclastic and puritanic; but in view of the numerous ancient
pictures and sculptures in the catacombs, the prohibition must be
probably understood as a temporary measure of expediency in that
transition period. See above, p.
180.
§ 77. The Cross and the Crucifix.
"Religion des Kreuzes, nur du verknüpfest in Einem
Kranze Der Demuth und Kraft doppelte Palme zugleich."—(Schiller.). "Der deutscheit Muse schönstes
Distichon."
Comp. the works quoted in § 75, and the lists in Zöckler and Fulda.
Justus Lipsius (R.C., d. 1606, is Prof. at Louvain): De Cruce libri tres, ad sacram profanamque historiam utiles. Antw., 1595, and later editions.
Jac. Gretser (Jesuit): De Cruce Christi rebusque ad eam pertinentibus. Ingolst., 1598–1605, 3 vols. 4to; 3rd ed. revised, 1608; also in his Opera, Ratisb., 1734, Tom. I.-III.
Wm. Haslam: The Cross and the Serpent: being a brief History of the Triumph of the Cross. Oxford, 1849.
W. R. Alger: History of the Cross. Boston, 1858.
Gabr. De Mortillet: Le, Signe de la Croix avant le Christianisme. Paris, 1866.
A. Ch. A. Zestermann: Die bildliche Darstellung des Kreuzes und der Kreuzigung historisch entwickelt. Leipzig, 1867 and 1868.
J. Stockbauer (R.C.):Kunstgeschichte des Kreuzes. Schaffhausen, 1870.
O. Zöckler (Prof. in Greifswald): Das Kreuz Christi. Religionshistorische und kirchlich archaeologische Untersuchungen. Gütersloh, 1875 (484 pages, with a large list of works, pp. xiii.-xxiv.). English translation by M. G. Evans, Lond., 1878.
Ernst v. Bunsen: Das Symbol des Kreuzes bei alten Nationen und die Entstehung des Kreuzsymbols der christlichen Kirche. Berlin, 1876. (Full of hypotheses.)
Hermann Fulda: Das Kreuz und die Kreuzigung, Eine antiquarische Untersuchung. Breslau, 1878. Polemical against the received views since Lipsius,. See a full list of literature in Fulda, pp. 299–328.
E. Dobbert: Zur Enttehungsgeschichte des Kreuzes, Leipzig, 1880.
The oldest and dearest, but also the, most abused, of
the primitive Christian symbols is the cross, the sign of redemption,
sometimes alone, sometimes with the Alpha and Omega, sometimes with the
anchor of hope or the palm of peace. Upon this arose, as early as the
second century, the custom of making the sign of the cross Signaculum or
signum crucis. Apol. c.16; Ad Nat.
I. 12. Julian the Apostate raised the same charge against the
Christians of his day.
"in signo,"i.e. "In
hoc signo vinces," the motto of Constantine. Archaeologists
distinguish seven or more forms of the cross: (a) crux decussata (St. Andrew’s
cross), X (b) crux commissa (the Egyptian cross), T (c) crux immima or ordinaria (the upright Latin
cross), –|– (d) The inverted Latin cross of St. Peter, who
considered himself unworthy to suffer in the upright position like his
Lord, –|– (e) The Greek cross, consisting of four equally long
arms, + (f) The double cross,
–|–
––|––
| (g) The triple cross (used by the Pope),
–|–
––|––
–––|–––
| The chief forms of the monogram are: [Six figures are inserted here. Ed.] The story of the miraculous invention and raising of
the true cross of Christ by Helena, the mother of Constantine, belongs
to the Nicene age. The connection of the cross with the α and ω arose from the
Apocalyptic designation of Christ ( "Alpha et Omega cognominatus; ipse fons et
clausula, Omnia quae sunt, fuerunt, quaeque postfutura
sunt."
The cross was despised by the heathen Romans on
account of the crucifixion, the disgraceful punishment of slaves and
the worst criminals; but the Apologists reminded them of the
unconscious recognition of the salutary sign in the form of their
standards and triumphal symbols, and of the analogies in nature, as the
form of man with the outstretched arm, the flying bird, and the sailing
ship. Minut. Felix,
Octav. c. 29: "Tropaea vestra victricia non tantum simplicis
crucisfaciem, verum etiam adfixi hominis imituntuR. Signum sane crucis
naturaliter visimus in navi, cum velis tumentibus vehitur, cum expansis
palmulis labitur; et cum ergitur jugum, crucis signum est; et cum homo
porrectis manibus Deum pura mente veneratoR. Ita signo crucis aut ratio
naturalis innititur, aut vestra religio formatur." Comp. a very similar
passage in Tertul., Apol. c.16; and Ad Nat. I. 12; also Justin M.,
Apol. I. 55. When the temple of
Serapis was destroyed (a.d. 390), signs of the
cross were found beneath the hieroglyphics, and heathen and Christians
referred it to their religion. Socrates, H. E. V. 17; Sozomenus, VI[.
15; Theodoret, V. 22. On the Buddhist cross see Medhurst, China, p.
217. At the discovery of Mexico the Spaniards found the sign of the
cross as an object of worship in the idol temples at Anahuac. Prescott,
Conquest of Mexico, III. 338-340. See on the heathen use of the Cross,
Haslam, Mortillet, Zöckler (l.c., 7 sqq.), and Brinton,
Myths of the New World; also an article on "The pre-Christian Cross,"
in the "Edinburgh Review," Jan. 1870. Zöckler says (p. 95):
"Alter FIuch und Segen, alles
Todeselend und alle Lebensherrlichkeit, die durch dir vorchristliche
Menschheit ausgebreitet gewesen, erscheinen in dem Kreuze auf Golgatha
conrentrirt zum wundervollsten Gebilde, der religiös
sittlichen Entwicklung unseres Geschlechtes."
The cross and the Lord’s Prayer may be called the greatest martyrs in Christendom. Yet both the superstitious abuse and the puritanic protest bear a like testimony to the significance of the great fact of which it reminds us.
The crucifix, that is the
sculptured or carved representation of our Saviour attached to the
cross, is of much later date, and cannot be clearly traced beyond the
middle of the sixth century. It is not mentioned by any writer of the
Nicene and Chalcedonian age. One of the oldest known crucifixes, if not
the very oldest, is found in a richly illuminated Syrian copy of the
Gospels in Florence from the year 586. See Becker, l. c.,
p. 38, Westwood’s Palaeographia Sacra, and Smith and
Cheetbam, I. 515. "Pictura, quae
Dominum nostrum quasi praecinctum linteo indicat crucifixum."De Gloria.
Martyrum, lib. l.c. 28. Opera, ed. Giles,
iv. p. 376. A crucifix is found in an Irish MS. Written about 800. See
Westwood, as quoted in Smith and Cheetham, I. 516.
Note.
The first symbol of the crucifixion was the cross alone; then followed the cross and the lamb—either the lamb with the cross on the head or shoulder, or the lamb fastened on the cross; then the figure of Christ in connection with the cross—either Christ holding it in his right hand (on the sarcophagus of Probus, d. 395), or Christ with the cross in the background (in the church of St. Pudentiana, built 398); at last Christ nailed to the cross.
An attempt has been made to trace the crucifixes
back to the third or second century, in consequence of the discovery,
in 1857, of a mock-crucifix on the wall in the ruins of the imperial
palaces on the western declivity of the Palatine hill in Rome, which is
preserved in the Museo Kircheriano. It shows the figure of a crucified
man with the head of an ass or a horse, and a human figure kneeling
before it, with the inscription: "Alexamenos worships his God." Ἀλεξάμενος
σέβετ (αι) θεόν. The
monument was first published by the Jesuit Garrucci, and is fully
discussed by Becker in the essay quoted. A woodcut is also given in
Smith and Cheetham, I. 516. Comp. on the
supposed ὀνολατρεία
of the Christians,
§ 78. Other Christian Symbols.
The following symbols, borrowed from the Scriptures,
were frequently represented in the catacombs, and relate to the virtues
and duties of the Christian life: The dove, with or without the olive
branch, the type of simplicity and innocence; Comp. Comp.
The phoenix, the symbol of rejuvenation and of the
resurrection, is derived from the well-known heathen myth. The fabulous
phoenix is nowhere mentioned in the Bible, and is first used by
§ 79 Historical and Allegorical Pictures
From these emblems there was but one step to iconographic representations. The Bible furnished rich material for historical, typical, and allegorical pictures, which are found in the catacombs and ancient monuments. Many of them (late from the third or even the second century.
The favorite pictures from the Old Testament are
Adam and Eve, the rivers of Paradise, the ark of Noah, the sacrifice of
Isaac, the passage through the Red Sea, the giving of the law, Moses
smiting the rock, the deliverance of Jonah, Jonah naked under the gourd
the translation of Elijah, Daniel in the lions’ den,
the three children in the fiery furnace. Then we have scenes from the
Gospels, and from apostolic and post-apostolic history, such as the
adoration of the Magi, their meeting with Herod, the baptism of Jesus
in the Jordan, the healing of the paralytic, the changing water into
wine, the miraculous feeding of five thousand, the ten virgins, the
resurrection of Lazarus, the entry into Jerusalem, the Holy Supper, the
portraits of St. Peter and St. Paul. For details the
reader is referred to the great illustrated works of Perre. De Rossi,
Garrucci, Parker, Roller, Northcote and Brownlow, etc.
The passion and crucifixion were never represented in the early monuments, except by the symbol of the cross.
Occasionally we find also mythological representations, as Psyche with wings, and playing with birds and flowers (an emblem of immortality), Hercules, Theseus, and especially Orpheus, who with his magic song quieted the storm and tamed the wild beasts.
Perhaps Gnosticism had a stimulating effect in art, as it had in theology. At all events the sects of the Carpocratians, the Basilideans, and the Manichaeans cherished art. Nationality also had something to do with this branch of life. The Italians are by nature art artistic people, and shaped their Christianity accordingly. Therefore Rome is preëminently the home of Christian art.
The earliest pictures in the catacombs are artistically the best, and show the influence of classic models in the beauty and grace of form. From the fourth century there is a rapid decline to rudeness and stiffness, and a transition to the Byzantine type.
Some writers Raoul-Rochette
(Mémoires sur les antiquités
chrétiennes; and Tableau des Catacombes), and Renan
(Marc-Aurele, p. 542 sqq.).
The blending of classical reminiscences and
Christian ideas is best embodied in the beautiful symbolic pictures of
the Good Shepherd and of Orpheus. See the
illustrations at the end of the volume.
The former was the most favorite figure, not only in the Catacombs, but on articles of daily use, as rings, cups, and lamps. Nearly one hundred and fifty such pictures have come down to us. The Shepherd, an appropriate symbol of Christ, is usually represented as a handsome, beardless, gentle youth, in light costume, with a girdle and sandals, with the flute and pastoral staff, carrying a lamb on his shoulder, standing between two or more sheep that look confidently up to him. Sometimes he feeds a large flock on green pastures. If this was the popular conception of Christ, it stood in contrast with the contemporaneous theological idea of the homely appearance of the Saviour, and anticipated the post-Constantinian conception.
The picture of Orpheus is twice found in the
cemetery of Domitilla, and once in that of Callistus. One on the
ceiling in Domitilla, apparently from the second century, is especially
rich: it represents the mysterious singer, seated in the centre on a
piece of rock, playing on the lyre his enchanting melodies to wild and
tame animals—the lion, the wolf, the serpent, the
horse, the ram—at his feet—and the
birds in the trees; Comp. Horace, De
Arte Poët., 391 sqq. Silvestres homines sacer interpresque deorum Caedibus et victufaedo delerruit Orpheus, Dictus ob hoc lenire tigres rabidosque leones. This is the
explanation of nearly all archaeologists since Bosio, except Schultze
(Die Katak., p.
105).
§ 80. Allegorical Representations of Christ.
Pictures of Christ came into use slowly and gradually, as the conceptions concerning his personal appearance changed. The Evangelists very wisely keep profound silence on the subject, and no ideal which human genius may devise, can do justice to Him who was God manifest in the flesh.
In the ante-Nicene age the strange notion
prevailed that our Saviour, in the state of his humiliation, was
homely, according to a literal interpretation of the Messianic
prophecy: "He hath no form nor comeliness." Dial. c. Tryphone
Judaeo c. 14 (εἰς τὴν
πρώτην
παρουσίαν
τοῦ
Χριστοῦ, ἐν
ᾖ καὶ
ἄτιμος
καὶ
ἀειδὴς
καὶ θνητὸς
φανήσεσθαι
κεκηρυγμένος
ἐστίν)c. 49
(παθητὸς
καὶ
ἄτιμος
καὶ
ἀειδής);
85, 88, 100, 110, 121. Adv. Paedag. III. 1, p.
252; Strom. lib. II. c. 5, p. 440; III. c. 17, p. 559; VI. 17, p. 818
(ed. Potter). Contr. Cels. VI. c.
75, where
Those fathers, however, had the state of
humiliation alone in their eye. The exalted Redeemer they themselves
viewed as clothed with unfading beauty and glory, which was to pass
from Him, the Head, to his church also, in her perfect millennial
state Comp. Paedag. lib. III.c.
1, which treats of true beauty. Compare also the last chapter in the
second book, which is directed against the extravagant fondness of
females for dress and jewels ornaments the true beauty of the soul,
which "blossoms out in the flesh, exhibiting the amiable comeliness of
self-control, whenever the character, like a beam of light, gleams in
the form."
The first representations of Christ were purely
allegorical. He appears now as a shepherd, who lays down his life for
the sheep, Christ calls the
apostles "fishers of men,"
The most favorite symbol seems to have been that
of the fish. It was the double symbol of the Redeemer and the redeemed.
The corresponding Greek Ichthys is a pregnant
anagram, containing the initials of the words: "Jesus Christ, Son of
God, Saviour." ἾΧΘΨΣ
=’Ἰ-ησοῦς
Χ-ριστὸς
Θ-εοῦ Υ-ἱὸς
Σ-ωτήρ. Comp. De Baptismo, c.
1. So Pitra, De Pisce
symbolico, in "Spicil. Solesm.," III. 524. Comp. Marriott, The
Testimony of the Catacombs, p. 120 sqq. The oldest
Ichthys-monument known so far was discovered in 1865 in the
CŒmeterium Domitillae, a hitherto inaccessible part of the
Roman catacombs, and is traced by Cavalier De Rossi to the first
century, by Becker to the first half of the second. It is in a wall
picture, representing three persons with three loaves of bread and a
fish. In other pictures we find fish, bread, and wine, with evident
allusion to the miraculous feeding (
The Ichthys-symbol went out of use before the middle of the fourth century, after which it is only found occasionally as a reminiscence of olden times.
Previous to the time of Constantine, we find no
trace of an image of Christ, properly speaking, except among the
Gnostic Carpocratians, Apollonius,
Orpheus, Abraham, and Christ. See Lampridius, Vita Alex Sev. c. 29. H. E. VII. 18.
Comp. A fragment of this
letter is preserved in the acts of the iconoclastic Council of 754, and
in the sixth act of the Second Council of Nicaea, 787. See Euseb. Opp.
ed. Migne, II.col. 1545, and Harduin, Conc. IV. 406.
§ 81. Pictures of the Virgin Mary.
De Rossi: Imagines selectae Deiparae Virginis (Rome, 1863); Marriott: Catacombs (Lond. 1870, pp. 1–63); Martigny: Dict. sub "Vierge;" KRAUS: Die christl. Kunst (Leipz. 1873, p. 105); Northcote and Brownlow: Roma Sotter. (2nd ed. Lond. 1879, Pt. II. p. 133 sqq.); Withrow: Catacombs (N.Y. 1874, p. 30, 5 sqq.); Schultze: Die Marienbilder der altchristl. Kunst, and Die Katacomben (Leipz. 1882, p. 150 sqq.); Von Lehner: Die Marienverehrung in den 3 ersten Jahrh. (Stuttgart, 1881, p. 282 sqq.).
It was formerly supposed that no picture of the Virgin existed before the Council of Ephesus (431), which condemned Nestorius and sanctioned the theotokos, thereby giving solemn sanction and a strong impetus to the cultus of Mary. But several pictures are now traced, with a high degree of probability, to the third, if not the second century. From the first five centuries nearly fifty representations of Mary have so far been brought to the notice of scholars, most of them in connection with the infant Saviour.
The oldest is a fragmentary wall-picture in the
cemetery of Priscilla: it presents Mary wearing a tunic and cloak, in
sitting posture, and holding at her breast the child, who turns his
face round to the beholder. Near her stands a young and beardless man
(probably Joseph) clothed in the pallium, holding a book-roll in one
hand, pointing to the star above with the other, and looking upon the
mother and child with the expression of joy; between and above the
figures is the star of Bethlehem; the whole represents the happiness of
a family without the supernatural adornments of dogmatic reflection. See the picture in
De Rossi, Plate iv., Northcote and Brownlow, Plate xx (II. 140), and in
Schultze, Katak., p. 151. De Rossi (" Bulletino, " 1865, 23, as quoted
by N. and B.) declares it either coëval with the first
Christian art, or little removed from it, either of the age of the
Flavii or of Trajan and Hadrian, or at the very latest, of the first
Antonines. "On the roof of this tomb there was figured in fine stucco
the Good Shepherd between two sheep, and some other subject, now nearly
defaced." De Rossi supports his view of the high antiquity of this
Madonna by the superior, almost classical style of art, and by the fact
that the catacomb of Priscilla, the mother of Pudens, is one of the
oldest. But J. H. Parker, an experienced antiquary, assigns this
picture to a.d. 523. The young man is,
according to De Rossi, Isaiah or some other prophet; but Marriott and
Schultze refer him to Joseph, which is more probable, although the
later tradition of the Greek church derived from the Apocryphal Gospels
and strengthened by the idea of the perpetual virginity, represents him
as an old man with several children from a previous marriage (the
brethren of Jesus, changed into cousins by Jerome and the Latin
church). Northcote and Brownlow (II. 141) remark: "St. Joseph certainly
appears in some of the sarcophagi; and in the most ancient of them as a
young and beardless man, generally clad in a tunic. In the mosaics of
St. Mary Major’s, which are of the fifth century, and
in which he appears four or five times, he is shown of nature age, if
not old; and from that time forward this became the more common mode of
representing him." See Plate xx. in N.
and B. II 140. Schultze (p. 153) traces this picture to the beginning
of the third century.
The frequent pictures of a lady in praying
attitude, with uplifted or outstretched arms (Orans or
Orante), especially when found in company with the Good
Shepherd, are explained by Roman Catholic archaeologists to mean the
church or the blessed Virgin, or both combined, praying for sinners. According to the
usual Roman Catholic interpretation of the apocalyptic vision of the
woman clothed with the sun, and bringing forth a man-child (12:1, 5).
Cardinal Newman reasons inconclusively in a letter to Dr. Pusey on his
Eirenicon (p. 62): "I do not deny that, under the image of the woman,
the church is signified; but ... the holy apostle would not have spoken
of the church under this particular image unless there had existed a
blessed Virgin Mary, who was exalted on high, and the object of
veneration of all the faithful." When accompanied by the Good Shepherd
the Orans is supposed by Northcote and Brownlow (II. 137) to represent
Mar y a., ; the new Eve, as the Shepherd is the new Adam. It must be
admitted that the parallel between Mary and Eve is as old as
The noblest pictures of Mary, in ancient and modern times, endeavor to set forth that peculiar union of virgin purity and motherly tenderness which distinguish "the Wedded Maid and Virgin Mother" from ordinary women, and exert such a powerful charm upon the imagination and feelings of Christendom. No excesses of Mariolatry, sinful as they are, should blind us to the restraining and elevating effect of contemplating, with devout reverence,
THE CHURCH IN THE CATACOMBS.
§ 82. Literature.
Comp. the works quoted in ch. VI., especially Garrucci (6 vols.), and the Table of Illustrations at the end of this volume.
I. Older works. By Bosio
(Roma Sotterranea,
II. More recent works.
*Giovanni Battista de Rossi
(the chief authority on the Catacombs): La Roma Sotterranea Cristiana
descritta et illustrata, publ. by order of Pope Pio Nono, Roma
(cromolitografia Pontificia), Tom. I. 1864, Tom. II. 1867, Tom. III.
1877, in 3 vols. fol. with two additional vols. of plates and
inscriptions. A fourth volume is expected. Comp. his articles in the
bimonthly "Bulletino di archeologia Cristiana,"
*J. Spencer Northcote (Canon of Birmingham) and W. R. Brownlow (Canon of Plymouth): Roma Sotteranea. London (Longmans, Green & Co., 1869; second edition, "rewritten and greatly enlarged," 1879, 2 vols. The first vol. contains the History, the second, Christian Art. This work gives the substance of the investigations of Commendatore De Rossi by his consent, together with a large number of chromo-lithographic plates and wood-engravings, with special reference to the cemetery of San Callisto. The vol. on Inscriptions is separate, see below.
F. X. Kraus (R.C.), Roma Sotterranea. Die Röm. Katakomben. Freiburg. i. B. (1873), second ed. 1879. Based upon De Rossi and the first ed. of Northcote & Brownlow.
D. de Richemont: Les catacombes de Rome. Paris, 1870.
Wharton B. Marriott, B.S.F.S.A. (Ch. of England): The Testimony of the Catacombs and of other Monuments of Christian Art from the second to the eighteenth century, concerning questions of Doctrine now disputed in the Church. London, 1870 (223 pages with illustrations). Discusses the monuments referring to the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the supremacy of the Pope, and the state after death.
F. Becker: Roms Altchristliche Cömeterien. Leipzig, 1874.
W. H. Withrow (Methodist): The Catacombs of Rome and their Testimony relative to Primitive Christianity. New York (Nelson & Phillips), 1874. Polemical against Romanism. The author says (Pref., p. 6): "The testimony of the catacombs exhibits, more strikingly than any other evidence, the immense contrast between primitive Christianity and modern Romanism."
John P. Lundy (Episc.): Monumental Christianity: or the Art and Symbolism of the Primitive Church as Witnesses and Teachers of the one Catholic Faith and Practice. New York, 1876. New ed. enlarged, 1882, 453 pages, richly illustrated.
*John Henry Parker (Episc.): The Archaeology of Rome. Oxford and London, 1877. Parts ix. and x.: Tombs in and near Rome, and Sculpture; Part XII: The Catacombs. A standard work, with the best illustrations.
*Theophile Roller (Protest.): Les Catacombes de Rome. Histoire de l’art et des croyances religieuses pendant les premiers siècles du Christianisme. Paris, 1879–1881, 2 vols. fol, 720 pages text and 100 excellent plates en hétiogravure, and many illustrations and inscriptions. The author resided several years at Naples and Rome as Reformed pastor.
M. Armellini (R.C.): Le Catacombe Romane
descritte. Roma, 1880 (A popular extract from De
Rossi, 437 pages). By the same the more important work: Il Cimiterio di S. Agnese sulla
via Nomentana.
Dean Stanley: The Roman Catacombs, in his "Christian Institutions." Lond. and N. York, 1881 (pp. 272–295).
Victor Schultze (Lutheran): Archaeologische Studien ueber altchristliche Monumente. Mit 26 Holzschnitten. Wien, 1880; Die Katakomben. Die altchristlichen Grabstätten. Ihre Geschichte und ihre Monumente (with 52 illustrations). Leipzig, 1882 (342 pages); Die Katakomben von San Gennaro dei Poveri in Neapel. Jena, 1877. Also the pamphlet: Der theolog. Ertrag der Katakombenforschung. Leipz. 1882 (30 pages). The last pamphlet is against Harnack’s review, who charged Schultze with overrating the gain of the catacomb-investigations (see the "Theol. Literaturzeitung," 1882.)
Bishop W. J. Kip: The Catacombs of Rome as illustrating the Church of the First Three Centuries. N. York, 1853, 6th ed., 1887(212pages).
K. Rönneke: Rom’s christliche Katakomben. Leipzig, 1886.
Comp. also Edmund Venables in Smith and Cheetham, I. 294–317; Heinrich Merz in Herzog, VII. 559–568; Theod. Mommsen on the Roman Catac. in "The Contemp. Review." vol. XVII. 160–175 (April to July, 1871); the relevant articles in the Archaeol. Dicts. of Martigny and Kraus, and the Archaeology of Bennett (1888).
III. Christian Inscriptions in the catacombs and other old monuments.
*Commendatore J. B. de Rossi: Inscriptiones Christiana Urbis Romae septimo seculo antiquiores. Romae, 1861 (XXIII. and 619 pages). Another vol. is expected. The chief work in this department. Many inscriptions also in his Roma Sott. and "Bulletino."
Edward Le Blant: Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule anterieures au VIIIme siècle. Paris, 1856 and 1865, 2 vols. By the same: Manuel d’Epigraphie chrétienne. Paris, 1869.
John McCaul: Christian Epitaphs of the First Six Centuries. Toronto, 1869. Greek and Latin, especially from Rome.
F. Becker: Die Inschriften der römischen Cömeterien. Leipzig, 1878.
*J. Spencer Northcote (R.C. Canon of Birmingham): Epitaphs of the Catacombs or Christian Inscriptions in Rome during the First Four Centuries. Lond., 1878 (196 pages).
G. T. Stokes on Greek and Latin Christian Inscriptions; two articles in the "Contemporary Review" for 1880 and 1881.
V. Schultze discusses the Inscriptions in the fifth section of his work Die Katakomben (1882), pp. 235–274, and gives the literature.
The Corpus Inscriptionum Graecarum by Böckh, and Kirchhoff, and the Corpus Inscriptionium Lat, edited for the Berlin Academy by, Th. Mommsen and others, 1863 sqq. (not yet completed), contain also Christian Inscriptions. Prof. E. Hübner has added those of Spain (1871) and Britain (1873). G. Petrie has collected the Christian Inscriptions in the Irish language, ed. by Stokes. Dublin, 1870 sqq. Comp. the art. "Inscriptions," in Smith and Cheetham, I. 841.
§ 83. Origin and History of the Catacomb.
The Catacombs of Rome and other cities open a new
chapter of Church history, which has recently been dug up from the
bowels of the earth. Their discovery was a revelation to the world as
instructive and important as the discovery of the long lost cities of
Pompeii and Herculaneum, and of Nineveh and Babylon. Mosheim and Gibbon
in the last century, and even Neander, Gieseler, andBaur, in our age,
ignore the very existence of the catacombs, except that Gieseler quotes
the well-known passage of Jerome. But Dean Milman, in his History of
Christianity, Hase, Kurtz, Kraus, and others, in their manuals, take
brief notice of them.
The name of the Catacombs is of uncertain origin,
but is equivalent to subterranean cemeteries or resting-places for the
dead. κατακύμβιον,
catacumba, also (in some MSS.) catatumba. Various derivations: 1) From
κατά (down from,
downwards, as in καταβαίνω,
κατάκειμαι,
καταπέμπω),
and τύμβος (compare the late Latin tumba, the French
tombe, tombeau, and the English tomb, grave), i.e. a tomb down in the
earth, as distinct from tombs on the surface. This corresponds best to
the thing itself. 2) From κατά and κοιμάω (to
sleep), which would make it equivalent to κοιμητήριον,
dormitorium, sleeping place. 3) From κατά and κύμβη (the hollow of
a vessel) or (cup), κυμβίον (a
small cup, Lat. cymbium), which would simply give us the idea of a
hollow place. So Venables in Smith and Cheetham. Very unlikely. 4) A
hybrid term from katav and the Latin decumbo, to lie down, to recline.
So Marchi, and Northcote and Brownlow (I. 263). The word first occurs
in a Christian calendar of the third or fourth century (in Catacumbas),
and in a letter of Gregory I. to the Empress Constantia, towards the
end of the sixth century (Epp. III. 30), with a special local
application to San Sebastian. The earlier writers use the terms κοιμητήρια,
coemeteria (whence our cemetery), also cryptae, crypts
It was formerly supposed that the Roman Catacombs
were originally sand-pits (arenariae) or stone-quarries (lapidicinae),
excavated by the heathen for building material, and occasionally used
as receptacles for the vilest corpses of slaves and criminals. So Aringhi,
Baronius; Severano, Bottari, Boldetti, and all writers prior to Marchi,
and his pupils, the two brothers De Rossi, who turned the current of
opinion. See Northcote and Br. I. 377 sqq. The sand-pits and
stone-quarries were made wide enough for a horse and cart, and are cut
in the tufa litoide and pozzolana pura, which furnish the best building
material in Rome; while the catacombs have generally very narrow
passages, run in straight lines, often cross each other at sharp
angles, and are excavated in the tufa granulare, which is too soft for
building-stone, and too much mixed with earth to be used for cement,
but easily worked, and adapted for the construction of galleries and
chambers. See Northcote and Br. I. 376-390. The exceptions are also
stated by these authors. J. H. Parker has discovered loculi for
Christian burial in the recesses of a deserted sand-pit.
The catacombs, therefore, with a few exceptions,
are of Christian origin, and were excavated for the express purpose of
Christian burial. Their enormous extent, and the mixture of heathen
with Christian symbols and inscriptions, might suggest that they were
used by heathen also; but this is excluded by the fact of the mutual
aversion of Christians and idolaters to associate in life and in death.
The mythological features are few, and adapted to Christian ideas. See the remarks of
Northcote and Br. I. 276 against J. H. Parker, who asserts the mixed
use of the catacombs for heathens and Christians."
Another erroneous opinion, once generally
entertained, regarded the catacombs as places of refuge from heathen
persecution. But the immense labor required could not have escaped the
attention of the police. They were, on the contrary, the result of
toleration. The Roman government, although (like all despotic
governments) jealous of secret societies, was quite liberal towards the
burial clubs, mostly of the poorer classes, or associations for
securing, by regular contributions, decent interment with religious
ceremonies. This view is
supported by Professor Mommsen, the Roman historian, who says (in
"Contemporary Review," vol. xxvii. p. 168): "Associations of poor
people who clubbed together for the burial of their members were not
only tolerated but supported by the imperial government, which
otherwise was very strict against associations. From this point of
view, therefore, there was no legal impediment to the acquisition of
these properties. Christian associations have from the very beginning
paid great attention to their burials; it was considered the duty of
the wealthier members to provide for the burial of the poor, and St.
Ambrose still allowed churches to sell their communion plate, in order
to enlarge the cemeteries of the faithful. The catacombs show what
could be achieved by such means at Rome. Even if their fabulous
dimensions are reduced to their right measure, they form an immense
work, without beauty and ornament, despising in architecture and
inscription not only pomp and empty phraseology, but even nicety and
correctness, avoiding the splendor and grandeur as well as the tinsel
and vanity of the life of the great town that was hurrying and
throbbing above, the true commentary of the words of
Christ-’My kingdom is not of this
world.’
The Christians enjoyed probably from the beginning
the privilege of common cemeteries, like the Jews, even without an
express enactment. Galienus restored them after their temporary
confiscation during the persecution of Valerian (260). Euseb. H. E. VII.
13: 1, τὰ
τῶν
καλουμένων
κοιμητηρίων
ἀπολαμβάνειν
ἐπιτρέπων
χωρία.
Being mostly of Jewish and Oriental descent, the
Roman Christians naturally followed the Oriental custom of cutting
their tombs in rocks, and constructing galleries. Hence the close
resemblance of the Jewish and Christian cemeteries in Rome. Roller says (in
Lichtenberger’s Encycl. des Sc. Rel. II. 685)."Les juifs ensevelissaient dans le roc. A
Rome ils ont creusé de grandes catacombes presque identique
à celles des chrétiens. Ceux-ci ont
été leurs imitateurs. Les Etrusques se servaient
aussi de grottes; mais ils ne les reliaient point par des galeries
illimitées." Dean Stanley (l.c. p. 274):
"The Catacombs are the standing monuments of the Oriental and Jewish
character, even of Western Christianity. The fact that they are the
counterparts of the rock-hewn tombs of Palestine, and yet more closely
of the Jewish cemeteries in the neighborhood of Rome, corresponds to
the fact that the early Roman Church was not a Latin but an Eastern
community, speaking Greek and following the usages of Syria. And again,
the ease with which the Roman Christians had recourse to these
cemeteries is an indication of the impartiality of the Roman law, which
extended (as De Rossi has well pointed out) to this despised sect the
same protection in regard to burial, even during the times of
persecution, that was accorded to the highest in the land. They thus
bear witness, to the unconscious fostering care of the Imperial
Government over the infant church. They are thus monuments, not so much
of the persecution as of the toleration which the Christians received
at the hands of the Roman Empire."
In their catacombs the Christians could assemble for worship and take refuge in times of persecution. Very rarely they were pursued in these silent retreats. Once only it is reported that the Christians were shut up by the heathen in a cemetery and smothered to death.
Most of the catacombs were constructed during the
first three centuries, a few may be traced almost to the apostolic
age. De Rossi (as quoted
by Northcote and Brownlow I. 112): "Precisely in those cemeteries to
which history or tradition assigns apostolic origin, I see, in the
light of the most searching archaeological criticism, the cradle both
of Christian subterranean sepulchres, of Christian art, and of
Christian inscriptions; there I had memorials of persons who appear to
belong to the times of the Flavii and of Trajan; and finally I discover
precise dates of those times." Schultze (Die Katak., p. 73 and
83) maintains in opposition to Marchi, that the catacombs were nothing
but burial place, and used only for the burial service, and that the
little chapels (ecclesiolae) were either private sepulchral chambers or
post-Constantinian structures.
The devotional use of the catacombs began in the
Nicene age, and greatly stimulated the worship of martyrs and saints.
When they ceased to be used for burial they became resorts of pious
pilgrims. Little chapels were built for the celebration of the memory
of the martyrs. St. Jerome relates, Com. in He refers to such
passages as
"Horror ubique animos, simul ipsa silentia
terrent." Aen. II. 755: "Horror on every side, and terrible even the
silence." Or in German: "Grauen rings um mich her, und schreckvoll selber
die Stille."
The poet Prudentius also, in the beginning of the
fifth century, several times speaks of these burial places, and the
devotions held within them. Peristeph. XI. 153
sqq
Pope Damasus (366–384) showed his zeal in repairing and decorating the catacombs, and erecting new stair-cases for the convenience of pilgrims. His successors kept up the interest, but by repeated repairs introduced great confusion into the chronology of the works of art.
The barbarian invasions of Alaric (410), Genseric (455), Ricimer (472), Vitiges (537), Totila (546), and the Lombards (754), turned Rome into a heap of ruins and destroyed many valuable treasures of classical and Christian antiquity. But the pious barbarism of relic hunters did much greater damage. The tombs of real and imaginary saints were rifled, and cartloads of dead men’s bones were translated to the Pantheon and churches and chapels for more convenient worship. In this way the catacombs gradually lost all interest, and passed into decay and complete oblivion for more than six centuries.
In the sixteenth century the catacombs were
rediscovered, and opened an interesting field for antiquarian research.
The first discovery was made May 31, 1578, by some laborers in a
vineyard on the Via Salaria, who were digging pozzolana, and came on an
old subterranean cemetery, ornamented with Christian paintings, Greek
and Latin inscriptions and sculptured sarcophagi. "In that day," says
De Rossi, "was born the name and the knowledge of Roma Sotterranea."
One of the first and principal explorers was Antonio Bosio, "the
Columbus of this subterranean world." His researches were published
after his death (Roma, 1632). Filippo Neri, Carlo Borromeo, and other
restorers of Romanism spent, like St. Jerome of old, whole nights in
prayer amid these ruins of the age of martyrs. But Protestant divines
discredited these discoveries as inventions of Romish divines seeking
in heathen sand-pits for Christian saints who never lived, and
Christian martyrs who never died. E. g. Bishop Burnet
(who visited the catacombs in 1685): Letters from Italy and Switzerland
in 1685 and 1686. He believed that the catacombs were the common burial
places of the ancient heathen. G. S.
In the present century the discovery and investigation of the catacombs has taken a new start, and is now an important department of Christian archaeology. The dogmatic and sectarian treatment has given way to a scientific method with the sole aim to ascertain the truth. The acknowledged pioneer in this subterranean region of ancient church history is the Cavalier John Baptist de Rossi, a devout, yet liberal Roman Catholic. His monumental Italian work (Roma Sotterranea, 1864–1877) has been made accessible in judicious condensations to French, German, and English readers by Allard (1871), Kraus (1873 and 1879), Northcote & Brownlow (1869 and 1879). Other writers, Protestant as well as Roman Catholic, are constantly adding to our stores of information. Great progress has been made in the chronology and the interpretation of the pictures in the catacombs.
And yet the work is only begun. More than one half of ancient Christian cemeteries are waiting for future exploration. De Rossi treats chiefly of one group of Roman catacombs, that of Callistus. The catacombs in Naples, Syracuse, Girgenti, Melos, Alexandria, Cyrene, are very imperfectly known; still others in the ancient apostolic churches may yet be discovered, and furnish results as important for church history as the discoveries of Ilium, Mycenae, and Olympia for that of classical Greece.
§ 84. Description of the Catacombs.
The Roman catacombs are long and narrow passages or galleries and cross-galleries excavated in the bowels of the earth in the hills outside and around the city, for the burial of the dead. They are dark and gloomy, with only an occasional ray of light from above. The galleries have two or more stories, all filled with tombs, and form an intricate net-work or subterranean labyrinth. Small compartments (loculi) were cut out like shelves in the perpendicular walls for the reception of the dead, and rectangular chambers (cubicula) for families, or distinguished martyrs. They were closed with a slab of marble or tile. The more wealthy were laid in sarcophagi. The ceiling is flat, sometimes slightly arched. Space was economized so as to leave room usually only for a single person; the average width of the passages being 2½ to 3 feet. This economy may be traced to the poverty of the early Christians, and also to their strong sense of community in life and in death. The little oratories with altars and episcopal chairs cut in the tufa are probably of later construction, and could accommodate only a few persons at a time. They were suited for funeral services and private devotion, but not for public worship.
The galleries were originally small, but gradually
extended to enormous length. Their combined extent is counted by
hundreds of miles, and the number of graves by millions. I hesitate to state
the figures. Roman archaeologists, as Marchi, J. B. de Rossi and his
brother Michael de R. (a practical mathematician), Martigny and others
estimate the length of the Roman catacombs variously at from 350 to 900
miles, or as "more than the whole length of Italy" (Northcote and
Brownlow, I. 2). Allowance is made for from four to seven millions of
graves! It seems incredible that there should have been so many
Christians in Rome in four centuries, even if we include the numerous
strangers. All such estimates are purely conjectural. See Smith and
Cheetham, I. 301. Smyth (l.c. p. 15) quotes Rawlinson as saying that
7,000,000 of graves in 400 years’ time gives an
average population of from 500,000 to 700,000. Total population of
Rome, 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 at the beginning of the empire.
The oldest and best known of the Roman cemeteries is that of St. Sebastian, originally called Ad Catacumbas, on the Appian road, a little over two miles south of the city walls. It was once, it is said, the temporary resting-place of the bodies of St. Peter and St. Paul, before their removal to the basilicas named after them; also of forty-six bishops of Rome, and of a large number of martyrs.
The immense cemetery of Pope This is so stated
by
The cemetery of Domitilla
(named in the fourth century St. Petronillae, Nerei et Achillei) is on
the Via Ardeatina, and its origin is traced back to Flavia Domitilla,
grand-daughter or great-grand-daughter of Vespasian. She was banished
by Domitian (about a.d. 95) to the island of
Pontia "for professing Christ." See the picture in
Northcote and Br. I. 182, and on the whole subject of Petronilla, pp.
122, 176-186. Acta Sanct. Maii,
III. 11.
Other ancient catacombs are those of Pruetextatus,
Priscilla (St. Silvestri and St. Marcelli), Basilla (S. Hermetis,
Basillae, Proti, et Hyacinthi), Maximus, St. See also the list
in N. and Br. I. pp. xx-xxi, and in Smith and Cheetham, I. 315.
The furniture of the catacombs is instructive and interesting, but most of it has been removed to churches and museums, and must be studied outside. Articles of ornament, rings, seals, bracelets, neck-laces, mirrors, tooth-picks, ear-picks, buckles, brooches, rare coins, innumerable lamps of clay (terra-cotta), or of bronze, even of silver and amber, all sorts of tools, and in the case of children a variety of playthings were inclosed with the dead. Many of these articles are carved with the monogram of Christ, or other Christian symbols. (The lamps in Jewish cemeteries bear generally a picture of the golden candlestick).
A great number of flasks and cups also, with or
without ornamentation, are found, mostly outside of the graves, and
fastened to the grave-lids. These were formerly supposed to have been
receptacles for tears, or, from the red, dried sediment in them, for
the blood of martyrs. But later archaeologists consider them drinking
vessels used in the agapae and oblations. A superstitious habit
prevailed in the fourth century, although condemned by a council of
Carthage (397), to give to the dead the eucharistic wine, or to put a
cup with the consecrated wine in the grave. The curious
controversy about these blood-stained phials is not yet closed.
Chemical experiments have led to no decided results. The Congregation
of Rites and Relics decided, in 1668, that the phiolae cruentae or
ampullae sanguinolentaewere blood-vessels of martyrs, and Pius IX.
confirmed the decision in 1863. It was opposed by distinguished Roman
scholars (Mabillon, Tillemont, Muratori, the Jesuit Père de
Buck (De phialis rubricatis, Brussels, 1855), but defended again,
though cautiously and to a very limited extent by De Rossi (III. 602),
Northcote and Brownlow (II. 330-343), and by F. X. Kraus (Die Blutampullen der
Röm. Katakomben, 1868, and Ueber den gegenw. Stand der Frage nach dem Inhalt und der
Bedeutung der röm. Blutampullen, 1872). Comp.
also Schultze: Die sogen.
Blutgläser der Röm. Kat.
(1880), and Die
Katakomben (1882, pp. 226-232). Roller thinks that
the phials contained probably perfumery, or perhaps eucharistic
wine.
The instruments of torture which the fertile imagination of credulous people had discovered, and which were made to prove that almost every Christian buried in the catacombs was a martyr, are simply implements of handicraft. The instinct of nature prompts the bereaved to deposit in the graves of their kindred and friends those things which were constantly used by them. The idea prevailed also to a large extent that the future life was a continuation of the occupations and amusements of the present, but free from sin and imperfection.
On opening the graves the skeleton appears frequently even now very well preserved, sometimes in dazzling whiteness, as covered with a glistening glory; but falls into dust at the touch.
§ 85. Pictures and Sculptures.
The most important remains of the catacombs are the pictures, sculptures, and epitaphs.
I. Pictures. These have already been described in the preceding chapter. They are painted al fresco on the wall and ceiling, and represent Christian symbols, scenes of Bible history, and allegorical conceptions of the Saviour. A few are in pure classic style, and betray an early origin when Greek art still flourished in Rome; but most of them belong to the period of decay. Prominence is given to pictures of the Good Shepherd, and those biblical stories which exhibit the conquest of faith and the hope of the resurrection. The mixed character of some of the Christian frescos may be explained partly from the employment of heathen artists by Christian patrons, partly from old reminiscences. The Etrurians and Greeks were in the habit of painting their tombs, and Christian Greeks early saw the value of pictorial language as a means of instruction. In technical skill the Christian art is inferior to the heathen, but its subjects are higher, and its meaning is deeper.
II. The works of sculpture are mostly found on
sarcophagi. Many of them are collected in the Lateran Museum. Few of
them date from the ante-Nicene age. Renan dates the
oldest sculptures from the end of the third century: "Les sarcophages sculptés,
représentant des scènes sacrées,
apparaissent vers la fin du IIIe siècle. Comme les peintures
chrétiennes, ils ne s’écartent
guère, sauf pour le sujet, des habitudes de
l’art païen du méme
temps." (Marc
Auréle, p. 546). Comp. also Schultze,
Die Katak.
165-186, and especially the IXth part of John Henry Parker’s
great work, which treats on the Tombs in and near Rome, 1877.
Among the oldest Christian sarcophagi are those of
St. Helena, the mother of Constantine (d. 328), and of Constantia, his
daughter (d. 354), both of red porphyry, and preserved in the Vatican
Museum. The sculpture on the former probably represents the triumphal
entry of Constantine into Rome after his victory over Maxentius; the
sculpture on the latter, the cultivation of the vine, probably with a
symbolical meaning. See photographs of
both in Parker, Part IX, Nos. 209 and 210, and pp. 41 and 42.
The richest and finest of all the Christian
sarcophagi is that of Junius Bassus, Prefect of Rome, a.d. 359, and five times Consul, in the crypt of St.
Peter’s in the Vatican. See a photograph in
Parker, l.c., Plate XIII; also in Lundy, Monum. Christianity, p.
112.
§ 86. Epitaphs.
To perpetuate, by means of sepulchral inscriptions, the memory of relatives and friends, and to record the sentiments of love and esteem, of grief and hope, in the face of death and eternity, is a custom common to all civilized ages and nations. These epitaphs are limited by space, and often provoke rather than satisfy curiosity, but contain nevertheless in poetry or prose a vast amount of biographical and historical information. Many a grave-yard is a broken record of the church to which it belongs.
The Catacombs abound in such monumental inscriptions, Greek and Latin, or strangely mixed (Latin words in Greek characters), often rudely written, badly spelt, mutilated, and almost illegible, with and without symbolical figures. The classical languages were then in a process of decay, like classical eloquence and art, and the great majority of Christians were poor and illiterate people. One name only is given in the earlier epitaphs, sometimes the age, and the day of burial, but not the date of birth.
More than fifteen thousand epitaphs have been
collected, classified, and explained by De Rossi from the first six
centuries in Rome alone, and their number is constantly increasing.
Benedict XIV. founded, in 1750, a Christian Museum, and devoted a hill
in the Vatican to the collection of ancient sarcophagi. Gregory XVI.
and Pius IX. patronized it. In this Lapidarian Gallery the costly pagan
and the simple Christian inscriptions and sarcophagi confront each
other on opposite walls, and present a striking contrast. Another
important collection is in the Kircherian Museum, in the Roman College,
another in the Christian Museum of the University of Berlin. Under the care of
Professor Piper (a pupil of Neander), who even before De Rossi
introduced a scientific knowledge of the sepulchral monuments and
inscriptions. Comp. his "Monumental Theology," and his essay "Ueber den kirchenhistorischen Gewinn aus
Inschriften, in the Jahrbücher f. D.
Theologie," 1875.
The most difficult part of this branch of
archaeology is the chronology (the oldest inscriptions being mostly
undated). De Rossi traces
some up to the first century, but Renan (Marc-Auréle, p.
536) maintains: "Les inscriptions
chrétiennes des catacombes ne remontent qu’
au commencement du IIIesiècle."
The key-note of the Christian epitaphs, as compared with the heathen, is struck by Paul in his words of comfort to the Thessalonians, that they should not sorrow like the heathen who have no hope, but remember that, as Jesus rose from the dead, so God will raise them also that are fallen asleep in Jesus.
Hence, while the heathen epitaphs rarely express a
belief in immortality, but often describe death as an eternal sleep,
the grave as a final home, and are pervaded by a tone of sadness, the
Christian epitaphs are hopeful and cheerful. The farewell on earth is
followed by a welcome from heaven. Death is but a short sleep; the soul
is with Christ and lives in God, the body waits for a joyful
resurrection: this is the sum and substance of the theology of
Christian epitaphs. The symbol of Christ (Ichthys) is often
placed at the beginning or end to show the ground of this hope. Again
and again we find the brief, but significant words: "in peace;" In pace; ἐν
εἰρήνη.
Frequent also in the Jewish cemeteries (shalom). Dormit in pace;
requiescit in pace; in pace Domini; κοιμᾶται
ἐν
εἰρήνη.The
pagan formula "depositus" also occurs, but with an altered meaning: a
precious treasure intrusted to faithful keeping for a short time. Vivas, orvive in Deo; vivas in
aeternum; vivas
inter sanctos. Contrast with these the pagan
declamations: Sit tibi terra
levis; Ossa tua bene quiescant Ave; Vale. This inscription in
the cemetery of Callistus dates from the time of persecution, probably
in the third century, and alludes to it in these words: "For while on
his knees, and about to sacrifice to the true God, he was led away to
execution. O sad times! in which among sacred rites and prayers, even
in caverns, we are not safe. What can be more wretched than such a
life? and what than such a death? when they cannot be buried by their
friends and relations-still at the end they shine like stars in heaven
(tandem in caelo corruscant)." See Maitland, The Church in the Cat.,
second ed. p. 40. This inscription is
in Latin words, but in Greek uncial letters. See Perret, II. 152, and
Aringhi, p. 387.
At the same time stereotyped heathen epitaphs
continued to be used but of course not in a polytheistic sense), as
"sacred to the funeral gods," or "to the departed spirits." D. M. or D. M. S.
=Dis Manibus sacrum (others explain: Deo Magno or Maximo);memoriae
aeterrae, etc. See Schultze, p. 250 sq. Sometimes the monogram of
Christ is inserted before S, and then the meaning may be Deo Magno
Christo Sacrum, or Christo Salvatori. So Northcote, p. 99, who refers
to More frequent in
those after the middle of the fourth century, as inconparabilis, mirae
sapientiae or innocentiae, rarissimi exempli, eximiae bonitatis. Dulcis,
dulcissimus, ordulcissima, carus, orcara, carissimus, optimus,
incomparabilis, famulus Dei, puella Deo placita, ἀγαθός,
ἅγιος ,
θεοσεβής,
σεμνός, etc. Sine ulla querela,
sine ulla contumelia, sine laesione animi, sine ulla offensa, sine
jurgio, sine lite motesta, etc.
Some epitaphs contain a request to the dead in
heaven to pray for the living on earth. "Pete, or roga,
ora, pro nobis, pro parentibus, pro conjuge, pro filiis, pro sorore."
These petitions are comparatively rare among the thousands of undated
inscriptions before Constantine, and mostly confined to members of the
family. The Autun inscription (probably from the fourth century) ends
with the petition of Pectorius to his departed parents, to think of him
as often as they look upon Christ. See Marriott, p. 185. Dr. McCaul, of
Toronto (as quoted in Smith and Cheetham, 1. 856) says: I recollect but
two examples in Christian epitaphs of the first six centuries of the
address to the reader for his prayers, so common in mediaeval
times." Prima, vives in
gloria Dei et in pace Domini nostri."Scratched in the mortar round a
grave in the cemetery of Thraso, in Rome, quoted by Northcote, p. 89.
He also quotes Paulinus of Nola, who represents a whole host of saints
going forth from heaven to receive the soul of St. Felix as soon as it
had left the body, and conducting it in triumph before the throne of
God. A distinction, however was made by
Notes.
I. Selection of Roman Epitaphs.
The following selection of brief epitaphs in the Roman catacombs is taken from De Rossi, and Northcote, who give facsimiles of the original Latin and Greek. Comp. also the photographic plates in Roller, vol. I. Nos. X, XXXI, XXXII, and XXXIII; and vol. II. Nos. LXI, LXII, LXV, and LXVI.
1. To dear Cyriacus, sweetest son. Mayest thou live in the Holy Spirit.
2. Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour. To Pastor, a good and innocent son, who lived 4 years, 5 months and 26 days. Vitalis and Marcellina, his parents.
3. In eternal sleep (somno aeternali). Aurelius Gemellus, who lived ... years and 8 months and 18 days. His mother made this for her dearest well-deserving son. In peace. I commend [to thee], Bassilla, the innocence of Gemellus.
4. Lady Bassilla [= Saint Bassilla], we, Crescentius and Micina, commend to thee our daughter Crescen [tina], who lived 10 months and ... days.
5. Matronata Matrona, who lived a year and 52 days. Pray for thy parents.
6. Anatolius made this for his well-deserving son, who lived 7 years, 7 months and 20 days. May thy spirit rest well in God. Pray for thy sister.
7. Regina, mayest thou live in the Lord Jesus (vivas in Domino Jesu).
8. To my good and sweetest husband Castorinus, who lived 61 years, 5 months and 10 days; well-deserving. His wife made this. Live in God!
9. Amerimnus to his dearest, well-deserving wife, Rufina. May God refresh thy spirit.
10. Sweet Faustina, mayest thou live in God.
11. Refresh, O God, the soul of ....
12. Bolosa, may God refresh thee, who lived 31 years; died on the 19th of September. In Christ.
13. Peace to thy soul, Oxycholis.
14. Agape, thou shalt live forever.
15. In Christ. To Paulinus, a neophyte. In peace. Who lived 8 years.
16. Thy spirit in peace, Filmena.
17. In Christ. Aestonia, a virgin; a foreigner, who lived 41 years and 8 days. She departed from the body on the 26th of February.
18. Victorina in peace and in Christ.
19. Dafnen, a widow, who whilst she lived burdened the church in nothing.
20. To Leopardus, a neophyte, who lived 3 years, 11 months. Buried on the 24th of March. In peace.
21. To Felix, their well-deserving son, who lived 23 years and 10 days; who went out of the world a virgin and a neophyte. In peace. His parents made this. Buried on the 2d of August.
22. Lucilianus to Bacius Valerius, who lived 9 years, 8 [months], 22 days. A catechumen.
23. Septimius Praetextatus Caecilianus, servant of God, who has led a worthy life. If I have served Thee [O Lord], I have not repented, and I will give thanks to Thy name. He gave up his soul to God (at the age of) thirty-three years and six months. [In the crypt of St. Cecilia in St. Callisto. Probably a member of some noble family, the third name is mutilated. De Rossi assigns this epitaph to the beginning of the third century.]
24. Cornelius. Martyr. Ep. [iscopus].
II. The Autun Inscription.
This Greek inscription was discovered a.d. 1839 in the cemetery Saint Pierre l’Estrier near Autun (Augustodunum, the ancient capital of Gallia Aeduensis), first made known by Cardinal Pitra, and thoroughly discussed by learned archaeologists of different countries. See the Spicilegium Solesmense (ed. by Pitra), vols. I.-III., Raf. Garrucci, Monuments d’ epigraphie ancienne, Paris 1856, 1857; P. Lenormant, Mémoire sur l’ inscription d’ Autun, Paris 1855; H. B. Marriott, The Testimony of the Catacombs, Lond. 1870, pp. 113–188. The Jesuit fathers Secchi and Garrucci find in it conclusive evidence of transubstantiation and purgatory, but Marriott takes pains to refute them. Comp. also Schultze, Katak. p. 118. The Ichthys-symbol figures prominently in the inscription, and betrays an early origin, but archaeologists differ: Pitra, Garrucci and others assign it to a.d. 160–202; Kirchhoff, Marriott, and Schultze, with greater probability, to the end of the fourth or the beginning of the fifth century, Lenormant and Le Blant to the fifth or sixth. De Rossi observes that the characters are not so old as the ideas which they express. The inscription has some gaps which must be filled out by conjecture. It is a memorial of Pectorius to his parents and friends, in two parts; the first six lines are an acrostic (Ichthys), and contain words of the dead (probably the mother); in the second part the son speaks. The first seems to be older. Schultze conjectures that it is an old Christian hymn. The inscription begins with Ἰχθύος α (ὐρανίου ἅγ) ιον (or perhaps θεῖον) γένος, and concludes with μνήσεο Πεκτορίου, who prepared the monument for his parents. The following is the translation (partly conjectural) of Marriott (l.c. 118):
’Offspring of the heavenly Ichthys, see that a heart of holy reverence be thine, now that from Divine waters thou hast received, while yet among mortals, a fount of life that is to immortality. Quicken thy soul, beloved one, with ever-flowing waters of wealth-giving wisdom, and receive the honey-sweet food of the Saviour of the saints. Eat with a longing hunger, holding Ichthys in thine hands.’
’To Ichthys ... Come nigh unto me, my Lord [and] Saviour [be thou my Guide] I entreat Thee, Thou Light of them for whom the hour of death is past.’
’Aschandius, my Father, dear unto mine heart, and thou [sweet Mother, and all] that are mine ... remember Pectorius.’
§ 87. Lessons of the Catacombs.
The catacombs represent the subterranean Christianity
of the ante-Nicene age. They reveal the Christian life in the face of
death and eternity. Their vast extent, their solemn darkness, their
labyrinthine mystery, their rude epitaphs, pictures, and sculptures,
their relics of handicrafts worship, and martyrdom give us a lively and
impressive idea of the social and domestic condition, the poverty and
humility, the devotional spirit, the trials and sufferings, the faith
and hope of the Christians from the death of the apostles to the
conversion of Constantine. A modern visitor descending alive into this
region of the dead, receives the same impression as St. Jerome more
than fifteen centuries ago: he is overcome by the solemn darkness, the
terrible silence, and the sacred associations; only the darkness is
deeper, and the tombs are emptied of their treasures. "He who is
thoroughly steeped in the imagery of the catacombs," says Dean Stanley,
not without rhetorical exaggeration, "will be nearer to the thoughts of
the early church than he who has learned by heart the most elaborate
treatise even of Study of
Ecclesiastical History, prefixed to his Lectures on the History of the
Eastern Church, p. 59.
The discovery of this subterranean necropolis has
been made unduly subservient to polemical and apologetic purposes both
by Roman Catholic and Protestant writers. The former seek and find in
it monumental arguments for the worship of saints, images, and relics,
for the cultus of the Virgin Mary, the primacy of Peter, the seven
sacraments, the real presence, even for transubstantiation, and
purgatory; while the latter see there the evidence of apostolic
simplicity of life and worship, and an illustration of
Paul’s saying that God chose the foolish, the weak,
and the despised things of the world to put to shame them that are wise
and strong and mighty. The apologetic
interest for Romanism is represented by Marchi, De Rossi, Garrucci, Le
Blant., D. de Richemond, Armellini, Bertoli, Maurus, Wolter (Die röm. Katakomben und die
Sakramente der kath. Kirche, 1866), Martigny
(Dictionaire, etc., 1877), A. Kuhn (1877), Northcote and Brownlow
(1879), F. X. Kraus (Real=Encykl.
der christl. Alterthümer, 1880 sqq.),
Diepolder (1882), and among periodicals, by De Rossi’s
Bulletino, theCiviltà Cattolica, the Revue de
l’art chrétien, and the Revue
archéologique. Among the Protestant writers on the catacombs
are Piper, Parker, Maitland, Lundy, Withrow, Becker, Stanley, Schultze,
Heinrici, and Roller. See among others: Heinrici, Zur Deutung der Bildwerke altchristlicher
Grabstätten, in the "Studien und Kritiken"
for 1882, p. 720-743, and especially Piper, Monumentale Theologie.
A full solution of the controversial questions
would depend upon the chronology of the monuments and inscriptions, but
this is exceedingly uncertain. The most eminent archaeologists hold
widely differing opinions. John Baptist de Rossi of Rome, the greatest
authority on the Roman Catholic side, traces some paintings and
epitaphs in the crypts of St. Lucina and St. Domitilia back even to the
close of the first century or the beginning of the second. On the other
hand, J. H. Parker, of Oxford, an equally eminent archaeologist,
maintains that fully three-fourths of the fresco-paintings belong to
the latest restorations of the eighth and ninth centuries, and that "of
the remaining fourth a considerable number are of the sixth century."
He also asserts that in the catacomb pictures "there are no religious
subjects before the time of Constantine," that "during the fourth and
fifth centuries they are entirely confined to Scriptural subjects," and
that there is "not a figure of a saint or martyr before the sixth
century, and very few before the eighth, when they became abundant." Catacombs, Pref. p.
xi. The writer of the article Catacombs in the "Encycl. Brit." v. 214
(ninth ed.), is of the same opinion: "It is tolerably certain that the
existing frescos are restorations of the eighth, or even a later
century, from which the character of the earlier work can only very
imperfectly be discovered." He then refers to Parker’s
invaluable photographs taken in the catacombs by magnesian light, and
condemns, with Milman, the finished drawings in
Perret’s costly work as worthless to the historian,
who wants truth and fidelity.
Marc-Auréle, p. 543. "Contemp. Rev." for
May, 1871, p. 170.
But in any case it is unreasonable to seek in the catacombs for a complete creed any more than in a modern grave-yard. All we can expect there is the popular elements of eschatology, or the sentiments concerning death and eternity, with incidental traces of the private and social life of those times. Heathen, Jewish, Mohammedan, and Christian cemeteries have their characteristic peculiarities, yet all have many things in common which are inseparable from human nature. Roman Catholic cemeteries are easily recognized by crosses, crucifixes, and reference to purgatory and prayers for the dead; Protestant cemeteries by the frequency of Scripture passages in the epitaphs, and the expressions of hope and joy in prospect of the immediate transition of the pious dead to the presence of Christ. The catacombs have a character of their own, which distinguishes them from Roman Catholic as well as Protestant cemeteries.
Their most characteristic symbols and pictures are
the Good Shepherd, the Fish, and the Vine. These symbols almost wholly
disappeared after the fourth century, but to the mind of the early
Christians they vividly expressed, in childlike simplicity, what is
essential to Christians of all creeds, the idea of Christ and his
salvation, as the only comfort in life and in death. The Shepherd,
whether from the Sabine or the Galilean hills, suggested the recovery
of the lost sheep, the tender care and protection, the green pasture
and fresh fountain, the sacrifice of life: in a word, the whole picture
of a Saviour. Stanley, 1.c., p.
283: "What was the popular Religion of the first Christians? It was, in
one word, the Religion of the Good Shepherd. The kindness, the courage,
the grace, the love, the beauty of the Good Shepherd was to them, if we
may so say, Prayer Book and Articles, Creeds and Canons, all in one.
They looked on that figure, and it conveyed to them all that they
wanted. As ages passed on, the Good Shepherd faded away from the mind
of the Christian world, and other emblems of the Christian faith have
taken his place. Instead of the gracious and gentle Pastor, there came
the Omnipotent Judge or the Crucified Sufferer, or the Infant in His
Mother’s arms, or the Master in His Parting Supper, or
the figures of innumerable saints and angels, or the elaborate
expositions of the various forms of theological controversy."
Another prominent feature of the catacombs is
their hopeful and joyful eschatology. They proclaim in symbols and
words a certain conviction of the immortality of the soul and the
resurrection of the body, rooted and grounded in a living union with
Christ in this world. See the concluding
chapter in the work of Roller, II. 347 sqq. Raoul-Rochette
characterizes the art of the Catacombs as "unsystème d’illusions
consolantes." Schultze sees in the sepulchral symbols
chiefly Auferstehungsgedanken and Auferstehungshoffnungen.
Heinrici dissents from him by extending the symbolism to the present
life as a life of hope in Christ. "Nicht der Gedanke an die Auferstehung des Fleisches für
sich, sondern die christliche Hoffnung überhaupt, wie sie
aus der sicheren Lebensgemeinschaft mit Christus erblüht und
Leben wie Sterben des Gläubigen beherrscht, bedingt die Wahl
der religiös bedeutsamen Bilder. Sie sind nicht Symbole der
einstigen Auferstehung, sondern des unverlierbaren Heilsbesitzes in
Christus." ("Studien und Krit." 1842, p. 729).
On some other points they incidentally shed new
light, especially on the spread of Christianity and the origin of
Christian art. Their immense extent implies that Christianity was
numerically much stronger in heathen Rome than was generally
supposed. Theodore Mommsen
(in "The Contemp. Rev." for May, 1871, p. 167): The enormous space
occupied by the burial vaults of Christian Rome, in their extent not
surpassed even by the system of cloacae or sewers of Republican Rome,
is certainly the work of that community which St. Paul addressed in his
Epistle to the Romans—a living witness of its immense
development corresponding to the importance of the capital."
The first discovery of the catacombs was a surprise to the Christian world, and gave birth to wild fancies about the incalculable number of martyrs, the terrors of persecution, the subterranean assemblies of the early Christians, as if they lived and died, by necessity or preference, in darkness beneath the earth. A closer investigation has dispelled the romance, and deepened the reality.
There is no contradiction between the religion of
the ante-Nicene monuments and the religion of the ante-Nicene
literature. They supplement and illustrate each other. Both exhibit to
us neither the mediaeval Catholic nor the modern Protestant, but the
post-apostolic Christianity of confessors and martyrs, simple, humble,
unpretending, unlearned, unworldly, strong in death and in the hope of
a blissful resurrection; free from the distinctive dogmas and usages of
later times; yet with that strong love for symbolism, mysticism,
asceticism, and popular superstitions which we find in the writings of
CHRISTIAN LIFE IN CONTRAST WITH PAGAN CORRUPTION.
§ 88. Literature.
I. Sources: The works of the Apostolic Fathers. The Apologies of Justin. The practical
treatises of
II. Literature: W. Cave: Primitive Christianity, or the Religion of the Ancient Christians in the first ages of the Gospel. London, fifth ed. 1689.
G. Arnold: Erste Liebe, d. i. Wahre Abbildung der ersten Christen nach ihrem lebendigen Glauben und heil. Leben. Frankf. 1696, and often since.
Neander: Denkwürdigkeiten aus der Geschichte des christlichen Lebens (first 1823), vol. i. third ed. Hamb. 1845. The same in English by Ryland: Neander’s Memorials of Christian Life, in Bohn’s Library, 1853.
L. Coleman: Ancient
Christianity exemplified in the private, domestic, social, and civil
Life of the Primitive Christians, etc.
C. Schmidt: Essai historique sur la société dans le monde Romain, et sur la transformation par le Christianisme. Par. 1853. The same transl. into German by A. V. Richard. Leipz. 1857.
E. L. Chastel: Études historiques sur l’influence de la charité durant les Premiers siècles chrét. Par. 1853. Crowned by the French Académe. The same transl. into English (The Charity of the Primitive Churches), by G. A. Matile. Phila. 1857.
A. Fr. Villemain: Nouveaux essais sur l’infl. du Christianisme dans le monde Grec et Latin. Par. 1853.
Benj. Constant Martha (Member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques, elected in 1872): Les Moralistes sous l’Empire romain. Paris 1854, second ed. 1866 (Crowned by the French Academy).
Fr. J. M. Th. Champagny: Les premiers siècles de la charité. Paris, 1854. Also his work Les Antonins. Paris, 1863, third ed. 1874, 3 vols.
J. Denis: Histoire des theories et des idées morales dans l’antiquité. Paris, 1856, 2 tom.
P. Janet: Histoire de la philosophie morale et politique. Paris, 1858,·2 tom.
G. Ratzinger: Gesch. der kirchlichen Armenpflege. Freib. 1859.
W. E. H. Lecky: History of European Morals from Augustus to Charlemagne. Lond. and N. Y. 1869, 2 vols., 5th ed. Lond. 1882. German transl. by Dr. H. Jalowicz.
Marie-Louis-Gaston Boissier: La Religion romaine d’Auguste aux Antonins. Paris, 1874, 2 vols.
Bestmann: Geschichte der Christlichen Sitte. Nördl. Bd. I. 1880.
W. Gass: Geschichte der christlichen Ethik. Berlin, 1881 (vol. I. 49–107).
G. Uhlhorn: Die christliche Liebesthätigkeit in der alten Kirche. Stuttg. 1881. English translation (Christian Charity in the Ancient Church). Edinb. and N. York, 1883 (424 pages).
Charles L. Brace: Gesta Christi: or a History of humane Progress under Christianity. N. York, 1883 (500 pages).
§ 89. Moral Corruption of the Roman Empire.
Besides the Lit. quoted in § 88, comp. the historical works on the Roman Empire by Gibbon, Merivale, and Ranke; also J. J. A. Ampère’s Histoire Romaine à Rome (1856–64, 4 vols.).
Friedlaender’sSittengeschichte Roms (from Augustus to the Antonines. Leipzig, 3 vols., 5th ed. 1881); and Marquardt and Mommsen’s Handbuch der römischen Alterthümer (Leipz. 1871, second ed. 1876, 7 vols., divided into Staatsrecht, Staatsverwaltung, Privatleben).
Christianity is not only the revelation of truth, but also the fountain of holiness under the unceasing inspiration of the spotless example of its Founder, which is more powerful than all the systems of moral philosophy. It attests its divine origin as much by its moral workings as by its pure doctrines. By its own inherent energy, without noise and commotion, without the favor of circumstance—nay, in spite of all possible obstacles, it has gradually wrought the greatest moral reformation, we should rather say, regeneration of society which history has ever seen while its purifying, ennobling, and cheering effects upon the private life of countless individuals are beyond the reach of the historian, though recorded in God’s book of life to be opened on the day of judgment.
To appreciate this work, we must first review the moral condition of heathenism in its mightiest embodiment in history.
When Christianity took firm foothold on earth, the
pagan civilization and the Roman empire had reached their zenith. The
reign of Augustus was the golden age of Roman literature; his
successors added Britain and Dacia to the conquests of the Republic;
internal organization was perfected by Trajan and the Antonines. The
fairest countries of Europe, and a considerable part of Asia and Africa
stood under one imperial government with republican forms, and enjoyed
a well-ordered jurisdiction. Piracy on the seas was abolished; life and
property were secure. Military roads, canals, and the Mediterranean Sea
facilitated commerce and travel; agriculture was improved, and all
branches of industry flourished. Temples, theatres, aqueducts, public
baths, and magnificent buildings of every kind adorned the great
cities; institutions of learning disseminated culture; two languages
with a classic literature were current in the empire, the Greek in the
East, the Latin in the West; the book trade, with the manufacture of
paper, was a craft of no small importance, and a library belonged to
every respectable house. The book stores and public libraries were in
the most lively streets of Rome, and resorted to by literary people.
Hundreds of slaves were employed as scribes, who wrote simultaneously
at the dictation of one author or reader, and multiplied copies almost
as fast as the modern printing press.
Friedländer, III. 369 sqq. (5th ed.), gives much interesting information about
the book trade in Rome, which was far more extensive than is generally
supposed, and was facilitated by slave-labor. Books were cheap. The
first book of Martial (over 700 verses in 118 poems) cost in the best
outfit only 5 denarii (80 cts.). Julius Caesar conceived the plan of
founding public libraries, but was prevented from carrying it into
effect. In the fourth century there were no less than twenty-eight
public libraries in Rome. The ease and enjoyment of reading, however,
were considerably diminished by the many errors, the absence of
division and punctuation. Asinius Pollio introduced the custom of
public readings of new works before invited circles. Gibbon, Decline and
Fall, ch. III. Renan expresses the same view.
But this is only a surface view. The inside did
not correspond to the outside. Even under the Antonines the majority of
men groaned under the yoke of slavery or poverty; gladiatorial shows
brutalized the people; fierce wars were raging on the borders of the
empire; and the most virtuous and peaceful of
subjects—the Christians—had no
rights, and were liable at any moment to be thrown before wild beasts,
for no other reason than the profession of their religion. The age of
the full bloom of the Graeco-Roman power was also the beginning of its
decline. This imposing show concealed incurable moral putridity and
indescribable wretchedness. The colossal piles of architecture owed
their erection to the bloody sweat of innumerable slaves, who were
treated no better than so many beasts of burden; on the Flavian
amphitheatre alone toiled twelve thousand Jewish prisoners of war; and
it was built to gratify the cruel taste of the people for the slaughter
of wild animals and human beings made in the image of God. The influx
of wealth from conquered nations diffused the most extravagant luxury,
which collected for a single meal peacocks from Samos, pike from
Pessinus, oysters from Tarentum, dates from Egypt, nuts from Spain, in
short the rarest dishes from all parts of the world, and resorted to
emetics to stimulate appetite and to lighten the stomach. "They eat,"
says Seneca, "and then they vomit; they vomit, and then they eat."
Apicius, who lived under Tiberius, dissolved pearls in the wine he
drank, squandered an enormous fortune on the pleasures of the table,
and then committed suicide. Either from disgust
of life, or because he thought he could not live off the remaining ten
million of sesterces, after he had wasted sixty or a hundred million.
Seneca, Ad Helv. x. 9. Heliogabalus chose Apicius as his model. These,
however, are exceptional cases, and became proverbial. See on this
whole subject of Roman luxury the third volume of
Friedlaender’s Sittengeschichte, pp. 1-152. He rather modifies
the usual view, and thinks that Apicius had more imitators among French
epicures under Louis XIV., XV., and XVI. than among the Roman nobles,
and that some petty German princes of the eighteenth century, like King
August of Saxony (who wasted eighty thousand thalers on a single
opera), and Duke Karl of Württemberg, almost equalled the
heathen emperors in extravagance and riotous living, at the expense of
their poor subjects. The wealth of the old Romans was much surpassed by
that of some modern Russian and English noblemen, French bankers, and
American merchant princes, but had a much greater purchasing value. The
richest Romans were Ca. Lentulus, and Narcissus (a freedman of Nero),
and their fortune amounted to four hundred million sesterces (from
sixty-five to seventy million marks); while Mazarin left two hundred
million francs, Baron James Rothschild (d. 1868) two thousand million
francs (l.c. p. 13 sqq.). The architecture of the imperial age
surpassed all modern palaces in extravagance and splendor, but in parks
and gardens the modem English far surpass the ancient Romans (p. 78
sqq.).
The work of demoralizing the people was
systematically organized and sanctioned from the highest places
downwards. There were, it is true, some worthy emperors of old Roman
energy and justice, among whom Trajan, Antoninus Pius, and Decline and Fall,
ch. III. Seekers after God,
p. 37.
The Pagan historians of Rome have branded and immortalized the vices and crimes of the Caesars: the misanthropy, cruelty, and voluptuousness of Tiberius; the ferocious madness of Caius Caligula, who had men tortured, beheaded, or sawed in pieces for his amusement, who seriously meditated the butchery of the whole senate, raised his horse to the dignity of consul and priest, and crawled under the bed in a storm; the bottomless vileness of Nero, "the inventor of crime," who poisoned or murdered his preceptors Burrhus and Seneca, his half-brother and brother-in-law Britannicus, his mother Agrippina, his wife Octavia, his mistress Poppaea, who in sheer wantonness set fire to Rome, and then burnt innocent Christians for it as torches in his gardens, figuring himself as charioteer in the infernal spectacle; the swinish gluttony of Vitellins, who consumed millions of money in mere eating; the refined wickedness of Domitian, who, more a cat than a tiger, amused himself most with the torments of the dying and with catching flies; the shameless revelry of Commodus with his hundreds of concubines, and ferocious passion for butchering men and beasts on the arena; the mad villainy of Heliogabalus, who raised the lowest men to the highest dignities, dressed himself in women’s clothes, married a dissolute boy like himself, in short, inverted all the laws of nature and of decency, until at last he was butchered with his mother by the soldiers, and thrown into the muddy Tiber. And to fill the measure of impiety and wickedness, such imperial monsters were received, after their death, by a formal decree of the Senate, into the number of divinities and their abandoned memory was celebrated by festivals, temples, and colleges of priests! The emperor, in the language of Gibbon, was at once "a priest, an atheist, and a god." Some added to it the dignity of amateur actor and gladiator on the stage. Domitian, even in his lifetime, caused himself to be called "Dominus et Deus noster," and whole herds of animals to be sacrificed to his gold and silver statues. It is impossible to imagine a greater public and official mockery of all religion.
The wives and mistresses of the emperors were not much better. They revelled in luxury and vice, swept through the streets in chariots drawn by silver-shod mules, wasted fortunes on a single dress, delighted in wicked intrigues, aided their husbands in dark crimes and shared at last in their tragic fate, Messalina the wife of Claudius, was murdered by the order of her husband in the midst of her nuptial orgies with one of her favorites; and the younger Agrippina, the mother of Nero, after poisoning her husband, was murdered by her own son, who was equally cruel to his wives, kicking one of them to death when she was in a state of pregnancy. These female monsters were likewise deified, and elevated to the rank of Juno or Venus.
From the higher regions the corruption descended into the masses of the people, who by this time had no sense for anything but "Panem et Circenses," and, in the enjoyment of these, looked with morbid curiosity and interest upon the most flagrant vices of their masters.
No wonder that Tacitus, who with terse eloquence and old Roman severity exposes the monstrous character of Nero and other emperors to eternal infamy, could nowhere, save perhaps among the barbarian Germans, discover a star of hope, and foreboded the fearful vengeance of the gods, and even the speedy destruction of the empire. And certainly nothing could save it from final doom, whose approach was announced with ever-growing distinctness by wars, insurrections, inundations, earthquakes, pestilence, famine, irruption of barbarians, and prophetic calamities of every kind. Ancient Rome, in the slow but certain process of dissolution and decay, teaches the
§ 90. Stoic Morality
ED. Zeller: The Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. Translated from the German by O. J. Reichel. London (Longman, Green & Co.), 1870. Chs. x-xii treat of the Stoic Ethics and Religion.
F. W. Farrar (Canon of
Westminster): Seekers a after God. London (Macmillan & Co.), first
ed. n. d. (1869), new ed. 1877 (Seneca, Epictetus, and
Comp. also the essays on Seneca and Paul by Fleury, Aubertin, Baur, Lightfoot, and Reuss (quoted in vol. I. 283).
Let us now turn to the bright side of heathen morals,
as exhibited in the teaching and example of Epictetus,
It is a remarkable fact that two men who represent
the extremes of society, the lowest and the highest, were the last and
greatest teachers of natural virtue in ancient Rome. They shine like
lone stars in the midnight darkness of prevailing corruption. Epictetus
the slave, and
Both belonged to the school of Zeno.
The Stoic philosophy was born in Greece, but grew
into manhood in Rome. It was predestinated for that stern, grave,
practical, haughty, self-governing and heroic character which from the
banks of the Tiber ruled over the civilized world. Zeller, l.c. p. 37:
"Nearly all the most important Stoics before the Christian era belong
by birth to Asia Minor, to Syria, and to the islands of the Eastern
Archipelago. Then follow a line of Roman Stoics, among whom the
Phrygian Epictetus occupies a prominent place; but Greece proper is
exclusively represented by men of third or fourth-rate capacity." Niebuhr says of
Seneca: "He acted on the principle that he could dispense with the laws
of morality which he laid down for others." Macaulay: "The business of
the philosopher was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions
sterling at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of
luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about
liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedman of a
tyrant; to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen
which had just before written a defense of the murder of a mother by a
son." Farrar (l.c. p. 161): "In Seneca’s life, we see
as clearly as in those of many professed Christians, that it is
impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. His utter failure was
due to the vain attempt to combine in his own person two opposite
characters—that of a Stoic and that of a courtier ....
In him we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility of
poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of
wealth." For a convenient collection of Seneca’s
resemblances to Scripture, see Farrar, ch. XV., 174-185. The most
striking passages are: "A sacred spirit dwells within us, the observer
and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good man
without God."Ep. ad Lucil. 41. Comp.
Stoicism is of all ancient systems of philosophy both nearest to, and furthest from, Christianity: nearest in the purity and sublimity of its maxims and the virtues of simplicity, equanimity, self-control, and resignation to an all-wise Providence; furthest in the spirit of pride, self-reliance, haughty contempt, and cold indifference. Pride is the basis of Stoic virtue, while humility is the basis of Christian holiness; the former is inspired by egotism, the latter by love to God and man; the Stoic feels no need of a Saviour, and calmly resorts to suicide when the house smokes; while the Christian life begins with a sense of sin, and ends with triumph over death; the resignation of the Stoic is heartless apathy and a surrender to the iron necessity of fate; the resignation of the Christian, is cheerful submission to the will of an all-wise and all-merciful Father in heaven; the Stoic sage resembles a cold, immovable statue, the Christian saint a living body, beating in hearty sympathy with every joy and grief of his fellow-men. At best, Stoicism is only a philosophy for the few, while Christianity is a religion for all.
§ 91. Epictetus.
Epicteti. Dissertationum ab Arriano digestarum Libri IV. Euiusdem Enchiridion et ex deperditis Sermonibus Fragmenta ... recensuit ... Joh. Schweighäuser. Lips. 1799, 1800. 5 vols. The Greek text with a Latin version and notes.
The Works of Epictetus. Consisting of his Discourses, in four books, the Enchiridion, and Fragments. A translation from the Greek, based on that of Mrs. Elizabeth Carter, by Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Boston (Little, Brown & Co.), 1865. A fourth ed. of Mrs. Carter’s translation was published in 1807 with introduction and notes.
The Discourses of Epictetus, with the Enchiridion and Fragments. Translated, with Notes, etc., by George Long. London (George Bell & Sons), 1877.
There are also other English, as well as German and French, versions.
Epictetus led from principle and necessity a life
of poverty and extreme simplicity, after the model of Diogenes, the
arch-Cynic. His only companions were an adopted child with a nurse. His
furniture consisted of a bed, a cooking vessel and earthen lamp. Lucian
ridicules one of his admirers, who bought the lamp for three thousand
drachmas, in the hope of becoming a philosopher by using it. Epictetus
discouraged marriage and the procreation of children. Marriage might do
well in a "community of wise men," but "in the present state of
things," which he compared to "an army in battle array," it is likely
to withdraw the philosopher from the service of God. Disc. III. 22.
Comp.
Epictetus, like Socrates, his great exemplar, wrote nothing himself, but he found a Xenophon. His pupil and friend, Flavius Arrianus, of Nicomedia, in Bithynia, the distinguished historian of Alexander the Great, and a soldier and statesman under Hadrian, handed to posterity a report of the oral instructions and familiar conversations (διατριβαί) of his teacher. Only four of the original eight books remain. He also collected his chief maxims in a manual (Enchiridion). His biography of that remarkable man is lost.
Epictetus starts, like Zeno and Cleanthes, with a
thoroughly practical view of philosophy, as the art and exercise of
virtue, in accordance with reason and the laws of nature. He bases
virtue on faith in God, as the supreme power of the universe, who
directs all events for benevolent purposes. The philosopher is a
teacher of righteousness, a physician and surgeon of the sick who feel
their weakness, and are anxious to be cured. He is a priest and
messenger of the gods to erring men, that they might learn to be happy
even in utter want of earthly possessions. If we wish to be good, we
must first believe that we are bad. Mere knowledge without application
to life is worthless. Every man has a guardian spirit, a god within him
who never sleeps, who always keeps him company, even in solitude; this
is the Socratic daimonion, the personified conscience. We must listen
to its divine voice. "Think of God more often than you breathe. Let
discourse of God be renewed daily, more surely than your food." The sum
of wisdom is to desire nothing but freedom and contentment, and to bear
and forbear. All unavoidable evil in the world is only apparent and
external, and does not touch our being. Our happiness depends upon our
own will, which even Zeus cannot break. The wise man joyously
acquiesces in what he cannot control, knowing that an all-wise Father
rules the whole. "We ought to have these two rules always in readiness:
that there is nothing good or evil except in the will; and that we
ought not to lead events, but to follow them." Discourses, III.
10. Here E. discusses the manner in which we ought to bear
sickness.
Yet Epictetus does not clearly teach the
immortality of the soul. He speaks of death as a return to the elements
in successive conflagrations. Seneca approaches much more nearly the
Platonic and Socratic, we may say Christian, view of immortality. The
prevailing theory of the Stoics was, that at the end of the world all
individual souls will be resolved into the primary substance of the
Divine Being. The only point
about which the Stoics were undecided was whether all souls would last
until that time as separate souls, or whether, as Chrysippus held, only
the souls of the wise would survive."Zeller, l.c., p. 205.
Epictetus nowhere alludes directly to
Christianity, but he speaks once of "Galileans," who by enthusiasm or
madness were free from all fear. Disc. IV. 7:
"Through madness (ὑπο
μανίας) it is
possible for a man to be so disposed towards these things and through
habit (ὑπὸ
ἔθους), as the
Galileans." By Galileans he no doubt means Christians, and the allusion
is rather contemptuous, like the allusion of
Owing to the purity of its morals, the
Enchiridion of Epictetus was a favorite book. Simplicius, a
Neo-Platonist, wrote an elaborate commentary on it; and monks in the
middle ages reproduced and Christianized it.
§ 92.
Μάρκου Ἀντονίνου τοῦ αὐτοκράτορος τῶν εἰς ἑαυτὸν βιβλία ιβ’ (De Rebus suis libri xii). Ed. by Thomas Gataker, with a Latin Version and Notes (including those of Casaubon). Trajecti ad Rhenum, 1697, 2 vols. fol. The second vol. contains critical dissertations. (The first ed. appeared at Cambridge, 1652, in 1 vol.) English translation by George Long, revised ed. London, 1880.
See the liter. quoted in § 20, above (especially Renan’s Marc. Auréle, 1882).
According to less
probable accounts he died of suicide, or of poison administered to him
by order of his son, Commodus. See Renan, p. 485. "Quid me fletis, et
non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis?" Capitolinus, M.
Aurelius.
The philosophic emperor was a sincere believer in
the gods, their revelations and all-ruling providence. His morality and
religion were blended. But he had no clear views of the divinity. He
alternately uses the language of the polytheist, the deist, and the
pantheist. He worshipped the deity of the universe and in his own
breast. He thanks the gods for his good parents and teachers, for his
pious mother, for a wife, whom he blindly praises as "amiable,
affectionate, and pure," and for all the goods of life. His motto was
"never to wrong any man in deed or word." Medit. v. 31. So Renan,
Marc-Aurèle, p. 488, without qualification: "Avec lui, la philosophie a
régné. Un moment, grâce à
lui, le monde a été gouverné par
l’homme le meilleur et le plus grand de son
siècle." But elsewhere he puts Antoninus
Pius above Aurelius. "Of the two, " he says (Conférences
d’Angleterre, translated by Clara
Erskine Clement, p. 140 sq.): "I consider Antonine the greatest. His
goodness did not lead him into faults: he was not tormented with that
internal trouble which disturbed, without ceasing, the heart of his
adopted son. This strange malady, this restless study of himself, this
demon of scrupulousness, this fever of perfection, are signs of a less
strong and distinguished nature. As the finest thoughts are those which
are not written, Antonins had in this respect also a superiority over
The Meditations of
"It is sufficient to attend to the demon [the good
genius] within, and to reverence it sincerely. And reverence for the
demon consists in keeping it pure from passion and thoughtlessness and
dissatisfaction with what comes from God and men." Medit. II. 13. IV. 17. IV. 26, 27. III. 5 IX. 4. . IX. 5. V. 10. IV. 23. IV. 34, 35. XII. 21. IX. 2, 3; XI.
3.
These reflections are pervaded by a tone of
sadness; they excite emotion, but no enthusiasm; they have no power to
console, but leave an aching void, without hope of an immortality,
except a return to the bosom of mother nature. They are the rays of a
setting, not of a rising, sun; they are the swansong of dying Stoicism.
The end of that noble old Roman was virtually the end of the antique
world. The significant
title of Renan’s book is Marc-Aurèle et la fin du monde
antique.
The cosmopolitan philosophy of XI. 3: "What a soul
that is which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the
body, and ready either to be extinguished or dispersed, or continue to
exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man’s
own judgment, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but
considerately and with dignity, and in a way to persuade another
without scenic show (ἀτραγώδως)."
I have availed myself in these extracts of Long’s
excellent translation, but compared them with the Greek original in
Gataker’s edition.
But persecution is not the only blot on his
reputation. He wasted his affections upon a vicious and worthless son,
whom he raised in his fourteenth year to full participation of the
imperial power, regardless of the happiness of millions, and upon a
beautiful but faithless and wicked wife, whom he hastened after her
death to cover with divine honors. His conduct towards Faustina was
either hypocritical or unprincipled. At his earnest
request the obsequious Senate declared Faustina a goddess; she was
represented in her temples with the attributes of Juno, Venus, and
Ceres; and it was decreed that on the day of their nuptials the youth
of both sexes should pay their vows before the altar of this adulterous
woman. See Gibbon, ch. IV. A bas-relief in the museum of the Capitol at
Rome represents Faustina borne to heaven by a messenger of the gods,
and her husband looking at her with admiration and love. Renan
apologizes for his favorite hero on the ground of the marvellous beauty
of Faustina, and excuses her, because she naturally grew tired of the
dull company of an ascetic philosopher!
His son and successor left the Christians in
peace, but was one of the worst emperors that disgraced the throne, and
undid all the good which his father had done. Renan thus
describes the sudden relapse (p. 490): "Horrible déception pourles gens de bien! Tant de
vertu, tant d’amour n’aboutissant
qu’à mettre le monde entre les mains
d’un équarrisseur de bêtes,
d’un gladiateur ! Aprés cette belle
apparition d’un monde élyséen
sur la terre, retomber dans l’enfer des
Césars, qu’on croyaitfermé pour
toujours ! La foi dans le bien fut alors perdue. Après
Caligula, après Néron, après Domitien,
on avait pu espérer encore. Les expériences
n’ avaient pas été
décisives. Maintenant, c’est
après le plus grand effort de rationalisme gouvernemental,
oprès quatre-ving quatre ans d’un
régime excellent, après Nerva, Trajan, Adrien,
Antonin., Marc-Aurèle, que le règne du mal
recommence, pire que jamais. Adieu, verta; adieu, raison. Puisque
Marc-Aurèle n’a pas pu sauver le monde, qui
le sauvera?"
Aristotle was the teacher of Alexander; Seneca, the
teacher of Nero;
§ 93. Plutarch.
Πλουτάρχου τοῦ Χαιρωνέως τὰ Ἠθικά. Ed. Tauchnitz Lips. The same with a Latin version and notes in
Plutarchi Chaeronensis Moralia, id est, Opera, exceptis vitis, reliqua. Ed. by Daniel Wyttenbach. Oxon. 1795–1800, 8 vols. (including 2 Index vols.). French ed. by Dübner, in the Didot collection.
Plutarch’s Morals. Translated from the Greek by several Hands. London, 1684–’94, 5th ed. 1718. The same as corrected and revised by William W. Goodwin (Harvard University). With an introduction by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Boston, 1870, 5 vols.
Octave Greard: De la moralité de Plutarque. Paris, 1866.
Richard Chenevix Trench (Archbishop of Dublin): Plutarch, his life, his Parallel Lives, and his Morals. London (Macmillan & Co.), 2nd ed. 1874.
W. Möller: Ueber die Religion des Plutarch. Kiel, 1881.
Julia Wedgwood: Plutarch and the unconscious Christianity of the first two centuries. In the "Contemporary Review" for 1881, pp. 44–60.
Equally remarkable, as a representative of "unconscious Christianity" and "seeker after the unknown God" though from a different philosophical standpoint, is the greatest biographer and moralist of classical antiquity.
It is strange that So Trench calls
him, l.c. p. 112. The best account of his philosophy is given by Zeller
in his Philosophie der
Griechen, Part III., 141-182; and more briefly by
Ueberweg, Hist. of Phil. (Eng. Ver.) I. 234-236.
His aim, as a writer, was to show the greatness in
the acts and in the thoughts of the ancients, the former in his
"Parallel Lives," the latter in his "Morals," and by both to inspire
his contemporaries to imitation. They constitute together an
encyclopaedia of well-digested Greek and Roman learning. He was not a
man of creative genius, but of great talent, extensive information,
amiable, spirit, and universal sympathy. Emerson calls him "the chief
example of the illumination of the intellect by the force of morals." Introduction to
Goodwin’s ed. p. xi.
Plutarch endeavored to build up morality on the
basis of religion. He is the very opposite of Lucian, who as an
architect of ruin, ridiculed and undermined the popular religion. He
was a strong believer in God, and his argument against atheism is well
worth quoting." There has never been," he says, "a state of atheists.
You may travel over the world, and you may find cities without walls,
without king, without mint, without theatre or gymnasium; but you will
never find a city without God, without prayer, without oracle, without
sacrifice. Sooner may a city stand without foundations, than a state
without belief in the gods. This is the bond of all society and the
pillar of all legislation." Adv. Colotem (an
Epicurean), c. 31 (Moralia, ed. Tauchnitz, VI. 265).
In his treatise on The Wrong Fear of the Gods, he contrasts superstition with atheism as the two extremes which often meet, and commends piety or the right reverence of the gods as the golden mean. Of the two extremes he deems superstition the worse, because it makes the gods capricious, cruel, and revengeful, while they are friends of men, saviours (σωτῆρες), and not destroyers. (Nevertheless superstitious people can more easily be converted to true faith than atheists who have destroyed all religious instincts.)
His remarkable treatise on The Delays of Divine
Justice in punishing the wicked, · De
Sera Numinis Vindicta. in Goodwin’s ed. vol. IV.
140-188.
The crown of Plutarch’s character
is his humility, which was so very rare among ancient philosophers,
especially the Stoics, and which comes from true self-knowledge. He was
aware of the native depravity of the soul, which he calls "a storehouse
and treasure of many evils and maladies." Ποικίλον
τι καὶ
πολυπαθὲς
κακῶν
ταμεῖον
θησαύρισμα,
ὡς φησι
Δημόκριτος.
Animi ne an corporis affectiones sint pejores, c. 2 (in
Wyttenbach’s ed. Tom. III. p. 17).
We do not know how far the influence of these
saints of ancient paganism, as we may call Epictetus,
§ 94. Christian Morality.
The ancient world of classic heathenism, having arrived at the height of its glory, and at the threshold of its decay, had exhausted all the resources of human nature left to itself, and possessed no recuperative force, no regenerative principle. A regeneration of society could only proceed from religion. But the heathen religion had no restraint for vice, no comfort for the poor and oppressed; it was itself the muddy fountain of immorality. God, therefore, who in his infinite mercy desired not the destruction but the salvation of the race, opened in the midst of this hopeless decay of a false religion a pure fountain of holiness, love, and peace, in the only true and universal religion of his Son Jesus Christ.
In the cheerless waste of pagan corruption the small and despised band of Christians was an oasis fresh with life and hope. It was the salt of the earth, and the light of the world. Poor in this world’s goods, it bore the imperishable treasures of’ the kingdom of heaven. Meek and lowly in heart, it was destined, according to the promise of the Lord without a stroke of the sword, to inherit the earth. In submission it conquered; by suffering and death it won the crown of life.
The superiority of the principles of Christian ethics over the heathen standards of morality even under its most favorable forms is universally admitted. The superiority of the example of Christ over all the heathen sages is likewise admitted. The power of that peerless example was and is now as great as the power of his teaching. It is reflected in every age and every type of purity and goodness. But every period, while it shares in the common virtues and graces, has its peculiar moral physiognomy. The ante-Nicene age excelled in unworldliness, in the heroic endurance of suffering and persecution, in the contempt of death, and the hope of resurrection, in the strong sense of community, and in active benevolence.
Christianity, indeed, does not come "with
observation." Its deepest workings are silent and inward. The
operations of divine grace commonly shun the notice of the historian,
and await their revelation on the great day of account, when all that
is secret shall be made known. Who can measure the depth and breadth of
all those blessed experiences of forgiveness, peace, gratitude, trust
in God, love for God and love for man, humility and meekness, patience
and resignation, which have bloomed as vernal flowers on the soil of
the renewed heart since the first Christian Pentecost? Who can tell the
number and the fervor of Christian prayers and intercessions which have
gone up from lonely chambers, caves, deserts, and
martyrs’ graves in the silent night and the open day,
for friends and foes, for all classes of mankind, even for cruel
persecutors, to the throne of the exalted Saviour? But where this
Christian life has taken root in the depths of the soul it must show
itself in the outward conduct, and exert an elevating influence on
every calling and sphere of action. The Christian morality surpassed
all that the noblest philosophers of heathendom had ever taught or
labored for as the highest aim of man. The masterly picture of it in
the anonymous Epistle to Diognetus is no mere fancy sketch, but a
faithful copy from real life. See § 2,
p. 9. sq.
When the apologists indignantly repel the heathen
calumnies, and confidently point to the unfeigned piety, the brotherly
love, the love for enemies, the purity and chastity, the faithfulness
and integrity, the patience and gentleness, of the confessors of the
name of Jesus, they speak from daily experience and personal
observation. "We, who once served lust," could Octavius, cap.
35.
The humble and painful condition of the church
under civil oppression made hypocrisy more rare than in times of peace,
and favored the development of the heroic virtues. The Christians
delighted to regard themselves as soldiers of Christ, enlisted under
the victorious standard of the cross against sin, the world, and the
devil. The baptismal vow was their oath of perpetual allegiance; Sacramentum
militiae Christianae Symbolum,
or, tessera militaris. Character
militaris, stigma militare, . Octavius, cap.
37
Yet, on the other hand, the Christian life of the
period before Constantine has been often unwarrantably idealized. In a
human nature essentially the same, we could but expect the same faults
which we found even in the apostolic churches. The Epistles of
§ 95. The Church and Public Amusements.
Christianity is anything but sanctimonious gloominess
and misanthropic austerity. It is the fountain of true joy, and of that
peace which "passeth all understanding." But this joy wells up from the
consciousness of pardon and of fellowship with God, is inseparable from
holy earnestness, and has no concord with worldly frivolity and sensual
amusement, which carry the sting of a bad conscience, and beget only
disgust and bitter remorse. "What is more blessed," asks
Contrast with this the popular amusements of the
heathen: the theatre, the circus, and the arena. They were originally
connected with the festivals of the gods, but had long lost their
religious character and degenerated into nurseries of vice. The
theatre, once a school of public morals in the best days of Greece,
when Aeschylos and Sophocles furnished the plays, had since the time of
Augustus room only for low comedies and unnatural tragedies, with
splendid pageantry, frivolous music, and licentious dances. Friedlaender, II.
391: "Neben den gewaltigen
Aufregungen, die Circus und Arena boten, konnte die Bühne
ihre Anziehungskraft, für die Massen nur durch unedle Mittel
behaupten durch rohe Belustigung und raffinirten Sinnenkitzel: und so
hat sie, statt dem verderblichen Einfluss jener anderen Schauspiele die
Wage zu halten, zur Corruption und Verwilderung Roms nicht am wenigsten
beigetragcn." De Spectac. c. 10.
Comp. Minut. Felix, Octav. c. 37. Gibbon, ch. XXXI.
(vol. III. 384, ed. Smith).
The most popular, and at the same time the most
inhuman and brutalizing of these public spectacles were the
gladiatorial fights in the arena. There murder was practised as an art,
from sunrise to sunset, and myriads of men and beasts were sacrificed
to satisfy a savage curiosity and thirst for blood. At the inauguration
of the Flavian amphitheatre from five to nine thousand wild beasts
(according to different accounts) were slain in one day. No less than
ten thousand gladiators fought in the feasts which Trajan gave to the
Romans after the conquest of Dacia, and which lasted four months (a.d. 107). Under Probus (a.d. 281) as many as a hundred lions, a hundred lionesses,
two hundred leopards, three hundred bears, and a thousand wild boars
were massacred in a single day. Gibbon, ch. XII.
(I. 646).
The emperors patronized these various spectacles
as the surest means of securing the favor of the people, which clamored
for "Panem et
Circenses." Enormous sums were
wasted on them from the public treasury and private purses. Augustus
set the example. Nero was so extravagantly liberal in this direction
that the populace forgave his horrible vices, and even wished his
return from death. The parsimonious Vespasian built the most costly and
colossal amphitheatre the world has ever seen, incrusted with marble,
decorated with statues, and furnished with gold, silver, and amber.
Titus presented thousands of Jewish captives after the capture of
Jerusalem to the provinces of the East for slaughter in the arena. Even
Trajan and
The theatrical passion was not confined to Rome,
it spread throughout the provinces. Every considerable city had an
amphitheatre, and that was the most imposing building, as may be seen
to this day in the ruins at Pompeii, Capua, Puteoli, Verona, Nismes,
Autun (Augustodunum), and other places. See the long list
of amphitheatres in Friedlaender, II. 502-566.
Public opinion favored these demoralizing
amusements almost without a dissenting voice. Friedlaender, II.
370: "In der ganzen
römischen Literatur begegnen wir kaum einer Aeusserung des
Abscheus, den die heutige Welt gegen diese unmenschlichen Lustbarkeiten
empfindet. In der Regel werden die Fechterspiele mit der
grössten Gleichgiltigkeit erwähnt. Die Kinder
spielen Gladiatoren wie jetzt in Andalusien Stier und
Matador."
To this gigantic evil the Christian church opposed
an inexorable Puritanic rigor in the interest of virtue and humanity.
No compromise was possible with such shocking public immorality.
Nothing would do but to flee from it and to warn against it. The
theatrical spectacles were included in "the pomp of the devil," which
Christians renounced at their baptism. They were forbidden, on pain of
excommunication, to attend them. It sometimes happened that converts,
who were overpowered by their old habits and visited the theatre,
either relapsed into heathenism, or fell for a long time into a state
of deep dejection. De Habitu Muliebri,
and De Cultu Feminarum.
The opposition of the Church had, of course, at
first only a moral effect, but in the fourth century it began to affect
legislation, and succeeded at last in banishing at least the bloody
gladiatorial games from the civilized world (with the single exception
of Spain and the South American countries, which still disgrace
themselves by bull-fights). Constantine, even as late as 313, committed
a great multitude of defeated barbarians to the wild beasts for the
amusement of the people, and was highly applauded for this generous act
by a heathen orator; but after the Council of Nicaea, in 325, he issued
the first prohibition of those bloody spectacles in times of peace, and
kept them out of Constantinople. On the action of
his successors, see vol. III. 122 sq. Lecky, Hist. of
Europ. Morals, II. 36 sq.
§ 96. Secular Callings and Civil Duties.
As to the various callings of life, Christianity
gives the instruction: "Let each man abide in that calling wherein he
was called." Apol. c. 42. Exules vitae. "Militamus," which
proves that many Christians served in the army.
But there were at that time some callings which either ministered solely to sinful gratification, like that, of the stage-player, or were intimately connected with the prevailing idolatry, like the manufacture, decoration, and sale of mythological images and symbols, the divination of astrologers, and all species of magic. These callings were strictly forbidden in the church, and must be renounced by the candidate for baptism. Other occupations, which were necessary indeed, but commonly perverted by the heathens to fraudulent purposes—inn-keeping, for example—were elevated by the Christian spirit. Theodotus at Ancyra made his house a refuge for the Christians and a place of prayer in the Diocletian persecution, in which he himself suffered martyrdom.
In regard to military and civil offices under the
heathen government, opinion was divided. Some, on the authority of such
passages as
But in general the Christians of those days, with
their lively sense of foreignness to this world, and their longing for
the heavenly home, or the millennial reign of Christ, were averse to
high office in a heathen state. Apol. c. 38: "Nec
ulla res aliena magis quam publica."
The comparative indifference and partial aversion
of the Christians to the affairs of the state, to civil legislation and
administration exposed them to the frequent reproach and contempt of
the heathens. Their want of patriotism was partly the result of their
superior devotion to the church as their country, partly of their
situation in a hostile world. It must not be attributed to an "indolent
or criminal disregard for the public welfare" (as Gibbon intimates),
but chiefly to their just abhorrence of the innumerable idolatrous
rites connected with the public and private life of the heathens. While
they refused to incur the guilt of idolatry, they fervently and
regularly prayed for the emperor and the state, their enemies and
persecutors. See the prayer for
rulers in the newly discovered portions of the Epistle of
The patriotism of ancient Greece and republican
Rome, while it commands our admiration by the heroic devotion and
sacrifice to the country, was after all an extended selfishness, and
based upon the absolutism of the State and the disregard of the rights
of the individual citizen and the foreigner. It was undermined by
causes independent of Christianity. The amalgamation of different
nationalities in the empire extinguished sectionalism and exclusivism,
and opened the wide view of a universal humanity. Stoicism gave this
cosmopolitan sentiment a philosophical and ethical expression in the
writings of Seneca, Epictetus, and Gibbon, ch. 36,
admits this in part. "If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened
by the conversion of Constantine, the victorious religion broke the
violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the
conquerors." Milman says of the Church: "If treacherous(?) to the
interests of the Roman empire, it was true to those of mankind" (III.
48). Lecky (II. 153) says: "It is impossible to deny that the Christian
priesthood contributed materially both by their charity and by their
arbitration, to mitigate the calamities that accompanied the
dissolution of the empire; and it is equally impossible to doubt that
their political attitude greatly increased their power for good.
Standing between the conflicting form, almost indifferent to the issue,
and notoriously exempt from the passions of the combat, they obtained
with the conqueror, and used for the benefit of the conquered, a degree
of influence they would never have possessed had they been regarded as
Roman patriots." De Civ. Dei. l.c.
1.
§ 97. The Church and Slavery.
See Lit. vol. I. § 48, especially Wallon’s Histoire de l’esclavage (Paris, new ed. 1879, 3 vols). Comp. also V. Lechler: Sklaverei und Christenthum. Leipzig, 1877, 1878; Theod. Zahn: Sklaverei und Christenthum In Der Alten Welt. Heidelberg, 1879. Overbeck: Verh. d. alten Kirche zur Sclaverei im röm. Reiche. 1875.
Heathenism had no conception of the general and natural rights of men. The ancient republics consisted in the exclusive dominion of a minority over an oppressed majority. The Greeks and Romans regarded only the free, i.e. the free-born rich and independent citizens as men in the full sense of the term, and denied this privilege to the foreigners, the laborers, the poor, and the slaves. They claimed the natural right to make war upon all foreign nations, without distinction of race, in order to subject them to their iron rule. Even with Cicero the foreigner and the enemy are synonymous terms. The barbarians were taken in thousands by the chance of war (above 100,000 in the Jewish war alone) and sold as cheap as horses. Besides, an active slave-trade was carried on in the Euxine, the eastern provinces, the coast of Africa, and Britain. The greater part of mankind in the old Roman empire was reduced to a hopeless state of slavery, and to a half brutish level. And this evil of slavery was so thoroughly interwoven with the entire domestic and public life of the heathen world, and so deliberately regarded, even by the greatest philosophers, Aristotle for instance, as natural and indispensable, that the abolition of it, even if desirable, seemed to belong among the impossible things.
Yet from the outset Christianity has labored for this end; not by impairing the right of property, not by outward violence, nor sudden revolution; this, under the circumstances, would only have made the evil worse; but by its moral power, by preaching the divine descent and original unity of all men, their common redemption through Christ, the duty of brotherly love, and the true freedom of the spirit. It placed slaves and masters on the same footing of dependence on God and of freedom in God, the Father, Redeemer, and Judge of both. It conferred inward freedom even under outward bondage, and taught obedience to God and for the sake of God, even in the enjoyment of outward freedom. This moral and religious freedom must lead at last to the personal and civil liberty of the individual. Christianity redeems not only the soul but the body also, and the process of regeneration will end in the resurrection and glorification of the entire natural world.
In the period before us, however, the abolition of
slavery, save isolated cases of manumission, was utterly out of
question, considering only the enormous number of the slaves. The world
was far from ripe for such a step. The church, in her persecuted
condition, had as yet no influence at all over the machinery of the
state and the civil legislation. And she was at that time so absorbed
in the transcendent importance of the higher world and in her longing
for the speedy return of the Lord, that she cared little for earthly
freedom or temporal happiness. Hence
But the church before Constantine labored with
great success to elevate the intellectual and moral condition of the
slaves, to adjust inwardly the inequality between slaves and masters,
as the first and efficient step towards the final outward abolition of
the evil, and to influence the public opinion even of the heathens.
Here the church was aided by a concurrent movement in philosophy and
legislation. The cruel views of Cato, who advised to work the slaves,
like beasts of burden, to death rather than allow them to become old
and unprofitable, gave way to the milder and humane views of Seneca,
Pliny, and Plutarch, who very nearly approach the apostolic teaching.
To the influence of the later Stoic philosophy must be attributed many
improvements in the slave-code of imperial Rome. But the most important
improvements were made from the triumph of Constantine to the reign of
Justinian, under directly Christian influences. Constantine issued a
law in 315, forbidding the branding of slaves on the face to prevent
the disfiguration of the figure of celestial beauty (i.e. the image of
God). "Facies, quae ad
similitudinen pulchritudinis est coelestis figurata." Cod. Just. IX 17.
17.
It is here to be considered, first of all, that
Christianity spread freely among the slaves, except where they were so
rude and degraded as to be insensible to all higher impressions. They
were not rarely (as Totidem esse
hostes, quot servos." Seneca, Lib. v. c. 15 (ed.
Fritsche. Lips. 1842, p. 257). Inst. v. 14 (p.
257): "Deus enim, qui homines general et inspirat, omnes aequos, id est
pares esse voluit; eandem conditionem vivendi onnibus posuit; omnes ad
sapientiam genuit; omnibus immortalitatem spopondit, nemo a beneficiis
coelestibus segregatur .... Nemo apud cum servus est, nemo dominus; si
enim cunctis idem Pater est, aequo jure omnes liberi sumus.
The testimony of the catacombs, as contrasted with
pagan epitaphs, shows that Christianity almost obliterated the
distinction between the two classes of society. Slaves are rarely
mentioned. "While it is impossible," says De Rossi, "to examine the
pagan sepulchral inscriptions of the same period without finding
mention of a slave or a freedman, I have not met with one
well-ascertained instance among the inscriptions of the Christian
tombs." Bulletino for 1866,
p. 24. V. Schultze (Die
Katakomben, P. 258) infers from the monuments that in
the early Christian congregations slavery was reduced to a minimum.
The principles of Christianity naturally prompt
Christian slave-holders to actual manumission. The number of
slaveholders before Constantine was very limited among Christians, who
were mostly poor. Yet we read in the Acts of the martyrdom of the Roman
bishop Alexander, that a Roman prefect, Hermas, converted by that
bishop, in the reign of Trajan, received baptism at an Easter festival
with his wife and children and twelve hundred and fifty slaves, and on
this occasion gave all his slaves their freedom and munificent gifts
besides. Acta Sanct. Boll.
Maj. tom. i. p. 371 Acta Sanct. Ian.
tom. iii. 275. Acta Sanct. Maj.
tom. vi. 777. Champagny, Charité
chrét. p. 210 (as quoted by Lecky, II.
74).
These legendary traditions may indeed be doubted as to the exact facts in the case, and probably are greatly exaggerated; but they, are nevertheless conclusive as the exponents of the spirit which animated the church at that time concerning the duty of Christian masters. It was felt that in a thoroughly Christianized society there can be no room for despotism on the one hand and slavery on the other.
After the third century the manumission became a solemn act, which took place in the presence of the clergy and the congregation. It was celebrated on church festivals, especially on Easter. The master led the slave to the altar; there the document of emancipation was read, the minister pronounced the blessing, and the congregation received him as a free brother with equal rights and privileges. Constantine found this custom already established, and African councils of the fourth century requested the emperor to give it general force. He placed it under the superintendence of the clergy.
Notes.
H. Wallon, in his learned and able Histoire de
l’esclavage dans
l’antiquité (second ed.
Paris, 1879, 3 vols.), shows that the gospel in such passages as
§ 98. The Heathen Family.
In ancient Greece and Rome the state was the highest
object of life, and the only virtues properly
recognized—wisdom, courage, moderation, and
justice—were political virtues. Aristotle makes the
state, that is the organized body of free citizens Κοινωνία
τῶν
ἐλευθέρων.
This political absolutism destroys the proper dignity and rights of the individual and the family, and materially hinders the development of the domestic and private virtues. Marriage was allowed no moral character, but merely a political import for the preservation of the state, and could not be legally contracted except by free citizens. Socrates, in instructing his son concerning this institution, tells him, according to Xenophon, that we select only such wives as we hope will yield beautiful children. Plato recommends even community of women to the class of warriors in his ideal republic, as the best way to secure vigorous citizens. Lycurgus, for similar reasons, encouraged adultery under certain circumstances, requiring old men to lend their young and handsome wives to young and strong men.
Woman was placed almost on the same level with the
slave. She differs, indeed, from the slave, according to Aristotle, but
has, after all, really no will of her own, and is hardly capable of a
higher virtue than the slave. Shut up in a retired apartment of the
house, she spent her life with the slaves. As human nature is
essentially the same in all ages, and as it in never entirely forsaken
by the guidance of a kind Providence, we must certainly suppose that
female virtue was always more or less maintained and appreciated even
among the heathen. Such characters as Penelope, Nausicaa, Andromache,
Antigone, Iphigenia, and Diotima, of the Greek poetry and history, bear
witness of this. Plutarch’s advice to married people,
and his letter of consolation to his wife after the death of their
daughter, breathe a beautiful spirit of purity and affection. But the
general position assigned to woman by the poets, philosophers, and
legislators of antiquity, was one of social oppression and degradation.
In Athens she was treated as a minor during lifetime, and could not
inherit except in the absence of male heirs. To the question of
Socrates: "Is there any one with whom you converse less than with the
wife?" his pupil, Aristobulus, replies: "No one, or at least very few."
If she excelled occasionally, in Greece, by wit and culture, and, like
Aspasia, Phryne, Laïs, Theodota, attracted the admiration
and courtship even of earnest philosophers like Socrates, and statesmen
like Pericles, she generally belonged to the disreputable class of the
hetaerae or amicae. In Corinth they were attached to the temple of
Aphrodite, and enjoyed the sanction of religion for the practice of
vice. Their name ἑταῖραι
was an Attic euphonism for πόρναι. In the
temple of Aphrodite at Corinth more than a thousand hetaerae were
employed as hierodulae and were the ruin of foreigners (Strabo, VIII.
6, 20). Κορινθία
κόρη was a synonym for hetaera,
and expressive of the acme of voluptuousness. A full account of these
hetaerae and of the whole domestic life of the ancient Greeks may be
found in Becker’s Charicles, translated by Metcalf,
third ed. London, 1866. Becker says (p. 242), that in the period of the
greatest refinement of classical Greece, "sensuality, if not the
mother, was at all events the nurse of the Greek perception of the
beautiful." Plato himself, even in his ideal state, despaired of
restricting his citizens to the lawful intercourse of marriage. Aspasia bewitched
Pericles by her beauty and genius; and Socrates acknowledged his deep
obligation to the instructions of a courtesan named Diotima.
Modesty forbids the mention of a still more odious
vice, which even depraved nature abhors, which yet was freely discussed
and praised by ancient poets and philosophers, practised with neither
punishment nor dishonor, and likewise divinely sanctioned by the
example of Apollo and Hercules, and by the lewdness of Jupiter with
Ganymede. Lecky (II. 311)
derives this unnatural vice of Greece from the influence of the public
games, which accustomed men to the contemplation of absolute nudity,
and awoke unnatural passions. See the thirteenth book of Athenaeus,
Grote on the Symposium of Plato, and the full account in
Döllinger’s Heidenthum und Judenthum, 1857, p. 684 sqq.
He says: "Bei den Griechen tritt
das Laster der Paederastie mit allen symptomen einer grossen nationalen
Krankheit, gleichsam eines ethischen Miasma auf; es zeigt. sich als ein
Gefühl, das stärker and heftiger wirkte, als die
Weiberliebe bei andern Völkern, massloser,
leidenschaftlicher in seinem Ausbrüchen war ... In der
ganzen Literatur der vorchristlichen Periode ist kaum ein
Schriftsteller zu finden, der sich entschieden dagegen
erklärt hätte. Vielmehr war die ganze
Gesellschaft davon angesteckt, und man athmete das Miama, so zu sagen,
mit der Luft ein." Even Socrates and Plato gave this
morbid vice the sanction of their great authority, if not in practice,
at least in theory. Comp. Xenophon’s Mem. VIII. 2,
Plato’s Charmides, and his descriptions of Eros, and
Döllinger, l.c. p. 686 sq. Zeno, the founder of the austere
sect of Stoics, was praised for the moderation with which he practiced
this vice.
The Romans were originally more virtuous,
domestic, and chaste, as they were more honest and conscientious, than
the Greeks. With them the wife was honored by the title domina,
matrona, materfamilias. At the head of their sacerdotal system stood
the flamens of Jupiter, who represented marriage in its purity, and the
vestal virgins, who represented virginity. The Sabine women interceding
between their parents and their husbands, saved the republic; the
mother and the wife of Coriolanus by her prayers averted his wrath, and
raised the siege of the Volscian army; Lucretia who voluntarily
sacrificed her life to escape the outrage to her honor offered by king
Tarquin, and Virginia who was killed by her father to save her from
slavery and dishonor, shine in the legendary history of Rome as bright
examples of unstained purity. But even in the best days of the republic
the legal status of woman was very low. The Romans likewise made
marriage altogether subservient to the interest of the state, and
allowed it in its legal form to free citizens alone. The proud maxims
of the republic prohibited even the legitimate nuptials of a Roman with
a foreign queen; and Cleopatra and Berenice were, as strangers,
degraded to the position of concubines of Mark Antony and Titus.
According to ancient custom the husband bought his bride from her
parents, and she fulfilled the coëmption by purchasing, with
three pieces of copper, a just introduction to his house and household
deities. But this was for her simply an exchange of one servitude for
another. She became the living property of a husband who could lend her
out, as Cato lent his wife to his friend Hortensius, and as Augustus
took Livia from Tiberius Nero." Her husband or master, says Gibbon, Chapter XLIV.,
where he discusses at length the Roman code of laws.
Monogamy was the rule both in Greece and in Rome,
but did not exclude illegitimate connexions. Concubinage, in its proper
legal sense, was a sort of secondary marriage with a woman of servile
or plebeian extraction, standing below the dignity of a matron and
above the infamy of a prostitute. It was sanctioned and regulated by
law; it prevailed both in the East and the West from the age of
Augustus to the tenth century, and was preferred to regular marriage by
Vespasian, and the two Antonines, the best Roman emperors. Adultery was
severely punished, at times even with sudden destruction of the
offender; but simply as an interference with the rights and property of
a free man. The wife had no legal or social protection against
the infidelity of her husband. The Romans worshipped a peculiar goddess
of domestic life; but her name Viriplaca, the appeaser of
husbands, indicates her partiality. The intercourse of a husband with
the slaves of his household and with public prostitutes was excluded
from the odium and punishment of adultery. We say nothing of that
unnatural abomination alluded to in Lecky, II. 321.
Divorce is said to have been almost unknown in the
ancient days of the Roman republic, and the marriage tie was regarded
as indissoluble. A senator was censured for kissing his wife in the
presence of their daughter. But the merit of this virtue is greatly
diminished if we remember that the husband always had an easy outlet
for his sensual passions in the intercourse with slaves and concubines.
Nor did it outlast the republic. After the Punic war the increase of
wealth and luxury, and the influx of Greek and Oriental licentiousness
swept away the stern old Roman virtues. The customary civil and
religious rites of marriage were gradually disused; the open community
of life between persons of similar rank was taken as sufficient
evidence of their nuptials; and marriage, after Augustus, fell to the
level of any partnership, which might be dissolved by the abdication of
one of the associates. "Passion, interest, or caprice," says Gibbon on
the imperial age, "suggested daily, motives for the dissolution of
marriage; a word, a sign, a message, a letter, the mandate of a
freedman, declared the separation; the most tender of human connections
was degraded to a transient society of profit or pleasure." Gibbon (ch. XLIV.)
confirms the statement by several examples, to which more might be
added. Maecenas, "qui uxores millies duxit" (Seneca,
Various remedies were tardily adopted as the evil spread, but they proved inefficient, until the spirit of Christianity gained the control of public opinion and improved the Roman legislation, which, however, continued for a long time to fluctuate between the custom of heathenism and the wishes of the church. Another radical evil of heathen family life, which the church had to encounter throughout the whole extent of the Roman Empire, was the absolute tyrannical authority of the parent over the children, extending even to the power of life and death, and placing the adult son of a Roman citizen on a level with the movable things and slaves, "whom the capricious master might alienate or destroy, without being responsible to any earthly tribunal."
With this was connected the unnatural and
monstrous custom of exposing poor, sickly, and deformed children to a
cruel death, or in many cases to a life of slavery and infamy-a custom
expressly approved, for the public interest, even by a Plato, an
Aristotle, and a Seneca! "Monstrous offspring," says the great Stoic
philosopher, "we destroy; children too, if born feeble and ill-formed,
we drown. It is not wrath, but reason, thus to separate the useless
from the healthy." "The exposition of children"—to
quote once more from Gibbon—"was the prevailing and
stubborn vice of antiquity: it was sometimes prescribed, often
permitted, almost always practised with impunity by the nations who
never entertained the Roman ideas of paternal power; and the dramatic
poets, who appeal to the human heart, represent with indifference a
popular custom which was palliated by the motives of economy and
compassion .... The Roman Empire was stained with the blood of infants,
till such murders were included, by Valentinian and his colleagues, in
the letter and spirit of the Cornelian law. The lessons of
jurisprudence and Christianity had been insufficient to eradicate this
inhuman practice, till their gentle influence was fortified by the
terrors of capital punishment." Ch. XLIV. See a
good chapter on the exposure of children in Brace, Gesta Christi, p.
72-83.
§ 99. The Christian Family.
Such was the condition of the domestic life of the ancient world, when Christianity, with its doctrine of the sanctity of marriage, with its injunction of chastity, and with its elevation of woman from her half-slavish condition to moral dignity and equality with man, began the work of a silent transformation, which secured incalculable blessings to generations yet unborn. It laid the foundation for a well-ordered family life. It turned the eye from the outward world to the inward sphere of affection, from the all-absorbing business of politics and state-life into the sanctuary of home; and encouraged the nurture of those virtues of private life, without which no true public virtue can exist. But, as the evil here to be abated, particularly the degradation of the female sex and the want of chastity, was so deeply rooted and thoroughly interwoven in the whole life of the old world, this ennobling of the family, like the abolition of slavery, was necessarily a very slow process. We cannot wonder, therefore, at the high estimate of celibacy, which in the eyes of many seemed to be the only radical escape from the impurity and misery of married life as it generally stood among the heathen. But, although the fathers are much more frequent and enthusiastic in the praise of virginity than in that of marriage, yet their views on this subject show an immense advance upon the moral standard of the greatest sages and legislators of Greece and Rome.
Chastity before marriage, in wedlock, and in
celibacy, in man as well as in woman, so rare in paganism, was raised
to the dignity of a cardinal virtue and made the corner-stone of the
family. Many a female martyr preferred cruel torture and death to the
loss of honor. When St. Perpetua fell half dead from the horns of a
wild bull in the arena, she instinctively drew together her dress,
which had been torn in the assault. The acts of martyrs and saints tell
marvellous stories, exaggerated no doubt, yet expressive of the ruling
Christian sentiment, about heroic resistance to carnal temptation, the
sudden punishment of unjust charges of impurity by demoniacal
possession or instant death, the rescue of courtesans from a life of
shame and their radical conversion and elevation even to canonical
sanctity. Among the converted
courtesans of the ancient church in the Roman calendar are St. Mary
Magdalene, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Afra, St. Pelagia, St. Thais, and St.
Theodota. See Charles de Bussy Les
Courtisanes saintes. St. Vitalius, it is said,
visited dens of vice every night, gave money to the inmates to keep
them from sin, and offered up prayers for their conversion. A curious
story is told of St. Serapion, who went to such a place by appointment,
and prayed and prayed and prayed till the unfortunate courtesan was
converted and fell half dead at his feet. See Lecky, II. 338.
Woman was emancipated, in the best sense of the
term, from the bondage of social oppression, and made the life and
light of a Christian home. Such pure and heroic virgins as the martyred
Blandina, and Perpetua, and such devoted mothers as Nonna, Anthusa, and
Monica, we seek in vain among the ancient Greek and Roman maidens and
matrons, and we need not wonder that the heathen Libanius, judging from
such examples as the mother of his pupil This beautiful idea
(often attributed to Matthew Henry, the commentator) was first
suggested by
At the same time here also we must admit that the ancient church was yet far behind the ideal set up in the New Testament, and counterbalanced the elevation of woman by an extravagant over-estimate of celibacy. It was the virgin far more than the faithful wife and mother of children that was praised and glorified by the fathers; and among the canonized saints of the Catholic calendar there is little or no room for husbands and wives, although the patriarchs, Moses, and some of the greatest prophets (Isaiah, Ezekiel), and apostles (Peter taking the lead) lived in honorable wedlock.
Marriage was regarded in the church from the
beginning as a sacred union of body and soul for the propagation of
civil society, and the kingdom of God, for the exercise of virtue and
the promotion of happiness. It was clothed with a sacramental or
semi-sacramental character on the basis of Paul’s
comparison of the marriage union with the relation of Christ to his
church.
We have a few descriptions of Christian homes from the ante-Nicene age, one from an eminent Greek father, another from a married presbyter of the Latin church.
Εὐχὴ
καὶ
ἀνάγνωσις. Paedag. III.
250
Ad Uxorem, l II.c.
8.
A large sarcophagus represents a scene of family worship: on the right, four men, with rolls in their hands, reading or singing; on the left, three women and a girl playing a lyre.
For the conclusion of a marriage, Ad Polyc. c. 5. In
the Syr. version, c. 2. Tert. Ad Uxor. II.
8; Comp. De Monog. c. 11; De Pudic. c. 4.
In the catacombs the marriage ceremony is
frequently represented by the man and the woman standing side by side
and joining hands in token of close union, as also on heathen
documents. On a gilded glass of the fourth century, the couple join
hands over a small nuptial altar, and around the figures are inscribed
the words (of the priest): "May ye live in God." Vivatis in Deo. See
the picture in Northcote and Brownlow, II. 303. In other and later
pictures the ceremony is presided over by Christ, who either crowns the
married couple, or is represented by his monogram. Ibid. p. 302.
Mixed marriages with heathens and also with
heretics, were unanimously condemned by the voice of the church in
agreement with the Mosaic legislation, unless formed before conversion,
in which case they were considered valid. According to
Second marriage.—From the high
view of marriage, and also from an ascetic over-estimate of celibacy,
arose a very, prevalent aversion to re-marriage, particularly of
widows. The Shepherd of Hermas allows this reunion indeed, but with the
reservation, that continuance in single life earns great honor with the
Lord. Athenagoras goes so far as to call the second marriage a "decent
adultery." Legat. 33: Ὁ
δεύτερος
γάμος
εὐπρεπής
ἐστι
μοισεία.
According to
The Montanists and
Comp. Hauber: De Monog. 1:
"Haeretici nuptias auferunt, psychici ingerunt; illi nec semel, isti
non semel nubunt." De Exhort Cast. c.
11: "Duplex rubor est, quia in secundo matramonio duae uxores eundem
circumstant maritum, una spiritu, alia in carne. Nequeenim pristinam
poteris odisse, cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem ut jam
receptae apud Dominum, pro cujus spiritu postulas, pro qua oblationes
annuas reddis. Stabis ergo ad Dominum cum tot uxoribus quot in oratione
commemoras, et offeres pro duabus," etc. De Exhort Cast. c.
9:Leges videntur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere, per
diversitatem illiciti, non per conditionem rei ipsius .... Nuptiae
ipsae ex eo constant quod est stuprum."
The Catholic church, indeed, kept aloof from this
Montanistic extravagance, and forbade second marriage only to the
clergy (which the Greek church does to this day); yet she rather
advised against it, and leaned very decidedly towards a preference for
celibacy, as a higher grade of Christian morality. "Non prohibemus
secundas nuptias, " says Ambrose, "sed non suademus." None of the
fathers recommends remarriage or even approves of it. Jerome
represented the prevailing view of the Nicene age. He took the lowest
view of marriage as a mere safeguard against fornication and adultery,
and could conceive of no other motive for second or third marriage but
animal passion. "The first Adam, " he says, "had one wife; the second
Adam had no wife. Those who approve of digamy hold forth a third Adam,
who was twice married, whom they follow" (Contra Jovin. 1). Gregory of
Nazianzum infers from the analogy of marriage to the union of Christ
with his church that second marriage is to be reproved, as there is but
one Christ and one church (Orat. XXXI).
As to the relation of parents and children,
Christianity exerted from the beginning a most salutary influence. It
restrained the tyrannical power of the father. It taught the eternal
value of children as heirs of the kingdom of heaven, and commenced the
great work of education on a religious and moral basis. It resisted
with all energy the exposition of children, who were then generally
devoured by dogs and wild beasts, or, if found, trained up for slavery
or doomed to a life of infamy. Several apologists, the author to the
Epistle of Diognetus, Apol. I. 27 and
29. Apol. c. 35 Inst. Div. vi. 20
(p. 48 ed. Lips): "Let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to
strangle newly-born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God
breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men (that
there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands)
deprive souls as yet innocent and simple of the light which they
themselves have not given. Can they be considered innocent who expose
their own offspring as a prey to dogs, and as far as it depends upon
themselves, kill them in a more cruel manner than if they had strangled
them? Who can doubt that he is impious who gives occasion for the pity
of others? For, although that which he has wished should befall the
child—namely, that it should be brought
up—he has certainly consigned his own offspring either
to servitude or to the brothel? But who does not understand, who is
ignorant what things may happen, or are accustomed to happen, in the
case of each sex, even through error? For this is shown by the example
of OEdipus alone, confused with twofold guilt. It is therefore as
wicked to expose as it is to kill. But truly parricides complain of the
scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for
bringing up more children; as though, in truth, their means were in the
power of these who possess them, or God did not daily make the rich
poor, and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on account of poverty
shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from
marriage than with wicked hands to mar the work of God." For further details
see Brace, l.c. 79 sqq., and Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des enfants
trouvés. Paris, 1840.
§ 100. Brotherly Love, and Love for Enemies.
Schaubach: Das Verhältniss der Moral des classischen Alterthums zur christlichen, beleuchtet durch vergleichende Erörterung der Lehre von der Feindesliebe, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1851, p. 59–121. Also the works of Schmidt, Chastel, Uhlhorn, etc., quoted at § 88 above.
It is generally admitted, that selfishness was the
soul of heathen morality. The great men of antiquity rose above its
sordid forms, love of gain and love of pleasure, but were the more
under the power of ambition and love of fame. It was for fame that
Miltiades and Themistocles fought against the Persians; that Alexander
set out on his tour of conquest; that Herodotus wrote his history, that
Pindar sang his odes, that Sophocles composed his tragedies, that
Demosthenes delivered his orations, that Phidias sculptured his Zeus.
Fame was set forth in the Olympian games as the highest object of life;
fame was held up by Aeschylus as the last comfort of the suffering;
fame was declared by Cicero, before a large assembly, the ruling
passion of the very best of men. Pro Archia poeta,
c. 11: "Trahimur omnes laudis studio, et optimus quisque maxime gloria
ducitur." Ταπεινός.
ταπεινόφρων,ταπεινότης,
ταπεινοφροσύνη. Prom. Vinct. v.
1005, Comp. 1040. Many passages of similar import from Homer, Hesiod,
Sophocles, Euripedes, etc., see quoted on p. 81 sqq. of the article of
Schaubach referred to above.
On the other hand, however, we should suppose that
every Christian virtue must find some basis in the noblest moral
instincts and aspirations of nature; since Christianity is not against
nature, but simply above it and intended for it. Thus we may regard the
liberality, benevolence, humanity and magnanimity which we meet with in
heathen antiquity, as an approximation to, and preparation for, the
Christian virtue of charity. The better schools of moralists rose more
or less above the popular approval of hatred of the enemy, wrath and
revenge. Aristotle and the Peripatetics, without condemning this
passion as wrong in itself, enjoined at least moderation in its
exercise. The Stoics went further, and required complete apathy or
suppression of all strong and passionate affections. Cicero even
declares placability and clemency one of the noblest traits in the
character of a great man, De Offic. I. 25:
"Nihil enim laudabilius, nihil magno et praeclaro viro dignius
placabilitate et clementia."
But this sort of love for an enemy, it should be
remembered, in the first place, does not flow naturally from the spirit
of heathenism, but is, as it were, an accident and exception; secondly,
it is not enjoined as a general duty, but expected only from the great
and the wise; thirdly, it does not rise above the conception of
magnanimity, which, more closely considered, is itself connected with a
refined form of egotism, and with a noble pride that regards it below
the dignity of a gentleman to notice the malice of inferior men; Comp. Seneca, De
ira II. 32: "Magni animi est injurias despicere. Illemagnus et nobilis
est, qui more magnae ferae latratus minutorum canum securus
exaudit."
No wonder, then, that in spite of the finest maxims of a few philosophers, the imperial age was controlled by the coldest selfishness, so that, according to the testimony of Plutarch, friendship had died out even in families, and the love of brothers and sisters was supposed to be possible only in a heroic age long passed by. The old Roman world was a world without charity. Julian the Apostate, who was educated a Christian, tried to engraft charity upon heathenism, but in vain. The idea of the infinite value of each human soul, even the poorest and humblest, was wanting, and with it the basis for true charity.
It was in such an age of universal egotism that
Christianity first revealed the true spirit of love to man as flowing
from the love of God, and exhibited it in actual life. This cardinal
virtue we meet first within the Church itself, as the bond of union
among believers, and the sure mark of the genuine disciple of Jesus.
"That especially," says
This brotherly love flowed from community of life
in Christ. Hence Χριστοφόροι,
θεοφόροι Γράμματα
τετυπωμένα
or κοινωνικά:
epistolae or literae formatae; so called, because composed after a
certain τύπος or forma, to
guard against frequent forgeries.
The brotherly love expressed itself, above all, in
the most self-sacrificing beneficence to the poor and sick, to widows
and orphans, to strangers and prisoners, particularly to confessors in
bonds. It magnifies this virtue in our view, to reflect, that the
Christians at that time belonged mostly to the lower classes, and in
times of persecution often lost all their possessions. Every
congregation was a charitable society, and in its public worship took
regular collections for its needy members. The offerings at the
communion and love-feasts, first held on the evening, afterwards on the
morning of the Lord’s Day, were considered a part of
worship. Comp. Comelius, in Euseb.
H. E. VI. 43. De Morte Peregr. c.
13.
This beneficence reached beyond the immediate
neighborhood. Charity begins at home, but does not stay at, home. In
cases of general distress the bishops appointed special collections,
and also fasts, by which food might be saved for suffering brethren.
The Roman church sent its charities great distances abroad. Dionysius of
Corinth, in Eus. IV. 23.
Finally, this brotherly love expanded to love even
for enemies, which returned the heathens good for evil, and not rarely,
in persecutions and public misfortunes, heaped coals of fire on their
heads. During the persecution under Gallus (252), when the pestilence
raged in Carthage, and the heathens threw out their dead and sick upon
the streets, ran away from them for fear of the contagion, and cursed
the Christians as the supposed authors of the plague, Ad Scapulam, c. 1:
Ita enim disciplina jubemur diligere inimicos quoque, et orare pro iis
qui nos persequuntur, ut haec sit perfecta et propria bonitas nostra,
non communis. Amicos enim diligere omnium est, inimicos autem solorum
Christianorum."
The organized congregational charity of the
ante-Nicene age provided for all the immediate wants. When the state
professed Christianity, there sprang up permanent charitable
institutions for the poor, the sick, for strangers, widows, orphans,
and helpless old men. Nosocomia,
Ptochotrophia, Xenodochia, Cherotrophia, Orphanotrophia, Brephotrophia,
Gerontocomia (for old men). See Uhlhorn, Book
III.ch. 4 (p. 319 sqq.).
§ 101. Prayer and Fasting.
In regard to the importance and the necessity of
prayer, as the pulse and thermometer of spiritual life, the ancient
church had but one voice. Here the plainest and the most enlightened
Christians met; the apostolic fathers, the steadfast apologists, the
realistic Africans, and the idealistic Alexandrians. De Orat. Domin. 33:
"Cito orationes ad Deum adscendunt, quas ad Deum merita operis nostri
imponunt."De Lapsis 17:"Dominus orandus est, Dominus nostra
satisfactione placandus est."Epist. xl. 2: "Preces et orationes, quibus
Dominus longa et continua satisfactione placandus est."
The order of human life, however, demands special times for this consecration of the every-day business of men. The Christians generally followed the Jewish usage, observed as times of prayer the hours of nine, twelve, and three, corresponding also to the crucifixion of Christ, his death, and his descent from the cross; the cock-crowing likewise, and the still hour of midnight they regarded as calls to prayer.
With prayer for their own welfare, they united
intercessions for the whole church, for all classes of men, especially
for the sick and the needy, and even for the unbelieving.
With the free outpourings of the heart, without
which living piety cannot exist, we must suppose, that, after the
example of the Jewish church, standing forms of prayer were also used,
especially such as were easily impressed on the memory and could thus
be freely delivered. The familiar "ex pectore" and "sine monitore" of
As to posture in prayer; kneeling or standing, the
raising or closing of the eyes, the extension or elevation of the
hands, were considered the most suitable expressions of a bowing spirit
and a soul directed towards God. On Sunday the standing posture was
adopted, in token of festive joy over the resurrection from sin and
death. But there was no uniform law in regard to these forms.
After the Jewish custom, fasting was frequently joined with prayer, that the mind,
unencumbered by earthly matter, might devote itself with less
distraction to the contemplation of divine things. The apostles
themselves sometimes employed this wholesome discipline, Comp. Semijejunium,
abstinentia.
In the second century arose also the custom of
Quadragesimal fasts before Easter, which, however, differed in length
in different countries; being sometimes reduced to forty hours,
sometimes extended to forty days, or at least to several weeks. Perhaps
equally ancient are the nocturnal fasts or vigils before the high
festivals, suggested by the example of the Lord and the apostles. From quatuor
tempora. Comp.
This rigidity appeared most in the Montanists.
Besides the usual fasts, they observed special Xerophagiae Ξηροφαγίαι,
aridus victus. See
Against the frequent over-valuation of fasting,
§ 102. Treatment of the Dead
Comp. Chapter VII. on the Catacombs.
The pious care of the living for the beloved dead is
rooted in the noblest instincts of human future, and is found among all
nations, ancient and modern, even among barbarians. Hence the general
custom of surrounding the funeral with solemn rites and prayers, and
giving the tomb a sacred and inviolable character. The profane
violation of the dead and robbery of graves were held in desecration,
and punished by law. And it occurs
occasionally even among Christian nations. The corpse of the richest
merchant prince of New York, Alexander T. Stewart (d. 1876), was stolen
from St. Mark’s grave-yard, and his splendid mausoleum
in Garden City on Long Island is empty.
Iliad XXIII. 81-88, in Bryant’s translation (IT. 284)-
Christianity intensified this regard for the
departed, and gave it a solid foundation by the doctrine of the
immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body. Julian the
Apostate traced the rapid spread and power of that religion to three
causes: benevolence, care of the dead, and honesty. Epist, XLIX. ad
Arsacium, the pagan high-priest in Galatia. Eus. IX. 8. Instit. Div. Vl.c.
12
The early church differed from the pagan and even
from the Jewish notions by a cheerful and hopeful view of death, and by
discarding lamentations, rending of clothes, and all signs of
extravagant grief. The terrors of the grave were dispelled by the light
of the resurrection, and the idea of death was transformed into the
idea of a peaceful slumber. No one, says Testim. l. III.c.
58 Comp. Comp. We have the funeral
orations of "Pro anima ejus
orat!" Compare, however, the prevailing cheerful tone of the epigraphs
in the catacombs, p. 301-303.
The same feeling of the inseparable communion of
saints gave rise to the usage, unknown to the heathens, of consecrated
places of common burial. Κοιμητήρια,
cimeteria, dormitoria, areae.
We close with a few stanzas of the Spanish poet
Prudentius (d. 405), in which he gives forcible expression to the views
and feelings of the ancient church before the open grave: From his Iam maesta
quiesce querela, the concluding part of his tenth Cathemerinon, Opera,
ed. Obbarius (1845), p. 41; Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 506 (London
ed.). Another version by E. Cagwall: "Cease, ye tearful mourners, Thus
your hearts to rend: Death is life’s beginning Rather
than its end."
§ 103. Summary of Moral Reforms.
Christianity represents the thoughts and purposes of God in history. They shine as so many stars in the darkness of sin and error. They are unceasingly opposed, but make steady progress and are sure of final victory. Heathen ideas and practices with their degrading influences controlled the ethics, politics, literature, and the house and home of emperor and peasant, when the little band of despised and persecuted followers of Jesus of Nazareth began the unequal struggle against overwhelming odds and stubborn habits. It was a struggle of faith against superstition, of love against selfishness, of purity against corruption, of spiritual forces against political and social power.
Under the inspiring influence of the spotless purity of Christ’s teaching and example, and aided here and there by the nobler instincts and tendencies of philosophy, the Christian church from the beginning asserted the individual rights of man, recognized the divine image in every rational being, taught the common creation and common redemption, the destination of all for immortality and glory, raised the humble and the lowly, comforted the prisoner and captive, the stranger and the exile, proclaimed chastity as a fundamental virtue, elevated woman to dignity and equality with man, upheld the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage tie, laid the foundation of a Christian family and happy home, moderated the evils and undermined the foundations of slavery, opposed polygamy and concubinage, emancipated the children from the tyrannical control of parents, denounced the exposure of children as murder, made relentless war upon the bloody games of the arena and the circus, and the shocking indecencies of the theatre, upon cruelty and oppression and every vice infused into a heartless and loveless world the spirit of love and brotherhood, transformed sinners into saints, frail women into heroines, and lit up the darkness of the tomb by the bright ray of unending bliss in heaven.
Christianity reformed society from the bottom, and built upwards until it reached the middle and higher classes, and at last the emperor himself. Then soon after the conversion of Constantine it began to influence legislation, abolished cruel institutions, and enacted laws which breathe the spirit of justice and humanity. We may deplore the evils which followed in the train of the union of church and state, but we must not overlook its many wholesome effects upon the Justinian code which gave Christian ideas an institutional form and educational power for whole generations to this day. From that time on also began the series of charitable institutions for widows and orphans, for the poor and the sick, the blind and the deaf, the intemperate and criminal, and for the care of all unfortunate,—institutions which we seek in vain in any other but Christian countries.
Nor should the excesses of asceticism blind us against the moral heroism of renouncing rights and enjoyments innocent in themselves, but so generally abused and poisoned, that total abstinence seemed to most of the early fathers the only radical and effective cure. So in our days some of the best of men regard total abstinence rather than temperance, the remedy of the fearful evils of intemperance.
Christianity could not prevent the irruption of
the Northern barbarians and the collapse of the Roman empire. The
process of internal dissolution had gone too far; nations as well as
individuals may physically and morally sink so low that they, are
beyond the possibility of recovery.
ASCETIC TENDENCIES.
§ 104. Ascetic Virtue and Piety.
Ad. Möhler (R.C.): Geschichte des Mönchthums in der Zeit seiner ersten Entstehung u. ersten Ausbildung, 1836 ("Vermischte Schriften," ed. Döllinger. Regensb. 1839, II. p. 165 sqq.).
Is. Taylor (Independent): Ancient Christianity, 4th ed. London, 1844, I. 133–299 (anti-Puseyite and anti Catholic).
H. Ruffner (Presbyt.): The Fathers of the Desert; or an Account of the Origin and Practice of Monkery among heathen nations; its passage into the church; and some wonderful Stories of the Fathers concerning the primitive Monks and Hermits. N. York, 1850. 2 vols.
Otto Zöckler (Lutheran): Kritische Geschichte der Askese. Frkf. and Erlangen, 1863 (434 pages).
P. E. Lucius Die Therapeuten und ihre Stellung in der Geschichte der Askese. Strasburg, 1879.
H. Weingarten: Ueber den Ursprung des Mönchthums im nach-Konstantinischen Zeittalter. Gotha, 1877. And his article in Herzog’s "Encykl." new ed. vol. X. (1882) p. 758 sqq. (abridged in Schaff’s Herzog, vol. II. 1551 sqq. N. Y. 1883).
Ad. Harnack: Das Mönchthum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte. Giessen, 1882.
The general literature on Monasticism is immense, but belongs to the next period. See vol. III. 147 sq., and the list of books in Zöckler, l.c. p. 10–16.
Here we enter a field where the early church appears most remote from the free spirit of evangelical Protestantism and modern ethics and stands nearest the legalistic and monastic ethics of Greek and Roman Catholicism. Christian life was viewed as consisting mainly in certain outward exercises, rather than an inward disposition, in a multiplicity of acts rather than a life of faith. The great ideal of virtue was, according to the prevailing notion of the fathers and councils, not so much to transform the world and sanctify the natural things and relations created by God, as to flee from the world into monastic seclusion, and voluntarily renounce property and marriage. The Pauline doctrine of faith and of justification by grace alone steadily retreated, or rather, it was never yet rightly enthroned in the general thought and life of the church. The qualitative view of morality yielded more and more to quantitative calculation by the number of outward meritorious and even supererogatory works, prayer, fasting, alms-giving, voluntary poverty, and celibacy. This necessarily brought with it a Judaizing self-righteousness and overestimate of the ascetic life, which developed, by an irresistible impulse, into the hermit-life and monasticism of the Nicene age. All the germs of this asceticism appear in the second half of the third century, and even earlier.
Asceticism in general is a rigid outward
self-discipline, by which the spirit strives after full dominion over
the flesh, and a superior grade of virtue. Ἄσκησις, from ἀσκέω,to
exercise, to strengthen; primarily applied to athletic and gymnastic
exercise-, but used also, even by the heathens and by Philo, of moral
self-discipline. Clement of Alex. represents the whole Christian life
as an ἄσκησις
(Strom. IV. 22) and calls the patriarch Jacob an ἀσκητής(Paedlag.
I. 7). But at the same time the term ἀσκηταίwas
applied from the middle of the second century by Athenagoras,
Asceticism is by no means limited to the Christian
church, but it there developed its highest and noblest form. We observe
kindred phenomena long before Christ; among the Jews, in the Nazarites,
the Essenes, and the cognate Therapeutae, As described by
Philo in his tract De vita contemplativa (περὶ
βίου
θεωρητικοῦ).
The Serapis monks
have been made known by the researches of Letronne, Boissier, and
especially Brunet de Presle (Mémoire sur le Sérapeum de
Memphis, 1852 and 1865). Weingarten derives Christian
monasticism from this source, and traces the resemblance of the two.
Pachomius was himself a monk of Serapis before his conversion. See
Revillout, Le reclus du
Serapeum (Paris 1880, quoted by Weingarten in Herzog
X. 784).
In the ancient church there was a special class of
Christians of both sexes who, under the name of "ascetics" or
"abstinents," Ἀσκηταί, continentes
also παρθένοι,
virgines. Ἀσκητήριον.
While as yet each congregation was a lonely oasis
in the desert of the world’s corruption, and stood in
downright opposition to the surrounding heathen world, these ascetics
had no reason for separating from it and flying into the desert. It was
under and after Constantine, and partly as the result of the union of
church and state, the consequent transfer of the world into the church,
and the cessation of martyrdom, that asceticism developed itself to
anchoretism and monkery, and endeavored thus to save the virgin purity
of the church by carrying it into the wilderness. The first Christian
hermit, Paul of Thebes, is traced back to the middle of the third
century, but is lost in the mist of fable; St. Anthony, the real father
of monks, belongs to the age of Constantine. Paul of Thebes
withdrew in his sixteenth year, under the Decian persecution (250), to
a cavern in the lower Thebais, and lived there for one hundred and
thirteen years, fed by a raven, and known only to God until St.
Anthony, about 350, revealed his existence to the world. But his
biography is a pious romance of Jerome, the most zealous promoter of
asceticism and monasticism in the West. "The Life of St. Anthony" (d.
about 356) is usually ascribed to St. Epist. LXII.
The ascetic principle, however, was not confined, in its influence, to the proper ascetics and monks. It ruled more or less the entire morality and piety of the ancient and mediaeval church; though on the other hand, there were never wanting in her bosom protests of the free evangelical spirit against moral narrowness and excessive regard to the outward works of the law. The ascetics were but the most consistent representatives of the old catholic piety, and were commended as such by the apologists to the heathens. They formed the spiritual nobility, the flower of the church, and served especially as examples to the clergy.
§ 105. Heretical and Catholic Asceticism.
But we must now distinguish two different kinds of asceticism in Christian antiquity: a heretical and an orthodox or Catholic. The former rests on heathen philosophy, the latter is a development of Christian ideas.
The heretical asceticism, the beginnings of which
are resisted in the New Testament itself, Tim. 4:3;
The orthodox or catholic asceticism starts from a
literal and overstrained construction of certain passages of Scripture.
It admits that all nature is the work of God and the object of his
love, and asserts the divine origin and destiny of the human body,
without which there could, in fact, be no resurrection, and hence no
admittance to eternal glory. The 51st Apostolic
Canon, while favoring ascetism as a useful discipline, condemns those
who "abhor" things in themselves innocent, as marriage, or flesh, or
wine, and "blasphemously slander God’s work,
forgetting that all things are very good, and that God made man, male
and female." The Canon implies that there were such heretical ascetics
in the church, and they are threatened with excommunication. Entwetlichung and Entleiblichung.
The Alexandrian fathers furnished a theoretical
basis for this asceticism in the distinction of a lower and higher
morality, which corresponds to the Platonic or Pythagorean distinction
between the life according to nature and the life above nature or the
practical and contemplative life. It was previously suggested by Hermas
about the middle of the second century. Pastor Hermae.
Simil. V. 3."If you do any good beyond or outside of what is commanded
by God (ἐκτὸς
τῆς
ἐντολῆς
τοῦ θεοῦ),
you will gain for yourself more abundant glory (δόξαν
περισσοτέραν),
and will be more honored by God then you would otherwise be." Peccata
irremissibilia and remissibilia, or mortalia and venialia. Τάφος,
δεσμός Strom. VI. 14:
"When we hear, ’Thy faith hath saved
thee’ ( In Ep. ad Opera
supererogatonia.
Among these works were reckoned martyrdom, voluntary poverty, and voluntary celibacy. All three, or at least the last two of these acts, in connection with the positive Christian virtues, belong to the idea of the higher perfection, as distinguished from the fulfilment of regular duties, or ordinary morality. To poverty and celibacy was afterwards added absolute obedience; and these three things were the main subjects of the consilia evangelica and the monastic vow.
The ground on which these particular virtues were so strongly urged is easily understood. Property, which is so closely allied to the selfishness of man and binds him to the earth, and sexual intercourse, which brings out sensual passion in its greatest strength, and which nature herself covers with the veil of modesty;—these present themselves as the firmest obstacles to that perfection, in which God alone is our possession, and Christ alone our love and delight.
In these things the ancient heretics went to the extreme. The Ebionites made poverty the condition of salvation. The Gnostics were divided between the two excesses of absolute self-denial and unbridled self-indulgence. The Marcionites, Carpocratians, Prodicians, false Basilidians, and Manichaeans objected to individual property, from hatred to the material world; and Epiphanes, in a book "on Justice" about 125, defined virtue as a community with equality, and advocated the community of goods and women. The more earnest of these heretics entirely prohibited marriage and procreation as a diabolical work, as in the case of Saturninus, Marcion, and the Encratites; while other Gnostic sects substituted for it the most shameless promiscuous intercourse, as in Carpocrates, Epiphanes, and the Nicolaitans.
The ancient church, on the contrary, held to the divine institution of property and marriage, and was content to recommend the voluntary renunciation of these intrinsically lawful pleasures to the few elect, as means of attaining Christian perfection. She declared marriage holy, virginity more holy. But unquestionably even the church fathers so exalted the higher holiness of virginity, as practically to neutralize, or at least seriously to weaken, their assertion of the holiness of marriage. The Roman church, in spite of the many Bible examples of married men of God from Abraham to Peter, can conceive no real holiness without celibacy, and therefore requires celibacy of its clergy without exception.
§ 106. Voluntary Poverty.
The recommendation of voluntary poverty was based on
a literal interpretation of the Lord’s advice to the
rich young ruler, who had kept all the commandments from his youth up:
"If thou wouldest be perfect, go, sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, follow me."
Yet on the other hand, we meet with more moderate
views. Τίς ὁ
σωζόμενος
πλούσιος.
§ 107. Voluntary Celibacy.
The old catholic exaggeration of celibacy attached
itself to four passages of Scripture, viz. Thus, for example,
in the rather worthless apocryphal Acta Pauli et Theclae, which are
first mentioned by,
Heathenism, on the contrary, just because of its own degradation of woman, and its low, sensual conception of marriage, frequently includes celibacy in its ideal of morality, and associates it with worship. The noblest form of heathen virginity appears in the six Vestal virgins of Rome, who, while girls of from six to ten years, were selected for the service of the pure goddess, and set to keep the holy fire burning on its altar; but, after serving thirty years, were allowed to return to secular life and marry. The penalty for breaking their vow of chastity was to be buried alive in the campus sceleratus.
The ascetic depreciation of marriage is thus due, at least in part, to the influence of heathenism. But with this was associated the Christian enthusiasm for angelic purity in opposition to the horrible licentiousness of the Graeco-Roman world. It was long before Christianity raised woman and the family life to the purity and dignity which became them in the kingdom of God. In this view, we may the more easily account for many expressions of the church fathers respecting the female sex, and warnings against intercourse with women, which to us, in the present state of European and American civilization, sound perfectly coarse and unchristian. John of Damascus has collected in his Parallels such patristic expressions as these: "A woman is an evil." "A rich woman is a double evil." "A beautiful woman is a whited sepulchre." "Better is a man’s wickedness than a woman’s goodness." The men who could write so, must have forgotten the beautiful passages to the contrary in the proverbs of Solomon; yea, they must have forgotten their own mothers.
On the other hand, it may be said, that the
preference given to virginity had a tendency to elevate woman in the
social sphere and to emancipate her from that slavish condition under
heathenism, where she could be disposed of as an article of merchandise
by parents or guardians, even in infancy or childhood. It should not be
forgotten that many virgins of the early church devoted their whole
energies as deaconesses to the care of the sick and the poor, or
exhibited as martyrs a degree of passive virtue and moral heroism
altogether unknown before. Such virgins
The excessive regard for celibacy and the accompanying depreciation of marriage date from about the middle of the second century, and reach their height in the Nicene age.
Ἐν
ἀκαυχησίᾳ
μενέτω. Ἐὰν
γνωσθῇ
πλὴν τοῦ
ἐπισκόπου,
according to the larger Greek recension, c. 5, with which the Syriac
(c. 2) and Armenian versions agree. But the shorter Greek recension
reads πλέον for πλήν which would give the
sense: "If he think himself (on that account) above the (married)
bishop; si majorem se episcopo censeat."
But how little such views agreed with the spirit
of that age, we see in Clement’s own stoical and
Platonizing conception of the sensual appetites, and still more in his
great disciple Epiphan. Haer. 67;
August. Haer. 47. Comp. Neander, Walch, and the articles of Harnack in
Herzog (VI. 100), and Salmon in Smith & Wace (III. 24). Epiphanius,
the heresy hunter, probably exaggerated the doctrines of Hieracas,
although he treats his asceticism with respect. It is hardly credible
that he should have excluded married Christians and all children from
heaven unless he understood by it only the highest degree of
blessedness, as Neander suggests.
As to the Latin fathers: The views of See §
99, p. 367.
Celibacy was most common with pious virgins, who
married themselves only to God or to Christ, Nuptae Deo,
Christo. Ἀδελφαί,
sorores ( Simil. IX. c. 11
(ed. Gebhardt & Harnack, p. 218). The Virgines, who doubtless
symbolically represent the Christian graces (fides, abstinentia,
potestas, patientia, simplicita, innocentia, castitas, hilaritas,
veritas, intelligentia, concordia, and caritas, Comp. C. 15), there say
to Hermas, when he praises an evening walk Οὐ
δύνασαι
ἀφ’ ἡμῶν
ἀναχωρῆσαι
Μεθ’ ἡμῶν
κοιμηθήσῃ
ὡς
ἀδελφός ,
καὶ οὐχ’
ὡς ἀνήρ
ἡμέτερος
γὰρ
αδελφὸς
εἶ· Καὶ
τοῦ λοιποῦ
μέλλομεν
μετὰ σοῦ
κατοικεῖν,
λίαν γὰρ σε
ἀγαπῶμεν.
Then the first of these virgins, fides, comes to the blushing Hermas,
and begins to kiss him. The others do the same; they lead him to the
tower (symbol of the church), and sport with him. When night comes on,
they retire together to rest, with singing and prayer; καὶ
ἔμεινα, he
continues, μετ’
αὐτῶν τὴν
νύκτα καὶ
ἐκοιμήθην
παρὰ τὸν
πύργον.
Ἔστρωσαν
δὲ αἰ
παρθένοι
τοὺς
λινοὺς
χιτῶνας
ἐαυτῶν
χαμαί, καὶ
ἐμὲ
ἀνέκλιναν
εἰς τὸ
μέσον
αὐτῶν, καὶ
οὐδὲν
ὅλως
ἐποίουν
εἰ μὴ
προσηύχοντο·
Κἀγὼ μετ
̔αὐτῶν
ἀδιαλείπτως
προσηυχόμην
. It cannot be conceived that the apostolic Hermas wrote such silly
stuff. It sounds much more like a later Hermas towards the middle of
the second century. Ep. I, Xll., also
V. and VI.
§ 108. Celibacy of the Clergy.
G. Calixtus (Luth.): De conjug. clericorum. Helmst. 1631; ed. emend. H. Ph. Kr. Henke, 1784, 2 Parts.
Lud. Thomassin (Rom. Cath., d. 1696): Vetus et Nova Ecclesiae Disciplina. Lucae, 1728, 3 vols. fol.; Mayence, 1787, also in French. P. I. L. II. c. 60–67.
Fr. Zaccaria (R.C.): Storia polemica del celibato
sacro.
F. W. Carové, (Prot.): Vollstöndige Sammlung der Cölibatsgesetze. Francf. 1823.
J. Ant. & Aug. Theiner (R.C.):Die Einführung der erzwungenen Ehelosigkeit bei den Geistlichen u. ihre Folgen. Altenb. 1828; 2 vols.; second ed. Augsburg, 1845. In favor of the abolition of enforced celibacy.
Th. Fr. Klitsche (R.C.): Geschichte des Cölibats (from the time of the Apostles to Gregory VII.) Augsb. 1830.
A. Möhler: Beleuchtung der (badischen)Denkschrift zur Aufhebunq des Cölibats. In his "Gesammelte Schriften." Regensb. 1839, vol. I. 177 sqq.
C. J. Hefele (R.C.): Beitröge zur Kirchengesch. Vol. I. 122–139.
A. de Roskovany (R.C.): Cöstibatus et Breviarium ... a monumentis omnium saeculorum demonstrata. Pest, 1861. 4 vols. A collection of material and official decisions. Schulte calls it "ein gönzlich unkritischer Abdruck von Quellen."
Henry C. Lea (Prot.): An Historical Sketch of Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church. Philadelphia, 1867 2d ed. enlarged, Boston, 1884 (682 pp.); the only impartial and complete history down to 1880.
PROBST (R.C.): Kirchliche Disciplin, 1870.
J. Fried. von. Schulte (Prof. of jurisprudence in Bonn, and one of the leaders among the Old Catholics): Der Cölibatszwang und, lessen Aufhebung. Bonn 1876 (96 pages). Against celibacy.
All the above works, except that of Lea, are more or less controversial. Comp. also, on the Roman Cath. side, art. Celibacy, Martigny, and in Kraus, "Real-Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer" (1881) I. 304–307 by Funk, and in the new ed. of Wetzer & Welte’s "Kirchenlexicon;" on the Prot. side, Bingham, Book IV. ch. V.; Herzog2, III. 299–303; and Smith & Cheetham, I. 323–327.
As the clergy were supposed to embody the moral ideal of Christianity, and to be in the full sense of the term the heritage of God, they were required to practise especially rigid sexual temperance after receiving their ordination. The virginity of the church of Christ, who was himself born of a virgin, seemed, in the ascetic spirit of the age, to recommend a virgin priesthood as coming nearest his example, and best calculated to promote the spiritual interests of the church.
There were antecedents in heathenism to sacerdotal celibacy. Buddhism rigorously enjoined it under a penalty, of expulsion. The Egyptian priests were allowed one, but forbidden a second, marriage, while the people practiced unrestrained polygamy. The priestesses of the Delphic Apollo, the Achaian Juno, the Scythian Diana, and the Roman Vesta were virgins.
In the ante-Nicene period sacerdotal celibacy did
not as yet become a matter of law, but was left optional, like the vow
of chastity among the laity. In the Pastoral Epistles of Paul marriage,
if not expressly enjoined, is at least allowed to all ministers of the
gospel (bishops and deacons), and is presumed to exist as the rule. The passages Comp.
There was all early departure from these Scripture views in the church under the irresistible influence of the ascetic enthusiasm for virgin purity. The undue elevation of virginity necessarily implied a corresponding depreciation of marriage.
The scanty documents of the post-apostolic age give us only incidental glimpses into clerical households, yet sufficient to prove the unbroken continuance of clerical marriages, especially in the Eastern churches, and at the same time the superior estimate put upon an unmarried clergy, which gradually limited or lowered the former.
Ep. ad Adv. Haer. I. 13, 5
(ed. Stieren I. 155 Strom. VII. 12, 1).
741. Ad Uxor. 1. 7: 1,
Ut quod in matrimonionon valuimus, in viduitate sectemur. This clearly
implies the continuance of sexual intercourse. Hist. Eccl. V. 22:
"in the East all clergymen, and even the bishops themselves to abstain
from their wives: but this they do of their own accord, there being no
law in force to make it necessary; for there have been among them many
bishops who have had children by their lawful wives during their
episcopate." In a letter to the
Egyptian in monk Dracontius, who had scruples about accepting a call to
the episcopate. This is
substantially also the position of
The inscriptions on the catacombs bear likewise
testimony to clerical marriages down to the fifth century. Lundy (Monumental
Christianity, N. Y. 1876, p. 343 sqq.) quotes the following
inscriptions of this kind from Gruter, Bosio, Arringhi, Burgon, and
other sources: "The place of the Presbyter Basil and his
Felicitas. They made it for themselves." "Susanna, once the happy daughter of the Presbyter
Gabinus, Here lies in peace joined with her father." "Gaudentius, the Presbyter, for himself and his wife
Severa, a virtuous woman, who lived 42 years, 3 months, 10 days. Buried
on the 4th after the
nones of April, Timasius and Promus; being consuls." "Petronia, the wife of a Levite, 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. Buried in peace, on the third before the nones of October." The names of three children appear on the, same
tablet, and are no doubt those referred to by Petronis; hers, with the
consular dates of their burial. Her own interment was a.d. 472. Gruter and Le Blant both publish a very long and
elaborate inscription at Narbonne, a.d. 427,
to the effect that Rusticus the Bishop, son of Bonosius a Bishop,
nephew of Aratoris another Bishop, etc., in connection with the
presbyter Ursus and the deacon Hermetus began to build the church; and
that Montanus the sub-deacon finished the apse, etc.
At the same time the tendency towards clerical celibacy set in very early, and made steady and irresistible progress, especially in the West. This is manifest in the qualifications of the facts and directions just mentioned. For they leave the impression that there were not many happy clerical marriages and model pastors’ wives in the early centuries; nor could there be so long as the public opinion of the church, contrary to the Bible, elevated virginity above marriage.
1. The first step in the direction of clerical
celibacy was the prohibition of second marriage to the clergy,
on the ground that Paul’s direction concerning "the
husband of one wife" is a restriction rather than a command. In
the Western church, in the early part of the third century, there were
many clergymen who had been married a second or even a third time, and
this practice was defended on the ground that Paul allowed remarriage,
after the death of one party, as lawful without any restriction or
censure. This fact appears from the protest of the Montanistic He asks the
Catholics with indignation: "Quot enim et digami praesident apud vos,
insultantes utique apostolo, certe non erubescentes, cum haec sub illis
leguntur? .... Digamus tinguis? digamus offers?"De Monog. c. 12. Philosoph. IX.
12. Const. Ap. VI.
17. Can. 17, 18, 19,
27. The Jewish high-priests were likewise required to marry a virgin of
their own people.
2. The second step was the prohibition of marriage
and conjugal intercourse after ordination. This implies the
incompatibility of the priesthood with the duties and privileges of
marriage. Before the Council of Elvira in Spain (306) no distinction
was made in the Latin church between marriages before and after
ordination. Admitted by Prof.
Funk (R. Cath.), who quotes Innocent, Ep. ad Episc. Maced. c. 2; Leo I.
Ep. XII.c. 5. He also admits that Paul’s direction
excludes such a distinction. See Kraus, Real-Enc. I. 304 sq. Can. 33 Placuit in
totum prohibere episcopis, presbyteris, et diaconibus, vel omnibus
clericis positis in ministerio, abstinere se a conjugibus suis, et non
generare filios; quicunque vero fecerit, ab honore clericatus
exterminetur." Hefele says (I. 168): " This celebrated canon contains
the first law of celibacy. "It is strange that the canon in its awkward
latinity seems to prohibit the clergy to abstain from their wives, when
in fact it means to prohibit the intercourse. On account of the words
positis in ministerio, some would see here only a prohibition of sexual
commerce at the time of the performance of clerical functions, as in
the Jewish law; but this was self-understood, and would not come up to
the disciplinary standard of that age. How little, however, even in
Spain, that first law on celibacy was obeyed, may be inferred from the
letter of Pope Siricius to Bishop Himerius of Tarragona, that there
were, at the close of the fourth century, plurimi sacerdotes Christi et
levitu living in wedlock. Can. 6 (29, see
Hefele I. 217) Praeterea, quod dignum, pudicum et honestum est,
suademus fratribus, ut sacerdotes et levitae cum uxoribus satis non
cogant, quia ministerio quotidiano occupantur. Quicunque contra hanc
constitutionem fecerit, a cleritatus honore deponatur." Can. 10 (Hefele,
Conciliengesch. I. p. 230, 2te Aufl). The canon is adopted in the Corpus
juris can. c. 8. Dist. 28. The Synod of Neo-Caesarea, between 314-325,
can. 1, forbids the priests to marry on pain of deposition. This does
not conflict with the other canon, and likewise passed into the Canon
Law, c. 9, Dist. 28. See Hefele, I. 244. "Of those who come
into the clergy unmarried, we permit only the readers and singers if
they are so minded, to marry afterward."
At the Oecumenical Council of Nicaea (325) an
attempt was made, probably under the lead of Hosius, bishop of
Cordova—the connecting link between Elvira and
Nicaea—to elevate the Spanish rule to the dignity and
authority of an oecumenical ordinance, that is, to make the prohibition
of marriage after ordination and the strict abstinence of married
priests from conjugal intercourse, the universal law of the Church; but
the attempt was frustrated by the loud protest of Paphnutius, a
venerable bishop and confessor of a city in the Upper Thebaid of Egypt,
who had lost one eye in the Diocletian persecution, and who had himself
never touched a woman. He warned the fathers of the council not to
impose too heavy a burden on the clergy, and to remember that marriage
and conjugal intercourse were venerable and pure. He feared more harm
than good from excessive rigor. It was sufficient, if unmarried
clergymen remain single according to the ancient tradition of the
church; but it was wrong to separate the married priest from his
legitimate wife, whom he married while yet a layman. This remonstrance
of a strict ascetic induced the council to table the subject and to
leave the continuance or discontinuance of the married relation to the
free choice of every clergyman. It was a prophetic voice of warning. This important
incident of Paphnutius rests on the unanimous testimony of the well
informed historians Socrates (Hist. Eccl. I. 11), Sozoinen (H. E. I.
23), and Gelasius Cyzic. (Hist. Conc. Nic. II. 32); see Mansi, Harduin,
and Hefele (I. 431-435). It agrees moreover with the directions of the
Apost. Const. and Canons, and with the present practice of the Eastern
churches on this subject. The objections of Baronius, Bellarmine,
Valesius. and other Romanists are unfounded and refuted by Natalis
Alexander, and Hefele (l.c.). Funk (R.C.)says: "Die Einwendungen, die qeqen den Bericht,
vorgebracht wurden, sind völlig nichtig"
(utterly futile).
The Council of Nicaea passed no law in favor of
celibacy; but it strictly prohibited in its third canon the dangerous
and scandalous practice of unmarried clergymen to live with an
unmarried woman, Euphoniously called
συνείσακτος,
subiatroducta (introduced as a companion), ἀγαπητή,
soror. See Hefele, T. 380. Comp. on this canon W. Bright, Notes on the
Canons of the First Four General Councils. Oxford, 1882, pp. 8, 9. A
Council of Antioch had deposed Paul of Samosata, bishop of Antioch, for
this nasty practice, and for heresy. Euseb. H. E. VII. 30. Notwithstanding
this canonical prohibition the disreputable practice continued.
The Greek Church substantially retained the position of the fourth century, and gradually adopted the principle and practice of limiting the law of celibacy to bishops (who are usually taken from monasteries), and making a single marriage the rule for the lower clergy; the marriage to take place before ordination, and not to be repeated. Justinian excluded married men from the episcopate, and the Trullan Synod (a.d. 692) legalized the existing practice. In Russia (probably since 1274), the single marriage of the lower clergy was made obligatory. This is an error in the opposite direction. Marriage, as well as celibacy, should be left free to each man’s conscience.
3. The Latin Church took the third and last step,
the absolute prohibition of clerical marriage, including even
the lower orders. This belongs to the next period; but we will here
briefly anticipate the result. Sacerdotal marriage was first prohibited
by Pope Siricius (a.d. 385), then by Innocent
I. (402), Leo I. (440), Gregory I. (590), and by provincial Synods of
Carthage (390 and 401), Toledo (400), Orleans (538), Orange (441),
Arles (443 or 452), Agde (506), Gerunda (517). The great teachers of
the Nicene and post-Nicene age, Jerome, Ep. XXII. "Laudo
nuptias, laudo conjugium, sed quia mihi virgines generant." Comp. Ep.
CXXIII.
Thus celibacy was gradually enforced in the West
under the combined influence of the sacerdotal and hierarchical
interests to the advantage of the hierarchy, but to the injury of
morality. And the Roman
Church seems to care more for the power, than for the purity of the
clergy. Gregory VII., who used all his unflinching energy to enforce
celibacy, said openly: "Non liberari potest ecclesia a servitude
laicorum, nisi liberentur clerici ab uxoribus." As clerical celibacy is
a matter of discipline, not of doctrine, the Pope might at any time
abolish it, and Aeneas Sylvius, before he ascended the chair of Peter
as Pius II. (1458 to 1464), remarked that marriage had been denied to
priests for good and sufficient reasons, but that still stronger ones
now required its restoration. The United Greeks and Maronites are
allowed to retain their wives. Joseph II. proposed to extend the
permission. During the French Revolution, and before the conclusion of
the Concordat (1801), many priests and nuns were married. But the
hierarchical interest always defeated in the end such movements, and
preferred to keep the clergy aloof from the laity in order to exercise
a greater power over it. "The Latin church," says Lea in his History of
Celibacy, "is the most wonderful structure in history, and ere its
leaders can consent to such a reform they must confess that its career,
so full of proud recollections, has been an error."
For while voluntary abstinence, or such as springs
from a special gift of grace, is honorable and may be a great blessing
to the church, the forced celibacy of the clergy, or celibacy as a
universal condition of entering the priesthood, does violence to nature
and Scripture, and, all sacramental ideas of marriage to the contrary
notwithstanding, degrades this divine ordinance, which descends from
the primeval state of innocence, and symbolizes the holiest of all
relations, the union of Christ with his church. But what is in conflict
with nature and nature’s God is also in conflict with
the highest interests of morality. Much, therefore, as Catholicism has
done to raise woman and the family life from heathen degradation, we
still find, in general, that in Evangelical Protestant countries, woman
occupies a far higher grade of intellectual and moral culture than in
exclusively Roman Catholic countries. Clerical marriages are probably
the most happy as a rule, and have given birth to a larger number of
useful and distinguished men and women than those of any other class of
society. Comp. this History,
Vol. VI., § 79, p. 473 sqq.
MONTANISM.
§ 109. Literature.
Sources:
The prophetic utterances of Montanus, Prisca (or Priscilla) and Maximilla,
scattered through
The anti-Montanist writings of Apolinarius
(Apollinaris) of Hierapolis, Melito of Sardes, Miltiades (περὶ
τοῦ μὴ
δεῖν
προφήτην
ἐν
ἐκστάσει
λαλεῖν), Apollonius, Serapion, Gaius, and
an anonymous author quoted by
Works:
Theoph. Wernsdorf: Commentatio de Montanistis Saeculi II. vulgo creditis haereticis. Dantzig, 1781. A vindication of Montanism as being essentially agreed with the doctrines of the primitive church and unjustly condemned. Mosheim differs, but speaks favorably of it. So also Soyres. Arnold had espoused the cause of M. before, in his Kirchen-und Ketzerhistorie.
Mosheim: De Rebus Christ. ante Const. M. p. 410–425 (Murdock’s transl I. 501–512).
Walch: Ketzerhistorie, I. 611–666.
Kirchner: De Montanistis. Jenae, 1832.
Neander: Antignosticus oder Geist aus
A. Schwegler: Der Montanismus und die christl. Kirche des 2tenJahrh. Tüb. 1841. Comp. his Nach-Apost. Zeitalter (Tüb. 1846). A very ingenious philosophical a-priori construction of history in the spirit of the Tübingen School. Schwegler denies the historical existence of Montanus, wrongly derives the system from Ebionism, and puts its essence in the doctrine of the Paraclete and the new supernatural epoch of revelation introduced by him. Against him wrote GEORGII in the "Deutsche Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft und Kunst," 1842.
Hilgenfeld: Die Glossolalie in der alten Kirche. Leipz. 1850.
Baur: Das Wesen des Montanismus nach den neusten Forschungen, in the "Theol. Jahrbücher." Tüb. 1851, p. 538 sqq.; and his Gesch. der Christl. Kirche, I. 235–245, 288–295 (3d ed. of 1863). Baur, like Schwegler, lays the chief stress on the doctrinal element, but refutes his view on the Ebionitic origin of Mont., and reviews it in its conflict with Gnosticism and episcopacy.
Niedner: K. Gesch. 253 sqq., 259 sqq.
Albrecht Ritschl: Entstehung der altkathol. Kirche, second ed. 1857, p. 402–550. R. justly emphasizes the practical and ethical features of the sect.
P. Gottwald: De
Montanismo
A. Reville: Tertullien et le Montanisme, in the "Revue des deux mondes," Nov. 1864. Also his essay in the "Nouvelle Revue de Theologic" for 1858.
R. A. Lipsius: Zur Quellenkritik des Epiphanios. Wien, 1865; and Die Quellen der ältesten Ketzergeschichte. Leipz. 1875.
Emile Ströhlin: Essai sur le Montanisme. Strasbourg, 1870.
John De Soyres: Montanism and the Primitive Church (Hulsean prize essay). Cambridge, 1878 (163 pa-es). With a useful chronological table.
G. Nathanael Bonwetsch (of Dorpat): Die Geschichte des Montanismus. Erlangen, 1881 (201 pages). The best book on the subject.
Renan: Marc-Aurèle (1882), ch. XIII. p. 207–225. Also his essay Le Montanisme, in the "Revue des deux mondes," Feb. 1881.
W. Belck: Geschichte des Montanismus. Leipzig, 1883.
Hilgenfeld: D. Ketzergesch. des Urchristenthums. Leipzig, 1884. (pp. 560–600.)
The subject is well treated by Dr. Möller in Herzog (revis. ed. Bd. X. 255–262); Bp. Hefele in Wetzer & Welter, Bd. VII. 252–268, and in his Conciliengesch. revised ed. Bd. I. 83 sqq.; and by Dr. Salmond in Smith & Wace, III. 935–945.
Comp. also the Lit. on
§ 110. External History of Montanism.
All the ascetic, rigoristic, and chiliastic elements of the ancient church combined in Montanism. They there asserted a claim to universal validity, which the catholic church was compelled, for her own interest, to reject; since she left the effort after extraordinary holiness to the comparatively small circle of ascetics and priests, and sought rather to lighten Christianity than add to its weight, for the great mass of its professors. Here is the place, therefore, to speak of this remarkable phenomenon, and not under the head of doctrine, or heresy, where it is commonly placed. For Montanism was not, originally, a departure from the faith, but a morbid overstraining of the practical morality and discipline of the early church. It was an excessive supernaturalism and puritanism against Gnostic rationalism and Catholic laxity. It is the first example of an earnest and well-meaning, but gloomy and fanatical hyper-Christianity, which, like all hyper-spiritualism, is apt to end in the flesh.
Montanism originated in Asia Minor, the theatre of
many movements of the church in this period; yet not in Ephesus or any
large city, but in some insignificant villages of the province of
Phrygia, once the home of a sensuously mystic and dreamy
nature-religion, where Paul and his pupils had planted congregations at
Colossae, Laodicea, and Hierapolis. Neander first
pointed to the close connection of Montanism with the Phrygian
nationality, and it is true as far as it goes, but does not explain the
spread of the system in North Africa. Schwegler and Baur protested
against Neander’s view, but Renan justly reasserts it:
"La Phrygie était un
des pays de l’antiquité les plus
portés aux rêveries religieuses. Les Phrygiens
passaient, en général pour niais et simple. Le
christianisme eut chez eux, dès l’origine
un charactère essentiellement mystique et
ascétique. Déjà, dans
l’épitre aux Colossiens,, Paul combat des
erreurs où les signes précitrseurs du,
gnosticisme et les excès d’un
asétisme mal entendu semblent se mêler. Presque
partout ailleurs, le christianisme fut une religion de grander villes; ici, comme dans la Syrie au delà du Jourdain, ce fut une religion de ourgades et de
campagnards." The chronology is
uncertain, and varies between 126-180. See the note of Renan in
Marc-Aur. p. 209, Hefele (I. 85), Soyres (p. 25-29 and 157), and
Bonwetsch (140-145).
The followers of Montanus were called Montanists, also Phrygians, Cataphrygians (from the province of their origin), Pepuziani, Priscillianists (from Priscilla, not to be confounded with the Priscillianists of the fourth century). They called themselves spiritual Christians (πευματικοί), in distinction from the psychic or carnal Christians (ψυχικοί).
The bishops and synods of Asia Minor, though not
with one voice, declared the new prophecy the work of demons, applied
exorcism, and cut off the Montanists from the fellowship of the church.
All agreed that it was supernatural (a natural interpretation of such
psychological phenomena being then unknown), and the only alternative
was to ascribe it either to God or to his great Adversary. Prejudice
and malice invented against Montanus and the two female prophets
slanderous charges of immorality, madness and suicide, which were
readily believed. Epiphanius and John of Damascus tell the absurd
story, that the sacrifice of an infant was a part of the mystic worship
of the Montanists, and that they made bread with the blood of murdered
infants. Renan says of these
slanders (p. 214): "Ce sont
là les calomnies ordinaires, qui ne manquent jamais sous la
plume des écrivains orthodoxes, quand il
s’agit de noircir les
dissidents."
Among their literary opponents in the East are
mentioned Claudius Apolinarius of Hierapolis, Miltiades, Appollonius,
Serapion of Antioch, and
The Roman church, during the episcopate of
Eleutherus (177–190), or of Victor
(190–202), after some vacillation, set itself likewise
against the new prophets at the instigation of the presbyter Caius and
the confessor Praxeas from Asia, who, as
The Gallic Christians, then severely tried by
persecution, took a conciliatory posture, and sympathized at least with
the moral earnestness, the enthusiasm for martyrdom, and the chiliastic
hopes of the Montanists. They sent their presbyter (afterwards bishop)
In North Africa the Montanists met with extensive
sympathy, as the Punic national character leaned naturally towards
gloomy and rigorous acerbity. This disposition,
an ἧθος
πικρόν,
σκυθρωτόν,
and σκληρόν,
even Plutarch notices in the Carthaginians (in his Πολιτικὰ
παραγγέλματα,
c. 3), and contrasts with the excitable and cheerful character of the
Athenians.
Their greatest conquest was the gifted and fiery,
but eccentric and rigoristic De Haeresibus,
§ 6.
As a separate sect, the Montanists or See Hefele, Conciliengesch., I.
754. He explains the inconsistency by the fact that the Montanists were
regarded by, some orthodox, by others heretical, in the doctrine of the
Trinity.
§ 111. Character and Tenets of Montanism.
I. In doctrine, Montanism
agreed in all essential points with the Catholic Church, and held very
firmly to the traditional rule of faith. This was
acknowledged by its opponents. Epipbanius, Haer. XLVIII. 1, says, the
Cataphrygians receive the entire Scripture of the Old and New
Testament, and agree with the Catholic church in their views on the
Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
II. In the field of practical life and discipline, the Montanistic movement and its expectation of the near approach of the end of the world came into conflict with the reigning Catholicism; and this conflict, consistently carried out, must of course show itself to some extent in the province of doctrine. Every schismatic tendency is apt to become in its progress more or less heretical.
1. Montanism, in the first place, sought a forced
continuance of the miraculous gifts of the
apostolic church, which gradually disappeared as Christianity became
settled in humanity, and its supernatural principle was naturalized on
earth. In this point, as
in others, Montanism bears a striking affinity to Irvingism, but
differs from it by its democratic, anti-hierarchical constitution.
Irvingism asserts not only the continuance of the apostolic gifts, but
also of all the apostolic offices, especially the twelvefold
apostolate, and is highly ritualistic. Epiph. Haer.
xlviii. 4: ἰδού, ὁ
ἄνθρωπος
ὡσεὶ λύρα,
κἀγὼ
ἐφίπταμαι
ὡσεὶ
πλῆκτρον, ὁ
ἄνθρωπος
κοιμᾶται,
κἀγὼ
γρηγορῶ,
ἰδοὺ,
κύριος
ἐστιν ὁ
ἐξιστάνων
καρδίας
ἀνθρώπων
καὶ διδοὺς
καρδίαν
ἀνθρώποις
.
The Catholic church did not deny, in theory, the
continuance of prophecy and the other miraculous gifts, but was
disposed to derive the Montanistic revelations from satanic
inspirations, Tert. De Jun.
11:"Spiritus diaboli est, dicis, o psychice."
2. This brings us to another feature of the
Montanistic movement, the assertion of the universal
priesthood of Christians, even of females, against the special
priesthood in the Catholic church. Under this view it may be called a
democratic reaction against the clerical aristocracy, which from the
time of
Here was the point where they necessarily assumed a schismatic character, and arrayed against themselves the episcopal hierarchy. But they only brought another kind of aristocracy into the place of the condemned distinction of clergy and laity. They claimed for their prophets what they denied to the Catholic bishops. They put a great gulf between the true spiritual Christians and the merely psychical; and this induced spiritual pride and false pietism. Their affinity with the Protestant idea of the universal priesthood is more apparent than real; they go on altogether different principles.
3. Another of the essential and prominent traits
of Montanism was a visionary millennarianism,
founded indeed on the Apocalypse and on the apostolic expectation of
the speedy return of Christ, but giving it extravagant weight and a
materialistic coloring. The Montanists were the warmest millennarians
in the ancient church, and held fast to the speedy return of Christ in
glory, all the more as this hope began to give way to the feeling of a
long settlement of the church on earth, and to a corresponding zeal for
a compact, solid episcopal organization. In praying, "Thy kingdom
come," they prayed for the end of the world. They lived under a vivid
impression of the great final catastrophe, and looked therefore with
contempt upon the present order of things, and directed all their
desires to the second advent of Christ. Maximilla says: "After me there
is no more prophecy, but only the end of the world." Bonwetsch, p. 149:
"Das Wesen des
Montanismus ist eine Reaktion angesichts der nahen
Parusie gegen Verweltlichung der Kirche." Baur, too,
emphasizes this point and puts the chief difference between Montanism
and Gnosticism in this that the latter looked at the beginning, the
former at the end of all things."Wie die Gnosis denAnfangspunkt ins Auge fasst, von welchem alles
ausgeht, die absoluten Principien, durch welche der
Selbstoffenbarungsprocess Gottes und der Gang der Weltentwicklung
bedingt ist, so ist im Montanismus der Hauptpunkt um welchen sich alles
bewegt, das Ende der Dinge, die Katastrophe, welcher der Weltertlauf
entgegengeht." (K. Gesch. I. 235).
The failure of these predictions weakened, of course, all the other pretensions of the system. But, on the other hand, the abatement of faith in the near approach of the Lord was certainly accompanied with an increase of worldliness in the Catholic church. The millennarianism of the Montanists has reappeared again and again in widely differing forms.
4. Finally, the Montanistic sect was characterized
by fanatical severity in asceticism and church discipline. It raised a zealous protest
against the growing looseness of the Catholic penitential discipline,
which in Rome particularly, under Zephyrinus and Callistus, to the
great grief of earnest minds, established a scheme of indulgence for
the grossest sins, and began, long before Constantine, to obscure the
line between the church and the world. De Monog. c. 2, he
calls the Paraclete "novae disciplinae institutor, " but in c. 4 he
says, correcting himself: "Paraclete restitutor potius quam instilator
disiplinae."
But Montanism certainly went to the opposite
extreme, and fell from evangelical freedom into Jewish legalism; while
the Catholic church in rejecting the new laws and burdens defended the
cause of freedom. Montanism turned with horror from all the enjoyments
of life, and held even art to be incompatible with Christian soberness
and humility. It forbade women all ornamental clothing, and required
virgins to be veiled. It courted the blood-baptism of martyrdom, and
condemned concealment or flight in persecution as a denial of Christ.
It multiplied fasts and other ascetic exercises, and carried them to
extreme severity, as the best preparation for the millennium. It
prohibited second marriage as adultery, for laity as well as clergy,
and inclined even to regard a single marriage as a mere concession on
the part of God to the sensuous infirmity of man. It taught the
impossibility of a second repentance, and refused to restore the lapsed
to the fellowship of the church. Comp. De Pud. c. 2.
and 19. De Pudic. c 1:
"Audio etiam edictum esse propositum, et quidem peremptorium. Pontifex
scilicet maximus, quod est episcopus episcoporum (so he calls,
ironically, the Roman bishop; in all probability he refers to
Zephyrinus or Callistus), edicit: Ego et moechiae et fornicationis
delicta poenitentia functis dimitto ... Absit, absit a sponsa Christi
tale praeconium! IIla, quae vera est. quae pudica, quae sancta, carebit
etiam aurium macula. Non habet quibus hoc repromittit, et si habuerit,
non repromittat, quoniam et terrenum Dei templum citius spelunca
latronum (
The Catholic church, indeed, as we have already
seen, opened the door likewise to excessive ascetic rigor, but only as
an exception to her rule; while the Montanists pressed their rigoristic
demands as binding upon all. Such universal asceticism was simply
impracticable in a world like the present, and the sect itself
necessarily dwindled away. But the religious earnestness which animated
it, its prophecies and visions, its millennarianism, and the fanatical
extremes into which it ran, have since reappeared, under various names
and forms, and in new combinations, in Comp. on these
analogous phenomena Soyres, p. 118 sqq. and 142 sqq. He also mentions
Mormonism as an analogous movement, and so does Renan
(Marc-Aurèle, p. 209), but this is unjust to Montanism,
which in its severe ascetic morality differs widely from the polygamous
pseudo-theocracy in Utah. Montanism much more nearly resembles
Irvingism, whose leaders are eminently pure and devout men (as Irving,
Thierscb, W. W. Andrews).
THE HERESIES OF THE ANTE-NICENE AGE.
§ 112. Judaism and Heathenism within the Church.
Having described in previous chapters the moral and intellectual victory of the church over avowed and consistent Judaism and heathenism, we must now look at her deep and mighty struggle with those enemies in a hidden and more dangerous form: with Judaism and heathenism concealed in the garb of Christianity and threatening to Judaize and paganize the church. The patristic theology and literature can never be thoroughly understood without a knowledge of the heresies of the patristic age, which play as important a part in the theological movements of the ancient Greek and Latin churches as Rationalism with its various types in the modern theology of the Protestant churches of Europe and America.
Judaism, with its religion and its sacred
writings, and Graeco-Roman heathenism, with its secular culture, its
science, and its art, were designed to pass into Christianity to be
transformed and sanctified. But even in the apostolic age many Jews and
Gentiles were baptized only with water, not with the Holy Spirit and
fire of the gospel, and smuggled their old religious notions and
practices into the church. Hence the heretical tendencies, which are
combated in the New Testament, especially in the Pauline and Catholic
Epistles. Comp. vol. 1. 564
sqq., and my History of the Apost. Church, § 165-169.
The same heresies meet us at the beginning of the second century, and thenceforth in more mature form and in greater extent in almost all parts of Christendom. They evince, on the one hand, the universal import of the Christian religion in history, and its irresistible power over all the more profound and earnest minds of the age. Christianity threw all their religious ideas into confusion and agitation. They were so struck with the truth, beauty, and vigor of the new religion, that they could no longer rest either in Judaism or in heathenism; and yet many were unable or unwilling to forsake inwardly their old religion and philosophy. Hence strange medleys of Christian and unchristian elements in chaotic ferment. The old religions did not die without a last desperate effort to save themselves by appropriating Christian ideas. And this, on the other hand, exposed the specific truth of Christianity to the greatest danger, and obliged the church to defend herself against misrepresentation, and to secure herself against relapse to the Jewish or the heathen level.
As Christianity was met at its entrance into the world by two other religions, the one relatively true, and the other essentially false, heresy appeared likewise in the two leading forms of ebionism and gnosticism, the germs of which, as already observed, attracted the notice of the apostles. The remark of Hegesippus, that the church preserved a virginal purity of doctrine to the time of Hadrian, must be understood as made only in view of the open advance of Gnosticism in the second century, and therefore as only relatively true. The very same writer expressly observes, that heresy had been already secretly working from the days of Simon Magus. Ebionism is a Judaizing, pseudo-Petrine Christianity, or, as it may equally well be called, a Christianizing Judaism; Gnosticism is a paganizing or pseudo-Pauline Christianity, or a pseudo-Christian heathenism.
These two great types of heresy are properly opposite poles. Ebionism is a particularistic contraction of the Christian religion; Gnosticism, a vague expansion of it. The one is a gross realism and literalism; the other, a fantastic idealism and spiritualism. In the former the spirit is bound in outward forms; in the latter it revels in licentious freedom. Ebionism makes salvation depend on observance of the law; Gnosticism, on speculative knowledge. Under the influence of Judaistic legalism, Christianity must stiffen and petrify; under the influence of Gnostic speculation, it must dissolve into empty notions and fancies. Ebionism denies the divinity of Christ, and sees in the gospel only a new law; Gnosticism denies the true humanity of the Redeemer, and makes his person and his work a mere phantom, a docetistic illusion.
The two extremes, however, meet; both tendencies from opposite directions reach the same result—the denial of the incarnation, of the true and abiding union of the divine and the human in Christ and his kingdom; and thus they fall together under St. John’s criterion of the antichristian spirit of error. In both Christ ceases to be mediator and reconciler and his religion makes no specific advance upon the Jewish and the heathen, which place God and man in abstract dualism, or allow them none but a transient and illusory union.
Hence, there were also some forms of error, in which Ebionistic and Gnostic elements were combined. We have a Gnostic or theosophic Ebionism the pseudo-Clementine), and a Judaizing Gnosticism (in Cerinthus and others). These mixed forms also we find combated in the apostolic age. Indeed, similar forms of religious syncretism we meet with even before the time and beyond the field of Christianity, in the Essenes, the Therapeutae, and the Platonizing Jewish philosopher, Philo.
§ 113. Nazarenes and Ebionites (Elkesaites, Mandoeans).
I.
II. Gieseler: Nazaräer u. Ebioniten (in the fourth vol. of Stäudlin’s and Tzschirner’s "Archiv." Leipz. 1820).
Credner: Ueber Essaeer und Ebioniten und einen theitweisen Zusammenhang derselben (in Winer’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." Sulzbach, 1829).
Baur: De Ebionitarum Origine et Doctrina ab Essaeis repetenda. Tüb. 1831.
Schliemann: Die Clementinen u. der Ebionitismus, Hamb. 1844, p. 362–552.
Ritschl: Ueber die Secte der Elkesaiten (in Niedner’s "Zeitschr. Hist. Theol." 1853, No. 4).
D. Chwolsohn: Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus. St. Petersburg, 1856,· vols.
Uhlhorn: Ebioniten and Elkesaiten, in Herzog, new ed., vol. IV. (1879), 13 sqq. and 184 sqq.
G. Salmon: Elkesai, Elkesaites, in Smith & Wace, vol. II. (1880) p. 95 98.
M. N. Siouffi: Études sur la religion des Soubbas on Sabéens, leurs dogmes, leurs möurs. Paris, 1880.
K. Kessler: Mandaeer, in Herzog, revised ed., IX. (1881), p. 205–222.
AD. Hilgenfeld: Ketzergesch. des Urchristenthums, Leip., 1884 (421 sqq.).
The Jewish Christianity, represented in the apostolic church by Peter and James, combined with the Gentile Christianity of Paul, to form a Christian church, in which "neither circumcision availeth anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature in Christ."
I. A portion of the Jewish Christians, however,
adhered even after the destruction of Jerusalem, to the national
customs of their fathers, and propagated themselves in some churches of
Syria down to the end of the fourth century, under the name of Nazarenes; a name perhaps originally given in
contempt by the Jews to all Christians as followers of Jesus of
Nazareth. The heathen enemies
of Christianity, as Julian the Apostate, called them sometimes
"Galileans." So also Epictetus in the only passage, in which he alludes
to the Christians.
II. From these Nazarenes we must carefully
distinguish the heretical Jewish Christians, or the ebionites, who were more numerous. Their name comes not,
as Praescr. Haeret. c.
13. Minut. Felix,
Octav. 36: "Ceterum quod plerique PAUPERES dicimur non est infamia
nostra, sed gloria; animus enim ut luxu solvitur, ita frugalitate
firmatur."
We find the sect of the Ebionites in Palestine and the surrounding regions, on the island of Cyprus, in Asia Minor, and even in Rome. Though it consisted mostly of Jews, Gentile Christians also sometimes attached themselves to it. It continued into the fourth century, but at the time of Theodoret was entirely extinct. It used a Hebrew Gospel, now lost, which was probably a corruption of the Gospel of Matthew.
The characteristic marks of Ebionism in all its forms are: degradation of Christianity to the level of Judaism; the principle of the universal and perpetual validity of the Mosaic law; and enmity to the apostle Paul. But, as there were different sects in Judaism itself, we have also to distinguish at least two branches of Ebionism, related to each other as Pharisaism and Essenism, or, to use a modern illustration, as the older deistic and the speculative pantheistic rationalism in Germany, or the practical and the speculative schools in Unitarianism.
1. The common Ebionites, who were by far the more numerous, embodied the Pharisaic legalism, and were the proper successors of the Judaizers opposed in the Epistle to the Galatians. Their doctrine may be reduced to the following propositions:
(a) Jesus is, indeed, the promised Messiah,
the son of David, and the supreme lawgiver, yet a mere man, like Moses
and David, sprung by natural generation from Joseph and Mary. The sense
of his Messianic calling first arose in him at his baptism by John,
when a higher spirit joined itself to him. Hence,
(b) Circumcision and the observance of the whole ritual law of Moses are necessary to salvation for all men.
(c) Paul is an apostate and heretic, and all his epistles are to be discarded. The sect considered him a native heathen, who came over to Judaism in later life from impure motives.
(d) Christ is soon to come again, to introduce the glorious millennial reign of the Messiah, with the earthly Jerusalem for its seat.
2. The second class of Ebionites, starting with
Essenic notions, gave their Judaism a speculative or theosophic stamp,
like the errorists of the Epistle to the Colossians. They form the
stepping-stone to Gnosticism. Among these belong the Elkesaites. Ἐλκεσσαῖοι
(Epiphanius); Ἠλχασσαί
( Δύναμις
κεκαλλυμένη,יסַכְּ
ליחֵ. Comp. the δύναμις
ἄσαρκοςin
the Clem. Homilies, XVII. 16. Other derivations: from Elkesi, a village
in Galilee (Delitzsch); fromידַּשׁ
לאֵ; from סישִׁחָכֶּלְאַ
=apostatae. See the fragments
collected in Hilgenfeld’s Nov. Test. extra Canonem
receptum, III. 153-167.
3. A similar sect are the Mandaeans, from Manda, knowledge (γνῶσις) also Sabians, i.e. Baptists (from sâbi, to baptize,
to wash), and Mughtasilah, which has the same
meaning. On account of their great reverence for John the Baptist, they
were called "Christians of John." Johanneschristen, Chrétiens de
Saint Jean. Mandäische
Grammatik, by Th. Nöldeke. Halle,
1875. For further
particulars see the article of Kessler in Herzog, above quoted.
§ 114. The Pseudo-Clementine Ebionism.
I. Sources:
1. Τὰ Κλημέντια, or more accurately Κλήμεντος τῶν Πέτρου ἐπιδημιῶν κηρυγμάτων ἐπιτομή first published (without the twentieth and part of the nineteenth homily) by Cotelier in "Patres Apost." Par. 1672; Clericus in his editions of Cotelier, 1698, 1700, and 1724; again by Schwegler, Stuttg. 1847 (the text of Clericus); then first entire, with the missing portion, from a new codex in the Ottobonian Library in the Vatican, by Alb. R. M. Dressel (with the Latin trans. of Cotelier and notes), under the title: Clementis Romani quae feruntur Homiliae Viginti nunc primum integrae. Gott. 1853; and by Paul de Lagarde: Clementina Graece. Leipz. 1865.
2. Clementis Rom. Recognitiones ( Ἀναγνωρισμοί or Ἁναγνώσεις), in ten books, extant only in the Latin translation of Rufinus (d. 410); first published in Basel, 1526; then better by Cotelier, Gallandi, and by Gersdorf in his "Bibl. Patr. Lat." Lips. 1838. Vol. I. In Syriac, ed. by P. de Lagarde (Clementis Romani Recognitiones Syriace). Lips. 1861. An English translation of the Recognitions of Clement by Dr. Thomas Smith, in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library," Edinburgh, vol. III. (1868), pp. 137–471. The work in the MSS. bears different titles, the most common is Itinerarium St. Clementis.
3. Clementine Epitome de Gestis Petri (Κλήμ. ἐπισκ. Ῥώμης περὶ τῶν πράξεων ἐπιδημιῶν τε καὶ κηρυγμάτων Πέτρου ἐπιτομή), first at Paris, 1555; then critically edited by Cotelier, l.c.; and more completely with a second epitome by A. R. M. Dressel: Clementinorum Epitomae duae, with valuable critical annotations by Fr. Wieseler. Lips. 1859. The two Epitomes are only a summary of the Homilies.
II. Works.
Neander and Baur, in their works on Gnosticism (vid. the following section), and in their Church Histories.
Schliemann: Die Clementinen nebst den verwandten Schriften, u. der Ebionitismus. Hamb. 1844.
Ad. Hilgenfeld: Die Clementinischen Recognitionem n. Homilien nach ihrem Ursprüng n. Inhalt. Jena, 1848. Art. by the same in the "Theol. Jahrbücher" for 1854 (483 sqq.), and 1868 (357 sqq.); and Die Apost. Väter. Halle 1853, p. 287–302.
G. Uhlhorn: Die Homilien n. Recognitionem des Clemens Romanus. Gött. 1854. Comp. the same author’s article "Clementinen," in Herzog, second ed., vol. III. (1878), p. 277–286.
Ritschl: Die Entstehung der altkath. Kirche 1857 (second ed. p. 206–270).
J. Lehmann: Die Clementinischen Schriften mit besonderer Rücksicht auf ihr liter. Verhältniss. Gotha 1869. He mediates between Hilgenfeld and Uhlhorn. (See a review by Lipsius in the "Protest. Kirchenztg," 1869, 477–482, and by Lagarde in his "Symmicta," I. 1877, pp. 2–4 and 108–112, where Lehmann is charged with plagiarism).
R. A. Lipsius: Die Quellen der römischen Petrus-Sage kritish untersucht. Kiel 1872. Lipsius finds the basis of the whole Clementine literature in the strongly anti-Pauline Acta Petri.
A. B. Lutterbeck: Die Clementinen und ihr Verh. z. Unfehlbarkeitsdogma. Giessen, 1872.
The system of the pseudo-Clementine Homilies exhibits Ebionism at once in its theosophic perfection, and in its internal dissolution. It represents rather an individual opinion, than a sect, but holds probably some connection, not definitely ascertained, with the Elkesaites, who, as appears from the "Philosophumena," branched out even to Rome. It is genuinely Ebionitic or Judaistic in its monotheistic basis, its concealed antagonism to Paul, and its assertion of the essential identity of Christianity and Judaism, while it expressly rejects the Gnostic fundamental doctrine of the demiurge. It cannot, therefore, properly be classed, as it is by Baur, among the Gnostic schools.
The twenty Clementine Homilies bear the
celebrated name of the Roman bishop Clement, mentioned in Κλήμεντο̑ς
τῶν Πέτρου
ἐπιδημιῶν
κηρυγμάτων
ἐπιτομή. The
Tübingen School, under the lead of Dr. Baur, has greatly
exaggerated the importance of these heretical fictions which the
unknown author never intended to present as solid facts. Thus
Hilgenfeld says (l. c. p. 1) There is scarcely a single writing which
is of so great importance for the history of Christianity in its first
age, and which has already given such brilliant disclosures [?] at the
hands of the most renowned critics in regard to the earliest history of
the Christian Church, as the writing ascribed to the Roman Clement, the
Recognitions and Homilies."Their importance is confined to the history
of heresy, which with the Tübingen school is the most
interesting portion of ancient church history.
The substance of the Homilies themselves is
briefly this: Clement, an educated Roman, of the imperial family, not
satisfied with heathenism, and thirsting for truth, goes to Judaea,
having heard, under the reign of Tiberius, that Jesus had appeared
there. In Caesarea he meets the apostle Peter, and being instructed and
converted by him, accompanies him on his missionary journeys in
Palestine, to Tyre, Tripolis, Laodicea, and Antioch. He attends upon
the sermons of Peter and his long, repeated disputations with Simon
Magus, and, at the request of the apostle, commits the substance of
them to writing. Simon Peter is thus the proper hero of the romance,
and appears throughout as the representative of pure, primitive
Christianity, in opposition to Simon Magus, who is portrayed as a "man
full of enmity," and a "deceiver," the author of all anti-Jewish
heresies, especially of the Marcionite Gnosticism. The author was
acquainted with the four canonical Gospels, and used them, Matthew
most, John least; and with them another work of the same sort, probably
of the Ebionitic stamp, but now unknown. The
Tübingen school first denied the use of the fourth Gospel,
but the discovery of the missing portion by Dressel in 1853 has settled
this point, for it contains (Hom. XIX. 22) a clear quotation from
It has been ingeniously conjectured by Baur (first
in 1831), and adopted by his pupils, that the pseudo-Clementine Peter
combats, under the mask of the Magician, the apostle Paul (nowhere
named in the Homilies), as the first and chief corrupter of
Christianity. The hypothesis has
been most fully carried out by Lipsius in his article on Simon Magus in
Schenkel’s "Bibellexicon, " vol. V. 301-321. Comp. Hom. XVII. 19
(p. 351 sq. ed. Dressel) with Hom. II. 22 sqq.
(p. 57 sqq.).
In the Recognitions the anti-Pauline tendency is moderated, yet Paul’s labors are ignored, and Peter is made the apostle of the Gentiles.
The doctrine which pseudo-Clement puts into the
mouth of Peter, and very skillfully interweaves with his narrative, is
a confused mixture of Ebionitic and Gnostic, ethical and metaphysical
ideas and fancies. He sees in Christianity only the restoration of the
pure primordial religion, The πρώτη
τῇ
ἀνθρωπότηρι
παραδοθεῖσα
σωτήριος
θρησκεία.
As the fundamental principle of this pure
religion, our author lays down the doctrine of one God, the creator of
the world. This is thoroughly Ebionitic, and directly opposed to the
dualism of the demiurgic doctrine of the Gnostics. But then he makes
the whole stream of created life flow forth from God in a long
succession of sexual and ethical antitheses and syzygies, and return
into him as its absolute rest; here plainly touching the pantheistic
emanation-theory of Gnosticism. God himself one from the beginning, has
divided everything into counterparts, into right and left, heaven and
earth, day and night, light and darkness, life and death. The monad
thus becomes the dyad. The better came first, the worse followed; but
from man onward the order was reversed. Adam, created in the image of
God, is the true prophet; his wife, Eve, represents false prophecy.
They were followed, first, by wicked Cain, and then by righteous Abel.
So Peter appeared after Simon Magus, as light after darkness, health
after sickness. So, at the last, will antichrist precede the advent of
Christ. And finally, the whole present order of things loses itself in
the future; the pious pass into eternal life; the ungodly, since the
soul becomes mortal by the corruption of the divine image, are
annihilated after suffering a punishment, which is described as a
purifying fire. Πῦρ
καθάρσιον,
ignis purgatorius.
As regards ecclesiastical organization, he fully embraces the monarchical episcopal view. The bishop holds the place of Christ in the congregation, and has power to bind and loose. Under him stand the presbyters and deacons. But singularly, and again in true Ebionitic style, James, the brother of the Lord, bishop of Jerusalem, which is the centre of Christendom, is made the general vicar of Christ, the visible head of the whole church, the bishop of bishops. Hence even Peter must give him an account of his labors; and hence, too, according to the introductory epistles, the sermons of Peter and Clement’s abstract of them were sent to James for safe-keeping, with the statement, that Clement had been named by Peter as his successor at Rome.
It is easy to see that this appeal to a pseudo-Petrine primitive Christianity was made by the author of the Homilies with a view to reconcile all the existing differences and divisions in Christendom. In this effort he, of course, did not succeed, but rather made way for the dissolution of the Ebionitic element still existing in the orthodox catholic church.
Besides these Homilies, of which the
Epitome is only a poor abridgement, there are several other
works, some printed, some still unpublished, which are likewise forged
upon
The most important of these are the
Recognitions of Clement, in ten books, mentioned by
On the question of priority between these two
works, critics are divided, some making the Recognitions an
orthodox, or at least more nearly orthodox, version of the
Homilies; Clericus,
Möhler, Schliemann, Uhlhorn, Schwegler, partly also Lehmann.
Uhlhorn has since modified his view (1876). Particularly
Hilgenfeld and Ritschl, find among older writers, Cave and Whiston.
Salmon also assigns the priority of composition to the
Recognitions. The Περίοδοι
Πέτρου διὰ
Κλήμεντος,and
the still older Κηρύγματα
Πέτρου (about a.d. 140-145), the contents of which are mentioned
in Recogn. III. 75, and the oldest Acta Petri, parts of which are
preserved in the apocryphal Acta Petri et Pauli. See Lipsius, Quellen der röm.
Petrus-Sage, 1872, pp. 14 sqq. Uhlhorn assents in his
last art. in the new ed. of Herzog, III. 285. Dr. Salmon (in Smith and
Wace, 1. 571) likewise assumes that both are drawn from a common
original, but that the author of Homilies borrowed the biographical
portions from Recognitions.
As to their birth-place, the Homilies probably originated in East Syria, the Recognitions in Rome. They are assigned to the second half of the second century.
In a literary point of view, these productions are remarkable, as the first specimens of Christian romance, next to the "Pastor Hermae." They far surpass, in matter, and especially in moral earnestness and tender feeling, the heathen romances of a Chariton and an Achilles Tatios, of the fourth or fifth centuries. The style, though somewhat tedious, is fascinating in its way, and betrays a real artist in its combination of the didactic and historical, the philosophic and the poetic elements.
Notes.
Lagarde (in the Preface to his edition of the Clementina, p. 22) and G. E. Stietz (in the lengthy review of Lagarde in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1867, No. III p. 556 sqq), draw a parallel between the pseudo-Clementine fiction of Simon and the German story of Faust, the magician, and derive the latter from the former through the medium of the Recognitions, which were better known in the church than the homilies. George Sabellicus , about a.d. 1507, called himself Faustus junior, magus secundus. Clement’s father is called Faustus, and his two brothers, Fatistinus and Faustinianus (in the Recognitions Faustus, and Faustinus), were brought up with Simon the magician, and at first associated with him. The characters of Helena and Homunculus appear in both stories, though very differently. I doubt whether these resemblances are sufficient to establish a connection between the two otherwise widely divergent popular fictions.
§ 115. Gnosticism. The Literature.
Sources:
1. Gnostic (of the Valentinian school in the wider sense): Pistis Sopitia; Opus gnosticum e codice Coptico descriptum lat. vertit M. G Schwartze, ed. J. H. Petermann. Berl. 1851. Of the middle of the third century. An account of the fall and repentance of Sophia and the mystery of redemption. Comp. the article of Köstlin in the "Tüb. Theol. Jahrbücher," 1854.—The Apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Apocalypses are to a large extent of Gnostic origin, e.g. the Acts of St. Thomas (a favorite apostle of the Gnostics), John, Peter, Paul, Philip, Matthew, Andrew, Paul and Thecla. Some of them have been worked over by Catholic authors, and furnished much material to the legendary lore of the church. They and the stories of monks were the religious novels of the early church. See the collections of the apocryphal literature of the N. T. by Fabricius, Thilo, Tischendorf, Max Bonnet, D. William Wright, G. Phillips, S. C. Malan, Zahn, and especially Lipsius: Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und Apostelligenden (Braunschweig, 1883, 2 vols.) Comp. the Lit. quoted in vol. I. 90 sq.; 188 sq., and in Lipsius, I. 34 sqq.
II. Patristic(with many extracts from lost Gnostic
writings):
See Fr. Oehler’s Corpus Haereseologicum (a
collection of the ancient anti-heretical works of Epiphanius,
Philastrus,
III. Neo-Platonist: Plotinus: Πρὸς τοὺς γνωστικούς (or Ennead. II. 9).
IV. Critical: R. A. Lipsius: Zur Quellen-Kritik des Epiphanios. Wien 1865. Die Quellen der äItesten Ketzergeschichte. Leipz. 1875 (258 pp.)
Ad. Harnack: Zur Quellen-Kritik der Geschichte des Gnosticismus. Leipz. 1873. Comp. his article in Brieger’s "Zeitschrift für K. Gesell." for 1876, I. Also Hilgenfeld: Ketzergesch. p. 1–83.
Works:
Massuet (R.C.): Dissert. de Gnosticorum rebus,
prefixed to his edition of
Mosheim: Comment. de rebus ante Const. M. pp. 333 sqq.
Neander: Genet. Entwicktlung der gnost. Systeme. Berl. 1818. Comp. the more mature exposition in his Ch. Hist. He first opened a calm philosophical treatment of Gnosticism.
Jaques Matter.: Histoire critique du Gnosticisme et de son influence sur les sectes religieuses el philosophiques des six premiers siècles Par. 1828; second ed. much enlarged. Strasb. and Par. 1844, in 3 vols.
Burton: Bampton Lectures on the Heresies of the Apost. Age. Oxf. 1830,
Möhler (R.C.): Der Ursprung des Gnosticismus. Tüb. 1831 (in his "Vermischte Schriften." I. pp. 403 sqq.)
Baur: Die christliche Gnosis in ihrer geschichtl. Entwicklung. Tüb. 1835. A masterly philosophical analysis, which includes also the systems of Jacob Böhme, Schelling, Schleiermacher, and Hegel. Comp. his Kirchengesch. vol. I. 175–234.
Norton: History of the Gnostics. Boston, 1845.
H. Rossel: Gesch. der Untersuch. ueber den Gnostic.; in his "Theol. Nachlass." published by Neander. Berl. 1847, vol. 2nd, p. 179 sqq.
Thiersch: Kritik der N. Tlichen Schriften. Erl. 1845 (chap. 5, pp. 231 sqq. and 268 sqq.)
R. A. Lipsius: Der Gnosticismus, sein Wesen, Ursprung und Entwicklungsgang. Leipz. 1860 (from Ersch and Gruber’s "Allgem. Encycl." 1. Sect. vol. 71). Comp. his critical work on the sources of Gn. quoted above.
E. Wilh. Möller:
Geschirhte des,
Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche bis auf
C. W. King: The Gnostics and their Remains (with illustrations of Gnostic symbols and works of art). Lond., 1864.
Henry L. Mansel (Dean of St. Paul’s, d. 1871): The Gnostic Heresies, ed. by J. B. Lightfoot. London, 1875.
J. B. Lightfoot: The Colossian Heresy, Excursus in his Com. on Colossians and Philemon. London, 187, 5, pp. 73–113. This is the best account of Gnosticism, written by an Englishman, but confined to the apostolic ige.
Renan: L’ église chrétienne (Paris, 1879), Chap. IX. and X. p. 140–185, and XVIII. p. 350–363.
J. L. Jacobi: Gnosis, in the new ed. of Herzog, vol. V. (1879), 204–247, condensed in Schaff’s "Rel. Encycl." 1882, vol. I. 877 sqq.
G. Salmon, in Smith and Wace, II. 678–687.
G. Koffmane: Die Gnosis nach ihrer Tendenz und Organisation. Breslau, 1881. (Theses, 33 pages).
Ad. Hilgenfeld:Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums. Liepzig, 1884 (162 sqq.).
A number of monographs on the individual Gnostics, see below.
§ 116. Meaning, Origin and Character of Gnosticism.
The Judaistic form of heresy was substantially conquered in the apostolic age. More important and more widely spread in the second period was the paganizing heresy, known by the name of Gnosticism. It was the Rationalism of the ancient church; it pervaded the intellectual atmosphere, and stimulated the development of catholic theology by opposition.
The Greek word gnosis may denote all schools of
philosophical or religious knowledge, in distinction from superficial
opinion or blind belief. The New Testament makes a plain distinction
between true and false gnosis. The true consists in a deep insight into
the essence and structure of the Christian truth, springs from faith,
is accompanied by the cardinal virtues of love and humility, serves to
edify the church, and belongs among the gifts of grace wrought by the
Holy Spirit. Λόγος
γνώσεως ,
λόγος
σοφίας , Ψευδώνυμος
γνῶσις
In this bad sense, the word applies to the error
of which we now speak, and which began to show itself at least as early
as the days of Paul and John. It is a one-sided intellectualism on a
dualistic heathen basis. It rests on an over-valuation of knowledge or
gnosis, and a depreciation of faith or pistis. The Gnostics contrasted
themselves by this name with the Pistics, or the mass of believing
Christians. They regarded Christianity as consisting essentially in a
higher knowledge; fancied themselves the sole possessors of an
esoteric, philosophical religion, which made them genuine, spiritual
men, and looked down with contempt upon the mere men of the soul and of
the body. They constituted the intellectual aristocracy, a higher caste
in the church. They, moreover, adulterated Christianity with sundry
elements entirely foreign, and thus quite obscured the true essence of
the gospel. Baur takes too
comprehensive a view of Gnosticism, and includes in it all systems of
Christian philosophy of religion down to Schelling and Hegel.
We may parallelize the true and false, the
believing and unbelieving forms of Gnosticism with the two forms of
modern Rationalism and modern Agnosticism. There is a Christian
Rationalism which represents the doctrines of revelation as being in
harmony with reason, though transcending reason in its present
capacity; and there is an anti-Christian Rationalism which makes
natural reason (ratio) the judge of revelation, rejects the specific
doctrines of Christianity, and denies the supernatural and miraculous.
And there is an Agnosticism which springs from the sense of the
limitations of thought, and recognizes faith as the necessary organ of
the supernatural and absolute; Sir William
Hamilton and Dean Mansel. Hume, Spencer,
Comte. As to Kant, he started from Hume, but checked the scepticism of
the theoretical reason by the categorical imperative of the practical
reason. See Calderwood’s article "Agnosticism" in
Schaffs "Rel. Encycl." vol. I.
We now proceed to trace the origin of Gnosticism.
As to its substance, Gnosticism is chiefly of
heathen descent. It is a peculiar translation or transfusion of heathen
philosophy and religion into Christianity. This was perceived by the
church-fathers in their day.
But this reference to Hellenic philosophy, with which Massuet was content, is not enough. Since Beausobre and Mosheim the East has been rightly joined with Greece, as the native home of this heresy. This may be inferred from the mystic, fantastic, enigmatic form of the Gnostic speculation, and from the fact, that most of its representatives sprang from Egypt and Syria. The conquests of Alexander, the spread of the Greek language and literature, and the truths of Christianity, produced a mighty agitation in the eastern mind, which reacted on the West. Gnosticism has accordingly been regarded as more or less parallel with the heretical forms of Judaism, with Essenism, Therapeutism, Philo’s philosophico-religious system, and with the Cabbala, the origin of which probably dates as far back as the first century. The affinity of Gnosticism also with the Zoroastrian dualism of a kingdom of light and a kingdom of darkness is unmistakable, especially in the Syrian Gnostics. Its alliance with the pantheistic, docetic, and ascetic elements of Buddhism, which had advanced at the time of Christ to western Asia, is equally plain. Parsic and Indian influence is most evident in Manichaeism, while the Hellenic element there amounts to very little.
Gnosticism, with its syncretistic tendency, is no isolated fact. It struck its roots deep in the mighty revolution of ideas induced by the fall of the old religions and the triumph of the new. Philo, of Alexandria, who was a contemporary of Christ, but wholly ignorant of him, endeavored to combine the Jewish religion, by allegorical exposition, or rather imposition, with Platonic philosophy; and this system, according as it might be prosecuted under the Christian or the heathen influence, would prepare the way either for the speculative theology of the Alexandrian church fathers, or for the heretical Gnosis. Still more nearly akin to Gnosticism is Neo-Platonism, which arose a little later than Philo’s system, but ignored Judaism, and derived its ideas exclusively from eastern and western heathenism. The Gnostic syncretism, however, differs materially from both the Philonic and the Neo-Platonic by taking up Christianity, which the Neo-Platonists directly or indirectly opposed. This the Gnostics regarded as the highest stage of the development of religion, though they so corrupted it by the admixture of foreign matter, as to destroy its identity.
Gnosticism is, therefore, the grandest and most comprehensive form of speculative religious syncretism known to history. It consists of Oriental mysticism, Greek philosophy, Alexandrian, Philonic, and Cabbalistic Judaism, and Christian ideas of salvation, not merely mechanically compiled, but, as it were, chemically combined. At least, in its fairly developed form in the Valentinian system, it is, in its way, a wonderful structure of speculative or rather imaginative thought, and at the same time all artistic work of the creative fancy, a Christian mythological epic. The old world here rallied all its energies, to make out of its diverse elements some new thing, and to oppose to the real, substantial universalism of the catholic church an ideal, shadowy universalism of speculation. But this fusion of all systems served in the end only to hasten the dissolution of eastern and western heathenism, while the Christian element came forth purified and strengthened from the crucible.
The Gnostic speculation, like most speculative religions, failed to establish a safe basis for practical morals. On the one side, a spiritual pride obscured the sense of sin, and engendered a frivolous antinomianism, which often ended in sensuality and debaucheries. On the other side, an over-strained sense of sin often led the Gnostics, in gIaring contrast with the pagan deification of nature, to ascribe nature to the devil, to abhor the body as the seat of evil, and to practice extreme austerities upon themselves.
This ascetic feature is made prominent by
Möhler, the Roman Catholic divine. But he goes quite too
far, when he derives the whole phenomenon of Gnosticism (which he
wrongly views as a forerunner of Protestantism) directly and
immediately from Christianity. He represents it as a
hyper-Christianity, an exaggerated contempt for the world, He calls Gnosticism
a "Verteufelung der
Natur."
The number of the Gnostics it is impossible to
ascertain. We find them in almost all portions of the ancient church;
chiefly where Christianity came into close contact with Judaism and
heathenism, as in Egypt, Syria, and Asia Minor; then in Rome, the
rendezvous of all forms of truth and falsehood; in Gaul, where they
were opposed by
The flourishing period of the Gnostic schools was the second century. In the sixth century, only faint traces of them remained; yet some Gnostic and especially Manichaean ideas continue to appear in several heretical sects of the middle ages, such as the Priscillianists, the Paulicians, the Bogomiles, and the Catharists; and even the history of modern theological and philosophical speculation shows kindred tendencies.
§ 117. The System of Gnosticism. Its Theology.
Gnosticism is a heretical philosophy of religion, or,
more exactly a mythological theosophy, which reflects intellectually
the peculiar, fermenting state of that remarkable age of transition
from the heathen to the Christian order of things. If it were merely an
unintelligible congeries of puerile absurdities and impious
blasphemies, as it is grotesquely portrayed by older historians, Even some of the
more recent writers, as Bishop Kaye (Eccl. History of the Second arid
Third Centuries), and the translators of Πόθεν
τὸ κακόν,
or ἡ
κακία: unde malum? (See
In form and method it is, as already observed, more Oriental than Grecian. The Gnostics, in their daring attempt to unfold the mysteries of an upper world, disdained the trammels of reason, and resorted to direct spiritual intuition. Hence they speculate not so much in logical and dialectic mode, as in an imaginative, semi-poetic way, and they clothe their ideas not in the simple, clear, and sober language of reflection, but in the many-colored, fantastic, mythological dress of type, symbol, and allegory. Thus monstrous nonsense and the most absurd conceits are chaotically mingIed up with profound thoughts and poetic intuitions.
This spurious supernaturalism which substitutes
the irrational for the supernatural, and the prodigy for the miracle,
pervades the pseudo-historical romances of the Gnostic Gospels and
Acts. These surpass the Catholic traditions in luxuriant fancy and
incredible marvels. "Demoniacal possessions," says one who has mastered
this literature, Dr. Lipsius, Die Apokryphen Apostelgeschichten und
Apostellegenden (1883), vol. 1. P. 7.
The highest source of knowledge, with these
heretics was a secret tradition, in contrast with the open, popular
tradition of the Catholic church. In this respect, they differ from
Protestant sects, which generally discard tradition altogether and
appeal to the Bible only, as understood by themselves. They appealed
also to apocryphal documents, which arose in the second century in
great numbers, under eminent names of apostolic or pre-Christian times.
Epiphanius, in his 26th Heresy, counts the apocrypha of the
Gnostics by thousands, and Adv. Haer.l.c. 20.
§1: Ἀμύθητον
πλῆθος
ἀποκρύφων
καὶ νόθων
γραφῶν,
ἃ̔̀ς
αὐτοὶ
ἔπλασαν,
παρεισφέρουσιν
είς
κατάπληξιν
τῶν
ἀνοήτων
καὶ τὰ τῆς
ἀληθείας
μὴ
ἐπισταμένων
γράμματα. Hippol. Philos. IV.
46, V. 8, 13, 20.
The common characteristics of nearly all the
Gnostic systems are (1) Dualism; the assumption of an eternal
antagonism between God and matter. (2) The demiurgic notion; the
separation of the creator of the world or the demiurgos from the proper
God. (3) Docetism; the resolution of the human element in the person of
the Redeemer into mere deceptive appearance. Δόκητις,
φάντασμα.
We will endeavor now to present a clear and connected view of the theoretical and practical system of Gnosticism in as it comes before us in its more fully developed forms, especially the Valentinian school.
1. The Gnostic Theology. The system
starts from absoIute primal being. God is the unfathomable abyss, Βυθός. So in the old Hindu
philosophy, absolute Being is regarded as the ground of all existence.
It is itself devoid of qualities, incapable of definition,
inconceivable, neither one thing nor another thing, yet containing in
itself the possibilities; of all things; and out from its dark depths
the universe was evolved through some mysterious impulse. The Vedas
describe it thus: "It is neither Brahma, nor Vishnoo, nor Sivan, but
something back of these, without passion, neither great nor small,
neither male nor female, but something far beyond."
2. Kosmology. The abyss
opens; God enters upon a process of development, and sends forth from
his bosom the several aeons; that is, the attributes and unfolded
powers of his nature, the ideas of the eternal spirit-world, such as
mind, reason, wisdom, power, truth, life. Νοῦς,
λόγος ,
σοφία,
δύναμις,
ἀλήθεια,
ζωή , etc. Προβολή
(from προβάλλω),
a putting forward, a projection. Basilides and
Saturninus use the former illustration; Marcos uses the latter.
The material visible world is the abode of the
principle of evil. This cannot proceed from God; else he were himself
the author of evil. It must come from an opposite principle. This is
Matter (ὕλη), which stands in eternal opposition to
God and the ideal world. The Syrian Gnostics, and still more the
Manichaeans, agreed with Parsism in conceiving Matter as an
intrinsically evil substance, the raging kingdom of Satan, at
irreconcilable warfare with the kingdom of light. The Alexandrian
Gnostics followed more the Platonic idea of the ὕλη and conceived this as κένωμα, emptiness, in contrast with πλήρωμα, the divine, vital fulness, or as
the μὴ
ὄν, related to the divine being as shadow to
light, and forming the dark limit beyond which the mind cannot pass.
This Matter is in itself dead, but becomes animated by a union with the
Pleroma, which again is variously described. In the Manichaean system
there are powers of darkness, which seize by force some parts of the
kingdom of light. But usually the union is made to proceed from above.
The last link in the chain of divine aeons, either too weak to keep its
hold on the ideal world, or seized with a sinful passion for the
embrace of the infinite abyss, falls as a spark of light into the dark
chaos of matter, and imparts to it a germ of divine life, but in this
bondage feels a painful longing after redemption, with which the whole
world of aeons sympathizes. This weakest aeon is called by Valentine
the lower Wisdom, or Achamoth, Ἡ
κάτω σοφία,
Ἀχαμώθ (Iren.
1. 4; in Stieren, I. 44), הַחָכְמרׄת
or אַכִּימוּת
the Chaldaic form of the Hebrew חָכְמָה
Here now comes in the third principle of the
Gnostic speculation, namely, the world-maker, commonly called the
Demiurge, Δημιουργός, a term used by Plato in
a similar sense.
3. Christology and Soteriology. Redemption itself is the liberation of the light-spirit from the chains of dark Matter, and is effected by Christ, the most perfect aeon, who is the mediator of return from the sensible phenomenal world to the supersensuous ideal world, just as the Demiurge is the mediator of apostacy from the Pleroma to the Kenoma. This redeeming aeon, called by Valentine σωτήρ or Ἰησοῦς descends through the sphere of heaven, and assumes the ethereal appearance of a body; according to another view, unites himself with the man Jesus, or with the Jewish Messiah, at the baptism, and forsakes him again at the passion. At all events, the redeemer, however conceived in other respects, is allowed no actual contact with sinful matter. His human birth, his sufferings and death, are explained by Gnosticism after the manner of the Indian mythology, as a deceptive appearance, a transient vision, a spectral form, which he assumed only to reveal himself to the sensuous nature of man. Reduced to a clear philosophical definition, the Gnostic Christ is really nothing more than the ideal spirit of himself, as in the mythical gospel-theory of Strauss. The Holy Ghost is commonly conceived as a subordinate aeon. The central fact in the work of Christ is the communication of the Gnosis to a small circle of the initiated, prompting and enabling them to strive with clear consciousness after the ideal world and the original unity. According to Valentine, the heavenly Soter brings Achamoth after innumerable sufferings into the Pleroma, and unites himself with her—the most glorious aeon with the Iowest—in an eternal spirit-marriage. With this, all disturbance in the heaven of aeons is allayed, and a blessed harmony and inexpressible delight are restored, in which all spiritual (pneumatic) men, or genuine Gnostics, share. Matter is at last entirely consumed by a fire breaking out from its dark bosom.
4. The Anthropology of
the Gnostics corresponds with their theology. Man is a microcosm
consisting of spirit, body, and soul reflecting the three principles,
God, Matter, and Demiurge, though in very different degrees. There are
three classes of men: the spiritual, Πευματικοί. Σωματικοί,
φυσικοί,
σαρκικοί,
ὑλικοί. Ψυχικοί.
These three classes are frequently identified with
the adherents of the three religions respectively; the spiritual with
the Christians, the carnal with the heathens, the psychical with the
Jews. But they also made the same distinction among the professors of
any one religion, particularly among the Christians; and they regarded
themselves as the genuine spiritual men in the full sense of the word;
while they looked upon the great mass of Christians Οἱ
πολλοί.
Ingenious as this thought is, it is just the basis of that unchristian distinction of esoteric and exoteric religion, and that pride of knowledge, in which Gnosticism runs directly counter to the Christian virtues of humility and love.
§ 118. Ethics of Gnosticism.
All the Gnostic heretics agree in disparaging the
divinely created body, and over-rating the intellect. Beyond this, we
perceive among them two opposite tendencies: a gloomy asceticism, and a
frivolous antinomianism; both grounded in the dualistic principle,
which falsely ascribes evil to matter, and traces nature to the devil.
The two extremes frequently met, and the Nicolaitan maxim in regard to
the abuse of the flesh Δεῖ
καταχρῆσθαι
τῇ
σαρκί, the flesh must be
abused to be conquered.
The ascetic Gnostics, like Marcion, Saturninus,
The licentious Gnostics, as the Nicolaitans, the
Ophites, the Carpocratians, and the Antitactes, in a proud conceit of
the exaltation of the spirit above matter, or even on the diabolical
principle, that sensuality must be overcome by indulging it, bade
defiance to all moral laws, and gave themselves up to the most
shameless licentiousness. It is no great thing, said they, according to
§ 119. Cultus and Organization.
In cultus, the Gnostic docetism and
hyper-spiritualism led consistently to naked intellectual simplicity;
sometimes to the rejection of all sacraments and outward means of
grace; if not even, as in the Prodicians, to blasphemous
self-exaltation above all that is called God and worshiped. Comp.
But with this came also the opposite extreme of a symbolic and mystic pomp, especially in the sect of the Marcosians. These Marcosians held to a two-fold baptism, that applied to the human Jesus, the Messiah of the psychical, and that administered to the heavenly Christ, the Messiah of the spiritual; they decorated the baptistery like a banquet-hall; and they first introduced extreme unction. As early as the second century the Basilideans celebrated the feast of Epiphany. The Simonians and Carpocratians used images of Christ and of their religious heroes in their worship. The Valentinians and Ophites sang in hymns the deep longing of Achamoth for redemption from the bonds of Matter. Bardesanes is known as the first Syrian hymn-writer. Many Gnostics, following their patriarch, Simon, gave themselves to magic, and introduced their arts into their worship; as the Marcosians did in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
Of the outward organization of the Gnostics (with
the exception of the Manichaeans, who will be treated separately), we
can say little. Their aim was to resolve Christianity into a
magnificent speculation; the practical business of organization was
foreign to their exclusively intellectual bent. De Praescr.
Haeret., c. 41. βδελυρία. βλασφημῶν
διαβάλλει
τὴν
δημιουργίαν
.
§ 120. Schools of Gnosticism.
The arbitrary and unbalanced subjectivity of the Gnostic speculation naturally produced a multitude of schools. These Gnostic schools have been variously classified.
Geographically they may be reduced to two great
families, the Egyptian or Alexandrian, and the Syrian, which are also
intrinsically different. In the former (Basilides, Valentine, the
Ophites), Platonism and the emanation theory prevail, in the latter
(Saturninus, Bardesanes,
Examined further, with reference to its doctrinal
character, Gnosticism appears in three forms, distinguished by the
preponderance of the heathen, the Jewish, and the Christian elements
respectively in its syncretism. The Simonians, Nicolaitans, Ophites,
Carpocratians, Prodicians, Antitactes, and Manichaeans belong to a
paganizing class; Cerinthus, Basilides, Valentine, and Justin (as also
the Pseudo-Clementine Homilies, though these are more properly
Ebionitic), to a Judaizing; Saturninus, Marcion, Gibbon, who devotes
four pages (Ch. XV.) to the Gnostics, dwells exclusively on the
anti-Jewish feature, and makes them express his own aversion to the Old
Testament. He calls them (from very superficial knowledge, but with his
masterly skill of insinuation) "the most polite, the most learned, and
the most wealthy of the Christian name," and says that, being mostly
averse to the pleasures of sense, "they morosely arraigned the polygamy
of the patriarchs, the gallantries of David, and the seraglio of
Solomon," and were at a loss to reconcile "the conquest of Canaan, and
the extirpation of the unsuspecting natives with the common notions of
humanity and justice."
The ethical point of view, from which the division
might as well be made, would give likewise three main branches: the
speculative or theosophic Gnostics (Basilides, Valentine), the
practical and ascetic (Marcion, Saturninus,
Having thus presented the general character of Gnosticism, and pointed out its main branches, we shall follow chiefly the chronological order in describing the several schools, beginning with those which date from the age of the apostles.
§ 121. Simon Magus and the Simonians.
I. Commentaries on
II. Simson: Leben und Lehre Simon des Magiers, in the "Zeitschrift für hist. Theologie" for 1841.
Hilgenfeld: Der Magier Simon, in the "Zeischrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie" for 1868.
Lipsius: Simon d. Mag. in Schenkel’s "Bibel-Lexikon," vol. V. (1875), p. 301–321. Comp. the literature quoted there, p. 320.
Simon Magus is a historical character known to us
from the eighth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. The
Tübingen school, which denies the historical character of
the Acts, resolves also the story of Simon into a Jewish Christian
fiction, aimed at the apostle Paul as the real heretic and magician. So
Baur, Zeller, and Volkmar. Lipsius ingeniously carries out this
Simon-Paul hypothesis, and declares (I. c. p. 303): "Der Kern der Sage ist niches als ein
vollständig ausgeführtes Zerrbild des
Heidenapostels, dessen Zäge bis in’s
einzelne hinein die Person, die Lehre, und die Lebenschicksale des
Paulus persifliren sollen." But the book of Acts
gives the earliest record of Simon and is the production, if not of
Luke, as we believe with the unanimous testimony of antiquity, at all
events of a writer friendly to Paul, and therefore utterly unlikely to
insert an anti-Pauline fiction which would stultify the greater part of
his own book. Comp. the remarks above, §114, p. 438. Apol. I, 26 (Σίμωνα
μέν τινα
Σαμαρέα,
τὸν ἀπὸ
κώμης
λεγομένης
Γιττῶν); comp. Clem.
Hom. I. 15; II. 22 (ἀπὸ
Γιτθῶν); Hippol.
Philos. VI. 7 (ὁ
Γιττηνός).There
was such a place as Γίτται, not far
from Flavia Neapolis (Nablus), Justin’s birthplace. It
is now called Kuryet Jît (Dschit). See
Robinson’s Pal. II. 308, and Otto’s
note on the passage in Justin (Opera I. 78). According to
Josephus, Ant. XX. 7, 2. The identity is assumed by Neander, De Wette,
Hilgenfeld. There was on the island of Cyprus a city named Κίτιον (Thucyd.
I. 112, 1), which Justin M. may possibly have confounded with Gitthon,
in Samaria, as he confounded Simo and Semo on the statue in Rome. But
it is much more likely that Josephus was mistaken on a question of
Samaria than Justin, a native of Flavia Neapolis (the ancient
Shechem).
Simon represented himself as a sort of emanation
of the deity ("the Great Power of God"), ἡ
Δύναμις
τοῦ θεοῦ
ἥ
Μεγάλη, The memory of this
incident is perpetuated in the name of simony for profane traffic in
ecclesiastical offices.
The wandering life and teaching of Simon were
fabulously garnished in the second and third centuries by Catholics
and heretics, but especially by the latter in the interest of Ebionism
and with bitter hostility to Paul. In the pseudo-Clementine romances he
represents all anti-Jewish heresies. Simon the Magician is contrasted,
as the apostle of falsehood, with Simon Peter, the apostle of truth; he
follows him, as darkness follows the light, from city to city, in
company with Helena (who had previously been a prostitute at Tyre, but
was now elevated to the dignity of divine intelligence); he is refuted
by Peter in public disputations at Caesarea, Antioch, and Rome; at last
he is ignominiously defeated by him after a mock-resurrection and
mock-ascension before the Emperor Nero; he ends with suicide, while
Peter gains the crown of martyrdom. The legendary
accounts, both catholic and heretical, vary considerably. Justin M.
reports Simon’s visit to Rome, but assigns it to the
reign of Claudius (41-54), and says nothing of an encounter with Peter.
Other reports put the journey in the reign of Nero (54-68). According
to He reports (Apol.
I26 and 56) that Simon Magus made such an impression by his magical
arts upon the Roman Senate and people that they paid him divine homage,
and erected a statue to him on the island of the Tiber. But he mistook
Semo Sancus or Sangus, a Sabine-Roman divinity unknown to him, for Simo
Sanctus. For in 1574 a statue was found in the place described, with
the inscription: Semoni Sanco Deo Fidio sacrum, etc. The mistake is
repeated by
The Gnosticism which Ἀπόφασις
μεγάλη. Philos. VI. 6
sqq.
The sect of the Simonians, which continued into the third century, took its name, if not its rise, from Simon Magus, worshipped him as a redeeming genius, chose, like the Cainites, the most infamous characters of the Old Testament for its heroes, and was immoral in its principles and practices. The name, however, is used in a very indefinite sense, for various sorts of Gnostics.
§ 122. The Nicolaitans.
The Nicolaitans are mentioned as a licentious sect in
the Δεῖ
καταχρῆσθαι
τῇ
σαρκί.
But the views of the fathers are conflicting.
"The Nicolaitanes," he says, "are the followers of that Nicolas who was one of the seven first ordained to the diaconate by the apostles. They lead lives of unrestrained indulgence. The character of these men is very plainly pointed out in the Apocalypse of John, where they are represented as teaching that it is a matter of indifference to practice adultery, and to eat things sacrificed to idols. Wherefore the Word has also spoken of them thus: ’But this thou hast, that thou hatest the deeds of the Nicolaitanes, which I also hate.’ "
He adds the curious
statement (Strom. III.c. 4) that on a certain occasion Nicolas was
sharply reproved by the Apostles as a jealous husband, and repelled the
charge by offering to allow his beautiful wife to become the wife of
any other person. Extremely improbable.
§ 123. Cerinthus.
Iren. I. (25) 26, § 1; III. 3,§ 4; III. 11, § 1; Hippol. VII. 21; Euseb. III. 28; IV. 14. Comp. Dorner: Lehre v. der Person Christi, I. 314 sq. Art. Cerinth in "Smith and Wace," I. 447.
Κήρινθος. Both recorded by,
Cerinthus was (according to the uncertain
traditions collected by Epiphanius) an Egyptian and a Jew either by
birth or conversion, studied in the school of Philo in Alexandria, was
one of the false apostles who opposed Paul and demanded circumcision
(
His views, as far as they can be ascertained from
confused accounts, assign him a position between Judaism and Gnosticism
proper. He rejected all the Gospels except a mutilated Matthew, taught
the validity of the Mosaic law and the millennial kingdom. He was so
far strongly Judaistic, and may be counted among the Ebionites; but in
true Gnostic style he distinguished the world-maker from God, and
represented the former as a subordinate power, as an intermediate,
though not exactly hostile, being. In his Christology he separates the
earthly man Jesus, who was a son of Joseph and Mary, from the heavenly
Christ, ὁ
ἄ́νω Χριστός. He also
calls the Holy Spirit ἡ ἄνω
δύναμις , the
power from on high which came down upon Jesus. Valentine called the
Jewish Messiah (ὁ κάτω Χριστός). The
best account of Cerinth’s Christology is given by
Dorner. The chiliastic
eschatology of Cerinthus is omitted by
The Alogi, an obscure anti-trinitarian and anti-chiliastic sect of the second century, regarded Cerinthus as the author of the Apocalypse of John on account of the chiliasm taught in it. They ascribed to him also the fourth Gospel, although it is the best possible refutation of all false Gnosticism from the highest experimental Gnosis of faith.
Simon Magus, the Nicolaitans and Cerinthus belong to the second half of the first century. We now proceed to the more developed systems of Gnosticism, which belong to the first half of the second century, and continued to flourish till the middle of the third.
The most important and influential of these systems bear the names of Basilides, Valentinus, and Marcion. They deserve, therefore, a fuller consideration. They were nearly contemporaneous, and matured during the reigns of Hadrian and Antoninus Pius. Basilides flourished in Alexandria a.d. 125; Valentine came to Rome in 140; Marcion taught in Rome between 140 and 150.
§ 124. Basilides.
Besides the sources in
Jacobi: Basilidis philosophi Gnostici Sentent. ex Hippolyti lib. nuper reperto illustr. Berlin, 1852. Comp. his article Gnosis in Herzog, vol. V. 219–223, and in Brieger’s "Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch." for 1876–77 (I. 481–544).
Uhlhorn: Das Basilidianische System. Göttingen, 1855. The best analysis.
Baur in the Tübinger "Theol. Jahrbücher" for 1856, pp. 121–162.
Hofstede de Groot: Basilides as witness for the Gospel of John, in Dutch, and in an enlarged form in German. Leipz. 1868. Apologetic for the genuineness of the fourth Gospel.
Dr. Hort in Smith and Wace, "Dictionary of Christian Biography (Lond. 1877). I. 268–281 (comp." Abrasax," p. 9–10). Very able.
Hilgenfeld, in his "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." 1878, XXI. 228–250, and the Lit. there given.
Comp. Euseb. Hist.
Eccl. IV. 7 and Clem. Alex. Strom. IV. 12. p. 599 sq.
His doctrine is very peculiar, especially
according to the extended and original exhibition of it in the
"Philosophumena." The prevailing
opinion is that
Basilides is monotheistic rather than dualistic in
his primary idea, and so far differs from the other Gnostics, though
later accounts make him a dualist. He starts from the most abstract
notion of the absolute, to which he denies even existence, thinking of
it as infinitely above all that can be imagined and conceived. Herein, as already
remarked, be resembles Hegel, who likewise begins with the idea of
absolute non-entity, and reconstructs the universe ex nihilo. In both
systems "nothing" must be understood in a non-natural sense, as opposed
to all definite, concrete being or form of existence. It is in fact
identical with the most abstract conception of pure being. Nichts ist sein, and Sein ist Nichts, but,
set in motion by a dialectic process, they produce the Werden, and the werden results in Dasein. And here again
the latest German philosophy meets with the oldest Hindu mythology. See
the note on p. 453. ἀρρητος,
ἀκατονόμαστος
. ὁ οὐκ
ὣν θεος. πανσπερμία-a
Stoic idea. ἀκίνητος
κινητής
In the world-seed Basilides distinguishes three
kinds of sonship, υἱότης
τριμερής. νοῦς,
λόγος ,
φρόνησις,
σοφία,
δύναμις ,
δικαιοσύνη,
and εἰρήνη. Hence it is called
μιμητική. στερέωμα
Next Basilides makes two archons or world-rulers
(demiurges) issue from the world-seed. The first or great archon, whose
greatness and beauty and power cannot be uttered, creates the ethereal
world or the upper heaven, the ogdoad, as it is called; the second is
the maker and ruler of the lower planetary heaven below the moon, the
hebdomad. Basilides supposed in all three hundred and sixty-five
heavens or circles of creation, κτίσεις,
ἀρχαί,
δυνάμεις ,
ἐξουσίαι. Ἀβρασάξ or Ἀβραξάς.
Abraxas is a euphonic inversion, which seems to date from the Latin
translator of Thrice α =3; β =2; ρ =100; ς =200;
ξ =60.
Epiphanius mentions that the Basilidians referred the word to the 365
parts (μέλη) of the human body
as well as to the days of the year. But modern writers are inclined to
think that the engravers of the Abrasax gems and the Basilidians
received the mystic name from an older common source. Dr. Hort suggests
the derivation from Ab-razach, Ab-zarach, i.e. "the father of
effugence," a name appropriate to a solar deity. According to Movers,
Serach was a Phoenician name for Adonist, whose worship was connected
with the seasons of the year. Comp. Bellermann, Ueber die Gemmen der Alten mit dem
Abraxasbilde (Berlin, 1817, ’19)
King, The Gnostics and their Remains (London, 1864), Hort, l.c.,
Matter, Abraxas,"etc. in Herzog, I. 103-107, and Kraus, in his "
Real-Encykl. der christl. Alterthümer,"I. 6-10 (with
illustrations).
Each of the two archons, however, according to a higher ordinance, begets a son, who towers far above his father, communicates to him the knowledge received from the Holy Spirit, concerning the upper spirit-world and the plan of redemption, and leads him to repentance. With this begins the process of the redemption or return of the sighing children of God, that is, the pneumatics, to the supra-mundane God. This is effected by Christianity, and ends with the consummation, or apokatastasis of all things. Like Valentine, Basilides also properly held a threefold Christ—the son of the first archon, the son of the second archon, and the son of Mary. But all these are at bottom the same principle, which reclaims the spiritual natures from the world-seed to the original unity. The passion of Christ was necessary to remove the corporeal and psychical elements, which he brought with him from the primitive medley and confusion (σύγχυσις ἀρχική). His body returned, after death, into shapelessness (ἀμορφία); his soul rose from the grave, and stopped in the hebdomad, or planetary heaven, where it belongs; but his spirit soared, perfectly purified, above all the spheres of creation, to the blessed first sonship (υἱότης) and the fellowship of the non-existent or hyper-existent God.
In the same way with Jesus, the first-fruits, all
other pneumatic persons must rise purified to the place where they by
nature belong, and abide there. For all that continues in its place is
imperishable; but all that transgresses its natural limits is
perishable. Basilides quotes the passage of Paul concerning the
groaning and travailing of the creation expecting the revelation of the
sons of God (
In his moral teaching Basilides inculcated a
moderate asceticism, from which, however, his school soon departed. He
used some of Paul’s Epistles and the canonical
Gospels; quoting for example, Philosoph., VII.
22. He also quoted
His son Isidore was the
chief, we may say the only important one, of his disciples. He composed
a system of ethics and other books, from which
§ 125. Valentinus.
I. The sources are: 1) Fragments Of Valentinus; Ptolomey’s Epistola ad Floram; and
exegetical fragments of Heracleon. 2) The
patristic accounts and refutations of
II. Ren. Massuet:
Dissert. de Haereticis, Art. I. De Valentino, in his ed.
of
George Heinrici: Die Valentinianische Gnosis und die heilige Schrift. Berlin, 1871 (192 pages).
Comp. Neander (whose
account is very good, but lacks the additional information furnished by
Οὐαλεντίνος
or Βαλεντῖνος
. "No other system,"
says Baur (I. 203), "affords us such a clear insight into the peculiar
character of the Gnosis, the inner connection of its view of the world,
and the deeper intellectual character of the whole." Clemens Alex.
Strom. I. VII. p. 898 (ed. Potter). Nothing certain is known of
Theudas. Epiph. Haer. XXXI.
2. The Jewish extraction may be inferred from some of his terms, as
"Achamoth." De Praesc. Haer. c.
30, and Adv. Valent. c. 4. Iren. III. 4, 3.
Comp. Euseb. H. E. IV. 10, 11 (quoting from
His system is an ingenious theogonic and cosmogonic epos. It describes in three acts the creation, the fall, and the redemption; first in heaven, then on earth. Great events repeat themselves in different stages of being. He derived his material from his own fertile imagination, from Oriental and Greek speculations, and from Christian ideas. He made much use of the Prologue of John’s Gospel and the Epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians; but by a wild exegesis he put his own pantheistic and mythological fancies into the apostolic words, such as Logos, Only Begotten, Truth, Life, Pleroma, Ecclesia.
Valentine starts from the eternal primal Being,
which he significantly calls Bythos or Abyss. βυθός, also προπάτωρ,
προαρχή,
αὐτοπάτωρ. · Iren.
I. 1, § 1; Tert. Adv. Val. c. 7. Philos. VI. 24.
There seems, however, to have been a difference of opinion among the
Valentinians on the companionship of the Bythos, for in ch. 25 we read:
"The Father alone, without copulation, has produced an offspring ... he
alone possesses the power of self-generation."
After this eternal silence, God enters upon a
process of evolution or emanation, i.e. a succession of
generations of antithetic and yet supplementary ideas or principles.
From the Abyss emanate thirty aeons in fifteen pairs, σύζυγοι.
The same number of aeons as in Hesiod’s theogony. Also called ὁ
πατήρ (as immediately
proceeding from the προπάτωρ),
the Father, also ὁ
μονογενής,
the Only Begotten (comp. The ἱερὰ
τετρακτύς
of the Pythagoreans. Tert. (c. 7): " prima quadriga Valentinianae
factionis, matrix et origo cunctorum." "Es ist eine tiefe Idee des Vatentinianischen
Systems," says Neander (II. 722), dass, wie alles Dasein in der
Selbstbeschränkung des Bythos seinen Grund hat, so das
Dasein alter geschaffenen Wesen auf Beschränkung
beruht." The ἐνεργεία
μεριστικὴ
καὶ
διοριστική
and the ἐνεργεία
ἑδραστικὴ
καὶ
στηριστική.
The process of the fall and redemption takes place
first in the ideal world of the Pleroma, and is then repeated in the
lower world. In this process the lower Wisdom or Sophia, also called
Achamoth or Chakmuth plays an important part. Usually identified
with Chocmah, but by Lipsius and Jacobi with Chakmuth, the
world-mother, which has a place in the system of Bardesanes. The idea
of Sophia as the mediatrix of creation is no doubt borrowed from the
Proverbs and the Wisdom of Solomon. οὐσία
ἄμορφος
καὶ
ἀκατασκεύαστος
.Philos. VI. 28 (30 ed. Duncker and Schneidewin, I. 274).
The Thohuvabohu of Genesis. "Ignorance having
arisen within the Pleroma in consequence of Sophia, and shapelessness
(ἀμορφία)
in consequence of the offspring of Sophia, confusion arose in the
pleroma (θόρυβυς
ἐγένετο
ἐν
πληρώματι)."Philos.
VI. 26 (31 in Duncker and Schneidewin).
But Sophia yearns after redemption; the aeons
sympathize with her sufferings and aspirations; the eternal Father
himself commands the projection of the last pair of aeons, Christ and
the Holy Spirit, "for the restoration of Form, the destruction of the
abortion, and for the consolation and cessation of the groans of
Sophia." They comfort and cheer the Sophia, and separate the abortion
from the Pleroma. At last, the thirty aeons together project in honor
of the Father the aeon Soter or Jesus, "the great High Priest," "the
Joint Fruit of the Pleroma," and "send him forth beyond the Pleroma as
a Spouse for Sophia, who was outside, and as a rectifier of those
sufferings which she underwent in searching after Christ." After many
sufferings, Sophia is purged of all passions and brought back as the
bride of Jesus, together with all pneumatic natures, into the ideal
world. The demiurge, the fiery and jealous God of the Jews, as "the
friend of the bridegroom," ὁ
φίλος τοῦ
νυμφίου,
In Valentine’s Christology, we must distinguish properly three redeeming beings: (1) The ἄνω Χριστός or heavenly Christ, who, after the fall of Sophia, emanates from the aeon μονογενής, and stands in conjunction with the female principle, the πνεῦμα ἅγιον. He makes the first announcement to the aeons of the plan of redemption, whereupon they strike up anthems of praise and thanksgiving in responsive choirs. (2) The σωτήρ or Ἰησοῦς, produced by all the aeons together, the star of the Pleroma. He forms with the redeemed Sophia the last and highest syzygy. (3) The κάτω Χριστός, the psychical or Jewish Messiah, who is sent by the Demiurge, passes through the body of Mary as water through a pipe, and is at last crucified by the Jews, but, as he has merely an apparent body, does not really suffer. With him Soter, the proper redeemer, united himself in the baptism in the Jordan, to announce his divine gnosis on earth for a year, and lead the pneumatic persons to perfection.
Notes.
Dr. Baur, the great critical historian of ancient Gnosticism and the master spirit of modern Gnosticism, ingeniously reproduces the Valentinian system in Hegelian terminology. I quote the chief part, as a fair specimen of his historic treatment, from his Kirchengeschichte, vol. I. 201 sqq. (comp. his Gnosis, p. 124 sqq.):
"Der Geist, oder Gott als der Geist an sich, geht aus sich heraus, in dieser Sebstoffenbarung Gottes entsteht die Welt, die in ihrem Unterschied von Gott auch wieder an sich mit Gott eins ist. Wie man aber auch dieses immanente Verhältniss von Gott und Welt betrachten mag, als Selbstoffenbarung Gottes oder als Weltentwicklung, es ist an sich ein rein geistiger, im Wesen des Geistes begründeter Process. Der Geist stellt in den Aeonen, die er aus sich hervorgehen lässt, sein eigenes Wesen aus sich heraus und sich gegenüber; da aber das Wesen des Geistes an sich das Denken und Wissen ist, so kann der Process seiner Selbstoffenbarung nur darin bestehen, dass er sich dessen bewusst ist, was er an sich ist. Die Aeonen des Pleroma sind die höchsten Begriffe des geistigen Seins und Lebens, die allgemeinen Denkformen, in welchen der Geist das, was er an sich ist, in bestimmter concreter Weise für das Bewusstsein ist. Mit dem Wissen des Geistes von sich, dem Selbstbewusstsein des sich von sich unterscheidenden Geistes, ist aber auch schon nicht blos ein Princip der Differenzirung, sondern, da Gott und Welt an sich Eins sind, auch ein Princip der Materialisirung des Geistes gesetzt. Je grösser der Abstand der das Bewusstsein des Geistes vermittelnden Begriffe von dem absolutes Princip ist, um so mehr ver dunkelt sich das geistige Bewusstsein, der Geiste, entäussert sich seiner selbst, er ist sich selbst nicht mehr klar und durchsichtig, das Pneumatische sinkt zum Prychischen herab, das Psychische verdichtet sich zum Materiellen, und mit dem Materiellen verbindet sich in seinem Extrem auch der Begriff des Dämonischen und Diabolischen. Da aber auch das psychische an sich pneumatischer Natur ist, und Keime des geistigen Lebens überall zurückgeblieben sind, so muss das Pneumatische die materielle Verdunklung des geistigen Bewusstseins auf der Stufe des psychischen Lebens wieder durchbrechen und die Decke abwerfen, die in der Welt des Demurg auf dem Bewusstsein des Geistes liegt. Die ganze Weltentwicklung ist die Continuität desselben geisigen Processes, es muss daher auch einen Wendepunkt geben, in welchem der Geist aus seiner Selbstentäuserung zu sich selbst zurückkehrt und wieder zum klaren Bewusstsein dessen, was er an sich ist, kommt. Dies ist der gnostische Begriff der christlichen Offenbarung. Die Wissenden im Sinne der Gnostiker, die Pneumatischen, die als solche auch das wahrhaft christliche Bewusstsein in, sich haben, sind ein neues Moment des allgemeinen geistigen Lebens, die höchste Stufe der Selbstoffenbarung Gottes und der Weltentwicklung. Diese Periode des Weltverlaufs beginnt mit der Erscheinung Christi und endet zuletzt damit, dass durch Christus und die Sophia alles Geistige in das Pleroma wieder aufgenommen wird. Da Christus, wie auf jeder Stufe der Weltentwicklung, so auch schon in den höchsten Regionen der Aeonenwelt, in welcher alles seinem Ausgangspunkt hat, and von Anfang an auf dieses Reultant des Ganzen angelegt ist, als das wiederherstellende, in der Einheit mit dem Absolutn erhaltende Princip thätig ist, so hat er in der Waltanschauung der Gnostiker durchaus die Bedeutung eines absolutn Weltprincips."
§ 126. The School of Valentinus. Heracleon, Ptolemy, Marcos, Bardesanes, Harmonius.
Of all the forms of Gnosticism, that of
The school of Valentinus divided chiefly into two
branches, an Oriental, Διδασκαλία
ἀνατολική.
Hippol. VI. 35 (p. 286).
They are collected
by Grabe, Spicil. II. 83-117, Stieren, in his ed. of Iren. Tom. I.
938-971. Baur (I. 203)
significantly ignores Heracleon’s Commentary, which is
fatal to his hypothesis of the late origin of the fourth Gospel.
The Epistola ad
Floram is preserved by Epiphanius (Haer XXIII. § 3).
Stieren, in a Latin inaugural address (1813), denied its genuineness,
but Rossel in an Appendix to Neanders Church History (Germ. ed. II.
1249-1254, in Torrey’s translation I. 725-728), and
Heinrici (l.c. p. 75 sqq.) defend it.
Another disciple of Valentine, Marcos and the
Marcosians are known to us from Clement of Alex. and Iren. (I. 13-21).
The name of It is to be derived
from לוֹק
, voice (not from לכּׄ, all), and ﬠבַּרְאַ, four. The
confusion was first discovered by Heumann (1743), and more fully
explained by Volkmar, Die
Colarbasus-Gnosis, in Niedner’s
"Zeitschrift für Hist.
Theol." 1855, p. 603-616. Comp. Baur, I. 204, note,
and Hort in Smith and Wace, I. 594 sq.
Finally, in the Valentinian school is counted also
Comp. Aug. Hahn: Bardesanes, Gnosticus Syrorum primus
hymnologus. Lips. 1819. A. Merx: Bardes. v.
Edessa. Halle, 1863. Lipsius: In the "Zeitschrift für
wissenschaftl. Theol." 1863, p. 435 sqq. A. Hilgenfeld. Bardesanes, der letzte Gnostiker. Leipz. 1864.
K. Macke: Syrische Lieder gnostischen Ursprungs, in the
"Tüb. Theol.
Quartalschrift" for 1874. Dr.
Hort: Bardaisan, in Smith and Wace, I. 256-260 (very
thorough). Dr. Hort (p. 252)
thinks that "there is no reason to suppose that Bardaisan rejected the.
ordinary faith of Christians, as founded on the Gospels and the
writings of the Apostles, except on isolated points." The varying
modern constructions of his system on a Gnostic basis are all
arbitrary. Περὶ
εἱμαρμένης.It
was formerly known only from a Greek extract in Ephraem the Syrian
speaks of a book of 150 hymns, by which Bardesanes list had beguiled
the people, and makes no mention of Harmonius; but Sozomen and
Theodoret report that Harmonius was the first to adapt the Syrian
language to metrical formal, and music, and that his hymns and times
were used till the time of Ephraem. Dr. Hort explains this
contradiction, which has not received sufficient attention, by
supposing that the book of hymns was really written by Harmonius,
perhaps in his father’s lifetime, and at his
suggestion. But it is equally possible that Bardesanes was the author
and Harmonius the editor, or that both were hymnists. The testimony
of Ephraem cannot be easily set aside as a pure error. Fragments of hymns
of Bardesanes have been traced in the Acta Thomae by K. Macke in the
article quoted above. The Syriac hymns of Ephraem are translated into
German by Zingerle (1838), and into English by H. Burgess (1853).
His son
§ 127. Marcion and his School.
I. Justin M.: Apol.
I. c. 26 and 58. He wrote also a special work against Marcion, which is
lost
II Neander (whose account is too charitable), Baur (I. 213–217), Möller (Gesch. der Kosmologie, 374–407), Fessler. (in Wetzer and Welte, VI. 816–821), Jacobi (in Herzog, V. 231–236), Salmon (in Smith and Wace, III. 816–824). Ad. Hilgenfeld: Cerdon und Marcion, in his "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theol." Leipz. 1881, pp. 1–37.
III. On the critical question of Marcion’s canon and the relation of his mutilated Gospel of Luke to the genuine Gospel of Luke, see the works on the Canon, the critical Introductions, and especially Volkmar: Das Evangelium Marcions, Text und Kritik (Leipz. 1852), and Sanday: The Gospels in the Second Century (London, 1876). The last two have conclusively proved (against the earlier view of Baur, Ritschl, and the author of "Supernat. Rel.") the priority of the canonical Luke. Comp. vol. I. 668.
Marcion was the son of a bishop of Sinope in
Pontus, and gave in his first fervor his property to the church, but
was excommunicated by his own father, probably on account of his
heretical opinions and contempt of authority. Epiphanius and
others mention, as a reason, his seduction of a consecrated virgin; but
this does not agree well with his asceticism, and So Adv. Haer. iil.c.
3, § 4: Ἐπιγινώσκω
τὸν
πρωτότοκον
τοῦ
Σατανᾶ.
Marcion supposed two or three primal forces (ἀρχαί): the good or gracious God (θεὸς ἀγαθός), whom Christ first made known; the evil matter (ὕλη) ruled by the devil, to which heathenism belongs; and the righteous world-maker (δημιουργὸς δίκαιος), who is the finite, imperfect, angry Jehovah of the Jews. Some writers reduce his principles to two; but he did not identify the demiurge with the hyle. He did not go into any further speculative analysis of these principles; he rejected the pagan emanation theory, the secret tradition, and the allegorical interpretation of the Gnostics; in his system he has no Pleroma, no Aeons, no Dynameis, no Syzygies, no suffering Sophia; he excludes gradual development and growth; everything is unprepared, sudden and abrupt.
His system was more critical and rationalistic
than mystic and philosophical. The Armenian
bishop, Esnig, however, brings it nearer to the other forms of
Gnosticism. According to him Marcion assumed three heavens; in the
highest dwelt the good God, far away from the world, in the second the
God of the Law, in the lowest his angels; beneath, on the earth, lay
Hyle, or Matter, which he calls also the power (δύναμις)
or essence (οὐσία) of the
earth. The Hyle is a female principle, and by her aid, as his spouse,
the Jewish God of the Law made this world, after which he retired to
his heaven, and each ruled in his own domain, he with his angels in
heaven, and Hyle with her sons on earth. Möller (p. 378) is
disposed to accept this account as trustworthy. Salmon thinks; it such
a system as Marcion may have learned from Cerdo, but he must have made
little account of the mystic element, else it would be mentioned by the
earlier writers. " Separatio legis
et evangelii proprium et principale opus est Marcionis." "Subito Christus,
subito Joannes. Sic sunt omnia apud Marcionem, que suum et plenum
habent ordinem apud creatorem." Tert. IV. 11. Renan (L’englise
chrét., p. 358) says of the shadowy
narrative of Christ’s which Marcion elaborated on the
basis of his mutilated Luke: "Si
Jesus ne nous
avait été connu que par des textes de ce
genre, on aurait pu douter s’il avaitvraiment
existé, ous’il n’
était pas une fiction, A PRIORI,
dégagée de tout lien avec le
réalité. Dans un pareil système, le
Christ ne naissait pas (la naissance, pour Marcion,
était une souillure), ne souffrait pas, ne mourait
pas."
Marcion formed a canon of his own, which consisted of only eleven books, an abridged and mutilated Gospel of Luke, and ten of Paul’s epistles. He put Galatians first in order, and called Ephesians the Epistle to the Laodicaeans. He rejected the pastoral epistles, in which the forerunners of Gnosticism are condemned, the Epistle to the Hebrews, Matthew, Mark, John, the Acts, the Catholic Epistles, and the Apocalypse.
Notwithstanding his violent antinomianism, Marcion
taught and practiced the strictest ascetic self-discipline, which
revolted not only from all pagan festivities, but even from marriage,
flesh, and wine. (He allowed fish). He could find the true God in
nature no more than in history. He admitted married persons to baptism
only on a vow of abstinence from all sexual intercourse.
In worship he excluded wine from the eucharist,
but retained the sacramental bread, water-baptism, anointing with oil,
and the mixture of milk and honey given to the newly baptized. Tert. I. 14. So they understood.
The Marcionite sect spread in Italy, Egypt, North Africa, Cyprus, and Syria; but it split into many branches. Its wide diffusion is proved by the number of antagonists in the different countries.
The most noteworthy Marcionites are Prepo, Lucanus (an Assyrian), and Apelles. They supplied the defects of the
master’s system by other Gnostic speculations, and in
some instances softened down its antipathy to heathenism and Judaism.
Apelles acknowledged only one first principle. Ambrosius, a friend of
Constantine forbade the Marcionites freedom of
worship public and private, and ordered their meeting-houses to be
handed over to the Catholic Church. Euseb. Vit. Const.
III. 64.
Flügel’s; Mani, p. 160, 167 (quoted by
Salmon). Prof. Jacobi (in Herzog, V. 236) quotes a letter of Hasenkamp
to Lavater of the year 1774, and later authorities, to prove the
lingering existence of similar opinions in Bosnia and Herzegowina.
§ 128. The Ophites. The Sethites. The Peratae. The Cainites
I.
II. Mosheim: Geschichte der Schlangenbrüder. Helmstädt, 1746, ’48.
E. W. Möller: Geschichte der Kosmologie. Halle, 1860. Die ophitische Gnosis, p. 190 sqq.
Baxmann: Die Philosophumena und die Peraten, in Niedner’s "Zeitschrift für die Hist. Theol." for 1860. Lipsius: Ueber das ophitische System. In "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftl. Theologie" for 1863 and ’64.
Jacobi in Herzog, new ed., vol. V. 240 sq.
George Salmon: "Cainites," in Smith and Wace, vol. I. 380–82. Articles "Ophites" and "Peratae," will probably appear in vol. IV., not yet published.
The origin of the Ophites, Ὁφιανοί,
from ὄφις, serpent,
Serpentini. From שׁחָנִ.
The accounts of their worship of the serpent rest,
indeed, on uncertain data; but their name itself comes from their
ascribing special import to the serpent as the type of gnosis, with
reference to the history of the fall (
That mysterious, awe-inspiring reptile, which
looks like the embodiment of a thunderbolt, or like a fallen angel
tortuously creeping in the dust, represents in the Bible the evil
spirit, and its motto, Eritis sicut Deus, is the first lie of the father of lies,
which caused the ruin of man; but in the false religions it is the
symbol of divine wisdom and an object of adoration; and the Eritis
sicus dii appears as a great truth, which opened the path of progress.
The serpent, far from being the seducer of the race, was its first
schoolmaster and civilizer by teaching it the difference between good
and evil. So the Ophites regarded the fall of Adam as the transition
from the state of unconscious bondage to the state of conscious
judgment and freedom; therefore the necessary entrance to the good, and
a noble advance of the human spirit. They identified the serpent with
the Logos, or the mediator between the Father and the Matter, bringing
down the powers of the upper world to the lower world, and leading the
return from the lower to the higher. The serpent represents the whole
winding process of development and salvation. As Baur (K. Gesch.
I. 195) expresses it: "Die
Schlange ist mit EinemWort der durch die Gegensätze
dialectisch sich hindurchwindende Weltentwicklungsprocess
relbst."
With this view is connected their violent
opposition to the Old Testament. Jaldabaoth, תוּהבָּ
אדָּלְיַ, product of
chaos.
The Ophites again branch out in several sects, especially three.
The Sethites considered the third son of Adam the first pneumatic man and the forerunner of Christ. They maintained three principles, darkness below, light above, and spirit between.
The Peratae or Peratics From περάω, to pass
across, to go beyond (the boundary of the material world). We know
their system from the confused account of The following
specimen of Peratic transcendental nonsense is reported by
The Cainites boasted of
the descent from Cain the fratricide, and made him their leader. Καϊνοι (Hippol.
VIII. 20), Καϊανισταί
(Clem. Alex. Strom, VII. 17), Καϊανοί
(Epiph. Haer. 38), Caiani, Cainaei.
No wonder that such blasphemous travesty of the Bible history, and such predilection for the serpent and his seed was connected with the most unbridled antinomianism, which changed vice into virtue. They thought it a necessary part of "perfect knowledge" to have a complete experience of all sins, including even unnamable vices.
Some have identified the Ophites with the false teachers denounced in the Epistle of Jude as filthy dreamers, who "defile the flesh, and set at naught dominion, and rail at dignities," who "went in the way of Cain, and ran riotously in the error of Balaam for hire, and perished in the gainsaying of Korah," as "wandering stars, for whom the blackness of darkness has been reserved forever." The resemblance is certainly very striking, and those heretics may have been the forerunners of the Ophites of the second century.
§ 129. Saturninus (Satornilos).
Iren. I. 24, § 1, 2; ch. 28. Hippol. VII. 3, 28 (depending on Iren.). Tert. Praesc. Haer. 46. Hegesippus in Euseb. IV. 22, 29. Epiph. Haer. XXIII. Theod. Fab. Haer. I. 3. Comp. Möller, l c., p. 367–373.
Contemporary with Basilides under Hadrian, was This second form,
says Renan (L’égl.
chrét, p. 177), is common in
inscription. So Mosheim,
Neander, Baur, Gieseler, Renan. But Möller (p. 371) disputes
the dualism of Saturninus, and maintains that Satan and the God of the
Jew, ; are alike subordinate, though antagonistic beings. But so is
Ahriman in the Parsee dualism, and the Demiurge in all the Gnostic
systems.
§ 130. Carpocrates.
Iren. I. 25 (24). Hippol. VII. 32 (D. & Schn. p. 398 sqq.). Clem. Alex. Strom. III. 511. Epihianius, Haer. XXV.
The Carpocratians, say Hippol. Philos.
VII. 32: εἰκόνας
κατασκευάζουσι
τοῦ
Χριστοῦ
λέγοντες
ὑπὸ
Πιλάτου
τῷ
καιρῷ
ἐκείνῳ
γενέσθαι.
This was the
conjecture of Mosheim, which has been worked out and modified by
Volkmar in a monthly periodical of the Wissenschaftl. Verein at Zürich. He
maintains that the deity worshipped at Same was the new appearing moon,
ὁ
Ἐπιφανής.
§ 131.
I.
Orthodox Notices of
II. H. A. Daniel:
James Donaldson: A Critical History of Christian
Liter., etc. Lond. vol. IIIrd. (1866), which is devoted to
Theod. Zahn:
Ad. Harnack:
Fr. Xav. Funk (R.C.): Zur
Chronologie
The chronology, is
not certain. Zahn and Harnack put his birth at a.d. 110, his conversion at 150, his death at 172. Funk
puts the birth and conversion about 10 years later.
His followers, who kept the system alive till the
fifth century, were called, from their ascetic life, Encratites, or Abstainers, and
from their use of water for wine in the Lord’s Supper,
Hydroparastatae or Aquarians. Ἐγκρατῖται,
also Ἐγκρατεῖς,
Ἐγκρατηταί,
Continentes, the abstemious; or, ̔Ψδροπαραστάται,
Aquarii.
The practice of using mere water for wine in the
eucharist was condemned by
§ 132. Justin the Gnostic.
Lipsius regards him
as one of the earliest, Salmon (in "Smith & Wace," III. 587), with
greater probability, as one of the latest Gnostics. The silence of
§ 133. Hermogenes.
This was enough to
condemn him in the eyes of a Montanist. Hippol. l.c.: ἔφη
τὸν θεὸν
ἐξ ὕλης
συγχρόνου
καὶ
ἀγεννήτου
πάντα
πεποιηκέναι. This foolish notion
be proved from
§ 134. Other Gnostic Sects.
The ancient fathers, especially
1. The Docetae or Docetists taught that the body of Christ was not
real flesh and blood, but merely a deceptive, transient phantom, and
consequently that he did not really suffer and die and rise again.
For a fuller
account see two good articles of Dr. Salmon on Docetae and Docetism, in
"Smith & Wace," I. 865-870.
2. The name Antitactae or
Antitactes, denotes the licentious antinomian
Gnostics, rather than the followers of any single master, to whom the
term can be traced. See Clement of
Alex., Strom. III. 526. From ἀντιτάσσεσθαι,
to defy, rebel against, the law.
3. The Prodicians, so
named from their supposed founder, Prodicus,
considered themselves the royal family, Εὐγενεῖς. See Clem. Alex.,
Strom. I. f. 304; III. f. 438; VII. f. 722; and Epiphan., Haer. 26
(Oehler’s ed. I. 169 sqq.).
Almost every form of immorality and lawlessness seems to have been practiced under the sanction of religion by the baser schools of Gnosticism, and the worst errors and organized vices of modern times were anticipated by them. Hence we need not be surprised at the uncompromising opposition of the ancient fathers to this radical corruption and perversion of Christianity.
§ 135. Mani and the Manichaeans.
Sources.
I. Oriental Sources: The most important, though of comparatively late date. (a) Mohammedan (Arabic): Kitâb al Fihrist. A history of Arabic literature to 987, by an Arab of Bagdad, usually called Ibn Abi Jakub An-Nadîm; brought to light by Flügel, and published after his death by Rödiger and Müller, in 2 vols. Leipz. 1871–’72. Book IX. section first, treats of Manichaeism. Flügel’s transl. see below. Kessler calls Fihrist a "Fundstätte allerersten Ranges." Next to it comes the relation of the Mohamedan philosopher Al-Shahrastanî (d. 1153), in his History of Religious Parties and Philosophical Sects, ed. Cureton, Lond. 1842, 2 vols. (I. 188–192); German translation by Haarbrücker. Halle, 1851. On other Mohammedan sources see Kessler in Herzog2, IX. 225 sq. (b) Persian sources, relating to the life of Mani; the Shâhnâmeh (the Kings’ Book) of Firdausî, ed. by Jul. Mohl. Paris, 1866 (V. 472–475). See Kessler, ibid. 225. c) Christian Sources: In Arabic, the Alexandrian Patriarch Eutychius (d. 916), Annales, ed. Pococke. Oxon. 1628; Barhebraeus (d. 1286), in his Historia Dynastiarum, ed. Pococke. In Syriac: Ephraem Syrus (d. 393), in various writings Esnig or Esnik, an Armenian bishop of the 5th century, who wrote against Marcion and Mani (German translation from the Armenian by C. Fr. Neumann in Illgen’s "Zeitschrift für die Hist. Theol." 1834, p. 77–78).
II. Greek Sources:
III. Latin Sources: Archelaus (Bishop of Cascar in Mesopotamia, d. about 278):
Acta Disputationis cum Manete haeresiarcha; first written in Syriac,
and so far belonging to the Oriental Christian sources (Comp. Jerome,
De vir. ill. 72), but extant only in a Latin translation, which seems
to have been made from the Greek, edited by Zacagni (
St.
Comp. also the Acts of Councils against the Manich. from the fourth century onward, in Mansi and Hefele.
Modern Works:
*Isaac De Beausobre ( b. 1659 in France, pastor of the French church in Berlin, d. 1738): Histoire crit. de Manichée et du Manichéisme. Amst. 1734 and 39. 2 vols. 4º. Part of the first vol. is historical, the second doctrinal. Very full and scholarly. He intended to write a third volume on the later Manichaeans.
*F. Chr. Baur: Das Manichaeische Religionssystem nach den Quellen neu untersucht und entwickelt. Tüb. 1831 (500 pages). A comprehensive Philosophical and critical view. He calls the Manich. system a "glühend prächtiges Natur- und Weltgedicht."
Trechsel: Ueber Kanon, Kritik, und Exegese der Manichäer. Bern, 1832.
D. Chwolson: Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus. Petersb. 1856, 2 vols.
*Gust. Flügel (d. 1870): Mani, seine Lehre und seine Schriften. Aus dem Fihrist des Abî Jakub an-Nadîm (987). Leipz. 1862. Text, translation, and Commentary, 440 pages.
Fr. Spiegel: Eranische Alterthumskunde, vol.II. 1873, p. 185–232.
Alex. Geyler: Das System des Manichäisimus und sein Verh. zum Buddhismus. Jena, 1875.
*K. Kessler: Untersuchungen zur Genesis des manich. Rel. systems. Leipz. 1876. By the same: Mânî oder Beiträge zur Kenntniss der Religionsmischung im Semitismus. Leipz. 1882. See also his thorough art. Mâni und die Manichäer, in "Herzog," new ed., vol. IX. 223–259 (abridged in Schaff’s "Encycl." II. 1396–1398).
G. T. Stokes: Manes, and Manichaeans in "Smith and Wace," III. 792–801.
Ad. Harnack: Manichaeism, in the 9th ed. of the "Encycl. Britannica, vol. XV. (1883), 481–487.
The accounts of Mosheim, Lardner, Schröckh, Walch, Neander, Gieseler.
We come now to the latest, the best organized, the most consistent, tenacious and dangerous form of Gnosticism, with which Christianity had to wage a long conflict. Manichaeism was not only a school, like the older forms of Gnosticism, but a rival religion and a rival church. In this respect it resembled Islam which at a later period became a still more formidable rival of Christianity; both claimed to be divine revelations, both engrafted pseudo-Christian elements on a heathen stock, but the starting point was radically different: Manichaeism being anti-Jewish and dualistic, Mohammedanism, pseudo-Jewish and severely and fanatically monotheistic.
First the external history.
The origin of Manichaeism is matter of obscure and
confused tradition. It is traced to Μάνης,
Μάντος
Μανιχαῖος,Manes
(Gen. Manetis), Manichaeans (the last form always used by St. At least, according
to Persian accounts; but the Arabs, who hate painting, and the church
fathers are silent about his skill as a painter. Among these are
mentioned the Book of Mysteries, the Book of Giants, the Book of
Precepts for Hearers (Capitula orEpistola Fundamenti, from which
At first Mani found favor at the court of the
Persian king Shapur I. (Sapor), but stirred up the hatred of the
priestly cast of the Magians. He fled to East India and China and
became acquainted with Buddhism. Indeed, the name of Buddha is
interwoven with the legendary history of the Manichaean system. His
disputations with Archelaus in Mesopotamia are a fiction, like the
pseudo-Clementine disputations of Simon Magus with Peter, but on a
better historic foundation and with an orthodox aim of the writer Beausobre (vol. I.
Pref. p. viii): "Les Actes de
cette Dispute sont évidemment une fiction pareille
à celle de cet imposteur, qui a pris le nom de
Clément Romain, et qui a introduit S. Pierre disputant
contre Simon le Magicien."
In the year 270 Mani returned to Persia, and won
many followers by his symbolic (pictorial) illustrations of the
doctrines, which he pretended had been revealed to him by God. But in a
disputation with the Magians, he was convicted of corrupting the old
religion, and thereupon was crucified, or flayed alive by order of king
Behram I. (Veranes) about 277; his skin was stuffed and hung up for a
terror at the gate of the city Djondishapur (or Gundeshapur), since
called "the gate of Mani." The cruel death of
Mani and the maltreatment of his corpse are well attested but his being
skinned alive is perhaps a later Christian tradition. The Disput.
Archelai (c. 55) towards the close gives this account: "He was
apprehended and brought before the king, who, being inflamed with the
strongest indignation against him, and fired will the desire of
avenging two deaths upon him—namely, the death of his
own son, and the death of the keeper of the
prison—gave orders that he should be flayed alive and
hung before the gate of the city and that his skin should be dipped in
certain medicaments and inflated: his flesh, too, he commanded to be
given as a prey to the birds." See the different accounts in Beausobre,
I. 205 sq.
Soon after Mani’s horrible death his sect spread in Turkistan, Mesopotamia, North Africa, Sicily, Italy and Spain. As it moved westward it assumed a more Christian character, especially in North Africa. It was everywhere persecuted in the Roman empire, first by Diocletian (A. D. 287), and afterwards by the Christian emperors. Nevertheless it flourished till the sixth century and even later. Persecution of heresy always helps heresy unless the heretics are exterminated.
The mysteriousness of its doctrine, its compact
organization, the apparent solution of the terrible problem of evil,
and the show of ascetic holiness sometimes were the chief points of
attraction. Even such a profound and noble spirit as St.
The Mormons or
Latter-Day Saints of Utah present an interesting parallel, especially
in their hierarchical organization; while in their polygamy they as
strongly contrast with the ascetic Manichaeans, and resemble the
Mohammedans.
§ 136. The Manichaean System.
Manichaeism is a compound of dualistic, pantheistic,
Gnostic, and ascetic elements, combined with a fantastic philosophy of
nature, which gives the whole system a materialistic character,
notwithstanding its ascetic abhorrence of matter. The metaphysical
foundation is a radical dualism between good and evil, light and
darkness, derived from the Persian Zoroastrism (as restored by the
school of the Magasaeans under the reign of the second Sassanides
towards the middle of the second century). The prominent ethical
feature is a rigid asceticism which strongly resembles Buddhism. Kessler (followed
by Harnack) derives Manichaeism exclusively from Chaldaean sources, but
must admit the strong affinity with Zoroastric and Buddhist ideas and
customs. The Fihrist says that Mani derived his doctrine from Parsism
and Christianity. On the Buddhistic element, see Baur, p. 433-44,).
1. The Manichaean theology begins with an irreconcilable antagonism between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. And this is identified with the ethical dualism between good and bad. These two kingdoms stood opposed to each other from eternity, remaining unmingled. Then Satan who with his demons was born from darkness, began to rage and made an assault upon the kingdom of light. From this incursion resulted the present world, which exhibits a mixture of the two elements detached portions of light imprisoned in darkness. Adam was created in the image of Satan, but with a strong spark of light, and was provided by Satan with Eve as his companion, who represents seductive sensuousness, but also with a spark of light, though smaller than that in Adam. Cain and Abel are sons of Satan and Eve, but Seth is the offspring of Adam by Eve, and full of light. Thus mankind came into existence with different shares of light, the men with more, the women with less. Every individual man is at once a son of light and of darkness, has a good soul, and a body substantially evil, with an evil soul corresponding to it. The redemption of the light from the bonds of the darkness is effected by Christ, who is identical with the sun spirit, and by the Holy Ghost, who has his seat in the ether. These two beings attract the lightforces out of the material world, while the prince of darkness, and the spirits imprisoned in the stars, seek to keep them back. The sun and moon are the two shining ships (lucidae naves) for conducting the imprisoned light into the eternal kingdom of light. The full moon represents the ship laden with light; the new moon, the vessel emptied of its cargo; and the twelve signs of the zodiac also serve as buckets in this pumping operation.
The Manichaean christology, like the Gnostic, is entirely docetic, and, by its perverted view of body and matter, wholly excludes the idea of an incarnation of God. The teachings of Christ were compiled and falsified by the apostles in the Spirit of Judaism. Mani, the promised Paraclete, has restored them. The goal of history is an entire separation of the light from the darkness; a tremendous conflagration consumes the world, and the kingdom of darkness sinks into impotence.
Thus Christianity is here resolved into a fantastic dualistic, and yet pantheistic philosophy of nature; moral regeneration is identified with a process of physical refinement; and the whole mystery of redemption is found in light, which was always worshipped in the East as the symbol of deity. Unquestionably there pervades the Manichaean system a kind of groaning of the creature for redemption, and a deep sympathy with nature, that hieroglyphic of spirit; but all is distorted and confused. The suffering Jesus on the cross (Jesus patibilis) is here a mere illusion, a symbol of the world-soul still enchained in matter, and is seen in every plant which works upwards from the dark bosom of the earth towards the light, towards bloom and fruit, yearning after freedom. Hence the class of the "perfect" would not kill nor wound a beast, pluck a flower, nor break a blade of grass. The system, instead of being, as it pretends, a liberation of light from darkness, is really a turning of light into darkness.
2. The morality of the
Manichaeans was severely ascetic, based on the fundamental error of the
intrinsic evil of matter and the body; the extreme opposite of the
Pelagian view of the essential moral purity of human nature. Schleiermacher
correctly represents Manichaeism and Pelagianism as the two fundamental
heresies in anthropology and soteriology the one makes man essentially
evil (in body), and thus denies the possibility of redemption; the
other makes man essentially good, and thus denies the necessity of
redemption. The meaning of
signaculum is not criterion (as Baur explains, l. c. p. 248), but seal
(as is clear from the corresponding Arabic hatâm in the
Fihrist). See Kessler.
(a) The signaculum oris, that is, purity in words and in diet, abstinence from all animal food and strong drink, even in the holy supper, and restriction to vegetable diet, which was furnished to the perfect by the "bearers," particularly olives, as their oil is the food of light.
(b) The signaculum manuum: renunciation of earthly property, and of material and industrial pursuits, even agriculture; with a sacred reverence for the divine light-life diffused through all nature.
(c) The signaculum sinus, or celibacy, and abstinence from any gratification of sensual desire. Marriage, or rather procreation, is a contamination with corporeity, which is essentially evil.
This unnatural holiness of the elect at the same time atoned for the unavoidable daily sins of the catechumens who paid them the greatest reverence. It was accompanied, however, as in the Gnostics, with an excessive pride of knowledge, and if we are to believe the catholic opponents, its fair show not rarely concealed refined forms of vice.
3. Organization.
Manichaeism differed from all the Gnostic schools in having a fixed,
and that a strictly hierarchical, organization. This accounts in large
measure for its tenacity and endurance. At the head of the sect stood
twelve apostles, or magistri, among whom Mani and his successors, like
Peter and the pope, held the chief place. Under them were seventy-two
bishops, answering to the seventy-two (strictly seventy) disciples of
Jesus; and under these came presbyters, deacons and itinerant
evangelists. The organization of
the Mormons is similar. Auditores,
catechumeni, in Arabic sammaûn. Electi, perfecti,
catharistae, ἔκλεχτοι,
τέλειοι, in the
Fihrist siddîkûn. Faustus terms them the
sacerdotale genus.
4. The worship of the
Manichaeans was, on the whole, very simple. They had no sacrifices, but
four daily prayers, preceded by ablations, and accompanied by
prostrations, the worshipper turned towards the sun or moon as the seat
of light. They observed Sunday, in honor of the sun, which was with
them the same with the redeemer; but, contrary to the custom of the
catholic Christians, they made it a day of fasting. They had weekly,
monthly, and yearly fasts. They rejected the church festivals, but
instead celebrated in March with great pomp the day of the martyrdom of
their divinely appointed teacher, Mani. The feast of "the
chair,"βῆμα, cathedra. The
Mormons likewise celebrate the martyrdom of their founder, Joseph Smith
who was killed by the mob at Carthage, Illinois (June 27, 1844). Gieseler and
Neander are disposed to deny the use of water-baptism by the
Manichaeans, Beausobre, Thilo, Baur, and Kessler assert it. The
passages in
THE DEVELOPMENT OF CATHOLIC THEOLOGY IN CONFLICT WITH HERESY.
§ 137. Catholic Orthodoxy.
I. Sources: The doctrinal and polemical writings of
the ante-Nicene fathers, especially
II. Literature: The relevant sections in the works on Doctrine History by Petravius, Münscher, Neander, Giesler, Baur, Hagenbach, Shedd, Nitzsch, Harnack (first vol. 1886; 2d ed. 1888).
Jos. Schwane (R.C.): Dogmengeschichte der vornicänischen Zeit. Münster, 1862.
Edm. De Pressensé: Heresy and Christian Doctrine, transl. by Annie Harwood. Lond. 1873.
The special literature see below. Comp. also the Lit. in Ch. XIII.
By the wide-spread errors described in the preceding
chapter, the church was challenged to a mighty intellectual combat,
from which she came forth victorious, according to the promise of her
Lord, that the Holy Spirit should guide her into the whole truth. To
the subjective, baseless, and ever-changing speculations, dreams, and
fictions of the heretics, she opposed the substantial, solid realities
of the divine revelation. Christian theology grew, indeed, as by inward
necessity, from the demand of faith for knowledge. But heresy,
Gnosticism in particular, gave it a powerful impulse from without, and
came as a fertilizing thunder-storm upon the field. The church
possessed the truth from the beginning, in the experience of faith, and
in the Holy Scriptures, which she handed down with scrupulous fidelity
from generation to generation. But now came the task of developing the
substance of the Christian truth in theoretical form λογικώτερον,
as
From this time forth the distinction between
catholic and heretical, orthodoxy and heterodoxy, the faith of the
church and dissenting private opinion, became steadily more prominent.
Every doctrine which agreed with the holy scriptures and the faith of
the church, was received as catholic; that is, universal, and
exclusive. The term catholic
is first used in its ecclesiastical sense by From αἵρεσις.
See notes below.
Almost all the church fathers came out against the contemporary heresies, with arguments from scripture, with the tradition of the church, and with rational demonstration, proving them inwardly inconsistent and absurd.
But in doing this, while they are one in spirit
and purpose, they pursue two very different courses, determined by the
differences between the Greek and Roman nationality, and by
peculiarities of mental organization and the appointment of Providence.
The Greek theology, above all the Alexandrian, represented by Clement
and
Ἔλεγχος
καὶ
ἀνατροπὴ
τῆς
ψευδωνύμου
γνώσεως
His disciple
The leading effort in this polemic literature was, of course, to develop and establish positively the Christian truth; which is, at the same time, to refute most effectually the opposite error. The object was, particularly, to settle the doctrines of the rule of faith, the incarnation of God, and the true divinity and true humanity of Christ. In this effort the mind of the church, under the constant guidance of the divine word and the apostolic tradition, steered with unerring instinct between the threatening cliffs. Yet no little indefiniteness and obscurity still prevailed in the scientific apprehension and statement of these points. In this stormy time, too, there were as yet no general councils to, settle doctrinal controversy by the voice of the whole church. The dogmas of the trinity and the person of Christ, did not reach maturity and final symbolical definition until the following period, or the Nicene age.
Notes on Heresy.
The term heresy is derived from αἵρεσιςwhich means originally either
capture (from αἱρέω), or election, choice (from αἱρέομαι), and assumed the additional idea
of arbitrary opposition to public opinion and authority. In the N.
Test. it designates a chosen way of life, a school or sect or party,
not necessarily in a bad sense, and is applied to the Pharisees, the
Sadducees, and even the Christians as a Jewish sect (
Constantine the Great still speaks of the Christian church as a sect, ἡ αἵρεσις ἡ καθολική, ἡ ἁγιωτάτη αἵρεσις(in a letter to Chrestus, bishop of Syracuse, in Euseb, H. E. X. c. 5, § 21 and 22, in Heinichen’s ed. I, 491). But after him church and sect became opposites, the former term being confined to the one ruling body, the latter to dissenting minorities.
The fathers commonly use heresy of false
teaching, in opposition to Catholic doctrine, and schism of a
breach of discipline, in opposition to Catholic government. The ancient
heresiologists—mostly uncritical, credulous, and
bigoted, though honest and pious, zealots for a narrow
orthodoxy—unreasonably multiplied the heresies by
extending them beyond the limits of Christianity, and counting all
modifications and variations separately. Philastrius or Philastrus,
bishop. of Brescia or Brixia (d. 387), in his Liber de
Haeresibus, numbered 28 Jewish and 128 Christian heresies;
Epiphanius of Cyprus (d. 403), in his Πανάριον. 80 heresies in all, 20 before and
60 after Christ;
In the present divided state of Christendom there are different kinds of orthodoxy and heresy. Orthodoxy is conformity to a recognized creed or standard of public doctrine; heresy is a wilful departure from it. The Greek church rejects the Roman dogmas of the papacy, of the double procession of the Holy Ghost, the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary, and the infallibility of the Pope, as heretical, because contrary to the teaching of the first seven oecumenical councils. The Roman church anathematized, in the Council of Trent, all the distinctive doctrines of the Protestant Reformation. Evangelical Protestants on the other hand regard the unscriptural traditions of the Greek and Roman churches as heretical. Among Protestant churches again there are minor doctrinal differences, which are held with various degrees of exclusiveness or liberality according to the degree of departure from the Roman Catholic church. Luther, for instance, would not tolerate Zwingli’s view on the Lord’s Supper, while Zwingli was willing to fraternize with him notwithstanding this difference. The Lutheran Formula of Concord, and the Calvinistic Synod of Dort rejected and condemned doctrines which are now held with impunity in orthodox evangelical churches. The danger of orthodoxy lies in the direction of exclusive and uncharitable bigotry, which contracts the truth; the danger of liberalism lies in the direction of laxity and indifferentism, which obliterates the eternal distinction between truth and error.
The apostles, guided by more than human wisdom,
and endowed with more than ecclesiastical authority, judged severely of
every essential departure from the revealed truth of salvation. Paul
pronounced the anathema on the Judaizing teachers, who made
circumcision a term of true church membership (
We need not wonder, then, that the ante-Nicene
fathers held the gnostic heretics of their days in the greatest
abhorrence, and called them servants of Satan, beasts in human shape,
dealers in deadly poison, robbers, and pirates.
Another characteristic feature of patristic
polemics is to trace heresy, to mean motives, such as pride,
disappointed ambition, sensual lust, and avarice. No allowance is made
for different mental constitutions, educational influences, and other
causes. There are, however, a few noble exceptions.
We must notice two important points of difference between the ante-Nicene and later heresies, and the mode of punishing heresy.
1. The chief ante-Nicene heresies were undoubtedly
radical perversions of Christian truth and admitted of no kind of
compromise. Ebionism, Gnosticism, and Manichaeism were essentially
anti-Christian. The church could not tolerate that medley of pagan
sense and nonsense without endangering its very existence. But
Montanists,
2. The punishment of heresy in the ante-Nicene church was purely ecclesiastical, and consisted in reproof, deposition, and excommunication. It had no effect on the civil status.
But as soon as church and state began to be
united, temporal punishments, such as confiscation of property, exile,
and death, were added by the civil magistrate with the approval of the
church, in imitation of the Mosaic code, but in violation of the spirit
and example of Christ and the apostles. Constantine opened the way in
some edicts against the Donatists, a.d. 316.
Valentinian I. forbade the public worship of Manichaeans (371). After
the defeat of the Arians by the second
§ 138. The Holy Scriptures and the Canon.
The works on the Canon by Reuss, Westcott, (6th ed., 1889), Zahn, (1888). Holtzmann: Kanon u. Tradition, 1859. Schaff: Companion to the Greek Testament and the English Version. N. York and London, 1883; third ed. 1888. Gregory: Prolegomena to Tischendorf’s 8th ed. of the Greek Test. Lips., 1884. A. Harnack: Das N. Test. um das jahr 200. Leipz., 1889.
The question of the source and rule of Christian knowledge lies at the foundation of all theology. We therefore notice it here before passing to the several doctrines of faith.
1. This source and this rule of knowledge are the
holy scriptures of the Old and New Covenants. Called simply ἡ
γραφή, αἱ
γραφαί scriptura,
scripturae.
The canon of the Old Testament descended to the
church from the Jews, with the sanction of Christ and the apostles. The
Jewish Apocrypha were included in the Septuagint and passed from it
into Christian versions. The, New Testament canon was gradually formed,
on the model of the Old, in the course of the first four centuries,
under the guidance of the same Spirit, through whose suggestion the
several apostolic books had been prepared. The first trace of it
appears in ἐν
πάσαις
ταῖς
ἐπιστολαῖς. τὰς
λοιπὰς (not τὰς
ἄλλας) γραφάς Comp.
The principal books of the New Testament, the four
Gospels, the Acts, the thirteen Epistles of Paul, the first Epistle of
Peter, and the first of John, which are designated by The Muratorian
Canon (so called from its discoverer and first publisher, Muratori,
1740) is a fragment of Roman origin, though translated from the Greek,
between a.d. 170 and 180, begins with Mark,
passes to Luke as the third Gospel, then to John, Acts, thirteen
Epistles of Paul, mentions two Epp. of John, one of Jude, and the
Apocalypses of John and Peter; thus omitting James, Hebrews, third
John, first and second Peter, and mentioning instead an apocryphal
Apocalypse of Peter, but adding that "some of our body will not have it
read in the church." The interesting fragment has been much discussed
by Credner, Kirchhofer, Reuss, Tregelles, Hilgenfeld, Westcott, Hesse,
Harnack, Overbeck, Salmon, and Zahn.
Concerning the other seven books, the
"Antilegomena" of Which was regarded
as canonical indeed, but not as genuine or Pauline in the West. Which has the
strongest external testimony, that of Justin,
The first express definition of the New Testament
canon, in the form in which it has since been universally retained,
comes from two African synods, held in 393 at Hippo, and 397 at
Carthage, in the presence of See lists of
patristic canons in Charteris, Canonicity, p. 12 sqq. διαθήκη,
covenant, comp. τὰ
εὐαγγελικὰ
καὶ τὰ
ἀποστολικά,
or τὸ
εὐαγγέλιον
καὶ ὁ
ἀπόστολος;
instrumentum evangelicum, apostolicum, or evangelium, apostolus. Hence
the Scripture lessons in the liturgical churches are divided into "
Gospels" and " Epistles."
2. As to the origin and character of the apostolic
writings, the church fathers adopted for the New Testament the somewhat
mechanical and magical theory of inspiration applied by the Jews to the
Old; regarding the several books as composed with such extraordinary
aid from the Holy Spirit as secured their freedom from errors
(according to
As a production of the inspired organs, of divine
revelation, the sacred scriptures, without critical distinction between
the Old and New Covenants, were acknowledged and employed against
heretics as an infallible source of knowledge and an unerring rule of
Christian faith and practice.
3. The exposition of the Bible was at first purely
practical, and designed for direct edification. The controversy with
the Gnostics called for a more scientific method. Both the orthodox and
heretics, after the fashion of the rabbinical and Alexandrian Judaism,
made large use of allegorical and mystical interpretation, and not
rarely lost themselves amid the merest fancies and wildest vagaries.
The fathers generally, with a few exceptions, (
In spite of the numberless exegetical vagaries and differences in detail, which confute the Tridentine fiction of a "unanimis consensus patrum," there is still a certain unanimity among the fathers in their way of drawing the most important articles of faith from the Scriptures. In their expositions they all follow one dogmatical principle, a kind of analogia fidei. This brings us to tradition.
Notes on the Canon.
I. The Statements of
The accounts of
He distinguishes four classes of sacred books of the Christians (H. E. III. 25, in Heinichen’s ed. vol. I. 130 sqq.; comp. his note in vol. III. 87 sqq.).
1. Homologumena, i.e. such as were universally acknowledged (ὁμολογούμενα): 22 Books of the 27 of the N. T., viz.: 4 Gospels, Acts, 14 Pauline Epistles (including Hebrews), 1 Peter, 1 John, Revelation. He says: "Having arrived at this point, it is proper that we should give a summary catalogue of the afore-mentioned (III. 24) writings of the N. T. (Ἀνακεφαλαιώσασθαι τὰς δηλωθείσας τῆς καινῆς διαθήκης γραφάς). First, then, we must place the sacred quaternion (or quartette, τετρακτύν) of the Gospels, which are followed by the book of the Acts of the Apostles (ἡ τῶν πράξεων τῶν ἀποστόλων γραφή). After this we must reckon the Epistles of Paul, and next to them we must maintain as genuine (κυρωτέον, the verb. adj. from κυρόω, to ratify), the Epistle circulated as the former of John (τὴν φερομένην Ἰωάννου προτέραν), and in like manner that of Peter (καὶ ὁμοίως τὴν Πέτρου ἐπιστολήν). In addition to these books, if it seem proper (εἴγε φανείη), we must place the Revelation of John (τὴν ἀποκάλυψιν Ἰωάννου), concerning which we shall set forth the different opinions in due course. And these are reckoned among those which are generally received (ἐν ὁμολογουμένοις)."
In bk. III. ch. 3,
On the Apocalypse,
2. Antilegomena, or controverted books, yet "familiar to most people of the church" (ἀντιλεγόμενα, γνώριμα δ’ ὅμως τοῖς πολλοῖς, III. 25). These are five (or seven), viz., one Epistle of James, one of Jude, 2 Peter, 2 and 3 John ("whether they really belong to the Evangelist or to another John").
To these we may add (although
3. Spurious Books (νόθα), such as the Acts of Paul, the Revelation of Peter, the Shepherd (Hermas), the Ep. of Barnabas, the so-called "Doctrines of the Apostles, " and the Gospel according to the Hebrews." in which those Hebrews who have accepted Christ take special delight."
To these he adds inconsistently, as already remarked, the Apocalypse of John." which some, as I said, reject (ἥν τινες ἀθετοῦσιν), while others reckon it among the books generally received (τοῖς ὁμολογουμένοις)." He ought to have numbered it with the Antilegomena.
These νόθα, we may say, correspond to the Apocrypha of the O. T., pious and useful, but not canonical.
4. Heretical Books. These,
II. Ecclesiastical Definitions of the Canon.
Soon after the middle of the fourth century, when the church became firmly settled in the Empire, all doubts as to the Apocrypha of the Old Testament and the Antilegomena of the New ceased, and the acceptance of the Canon in its Catholic shape, which includes both, became an article of faith. The first Œcumenical Council of Nicaea did not settle the canon, as one might expect, but the scriptures were regarded without controversy as the sure and immovable foundation of the orthodox faith. In the last (20th or 21st) Canon of the Synod of Gangra, in Asia Minor (about the middle of the fourth century), it is said: "To speak briefly, we desire that what has been handed down to us by the divine scriptures and the Apostolic traditions should be observed in the church." Comp. Hefele, Conciliengesch. I. 789.
The first Council which expressly legislated on the number of canonical books is that of Laodicea in Phrygia, in Asia Minor (held between a.d. 343 and 381, probably about 363). In its last canon (60 or 59), it enumerates the canonical books of the Old Testament, and then all of the New, with the exception of the Apocalypse, in the following order:
"And these are the Books of the New Testament: Four Gospels, according to Matthew, according to Mark, according to Luke, according to John; Acts of the Apostles; Seven Catholic Epistles, One of James, Two of Peter, Three of John, One of Jude; Fourteen Epistles of Paul, One to the Romans, Two to the Corinthians, One to the Galatians, One to the Ephesians, One to the Philippians, One to the Colossians, Two to the Thessalonians, One to the Hebrews, Two to Timothy, One to Titus, and One to Philemon."
This catalogue is omitted in several manuscripts and versions, and probably is a later insertion from the writings of Cyril of Jerusalem. Spittler, Herbst, and Westcott deny, Schrökh and Hefele defend, the Laodicean origin of this catalogue. It resembles that of the 85th of the Apostolical Canons which likewise omits the Apocalypse, but inserts two Epistles of Clement and the pseudo-Apostolical Constitutions.
On the Laodicean Council and its uncertain date see Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, revised ed. vol. I. p. 746 sqq., and Westcott, on the Canon of the N. T., second ed., p. 382 sqq.
In the Western church, the third provincial
Council of Carthage (held a.d. 397) gave a
full list of the canonical books of both Testaments, which should be
read as divine Scriptures to the exclusion of all others in the
churches. The N. T. books are enumerated in the following order: "Four
Books of the Gospels, One Book of the Acts of the Apostles, Thirteen
Epp. of the Apostle Paul, One Ep. of the same [Apostle] to the Hebrews,
Two Epistles of the Apostle Peter, Three of John, One of James, One of
Jude, One Book of the Apocalypse of John." This canon bad been
previously adopted by the African Synod of Hippo regius, a.d. 393, at which
The Council of Trent (1546) confirmed the traditional view with an anathema on those who dissent. "This fatal decree," says Dr. Westcott (p. 426 sq.), "was ratified by fifty-three prelates, among whom was not one German, not one scholar distinguished for historical learning, not one who was fitted by special study for the examination of a subject in which the truth could only be determined by the voice of antiquity."
For the Greek and Roman churches the question of the Canon is closed, although no strictly oecumenical council representing the entire church has pronounced on it. But Protestantism claims the liberty of the ante-Nicene age and the right of renewed investigation into the origin and history of every book of the Bible. Without this liberty there can be no real progress in exegetical theology.
§ 139. Catholic Tradition.
J. A. Daniel: Theol. Controversen (the doctrine of the Scriptures as the source of knowledge). Halle, 1843.
J. J. Jacobi:Die Kirchl. Lehre von d. Tradition u. heil. Schrift in ihrer Entwicketung dargestellt. Berl. I. 1847.
Ph. Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. p. 12 sqq.; II. 11–44. Comp. Lit. in the next section.
Besides appealing to the Scriptures, the fathers,
particularly κανων
τῆς
πίστεως, or τῆς
ἀληθείας ,
παράδοσις
τῶν
ἀποστόλων, or παρ.
ἀποστολική,
κανὼν
ἐκκλησιαστικός
, τὸ
ἀρχαῖον
τῆς
ἐκκλησίας ,
σύστημα, regula fidei, regula
veritatis, traditio apostolica, lex fidei, fides catholica. Sometimes
these terms are used in a wider sense, and embrace the whole course of
catechetical instruction.
To estimate the weight of this argument, we must
remember that these fathers still stood comparatively very near the
apostolic age, and that the succession of bishops in the oldest
churches could be demonstrated by the living memory of two or three
generations.
Nor can we suppose that those fathers ever thought
of a blind and slavish subjection of private judgment to ecclesiastical
authority, and to the decision of the bishops of the apostolic mother
churches. The same "Christus veritatem
se, non consuetudinem cognominavit .... Haereses non tam novitas quam
veritas revincit. Quodcunque adversus veritatem sapit hoc erit
haeresis, etiam vetus consuetudo."De Virg. vel. c. 1. "Cosuetudo sine
veritate vetustas erroris est."Ep. 74 (contra Stephanum), c. 9.
In the substance of its doctrine this apostolic
tradition agrees with the holy scriptures, and though derived, as to
its form, from the oral preaching of the apostles, is really, as to its
contents, one and the same with thsoe apostolic writings. In this view
the apparent contradictions of the earlier fathers, in ascribing the
highest authority to both scripture and tradition in matters of faith,
resolve themselves. It is one and the same gospel which the apostles
preached with their lips, and then laid down in their writings, and
which the church faithfully hands down by word and writing from one
generation to another.. So Paul uses the
word παράδοσις,
§ 140. The Rule of Faith and the Apostles’ Creed.
Rufinus (d. 410): Expos. in Symbolum Apostolorum. In
the Append. to Fell’s ed. of
James Ussher (Prot. archbishop of Armagh, d. 1655): De Romanae Ecclesiae Symbolo Apostolico vetere, aliisque fidei formulis. London, 1647. In his Works, Dublin 1847, vol. VII. p. 297 sqq. Ussher broke the path for a critical history of the creed on the basis of the oldest MSS. which he discovered.
John Pearson (Bp. of Chester, d. 1686): Exposition of the Creed, 1659, in many editions (revised ed. by Dr. E. Burton, Oxf. 1847; New York 1851). A standard work of Anglican theology.
Peter King (Lord Chancellor of England, d. 1733): History of the Apostles’ Creed. Lond. 1702.
Herm. Witsius (Calvinist, d. at Leyden, 1708): Exercitationes sacrae in Symbolum quod Apostolorum dicitur. Amstel. 1700. Basil. 1739. 4°. English translation by Fraser. Edinb. 1823, in 2 vols.
Ed. Köllner (Luth.): Symbolik aller christl. Confessionen. Part I. Hamb. 1837, p. 6–28.
*Aug. Hahn: Bibliothek der Symbole und Glaubensregeln der apostolischkatholischen [in the new ed. der alten] Kirche. Breslau, 1842 (pp. 222). Second ed. revised and enlarged by his son, G. Ludwig Hahn. Breslau, 1877 (pp. 300).
J. W. Nevin: The Apostles’ Creed, in the "Mercersburg Review," 1849. Purely doctrinal.
Pet. Meyers (R.C.): De Symboli Apostolici Titulo, Origine ei antiquissimis ecclesiae temporibus Auctoritate. Treviris 1849 (pp. 210). A learned defense of the Apostolic origin of the Creed.
W. W. Harvey: The History and Theology of the three Creeds (the Apostles’, the Nicene, and the Athanasian). Lond. 1854. 2 vols.
*Charles A. Heurtley: Harmonia Symbolica. Oxford, 1858.
Michel Nicolas: Le Symbole des apôtres. Essai historie. Paris, 1867. (Sceptical).
*J. Rawson Lumby: The History of the Creeds (ante-Nicene, Nicene and Athanasian). London, 1873, 2d ed. 1880.
*C. A. Swainson: The Nicene and the Apostles’ Creed. London, 1875.
*C. P. Caspari: (Prof. in Christiania): Quellen zur Gesch. des Tauf, symbols und der Glaubensregel. Christiania, 1866–1879. 4 vols, Contains new researches and discoveries of MSS.
*F. J. A. Hort: Two Dissertations on μονογενὴς θεόςand on the "Constantinopolitan Creed and other Eastern Creeds of the Fourth Century. Cambr. and Lond. 1876. Of great critical value.
F. B. Westcott: The Historic Faith. London, 1883.
Ph. Schaff: Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. 3–42, and II. 10–73. (4th ed. 1884.
In the narrower sense, by apostolic tradition or the
rule of faith (κανὼν τῆς
πίστεως, regula fidei) was understood a
doctrinal summary of Christianity, or a compend of the faith of the
church. Such a summary grew out of the necessity of catechetical
instruction and a public confession of candidates for baptism. It
became equivalent to a symbolum, that is, a sign of recognition among
catholic Christians in distinction from unbelievers and heretics. The
confession of Peter (
There was at first no prescribed formula of faith
binding upon all believers. Each of the leading churches framed its
creed (in a sort of independent congregational way), according to its
wants, though on the same basis of the baptismal formula, and possibly
after the model of a brief archetype which may have come down from
apostolic days. Hence we have a variety of such rules of faith, or
rather fragmentary accounts of them, longer or shorter, declarative or
interrogative, in the ante-Nicene writers, as See a collection of
these ante-Nicene rules of faith in Hahn, Denzinger, Heurtley, Caspari,
and Schaff (II.11-41).
The Oriental forms are generally longer, more variable and metaphysical, than the Western, and include a number of dogmatic terms against heretical doctrines which abounded in the East. They were all replaced at last by the Nicene Creed (325, 381, and 451), which was clothed with the authority of oecumenical councils and remains to this day the fundamental Creed of the Greek Church. Strictly speaking it is the only oecumenical Creed of Christendom, having been adopted also in the West, though with a clause (Filioque) which has become a wall of division. We shall return to it in the next volume.
The Western forms—North African, Gallican, Italian—are shorter and simpler, have less variety, and show a more uniform type. They were all merged into the Roman Symbol, which became and remains to this day the fundamental creed of the Latin Church and her daughters.
This Roman symbol is known more particularly under
the honored name of the Apostles’ Creed. For a
long time it was believed (and is still believed by many in the Roman
church) to be the product of the Apostles who prepared it as a summary
of their teaching before parting from Jerusalem (each contributing one
of the twelve articles by higher inspiration). This obsolete
opinion, first mentioned by Ambrose and Rufinus is still defended by
Pet. Meyers, l.c. and by Abbé Martigny in his French
Dictionary of Christ. Antiquities (sub Symbole des apôtres. Longfellow, in
his Divine Tragedy (1871) makes poetic use of it, and arranges the
Creed in twelve articles, with the names of the supposed apostolic
authors. The apostolic origin was first called in question by
Laurentius Valla, Erasmus, and Calvin. See particulars in
Schaff’s Creeds I. 22-23. Rufinus speaks of
it as an ancestral tradition (tradunt majores nostri) and supports it
by a false explanation of symbolum, as "collatio, hoc est quod plures
in unum conferunt." See Migne, XXI. fol. 337.
The earlier form as found in old manuscripts, In the Graeco-Latin
Codex Laudianus (Cod. E of the Acts) in the Bodleian Library at Oxford,
from the sixth century, and known to the Venerable Bede (731). The
Creed is attached at the end, is written in uncial letters, and was
first made known by Archbishop Ussher. Heurtley (p. 61 sq.) gives a
facsimile. It is reprinted in Caspari, Hahn (second ed. p. 16), and
Schaff (II. 47). Another copy is found in a MS. of the eighth century
in the British Museum, published by Swainson, The Nic. and Ap. Creeds,
p. 161, and by Hahn in a Nachtrag to the Preface, p. xvi. This
document, however, inserts catholicam after ecclesiam. Comp. also the
form in the Explanatio Symboli ad initiandos, by Ambrose in Caspari,
II. 48 and 128, and Schaff, II. 50. The Creed of Aquileja, as given by
Rufinus, has a few additions, but marks them as such so that we can
infer from it the words of the Roman Creed. With these Latin documents
agree the Greek in the Psalterium of King Aethelstan, and of Marcellus
(see next note). In Epiphanius,
Haer. LXXII. it is assigned to a.d. 341, by
others to 337. It is printed in Schaff (II. 47), Hahn, and in the first
table below. It contains, according to Caspari, the original form of
the Roman creed as current at the time in the Greek portion of the
Roman congregation. It differs from the oldest Latin form only by the
omission of πατέρα, and the
addition of ζωὴν
αἰώνιον The Psalterium
Aethelstani, in the Cotton Library of the British Museum, written in
Anglo-Saxon letters, first published by Ussher, then by Heurtley,
Caspari, and Hahn (p. 15). It differs from the text of Marcellus by the
insertion of πατέρα and the
omission of ζωὴν
αἰώνιον,
in both points agreeing with the Latin text. On the Greek
original of the Roman symbol Caspari’s researches
(III. 267-466) are conclusive. Harnack (in Herzog 2, vol. I. 567)
agrees: "Der griechische Text ist
als das Original zu betrachten; griechisch wurde das Symbol zu Rom eine
lange Zeit hindurch ausschliesslich tradirt. Dann trat der lateinisch
übersetzte Text als Parallelform hinzu."
Both are disposed to trace the symbol to Johannean circles in Asia
Minor on account of the term "only begotten, (μονογενής),
which is used of Christ only by John.
The longer form of the Roman symbol, or the
present received text, does not appear before the sixth or seventh
century. It has several important clauses which were wanting in the
former, as "he descended into hades," Descendit ad
inferna, first found in Arian Creeds (εἰς
ᾅδου or εἰς
ᾅδην) about a.d. 360; then in the Creed of Aquileja, about a.d. 390; then in the Creed of Venantius Fortunatus,
590, in the Sacramentarium Gallicanum, 650, and in the ultimate text of
the Apostles’ Creed in Pirminius, 750. See the table
in Schaff’s Creeds, II. 54, and critical note on p.
46. Rufinus says expressly that this clause was not contained in the
Roman creed and explains it wrongly as being identical with "buried."
Com. c. 18 (in Migne, f. 356): "Sciendum sane est, quod in Ecclesiae
Romanae Symbolo non habetur additum, ’descendit ad
inferna:’ sed neque in Orientis Ecclesiis habetur hic
sermo: via tamen verbi eadem videtur esse in eo, quod
’sepultis dicitur.’" The article of
the descent is based upon Peter’s teaching, It is found first
in the Sacramentarium Gallicanum, 650. The older creeds of Sanctorum
communionem. After 650. Contained in
Marcellus and
The Apostles’ Creed then, in its
present shape, is post-apostolic; but, in its contents and spirit,
truly apostolic. It embodies the faith of the ante-Nicene church, and
is the product of a secondary inspiration, like the Gloria in Excelsis
and the Te deum, which embody the devotions of the same age, and which
likewise cannot be traced to an individual author or authors. It
follows the historical order of revelation of the triune God, Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, beginning with the creation and ending with the
resurrection and life eternal. It clusters around Christ as the central
article of our faith. It sets forth living facts, not abstract dogmas
and speaks in the language of the people, not of the theological
school. It confines itself to the fundamental truths, is simple, brief,
and yet comprehensive, and admirably adapted for catechetical and
liturgical use. It still forms a living bond of union between the
different ages and branches of orthodox Christendom, however widely
they differ from each other, and can never be superseded by longer and
fuller creeds, however necessary these are in their place. It has the
authority of antiquity and the dew of perennial youth, beyond any other
document of post-apostolic times. It is the only strictly
Œcumenical Creed of the West, as the Nicene Creed is the
only Œcumenical Creed of the East. We usually speak of
three Œcumenical creeds; but the Greek church has never
adopted the Apostles’ Creed and the Athanasian Creed,
although she holds the doctrines therein contained. The Nicene Creed
was adopted in the West, and so far is universal, but the insertion of
the formula Filioque created and perpetuates the split between the
Greek and Latin churches.
Note.
The legendary formulas of the
Apostles’ Creed which appear after the sixth century,
distribute the articles to the several apostles arbitrarily and with
some variations. The following is from one of the pseudo-
"Decimo die post ascensionem discipulis prae timore Judaeorum congregatis Dominus promissum Paracletum misit: quo veniente ut candens ferrum inflammati omniumque linguarum peritia repleti Symbolum composuerunt.
Petrus dixit: Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem—creatorem coeli et terrae.
Andreas dixit: Et in Jesum Christum, Filium ejus—unicum Dominum nostrum.
Jacobus dixit: Qui conceptus est de Spiritu Sancto—natus ex Maria Virgine.
Joannes dixit: Passus sub Pontio Pilato—crucifixus, mortuus et sepultus.
Thomas dixit: Descendit ad inferna—tertia die resurrexit a mortuis.
Jacobus dixit: Adscendit ad coelos—sedet ad dexteram Dei Patris omnipotentis.
Philippus dixit: Inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos.
Bartholomaeus dixit: Credo in Spiritum Sanctum.
Matthaeus dixit: Sanctam Ecclesiam catholicam—Sanctorum communionem.
Simon dixit: Remissionem peccatorum.
Thaddeus dixit: Carnis resurrectionem.
Matthias dixit: Vitam aeternam."
§ 141. Variations of the Apostles’ Creed.
We present two tables which show the gradual growth
of the Apostles’ Creed, and its relation to the
Ante-Nicene rules of faith and the Nicene Creed in its final form. The second table is
transferred from the author’s Creeds of Christendom,
vol. II. 40 and 41 (by permission of the publishers, Messrs. Harpers).
In the same work will be found other comparative illustrative and
chronological tables of the oldest symbols. See vol. I. 21 and 28 sq.;
and vol. II. 54, 55.
II. COMPARATIVE TABLE OF THE APOSTLES’ CREED,
Showing The Different Stages Of Its Growth To Its Present Form. The Additions Are Shown In Brackets.
Formula Marcelli Ancryani
About a.d. 340
Formula Roma
From the 3rd or 4th Century
Formula Aquileiensis
From Rufinus (400)
Formula Recepta
Since the 6th or 7th Century
(Later
additions in brackets)
The Received Text
Πιστεύω εἰς θεὸν παντακράτορα
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem.Credo in Deo Patre
omnipotente,
[invisibili et impassibili],
Credo in Deum Patrem omnipotentem,
[Creatorem coeli et terrae],
I believe in God the Father Almighty,
[Maker of heaven and earth].
Καὶ εἰς Χριστὸν Ἰησοῦν, τὸν υἱὸν αὐτοῦ τὸν μονογενῆ, τὸν κύριον ἡμῶν,
Et in Christum Jesum, Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum;Et in Christo Jesu, unico filio ejus, Domino nostro;
Et in Jesum Christum, Filium ejus unicum, Dominum nostrum;
And in Jesus Christ, his only begotten Son, our Lord;
τὸν γεννηθέντα ἐκ Πνεύματος ἁγίου καὶ Μαρίας τῆ ς παρθένου,
qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto et Maria Virgine;qui natus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria Virgine;
qui [conceptus] est de Spiritu Sancto, natus ex Maria Virgine;
who was [conceived] by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;
τὸν ἐπὶ Ποντίου Πιλάτου σταυρωθέντα καὶ ταφέντα
cruicifixus est sub Pontio Pilato, et sepultus; cruicifixus sub Pontio Pilato, et sepultus;[passus] sub Pontio Pilato, cruicifixus, [mortuus], et seupultus;[suffered] under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, [dead], and buried.
[descendit ad inferna];
[descendit ad inferna];
[He descended into Hades];
καὶ τῇ τρίτῃ ἡμέρᾳ ἀναστάντα ἐκ τῶν νεκρῶν,
tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;tertia die resurrexit a mortuis;
the third day He rose from the dead;
ἀναβάντα εἰς τοὺς οὐρανοὺς
ascendit in cŒlus;ascendit in cŒlus;ascendit in coelos;
He ascended into heaven;
καὶ καθήμενον ἐν δεξιᾷ τοῦ πατρὸς,
sedet ad dexteran Patris;sedet ad dexteram Patris;
sedet ad dexteram Patris [omnipotentis];
and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father [Almighty];
ὅθεν εῤ́χεται κρίνειν ζῶντας καὶ νεκρούς
inde venturus judicare vivos et mortuos.
inde venturus est judicare vivos et mortuos.
inde venturus judicare vivos et mortuos.
from thence He shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
Καὶ εἰς Ἅγιον Πνεῦμα
Et in Spiritum Sanctum;
Et in Spiritu Sancto.
[Credo] in Spiritum Sanctum;
[I believe] in the Holy Ghost;
ἁγίαν ἐκκλησίαν
Sanctam Ecclesiam;
Sanctam Ecclesiam;
Sanctam Ecclesiam [catholicam], [Sanctorum communionem];
the holy [catholic] church, [the communion of saints];
ἀφεσιν ἁμαρτιῶν
remissionem peccatorum;
remissionem peccatorum;
remissionem peccatorum;
the forgiveness of sins;
σαρκὸς ἀνάστασιν ̓́ζωὴν αἰώνιον̓̀
carnis resurrectionem.
[hujus] carnis resurrectionem.
carnis resurrectionem; [vitam aeternam. Amen].
the resurrection of the body; [and the life everlasting Amen].
Comparative Table of the
Ante-Nicent Rules of Faith,
as related to the apostles’ creed and the
nicene creed.
Later additions are in italics.
I believe
We believe
We believe
I believe
We believe
[We believe in]
1. In God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;
1. ... in one God the Father Almighty, who made heaven and earth, and the sea, and all that in them is;
1 ... in one God, the Creator of the world, who produced all out of nothing ...
1. in God the Father;
1. in God the Father and Almighty Lord;
1. One God, who created
and framed every thing…
Who in the last days sent
2. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
2. And in one Christ Jesus, the Son of God [our Lord];
2. And in the Word, his Son, Jesus Christ;
2. in his Son Christ;
2. in the son of God, Christ Jesus, our Lord God;
2. Our Lord, Jesus Christ…born of the Father before all creation…
3. Who was conceived by the Holy Ghost born of the Virgin Mary;
3. Who became flesh [of the Virgin] for our salvation;
3. Who through the Spirit and power of God the Father descended into the Virgin Mary, was made flesh in her womb, and born of her;
3. born of the Virgin and the Holy Ghost…
4. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;
4. and his suffering [under Pontius Pilate];
4. Was fixed on the cross [under Pontius Pilate], was dead and buried;
4. suffered in truth, died;
5. He, descended into Hades; the third day he rose from the dead;
5. and his rising from the dead;
5. rose again the third day;
5. rose from the dead;
6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty;
6. and his bodily assumption into heaven;
6. was taken into heaven and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father;
6. was taken up…
7. from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
7. and his coming from heaven in the glory of the Father to comprehend all things under one head, ... and to execute righteous judgment over all.
7. He will come to judge the quick and the dead.
8. And I believe in the Holy Ghost;
8. And in the Holy Ghost ...
8. And in the Holy Ghost the Paraclete, the Sanctifier, sent by Christ from the Father.
8. in the Holy Ghost;
8. in the Holy Ghost (promised of old to the Church, and granted in the appointed and fitting time).
8. the Holy Ghost, united in honor and dignity with the Father and the Son.
9. the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints;
10. the forgiveness of sins;
10. I believe in the forgiveness of sins,
11. the resurrection of the body;
11. And that Christ shall come from heaven to raise all flesh … and to adjudge the impious and unjust ... to eternal fire,
11. And that Christ will, after the restoration of the flesh, receive his saints
12. and the life everlasting. The Roman Creed,
according to Rufinus (390), ends with carnis resurrctionem; but the
Greek version of the Roman Creed by Marcellus (341) with ζωὴν
αἰώνιον
12. and to give to the just and holy immortality and eternal glory.
12. into the enjoyment of eternal life and the promises of heaven, and judge the wicked with eternal fire.
12. and eternal life through the holy Church
Gregory (Neo-Caesarean.) a.d. 270.
Lucian (Antioch.) a.d. 300.
Cyril (Jerusalem.) a.d. 350.
Nicæno-Constantinoplitan Creed. a.d. 325 and 381.
I believe
[We believe in]
[We believe in]
We believe
We believe
We [I] believe
1. in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth;
1. One God the Father;
1. one God the Father Almighty;
1. in one God the Father Almighty;
1. in one God the Father Almighty;
in one God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth, and of all things visible and invisible;
2. And in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord;
2. One Lord…God of God, the image and likeness of the Godhead,…the Wisdom and Power which produces all creation, the true Son of the true Father…
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ his Son, begotten of the Father before all ages, God of God, Wisdom, Life, Light …
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ his Son, begotten of the Father before all ages, God of God, Light of Light, Life of Life, the only-begotten Son, the first-born of every creature, begotten of God the Father before all ages; by whom all things were made;
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all ages, veru God, by whom all things were made;
2. And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, begotten of the Father before all worlds; [God of God], Light of Light, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί), by whom all things were made;
3. who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary;
3. who was born of a Virgin, according to the Scriptures, and became man…
3. who for our salvation was made flesh and lived among men;
3. who was made flesh and became man;
3. who, for us men, and for our salvation, came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost and [of, ex] the Virgin Mary, and was made man;
4. suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried;
4. who suffered for us;
4. who suffered;
4. was crucified and was buried;
4. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate, and suffered, and was buried;
5. He descended into Hades; the third day be rose from the dead;
5. and rose for us on the third day;
5. and rose on the third day
5. rose on the third day;
5. and on the third day he rose again, according to the Scriptures;
6. He ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father, Almighty;
6. And ascended into heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God the Father;
6. and ascended to the Father;
6. and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father
6. and ascended into heaven, and sitteth on the right hand of the Father;
7. from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
7. and again is coming with glory and power , to judge the quick and the dead;
7. and will come again with glory, to judge the quick and the dead.
7. and will come again in glory to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end;
7. and he shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end;
8. And I believe in the Holy Ghost.
8. One Holy Ghost,…the minister of sancitifcation, in whom is revealed God the Father, who is over all things and through all things, and God the Son who is through all things — a perfect Trinity, not divided nor differing in glory, eternity, and sovereignty…
8. And in the Holy Ghost, given for consolation and sanctification and perfection to those who believe …
8. We believe also in the Holy Ghost
8. and in one Holy Ghost, the Advocate, who spake in the Prophets.
8. And [I believe] in the Holy Ghost, the Lord and Giver of life, Who proceedeth from the Father [and the Son, Filioque], who with the Father and the Son together is worshiped and glorified, who spake by the Prophets
9. the holy Catholic Church; the communion of saints;
9. and in one baptism of repentance for the remission on sins;
9. And [I believe] in one holy Catholic and Apostolic Church;
10. the forgiveness of sins;
10. and in one holy Catholic Church;
10. we [I] acknowledge one baptism for the remission of sins;
11. the resurrection of the body;
11. and in the resurrection of the flesh;
11. and we [I] look for the resurrection of the dead;
12. and the life everlasting.
12. and in life everlasting (ζωὴν αἰώνιον).
12. and the life of the world to come (ζωὴν τοῦ μέλλοντος αἰῶνος).
The words in italics in the last column are additions of the second Œcumenical Council (381); words in brackets are Western changes.
§ 142. God and the Creation.
E. Wilh. Möller:
Geschichte der Kosmologie in der griechischen Kirche bis auf
In exhibiting the several doctrines of the church, we must ever bear in mind that Christianity entered the world, not as a logical system but as a divine-hurnan fact; and that the New Testament is not only a theological text-book for scholars but first and last a book of life for all believers. The doctrines of salvation, of course, lie in these facts of salvation, but in a concrete, living, ever fresh, and popular form. The logical, scientific development of those doctrines from the word of God and Christian experience is left to the theologians. Hence we must not be surprised to find in the period before us, even in the most eminent teachers, a very indefinite and defective knowledge, as yet, of important articles of faith, whose practical force those teachers felt in their own hearts and impressed on others, as earnestly as their most orthodox successors. The centre of Christianity is the divine-human person and the divine-human work of Christ. From that centre a change passed through the whole circle of existing religious ideas, in its first principles and its last results, confirming what was true in the earlier religion, and rejecting the false.
Almost all the creeds of the first centuries,
especially the Apostles’ and the Nicene, begin with
confession of faith in God, the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and
earth, of the visible and the invisible. With the defence of this
fundamental doctrine laid down in the very first chapter of the Bible,
We begin with the general idea of God, which lies
at the bottom of all religion. This is refined, spiritualized, and
invigorated by the manifestation in Christ. We perceive the advance
particularly in
Of the various arguments for the existence of God,
we find in this period the beginnings of the cosmological and
physico-theological methods. In the mode of conceiving the divine
nature we observe this difference; while the Alexandrians try to avoid
all anthropomorphic and anthropopathic notions, and insist on the
immateriality and spirituality of God almost to abstraction, "Omne quod est
corpus est sui generis. Nihil est incorporale, nisi quod non est.
Habente igitur anima invisible corpus, " etc. (De Carne Christi, c.
11)."Quis enim negabit, Deum corpus esse, etsi Deus spiritus est?
Spiritus enim corpus sui generis in sua effigie." (Adv. Prax. c.
7).
The doctrine of the unity of God, as the eternal, almighty, omnipresent, just, and holy creator and upholder of all things, the Christian church inherited from Judaism, and vindicated against the absurd polytheism of the pagans, and particularly against the dualism of tile Gnostics, which supposed matter co-eternal with God, and attributed the creation of the world to the intermediate Demiurge. This dualism was only another form of polytheism, which excludes absoluteness, and with it all proper idea of God.
As to creation: Comp.
For a full
exposition of
§ 143. Man and the Fall.
It was the universal faith of the church that man was made in the image of God, pure and holy, and fell by his own guilt and the temptation of Satan who himself fell from his original state. But the extent of sin and the consequences of the fall were not fully discussed before the Pelagian controversy in the fifth century. The same is true of the metaphysical problem concerning the origin of the human soul. Yet three theories appear already in germ.
From tradux, a
branch for preparation, frequently used by "Tradux aninae
tradux peccati."
The Aristotelian theory of creationism traces the
origin of each individual soul to a direct agency of God and assumes a
subsequent corruption of the soul by its contact with the body, but
destroys the organic unity of soul and body, and derives sin from the
material part. It was advocated by Eastern divines, and by Jerome in
the West.
The third theory, that of pre-existence, was
taught by Notably in our
century by one of the profoundest and soundest evangelical divines, Dr.
Julius Mailer, in his masterly work on The Christian Doctrine of Sin.
(Urwick’s translation, Edinb. 1868, vol. II. pp. 357
sqq, , Comp. pp. 73, 147, 397). He assumes that man in a
transcendental, pre-temporal or extratemporal existence, by an act of
free self-decision, fixed his moral character and fate for his present
life. This conclusion, he thinks, reconciles the fact of the
universalness of sin with that of individual guilt, and accords with
the unfathomable depth of our consciousness of guilt and the mystery of
that inextinguishable melancholy and sadness which is most profound in
the noblest natures. But Müller found no response, and was
opposed by Rothe, Dorner, and others. In America, the theory of
pre-existence was independently advocated by Dr. Edward Beecher in his
book: The Conflict of Ages. Boston, 1853.
The cause of the Christian faith demanded the assertion both of man’s need of redemption, against Epicurean levity and Stoical self-sufficiency, and man’s capacity for redemption, against the Gnostic and Manichaean idea of the intrinsic evil of nature, and against every form of fatalism.
The Greek fathers, especially the Alexandrian, are
very strenuous for the freedom of the will, as the ground of the
accountability and the whole moral nature of man, and as indispensable
to the distinction of virtue and vice. It was impaired and weakened by
the fall, but not destroyed. In the case of Inesse nobis τὸ
αὐτεξούσιονnaturaliter,
jam et Marcioni ostendimus et Hermogeni"De Anima, c. 21. Comp. Adv.
Marc. II. 5 sqq. Definimus animam
Dei flatu natam, immortalem, corporalem, effigiatam, sub stantia
simplicem, de suo sapientem, varie procedentem, liberam arbitrii,
accidentiis obnoxiam, per ingenia mutabilem, rationalem, dominatricem,
divinatricem, ex una redundantem."De Anima, c. 22. See vol. III. p.
783 sqq.
§144. Christ and the Incarnation.
Literature.
*Dionys. Petavius (or Denis Petau, Prof. of Theol. in Paris, d. 1652): Opus de theologicis dogmatibus, etc. Par. 1644–50, in 5 vols. fol. Later ed. of Antw. 1700; by Fr. Ant. Zacharia, Venice, 1737 (in 7 vols. fol); with additions by C. Passaglia, and C. Schrader, Rome, 1857 (incomplete); find a still later one by J. B. Thomas, Bar le Due, 1863, in 8 vols. Petau was a thoroughly learned Jesuit and the father of Doctrine History (Dogmengeschichte). In the section De Trinitate (vol. II.), he has collected most of the passages of the ante-Nicene and Nicene father, and admits a progressive development of the doctrine of the divinity of Christ, and of the trinity, for which the Anglican, G. Bull, severely censures him.
*George Bull (Bishop of St. David’s, d. 1710): Defensio Fidei Nicaenae de aeterna Divinitate Filii Dei, ex scriptis catholic. doctorum qui intra tria ecclesiae Christianae secula floruerunt. Oxf. 1685. (Lond. 1703; again 1721; also in Bp. Bull’s complete Works, ed. by Edw. Burton, Oxf. 1827, and again in 1846 (vol. V., Part I. and II.) English translation in the "Library of Anglo-Catholic Theology," (Oxford 1851, 2 vols.). Bishop Bull is still one of the most learned and valuable writers on the early doctrine of the Trinity, but he reads the ante-Nicene fathers too much through the glass of the Nicene Creed, and has to explain and to defend the language of more than one half of his long list of witnesses.
Martini: Gesch. des Dogmas von der Gottheit Christi in den ersten vier Jahrh. Rost. 1809 (rationalistic).
Ad. Möller (R.C.):
Edw. Burton: Testimonies of the ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of Christ. Second ed. Oxf. 1829.
*F. C. Baur ((I. 1860): Die christl. Lehre von der Dreieinigkeit u. Menschwerdung Gottes in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwicklung. Tüb. 1841–43. 3 vols. (I. p. 129–341). Thoroughly independent, learned, critical, and philosophical.
G. A. Meier: Die Lehre von der Trinitaet in ihrer Hist. Entwicklung. Hamb. 1844. 2 Vols. (I. p. 48-l34).
*Isaac A. Dorner: Entwicklungsgeschichte der Lehre von der Person Christi (1839), 2d ed. Stuttg. u. Berl. 1845–56. 2 vols. (I. pp. 122–747). A masterpiece of exhaustive and conscientious learning, and penetrating and fair criticism. Engl. translation by W. I. Alexander and D. W. Simon. Edinb. 1864, 5 vols.
Robr. Is. Wilberforce (first Anglican, then, since 1854, R.C.): The Doctrine of the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ, in its relation to Mankind and to the Church (more doctrinal than historical). 4th ed. Lond. 1852. (Ch. V. pp. 93–147.) Republ. from an earlier ed., Philad. 1849.
Ph. Schaff: The Conflict of Trinitarianism and Unitarianism in the ante-Nicene age, in the "Bibl. Sacra." Andover, 1858, Oct.
M. F. Sadler: Emmanuel, or, The Incarnation of the Son of God the Foundation of immutable Truth. London 1867 (Doctrinal).
Henry Parry Liddon (Anglican, Canon of St. Paul’s Cathedral): The Divinity of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (The Bampton Lectures for 1866). London 1867, 9th ed. 1882. Devout, able, and eloquent.
Ph. Schaff: Christ and Christianity. N. Y. 1885, p. 45–123. A sketch of the history of Christology to the present time.
Comp. the relevant sections in the doctrine-histories of Hagenback, Thomasius, Harnack, etc.
The Messiahship and Divine Sonship of Jesus of
Nazareth, first confessed by Peter in the name of all the apostles and
the eye-witnesses of the divine glory of his person and his work, as
the most sacred and precious fact of their experience, and after the
resurrection adoringly acknowledged by the sceptical Thomas in that
exclamation, "My Lord and my God!"—is the foundation
stone of the Christian church;
The whole theological energy of the ante-Nicene
period concentrated itself, therefore, upon the doctrine of Christ as
the God-man and Redeemer of the world. This doctrine was the kernel of
all the baptismal creeds, and was stamped upon the entire life,
constitution and worship of the early church. It was not only expressly
asserted by the fathers against heretics, but also professed in the
daily and weekly worship, in the celebration of baptism, the eucharist
and the annual festivals, especially Easter. It was embodied in
prayers, doxologies and hymns of praise. From the earliest record
Christ was the object not of admiration which is given to finite
persons and things, and presupposes equality, but of prayer, praise and
adoration which is due only to an infinite, uncreated, divine being.
This is evident from several passages of the New Testament, Comp. See p. 279. See p. 230. Contra Cels. 1.
VIII.c. 67. "Carnem Christo
quasi Deo dicere," Epp. X. 97. A heathen mock-crucifix which was
discovered in 1857 in Rome, represents a Christian as worshipping a
crucified ass as "his God." See above, p. 272. τὸν
λόγον τοῦ
θεοῦ τὸν
Χριστὸν
ὑμνοῦσι
θεολογοῦντες.
Hist. Eccl. V. 28. Comp. Ruinart, Acta
Mart.; Prudentius, Peristeph., Liddon, l.c. pp. 400 sqq. "If there be
one doctrine of our faith" (says Canon Liddon, p. 406) "which the
martyrs especially confessed at death, it is the doctrine of our
Lord’s Divinity. The learned and the illiterate, the
young and the old, the noble and the lowly, the slave and his master
united in this confession. Sometimes it is wrung from the martyr
reluctantly by cross-examination, sometimes it is proclaimed as a truth
with which the Christian heart is full to bursting, and which, out of
the heart’s abundance, the Christian mouth cannot but
speak. Sometimes Christ’s Divinity is professed as
belonging to the great Christian contradiction of the polytheism of the
heathen world around. Sometimes it is explained as involving
Christ’s unity with the Father, against the pagan
imputation of ditheism; sometimes it is proclaimed as justifying the
worship which, as the heathens knew, Christians paid to Christ." Many
illustrations are given.
Life and worship anticipated theology, and Christian experience contained more than divines could in clear words express. So a child may worship the Saviour and pray to Him long before he can give a rational account of his faith. The instinct of the Christian people was always in the right direction, and it is unfair to make them responsible for the speculative crudities, the experimental and tentative statements of some of the ante-Nicene teachers. The divinity of Christ then, and with this the divinity of the Holy Spirit, were from the first immovably fixed in the mind and heart of the Christian Church as a central article of faith.
But the logical definition of this divinity, and of its relation to the Old Testament fundamental doctrine of the unity of the divine essence in a word, the church dogma of the trinity was the work of three centuries, and was fairly accomplished only in the Nicene age. In the first efforts of reason to grapple with these unfathomable mysteries, we must expect mistakes, crudities, and inaccuracies of every kind.
In the Apostolic Fathers we find for the most part
only the simple biblical statements of the deity and humanity of
Christ, in the practical form needed for general edification. Of those
fathers Ad.
The scientific development of Christology begins
with Justin and culminates in
The doctrine of the Incarnation involves three elements: the divine nature of Christ; his human nature; and the relation of the two to his undivided personality.
§ 145. The Divinity of Christ.
The dogma of the Divinity of
Christ is the centre of interest. It comes into the foreground, not
only against rationalistic Monarchianism and Ebionism, which degrade
Christ to a second Moses, but also against Gnosticism, which, though it
holds him to be superhuman, still puts him on a level with other aeons
of the ideal world, and thus, by endlessly multiplying sons of God,
after the manner of the heathen mythology, pantheistically dilutes and
destroys all idea of a specific sonship. The development of this dogma
started from the Old Testament idea of the word and the wisdom of God;
from the Jewish Platonism of Alexandria; above all, from the
Christology of Paul, and from the Logos-doctrine of John. This view of
John gave a mighty impulse to Christian speculation, and furnished it
ever fresh material. It was the form under which all the Greek fathers
conceived the divine nature and divine dignity of Christ before his
incarnation. The term Logos was peculiarly serviceable here, from its
well-known double meaning of "reason" and "word," ratio and oratio;
though in John it is evidently used in the latter sense alone. On the Logos
doctrine of Philo, which probably was known to John much has been
written by Gfrörer (1831), Dähne (1834),
Grossmann (1829 and 1841), Dorner (1845), Langen, (1867), Heinze
(1872), Schürer (1874), Siegfried (1875), Soulier, Pahud,
Klasen, and others.
For thorough
discussions of Justin’s Logos doctrine see Semisch.
Justin der Märtyrer,
11. 289 sqq.; Dorner, Entwicklungsgesch. etc. I. 415-435;
Weizsäcker. Die
Theologie des Märt. Justinus, in
Dorner’s "Jahrbücher für
deutsche Theol." Bd XII. 1867, p. 60 sqq.; and M. von Engelbardt, Das
Christenthum Justins des
Märt. (1878), p. 107-120, and his art. in
the revised ed. of Herzog, vol. VII. (1880), p. 326. Λόγος
ἐνδιάθετος. Λόγος
προφορικός
. προέρχεσθαι. γεννᾶν,
γεννᾶσθαι–ϊ.–ͅϊ He calls Christ
"the first begotten of God,"πρωτότοκος
τοῦ θεοῦ
and the πρῶτον
γέννημα (but not
κτίσμα or ποίημα
τοῦ θεοῦ).
See Apol. I. 21, 23, 33, 46, 63; and Engelhardt, l.c. p. 116-120:
"Der Logos ist vorweltlich, aber
nicht ewig." Λόγος
ἄσαρκος
. See the proof in
the monograph of Semisch.
In this connection we must also mention
Justin’s remarkable doctrine of the "Logos
spermatikos," or the Divine Word disseminated among men. He recognized
in every rational soul something Christian, a germ (σπέρμα) of the Logos, or a spark of the
absolute reason. He therefore traced all the elements of truth and
beauty which are scattered like seeds not only among the Jews but also
among the heathen to the influence of Christ before his incarnation. He
regarded the heathen sages, Socrates, (whom he compares to Abraham),
Plato, the Stoics, and some of the poets and historians as unconscious
disciples of the Logos, as Christians before Christ. Comp. Apol. II. 8,
10, 13. He says that the moral teaching of the Stoics and some of the
Greek poets was admirable on account of the seed of the Logos implanted
in every race of men (διὰ τὸ
ἔμφυτον
παντὶ
γένει
ἀνθρώπων
σπέρμα τοῦ
λόγου), and mentions as
examples Heraclitus, Musonius, and others, who for this reason were
hated and put to death.
Justin derived this idea no doubt from the Gospel
of On the relation of
Justin to John’s Gospel, see especially the very
careful examination of Ezra Abbot, The Authorship of the Fourth Gospel
(Boston, 1880), pp. 29-56. He says (p. 41) While
Justin’s conceptions in regard to the Logos were
undoubtedly greatly affected by Philo and the Alexandrian philosophy,
the doctrine of the incarnation of the Logos was utterly foreign to
that philosophy, and could only have been derived, it would seem, from
the Gospel of John. He accordingly speaks very often in language
similar to that of John (1:14) of the Logos as ’ made
flesh,’ or as ’having become
man.’That in the last phrase he should prefer the term
’man’ to the Hebraistic
’flesh’ can excite no surprise. With
reference to the deity of the Logos and his instrumental agency in
creation, compare also especially Apol. II. 6,
’through him God created all things’
(δι’
αὐτοῦ
πάντα
ἔκτισε) Dial.
c. 56, and Apol. I. 63, with
The further development of the doctrine of the
Logos we find in the other apologists, in
Comp. here Neander,
Baur, Dorner (I. 635-695), the monographs on αὐτοσοφία,
αὐτοαλήθεια,
αὐτοδικαιοσύνη,
αὐτοδύναμις,
αὐτόλογος,
etc. Contra Cels. III. 41; V. 39. In a
fragment on the Ep. to the Hebrews (IV. 697, de la Rue): ἀπόρροια
ὁμοούσιος. De Princip.
IV. 28: "Sicut lux numquam sine splendore esse potuit, ita nec Filius
quidem sine Patre intelligi potest " De Princ. I.
2, 4: "Est aeterna et sempiterna generatio, sicut splendor generatur a
luce."Horn. in Jerem. IX. 4. ἀεί
γεννᾶ ὁ
Πατὴρ τὸν
Υἱόν ἑτιρότης
τῆς
οὐσίας or τοῦ
ὑποκειμένου,
which the advocates of his orthodoxy, probably without reason, take is
merely opposing the Patripassian conception of the ὁμοουσία.
Redepenning, II. 300-306, gives the principal passages for the
homo-ousia and the hetero-ousia. πηγή,
ῥίζα τῆς
θεότητος. De Orat. c.
15. For example,
Ad Rom. I. p. 472: "Adorare alium quempiam praeter Patrem et Filium et
Spiritum sanctum, impietatis est crimen."Contra Cels. VIII. 67. He
closes his homilies with a doxology to Christ.
In a simpler way the western fathers, including
here
The λόγος
ἐνδιάθετος
and λόγος
προφορικός
. Adv. Haer.
II. 28, 6 "Si quis nobis dixerit: quomodo ergo Filius prolatus a Patre
est? dicimus ei—nemo novit nisi solus, qui generavit
Pater et qui natus est Filius." The λόγος
ἄσαρκος
and the λόγος
ἔνσαρκος
. As Duncker
in his monograph: Die Christologie
des heil.
The incarnation of the Logos
Adv. Prax.
c. 9 "Pater tota subsiantia est, Filius vero derivatio totius et
portio, sicut ipse profitetur Quia Pater major Me est " ( Hence he
says (Adv. Prax. c. 5), by way of illustration: "Quodcunque
cogitaveris, sermo est; quodcunque senseris ratio est. Loquaris illud
in animo necesse est, et dum loqueris, conlocutorem pateris sermonem,
in quo inest haec ipsa ratio qua cum eo cogitans loquaris, per quem
loquens cogitas." In German
terminology this progress in the filiation (Hypostasirung) may, be expressed: die werdende Persönlichkeit,
die gewordene Persönlichkeit, die erscheinende
Persönlichkeit.
With equal energy See the
exposition of Döllinger, Hippol. p. 195 sqq.
On the other hand, according to his representation in the Philosophumena, the Roman bishops Zephyrinus and especially Callistus favored Patripassianism. The later popes, however, were firm defenders of hypostasianism. One of them, Dionysius, a.d. 262, as we shall see more fully when speaking of the trinity, maintained at once the homo-ousion and eternal generation against Dionysius of Alexandria, and the hypostatical distinction against Sabellianism, and sketched in bold and clear outlines the Nicene standard view.
§ 146. The Humanity of Christ.
Passing now to the doctrine of the
Saviour’s Humanity, we find
this asserted by Ep. ad
Smyrn. c. 2-5. ἐν
σαρκὶ
γενόμενος
θεός (ad
ἀνακεφαλαίωσις,
recapitulatio, a term frequently used by Adv. Haer.
II. 22, § 4-6. He appeals to tradition and to the loose
conjecture of the Jews that Christ was near fifty years,
Adv.
Marcionem, and De Carne Christi. Adv.
Praxean.
The Christology of The view of
the ubiquity of Christ’s body was adopted by Gregory
of Nyssa, revived by Scotus Erigena, but in a pantheistic sense, and by
Luther, who made it a support to his doctrine of the
Lord’s Supper. See Creeds of Christendom, vol. I. p.
286 sqq.
On this insufficient ground his opponents charged him with teaching a double Christ (answering to the lower Jesus and the higher Soter of the Gnostics), and a merely temporary validity in the corporeity of the Redeemer.
θεάνθρωπος.
§ 147. The Relation of the Divine and the Human in Christ.
The doctrine of the Mutual Relation of the divine and the human in Christ did not come into special discussion nor reach a definite settlement until the Christological (Nestorian and Eutychian) controversies of the fifth century.
Yet "Et sibi et
universo generi humano causa facta est salutis."Adv. Haer. III. 22,
§ 4. At least
according to Dorner, I. 495.
§ 148. The Holy Spirit.
Ed. Burton: Testimonies of the Ante-Nicene Fathers to the Divinity of the Holy Ghost. Oxf. 1831 (Works, vol. II).
K. F. A. Kahnis. Die Lehre vom heil. Geiste. Halle, 1847. (Pt. I. p. 149–356. Incomplete).
Neander: Dogmengeschichte, ed. by Jacobi, I. 181–186.
The doctrine of Justin Mart. is treated with exhaustive thoroughness by Semisch in his monograph (Breslau, 1840), II. 305–332. Comp. also Al. v. Engelhardt: Das Christenthum Justins (Erlangen, 1878), P. 143–147.
The doctrine of the Holy Spirit was far less
developed, and until the middle of the fourth century was never a
subject of special controversy. So in the Apostles; Creed, only one
article Credo in
Spiritum Sanctum.
Yet rationalistic historians go quite too far when, among other accusations, they charge the early church with making the Holy Spirit identical with the Logos. To confound the functions, as in attributing the inspiration of the prophets, for example, now to the Holy Spirit, now to the Logos, is by no means to confound the persons. On the contrary, the thorough investigations of recent times show plainly that the ante-Nicene fathers, with the exception of the Monarchians and perhaps Lactantius, agreed in the two fundamental points, that the Holy Spirit, the sole agent in the application of redemption, is a supernatural divine being, and that he is an independent person; thus closely allied to the Father and the Son yet hypostatically different from them both. This was the practical conception, as demanded even by the formula of baptism. But instead of making the Holy Spirit strictly coordinate with the other divine persons, as the Nicene doctrine does, it commonly left him subordinate to the Father and the Son.
So in Justin, the pioneer
of scientific discovery in Pneumatology as well as in Christology. He
refutes the heathen charge of atheism with the explanation, that the
Christians worship the Creator of the universe, in the second place the
Son, ἐν
δευτέρᾳ
χώρᾳ. ἐν
τρίτῃ
τάξει, Apol. I. 13. Apol. I. 6:
Εκεῖνόν
τε(i.e. θεὸν), καὶ τὸν
παρ’ αὐτοῦ
Υἱὸν
ἐλθόντα
καὶ
διδάξαντα
ἡμᾶς
ταῦτα καὶ
τὸν τῶν
ἄλλων
ἑπομένων
καὶ
ἐξομοιουμένων
ἀγαθῶν
ἀγγέλων
στρατὸν,
Πνεῦμά τε
τὸ
προφητικὸν
σεβόμεθα
καὶ
προσκυνοῦμεν.
This passage has been variously explained. The questions arise, whether
ἄγγελος
here is not to be taken in the wider sense, in which Justin often uses
it, and even applies it to Christ; whether στρατόνdepends
on σεβόμεθα,
and not rather on διδάξαντα,
so as to be co-ordinate with ἡμᾶς, or with ταῦτα, and not with
Ψἱόν and Πνεῦμα. Still
others suspect that στρατόν is
a false reading for στρατηγόν,
which would characterize Christ as the leader of the angelic host. It
is impossible to co-ordinate the host of angels with the Father, Son,
and Spirit, as objects of worship, without involving Justin in gross
self-contradiction (Apol I. 17: θεὸν
μόνον
προσκυνοῦμεν,
etc.). We must either join στρατόν
with ἡμᾶς , in the sense
that Christ is the teacher, not of men only, but also of the host of
angels; or with ταῦτα in the sense
that the Son of God taught us (διδάξαντα
ἡμᾶς) about these things
(ταῦτα, i.e. evil
spirits, compare the preceding chapter I. 5), but also concerning the
good angels—τὸν
ἀγγέλων
στρατὸν being in
this case elliptically put for τὰ περὶ
τοῦ... ἀγγέλων
στρατοῦ. The
former is more natural, although a more careful writer than Justin
would in this case have said ταῦτα
ἡμᾶς instead of ἡμᾶς
ταῦτα. For a summary of
the different interpretations see Otto’s notes in the
third ed. of Justin’s Opera, I. 20-23. Hence the
frequent designation, τὸ Πνεῦμα
προφητικόν,
together with the other, Πνευˡμα
ἀγιον; and hence also even in
the Symb. Nic. Constantin. the definition: Πνεῦμα ...
τὸ λαλῆσαν
διὰ τῶν
προφητῶν,
"who spoke through the prophets."
In Paed. III.
p. 311: Ἐυχαριστοῦντας
αἰνεῖν
τῷ μόνῳ
Πατρὶ καὶ
Υἱῷ
—σὺν καὶ
τῷ ἁγίῳ
Πνεῦματι.
Not as ὕλη
τῶν
χαρισμάτων,
as Neander and others represent it, but as τὴν
ὕλην τῶν
χαρισμ.
παρέχον, as
offering the substance and fairness of the spiritual gifts; therefore
as the ἀρχή and πηγή of them. In Joh. II.
§ 6. De Princip.
I. 3, 3. In Joh. tom.
II. § 6: τιμιώτερον—this
comparative, by the way, should be noticed as possibly saying more than
the superlative, and perhaps designed to distinguish the Spirit from
all creatures—πάντων
τῶν ὑπὸ
τοῦ Πατρὸς
διὰ
Χριστοῦ
γεγεννημένων. According to
Here again Adv. Haer.
IV. 20, §1.
In the Montanistic system the Paraclete occupies a
peculiarly important place. He appears there as the principle of the
highest stage of revelation, or of the church of the consummation.
§ 149. The Holy Trinity.
Comp. the works quoted in §144, especially Petravius, Bull, Baur, and Dorner.
Here now we have the elements of the dogma of the
Trinity, that is, the doctrine of the living, only true God, Father,
Son, and Spirit, of whom, through whom, and to whom are all things.
This dogma has a peculiar, comprehensive, and definitive import in the
Christian system, as a brief summary of all the truths and blessings of
revealed religion. Hence the baptismal formula (
On this scriptural basis and the Christian
consciousness of a threefold relation we sustain to God as our Maker,
Redeemer, and Sanctifier, the church dogma of the Trinity arose; and it
directly or indirectly ruled even the ante-Nicene theology though it
did not attain its fixed definition till in the Nicene age. It is
primarily of a practical religious nature, and speculative only in a
secondary sense. It arose not from the field of metaphysics, but from
that of experience and worship; and not as an abstract, isolated dogma,
but in inseparable connection with the study of Christ and of the Holy
Spirit; especially in connection with Christology, since all theology
proceeds from "God in Christ reconciling the world unto himself." Under
the condition of monotheism, this doctrine followed of necessity from
the doctrine of the divinity of Christ and of the Holy Spirit. The
unity of God was already immovably fixed by the Old Testament as a
fundamental article of revealed religion in opposition to all forms of
idolatry. But the New Testament and the Christian consciousness as
firmly demanded faith in the divinity of the Son, who effected
redemption, and of the Holy Spirit, who founded the church and dwells
in believers; and these apparently contradictory interests could be
reconciled only in the form of the Trinity; τριάς, first in
Theophilus; trinitas, first in οὐσία,
φύσις, substantia;
sometimes also, inaccurately, ὑπόστασις
. τρεῖς
ὑποστάσεις
, τρία
πρόσωπα,
personae.
The Socinian and rationalistic opinion, that the
church doctrine of the Trinity sprang from Platonism Comp. Plato,
Plotinus (in
Enn. V. 1) and Porphyry (in Cyril. Alex. c. Jul.) who, however, were
already unconsciously affected by Christian ideas, speak of τρεῖς
ὑποστάσεις
but in a sense altogether different from that of the church.
Again, it was primarily the Œconomic or transitive trinity, which the church had in mind; that is, the trinity of the revelation of God in the threefold work of creation, redemption, and sanctification; the trinity presented in the apostolic writings as a living fact. But from this, in agreement with both reason and Scripture, the immanent or ontologic trinity was inferred; that is, an eternal distinction in the essence of God itself, which reflects itself in his revelation, and can be understood only so far as it manifests itself in his works and words. The divine nature thus came to be conceived, not as an abstract, blank unity, but as an infinite fulness of life; and the Christian idea of God (as John of Damascus has remarked) in this respect combined Jewish monotheism with the truth which lay at the bottom of even the heathen polytheism, though distorted and defaced there beyond recognition.
Then for the more definite illustration of this
trinity of essence, speculative church teachers of subsequent times
appealed to all sorts of analogies in nature, particularly in the
sphere of the finite mind, which was made after the image of the
divine, and thus to a certain extent authorizes such a parallel. They
found a sort of triad in the universal law of thesis, antithesis, and
synthesis; in the elements of the syllogism; in the three persons of
grammar; in the combination of body, soul, and spirit in man; in the
three leading faculties of the soul; in the nature of intelligence and
knowledge as involving a union of the thinking subject and the thought
object; and in the nature of love, as likewise a union between the
loving and the loved. "Ubi amor,
ibi trinitas," says St.
As the doctrines of the divinity of Christ and of
the Holy Spirit were but imperfectly developed in logical precision in
the ante-Nicene period, the doctrine of the Trinity, founded on them,
cannot be expected to be more clear. We find it first in the most
simple biblical and practical shape in all the creeds of the first
three centuries: which, like the Apostles’ and the
Nicene, are based on the baptismal formula, and hence arranged in
trinitarian order. Then it appears in the trinitarian doxologies used
in the church from the first; such as occur even in the epistle of the
church at Smyrna on the martyrdom of C. 14, where
In the
Const. MS. Ad Cor. 58: ζῇ ὁ
θεὸς καὶ
ζῇ ὁ
κύριοσ
Ἰησοῦς
Χριστὸς
καὶ τὸ
πνεῦμα
ἅγιον, ἥ
τε πίστις
καὶ ἡ
ἐλπὶς τῶν
εκλεκτῶν."As
surely as God liveth ... so surely, " etc. In
θεός,
Λόγος and Σοφία. By Σοφία, like
Adv. Haer.
V. 18, 2.
Adv.
Praxean, c. 8.
"Tertius"—says he, Adv. Prax. c.
8—"est Spiritus a Deo et Filio, sicut tertius a radice
fructus ex frutice, et tertius a fonte rivus ex flumine, et tertius a
sole apex ex radio. Nihil tamen a matrice alienatur, a qua proprietates
suas ducit. Ita trinitas [here this word appears for the first time,
comp. c. 2: οἰκονομίαquae
unitatem in trinitatem disponit] per consertos [al. consortes] et
connexos gradus a Patre decurrens et monarchioe nihil obstrepit et
οἰκονομίαςstatum
protegit." C. 2: "Tres
autem non statu, sed gradu, nec substantia, sed forma, nec potestate,
sed specie, unius autem substantiae, et unius status, et unius
potestatis, quia unus Deus, ex quo et gradus isti et formae et species,
in nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti deputantur."
The Roman bishop Nothing is
known of him except his effective effort against the Sabellian heresy.
He was consecrated after the death of Xystus, July 22, 259, during the
persecution of Valerian. He acted with Dionysius of Alexandria in
condemning and degrading Paul of Samosata, in 264. He died Dec. 26,
269. Τὴν
θείαν
τριάδα εἰς
ἕνα
ὥσπερ εἰς
κορυφήν
τινα (τὸν
θεὸν τῶν
ὅλων, τὸν
παντοκράτορα
λέγω) συνκεφαλαιοῦσθαί
τε καὶ
συνάγεσθαι
πᾶσα
ἀνάγκη.
§ 150. Antitrinitarians. First Class: The Alogi, Theodotus, Artemon, Paul of Samosata.
The works cited at § 144, p. 543.
Schleiermacher: Ueber den Gegensatz der sabellianischen u. athanasianischen Vorstellung von der Trinitaet (Werke zur Theol. Vol. II.). A rare specimen of constructive criticism (in the interest of Sabellianism).
Lobeg. Lange: Geschichte u. Lehrbegriff der Unitarier vor der nicaenischen Synode. Leipz. 1831.
Jos. Schwane (R.C.): Dogmengesch. der vornicaen. Zeit (Münster, 1862), pp. 142–156; 199–203. Comp. his art. Antitrinitarier in "Wetzer und Welte, " new ed. I. 971–976.
Friedr. Nitzsch: Dogmengeschichte, Part I. (Berlin, 1870), 194–210.
Ad. Harnack: Monarchianismus. In Herzog2, vol. X. (1882), 178–213. A very elaborate article. Abridged in Schaff’s Herzog, II. 1548 sqq.
Ad. Hilgenfeld: Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums (1884) p. 608-(628.
That this goal was at last happily reached, was in
great part due again to those controversies with the opponents of the
church doctrine of the Trinity, which filled the whole third century.
These Antitrinitarians are commonly called Monarchians from
(μοναρχία) The
designation Monarchiani as a sectarian name is first used by
But we must carefully distinguish among them two opposite classes: the rationalistic or dynamic Monarchians, who denied the divinity of Christ, or explained it as a mere "power" (δύναμις) and the patripassian or modalistic Monarchians, who identified the Son with the Father, and admitted at most only a modal trinity, that is a threefold mode of revelation, but not a tripersonality.
The first form of this heresy, involved in the abstract Jewish monotheism, deistically sundered the divine and the human, and rose little above Ebionism. After being defeated in the church this heresy arose outside of it on a grander scale, as a pretended revelation, and with marvellous success, in Mohammedanism which may be called the pseudo-Jewish and pseudo-Christian Unitarianism of the East.
The second form proceeded from the highest conception of the deity of Christ, but in part also from pantheistic notions which approached the ground of Gnostic docetism.
The one prejudiced the dignity of the Son, the other the dignity of the Father; yet the latter was by far the more profound and Christian, and accordingly met with the greater acceptance.
The Monarchians of the first class saw in Christ a mere man, filled with divine power; but conceived this divine power as operative in him, not from the baptism only, according to the Ebionite view, but from the beginning; and admitted his supernatural generation by the Holy Spirit. To this class belong:
1. The Alogians or Alogi, From ἀ
privative and λόγος, which may
mean both irrational, and opponents of the Logos doctrine. The
designation occurs first in Epiphanius, who invented the term (Haer.
51, c. 3) to characterize sarcastically their unreasonable rejection of
the Divine Reason preached by John. Hence
Epiphanius asks (Haer. 51, 3): πῶς
ἔσται
Κηρίνθου
τὰ κατὰ
Κηρίνθου
λέγοντα? Comp. on the
Alogi, Iren. Adv. Haer. III. 11. 9 (alii ... simul evangelium [Joannis]
et propheticum repellunt spiritum;"but the application of this passage
is doubtful); Epiphanius, Haer. 51 and 54. M. Merkel, Historish-kritische Aufklärung der
Streitigkeiten der Aloger über die
Apokalypsis, Frankf. and Leipz. 1782; by the same:
Umständlicher Beweis
dass die Apok. ein untergeschobenes Buch sei, Leipz.
1785; F. A. Heinichen, De Alogis, Theodotianis atque Artemonites,
Leipzig, 1829; Neander, Kirchengesch. l. II. 906, 1003; Dorner, l. c.
Bd. II. 500-503; Schaff, Alogians in " Smith and Wace," I. 87; Lipsius,
Quellen der ältesten
Ketzergeschichte, 93 and 214; Schwane, l. c. 145-148;
Döllinger, On the older
Theodotus see Hippol. Philos., VII. 35; X. 23 (in D. and Schu. p. 406
and 526); Epiph., Haer. 54; Philastr., Haer. 50; Pseudo Tert., Haer.
28; Euseb., H. E. V. 28, On the younger Theodotus, see Hippol., VII.
36; Euseb., V. 28; Pseudo-Tert., 29; Epiph., Haer. 55 (Contra
Melchisedecianos).
3. The Artemonites, or adherents of Artemon or Artemos, who came out somewhat later at Rome with a similar opinion, declared the doctrine of the divinity of Christ an innovation and a relapse to heathen polytheism; and was excommunicated by Zephyrinus (202–217) or afterwards. The Artemonites were charged with placing Euclid and Aristotle above Christ, and esteeming mathematics and dialectics higher than the gospel. This indicates a critical intellectual turn, averse to mystery, and shows that Aristotle was employed by some against the divinity of Christ, as Plato was engaged for it.
Their assertion, that the true doctrine was
obscured in the Roman church only from the time of Zephyrinus, Euseb. V.
28. The sources
of our fragmentary information about Artemon are Epiphanius, Haer. 65,
c. 1-4; Euseb., H. E. V. 28; VII. 30; Theodoret, Haer. Fab. II. 8.
Comp. Kapp, Historia Artemonis, 1737, Schleiermacher, Dorner, and
Harnack.
4. "Ducenarius
procurator." He was viceroy of the queen of Palmyra, to which Antioch
belonged at that time. Aθεοποίησις
ἐκ
προκοπῆς or
aγεγονέναι
θεὸν ἐξ
ἀνθρώπου.
He anticipated the doctrine of the Socinians who were at first
frequently called Samosaterians (e.g. in the Second Helvetic
Confession). They teach that Christ began as a man and ended as a God,
being elevated after the resurrection to a quasi-divinity, so as to
become an object of adoration and worship. But the logical tendency of
Socinianism is towards mere humanitarianism. The idea of divinity
necessarily includes aseity and eternity. A divinity communicated in
time is only a finite being. θεὸς
ἐκ τῆς
παρθένου. Probably he
meant the impersonal, pre-existent Logos. But the Synod of Antioch
declined the term ὁμοούσιοςimpersonal
(Sabellian) sense.
The bishops under him in Syria accused him not
only of heresy but also of extreme vanity, arrogance, pompousness,
avarice, and undue concern with secular business; and at a third synod
held in Antioch a.d. 269 or 268, they
pronounced his deposition. The number of bishops present is variously
reported (70, 80, 180). Dominus was appointed successor. The result was
communicated to the bishops of Rome, Alexandria, and to all the
churches. But as Paul was favored by the queen Zenobia of Palmyra, the
deposition could not be executed till after her subjection by the
emperor Aurelian in 272, and after consultation with the Italian
bishops. Sources: The
fragmentary acts of the Synod of Antioch in
His overthrow decided the fall of the Monarchians; though they still appear at the end of the fourth century as condemned heretics, under the name of Samosatians, Paulianists, and Sabellians.
§ 151. Second Class of Antitrinitarians: Praxeas, Noëtus, Callistus, Berryllus.
The second class of Monarchians, called by The
Orientals usually call them "Sabellians" from their most prominent
representative.
1. The first prominent advocate of the
Patripassian heresy was
Pseudo-Tert.: "Praxeas hoeresim introduxit quam Victorinus
[probably=Victor] corroborare curavit." It is certain from The chief
source:
2. Noëtus of
Smyrna published the same view about a.d. 200,
appealing also to τί
οὖν κακὸν
ποιῶ, he asked, δοξάζων
τὸν
Χριστόν. On
Noëtus see Hippol., Philos. IX. 7-9 (p. 410-442), and his
tract against Noëtus (Ὁμιλία
εἰς τὴν
αἵρεσιν
Νοήτου
τινος, perhaps the last chapter
of his lost work against the 32 heresies). Epiphanius, Haer. 57, used
both these books, but falsely put Noëtus back from the close
of the second century to about 130.
Two of his disciples, Epigonus and Cleomenes, Not his
teachers, as was supposed by former historians, including Neander. See
3. πρόσωπον,
Callistus, however, rectified this statement, which seems to be merely
an inference of δίθεοι.
These and other disclosures respecting the church
at Rome during the first quarter of the third century, we owe, as
already observed, to the ninth book of the Philosophumena of
Döllinger here dissents from, Harnack agrees with, the
charge of On Callistus
see Hippol. IX. 11, 12 (p. 450-462) and c. 27 (p. 528-530). Comp.
Döllinger, Hippol. und
Callistus, ch. IV. (Engl. transl. p. 183 sqq.,
especially p. 215), and other works on
After the death of Callistus, who occupied the papal chair between 218 and 223 or 224, Patripassianism disappeared from the Roman church.
4. H. E. VI.
33. ἰδία
οὐσίας
περιγραφήi.e.
a circumscribed, limited, separate existence. ἰδία
θεότης. ἡ
πατρικὴ
θεότης. The Acts of
the Synod of Bostra, known to
§ 152. Sabellianism.
Sources: Hippolytyus: Philos. IX. 11 (D. and Schn. p. 450,
456, 458). Rather meagre, but important. Epiphan.: Haer: 62. The fragments of letters
of Dionysius of Alex.
in
Comp. Schleiermacher, Neander, Baur, Dorner, Harnack, l. c., and Zahn, Marcellus von. Ancyra (Gotha, 1867); Nitzsch, Dogmengesch. I. 206–209, 223–225.
5. We will only
mention Marcellus of Ancyra., Schleiermacher, and Bushnell.
Schleiermacher’s doctrine of the trinity is a very
ingenious improvement of Sabellianism. This we
learn from Sabellius
must have been an old man at that time. Comp. the
close of § 149 (this vol.).
The system of Sabellius is known to us only from a
few fragments, and some of these not altogether consistent, in
While the other Monarchians confine their inquiry
to the relation of Father and Son, Sabellius embraces the Holy Spirit
in his speculation, and reaches a trinity, not a simultaneous trinity
of essence, however, but only a successive trinity of revelation. He
starts from a distinction of the monad and the triad in the divine
nature. His fundamental thought is, that the unity of God, without
distinction in itself, unfolds or extends itself ἡ
μονὰς
πλατυνθεῖσα
γέγονε
τρίας. ὀνόματα,
πρόσωπα,—not
in the orthodox sense of hypostasis, however, but in the primary sense
of mask, or part (in a play)—, also μορφαί,
σχήματα. Which was
for the first time duly brought out by Dr. Baur. θεὸς
λαλῶν. θεὸς
σιωπῶν. διάλεξις
ἕκτασις,
or πλατυτμός
and συστολή.
§ 153. Redemption.
Cotta: Histor. doctrinae de redemptione sanguine J. Chr. facta, in Gerhard: Loci theol., vol. IV. p. 105–134.
Ziegler: Hist. dogmatis de redemptione. Gott. 1791. Rationalistic.
K. Baehr.: Die Lehre der Kirche vom Tode Jesu in den drei ersten Jahrh., Sulz b. 1832. Against the orthodox doctrine of the satisfactio vicaria.
F. C. Baur: Die christl. Lehre von der Versöhnung in ihrer geschichtl. Entw. von der aeltesten Zeit bis auf die neueste. Tüb. 1838. 764 pages, (See pp. 23–67). Very learned, critical, and philosophical, but resulting in Hegelian pantheism.
L. Duncker: Des heil.
Baumgarten Crusius: Compendium der christl. Dogmengeschichte. Leipz. 2d Part 1846, § 95 sqq. (p. 257 sqq.)
Albrecht Ritschl (Prof. in Göttingen): Die christl. Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versöhnung, Bonn, 1870, second revised ed. 1882, sqq., 3 vols. The first vol. (pages 656) contains the history the doctrine, but devotes only a few introductory pages to our period (p. 4), being occupied chiefly with the Anselmic, the orthodox Lutheran and Calvinistic, and the modern German theories of redemption. Ritschl belonged originally to the Tübingen school, but pursues now an independent path, and lays greater stress on the ethical forces in history.
The work of the triune God, in his self-revelation, is the salvation, or redemption and reconciliation of the world: negatively, the emancipation of humanity from the guilt and power of sin and death; positively, the communication of the righteousness and life of fellowship with God. First, the discord between the Creator and the creature must be adjusted; and then man can be carried onward to his destined perfection. Reconciliation with God is the ultimate aim of every religion. In heathenism it was only darkly guessed and felt after, or anticipated in perverted, fleshly forms. In Judaism it was divinely promised, typically foreshadowed, and historically prepared. In Christianity it is revealed in objective reality, according to the eternal counsel of the love and wisdom of God, through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ, and is being continually applied subjectively to individuals in the church by the Holy Spirit, through the means of grace, on condition of repentance and faith. Christ is, exclusively and absolutely, the Saviour of the world, and the Mediator between God and man.
The apostolic scriptures, in the fulness of their
inspiration, everywhere bear witness of this salvation wrought through
Christ, as a living fact of experience. But it required time for the
profound ideas of a Paul and a John to come up clearly to the view of
the church; indeed, to this day they remain unfathomed. Here again
experience anticipated theology. The church lived from the first on the
atoning sacrifice of Christ. The cross ruled all Christian thought and
conduct, and fed the spirit of martyrdom. But the primitive church
teachers lived more in the thankful enjoyment of redemption than in
logical reflection upon it. We perceive in their exhibitions of this
blessed mystery the language rather of enthusiastic feeling than of
careful definition and acute analysis. Moreover, this doctrine was
never, like Christology and the doctrine of the Trinity, a subject of
special controversy within the ancient church. The oecumenical symbols
touch it only in general terms. The Apostles’ Creed
presents it in the article on the forgiveness of sins on the ground of
the divine-human life, death, and resurrection of Christ. The Nicene
Creed says, a little more definitely, that Christ became man for our
salvation, διὰ
τὴν
ἡμετέραν
σωτηρίαν.
Nevertheless, all the essential elements of the
later church doctrine of redemption may be found, either expressed or
implied, before the close of the second century. The negative part of
the doctrine, the subjection of the devil, the prince of the kingdom of
sin and death, was naturally most dwelt on in the patristic period, on
account of the existing conflict of Christianity with heathenism, which
was regarded as wholly ruled by Satan and demons. Even in the New
Testament, particularly in This strange
theory is variously held by
The theological development of the doctrine of the
work of Christ began with the struggle against Jewish and heathen
influences, and at the same time with the development of the doctrine
of the person of Christ, which is inseparable from that of his work,
and indeed fundamental to it. Ebionism, with its deistic and legal
spirit, could not raise its view above the prophetic office of Christ
to the priestly and the kingly, but saw in him only a new teacher and
legislator. Gnosticism, from the naturalistic and pantheistic position
of heathendom, looked upon redemption as a physical and intellectual
process, liberating the spirit from the bonds of matter, the supposed
principle of evil; reduced the human life and passion of Christ to a
vain show; and could ascribe at best only a symbolical virtue to his
death. For this reason even Comp.
§ 146.
In Apol. I. 50,
etc. See von Engelhardt, p. 182.
The anonymous author of the Epistle to an unknown
heathen, Diognetus, which has sometimes been ascribed to Justin, but is
probably of much earlier date, has a beautiful and forcible passage on
the mystery of redemption, which shows that the root of the matter was
apprehended by faith long before a logical analysis was attempted.
"When our wickedness" he says, Ep. ad
Diognetum, c. 9.
This as
already intimated in a former connection, is the sense of his frequent
expression: ἀνακεφαλαιοῦν,
ἀνακεφαλαίωσις
recapitulare, recapitulatio.
Dissuasio. By suadela,
persuasion, announcement of truth, not overreaching or deception.
λόγος
περὶ τῆς
ἐνανθρωπήσεως
τοῦ
λόγου.. It was written
before the outbreak of the Arian controversy. The Athanasian authorship
has been contested without good reason; but another work with the
similar Περὶ τῆς
σαρκώσεως
τοῦ θεοῦ
λόγου, pseudo-Athanasian,
and belongs to the younger Apollinaris of Laodicea. See Ritschl, I. 8
sq.
§ 154. Other Doctrines.
The doctrine of the subjective appropriation
of salvation, including faith, justification, and sanctification, was
as yet far less perfectly formed than the objective dogmas; and in the
nature of the case, must follow the latter. If any one expects to find
in this period, or in any of the church fathers,
The doctrine of the church, as the
communion of grace , we have already considered in the chapter on the
constitution of the church, See
especially § 53, (this vol.). See
§§ 66 to 74, (this vol.).
§ 155. Eschatology. Immortality and Resurrection.
I. General Eschatology:
Chr. W Flugge: Geschichte des Glaubens an Unsterblichkeit, Auferstchung, Gericht und Vergeltung. 3 Theile, Leipz. 1794–1800. Part III. in 2 vols. gives a history of the Christian doctrine. Not completed.
William Rounseville Alger (Unitarian): A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life. With a Complete Literature on the Subject. Philad. 1864, tenth ed. with six new chs. Boston, 1878. He treats of the patristic doctrine in Part Fourth, ch. 1. p. 394–407. The Bibliographical Index by Prof. Ezra Abbot, of Cambridge, contains a classified list of over 5000 books on the subject, and is unequalled in bibliographical literature for completeness and accuracy.
Edm. Spiess: Entwicklungsgeschichte der Vorstellungen vom Zustand nach dem Tode. Jena, 1877. This book of 616 pages omits the Christian eschatology.
II. Greek and Roman Eschatology:
C. Fr. Nägelsbach: Die homerische Theologie in ihrem Zusammenhang dargestellt. Nürnberg, 1840.
The same: Die nachhomerische Theologie des griechischen Volksglaubens bis auf Alexander. Nürnberg, 1857.
Aug Arndt: Die Ansichten der Alten über Leben, Tod und Unsterblichkeit. Frankfurt a. M. 1874.
Lehrs: Vorstellungen der Griechen über das Fortleben nach dem Tode. Second ed. 1875.
Ludwig Friedlaender: Sittengeschichte Roms, fifth ed. Leipz. 1881, vol. III. p. 681–717 (Der Unsterblichkeitsglaube).
III. Jewish Eschatology;
A. Kahle: Biblische Eschatologie des Alten Testaments. Gotha, 1870.
A. Wahl: Unsterblichkeits-und Vergeltungslehre des alttestamentlichen Hebraismus. Jena, 1871.
Dr. Ferdinand Weber (d. 1879): System der Altsynagogalen Palaestinischen Theologie aus Targum, Midrasch und Talmud. Ed. by Franz Delitzsch and Georg Schnedermann. Leipzig, 1880. See chs. XXI. 322–332; XXIV. 371–386.
Aug Wünsche: Die Vorstellungen vom Zustande nach dem Tode nach apokryphen, Talmud, und Kirchenvätern In the "Jahrbücher für Prot. Theol." Leipz. 1880
Bissel: The Eschatology of the Apocrypha. In the " Bibliotheca Sacra," 1879.
IV. Christian Eschatology:
See the relevant chapters in Flügge, and Alger, as above.
Dr. Edward Beecher: History of Opinions on the Scriptural Doctrine of Retribution. New York, 1878 (334 pages).
The relevant sections in the Doctrine Histories of Münscher, Neander, Gieseler, Baur, Hagenbach (H. B. Smith’s ed. vol. I. 213 sqq. and 368 sqq.), Shedd, Friedrich Nitzsch (I. 397 sqq.)
A large number of monographs on Death, Hades, Purgatory, Resurrection, Future Punishment. See the next sections.
Christianity—and human life itself, with its countless problems and mysteries—has no meaning without the certainty of a future world of rewards and punishments, for which the present life serves as a preparatory school. Christ represents himself as "the Resurrection and the Life," and promises "eternal life" to all who believe in Him. On his resurrection the church is built, and without it the church could never have come into existence. The resurrection of the body and the life everlasting are among the fundamental articles of the early baptismal creeds. The doctrine of the future life, though last in the logical order of systematic theology, was among the first in the consciousness of the Christians, and an unfailing source of comfort and strength in times of trial and persecution. It stood in close connection with the expectation of the Lord’s glorious reappearance. It is the subject of Paul’s first Epistles, those to the Thessalonians, and is prominently discussed in the fifteenth chapter of First Corinthians. He declares the Christians "the most pitiable," because the most deluded and uselessly self-sacrificing, "of all men," if their hope in Christ were confined to this life.
The ante-Nicene church was a stranger in the midst
of a hostile world, and longed for the unfading crown which awaited the
faithful confessor and martyr beyond the grave. Such a mighty
revolution as the conversion of the heathen emperor was not dreamed of
even as a remote possibility, except perhaps by the far-sighted
1. The heathen notions of
the future life were vague and confused. The Hindoos, Babylonians, and
Egyptians had a lively sense of immortality, but mixed with the idea of
endless migrations and transformations. The Buddhists, starting from
the idea that existence is want, and want is suffering, make it the
chief end of man to escape such migrations, and by various
mortifications to prepare for final absorption in Nirwana. The popular
belief among the ancient Greeks and Romans was that man passes after
death into the Underworld, the Greek Hades, the Roman
Orcus. According to Homer, Hades is a dark abode in the interior
of the earth, with an entrance at the Western extremity of the Ocean,
where the rays of the sun do not penetrate. Charon carries the dead
over the stream Acheron, and the three-headed dog Cerberus watches the
entrance and allows none to pass out. There the spirits exist in a
disembodied state and lead a shadowy dream-life. A vague distinction
was made between two regions in Hades, an Elysium (also "the Islands of
the Blessed") for the good, and Tartarus for the bad. "Poets and
painters," says Gibbon, peopled the infernal regions with so many
phantoms and monsters, who dispensed their rewards and punishments with
so little equity, that a solemn truth, the most congenial to the human
heart, was oppressed and disgraced by the absurd mixture of the wildest
fictions. The eleventh book of the Odyssey gives a very dreary and
incoherent account of the infernal shades. Pindar and Virgil have
embellished the picture; but even those poets, though more correct than
their great model, are guilty of very strange inconsistencies." Decline and
Fall of the R. Emp. ch. XV
Socrates, Plato, Cicero, Seneca, and Plutarch
rose highest among the ancient philosophers in their views of the
future life, but they reached only to belief in its
probability—not in its certainty. Plato, Apol.
40.
These were noble and earnest, Romans. What can be
expected from the crown of frivolous men of the world who moved within
the limits of matter and sense and made present pleasure and enjoyment
the chief end of life? The surviving wife of an Epicurean philosopher
erected a monument to him, with the inscription "to the eternal
sleep." See
Friedlaender, l.c. 682 sq.
Yet the scepticism of the educated and
half-educated could not extinguish the popular belief in the imperial
age. The number of cheerless and hopeless materialistic epitaphs is,
after all, very small as compared with the many thousands which reveal
no such doubt, or express a belief in some kind of existence beyond the
grave. See
Friedlaender, p. 685. So in our age, too, the number of sceptics,
materialists, and atheists, though by no means inconsiderable, is a
very small minority compared with the mass of believers in a future
life.
Of a resurrection of the body the Greeks and Romans had no conception, except in the form of shades and spectral outlines, which were supposed to surround the disembodied spirits, and to make them to some degree recognizable. Heathen philosophers, like Celsus, ridiculed the resurrection of the body as useless, absurd, and impossible.
2. The Jewish doctrine is far in advance of heathen notions and conjectures, but presents different phases of development.
(a) The Mosaic writings are remarkably
silent about the future life, and emphasize the present rather than
future consequences of the observance or non-observance of the law
(because it had a civil or political as well as spiritual import); and
hence the Sadducees accepted them, although they denied the
resurrection (perhaps also the immortality of the soul). The Pentateuch
contains, however, some remote and significant hints of immortality, as
in the tree of life with its symbolic import;
(b) In the later writings of the Old
Testament, especially during and after the exile, the doctrine of
immortality and resurrection comes out plainly. Comp. the
famous Goël-passage,
But before Christ, who first revealed true life,
the Hebrew Sheol, the general receptacle of departing souls, remained,
like the Greek Hades, a dark and dreary abode, and is so described in
the Old Testament. See the
passages sub Sheol in the Hebrew Concordance. The very name Sheolלוֹאשְׁ expresses
either the inexorable demand and insatiability of death (if derived
from לאַשָׁ, to ask
pressingly, to urge), or the subterranean character of the region, an
abyss (if derived from לﬠַשָׁ, to be
hollow, comp. hell, hollow, Höhle), and is essentially the
same as the Greek Hades and the Roman Orcus. The distinction of two
regions in the spirit-world (Abraham’s Bosom or
Paradise, and Gehenna, comp.
(c) The Jewish Apocrypha (the Book of Wisdom, and the Second Book of Maccabees), and later Jewish writings (the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Ezra) show some progress: they distinguish between two regions in Sheol—Paradise or Abraham’s Bosom for the righteous, and Gehinnom or Gehenna for the wicked; they emphasize the resurrection of the body, and the future rewards and punishments.
(d) The Talmud adds various fanciful
embellishments. It puts Paradise and Gehenna in close proximity,
measures their extent, and distinguishes different departments in both
corresponding to the degrees of merit and guilt. Paradise is sixty
times as large as the world, and Hell sixty times as large as Paradise,
for the bad preponderate here and hereafter. According to other
rabbinical testimonies, both are well nigh boundless. The Talmudic
descriptions of Paradise (as those of the Koran) mix sensual and
spiritual delights. The righteous enjoy the vision of the Shechina and
feast with the patriarchs, and with Moses and David of the flesh of
leviathan, and drink wine from the cup of salvation. Each inhabitant
has a house according to his merit. Among the punishments of hell the
chief place is assigned to fire, which is renewed every week after the
Sabbath. The wicked are boiled like the flesh in the pot, but the bad
Israelites are not touched by fire, and are otherwise tormented. The
severest punishment is reserved for idolaters, hypocrites, traitors,
and apostates. As to the duration of future punishment the school of
Shammai held that it was everlasting; while the school of Hillel
inclined to the milder view of a possible redemption after repentance
and purification. Some Rabbis taught that hell will cease, and that the
sun will burn up and annihilate the wicked. See these
and other curious particulars, with references in Wünsche,
l. c. p. 361 sqq., and 494 sqq. He confesses, however, that it is
exceedingly difficult to present a coherent system from the various
sayings of the Rabbis. The views of the Essenes differed from the
common Jewish notions; they believed only in the immortality of the
soul, and greeted death as a deliverance from the prison of the
body.
3. The Christian doctrine of the future life differs from the heathen, and to a less extent also from the Jewish, in the following important points:
(a) It gives to the belief in a future state the absolute certainty of divine revelation, sealed by the fact of Christ’s resurrection, and thereby imparts to the present life an immeasurable importance, involving endless issues.
(b) It connects the resurrection of the body with the immortality of the soul, and thus gives concrete completion to the latter, and saves the whole individuality of man from destruction.
(c) It views death as the punishment of sin, and therefore as something terrible, from which nature shrinks. But its terror has been broken, and its sting extracted by Christ.
(d) It qualifies the idea of a future state by the doctrine of sin and redemption, and thus makes it to the believer a state of absolute holiness and happiness, to the impenitent sinner a state of absolute misery. Death and immortality are a blessing to the one, but a terror to the other; the former can hail them with joy; the latter has reason to tremble.
(e) It gives great prominence to the general judgment, after the resurrection, which determines the ultimate fate of all men according to their works done in this earthly life.
But we must distinguish, in this mysterious article, what is of faith, and what is private opinion and speculation.
The return of Christ to judgment with its eternal rewards and punishment is the centre of the eschatological faith of the church. The judgment is preceded by the general resurrection, and followed by life everlasting.
This faith is expressed in the oecumenical creeds.
The Apostles’ Creed:
"He shall come to judge the quick and the dead," and "I believe in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting."
The Nicene Creed:
"He shall come again, with glory, to judge the quick and the dead; whose kingdom shall have no end." "And we look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."
The Athanasian Creed, so called, adds to these simple statements a damnatory clause at the beginning, middle, and end, and makes salvation depend on belief in the orthodox catholic doctrine of the Trinity and the Incarnation, as therein stated. But that document is of much later origin, and cannot be traced beyond the sixth century.
The liturgies which claim apostolic or post-apostolic origin, give devotional expression to the same essential points in the eucharistic sacrifice.
The Clementine liturgy:
"Being mindful, therefore, of His passion and death, and resurrection from the dead, and return into the heavens, and His future second appearing, wherein He is to come with glory and power to judge the quick and the dead, and to recompense to every one according to his works."
The liturgy of James:
"His second glorious and awful appearing, when He shall come with glory to judge the quick and the dead, and render to every one according to his works."
The liturgy of Mark:
"His second terrible and dreadful coming, in which He will come to judge righteously the quick and the dead, and to render to each man according to his works."
All that is beyond these revealed and generally
received articles must be left free. The time of the Second Advent, the
preceding revelation of Antichrist, the millennium before or after the
general judgment, the nature of the disembodied state between death and
resurrection, the mode and degree of future punishment, the proportion
of the saved and lost, the fate of the heathen and all who die ignorant
of Christianity, the locality of heaven and hell, are open questions in
eschatology about which wise and good men in the church have always
differed, and will differ to the end. The Bible speaks indeed of
ascending to heaven and descending to hell, but this is
simply the unavoidable popular language, as when it speaks of the
rising and setting sun. We do the same, although we know that in the
universe of God there is neither above nor below, and that the sun does
not move around the earth. The supernatural world may be very far from
us, beyond the stars and beyond the boundaries of the visible created
world (if it has any boundaries), or very near and round about us. At
all events there is an abundance of room for all God’s
children. "In my Father’s house are many mansions. I
go to prepare a place for you" (
§ 156. Between Death and Resurrection.
Dav. Blondel: Traité de la créance des Pères touchnt l’état des ames après cette vie. Charenton, 1651.
J. A. Baumgarten: Historia doctrinae de Statu Animarum separatarum. Hal. 1754.
Höpfner: De Origine dogm. de Purgatorio. Hal. 1792.
J. A. Ernesti: De veterum Patrum opinione de Statu Animarum a corpore sejunctar. LiPs. 1794.
Herbert Mortimer Luckock (Canon of Ely, high-Anglican): After Death. An Examination of the Testimony of Primitive Times respecting the State of the Faithful Dead, and their Relationship to the Living. London, third ed. 1881. Defends prayers for the dead.
Among the darkest points in eschatology is the middle
state, or the condition of the soul between death and resurrection. It
is difficult to conceive of a disembodied state of happiness or woe
without physical organs for enjoyment and suffering. De Anima, c.
58. The doctrine of the psychopannychia was renewed by the Anabaptists,
and refuted by Calvin in one of his earliest books. (Paris, 1534.)
The catholic doctrine of the status intermedius
was chiefly derived from the Jewish tradition of the Sheol, from the
parable of Dives and Lazarus ( Comp. among
other passages Justin M. Dial. c. 5, 72, 80, 99, 105 (Engelhardt, l.c.
p 308);
1. The pious who died before Christ from Abel or
Adam down to John the Baptist (with rare exceptions, as Enoch, Moses,
and Elijah) were detained in a part of Sheol, The
mediaeval scholastics called that part of Sheol the Limbus Patrum, and
assumed that it was emptied by Christ at his descent, and replaced by
Purgatory, which in turn will be emptied it the second Advent, so that
after the judgment there will be only heaven and hell. The evangelical
confessions agree with the Roman Catholic in the twofold state after
the judgment, but deny the preceding state of Purgatory between heaven
and hell. They allow, however, different degrees of holiness and
happiness as well as guilt and punishment before and after the
judgment. Adv. Haer.
IV. 27, § 2: "It was for this reason that the Lord descended
into the regions beneath the earth, preaching His advent to them also,
and [declaring] the remission of sins to those who believe in Him. Now
all those believed in Him who had hope towards him, that is, those who
proclaimed His advent, and submitted to His dispensations, the
righteous men, the prophets, and the patriarchs, to whom He remitted
sins in the same way, as He did to us, which sins we should not lay to
their charge, if we would not despise the grace of God." This passage
exists only in the Latin version
2. Christian martyrs and confessors, to whom were
afterwards added other eminent saints, pass immediately after death
into heaven to the blessed vision of God. The Gnostics
taught that all souls return immediately to God, but this was rejected
as heretical. Justin, Dial. 80.
3. The majority of Christian believers, being
imperfect, enter for an indefinite period into a preparatory state of
rest and happiness, usually called Paradise (comp.
4. The locality of Paradise is uncertain: some
imagined it to be a higher region of Hades beneath the earth, yet "afar
off" from Gehenna, and separated from it by "a great gulf" (comp. So
apparently So
5. Impenitent Christians and unbelievers go down to the lower regions of Hades (Gehenna, Tartarus, Hell) into a preparatory state of misery and dreadful expectation of the final judgment. From the fourth century Hades came to be identified with Hell, and this confusion passed into many versions of the Bible, including that of King James.
6. The future fate of the heathen and of
unbaptized children was left in hopeless darkness, except by Justin and
the Alexandrian fathers, who extended the operations of divine grace
beyond the limits of the visible church. Apol. I. 46:
οἱ
μετὰ Λόγου
βιώσαντες
Χριστιανοί
εἰσι, κἂν
ἄθεοι
ἐνομίσθησαν,
οἶον ἐν
Ἕλλησι
Σωκράτης
καὶ
Ἡράκλειτος
καὶ οἱ
ὅμοιοι
αὐτοῖς. . Comp.
Apol. I. 20, 44; Apol. II. 8, 13. He does not say anywhere expressly
that the nobler heathen are saved; but it follows from his view of the
Logos spermaticos (see p. 550). It was renewed in the sixteenth century
by Zwingli, and may be consistently held by all who make salvation
depend on eternal election rather than on water-baptism. God is not
bound by his own ordinances, and may save whom and when and how he
pleases.
7. There are, in the other world, different degrees of happiness and misery according to the degrees of merit and guilt. This is reasonable in itself, and supported by scripture.
8. With the idea of the imperfection of the middle
state and the possibility of progressive amelioration, is connected the
commemoration of the departed, and prayer in their behalf. No trace of
the custom is found in the New Testament nor in the canonical books of
the Old, but an isolated example, which seems to imply habit, occurs in
the age of the Maccabees, when Judas Maccabaeus and his company offered
prayer and sacrifice for those slain in battle," that they might be
delivered from sin." See
specimens in Luckock, l. c. p. 58 sqq. De Cor. Mil.
c. 3: "Oblationes pro defunctis, pro natalitiis annua dei facimus."
Comp. the notes in Oehler’s ed. Tom. I. 422. De Monog. c.
10: "Pro anima ejus orat et refrigerium interim adpostulat ei et in
prima resurrectione consortium." Vita Const.
IV. 71: σὺν
κλαυθμῷ
πλείονι
τὰς ευχὰς
ὑπὲρ τῆς
βασιλέως
ψυχῆς
ἀπεδίδοσαν
τῷ
θεῷ. Sermo 172.
He also inferred from the passage on the unpardonable sin (
This is confirmed by the ancient liturgies, which
express in substance the devotions of the ante-Nicene age, although
they were not committed to writing before the fourth century. The
commemoration of the pious dead is an important part in the eucharistic
prayers. Take the following from the Liturgy of St. James: "Remember, O
Lord God, the spirits of whom we have made mention, and of whom we have
not made mention, who are of the true faith, τῶν
πνευμάτων ...
ὀρθοδόξων.
The Greek church lays great stress on orthodoxy; but it has here
evidently a very wide meaning, as it includes the faith of Abel and all
Old Testament saints. Not
Purgatory. This shows the difference between the ante-Nicene and
post-Nicene faith. See below.
9. These views of the middle state in connection
with prayers for the dead show a strong tendency to the Roman Catholic
doctrine of Purgatory, which afterwards came to prevail in the West
through the great weight of St. Sometimes,
however, this is expressed in the form of a wish or prayer: Mayest thou
live in God" (Vivas in Deo, or in Christo); " May God refresh thy
spirit"(Deus refrigeret spiritum tuum); " Mayest thou have eternal
light in Christ," etc. Comp. § 86, (this vol.). Longer
Russian Catechism, in Schaff’s Creeds, vol. II. p.
503.
Yet alongside with this prevailing belief, there
are traces of the purgatorial idea of suffering the temporal
consequences of sin, and a painful struggle after holiness. πῦρ
καθάρσιον.
It is mentioned also before As
Möhler, Klee, and others.
§ 157. After Judgment. Future Punishment.
The doctrine of the Fathers on future punishment is discussed by Dr. Edward Beecher, l.c., and in the controversial works called forth by Canon Farrar’s Eternal Hope (Five Sermons preached in Westminster Abbey, Nov. 1877. Lond., 1879.) See especially
Dr. Pusey: "What is of Faith as to Everlasting Punishment?" A Reply to Dr. Farrar’s Challenge. Oxf. and Lond., second ed. 1880 (284 pages).
Canon F. W. Farrar: Mercy and Judgment: A few last words on Christian Eschatology with reference to Dr. Pusey’s "What is of Faith?" London and N. York, 1881 (485 pages). See chs. II., III., IX.-XII. Farrar opposes with much fervor "the current opinions about Hell," and reduces it to the smallest possible dimensions of time and space, but expressly rejects Universalism. He accepts with Pusey the Romanizing view of "future purification" (instead of "probation"), and thus increases the number of the saved by withdrawing vast multitudes of imperfect Christians from the awful doom.
After the general judgment we have nothing revealed but the boundless prospect of aeonian life and aeonian death. This is the ultimate boundary of our knowledge.
There never was in the Christian church any difference of opinion concerning the righteous, who shall inherit eternal life and enjoy the blessed communion of God forever and ever. But the final fate of the impenitent who reject the offer of salvation admits of three answers to the reasoning mind: everlasting punishment, annihilation, restoration (after remedial punishment and repentance).
I. Everlasting Punishment
of the wicked always was, and always will be the orthodox theory. It
was held by the Jews at the time of Christ, with the exception of the
Sadducces, who denied the resurrection. The point is
disputed, but the 4th
Maccabees, the 4th
Esdras, the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, and the Psalms of
Solomon, contain very strong passages, which Dr. Pusey has collected,
l.c. 48-100, and are not invalidated by the reply of Farrar, ch. VIII.
180-221. Josephus (whose testimony Farrar arbitrarily sets aside as
worthless) attests the belief of the Pharisees and Essenes in eternal
punishment, Ant. XVIII. 1, 3; Bell. Jud. II. 8, 11, Rabbi Akiba (about
120) limited the punishment of Gehenna to twelve months; but only for
the Jews. The Talmud assigns certain classes to everlasting punishment,
especially apostates and those who despise the wisdom of the Rabbis.
The chief passage is Rosh Hoshanah, f. 16 and 17: "There will be three
divisions on the day of judgment, the perfectly righteous, the
perfectly wicked, and the intermediate class. The first will be at once
inscribed and sealed to life eternal; the second at once to Gehenna
(
Consequently the majority of the fathers who speak plainly on this terrible subject, favor this view.
Ep. ad Eph.
C. 16: ὁ
τοιοῦτος,
ῥυπαρὸς
γενόμενος,
εἰς τὸ πῦρ
τὸ
ἀσβεστον
χωρήσει–ϊ.–ͅϊ. Vis. III. 2,
7; Simil. VIII. 9 (ed. Funk, 1. p. 256, 488 sq.). Dr. Pusey claims also
Apol. I. 8.
(Comp. Plato, Phaedr. I). 249 A; De Republ.p. 615 A.) Apol. I. 21:
Comp. C. 28, 45, 52; II. 2, 7, 8, 9; Dial. 45, 130. Also v. Engelhardt,
p. 206, and Donaldson, II. 321. By Petavius,
Beecher (p. 206), Farrar (p. 236), and others. Dial.c. Tr.
4. 5; Comp. Apol. I. 21. In Dial.c.
5, he puts into the mouth of the aged man by whom he was converted, the
sentence: "Such as are worthy to see God die no more, but others shall
undergo punishment as long as it shall please Him that they shall exist
and be punished." But just before he had said: "I do not say that all
souls die: for that would be a godsend to the wicked. What then? the
souls of the pious remain in a better place, while those of the unjust
and wicked are in a worse, waiting for the time of judgment." Comp. the
note of Otto on the passage, Op. II. 26.
Adv. Haer.
11. 34, § 3: "omnia quae facta sunt ... perseverant
quoadusque ea Deus et esse et perseverare voluerit." Adv. Haer.
III. 4, 1; If. 28, 7. See Pusey, p. 177-181. Ziegler
(Irenäus, p. 312) says that Philos. IX.
23, 30. Apol. c. 45.
Comp. De Test. An. 4; De Spect. 19, 30. Pusey 184 sq. De Mortal.
10; Ep. VIII. 2. Pusey, 190. he quotes also the Rocognitions of
Clement, and the Clementine Homilies, (XI. 11) on this side. Orig. C.
Cels. VIII. 48.
II. The final Annihilation of the wicked removes all discord from the universe of God at the expense of the natural immortality of the soul, and on the ground that sin will ultimately destroy the sinner, and thus destroy itself.
This theory is attributed to
Arnobius, however, seems to have believed in
actual annihilation; for he speaks of certain souls that "are engulfed
and burned up," or "hurled down and having been reduced to nothing,
vanish in the frustration of a perpetual destruction." Adv. Gent.
11. 14. The theory of conditional immortality and the annihilation of
the wicked has been recently renewed by a devout English author, Rev.
Edward White, Life in Christ. Dr. R. Rothe also advocates annihilation,
but not till after the conversion of the wicked has become a moral
impossibility. See his posthumous Dogmatik, ed. by Schenkel, II.
335.
III. The Apokatastasis or final restoration of all rational beings to holiness and happiness. This seems to be the most satisfactory speculative solution of the problem of sin, and secures perfect harmony in the creation, but does violence to freedom with its power to perpetuate resistance, and Ignores the hardening nature of sin and the ever increasing difficulty of repentance. If conversion and salvation are an ultimate necessity, they lose their moral character, and moral aim.
De Princ. I.
6, 3. Comp. In Jer. Hom. 19; C. Cels. VI. 26. It is
usually asserted from After the
apokatastasis has been completed in certain aeons, he speaks of πάλιν
ἄλλη
ἀρχὴ. See the judicious
remarks of Neander, I. 656 (Am. ed.)
Universal salvation (including Satan) was clearly
taught by Nitzsch (I.
403 sq.) includes also Gregory Nazianzen, and possibly Posey
contends (125-137), that
Since that time universalism was regarded as a
heresy, but is tolerated in Protestant churches as a private
speculative opinion or charitable hope. At least in
the Lutheran church of Germany and in the church of England. Bengel
very cautiously intimates the apokatastasis, and the Pietists in
Würtemberg generally hold it. Among recent divines
Schleiermacher, the
§ 158. Chiliasm.
Corrodi: Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus. 1781. Second ed. Zürich, 1794. 4 vols. Very unsatisfactory.
Münscher.: Lehre vom tausendjährigen Reich in den 3 ersten Jahrh. (in Henke’s "Magazin." VI. 2, p. 233 sqq.)
D. T. Taylor: The Voice of the Church on the Coming and Kingdom of the Redeemer; a History of the Doctrine of the Reign of Christ on Earth. Revised by Hastings. Second ed. Peace Dale, R. I. 1855. Pre-millennial.
W. Volck: Der Chiliasmus. Eine historisch exeget. Studie. Dorpat, 1869 Millennarian.
A. Koch: Das tausendjährige Reich. Basel, 1872. Millennarian against Hengstenberg.
C. A. Briggs: Origin and History of Premillennarianism. In the "Lutheran Quarterly Review." Gettysburg, Pa., for April, 1879. 38 pages. Anti-millennial, occasioned by the "Prophetic Conference" of Pre-millennarians, held in New York, Nov. 1878. Discusses the ante-Nicene doctrine.
Geo. N. H. Peters: The Theocratic Kingdom of our Lord Jesus, the Christ. N. York, announced for publ. in 3 vols. 1884. Pre-millennarian.
A complete critical history is wanting, but the controversial and devotional literature on the subject is very large, especially in the English language. We mention 1) on the millennial side (embracing widely different shades of opinion). (a) English and American divines: Jos. Mede (1627), Twisse, Abbadie, Beverly T. Burnet, Bishop Newton, Edward Irving, Birks, Bickersteth, Horatio and Andrew Bonar (two brothers), E. B. Elliott (Horae Apoc.), John Cumming, Dean Alford, Nathan Lord, John Lillie, James H. Brooks, E. R. Craven, Nath. West, J. A. Seiss, S. H. Kellogg, Peters, and the writings of the Second Adventists, the Irvingites, and the Plymouth Brethren. (b) German divines: Spener (Hoffnung besserer Zeiten), Peterson, Bengel (Erklärte Offenbarung Johannis, 1740), Oetinger, Stilling, Lavater, Auberlen (on Dan. and Revel.), Martensen, Rothe, von Hofmann, Löhe, Delitzsch, Volck, Luthardt. 2) On the anti-millennial side—(a) English and American: Bishop Hall, R. Baxter, David Brown (Christ’s Second Advent), Fairbairn, Urwick, G. Bush, Mos. Stuart (on Revel.), Cowles (on Dan. ind Revel.), Briggs, etc. (b) German: Gerhard, Maresius, Hengstenberg, Keil, Kliefoth, Philippi, and many others. See the articles "Millennarianism" by Semisch, and "Pre-Millennarianism" by Kellog, in Schaff-Herzog, vols. II. and III., and the literature there given.
The most striking point in the eschatology of the
ante-Nicene age is the prominent chiliasm, or millennarianism, that is
the belief of a visible reign of Christ in glory on earth with the
risen saints for a thousand years, before the general resurrection and
judgment. Chiliasm
(from χίλια
ἔτη, a thousand years,
The Jewish chiliasm rested on a carnal
misapprehension of the Messianic kingdom, a literal interpretation of
prophetic figures, and an overestimate of the importance of the Jewish
people and the holy city as the centre of that kingdom. It was
developed shortly before and after Christ in the apocalyptic
literature, as the Book of Enoch, the Apocalypse of Baruch, 4th Esdras, the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,
and the Sibylline Books. It was adopted by the heretical sect of the
Ebionites, and the Gnostic Cerinthus. See Euseb.
H. E. III. 27 and 28.
The Christian chiliasm is the Jewish chiliasm spiritualized and fixed upon the second, instead of the first, coming of Christ. It distinguishes, moreover, two resurrections, one before and another after the millennium, and makes the millennial reign of Christ only a prelude to his eternal reign in heaven, from which it is separated by a short interregnum of Satan. The millennium is expected to come not as the legitimate result of a historical process but as a sudden supernatural revelation.
The advocates of this theory appeal to the certain
promises of the Lord,
In connection with this the general expectation
prevailed that the return of the Lord was near, though uncertain and
unascertainable as to its day and hour, so that believers may be always
ready for it. Comp.
Among the Apostolic Fathers Barnabas is the first and the only one who expressly
teaches a pre-millennial reign of Christ on earth. He considers the
Mosaic history of the creation a type of six ages of labor for the
world, each lasting a thousand years, and of a millennium of rest;
since with God "one day is as a thousand years." The millennial Sabbath
on earth will be followed by an eighth and eternal day in a new world,
of which the Lord’s Day (called by Barnabas "the
eighth day") is the type. Barn. Epist.
ch. 15. He seems to have drawn his views from
Papias of Hierapolis, a pious but credulous
contemporary of Adv. Haer.
V. 33, § 3 (ed. Stieren I. 809), quoted from the fourth book
of The Oracles of the Lord:" " The days will come when vines shall
grow, each having ten thousand branches, and in each branch ten
thousand twigs, and in each true twig ten thousand shoots, and in every
one of the shoots ten thousand clusters, and on every one of the
clusters ten thousand grapes, and every grape when pressed will give
five-and-twenty measures of wine. And when any one of the saints shall
lay hold of a cluster, another shall cry out, ’I am a
better cluster, take me; bless the Lord through me.’
In like manner [He said], ’that a grain of wheat shall
produce ten thousand ears, and that every ear shall have ten thousand
grains, and every grain shall yield ten pounds of pure, fine flour; and
that apples, and seeds, and grass shall produce in similar proportions;
and that all animals, feeding on the productions of the earth, shall
then live in peace and harmony, and be in perfect subjection to
man."’ These words were communicated to Papias by "
the presbyters, who saw John the disciple of the Lord." and who
remembered having beard them from John as coming from the Lord. There
is a similar description of the Messianic times in the twenty-ninth
chapter of the Apocalypse of Baruch, from the close of the first or
beginning of the second century, as follows: " The earth shall yield
its fruits, one producing ten thousand, and in one vine shall be a
thousand bunches, and one bunch shall produce one thousand grapes, and
one grape shall produce one thousand berries, and one berry shall yield
a measure of wine. And those who have been hungry shall rejoice, and
they shall again see prodigies every day. For spirits shall go forth
from my sight to bring every morning the fragrance of spices, and at
the end of the day clouds dropping the dew of health. And it shall come
to pass, at that time, that the treasure of manna shall again descend
from above, and they shall eat of it in these years." See the Latin in
Fritzsche’s ed. of the Libri Apoc. V. T., p. 666.
Dial.c.
Tryph. c. 32, 51, 110. Comp. Dial.c. 80
and 81. He appeals to the prophecies of Isaiah (65:17 sqq.), Ezekiel,
This point
is disputed. Semisch contends for annihilation, Weizsäcker
for transformation. von Engelhardt (p. 309) leaves the matter
undecided. In the Dial. c. 113 Justin says that God through Christ will
renew (καινουργεῖν
) the heaven and the earth; in the Apologies, that the world will be
burnt up. Apol. I. 50,
51, 52. For this reason Donaldson (11. 263), and Dr. Briggs (l.c. p.
21) suspect that the chiliastic passages in the Dialogue (at least ch.
81) are an interpolation, or corrupted, but without any warrant. The
omission of Justin in Jerome’s lists of Chiliasts can
prove nothing against the testimony of all the manuscripts.
Adv. Haer.
V. 23-36. On the eschatology of
De Res.
Carn. 25; Adv. Marc. III. 24; IV. 29, etc. He discussed the subject in
a special work, De Spe Fidelium, which is lost. See
§ 111, p. 424 sq.
After Instruct.
adv. Gentium Deos, 43, 44, with the Jewish notion of fruitful
millennial marriages. Instit. VII.
24; Epit. 71, 72. He quotes from the Sibylline books, and expects the
speedy end of the world, but not while the city of Rome remains. In his
Commentary on Revelation, and the fragment De Fabrica Mundi (part of a
Com. on Genesis). Jerome classes him among the Chiliasts. In his
Banquet of the Ten Virgins, I X. 5, and Discourse on Resurrection
We now turn to the anti-Chiliasts. The opposition
began during the Montanist movement in Asia Minor. Caius of Rome
attacked both Chiliasm and Montanism, and traced the former to the
hated heretic Cerinthus. Euseb. H. E.
II. 25 (against the Montanist Proclus), and III. 28 (against
chiliasm). De Princ.
II. 11. He had, however, in view a very sensuous idea of the millennium
with marriages and luxuriant feasts. Euseb. VII.
24, 25.
But the crushing blow came from the great change
in the social condition and prospects of the church in the Nicene age.
After Christianity, contrary to all expectation, triumphed in the Roman
empire, and was embraced by the Caesars themselves, the millennial
reign, instead of being anxiously waited and prayed for, began to be
dated either from the first appearance of Christ, or from the
conversion of Constantine and the downfall of paganism, and to be
regarded as realized in the glory of the dominant imperial
state-church. De Civit.
Dei, XX. 6-10.
From the time of Constantine and The Augsburg
Confession, Art. XVII., condemns the Anabaptists and others "who now
scatter Jewish opinions that, before the resurrection of the dead, the
godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world, the wicked being
everywhere suppressed." The 41st of the Anglican Articles, drawn up by Cranmer
(1553), but omitted afterwards in the revision under Elizabeth (1563),
describes the millennium as "a fable of Jewish dotage."
ECCLESIASTICAL LITERATURE OF THE ANTE-NICENE AGE, AND BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES OF THE CHURCH-FATHERS.
§ 159. Literature.
I. General Patristic Collections.
The Benedictine editions, repeatedly published in Paris, Venice, etc., are the best as far as they go, but do not satisfy the present state of criticism. Jesuits (Petavius, Sirmond, Harduin), and Dominicans (Combefis, Le Quien) have also published several fathers. These and more recent editions are mentioned in the respective sections. Of patristic collections the principal ones are:
Maxima Bibliotheca veteru Patrum, etc. Lugd. 1677, 27 tom. fol. Contains the less voluminous writers, and only in the Latin translation.
A. Gallandi (Andreas Gallandius, Oratorian, d. 1779): Bibliotheca Graeco-Latina veterum Patrum, etc. Ven. 1765–88, 14 tom. fol. Contains in all 380 ecclesiastical writers (180 more than the Bibl Max.) in Greek and Latin, with valuable dissertations and notes.
Abbé Migne (Jacques Paul, b. 1800, founder of the Ultramontane L’Univers religeux and the Cath. printing establishment at Montrouge, consumed by fire 1868): Patrologiae cursus completus sive Bibliotheca universalis, integra, uniformis, commoda, oeconomica, omnium SS. Patrum, Doctorum, Scriptorumque ecelesiasticorum. Petit Montrouge (near Paris), 1844–1866 (Garnier Frères). The cheapest and most complete patristic library, but carelessly edited, and often inaccurate, reaching down to the thirteenth century, the Latin in 222, the Greek in 167 vols., reprinted from the Bened. and other good editions, with Prolegomena, Vitae, Dissertations, Supplements, etc. Some of the plates were consumed by fire in 1868. but have been replaced. To be used with great caution.
Abbé Horoy: Bibliotheca Patristica ab anno MCCXVI. usque ad Concilii Tridentini Tempora. Paris, 1879 sqq. A continuation of Migne. Belongs to mediaeval history.
A new and critical edition of the Latin Fathers has
been undertaken by the Imperial Academy of Vienna in 1866, under the
title: Corpus scriptorum ecclesiasticorum Latinorum. The first volume
contains the works of Sulpicius Severus, ed. by C. Halm, 1866; the second Minucius Felix and Jul. Firmicus
Maternus, by the same, 1867;
A new and critical edition of the Greek fathers is still more needed.
Handy editions of the older fathers by Oberthur, Richter, Gersdorf, etc.
Special collections of patristic fragments by Grabe (Spicilegium Patrum), Routh (Reliquiae Sacrae), Angelo
Mai (Scriptorum vet. nova Collectio,
II. Separate Collections of the ante-Nicene Fathers.
Patres Apostolici, best critical editions, one Protestant by Oscar Von Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn (ed. II. Lips. 1876–’78, in 3 parts); another by Hilgenfeld (ed. II. Lips. 1876 sqq. in several parts); one by Bp. Lightfoot (Lond. 1869 sqq.); and one, R. Catholic, by Bp. Hefele, fifth ed. by Prof Funk, Tübingen (1878 and ’81, 2 vols.). See § 161.
Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum Seculi II., Ed. Otto. Jenae, 1847–’50; Ed. III. 1876 sqq. A new critical ed. by O. v. Gebhardt and E. Schwartz. Lips. 1888 sqq.
Roberts and Donaldson: Ante-Nicene Christian Library. Edinburgh 1857–1872. 24 vols. Authorized reprint, N. York, 1885–’86, 8 vol.
III. Biographical, critical, doctrinal. Patristics and Patrology.
St. Jerome (d. 419): De Viris illustrious. Comprises, in 135 numbers, brief notices of the biblical and ecclesiastical authors, down to a.d. 393. Continuations by Gennadius (490), Isidor (636), Ildefons (667), and others.
Photius (d. 890): Μυριοβίβλιον, ἥ βιβλιοθήκη, ed. J. Becker, Berol. 1824, 2 t. fol., and in Migne, Phot. Opera, t. III. and IV. Extracts of 280 Greek authors, heathen and Christian, whose works are partly lost. See a full account in Hergenröther’s, Photius, III. 13–31.
Bellermin (R.C.): Liber de scriptoribus
ecclesiasticis (from the O. T. to a.d. 1500).
Tillemont (R.C.): Memoirs pour servir à l’histoire ecclés. Par. 1693 sqq. 16 vols. The first six centuries.
L. E. Dupin (R.C. d. 1719): Nouvelle Bibliothèque des auteurs ecclesiastiques, contenant l’histoire de leur vie, etc. Par. 1688–1715, 47 vols. 8°, with continuations by Coujet, Petit-Didier to the 18th century, and Critiques of R. Simon, 61 vols., 9th ed. Par. 1698 sqq.; another edition, but incomplete, Amstel. 1690–1713, 20 vols. 4°.
Remi Ceillter (R.C. d. 1761): Histoire générale des auteurs sacrés et ecclesiastiques. Par. 1729–’63, 23 vols. 4°; new ed. with additions, Par. 1858–1865 in 14 vols. More complete and exact, but less liberal than Dupin; extends to the middle of the thirteenth century.
Will. Cave (Anglican, d. 1713): Scriptorum
ecelesiasticorum Historia a Christo nato usque ad saecul. XIV. Lond.
1688–98, 2 vols.; Geneva, 1720; Colon. 1722; best
edition superintended by Waterland, Oxf. 1740–43, reprinted
at Basle 1741–’45. This work is
arranged in the centurial style (saeculum Apostolicum, s. Gnosticuni,
s.
Chas. Oudin (first a monk, then a Protestant, librarian to the University at Leyden, died 1717): Commentarius de scriptoribus ecclesiae antiquis illorumque scriptis, a Bellarmino, Possevino, Caveo, Dupin et aliis omissis, ad ann. 1460. Lips. 1722. 3 vols. fol.
John Alb. Fabricius ("the most learned, the most voluminous and the most useful of bibliographers." born at Leipsic 1668. Prof. of Eloquence at Hamburg, died 1736): Bibliotheca Graeca, sive notilia Scriptorum veterum Graecorum; ed. III. Hamb. 1718–’28, 14 vols.; ed. IV. by G. Chr. Harless, with additions. Hamb. 1790–1811, in 12 vols. (incomplete). This great work of forty years’ labor embraces all the Greek writers to the beginning of the eighteenth century, but is inconveniently arranged. (A valuable supplement to it is S. F. G. Hoffmann: Bibliographisches Lexicon der gesammten Literatur der Griechen, Leipz. 3 vols.), 2nd ed. 1844–’45. J. A. Fabricius published also a Bibliotheca Latina mediae et infimae aetatis, Hamb. 173 ’46, in 6 vols. (enlarged by Mansi, Padua, 1754, 3 tom.), and a Bibliotheca ecclesiastical Hamb. 1718, in 1 vol. fol., which contains the catalogues of ecclesiastical authors by Jerome, Gennadius, Isidore, Ildefondus, Trithemius (d. 1515) and others.
C. T. G. Schönemann: Bibliotheca historico-literaria
patrum Latinorum a
G. Lumper (R.C.): Historia theologico-critica de vita, scriptis et doctrina SS. Patrum trium primorum saeculorum. Aug. Vind. 1783–’99, 13 t. 8°.
A.. Möhler (R.C. d. 1838): Patrologie, oder christliche Literärgeschichte. Edited by Reithmayer. Regensb. 1840, vol. I. Covers only the first three centuries.
J. Fessler (R.C.): Institutiones patrologicae. Oenip. 1850–’52, 2vols.
J. C. F. Bähr: Geschichte der römischen Literatur. Karlsruhe, 1836, 4th ed. 1868.
Fr. Böhringer (d, 1879): Die Kirche Christi u. ihre Zeugen, oder die K. G. in Biographien. Zür. 1842 (2d ed. 1861 sqq. and 1873 sqq.), 2 vols. in 7 parts (to the sixteenth century).
Joh. Alzog (R.C., Prof. in Freiburg, d. 1878):Grundriss der Patrologie oder der älteren christl. Literärgeschichte. Frieburg, 1866; second ed. 1869; third ed. 1876; fourth ed. 1888.
James Donaldson: A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from the death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council. London, 1864–’66. 3 vols. Very valuable, but unfinished.
Jos. Schwane (R.C.):Dogmengeschichte der patristischen Zeit. Münster, 1866.
Adolf Ebert: Geschichte der christlich-lateinischen Literatur von ihren Anfängen bis zum Zeitalter Karls des Grossen Leipzig, 1872 (624 pages). The first vol. of a larger work on the general history of mediaeval literature. The second vol. (1880) contains the literature from Charlemagne to Charles the Bald.
Jos. Nirschl (R.C.): Lehrbuch der Patrologie und Patristik. Mainz. Vol. I. 1881 (VI. and 384).
George A. Jackson: Early Christian Literature Primers. N. York, 1879–1883 in 4 little vols., containing extracts from the fathers.
Fr. W. Farrar: Lives of the Fathers. Sketches of Church History in Biographies. Lond. and N. York, 1889, 2 vols.
IV. On the Authority and Use of the Fathers.
Dallaeus (Daillé, Calvinist): De usu Patrum in decidendis controversiis. Genev. 1656 (and often). Against the superstitious and slavish R. Catholic overvaluation of the fathers.
J. W. Eberl (R.C.): Leitfaden zum Studium der Patrologie. Augsb. 1854.
J. J. Blunt (Anglican): The Right Use of the Early Fathers. Lond. 1857, 3rd ed. 1859. Confined to the first three centuries, and largely polemical against the depreciation of the fathers, by Daillé, Barbeyrat, and Gibbon.
V. On the Philosophy of the Fathers.
H. Ritter: Geschichte der christl Philosophie. Hamb. 1841 sqq. 2 vols.
Joh. Huber (d. 1879 as an Old Catholic): Die Philosophie der Kirchenväter. München, 1859.
A. Stöckl (R.C.): Geschichte der Philosophie der patristischen Zeit. Würz b. 1858, 2 vols.; andGeschichte der Philosophie des Mittelalters. Mainz, 1864–1866. 3 vols.
Friedr. Ueberweg. History of Philosophy (Engl. transl. by Morris & Porter). N. Y. 1876 (first vol.).
VI. Patristic Dictionaries.
J. C. Suicer (d. in Zurich, 1660): Thesaurus ecclesiasticus e Patribus Graecis. Amstel., 1682, second ed., much improved, 1728. 2 vols. for. (with a new title page. Utr. 1746).
Du Cange (Car. Dufresne a Benedictine, d. 1688): Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Graecitatis. Lugd. 1688. 2 vols. By the same: Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae Latinitatis. Par. 1681, again 1733, 6 vols. fol., re-edited by Carpenter 1766, 4 vols., and by Henschel, Par. 1840–’50, 7 vols. A revised English edition of Du Cange by E. A. Dayman was announced for publication by John Murray (London), but has not yet appeared, in 1889.
E. A. Sophocles: A glossary of Latin and Byzantine Greek. Boston, 1860, enlarged ed. 1870. A new ed. by Jos. H. Thayer, 1888.
G. Koffmane: Geschichte des Kirchlateins. Breslau, 1879 sqq.
Wm. Smith and Henry Wace (Anglicans): A Dictionary of Christian Biography, Literature, Sects and Doctrines London, Vol. I. 18771887, 4 vols. By far the best patristic biographical Dictionary in the English or any other language. A noble monument of the learning of the Church of England.
E. C. Richardson (Hartford, Conn.): Bibliographical Synapsis of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. An appendix to the Am. Ed. of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, N. York, 1887. Very complete.
§ 160. A General Estimate of the Fathers.
As Christianity is primarily a religion of divine facts, and a new moral creation, the literary and scientific element in its history held, at first, a secondary and subordinate place. Of the apostles, Paul alone received a learned education, and even he made his rabbinical culture and great natural talents subservient to the higher spiritual knowledge imparted to him by revelation. But for the very reason that it is a new life, Christianity must produce also a new science and literature; partly from the inherent impulse of faith towards deeper and clearer knowledge of its object for its own satisfaction; partly from the demands of self-preservation against assaults from without; partly from the practical want of instruction and direction for the people. The church also gradually appropriated the classical culture, and made it tributary to her theology. Throughout the middle ages she was almost the sole vehicle and guardian of literature and art, and she is the mother of the best elements of the modern European and American civilization. We have already treated of the mighty intellectual labor of our period on the field of apologetic, polemic, and dogmatic theology. In this section we have to do with patrology, or the biographical and bibliographical matter of the ancient theology and literature.
The ecclesiastical learning of the first six
centuries was cast almost entirely in the mould of the Graeco-Roman
culture. The earliest church fathers, even
The patristic literature in general falls
considerably below the classical in elegance of form, but far surpasses
it in the sterling quality of its matter. It wears the servant form of
its master, during the days of his flesh, not the splendid, princely
garb of this world. Confidence in the power of the Christian truth made
men less careful of the form in which they presented it. Besides, many
of the oldest Christian writers lacked early education, and had a
certain aversion to art, from its manifold perversion in those days to
the service of idolatry and immorality. But some of them, even in the
second and third centuries, particularly Clement and
The term "church-father" originated in the primitive custom of transferring the idea of father to spiritual relationships, especially to those of teacher, priest, and bishop. In the case before us the idea necessarily includes that of antiquity, involving a certain degree of general authority for all subsequent periods and single branches of the church. Hence this title of honor is justly limited to the more distinguished teachers of the first five or six centuries, excepting, of course, the apostles, who stand far above them all as the inspired organs of Christ. It applies, therefore, to the period of the oecumenical formation of doctrines, before the separation of Eastern and Western Christendom. The line of the Latin fathers is generally closed with Pope Gregory I. (d. 604), the line of the Greek with John of Damascus (d. about 754).
Besides antiquity, or direct connection with the
formative age of the whole church, learning, holiness, orthodoxy, and
the approbation of the church, or general recognition, are the
qualifications for a church father. These qualifications, however, are
only relative. At least we cannot apply the scale of fully developed
orthodoxy, whether Greek, Roman, or Evangelical, to the ante-Nicene
fathers. Their dogmatic conceptions were often very indefinite and
uncertain. In fact the Roman church excludes a
In strictness, not a single one of the ante-Nicene
fathers fairly agrees with the Roman standard of doctrine in all
points. Even
On the other hand the theology of the fathers still less accords with the Protestant standard of orthodoxy. We seek in vain among them for the evangelical doctrines of the exclusive authority of the Scriptures, justification by faith alone, the universal priesthood of the laity; and we find instead as early as the second century a high estimate of ecclesiastical traditions, meritorious and even over-meritorious works, and strong sacerdotal, sacramentarian, ritualistic, and ascetic tendencies, which gradually matured in the Greek and Roman types of catholicity. The Church of England always had more sympathy with the fathers than the Lutheran and Calvinistic Churches, and professes to be in full harmony with the creed, the episcopal polity, and liturgical worship of antiquity before the separation of the east and the west; but the difference is only one of degree; the Thirty-Nine Articles are as thoroughly evangelical as the Augsburg Confession or the Westminster standards; and even the modern Anglo-Catholic school, the most churchly and churchy of all, ignores many tenets and usages which were considered of vital importance in the first centuries, and holds others which were unknown before the sixteenth century. The reformers were as great and good men as the fathers, but both must bow before the apostles. There is a steady progress of Christianity, an ever-deepening understanding and an ever-widening application of its principles and powers, and there are yet many hidden treasures in the Bible which will be brought to light in future ages.
In general the excellences of the church fathers
are very various.
The ante-Nicene fathers may be divided into five or six classes:
(1.) The apostolic fathers, or personal disciples
of the apostles. Of these,
(2.) The apologists for Christianity against
Judaism and heathenism:
(3.) The controversialists against heresies within
the church:
(4.) The Alexandrian school of philosophical
theology: Clement and
(5.) The contemporary but more practical North
African school of
(6.) Then there were also the germs of the Antiochian school, and some less prominent writers, who can be assigned to no particular class.
Together with the genuine writings of the church fathers there appeared in the first centuries, in behalf both of heresy and of orthodoxy, a multitude of apocryphal Gospels, Acts, and Apocalypses, under the names of apostles and of later celebrities; also Jewish and heathen prophecies of Christianity, such as the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, the Books of Hydaspes, Of Hermas Trismegistos, and of the Sibyls. The frequent use made of such fabrications of an idle imagination even by eminent church teachers, particularly by the apologists, evinces not only great credulity and total want of literary criticism, but also a very imperfect development of the sense of truth, which had not yet learned utterly to discard the pia fraus as immoral falsehood.
Notes.
The Roman church extends the line of the Patres,
among whom she further distinguishes a small number of Doctores
ecclesiae emphatically so-called, down late into the middle ages, and
reckons in it Anselm, Bernard of Clairvaux, Thomas Aquinas,
Bonaventura, and the divines of the Council of Trent, resting on her
claim to exclusive catholicity, which is recognized neither by the
Greek nor the Evangelical church. The marks of a Doctor Ecclesiae are:
1) eminens eruditio; 2) doctrina orthodoxa; 3) sanctitas vitae; 4)
expressa ecclesiae declaratio. The Roman Church recognizes as Doctores
Ecclesiae the following Greek fathers:
§ 161. The Apostolic Fathers.
Sources:
Patrum Apostolicorum Opera. Best editions by O.
von Gebhardt, A.
Harnack, Th. Zahn, Lips.
1876–’8. 3 vols. (being the third ed.
of Dressel much improved); by Fr.
Xav. Funk (R.C.), Tüb. 1878 and 1881, 2 vols.
(being the 5th and enlarged edition of Hefele); by A. Hilgenfeld (Tübingen
school): Novum Testamentum extra canonem receptum, Lips. 1866,
superseded by the revised ed. appearing in parts (Clemens R., 1876;
Barnabas, 1877; Hermas, 1881); and by Bishop Lightfoot, Lond. and Cambr. 1869, 1877, and
1885 (including
Older editions by B. Cotelerius (Cotelier, R.C.), Par.
1672, 2 vols. fol., including the spurious works; republ. and ed. by J.
Clericus (Le Clerc),
Antw. 1698, 2nd ed. Amst. 1724, 2 vols.; Th. Ittig, 1699; Frey, Basel,
1742; R. Russel, Lond. 1746, 2 vols. (the
genuine works); Hornemann, Havniae, 1828;
Guil. Jacobson, Oxon. 1838, ed. IV. 1866, 2
vols. (very elegant and accurate, with valuable notes, but containing
only Clemens,
English translations of the Apost. Fathers by Archbishop W. Wake (d. 1737), Lond. 1693, 4th ed. 1737, and often republished (in admirable style, though with many inaccuracies); by Alex. Roberts and James Donaldson, in the first vol. of Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Christian Library." Edinb. 1867 (superior to Wake in accuracy, but inferior in old English flavor); by Chs. H. Hoole, Lond. 1870 and 1872; best by Lightfoot (Clement R. in Appendix, 1877). An excellent German translation by H. Scholz, Gütersloh, 1865 (in the style of Luther’s Bible version).
Works:
The Prolegomena to the editions just named, particularly those of the first four.
A. Schwegler: Das nacha postolische Zeitalter, Tüb. 1846. 2 vols. A very able but hypercritical reconstruction from the Tübingen school, full of untenable hypotheses, assigning the Gospels, Acts, the Catholic and later Pauline Epistles to the post-apostolic age, and measuring every writer by his supposed Petrine or Pauline tendency, and his relation to Ebionism and Gnosticism.
A. Hilgenfeld: Die apostolischen Väter. Halle, 1853.
J. H. B. Lubkert: Die Theologie der apostolischen Väter, in the "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." Leipz. 1854.
Abbé Freppel (Prof. at the Sorbonne): Les Pères Apostoliques et leur epoque, second ed. Paris, 1859. Strongly Roman Catholic.
Lechler: Das Apost. u. nachapost. Zeitalter. Stuttgart, 1857, p. 476–495; 3d ed., thoroughly revised (Leipz., 1885), p. 526 -608.
James Donaldson (LL. D.): A Critical History of
Christian Literature, etc. Vol. I. The Apost. Fathers. Edinburgh, 1864.
The same, separately publ. under the title: The Apostolic Fathers: A
critical account of their genuine writings and of their doctrines.
London, 1874 (412 pages).
George A. Jackson: The Apostolic Fathers and the Apologists of the Second Century. New York 1879. Popular, with extracts (pages 203).
J. M. Cotterill: Peregrinus Proteus. Edinburgh, 1879. A curious book, by a Scotch Episcopalian, who tries to prove that the two Epistles of Clement, the Epistle to Diognetus, and other ancient writings, were literary frauds perpetrated by Henry Stephens and others in the time of the revival of letters in the sixteenth century.
Josef Sprinzl, (R.C.):Die Theologie der apost. Väter. Wien, 1880. Tries to prove the entire agreement of the Ap. Fathers with the modern Vatican theology.
The "apostolic," or rather post-apostolic "fathers" The usual
name is probably derived from
Of the outward life of these men, their
extraction, education, and occupation before conversion, hardly
anything is known. The distressed condition of that age was very
unfavorable to authorship; and more than this, the spirit of the
primitive church regarded the new life in Christ as the only true life,
the only one worthy of being recorded. Even of the lives of the
apostles themselves before their call we have only a few hints. But the
pious story of the martyrdom of several of these fathers, as their
entrance into perfect life, has been copiously written. They were good
men rather than great men, and excelled more in zeal and devotion to
Christ than in literary attainments. They were faithful practical
workers, and hence of more use to the church in those days than
profound thinkers or great scholars could have been. "While the works
of Tacitus, Sueton, Juvenal, Martial, and other contemporary heathen
authors are filled with the sickening details of human folly, vice, and
crime, these humble Christian pastors are ever burning with the love of
God and men, exhort to a life of purity and holiness in imitation of
the example of Christ, and find abundant strength and comfort amid
trial and persecution in their faith, and the hope of a glorious
immortality in heaven." "The most
striking feature of these writings," says Donaldson (p. 105),"is the
deep living piety which pervades them. It consists in the warmest love
to God, the deepest interest in man, and it exhibits itself in a
healthy, vigorous, manly morality."
The extant works of the apostolic fathers are of
small compass, a handful of letters on holy living and dying, making in
all a volume of about twice the size of the New Testament. Half of
these (several Epistles of Like the N.
T. Epistles, the writings of the Apostolic fathers generally open with
an inscription and Christian salutation, and conclude with a
benediction and doxology. The Ep. of Clement to the Corinthians
beginning thus (ch. 1.): "The church of God, which sojournes in Rome to
the church of God which sojournes in Corinth, to them that are called
and sanctified by the will of God, through our Lord Jesus Christ: Grace
and peace from Almighty God, through Jesus Christ, be multiplied unto
You." (Comp.
If we compare these documents with the canonical
Scriptures of the New Testament, it is evident at once that they fall
far below in original force, depth, and fulness of spirit, and afford
in this a strong indirect proof of the inspiration of the apostles. Yet
they still shine with the evening red of the apostolic day, and breathe
an enthusiasm of simple faith and fervent love and fidelity to the
Lord, which proved its power in suffering and martyrdom. They move in
the element of living tradition, and make reference oftener to the oral
preaching of the apostles than to their writings; for these were not
yet so generally circulated but they bear a testimony none the less
valuable to the genuineness of the apostolic writings, by occasional
citations or allusions, and by the coincidence of their reminiscences
with the facts of the gospel history and the fundamental doctrines of
the New Testament. The epistles of Barnabas, Clement, and Comp. Euseb.
H. E. III. 16; IV. 23, as regards the epistle of Clement, which
continued to be read in the church of Corinth down to the time of
Dionysius, a.d. 160, and even to the time of
The Codex
Alexandrinus (A) of the fifth century contains, after the Apocalypse,
the Epistle of Clemens Romanus to the Corinthians, with a fragment of a
homily; and the Codex Sinaiticus of the fourth century gives, at the
close, the Epistle of Barnabas complete in Greek, and also a part of
the Greek Pastor Hermae. Ascribed to
Archbishop Whately. Baur,
Schwegler, and the other Tübingen critics show great want of
spiritual discernment in assigning so many N. T. writings, even the
Gospel of John to the borrowed moonlight of the post-apostolic age.
They form the opposite extreme to the Roman overestimate of patristic
teaching as being of equal authority with the Bible.
§ 162.
(I.) The Epistle of Clemens Rom. to the Corinthians. Only the first is genuine, the second so-called Ep. of Cl. is a homily of later date. Best editions by Philotheos Bryennios (Τοῦ ἐν ἁγίοις πατρὸς ἡμῶν Κλήμεντος ἐπισκόπου Ῥώμης αἰ δύο πρὸς Καρινθίους έπιστολαί etc. Ἑν Κώνσταντινοπόλει, 1875. With prolegomena, commentary and facsimiles at the end, 188 pp. text, and ρξθ ́or169 prolegomena); Hilgenfeld (second ed. Leipz. 1876, with prolegomena, textual notes and conjectures); Von Gebhardt & Harnack (sec. ed. 1876, with proleg., notes, and Latin version); Funk (1878, with Latin version and notes); and Lightfoot (with notes, Lond. 1869, and Appendix containing the newly-discovered portions, and an English Version, 1877).
All the older editions from the Alexandrian MS. first published by Junius, 1633, are partly superseded by the discovery of the new and complete MS. in Constantinople, which marks an epoch in this chapter of church history.
(II.) R. A. Lipsius: De Clementis Rom. Epistola ad Corinth. priore disquisitio. Lips. 1856 (188 pages). Comp. his review of recent editions in the "Jenaer Literaturzeitung." Jan. 13, 1877.
B. H. Cowper: What the First Bishop of Rome taught. The Ep. of Clement of R. to the Cor., with an Introduction and Notes. London, 1867.
Jos. Mullooly: St. Clement Pope and Martyr, and his Basilica in Rome. Rome, second ed. 1873. The same in Italian. Discusses the supposed house and basilica of Clement, but not his works.
Jacobi: Die beiden Briefe des Clemens v. Rom., in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1876, p. 707 sqq.
Funk: Ein theologischer Fund, in the Tüb. "Theol. Quartalschrift," 1876, p. 286 sqq.
Donaldson: The New MS. of
Wieseler: Der Brief des röm. Clemens an die Kor., in the "Jahrbücher für deutsche Theol." 1877. No. III.
Renan: Les évangiles. Paris 1877. Ch. xv. 311–338.
C. J. H. Ropes: The New
MS. of
The relevant sections in Hilgenfeld (Apost. Väter, 85–92), Donaldson (Ap. Fath., 113–190), Sprinzl (Theol. d. Apost. Väter, 21 sqq., 57 sqq.), Salmon in Smith and Wace, I. 554 sqq., and Uhlhorn in Herzog2, sub Clemens Rom. III. 248–257.
Comp. full lists of editions, translations, and discussions on Clement, before and after 1875, in the Prolegomena of von Gebhardt & Harnack, XVIII.-XXIV.; Funk, XXXII.-XXXVI.; Lightfoot, p. 28 sqq., 223 sqq., and 393 sqq., and Richardson, Synopsis, I sqq.
The first rank among the works of the post-Apostolic
age belongs to the "Teaching of the Apostles," discovered in 1883. See above p.
184 sq., and my monograph, third revised edition, 1889.
I. Clement, a name of
great celebrity in antiquity, was a disciple of Paul and Peter, to whom
he refers as the chief examples for imitation. He may have been the
same person who is mentioned by Paul as one of his faithful
fellow-workers in Philippi ( There are
six different conjectures. 1) Clement was the Philippian Clement
mentioned by Paul. So Renan (p.
313) thinks that he was a Roman Jew. So also Lightfoot. But §
52, p. 166. Bryennios discusses this question at length in his
Prolegomena, and comes to the conclusion that Clement was the third
bishop of Rome, and the author of both Epistles to the Corinthians. He
identifies him with the Clement in
Later legends have decked out his life in romance,
both in the interest of the Catholic church and in that of heresy. They
picture him as a noble and highly educated Roman who, dissatisfied with
the, wisdom and art of heathenism, journeyed to Palestine, became
acquainted there with the apostle Peter, and was converted by him;
accompanied him on his missionary tours; composed many books in his
name; was appointed by him his successor as bishop of Rome, with a sort
of supervision over the whole church; and at last, being banished under
Trajan to the Taurian Chersonesus, died the glorious death of a martyr
in the waves of the sea. But the oldest witnesses, down to
It is very remarkable that a person of such vast
influence in truth and fiction, whose words were law, who preached the
duty of obedience and submission to an independent and distracted
church, whose vision reached even to unknown lands beyond the Western
sea, should inaugurate, at the threshold of the second century, that
long line of pontiffs who have outlasted every dynasty in Europe, and
now claim an infallible authority over the consciences of two hundred
millions of Christians.
"Clément Romain." says the sceptical Renan, once a student
of Roman Catholic theology in St. Sulpice."ne fut pas seulement un personnage réel, ce fut un
personnage de premier ordre, un vrai chef
d’Église, un évêque,
avant que l’épiscopat fût
nettement constitué j’ oserais presque dire
un pape, si ce mot ne faisait ici un trop fort anachronisme. Son
autorité passa pour la plus grande de toutes en Italie, en
Grèce, en Macédonie, durant les dix
dernières années du Iersiècle. A la limite de
l’ âge apostolique, il fut comme
unapôtre, un épigone de la grande
génération des disciples de Jésus, une
des colonnes de cette Eglise de Rome, qui, depuis la destruction de
Jérusalem, devenait de plus en plus le centre du
christianisme."
II. From this Clement we have a Greek epistle to
the Corinthians. It is often cited by the church fathers, then
disappeared, but was found again, together with the fragments of the
second epistle, in the Alexandrian codex of the Bible (now in the
British Museum), and published by Patricius Junius (Patrick Young) at
Oxford in 1633. The
Alexandrian Bible codex dates from the fifth century, and was presented
by Cyril Lucar, of Constantinople, to King Charles 1. in 1628. Since
1633 the Ep. of Cl. has been edited about thirty times from this single
MS. It lacks the concluding chapters (57-66) in whole or in part, and
is greatly blurred and defaced. It was carefully reexamined and best
edited by Tischendorf (1867 and 1873), Lightfoot (1869 and 1877),
Laurent (1870), and Gebhardt (in his first ed. 1875). Their conjectures
have been sustained in great part by the discovery of the
Constantinopolitan MS. See the critical Addenda in the Append. of
Lightfoot, p. 396 sqq. At that time
metropolitan of Serrae (μετροπολίτης
Σερρῶν)-an ancient
see Heraclea), in Macedonia—afterwards of Nicomedia.
This Eastern prelate was most cordially welcomed by the scholars of the
West, Catholic and Protestant, to an honored place in the republic of
Christian learning. His discovery is of inestimable value. In his
prolegomena and notes—all in Greek—he
shows considerable knowledge of the previous editions of Clement
(except that of Lightfoot, 1869) and of modern German literature. It is
amusing to find familiar names turned into Greek, as Neander (ὁ
Νέανδρος),
Gieseler (ὁ
Γισελέριος),
Hefele (ὁ
Ἕφελος),
Dressel (ὁ
Δρεσσέλιος),
Hilgenfeld (ὁ
Ἱλγεμφέλδος),
Jacobson (ὁ
Ἰακωβσόνιος),
Tischendorf (Κωνσταν́τῖνος
ὁ
Τισενδόρφιος),
Thiersch (ὁ
θείρσιος),
Schroeckh (ὁ
Σροίκχιος),
Schwegler, (ὁ
Σουέγλερος),
Schliemann (ὁ
Σλιμάννος),
Reithmayr (ὁ
Ρεϊθμάϋρος),
Uhlhorn (ὁ
Οὐλχόρνιος
ἐν τῇ Real Encykl.
von Herzog ἐν λέξ.
Clemens von ROM τομ. Β ́.
σελ 721; p. ξζ ́), etc. He complains,
however, of " the higher" or " lofty criticism" (ὑψηλὴ
κριτική) and the
" episcophobia" (ἐπισκοφοβία)
of certain Germans, and his own criticism is checked by his reverence
for tradition, which leads him to accept the Second Epistle of Clement
as genuine, contrary to the judgment of the best scholars. The
Constantinopolitan codex belongs to the library of the Convent of the
Holy Sepulchre (τοῦ
Παναγίου
Τάφου)in the Fanar or
Phanar, the Greek district of Constantinople, whose inhabitants, the
Fanariotes, were originally employed as secretaries and transcribers of
documents. It is a small 8vo parchment of 120 leaves, dates from a.d. 1056, is clearly and carefully written in
cursive characters, with accents, spiritus, punctuation (but without
jota subscriptum), and contains in addition the second Epistle of
Clement in full, the Greek Ep. of Barnabas, the larger Greek recension
of the 12 Ignatian Epistles, the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles"
(διδαχὴ
τῶν δώδεκα
ἀποστόλων),
and a work of This MS.
which escaped the attention of French scholars, is now in Cambridge. It
was written in the year 1170, in the Convent of Mar Saliba, at Edessa.
It contains, with the exception of the Apocalypse, the entire New
Testament in the Harclean recension (616) of the Philoxenian version
(508), and the two Epistles of Clement between the Catholic and Pauline
Epistles (instead of at the close, as in the Alexandrian Cod.), as if
they were equal in authority to the canonical books. Bishop Lightfoot
(Appendix to S. Clemens p. 238) says, that this Syriac version is
conscientious and faithful, but with a tendency to run into paraphrase,
and that it follows the Alex. rather than the Constantinopolitan text,
but presents also some independent readings. See
§ 50, p. 157, and § 66, p. 226, 228.
This first (and in fact the only) Epistle to the
Corinthians was sent by the Church of God in Rome, at its own impulse,
and unasked, to the Church of God in Corinth, through three aged and
faithful Christians: Claudius Ephebus, Valerius Biton, and
Fortunatus. Mentioned at
the close in ch. 65 (which in the Alex. text is ch. 59). Claudius and
Valerius may have been connected with the imperial household as
freedmen (Comp. By the
author of the Catalogue of contents prefixed to the Alexandrian codex,
generally called Cod. A: by Dionysius of Corinth, in his letter to
Soter of Rome (Euseb. IV, 23); Dionysius of
Corinth (A. D. 170) first mentions the liturgical use of the Epistle in
his church.
And this indicates its value. It is not
apostolical, not inspired—far from
it—but the oldest and best among the sub-apostolic
writings both in form and contents. It was occasioned by party
differences and quarrels in the church of Corinth, where the sectarian
spirit, so earnestly rebuked by Paul in his first Epistle, had broken
out afresh and succeeded in deposing the regular officers (the
presbyter-bishops). The writer exhorts the readers to harmony and love,
humility, and holiness, after the pattern of Christ and his apostles,
especially Peter and Paul, who had but recently sealed their testimony
with their blood. He speaks in the highest terms of Paul who, "after
instructing the whole [Roman] world in righteousness, and after having
reached the end of the West, and borne witness before the rulers,
departed into the holy place, leaving the greatest example of patient
endurance." Funk gives a
list of quotations and parallel passages, Patr. Apost. I. 566-570. From
this it appears that 157 are from the O. T., including the Apocrypha
and (apparently) the Assumption of Moses, 158 from the N. T., but only
three of the latter are strict quotations (ch. 46 from
Clement bears clear testimony to the doctrines of
the Trinity ("God, the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who are
the faith and the hope of the elect"), of the Divine dignity and glory
of Christ, salvation only by his blood, the necessity of repentance and
living faith, justification by grace, sanctification by the Holy
Spirit, the unity of the church, and the Christian graces of humility,
charity, forbearance, patience, and perseverance. In striking contrast
with the bloody cruelties practiced by Domitian, he exhorts to prayer
for the civil rulers, that God "may give them health, peace, concord,
and stability for the administration of the government be has given
them." "When we
remember," says Lightfoot, p. 268 sq., "that this prayer issued from
the fiery furnace of persecution after experience of a cruel and
capricious tyrant like Domitian, it will appear truly
sublime—sublime in its utterances and still more
sublime in its silence. Who would have grudged the Church, of Rome her
primacy, if she had always spoken thus?" Ropes (l. c, p. 343): The
sublimity of this prayer gains a peculiar sIgnificance when we remember
that it was Domitian in whose behalf it was offered."
III. In regard to its theology, this epistle
belongs plainly to the school of Paul and strongly resembles the
Epistle to the Hebrews, while at the same time it betrays the influence
of Peter also; both these apostles having, in fact, personally labored
in the church of Rome, in whose name the letter is written, and having
left the stamp of their mind upon it. There is no trace in it of an
antagonism between Paulinism and Petrinism. Renan (p.
314) call, .; his epistle "un beau
morceau neutre, dont les disciples de Pierre et ceux de Paul durent se
contenter également. Ilest probale qu’il
fut un des agents les plus énergetiques de la grande
Œuvre qué etait en train de s’
accomplir, je veux dire, de la réconciliation posthume de
Pierre et de Paul de la fusior des deux partis, sans
l’union desquels l’Œuvre
du Christ ne pouvait que périr." Ch. 32. An
echo of Paul’s teaching is found in Ch. 49. Ch. 46.
Comp.
Very beautifully also he draws from the harmony of
the universe an incitement to concord, and incidentally expresses here
the remarkable sentiment, perhaps suggested by the old legends of the
Atlantis, the orbis alter, the ultima Thule, etc., that there are other
worlds beyond the impenetrable ocean, which are ruled by the same laws
of the Lord. 3 Ch. 20:
Ὠκέανος
ἀνθρώποις
άπέραντος
καὶ οἱ μετ’
αὐτὸν
κόσμοι
ταῖς
αὐταῖς
ταγαῖς τοῦ
δεσπότου
διευθύνονται.
Lightfoot (p. 84) remarks on this passage: "Clement may possibly be
referring to some known, but hardly accessible land, lying without the
pillars of Hercules. But more probably he contemplated some unknown
land in the far west beyond the ocean, like the fabled Atlantis of
Plato, or the real America of modern discovery." Lightfoot goes on to
say that this passage was thus understood by
But notwithstanding its prevailing Pauline character, this epistle lowers somewhat the free evangelical tone of the Gentile apostle’s theology, softens its anti-Judaistic sternness, and blends it with the Jewish-Christian counterpart of St. James, showing that the conflict between the Pauline and Petrine views was substantially settled at the end of the first century in the Roman church, and also in that of Corinth.
Clement knows nothing of an episcopate above the
presbyterate; and his epistle itself is written, not in his own name,
but in that of the church at Rome. But he represents the Levitical
priesthood as a type of the Christian teaching office, and insists with
the greatest decision on outward unity, fixed order, and obedience to
church rulers. He speaks in a tone of authority to a sister church of
apostolic foundation, and thus reveals the easy and as yet innocent
beginning of the papacy. See
especially chs. 56, 58, 59, 63, of the Constantinopolitan and Syrian
text.
The interval between Clement and Paul, and the
transition from the apostolic to the apocryphal, from faith to
superstition, appears in the indiscriminate use of the Jewish
Apocrypha, and in the difference between Paul’s
treatment of scepticism in regard to the resurrection, and his
disciple’s treatment of the same subject. Clement, Ad
Cor. c. 25. Contrast with this account the fifteenth chapter of
Paul’s first epistle to the Corinthians.
IV. As to the time of its composition, this
epistle falls certainly after the death of Peter and Paul, for it
celebrates their martyrdom; and probably after the death of John (about
98); for one would suppose, that if he had been living, Clement would
have alluded to him, in deference to superior authority, and that the
Corinthian Christians would have applied to an apostle for counsel,
rather than to a disciple of the apostles in distant Rome. The
persecution alluded to in the beginning of the epistle refers to the
Domitian as well as the Neronian; for he speaks of "sudden and
repeated calamities and reverses which have befallen us." Ch. 1. The
usual reading is: γενομένας,
which refers to past calamities. So Cod. C. The Alex. MS. is here
defective, probably [γενομ]ένας
.Lightfoot reads with the Syrian version γινομένας,
" which are befalling us" (267 and 399), and refers the passage to the
continued perils of the church under Domitian. βεβαιοτάτην
καὶ
ἀρχαίαν,
c. 47. The later
date (93-97) is assIgned to the Epistle by Cotelier, Tillemont,
Lardner, Möhler, Schliemann, Bunsen, Ritschl, Lipsius,
Hilgenfeld, Donaldson, Bryennios, Harnack, Uhlhorn, Lightfoot (who puts
the letter soon after the martyrdom of Flavius Clement, a.d. 95), Funk (who puts it after the death of Domitian,
96). But other writers, including Hugo Grotius, Grabe, Hefele,
Wieseler, B. H. Cowper, assIgn the Epistle to an earlier date, and
infer from ch. 41 that it must have been written before 70, when the
temple service in Jerusalem was still celebrated. "Not everywhere,
brethren," says Clement, "are the daily sacrifices offered (προσφέρονται
θυσίαι), or the vows,
or the sin-offerings, or the trespass-offerings, but in Jerusalem only;
and even there they are not offered προσφέρεται)
in every place, but only at the altar before the sanctuary, after the
victim to be offered has been examined by the high-priest and the
ministers already mentioned." This argument is very plausible, but not
conclusive, since Josephus wrote a.d. 93 in a
similar way of the sacrifices of the temple, using the praesens
historicum, as if it still existed, Ant. III. 10. In ch. 6 Clement
seems to refer to the destruction of Jerusalem when he says that
"jealousy and strife have overthrown great cities and uprooted great
nations." Cowper (l.c. p. 16) mentions the absence of any allusion to
the Gospel of John as another argument. But the Synoptic Gospels are
not named either, although the influence of all the Gospels and nearly
all the Epistles can be clearly traced in Clement.
§ 163. The Pseudo-Clementine Works.
The most complete collection of the genuine and spurious works of Clement in Migne’s Patrol. Graeca, Tom. I. and II.
The name of Clement has been forged upon several later writings, both orthodox and heretical, to give them the more currency by the weight of his name and position. These pseudo-Clementine works supplanted in the church of Rome the one genuine work of Clement, which passed into oblivion with the knowledge of the Greek language. They are as follows:
1. A Second Epistle to the
Corinthians, falsely so called, formerly known only in part (12
chapters), since 1875 in full (20 chapters). Ed. in full
by Bryennios, Const. 1875, p. 113-142 with Greek notes; by Funk, with a
Latin version (I. 144-171), and by Lightfoot with an English version
(380-390). It is first
mentioned by Lightfoot
(p. 317) calls it a testimony "of the lofty moral earnestness and
triumphant faith which subdued a reluctant world, and laid it prostrate
at the feet of the cross." but "almost worthless as a literary
work."
2. Two Encyclical Letters on
Virginity. They were first discovered by J. J. Wetstein in the
library of the Remonstrants at Amsterdam, in a Syriac Version written
a.d. 1470, and published as an appendix to his
famous Greek Testament, 1752. Best edition
with Latin version by Beelen: S. Clementis R. Epistolae binae, de
Virginitate. Louvain, 1856. German translation by Zingerle (1827),
French by Villecourt (1853), English in the "Ante-Nicene Library." Villecourt,
Beelen, Möhler, Champagny, Brück. Mansi,
Hefele, Alzog, Funk (Prol. XLII. sq.). Also all the Protestant critics
except Wetstein, the discoverer. Lightfoot (l. c. p. 15 sq.) assIgns
the document to the beginning of the third century.
3. The Apostolical
Constitutions and Canons. See
§ 56, p. 183 sqq.
4. The Pseudo-Clementina,
or twenty Ebionitic homilies and their Catholic reproduction, the Recognitions. See
§ 114, p. 435 sqq.
5. Five Decretal Letters,
which pseudo-Isidore has placed at the head of his collection. Two of
them are addressed to James, the Lord’s Brother, are
older than the pseudo-Isidore, and date from the second or third
century; the three others were fabricated by him. They form the basis
for the most gigantic and audacious literary forgery of the middle
ages—the Isidorian Decretals—which
subserved the purposes of the papal hierarchy. They
originated in the east of France between a.d.
829 and 847.
§ 164.
Comp. §§ 17 and 45 (this vol.).
Sources:
I. The Epistles.
W. Cureton: The Ancient
Syriac Version of the Epistles of S.
C. C. J. Bunsen: Die 3 ächten u.
die 4unächten Briefe des
W. Cureton: Corpus Ignatianum: a complete collection of the Ignatian Epistles, genuine, interpolated, and spurious; together with numerous extracts from them as quoted by Eccles. writers down to the tenth century; in Syriac, Greek, and Latin, an Engl. transl. of the Syriac text, copious notes, and introd. Lond. and Berl., 1849.
J. H. Petermann: S. Ignatii quae feruntur Epistolae, una cum ejusdem martyrio, collatis edd. Graecis, versionibusque Syriaca, Armeniaca, Latinis. Lips., 1849.
Theod. Zahn: Ignatii et
Fr. Xav. Funk: Opera Patrum Apost., vol. I. Tub., 1878.
J. B. Lightfoot: The
Apost. Fathers. P. II. vol. I. and II. Lond. l885. English
translations of all the Epistles of
Earlier Engl. translations by Whiston (1711) and Clementson (1827).
German translations by M. I. Wocher (1829) and Jos. Nirschl (Die Briefe des heil. Ign. und sein Martyrium, 1870).
II. The Martyria.
Acta Martyrii S. Ignatii (Μαρτύρριον
τοῦ ἁγίου
ἱερομάρτυρος
Ἰγνατίου
τοῦ
θεοφόρου), ed. by Ussher (from two Latin
copies, 1647), Cotelier (Greek, 1672), Ruinart (1689), Grabe, Ittig,
Smith, Gallandi, Jacobson, Hefele, Dressel, Cureton,
Mösinger, Petermann, Zahn (pp. 301 sqq.), (Funk (I.
254–265; II. 218–275), and Lightfoot
(II. 473–536). A Syriac version was edited by Cureton
(Corpus Ignat. 222–225, 252–255), and
more fully by Mösinger (Supplementum Corporis Ignat., 1872).
An Armenian Martyr. was edited by Petermann, 1849. The Martyrium
Colbertinum (from the codex Colbertinus in Paris) has seven chapters.
There are several later and discordant recensions, with many
interpolations. The Acts of
The patristic statements concerning
Critical Discussions.
Joh. Dallaeus (Daillé): De scriptis quae sub Dionysii Areopagitae et Ignatii nominibus circumferuntur, libri duo. Genev., 1666. Against the genuineness.
*J. Pearson: Vindiciae Ignatianae. Cambr., 1672. Also in Cleric. ed. of the Patres Apost. II. 250–440, and in Migne’s Patrol. Gr., Tom. V. Republished with annotations by E. Churton, in the Anglo-Cath. Library, Oxf., 1852, 2 vols.
*R. Rothe: Anfänge der christl. Kirche. Wittenb., 1837. I., p. 715 sqq. For the shorter Greek recension.
Baron von Bunsen (at that time Prussian ambassador
in England):
Baur: Die Ignatianischen Briefe u. ihr neuster Kritiker. Tüb., 1848. Against Bunsen and against the genuineness of all recensions.
Denzinger. (R.C.):Ueber die Aechtheit des bisherigen Textes der Ignatian. Briefe. Würzb., 1849.
*G. Uhlhorn: Das Verhältniss der
syrischen Recension der Ignatian. Br. zu der kürzeren
griechischen. Leipz., 1851 (in the "Zeitschr.
für Hist. Theol."); and his article "
Thiersch: Kirche im Apost. Zeitalter. Frankf. u. Erl., 1852, p. 320 sqq.
Lipsius: Ueber die Aechtheit der syr. Recens. der Ignat. Br. Leipz., 1856 (in Niedner’s "Zeitschr. für Hist. Theol."). For the Syriac version. But he afterwards changed his view in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift f. wiss. Theol." 1874, p. 211.
Vaucher: Recherches critiques sur les lettres d’gnace d’Antioche. Genève, 1856.
Merx: Meletemata Ignatiana. Hal. 1861.
*Theod. Zahn:
Renan: Les Évangiles (1877), ch. xxii. 485–498, and the introduction, p. x sqq. Comp. also his notice of Zahn in the "Journal des Savants" for 1874. Against the genuineness of all Ep. except Romans. See in reply Zahn, Proleg. p. x.
F. X. Funk: Die Echtheit der Ignatianischen Briefe. Tübingen 1883.
Lightfoot: St. Paul’s Ep. to the
Philippians (Lond. 1873), Excurs. on the Chr. Ministry, p.
208–911, and 232–236. "The short
Greek of the Ignatian letters is probably corrupt or spurious: but from
internal evidence this recension can hardly have been made later than
the middle of the second century." (p. 210). On p. 232, note, he
expressed his preference with Lipsius for the short Syriac text. But
since then he has changed his mind in favor of the short Greek
recension. See his S.
Canon R. Travers Smith: St.
On the chronology:
Jos. Nirschl: Das Todesjahr des
On the theology of
I. Life of
θεοφόρος–ϊ,–ͅϊ"
bearer of God."The titles of the Epistles call him Ἰγνάτιος
ὁ καὶ
θεοφόρος,
adding simply the Greek to the Latin name. The Martyrium Ignatii, c. 2,
makes him explain the term, in answer to a question of Trajan, as
meaning " one who has Christ in his breast."The still later legend (in
Symeon Metaphrastes and the Menaea Graeca), by changing the accent.
(θεόφορος,
Theophorus), gives the name the passive meaning, "one carried by God,"
because
As in the case of Rome, tradition differs
concerning the first episcopal succession of Antioch, making Ap. Const.
VI I. 46: Ἀντιοχείας
Εὐόδιος
μὲν ὑπ’
ἐμοῦ
Πέτρου,
Ἱγνάτιος
δὲ ὑπὸ
Παύλου
κεχειροτόνηται.
According to Comp. Zahn,
p. 402, who rejects this tradition as altogether groundless: Es fehlt bei
But his peculiar glory, in the eyes of the ancient
church, was his martyrdom. The minute account of it, in the various
versions of the Martyrium S. Ignatii, contains many
embellishments of pious fraud and fancy; but the fact itself is
confirmed by general tradition. Ὅ
ἐστι
στρατιωτῶν
τάγμα is added here for
explanation by the two Greek versions, and by
The Acts of his martyrdom relate more minutely,
that θησαυρὸς
ἄτιμος Mart. c.
6. Lucian, in
his satire on the Death of Peregrinus, represents this Cynic
philosopher as a hypocritical bishop and confessor, who while in prison
received and sent message, and was the centre of attention and
correspondence among the credulous and good-natured Christians in Syria
and Asia Minor. The coincidence is so striking that Zahn and Renan
agree in the inference that Lucian knew the story of Grabe
proposes to read, in the Martyr. c, 2, δεκάτῳ
ἐννάτῳ
ἕτει, for ἐννάτῳ
which would give the year 116. Tillemont and others escape the
difficulty by suppossing, without good reason, a double Parthian
expedition of Trajan, one in 107 and another in 115 or 116. Comp.
Francke: Zur Geschichte
Trajan’s. 1837, p. 253 sqq., and
Büdinger, Untersuchungen zur röm. Kaisergesch. I. 153 sqq.
Nirschl assumes even three oriental expeditions of TraJan. Wieseley and
Frank defend the traditional date (107); Harnack puts the martyrdom
down to the reIgn of Hadrian or Antoninus Pius, but without solid
reasons Zahn (p. 58) leaves it indefinite between 107 and 116, Lightf.
between 110 and 118, So Uhlhorn,
Zahn (248 sq.), Funk (XLVII.). Comp. Lightfoot (II. 390).
II. His Letters.
On his journey to Rome, Bishop
The question therefore lies between the shorter
Greek copy and the Syriac version. The preponderance of testimony is
for the former, in which the letters are no loose patch-work, but were
produced each under its own impulse, were known to
III. His Character and Position in history.
As he appears personally in his epistles, his most
beautiful and venerable trait is his glowing love for Christ as God
incarnate, and his enthusiasm for martyrdom. If great patriots thought
it sweet to die for their country, he thought it sweeter and more
honorable to die for Christ, and by his blood to fertilize the soil for
the growth of His Church. "I would rather die for Christ," says he,
"than rule the whole earth." "It is glorious to go down in the world,
in order to go up into God." He beseeches the Romans: "Leave me to the
beasts, that I may by them be made partaker of God. I am a grain of the
wheat of God, and I would be ground by the teeth of wild beasts, that I
may be found pure bread of God. Rather fawn upon the beasts, that they
may be to me a grave, and leave nothing of my body, that, when I sleep,
I may not be burdensome to any one. Then will I truly be a disciple of
Christ, when the world can no longer even see my body. Pray the Lord
for me, that through these instruments I may be found a sacrifice to
God." Ad Ch. 4
(Syr.), or 5-7 (Gr.).
From these and similar passages, however, we
perceive also that his martyr-spirit exceeds the limits of the genuine
apostolic soberness and resignation, which is equally willing to depart
or to remain according to the Lord’s good pleasure. Comp. Τὰς
κακοτεχνίας
φεῦγε, according to all
the MSS., even the Syriac. Bunsen proposes to read κακοτέχνους,
in the sense of seductive women, coquettes, instead of κακοτεχνίας
. But this, besides being a mere conjecture, would not
materially soften the warning.
The doctrinal and churchly views of the Ignatian
epistles are framed on a peculiar combination and somewhat
materialistic apprehension of John’s doctrine of the
incarnation, and Paul’s idea of the church as the body
of Jesus Christ. In the "catholic church"—an
expression introduced by him—that is, the episcopal
orthodox organization of his day, the author sees, as it were, the
continuation of the mystery of the incarnation, on the reality of which
he laid great emphasis against the Docetists; and in every bishop, a
visible representative of Christ, and a personal centre of
ecclesiastical unity, which he presses home upon his readers with the
greatest solicitude and almost passionate zeal. He thus applies those
ideas of the apostles directly to the outward organization, and makes
them subservient to the principle and institution of the growing
hierarchy. Here lies the chief importance of these epistles; and the
cause of their high repute with catholics and prelatists, Such Roman
Catholic writers as Nirschl and Sprinzl find the whole theology and
church polity of Rome in Calvin, who,
however, knew only the spurious and worthless longer recension, calls
the Ignatian Epistles abominable trash (Inst. I. 1, c. 13, §
29); Dr. W. D. Killen, who ought to know better, from strong
anti-prelatic feeling, speaks of
It is remarkable that the idea of the episcopal
hierarchy which we have developed in another chapter, should be first
clearly and boldly brought out, not by the contemporary Roman bishop
Clement, Still less
by the apostle Peter, the alleged first Pope of Rome; on the contrary,
he enters a solemn protest against hierarchical tendencies for all time
to come,
§ 165. The Ignatian Controversy.
Of all the writings of the apostolic fathers none have been so much discussed, especially in modern times, as the Ignatian Epistles. This arises partly from the importance of their contents to the episcopal question, partly from the existence of so many different versions. The latter fact seems to argue as strongly for the hypothesis of a genuine basis for all, as against the supposition of the full integrity of any one of the extant texts. Renan describes the Ignatian problem as the most difficult in early Christian literature, next to that of the Gospel of John (Les Évang. p. x).
The Ignatian controversy has passed through three
periods, the first from the publication of the spurious
1. The Larger Greek Recension of
Seven Epistles with eight additional ones. Four of them were
published in Latin at Paris, 1495, as an appendix to another book;
eleven more by Faber Stapulensis, also in Latin, at Paris, 1498; then
all fifteen in Greek by Valentine Hartung (called Paceus or
2. The Shorter Greek
Recension of the seven Epistles known to
(a) Its genuineness and integrity are advocated by Pearson (Vindiciae Ignatianae, 1672, against the doubts of the acute Dallaeus), latterly by Gieseler, Möhler (R.C.), Rothe (1837), Huther (1841), Düsterdieck (1843), Dorner (1845), and (since the publication of the shorter Syriac version) by Jacobson, Hefele (R.C., 1847 and 1855), Denzinger (R.C., 1849), Petermann (1849), Wordsworth, Churton (1852), and most thoroughly by Ulhhorn, (1851 and ’56), and Zahn (1873, Ign. v. Ant. 495–541). The same view is adopted by Wieseler (1878), Funk (in Patr. Apost. 1878, Prol LX. sqq., and his monograph, 1883), Canon Travers Smith, (in Smith and Wace, 1882), and Lightfoot (1885).
(b) The friends of the three Syriac epistles (see below under No. 3) let only so many of the seven epistles stand as agree with those. Also Lardner (1743), Mosheim (1755), Neander (1826), Thiersch (1852), Lechler (1857), Robertson and Donaldson (1867), are inclined to suppose at least interpolation.
(c) The shorter recension, though older than the
longer, is likewise spurious. The letters were forged in the later half
of the second century for the purpose of promoting episcopacy and the
worship of martyrs. This view is ably advocated by two very different
classes of divines: first by Calvinists in the interest of
Presbyterianism or anti-prelacy, Claudius Salmasius (1645), David
Blondel (1646), Dallaeus (1666), Samuel Basnage, and by Dr. Killen of
Belfast (1859 and 1883); next by the Tübingen school of
critics in a purely historical interest, Dr. Baur (1835, then against
Rothe, 1838, and against Bunsen, 1848 and 1853), Schwegler (1846), and
more thoroughly by Hilgenfeld (1853). The Tübingen critics
reject the whole Ignatian literature as unhistorical tendency writings,
partly because the entire historical situation implied in it and the
circuitous journey to Rome are in themselves improbable, partly because
it advocates a form of church government and combats Gnostic heresies,
which could not have existed in the age of
(d) We grant that the integrity of these epistles,
even in the shorter copy, is not beyond all reasonable doubt. As the
manuscripts of them contain, at the same time, decidedly spurious
epistles (even the Armenian translation has thirteen epistles), the
suspicion arises, that the seven genuine also have not wholly escaped
the hand of the forger. Yet there are, in any case, very strong
arguments for their genuineness and substantial integrity; viz. (1) The
testimony of the fathers, especially of
3. The Syriac Version
contains only three epistles (to
Now, it is true, that all the considerations we
have adduced in favor of the shorter Greek text, except the first, are
equally good, and some of them even better, for the genuineness of the
Syrian
But against the Syriac text is, in the first
place, the external testimony of antiquity, especially that of
The only genuine
§ 166.
Comp § 19 and the Lit. there quoted.
S.
Martyrium S.
L. Duchesne: Vita Sancti
Zahn: Ign. v. Ant. p. 495–511; and Proleg. to his ed. of Ign. and Pol. (1876), p. XLII-LV.
Donaldson: Ap. Fath. 191–247.
RenanL’église chrétienne (1879), ch. ix. and x. p. 437–466.
Lightfoot: S. Ign. and S.
On the
change of date from 166 or 167 to 155 or 156, in consequence of
Waddington’s researches, see p. 50. Adv. Haer.
iii. 3, § 4. Ch. 7.
·Comp. Comp.
This epistle to the Philippians consists of
fourteen short chapters, and has been published in full since 1633. It
is the only, document that remains to us from this last witness of the
Johannean age, who wrote several letters to neighboring congregations.
It is mentioned first by his pupil Adv. Haer.
III. 3, § 4. Comp. Euseb. H E. III. 36, and Jerome De Vir.
ill. c. 17. Nor has its
integrity been called in question with sufficient reason by Dallaeus,
and more recently by Bunsen, Ritschl (in the second ed of his Entstehung der altkath.
Kirche, p. 584-600), Renan (Journal des savants, 1874,
and less confidently in L’église chret.,
1879, p. 442 sqq.), and the author of Supernatural Religion (I.
274-278). But the genuineness and integrity of the Ep. are ably
vindicated by Zahn (1873) and by Lightfoot ("Contemp. Rev. ." Feb.
1875, p. 838-852). The testimony of Ch. 2. Ἐπιστολάς
must here probably be understood, like the Latin literae, of one
epistle. προαγούσης. Ch. 3. Χάριτί
ἐστε
σεσωσμένοι
οὐκ ἐξ
ἔργων,
ἀλλά
θελήματι
θεοῦ, διὰ
Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ, comp.
The epistle is interwoven with many reminiscences
of the Synoptical Gospels and the epistles of Paul, John and First
Peter, which give to it considerable importance in the history of the
canon. Funk (I. 573
sq.), counts only 6 quotations from the O. T., but 68 reminiscences of
passages in Matthew (8), Mark (1), Luke (1), Acts (4), Romans, Cor.,
Gal., Eph., Phil., Col., Thess., 1 and 2 Tim., James (1). 1 Pet. (10),
2 Pet. (1 and 2 John. Comp. the works on the canon of the N. T.
The Martyrium S. All sorts of
corrections, accordingly, have been proposed for περιστερά
in ch. 16; e.g. ἐπ’
ἀριστερᾶ–ϊͅ
–ͅϊa sinistra, or περί̀
στέρνα, or περίπτερα
αἴματος
(scintillarum instar
sanguinis), or περὶ
στύρακα (circa
hastile, around the spike). Comp. Hefele: Patr. Ap. p. 288 (4th ed.) note 4; and Funk
(5th ed) 299. Funk
reads περὶστύρακα, which gives good sense. So also
the ed. of Gebh. and Harn.
Throughout its later chapters this narrative
considerably exceeds the sober limits of the Acts of the Apostles in
the description of the martyrdom of Stephen and the elder James, and
serves to illustrate, in this respect also, the undeniable difference,
notwithstanding all the affinity, between the apostolic and the old
catholic literature. Keim (1873),
and Lipsius (1876) reject the whole Martyrium. Steitz (1861), Zahn
(1876), and Funk (Prol XCVII.) the last two chapters as later
additions. Donaldson (p. 198 sqq.) assumes several interpolations which
make it unreliable as a historical document, but admits that it is
superior to the later martyria by its greater simplicity and the
probability of the most part of the narrative, especially the
circumstances of the flight and capture of
Notes.
I. Of all the writings of the Apostolic Fathers
the Epistle of
I. "
1. "I have greatly rejoiced with you in the joy
you have had in our Lord Jesus Christ, in receiving those examples of
true charity, and having accompanied, as it well became you, those who
were bound with holy chains [
2. "Wherefore, girding up your loins, serve the
Lord in fear [
3. "These things, brethren, I write to you
concerning righteousness, not because I take anything on myself, but
because ye have invited me thereto. For neither I, nor any such as I,
can come up to the wisdom of the blessed and glorified Paul. He, when
among you, accurately and steadfastly taught the word of truth in the
presence of those who were then alive; and when absent from you, he
wrote you a letter, which, if you carefully study, you will find to be
the means of building you up in that faith which has been given you,
and which, being followed by hope and preceded by love towards God, and
Christ, and our neighbor, is the mother of us all [
4. "But the love of money is a beginning
[ἀρχήinstead of root, ̓̔ριζη] of all kinds of evil, [
II. From the Martyrium
"Eighty and six years have I served Christ, nor has He ever done me any harm. How, then, could I blaspheme my King who saved me" (τὸν βασιλέα μου τὸν σώσαντά με)? Ch. 9.
Standing at the stake with his hands tied to the
back, as the fagots were kindled,
"Lord God Almighty, Father of Thy beloved and blessed Son, Jesus Christ, through whom we have received the grace of knowing Thee; God of angels and powers, and the whole creation, and of the whole race of the righteous who live in Thy presence; I bless Thee for deigning me worthy of this day and this hour that I may be among Thy martyrs and drink of the cup of my Lord Jesus Christ, unto the resurrection of eternal life of soul and body in the incorruption of the Holy Spirit. Receive me this day into Thy presence together with them, as a fair and acceptable sacrifice prepared for Thyself in fulfillment of Thy promise, O true and faithful God. Wherefore I praise Thee for all Thy mercies; I bless Thee, I glorify Thee, through the eternal High-Priest, Jesus Christ, Thy beloved Son, with whom to Thyself and the Holy Spirit, be glory both now and forever. Amen."
For a good popular description of
§ 167. Barnabas.
Editions.
First editions in Greek and Latin, except the first four chapters and part of the fifth, which were known only in the Latin version, by Archbishop Ussher (Oxf. 1643, destroyed by fire 1644), Luc. d’achery (Par. 1645), and Isaac Voss (Amstel. 1646).
First complete edition of the Greek original from the Codex Sinaiticus, to which it is appended, by Tischendorf in the facsimile ed. of that Codex, Petropoli, 1862, Tom. IV. 135–141, and in the Novum Testam. Sinait. 1863. The text dates from the fourth century. It was discovered by Tischendorf in the Convent of St. Catharine at Mt. Sinai, 1859, and is now in the library of St. Petersburg.
A new MS. of the Greek B. from the eleventh century (1056) was discovered in Constantinople by Bryennios, 1875, together with the Ep. of Clement, and has been utilized by the latest editors, especially by Hilgenfeld.
O. v. Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn: Patr. Ap. 1876. Gebhardt ed. the text from Cod. Sin. Harnack prepared the critical commentary. In the small ed. of 1877 the Const. Cod. is also compared.
Hefele-Funk: Patr.
Ad. Hilgenfeld: Barnabae Epistula. Inteqram Graece iterum edidit, veterem interpretationem Latinam, commentarium criticum et adnotationes addidit A. H. Ed. altera et valde aucta. Lips. 1877. Dedicated to Bryennios. "Orientalis Ecclesicae splendido lumini." who being prevented by the Oriental troubles from editing the new MS., sent a collation to H. in Oct. 1876 (Prol. p. xiii). The best critical edition. Comp. Harnack’s review in Schürer’s "Theol. Lit. Ztg. 1877, f. 473–’77.
J. G. Müller (of Basle): Erklärung des Barnabasbriefes. Leipz. 1869. An Appendix to De Wette’s Corn. on the N. T.
English translations by Wake (1693), Roberts and Donaldson (in Ante-Nic. Lib. 1867), Hoole (1872), Rendall (1877), Sharpe (1880, from the Sinait. MS). German translations by Hefele (1840), Scholz (1865), Mayer (1869), Riggenbach (1873).
Critical Discussions.
C. Jos. Hefele (R.C.): Das Sendschreiben des Apostels Barnabas, auf’s Neue untersucht und erklärt. Tüb. 1840.
Joh. Kayser: ueber den sogen. Barnabasbrief. Paderborn, 1866.
Donaldson: Ap. Fathers (1874), p. 248–317.
K. Wieseler: On the Origin and Authorship of the Ep. of B., in the "Jahrbuecher für Deutsche Theol.," 1870, p. 603 sqq.
O. Braunsberger (R.C.): Der Apostel Barnabas. Sein Leben und der ihm beigelegte Brief wissenschaftlich gewürdigt. Mainz, 1876.
W. Cunningham: The Ep. of St. Barnabas. London, 1876.
Samuel Sharpe: The Ep. of B. from the Sinaitic MS. London, 1880.
J. Weiss: Der Barnabasbrief kritisch untersucht. Berlin, 1888.
Milligan in Smith and Wace, I. 260–265; Harnack in Herzog2 II. 101–105.
Other essays by Henke
(1827), Rördam (1828), Ullmann (1828), Schenkel (1837),
Franke (1840), Weizsäcker (1864), Heydecke (1874). On the relation of Barnabas to
The doctrines of B. are fully treated by Hefele, Kayser, Donaldson, Hilgenfeld, Braunsberger, and Sprinzl.
Comp. the list of books from 1822–1875 in Harnack’s Prol. to the Leipz. ed. of Barn. Ep. p. XX sqq.; and in Richardson, Synopsis 16–19 (down to 1887).
The Catholic Epistle of
οὐχ
ὡς
διδάσκαλος ,
ἀλλ’ ὡς
εἷς ἐξ
ὑμῶν, ch. 1; Comp. 4:
πολλᾲ
θέλων
γράφειν,
οὐχ ὡς
διδάσκαλος
. The Cod.
Sinaiticus omits ’Amen."and adds at the close: Ἑπιστολὴ
Βαρνάβα..
1. Contents. The epistle
is chiefly doctrinal (ch. 1–17), and winds up with
some practical exhortations to walk "in the way of light," and to avoid
"the way of darkness" (ch. 18–21). The last
chapters are derived either from the Didache, or from a a still older
work, Duae Viae vel Judicium Petri, which may have been the common
source of both. See my work on the Didache, p. 227 sqq., 305, 309, 312
sq., 317. Ch. 2:ὁ
καινὸς
νόμος τοῦ
Κυρίου
ἡμῶν Ἰ.Χ.,
ἄνευ (ἄτερ) ζυγοῦ
ἀνάγκης
ὤν Ch. 4:συνετρίβη
αὐτῶν ἡ
διαθήκη,
ἵνα ἡ τοῦ
ἠγαπημένου
Ἰησοῦ
ἐγκατασφραγισθῆ;
εἰς τὴν
καρδίαν
ἡμῶν ἐν
ἐλπίδι
τῆς
πίστεως
αὐτοῦ.
By Judaism, however, the author understands not
the Mosaic and prophetic writings in their true spiritual sense, but
the carnal misapprehension of them. The Old Testament is, with him,
rather a veiled Christianity, which he puts into it by a mystical
allegorical interpretation, as Philo, by the same method, smuggled into
it the Platonic philosophy. In this allegorical conception he goes so
far, that he actually seems to deny the literal historical sense. He
asserts, for example, that God never willed the sacrifice and fasting,
the Sabbath observance and temple-worship of the Jews, but a purely
spiritual worship; and that the laws of food did not relate at all to
the eating of clean and unclean animals, but only to intercourse with
different classes of men, and to certain virtues and vices. His
chiliasm likewise rests on an allegorical exegesis, and is no proof of
a Judaizing tendency any more than in Justin,
Barnabas proclaims thus an absolute separation of
Christianity from Judaism. In this respect he goes further than any
post-apostolic writer. He has been on that ground charged with unsound
ultra-Paulinism bordering on antinomianism and heretical Gnosticism.
But this is unjust. He breathes the spirit of Paul, and only lacks his
depth, wisdom, and discrimination. Paul, in Galatians and Colossians,
likewise takes an uncompromising attitude against Jewish circumcision,
sabbatarianism, and ceremonialism, if made a ground of justification
and a binding yoke of conscience; but nevertheless he vindicated the
Mosaic law as a preparatory school for Christianity. Barnabas ignores
this, and looks only at the negative side. Yet he, too, acknowledges
the new law of Christ. He has some profound glances and inklings of a
Christian philosophy. He may be called an orthodox Gnostic. He stands
midway between St. Paul and
The Epistle of Barnabas has considerable
historical, doctrinal, and apologetic value. He confirms the principal
facts and doctrines of the gospel. He testifies to the general
observance of Sunday on "the eighth day," as the joyful commemoration
of Christ’s resurrection, in strict distinction from
the Jewish Sabbath on the seventh. He furnishes the first clear
argument for the canonical authority of the Gospel of Matthew (without
naming it) by quoting the passage: "Many are called, but few are
chosen," with the solemn formula of Scripture quotation: "as it is
written." Cap. 4 at
the close: προσέχωμεν
μήποτε, ὡς
γέγραπται,
πολλοί
κλητοὶ,
ὀλίγοι δὲ
ἐκλεκτοὶ
εὑρεθῶμεν.
From Funk (I.
364-366) gives nine quotations from Genesis, thirteen from Exodus, six
from Deuteronomy, fourteen from the Psalms, twenty-six from Isaiah,
etc., also one from IV. Esdras, four from Enoch. Comp. the list in
Anger’s Synopsis Evang. (1852), Gebh. and Harn.,
217-230.
2. Authorship. The
Epistle was first cited by See In H. E.
III. 25, Voss, Dupin,
Gallandi, Cave, Pearson, Lardner, Henke, Rördam,
Schneckenburger, Franke, Gieseler, Credner, Bleek (formerly), De Wette,
Möhler, Alzog, Sprinzl ("genuine, but not inspired "),
Sharpe. The interpolation hypothesis of Schenkel (1837) and Heydeke
(1874) is untenable; the book must stand or fall as a whole.
But the internal evidence points with greater
force to a post-apostolic writer. So Ussher,
Daillé, Cotelier, Tillemont, Mosheim, Neander, Ullmann,
Baur, Hilgenfeld, Hefele, Döllinger, Kayser, Donaldson,
Westcott, Müller, Wieseler, Weizsäcker,
Braunsberger, Harnack, Funk. Hefele urges eight arguments against the
genuineness; but five of them are entirely inconclusive. See Milligan,
l. c., who examines them carefully and concludes that the authenticity
of the Epistle is more probable than is now commonly supposed. Or "sinners
above all sin," ὑπὲρ
πᾶσαν
ἁμαρτίαν
ἀνομωτέρους,homines
omni peccato iniquiores, c. 5. Paul might call himself in genuine
humility " the chief of sinners" ( He is also
charged with several blunders concerning Jewish history and worship
which can hardly be expected from Barnabas the Levite. Comp. chs. 7, 8,
9, 10, 15. But this is disproved by Braunsberger (p. 253 sqq.), who
shows that the epistle gives us interesting archaeological information
in those chapters although he denies the genuineness.
These arguments are not conclusive, it is true,
but it is quite certain that if Barnabas wrote this epistle, he cannot
be the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews, and vice versa. The
difference between the two is too great for the unity of the
authorship. The ancient church showed sound tact in excluding that book
from the canon; while a genuine product of the apostolic Barnabas He is twice
called an apostle,
The author was probably a converted Jew from
Alexandria (perhaps by the name Barnabas, which would easily explain
the confusion), to judge from his familiarity with Jewish literature,
and, apparently, with Philo and his allegorical method in handling the
Old Testament. In Egypt his Epistle was first known and most esteemed;
and the Sinaitic Bible which contains it was probably written in
Alexandria or Caesarea in Palestine. The readers were chiefly Jewish
Christians in Egypt and the East, who overestimated the Mosaic
traditions and ceremonies. So Neander,
Möhler, Hefele (1840), Funk, GüdemAnn. On the
other hand, Lardner, Donaldson, Hilgenfeld, Kayser, Riggenbach, Hefele
(1868), Braunsberger, Harnack contend that Barnabas and his readers
were Gentile Christians, because he distinguishes himself and his
readers (ἡμεῖς) from
the Jews chs. 2, 3, 4, 8. 10, 14, 16. But the same distinction is
uniformly made by John in the Gospel, and was quite natural after the
final separation between the church and the synagogue. The mistakes in
Jewish history are doubtful and less numerous than the proofs of the
writer’s familiarity with it. The strongest passage is
ch. 16: " Before we became believers in God, the house of our heart was
... full of idolatry and the house of demons, because we did what was
contrary to God’s will."But even this, though more
applicable to heathen, is not inapplicable to Jews; nor need we suppose
that there were no Gentiles among the readers. Towards the close of the
second century there were probably very few unmixed congregations.
Lipsius and Volkmar seek the readers in Rome, Müller in Asia
Minor, Schenkel, Hilgenfeld, Harnack, and Funk in Alexandria or Egypt.
There is a similar difference of opinion concerning the readers of the
Epistle to the Hebrews.
3. Time of composition.
The work was written after the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple,
which is alluded to as an accomplished fact; Ch. 16
compared with the explanation of Daniel’s prophecy of
the little horn in ch. 4. Hefele,
Kayser, Baur, Müller, Lipsius, put the composition between
107 and 120 (before the building of Aelia Capitolina under Hadrian),
and Braunsberger between 110 and 137; but Hilgenfeld, Reuss )Gesch. d. N. T, 4th ed., 1864, p. 233),
Ewald )Gesch. d. Volkes
Israel, VII. 136), Weizsäcker (" in Jahrb.
für Deutsch. Theol.," 1865, p. 391, and 1871, p. 569),
Wieseler (Ibid. 1870, p. 603-614), and Funk (Prol. p. VI.), at the
close of the first century, or even before 79. Wieseler argues from the
author’s interpretation of Daniel’s
prophecy concerning the ten kingdoms and the little horn (ch. 4 and
16), that the Ep. was written under Domitian, the eleventh Rom.
emperor, and "the little horn" of Daniel. Weiszäcker and
Cunningham refer the little hero to Vespasian (79-79), Hilgenfeld to
Nerva; but even in the last case the Ep. would have been written before
a.d. 98, when Nerva died. Milligan concludes
that it was written very soon after the destruction of Jerusalem. But
in fresh view of that terrible judgment, we can scarcely account for
the danger of apostasy to Judaism. The author’s aim
seems to presuppose a revival of Judaism and of Jewish tendencies
within the Christian Church.
§ 168. Hermas.
Editions.
The older editions give only the imperfect Latin Version, first published by Faber Stapulensis (Par. 1513). Other Latin MSS. were discovered since. The Greek text (brought from Mt. Athos by Constantine Simonides, and called Cod. Lipsiensis) was first published by R. Anger, with a preface by G. Dindorf (Lips. 1856); then by Tischendorf, in Dressel’s Patres Apost., Lips 1857 (p. 572–637); again in the second ed. 1863, where Tischenderf, (sic) in consequence of the intervening discovery of the Cod. Sinaiticus retracted his former objections to the originality of the Greek Hermas from Mt. Athos, which he had pronounced a mediaeval retranslation from the Latin (see the Proleg., Appendix and Preface to the second ed.). The Ποιμὴν ὅρασις is also printed in the fourth vol. of the large edition of the Codex Sinaiticus, at the close (pp. 142–148), Peters b. 1862. The texts from Mt. Athos and Mt. Sinai substantially agree. An Ethiopic translation appeared in Leipz. 1860, ed. with a Latin version by Ant. d’abbadie. Comp. Dillmann in the "Zeitschrift d. D. Morgenländ. Gesellschaft "for 1861; Schodde: Hêrmâ Nabî, the Ethiop. V of P. H. examined. Leipz. 1876 (criticised by Harnack in the "Theol. Lit. Ztg." 1877, fol. 58), and G. and H’s Proleg. xxxiv. sqq.
O. v. Gebhardt, and Harnack: Patrum Apost. Opera, Fascic. III. Lips. 1877. Greek and Latin. A very careful recension of the text (from the Sinaitic MS.) by v. Gebhardt, with ample Prolegomena (84 pages), and a critical and historical commentary by Harnack.
Funk’s fifth ed. of Hefele’s Patres Apost. I. 334–563. Gr. and Lat. Follows mostly the text of Von Gebhardt.
Ad. Hilgenfeld: Hermae Pastor. Graece e codicibus Sinaitico et Lipsiensi ... restituit, etc. Ed. altera emendata et valde aucta. Lips. 1881. With Prolegomena and critical annotations (257 pp.). By the same: Hermae Pastor Graece integrum ambitu. Lips., 1887 (pp. 130). From the Athos and Sinaitic MSS.
S. P. Lambros (Prof. in Athens): A Collation of the Athos Codex of the Shepherd of Hermas, together with an Introduction. Translated and edited by J. A. Robinson, Cambridge, 1888.
English translations by Wake (1693, from the Latin version); F. Crombie (Vol. I. of the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library." 1867, from the Greek of the Sinait. MS.), by Charles H. Hoole (1870, from Hilgenfeld’s first ed. of 1866,) and by Robinson (1888).
Essays.
C. Reinh. Jachmann: Der Hirte der Hermas. Königsberg, 1835.
Ernst Gaâb: Der Hirte des Hermas. Basel, 1866 (pp. 203).
Theod. Zahn: Der Hirt des Hermas. Gotha 1868. (Comp. also his review of Gaâb in the Studien und Kritiken for 1868, pp. 319–349).
Charles R. Hoole (of Christ Church, Oxf.): The Shepherd of Hermas translated into English, with an Introduction and Notes. Lond., Oxf. and Cambr. 1870 (184 pages).
Gust. Heyne: Quo tempore Hermae Pastor scriptus sit. Regimonti, 1872.
J. Donaldson: The Apostolical Fathers (1874) p. 318–392.
H. M. Behm: Der Verfasser der Schrift., welche d. Titel "Hirt" führt. Rostock, 1876 (71 pp.).
Brüll: Der Hirt des Hermas. Nach Ursprung und Inhalt untersucht. Freiburg i. B. 1882. The same: Ueber den Ursprung des ersten Clemensbriefs und des Hirten des Hermas. 1882.
Ad. Link:Christi Person und Werk im Hirten des Hermas. Marburg, 1886. Die Einheit des Pastor Hermae. Mar b. 1888. Defends the unity of Hermas against Hilgenfeld.
P. Baumgärtner: Die Einheit des Hermas-Buches. Freiburg, 1889. He mediates between Hilgenfeld and Link, and holds that the book was written by one author, but at different times.
I. The Shepherd of Hermas Pastor
Hermae, Ὁ
Ποιμήν. Comp. Vis. I.
1, 2, 4; II. 2.
II. Character and
Contents. The Pastor Hermae is a sort
of system of Christian morality in an allegorical dress, and a call to
repentance and to renovation of the already somewhat slumbering and
secularized church in view of the speedily approaching day of judgment.
It falls into three books: This
division, however, is made by later editors.
(1) Visions; four visions and revelations, which were given to the author, and in which the church appears to him first in the form of a venerable matron in shining garments with a book, then as a tower, and lastly as a virgin. All the visions have for their object to call Hermas and through him the church to repentance, which is now possible, but will close when the church tower is completed.
It is difficult to decide whether the writer actually had or imagined himself to have had those visions, or invented them as a pleasing and effective mode of instruction, like Dante’s vision and Bunyan’s dream.
(2) Mandats, or twelve commandments, prescribed by a guardian angel in the garb of a shepherd.
(3) Similitudes, or ten parables, in which the church again appears, but now in the form of a building, and the different virtues are represented under the figures of stones and trees. The similitudes were no doubt suggested by the parables of the gospel, but bear no comparison with them for beauty and significance.
The scene is laid in Rome and the neighborhood. The Tiber is named, but no allusion is made to the palaces, the court, the people and society of Rome, or to any classical work. An old lady, virgins, and angels appear, but the only persons mentioned by name are Hermas, Maximus, Clement and Grapte.
The literary merit of the Shepherd is insignificant. It differs widely from apostolic simplicity and has now only an antiquarian interest, like the pictures and sculptures of the catacombs. It is prosy, frigid, monotonous, repetitious, overloaded with uninteresting details, but animated by a pure love of nature and an ardent zeal for doing good. The author was a self-made man of the people, ignorant of the classics and ignored by them, but endowed with the imaginative faculty and a talent for popular religious instruction. He derives lessons of wisdom and piety from shepherd and sheep, vineyards and pastures, towers and villas, and the language and events of every-day life.
The first Vision is a fair specimen of the book, which opens like a love story, but soon takes a serious turn. The following is a faithful translation:
1. "He who had brought me up, sold me to a certain
Rhoda at Rome.
"After some time, as I went into the villages and glorified the creatures of God, for their greatness, and beauty, and power, I fell asleep while walking. And the Spirit seized me and carried me through a certain wilderness through which no man could travel, for the ground was rocky and impassable, on account of the water.
"And when I had crossed the river, I came to a plain; and falling upon my knees, I began to pray unto the Lord and to confess my sins. And while I was praying, the heaven opened, and I beheld the woman that I loved saluting me from heaven, and saying: ’Hail, Hermas!’ And when I beheld her, I said unto her: ’Lady, what doest thou here?’ But she answered and said: ’I was taken up, in order that I might bring to light thy sins before the Lord.’ And I said unto her: ’Hast thou become my accuser?’ ’No,’ said she; ’but hear the words that I shall say unto thee. God who dwells in heaven, and who made the things that are out of that which is not, and multiplied and increased them on account of his holy church, is angry with thee because thou hast sinned against me.’ I answered and said unto her: ’Have I sinned against thee? In what way? Did I ever say unto thee an unseemly word? Did I not always consider thee as a lady? Did I not always respect thee as a sister? Why doest thou utter against me, O Lady, these wicked and foul lies?’ But she smiled and said unto me: ’The desire of wickedness has entered into thy heart. Does it not seem to thee an evil thing for a just man, if an evil desire enters into his heart? Yea, it is a sin, and a great one (said she). For the just man devises just things, and by devising just things is his glory established in the heavens, and he finds the Lord merciful unto him in all his ways; but those who desire evil things in their hearts, bring upon themselves death and captivity, especially they who set their affection upon this world, and who glory in their wealth, and lay not hold of the good things to come. The souls of those that have no hope, but have cast themselves and their lives away, shall greatly regret it. But do thou pray unto God, and thy sins shall be healed, and those of thy whole house and of all the saints.’
2. "After she had spoken these words, the heavens were closed, and I remained trembling all over and was sorely troubled. And I said within myself: ’If this sin be set down against me, how can I be saved? or how can I propitiate God for the multitude of my sins? or with what words shall I ask the Lord to have mercy upon me?’
"While I was meditating on these things, and was musing on them in my heart, I beheld in front of me a great white chair made out of fleeces of wool; and there came an aged woman, clad in very shining raiment, and having a book in her hand, and she sat down by herself on the chair and saluted me, saying: ’Hail, Hermas!" And I, sorrowing and weeping, said unto her: ’Hail, Lady!’ And she said unto me: ’Why art thou sorrowful, O Hermas, for thou wert wont to be patient, and good-tempered, and always smiling? Why is thy countenance cast down? and why art thou not cheerful?’ And I said unto her: ’O Lady, I have been reproached by a most excellent woman, who said unto me that I sinned against her.’ And she said unto me: ’Far be it from the servant of God to do this thing. But of a surety a desire after her must have come into thy heart. Such an intent as this brings a charge of sin against the servant of God; for it is an evil and horrible intent that a devout and tried spirit should lust after an evil deed; and especially that the chaste Hermas should do so-he who abstained from every evil desire, and was full of all simplicity, and of great innocence!’
3. " ’But [she continued] God is not angry with thee on account of this, but in order that thou mayest convert thy house, which has done iniquity against the Lord, and against you who art their parent. But thou, in thy love for your children (φιλότεκνος ὠν) didst not rebuke thy house, but didst allow it to become dreadfully wicked. On this account is the Lord angry with thee; but He will heal all the evils that happened aforetime in thy house; for through the sins and iniquities of thy household thou hast been corrupted by the affairs of this life. But the mercy of the Lord had compassion upon thee, and upon thy house, and will make thee strong and establish thee in His glory. Only be not slothful, but be of good courage and strengthen thy house. For even as the smith, by smiting his work with the hammer, accomplishes the thing that he wishes, so shall the daily word of righteousness overcome all iniquity. Fail not, therefore, to rebuke thy children, for I know that if they will repent with all their heart, they will be written in the book of life, together with the saints.’
"After these words of hers were ended, she said unto me: ’Dost thou wish to hear me read?’ I said unto her: ’Yea, Lady, I do wish it.’ She said unto me: ’Be thou a hearer, and listen to the glories of God.’ Then I heard, after a great and wonderful fashion, that which my memory was unable to retain; for all the words were terrible, and beyond man’s power to bear. The last words, however, I remembered; for they were profitable for us, and gentle: ’Behold the God of power, who by his invisible strength, and His great wisdom, has created the world, and by His magnificent counsel hath crowned His creation with glory, and by His mighty word has fixed the heaven, and founded the earth upon the waters, and by His own wisdom and foresight has formed His holy church, which He has also blessed! Behold, He removes the heavens from their places, and the mountains, and the hills, and the stars, and everything becomes smooth before His elect, that He may give unto them the blessing which He promised them with great glory and joy, if only they shall keep with firm faith the laws of God which they have received.’
4. "When, therefore, she had ended her reading, and had risen up from the chair, there came four young men, and took up the chair, and departed towards the east. Then she called me, and touched my breast, and said unto me: ’Hast thou been pleased with my reading?’ And I said unto her: ’Lady, these last things pleased me; but the former were hard and harsh.’ But she spake unto me, saying: ’These last are for the righteous; but the former are for the heathen and the apostates." While she was yet speaking with me, there appeared two men, and they took her up in their arms and departed unto the east, whither also the chair had gone. And she departed joyfully; and as she departed, she said: ’Be of good courage, O Hermas!’
III. The theology of
Hermas is ethical and practical. He is free from speculative opinions
and Ignorant of theological technicalities. He views Christianity as a
new law and lays chief stress on practice. Herein he resembles James,
but he ignores the "liberty" by which James distinguishes the "perfect"
Christian law from the imperfect old law of bondage. He teaches not
only the merit, but the supererogatory merit of good works and the
sin-atoning virtue of martyrdom. He knows little or nothing of the
gospel, never mentions the word, and has no idea of justifying faith,
although he makes faith the chief virtue and the mother of virtues. He
dwells on man’s duty and performance more than on
God’s gracious promises and saving deeds. In a word,
his Christianity is thoroughly legalistic and ascetic, and further off
from the evangelical spirit than any other book of the apostolic
fathers. Christ is nowhere named, nor his example held up for imitation
(which is the true conception of Christian life); yet he appears as
"the Son of God, and is represented as pre-existent and strictly
divine. In the
Visions and Mandates the person of the Redeemer is mentioned only three
times; in the Similitudes Hermas speaks repeatedly of the "Son of God."
and seems to identify his pre-existent divine nature with the Holy
Spirit. Sim. I X. 1 τό πνεῦμα
τό ἅγιον...
ὁ θεὸς τοῦ
θεοῦ
ἐστίν. But a passage
in a parable must not be pressed and it is differently explained. Comp.
Hilgenfeld, Ap. Väter, 166 sq., Harnack’s
notes on Sim. V. 5 and IX. 1; the different view of Zahn, 139 sqq. and
245 sqq., and especially Link’s monograph quoted above
(p. 680).
But this meagre view of Christianity, far from
being heretical or schismatic, is closely connected with catholic
orthodoxy as far as we can judge from hints and figures. Hermas stood
in close normal relation to the Roman congregation (either under
Clement or Pius), and has an exalted view of the "holy church," as he
calls the church universal. He represents her as the first creature of
God for which the world was made, as old and ever growing younger; yet
he distinguishes this ideal church from the real and represents the
latter as corrupt. He may have inferred this conception in part from
the Epistle to the Ephesians, the only one of Paul’s
writings with which he shows himself familiar. He requires
water-baptism as indispensable to salvation, even for the pious Jews of
the old dispensation, who received it from the apostles in Hades. This is the
natural interpretation of the carious passage Simil. IX. 16: These
apostles and teachers who preached the name of the Son of God, after
having fallen asleep in the power and faith of the Son of God, preached
to those also who were asleep and gave to them the seal of preaching.
They descended therefore into the water with them and again ascended
(κατέβησαν
οὖν μετ’
αὐτῶν εἰς
τὸ ὕδωρ
καὶ πάλιν
ἀνέβησαν).
But these descended alive and again ascended alive; but those who had
fallen asleep before descended dead (νεκροί)
and ascended alive (ξῶντες)."This
imaginary post-mortem baptism is derived from the preaching of Christ
in Hades,
Much of the theology of Hermas is drawn from the
Jewish apocalyptic writings of pseudo-Enoch, pseudo-Esdras, and the
lost Book of Eldad and Medad. The last is
expressly quoted in the Second Vision.
It is confusing and misleading to judge Hermas
from the apostolic conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. As is done
by, the Tübingen School, but without unanimity. Schwegler,
and, with qualifications, Hilgenfeld and Lipsius represent Hermas as an
Ebionite, while Ritschl on the contrary assigns him to the school of
Paul. There is no trace whatever in Hermas of the essential features of
Ebionism circumcision, the sabbath, the antipathy to Paul;-nor on the
other hand of an understanding of the specific doctrines of Paul.
Uhlhorn his the point )l.c. p. 13): "Hermas ist ein Glied der damaligen orthodoxen Kirche, und seine
Auffassung der christlichen Lehre die eines einfachen Gemeindegliedes
one be stimmte Ausprägung irgend eines
Parteicharakters."
IV. Relation to the
Scriptures. Hermas is the only one of the apostolic fathers who
abstains from quoting the Old Testament Scriptures and the words of our
Lord. This absence is due in part to the prophetic character of the
Shepherd, for prophecy is its own warrant, and speaks with divine
authority. There are, however, indications that he knew several books
of the New Testament, especially the Gospel of Mark, the Epistle of
James, and the Epistle to the Ephesians. The name of Paul is nowhere
mentioned, but neither are the other apostles. It is wrong, therefore,
to infer from this silence an anti-Pauline tendency. See the list
of Scripture allusions of Hermas in Gebhardt’s ed. p.
272-274; in Funk’s ed. I. 575-578; Hilgenfeld, Die Ap.
Väter, 182-184; Zahn, Hermae Pastore N. T.
illustratus, Gött. 1867; and D. Hirt d. H. 391-482. Zahn
discovers considerable familiarity of H. with the N. T. writings. On
the relation of Hermas to John see Holtzmann, in
Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch.
Theol." 1875, p. 40 sqq.
V. Relation to Montanism.
The assertion of the prophetic gift and the disciplinarian rigorism
Hermas shares with the Montanists; but they arose half a century later,
and there is no historic connection. Moreover his zeal for discipline
does not run into schismatic excess. He makes remission and absolution
after baptism difficult, but not impossible; he ascribes extra merit to
celibacy and seems to have regretted his own unhappy marriage, but he
allows second marriage as well as second repentance, at least till the
return of the Lord which, with Barnabas, he supposes to be near at
hand. Hence
VI. Authorship and time of
composition. Five opinions are possible. (a) The author was the
friend of Paul to whom he sends greetings in So
Gaâb, Zahn, Caspari, Alzog, Salmon (in "Dict. of Chr. Biog.
II. 912 sqq.). "Pastorem
vero nuperrime temporibus nostris in urbe Roma Herma (Hermas)
conscripsit, sedente, [in] cathedra urbis Romae ecclesiae Pio episcopo,
fratre ejus. Et ideo legi cum quidem opportet, se[d] publicare vero in
ecclesia populo neque inter prophetas completum [read: completos]
numero, neque inter apostolos, in finem temporum potest." The same view
is set forth in a poem of pseudo- Post hunc [Hyginus] deinde Pius, Hermas, cui germine
frater, Angelicus Pastor, qui tradita verba locutus." It is also contained in the Liberian Catalogue of
Roman bishops (A. D. 354), and advocated by Mosheim,
Schröckh, Credner, Hefele, Lipsius, Ritschl, Heyne, v.
Gebhardt, Harnack, Brüll, Funk, Uhlhorn,
Baumgärtner. Others assume that the brother of Pius was the
author, but simulated an elder Hermas. Hilgenfeld
desIgnates these authors H. a=Hermas apocalypticus H. P.=Hermas
pastoralis H. s.=Hermas secundarius. See Prol. p. XXI. sq. Thiersch,
Count de Champagny (Les Antonins, ed. III 1875, T. I, p. 144) and
Guéranger likewise assumed more than one author. But the
book is a unit. Comp. Harnack versus Hilgenfeld in the "Theol."
Literatur-Zeitung" for 1882, f. 249 sqq., Link, Baumgärtner,
Lambros, quoted above.
We adopt the second view, which may be combined
with the first. The author calls himself Hermas and professes to be a
contemporary of the Roman Clement, who was to send his book to foreign
churches. In Vis. II.
4 Hermas receives the command to write "two books and to send one to
Clement and one to Grapte; " and Clement was to send the books to
foreign cities (εἰς τὰς
ἔξω
πόλεις). This seems
to imply that he was the well known bishop of Rome. Grapte was a
deaconess, having charge of widows and orphans. The opinion of
We further learn from the author that he was a
rather unfortunate husband and the father of bad children, who had lost
his wealth in trade through his own sins and those of his neglected
sons but who awoke to repentance and now came forward himself, as a
plain preacher of righteousness, though without any official position,
and apparently a mere layman. He is told
in the Second Vision, ch. 2: "Your seed, Hermas, has sinned against
God, and they have blasphemed against the Lord, and in their great
wickedness they, have betrayed their parents ... and their iniquities
have been filled up. But make known these words to all your children,
and to your wife who is to be your sister. For she does not restrain
her tongue, with which she commits iniquity; but on hearing these words
she will control herself, and will obtain mercy." The words "who is to
be your sister" probably refer to future continence or separation.
Tillemont and Hefele regard Hermas as a presbyter, but Fleury,
Hilgenfeld, Thiersch, Zahn, Uhlhorn and Salmon as a layman. He always
speaks of presbyters as if he were not one of them, and severely
censures the Roman clergy. Zahn infers
from the Jewish Greek idiom of Hermas that he grew up in Jewish circles
and was perhaps acquainted with the Hebrew language. On the other hand
Harnack supposes (Notes on Vis. I. 1) that Hermas was descended from
Christian parents, else he would not have omitted to inform us of his
conversion in the house of Rhoda. Hilgenfeld (p. 138) makes Hermas a
Jew, but his master, who sold him, a Gentile. Robinson conjectures that
he was a Greek slave )Sim. IX.) and wrote reminiscences of his
youth.
The book was probably written at the close of the
first or early in the second century. It shows no trace of a
hierarchical organization, and assumes the identity of presbyters and
bishops; even The church
officers appear as a plurality of πρεσβύτεροι,
or seniores, or praesides, of equal rank, but
VII. Authority and value. No product of post-apostolic literature has
undergone a greater change in public esteem. The Shepherd was a book
for the times, but not for all times. To the Christians of the second
and third century it had all the charm of a novel from the
spirit-world, or as Bunyan’s
Pilgrims’ Progress has at the present day. It was even
read in public worship down to the time of Adv. Haer.
IV. 20, § 2: εἶπεν ἡ
γραφὴ ἡ
λέγουσα. Then
follows a quotation from Mand. I. 1: "First of all believe that there
is one God who created and prepared and made all things out of
nothing." Possibly the wrong reference was a slip of memory in view of
familiar passages, See the
quotations from Clement of Alex. and
In the Latin church where it originated, it never
rose to such high authority. The Muratorian canon regards it as
apocryphal, and remarks that "it should be read, In private
only, or in the church? The passage is obscure and disputed. On account
of this comparative mildness (Mand. IV., 1), Jerome calls
the Shepherd "revera utilis liber." which was publicly read in certain
churches of Greece, and quoted by many ancient writers as an authority,
but "almost unknown among the Latins" (apud Latinos’
paene Ignotus). Op. II. 846. In another passage, Op. VI. 604, he
condemns the view of the angelic supervision of animals (Vis. IV.
2).
Note.
The Pastor Hermae has long ceased to be read for devotion or entertainment. We add some modern opinions. Mosheim (who must have read it very superficially) pronounced the talk of the heavenly spirits in Hermas to be more stupid and insipid than that of the barbers of his day, and concluded that he was either a fool or an impostor. The great historian Niebuhr, as reported by Bunsen, used to say that he pitied the Athenian [why not the Roman?] Christians who were obliged to listen to the reader of such a book in the church. Bunsen himself pronounces it "a well-meant but silly romance."
On the other hand, some Irvingite scholars, Dr. Thiersch and Mr. Gaâb, have revived the old belief in a supernatural foundation for the visions, as having been really seen and recorded in the church of Rome during the apostolic age, but afterwards modified and mingled with errors by the compiler under Pius. Gaâb thinks that Hermas was gifted with the power of vision, and inspired in the same sense as Swedenborg.
Westcott ascribes "the highest value" to the Shepherd, "as showing in what way Christianity was endangered by the influence of Jewish principles as distinguished from Jewish forms." Hist. of the Canon of the N. T p. 173 (second ed.)
Donaldson (a liberal Scotch Presbyterian) thinks that the Shepherd "ought to derive a peculiar interest from its being the first work extant, the main effort of which is to direct the soul to God. The other religious books relate to internal workings in the church—this alone specially deals with the great change requisite to living to God .... Its creed is a very short and simple one. Its great object is to exhibit the morality implied in conversion, and it is well calculated to awaken a true sense of the spiritual foes that are ever ready to assail him." (Ap. Fath., p. 339). But he also remarks (p. 336) that "nothing would more completely show the immense difference between ancient Christian feeling and modern, than the respect in which ancient, and a large number of modern Christians hold this work."
George A. Jackson (an American Congregationalist) judges even more favorably (Ap. Fath., 1879, p. 15): Reading the ’Shepherd,’ and remembering that it appeared in the midst of a society differing little from that satirized by Juvenal, we no longer wonder at the esteem in which it was held by the early Christians, but we almost join with them in calling it an inspired book."
Mr. Hoole, of Oxford, agrees with the judgment of
Dr. Salmon, of Dublin, compares Hermas with Savonarola, who sincerely believed: (a) that the church of his time was corrupt and worldly; (b) that a time of great tribulation was at hand, in which the dross should be purged away; (c) that there was still an intervening time for repentance; (d) that he himself was divinely commissioned to be a preacher of that repentance.
§ 169. Papias.
(I.) The fragments of Papias collected in Routh: Reliquiae, Sacrae, ed. II., Oxf., 1846, vol. I., 3–16. Von Gebhardt and Harnack: Patres Apost., Appendix: Papice Fragmenta, I., 180–196. English translation in Roberts and Donaldson. "Ante-Nicene Library." I., 441–448.
Passages on Papias in
(II.) Separate articles on Papias, mostly connected with the Gospel question, by Schleiermacher (on his testimonies concerning Matthew and Mark in the "Studien und Kritiken" for l832, p. 735); Th. Zahn (ibid. 1866, No. IV. p. 649 sqq.); G. E. Steitz (in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1868, No. 1. 63–95, and art. Papias in Herzog’s Encyc." ed. I. vol. XI., 78–86; revised by Leimbach in ed. II. vol. XI. 194–206); James Donaldson (The Apost. Fathers 1874, p. 393–402); Bishop Lightfoot (in the "Contemporary Review" for Aug., 1875, pp. 377–403; a careful examination of the testimonies of Papias concerning the Gospels of Mark and Matthew against the misstatements in "Supernatural Religion"); Leimbach (Das Papiasfragment, 1875) Weiffenbach Das Papiasfragment, 1874 and 1878); Hilgefeld ("Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theol." 1875, 239 sqq.); Ludemann (Zur Erklärunq des Papiasfragments, in the "Jahrbücher für protest. Theol.," 1879, p. 365 sqq.); H. Holtzmann (Papias und Johannes, in Hilgenfeld’s "Zeitschrift für wissensch. Theologie," 1880, pp. 64–77). Comp. also Westcott on the Canon of the N. T., p. 59–68.
See notes at
the end of this section.
Papias was a pious, devout and learned student of
the Scriptures, and a faithful traditionist, though somewhat credulous
and of limited comprehension. παρὰ
ζώσης
φωνῆς καὶ
μενούσης
Eus. III. 39 (Heinichen, 1. 148). Λογίων
κυρισκῶν
ἐξήγησις,
Explanatio sermonum Domini. The word ἐξήγησις
here no doubt means interpretation of some already existing gospel
record, since Anastasius of Sinai (d. 599) classes Papias among
Biblical exegetes or interpreters. He probably took as his text the
canonical Gospels, and gave his own comments on the
Lord’s Discourses therein contained, together with
additional sayings which he had derived, directly or indirectly, from
personal disciples of Christ. Although this work has disappeared for
several centuries, it may possibly yet be recovered either in the
original, or in a Syriac or Armenian version. The work was still extant
in 1218 in the MSS. collection of the church at Nismes, according to
Gallandi and Pitra. It is also mentioned thrice in the Catalogue of the
Library of the Benedictine Monastery of Christ Church, Canterbury,
contained in the Cottonian MS. of the thirteenth or fourteenth
centurvy. Donaldson, p. 402. On the meaning of λόγια see Vol. I.
622 sq.
Unfortunately this book, which still existed in
the thirteenth century, is lost with the exception of valuable and
interesting fragments preserved chiefly by See vol. I.
p. 622, 633 sq. The plural
(ἐπὶ
πολλαῖς
ἁμαρτίαις,
H. E. III. 39) is no argument against the conjecture. Cod. D reads
ἁμαρτίᾳ
instead of μοχείᾳin
See above,
§158, p. 616. Card. Pitra, in the first vol. of his
Spicileg. Solesm., communicates a similar fragment, but this is, as the
title and opening words intimate, a translation of
Papias proves the great value which was attached to the oral traditions of the apostles and their disciples in the second century. He stood on the threshold of a new period when the last witnesses of the apostolic age were fast disappearing, and when it seemed to be of the utmost importance to gather the remaining fragments of inspired wisdom which might throw light on the Lord’s teaching, and guard the church against error.
But he is also an important witness to the state
of the canon before the middle of the second century. He knew the first
two Gospels, and in all probability also the Gospel of John, for he
quoted, as A mediaeval
tradition assigns to Papias an account of the origin, and even a part
in the composition, of the Gospel of John as his amanuensis. So a note
prefixed to John’s Gospel in a MS. of the ninth
century, rediscovered by Pitra and Tischendorf in 1866 in the Vatican
library. The note is, in Tischendorf’s opinion, older
than Jerome, and is as follows: "Evangelium johannis manifestatum et
datum est ecclesiis ab johanne adhuc in corpore constituto, sicut
papias nomine hierapolitanus discipulus johannis carus in exotericis
[exegeticis], id est in extremis, quinque libras retulit. Discripsit
vero evangeliumdictante johanne recte." etc. The last sentence is
probably a mistaken translation of the Greek. See Lightfoot in the
"Contemp. Rev. ." Oct. 1875, p. 854; Charteris, Canonicity, p. 168.
Another testimony is found in a fragment of a Greek commentator
Proaemium of the Catena Patrum Graecorum in S. Johannem, ed. by
Corderius. Antwerp, 1630, according to which John dictated his Gospel
to Papias of Hierapolis. See Papiae Frag. in Gebh. and
Harn’s ed. p. 194. This tradition is discredited by
the silence of Andreas of
Caesarea, In
Notes.
The relation of Papias to the Apostle John is
still a disputed point.
On the other hand,
In any case, it is certainly possible that Papias,
like his friend
§ 170. The Epistle to Diognetus.
Editions.
Epistola Ad Diognetum, ed. Otto (with Lat. transl., introduction and critical notes), ed. II. Lips. 1852.
In the Leipz. edition of the Apost. Fathers, by O. v. Gebhardt and Ad Harnack, I. 216–226; in the Tübingen ed. of Hefele-Funk, I. pp 310–333.
W. A. Hollenberg: Der Brief an Diognet. Berl. 1853.
E. M. Krenkel: Epistola, ad Diogn. Lips. 1860.
English translation: in Kitto’s "Journal of S. Lit." 1852, and in vol. I of the "Ante-Nicene Library." Edinb. 1867.
French versions by P. le Gras, Paris 1725; M. de Genoude, 1838; A. Kayser, 1856.
Discussions.
Otto: De Ep. ad Diognetum. 1852.
A. Kayser: La Lettre à Diognète 1856 (in "Révue de Théologie ").
G. J. Snoeck: Specimen theologicum exhibens introductionem in Epistolan ad Diogn. Lugd. Bat. 1861.
Donaldson: A Critical Hist. of Christian Liter., etc. Lond., 1866, II 126 sqq. He was inclined to assume that Henry Stephens, the first editor, manufactured the Ep., but gave up the strange hypothesis, which was afterwards reasserted by Cotterill in his Peregrinus Proteus, 1879.
Franz Overbeck: Ueber den pseudo-justinischen Brief an Diognet. Basel 1872. And again with additions in his Studien zur Geschichte der alten Kirche (Schloss-Chemnitz, 1875), p. 1–92. He represents the Ep. (like Donaldson) as a post-Constantinian fiction, but has been refuted by Hilgenfeld, Keim, Lipsius, and Dräseke.
Joh. Dräseke: Der Brief an Diognetos. Leipz.
1881 (207 pp.). Against Overbeck and Donaldson. The Ep. was known and
used by
Heinr. Kihn (R.C.): Der Ursprung des Briefes an Diognet. Freiburg i. B. 1882 (XV. and 168 pages).
Semisch: art. Diognet, in Herzog2 III. 611–615 (and in his Justin der Märt., 1840, vol. I. 172 sqq.); Schaff, in McClintock and Strong, III. 807 sq., and Birks, in Smith and Wace, II. 162–167.
The Ep. to D. has also been discussed by Neander, Hefele, Credner, Möhler, Bunsen, Ewald, Dorner, Hilgenfeld, Lechler, Baur, Harnack, Zahn, Funk, Lipsius, Keim (especially in Rom und das Christhum, 460–468).
1. The short but precious document called the Epistle to Diognetus was unknown in Christian
literature Not even
ΙΟΥΣΤΙΝΟΥ
ΤΟΨ
φιλοσόφου
καὶ
μάρτυροσ
Ἐπιστολὴ
πρὸς
Διόγνητον,
καὶ Λόγος
πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας.
lustini Philosophi et Martyris Ep. ad Diognetum, et Oratio ad Graecos,
nunc primum luce et latinitate donatae ab Henrico Stephano. Eiusdem
Henr. Stephani annotationibus additum est Io. lacobi Beureri de
quorundam locorum partim interpretatione partim emendations iudicium.
"Epistulae
ad Diognetum unum tantummodo exemplar antiquius ad nostram usque
pervenit memoriam: codicem dico loannis Reuchlini quondam, postea
Argentoratensem, qui misero illo incendio die nono ante Calendas
Septembres anni MDCCCLXX cum tot aliis libris pretiosis in ciner es
dilapsus est." Von Gebhardt and Harnack, p. 205. They assert, p. 208,
that the copies of Stephens and Beurer were taken from the Cod. of
Strassburg. Otto (Prol. p. 3) speaks of tres codices, Argentoratensis,
apographon Stephani, apoqraphon Beureri."
Yet this most obscure writer of the second century is at the same time the most brilliant; and while his name remains unknown to this day, he shed lustre on the Christian name in times when it was assailed and blasphemed from Jew and Gentile, and could only be professed at the risk of life. He must be ranked with the "great unknown" authors of Job and the Epistle to the Hebrews, who are known only to God.
2. Diognetius was an
inquiring heathen of high social position and culture, who desired
information concerning the origin and nature of the religion of the
Christians, and the secret of their contempt of the world, their
courage in death, their brotherly love, and the reason of the late
origin of this new fashion, so different from the gods of the Greeks
and the superstition of the Jews. A Stoic philosopher of this name
instructed Comp. Ep. ad
Diog., c. 1, with Marcus Aur. Medit., IX. 3 (his only allusion to
Christianity, quoted p. 329).
3. The Epistle before us
is an answer to the questions of this noble heathen. It is a brief but
masterly vindication of Christian life and doctrine from actual
experience. It is evidently the product of a man of genius, fine taste
and classical culture. It excels in fresh enthusiasm of faith, richness
of thought, and elegance of style, and is altogether one of the most
beautiful memorials of Christian antiquity, unsurpassed and hardly
equalled by any genuine work of the Apostolic Fathers. Ewald (Geschichte des Volkes
Israel, Bd. VII. p. 150) places it first among all
the early Christian epistles which were not received into the N. T.,
and says that it combines perfectly "the fulness and art of Greek
eloquence with the purest love of truth, and the ease and grace of
words with the elevating seriousness of tlle Christian." Bunsen:
"Indisputably, after Scripture, the finest monument of sound Christian
feeling, noble courage, and manly eloquence." Semisch (in Herzog) calls
it "ein Kleinod des christl.
Alterthums, welchem in Geist und Fassung kaum ein zweites Schriftwerk
der nachapostolishen Zeit gleichsteht." Keim (Rom und das
Christenthum, p. 463 sq.) calIs it "das lieblichste, ja ein fast zauberhaftes Wort
des zweiten Jahrhunders." and eloquently praises
"die reine, klassische Sprache,
den schönen, korrekten Satzbau, die rhetorische Frische, die
schlagenden Antithesen, den geistreichen Ausdruck, die logische
Abrundung ... die unmittelbare, liebswarme, begeisterte, wenn schon mit
Bildung durchsättigte
Frömmigkeit."
4. Contents. The document
consists of twelve chapters. It opens with an address to Diognetus who
is described as exceedingly desirous to learn the Christian doctrine
and mode of worship in distinction from that of the Greeks and the
Jews. The writer, rejoicing in this opportunity to lead a Gentile
friend to the path of truth, exposes first the vanity of idols (ch. 2),
then the superstitions of the Jews (ch. 3, 4); after this he gives by
contrasts a striking and truthful picture of Christian life which moves
in this world like the invisible, immortal soul in the visible,
perishing body (ch. 5 and 6), Quoted
above, § 2, p. 9. See above,
§ 153, p. 587.
The Epistle to Diognetus forms the transition from
the purely practical literature of the Apostolic Fathers to the
reflective theology of the Apologists. It still glows with the ardor of
the first love. It is strongly Pauline. "As if no
less a person than Paul himself had returned to life for that age."
Ewald, vii. 149.
5. Authorship and Time of composition. The author calls himself "a
disciple of the Apostles," Ἀποστόλων
γενόμενος
μαθητής ch.
11. The
Justinian authorship is defended by Cave, Fabricius, and Otto, but
refuted by Semisch, Hefele, Keim, and others.
Some assign the Epistle to an earlier date under
Trajan or Hadrian, Tillemont
and Möhler to the first century, Hefele and Ewald to the
reign of Hadrian (120-130). Westcott (Can. N. T. p. 76): Not before
Trajan, and not much later; everything betokens an early age. So Keim, who
suggests the bloody year 177. So
Hilgenfeld, Lipsius, Gass, Zahn, Dräseke (under Septimus
Severus, between 193-211). Overbeck’s hypothesis of a
post-Constantinian date is exploded. Justin M.
(the MS. tradition); Marcion before his secession from the
church(Bunsen); Quadratus Dorner); Apelles, the Gnostic in his old age
(Dräseke, p. 141). The writer of the art. in Smith and Wace,
II. 162, identifies the author with one Ambrosius, "a chief man of
Greece who became a Christian, and all his fellow councillors raised a
clamor against him." and refers to Cureton’s Spicil.
Syriacum, p. 61-69. The Stephanie hypothesis of and Cotterill is a
literary and moral impossibility.
§ 171.
Enchiridion SIXTI philosophi Pythagorici, first ed. by Symphor. Champerius, Lugd. 1507 (under the title: Sixtii Xysti Anulus); again at Wittenberg with the Carmina aurea of Pythagoras, 1514; by Beatus Rhenanus, Bas. 1516; in the "Maxima Bibliotheca Vet. Patrum." Lugd. 1677, Tom. III. 335–339 (under the title Xysti vel Sexti Pythagorici philosophi ethnici Sententicae, interprete Rufino Presbytero Aquilejensi); by U. G. Siber, Lips. 1725 (under the name of Sixtus II. instead of Sixtus I.); and by Gildemeister (Gr., Lat. and Syr.),Bonn 1873.
A Syriac Version in P. Lagardii Analecta Syriaca, Lips. and Lond. 1858 (p. 1–31, only the Syriac text, derived from seven MSS. of the Brit. Museum, the oldest before a.d. 553, but mutilated).
The book is discussed in the "Max. Bibl." l.
c.; by Fontaninus: Historia liter.
Aquilejensis (
Xystus, or as the Romans spelled the name, See
specimens in the Notes.
See the
references in the Biblioth. Max. III. 525; and in Fontanini and
Fabricius, l. c. Neander,
Gieseler, Baur, Donaldson, and others do not even mention the book. Geschichte Israels, vol.
VII. p. 322. Compare his review of Lagardii Analecta Syriaca in the
"Göttingen Gel. Anzeigen." 1859, p. 261-269. Both Ewald and
P. de Lagarde, his successor, characteristically ignore all previous
editions and discussions.
Notes.
The following is a selection of the most important of the 430 Sentences of Xystus from the Bibliotheca Maxima Veterum Patrum, Tom. III. 335–339. We add some Scripture parallels:
"1. Fidelis homo, electus homo est. 2. Electus homo, homo Dei est. 3. Homo Dei est, qui Deo dIgnus est. 4. Deo dIgnus est, qui nihil indigne agit. 5. Dubius in fide, infidelis est. 6. Infidelis homo, mortuus est corpore vivente. 7. Vere fidelis est, qui non peccat, atque etiam, in minimis caute agit. 8. Non est minimum in humana vita, negligere minima. 9. Omne peccatum impietatem puta. Non enim manus, vel oculus peccat, vel aliquod huiusmodi membrum, sed male uti manu vel oculo, peccatum est. 10. Omne membrum corporis, quod invitat te contra pudicitiam agere, abjiciendum est.
Melius est uno membro vivere, quam cum duobus
puniri [Comp.
"15. Sapiens vir, et pecuniae contemptor, similis
est Deo. 16. Rebus mundanis in causis tantum necessariis utere. 17.
Quae mundi sunt, mundo et quae Dei sunt, reddantur Deo [Comp.
"28. Quaecumque fecit Deus, pro hominibus ea
fecit. 29. Angelus minister est Dei ad hominem. 30. Tam pretiosus est
homo apud Deum, quam angelus. 31. Primus beneficus est Deus: secundus
est is, qui beneficii eius fit particeps homo. Vive igitur ita, tanquam
qui sis secundus post Deum, et electus ab eo. 32. Habes, inquam, in te
aliquid simile Dei, et ideo utere teipso velut templo Dei, propter
illud quod te simile est Dei [
"40. Templum sanctum est Deo mens pii, et altare est optimum ei cor mundum et sine peccato. 41. Hostia soli Deo acceptabilis, benefacere hominibus pro Deo. 42. Deo gratiam praestat homo, qui quantum possibile est vivit secundum Deum ....
"47. Omne tempus, quo Deo non cogitas, hoc puta
te perdidisse. 48. Corpus quidem tuum incedat in terra, anima autem
semper sit apud Deum. 49. Intellige quae, sint bona, ut bene agas. 50.
Bona cogitatio hominis Deum non latet et ideo cogitatio tua pura sit ab
omni malo. 51. Dignus esto eo, qui te dignatus est filium dicere, et
age omnia ut filius Dei. 52. Quod Deum patrem vocas, huius in
actionibus tuis memor esto. 53. Vir castus et sine peccato, potestatem
accepit a Deo esse filius Dei [Comp.
78. Fundamentum pietatis est continentia: culmen
autem pietatis amor Dei. 79. Pium hominem habeto tamquam teipsum. 80.
Opta tibi evenire non quod vis, sed quod expedit. 81. Qualem vis esse
proximum tuum tibi, talis esto et tu tais proximis [
"86. Si quid non vis scire Deum, istud nec agas, nec cogites, 87. Priusquam agas quodcunque agis, cogita Deum, ut lux eius paecedat actus tuos ... .
"96. Deus in bonis actibus hominibus dux est. 97.
Neminem inimicum deputes. 98. Dilige omne quod eiusdem tecum naturae
est, Deum vero plus quam animam dilige. 99. Pessimum est peccatoribus,
in unum convenire cum peccant. 100. Multi cibi impediunt castitatem, et
incontinentia ciborum immundum facit hominem. 101. Animantium omnium
usus quidem in cibis indifferens, abstinere vero rationabilius est.
102. Non cibi per os inferuntur polluunt hominem, sed ea quae ex malis
actibus proferuntur [
"106. Mali nullius autor est Deus. 107. Non amplius possideas quam usus corporis poscit ....
"115. Ratio quae in te est, vitae,
tuâe lux est [
"122. Nil pretiosum ducas, quod auferre a te possit homo malus. 123. Hoc solum bonum putato, quod Deo dignum est. 124. Quod Deo dignum est, hoc et viro bono. 125. Quicquid non convenit ad beatudinem Dei. non conveniat nomini Dei. 126. Ea debes velle, quae et Deus vult. 127. Filius Dei est, qui haec sola pretiosa ducit quae et Deus. 139. Semper apud Deum mens est sapientIs. 137. Sapientis mentem Deus inhabitat ....
"181. Sapiens vir etiamsi nudus sit, sapiens apud
te habeatur. 182. Neminem propterea magni aestimes, quod pecunia
divitiisque abundet. 183. Difficile est divitem salvari [
"187. Age magna, non magna pollicens. 188. Non eris sapiens, si te reputaveris sapientem. 189. Non potest bene vivere qui non integre credit. 190. In tribulationibus quis sit fidelis, agnoscitur. 191. Finem vitae existima vivere secundum Deum. 192. Nihil putes malum, quod non sit turpe ... .
"198. Malitia est aegritudo animae. 199. Animae autem mors iniustitia et impietas. 200. Tunc te putato fidelem, cum passionibus animae carueris. 201. Omnibus hominibus ita utere, quasi communis omnium post Deum curator. 202. Qui hominibus male utitur, seipso male utitur. 203. Qui nihil mali vult, fidelis est ....
"214. Verba tua pietate semper plena sint. 215. In actibus tuis ante oculos pone Deum. 216. Nefas est Deum patrem invocare, et aliquid inhonestum agere ....
"261. Ebrietatem quasi insaniam fuge. 262. Homo qui a ventre vincitur, belluae similis est. 263. Ex carne nihil oritur bonum ....
"302. Omne quod malum est, Deo inimicum est. 303. Qui sapit in te, hunc dicito esse hominem. 304. Particeps Dei est vir sapiens. 305. Ubi est quod sapit in te, ibi est et bonum tuum. 306. Bonum in carne non quaeras. 307. Quod animae non nocet, nec homini. 308. Sapientem hominem tanquam Dei ministrum honora post Deum ....
"390. Quaecunque dat mundus, nemo firmiter tenet. 391. Quaecumque dat Deus nemo auferre potest. 392. Divina sapientia vera est scientia ....
"403. Animae ascensus ad Deum per Dei verbum est. 404. Sapiens sequitur Deum, et Deus animam sapientis. 405. Gaudet rex super his quos regit, gaudet ergo Deus super sapiente. Inseparabilis est et ab his quos regit ille, qui regit, ita ergo et Deus ab anima sapientis quam tuetur et regit. 406. Reqitur a Deo vir sapiens, et idcirco beatus est ... .
"424. Si non diligis Deum, non ibis ad Deum. 425. Consuesce teipsum semper respicere ad Deum. 426. Intuendo Deum videbis Deum. 427. Videns Deum facies mentem tuam qualis est Deus. 428. Excole quod intra te est, nec ei ex libidine corporis contumeliam facias. 429. Incontaminatum custodi corpus tuum, tanquam si indumentum acceperis à Deo, et sicut vestimentum corporis immaculatum servare stude. 430. Sapiens mens speculam est Dei."
§ 172. The Apologists. Quadratus and Aristides.
On the Apologetic Lit. in general, see § 28, p. 85 sq., and § 37, p. 104.
We now proceed to that series of ecclesiastical
authors who, from the character and name of their chief writings are
called Apologists. They flourished during the reigns of Hadrian,
Antoninus, and
The earliest of these Apologists are
Hist. Eccl.
IV. 3. The
discovery has called forth a considerable literature which is mentioned
by Harnack, Texte und
Untersuchungen, etc., I., p. 110, note 23. The first
part is the most important. See a French translation by Gautier, in the
"Revue de théol. et de philos., " 1879, p. 78-82; a German
translation by Himpel in the "Tübing. Theol. Quartalschrift,
" 1880, reprinted by Harnack, pp. 111 and 112. The art. Aristides in
the first vol. of Smith and Wace (p. 160) is behind the times.
Bücheler and Renan doubt the genuineness of the document;
Gautier, Baunard, Himpel, Harnack defend it; but Harnack assumes some
interpolation, as the term theotokos, of the Virgin Mary. The Armenian
MS. is dated 981, and the translation seems to have been made from the
Greek in the fifth century. At the time of The
bracketed sentence sounds repetitious and like a post-Nicene
interpolation.
A curious feature in this document is the division of mankind into four parts, Barbarians, Greeks, Jews, and Christians.
Aristo of Pella, a Jewish Christian of the first
half of the second century, was the author of a lost apology of
Christianity against Judaism. See above,
§ 38, p. 107, and l.c. I. 115-130.
§ 173. Justin the Philosopher and Martyr.
Editions of
*Justini Philosophi et Martyris Opera omnia, in the
Corpus Apologetarum Christianorum saeculi secundi, ed. Jo. Car. Th. de
Otto, Jen. 1847, 3d ed. 1876–’81. 5
vols. 8vo. Contains the genuine, the doubtful, and the spurious works
of
Older ed. (mostly incomplete) by Robt. Stephanus, Par., 1551; Sylburg, Heidelb., 1593; Grabe, Oxon., 1700 (only the Apol. I.); Prudent. Maranus, Par., 1742 (the Bened. ed.), republ. at Venice, 1747, and in Migne’s Patrol. Gr. Tom. VI. (Paris, 1857), c. 10–800 and 1102–1680, with additions from Otto. The Apologies were also often published separately, e.g. by Prof B. L. Gildersleeve, N. Y. 1877, with introduction and notes.
On the MSS. of Justin see Otto’s Proleg., p. xx. sqq., and Harnack, Texte. Of the genuine works we have only two, and they are corrupt, one in Paris, the other in Cheltenham, in possession of Rev. F. A. Fenwick (see Otto, p. xxiv.).
English translation in the Oxford "Library of the Fathers," Lond., 1861, and another by G. J. Davie in the "Ante-Nicene Library," Edinb. Vol. II., 1867 (465 pages), containing the Apologies, the Address to the Greeks, the Exhortation, and the Martyrium, translated by M. Dods; the Dialogue with Trypho, and On the Sole Government of God, trsl. by G. Reith; and also the writings of Athenagoras, trsl. by B. P. Pratten. Older translations by Wm. Reeves, 1709, Henry Brown, 1755, and J. Chevallier, 1833 (ed. II., 1851). On German and other versions see Otto, Prol. LX. sqq.
Works on
Bp. Kaye: Some Account of the Writings and Opinions
of
C. A. Credner: Beiträge zur Einleitung in die bibl. Schriften. Halle, vol. I., 1832 (92–267); also in Vol. II., 1838 (on the quotations from the O. T., p. 17–98; 104–133; 157–311). Credner discusses with exhaustive learning Justin’s relation to the Gospels and the Canon of the N. T., and his quotations from the Septuagint. Comp. also his Geschichte des N. T Canon, ed. by Volkmar, 1860.
*C. Semisch: Justin der Märtyrer. Breslau, 1840 and 1842, 2 vols. Very thorough and complete up to date of publication. English translation by Ryland, Edinb., 1844, 2 vols. Comp. Semisch: Die apostol. Denkwürdigkeiten des Just. M. (Hamb. and Gotha, 1848), and his article Justin in the first ed. of Herzog, VII. (1857), 179–186.
Fr. Böhringer: Die Kirchengesch. in Biographien. Vol. I. Zürich, 1842, ed. II., 1861, p. 97–270.
Ad. Hilgenfeld: Krit. Untersuchungen ueber die Evangelien Justin’s. Halle, 1850. Also: Die Ap. Gesch. u. der M. Just. in his "Zeitschr. f. wiss. Theol.," 1872, p. 495–509, and Ketzergesch., 1884, pp. 21 sqq.
*J. C. Th. Otto: Zur Characteristik des heil. Justinus. Wien, 1852. His art. Justinus der Apologete, in "Ersch and Gruber’s Encyklop." Second Section, 30th part (1853), pp. 39–76. Comp. also his Prolegomena in the third ed. of Justin’s works. He agrees with Semisch in his general estimate of Justin.
C. G. Seibert: Justinus, der Vertheidiger des Christenthums vor dem Thron der Caesaren. Elberf., 1859.
Ch. E. Freppel (R.C. Bp.): Les Apologistes Chrétiens du II.esiècle. Par., 1860.
L. Schaller: Les deux Apologies de Justin M. au point de vie dogmatique. Strasb., 1861.
B. Aubé: De l’apologetique Chrétienne au II.e siècle. Par., 1861; and S. Justin philosophe et martyr, 1875.
E. de Pressensé, in the third vol. of his Histoire des trois premiers siècles, or second vol. of the English version (1870), which treats of Martyrs and Apologists, and his art. in Lichtenberger VII. (1880) 576–583.
Em. Ruggieri: Vita e dottrina di S. Giustino. Rom., 1862.
*J. Donaldson: Hist. of Ante-Nicene Christian Literature. Lond., vol. II. (1866), which treats of Justin M., pp. 62–344.
*C. Weizsäcker: Die Theologie des Märtyrers Justinus in the "Jahrbücher fur Deutsche Theologie. Gotha, 1867 (vol. XII., I. pp. 60–120).
Renan: L’église chrétienne (Par., 1879), ch. XIX., pp. 364–389, and ch. XXV. 480 sqq.
*Moritz von Engelhardt (d. 1881): Das Christenthum Justins des
Märtyrers. Erlangen, 1878. (490 pages, no
index.) With an instructive critical review of the various treatments
of
G. F. Purves: The Testimony of Justin M. to Early Christianity. New York. 1888.
Adolf Stähelin: Justin der Märtyrer und sein neuster Beurtheiler. Leipzig, 1880 (67 pages). A careful review of Engelhardt’s monograph.
Henry Scott Holland: Art. Justinus Martyr, in Smith and Wace III. (1880), 560–587.
Ad. Harnack: Die Werke des Justin, in "Texte und Untersuchungen," etc. Leipz., 1882. I. 130–195.
The relation of Justin to the Gospels is discussed by Credner, Semisch, Hilgenfeld, Norton, Sanday, Westcott, Abbot; his relation to the Acts by Overbeck (1872) and Hilgenfeld; his relation to the Pauline Epistles by H. D. Tjeenk Willink (1868), Alb. Thoma (1875), and v. Engelhardt (1878).
The most eminent among the Greek Apologists of the
second century is Flavius Justinus, surnamed "Philosopher and
Martyr."
I. His Life. Justin was born towards the close of the first century, or in the beginning of the second, in the Graeco-Roman colony of Flavia Neapolis, so called after the emperor Flavius Vespasian, and built near the ruins of Sychem in Samaria (now Nablous). He calls himself a Samaritan, but was of heathen descent, uncircumcised, and ignorant of Moses and the prophets before his conversion. Perhaps he belonged to the Roman colony which Vespasian planted in Samaria after the destruction of Jerusalem. His grandfather’s name was Greek (Bacchius), his father’s (Priscus) and his own, Latin. His education was Hellenic. To judge from his employment of several teachers and his many journeys, he must have had some means, though he no doubt lived in great simplicity and may have been aided by his brethren.
His conversion occurred in his early manhood. He
himself tells us the interesting story. Dial.c.
Tryph. This city
may be Flavia Neapolis, or more probably Ephesus, where the
conversation with Trypho took place, according to
To Apol. II.
12, 13.
After his conversion Justin sought the society of
Christians, and received from them instruction in the history and
doctrine of the gospel. He now devoted himself wholly to the spread and
vindication of the Christian religion. He was an itinerant evangelist
or teaching missionary, with no fixed abode and no regular office in
the church. Tillemont
and Maran (in Migne’s ed. τρίβων,
τριβώνιον,
pallium, a threadbare cloak, adopted by philosophers and afterwards by
monks (the cowl) as an emblem of severe study or austere life, or
both. θιλόσοφε,
Χαῖρε !
He labored last, for the second time, in Rome. Here, at the instigation of a Cynic philosopher, Crescens, whom he had convicted of ignorance about Christianity, Justin, with six other Christians, about the year 166, was scourged and beheaded. Fearlessly and joyfully, as in life, so also in the face of death, he bore witness to the truth before the tribunal of Rusticus, the prefect of the city, refused to sacrifice, and proved by his own example the steadfastness of which he had so often boasted as a characteristic trait of his believing brethren. When asked to explain the mystery of Christ, he replied: "I am too little to say something great of him." His last words were: "We desire nothing more than to suffer for our Lord Jesus Christ; for this gives us salvation and joyfulness before his dreadful judgment seat, at which all the world must appear."
Justin is the first among the fathers who may be
called a learned theologian and Christian thinker. He had acquired
considerable classical and philosophical culture before his conversion,
and then made it subservient to the defense of faith. He was not a man
of genius and accurate scholarship, but of respectable talent,
extensive reading, and enormous memory. He had some original and
profound ideas, as that of the spermatic Logos, and was remarkably
liberal in his judgment of the noble heathen and the milder section of
the Jewish Christians. He lived in times when the profession of Christ
was a crime under the Roman law against secret societies and prohibited
religious. He had the courage of a confessor in life and of a martyr in
death. It is impossible not to admire his fearless devotion to the
cause of truth and the defense of his persecuted brethren. If not a
great man, he was (what is better) an eminently good and useful man,
and worthy of an honored place in "the noble army of martyrs." I add the
estimate of Pressensé (Martyrs and Apologists, p. 251): "The
truth never had a witness more disinterested, more courageous, more
worthy of the hatred of a godless age and of the approval of Heaven.
The largeness of his heart and mind equalled the fervor of his zeal,
and both were based on his Christian charity. Justin derived all his
eloquence from his heart; his natural genius was not of rare order, but
the experiences of his early life, illumined by revelation, became the
source of much fruitful suggestion for himself, and gave to the Church
a heritage of thought which, ripened and developed at Alexandria, was
to become the basis of the great apology of Christianity. If we except
the beautiful doctrine of the Word germinally present in every man,
there was little originality in Justin’s theological
ideas. In exegesis he is subtle, and sometimes puerile; in argument he
flags, but where his heart speaks, he stands forth in all his moral
greatness, and his earnest, generous words are ever quick and telling.
Had he remained a pagan he would have lived unnoted in erudite
mediocrity . Christianity fired and fertilized his genius, and it is
the glowing soul which we chiefly love to trace in all his
writings."
II. Writings. To his oral testimony Justin added extensive literary labors in the field of apologetics and polemics. His pen was incessantly active against all the enemies of Christian truth, Jews, Gentiles, and heretics.
(1) His chief works are apologetic, and still
remain, namely, his two Apologies against the heathen, and his Dialogue
with the Jew Trypho The First or larger Apology (68 chapters) is
addressed to the Emperor Antoninus Pius (137–161) and
his adopted sons, and was probably written about a.d. 147, if not
earlier; the Second or smaller Apology (25 chapters) is a supplement to
the, former, perhaps its conclusion, and belongs to the same reign (not
to that of The year of
composition cannot be fixed with absolute certainty. The First Apology
is addressed "To the Emperor (αὐτοκράτορι)Titus
Aelius Adrianus Antoninus, Pius, Augustus Caesar; and to Verissimus,
his son, philosopher [i.e.
The Dialogue (142 chapters) is more than twice as
large as the two Apologies, and is a vindication of Christianity from
Moses and the prophets against the objections of the Jews. It was
written after the former (which are referred to in ch. 120), but also
in the reign of Antoninus Pius, i.e., before a.d. 161 probably about
a.d. 148. Hort puts
the Dial. between 142 and 148; Volkmar in 155; Keim between 160-164;
Englehardt in 148 or after.
The polemic works, Against all Heresies, and
Against Marcion, are lost. The first is mentioned in the First Apology;
of the second, On these
anti-heretical works see Harnack, Zur Quellenkritik des Gnosticismus (1873),
Lipsius, Die Quellen der
ältesten Letzergeschichte (1875), and
Hilgenfeld, D. Ketzergesch. des
Urchristenthums (1884, p. 21 sqq.).
(2) Doubtful works which bear
Justin’s name, and may have been written by him: An
address To the Greeks; Oratio ad
Graecos λόγος
πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας.
(3) Spurious works attributed to him: The Epistle
to Diognetus probably of the same date, but by a superior writer, See above,
§ 170, p. 702. Cohortatio
ad Graecos, λόγος
παραινετικὸς
πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας .
Based on Julius Africanus, as proved by Donaldson, and independently by
Schürer in the Zeitschrift für Kirchengesch."Bd.
II. p. 319. On these
doubtful and spurious writings see Maranus, Otto, Semisch, Donaldson,
and Harnack (l. c. 190-193).
The genuine works of Justin are of unusual
importance and interest. They bring vividly before us the time when the
church was still a small sect, despised and persecuted, but bold in
faith and joyful in death. They everywhere attest his honesty and
earnestness, his enthusiastic love for Christianity, and his
fearlessness in its defense against all assaults from without and
perversions from within. He gives us the first reliable account of the
public worship and the celebration of the sacraments. His reasoning is
often ingenious and convincing but sometimes rambling and fanciful,
though not more so than that of other writers of those times. His style
is fluent and lively, but diffuse and careless. He writes under a
strong impulse of duty and fresh impression without strict method or
aim at rhetorical finish and artistic effect. He thinks pen in hand,
without looking backward or forward, and uses his memory more than
books. Only occasionally, as in the opening of the Dialogue, there is a
touch of the literary art of Plato, his old master. On these
doubtful and spurious writings see Maranus, Otto, Semisch, Donaldson,
and Harnack (l. c. 190-193). Comp, Otto
De Justiniana
dictione, in the Proleg. LXIII-LXXVI.
Renan’s judgment is interesting, but hardly Just. He
says (p. 365): "Justin
n’était un grand esprit; il manquait
à la, fois de philosophie et de critique; son
exégèse surtout passerait aujour
d’ hui pour très défectueuse;
mais il fait preuve dun sens général assez droit;
it avait cette espèce, de crédulité
médiocre qui permet de raissonner sensément sur
des prémisses puériles et de
s’arrêter à temps de
façon à n’être
qu’à moitié
absurde." On the next page he says: "Justin était un esprit faible; mais
c’était un noble et bon
coeur." Donaldson justly remarks (II. 15 sq.) that
the faults of style and reasoning attributed to Justin and other
Apologists may be paralleled in Plutarch and all other contemporaries,
and that more learned and able writers could not have done better than
present the same arguments in a more elaborate and polished form.
III. Theology. As to the sources of his religious
knowledge, Justin derived it partly from the Holy Scriptures, partly
from the living church tradition. He cites, most frequently, and
generally from memory, hence often inaccurately, the Old Testament
prophets (in the Septuagint), and the "Memoirs" of Christ, or "Memoirs
by the Apostles," as he calls the canonical Gospels, without naming the
authors. ἀπομνημονεύματα
τῶν
ἀποστόλων,
a designation peculiar to Justin, and occurring in the Apologies and
the Dialogue, but nowhere else, borrowed, no doubt, from
Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates. Four times he
calls them simply "Memoirs," four times "Memoirs of (or by) the
Apostles;" once "Memoirs made by the Apostles, " which constitute the
one Gospel (τὸ
εὐαγγελιον,
Dial. c. 10), and which "are called Gospels" (ἅ
καλεῖται
εὐαγγέλια,
Apol. I.66, a decisive passage), once, quoting from Mark.
"Peter’s Memoirs." After long and thorough discussion
the identity of these Memoirs with our canonical Gospels is settled
notwithstanding the doubts of the author of Supernatural Religion. It
is possible, however, that Justin may have used also some kind of
gospel harmony such as his pupil One
unquestionable quotation from John (3:3-5) is discussed in vol. I. 703
sq. If he did not cite the words of John, he evidently moved in his
thoughts. See the list
of Justin’s Scripture quotations or allusions in
Otto’s edition, 579-592. The most numerous are from
the Pentateuch, Isaiah, Matthew, and Luke. Of profane authors he quotes
Plato, Homer, Euripides, Xenophon, and Menander.
Justin’s exegesis of the Old
Testament is apologetic, typological and allegorical throughout. He
finds everywhere references to Christ, and turned it into a text book
of Christian theology. He carried the whole New Testament into the Old
without discrimination, and thus obliterated the difference. He had no
knowledge of Hebrew, Donaldson
(II. 148) infers from his Samaritan origin, and his attempts in one or
two cases to give the etymology of Hebrew words (Apol. I. 33), that he,
must have known a little Hebrew, but it must have been a very little
indeed; at all events he never appeals to the Hebrew text.
Justin forms the transition from the apostolic
fathers to the church fathers properly so called. He must not be judged
by the standard of a later orthodoxy, whether Greek, Roman, or
Evangelical, nor by the apostolic conflict between Jewish and Gentile
Christianity, or Ebionism and Gnosticism, which at that time had
already separated from the current of Catholic Christianity. It was a
great mistake to charge him with Ebionism. He was a converted Gentile,
and makes a sharp distinction between the church and the synagogue as
two antagonistic organizations. He belongs to orthodox Catholicism as
modified by Greek philosophy. The Christians to him are the true people
of God and heirs of all the promises. He distinguishes between Jewish
Christians who would impose the yoke of the Mosaic law (the Ebionites),
and those who only observe it themselves, allowing freedom to the
Gentiles (the Nazarenes); the former he does not acknowledge as
Christians, the latter be treats charitably, like Paul in Romans ch. 14
and 15. The only difference among orthodox Christians which he mentions
is the belief in the millennium which he held, like Barnabas,
Christianity was to Justin, theoretically, the
true philosophy, He calls the
Christian religion (Dial. c. 8) μόνη
φιλοσοφία
ἀσφαλής τε
καὶ
σύμφορος–ϊ,–ͅϊsola
philosophia tuta atque utilis. τελευταῖος
νόμος καὶ
διαθήκη
κυριωτάτη
πασῶν, novissima lex et
foedus omnium firmissimum. Dial. c. II.
He was not an original philosopher, but a
philosophizing eclectic, with a prevailing love for Plato, whom be
quotes more frequently than any other classical author. He may be
called, in a loose sense, a Christian Platonist. He was also influenced
by Stoicism. He thought that the philosophers of Greece had borrowed
their light from Moses and the prophets. But his relation to Plato
after all is merely external, and based upon fancied resemblances. He
illuminated and transformed his Platonic reminiscences by the prophetic
Scriptures, and especially by the Johannean doctrine of the Logos and
the incarnation. This is the central idea of his philosophical
theology. Christianity is the highest reason. The Logos is the
preexistent, absolute, personal Reason, and Christ is the embodiment of
it, the Logos incarnate. Whatever is rational is Christian, and
whatever is Christian is rational. Very
different from the principle of Hegel: All that is rational is real,
and all that is real is rational. He calls
them ἄχρηστοι (useless),
Apol. I. 46; with reference to the frequent confusion of Χριστός
with χρηστός,
good. Comp. Apol. I. 4: Χριστιανοὶ
εἷναι
κατηγορούμεθα·
τὸ δὲ
χρηστὸν
μισεῖσθαι
οὐ
δίκαιον. Justin
knew, however, the true derivation of Χριστός see Apol.
II. 6.
This extremely liberal view of heathenism, however, did not blind him to the prevailing corruption. The mass of the Gentiles are idolaters, and idolatry is under the control of the devil and the demons. The Jews are even worse than the heathen, because they sin against better knowledge. And worst of all are the heretics, because they corrupt the Christian truths. Nor did he overlook the difference between Socrates and Christ, and between the best of heathen and the humblest Christian. "No one trusted Socrates," he says, "so as to die for his doctrine but Christ, who was partially known by Socrates, was trusted not only by philosophers and scholars, but also by artizans and people altogether unlearned."
The Christian faith of Justin is faith in God the Creator, and in his Son Jesus Christ the Redeemer, and in the prophetic Spirit. All other doctrines which are revealed through the prophets and apostles, follow as a matter of course. Below the deity are good and bad angels; the former are messengers of God, the latter servants of Satan, who caricature Bible doctrines in heathen mythology, invent slanders, and stir up persecutions against Christians, but will be utterly overthrown at the second coming of Christ. The human soul is a creature, and hence perishable, but receives immortality from God, eternal happiness as a reward of piety, eternal fire as a punishment of wickedness. Man has reason and free will, and is hence responsible for all his actions; he sins by his own act, and hence deserves punishment. Christ came to break the power of sin, to secure forgiveness and regeneration to a new and holy life.
Here comes in the practical or ethical side of this Christian philosophy. It is wisdom which emanates from God and leads to God. It is a new law and a new covenant, promised by Isaiah and Jeremiah, and introduced by Christ. The old law was only for the Jews, the new is for the whole world; the old was temporary and is abolished, the new is eternal; the old commands circumcision of the flesh, the new, circumcision of the heart; the old enjoins the observance of one day, the new sanctifies all days; the old refers to outward performances, the new to spiritual repentance and faith, and demands entire consecration to God.
IV. From the time of On the
general subject of the relation of Platonism to Christianity, see
Ackermann, Das Christliche im
Plato (1835, Engl. transl. by Asburv, with preface by
Shedd, 1861) Baur, Socrates und
Christus (1837, and again ed. by Zeller, 1876);
Tayler Lewis, Plato against the Atheists (1845); Hampden, The Fathers
of the Greek Philosophy (1862); Cocker, Christianity and Greek
Philosophy (1870), Ueberweg’s History of Philosophy
(Engl. transl. 1872), and an excellent art. of Prof. W. S. Tyler, of
Amherst College in the third vol. of Schaff-Herzog’s
Rel. Encycl. (1883, p. 1850-’53). On the relation of
Justin to Platonism and heathenism, see von Engelbardt, l. c.
447-484.
The Platonic philosophy offered many points of resemblance to Christianity. It is spiritual and idealistic, maintaining the supremacy of the spirit over matter, of eternal ideas over all temporary phenomena, and the pre-existence and immortality of the soul; it is theistic, making the supreme God above all the secondary deities, the beginning, middle, and end of all things; it is ethical, looking towards present and future rewards and punishments; it is religious, basing ethics, politics, and physics upon the authority of the Lawgiver and Ruler of the universe; it leads thus to the very threshold of the revelation of God in Christ, though it knows not this blessed name nor his saying grace, and obscures its glimpses of truth by serious errors. Upon the whole the influence of Platonism, especially as represented in the moral essays of Plutarch, has been and is to this day elevating, stimulating, and healthy, calling the mind away from the vanities of earth to the contemplation of eternal truth, beauty, and goodness. To not a few of the noblest teachers of the church, from Justin the philosopher to Neander the historian, Plato has been a schoolmaster who led them to Christ.
Notes.
The theology and philosophy of Justin are learnedly discussed by Maran, and recently by Möhler and Freppel in the Roman Catholic interest, and in favor of his full orthodoxy. Among Protestants his orthodoxy was first doubted by the authors of the "Magdeburg Centuries," who judged him from the Lutheran standpoint.
Modern Protestant historians viewed him chiefly with reference to the conflict between Jewish and Gentile Christianity. Credner first endeavored to prove, by an exhaustive investigation (1832), that Justin was a Jewish Christian of the Ebionitic type, with the Platonic Logos-doctrine attached to his low creed as an appendix. He was followed by the Tübingen critics, Schwegler (1846), Zeller, Hilgenfeld, and Baur himself (1853). Baur, however, moderated Credner’s view, and put, Justin rather between Jewish and Gentile Christianity, calling him a Pauline in fact, but not in name ("er ist der Sache nach Pauliner, aber dem Namen nach will er es nicht sein"). This shaky judgment shows the unsatisfactory character of the Tübingen construction of Catholic Christianity as the result of a conflux and compromise between Ebionism and Paulinism.
Ritschl (in the second ed. of his Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, 1857) broke loose from this scheme and represented ancient Catholicism as a development of Gentile Christianity, and Justin as the type of the "katholisch werde de Heidenchristenthum," who was influenced by Pauline ideas, but unable to comprehend them in their depth and fulness, and thus degraded the standpoint of freedom to a new form of legalism. This he calls a "herabgekommemer orabgeschwächter Paulinismus." Engelhardt goes a step further, and explains this degradation of Paulinism from the influences of Hellenic heathenism and the Platonic and Stoic modes of thought. He says (p. 485): "Justin was at once a Christian and a heathen. We must acknowledge his Christianity and his heathenism in order to understand him." Harnack (in a review of E., 1878) agrees with him, and lays even greater stress on the heathen element. Against this Stähelin (1880) justly protests, and vindicates his truly Christian character.
Among recent French writers, Aubé represents Justin’s theology superficially as nothing more than popularized heathen philosophy. Renan (p. 389) calls his philosophy "une sorte d’eclectisme fondé sur un rationalisme mystic " Freppel returns to Maran’s treatment, and tries to make the philosopher and martyr of the second century even a Vatican Romanist of the nineteenth.
For the best estimates of his character and merits see Neander, Semisch, Otto, von Engelhardt, Stähelin, Donaldson (II. 147 sqq.), and Holland (in Smith and Wace).
§ 174. The Other Greek Apologists.
Lit. on the later Greek Apologists:
Otto: Corpus Apologetarum Christ. Vol. VI. (1861):
The third vol. of Donaldson’s Critical History of Christ. Lit. and Doctr., etc. (Lond. 1866) is devoted to the same Apologists. Comp. also Keim’s Rom und das Christenthum (1881), p. 439–495; and on the MSS. and early traditions Harnack’s Texte, etc. Band I. Heft. 1 and 2 (1882), and Schwartz in his ed. (1888).
On
Comp.
Donaldson, III. 27 sqq. He tells his
conversion himself, Ad Gr. c. 29 and 30. The following passage (29) is
striking: "While I was giving my most earnest attention to the matter
[the discovery of the truth], I happened to meet with certain barbaric
writings, too old to be compared with the opinions of the Greeks, and
too divine to be compared with their errors and I was led to put faith
in these by the unpretending cast of the language, the inartificial
character of the writers, the foreknowledge displayed of future events,
the excellent quality of the precepts, and the declaration of the
government of the universe as centred in one Being. And, my soul being
taught of God, I discerned that the former class of writings lead to
condemnation, but that these put an end to the slavery that is in the
world, and rescue us from a multiplicity of rulers and ten thousand
tyrants, while they give us, not indeed what we had not before
received, but what we had received, but were prevented by error from
retaining."
We have from him an apologetic work addressed To
the Greeks. Πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας,
Oratio ad Graecos. The best critical edition by Ed. Schwartz, Leipsig,
1888. On the MSS. see also Otto’s Proleg., and
Harnack’s Texte, etc. Bd. I. Heft. I. p. 1-97. English
translation by B. P. Pratten, in the "Ante-Nicene Library, " III. 1-48;
Am. ed. II., 59 sqq. The specimens below are from this version,
compared with the Greek.
The following specimens show his power of ridicule and his radical antagonism to Greek mythology and philosophy:
Ch. 21.—Doctrines of the Christians and Greeks respecting God compared.
We do not act as fools, O Greeks, nor utter idle tales, when we announce that God was born in the form of a man. (ἐν ). I call on you who reproach us to compare your mythical accounts with our narrations. Athene, as they say, took the form of Deiphobus for the sake of Hector, and the unshorn Phoebus for the sake of Admetus fed the trailing-footed oxen, and the spouse of Zeus came as an old woman to Semélé. But, while you treat seriously such things, how can you deride us? Your Asclepios died, and he who ravished fifty virgins in one night at Thespiae, lost his life by delivering himself to the devouring flame. Prometheus, fastened to Caucasus, suffered punishment for his good deeds to men. According to you, Zeus is envious, and hides the dream from men, wishing their destruction. Wherefore, looking at your own memorials, vouchsafe us your approval, though it were only as dealing in legends similar to your own. We, however, do not deal in folly, but your legends are only idle tales. If you speak of the origin of the gods, you also declare them to be mortal. For what reason is Hera now never pregnant? Has she grown old? or is there no one to give you information? Believe me now, O Greeks, and do not resolve your myths and gods into allegory. If you attempt to do this, the divine nature as held by you is overthrown by your own selves; for, if the demons with you are such as they are said to be, they are worthless as to character; or, if regarded as symbols of the powers of nature, they are not what they are called. But I cannot be persuaded to pay religious homage to the natural elements, nor can I undertake to persuade my neighbor. And Metrodorus of Lampsacus, in his treatise concerning Homer, has argued very foolishly, turning everything into allegory. For he says that neither Hera, nor Athene, nor Zeus are what those persons suppose who consecrate to them sacred enclosures and groves, but parts of nature and certain arrangements of the elements. Hector also, and Achilles, and Agamemnon, and all the Greeks in general, and the Barbarians with Helen and Paris, being of the same nature, you will of course say are introduced merely for the sake of the machinery of the poem, not one of these personages having really existed.
But these things we have put forth only for argument’s sake; for it is not allowable even to compare our notions of God with those who are wallowing in matter and mud."
Ch. 25.—Boastings and quarrels of the philosophers.
What great and wonderful things have your philosophers effected? They leave uncovered one of their shoulders; they let their hair grow long; they cultivate their beards; their nails are like the claws of wild beasts. Though they say that they want nothing, yet, like Proteus [the Cynic, Proteus Peregrinus known to us from Lucian], they need a currier for their wallet, and a weaver for their mantle, and a woodcutter for their staff, and they need the rich [to invite them to banquets], and a cook also for their gluttony. O man competing with the dog [cynic philosopher], you know not God, and so have turned to the imitation of an irrational animal. You cry out in public with an assumption of authority, and take upon you to avenge your own self; and if you receive nothing, you indulge in abuse, for philosophy is with you the art of getting money. You follow the doctrines of Plato, and a disciple of Epicurus lifts up his voice to oppose you. Again, you wish to be a disciple of Aristotle, and a follower of Democritus rails at you. Pythagoras says that he was Euphorbus, and he is the heir of the doctrine of Pherecydes, but Aristotle impugns the immortality of the soul. You who receive from your predecessors doctrines which clash with one another, you the inharmonious, are fighting against the harmonious. One of you asserts "that God is body," but I assert that He is without body; "that the world is indestructible," but I assert that it is to be destroyed; "that a conflagration will take place at various times," but I say that it will come to pass once for all; "that Minos and Rhadamanthus are judges," but I say that God Himself is Judge; "that the soul alone is endowed with immortality," but I say that the flesh also is endowed with it. What injury do we inflict upon you, O Greeks? Why do you hate those who follow the word of God, as if they were the vilest of mankind? It is not we who eat human flesh—they among you who assert such a thing have been suborned as false witnesses; it is among you that Pelops is made a supper for the gods, although beloved by Poseidon; and Kronos devours his children, and Zeus swallows Metis."
Of great importance for the history of the canon
and of exegesis is Τὸ
διὰ
τεσσάρων.
§ 175. Athenagoras.
Otto, Vol. VII.; Migne, VI. 890–1023. Am. ed. by W. B. Owen, N. Y., 1875.
Clarisse: De Athenagorae vita, scriptis doctrina (Lugd. Bat. 1819); Donaldson, III. 107–178; Harnack, Texte, I. 176 sqq., and his art. "Athen." in Herzog2 I. 748–750; Spencer Mansel in Smith and Wace, 1. 204–207; Renan, Marc-Auréle, 382–386.
The account
of Philippus Sidetes, deacon of
He addressed an Apology or Intercession in behalf
of the Christians to the Emperors Πρεσβεία
(embassy) περὶ
Χριστιανῶν,
Legatio (also Supplicatio, Intercessio)pro Christianis. Some take the
title in its usual sense, and assume that Athenagoras really went as a
deputation to the emperor. The book was often copied in the fifteenth
century, and there are seventeen MSS. extant; the three best contain
also the treatise on the Resurrection. Both were edited by Henry
Stephens, 1557, and often since. The objections against the genuineness
are weak and have been refuted.
Another treatise under his name, "On the Resurrection of the Dead, is a masterly argument drawn from the wisdom, power, and justice of God, as well as from the destiny of man, for this doctrine which was especially offensive to the Greek mind. It was a discourse actually delivered before a philosophical audience. For this reason perhaps he does not appeal to the Scriptures.
AlI historians put a high estimate on Athenagoras. "He writes," says Donaldson, "as a man who is determined that the real state of the case should be exactly known. He introduces similes, he occasionally has an antithesis, he quotes poetry but always he has his main object distinctly before his mind, and he neither makes a useless exhibition of his own powers, nor distracts the reader by digressions. His Apology is the best defence of the Christians produced in that age." Spencer Mansel declares him "decidedly superior to most of the Apologists, elegant, free from superfluity of language, forcible in style, and rising occasionally into great powers of description, and in his reasoning remarkable for clearness and cogency."
Tillemont found traces of Montanism in the condemnation of second marriage and the view of prophetic inspiration, but the former was common among the Greeks, and the latter was also held by Justin M. and others. Athenagoras says of the prophets that they were in an ecstatic condition of mind and that the Spirit of God "used them as if a flute-player were breathing into his flute." Montanus used the comparison of the plectrum and the lyre.
§ 176. Theophilus of Antioch.
Otto, Vol. VIII. Migne, VI.
Donaldson, Critical History, III. 63–106. Renan, Marc-Aur. 386 sqq.
Theod. Zahn: Der Evanqelien-commentar des Theophilus von Antiochien. Erlangen 1883 (302 pages). The second part of his Forschung zur Gesch. des neutestam. Kanons und der altkirchlichen Lit. Also his Supplementum Clementinum, 1884, p. 198–276 (in self-defense against Harnack).
Harnack, Texte, etc. Bd. I., Heft II., 282–298., and Heft. IV. (I 8., 3), 97–175 (on the Gospel Commentary cf Theoph. against Zahn).
A. Hauck: Zur Theophilusfrage, Leipz. 1844, and in Herzog,2 xv. 544.
W. Bornemann: Zur Theophilusfrage; In "Brieger’s Zeitschrift f. Kirchen-Geschte," 1888, p. 169–283
His principal work, and the only one which has
come down to us, is his three books to Autolycus, an educated heathen
friend. θεοφίλου
πρὸς
Αὐτόλυκον,
Theophili ad Autolycum. We have three MSS. of his books Ad Autolycum,
the best from the eleventh century, preserved in Venice. See Otto, and
Donaldson, p. 105. The first printed edition appeared at
Zürich, 1546. Three English translations, by J. Betty, Oxf.
1722, by W. B Flower, Lond. 1860, and Marcus Dods, Edinb. 1867 (in the
" Ante-Nicene Libr."III. 49-133). Ad Autol.
II. 15 (in Migne VI. 1077), where the first three days of creation are
called τύποι τῆς
τριάδος ,
τοῦ θεοῦ,
καὶ τοῦ
λόγου
αυτοῦ καὶ
τῆς σοφίας
αὐτοῦ . Comp. c. 18
(col. 1081), where the trinity is found in Ad Autol.
II. 22: "The Holy Scriptures teach us, and all who were moved by the
Spirit, among whom John says: ’In the beginning was
the Word (Logos), and the Word was with God.’" He then
quotes
The other works of Theophilus, polemical and
exegetical, are lost.
Notes.
A Latin Version of this Commentary was first
published (from MSS. not indicated and since lost) by Marg. de la Bigne
in Sacrae, Bibliothecae Patrum, Paris 1576, Tom. V.
Dr. Zahn, in his recent monograph (1883), which
abounds in rare patristic learning, vindicates this Commentary to
Theophilus of Antioch and dates the translation from the third century.
If so, we would have here a work of great apologetic as well as
exegetical importance, especially for the history of the canon and the
text; for Theophilus stood midway between
§ 177.
(I.) Euseb. H. E. IV. 13, 26; V. 25. Hieron.: De Vir. ill. 24. The remains Of Melito in Routh, Reliq. acr. I. 113–153; more fully in Otto, Corp. Ap. IX. (1872), 375–478. His second Apology, of doubtful genuineness, in Cureton, Spicilegium Syriacum, Lond. 1835 (Syriac, with an English translation), and in Pitra, Spicil. Solesm. II. (with a Latin translation by Renan, which was revised by Otto, Corp. Ap. vol. IX.); German transl. by Welte in the Tüb." Theol. Quartalschrift" for 1862.
(II) Piper in the Studien und Kritiken for 1838, p. 54 154. Uhlhorn in "Zeitschrift für Hist. Theol." 1866. Donaldson, III. 221–239 Steitz in Herzog2 IX. 537–539. Lightfoot in "Contemp. Review," Febr. 1876. Harnack, Texte, etc., I. 240–278. Salmon in Smith and Wace III. 894–900. Renan, Marc-Auréle, 172 sqq. (Comp. also the short notice in L’église chrét., p. 436).
This is the
English spelling. The Germans and French spell Sardes (Gr. αἱ
Σαρ́δεις, but
also Σάρδις in
Herodotus). Renan thinks
of an act of self-mutilation (in L’église chrét.
436): "Comme
plus tard Origène, il voulut que sa chasteté
fût en quelque sorte matériellement
constatée." But St. John, too, is called
spado by
Melito was a man of brilliant mind and a most
prolific author. Elegans et
declamatorium ingenium, " in his lost book on Ecstasis, quoted by
Jerome, De Vir. ill. 24. Harnack draws a comparison between Melito and
Comp. Euseb.
IV. 21, 25. Renan says (p. 192): "Jamais peut-être le christianisme n’a
plus écrit que durant le IIesiécle en Asie. La culture
littéraire était extrémement
répandue dans cette province; l’art
d’écrire y était fort commun, et
le christianisme en profitait. La littérature des
Pères d l’Église commencait. Les
siécles suivants ne dépassèrent pas
ces premiers essais de l’éloquence
chrétienne; mais, au point de vue de
l’orthodoxie, les livres de ces Pères du
IIesiécle offraient plus d’une pierre
el’achoppement. La lecture en devint suspecte; on les
copia de moins en moins, et ainsi presque tons ces beaux
écrits disparurent, pour faire place aux
écrivains classiques, postérieurs au concile de
Nicée, écrivains plus corrects comme doctrine,
mais, en général, bien moins originaux que ceux
du Ilesiècle.
A Syriac Apology bearing his name Under the
heading, "The oration of Melito the Philosopher, held before Antonintus
Caesar, and he spoke [?] to Caesar that he might know God, and he
showed him the way of truth, and began to speak as follows." Ewald (in
the "Gött. Gel. Anz." 1856, p. 655 sqq.) and Renan (M. Aur.
184, note) suggest that it is no apology, but Melito’s
tract περὶ
ἀληθείας
as this word very often occurs. Jacobi, Otto, and Harnack ascribe it to
a different author, probably from Syria.
To Melito we owe the first Christian list of the Hebrew Scriptures. It agrees with the Jewish and the Protestant canon, and omits the Apocrypha. The books of Esther and Nehemiah are also omitted, but may be included in Esdras. The expressions "the Old Books," "the Books of the Old Covenant," imply that the church at that time had a canon of the New Covenant. Melito made a visit to Palestine to seek information on the Jewish canon.
He wrote a commentary on the Apocalypse, and a
"Key" ( ), probably to the Scriptures. A Latin work
under the title Melitonis Clavis Sanctae Scripturae was mentioned by
Labbé in 1653 as preserved in the library of Clermont
College, and was at last, after much trouble, recovered in Strassburg
and elsewhere, and published by Cardinal Pitra in the Spicilegium
Solesm. 1855 (Tom. II. and III.). But, unfortunately, it turned out to
be no translation of Melito’s κλείςat all, but a
mediaeval glossary of mystic interpretation of the Scriptures compiled
from Gregory I. and other Latin fathers. This was conclusively proven
by Steitz in the " Studien und Kritiken "for 1857, p. 584-596. Renan
assents (p. 181, note): "L’ouvrage latin que om Pitra a publié
comme étant la Cle de Meliton, est une compilation de passages des
Pères latins pouvant servir à
l’explication allégorique des
écritures qui figure pour la première fois dans
la Bible de Théodulphe."
The loss of this and of his books "on the Church" and "on the Lord’s Day" are perhaps to be regretted most.
Among the Syriac fragments of Melito published by
Cureton is one from a work "On Faith," which contains a remarkable
christological creed, an eloquent expansion of the Regula Fidei. Spicileg.
Solesm. T. II. p. LIX.
§ 178.
This is the
spelling of the ancient Greek authors who refer to him. Latin writers
usually spell his name Apollinaris or Apollinarius. There are several
noted persons of this name: 1) the legendary St.
Apollinaris, bishop of Ravenna (50-78?), who followed St. Peter
from Antioch to Rome, was sent by him to Ravenna, performed miracles,
died a martyr, and gave name to a magnificent basilica built in the
sixth century. See Acta Sanct. Jul. V. 344. 2) Apollinarus the Elder, presbyter at Laodicea in Syria (not
in Phrygia), an able classical scholar and poet, about the middle of
the fourth century. 3) Apollinaris the
Younger, son of the former, and bishop of Laodicea between 362
and 380, who with his father composed Christian classics to replace the
heathen classics under the reign of Julian, and afterwards originated
the christological heresy which is named after him. See my article in
Smith and Wace I. 134 sq. H. E. IV.
27; repeated by Jerome, De Viris ill. 26. Two extracts of a work not
mentioned by
Apolinarius opposed the Quartodeciman observance
of Easter, which Melito defended. See above,
p. 214 sq., and Chron. Pasch. 1. 13. De Vir. ill.
18; Com. in Ezech. c. 36. In the latter place Jerome mentions Acta Sanct.
Febr. II. 4. See Wetzer and Welte2 I. 1086.
H. E. V. 17.
Jerome, De Vir. ill. 39. Comp. Harnack, Texte, I. 278-282, and Salmon,
in Smith and Wace III. 916. Adv. Valent.
5. Miltiades is here called "ecclesiarum sophista," either honorably=
rhetor or philosophus (See Otto and Salmon), or with an implied censure
("mit einem üblen
Nebegeschmack, " as Harnack thinks). The relation of
Miltiades to Montanism is quite obscure, but probably he was an
opponent.
§ 179.
Ερμείου
φιλοσόφου
Διασυρμὸς
τῶν ἔξω
φιλοσόφων, Hermiae Philosophi Gentilium
Philosophorum Irrisio, ten chapters. Ed. princeps with Lat. vers.
Base!, 1553, Zurich, 1560. Worth added it to his
Donaldson, III. 179–181.
Under the name of the "philosopher"
"I confess I am vexed by the reflux of things. For now I am immortal, and I rejoice; but now again I become mortal, and I weep; but straightway I am dissolved into atoms. I become water, and I become air: I become fire: then after a little I am neither air nor fire: one makes me a wild beast, one makes me a fish. Again, then, I have dolphins for my brothers. But when I see myself, I fear my body, and I no longer know how to call it, whether man, or dog, or wolf, or bull, or bird, or serpent, or dragon, or chimaera. I am changed by the philosophers into all the wild beasts, into those that live on land and on water, into those that are winged, many-shaped, wild, tame, speechless, and gifted with speech, rational and irrational. I swim, fly, creep, run, sit; and there is Empedocles too, who makes me a bush."
The work is small and unimportant. Hase aptly
calls it "eine
oberflächlich witzige Belustigung über paradoxe
Philosopheme."
§ 180. Hegesippus.
(I.) Euseb. H. E. II. 23; III. 11, 16, 19, 20, 32; IV. 8, 22. Collection of fragments in Grabe, Spicil. II. 203–214; Routh, Reliq. S. I. 205–219; Hilgenfeld, in his "Zeitschrift für wissenschaftliche Theol." 1876 and 1878.
(II.) The Annotationes in Heges. Fragm. by Routh, I.
220–292 (very valuable). Donaldson: L. c. III.
182–213. Nösgen: Der Kirchl. Standpunkt des Heg.
in Brieger’s "Zeitschrift für
Kirchengesch." 1877 (p. 193–233). Against Hilgenfeld.
Zahn: Der
griech.
The orthodoxy of Hegesippus has been denied by the Tübingen critics, Baur, Schwegler, and, more moderately by Hilgenfeld, but defended by Dorner, Donaldson, Nösgen, Weizsäcker, Caspari and Milligan.
Contemporary with the Apologists, though not of their class, were Hegesippus (d. about 180), and Dionysius of Corinth (about 170).
Ὑπομνήματα,
or Συγγάμματα,
in five books. In the
library of the convent of St. John at Patmos. See Zahn, l. c.
Euseb. IV.
22. Ibid. III.
32. This passage has been used by Baur and his school as an argument
against the Pastoral and other apostolic epistles which warn against
the Gnostic heresy, but it clearly teaches that its open manifestation
under Trajan was preceded by its secret working as far back as Simon
Magus. Hegesippus, therefore, only confirms the N. T. allusions, which
likewise imply a distinction between present beginnings and future
developments of error.
§ 181.
Euseb.: H. E. II. 25; III. 4; IV. 21, 23. Hieron.: De Vir. ill. 27.
Routh: Rel. S. I. 177–184 (the fragments), and 185–201 (the annotations). Includes Pinytus Cretensis and his Ep. ad Dion. (Eus. IV. 23).
Donaldson III. 214–220. Salmon in Smith and Wace II. 848 sq.
Dionysius was bishop of Corinth (probably the
successor of Primus) in the third quarter of the second century, till
about a.d. 170. He was a famous person in his day, distinguished for
zeal, moderation, and a catholic and peaceful spirit. He wrote a number
of pastoral letters to the congregations of Lacedaemon, Athens,
Nicomedia, Rome, Gortyna in Crete, and other cities. One is addressed
to Chrysophora, "a most faithful sister." They are all lost, with the
exception of a summary of their contents given by ἐνθέου
φιλοπονίας,
Euseb. IV. 23.
Such active correspondence promoted catholic unity
and gave strength and comfort in persecution from without and heretical
corruption within. The bishop is usually mentioned with honor, but the
letters are addressed to the church; and even the Roman bishop Soter,
like his predecessor Clement, addressed his own letter in the name of
the Roman church to the church of Corinth. Dionysius writes to the
Roman Christians: "To-day we have passed the Lord’s
holy day, in which we have read your epistle. ὑμῶν
τὴν
ἐπιστολήν.
Euseb. II. 23.
Dionysius is honored as a martyr in the Greek, as a confessor in the Latin church.
§ 182.
Editions of his Works.
S. Irenaei Episcopi Lugdun. Opera quae supersunt
omnia, ed. A. Stieren. Lips. 1853, 2 vols. The second volume contains
the Prolegomena of older editors, and the disputations of Maffei and
Pfaff on the Fragments of
S. Irenaei libros quinque adversus Haereses edidit
W. Wigan Harvey. Cambr. 1857, in 2 vols. Based upon a new and careful
collation of the Cod. Claromontanus and Arundel, and embodying the
original Greek portions preserved in the Philosoph. of
Older editions by Erasmus, Basel 1526 (from three
Latin MSS. since lost, repeated 1528, 1534); Gallasius,
English translation by A. Roberts and W. H. Rambaut, 2 vols., in the "Ante-Nicene Library," Edinb. 1868. Another by John Keble, ed. by Dr. Pusey, for the Oxford "Library of the Fathers," 1872.
Biographical and Critical.
Ren. Massuet (R.C.): Dissertationes in Irenaei libros (de hereticis, de Irenaei vita, gestis et scriptis, de Ir. doctrina) prefixed to his edition of the Opera, and reprinted in Stieren and Migne. Also the Proleg. of Harvey, on Gnosticism, and the Life and Writings of Iren.
H. Dodwell: Dissert. in Iren. Oxon. 1689.
Tillemont: Mêmoirs, etc. III. 77–99.
Deyling:
Stieren: Art.
J. Beaven: Life and Writings of
J. M. Prat (R.C.):Histoire de St. Irenée. Lyon and Paris 1843.
L. Duncker: Des heil.
K. Graul: Die Christliche Kirche an der Schwelle des Irenaeischen Zeitalters. Leipz. 1860. (168 pages.) Introduction to a biography which never appeared.
Ch. E. Freppel (bishop of Angers, since 1869): Saint Irénée et l’éloquence chrétienne dans la Gaule aux deux premiers siècles. Par. 1861.
G. Schneemann: Sancti Irenaei de ecclesiae Romanae principatu testimonium. Freib. i. Br. 1870.
Böhringer: Die Kirche Christi und ihre Zeugen, vol. II. new ed. 1873.
Heinrich Ziegler:
R. A. Lipsius: Die Zeit des lrenaeus von Lyon und die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche, in Sybel’s "Histor. Zeitschrift." München 1872, p. 241 sqq. See his later art. below.
A. Guilloud: St. Irenée et son temps. Lyon 1876.
Bp. Lightfoot: The Churches of Gaul, in the "Contemporary Review" for Aug. 1876.
C. J. H. Ropes:
J. Quarry:
Renan: Marc Aurèle. Paris 1882, p. 336–344.
TH. Zahn: art. Iren. in HerZog2, VII. 129–140 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog), chiefly chronological; and R. A. Lipsius in Smith and Wace III. 253–279. Both these articles are very important; that of Lipsius is fuller.
Comp. also the Ch. Hist. of Neander, and Baur, and the Patrol. of Möhler, and Alzog.
Special doctrines and relations of
A full and satisfactory monograph of
Almost simultaneously with the apology against false
religions without arose the polemic literature against the heresies, or
various forms of pseudo-Christianity, especially the Gnostic; and upon
this was formed the dogmatic theology of the church. At the head of the
old catholic controversialists stand
Asia Minor, the scene of the last labors of St.
John, produced a luminous succession of divines and confessors who in
the first three quarters of the second century reflected the light of
the setting sun of the apostolic age, and may be called the pupils of
St. John. Among them were
The last and greatest representative of this
school is
I. Life and Character. Little is known of Harvey
derives from the alleged familiarity of The change
of See above,
§ 20, p. 55 sq.
He was sent by the Gallican confessors to the
Roman bishop Eleutherus (who ruled a.d. 177–190), as a
mediator in the Montanistic disputes. Either
during, or after the persecution. Euseb. V. S.; Jerome, De Vir. ill c.
35.
After the martyrdom of Pothinus he was elected bishop of Lyons (178), and labored there with zeal and success, by tongue and pen, for the restoration of the heavily visited church, for the spread of Christianity in Gaul, and for the defence and development of its doctrines. He thus combined a vast missionary and literary activity. If we are to trust the account of Gregory of Tours, he converted almost the whole population of Lyons and sent notable missionaries to other parts of pagan France.
After the year 190 we lose sight of "The story
that his bones were dug up and thrown into the street by the Calvinists
in 1562 has been abundantly refuted." Encycl. Brit., ninth ed XIII.
273.
II. His Character and Position. This is
evident from the very passage in which he makes that apology to his
friend (Adv. Haer., Pref. § 3): "Thou wilt not require from
me, who dwell among the Celts (ἐν
Κελτοῖς), and am
accustomed for the most part to use a barbarous dialect (βάρβαρον
διάλεκτον)any
skill in discourse which I have not learned, nor any power of
composition which I have not practised, nor any beauty of style nor
persuasiveness of which I know nothing. But thou wilt accept lovingly
what I write lovingly to thee in simplicity, truthfully, and in my own
way (ἁπλῶς
καὶ
ἀληθῶς
καὶ
ἰδιωτικῶς);
whilst thou thyself (as being more competent than I am) wilt expand
those ideas of which I send thee, as it were, only the seeds and
principles (σπέρματα
καὶ
ἀρχάς); and in the
comprehensiveness of thine understanding, wilt develop to their full
extent the points on which I briefly touch, so as to set with power
before thy companions those things which I have uttered in
weakness."Jerome praises the style of Harvey
claims for him also Hebrew and Syriac scholarship; but this is
disputed.
Bishop
Lightfoot ("Contemp. Rev." May, 1875, p. 827) says that
See the long
list of his Scripture quotations in Stieren, I. 996-1005, and the works
on the Canon of the N. T.
With all his zeal for pure and sound doctrine,
Comp.
§ 62, p. 217 sq.
III. His Writings. (1.) The most important work of
Ἔλεγχος
καὶ
ἀνατροπὴ
τῆς
ψευδωνύμου
γνώσεως ( Eleutherus
is mentioned, III. 3, 3, as then occupying the see of Rome. Lipsius
fixes the composition between a.d. 180 and
185, Harvey between 182 and 188 (L.CLVIII). On the
sources of the history, of heresies see especially the works of
Lipsius, and Harnack, quoted on p. 443, and Harvey’s
Preliminary Observations in vol. I.
The interpretation of Scripture is generally sound
and sober, and contrasts favorably with the fantastic distortions of
the Gnostics. He had a glimpse of a theory of inspiration which does
justice to the human factor. He attributes the irregularities of
Paul’s style to his rapidity of discourse and the
impetus of the Spirit which is in him. Adv. Haer.
III. 7, § 2.
(2.) The Epistle to Florinus, of which Περὶ
μοναρχίας
ἣ περὶ
τοῦ μὴ
εἷναι τὸν
Θεὸν
ποιητὴν
κακῶν. Euseb. H. E. V. 20,
comp. ch. 15. Leimbach and
Lightfoot regard the letter as one of the earliest writings of
(3.) On the Ogdoad Περὶ
ὀγδοάδος.
Euseb. V. 20.
(4.) A book On Schism, addressed to Blastus who
was the head of the Roman Montanists and also a Quartodeciman. Περὶ
σχίσματος.
Also mentioned by Euseb. l. c. Comp. V. 14; Pseudo-
(5.) H E. V.
26. βιβλίον
διαλέξεων
διαφόρων.
Harvey and Lipsius make this out to have been a collection of homilies
on various texts of scripture.
(6.)
(7.) Finally, we must mention four more Greek
fragments of Harvey (I.
clxxii) accepts them all as "possessing good
external authority, and far more convincing internal proof of
genuineness, than can alway s be expected in such brief extracts." γνῶσις
ἀληθινή
perhaps the same treatise as the one mentioned by Discussed in
§ 69, p. 242. This Lipsius
(p. 266) considers to be the only one of the four fragments which is
undoubtedly genuine. See
§ 157, p. 609, and Stieren’s ed. I.
889.
§ 183.
(I.) S. Hippolyti episcopi et martyris Opera, Graece
et Lat. ed. J. Afabricius, Hamb. 1716–18, 2 vols.
fol.; ed. Gallandi in "Biblioth. Patrum," Ven. 1760, Vol. II.; Migne:
Patr. Gr., vol. x.
Patristic notices of
S. Hippolyti EpIs. et Mart. Refutationis omnium
haeresium librorum decem quae supersunt, ed. Duncker et Schneidewin.
Gött. 1859. The first ed. appeared under the name of
A MS. of this important work from the 14th century
was discovered at, Mt. Athos in Greece in 1842, by a learned Greek,
Minoïdes Mynas (who had been sent by M. Villemain, minister
of public instruction under Louis Philippe, to Greece in search of
MSS.), and deposited in the national library at Paris. The first book
had been long known among the works of
Canones S. Hippolyti Arabice e codicibus Romanis cum versione Latina, ed. D. B. de Haneberg. Monach. 1870. The canons are very rigoristic, but "certain evidence as to their authorship is wanting."
O. Bardenhewer: Des heil. Hippolyt von Rom. Commentar zum B. Daniel. Freib. i. B. 1877,
(II.) E. F. Kimmel: De Hippolyti vita et scriptis. Jen. 1839. Möhler: Patrol. p. 584 sqq. Both are confined to the older confused sources of information.
Since the discovery of the Philosophumena the
following books and tracts on
Bunsen:
Jacobi in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift," Berl. 1851 and
’53; and Art."
Baur, in the "Theol. Jahrb." Tüb. 1853. Volkmar and Ritschl, ibid. 1854,
Gieseler, in the "Stud. u. Krit." for 1853.
Döllinger (R. Cath., but since 1870 an
Old Cath.):
Chr. Wordsworth (Anglican): St.
L’abbé Cruice (chanoine hon. de Paris): Etudes sur de nouv. doc. hist. des Philosophumena. Paris 1853 (380 p.)
W. Elfe Tayler: Hippol. and the Christ. Ch. of the third century. Lond. 1853. (245 p.)
Le Normant: Controverse sur les Philos. d’
Orig. Paris 1853. In "Le Correspondant," Tom. 31 p.
509–550. For
G. Volkmar:
Caspari: Quellen zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel. Christiania, vol. III. 349 sqq. and 374–409. On the writings of H.
Lipsius: Quellen der ältesten Ketzergesch. Leipzig 1875.
De Smedt (R.C.): De Auctore Philosophumenon. In "Dissertationes Selectae." Ghent, 1876.
G. Salmon: Hipp. Romanus in Smith and Wace III. 85–105 (very good.)
I. Life Of Dr. Caspari
(III. 351 note 153) thinks it probable that
He calls it
schisma Novati, instead of Ultima vox
autdita senis venerabilis haec est. "Hi rapiant artus, tu rape, Christe, animam." No. xi. of the Peristephanon Liber. Plummer, in Append.
C. to Döllinger, p. 345-35l, gives the poem in full (246
lines) from Dressel’s text (1860). Baronius charged
Prudentius with confounding three different Hippolytis and transferring
the martyrdom of So first the
Paschal Chronicle, and Anastasius. Salmon says:
’Of the fragments collected in De Lagardes edition the
majority are entitled merely of ’
These are the vague and conflicting traditions,
amounting to this that
In the year 1551, a much mutilated marble statue,
now in the Lateran Museum, was exhumed at Rome near the basilica of St.
Lawrence on the Via Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli). This statue is not
mentioned indeed by Prudentius, and was perhaps originally designed for
an entirely different purpose, possibly for a Roman senator; but it is
at all events very ancient, probably from the middle of the third
century. The reasons
for this early age are: (1) The artistic character of the statue, which
ante-dates the decline of art, which began with Constantine. (2) The
paschal cycle, which gives the list of the paschal full moons
accurately for the years 217-223, but for the next eight years wrongly,
so that the table after that date became useless, and hence must have
been written soon after 222. (3) The Greek language of the inscription,
which nearly died out in Rome in the fourth century, and gave way to
the Latin as the language of the Roman church. Dr. Salmon fixes the
date of the erection of the statue at 235, very shortly after the
banishment of Περὶ
τοῦ
παντός. See the list
of books in the notes.
Much more important is the recent discovery and
publication (in 1851) of one of his works themselves, and that no doubt
the most valuable of them all, viz. the Philosophumena, or Refutation
of all Heresies. It is now almost universally acknowledged that this
work comes not from On the chair
of the statue, it is true, the Philosophumena is not mentioned, and
cannot be concealed under the title Πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας,
which is connected by καί with the work against
Plato. But this silence is easily accounted for, partly from the
greater rarity of the book, partly from its offensive opposition to two
Roman popes. The
authorship of
II. His Writings.
The principal work of
The tenth book, made use of by Theodoret, contains a brief recapitulation and the author’s own confession of faith, as a positive refutation of the heresies. The following is the most important part relating to Christ:
"This Word (Logos) the Father sent forth in these last days no longer to speak by a prophet, nor willing that He should be only guessed at from obscure preaching, but bidding Him be manifested face to face, in order that the world should reverence Him when it beheld Him, not giving His commands in the person of a prophet, nor alarming the soul by an angel, but Himself present who had spoken.
"Him we know to have received a body from the
Virgin and to have refashioned the old man by a new creation, and to
have passed in His life through every age, in order that He might be a
law to every age, and by His presence exhibit His own humanity as a
pattern to all men, This idea is
borrowed from
"For, if He were not of the same nature, He would
in vain exhort us to imitate our Master. For if that man was of another
nature, why does He enjoin the same duties on me who am weak? And how
can He be good and just? But that He might be shown to be the same as
we, He underwent toil and consented to suffer hunger and thirst, and
rested in sleep, and did not refuse His passion, and became obedient
unto death, and manifested His resurrection, having consecrated in all
these things His own humanity, as first fruits, in order that thou when
suffering mayest not despair, acknowledging thyself a man of like
nature and waiting for the appearance of what thou gavest to Him. The reading
here is disputed.
"Such is the true doctrine concerning the Deity, O ye Greeks and Barbarians, Chaldaeans and Assyrians, Egyptians and Africans, Indians and Ethiopians, Celts, and ye warlike Latins, and all ye inhabitants of Europe, Asia, and Africa, whom I exhort, being a disciple of the man-loving Word and myself a lover of men ( ). Come ye and learn from us, who is the true God, and what is His well-ordered workmanship, not heeding the sophistry of artificial speeches, nor the vain professions of plagiarist heretics, but the grave simplicity of unadorned truth. By this knowledge ye will escape the coming curse of the judgment of fire, and the dark rayless aspect of Tartarus, never illuminated by the voice of the Word ....
"Therefore, O men, persist not in your enmity, nor
hesitate to retrace your steps. For Christ is the God who is over all (
, comp. The passage
is obscure: ὁς τὴν
ἁμαρτίαν
ἐξ
ἀνθρώπων
ἀποπλύνειν
προσέταξε.
Wordsworth translates: " who commanded us to wish away sin from man;"
Macmahon: " He has arranged to wash away sin from human beings."Bunsen
changes the reading thus: " For Christ is He whom the God of all has
ordered to wash away the sins of mankind."
Among, his polemical works was one Against
Thirty-two Heresies, different from the Philosophumena, and described
by Photius as a "little book," βιβλιδάριον.
The more usual diminutive of βιβλίς or βίβλος is βιβλίδιον. Lipsius, in
his Quellenkrilik des
Epiphanios, has made the extraordinary achievement of
a partial reconstruction of this work from unacknowledged extracts in
the anti-heretical writings of Epiphanius, Philaster, and Pseudo- As suggested
by Fabricius (T., 235), Neander (I. 682, Engl. ed.), and Lipsius. It
bears in the MS. the title "Homily of So Volkmar
(l.c. p. 165: "Der Cod. Vatic.
’Contra Noëtum’ ist der
Schluss nicht jener kürzeren Häreseologie,
sondern einer anderen, von Epiphanius noch vorgefundenen Schrift
desselben Hippolyt, wie es scheint, gegen alle
Monarchianer." Caspari (III. 400 sq.) decides for the
same view.
The book On the Universe Περὶ
τῆς τοῦ
παντὸς
αἰτίας (or
οὐσίας,
as Hippol. himself gives the title, Philos. X. 32 ed. D. and Schn.), or
Περὶ τοῦ
παντός (on the Comp.
Döllinger, p. 330 sqq. He connects the view of
The anonymous work called The Little Labyrinth, ΣμικρὸςΛαβύρινθος (Theodoret,
Haer. Fa b. II. 5) or σπούδασμα
κατὰ τῆσ
Ἀρτέμωνος
αἱρέσεως
(Euseb. H. E. V. 28). Caspari,
III. 404 sq., identifies the two books.
The lost tract on the Charismata Περὶ
χαρισμάτων
άποστολικὴ
παράδοσις.
On the
The book on Antichrist Περὶ
τοῦ
σωτῆρος
ἡμῶν
Ἰησοῦ
Χριστοῦ
καὶ περὶ
άντιχρίστου
, in Fabricius I. 4-36 (Gr. and Lat.), and in P. de Lagarde, 1-36
(Greek only).
In a commentary on the Apocalypse Included in
Jerome’s list, and mentioned by Jacob of Edessa and by
Syncellus. Fragments from an Arabic Catena on the Apocalypse in
Lagarde’s Anal. Syr., Append. p. 24-27. See Salmon in
Smith and Wace, III. 105. See
Döllinger, p. 330 sqq. (Engl. ed.)
We conclude this section with an account of a
visit of Pope Alexander III. to the shrine of St. We are
indebted for this curious piece of information to Dr. Salmon, who
refers to Benson, in the "Journal of Classical and Sacred Philology, "
I. 190.
Notes.
The questions concerning the literary works of
I. The List of Books on the back of the
[πρὸς τοὺς Ἰουδἂ ἰους.
Against the Jews.
[Περὶ παρθε] νίας.
On Virginity.
[Or, perhaps, εἰς παροιμίας]
[Or, On the Proverbs.]
[εἰς τοὺς ψ] αλμούς.
On the Psalms.
[εἰς τὴν ἐ] γγαστρίμυθον.
On the Ventriloquist [the witch at Endor?]
[ἀπολογία] ὑπὲρ τοῦ κατὰ Ἰωάννην
Apology of the Gospel according to John,
εὐαγγελίου καὶ ἀποκαλύψεως.
and the Apocalypse.
Περὶ χαρισμάτων
On Spiritual Gifts.
ἀποστολικὴ παράδοσις
Apostolic Tradition.
Χρονικῶν [sc. Βίβλος]
Chronicles [Book of]
πρὸς Ἕλληνας,
Against the Greeks,
καὶ πρὸς Πλάτωνα,
and against Plato,
ἤ καὶ περὶ τοῦ παντὸς
or also On the All.
προτρεπτικὸς πρὸς σεβήρειναν
A hortatory address to Severina. [Perhaps the Empress Severa, second wife of Elogabalus]
ἀπόδἔἲξις χρόνων τοῦ πάσχα
Demonstration of the time of the Pascha
κατὰ ̓́τἂ ἐν τῷ πίνακι.
according to the order in the table.
ᾠδαί ̓́ἒἰς πάσας τὰς γραφὰς.
Hymns on all the Scriptures.
Περὶ θ̓́εὂῦ, καὶ σαρκὸς ἀναστάσεως.
Concerning God, and the resurrection of the flesh.
Περὶ τοῦ ἀγαθοῦ, καὶ πόθεν τὸ κακόν
Concerning the good, and the origin of evil.
Comp. on this list Fabricius I. 79–89; Wordsworth p. 233–240; Volkmar, p. 2 sqq.
II. Was
(1.) He was bishop of Portus, the seaport of Rome.
This is the traditional opinion in the Roman church since the seventh
century, and is advocated by Ruggieri (De Portuensi S. Hippolyti,
episcopi et martyris, Sede,
(2.) He was bishop of the Arabian Portus Romanus,
now Aden on the Red Sea. This was the opinion of Stephen Le Moyne
(1685), adopted by Cave, Tillemont, and Basnage, but now universally
given up as a baseless conjecture, which rests on a misapprehension of
Euseb. VI. 20, where
(3.) Rome.
This theory is plausible and almost forced upon us
by the Philosophumena, but without any solid support outside of that
polemical work. History is absolutely silent about an Anti-Pope before
(4.) Dr. Salmon offers a modification of the
Döllinger-hypothesis by assuming that
III. But no matter whether
§ 184.
Euseb.: H. E. II. 25; III. 28, 31; VI. 20. Hieron.:
De Vir. ill. 59. Theodor.: Fa b. Haer. II. 3; III. 2. Photius:
Biblioth. Cod. 48. Perhaps also Martyr. Polyc., c. 22, where a Caius is
mentioned as a pupil or friend of
Routh: Rel. S. II. 125–158 (Comp.
also I. 397–403). Bunsen: Analecta Ante-Nicaena I. 409
sq. Caspari: Quellen etc., III. 330, 349, 374 sqq. Harnack in Herzog,2
III. 63 sq. Salmon in Smith and Wace I. 384–386. Comp.
also Heinichen’s notes on Euseb. II. 25 (in Comment.
III. 63–67), and the
Among the Western divines who, like The name,
however, was common, and the New Testament mentions four Caii ( ἀνὴρ
ἐκκλησιαστικός and
λογιώτατος
(II. 25 and VT. 20). The former term does not necessarily imply an
office, but is rendered by Valesius vir catholicus, by Heinichen
(Euseb. Com. III. 64) ein
rechtgläubiger Schriftsteller. No doubt the
same with the "Proculus noster" commended by
This is nearly all that is certain and interesting
about Caius. Jerome, as usual in his catalogue of illustrious men,
merely repeats the, statements of See above
§ 183, p. 762 sq. So Lightfoot
in the "Journal of Philology," I. 98. and Salmon, l. c. p. 386.
Caius has been surrounded since Photius with a
mythical halo of authorship, and falsely credited with several works of
See the
document and the discussion about the authorship in Routh. I. 398 sqq.,
the article of Salmon in Smith and Wace III. 1000 sqq., and the
different works on the Canon. Most of the writers on the subject,
including Salmon, regard the fragment as a translation from a Greek
original, since all other documents of the Roman Church down to
Zephyrinus and
§ 185. The Alexandrian School of Theology.
J. G. Michaelis: De Scholae Alexandrinae prima origine, progressu, ac praecpuis doctoribus. Hal. 1739.
H. E. Fr. Guerike: De Schola quae Alexandriae
floruit catechetica commentatio historica et theologica. Hal. 1824 and
’25. 2 Parts (pp. 119 and 456). The second Part is
chiefly devoted to Clement and
C. F. W. Hasselbach: De Schola, quae Alex. floruit, catech. Stettin 1826. P. 1. (against Guerike), and De discipulorum ... s. De Catechumenorum ordinibus, Ibid. 1839.
J. Matter: L’Histoire de l’ École d’Alexandrie, second ed. Par. 1840. 3 vols.
J. Simon: Histoire de I’ École d’Alexandrie. Par. 1845.
E. Vacherot: Histoire critique de l’ École d’Alexandrie. Par. 1851. 3 vols.
Neander: I. 527–557 (Am. ed.); Gieseler I. 208–210 (Am. ed.)
Ritter: Gesch. der christl. Philos. I. 421 sqq.
Ueberweg: History of Philosophy, vol. I. p. 311–319 (Engl. transl. 1875).
Redepenning in his
C. H. Bigg: The Christian Platonists of Alexandria. Lond. 1886.
Alexandria, founded by
The first superintendent of this school known to
us was Clemens
calls him "the Sicilian bee" (σικελικὴ
μέλιττα, perhaps
with reference to his descent from Sicily). Jerome (Catal. 36) says of
him: "Hujus multi quidem in S. Scripturam exstant commentarii sed magis
viva voce ecclesiis profuit." Comp. on him Redepenning;
From this catechetical school proceeded a peculiar
theology, the most learned and genial representatives of which were
Clement and
So with the Gnostic heresy. The Alexandrians did
not sweepingly condemn it, but recognized the desire for deeper
religious knowledge, which lay at its root, and sought to meet this
desire with a wholesome supply from the Bible itself. Their maxim was,
in the words of Clement: "No faith without knowledge, no knowledge
without faith;" or: "Unless you believe, you will not understand."
The Alexandrian theology is intellectual, profound, stirring and full of fruitful germs of thought, but rather unduly idealistic and spiritualistic, and, in exegesis, loses itself in arbitrary allegorical fancies. In its efforts to reconcile revelation and philosophy it took up, like Philo, many foreign elements, especially of the Platonic stamp, and wandered into speculative views which a later and more orthodox, but more narrow-minded and less productive age condemned as heresies, not appreciating the immortal service of this school to its own and after times.
§ 186.
(I.) Clementis Alex. Opera omnia Gr. et Lat. ed. Potter (bishop of Oxford). Oxon. 1715. 2 vols. Reprinted Venet. 1757. 2 vols. fol., and in Migne’s "Patr. Gr." vols. VIII. and IX., with various additions and the comments of Nic. Le Nourry. For an account of the MSS. and editions of Clement see Fabricius; Biblioth. Graeca, ed. Harles, vol. VII. 109 sqq.
Other edd. by Victorinus (Florence, 1550); Sylburg (Heidel b. 1592) Heinsius (Graeco-Latin., Leyden, 1616); Klotz (Leipz. 1831–34, 4 vols., only in Greek, and very incorrect); W. Dindorf (Oxf. 1868–69, 4 vols.).
English translation by Wm. Wilson in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," vols. IV. and V. Edinb. 1867.
(II.)
(III.) Hofstede De Groot: Dissert. de Clem. Alex. Groning. 1826. A. F. Daehne: De γνώσειClem Al. Hal. 1831.
F. R. Eylert: Clem. v. Alex. als Philosoph und Dichter. Leipz. 1832.
Bishop Kaye: Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of Alex. Lond. 1835.
Kling: Die Bedeutung des Clem. Alex. für die Entstehung der Theol. ("Stud. u. Krit." for 1841, No. 4).
H. J. Reinkens: De Clem. Alex. homine, scriptore, philosopho, theologo. Wratisl. (Breslau) 1851.
H. Reuter: Clementis Alex. Theol. moralis. Berl. 1853.
Laemmer.: Clem. Al. de Logo doctrina. Lips. 1855.
Abbé Cognat: Clement d’Alexandrie. Paris 1859.
J. H. Müller: Idées dogm. de Clement d’Alex. Strasb. 1861.
CH. E. Freppel. (R.C.): Clément d’Alexandrie. Paris, 1866, second ed. 1873.
C. Merk: Clemens v. Alex. in s. Abhängigkeit von der griech. Philosophie. Leipz. 1879.
Fr. Jul. Winter: Die Ethik des Clemens v. Alex. Leipz. 1882 (first part of Studien zur Gesch. der christl. Ethik).
Jacobi in Herzog2 III. 269–277, and Westcott in Smith and Wace l. 559–567.
Theod. Zahn: Supplementum Clementinum. Third Part of his Forschungen zur Gesch. des N. T. lichen Kanons. Erlangen 1884.
I. 453 Κλήμηνς.
It is strange that he, and not his distinguished Roman namesake, should
be called Flavius. Perhaps he was descended from a freedman of Titus
Flavius Clemens, the nephew of the Emperor Vespasian and Consul in 95,
who with his wife Domitilla was suddenly arrested and condemned on the
charge of " atheism," i.e. Christianity, by his cousin, the emperor
Domitian.
II. Clement was the father of the Alexandrian Christian philosophy. He united thorough biblical and Hellenic learning with genius and speculative thought. He rose, In many points, far above the prejudices of his age, to more free and spiritual views. His theology, however, is not a unit, but a confused eclectic mixture of true Christian elements with many Stoic, Platonic, and Philonic ingredients. His writings are full of repetition, and quite lacking in clear, fixed method. He throws out his suggestive and often profound thoughts in fragments, or purposely veils them, especially in the Stromata, in a mysterious darkness, to conceal them from the exoteric multitude, and to stimulate the study of the initiated or philosophical Christians. He shows here an affinity with the heathen mystery cultus, and the Gnostic arcana. His extended knowledge of Grecian literature and rich quotations from the lost works of poets, philosophers, and historians give him importance also in investigations regarding classical antiquity. He lived in an age of transition when Christian thought was beginning to master and to assimilate the whole domain of human knowledge. "And when it is frankly admitted" (says Dr. Westcott) "that his style is generally deficient in terseness and elegance; that his method is desultory; that his learning is undigested: we can still thankfully admire his richness of information, his breadth of reading, his largeness of sympathy, his lofty aspirations, his noble conception of the office and capacities of the Faith."
III. The three leading works which he composed
during his residence as teacher in Alexandria, between the years 190
and 195, represent the three stages in the discipline of the human race
by the divine Logos, corresponding to the three degrees of knowledge
required by the ancient in mystagogues, The ἀποκάθαρσις,
and the μύησις, and the
ἐπότεια,
i.e. purification, initiation, vision. Λόγος
προτρεπτικός
πρὸσ
Ἕλληνας,
Cohortatio ad Graecos, or ad Gentes. Παιδαγωγός.
This part contains the hymn to Christ at the close. Στρωματεῖς,
Stromata, or pieces of tapestry, which, when curiously woven, and in
divers colors present an apt picture of such miscellaneous
composition.
Besides these principal works we have, from
Clement also, an able and moderately ascetic treatise, on the right use
of wealth. Τίς ὁ
σωζόμενος
πλούσιος,
Quis dives salvus orsalvetur? an excellent commentary on the words of
the Lord in Ὑποτυπώσεις,
Adumbrationes, Outlines, or a condensed survey of the contents of the
Old and New Testament Scriptures. See the analysis of the fragments by
Westcott, in Smith and Wace, III. 563 sq., and Zahn l.c. 64-103.
To Clement we owe also the oldest Christian hymn
that has come down to us; an elevated but somewhat turgid song of
praise to the Logos, as the divine educator and leader of the human
race. ὕμνος
τοῦ
σωτῆρος
Χριστοῦ, written
in an anapaestic measure. See § 66, p. 230. The other hymn
added to the "Tutor" written in trimeter iambics, and addressed to the
παιδαγωγός
is of later date.
§ 187.
(I.)
Other editions by J. Merlinus (ed. princeps, Par.
1512–’19, 2 vols. fol., again in
Venice 1516, and in Paris 1522; 1530, only the Lat. text); by Erasmus
and Beatus Rhenanus (Bas. 1536, 2 vols. fol.; 1545; 1551; 1557; 1571);
by the Benedictine G. Genebrard (Par. 1574; 1604; 1619 in 2 vols. fol.,
all in Lat.); by Corderius (Antw. 1648, partly in Greek); by P. D.
Huetius, or Huet, afterwards Bp. of Avranges (Rouen, 1668, 2 vols.
fol., the Greek writings, with very learned dissertations,
English translation of select works of
(II.)
(III.) P. D. Huetius:
G. Thomasius:
E. Rud. Redepenning:
Böhringer:
Ch. E. Freppel, (R.C.): Origène, Paris 1868, second ed. 1875.
Comp. the articles of Schmitz in Smith’s "Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biogr." III. 46–55; Möller in Herzog2 Vol. XI. 92–109 Westcott in "Dict. of Chr. Biogr," IV. 96–142; Farrar, in "Lives of the Fathers," I. 291–330.
Also the respective sections in Bull (Defens. Fid.
Nic. ch. IX. in Delarue, IV. 339–357), Neander, Baur,
and Dorner (especially on
I. Life And Character. Ὠριγένης,
Ἀδαμάντιος
(also Χαλκέντερος).
Jerome understood the epithet to indicate his unwearied industry,
Photius the irrefragable strength of his arguments. See Redepenning, I.
430. So
Möller (l.c. 92) and others. But it is only an inference
from Λεωνίδης
Eus. VI. 1. So Neander and Gieseler. Others spell the name Leonidas
(Redepenning and Möller).
In the year 203, though then only eighteen years
of age, he was nominated by the bishop Demetrius, afterwards his
opponent, president of the catechetical school of Alexandria, left
vacant by the flight of Clement. To fill this important office, he made
himself acquainted with the various heresies, especially the Gnostic,
and with the Grecian philosophy; he was not even ashamed to study under
the heathen Ammonius Saccas, the celebrated founder of Neo-Platonism.
He learned also the Hebrew language, and made journeys to Rome (211),
Arabia, Palestine (215), and Greece. In Rome he became slightly
acquainted with See
Döllinger,
When his labors and the number of his pupils increased he gave the lower classes of the catechetical school into the charge of his pupil Heraclas, and devoted himself wholly to the more advanced students. He was successful in bringing many eminent heathens and heretics to the Catholic church; among them a wealthy Gnostic, Ambrosius, who became his most liberal patron, furnishing him a costly library for his biblical studies, seven stenographers, and a number of copyists (some of whom were young Christian women), the former to note down his dictations, the latter to engross them. His fame spread far and wide over Egypt. Julia Mammaea, mother of the Emperor Alexander Severus, brought him to Antioch in 218, to learn from him the doctrines of Christianity. An Arabian prince honored him with a visit for the same purpose.
His mode of life during the whole period was
strictly ascetic. He made it a matter of principle, to renounce every
earthly thing not indispensably necessary. He refused the gifts of his
pupils, and in literal obedience to the Saviour’s
injunction he had but one coat, no shoes, and took no thought of the
morrow. He rarely ate flesh, never drank wine; devoted the greater part
of the night to prayer and study, and slept on the bare floor. Nay, in
his youthful zeal for ascetic holiness, he even committed the act of
self-emasculation, partly to fulfil literally the mysterious words of
Christ, in This fact
rests on the testimony of
But this foreign ordination itself, and the
growing reputation of
In this controversy
At last he received an honorable invitation to return to Alexandria, where, meantime, his pupil Dionysius had become bishop. But in the Decian persecution he was cast into prison, cruelly tortured, and condemned to the stake; and though he regained his liberty by the death of the emperor, yet he died some time after, at the age of sixty-nine, in the year 253 or 254, at Tyre, probably in consequence of that violence. He belongs, therefore, at least among the confessors, if not among the martyrs. He was buried at Tyre.
It is impossible to deny a respectful sympathy,
veneration and gratitude to this extraordinary man, who, with all his
brilliant talents and a best of enthusiastic friends and admirers, was
driven from his country, stripped of his sacred office, excommunicated
from a part of the church, then thrown into a dungeon, loaded with
chains, racked by torture, doomed to drag his aged frame and dislocated
limbs in pain and poverty, and long after his death to have his memory
branded, his name anathematized, and his salvation denied; Stephen
Binet, a Jesuit, wrote a little book, De salute
II. His Theology.
He may be called in many respects the
Schleiermacher of the Greek church. He was a guide from the heathen
philosophy and the heretical Gnosis to the Christian faith. He exerted
an immeasurable influence in stimulating the development of the
catholic theology and forming the great Nicene fathers,
These and similar views provoked more or less
contradiction during his lifetime, and were afterwards, at a local
council in Constantinople in 543, even solemnly condemned as
heretical. Not at the
fifth ecumenical council of 553, as has been often, through confusion,
asserted. See Hefele, Conciliengesch. vol. II. 790 sqq. and 859 sqq,
Möller, however, in Herzog2 xi. 113, again defends the other view of Noris
and Ballerini. See the 15 anathematisms in Mansi, Conc. ix. 534.
His
exegetical method and merits are fully discussed by Huetius, and by
Redepenning (I. 296-324), also by Diestel, Gesch. des A. T in der christl. Kirche,
1869, p. 36 sq. and 53 sq.
§ 188. The Works of
1. His biblical works were the most numerous, and may be divided into critical, exegetical, and hortatory.
Among the critical were the Hexapla Τὰ
ἑξαπλᾶ, also in
the singular form τὸ
ἑξαπλοῦν,
Hexaplum (in later writers). Comp. Fritzsche in Herzog2 I. 285. Called
Quinta (ε’), Sexta (ς’), and Septima (ζ’). This would make nine
columns in all, but the name Enneapla never occurs. Octapla and
Heptap!a are used occasionally, but very seldom. The following passage
from Τὸ
Εβραικόν Τὸ
Ἑβραικὸν
Ἑλληνικοῖςγράμμασιν Ἀςαλ́υκ Σύμμαχος Οἱ ̑Ο (LXX) θεοδοτίων ̑Ε’ Σ’. Z’. ךְנבספָ באמונתרׄ
וצדּיק ουσαδικ
βημουναθω
ιειε. κ̀ια.ιατεσ́ηζ
̑υοτ̓υα
ιετσιπ ν̓ε
ςοιακ̀ιδ ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῇ εαυτοῦ
πίστει
ζήσει. ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῇ
ἑαυτοῦ
πίστεωςμοῦζήσεται. ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῂ
ἑαυτοῦ
πίστει
ζήσει. ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῇ
ἑαυτοῦ
πίστει
ζήσει. ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῇ
ἑαυτοῦ
πίστει
ζήσει. ὁ δὲ
δίκαιος
τῇ
ἑαυτοῦ
πίστει
ζήσει. τὰ
τετραπλᾶ,
or τετραπλοῦν
or τὸ
τετρασέλιδον,
or, Tetrapla, Tetraplum.
His commentaries covered almost all the books of
the Old and New Testaments, and contained a vast wealth of original and
profound suggestions, with the most arbitrary allegorical and mystical
fancies. They were of three kinds: (a) Short notes on single difficult
passages for beginners; Σημειώσεις,
σχόλια, scholia. Τόμοι, volumina,
also commentarii. Ὁμιλίαι.
2. Apologetic and polemic works. The refutation of
Celsus’s attack upon Christianity, in eight books,
written in the last years of his life, about 248, is preserved complete
in the original, and is one of the ripest and most valuable productions
of Comp.
§ 32, p. 89 sqq. A special ed. by W. Selwyn:
3. Of his dogmatic writings we have, though only
in the inaccurate Latin translation of Rufinus, his juvenile
production, De Principiis, i.e. on the fundamental doctrines of the
Christian faith, in four books. Περὶ
ἀρχῶν. The version
of Rufinus with some fragments of a more exact rival version in Delarue
I. 42-195. A special ed. by Redepenning,
4. Among his practical works may be mentioned a
treatise on prayer, with an exposition of the Lord’s
Prayer, Περὶ
εὐχῆς De Oratione.
Delarue, I. 195-272. Separate ed. Oxf. 1635, with a Latin version.
Εἰς
μαρτύπιον
προτρεπτικός
λόγος or Περὶ
μαρτυρίου,
De Martyrio. First published by Wetstein, Basel, 1574; in Delarue, I.
273-310, with Latin version and notes.
5. Of his letters, of which
Among the works of First
published in Latin by Genebrardus, Paris 1574, and in Greek and Latin
by Delarue, who, however, omits those extracts, which are elsewhere
given in their appropriate places.
§ 189. Gregory Thaumaturgus.
T. S. Gregorii episcopi Neocaesariensis Opera omnia, ed. G. Vossius, Mag. 1604; better ed. by Fronto Ducaeus, Par. 1622, fol.; in Gallandi, Bibl. Vet. Patrum" (1766–77), Tom. III., p. 385–470; and in Migne. "Patrol. Gr." Tom. X. (1857), 983–1343. Comp. also a Syriac version of Gregory’s κατὰ μέρος πίστις in R. de Lagarde’s Analecta Syriaca, Leipz. 1858, pp. 31–67.
II. Gregory Of Nyssa: Βίος καὶ ἐγκώμιον ῥήθεν εἰς τὸν ἅγιον Γρηγόριον τὸν θαυματουργόν. In the works of Gregory of Nyssa, (Migne, vol. 46). A eulogy full of incredible miracles, which the author heard from his grandmother.
English translation by S. D. F. Salmond, in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. xx. (1871), p. 1–156.
C. P. Caspari: Alte und neue Quellen zur Gesc. des Taufsymbols und der Glaubensregel. Christiania, 1879, p. 1–160.
Victor Ryssel: Gregorius Thaumaturgus. Sein Leben und seine Schriften. Leipzig, 1880 (160 pp.). On other biograpbical essays of G., see Ryssel, pp. 59 sqq. Contains a translation of two hitherto unknown Syriac writings of Gregory.
W. Möller in Herzog2, V. 404 sq. H. R. Reynolds in Smith & Wace, II. 730–737.
Most of the Greek fathers of the third and fourth
centuries stood more or less under the influence of the spirit and the
works of
Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, "the
wonder-worker," was converted from heathenism in his youth by
Later story represents him as a "second Moses,"
and attributed extraordinary miracles to him. But these are not
mentioned till a century after his time, by Gregory of Nyssa and Basil,
who made him also a champion of the Nicene orthodoxy before the Council
of Nicaea. The Ἓκθεσις
τῆς
πίστεως
κατὰ
ἀποκάλυψιν
is rejected as spurious by Gieseler and Baur, defended by Hahn,
Caspari, and Ryssel. It is given in Mansi, Conc. I, 1030, in Hahn,
Bibl. der Symbole der alten
Kirche, second ed. p. 183, and by Caspari, p. 10-17,
in Greek and in two Latin versions with notes. The κατὰ
μέρος
πίστις(i.e. the faith
set forth piece for piece, or in detail, not in part only) was first
published in the Greek original by Angelo Mai, Scriptorum Vet. Nova
Collectio, VII. 170-176. A Syriac translation in the Analecta Syriaca,
ed. by P. de Lagarde, pp. 31-42. See Caspari, l.c. pp. 65-116, who
conclusively proves the Apollinarian origin of the document. A third
trinitarian confession from Gregory, διάλεξις
πρὸς
Αἰλιανόν,
is lost.
Among his genuine writings is a glowing eulogy on
his beloved teacher Best
separate edition by Bengel, Stuttgart, 1722. It is also published in
the 4th vol. of Delarue’s ed . of In Migne,
Tom. X.
Notes.
I. The Declaration of faith (ἔκθεσις
πίστεως
κατὰ
ἀποκάλυψιν) is said to have been revealed to
Gregory in a night vision by St. John, at the request of the Virgin
Mary, and the autograph of it was, at the time of Gregory of Nyssa (as
he says), in possession of the church of Neocaesarea. It is certainly a
very remarkable document and the most explicit statement of the
doctrine of the Trinity from the ante-Nicene age. Caspari (in his Alte und neue
Quellen, etc., 1879, pp. 25–64),
after an elaborate discussion, comes to the conclusion that the creed
contains nothing inconsistent with a pupil of
Gregory Thaumat. Declaration of Faith.
Εἰς Θεὸς, Πατὴρ λόγου ζῶντος, σοφίας ὑφεστώσης καὶ δυνάμεως καὶ χαρακτῆρος ἀϊδίου, τέλειος τελείου γεννήτωρ, Πατὴρ Υἱοῦ μονογενοῦ ς
There is one God, the Father of the living Word, (who is his) subsisting Wisdom and Power and eternal Impress (lmage): perfect Begetter of the Perfect [Begotten], Father of the only begotten Son.
Εἷς Κύριος, μόνος ἐκ μονου, θὲος ἐκ θεοῦ, χαρακτὴρ καὶ εἰκὼν τῆ ς θεότητος, λόγος ἐνεργός, σοφία τῆ ς τῶν ὅλων συστάσεως περιεκτικὴ καὶ δύναμις τῆ ς ὅλης κτίσεως ποιητική, Υἱὸς ἀληθινὸς ἀληθινοῦ Πατρός, ἀόρατος ἀοράτου καὶ ἄφθαρτος ἀφθάρτου καὶ ἀθάνατος ἀθανάτου καὶ ἀΐδιος ἀϊδίου
There is one Lord, Only of Only, God of God, the Image and Likeness of the Godhead, the efficient Word, Wisdom comprehensive of the system of all things, and Power productive of the whole creation; true Son of the true Father, Invisible of Invisible, and Incorruptible of Incorruptible, and Immortal of Immortal, and Eternal of Eternal.
Καὶ ἕν Πνεῦμα Ἅγιον, ἐκ θεοῦ τὴν ὕπαρξιν ἔχον, καὶ δι’ Υἰοῦ πεφηνὸς [δηλαδὴ τοῖ ς ἀνθρώποις], εἰκὼν τοῦ Υἰοῦ τελείου τελεία, ζωὴ, ζώντων αἰτία, πηγὴ ἁγία, ἁγιότης, ἁγιασμοῦ χορηγός· ἐν ᾦ φανεροῦται θεὸς ὁ Πατὴρ ὁ ἐπι πάντων καὶ ἐν πᾶσι καὶ θεὸς ὀ Υιός ὁ διὰ πάντων· τριὰς τελεία, δόξῃ και ἀϊδιότητι καὶ βασιλείᾳ μὴ μεριζομένη μηδὲ ἀπαλλοτριουμένη.
And there is one Holy Ghost, having his existence from God, and being manifested (namely, to mankind) by the Son; the perfect Likeness of the perfect Son: Life, the Cause of the living; sacred Fount; holiness, the Bestower of sanctification; in whom is revealed God the Father, who is over all things and in all things, and God the Son, who is through all things: a perfect Trinity, in glory and eternity and dominion, neither divided nor alien.
Οὔτε οὖν κτιστόν τι ἢ δοῦλον ἐν τῇ τριάδι, οὔτε ἐπείσακτον, ὡς πρότερον μὲν οὐχ ὑπάρχον, ὕστερον δὲ ἐπεισελθόν· οὔτε οὖν ἐνέλιπέ ποτε Υἱὸς Πατρὶ, οὔτε Υἱῷ Πνεῦμα ἀλλὰ ἄτρεπτος καὶ ἀναλλοίωτος ἡ αὐτὴ τριὰς ἀεί.
There is therefore nothing created or subservient in the Trinity, nor super-induced, as though not before existing, but introduced afterward Nor has the Son ever been wanting to the Father, nor the Spirit to the Son, but there is unvarying and unchangeable the same Trinity forever.
II. The Miracles ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus in the fourth century, one hundred years after his death, by the enlightened and philosophic Gregory of Nyssa, and defended in the nineteenth century by Cardinal Newman of England as credible (Two Essays on Bibl. and Eccles. Miracles. Lond. 3d ed., 1873, p. 261–270), are stupendous and surpass all that are recorded of the Apostles in the New Testament.
Gregory not only expelled demons, healed the sick, banished idols from a heathen temple, but he moved large stones by a mere word, altered the course of the Armenian river Lycus, and, like Moses of old, even dried up a lake. The last performance is thus related by St. Gregory of Nyssa: Two young brothers claimed as their patrimony the possession of a lake. (The name and location are not given.) Instead of dividing it between them, they referred the dispute to the Wonderworker, who exhorted them to be reconciled to one another. The young men however, became exasperated, and resolved upon a murderous duel, when the man of God, remaining on the banks of the lake, by the power of prayer, transformed the whole lake into dry land, and thus settled the conflict.
Deducting all these marvellous features, which the magnifying distance of one century after the death of the saint created, there remains the commanding figure of a great and good man who made a most powerful impression upon his and the subsequent generati
§ 190. Dionysius the Great.
(I.) S. Dionysii Episcopi Alexandrini quae supersunt
Operum et Episto larum fragmenta, in Migne’s "Patrol.
Gr." Tom. X.
(II.)
(III.) Th. Förster: De Doctrina et Sententiis Dionysii Magni Episcopi Alex. Berl. 1865. And in the "Zeitschrift für hist. Theol." 1871. Dr. Dittrich (R.C.): Dionysius der Grosse von Alexandrien. Freib. i. Breisg. 1867 (130 pages). Weizsäcker in Herzog2 III. 61, 5 sq. Westcott in Smith and Wace I. 850 sqq.
First by
When invited
in 265 to attend the Synod of Antioch, he declined on account of the
infirmities of old age. Eus. VII. 27.
His last years were disturbed by war, famine and
pestilence, of which he gives a lively account in the Easter encyclical
of the year 263. Preserved by
Dionysius took an active part in the
christological, chiliastic, and disciplinary controversies of his time,
and showed in them moderation, an amiable spirit of concession, and
practical churchly tact, but also a want of independence and
consistency. He opposed Sabellianism, and ran to the brink of
tritheism, but in his correspondence with the more firm and orthodox
Dionysius of Rome he modified his view, and
Dionysius wrote many letters and treatises on
exegetic, polemic, and ascetic topics, but only short fragments remain,
mostly in In Euseb.
VII. 25. Dionysius concludes the comparison with praising the pure
Greek of the Gospel and contrasting with it "the barbarous idioms and
solecisms" of the Apocalypse; yet the style of the Gospel is thoroughly
Hebrew in the inspiring soul and mode of construction. He admits
however, that the author of the Apocalypse "saw a revelation and
received knowledge and prophecy," and disclaims the intention of
depreciating the book only he cannot conceive that it is the product of
the same pen as the fourth Gospel. He anticipated the theory of the
Schleiermacher school of critics who defend the Johannean origin of the
Gospel and surrender the Apocalypse; while the Tübingen
critics and Renan reverse the case. See on this subject vol. I. 716
sq.
Dionysius is commemorated in the Greek church on October 3, in the Roman on November 17.
§ 191. Julius Africanus.
(I.) The fragments in Routh: Rel. Sacr. II.
221–509. Also in Gallandi, Tom. II., and Migne, "Patr.
Gr., " Tom. X.
(II.)
(III.) Fabricius: "Bibl. Gr." IV. 240 (ed. Harles). G. Salmon in Smith and Wace I. 53–57. Ad. Harnack in Herzog2 VII. 296–298. Also Pauly’s "Real-Encykl." V. 501 sq.; Nicolai’s "Griech. Lit. Gesch." II. 584; and Smith’s "Dict. of Gr. and Rom. Biogr." I. 56 sq.
Suidas calls
him Sextus Africanus. Not the
Emmaus known from Two Syrian
writers, Barsalibi and Ebedjesu, from the end of the twelfth century,
call him bishop of Edessa; but earlier writers know nothing of this
title, and
His chief work is his chronography, in five books.
It commenced with the creation (B. C. 5499) and came down to the year
221, the fourth year of Elagabalus. It is the foundation of the
mediaeval historiography of the world and the church. We have
considerable fragments of it and can restore it in part from the
Chronicle of
Another work of Africanus, called Cesti (Κεστοὶ) or Variegated Girdles, was a sort of universal scrap-book or miscellaneous collection of information on geography, natural history, medicine, agriculture, war, and other subjects of a secular character. Only fragments remain. Some have unnecessarily denied his authorship on account of the secular contents of the book, which was dedicated to the Emperor Alexander Severus.
The letter to
The letter to Aristides on the genealogies solves
the difficulty by assuming that Matthew gives the natural, Luke the
legal, descent of our Lord. It exists in fragments, from which F.
Spitta has recently reconstructed it. Der Brief des Jul. Africanus an Aristides
kritisch untersucht und hergestellt. Halle 1877.
§ 192. Minor Divines of the Greek Church.
A number of divines of the third century, of great
reputation in their day, mostly of Egypt and of the school of
I. Hist. Eccl.
VI. 15, 26, 35; Chron. ad arm. Abr. 2250, 2265.
II. Among the successors of Heraclas and Dionysius
in the Catechetical School was In Routh,
Reliquiae Sacre III. 407-422. Cave puts Theognostus after Pierius,
about a.d. 228, but Routh corrects him, (p.
408).
III. Euseb. VII.
32 towards the close; Hieron. D, Vir. ill. 76; Praef. in Hos. Photius,
Cod. 118, 119.
IV. "Jerome says
(De Vir. ill. 75): Pamphilus ... tanto bibliothecae divinae amore
flagravit, ut maximam partem See
Routh’s Rel. S. vol. III. 491-512, and vol. IV.
339-392; also in Delarue’s Opera Orig. vol. IV., and
in the editions of Lommatsch and Migne.
V. H. E. VIII.
13; IX. 6. The fragments in Routh, IV. 23-82. Peter taught in a sermon
on the soul, that soul and body were created together on the same day,
and that the theory of pre-existence is derived from "the Hellenic
philosophy, and is foreign to those who would lead a godly life in
Christ" (Routh, p. 49 sq.).
VI. 0ur
information about Hierax is almost wholly derived from Epiphanius,
Haer. 67, who says that he lived during the Diocletian persecution.
§ 193. Opponents of
(I.) Μεθοδίου
ἐπισκόπου
καὶ
μάρτυρος
τὰ
εὑρισκόμενα
πάντα. In Gallandi’s "Vet.
Patr. Biblioth." Tom. III.; in Migne’s "Patrol. Gr."
Tom. XVIII.
(II) Hieronymus: De Viris ill. 83, and in several of his Epp. and Comment. Epiphanius: Haer. 64. Socrates: H. E. VI. 31. Photius: Bibl. 234–237.
(III.) Leo Allatius: Diatribe de Methodiorum
Scriptis, in his ed. of the Convivium in 1656. Fabric." Bibl. Gr.," ed.
Harles, VII. 260 sqq. W. Möller in Herzog2, IX.
724–726. (He discusses especially the relation of
Methodius to
The opposition of Demetrius to
Jerome makes
him bishop of Tyre ("Meth. Olympi Lyciae et postea Tyri episcopus");
but as all other authorities mention Patara as his second diocese,
"Tyre" is probably the error of a transcriber for "Patara," or for
"Myra, " which lies nearly midway between Olympus and Patara, and
probably belonged to the one or the other diocese before it became an
independent see. It is not likely that Tyre in Phoenicia should have
called a bishop from so great a distance. Jerome locates the martyrdom
of Methodius at "Chalcis in Greece" (in EubŒa). But
Sophronius, the Greek translator, substitutes "in the East for " in
Greece."Perhaps (as Salmon suggests, p. 909) Jerome confounded
Methodius of Patara with a Methodius whose name tradition has preserved
as a martyr, at Chalcis in the Decian persecution. This confusion is
all the more probable as he did not know the time of the martyrdom, and
says that some assign it to the Diocletian persecution ("ad extremum
novissimae persecutionis") others to the persecution " sub Decio et
Valeriano."
His principal work is his Symposium or Banquet of
Ten Virgins. Συμπόσιον
τῶν δέκα
παρθένων,
Symposium, or Convivium Decem Virginum.
The literary form is interesting. The ten virgins are, of course, suggested by the parable in the gospel. The conception of the Symposium and the dialogue are borrowed from Plato, who celebrated the praises of Eros, as Methodius the praises of virginity. Methodius begins with a brief dialogue between Eubulios and Eubuloin (i.e. himself) and the virgin Gregorion who was present at a banquet of the ten virgins in the gardens of Arete (i.e. personified virtue) and reports to him ten discourses which these virgins successively delivered in praise of chastity. At the end of the banquet the victorious Thecla, chief of the virgins (St. Paul’s apocryphal companion), standing on the right hand of Arete, begins to sing a hymn of chastity to which the virgins respond with the oft-repeated refrain,
ἁγνεύω σοι, καὶ λαμπάδας φαεσφόρους κρατοῦσα, Νυμφίε, ὑπαντάσω σοι.
Then follows a concluding dialogue between Eubulios and Gregorion on the question, whether chastity ignorant of lust is preferable to chastity which feels the power of passion and overcomes it, in other words, whether a wrestler who has no opponents is better than a wrestler who has many and strong antagonists and continually contends against them without being worsted. Both agree in giving the palm to the latter, and then they betake themselves to "the care of the outward man," expecting to resume the delicate discussion on the next day.
The taste and morality of virgins discussing at
great length the merits of sexual purity are very questionable, at
least from the standpoint of modern civilization, but the enthusiastic
praise of chastity to the extent of total abstinence was in full accord
with the prevailing asceticism of the fathers, including
The work On the Resurrection, likewise in the form
of a dialogue, and preserved in large extracts by Epiphanius and
Photius, was directed against Περὶ
τῶν
γενητῶν, known
to us only from extracts in Photius, Cod. 235. Salmon identifies this
book with the Xeno mentioned by Socrates, H. E. VI. 13, as an attack
upon
The Dialogue On Free Will Περὶ
αὐτεξουσίου,
De libero arbitrio. Freedom of the will is strongly emphasized by
Prœp. Evang. VII. 22; Comp. H. E. V. 27; and Routh, Rel. S.
II. 87. Möller and Salmon suppose that Methodius borrowed
from Maximus, and merely furnished the rhetorical introduction.
Other works of Methodius, mentioned by Jerome,
are: Against Porphyry (10, 000 lines); Commentaries on Genesis and
Canticles; De Pythonissa (on the witch of Endor, against
§ 194.
(I.) Luciani Fragmenta in Routh, Rel. s. IV. 3–17.
(II.) Euseb. H. E. VIII. 13; IX. 6 (and
Rufinus’s Eus. IX. 6). Hier De Vir. ill. 77, and in
other works. Socrat.: H. E. II. 10. Sozom.: H. E. III. 5. Epiphan.:
Ancoratus, c. 33. Theodor.: H. E. I. 3. Philostorgius: H. E., II. 14,
15.
(III.) Acta Sanct. Jan. VII. 357 sq. Baron. Ann. ad Ann. 311. Brief notices in Tillemont, Cave, Fabricius, Neander, Gieseler, Hefele (Conciliengesch. vol. I). Harnack: Luc. der Märt. in Herzog, VIII. (1881), pp. 767–772. J. T. Stokes, in Smith & Wace, III., 748 and 749.
On his textual labors see the critical Introductions to the Bible.
I. Lucian was an eminent presbyter of Antioch and martyr of the Diocletian persecution, renewed by Maximin. Very little is known of him. He was transported from Antioch to Nicomedia, where the emperor then resided, made a noble confession of his faith before the judge and died under the tortures in prison (311). His memory was celebrated in Antioch on the 7th of January. His piety was of the severely ascetic type.
His memory was obscured by the suspicion of
unsoundness in the faith. See Baron.
Annal. ad Ann. 311; De Broglie, L’église et
l’empire, I. 375 Newman, Arians of
the Fourth Century, 414.
The contradictory reports are easily reconciled by
the assumption that Lucian was a critical scholar with some peculiar
views on the Trinity and Christology which were not in harmony with the
later Nicene orthodoxy, but that he wiped out all stains by his heroic
confession and martyrdom. Hefele,
Conciliengesch.,
vol. I., p. 258 sq. (2nd ed.), assumes to the same effect that Lucian
first sympathized with his countryman, Paul of Samosta, in his
humanitarian Christology, and hence was excommunicated for a while, but
afterwards renounced this heresy, was restored, and acquired great fame
by his improvement of the text of the Septuagint and by his
martyrdom.
II. The creed which goes by his name and was found
after his death, is quite orthodox as far as it goes, and was laid with
three similar creeds before the Synod of Antioch held a.d. 341, with the intention of being substituted for the
Creed of Nicaea. This Synod
is recognized as legitimate and orthodox, and its twenty-five canons
are accepted, although it confirmed the previous deposition of τὸν
μονογενῆ
θεόν. Comp. the Vatican and
Sinaitic reading of πρωτότοκον
(not πρωτόκτιστον,
first-created) πάσης
κτίσεως, from
See the
creed in full in
III. Lucianus is known also by his critical
revision of the text of the Septuagint and the Greek Testament. Jerome
mentions that copies were known in his day as "exemplaria Lucianea,"
but in other places he speaks rather disparagingly of the texts of
Lucian, and of Hesychius, a bishop of Egypt (who distinguished himself
in the same field). In the absence of definite information it is
impossible to decide the merits of his critical labors. His Hebrew
scholarship is uncertain, and hence we do not know whether his revision
of the Septuagint was made from the original. On his
labors in regard to the Sept., see Simeon Metaphrastes and Suidas,
quoted in Routh IV. 3 sq.; Field’s ed. of the Hexapla
of
As to the New Testament, it is likely that he
contributed much towards the Syrian recension (if we may so call it),
which was used by Dr. Hort,
Introd. and Append. to Westcott and Hort’s Greek Test.
(Lond. and N. York, 1881), p. 138, says of Lucian: "Of known names his
has a better claim than any other to be associated with the early
Syrian revision; and the conjecture derives some little support from a
passage of Jerome . Praetermitto eos codices quos a Luciano et Hesychio
nuncupatos adscrit perversa contentio, " etc. Dr. Scrivener, who denies
such a Syrian recension as an ignis fatuus, barely alludes to Lucian in
his Introduction to the Criticism of the N. Test., 3rd ed., Cambr.,
1883, pp. 515, 517.
§ 195. The Antiochian School.
Kihn (R.C.): Die Bedeutung der antioch. Schule. Weissenburg, 1856.
C. Hornung: Schola Antioch. Neostad. ad S. 1864.
Jos. Hergenröther. (Cardinal): Die Antioch. Schule. Würzb. 1866.
Diestel: Gesch. des A. Test. in, der christl. Kirche. Jena, 1869 (pp. 126–141).
W. Möller in Herzog,2 I. 454–457.
Lucian is the reputed founder of the Antiochian
School of theology, which was more fully developed in the fourth
century. He shares this honor with his friend Dorotheus, likewise a
presbyter of Antioch, who is highly spoken of by Euseb. H. E.
VII. 32 (in the beginning) speaks of Δωρόθεος
as having known him personally. He calls him " a learned man (Λόγιον
ἄνδρα) who was
honored with the rank of presbyter of Antioch" at the time of bishop
Cyrillus, and " a man of fine taste in sacred literature, much devoted
to the study of the Hebrew languages so that he read the Hebrew
Scriptures with great facility."He adds that he " was of a very liberal
mind and not unacquainted with the preparatory studies pursued among
the Greeks, but in other respects a eunuch by nature, having been such
from his birth."
The Antiochian School was not a regular
institution with a continuous succession of teachers, like the
Catechetical School of Alexandria, but a theological tendency, more
particularly a peculiar type of hermeneutics and exegesis which had its
centre in Antioch. The characteristic features are, attention to the
revision of the text, a close adherence to the plain, natural meaning
according to the use of language and the condition of the writer, and
justice to the human factor. In other words, its exegesis is
grammatical and historical, in distinction from the allegorical method
of the Alexandrian School. Yet, as regards textual criticism, Lucian
followed in the steps of
After the condemnation of Nestorius, the Antiochian theology continued to be cultivated at Nisibis and Edessa among the Nestorians.
Notes.
Cardinal Newman, when still an Anglican (in his book on Arians of the Fourth Century, p. 414) made the Syrian School of biblical criticism responsible for the Arian heresy, and broadly maintained that the "mystical interpretation and orthodoxy will stand or fall together." But Cardinal Hergenröther, who is as good a Catholic and a better scholar, makes a proper distinction between use and abuse, and gives the following fair and discriminating statement of the relation between the Antiochian and Alexandrian schools, and the critical and mystical method of interpretation to which a Protestant historian can fully assent. (Handbuch der allgem. Kirchengeschichte. Freiburg i. B. 2nd ed. 1879, vol. I. p. 281.)
"Die Schule von Antiochien hatte bald den Glanz der
Alexandrinischen erreicht, ja sogar überstrahlt. Beide
konnten sich vielfach ergänzen, da jede ihre
eigenthümliche Entwicklung, Haltung und Methode hatte,
konnten aber auch eben wegen iherer Verschiedenheit leicht unter sich
in Kampf und auf Abwege von der Kirchenlehre gerathen.
Während bei den Alexandrinern eine speculativ-intuitive, zum
Mystischen sich hinneigende Richtung hervortrat, war bei den
Antiochenern eine logisch-reflectirende, durchaus nüchterne
Verstandesrichtung vorherrschend. Während jene enge an die
platonische Philosophie sich anschlossen und zwar vorherrschend in der
Gestalt, die sie unter dem hellenistischen Juden Philo gewonnen hatte,
waren die Antiochener einem zum Stoicismus hinneigenden Eklekticismus,
dann der Aristotelischen Schule ergeben, deren scharfe Dialektik ganz
ihrem Geiste zusagte. Demgemäss wurde in der
alexandrinischen Schule, vorzugsweise die allegorisch-mystische
Erklärung der heiligen Schrift gepflegt, in der
Antiochenischen dagegen die buchstäbliche,
grammatisch-logische und historische Interpretation, ohne dass desshalb
der mystische Sinn und insbesondere die Typen des Alten Bundes
gänzlich in Abrede gestellt worden wären.
Die
§ 196.
Comp. the liter. on Montanism, §109, p. 415.
(I.)
English transl. by P. Holmes and others in the "Ante-Nicene Christian Library," Edinb. 1868 sqq. 4 vols. German translation by K. A. H. Kellner. Köln, 1882, 2 vols.
(II.) Euseb. H. G. II. 2, 25; III. 20; V. 5. Jerome: De Viris III.c.53.
(III.) Neander: Antignosticus, Geist des
J. Kaye: Eccles. Hist. of the second and third
Centuries, illustrated from the Writings of
Carl Hesselberg:
P. Gottwald: De Montanismo
Hermann Rönsch: Das Neue
Testament
Ad. Ebert: Gesch. der Christl. lat. Lit. Leipz. 1874, sqq. I. 24–41.
A. Hauck:
(IV.) On the chronology of
(V.) On special points: oehninger:
The Western church in this period exhibits no such
scientific productiveness as the Eastern. The apostolic church was
predominantly Jewish, the ante-Nicene church, Greek, the post-Nicene,
Roman. The Roman church itself was first predominantly Greek, and her
earliest writers—Clement, Hermas,
I. Life of
Quintus Septimius Florens H. E. II. 2.
He adds that
To his thirtieth or fortieth year he lived in
heathen blindness and licentiousness. De Resurr.
Carn. c. 59, he confesses: "Ego me scio neque alia carne adulteria
commisisse, neque nunc alia carne ad continentiam eniti." Comp. also
Apolog., c. 18 and 25; De Anima, c. 2; De Paenit., c. 4 and 12; Ad
Scapul., c. 5. This fact,
however, rests only on the authority of Jerome, and does not appear
from De Cultu
Femin., c. 7. Comp. Euseb. II. 2.
Some years after, between 199 and 203, he joined
the puritanic, though orthodox, sect of the Montanists. Jerome
attributes this change to personal motives, charging it to the envy and
insults of the Roman clergy, from whom he himself experienced many an
indignity. De Vir.
illustr., c. 53: "Hic [Tert.] cum usque ad mediam aetatem presbyter
ecclesia epermansisset, invidia et contumeliis clericorum Romanae
ecclesiae ad Montani dogma delapsus in multis libris novac prophetiae
meminit." Adv. Prax.
c. 1.
He labored in Carthage as a Montanist presbyter
and an author, and died, as Jerome says, in decrepit old age, according
to some about the year 220, according to others not till 240; for the
exact time, as well as the manner of his death, are unknown. His
followers in Africa propagated themselves, under the name of "
Strange that this most powerful defender of old
catholic orthodoxy and the teacher of the high-churchly B.C.
264-146,
II. Character. Comp. his
own painful confession in De Patient. c. 1: "Miserrimus ego semper
aeger caloribus impatientiae."
Like almost all great men, he combined strange
contrarieties of character. Here we are again reminded of Luther;
though the reformer had nothing of the ascetic gloom and rigor of the
African father, and exhibits instead with all his gigantic energy, a
kindly serenity and childlike simplicity altogether foreign to the
latter. In a similar
manner Luther, though himself one of the most original and fruitful
thinkers, sometimes unreasonably abuses reason as the
devil’s mistress. In this
apparent contradiction Luther resembles
His style is exceedingly characteristic, and
corresponds with his thought. It is terse, abrupt, laconic,
sententious, nervous, figurative, full of hyperbole, sudden turns,
legal technicalities, African provincialisms, or rather antiquated or
vulgar latinisms. According to
Niebuhr, a most competent judge of Latin antiquities. Provinces and
colonies often retain terms and phrases after they die out in the
capital and in the mother country. Renan says with reference to Ruhnken
calls
In short, we see in this remarkable man both intellectually and morally, the fermenting of a new creation, but not yet quite set free from the bonds of chaotic darkness and brought into clear and beautiful order.
Notes.
I. Gems from
The philosophy of persecution:
"Semen Est Sanguis Christianorum." (Apol. c. 50.)
The human soul and Christianity (made for Christ, yet requiring a new birth):
"Testimonium Animae Naturaliter. Christianae." (De Test. Anim. c. 2; see the passages quoted § 40, p. 120.)
"Fiunt, non, nascuntur Christiani." (Apol. 18. De Test. Anim. 1)
Christ the Truth, not Habit (versus traditionalism):
"Christus Veritas Est, Non Consuetudo." (De Virg. vel 1.)
General priesthood of the laity (versus an exclusive hierarchy):
"Nonne Et Laici Sacerdotes Sumus? "(De Exhort. Cast. 7.)
Religious Liberty, an inalienable right of man (versus compulsion and persecution:
"Humani Juris Et Naturalis Potestatis Est Unicuique Quod Putaverit Colere." (Ad Scap. 2; comp. Apol. 14 and the passages quoted § 13, p. 35.)
Dr. Baur (Kirchengesch.I. 428) says: "It is
remarkable how already the oldest Christian Apologists, in vindicating
the Christian faith, were led to assert the Protestant principle of
freedom of faith and conscience "[and we must add, of public worship],
"as an inherent attribute of the conception of religion against their
heathen opponents." Then he quotes
II. Estimates of
Neander (Ch. Hist. I. 683 sq.,
Torrey’s translation): "
Hase (Kirchengesch. p. 91, tenth ed.): "Die lateinische Kirche hatte fast nur
Übersetzungen, bis
Hauck (
Cardinal Hergenröther, the first Roman
Catholic church historian now living (for Döllinger was
excommunicated in 1870), says of
Pressensé (Martyrs and Apoloqists, p.
375): "The African nationality gave to Christianity its most eloquent
defender, in whom the intense vehemence, the untempered ardor of the
race, appear purified indeed, but not subdued. No influence in the
early ages could equal that of
§ 197. The Writings of
On the
chronological order see Notes.
His works may be grouped in three classes: apologetic; polemic or anti-heretical; and ethic or practical; to which may be added as a fourth class the expressly Montanistic tracts against the Catholics. We can here only mention the most important:
1. In the Apologetic works against heathens and
Jews, he pleads the cause of all Christendom, and deserves the thanks
of all Christendom. Preëminent among them is the
Apologeticus (or Apologeticum). Comp. H. A.
Woodham: Tert. Liber Apologeticus with English Notes and an
Introduction to the Study of Patristical and Ecclesiastical Latinity,
Cambridge, 1850. Am. ed. of Select Works of Tert., by F. A. March, New
York, 1876. p. 26-46.
"We conquer," are his concluding words to the prefects and judges of the Roman empire, "We conquer in dying; we go forth victorious at the very time we are subdued .... Many of your writers exhort to the courageous bearing of pain and death, as Cicero in the Tusculans, as Seneca in his Chances, as Diogenes, Pyrrhus, Callinicus. And yet their words do not find so many disciples as Christians do, teachers not by words, but by their deeds. That very obstinacy you rail against is the preceptress. For who that contemplates it is not excited to inquire what is at the bottom of it? Who, after inquiry, does not embrace our doctrines? And, when he has embraced them, desires not to suffer that he may become partaker of the fulness of God’s grace, that he may obtain from God complete forgiveness, by giving in exchange his blood? For that secures the remission of all offences. On this account it is that we return thanks on the very spot for your sentences. As the divine and human are ever opposed to each other, when we are condemned by you, we are acquitted by the Highest."
The relation of the Apologeticus to the Octavius
of Minucius Felix will be discussed in the next section. But even if
Ebert, who
was the first to assert the priority of Octavius, nevertheless admits
(Gesch. der christl.
lat. Lit. I. 32) "
The beautiful little tract "On the Testimony of the Soul," (6 chapters) is a supplement to the Apologeticus, and furnishes one of the strongest positive arguments for Christianity. Here the human soul is called to bear witness to the one true God: it springs from God, it longs for God; its purer and nobler instincts and aspirations, if not diverted and perverted by selfish and sinful passions, tend upwards and heavenwards, and find rest and peace only in God. There is, we may say, a pre-established harmony between the soul and the Christian religion; they are made for each other; the human soul is constitutionally Christian. And this testimony is universal, for as God is everywhere, so the human soul is everywhere. But its testimony turns against itself if not heeded.
"Every soul," he concludes, "is a culprit as well as a witness: in the measure that it testifies for truth, the guilt of error lies on it; and on the day of judgment it will stand before the court of God, without a word to say. Thou proclaimedst God, O soul, but thou didst not seek to know Him; evil spirits were detested by thee, and yet they were the objects of thy adoration; the punishments of hell were foreseen by thee, but no care was taken to avoid them; thou hadst a savor of Christianity, and withal wert the persecutor of Christians."
2. His polemic works are occupied chiefly with the
refutation of the Gnostics. Here belongs first of all his thoroughly
catholic tract." On the Prescription of Heretics."
Praescriptio, in legal terminology, means an exception made before the
merits of a case are discussed, showing in limine that the plaintiff
ought not to be heard. This book has been most admired by R. Catholics
as a masterly vindication of the catholic rule of faith against
heretical assailants; but its force is weakened by
Among the heretics, he attacked chiefly the
Valentinian Gnostics, and Marcion. The work against Marcion (A. D. 208)
is his largest, and the only one in which he indicates the date of
composition, namely the 15th year of the reign of Septimius Severus (A.
D. 208). English
translation by Peter Holmes, in the "Ante-Nicene Libr., " vol. VII.,
1868 (478 pages).
"Nothing in Pontus is so barbarous and sad as the fact that Marcion was born there, fouler than any Scythian, more roving than the Sarmatian, more inhuman than the Massagete, more audacious than an Amazon, darker than the cloud of the Euxine, colder than its winter, more brittle than its ice, more deceitful than the Ister, more craggy than Caucasus. Nay, more, the true Prometheus, Almighty God, is mangled by Marcion’s blasphemies. Marcion is more savage than even the beasts of that barbarous region. For what beaver was ever a greater emasculator than he who has abolished the nuptial bond? What Pontic mouse ever had such gnawing powers as he who has gnawed the Gospel to pieces? Verily, O Euxine, thou hast produced a monster more credible to philosophers than to Christians. For the cynic Diogenes used to go about, lantern in hand, at mid-day, to find a man; whereas Marcion has quenched the light of his faith, and so lost the God whom he had found."
The tracts "On Baptism" "On the Soul," "On the Flesh of Christ," "On the Resurrection of the Flesh" "Against Hermogenes," "Against Praxeas," are concerned with particular errors, and are important to the doctrine of baptism, to Christian psychology, to eschatology, and christology.
3. His numerous Practical or Ascetic treatises throw much light on the moral life of the early church, as contrasted with the immorality of the heathen world. Among these belong the books "On Prayer" "On Penance" "On Patience,"—a virtue, which he extols with honest confession of his own natural impatience and passionate temper, and which he urges upon himself as well as others,—the consolation of the confessors in prison (Ad Martyres), and the admonition against visiting theatres (De Spectaculis), which he classes with the pomp of the devil, and against all share, direct or indirect, in the worship of idols (De Idololatria).
4. His strictly Montanistic or anti-catholic
writings, in which the peculiarities of this sect are not only
incidentally touched, as in many of the works named above, but
vindicated expressly and at large, are likewise of a practical nature,
and contend, in fanatical rigor, against the restoration of the lapsed
(De Pudicitia), flight in persecutions, second marriage (De Monogamia,
and De Exhortatione Castitatis), display of dress in females (De Cultu
Feminarum), and other customs of the "Psychicals," as he commonly calls
the Catholics in distinction from the sectarian Pneumatics. His plea,
also, for excessive fasting (De Jejuniis), and his justification of a
Christian soldier, who was discharged for refusing to crown his head
(De Corona Militis), belong here.
Notes.
The chronological order of
(1) Those books which belong to the author’s catholic period before a.d. 200; viz.: Apologeticus or Apologeticum (in the autumn of 197, according to Bonwetsch; 198, Ebert; 199, Hesselberg; 200, Uhlhorn); Ad Martyres (197); Ad Nationes (probably soon after Apol.); De Testimonio Animae; De Poenitentia; De Oratione; De Baptismo (which according to cap. 15, was preceded by a Greek work against the validity of Heretical Baptism); Ad Uxorem; De Patientia; Adv. Judaeos; De Praescriptione Haereticorum; De Spectaculis (and a lost work on the same subject in the Greek language).
Kaye puts De Spectaculis in the Montanistic period. De Praescriptione is also placed by some in the Montanistic period before or after Adv. Marcionem. But Bonwetsch (p. 46) puts it between 199 and 206, probably in 199. Hauck makes it almost simultaneous with De Baptismo. He also places De Idololatria in this period.
(2) Those which were certainly not composed till after his transition to Montanism, between a.d. 200 and 220; viz.: Adv. Marcionem (5 books, composed in part at least in the 15th year of the Emperor Septimius Severus, i.e. a.d. 207 or 208; comp. I. 15); De Anima; De Carne Christi; De Resurrectione Carnis; Adv. Praxean; Scorpiace (i.e. antidote against the poison of the Gnostic heresy); De Corona Militis; De Virginibus ve!andis; De Exhortatione Castitatis; De Pallio (208 or 209); De Fuga in persecutione; De Monogamia; De Jejuniis; De Pudicitia; Ad Scapulam (212); De Ecstasi (lost); De Spe Fidelium (likewise lost).
Kellner (1870) assigns De Pudicitia, De Monogamia, De Jejunio, and Adv. Praxean to the period between 218 and 222.
(3) Those which probably belong to the Montanistic period; viz.: Adv. Valentinianos; De cultu Feminarum (2 libri); Adv. Hermogenem.
§ 198.
(I.) M. Minucii Felicis Octavius, best ed. by Car. Halm, Vienna 1867 (in vol. II. of the "Corpus Scriptorum Eccles. Latin."), and Bernh. Dombart, with German translation and critical notes, 2d ed. Erlangen 1881. Halm has compared the only MS. of this book, formerly in the Vatican library now in Paris, very carefully ("tanta diligentia ut de nullo jam loco dubitari possit quid in codice uno scriptum inveniatur ").
Ed. princeps by Faustus Sabaeus (
English translations by H. A. Holden (Cambridge 1853), and R. E. Wallis in Clark’s "Ante-Nic. Libr." vol. XIII. p. 451–517.
(II.) Jerome: De Vir. ill. c. 58, and
(III.) Monographs, dissertations and prolegomena to the different editions of M. Fel., by van Hoven (1766, also in Lindner’s ed. II. 1773); Meier (Turin, 1824,) Nic. Le Nourry, and Lumper (in Migne, "Patr. Lat." III. 194–231; 371–652); Rören (Minuciania,) Bedburg, 1859); Behr (on the relation of M. F. to Cicero, Gera 1870); Rönsch (in Das N. T Tertull.’s, 1871, P. 25 sqq.); Paul P. de Felice (Études sur l’Octavius, Blois, 1880); Keim (in his Celsus, 1873, 151–168, and in Rom. und das Christenthum, 1881, 383 sq., and 468–486); Ad. Ebert (1874, in Gesch. der christlich-latein. Lit. I. 24–31); G. Loesche (On the relation of M. F. to Athanagoras, in the "Jahr b. für Prot. Theol." 1882, p. l68–178); RENAN (Marc-Auréle, 1882, p. 389–404); Richard Kuhn: Der Octavius des Minucius Felix. Eine heidnisch philosophische Auffassung vom Christenthum. Leipz. 1882 (71 pages). See also the art. of Mangold in Herzog2 X. 12–17 (abridged in Schaff-Herzog); G. Salmon in Smith and Wace III. 920–924.
(IV.) On the relation of Minuc. Fel. to
In close connection with Jerome puts
him after
Converts are always the most zealous, and often
the most effective promoters of the system or sect which they have
deliberately chosen from honest and earnest conviction. The Christian
Apologists of the second century were educated heathen philosophers or
rhetoricians before their conversion, and used their secular learning
and culture for the refutation of idolatry and the vindication of the
truths of revelation. In like manner the Apostles were Jews by birth
and training, and made their knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures
subservient to the gospel. The Reformers of the sixteenth century came
out of the bosom of mediaeval Catholicism, and were thus best qualified
to oppose its corruptions and to emancipate the church from the bondage
of the papacy. We may, also
refer to more recent analogies: the ablest champions of Romanism-as
Hurter, Newman, Manning, Brown, owe their intellectual and moral
equipment to Protestantism; while the Old Catholic leaders of the
opposition to Vatican Romanism—as
Döllinger, Friedrich, Reinkens, Reusch, Langen, von
Schulte—were formerly eminent teachers in the Roman
church.
I. Marcus Minucius Felix belongs to that class of
converts, who brought the rich stores of classical culture to the
service of Christianity. He worthily opens the series of Latin writers
of the Roman church which had before spoken to the world only in the
Greek tongue. He shares with Lactantius the honor of being the
Christian Cicero. Jerome
decribes him as "in signis causidicis Romani fori," but he depended on
Lactantius, who may have derived this simply from the introduction to
the book, where the author speaks of taking advantage of the court
holidays for an excursion to Ostia. The gens Minucia was famous in
Rome, and an inscription (Gruter, p. 918) mentions one with the
cognomen Felix From Cirta
(now Constantine). This we must infer from the fact that he call Corn.
Fronto "Cirtensis noster, " Octav. c. 9; comp. c. 31, "tuus
Fronto."
II. We have from him an apology of Christianity,
in the form of a dialogue under the title Octavius. In 40 (al.
41) short chapters which, in Halm’s edition, cover 54
pages, oct. The book was written several years after the Dialogue and
after the death of Octavius (c. 1: "discedens or decedens vir eximius
et sanctus immensum sui deside rium nobis reliquit, " etc.).
Caecilius speaks first (chs. 5–15), in defence of the heathen, and in opposition to the Christian, religion. He begins like a sceptic or agnostic concerning the existence of a God as being doubtful, but he soon shifts his ground, and on the principle of expediency and utility he urges the duty of worshipping the ancestral gods. It is best to adhere to what the experience of all nations has found to be salutary. Every nation has its peculiar god or gods; the Roman nation, the most religious of all, allows the worship of all gods, and thus attained to the highest power and prosperity. He charges the Christians with presumption for claiming a certain knowledge of the highest problems which lie beyond human ken; with want of patriotism for forsaking the ancestral traditions; with low breeding (as Celsus did). He ridicules their worship of a crucified malefactor and the instrument of his crucifixion, and even an ass’s head. He repeats the lies of secret crimes, as promiscuous incest, and the murder of innocent children, and quotes for these slanders the authority of the celebrated orator Fronto. He objects to their religion that it has no temples, nor altars, nor images. He attacks their doctrines of one God, of the destruction of the present world, the resurrection and judgment, as irrational and absurd. He pities them for their austere habits and their aversion to the theatre, banquets, and other innocent enjoyments. He concludes with the re-assertion of human ignorance of things which are above us, and an exhortation to leave those uncertain things alone, and to adhere to the religion of their fathers, "lest either a childish superstition should be introduced, or all religion should be overthrown."
In the second part (ch. 16–38), Octavius refutes these charges, and attacks idolatry; meeting each point in proper order. He vindicates the existence and unity of the Godhead, the doctrine of creation and providence, as truly rational, and quotes in confirmation the opinions of various philosophers (from Cicero). He exposes the absurdity of the heathen mythology, the worship of idols made of wood and stone, the immoralities of the gods, and the cruelties and obscene rites connected with their worship. The Romans have not acquired their power by their religion, but by rapacity and acts of violence. The charge of worshipping a criminal and his cross, rests on the ignorance of his innocence and divine character. The Christians have no temples, because they will not limit the infinite God, and no images, because man is God’s image, and a holy life the best sacrifice. The slanderous charges of immorality are traced to the demons who invented and spread them among the people, who inspire oracles, work false miracles and try in every way to draw men into their ruin. It is the heathen who practice such infamies, who cruelly expose their new-born children or kill them by abortion. The Christians avoid and abhor the immoral amusements of the theatre and circus where madness, adultery, and murder are exhibited and practiced, even in the name of the gods. They find their true pleasure and happiness in God, his knowledge and worship.
At the close of the dialogue (chs.
39–40), Caecilius confesses himself convinced of his
error, and resolves to embrace Christianity, and desires further
instruction on the next day. Minucius expresses his satisfaction at
this result, which made a decision on his part unnecessary. Joyful and
thankful for the joint victory over error, the friends return from the
sea-shore to Ostia. "Post haec
laeti hilaresque discessimus, Caecilius quod crediderit, Octavius
gaudere [ad gaudendum] quod vicerit, ego [Minuc. Fel.] et quod hic
crediderit et hie vicerit."
III. The apologetic value of this work is
considerable, but its doctrinal value is very insignificant. It gives
us a lively idea of the great controversy between the old and the new
religion among the higher and cultivated classes of Roman society, and
allows fair play and full force to the arguments on both sides. It is
an able and eloquent defense of monotheism against polytheism, and of
Christian morality against heathen immorality. But this is about all.
The exposition of the truths of Christianity is meagre, superficial,
and defective. The unity of the Godhead, his all-ruling providence, the
resurrection of the body, and future retribution make up the whole
creed of Octavius. The Scriptures, the prophets and apostles are
ignored, The only
traces are in chs. 29 and 34, which perhaps allude to Keim
supposes that he intended to refute Celsus (but he is nowhere
mentioned); De Félice, that he aimed at Fronto (who is twice
mentioned); Kühn better: public opinion, the ignorant
prejudice of the higher classes against Christianity. C. 40:
"Etiam nunc tamen aliqua consubsidunt non obstrepentia veritati, sed
perfectae institutioni necessaria, de quibus crastino, quod iam sol
occasu declivis est, ut de toto (oret die toto)congruentius, promptius
requiremus." Renan (p.
402) takes a different view, namely that Minucius was a liberal
Christian of the Deistic stamp, a man of the world "qui n’empêche ni
la gaieté, ni le talent, ni le goût aimable de la
vie, ni la recherche, de
l’élégance du style. Que nous
sommes loin de l’ébionite ou
méme du juif de Galilée! Octavius,
c’est Cicéron, ou mieux Fronton, devenu
chrétien. En réalité,
c’est par la culture intellectuelle
qu’il arrive au déisme. Il aime la nature,
il se plaît a la conversation des gens biens
élevés. Des hommes faits sur ce modèle
n’auraient créé ni
l’Évangile ni
l’Apocalypse; mais, réciproquement, sans de
tels adhérents, l’Évangile,
l’Apocalypse, les épItres de Paul fussent
restés les éscrits secrets d’une
secte ferméé, qui, comme les esséens
ou les théapeutes, eut finlement disparu."
Kühn, also, represents Minucius as a philosopher rather than
a Christian, and seems to explain his silence on the specific doctrines
of Christianity from ignorance. But no educated Christian could be
ignorant of Christ and His work, nor of the prophets and apostles who
were regularly read in public worship.
His philosophic stand-point is eclectic with a
preference for Cicero, Seneca, and Plato. Christianity is to him both
theoretically and practically the true philosophy which teaches the
only true God, and leads to true virtue and piety. In this respect he
resembles On the
philosophy of Minucius, see the analysis of Kühn, p. 21
sqq.; 58 sqq.
IV. The literary form of Octavius is very pleasing
and elegant. The diction is more classical than that of any
contemporary Latin writer heathen or Christian. The book bears a strong
resemblance to Cicero’s De Natura Deorum, in many
ideas, in style, and the urbanity, or gentlemanly tone. Dean Milman
says that it "reminds us of the golden days of Latin prose." Renan
calls it "the pearl of the apologetic literature of the last years of
V. Time of composition. Octavius closely resembles
Blondel
(1641), Daillé (1660), Rösler (1777), Russwurm
(1824), doubted the priority of In his essay
on the subject (1866), Ebert put Octavius between 160 and the close of
the second century; in his more recent work on the History of Christ.
Lat. Lit. (1874), vol. I., p. 25, be assigns it more definitely to
between 179 and 185 (" Anfang oder
Mitte der achtziger Jahre des 2. Jahrh."). He assumes
that Minucius used Athenagoras who wrote 177. Ueberweg
(1866), Rönsch (Das n.
T. Tertull. 1871), Keim (1873), Caspari (1875, III.
411), Herzog (1876), Hauck (1877), Bonwetsch (1878), Mangold (in
Herzog2 1882),
Kühn (1882), Renan (1882), Schwenke (1883). The last (pp.
292 and 294) puts the oral dialogue even so far back as Hadrian (before
137), and the composition before the death of Antoninus Pius (160). Hartel
(1869), Jeep (1869), Klussmann (1878), Schultze (1881), and Salmon
(1883). Hartel, while denying that
It is certain that Minucius borrowed from Cicero
(also from Seneca, and, perhaps, from Athenagoras), Renan (p.
390) calls Minucius (although he puts him before
But a close comparison of the parallel passages
seems to favor his priority; yet the argument is not conclusive. The crucial
test of relative priority applied by Ebert is the relation of the two
books to Cicero. Minucius wrote with Cicero open before him; Chs. 29, 33,
37. I can find in these passages no proof of any particular violent
persecution. Tortures are spoken of in ch. 37, but to these the
Christians were always exposed. Upon the whole the situation of the
church appears in the introductory chapters, and throughout the
Dialogue, is a comparatively quiet one, such as we know it to have been
at intervals between the imperial persecutions. This is also the
impression of Schultze and Schwenke. Minucius is silent about the
argument so current under
An unexpected argument for the later age of
Minucius is furnished by the recent French discovery of the name of
Marcus Caecilius Quinti F. Natalis, as the chief magistrate of Cirta
(Constantine) in Algeria, in several inscriptions from the years 210 to
217. Mommsen,
Corp. Lat. Inscript. VIII. 6996 and 7094-7098; Recueil de Constantine,
1869, p. 695. See an article by Dessau in "Hermes, " 1880, t. xv., p.
471-74; Salmon, l.c., p. 924; and Renan, l.c., p.’090
sq. Renan admits the possible identity of this Caecilius with the
friend of Minucius, but suggests in the interest of his hypothesis that
he was the son.
Considering these conflicting possibilities and
probabilities, we conclude that Octavius was written in the first
quarter of the third century, probably during the peaceful reign of
Alexander Severus (A. D. 222–235). The last possible
date is the year 250, because V. Schultze
denies
§ 199.
Comp. § § 22, 47 and 53.
(I.) S.
Other edd. by Sweynheym and Pannartz,
English translations by N. Marshall, Lond., 1717; in the Oxf. "Library of the Fathers," Oxf. 1840 and by R. G. Wallis in "Ante-Nicene Lib." Edinb. 1868, 2 vols. N. York ed. vol. V. (1885).
(II.) Vita
(III.) J. Pearson: Annales
H. Dodwell: Dissertationes
A. F. Gervaise: Vie de St. Cyprien. Par. 1717.
F. W. Rettberg:
G. A. Poole: Life and Times of
Aem. Blampignon: Vie de Cyprien. Par. 1861.
Ch. E. Freppel (Ultramontane): Saint Cyprien et l’église d’ Afrique an troisième siécle. Paris, 1865, 2d ed. 1873.
Ad. Ebert: Geschichte der christl. latein. Literatur. Leipz. 1874, vol. I. 54–61.
J. Peters (R.C.):Der heil.
B. Fechtrup: Der h.
Otto Ritschl:
Articles on special topics connected with
I. Life of
Thascius Caecilius Catal. c.
67: "
A worthy presbyter, Caecilius, who lived in Pontius, in
his Vita, a very unsatisfactory sketch, prefixed to the editions of the
works of
He himself, in a tract soon afterwards written to
a friend, De Gratia
Dei, ad Donatum, c. 3, 4. "Undae
genitalis auxilio," which refers of course to baptism.
"Da
magistrum!" So Jerome relates in his notice on
Such a man could not long remain concealed. Only
two years after his baptism, in spite of his earnest remonstrance,
For the space of ten years, ending with his
triumphant martyrdom,
II. Character and Position.
As
His peculiar importance falls not so much in the
field of theology, where he lacks originality and depth, as in church
organization and discipline. While
It were great injustice to attribute his high churchly principle to pride and ambition, though temptations to this spirit unquestionably beset a prominent position like his. Such principles are, entirely compatible with sincere personal humility before God. It was the deep conviction of the divine authority, and the heavy responsibility of the episcopate, which lay it the bottom both of his first "nolo episcopari, " and of subsequent hierarchical feeling. He was as conscientious in discharging the duties, as he was jealous in maintaining the rights, of his office. Notwithstanding his high conception of the dignity of a bishop, he took counsel of his presbyters in everything, and respected the rights of his people. He knew how to combine strictness and moderation, dignity and gentleness, and to inspire love and confidence as well as esteem and veneration. He took upon himself, like a father, the care of the widows and orphans, the poor and sick. During the great pestilence of 252 he showed the most self-sacrificing fidelity to his flock, and love for his enemies. He forsook his congregation, indeed, in the Decian persecution, but only, as he expressly assured them, in pursuance of a divine admonition, and in order to direct them during his fourteen months of exile by pastoral epistles. His conduct exposed him to the charge of cowardice. In the Valerian persecution he completely washed away the stain of that flight with the blood of his calm and cheerful martyrdom.
He exercised first rigid discipline, but at a
later period—not in perfect
consistency—he moderated his disciplinary principles
in prudent accommodation to the exigencies of the times. With
III. His writings.
As an author,
(1.) His most important works relate to practical
questions on church government and discipline. Among these is his tract
on the Unity of the Church (A. D. 251), that "magna charta" of the old
catholic high-church spirit, the commanding importance of which we have
already considered. Then eighty-one Epistles, The order of
them varies in different editions occasioning frequent confusion in
citation.
(2.) Besides these he wrote a series of moral works, On the Grace of God (246); On the Lord’s Prayer (252); On Mortality (252); against worldly-mindedness and pride of dress in consecrated virgins (De Habitu Virginum); a glowing call to Martyrdom; an exhortation to liberality (De Opere el Eleemosynis, between 254 and 256), with a touch of the "opus operatum" doctrine; and two beautiful tracts written during his controversy with pope Stephanus: De Bono Patienti, and De Zelo et Livore (about 256), in which he exhorts the excited minds to patience and moderation.
(3.) Least important are his two apologetic works,
the product of his Christian pupilage. One is directed against
heathenism (de
Idolorum Vanitate), and is
borrowed in great part, often verbally, from
Note.—Among the pseudo-
§ 200.
Comp. §58, p. 196 sq. and §183, p. 773.
(I.)
English translation by R. E. Wallis in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. II. (1869), p. 297–395; Comp. vol. I. 85 sqq.
(II.) Euseb.: H. E. VI. 43, 44, 45. Hieron.: De Vir.
ill. 66 and 70;
(III.) Walch: Ketzerhistorie II.
185–288. Schoenemann: Biblioth. Hist. Lit. Patr.
Latinorum, I. 135–142. Lumper: Dissert. de Vita,
Scriptis, et doctrina Nov., in Migne’s ed. III.
861–884. Neander, I. 237–248, and 687
(Am ed.) Caspari: Quellen zur Gesch. des Taufsymbols, III.
428–430, 437–439. Jos. Langen (Old
Cath.): Gesch. der
röm. Kirche (Bonn 1881), p.
289–314. Harnack;
Jerome calls
him and On the
subject of the official language of the Roman Church, see especially
the learned and conclusive investigations of Caspari, l.c. III. 430
sqq., and the inscriptions in De Rossi, Rom. sotter. I. 277 sqq., 293,
and II. 76 sqq. Also Harnack: D. Pseudo-
At that time the Roman congregation numbered
forty presbyters, seven deacons, seven sub-deacons, forty-two acolytes,
besides exorcists, readers and janitors, and an "innumerable multitude
of the people," which may have amounted perhaps to about 50,000
members. See the
letter of Cornelius to Fabius, preserved by Euseb. VI. 33.
We know nothing of the time and place of the birth
and death of Ep. XXX. of
Ch. 2. Comp.
also ch. 3, where he says: "Far be it from the Roman Church to slacken
her vigor with so profane a facility, and to loosen the nerves of her
severity by overthrowing the majesty of faith; so that when the wrecks
of your ruined brethren are not only lying, but are falling around,
remedies of a too hasty kind, and certainly not likely to avail, should
be afforded for Communion; and by a false mercy, new wounds should be
impressed on the old wounds of their transgression; so that even
repentance should be snatched from there wretched beings, to their
greater overthrow." And in ch. 7: "Whosoever shall deny me before men,
him will I also deny before my Father and before his angels. For God,
as He is merciful, so He exacts obedience to his precepts, and indeed
carefully exacts it; and as be invites to the banquet, so the man that
hath not a wedding garment be binds hands and feet, and casts him out
beyond the assembly of the saints. He has prepared heaven but he has
also prepared hell. He has prepared places of refreshment, but he has
also prepared eternal punishment. He has prepared the light that none
can approach unto, but he has also prepared the vast and eternal gloom
of perpetual night." At the close be favors an exception in case of
impending death of the penitent lapsed, to whom cautious help should be
administered, "that neither ungodly men should praise our smooth
facility, nor truly penitent men accuse our severity as cruel." This
letter relieves
He may have aspired to the papal chair to which he
seemed to have the best claim. But after the Decian persecution had
ceased his rival Cornelius, unknown before, was elected by a majority
of the clergy and favored the lenient discipline towards the Fallen
which his predecessors Callistus and Zephyrinus had exercised, and
against which "Ex exigna
et vilissima Italiae parte." See Jaffé Regesta Pontif. Rom.
p. 7. Cornelius, in his letter to Fabian (Euseb. VI. 43), describes
these three bishops as contemptible ignoramuses, who were intoxicated
when they ordained
De
Instantia, probably in persecution, not in prayer. See Caspari, p. 428,
note 284 versus Lardner and Lumper, who explain it of Perseverance in
prayer: but this was no doubt treated in De Oratione, for which,
however, the Vatican Cod. reads De Ordinatione.
Two of these books are preserved. The most
important is his Liber de Trinitate (31 chs.), composed a.d. 256. It has sometimes been ascribed to
In his Epistola de Cibus Judaicis (7 chapters)
written to his flock from a place of retirement during persecution, he
tries to prove by allegorical interpretation, that the Mosaic laws on
food are no longer binding upon Christians, and that Christ has
substituted temperance and abstinence for the prohibition of unclean
animals, with the exception of meat offered to idols, which is
forbidden by the Apostolic council (
§ 201. Commodian.
(I.) Commodianus: Instructiones adversus Gentium Deos pro Christiana Disciplina, and Carmen Apologeticum adversus Judaeos et Gentes. The Instructiones were discovered by Sirmond, and first edited by Rigault at Toul, 1650; more recently by Fr. Oehler in Gersdorf’s "Biblioth. P. Lat.," vol. XVIII., Lips. 1847 (p. 133–194,) and by Migne." Patrol." vol. V. col. 201–262.
The second work was discovered and published by Card. Pitra in the "Spicilegium Solesmense," Tom. I. Par. 1852, p. 21–49 and Excurs. 537–543, and with new emendations of the corrupt text in Tom. IV. (1858), p. 222–224; and better by Rönsch in the "Zeitschrift für hist. Theol." for 1872.
Both poems were edited together by E. Ludwig: Commodiani Carmina, Lips. 1877 and 1878; and by B. Dombart, Vienna.
English translation of the first poem (but in prose) by R. E. Wallis in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," vol. III. (1870, pp. 434–474.
(II.) Dodwell: Dissert. de aetate Commod. Prolegg.
in Migne, V. 189–200. Alzog: Patrol.
340–342. J. L. Jacobi in Schneider’s
"Zeitschrift
für christl. Wissenschaft und christl. Leben"
for 1853, pp. 203–209. Ad. Ebert, in an appendix to
his essay on
In the MSS.
of the second poem be is called a bishop. Commodian gives no indication
of his clerical status, but it may be fairly inferred from his
learning. In the last section of his second poem, he calls himself
Gazaeus. Ebert understands this geographically, from the city of Gaza
in Syria. But in this case he would have written in Greek or in Syriac.
The older interpretation is preferable, from Gaza (γάζα), treasure, or
gazophylacium (γαζοφυλάκιον) treasury,
which indicates either his possession of the treasure of saving truth
or his dependence for support on the treasury of the church. Ebert
suggests that he was a Jewish proselyte; but in the introduction to the
first poem he says that he formerly worshipped the gods (deos vanos),
which he believed to be demons, like most of the patristic writers.
The first poem is entitled "Instructions for the
Christian Life," written about a.d. 240 or
earlier. The author
upbraids the Gentiles for persevering in unbelief after Christianity
had existed for 200 years (VI. 2). Ebert dates the Instructions back as
far as 239. Alzog puts it down much later. See above p.
854. Note 1 The last
five lines are (see Migne V. "ostenduntur illis, et legunt gesta de coelo memoria prisca debito et merita digno. merces in perpetuo secundum facta tyranno. omnia non possum comprehendere parvo libello. curiositas docti inveniet nomenin isto.
2. The second work which was only brought to light in 1852, is an "Apologetic Poem against Jews and Gentiles," and was written about 249. It exhorts them (like the first part of the "Instructions" to repent without delay in view of the approaching end of the world. It is likewise written in uncouth hexameters and discusses in 47 sections the doctrine of God, of man, and of the Redeemer (vers. 89–275); the meaning of the names of Son and Father in the economy of salvation (276–573); the obstacles to the progress of Christianity(574–611); it warns Jews and Gentiles to forsake their religion (612–783), and gives a description of the last things (784–1053).
The most interesting part of this second poem is
the conclusion. It contains a fuller description of Antichrist than the
first poem. The author expects that the end of the world will soon come
with the seventh persecution; the Goths will conquer Rome and redeem
the Christians; but then Nero will appear as the heathen Antichrist,
reconquer Rome, and rage against the Christians three years and a-half;
he will be conquered in turn by the Jewish and real Antichrist from the
east, who after the defeat of Nero and the burning of Rome will return
to Judaea, perform false miracles, and be worshipped by the Jews. At
last Christ appears, that is God himself (from the Monarchian
standpoint of the author), with the lost Twelve Tribes as his army,
which had lived beyond Persia in happy simplicity and virtue; under
astounding phenomena of nature he will conquer Antichrist and his host,
convert all nations and take possession of the holy city of Jerusalem.
The concluding description of the judgment is preserved only in broken
fragments. The idea of a double Antichrist is derived from the two
beasts of the Apocalypse, and combines the Jewish conception of the
Antimessiah, and the heathen Nero-legend. But the remarkable feature is
that the second Antichrist is represented as a Jew and as defeating the
heathen Nero, as he will be defeated by Christ. The same idea of a
double antichrist appears in Lactantius. Inst. Div.
VII. 16 sqq.
§ 202. Arnobius.
(I.) Arnobii (oratoris) adversus Nationes (or Gentes) libri septem. Best ed. by Reifferscheid, Vindob. 1875. (vol. IV. of the "Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum," issued by the Academy of Vienna.)
Other editions: by Faustus Sabaeus, Florence 1543
(ed. princeps); Bas. (Frobenius) 1546; Paris 1580, 1666, 1715; Antw.
1582;
English Version by A. Hamilton Bryce and Hugh Campbell, in Clark’s "Ante-Nic. Libr." vol. XIX. (Edinb. 1871). German transl. by Benard (1842), and Alleker (1858).
(II.) Hieronymus: De Vir. ill. 79; Chron. ad ann.
325 (xx. Constantini);
(III) The learned Dissertatio praevia of the Benedictine Le Nourry in Migne’s ed. v. 365–714. Neander: I. 687–689. Möhler (R.C.): Patrol. I. 906–916. Alzog (R.C.): Patrologie (3d ed), p. 205–210. Zink: Zur Kritik und Erklärung des Arnob., Bamb. 1873. Ebert, Gesch. der christl. lat. Lit. I 61–70. Herzog in Herzog2 I. 692 sq. Moule in Smith and Wace I. 167–169.
Adv. Nat. 1,
39, ed. Reifferscheid, p. 26.
The contrast was very startling indeed, if we
remember that Sicca bore the epithet "Veneria," as the seat of the vile
worship of the goddess of lust in whose temple the maidens sacrificed
their chastity, like the Corinthian priestesses of Aphrodite. He is
therefore especially severe in his exposure of the sexual immoralities
of the heathen gods, among whom Jupiter himself takes the lead in all
forms of vice. In book V.
22 he details the crimes of Jupiter who robbed Ceres, Leda, Danae,
Europa, Alcmena, Electra, Latona, Laodamia, and "a thousand other
virgins and a thousand matrons, and with them the boy Catamitus of
their honor and chastity," and who was made a collection of "all
impurities of the stage."
We know nothing of his subsequent life and death. Jerome, the only ancient writer who mentions him, adds some doubtful particulars, namely that he was converted by visions or dreams, that he was first refused admission to the Church by the bishop of Sicca, and hastily wrote his apology in proof of his sincerity. But this book, though written soon after his conversion, is rather the result of an inward impulse and strong conviction than outward occasion.
We have from him an Apology of Christianity in
seven books of unequal length, addressed to the Gentiles. It was
written a.d. 303, He says that
Christianity had then existed three hundred years (I. 13), and that the
city of Rome was one thousand and fifty years old (II. 71). The last
date leaves a choice between a.d. 296 or 303,
according as we reckon by the Varronian or the Fabian era. IV. 36;
comp. I. 26; II. 77; III. 36, etc. Comp. Euseb. H. E. VIII. 2. In the
Nation. Libr. of Paris, No. 1661. The copy in Brussels is merely a
transcript. The MS., though well written, is very corrupt, and leaves
room for many conjectures. Reifferscheid has carefully compared it at
Paris in 1867.
The positive part is meagre and unsatisfactory.
Arnobius seems as ignorant about the Bible as Minucius Felix. He never
quotes the Old Testament, and the New Testament only once. "Has that
well-known word (illud vulgatum) never struck your ears, that the
wisdom of man is foolishness with God?" II. 6; comp. The
strongest passages for the divinity of Christ are I. 37, 39, 42 and 53.
In the last passage he says (Reifferscheid, p. 36): "Deus ille sublimis
fuit [Christus], deus radice ab intima, deus ab incognitis regnis et ab
omnium principe deo sospitator est missus" "per purae
speciem simplicitatis, " I.46. This passage speaks against the story,
that Arnobius was converted by a dream.
His doctrine of God is Scriptural, and strikingly contrasts with the absurd mythology. God is the author and ruler of all things, unborn, infinite, spiritual, omnipresent, without passion, dwelling in light, the giver of all good, the sender of the Saviour.
As to man, Arnobius asserts his free will, but also his ignorance and sin, and denies his immortality. The soul outlives the body but depends solely on God for the gift of eternal duration. The wicked go to the fire of Gehenna, and will ultimately be consumed or annihilated. He teaches the resurrection of the flesh, but in obscure terms.
Arnobius does not come up to the standard of Catholic orthodoxy, even of the ante-Nicene age. Considering his apparent ignorance of the Bible, and his late conversion, we need not be surprised at this. Jerome now praises, now censures him, as unequal, prolix, and confused in style, method, and doctrine. Pope Gelasius in the fifth century banished his book to the apocryphal index, and since that time it was almost forgotten, till it was brought to light again in the sixteenth century. Modern critics agree in the verdict that he is more successful in the refutation of error than in the defense of truth.
But the honesty, courage, and enthusiasm of the
convert for his new faith are as obvious as the defects of his
theology. If be did not know or clearly understand the doctrines of the
Bible, be seized its moral tone. I must
differ from Ebert (p 69), who says that Christianity produced no moral
change in His heart."In seinem
Stil ist Arnobius durchaus Heide, und auch dies ist ein Zeugniss
für die Art seines Christenthums, das eben eine innere
Umwandlung nicht bewirkt hatte. Das Gemüth hat an seinem
Ausdruck nirgends einen Antheil." I. 9. IV. 36.
The work of Arnobius is a rich store of antiquarian and mythological knowledge, and of African latinity.
§ 203.
(I.) Opera in the "Max. Biblioth. vet. Patrum." Lugd. Tom. III., in Gallandi’s "Bibl. PP.," Tom. IV.; and in Migne’s "Patrol. Lat.," V. 281–344 (De Fabrica Mundi, and Scholia in Apoc. Joannis).
English translation by R. E. Wallis, in Clark’s "Ante-Nicene Library," Vol. III., 388–433; N. York ed. VII. (1886).
(II.) Jerome: De. Vir. ill., 74. Cassiodor: Justit. Div. Lit., c. 9. Cave: Hist. Lit., I., 147 sq. Lumper’s Proleg., in Migne’s ed., V. 281–302, Routh: Reliq., S. I., 65; III., 455–481.
Victorinus, probably of Greek extraction, was first a
rhetorician by profession, and became bishop of Petavium, or Petabio, Vict.
Petavionensis or Petabionensis; not Pictaviensis (from Poictiers), as in
the Rom. Martyrologium and Baronius. John Launoy (d. 1678) is said to
have first corrected this error. Carmina de
Jesu Christo Deo et homine; Lignum Vitae; also the hymns DeCruce or De
Paschate, in
1. The fragment on the Creation of the World is a
series of notes on the account of creation, probably a part of the
commentary on Genesis mentioned by Jerome. The days are taken
liberally. The creation of angels and archangels preceded the creation
of man, as light was made before the sky and the earth. The seven days
typify seven millennia; the seventh is the millennial sabbath, when
Christ will reign on earth with his elect. It is the same chiliastic
notion which we found in the Epistle of Barnabas, with the same
opposition to Jewish sabbatarianism. Victorinus compares the seven days
with the seven eyes of the Lord (
2. The scholia on the Apocalypse of John are not
without interest for the history of the interpretation of this
mysterious book. Comp.
Lüke, Einleitung in die
Offen b. Joh, pp. 972-982 (2nd ed.); and Bleek, Vorlesungen über die
Apok., p. 34 sq. Lücke and Bleek agree in
regarding this commentary as a work of Victorinus, but with later
interpolations. Bleek assumes that it was originally more pronounced in
its chiliasm. As
Cassiodorus remarks: "Difficillima quaedam loca breviter
tractavit.’;
The woman in ch. 12 is the ancient church of the
prophets and apostles; the dragon is the devil. The woman sitting on
the seven hills (in ch. 17), is the city of Rome. The beast from the
abyss is the Roman empire; Domitian is counted as the sixth, Nerva as
the seventh, and Nero revived as the eighth Roman King. This
explanation of 17:10, 11 rests on the expectation of the return of Nero
as Antichrist, and was afterwards justly abandoned by Andreas and
Arethas, but has been revived again, though with a different counting
of the emperors, by the modern champions of the Nero-hypothesis. See
the discussion in vol. I, 864 sqq. T=300;
E="5"; I=10; T=300: A=l; N=50; in all 666. Dropping the final n, we get
Teita=616, which was the other reading in 13:18, mentioned by D=500;
I="1"; C=100; L=50; V=5; X=10; in all=666. "Id est quod Graece sonat
τειτάν id quod
Latine dicitur diclux, quo nomine per antiphrasin expresso intelligimus
antichrstum, qui cum a luce superna abscissus sit et ea privatus,
transfigurat tamen se in angelum lucis audens sese dicere lucem. Item
invenimus in quodom codice, Graeco ἄντεμος
. " The last name is perhaps a corruption for Ἄντειμος,
which occurs on coins of Moesia for a ruling dynasty, or may be meant
for a designation of character: honori contrarius. See Migne, V. 339,
and Lücke, p. 978.
The exposition of ch. "Nam regnum
Christi nunc est sempiternum in sanctis, cum fuerit gloria post
resurrectionem manifestata sanctorum." (Migne V. 344.) Comp.
§ 188, p. 612 sqq.
§ 204.
On
On Lactantius see vol. III. 955–959.—Add to Lit. Ebert: Gesch. der christl. lat. Lit. I. (1874), p. 70–86; and his art. in Herzog2 VIII. 364–366; and E. S. Ffoulkes in Smith and Wace III. 613–617.
On Hosius, see § 55 p. 179 sqq.; and vol. III. 627, 635, 636.—Add to Lit. P. Bonif. Gams (R.C.): Kirchengesch. v. Spanien, Regensb. 1862 sqq, , Bd II. 137–309 (the greater part of the second vol. is given to Hosius); W. Möller in Herzog2 VI. 326–328; and T. D. C. Morse in Smith and Wace III. 162–174.
At the close of our period we meet with three representative divines, in close connection with the first Christian emperor who effected the politico-ecclesiastical revolution known as the union of church and state. Their public life and labors belong to the next period, but must at least be briefly foreshadowed here.
Hosius left
no literary work. The only document we have from his pen is his letter
to the Arian Emperor Constantius, preserved by
All three were intimately associated with
Immortality, v.xiv.xix-p0.3
Apologetic Literature, v.v.x-p0.1
Apostles' Creed, v.xiv.iv-p0.1
Apostolic Fathers, v.xv.iii-p0.1
Asceticism, v.xi.i-p0.1
Celibacy, v.xi.iv-p0.1, v.xi.v-p0.1
Poverty, v.xi.iii-p0.1
Baptism, v.vii.xii-p0.1, v.vii.xiii-p0.1
Canon, v.xiv.ii-p0.1, v.xiv.ii-p26.2
Catechetical Instruction, v.vii.xiv-p0.1
Christian Art, v.viii.ii-p0.1
Clergy, v.vi.ii-p0.1
Discipline, v.vi.xvii-p0.1
Laity, v.vi.ii-p0.2
Confirmation, v.vii.xiv-p0.2
Creation, v.xiv.vi-p0.1
Eschatology, v.xiv.xix-p0.1, v.xiv.xx-p0.1
Chiliasm, v.xiv.xxii-p0.1
Judgment, v.xiv.xxi-p0.1
Millennarianism, v.xiv.xxii-p0.2
Punishment, v.xiv.xxi-p0.2
Eucharist, v.vii.x-p0.1, v.vii.xi-p0.1
Family, v.x.xi-p0.1, v.x.xii-p0.1
Fasting, v.x.xiv-p0.2
Gnosticism, v.xiii.ix-p0.1, v.xiii.v-p0.1, v.xiii.vi-p0.1, v.xiii.vii-p0.1
Heathenism, v.v.xii-p0.1
Heresy, v.xiv.i-p20.2
Holy Spirit, v.xiv.xii-p0.1
Incarnation, v.xiv.viii-p0.1
Infant Baptism, v.vii.xv-p0.1
Manichaeism, v.xiii.xxiv-p0.1, v.xiii.xxv-p0.1
Montanism, v.xii.ii-p0.1, v.xii.iii-p0.1
Morality, v.x.vii-p0.1
Original Sin, v.xiv.vii-p0.1
Papacy, v.vi.x-p0.1
Prayer, v.x.xiv-p0.1
Redemption, v.xiv.xvii-p0.1
Resurrection, v.xiv.xix-p0.2
Stoicism, v.x.iii-p0.1
The Lord's Day, v.vii.ii-p0.1
Trinity, v.xiv.xiii-p0.1
Virgin Mary, v.viii.vii-p0.1
Worship, v.vii-p1.2, v.vii.vii-p0.1, v.vii.viii-p0.1
persecution, v.iv.ii-p2.2
Genesis
1 1:26 1:26 1:26 1:31 2:9 3:1 5:24 6:2 8:11 18:1 19:24 21:12 22:13 23:19 25:8 32:24 49:11 1570
Exodus
3:6 3:16 4:2 4:3 12:6 19:6 34:28
Leviticus
Numbers
Deuteronomy
Judges
2 4 7 9 12 13 13 14 14 14 14 14:14 43 110
1 Samuel
1 Kings
1 Chronicles
2 Chronicles
Esther
Job
Psalms
2:7 19 19:4 19:6 22 22 22 22 22:10 23 33:6 33:9 34 42:1 45:3 45:3 45:4 45:4 55:15 76 90:2 90:4 90:4 96:5 104:24 109:8 110:1 118
Ecclesiastes
Song of Solomon
Isaiah
6:3 6:3 7 7:14 7:14 11:1 11:2 11:3 11:4-9 35:1 35:5 40:1-17 40:11 45:5 51:4 53 53 53 53:2 53:2 53:2 53:3 65:17
Jeremiah
Ezekiel
Daniel
Hosea
Micah
Habakkuk
Zechariah
Malachi
Matthew
2:11 2:11 3:16 4:2 4:19 4:19 5:3 5:4 5:10 5:10-12 5:17 5:20 5:23 5:24 5:26 5:29 5:39 5:39 5:44 6:3 6:13 6:22 7:1 7:2 7:6 7:6 7:10 9:13 9:15 9:15 9:20 10:23 10:32 12:32 12:32 12:32 12:32 13:3-6 13:30 15:2 15:6 15:17 16:16 16:16-19 18:2 18:7 18:19 18:20 19:3 19:12 19:12 19:12 19:12 19:12 19:17 19:21 19:21 20:22 21:13 22:14 22:21 22:30 22:30 22:30 22:32 23 23:8 24:33 24:36 25:21 25:46 26:24 26:28 26:29 26:34 26:39 26:41 26:52 27:59 27:60 28:1 28:19 28:19 85
Mark
5:34 5:35 5:36 5:38 7:3 7:5 7:9 7:13 7:18-21 9:48 10:17 10:39 12:29 13:32 16:2 16:16
Luke
1:4 1:35 2:14 4:17 6:12 6:20 6:31 6:36-38 8:41-49 12:8 12:50 14:12 14:23 14:26 15:3-7 16:1 16:19 16:22 16:23 16:23 16:23 16:26 17:2 17:10 17:15 17:16 20:35 21:38 23:34 23:41 23:43 23:43 23:53 24:1 24:16
John
1 1:1 1:1 1:1 1:1-3 1:3 1:3 1:3 1:4 1:4 1:5 1:5 1:9 1:9 1:9 1:10 1:13 1:18 1:18 1:18 1:29 2:4 3 3:5 3:5 3:14 4:7 4:38 4:47 6:9 6:11 6:51 6:53 6:53 6:54 7:8 7:53-8:11 8:3 8:15 8:57 8:57 9:1-3 9:16 10:11 10:16 10:30 11:17 11:44 14:2 14:9 14:11 14:28 15:1-6 19:39 20:15 20:28 21:1 21:9 21:9
Acts
1:7 1:7 1:17 1:20 1:23 1:25 2 2:24 2:31 3:21 5:6 5:17 6:5 7:59 7:60 8:4 8:9-24 8:10 8:17 9:37 12:4 13:2 14:4 14:14 15 15 15:5 15:6 15:7 15:12 15:13 15:13 15:23 15:28 16:25 17:2 18:8-17 18:25 19:29 20:7 20:17 20:28 20:29 20:35 21:8 21:9 22:20 24:5 24:14 26:5 28:22
Romans
1:3 1:4 1:17 1:22 1:26 1:27 2 2:6 2:18 5:12 6 6 7:2 7:2 7:3 8:19 8:36 9:5 9:5 9:5 10:18 11:15 12:1 12:6 12:10 12:17 12:19 12:20 13 13:9 14 14:4 15:24 15:24 15:28 16:14 16:16 16:24 50 1471 1543 1563 1583 1613 1630 1630 1632 1685 1698 1710 1742 1771 1774 1795 1796 1825 1857 1863 1880 1888
1 Corinthians
1 1:2 1:2 1:3 1:13-15 1:14 1:22 2:8 3:1 3:2 3:13 3:15 3:16 3:16 3:16 3:17 3:19 5:1 5:7 5:7 5:7 5:8 7 7 7 7 7:1 7:5 7:7 7:7 7:7 7:9 7:12 7:16 7:20 7:25 7:25 7:32 7:33 7:34 7:35 7:39 7:40 7:40 8:1 9:5 9:5 10:16 10:20 11:2 11:19 11:19 11:28 12:8 12:10 12:13 12:28 13 13:7 14:23-25 15:8-10 15:22 15:28 15:28 15:28 15:29 15:36 15:42 16:2 16:17 16:20
2 Corinthians
1 2:5 5:8 6:5 6:16 11:3 11:13 12:15 13:12 13:14
Galatians
1:8 1:14 2 2:4 2:11 2:11 2:11 3:28 4:9 4:26 4:26 5:20 6:6
Ephesians
1 1 1:10 1:22 2 2:8 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:19 4 4:3 4:6 4:11 4:11 4:11 4:11-13 4:12 5 5:19 5:28-32 5:28-33 6 6:2 6:11 6:13 6:14 7 10 10:96 10:96 10:97 11 12 14 18 20 29 30 31 36 36 40:2 41 44 45 46 47 48 49 49 52 52 52 54 54 55 55:7 55:20 59 59:19 60 60:3-4 68 69 69 70 73 75 92 93 114 118 121 185 207 210 214 235 289
Philippians
1:1 1:1 1:20-25 1:23 1:23 1:24 2 2:10 2:17 3 3:2 3:10 4:3 4:3 4:3 4:3 4:22 4:22 8 11 1853
Colossians
1:7 1:15 1:17 1:17 1:19 1:20 1:20 1:24 1:24 2:8 2:9 2:9 2:15 2:16 2:16 3:1 3:11 4:10 9 35 114 169 193 261 262 583 987 1023 1049 1167 1237 1575 1596
1 Thessalonians
2 Thessalonians
1 Timothy
1:15 2:11 3:1-7 3:2 3:2 3:2 3:6 3:10 3:12 4:1 4:1-3 4:4 5:9 5:14 6:3-20 6:7 6:10 6:10 6:12 6:20 6:20
2 Timothy
2:22 3:1 4:3 4:6 4:6-8 4:21 4:21
Titus
1:5 1:5 1:6 1:7 2:13 3:1 3:5 3:10 3:10
Hebrews
1:2 1:3 1:6 2:14 2:14 2:15 4:9 5:12 5:12-14 6:19 8:1 8:5 9:24 11:1 11:3 11:13 12:1 12:2 13:1-3 13:4 13:7 13:10 13:16 13:17 13:24
James
1 Peter
1:8 1:13 1:17 1:19 1:21 2:5 2:5 2:9 2:11 2:21 3:9 3:9 3:19 3:19 3:19 3:20 3:21 4:17 5:1 5:1 5:2 5:3 5:13 5:13 5:13 5:14 5:14
2 Peter
1 John
1:8 3:8 4:1-3 4:1-3 4:2 4:3 4:3 5:13-15 5:16
2 John
3 John
Revelation
1:3 1:5 1:6 1:6 1:8 1:10 1:10 1:20 2:6 2:15 4:11 5:6-13 5:12 7:9 12:1 12:14 13:18 13:18 14:1-4 14:4 14:4 14:4 17:6 17:12 17:13 20:1-6 20:1-6 20:2 20:3 21:14 34 1878
2 Maccabees