INTRODUCTION

IN the first volume of this work Professor Wernle deals with the rise of the Christian religion as it manifests itself in the personality and teaching of Jesus and His immediate followers. This is the creative period, the period of great men. In the second volume we follow the fortunes of the new faith when the great men are succeeded by a great ecclesiastical organization. Henceforth it is within the rules and forms imposed upon it by this mighty organization that the Gospel has to find a footing and make its way among the populations of the ancient world. The free creative period, the period of the unfettered spirit, is succeeded by an age of anonymity in which institutions, dogmas and sacraments rise up and fill the place originally occupied by the great personalities of the first Christian generation. Many ecclesiastical historians have regarded the elaborate process which took place in the second century of incorporating the Gospel into a hard and fast group of institutions, forms and ceremonies, as a time of videcadence, and no doubt it stands immeasurably below the classic and creative age of primitive Christianity. But it must be remembered that the Christian institutions of sub-apostolic times were the direct and inevitable outcome of the conditions in which the new religion was placed; it was only in the garment of an ecclesiastical organization that the Gospel could retain its essential character and fight its battle with the opposing forces of Jewish and Pagan thought.

In the opening chapters of this volume Professor Wernle shows us how the successors of the primitive preachers of Christianity fell into disrepute among the Christian communities, and how these communities organized themselves into a Church resting on the basis of episcopacy. It is interesting to watch the rise of the bishop from a humble and subordinate place in the community to a position of dignity and power which ultimately makes him the centre of the new ecclesiastical system. In spite of having to face the somewhat formidable rivalry of ascetics, saints and martyrs, the pressure of circumstances within the community and outside of it as well lifted the bishops into the highest position in the Church, and determined the character of ecclesiastical institutions for centuries to come. After organizing itself from within, the Church was confronted from without by the three great forces of Judaism, Hellenism, and Gnosticism. Ecclesiastical theology viiwas to a large extent the outcome of the struggle of the Church with these rival forms of belief and life; and although the Church outwardly succeeded in overcoming its non-Christian rivals, it had to pay the price of victory by admitting many alien elements into the Christian creed. Judaism was conquered, but Jewish ecclesiasticism, Jewish ethics, Jewish apologetics, and Jewish apocalyptic fancies secured a home within the Church. Hellenism was conquered, but Greek religion furnished Christianity with some of its doctrines and mysteries, and Greek philosophy widened its horizon and supplied it with an apologetic and a conception of the world based on the ideas of reason and law. Gnosticism was crushed, but the Gnostics succeeded in introducing a scholastic conception of Christianity into the Church, in which the Christian faith was confounded with intellectual orthodoxy. All these points are brought out and illustrated by Dr Wernle in his excellent chapters on the rise of Ecclesiastical Theology. But the Christian religion at heart is not a code of beliefs nor a mere ecclesiastical organization; it is fundamentally a hope, a redemption, a life. After discussing the Theology of the New Testament in a chapter which does not appear in the first German edition, Professor Wernle appropriately closes his account of the Beginnings of Christianity with a lucid review of Christian piety in sub-apostolic times. We gather from this account that notwithstanding the changes viiiwhich the Christian faith had to undergo in the second century, the Gospel still remained a power in the individual life. But persecution produced hypocrites and apostates as well as martyrs. The rise of orthodoxy narrowed the original range of Christian love, and tended to confine it within the limits of the Church; but the Christian congregations, in spite of manifest defects, were superior to their heathen surroundings, and many individuals amongst them were earnestly endeavouring to realize the Christian ideal in their daily lives.