CHAPTER I.

THE DECAY OF THE APOSTLES AND PROPHETS.

IN the earliest age of Christianity the external constitution is of altogether secondary importance compared with the living personalities. The course of events was shaped by men whose names were well-known and who were animated by a profound sense of their call. It is true that the congregations were gradually formed into an organization, but there was as yet nothing permanent about it: it was entirely under the influence of the Spirit. As to the personality of St Paul, the apostle by revelation, it eluded all attempts at inclusion under any organization whatever.

The great men died out, the stream of inspiration ran dry. Hence the change. We have here one of those facts which, while they explain everything else, do not themselves admit of explanation. 2 There is a great gap between the apostles and the bishops and teachers of the commencement of the second century. The picture of the aged apostle St John in Asia Minor is altogether fanciful, however much the later tradition knows about it. It is only with Ignatius, Polycarp, and Justin Martyr that we emerge again from the tunnel into the daylight. In between lies the great anonymous period.

The organization of the itinerant preachers, men driven by the Spirit, did, it is true, resist the tendency to decay for a considerable time. But it is the rule in history, that institutions outlive the spirit that created them. After a long struggle it finally succumbed to the episcopal organization and to the catholic theology. The Catholic Church came into being in the course of this struggle. There is something tragic about it, as the vanquished, while representing the higher idea, are inferior to the victors in moral strength. The former are the prophets, the latter the priests and theologians.

The first missionary period had come to an end even before the close of the first century. We hear no more of the sending forth of new missionaries, of collections for them, of the founding of new congregations. Not that we are to infer from this that Christianity no longer spreads as rapidly as before. On the contrary, the extension of Christianity has only just begun, and there is a marked increase every decade. But there is all the difference in the world between the two methods. In the one case the Christian merchant or soldier carries the gospel message with him on his business journey, on his 3 day’s march; in the other, single congregations send out regularly appointed missionaries who evangelize in accordance with a carefully organized plan. The most important documents of this age, the Acts, the Pastoral epistles, the Fourth Gospel, show no missionary interest in their own time. The author of the Acts recounts the history of the first missions as something entirely past. He nowhere takes up the thread to continue his story and tell us something of the missions of his own day. The end of every incident is the appointment of presbyters, not the sending forth of new missionaries. Timothy is, it is true, called an evangelist in the Pastoral epistles, but his work consists entirely in the establishment of the congregations and the controversy with the heretical teachers. The founding of new congregations lies entirely beyond the horizon of the author of these letters. One might at first sight appear to have rather more justification in appealing to certain passages in the Fourth Gospel in support of the view that missionary work still continued. All that the author really says, however, is that the mission to the Samaritans and that to the Gentiles can both be traced back to Jesus Himself, and in so doing he offers an explanatory comment on the story in the Acts. His interest centres in the struggle with Judaism, but even so he cannot really be said to have the conversion of these Jews at heart, otherwise he would not have described the attitude of Jesus as so absolutely opposed to them, nor the Jews themselves as such perverse children of the devil. But the alterations introduced into the parable of the Good Shepherd are in themselves sufficiently 4 significant for the changed position of affairs. The Shepherd is no longer to go out to seek and to save the lost. His duty now, the duty of His successors, is simply to protect the fold from attacks.

The new task which is now laid upon the apostles and prophets is no longer the foundation of new congregations, but the welding together of the old ones. They continue to wander about preaching, but it is to fully organized Christian congregations. Decay sets in quite of itself, owing to the cessation of their real work as missionaries, with all the sacrifices and the privation which it involved. Want of discipline, mendicancy, trickery and charlatanism are increasingly prevalent amongst the itinerant preachers. They make use of their divine authority—he that receiveth you, receiveth God—to the damage of the congregations. These are the false prophets that come in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. They boast of prophesying and casting out devils and work miracles in Jesus' name, and yet they are steeped in wickedness. They do not spare the flock of Christ, but, shameless beggars that they are, get what they can—silver and gold and raiment. Or they creep into houses and captivate women laden with sin and slaves to all kinds of passions. These few passages, taken from the first and third evangelist, and the Pastoral epistles, are well illustrated by the Didache and the eleventh commandment of Hermas. There the apostle is described as staying as long as possible in each congregation so as to take his ease in a comfortable berth, and then at his departure he gets himself furnished with plenty of provisions for the journey, 5 and if he can manage it, money as well. Or the prophet appears on the scene, falls into an ecstasy, orders a meal and consumes it cheerfully; or else he exclaims in rapt tones, “Give me money,” and puts it into his pocket with a very solemn face. The people flock to the Christian prophet as though to a soothsayer. He is quick at understanding their questions and their wishes, and cuts his cloth after their measure. Of course he does nothing gratis. Thereupon he makes his public appearance, as impudent as ever, claims the seat of honour, insists upon being present at every festival and every meal; the only thing that he avoids is the public service of the Church. In the end there was no difference whatever between these Christian apostles and prophets and the Greek sophists and Oriental magicians. All the more urgent was the protection needed by the congregations against these impudent men of God. There must be some means of testing these gentry. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” “Not everyone who speaks in ecstasy is a prophet, but only he who at the same time walketh in the way of the Lord.” “By his deeds shall the true prophet be distinguished from the false.” “Test the man who claims to have the Spirit of God by his life.” The working of miracles soon falls into discredit. Doubt in the Holy Ghost, once the greatest of sins, now becomes a duty. In this crisis the apostolic order must have come to an end, whilst the prophets just managed to continue to exist. Discipline was restored first of all in the West.

A new and very serious danger arose through the appearance of the Gnostic heresy among the 6 itinerant preachers themselves. It began quite gradually and anonymously—the influence of certain foreign religions combined with tendencies originating in the Christian feeling of freedom. A strange and characteristic phraseology came into use: words such as “the higher knowledge,” “superior wisdom,” “completion of the teaching of the apostles,” “progress and liberty.” It was the itinerant preachers who now carried the new phraseology from place to place just as before they had disseminated the Gospel of Jesus. They are best known to us in Asia Minor. There was a prophetess at Thyatira—she is called Jezebel in the language of the Apocalypse—who recommended fornication and the eating of meats offered to idols as a means of arriving at the knowledge of the depths of Satan; while others, again, went about preaching asceticism, forbidding men to marry or to partake of certain articles of food, and appealing to the Old Testament as their authority, which they explained according to their own liking. Soon, too, dogmatic heresies took root and began to grow. Cerinthus appeared in Asia teaching that the creator of the world, the demiurge, was not the highest God and Saviour, but quite a subordinate being; and that the divine Christ who descended at baptism and returned to heaven before His death, must be sharply distinguished from the human Jesus. In the time of the Johannine letters we find people with a similar Christology travelling up and down the country as missionaries, and claiming to be inspired by the Spirit. Later on, when Ignatius visits the churches in Asia Minor, he is perpetually coming across traces of these sowers of tares. Appealing 7 to their inspiration by the Spirit and under the pretext of a superior wisdom, they propagate Judaistic and Docetic heresies. Nor was the state of affairs very much better in other districts, especially in Egypt and Syria, where the Epistle of St Jude and the Didache note the presence of Gnostic heretics.

It was in consequence of this receptivity of the prophets for every kind of heretical spirit that new measures were taken to protect the congregations, and tests were set up of a dogmatic and ethical character. “Righteousness,” “Faith and Love,” “Jesus Christ come in the flesh”—such were some of the shibboleths by which all teachers were to be judged. Not everything that claims to be of the Spirit is of divine origin; it may also be due to the suggestion of demons, of Antichrist. “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God.” The only prophecy tolerated is that which conforms to the creed of the Church. We meet with such ecclesiastical prophets throughout the whole of the second century down to the Montanist controversy; nor can it be denied that they did the Church good service in the struggle against the Gnostics. But the spirit of the first age that set up and rejected free rules and canons had long ceased to find utterance in them.

Besides the two enemies, however, which have been already mentioned, there was yet a third, a formidable rival, which was bound finally to make an end of this order of itinerant preachers, and that was the constitution of the single congregations. The Church was now composed of a number of separate churches permanently established. No single prophet could 8 supervise all these churches any longer, or influence them by his spirit. Each congregation had its own officers, and they now began to protest against the outside interference of apostles in matters which they neither knew nor understood. Their protests were well founded. Autonomy was essential for the future development of the congregations in these troubled times of State persecution and Gnostic confusion, and had to be substituted for the former system of government from outside. In the third Epistle of St John we have a touching piece of evidence for the clash of the old with the new system of organization—touching, because the writer himself belongs to the old time, and is distressed as he contemplates the process of change. He has sent his messenger round to inquire as to the faith and love of the congregations. But a certain Diotrephes who wants to be first among them, declines to receive them, and expels those who wish to do so from the Church. But was this wicked Diotrephes so very much in the wrong, if he found that the messenger had no business at all in his congregation? The author of the Pastoral epistles and Ignatius were exactly of his opinion. The apostles and prophets come and stir up strife in the Church unnecessarily, they alienate the congregations from their bishop, they hold conventicles and start rival services. Elsewhere, in the Didache, the itinerant preachers and the officers of the congregations are still to be found working amicably together. The prophets and teachers are still honoured far more highly than the bishops and deacons: the former are looked upon as inspired, the latter are just elected officials. And yet the author of this legal document 9 is a warm advocate of the officials—“despise them not, for they are deserving of your respect together with the prophets and teachers”; while he sets up a perfect barricade of precautionary measures against the inspired evangelists. There is no doubt, therefore, which of the two will gain the upper hand in the future.

At Rome, again, we find altogether different conditions prevailing. The prophets had evidently never enjoyed the same esteem there as in the East, for even the end of the first century witnessed the episcopal organization with the principle of apostolic succession fully matured in all essentials. Here, too, there were prophets (Hermas), but if they did not prove obedient to the constitution, they were set aside as false prophets, relegated to obscurity, and so entirely degenerated. From the very first, order here prevailed over anarchy.

The diminished importance of the itinerant preachers and the decay of this institution brought about an important change in ecclesiastical terminology, at least in so far as the apostles are concerned. The title of ‘Apostle’ was reserved for the Twelve and St Paul; the other missionaries are no longer called apostles but evangelists. This altered use of words was accelerated by the historical fact that Paul was the only apostle for his congregations; he never calls his fellow-missionaries apostles. Perhaps he had them in view when, in the letter to the Ephesians, he introduces the term ‘evangelist.’ The new theory, however, that it was only in the first age, the age when the foundations were laid, that apostles existed, and that therefore the apostolic age is to 10 be distinguished from all later ages by the sole possession of this charisma, is entirely destitute of historical foundation, and is in contradiction with St Paul himself.

The passing away of the apostles and prophets was no event of merely secondary importance in the history of Christianity. It signified the end of inspiration. God ceased to speak directly through men. One main element in early Christianity—the Faith in a God that speaks and works in the present—had begun to decay.